2024

Very recently, some untoward incidents took place in West Bengal in the political campaigns pertaining to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The former ’jurist’ and judge of the Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) immediately after his voluntary retirement, has been barred by the Election Commission of India (EC) for campaigning for 24 hours for uttering foul words against the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, in his (…)

May 28, 2024
The mega elections to the 18th Lok Sabha will be concluded with the 7th phase of polling ending on the 1st of June. The country is treated to a flood of predictions about the possible outcome. The mainstream TV channels-English and regional language ones- euphemismistically described as the ‘ Godi Media’, ( they should have been described as the Modi media) are predicting a hattrick for the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government. However, it is worth noting that the Head of the (…)

In recent years there is demand for bicycle lanes by a section of the bicycle community in India. It comes mainly from Metro cities and people who demand are also younger people who use fancy/professional bicycles and are members of various bicycle clubs. Ordinary people who use the standard/roadster/Bangla cycles do not appear to be part of this group and nor is there such a demand from smaller cities and towns. The ostensible reason given is the safety of the cyclist.
However in our (…)

[fond noir][fond blanc]BOOK REVIEWfond blanc]fond noir]
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Fault Lines In The Faith: How events of 1979 shaped the Islamic World
by Iqbal S. Hasnain
Rupa
2023 Pp 279, Price ₹395.
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Iqbal Syed Hasnain, the author of this book, is a former Pro-Chancellor of Jamia Hamdard and former Vice Chancellor of Calicut University, besides the other assignments he handles. Hasnain has varied interests and the same can be discerned from his interests in Himalayan glaciers and climate (…)

Review of the movie Shrikant by Tushar Hiranandani
Whether it was him getting trapped on a traffic crossing with no one ready to stop, on the verge of running over him and honking from all directions or being asked to beg or being treated as either god or a curse (on both ends of the social spectrum), Shrikant’s journey partially or fully represents every differently abled’s life in India. Rajkummar Rao plays Shrikant Bollant’s role tactfully and brings out every facet of a visually (…)

May 24, 2025
This week on Monday, the 20th May 2024, the Congress Govt in Karnataka has completed one year in office. In the Assembly elections held last year, the Congress had an unprecedented victory with 136 seats in the House of 224 and that had ended the 40% commission rule of BJP in the State.
Its most important achievement was that of having fully implemented its five Guarantees in nine months of being in office which benefitted over 4.6 crores of people in the State. They (…)

Abstract: Post-humanists tend to be futurists rather than focusing on the past as historians do. The most troublesome aspect for both is the existence of ‘stand-alone’ individuals of Enlightenment. For post-modernism, the revolution in science and technology will reach a stage when there is no distinction between technology and magic. Today, artificial intelligence is being dominated by every field of science without exception. Feminists’ critical interrogation gives importance to both (…)

I have been living in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, for the past one month. In my general conversations with many people living in Shimla from different parts of Himachal Pradesh, there has been some discussion about the Lok Sabha elections also. The election is to be held in the last phase on four Lok Sabha seats here. One day five-six BJP workers came to my house in Summerhill. As soon as I opened the door, a senior worker among them said, ’We have come for Modiji . . .’ I (…)

As the seventh phase of India’s 2024 General Election gets underway, the emerging political scene in the country is throwing signals of inner contradictions in the Modi-led BJP’s strategy that had proved electorally successful in 2014 and 2019. The key aspect of this contradiction is that what led this strategy to succeed in the past is precisely what may lead to its failure in 2024.
It is likely to appear counterintuitive to say that a success can be the cause of failure. The view that (…)

Abstract
The bipolar contest (BJP and Congress being the sole contenders in the state) has become sufficiently interesting due to the simultaneous elections for four Lok Sabha (LS) seats and six Assembly Constituency (AC) seats in Himachal Pradesh, in light of the six Congress MLAs who cross-voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls and subsequently left the party. The primary variables that can affect the parties’ performance in these elections are the BJP’s dominance in the (…)