2023

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, June 10, 2023
Misplaced priorities & lack of accountability On June 2, 2023, a huge railway accident happened in Balasore, Odisha state, which caused 288 deaths and 1100 injuries — making it one of the biggest such accidents in recent times. A large number of the victims were migrant workers and labouring poor. Railways continue to act as a lifeline for millions, but the system is crowded and under stress. Accidents may have decreased compared to (…)

The first years of Indian Independence were very fraught indeed. Jawaharlal Nehru became the prime minister serving for sixteen years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s. In January 1950 a new republican Constitution came into being. The Congress under Nehru’s leadership established a democratic constitution and oversaw a series of mostly fair elections. Another great gift it gave to the people of India was a positive ideology of (…)

The recent disastrous Odisha train accident has re-emphasized the need for ensuring better train safety. Taking an average figure for the last decade, nearly 24,000 deaths are caused by railway accidents in a year. This may be compared to less than 700 deaths in the entire European Union related to train accidents in 2021.
In India, the deaths caused by train accidents in 2021 were lower than the average for the last decade, and one reason may be that the sharp dip in rail traffic during (…)

by Kandagatla Sravan Kumar *
The caste issue was a significant element in the recent Karnataka assembly elections in 2023 and is anticipated to have an impact on the Telangana elections scheduled for the end of this year, 2023. To win over the majority segment to their side, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress Party, and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) are perfecting their courting techniques and refining their political strategies. All of the major political parties in (…)

7 June 2023
Now it seems somewhat more than clear why women hesitate to lodge formal complaints against their tormentors, even if they are subjected to sexual exploitation and harassment of the worst kind. The situation gets rather too obviously compounded if the culprit is from the so-called who’s who category or part of the ruling lot.
Well, quite obviously I’m writing this in the backdrop of the ongoing situation of wrestlers accusing the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (…)

Seven women wrestlers have filed a First Information Report about sexual harassment by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a six times Member of Parliament and president of the Wrestling Federation of India. One of the survivors who is a minor, thereby invoking the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, has after prolonged protests and the accused roaming around freely, mysteriously withdrawn the charges against Singh. The wrestlers, some of them international medal-winning ones, (…)

Published as the front page story in ’The Indian Express’ on May 23, 2023, Vinesh Phogat in her write up titled ’Like many girls, I had to suffer silently all these years because of this man (Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh)’ has made a remarkable statement. She states, “Now there is no fear. The only fear we have is that we may have to quit wrestling. We believe we have five years more in the sport but who knows what the future holds for us after these protests. We also know our lives could be at (…)

After more than decades of Sachar Report (2006), the educational backwardness of Indian Muslims still remains pathetic and witnessed a terminal decline barring a few exceptions. The latest report of the Government of India has also underlined that Muslim students are underrepresented and missing from higher education. To be very brief here, recent data released by the All India survey of higher education (under the Minister of Education) has underlined that Muslim students are missing from (…)

The United Kingdom had appointed a Minister for Loneliness even before the COVID-19 pandemic, while the Japanese have begun consulting ‘smile specialists’ because they have forgotten smiling behind the masks worn in the aftermath of the pandemic [1], [2]. The Swiss Ministry of Health came up with a ‘Time Bank’ scheme in 2022 under which youth can volunteer to look after elderly people, have the hours clocked in an account, and be assured of the same number of hours of care in their own old (…)

23 March 1931.
It has been ninety-two years since Rajguru, Sukhdev, and Bhagat Singh were martyred. Today, we all know about Shaheed Bhagat Singh, popularly known as Shaheed-e-Azam. But I believe, he is one of our country’s most misunderstood and misrepresented freedom fighters. When one hears the name ‘Shaheed Bhagat Singh’, many associate it with words like weapons and violence, many people use his photo as their profile picture, and if you ask someone to act like Shaheed Bhagat Singh, (…)