2022

COVID-19 vaccines have been widely discussed, but still safety aspects need more attention. Generally in the case of all vaccines adverse events recorded constitute an important part of discussion relating to them, and this is all the more so in the case of COVID-19 vaccines which were developed and distributed in unprecedented hurry.
A comparative review of adverse impacts of COVID-19 vaccines is attempted here at two levels. Firstly in the case of a single country (USA) where (…)

* Yogi: The Victory of Communalism | TJS George
* Results of the Assembly elections in five States | P S Jayaramu
* The Pathology of Electoral Politics | Avijit Pathak
* BJP is not invincible | Faraz Ahmad
* Vote Swings & Implications for Efficient Electoral Strategy | Indranil De
* Ukraine: Back to Status quo in Europe? | Shrikant Paranjpe
* Transforming The World — Engineering Humanity | S G Vombatkere

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, March 19, 2022
The accidental launch of a BrahMos cruise missile belonging to the Indian Air Force (IAF) that landed some 124 kms deep inside Pakistan on March 9, 2022, was a serious and hair-raising event. This dramatic incident came to public knowledge when the Pakistani military held a press conference 24 hours later and the Indian Ministry of Defense responded by expressing regret at the incident saying that “in the course of routine maintenance, a (…)

IMPRESSIONS Religion sells. In most parts of the world, mixing politics with religion is recognised as an unwholesome practice. But in India, it is an accepted routine. Parties and individuals seeking votes in the name of religion is the rule in our country. In Uttar Pradesh it is the sumtotal of everything. Openly and unashamedly, religion is used as a political tool.
The intensity of religious politics can only grow with Yogi Adityanath’s spectacular victory in the (…)

by P.S. Jayaramu
13th March 2022
Results of the five state assembly elections have attracted the attention of the entire country. Supremely satisfied with the party coming back to power in four States, while addressing party workers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it is a foregone conclusion that the 2024 Lok Sabha election results would be in favour of the BJP, forgetting the fact that the Indian voters have, in the past, voted differently in national and state elections. Be (…)

I am not a professional politician; nor am I a political philosopher. Yet, as a learner filled with the spirit of studentship, I believe that we need to sharpen the ethos of political education. Is it possible to retain a democratic culture without political education—the education that enables us to see through the discourse of power, think intelligently and critically, and exist as alert/active/reflexive agents of our collective destiny? I know there are many who would not find any meaning (…)

Contrary to the invincibility of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being projected by the mainstream media, Hindutva and communal polarisation being its magic mantra, the 2022 election results demonstrate how a little advance preparation and strategizing by the Opposition could easily turn the tables on the Hindutva brigade. And therefore this could well be a signal for the Opposition parties to prepare for the main 2024 national battle without losing heart and time.
Imagine in this (…)

by Indranil De *
The landslide victory of AAP in Punjab and failure of SP in Uttar Pradesh (UP) are two diametrically opposite cases of political swings. Disproving many speculations of hung assembly, especially in UP, the BJP has come out with flying colours, in spite of political swing in favour of SP. On the contrary, the swing in favour of AAP gave them the historic victory in Punjab against incumbent Congress.
Voting for a political party in any election can be viewed as people’s (…)

by Jaspreet Kaur *
The results of the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections held on February 20, has been declared on March 10. Voters have elected the 117 members for the 16th state assembly of Punjab. The results of Punjab Assembly election this time are astonishing as well as historic. First time in the electoral history of Punjab, any party got such a huge mandate from the public. Although, during the election campaign, the contest might seem like multi-faceted, but the Aam Aadmi Party (…)

(Acknowledgement: The original version of the Paper has been published in Social Science Abstracts Volume 44, 2021, pp.58-68)
The world of Homo Sapiens
For most of the Second Millennium CE onwards, humans in most societies have viewed the world around them as human-centric. This assumed “superiority” of humans over other forms of life and over all inert matter, puts Sapiens on a self-created pedestal as the acme of evolved life on the planet.
Over millennia, as humans learned to (…)