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).
PAKISTAN-INDIA PEACE: NO ALTERNATIVE TO DIALOGUE
Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma
As soon as Nawaz Sharif was elected to power in the first democratic transition in Pakistan history last May, he evinced a desire for better relations with India. The media in India, which, with a few honorable exceptions, has lately become a loud right-wing echo-chamber, regarded this as some kind of a dastardly trick. More attention instead has been focused on the BJP leaders’ bellicose calls to give a “fitting response” to Pakistan, or on the words of Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, to cut-off the heads of ten Pakistani soldiers for each decapitated Indian jawan. Read more…
JUDICIARY AND POLITICS: JUDGMENT AGAINST LALU YADAV
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
INSAF Bulletin has argued in the past that the political problems of India cannot be fixed by the judiciary. The independence of the judiciary is undoubtedly important in a democracy. But the judiciary is not expected to replace or dominate the parliament, which alone should have the power to make laws. If it does so, it becomes like the civilian equivalent of military rule. Read more…
NARENDRA MODI’S RANT AT HIS DELHI RALLY
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
September 29 was a special day in Delhi. Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had done its utmost to organize the first show case rally to launch Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate and had expected over 500,000 people to attend. However, according to Indian papers, the size of the crowd was closer to 100,000, far short of BJP’s expectations. Read more…
COULD MODI BE GROUNDED BEFORE TAKE OFF?
Saeed Naqvi
Recently, the Indian Express published two news items on the same page. Read more…
ATROCITIES THAT NO LONGER SHOCK THE HINDU
Kalpana Kannabiran
While the Delhi rape incident saw mass protests for justice, crimes against Dalits hardly evoke such outrage, which is why the killers (of Dalits) in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre have got away. Read more…
AAM AADAMI PARTY (AAP): URBAN MIDDLE CLASS ASSERTION
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
Dr. Manmohan Singh did not patent the term “Aam Admi (common man)’. So this attractive phrase got usurped by the burgeoning middle class of India and NRIs (nonresident Indians). The choice of a broom as its symbol and a cap as insignia makes AAP an impressive new entrant on the political scene of India. Read more…
WHAT AILS NATIONAL INTEGRATION COUNCIL?
Ram Puniyani
The meeting of National Integration Council (NIC) on 23rd September (2013) was a damp squib. Held in the aftermath of Muzaffarnagar violence and in the times when the next Parliamentary elections are on the horizon, one expected some concrete proposals and actions which Government could have discussed and brought in as a voluntary code for all to follow. The major point which was highlighted was the role of social media in exaggerating the violence. The underlying cause of the role of media was not much highlighted. Read more…
MODI’S GUJARAT ‘LESS DEVELOPED’ STATE
Ram Puniyani
Raghuram Rajan report on overall performance of all 28 states in the country suggests that Gujarat lags behind six Congress ruled states including Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala. Read more…
INDIA: MUZAFFARNAGAR – A CASE OF ’INSTITUTIONALISED RIOT SYSTEMS’
Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
(Presented at a seminar organized by Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) on “Reportage of Sensitive Issues like Muzzaffarnagar Riots, Caste Conflicts and Sexual Assaults against Women”.) Read more…
THE CHILLING FAMILIARITY OF MUZAFFARNAGAR
Farah Naqvi
Riot follows riot with sickening regularity but there is only a deathly silence on a draft bill to fix accountability for communal violence and guarantee justice and compensation to victims. Read more…
FORMAL VERSUS SUBSTANTIVE JUSTICE: Home Minister Shinde’s letter
Ram Puniyani
In his letter to all the Chief Ministers, the Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde wrote (30 September, 2013), that Government has been receiving complaints of harassment of innocent Muslim youth by Law enforcement agencies. He asked the state authorities to ensure that no innocent Muslim youth should be arrested or wrongfully detained in the name of terror. The letter also suggests that if such wrongful act has been done it should be duly compensated. Read more…
LOVE JIHAD: FROM ILLUSORY SLOGAN TO POTENT WEAPON
Ram Puniyani
The country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffarnagar violence (October 2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated, engineered earlier on various issues like Cow slaughter, Babri demolition, ‘sexual assault on ‘our women’, amongst others. The primary weapon used to communalize this region was the community honor. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ was made the central part of propaganda. While other factors like role of Sangh Parivar components in uploading the (fabricated) video clip, in mobilizing the Hindus in the name of Bahu-Beti Bachao, have been discussed, one needs also to look at the way this ‘saving our daughters’, or Love Jihad, from the Muslims, had operated in the area. Read more…
THE DEATH OF A HERO AND THE BIRTH OF A REVOLUTION
Sam Noumoff
In the early days of October news was released of the death of General Vo Nguyen Giap, at the age of 102. Second in reverence only to Ho Chi Min, General Giap came to symbolize the success of what has come to be more recently defined as asymmetrical warfare. At the outset of the modern Viet Nam independence struggle the Viet Minh numbered in the hundreds and increased from small scale guerilla units to more conventional large scale battle formations defeating in turn the French colonial occupation forces and the mighty United States and its neo-colonial puppets. Read more…
NEWS BRIEFS AND COMMENTS
UNITED GOVERNMENT EFFORTS GREATLY MINIMIZE CYCLONE EFFECT
Timely warning, evacuation of nearly one million people and deployment of rescue teams by the provincial and central governments reduced death toll from cyclone Phailin to 23. The cyclone mainly hit coastal Andhra Pradesh and Odisha (former Orissa). Read more…
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