View Articles

IN a notable judgment of Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. The Hon’ble Speaker, the Supreme Court gave certain valuable suggestions which should catalyse a public debate about the need for amendments in the anti-defection law. The judgment lays down the foundation for the Constitution Bench to decide the pending question of law on its jurisdiction in ordering the Speaker on disqualification proceedings.

My parents belong to families of refugees from East Bengal, and both have suffered the indignity of dispossession and displacement from their native homes. My father's family belonged to Noakhali: the notorious district in East Bengal ravaged by riots in 1946. Most of the members of a huge extended family disappeared forever during the riots (probably perished in the violence); among the very few survivors were my grandparents along with my 4 year old father and his two elder siblings who were shifted to safer places by their friends and well-wishers. My mother's family bravely stayed back in East Pakistan and shifted to Kolkata in 1965 as the war broke out. My entire childhood happened near the refugee colonies of South Kolkata in the 1980s where the families of my parents struggled to survive with dignity despite acute financial constraints.

In the early part of his political career, Arvind Kejriwal conjured up visions of a national role for himself, perhaps similar to what Narendra Modi has been doing. At least, this is what his actions suggested. He launched a relentless attack on Modi, in and out of context, but always ended up as the big loser, earning derision and ridicule.

As Samuel Johnson had famously said in 1775, “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, it seems that the charge of sedition is the last refuge of the Modi regime. In the last three weeks, the Modi 2.0 Government, through different BJP-led State Governments or other State Governments, has filed sedition charges firstly against Sharjeel Imam, a PhD student from JNU, secondly, against 50 students from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (‘TISS’) in Mumbai for raising slogans in support of Sharjeel, and thirdly, against a teacher and a woman whose 6 years old child participated in a school play against CAA-NRC-NPR. Each of these instances is a horrific example of authoritarian government throttling dissent in the garb of sedition.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz came alive when his famous poem Hum Dekhenge was recently termed as anti-Hindu. There were explanatory write-ups and discourses about why and how it is not. In the process, what has gone unnoticed is a method in misunderstanding Faiz. If we are forced to misunderstand Faiz, then serious questions arise. Who does it and why? Misunderstanding Faiz puts a question mark on the Sense of Poetry, which India boasts of. If we fail to appreciate the poetic genuius of Faiz, then really something is wrong with us and also in question is the time=frame in which we are living.

Stockport MP Nav Mishra’s warning that “constant anonymous briefings and threats” risk poisoning the Labour leadership race is spot on.

The ghastly crime of rape and murder for which the Nirbhaya four are convicted is a heart-breaking reminder of the unimaginable brutality of violence and the immeasurable value of non-violence. The perpetrators must be held fully accountable.

While the novel Corona virus is leaving a trail of its victims throughout the world, it is for sure going to dent the global economy as much hard. The crisis underlines several action plans for the future.

Few would have expected the Aam Admi Party (AAP) to repeat its stellar performance of five years ago when it won 67 out of the 70 Delhi assembly seats. But the fact that it is touching the 60-seat mark and succeeded in retaining its well over 50 per cent vote share shows that there has been very little diminution of its political appeal.

Whoever thought seven years ago that the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal would come this far to bag the throne of Delhi for the third term? Though AAP had arrived as a disruptive force in 2013 and dismissed as an upstart, its chief Kejriwal surprised his critics with his ability to grasp public opinion and change for the better in his roller coaster political ride. There was a method in his madness though his critics called him an anarchist. Actually, Delhi was not the end of his ambition, as he took on Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and contested in 400 Lok Sabha seats displaying how overly ambitious he was. Even after winning this time, the AAP was talking of nation building. When Kejriwal found that he had spread himself too thin, he changed track again.