December 2009

COMMUNICATION
Holding of plebiscite having become irrelevant and inoperative, and military and militant efforts having been proved fruitless so far, the following steps may be given a try:
1. First priority should be given by the Government of India to the resolution of Indo-Kashmir issues and political differences that have arisen since the accession of the J&K State to India in October 1947.
2. Without prejudice to the existing sovereignty of India and Pakistan over (…)

One tragedy after another has been hitting the Valley and there seems to be a mockery of the very system, of the very democratic framework. And even if there have been peaceful-cum-non-violent ‘Gandhian’ protests by the Kashmiris, the ongoing indifference by those who matter, by those who are in the business of governance, those who are in the thick of political strategies, is most distressing. All that one hears is that some sort of quiet diplomacy is on, but what’s the point of this (…)

For three days in New Delhi from November 20 to 22, 2009 an international meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties of 47 countries, 55 parties was held fruitfully. This was called the 11th meeting starting from the first one held in 1960 in Moscow when the socialist camp was at the zenith of its power influencing the course of events in the world, and perhaps also within most of the individual countries.
This meeting was hosted jointly by the CPI-M and CPI. They issued a joint (…)

The year 2009-10 is being celebrated as the birth centenary of one of most outstanding Marxist theoreticians and Communist leaders of the world communist movement, Ajoy Ghosh. That provides us an occasion to trace some of his most lasting contributions to independent India broadly, and the Indian communist movement in particular.
Ajoy Kumar Ghosh was born on February 20, 1909. We will not go into his biographical details, as they have already appeared in many places. He passed away (…)

It was indeed an inspired canard of the radical Right to call the Communists in India as anti-national and pro-imperialist.
That the Indian Communists called Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as the “running dog of General Tojo” and a “Quisling” in the early forties of the last century when he organised the Indian National Army for the liberation of India from the imperialist yoke of Great Britain is now recognised by them as a minor aberration while evaluating the then historical (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Peasant History of Late Pre-Colonial and Colonial India by Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri; Pearson Education, New Delhi; 2008; pp. xxv+939.
It is always difficult to review a book by a teacher. Such a review always tends to become a tribute rather than a critical analysis of the content and arguments of the book. And I will not even try to pretend that I have been able to avoid that pitfall here, for I learnt my first lessons in the economic history of India from Professor Binay (…)

The following article was written before the inauguration of the Copenhagen Summit (December 7, 2009).
Currently, ethnic and religious antagonism stand out as the most important forces shaping most of the world’s armed conflicts in the post-Cold War scenario. The United States’ civil war in 1860 is a good example of a secessionist civil war. The war in the Eritrea province of Ethiopia was internationally recognised in the 1980s. These are religious and racial conflicts which are not due to (…)

I
Hemant Karkare’s family—his wife Kavita, his son and daughters and other near and dear ones—have slowly, albeit silently, come to terms with the fact that he is no more. Yes, there are occasions when his son takes out the laptop and scans the family album to see his father in various moods. There are a few photographs he really loves to watch again and again, where his dad looks a different person and not the usual policewallah.There are times when his mother also joins him and every (…)

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) can be filed in any High Court or directly in the Supreme Court. It is not necessary that the petitioner has suffered some injury of his own or has had personal grievance to litigate. The PIL is a right given to the socially conscious member or a public spirited NGO to espouse a public cause by seeking judicial means for redressal of public injury. Such injury may arise from breach of public duty or due to a violation of some provision of the Constitution. (…)

The recent high-pressure tactics to introduce genetically engineered food crops in India are another rude reminder that Western agribusiness companies have a deeprooted strategy to obtain a stranglehold on India’s food and agriculture system.
In a review of recent trends titled ‘Food Without Choice’ (The Tribune, November 1) Prof Pushpa M. Bhargava (who was nominated by the Supreme Court in the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to protect safety concerns), an internationally (…)