Why I am Returning the National Awards
Fundamental freedoms, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of movement are under serious threat in our country. Never in the history of independent India, we were told what kind of...
View ArticleWhy I am returning my Award
The Sahitya Akademi is India's premier institution of letters, with a stated commitment to “promoting Indian literature throughout the world”.Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of the...
View ArticleMassacre at Delhi
I was on my way to Peshawar from Lahore to meet Khan Abdul Wali Khan, son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi. My friend and I stopped at Abottabad, halfway, to have a cup of tea. The radio...
View ArticleVed Bhasin — A Tribute
You inaugurated your first flushOf youth by shoring up innocentBlood in the bylanes of yourBeloved city. And then neverOnce looked back from doing whatHad to be done to keep kashmirisOf all definition...
View ArticleBihar Speaks
The massive victory of the Laloo-Nitish coalition in the Bihar Assembly elections signifies a verdict against the politics of hate and intolerance preached by the Modi-Amit Shah regime after the BJP...
View ArticleBihar Assembly Elections 2015: Did spectra of horror Ranvir Sena's patrons...
The RJD, JD (U) and Congress coalition has inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP and its allies in the just concluded Vidhan Sabha election 2015, successfully driving a lesson on political morality...
View ArticleA Victory For Secularism
Trust the Indian voters to protect the basic constitutional principles whenever these are most threatened. This time it was the turn of the politically alert Bihar voter to intervene on behalf of the...
View ArticleThe Republic Strikes Back: Indian Democracy Breathes Again
What Delhi inaugurated at the beginning of the year, Bihar has sealed at the end, namely, the revolt of reason against supervening gumption. Facts and arguments are once again to the fore, defeating...
View ArticleBihar Poll Results
Suddenly the spell-binder finds that his spell has been broken. The dream merchant, who peddled his never-to-be-realised dreams very successfully just a year ago, suddenly finds that there are no...
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Inestimable Value of the Bihar Mandate
EDITORIALThe results of the five-phase Bihar Assembly polls are out. Proving most of the poll predictions wrong, the electorate of the State handed a decisive verdict by giving a two-thirds majority to...
View ArticleSocial Activist of Rajasthan Dies after 32 Days' Fast
COMMUNICATIONIt is a measure of the growing insensitivity of the authorities that serious efforts were not made in time to save the life of leading social activist and former MLA Gurusharan Chhabra....
View ArticleGau Maata Ki Jai!
Amidst the silence of the rich and powerful_ And the burgeoning of the lotus,_ There must be more._ Beyond the clamour,_ The onslaught of the hammer_ Pulverised all that was sacred_ Into dead meat;_...
View ArticleTo Indira Gandhi
On the occasion of Indira Gandhi's 98th birth anniversary on November 19, 2015 we remember her by reproducing the following poem written a year after her death (she was killed on October 31, 1984) and...
View ArticleJust Some Questions on Obamaspeak
President Obama has invited the Muslims of the world not just to some introspection but, however suavely said, some self-flagellation as well after the terror attack in Paris. The inference here seems...
View ArticleRemembering the Great October Revolution: Assessing its Impact and Lessons
by Aurobindo GhoseThe Russian Revolution took place on October 25, 1917 as per the old calendar and on November 7 as per the new calendar. The birth of the Soviet Union, an island of socialism in a sea...
View ArticleKnowing K. Madhavan in his Own Words
BOOK REVIEWby B. Surendra RaoOn the Banks of the Thejaswini: An Autobiography by K. Madhavan (translated from Malayalam to English by Dr P. Radhika Menon); National Book Trust, India; New Delhi; 2011;...
View ArticleThe Orop “Gift” That Lowers Military Morale: National Security Compromised
Pradhan Mantri (PM) Modi celebrated Diwali with Army troops at Dograi and reportedly announced that OROP (One-Rank One-Pension) was a Diwali gift to military veterans. Perhaps he was not aware that...
View ArticleBeing a Proud Indian
From N.C.'s WritingsA midst the profusion of tributes paid to Indira Gandhi on the tenth anniversary of her martyrdom on October 31, perhaps the most eloquent but concise was by the eminent...
View ArticleVed Bhasin, Praful's Book-launch, Bihar Results
MUSINGSWhen news came in of the passing away of the Jammu-based veteran journalist, Ved Bhasin, my first spontaneous reaction was—we have lost a brave man, who spoke and wrote so very fearlessly ... He...
View ArticleNehru and the Question of Communalism
by Vivek Kumar SrivastavaNehru, the architect of modern India, was a staunch nationalist for whom communalism was the worst socio-political evil. He fought his whole life against it. His views about...
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