Editorial

The Man-made Disaster in Joshimath

IT appears that nothing short of a total disaster will convince authorities, especially under the present government, that reckless development without addressing environmental or social issues, does not lead to progress. The unfolding tragedy in Joshimath, considered a holy town for being the gateway to the hill shrine of Badrinath, is but the latest in a long series of disasters in the Uttarakhand Himalayas caused by unrestrained construction, infrastructure and urbanisation in these fragile mountains.

2023: Unitedly Counter the Hindutva-Corporate Regime

A LOOK back at the year 2022, which has just ended, shows that it has been a year in which the Indian economy struggled to come out of the deep trough it was plunged into in the years 2020 and 2021.  Rising inflation, growing unemployment, industrial stagnation and ever-widening inequalities in income and wealth were the visible features. Towards the end of the year, the figure of unemployed reached over five crore and for most of the year, retail inflation was above 7 per cent.  This was accompanied by stagnation in industrial growth with the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in October

Threat to Judicial Independence

THE Modi government has stepped up its attack on the Supreme Court.  In the past few weeks, the union law minister, Kiren Rijiju, has been making a series of statements, both outside and inside parliament, criticising the collegium system of appointing judges as alien to the constitution and asserting that the ‘spirit’ of the constitution says it is the government’s right to appoint judges. The vice president of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, while presiding over the first session as chairman of the Rajya Sabha, also launched an attack on the Supreme Court judgment which invalidated the National

Bill to Capture Cooperatives in States

THE tendency to centralise administration and power – and thereby weaken the federal structure of the constitution – is a hallmark of the Narendra Modi government’s policy. One of the important ways in which the Modi government attempted to violate the constitutional powers of the states was by forming a ministry of cooperation and installing none other than Amit Shah as its minister.Soon after the formation of the ministry, the Supreme Court of India gave a judgement that partly limited the adventurism of the BJP government.

Communal Targeting in Education

WHAT has happened in the Government New Law College in Indore and some other places is a disturbing pointer as to how the deep communalisation and polarisation in society is now affecting the educational system.  The worst incident has taken place in the Government New Law College, Indore  in what can only be called as a communal cleansing of Muslims in the teaching faculty.  The RSS affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) unit in the college began protesting against the alleged “religious fundamentalist thought being promoted by four Muslim teachers of the college”.

BJP’s Vicious Campaign in Gujarat

THE BJP campaign for the Gujarat assembly election gives an insight as to how Gujarat became the laboratory for the Hindutva forces and how the corporate-communal axis was forged that became known later as the Gujarat model.Some of Amit Shah’s assertions in his election speeches have been startling for many outside Gujarat, but they reflect how the RSS-BJP have succeeded in inverting the reality and building a false narrative.  According to Shah, the communal pogrom against Muslims in 2002 was actually an instance of “rioters” being “taught a lesson”.

Stop Violence Against Women

THE United Nations’  call to observe November 25 as an International Day for “Elimination of Violence against Women” has got wide media coverage after the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, presented a chilling fact sheet that across the world  every 11 minutes a woman or a girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member. He called violence against women and girls as the most pervasive human rights violation in the world.Domestic violence is an undeclared war against women which has taken more victims through the years than any conventional war.

Election Commission Needs Reforms

SOME of the recent positions and steps taken by the Election Commission (EC) of India do no credit to its well-earned reputation of being an impartial arbiter and supervisor of free and fair elections, a role vested in it by the Indian Constitution.In the last few years, particularly after the Modi government came back to power for a second term, the EC is seen increasingly to acquiesce to the wishes of the government and has even resiled from some of the independent positions it had earlier adopted.Some recent instances highlight this unfortunate trend.

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