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Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) celebrated its seventy five glorious years which was commemorated in a five day long festival of theatre, music, dance, songs, discussions and deliberations in Patna, from October 27 to October 31. It needs to be elaborated that IPTA was not and is not just a group of artistes, it was and remains a group of political workers using art as a tool or weapon for social awareness and justice. We see here the application of the Gramsci’s concept of hegemony regarding the role intellectuals. He argued that it is necessary for the Communist Party to occupy all intellectual ground from political parties and press to education, gender relations and cultural activity.

Sujata. Girija. Lalitha. The trio caused an upheaval at the Sabarimala temple Wednesday morning. Blame it on Kerala women and coconut oil, Parachute! One of the ladies did not look her age (52), her hair darker than a tropical forest, her time on earth looking less than the required 50+ summers, and the male Ayyappans surged in protest, over 3,000 defiant bristling chins. The 2,300 policemen were no match and it required an Aadhaar test of age for tempers to settle. The Kerala Police enterprise to dictate proceedings, control the chessboard, came a complete cropper.

Now that the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Ayodhya title suit is not its priority and even the hearing date will be decided next January, the saffron parties are getting agitated about the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. “We have other priorities,” a bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said last week.

Neither the world’s tallest statue of Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, nor the frenetic clamour for a Ram temple in Ayodhya has been of much help to the BJP down south in Karnataka.

Check posts, cellphone call jammers and facial geometric cameras on the one side. On the other, the BJP caught contemptuously dismissing the Hindu horde as “stupid devotees” to take advantage of their blind faith, fair game. The BJP admission caught on tape! A snatch of politically-loaded conversation between the temple’s high priest and BJP state unit president Sridharan Pillai. With that the BJP’s true agenda and political opportunism stood bared, impeached.

BHOPAL: “First I was asked to resign from the chief minister ship, then I was ousted from the Cabinet and now I am denied party ticket. I have won from Govindpura ten times with huge margin, twice highest in the state; I have been nursing this constituency like my baby; I am healthy, active, meet hundreds of persons every day, visit the constituency daily and solve even small problems of my voters. How long the party will humiliate me?”

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

The last few weeks have been replete with media reporting alarming levels of air pollution in most major cities of India, especially the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Images of thick smog and children and old people wearing masks in Delhi have been splashed in all national newspapers and the TV and online media. It is an emergency situation, with the pollutant levels PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) was at a "hazardous" 644 or over 20 times the safe limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation (‘WHO’). More than one million Indians die of lung diseases, caused by air pollution and smog, as per WHO. And the failure of the Government to control air pollution and improve air quality, by reducing crop burning in the neighbouring States of Punjab and Haryana is writ large. The fact that no Minister or the Prime Minister even bothers to mention the looming crisis we are in, let alone talking about the steps taken to bring it under control, is evident of the importance the current regime accords to the biggest health crisis staring at our faces.

We are hearing about creating a New India or Naya Bharat. From the Prime Minister to political parties we are hearing about plans and programmes for creating this New India.

Poor Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel! Only two years ago, soft-spoken Patel appeared to be the government’s ‘perfect’ choice for the job. It was more so after the NDA government found it increasingly difficult to deal with his more combative predecessor, Raghuram Rajan, ever since it came to power in 2014. Rajan left an unhappy RBI governor after an idle speculation inspired by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s campaign calling for him to leave. Rajan first announced his departure himself in a letter to his colleagues which RBI published. Rajan wrote that he will be returning to academia after the end of his tenure as governor. Prior to his appointment as the head of India’s central bank, Patel was as a happy deputy governor, who looked after the functions of monetary policy, economic policy research, statistics and information management, deposit insurance, communication and ‘Right to Information.’