View Articles

My mind pulls me backward to 1938 when I was not even born. A national inter-university debate competition was taking place at the University Institute Hall in Kolkata. The motion was that ‘the only way to achieve the independence of India was the Gandhian path of non-violence’. The student who was judged the best was Majhar Ali Khan of Lahore in his early twenties, having spoken against the motion. He was later an outstanding journalist of the sub-continent and was the father of Tariq Ali, the famous leader of student uprising in the late 1960s. A yet- to-complete seventeen lad became the third speaking in support of the motion. He was Jolly Mohan Kaul whose mundane innings came to a halt at 98-plus on 29 June 2020.He was the last living member of the national council of the undivided Communist Party of India at the fifth party congress (Amritsar 1958).

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crisis bedevilling the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has deepened with the Congress leadership expelling the Jose K Mani-led faction in the Kerala Congress(M).

The announcement to form a Third Front by the former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Saturday is more than his expression of intent and interest to effectively intervene in the election to the Bihar assembly.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi turned 50 last week and celebrated it quietly in view of the coronavirus outbreak. His father Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister at the age of 40. Rahul too could have become the Prime Minister in 2009 when the Congress returned to power, or at least a minister during the ten years of the UPA rule from 2004 -2014. But he had his own ideas of leadership. At the swearing in ceremony in 2009, I asked him why he did not become a minister and his reply was: “I don’t want to do ten things at a time. I want to do only one thing at a time.”

PM Cares Fund is yet within the womb of secrecy. Prime Minister’s Office has been unwilling to reveal its secrets ever since its conception and inception three months ago. It is a back step since it flouts transparency, one of the fundamentals of good governance, considered to be antidote to corruption. The very name smacks petty politics, which does not mean ‘Prime Minister Cares’. It was simply a backronym deliberately created to hoodwink the people to make them believe that ‘Prime Minister Cares’. Its real name is Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund.

BATH, Maine—Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and a parade of other prominent politicians are supporting the 4,300 Machinists Local S6 workers forced to strike by their bosses at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.

Imagine for one moment, what it would be like to be kept in jail for years, deprived of your family, your freedom of speech, your liberty of movement and your right to work, merely on suspicion and conjecture. A terrifying concept for most of us, but a grim reality for the prominent human rights advocates (who include lawyers, professors, research fellows, a poet, and an editor), 5 of whom were arrested on 6th June 2018 and 4 of whom on 28th August 2018, in what is now known as the Bhima Koregaon (the BK) case. On 14th April 2020, two other eminent human rights defenders were arrested by the National Investigative Agency (the NIA) in the same matter.

Chinese aggression against India it seems is unstoppable. What’s more, this incursions dates back to the 1950s. Long before Mao Zedong categorized China's ties with India as “armed co-existence.” The transgressions which came with the ‘salami-slicing’ of India’s territory at the LAC has kept India permanently in flux right from 1962.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been trying to build his empire on the foundation of Nehru bashing, he has been outdoing the Emergency of Indira Gandhi by creating a more crude and ruthless Emergency like situation.

Continuous increase in number of COVID 19 cases in the country is a pointer to its community spread. Even though the ICMR does not agree with this, but several Epidemiologists have different opinion. No community transmission of Covid-19 is a falsehood, says Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil, a noted epidemiologist and former Principal, Christian Medical College Vellore.