2023

Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD)
Date: 11.09.2023
PRESS RELEASE
The Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has noted with concern that the G20 declaration has not given any commitment on the abolition of nuclear weapons. It has mentioned much about the on-going war between Russia and Ukraine; the threat of use of nuclear weapons in this situation is real and grave. In the point 8 of the declaration on page 2 concern has been expressed over the consequences of (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Like India Shining, the marketing slogan that was put into the public domain to invoke the overall feeling of economic optimism in India in 2004 which failed to ensure the victory of the BJP government of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the new slogan of “Creating India” coined by none else but by Narendra Modi is unlikely to catch the imagination of the common people and boost his electoral prospect.
Creating India is born out of compulsions of reaching the gains of Modi to the (…)

Lessons not learnt from failure to craft an ideological coalition in 2014 and 2019
"Humans are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money" —Justice Robert H Jackson in the United States versus Wunderlich
The insights from South America inform us that there are at least two kinds of Opposition voices — one is carnivorous and the other is herbivorous. The insights from South Asia suggest that ruling parties too can be classified into these two categories. History (…)

Who has the upper hand in the Lok Sabha elections?
The 18th Lok Sabha elections in the month of April 2024 are going to heat up the country politics right in the scorching season. The upcoming Lok Sabha elections are set to assume political importance as the newly-formed INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) prepares political strategies to prevent Modi from achieving a hat-trick of victories as he seeks public judgment on his decade-long rule. Who are the (…)

The Indian Constitution has supported the movement towards a Hindu state by accommodating communal nationalism.
A cursory glance at recent news reports suggests India is a very different place today than it was a decade ago. There is rampant and extreme violence against those who identify as Muslim, dissenters irrespective of their religion, or who do not sing the national anthem in public.
Vigilantes inflict violence in the name of protecting the cow for opinions and scholarship deemed (…)

This is clearly the time for giving the highest priority to the rescue and rehabilitation effort In Libya where the recent floods have caused massive destruction. At the time of writing this over 5300 persons are reported to have died, and thousands more are reported missing. According to Derna Mayor Abdulbenam al-Ghaithi (quoted in a Reuters report published in The Times of India dated September 15), deaths in the city could reach 18,000 to 20,000. He said he feared an epidemic due to (…)

by Jacques Ranciere
21 April 2022
Seven rules to help spread racist ideas in France
In this article published in Le Monde in 1997, Jacques Rancière ironically described how the media and politicians from different backgrounds contribute to the dissemination of racist ideas, and proposed ‘seven rules’ to help them continue to reinforce the positions of the far right. This text, published more than 20 years ago, seems particularly relevant in the run-up to a presidential election that is (…)

Reviewed by Ramya Sreenivasan (University of Pennsylvania)
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History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200-2000 by Sumit Guha
University of Washington Press 2019. 264 pp. (paper), ISBN 978-0-295-74621-0 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-295-74622-7
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This book of extraordinary scholarship traces how different human societies have developed their modes of narrating and comprehending aspects of the past over time. This is a book about how collective knowledge about the past was (…)

BOOK REVIEW
The Crooked Timber of New India Essays on a Republic in Crisis
by Parakala Prabhakar
Speaking Tiger Books
2023
ISBN: 9789354474132 __0__
An insightful commentary on ‘New India’
The fascinating and searing commentary titled The Crooked timber Of New India, Essays on a Republic in Crisis by Parakala Prabhakar is an honest attempt to speak truth to powers that be. This book published by speaking Tiger is compilation of essays written over a period of three years from (…)

* Text of 25th D S Borker Lecture by Justice AP Shah
* Editors’s Guild of India Report on Media’s Reportage of the Ethnic Violence in Manipur
* How folk remedies can fuel misinformation | Donois & Vally
* Photo: The Mother’s Hand (1966) by Antanas Sutkus