21st death anniversary of Nikhil Chakravartty - Select tributes from the Past...
June 27 this year marks the 21st death anniversary of the founder of this journal, Nikhil Chakravartty. On this occasion we are reproducing the following article published in Mainstream (June 28,...
View ArticleReality and Fantasy
A family of five livesin a small, dingy roomnear the end of a blind alley.The sunlight plays truantfrom a slice of sky;the air reeks of cow-dung,filth from the gutter.When night falls,the old couple...
View ArticleThe ‘Modi'fied India 2019
All of us in India, including the BJP, have been stunned by the unprecedented and unanticipated landslide victory of Modi who like a juggernaut swept across the electoral landscape smashing everything...
View ArticleUS Credibility dented in Iran Standoff
The US President Donald Trump's reported decision abruptly to call off military strike against Iran which he'd previously ordered, highlights the growing complexity of the US-Iranian...
View ArticleUS-Iran Stand-Off — How to Avoid a War
by Rajaram PandaAs if the North Korean issue where United States President Donald Trump burned much of midnight oil with words such as “fire and fury”, “totally destroy” flew with impunity only to be...
View ArticleThe GDP Growth Debate going Out of Hand
The former Chief Economic Advisor, Dr Arvind Subramanian, has set the cat among the pigeons by coming out with a paper (referred to as AS below) showing that the Indian GDP growth has been...
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‘We can't turn Hindustan into Lynchistan'
EDITORIALIn the midst of the intense gloom that has engulfed secular democrats of all hues of late following the return to power for the next five years of the present-day BJP run by the Narendra...
View ArticleHot Hot Place
India is now a hot hot placeIn more ways than you know;The sun bears down from above,And Hindutva bubbles from below.There is little inbetween—Just despair or elation;Some the heat incinerates,Others...
View ArticleA Tribute to Primla Loomba
Primla Loomba, popularly known as Pimmi, left us on June 24, 2019. She was outstanding as an educationist and a strong pillar of the women's movement of our country. Though she may not have identified...
View ArticleEmergency Then; Emergency Now
While yesterday's Emergency saw the state take away an individual's liberty, today, it is the non-state actors, fed on hate, who are taking away the life and liberty of a citizen of free India.Just a...
View ArticleSun Sets on the British Empire
From N.C.'s WritingsWhen we were young, our school-books said: “The sun never sets on the British Empire”—that meant whichever way you turned the globe, a piece of British Empire could be seen on the...
View ArticleZero-sum game in Iran
When it comes to Iran policies, the Trump Administration cannot be faulted for incoherence, although POTUS keeps bouncing off the walls in different directions. Indeed, on the one hand, President Trump...
View ArticleJustice Denied: Case Dairy of a Human Rights Lawyer
This is the dairy of a case I filed in October 1987 and which was disposed of after 28 years by an order of the Manipur High Court in June 2019. The disposal exposes the bankruptcy of the Indian...
View ArticleMamata's Worry is not BJP, but her Own Party
The Lok Sabha elections are over but violence continues unabated in West Bengal. Almost every day some activist of this party or that is murdered. And whether the victim belonged to the Trinamul...
View ArticleA People's Peace Initiative in Kashmir
Sanjay Tula and his wife, Tula Sanjay, are products of Jayaprakash Narayan's total revolution movement in the 1970s. They live in Mehsana, Gujarat and run a small organisation called Vishwagram which...
View ArticleWah Taj!
What's your true identity?Is it a momentary flavourwafting from a cup of teaor a timeless wonder frozenwith ivory-white marble?A quixotic battle rages onto baptize you with a name,suggesting a blot, a...
View ArticleIndia: A General Election, Emerging Model of Power and Populist Resistance
by Ranbir SamaddarPolitical observers loosely speak of authoritarianism, populism, etc., as if these are ideologies and not concrete political practices, ideologically opposed to democracy. This...
View ArticleMIG: At the Centre of the Narrative of Elections
by Suranjita RayEver since ‘GaribiHatao' (poverty eradication) became the most popular slogan which appealed to the large majority of poor people across the country that brought the Congress Party to...
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‘Open your Eyes and See: The Country is being Torn Apart'
The following is the text of All-India Trinamul Congress MP Mahua Moitra's speech in the Lok Sabha on June 25, 2019 on the motion of the President of India's address to the joint session of both Houses...
View ArticleMob Lynching: A New Version of Communal Violence
by Shamsher AlamA Muslim man, Shamsh Tabrez, was caught by a mob in the month of June 2019 at Saraikela Kharsawan in Jharkhand, tied to a pole and beaten for several hours. Later on, he was handed over...
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