Column

In the din of hysteria created around the military action on LOC, which was in response to the killing of 18 Indian army jawans in Uri, the issue of anguish of people of Kashmir has been undermined. As such India-Pakistan skirmishes (September 2016) are mostly centered on the issue of Kashmir. On one side India’s claim is that Kashmir is the inseparable part of India and no power on the Earth can

Today, nearly a decade later when we are remember with pain the horrific violence of Kandhmal in 2008, many issues related to the state of affairs of communal violence, state of minorities, the state of justice delivery system come to one’s mind. The incident Just to recall, Orissa witnessed unprecedented violence against the Christian minority in August 2008. On August 23, 2008, Swami Laxmananand

An old controversy resurfaced lately. After the alleged denial of government jobs to candidates linked to the RSS, Minister of State in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, said last week that “the central government has not issued any such order (prohibiting government staff from joining RSS activities) recently”, and “if any old order exists, we will review it.” (16 June, 2016) RSS Prachar Pramukh Manmohan

Communal violence is the big bane of Indian society. While on one hand the innocents are killed the guilty mostly get away without any punishment. The rate of prosecution of riot cases is very low. Even where punishments are meted out the big fish are let off while the foot soldiers get punished. Apart from these observations what is popularized and what has become part of the ‘social common sense

Can there be two type of Justice delivery system in the same country? This question came to one’s mind with the U turn taken by NIA in the cases related to terror acts in which many Hindu names were involved. Now the NIA in a fresh charge sheet (May 13, 2016) has dropped the charges against Pragya Singh Thakur, has lightened the ones against Col Purohit and others. Along with this new line of NIA

History is always subject of debates for various reasons. The one which cropped up recently around Bhagat Singh had a new dimension to ‘looking at the past’. This relates to changed perception of a word in the context of current global terrorism. In one of the talk shows, which is the noisiest of them all, the anchor attacked legendary historian Bipan Chandra and the book ‘India’s struggle for

Towards the end of 2015 many a writers and accomplished eminent citizens returned their national honors; protesting against the growing atmosphere of intolerance. The list was long and this acted as a process where some introspection took place in the society. Still the ruling dispensation and its associates in the Hindu right wing politics, the RSS combine, began criticizing those who returned

The issues related to our educational institutions-patriotism started coming up to the fore with this Government coming to power (May 2014). One after the other news of Government intervention in different institutions, more so the nationally well known ones started disturbing us. There was the case of IIT Madras where Periyar Ambedkar Study Circle was banned. Then IIT Bombay Director Prof

Today in India the gulf between religious communities is widening at a rapid pace. The ‘Hate other ideologies’ abound and are percolating down to the social levels at dangerous pace. As such India is a plural, multi-religious society, where diverse people have been living together for centuries. The Ganga Jamuna Tehjeeb, the mixed culture present in our society gets manifested in its food habits

The national scene is being dominated by the current debate ‘you must chant Barat Mata ki jai’ to prove your nationalism. This was preceded by the ‘Anti national' abuse being hurled on all those showing dissent with the present regime. These two major issues have been propped up in the recent times and these are trying to undermine the core issue of the state’s onslaught on University autonomy