NB: This essay was written nearly 40 years ago, in the aftermath of the 1984 carnage of Sikhs in New Delhi. It was my first attempt at arguing that communalism was India’s version of Nazism, and that it was a singular phenomenon with different religious (and mutually influential) expressions, rather than an arithmetical total of… Read More Communalism in Modern India: A Theoretical Examination (1986)
New Delhi: On Thursday (September 21) night, Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Bidhuri used violent anti-Muslim slurs against his parliament colleague Danish Ali of the Bahujan Samaj Party. Bidhuri’s words were televised as part of the Lok Sabha proceedings. “Yeh ugrawaaadi (militant), yeh aatankwaadi hai (terrorist), ugrawaadi hai, yeh aantankwaadi hai,” Bidhuri can be heard shouting during the… Read More ‘Mullah Terrorist’: BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri Uses Slurs Against BSP MP Danish Ali in Lok Sabha
Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi The sun was setting on a June evening as Hardeep Singh Nijjar walked across the car park of the gurdwara. Nijjar’s day job was as a plumber but this gurdwara, located in the city of Surrey, in Canada’s British Columbia province, was where he dedicated most of his energy. That day he… Read More ‘Very messy’: India-Canada row over Sikh killing causes diplomatic shock waves
A 27-page chapter titled ‘Quality of Accounts and Financial Reporting Practices’ in the CAG’s report number 21 of 2023 shines a light on accounting shenanigans that will leave any private conglomerate and its auditors aghast at the sheer audacity of the sharp practices in central govt accounts R. Suryamurthy, Pinak Ghosh There is something rotten… Read More Auditor General reports central government’s ‘cash diversion’ to unknown repositories
Former students of Vasant Valley School – one of the leading schools in the national capital – have written to its owner, the India Today group, asking it to refrain from what they say is communally polarising programming under the garb of news reportage in the television channels it runs The India Today group has multiple TV… Read More Vasant Valley Alums question India Today Group for Communally Polarising TV News
NB: The USA and UK are stuck in a hypocritical marsh when speaking of violent interventions in foreign countries. Iran and Chile come to mind, not to mention Vietnam, Argentina and Bangladesh. The brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the behest of Western ally Mohammad bin Salman, did not not prevent their arms… Read More If India ordered a murder in Canada, there must be consequences: The Economist
If the Canadian allegations are true, Indian diplomacy may have to pay a price for the provocative policy of ‘Ghar mein ghus ke maarenge’ publicly enunciated by Narendra Modi in 2019 Bharat Bhushan Only a week ago, India’s pro-government media outlets were running news videos with headlines like ‘Why did Indian PM Modi scold Canadian… Read More Desist from recklessness, muscular display
Modi govt’s dogged pursuit of a plan to open forests for commercial plantation began shortly after taking office, documents show. Though it faced pushback for hurting tribal rights and forests, the plan reached a fruition through the recent Forest (Conservation)Act amendment. Tapasya & Nitin Sethi The Modi government persisted in finding ways to open up… Read More Modi govt unlocks forests for business, a pursuit that began in 2015
The question of proper management of elections is raised and analysied in the report below अभी अभी कोर्ट ने चला दिया मोदी के खिलाफ ही केस जल्दी देख लो Association for Democratic Reforms reports on electoral bonds, EVMs etc.
The mindset of the university’s leadership is telling Zainab Firdausi NB: A timely reflection by an ex-student. The article speaks for itself. I will add some remarks about a scenario in which founders make sweeping public statements which subtract from the dignity of the Vice Chancellor and the academic community. To contrapose ‘Bhagat Singh’ with… Read More Ashoka University’s Reluctant Politics
After the truth-shower 