March 15, 2008

[(TRIBUTE)]
Upendra Vajpayee, who passed away last month, was a life-long journalist. After his release from the jail in 1945, he completed his education and joined the profession. His father, Ambika Dutta Vajpayee, was a distinguished freedom fighter with strong Gandhian commitment and also an established journalist and a man of letters. But, the era in which the young Upendra joined the freedom movement had its own heroes in the leaders of the socialist movement, Jayaprakash Narayan, Dr (…)

Fundamentalism has become a much-used term today—in politics and in the academia. And there are in vogue various types of the so-called fundamentalists—political, religious and cultural.
But before cataloguing these various tribes of fundamentalists, it is important to clarify what precisely is meant by fundamentalism. The Oxford English Dictionary says the term, fundamental, pertains to “the basis or groundwork, going to the root of the matter”. But the word “fundamentalism” has a (…)

The rise of judicial activism has been rightly described by the Editor-in-Chief of India Today as one of the sixty revolutions in independent India’s sixty-year history. But it could also be viewed as one of the most controversial, if not dangerous, developments in the evolution of the Indian political system. So much so that even the Supreme Court is, as is reflected in the conflicting judgments of various Benches, divided on this issue. Therefore, it is essential to understand the problem (…)

On August 15, 1947, after ruling the subcontinent for over 200 years, the British surrendered power and India became a free country. India adopted the path of parliamentary democracy. The British parliamentary system left a lasting impress on it; due to the colonial legacy the framers of the Indian Constitution borrowed this system primarily from England.1 The freedom of the judiciary was taken from the USA. The USA did impart considerable power to the judiciary and made the judiciary free (…)

The only files the outgoing President, Dr Abdul Kalam, did not clear were the mercy petitions of 50 prisoners on death row, some of them there for as long as 10 years. Going by the rate at which justice is delivered to these convicts, these files will probably be passed on from the present incumbent to the next one, and so on. The situation of the men and women on death row is akin to the situation of the poor tribal who lives at the mercy of the feudal landlord, always fearing for his life. (…)

“Choon kar az hamaan heelte dar guzashat, halaal ast burden ba shamshir dast (When all the modes of redressing a wrong have failed, raising the sword is pious and just),” Akal Takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti quoted Guru Gobind Singh, while making a major shift in his stance on the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda.1 The recall of the militant face of the Khalsa and the changed attitude of the Jathedar of Shri Akal Takht Sahib (the head cleric of the highest temporal seat of the Sikh (…)