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).
EDITORIAL: THE NATION’S TRAJECTORY
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Modi’s gyrations in the U.S. in the company of assorted tech tycoons in Silicon Valley exhibit his desperation to connect with his followers and cheerleaders, who now seem to be mostly in the diaspora, as a way of compensating for his lackluster performance at home. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft executives are embracing him because their markets at home are saturating and they are looking for other opportunities to make money. It is interesting that the rosier accounts of his trip are all in the Indian media, which is still in thrall to him, while the mainstream U.S. press appears to have mostly ignored him. Read more…
WALK BEFORE YOU SPRINT
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
India doesn’t need M-governance or e-governance. It needs governance. India doesn’t need smart cities. Just cities that Europe and America would recognise as such. Read more…
ON THE NEPAL CONSTITUTION
THE adoption of a federal, democratic and secular Constitution in Nepal is a historic occasion. The protracted struggle of the Nepalese people against feudal authoritarianism and for democracy has culminated in the establishment of a federal, democratic and secular state. Eight years after the interim Constitution, after a tortuous political process, the Constituent Assembly voted overwhelmingly (507 out of 601) to approve the Constitution. We congratulate the people of Nepal, the three major political parties – the Nepali Congress, the CPN(UML) and the UCPN(M) – and all democratic forces for this significant achievement. Read more…
FOR SANATAN SANSTHA, NATION IS GOD’S KINGDOM
Shruti Ganapatye
Emphasising that spirituality is the base for everything, the Sanatan Sanstha has envisioned religious rule in the country, which according to it is the best solution to “all ongoing problems”. The organisation in its literature has stated the current electoral system in the country — according to them — has “no place in Indian culture”. Read more…
LOOKING AT THE PAST: JAUNDICED VIEWS
Ram Puniyani
Using the jaundiced version of the past is one of the biggest tools of communal forces. The prevalence of hatred towards ‘other’ communities is rooted in the versions of past which are part carry over from the past legacy introduced by British and part constructed by the communalists, who in turn ‘select’ the incidents and distort it in such a way so as to fit in their scheme of things. The same incident may be interpreted from opposite angles by competing communal ideology. Read more…
CORBYN AND DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM
M K Bhadrakumar
An extraordinary thing happened in the Left politics in Britain and in the southern State of Kerala last week. There are similarities and dissimilarities between what happened in the two situations so far apart. But it gives much food for thought for all Leftist workers and their leaders as well as the fellow-travellers of the Left in India. Read more…
WOMEN’S VOICES FROM ATALI
Dr. Sandhya Mhatre and Neha Dabhade
A fact finding team consisting of Adv. Irfan Engineer, and these writers, visited the riot torn village of Atali and dwelled into the causes, contentions and nuanced positions of different stakeholders after two bouts of violence on 25th May and 1st July 2015 in the village. Read more…
PATEL-PATIDAR AGITATION
Ghanshyam Shah is a sociologist known for his work on social movements, land reforms and untouchability. Over the past decade, he has been examining the Gujarat model of development and its human costs. A keen observer of deprivation and development in India, he has closely followed the socio-economic transitions of Gujarat. Read more…
IN MY RELIGION, MEAT IS MA KALI’S PRASAD’: A SHAKTO HINDU OBJECTS TO ENFORCED VEGETARIANISM
Garga Chatterjee
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will enforce a two-day ban on the sale of meat and shut its slaughter-house during the Jain festival of Paryushan. Gurgaon in Haryana also has such a ban. Thankfully, I live in the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, where chickens, goats and cows can be slaughtered all the time and sold throughout the city without sensitivities being ruffled. However, the meat bans put into place in several other Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in response to the demands of their political backers are worrisome to my faith and me. Read more…
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE WITHIN THE SANGH PARIVAR
Irfan Engineer
Our PM Narendra Modi travels across the globe soliciting global capital to make in India and announces various deals making India a very attractive destination for multinational capital to earn its dream profits. Read more…
WHEN IT COMES TO INDIAN HISTORY, AMAR CHITRA KATHA IS THE NEW NORMAL: VISITING THE ‘RIG VEDA TO ROBOTICS’ EXHIBITION
Kai Friese
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi departed on his latest foreign mission to spread the word about Digital India in Silicon Valley, I embarked on a more nostalgic excursion to visit Rabindra Bhavan, one of the landmarks of Nehruvian modernism in New Delhi. My intended mission was one of architectural curiosity but I stumbled instead into the wormhole of an exhibit recently inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, Mahesh Sharma in Rabindra Bhavan’s art galleries. It was entitled Cultural Continuity from Rig Veda to Robotics. Read more…
GHADAR ALLIANCE STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO IMPENDING VISIT BY PRIME MINISTER MODI TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
San Francisco, CA
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, visits the San Francisco Bay area this weekend and is being celebrated by sections of the Indian diaspora. Mr. Modi was banned from entry into the United States from 2005 to 2014 on the stated grounds of “assaults on religious freedom” in connection with the 2002 Gujarat massacres, and now visits the country owing to his diplomatic status. Read more…
‘IT IS WITH THESE MEN ALONE THAT THE GATES OF HEAVEN SHALL OPEN FOR ME’
Anirban Mitra
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the pan-continental attempts by Indian revolutionaries to launch an armed revolt against the British Read more…
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