One of Fr. Stan Swamy’s last messages: “What is happening to me is not something unique, happening to me alone. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country. We are all aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers, writers, poets, activists, student leaders – they are all put in jail just because they have… Read More Fr Stan Swamy, accused in Elgaar Parishad case, dies at 84
A French judge has been appointed to lead a judicial investigation into suspected “corruption” and “favouritism” over the 7.8-billion-euro sale to India of 36 Dassault Aviation Rafale fighter aircraft, Mediapart can reveal. The highly sensitive probe into the inter-governmental deal signed off in in 2016 was formally opened on June 14th. It was following Mediapart’s “Rafale Papers”… Read More Rafale Papers: France opens judicial probe into fighter deal with India, new revelations emerge // Opposition Parties Say it's Time for Investigation in India Too
NB: This is an instructive article: members of the establishment who retain the slightest capacity to think rationally beyond their career interests, should read it carefully. I have argued elsewhere that ideologies have an inbuilt tendency toward implosion: the process whereby prevailing doctrines of political hegemony fail to maintain the minimal coherence required for self-perpetuation, and… Read More Peter Ronald deSouza: The Intrinsic Limits of Hindutva as an Ideology of the Indian State
First posted September 12, 2018 I will open this comment with an anecdote. Some months ago, whilst exercising in the gym I visit, the senior trainer was talking politics with someone. He is a friendly individual and I normally do not converse whilst exercising. He happens to be an admirer of Narendra Modi. On this… Read More Oxford University’s South Asian Studies Programme’s comments on Venkat Dhulipala
The waning success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as vote-catchers may have contributed to a weakening of their leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is suggested by the fratricidal rivalries surfacing in the BJP-ruled states. If they could brush off electoral defeats in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Signs of BJP central leadership weakening
‘When it becomes ‘political’, justice breeds hatred and despair among those it singles out for attack. Those whom it favours, on the other hand, develop a profound contempt for the very value of justice, they know that it can be purchased by the powerful. As a device for strengthening one political group at the expense… Read More Avay Shukla: IT'S TIME TO BE OUTRAGED , MY LORDS
Appalling. That’s the only way to describe the manner in which the proceedings against Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha have been conducted and are being conducted by the police and prosecution till now. In the process, the underbelly of our criminal justice system stands exposed in some respects, and it’s a pretty… Read More Five Questions on the Shameful Proceedings Against Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal. By Madan B. Lokur, former judge of the Supreme Court
Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita outside the gates of Tihar Jail, raising slogans and fists, after a year-long incarceration that saw Narwal denied a chance to meet her ailing father before his death. It was a striking image. It is also a picture we have seen before. Young women coming up against the might of… Read More Indian Express editorial: Look at her
Only a week ago, Yogi Adityanath’s Chief Ministership appeared precarious amid speculations that misgovernance in UP may cost him his job. However his recent blitzkrieg of the media suggests that he may have saved his seat. Full front-page newspaper advertisements claim that he has always been “two steps ahead of the pandemic”. The “Teeka jeet… Read More Bharat Bhushan – Yogi Adityanath and the media: A survival game
In a strongly-worded statement, more than 170 Gujarat cultural personalities, activists and academics have strongly protested against “threats” issued against Gujarati writers in the Gujarat Sahitya Academi journal “Shabdsrushti” through an anonymous writeup under the titled “No, This Is Not a Poem, It Is Misuse of a ‘Poem’ for Anarchy…” Supposedly an editorial, published, ironically on page… Read More Sahitya Akademi's so-called editorial 'death knell' for Gujarati writers' free expression / Litterateurs demand withdrawal of Gujarat Sahitya Akademi editorial
After the truth-shower 