Emergency (1975) is a Permanent Scar on the Soul of India
Nations which do not remember their immediate past are in danger of repeating the same tragedy. This thought comes to me when on random questioning of the significance of June 26, 1975 (the Emergency...
View ArticleMrs Gandhi's Misrule
Forty years may seem to be a long period. But it is not long enough to efface the memory of a jungle raj which followed the imposition of the emergency in 1975. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,...
View ArticleEmergency (1975-77): Mainstream's Rewarding Struggle
To mark the passage of forty years since the imposition of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi on June 25-26, 1975, we reproduce some extracts from the story of “Mainstream's Journey Through Emergency”...
View ArticleThe Roots of the Emergency
As years pass by, one after the other, the past recedes more and more into distant memory. There are certain events in the life of a nation as of individuals, to which distance does not lend...
View ArticleWe Must All Resist BJP's Two-Nation Theory
Ayodhya has become the epicentre of a cyclone that threatens to spell disaster for the political fabric of this country. For the fourth year now, it has virtually taken over the centre-stage of...
View ArticleBJP's Dangerous Politics
One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of...
View ArticleMohan Kumaramangalam — Cameos: An Old Comrade
From N.C.'s WritingsOn May 31 this year it was the fortysecond death anniversary of Mohan Kumaramangalam. On N.C.'s seventeenth death anniversary (June 27, 2015) we reproduce the following tribute that...
View ArticleThe Empire Peddles Back
When you came Bible-peddling,I was not numero uno;Now that I am, take back withInterest wages for that meddling,As a hundred and seventy nationsBack my awesome, acrobatic show.Watch the thrusting of my...
View Article(Lalit) Modi's India resembles an Animal Farm
The “Modigate” is sure enough producing a lot of political heat, but not enough light is thrown into the scam. But then, no one is demanding an inquiry into the whole episode.Some sections of the...
View ArticleTowards New (Undeclared) Emergency ?
EDITORIALIt was written in these columns last week that ‘Modigate' (or more precisely ‘Lalitgate')—the revelations of the ruling party's bigwigs' deep connections with the fugitive evading questioning...
View ArticleIndia's Sincere Friend in Post-Soviet Russia
TRIBUTERussia lost its great statesman, veteran diplomat and outstanding academic in the demise of Evgeny Maximovich Primakov, Russia's former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and one of the most...
View ArticleNeoliberalism and the Euphoric Diasporics
by Ravindra K. JainPrime Minister Modi's rousing reception by Indian diasporics in advanced Western countries—the USA, Australia and Canada in particular—has been a constant refrain and cause for...
View ArticleUnpardonable Crime of helping a Fugitive Criminal
COMMUNICATIONExternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's contention—that the help that she gave to Lalit Modi to go to Portugal to sign the consent papers of his ailing wife was on humanitarian...
View ArticleA Unique Journey—a Spiritual Voyage and a Quest for Freedom
BOOK REVIEWby Amrita BhallaIn Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia by Sagari Chhabra; Harper Collins Publishers India; 2015; pages; (i to x) + 344; Rs 499.“We were always...
View ArticleRecollections of Legendary but Forgotten Freedom Fighters
The following are a few excerpts from Sagari Chhabra's recently released book, In Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia (Harper-Collins Publishers India).Interview of Subhadra...
View ArticleThe Akhand Hindu Rashtra: Micro World Macro Nationalism
by Navneet Sharma, Pradeep Nair and HarikrishNan B.“Ye, who by race, by blood, by culture, by nationality possess almost all the essentials of Hindutva and had been forcibly snatched out of our...
View ArticleAn Out-of-Touch Indian Journalist
by Syed Badrul AhsanThe first time I heard of Kuldip Nayar was in the early 1970s. His slim work, Distant Neighbours: A Tale of the Subcontinent, had just been published in India. It was the theme of...
View ArticleDynasty Needs to Explain
I am sorry to revert to the Emergency yet again, over two successive weeks. R.K. Dhawan, Mrs Indira Gandhi's confidante, has disclosed that Sonia Gandhi had no qualms about the Emergency. This is...
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 ArticleMLAs pass Laws to put themselves Above the Law—Our Democracy is Only for the...
IMPRESSIONSWe can sing hallelujahs for democracy all our lives, but democracy will remain a system where some people are more equal than others. We don't have to look at the magical life of Lalit Modi...
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