November 2009

A very eminent journalist, a man of strong principles and great courage of conviction has passed away. Most of us knew him as the editor of the renowned Jansatta, the Hindi number of the redoubtable Indian Express. He wrote powerfully and fearlessly. But you got a real measure of the man only when you heard him speak. He spoke with such passion and from the very depth of his heart that he would inspire the audience to return to the values of the freedom struggle and the spirited service of (…)

The Editors Guild of India deeply mourns the untimely demise of veteran editor, columnist and Gandhian activist Prabhash Joshi in New Delhi on the night of November 5.
Joshi was one of the active members of the Guild, who had strived hard throughout his career in journalism to uphold freedom of the press and worked for perfecting professional standards. He was one of the pioneers of Hindi journalism, who introduced new styles of writing both in political and sports fields. Joshi (…)

Recently eight eminent environmentalists urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to abandon three hydel power projects on Bhagirathi river in Uttarakhand. All environmentalists are members of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA). They demanded that the 130 km stretch from Goumukh to Uttarkashi be declared as “No Project Area”. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh assured that the “Ministry of Environment and Power will study projects in Loharinag Pala (600 MW), Pala Maneri (480 MW) (…)

Several developments on the political front have once again magnified the problems besetting the two principal formations on the national scene as also the ubiquitous corruption eating into the vitals of the society. While the BJP is still grappling with the revolt in the ranks of its MLAs in Karnataka, the Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra is yet to resolve the vexed problem of the State Ministry formation. At the same time, the Enforcement Directorate as well as the Income Tax sleuths (…)

TRIBUTE
C.B. Muthamma, India’s first woman ambassador, passed away on October 15 at the age of 85.
Frailty, thy name is woman, they say. That is not a true statement at all. So long as social justice is an integral part of our constitutional fundamentals and judges remain sensitive and not pachydermic, gender justice will remain a non-negotiable article of faith. Professional gender bias and discrimination have no place in the civilised scheme of things: those were traits of (…)

As we write this to the Government of India, different country governments are busy with intense climate negotiations at the ongoing UNFCCC sessions in Bangkok. As people all over the world have realised, the face of climate negotiations has been dramatically altered with the call given by a large number of developing country governments in their official submissions to the UNFCCC, demanding that the climate debt of the developed countries must be repaid, and this payment must begin with the (…)

Maharashtra, one of the larger States in India, went to polls on October 13 for electing 288 representatives in the Legislative Assembly. The electorate was 7 crore 8 lakh 11,245 strong comprising 3 crore 60 lakh 76,460 female voters and 3 crore 97 lakh 34,770 male voters. As many as 3559 candidates set up by 92 political parties as well as independents stood for election. The Congress put up 174 candidates, NCP 114, Shiv Sena 169, BJP 119, MNS 143, Third Front 258. Of the candidates only (…)

The Congress party nearly lost the electoral battle for the Haryana Assembly election because of the development of faultlines. Stability with security for inclusive and sustainable development therefore has emerged as the major concern. That must guide the future course of choices as the calculus of Cabinet formation is being worked out. This in essence is the mandate given by the voters in Haryana. The emergence of a strong Opposition must therefore be used towards sustaining the growth (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
This article is being reproduced on the occasion of the ninetysecond anniversary of the October Revolution (that look place on November 7, 1917). This was written a couple of months before the seventyfourth anniversary of that Revolution on November 7, 1991 (the first time it was observed in the USSR without any official sanction and the last time it was celebrated before the collapse of the Soviet Union).
In the midst of the excitement over the dramatic (…)

Renowned Marxist ideologue and veteran Communist leader Mohit Sen passed away in early 2003. On the occasion of the eightyninth anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 2006 we carried excerpts from the chapter ‘Reflections’ from his memoirs A Traveller and the Road—The Journey of an Indian Communist (published by Rupa and Co., New Delhi) to bring out his views on the October Revolution and its aftermath in the light of the latest developments on the global scene and our own (…)