2024

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
__0__
Roy and Zhores Medvedev: Loyal Dissent in the Soviet Union
by Barbara Martin
Academic Studies Press
2023. 260 pp.
(cloth), ISBN 979-88-87191-81-2.
__0__
Reviewed by Mark Hurst (Lancaster University)
During the twentieth century, opposition to the Soviet regime took a variety of shapes and sizes. In the latter years of the Cold War, the Western perception of the so-called Soviet dissident movement was dominated by two Nobel (…)

* A New Language of

Double standards in the application of law have come to be commonplace in India. People with influence (in good books of the powers that be) generally benefit when the police and investigation agencies dilute charges, hold back action against

October 4, 2024
During the last couple of weeks cases are being filed on regular basis against each other among the political opponent and so-called social activists.
Firstly, the MUDA land scam case against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was promptly taken for hearing by the Karnataka High Court when the State Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot ordered prosecution of Siddaramaiah and the plea by the C M of quashing the Governor’s order was rejected by the court.
Secondly, immediate hearing (…)

On October 2, 2024, West Bengal witnessed a unique procession/rally from College Street to Dharmatala crossing in central Kolkata. Thousands of people from different segments of the population joined the procession mobilized by West Bengal Junior Doctors

October 5, 2024
I wrote last week in these columns( 28th September) that the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah

One image and an idea that prominently comes to mind when considering paying tribute to Sitaram Yechury are non-sectarian ways of conducting politics. Politics in India, especially in the last few years, has become so polarised that the idea of non-sectarian politics appears odd; precisely because of that, it is alluring as an imagination. His premature death when Indian politics and society needed more than ever to respect divergent views, traditions, and cultures is not only a loss to (…)

The practice of bringing domain experts into the government is not new to India. It is a fact that lateral entry could bring in fresh ideas, energy, talents, and diverse experiences into the bureaucracy that will augment the state capacities to meet the complex tasks and diverse challenges of governance and development. Lateral entry shall be visualised for gap filling, supplementing, and value addition to the system for a shorter period, rather than supplanting the top management in the (…)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, along with Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela (latter two being inspired by the former), were the three greatest moral personalities of the last century. The ethical resonance radiated through their lived lives has hardly any parallel, and there is no one at the present turbulent time, who comes anywhere near them.
The famous quote of American poet and philosopher, Walt Whitman, that

In a letter to Rabindranath Tagore in anticipation of his visit to China, the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo wrote