2022

It is a travesty of truth to call India a mother of democracy. If that is so then it is also mother of caste hierarchy, discrimination and domination. Caste system described by Dr. Ambedkar as “representing ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt” was there in ancient times and still continues to subvert the idea of equality, liberty and fraternity so central to democracy. Many other inegalitarian aspects
internal to Indian society were centered around sub castes, (…)

by Amit Kumar *
November 28, 2022
The Aam Aadmi Party promised a corruption-free Punjab but it has not been able to deliver on its campaign promise.
Winning government on the back of an anti-corruption platform has proved to be a double-edged sword for the Aam Aadmi Party in India’s Punjab state.
The Aam Aadmi Party, literally “Common Man’s Party”, emerged from an anti-corruption mass movement which itself was a reaction to a string of corruption scandals that plagued Indian (…)

30 November 2022
I’m writing this column in the backdrop of last week’s incident, where a young Muslim student was taunted along the communal strain. No, not by his class fellows but by his teacher.
Mind you, that incident shows how, over the years, the communal virus has intruded rather too obnoxiously into class rooms.
Taking you to the early 90s. That is, months before the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. There were ample relays that the communal virus was intruding into the (…)

by Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Universities are experiencing depoliticization, marketisation and the deepening of managerialism over last three decades. The campuses across the globe are witnessing the growth of car park culture of managerialism where students and staff members are treated as cash cows or cars in the car parks. The Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors and their managerial elks run universities like badly managed undemocratic family firms. The growth of compliance culture is (…)

by Santhosh Mathew and Anita Elizabeth Mathew *
No idea is above scrutiny; No people are below dignity —Majid Nawaz
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This article addresses one of the most polarising concepts in today’s India — the Right to Offend. Two events have fuelled this discussion. First, the Supreme Court’s attemp to remove the existing Sedition Law, inherited from India’s colonial rulers (inserted into the IPC in 1870). Secondly, the fall of India’s and South Asia’s ranking in the World Press Freedom (…)

by Arun Srivastava
With Congress consistently on move towards its final destination, Srinagar, the BJP will turn more aggressive and mount a virulent calumny against Rahul Gandhi. BJP is certainly not afraid of Congress, instead it is the move of Rahul Gandhi to give a leftist orientation to its ideological narrative that has chilling effect on Modi.
Historical facts are testimony to the shift of allegiance of the rightist elements and supporters. They continue to identify with the (…)

by Nayakara Veeresha *
The 7th September, 2022 is one of the watershed moments in the country. The Indian National Congress (INC, hereafter Congress) Party’s former President Rahul Gandhi has begun the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY, Unite India Pilgrimage/March) from the historic Kanniyakumari of Tamil Nadu. The Kanniyakumari district has a special place in the history and civilisation of our country. It is the same place where Swami Vivekananda has meditated on the future of India in 1892 after (…)

41. US brings culture wars to Afghanistan
The time has come to pick up threads from my blog of January 27 titled The West co-opts the Taliban. Indeed, the wheel has come full circle since the three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 between a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials failed to work out a reasonable modus vivendi. The pendulum has since swung to the other extreme.
Afghanistan has once again become the cockpit of big power rivalries due to developments (…)

In the hunger map of present day world, Somalia is probably the most seriously affected country of the 21st century. Somalia is reported by the UN to have lost 260,000 lives in and around 2011 to hunger and famine deaths, one of the very few countries in the world to have such a high number of recorded hunger deaths in recent times, despite having a population of only around 17 million or so. Today, just a decade or so later, the country is probably in an even worse situation. At that time (…)

by James M. Dorsey
Dec 2, 2022
Hungary didn’t qualify for the Qatar World Cup, but that hasn’t stopped Prime Minister Victor Orban from exploiting the world’s current focus on soccer to signal his Putinesque definition of central European borders as defined by civilization and ethnicity rather than internationally recognized frontiers.
Mr. Orban drew the ire of Ukraine and Romania for wearing to a local Hungarian soccer match a scarf depicting historical Hungary, which also includes (…)