2024

Probably even the British, who introduced railways in India would not have done what the Bhartiya Janata Party government is doing. The number of Sleeper and General class coaches in various trains are surreptitiously and ominously disappearing accompanied by a simultaneous increase in Air Conditioned coaches. In the characteristic style of BJP government there was no discussion or debate on this move by the Indian Railways either in the Parliament or outside of it. In a democratic country (…)

July 18, 2024
The INDIA blocs’ victory in 10 out of 13 Assembly seats in seven States for which elections were held last week shows which way the wind is blowing.
The BJP was able to win only two seats with one going to an independent. These bypolls were held to fill up four vacant seats in West Bengal, three in Himachal Pradesh, two in Uttarakhand and one each in Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Bihar
These elections were the first major test between the NDA and INDIA bloc after (…)

July 14, .2024
People’s protests – almost all peaceful – all across India, have been active for decades, many of them morphing into people’s movements for advancing their demands, needs and aspirations to governments. These protest movements demand the rights to which people are entitled by law, but are not given or snatched away, due to state or central governments’ development policies, proposals, plans and projects.
This article is an attempt to examine the links between people (…)

“The market is too race-centric; carbon fiber, electric shifting, full suspension, 11 speed, doesn’t really enhance the enjoyment of cycling. In the 1970’s and 80’s we cycled to be closer to nature, for the environment, for our health, for the simple beauty of cycling.” —Junzo Kawai, the founder of Suntour In this piece, we use the word ‘honest’ in the same sense as ‘honest’ food – food that is wholesome and nutritious, as opposed to junk food. By an honest bicycle, we mean a roadster or a (…)

On 25 June, the ruling National Democratic Alliance government issued a gazette notification, declaring that every year this day will be observed as the ‘Samvidhan Hatya Divas’. Who is killing the Constitution in India would be a pertinent question at this time. The newly-elected Modi government’s resolution was to discuss the so-called ‘excesses’ of the 1975-77 Emergency, imposed by the then Indira Gandhi government. So, in effect, one of the first acts of the BJP-led government in its (…)

July 18, 2024
Quite undeniably the Congress Government in Karnataka is facing multiple challenges in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha elections results. The challenges have manifested themselves at the leadership level, in addition to the problems faced by Siddaramaiah and D. K. Shiva Kumar individually. Let me address them one by one.
Electorally, the Siddaramaiah Government is faced with the critical challenge of not being able to gauge the mood of the electorate going by its public (…)

USUALLY RESULTS OF byelections are not taken seriously, especially if they are assembly seats. The common perception is, the candidate of the party ruling the State normally wins the election as the voters do not intend to antagonise their political bosses. But the results of the recent byelections to the 13 seats in seven States, of which 10 were won by the INDIA bloc, convey a quite different message: India is witnessing a new type of social and political polarisation based on ideological (…)

In Hathras in Uttar Pradesh in a stampede, nearly 121 people died. Most of these were women, mostly Dalit and poor. It was at the Satsang (Holy Discourse), organized for Bhole Baba, short for Narayan Sakar Hari. He was earlier in the police force. It is alleged that he had charges of rape against him. Later he took voluntary retirement 28 years ago and turned to preaching. There is an incident when he claimed that he can bring back the life back of a girl who had died of cancer. The girl (…)

Amidst all the hype about the women’s reservation bill and ’Nari Shakti’ in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the number of women elected to Lok Sabha has further decreased from 78 to 74. It has lowered the women’s presence to 13.6% of the total 543 elected representatives. Anne Mascrene was the first woman parliamentarian from Kerala to emerge successful as an independent candidate in 1951. It is to be noted that long before the formation of the state of Kerala (1956), there were many women who (…)

July 10, 2024
Exam paper leaks cause immense damage to the psychological state of India’s younger generation in pursuit of a better, more progressive future.
The NEET exam scandal has emerged as an enormous breach of trust and appears to have caused irreparable harm to the Modi government’s social and political contract with its citizenry, particularly aspiring youth.
The rhetorical pitch for an alternative development model in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 electoral pitch, away (…)