April 19, 2008

Two years ago on April 24, 2006 King Gyanendra was forced to announce the restoration of the Nepalese parliament he had dissolved in 2002. This was, as aptly noted in these columns, a remarkable success of the Nepalese people’s tenacious struggle against Gyanendra’s autocratic rule.
It was at that time written in these columns on April 26, 2006:
What we are witnessing in Nepal today is literally history in the making. It is really people’s power which is dictating terms... As the head (…)

There is at present growing response in the Arab world to the problem of Iraqi refugees that is acquiring a serious dimension with every passing day. Since the beginning of the second US invasion of Iraq in 2003, up to 3000 people have been leaving the country on a daily basis. According to the latest estimates, about 40,000 Iraqi refugees live in Lebanon, between 80,000 and 20,000 are in Egypt, and more than two million in Syria and Jordan.
In the wake of the Iraqi refugee influx, the (…)

(COMMUNICATION)
It is deeply disturbing to see that the loan-waiver announced recently for marginal and small farmers in the Union Budget has not specifically included landless farm workers. Landless farm workers constitute the weakest section of our villages. Therefore it will be truly unjust and tragic if they are excluded from the loan-waiver. The Finance Ministry should immediately announce that landless farm workers in all villages of India will be covered by this loan waiver. Such an (…)

COMMUNICATION
The joint statement of Indian liberal establishment in your journal (Mainstream, April 5, 2008) follows the pattern of editorials in the national media. It not only misrepresents the facts of the case but defines democracy in a manner which violates the cultural ethos of our country as well as the letter and spirit of the Constitution and the law of the land.
To begin with, Taslima Nasreen was not a political refugee in any sense of the term. Nor was she a stateless person (…)

Fifteen years have passed since the landmark 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act was approved in 1992 by the Indian Parliament. Devolution of 29 functions, reservation of 33 per cent seats for women, similar reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population, statutory requirement to hold periodic elections under the supervision of State Election Commissions, transfer of funds to panchayat bodies according to the recommendations of the State Finance (…)

Dear Prakash Karat and Chief Minister,
The Chengara land struggle is coming in Desabhimani like the Right-wing media reporting the news! It is an irony of the times that the LDF and CPM are being accused of provoking a land struggle with Maoist influence. More than seven thousand families are involved in the land struggle. What is wrong in democratic India that people are starting a struggle for land?
In Andhra Pradesh (AP), the CPM organised a historic land struggle. The ruling class (…)

Dr B. R. Ambedkar once said: “We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.” He then added: “Social democracy means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.”
The Founding Fathers of the Constitution had drafted the Constitution with an aim to achieve the goal of social revolution. Reservations to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are aimed at rectifying past injustices and are acting as an instrument of inclusion of (…)

The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B. R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the Indian Constitution and piloting it through the Constituent Assembly. There is, therefore, a touch of irony in Ambedkar being awarded the Bharat Ratna 30 years after he eminently deserved it when the Constitution came into force in 1950.
Not only that. All these (…)

Bhimrao Ramji, who, later came to be known as Dr B.R. Ambedkar or Babasaheb Ambedkar in popular parlance, was born at Mhow, near Indore on April 14, 1891. He was the fourteenth child of Subedar Major Ramji and his wife Bhimabai. Only five of the children of this couple survived, including Bhimrao and two each of his sisters and brothers. Ambavade in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra was the ancestral village of the family and they belonged to the Mahar caste, one of the numerous untouchable (…)

”I honestly believe that the winning companies of this century will be those who prove with their actions that they can be profitable and increase social value — companies that both do well and do good... Increasingly, shareowners, customers, partners and employees are going to vote with their feet — rewarding those companies that fuel social change through business. This is simply the new reality of business — one that we should and must embrace.” —Carly Fiorina, Chairman and Chief (…)