NB: Our establishment is more concerned about India’s image than about the reality of Indian life, the reality of shambolic mis-governance. Incidentally, the word image – a favourite with our media and politicians, means appearance, a perception, something other than the reality. Why are we so bothered about our ‘image’? Why not change social reality rather than… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Fixing India's global image
There was something incongruous about the moment when I read the news on April 8 that the district court in Varanasi had directed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a study of the Gyanvapi Mosque. This day also happened to be Kumar Gandharva’s birth anniversary. It was hard to resist playing his composition in… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta – Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute
Two recent events suggest that the Indian Republic could be hurtling down a slippery slope. Both relate to Uttar Pradesh but have national consequences. One is the Varanasi court judgement opening up the Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Mosque dispute. The other comes from adjoining Allahabad where the High Court has red-flagged the misuse of the National Security Act.… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Burden of bigotry may break Indian democracy's back
The new wave will hurt global efforts and vaccine supplies, experts say. Researchers are scrambling to assess whether new coronavirus variants are playing a role in India. When the coronavirus first struck India last year, the country enforced one of the world’s strictest national lockdowns. The warning was clear: A fast spread in a population of… Read More The New York Times: Complacency and Missteps Deepen a Covid-19 Crisis in India
NB: “The criterion which makes the difference between a great man and a popular one consists in the great man’s searching for what is nobly human in the masses, to raise them by its means, whereas a merely popular man looks for what is low and brutal so as to raise himself”.. Rabbi J.S. Bloch; My… Read More Sankarshan Thakur: Bengal is in the throes of unalloyed bigotry
First posted February 19, 2020 NB: Premen Addy passed away on January 15, 2020, coincidentally exactly a year after the death of my old friend and comrade Rabindra Ray. He was my kaka – my late father E.J. Simeon‘s maternal cousin. His father, Kiron Chandra Addy, was my granduncle, whom my father had nicknamed ‘Mejo’. He was… Read More In Memoriam. Premen Addy PhD; June 26, 1938 – January 15, 2020
In 2016 France and India signed a 7.8-billion-euro deal for the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters made by French defence group Dassault. Mediapart can reveal that, alongside this controversial deal, Dassault also agreed to pay one million euros to a middleman who is now under investigation in India in connection with another defence deal.… Read More YANN PHILIPPIN – Sale of French Rafale jet fighters to India: how a state scandal was buried
Amritsar: Strongly opposing the move to suppress minorities in India, including the Sikhs, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex body controlling gurdwaras, passed a resolution condemning the alleged moves made by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) to make the country a “Hindu rashtra”. It also called on the Central government to work for the… Read More SGPC Passes Resolution Against RSS for 'Trying To Make' India a Hindu Rashtra
“The virus seems to have become more transmissible in the second wave. We are admitting entire families who are infected. We are also seeing a lot of young people, aged below 40, getting sick,” says Dr Kalantri. India’s tally of recorded coronavirus cases exceeds 12 million, the third-highest in the world behind the US and… Read More Soutik Biswas: Coronavirus update: India is facing a 'severe, intensive' second wave
First posted March 29, 2021 NB: The authorities of a self-respecting university or college are expected to defend their staff and students. That was the case, anyway, when I was a student over 50 years ago. But Ashoka’s Founders were so infuriated by Professor Mehta’s criticisms of the Modi government that they not only pushed him… Read More Mukul Kesavan: An Ashoka for our time / Navneet Sharma & Prakrati Bhargava: No space for liberal education
After the truth-shower 