Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
WEST BENGAL ELECTIONS: ANOTHER SETBACK FOR INDIAN COMMUNIST MOVEMENT
Daya Varma
After over 30 years of continuous rule in West Bengal, the Left Front (LF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM was defeated in the May 2011 Assembly elections; it had 235 seats in 2006 and won only 62 in 2011. As expected, the victor Mamata Banerjee is jubilant. But others, especially independent leftists and Naxalite parties are jubilant too and that reveals the state of the left in India more than the jubilation in the ranks of Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee. This is because a setback in any communist formation can never be a harbinger of the blossoming of another.
ANNIVERSARY: WHAT IF PAKISTAN DID NOT HAVE THE BOMB?
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now? Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has spent the last few years confined by the Pakistan Army to one of his palatial Islamabad residences where he whiles away his days writing weekly columns in newspapers. This venerable metallurgist, who claims paternity rights over Pakistan’s bomb, says it alone saves Pakistan. In a recent article, he wistfully wrote: “If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country – present-day Bangladesh – after disgraceful defeat.”
BHAGWAN SATYA SAI: FAITH MARGINALIZES REASON
Ram Puniyani
India is the richest source of god men and women. Although most of them bless America, Satya Sai Baba controlled the world from his Indian base. His following was so huge that Indian Prime Minister and the Congress leader Sonia Gandhi made a trip to pay their last respects. Here Ram Puniyani examines this phenomenon.
MADHYA PRADESH: SHADOWS OF HINDU RASHTRA
Ram Puniyani
Madhya Pradesh is being ruled by the BJP Government from last several years. This is one state where BJP and its erstwhile avatar, Bharatiya Jansangh had a good deal of following in the past also. During last few years one has seen with the BJP Government in the saddle, the state is imposing the norms which are intimidating to minorities, the BJP associates have become more assertive, state is promoting the outright Hindu culture, and it is also the place where the terror component of RSS affiliates has been having its dens at various places in the state.
NEPAL: NEED FOR WORKABLE COMPROMISE
Prashant Jha
The next few days will offer an opportunity to Nepal’s political class to re-engineer the political consensus that has been missing since the 2008 elections. The latest news is that a compromise has been reached that will allow the current Constituent Assembly to complete the task of writing the Constitution.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Osama bin Laden, the figurehead king of al Qaeda, is gone. His hosts are still rubbing their eyes and wondering how it all happened. Although scooped up from Pakistani soil, shot in the head and then buried at sea, the event was not announced by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani or by President Asif Ali Zardari. Instead, it was the president of the United States of America who told the world that bin Laden’s body was in the custody of US forces.
OSMA bin LADEN
Javed Anand
Behind the ugly reality there’s poetic justice. Osama bin Laden was finally bearded in the world’s most happening terror den: Pakistan. Osama is no more but who does not know that the cult of violence that he practiced and preached in Islam’s name is alive and kicking in Pakistan like nowhere else. This column, however, is about Osama’s unintended gift to post-9/11 Islam.
TROUBLE BREWS AT EFLU OVER BEEF IN MENU
(TNN | May 3, 2011)
Hyderabad: The beef row on English and Foreign Languages University (Eflu) campus intensified on Monday. While Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists maintained that they would attack anyone who cooks beef on campus, a large group of students lead by Dalit Adivasi Bahujan Minority Students’ Association (DABMSA) and Telangana Students’ Association, said that they will continue the agitation till beef gets accepted in the hostel food guide.
A CASE FOR BEEF EATING
Sadanand
Beef was on the menu of Vedic Savarnas (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya). They even ate venison, horse (Ashwamedh Yagna), fowls, and other animals, which were first offered as sacrifice (Naivedya) to Vedic deities.
A LIST OF DALIT STUDENTS COMMITTING SUICIDE IN LAST FOUR YEARS IN INDIA’S PREMIER INSTITUTIONS
Anoop Kumar
Here is the list of the Dalit students who have committed suicide in last four years.
VETERAN INDO-CANADIAN MPS DEFEATED IN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Daya Varma
The parliamentary elections in Canada were held on May 2, 2011. The incumbent conservative Prime Minister who had been leading a minority government for seven years finally won a majority. More South Asian candidates contested this election than ever before. In general candidates of the New Democratic Party (NDP) have left orientation; candidates of the other two parties, Conservatives and Liberal, have no defined politics.
WE DEMAND A PERMANENT BAN ON ENDOSULFAN IN INDIA
(Press release: 27 April 2011)
Many pesticides are dangerous and Endosulfan tops the list. Why is it allowed in India when it has been banned in many countries?
IS THE REPORT OF THE UNSG’S PANEL OF EXPERTS A CONSPIRACY AND OBSTACLE TO RECONCILIATION?
Statement by concerned Christians on UN panel on accountability in Sri Lanka
Monday 25 April 2011 (South Asia Citizens Web)
In the past weeks, we as Christians have been reflecting on the torture, killing of Jesus by the rulers of that time, with complicity of high priests of the time, due to Jesus’s efforts to stand by the poor and oppressed and bring them good news of liberation. Our reflections had been taking into account the situation in our country today and we had noted the controversy surrounding the report of the panel of experts of the UN Secretary General related to the war in Sri Lanka.
INDIAN JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI FINALLY DISCARDS ITS LONGSTANDING PRETENCE OF BEING A BENIGN RELIGIO-CULTURAL ORGANISATION
Sahil Khan
Late last week, amidst much fanfare, a new political party, styling itself the ‘Welfare Party of India’, was launched in New Delhi. It is the brainchild of India’s foremost Islamist outfit, the Jamaat-e Islami Hind, and most of its top office-bearers are senior Jamaat leaders. Politics is, however, not new to the Jamaat at all, for the Jamaat’s ideology is itself based on a distinctly political interpretation of Islam. It is premised on the centrality of the notion of the ‘Islamic state’, without which, it insists, Islam is ‘incomplete’. Bringing the whole world under the rule of such a state or states, styled as the Caliphate, is central to the Jamaat’s vision of Islam.
INVITATION TO A CONSULTATION ON THE PREVENTION OF COMMUNAL AND TARGETTED VIOLENCE BILL
(30 May, Monday, J.P.Naik Bhavan, Kalina Campus, 3-6.30 p.m.)
BOOK REVIEW: PEOPLE WITHOUT HISTORY: INDIA’S MUSLIM GHETTOS
Authors: Jeremy Seabrook & Imran Ahmed Siddiqui
Published by: Navayana Publishing, New Delhi, 2011 (Pages: 257; Price: Rs. 295
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com
BOOK REVIEW: GOLDHAGEN’S INSINCERE ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN ELIMINATIONIST POLICY
Dr. Habib Siddiqui (26 April, 2011; Countercurrents.org)
Book Review: Worse Than War by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Public Affairs, New York (2009), First edition, 658 pages.
HISTORY AND HEARTBREAK: THE LETTERS OF ROSA LUXEMBURG
Vivian Gornick
Rosa Luxemburg was an exemplary revolutionary. Many feel if her ways were followed the atrocities committed by Stalin would not have happened. Lenin disagreed with almost everything Rosa Luxemburg said and yet in defending her he invoked the Russian Fable “Eagles may at times fly lower than hens, but hens can never rise to the height of eagles.” This note by Gornick on Luxemburg is not only historically important, but relevant now in the present political context.
PUBLIC MEETING ON KASHMIR
June 3, 2011 (15.00-19.00 h) at Dy Speaker Hall (Constitution Club) Rafi Marg, New Delhi.
An attempt to understand and share the grief