2024

Abstract
April 7, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the Genocide against the Tutsis. The first author of this paper during his visit to Rwanda got the opportunity to interact with the survivors of the Genocide and the present-day administrators in the country. During the visit to Rwanda, the author came to know about the facts that led to the Genocide and got a first-hand experience and knowledge of Rwanda’s resurrection from the tragedy. The authors share the strategies and methods used (…)

[marron]This letter was sent by Anton Vlasov, a Red Army officer, to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (RCP) in September 1920. A copy was retained in the archive of Nikolai Bukharin, in 1920 editor of the party newspaper, Pravda, and published in 1998 by historians who found it there. While some stories of leading party members’ luxurious circumstances may be exaggerated, the letter expresses sentiments that were widespread among rank-and-file communists at the time. I (…)

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
These are difficult times for democracy and this book on democracy in Hindi has thus been published at just the right time. Although it is mainly centered on India, it also ventures from time to time to comment on the situation in other parts of the world too.
Edited by Arun Kumar Tripathi and A.K. Arun, two names very familiar to Hindi readers, this book titled ‘Jantantra ki Jarein’ (‘Roots of Democracy’) has essays by several writers known (…)

* Growing Spectre of Hate on Univ Campuses in India
* A Wedding at India’s Super Rich & the Question of Public Morality | Radhakanta Barik
* Devolution of Funds and North-South Divide | J P Gadkari
* Hunger-strikers’ Demands (1929) | Bhagat Singh, B.K. Dutt
* Collective Theory, Collective Guilt: The Frankfurt School in/and Exile | Aranya Majumder

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, March 23, 2024
For months now, opposition politicians or civil society leaders have been harassed & targeted by agencies under the control of the Modi government, be it the Income Tax Dept, the CBI or the Enforcement Directorate (ED); The clear intent has been to demobilise and disrupt the abilities of opposition political parties in the run-up to the 2024 elections. Now that the elections have been announced and Model Code of Conduct (MCC) (…)

Even though the mid-night arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, after the election process has already kicked in, was expected, yet it is unprecedented. The arrest of Kejriwal following earlier arrest of Hemant Soren, Chief Minister of Jharkhand, have fateful implications for Democracy Constitutionalism and Rule of Law.
Being a Constitutional Scholar, the present writer would refrain from political commentary, and hence, this column is confined to the impact of the (…)

The shrill voices of those who give orders Are full of fear like the squeakings of Piglets awaiting the butcher’s knife, as their fat arses Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs.... Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but The rulers too.—Bertolt Brecht
The global right is ’terrified’ (at least that’s what it wants us to believe)
We are being increasingly told that it has finally discovered what could prove to be its nemesis.
Right from the likes of Donald Trump to the Indian (…)

CAPITALISM THRIVES ON public morality, as it brings workers and consumers to the capital, one to create the goods that gather capital, the other who purchases the goods in exchange of that capital. The wedding that we are talking about happened in the household of India’s richest man. One person charged Rs 74 crore to dance for an hour at this wedding. This was at the recent wedding of Mukesh Ambani’s son, Anant.
Ambani stands for the capital which creates a relationship between industry (…)

Last month, on 7th February, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his entire Cabinet staged a protest demonstration in the National Capital demanding Karnataka’s due share in the devolution of taxes collected by Centre as GST, cess and surcharges in the State. There has never been an instance of this kind in the history of Independent India where the Chief Minister of a State and his entire Cabinet had to come on the streets to demand what is due to their State legally and (…)

While several concessions and isolated commitments are frequently announced before elections, what is often missing is a more comprehensive approach to the many-sided reform of various important development sectors. A recent attempt for making more comprehensive health sector reform the talking point at the start of the election season should therefore be welcomed.
On March 21, the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) a coalition of health activists, experts, and organizations committed to the (…)