Given India’s own macroeconomic position, as vulnerable as it is now, it is imperative for the government to try and achieve a trade-compromise with the US in the short term at least. Deepanshu Mohan The additional 25% tariff penalty imposed on India by Trump administration, taking the overall tariff level to 50%, signals a low… Read More Few Options on the Negotiating Table as India and Modi Are Cornered by Trump
If ECI adheres to its fiat of asking for one of the 11 specified documents, at least 50 per cent of those required to produce a document could be excluded from the final voters list in Bihar. Yogendra Yadav & Rahul Shastri Here is a simple yet critical question for the ongoing SIR exercise: What… Read More Edge of disenfranchisement
Welcome to The Backdrop, a selection of fine narrative journalism from The Caravan to put the news in context. The Independence Day Sale is now live. Last week, a special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai acquitted Pragya Singh Thakur, a former member of parliament from the Bhartiya Janata Party, and six others in the… Read More The Caravan archive: Malegaon Acquittals, NIA’s Decline, and Sangh Parivar Terror Links
St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was to be held on Saturday, after protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, reported The Free Press Journal. The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The lecture, titled “Migration for… Read More Mumbai: St Xavier’s College cancels Stan Swamy lecture after ABVP protests
Mario Praz (1896-1982) was an Italian-born critic of art & literature, and scholar of English literature. His best-known book, La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (The Romantic Agony, 1933) written in 1930 was a comprehensive survey of the erotic and morbid themes that characterized European authors of the late 18th &… Read More Mario Praz: The Romantic Agony (1933)
Personality politics will not make up for the Global South’s mistrust of India’s purely self-serving strategic autonomy. Bharat Bhushan United States President Donald Trump’s near-daily targeting of India in his second term has left Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government stunned. His description of the Indian economy as ‘dead’ and accusations that it funds the Russian ‘war machine’ in… Read More Nehru built institutions. Modi built a brand, and it is cracking
The last thing I want to say is this is not just a capitulation to the Trump administration. This was an inside job. There was a fifth column, members of the Board of Trustees, senior members of the faculty of some of the professional schools, and a clutch of donors, who have been beating the… Read More Professor Rashid Khalidi Slams ‘Crushing Repression’ at Columbia, Cancels Course to protest Trump Settlement / How Trump and Miller are rewriting US higher education to shut out international students
V Sudarshan: Hitchhikers Guide To Trump’s Galaxy Trump goes and says things that our Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson just can’t, not while the Parliament is on and in an unvarnished fashion. He doesn’t hide behind anonymity Trump goes and says things that our Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson just can’t, not while the Parliament… Read More Hitchhikers Guide To Trump’s Galaxy / Modi’s Vishwaguru Image Dented by Trump’s Taunts
A pattern of post-attack ‘encounters’ raises serious questions about the credibility, accountability, and timing of India’s counterterrorism narrative Bharat Bhushan Would a group of terrorists on the run from Indian security forces for over three months still be carrying the weapons they used, their Pakistani voter ID cards, and branded Pakistani chocolates? It was a remarkable… Read More Operation Mahadev / Dead terrorists tell no tales
First posted June 16, 2016 NB: Two perceptive comments on Modi in America: Kesavan notices his pathetic yearning to be accepted at the high table of the Anglophone powers; Chatterjee sees through to the symbolism of his homage to US soldiers killed during the Vietnam war. For those who may not know it, the RSS referred to the American intervention as… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Speaking in tongues – Narendra Modi & the Anglosphere / Garga Chatterjee: Modi salutes US military casualties in the Vietnam War (2016)
After the truth-shower 