2021

by Sher Singh Sangwan*
Budget is not only a financial plan for a defined period, normally a year but it is known to greatly enhance the success of any financial undertaking or a government. Government budgets are more dynamic than that of individual or firm as the former has authority to mobilize additional resources as per the objective/election manifesto of the party in power. Keeping in view this broad meaning, this paper discusses the budgets of Haryana and Delhi where two different (…)

J. W. Mohnhaupt. The Zookeepers’ War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War. Trans. Shelley Frisch. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019. Illustrations. 261 pp. $26.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5011-8849-7; $17.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5011-8850-3.
Reviewed by Samantha Clarke (McMaster University)
Published on H-Socialisms (April, 2021)
Journalist J. W. Mohnhaupt’s captivating and engaging narrative throughout The Zookeepers’ War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War explores the (…)

Book Review
by Md Mashhood Alam *
The Great Smog of India by Siddharth Singh
2018, 262 | ISBN: 9780670091171
Penguin Random House India
Air pollution in India is one of the critical issues that concerns our daily lives. Every winter from October to the last week of December most part of northern India in general and Delhi, in particular, is engulfed under a black smog and haze, what Siddharth Singh calls ‘The Great Smog of India’, largely due to stubble burning in Delhi’s (…)

by Sharat Poornima *
“We are Indians, firstly and lastly” - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Dr. Ambedkar was a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional personality. Popularly known as Babasaheb, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was an eminent educationist, a great economist, an able administrator and a radical social and political thinker of his time. He was a versatile personality who wrote on such diverse subjects as anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, law, history and politics. He is also known (…)

1986 July 03
Chernyaev’s Notes from the CPSU Politburo Session. About Chernobyl
GORBACHEV: Who approved building Nuclear Power Stations (NPS) in densely populated areas? Do you remember the discussion about it in Kommunist (no. 14, 1979)? But then they gagged Academician Dollezhal. We should not let people scorn us, the Politburo [later]. Now the main priority is the safety of nuclear power stations.
I also remember another thing: the article in Pravda on the 30thanniversary of (…)

23 April 2020
Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. 34 years later, Chernobyl radioactivity is still circulating. The long-lived radionuclides released by the accident mean the disaster continues decades on.
The wildfires started on April 3rd, due to abnormally hot, dry and windy weather. They are now the biggest fires ever recorded in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. What is one of the largest wildlife areas in (…)

by M.V. Ramana and Benoît Pelopidas
August 06, 2020
All nuclear-weapon states have admitted to the possibility that deterrence could fail
Seventy-five years ago, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by one single atomic bomb. Three days later, a second bomb destroyed Nagasaki. Those two bombs killed over 2,00,000 people, some of them instantaneously, and others within five months. Another 2,00,000 people or more who survived the bombings of these two cities, most of them (…)

by Dr. Debasish Nnady*
Abstract
India’s nuclear policy has been evolved with a lot of controversy and challenges. India has changed its nuclear policy after being attacked by China twice in the 1960s. One of the basic reasons for India’s move towards manufacturing nuclear bombs and its peaceful testing for national security. India has been maintaining the policy of nuclear deterrence theory in dealing with Pakistan. This paper intends to delineate the reasons behind the changing (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Even before the farmers give a new dimension to their movement and take it to a new height, the Modi government is getting ready to strike at them. Narendra Modi and his close aides are just awaiting for May 2, the day on which the Election Commission will announce the results for the five state assemblies. Of all the states the main focus and concern of Modi has been the results of the West Bengal. A win will show the real change (asol paribotan) of the face of Modi (…)

The long-drawn peaceful movement by the farmers against the three agri-laws, enacted at the time of Covid-19, is the manifestation of the persistent and deep-rooted agrarian crisis and farmers’ distress in the country. In the understanding of the farmers, and rightly so, the implementation of these three laws would not only accentuate their crisis but would also pose a serious threat to their livelihood. Pan India, the movement is getting amazing support and cooperation from the farmers, (…)