Tag: current affairs – India

Bharat Bhushan: Media persecution in J&K is a misguided venture

The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) administration and the security forces are doing themselves a great disservice by creating an extremely coercive eco-system for journalists in the Union Territory (UT). Those administering the UT are rapidly losing out on the critical feedback that could make the system more stable. An apocryphal story amongst journalists in Srinagar… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Media persecution in J&K is a misguided venture

Dilip

The Kashmir Files

NB: Here are two reviews of The Kashmir Files, with different interpretations. Readers are welcome to their own conclusions. Since this is a matter I have spoken and written about for many years, I attach below a selection of my posts beneath the reviews, without further comment. DS The Kashmir Files: Cinema As Testimony. Siddhartha Gigoo K-Files… Read More The Kashmir Files

Dilip

P. B. Mehta on the March 2022 assembly election results / Punjab: Cong, SAD, BJP register worst-ever performance

The results of the five assembly elections are a further consolidation of the momentous changes in Indian politics over the last decade. The results in UP are a spectacular win for the BJP, consolidating its power and ideological hegemony over Indian politics. It sends a plain and simple message: Politics, in the end, is a game… Read More P. B. Mehta on the March 2022 assembly election results / Punjab: Cong, SAD, BJP register worst-ever performance

Dilip

Press Release: Commemorating Two Years of the Northeast Delhi Communal Riots

This February marks two years of the communal carnage that shook several localities of Northeast Delhi. To mark the carnage, and take forward the much-needed discourse on the lives of the victims, a group of concerned citizens and organisations – comprising National Federation of Indian Women (NIFW), All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Constitutional Conduct… Read More Press Release: Commemorating Two Years of the Northeast Delhi Communal Riots

Dilip

‘A flashy theme park’: outcry over Modi’s plans for the Gandhi ashram

Like most things in Mahatma Gandhi’s life, his ashram in the Indian city of Ahmedabad was simple and austere. Yet between 1917 and 1930, these modest white bungalows, set on the bank of the Sabarmati river in the state of Gujarat, were the beating heart of Gandhi’s non-violent freedom struggle against British rule and his… Read More ‘A flashy theme park’: outcry over Modi’s plans for the Gandhi ashram

Dilip

Police in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh accused of unlawful killings

According to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the scene emerged, so too did suspicions. The 22-year-old man, Altaf, was 165cm (5ft 5in) tall and… Read More Police in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh accused of unlawful killings

Dilip

Andhra Pradesh: Fisherpeoples' Protest Compel Stoppage of Mangrove Destruction

  Gogannamattam Village (16°26’23.67″N, 81°57’3.13″E) located on the bank of Vainatheya which is a tributary of River Godavari. On the west side of the village flows river Vainatheya which opens up at nearby coast into Bay of Bengal. This creates a unique estuary from the coast where large area of Mangrove patches was formed. On… Read More Andhra Pradesh: Fisherpeoples' Protest Compel Stoppage of Mangrove Destruction

Dilip

Javed Anand: What is at stake in the hijab issue

Secularists must support rights of Muslims in an increasingly Islamophobic world, but they should be wary of strengthening the Muslim right in the process. To make sense of the contradictory voices within the community of secular-minded Indians on the raging hijab controversy, we would do well to recall a decades-old remark, in another context, of… Read More Javed Anand: What is at stake in the hijab issue

Dilip

Bharat Bhushan: Verbal abuse of political opponents part of a larger malaise

So long as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma kept a low profile, he was seen as an emerging leader from Assam. However, with political success he has turned into a profligate commentator and revealed himself as incapable of civilised political discourse. His comments on Rahul Gandhi’s parentage normally should not be worthy of public… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Verbal abuse of political opponents part of a larger malaise

Dilip