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).
MAY DAY GREETINGS TO ALL OUR READERS!
EDITORIAL: HINDUTVA’S EVOLUTION – FROM CRIMINAL TO PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR
Vinod Mubayi
The drugging, torture, rape, and eventual killing of the little 8-year old girl child Asifa in the Kathua region of Jammu is a crime of such extreme depravity as to literally stagger the imagination. The fact that the premeditated criminal act was planned, perpetrated and executed by a retired government functionary aided by his relatives and a few policemen and carried out inside the confines of a Devisthan (the local Hindu temple) compounds its heinous nature. And what was the tawdry motive behind this horrific act? Read more…
THE REAL INSTINCT LURKING BEHIND THE KATHUA HORROR
Apoorvanand
The rapes at Unnao and Kathua have shaken most of us. And yet it needs to be said that the Kathua rape falls in an entirely different category. The abduction, brutalisation, multiple rape and finally murder of the eight-year-old girl was an act of communal or ethnic ‘cleansing’. It was done with an intent to rid Kathua of the presence of the Muslim Bakarwal community. That it was done on “behalf of the nation” was clear when we saw the tiranga being waved to cover the crime, led by people who are known as officers of the court. Read more…
MODI SHOULD REIN IN HIS PARTY MEN, SAYS LAWYER FOR KATHUA GIRL’S FAMILY
Kabir Agarwal
While many lawyers in Jammu actively protested the filing of the police chargesheet against the accused in the brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old, one local lawyer has stepped in to fight the case on behalf of the girl’s family. Read more…
WHO IS MOST GUILTY OF THE KATHUA BARBARITY? MODI, SANGH PARIVAR, “SECULAR” PARTIES – AND ALL OF US
Harsh Mander
Today, in this somber moment of collective grief and revulsion across India, the child from a pastoral community in Kathua with two sets of parents has also become your daughter and mine. At this time of loss, the question we must confront is this: who is responsible for her ghastly rape and murder? Read more…
CPI (M)-CHALLENGING TIMES
EPW Editorial
Will the CPI(M) live up to the task of successfully uniting all secular and democratic forces to defeat semi-fascism? Read more…
HOW I GOT OVER THAT DARK GEOGRAPHIC SHADOW CALLED PAKISTAN
Qudsiya Ahmed
“Musalman ke do hi sthaan, qabristan ya Pakistan” (A Muslim has only two choices of abode – graveyard or Pakistan) is not a rhyme that a nine-year-old forgets with time. Its memory becomes stronger with age, as does the intensity of this choice. What hits her first is the option available; followed by the realisation of what is at stake — her life, and her loyalty to the country. Read more…
PAKISTAN: REVIVAL OF THE LEFT
Rashed Rahman
The task of reviving the Left to once again become an effective player in the polity has been exercising minds in the surviving Left parties and groups for long but the achievement of this goal has proved difficult. It is therefore heartening to note the follow-up of the meeting of 10 Left parties and groups in Lahore on December 29, 2017 by the formation of a 17-parties/groups’ platform dubbed Lahore Left Front (LLF). Read more…
INDIA: ASSURING DESTRUCTION FOREVER
MV Ramana
India continues to develop a triad of nuclear-delivery systems that have an increasing capacity to deliver destruction to longer distances. In recent years, the country’s political elite also have expanded their military ambitions. Despite a stated national commitment to a policy that involves no-first-use of nuclear weapons, there is some evidence that operational doctrines might call for first use of nuclear weapons under some circumstances; some of the additions to the country’s nuclear arsenal will allow for quick launch of weapons.1 Read more…
HOW PAKISTANI SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS MOULD ITS STUDENTS’ SKEWED WORLDVIEW
Madiha Afzal
Prior to 1977, no textbook contained any mention of the “Pakistan ideology.” But after that, the construct became the starting point and the central premise of high school Pakistan Studies texts. The description of Pakistan Studies textbooks that follows is based on my reading and analysis of textbooks from the mid-1990s to today, from all four provinces. Read more…
OBITUARY: ASHOK MITRA (1928-2018)
Calcutta, May 1 (PTI): Eminent scholar and Marxist economist Ashok Mitra, who also served as the finance minister of West Bengal and chief economic adviser to the Government of India, passed away on Tuesday morning after protracted illness. Read more…
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