July 28, 2007

July 19 was indeed a memorable day. In India, due to the murky nature of the presidential poll campaign with allegations against the UPA-Left nominee, the first woman contestant for the highest constitutional post, flying thick and fast one felt apprehensive as to whether all these would have a negative impact on our system of governance undermining the democratic values we have been able to preserve all these years despite tremendous constraints and numerous lacunae. Those appre-hensions (…)

The domestic politics of Bangladesh was poised in a delicate position at the beginning of the year 2007. The country was heading towards a general election which was doomed to be a farce. The first caretaker government which, according to the constitutional provision, took over the reins of the government after the expiry of the five-year term of the last elected government of Begum Khaleda Zia, was reconstituted by President Iajuddin Ahmed, following the resignation by a number of (…)

Before demitting office on July 25, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam addressed in New Delhi on July 19 members of the India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC) on the occasion of its first anniversary. The following is the text of his address.
“When you speak, speak the truth Perform what you promise.”
I am delighted to address the Members of India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC), New Delhi as you complete one year of your formation with the aim of promoting national integration, amity among (…)

UNSPEAKABLE CRUELTY AGAINST ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES—EYE GOUGED OUT, BONES BROKEN, KIDNEY DAMAGED Since this article reached us sometime back, the dreaded dacoit Dadua has been killed. —Editor
In popular perception, the district of Chitrakut (U.P.) is identified closely with the legend of Lord Ram, but at present the villages here and in neighbouring areas are entirely in the grip of terror of dacoit gangs. The leading gangs are headed by Dadua, Thokiya and a few others.
• At about 1 a.m. (…)

constituencies of Chitrakut district. In addition Dadua’s brother contested from a constituency of Pratapgarh district on the SP ticket. The mother of Thokia dacoit Piyariya Devi contested on the Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket from Naraini (Banda). All this poses a serious danger to the basic tenets of democracy. How can we expect the true voice of people to emerge when voters are pressurised increasingly by the threats of dacoits and how can we expect corruption to be curbed when the utilisation (…)

The largest State of India, UP, is not exactly the weathercock for the rest of Hindi heartland, yet the recent Assembly elections have indicated a new trajectory which may spread out to the entire Hindi heartland—the Ganga-Yamuna basin which commands one of the best fertile lands in the world besides the fact that it was centre of the freedom movement in the twenties.
In modern history the Benares Congress of 1905, presided over by Gokhale, had started a new course of action which (…)

A glorious moment has touched us again, the memory of 1857, India’s First War of Independence, though some say it was the second, the first being the Battle of Plassey between Nawab Sirajudaullah of Bengal and Robert Clive of the Company forces in 1757. There is another view that the battles fought by Mysore’s Tipoo Sultan should also be given the same status. Besides, it would be folly not to count the series of uprisings in Chhotanagpur of Bihar (now Jharkhand), the Tamur Chuar Bhumij (…)

The nuclear issue is too sensitive for Japan and understandably so. Japan is the only country in history to have experienced the atom bomb when the United States dropped the bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, thereby bringing the World War II to an end. However, a fact of history as it may be, the Japanese people could never justify the US action. No wonder when Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma said early this month in a speech at a University in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, that the (…)

The excitement over the Presidential poll having ended with Giani Zail Singh winning it—though the official results are yet to be known when these lines are written—it is perhaps time for a sober appraisal of its political fall-out.
Leaving aside the personal antics of the President-designate—who has already earned the distinction of being extraordinarily folksy—the implications of this contest need to be noted as these are important for an understanding of how Indira Gandhi and her (…)

Haryana at Crossroads: Problems and Prospects by D. R. Chaudhry; National Book Trust, Delhi; 2007; pp. xi+149; Price Rs 60.
A north-western State of India, Haryana, located on the threshold of the Union Capital Territory of Delhi has got a paradoxical character. On the one hand, it has converted itself from a backward region of Punjab into one of the most developed States of the Indian Union after the attainment of Statehood by it on November 1, 1966, and on the other hand it has earned (…)