July 14, 2007

The latest developments on the global terror front are definitely a cause for worry. The substantial Indian involvement in the three botched attempts at exploding car bombs in central London and Glasgow airport is indeed a matter of grave concern. It is easy to demonise the persons who tried to perpetrate such heinous acts. Of course those responsible for such attempted terrorist violence must be dealt with sternly in accordance with the law of any civilised land guided by democratic (…)

Tribute
As the first phase of liberalisation in India drew to its completion, Chandra Shekhar, on August 9, 2000, the 58th anniversary of the ‘Quit India’ Movement, launched the Vikalp Abhiyan— a protest march against the forces of globalisation. On this occasion he observed:
Our country, forgetting the vision and dream of Swaraj, was once again falling into the shackles of economic slavery which would place its political and social freedom at risk in the hands of the international (…)

It is too difficult for a government, especially a Left Government, to survive in a hypercritical society like Kerala. History shows that while the ‘pragmatic’ decisions of the Left governments were criticised for diluting radicalism and compromising ideological principles, the radical ones were also discredited for embracing utopianism. Such a political prejudice of the media-literate and middle class-dominating Kerala society created trouble even for the first Communist Government of the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by K. S. Subramanian
Rethinking Islamism: The ideology of the New Terror by Meghnad Desai; I. B. Tauris, London; 2007, pp. 196.
The distinguished author, an expatriate Indian, was Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. He is now a Labour peer in the House of Lords, UK. He was provoked to write this interesting and lucid book when the London bombing of July 7, 2005 took place, killing 56 people, including the four Muslim terrorists from the UK and injuring (…)

COMMUNICATION
THROUGH EMPOWERMENT, PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT Shri Chaturanan Mishra, in his article “Basic Causes of Muslim Backwardness” (Mainstream, June 2, 2007), has failed both to diagnose the social malaise of which the Muslim Indians are the prime victims, the communal bias, and suggest appropriate remedial measures.
A noteworthy conclusion of the Sachar Report is that the Muslim community as a whole, with regional and intra-community variations, normal in any country of (…)

This poem has been sent by Major General (retired) S.G. Vombatkere with a letter that reads: “Garbage Cess is being collected with effect from January 1, 2007 for door-to-door collection of garbage but the Garbage Bins at street corners are still in the same sorry state that they were in.”
This evidently has provoked him to compose the following lines. He retired from military service in 1996, from the post of Additional DG (Discipline and Vigilance) in Army HQ, New Delhi. He currently (…)

The Bihar Land Reforms Commission visited Gopalganj on March 23, 2007. The mission was to hold a Jan Sunwai at Thave (near the Durga temple). On arriving at Gopalganj the Commission went to the Circuit House to have a broad view of the land reforms measures undertaken by the Collector.
Gopalganj is the area in which the famous (perhaps not so famous) Hathua Raj had his estate. Folklore has it that he was one of the most ruthless and cruel zamindars of Bihar. So much was his oppression on (…)