Anand K. Sahay To understand the direction in which the country is being propelled by the powers that be, we should consider the recent no-confidence motion debate in the Lok Sabha (August 8-10, 2023) not in isolation, but in the context of the happenings of the past fortnight or so, and a likely scenario for… Read More Ahead of the 2024 Elections, the BJP-RSS Is Setting the Ideological Stage
First posted August 11, 2012 Closing the Circle I look at the world and I notice it’s turningWhile my guitar gently weepsWith every mistake we must surely be learningStill my guitar gently weeps George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangladesh; August 1, 1971 Introduction I look at the world and I notice it’s… Read More Closing the Circle (Frontier, August 2012)
http://www.reporters-collective.in Picture this: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during an election rally in the remote corner of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, speaks about his dream of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. A BJP-friendly NRI businessman sitting in the US with no background in farming or agriculture has a brain wave. He writes a letter with a… Read More NRI Businessman Seeded Idea of Corporatising Agriculture
A former Additional Superintendent of Police in the Manipur police department has levelled the most damaging charge against Chief Minister Biren Singh – that he is not fighting the illegal drug trade and illegal poppy cultivation but “He is part of it. He is part of the drug cartel. He is protecting them. He is… Read More Damaging Charge Against CM Biren Singh: Protecting Drug Lords
The connivance of the state and Union government in letting the violence spiral out of control and not adequately utilising the available instruments of the central government, especially the Army and the Assam Rifles, seems deliberate, irresponsible and extremely dangerous in terms of national security. LT GENERAL PRAKASH MENON The Assam Rifles is a central paramilitary force… Read More Vilification of Assam Rifles is a calculated move for revenge
Ramachandra Guha In his landmark book, Dennis Dalton had originally examined the approaches of Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and Tagore. In the early 1980s, while a doctoral student in Calcutta, I read a brilliant essay by the American scholar, Dennis Dalton, on the evolution of Gandhi’s views on caste. This was published in an edited volume… Read More As our 76th Independence Day approaches, revisiting ‘Indian Ideas of Freedom’
Deepanshu Mohan Waves of parliamentary theatrics define the disjointed operative functionalities of Indian democracy. For watchers and observers of session proceedings, repetitive adjournments, an ecosystem of chaos, protests in and outside the chambers of the house, bias and favouritism among House speakers against opposition party parliamentarians have all become a part of an unusual norm.… Read More What the 2023 Monsoon Session of Parliament Tells Us About the State of Governance
Impoverishment, greed, and disaffection, he says, are engendered when the king: 1/ ignores the good [people] and favours the wicked; 2/ causes harm by new unrighteous practices; 3/ neglects the observation of the proper and righteous practices; 4/ suppresses dharma and propagates adharma; 5/ does what ought not to be done and fails to do… Read More Kautilya’s observations on the causes of discontent in a polity
Here are some recent exposes of recent happenings; aside from corrupt practices over the years. Not much is reported of it on mainstream media. Now there are calls for the arrest of independent journalists Derek O’Brien takes a snipe at PM Modi Modi Reality & INDIA : मोदी इकोनॉमी की फाइल खुली..तो पलट जायेगी बाज़ी… Read More Corruption and Fraud / Auditor General of India calls out massive financial irregularities
Ananya Bhattacharya “Why does she talk like that?” Snigger, a look of disdain, another snigger, and a few thinly-veiled laughs. It was Jadavpur University, circa 2011. I had asked an autorickshawala, “8B jaba? (Will you go to 8B?)” ‘Jaba’ was my colloquial Cooch Behar Bangla that slipped out in a stray moment. The Kolkata word… Read More Through hell and back in Jadavpur University
After the truth-shower 