October 4, 2008

With the economic crisis in the United States refusing to be defused, latest reports from Washington show that top Congressional and White House officials, stunned by the House of Representatives’ 228-205 rejection of a massive $ 700 billion rescue plan for the US economy on September 29, are desperately trying to structure a new, revised bailout proposal. Meanwhile PM Manmohan Singh (who could not witness the full materialisation of his pet project—the Indo-US civilian nuclear (…)

The Delhi bombings resulting in horrible killings have understandably caused righteous indignation at the almost total failure of the intelligence machinery. The Prime Minister has commendably scotched the idea of a federal agency accepting frankly that in view of bombings having taken place under the so-called watchful eye of the Central agencies, the fight against terrorism requires the involvement of States as equal partners especially in the light of the autonomy of States under our (…)

Some people who come to me say that the country needs Mahatma Gandhi again. As a freedom fighter I feel that last time the partition of India and formation of Pakistan took place because of Muslim communalism but this time it is Hindu communalism that is leading us to a division of the country. The way the Jammu agitation was conducted, the road to Kashmir blockaded and buses going to Muslim areas attacked gave rise to mass anger of Muslims in Kashmir and this reached such a height that the (…)

The following editorial of N.C. was published in the October 4, 1969 issue of Mainstream marking the birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi. It is being reproduced on the occasion of Gandhiji’s one hundred and thirtyninth birth anniversary (October 2, 2008). Several other articles on the Father of the Nation and his relevance today are also being carried in this issue. —Editor
The birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi is not an occasion for rejoicing but for sorrow that the people of India (…)

The following article, which appeared in Mainstream Annual 1988, was an abridged version of the author’s article in Employment News from where it was reproduced with due acknowledgement.
Gandhiji was a good man and his greatness grew out of his goodness. His dream was that India too should become great (if it was destined to become great) through the steady, conscious pursuit of goodness, not through muscular, monetary, mental, military or any other power. It is true that no man in history (…)

The question why Gandhiji was never chosen for the Nobel Prize came to the fore again when Geir Lundestad, the permanent Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, after the announcement of the 2006 award to Muhammad Yunus and the Gramin Bank of Bangladesh, observed, “Our record is far from perfect and not giving Mahatma Gandhi the Nobel Prize was the biggest omission”.1 A candid admission indeed! On an earlier occasion, a similar sentiment was expressed by Equil Aarvik, the Chairman of the (…)

An interesting and significant aspect of the freedom movement in India was that along with the struggle against colonial rule, vigorous efforts were made to find an alternative path of development. While several people in India were eager to ‘develop’ as much as the British and later some others wanted to industrialise as rapidly as the Soviets, there were others who kept alive the concept of small and cottage-scale development to be based in largely self-reliant rural communities.
This (…)

“Instead of pursuing the truth we should try to pave the way for construction of the truth.” F.W. Nietzsche1
“Truth is not something which might be found or discovered, but something that must be created”. F.W. Nietzsche2
“We have to live today by what we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood”. William James3
“It has no relevance for saying or judging what is truth or just”. Jean Francois Lyotard4
With the postmodern turn, Truth became a dirty word, and (…)

After intense political debate it has been decided that for the first time in the 218-year old US democracy a Black will be contesting for the prestigious presidential elections. Is it out of blue that the world’s “most developed democracy”, the US, is going to choose its first Black President or is this a new stage in the evolution of US democracy? If the latter is true, then US democracy is moving up and reaching a higher level. This means it has created an atmosphere in which the excluded (…)

The following is the report of a team (set up by Jan Hastakshep, Campaign against Fascist Designs and People’s Union for Democratic Rights) which undertook a fact-finding exercise into the alleged encounter at Batla House in the Capital’s Jamia Nagar on September 19, 2008. The following is the report of the fact-finding team which carried out the exercise on September 21, 2008. The members of team were Dr N.K Bhattacharya (Jan Hastakshep), Shahana Bhattacharya (PUDR), Ish Misra (Jan (…)