May 3, 2008

Several major developments have taken place of late on the national plane as well as in the international sphere. One such was the working visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New Delhi. Even before the trip it had caught the headlines because of the US’ “advice”, in characteristic Bush-style, that India should take a tough stand on Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, a move that boomeranged with South Block issuing a sharply-worded statement that Washington had least (…)

Inflation is back on the government agenda with a bang. This is natural. What is unusual is the scale and speed of rise in the inflation numbers. In the course of just five weeks or so, the wholesale price based inflation not only breached the comfort level of the target projected by the RBI, namely, four to five per cent, but surged to threaten the almost eight per cent hurdle. Going by the recent trend between the provisional and final numbers, the margin may be in excess of a half (…)

It is difficult to believe that Nirmala Deshpande—Didi to all of us—is no more.
She was, of course, a Gandhian by conviction and practice and spent long years with Acharya Vinoba Bhave (who regarded her as his manaskanya) having joined his bhoodan movement 56 years ago, in 1952. Yet she left an indelible imprint not on the Gandhian or bhoodan movements but on the polity through her efforts to heal the wounds in Kashmir and Gujarat, fight the communal forces and bridge the India-Pakistan (…)

The Union Government, according to press reports, has woken up to the urgent need for firm measures for the protection of the Harijans. The Bihar Chief Minister, it has been publicised, has been telephonically pulled up to see to it that there was no further recurrence of bloody attacks on the Harijans in which the police so far has taken to the bystander’s indifference.
Such admonitions, however welcome, can by no means meet the forbidding challenge of the rural rich attacking the rural (…)

– “We have broken the backbone of the inhabitants of Nandigram. There will be no further resistance there.” —Lakshman Seth, CPI-M Member of Parliament, to the Chief Minister of West Bengal (Reported in Dainik Satesman, Kolkata, of April 27, 2008)
We are passing through difficult times. Radharani Ari of Nandigram has been raped. Those believing in the politics of negating the truth by its repeated denial have got into the act. That rape had occurred on March 14 at Nandigram was earlier (…)

Not much evidence remains of the alleged gangrape of Ms Radharani Ari because of the time lost in prosecuting the case. Still there should be an investigation into what happened and why no enquiry has been held. The appropriate authorities are the National Commission for Women and National Human Rights Commission.
The woman herself asks the Chief Minister of West Bengal: “How many times will your cadres rape me? The CPI-M men entered my house at about 2 pm (on April 14). I knew them. (…)

May 1 is the International Working People’s Day. On this occasion we are carrying the following article.
Historical Background
Before understanding the emerging trends in Indian trade union movement, it would of interest to understand the historical context in which unions functioned during the first four decades in the post-independence period. During the freedom movement, trade unions were patronised by political parties and the freedom movement helped trade unions to be recognised as (…)

What sustains the separatist movement in Kashmir is a certain measure of popular alienation among Kashmiri-speaking Muslims of the State; this is not a result of external factors alone but for which internal causes are also responsible.
The exceptionally long recorded history of the land locked Valley of Kashmir and its proverbial beauty had created a strong urge for Kashmiri identity. According to the popular perception of history, Kashmir had been enslaved by outside rulers for the last (…)

Of late Anand Karaj, ‘the Ceremonial Bliss’, has been a great deal in the news. A few weeks ago Pakistan gave it legal sanction for the first time after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. And now Punjab (India) has recognised it by passing the Anand Marriage Act mandating compulsory registration of marriages for which an elaborate infrastructure has been provided.
Anand Karaj is the prescribed Sikh ritual before a couple is declared husband and wife and recognised by the society (…)

A new round of negotiations between the Government of India and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) was held in Delhi on April 16, at which it was decided that the next round would take place next month, for which no dates were fixed.
The negotiations are over the Constitution. The NSCN has a constitution of its own. The attempt is to adjust or make changes in it to bring it closer to make it a part of the Indian Constitution. This is a difficult task and will take a many (…)