October 2009

CHRI Statement
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative condemns the killings and gory violent means being adopted by the Maoists in the last few days. The merciless beheading of the police officer in Jharkhand and the brutal murder of 18 police personnel in Gadchiroli is shocking and such mindless bloodshed cannot be justified as a means to achieving any end in a democracy and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice before the law.
The CHRI urges the Maoists to abjure the (…)

COMMUNICATION
R.M. Pal in his article “Was Partition in India Inevitable?” in the Independence Day Special of Mainstream (August 15, 2009) observed that “Jinnah did not want India to be partitioned”. (page 49) He quoted M. N. Roy to support his case. But Roy was also quoted as having referred to Jinnah’s declaration: “I have won Pakistan for you. Now do what you can do with it.” That declaration establishes the opposite.
From 1940 onward at the grassroot level, the burden of the (…)

As we go to press news has come of the Indian embassy in Kabul being the target of a fresh terrorist attack. The attack took place this morning (that is, on October 8) killing 17 persons and leaving more than 80 injured. (Reports suggest that the casualty figures are steadily mounting.)
Since August this is the fourth terror strike on major installations in the Afghan capital. This attack eerily resembles the one that rocked the same embassy building in July last year; more than 50 (…)

The BJP chief, Rajnath Singh, and the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, reiterated the commitment of the two organisations to Hindutva and abrogation of Article 370 which grants a special status to the Jammu and Kashmir State. They were speaking at a function organised by Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee Research Foundation at the University of Jammu on the occasion of 57th death anniversary of the founder President of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Dr Mukerjee, on June 23.
As far the concept of (…)

The way things are happening in the BJP it seems it’s heading towards the doomsday. Two election debacles have had a catastrophic affect on the party. The unexpected defeat in 2004 and the near washout in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls have taken a heavy toll on the party and the BJP today seems to be a party which is rudderless.
For finding out as to what has gone wrong with the BJP one has to look at it very deeply. The problem with the party today is that it is not headed by a single (…)

(The following commentary by Sam Webb, the Chairman of the Communist Party of the USA, on the first 100 days of President Obama, is highly significant in understanding the American Left’s view on Obama. —Editor)
After the first, perhaps over-analysed, hundred days of the Obama administration, it is fair to say that President Obama is a reformer and we are entering an era of reforms, possibly radical reforms.
Some on the Left (ignoring the Right-wing talk-shows and their fantastic (…)

Even though the Atomic Energy Commission certified that the dud thermonuclear device tested during Pokhran-II in May 1998 was no dud, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and R. Chidambaram, the AEC Chairman in 1998 and currently Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, felt compelled to step out on September 24 to mount a fresh defence of their untenable claim. This was necessary because the previous attempt by the AEC did not find any purchase in the media. It was left to (…)

In the midst of all the demonstration of mourning for Princess Diana to those for Mother Teresa, came Prime Minister Gujral‘s refreshing reiteration of India‘s nuclear policy. On September 8, addressing in New Delhi a high-powered seminar of nuclear scientists including the representative from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna, Gujral has categorically repeated the well-known official position of India with regard to nuclear energy, which Parliament under Indira Gandhi (…)

Notwithstanding the assertion made by S.M. Krishna, the Indian External Affairs Minister, that the India-China boundary happens to be one of the most peaceful of our borders, continued Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control and the series of strategic moves being undertaken by Beijing in regard to its relations with some smaller countries of the subcontinent, point to a sinister Chinese design of encircling India. It appears that Beijing still rues its decision of voluntarily (…)

Although the Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, advocated for ‘a village based political formation fostered by a stateless, classless society’ for the creation of Gram Swaraj, the idea of Panchayati Raj did not find a place in the Draft Constitution of India. This happened because the Congress Constitution Committee rejected the idea ‘believing that the Congress could neither forgo its political role nor become so utterly decentralised’ as envisaged in the Gandhian concept of Gram Swaraj. (…)