2024

Erosion of established procedure, contempt for rules is endangering safety of our democracy and society Our municipal systems lack oversight, building safety norms are violated, there is contamination in medicines, adulteration in spices, workplace safety is seriously wanting, lack of transparency in Govt agencies that refuse to reveal information despite the provision for a right to Information, rules are routinely flouted at all levels. As we approached the end of this week news came of (…)

Political suspense on whether these elections will spell a major change rests on several questions being discussed at several levels, of which the key one is about whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return to power for the third term or not. Even those optimistic about his assuming office again are guardedly saying that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may not win as many seats as it did in 2019 and 2014. Some are also observing possibilities of the coming results spelling a shock for (…)

The Supreme Court on May 24 dismissed the plea of two social and politically concerned organisations— the Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) and Common Cause, seeking apex court directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to make public the exact number of votes cast in the last five phases of the general elections currently underway as per the form 17C of the ECI under Rule 93. The remaining two phases, of which the polling for the sixth phase was held on May 25 and the last (…)

After coming to power in 2014, the BJP declared war against Muslims in diverse forms. In the ongoing Parliamentary elections in 2024, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, made derogatory remarks against the Muslim community in his election campaign. As a damage-control measure, on the day he filed his nomination papers from the Varanasi constituency (May 14, 2024), Modi said in an interview to a TV channel: “The day I do Hindu-Muslim, I will be unworthy of public life…I will not do it, it’s my (…)

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has had a dream run in Haryana during last two Loksabha elections. It was a marginal political force till 2009 polls in the state as then it could garner only 12 percent votes and that too in alliance with the regional party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). But in 2014 it contested the election in alliance with Haryana Janhit Congress and won 7 out of 10 parliamentary seats in the state with a quantum jump in its vote share as it got 41 percent of total votes (…)

21 May 2024 Hyderabad
To The Chief Justice of India Supreme Court of India New Delhi
To The Chief Election Commissioner The Election Commission of India New Delhi
Dear Chief Justice of India, May Peace be upon you Your Honour,
Sub: - Compliance of Supreme Court Order in WRIT PETITION (CIVIL No 990 of 2021)KISHAN CHAND JAIN VS UNION OF INDIA & ORS DT 19.08.2023- Suo Moto uploading of FORM 17C PART I ’ACCOUNT OF VOTES RECORDED’ in the website https://www.eci.gov.in/ - (…)

As the election season (April-May 2024) is in progress there are observations by some that this time RSS volunteers (swayamsevaks) are not on the field to help the BJP for electoral mobilization. So far, in most elections barring the one of 1984, in the aftermath of anti Sikh pogrom. There are many guesses about the role of RSS combine in the elections this time. In this context the interview of Mr. J.P.Nadda, given to IE (May 19, 2024) claims that RSS is a cultural and social organization (…)

May 24, 2024
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, at last, decided to confer on himself a ’DIVINE’ status and publicly announce it by saying: "I believe that I have been blessed by some divine power, which has made me a medium for public welfare. Over the years, my belief has strengthened that God has chosen me to fulfil a special responsibility" he added.
Mr Modi said this in an interview to News18, a Hindi edition of the Network18, .
In India, we have many examples of such people (…)

Unlike terms like ‘mass/universal primary education’ or ‘higher education’ which have been in global vogue for at least three preceding centuries, ‘mass higher education’ is radically new and certainly a post-WWII notion. For example, global gross enrolment ratio in higher (or tertiary) education (HE) was only 10.1 per cent in 1972, but it jumped to well above 40 over next fifty years. Most people take this – so-called massification of HE - as a given (immutable) historical fact too welcome (…)

Together with the soaring temperatures, prices of everyday essentials are soaring high too. Food items and fruits and veggies that could keep us somewhat intact are going beyond one’s grasp. Turning the frail frailer and the able-bodied just about a heap of bones!
This combination of the rising temperatures together with the inability to cope with the connected onslaughts, has resulted the obvious decline in the electioneering around. I’m purposely not dragging in the so called ‘star (…)