This is the draft version I wrote for the editorial of the Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLIV No. 20, May16 2009.
[The official Indian delegation again blocked all mention of caste at the UN conference of Racism] Read the rest of this entry »
Caste Out, Yet Again
24 05 2009Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Caste, Dalit, Discrimination, Durban Review Conference, Racism, World Conference on Racism
Categories : EPW, Mobilisation and Movements, Politics
Tackling the Taliban
22 05 2009This is the draft version I wrote for the editorial of the Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLIV No. 20, May16 2009.
[A sole dependence on military solutions cannot defeat the Taliban] Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Islamic Fundamentalism, Military, Sharia, Swat Valley, Taliban, Terrorism, United States, War on Terror
Categories : EPW, India - Pakistan, Muslims and Islam, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Secularisation, War and Imperialism
Fascism with a Red Flag
2 05 2009This is the draft I wrote for an EPW editorial published in the of 25 April – 2 May, 2009 edition. There are significant differences between this draft and the final edit.
Maoist attacks on the people’s right to vote is similar to the fascists’ attacks on democracy Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: CPI(Maoist), Democracy, Election Boycott, Fascism, Franchise, Indian Elections, Left politics, Terror
Categories : EPW, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, War and Imperialism
The Significance of Uttar Pradesh
25 04 2009This is the draft of the edit I wrote for EPW published in the 18-24 April, 2009 edition.
[Uttar Pradesh as a bellwether province in the Indian general elections; then and now.] Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Brahmin, Congress, Dalit, Mayawati, Muslim, Samajwadi Party
Categories : EPW, Mobilisation and Movements, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Secularisation
Democracy and the Small Car
5 04 2009This is the draft of the edit I wrote for the EPW issue dated 04-11 April, 2009.
[The political role of the small car is as important as its environmental impact] Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: BRT, Bus, Car, City, David Harvey, Democracy, Nano, Public Transport
Categories : Energy and Environment, EPW, Politics, Pop goes the Culture
Father, Son and the Emergency Ghost
26 03 2009It is hugely ironical that the BJP (and their candidate from Pilibhit parliamentary constituency, Varun Gandhi) should accuse the Election Commission of bias against the young lad due to the presence of Chief Election Commissioner designate, Naveen Chawla. But before we get to explaining that irony, here are a few facts. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: BJP, Emergency, Hate-Speech, Hindutva, India, Lok Sabha Elections, Naveen Chawla, Nehru Gandhi family, Sanjay Gandhi, Varun Gandhi
Categories : History, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Secularisation
So what is the solution in Swat?
28 02 2009The rise of extremism in Pakistan’s Swat valley needs a nuanced and democratic response.
[This is the draft for the editorial I wrote on the Taliban takeover of the Swat and the Pakistan Government’s deal with them. The final revised version will be published in the EPW 28 Feb – 6 Mar 2009 (Vol XLIV NO 9) edition.]
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Fundamentalism, NWFP Pakistan, Pakistan, Swat Valley, Taliban, War on Terror
Categories : EPW, History, India - Pakistan, Mobilisation and Movements, Muslims and Islam, Politics, War and Imperialism
and quiet flows the blood…
23 02 2009
This was my draft of the editorial on the bloodshed and conflicts in and around the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the Economic and Political Weekly. The final edit was published in the EPW dated 21 February, 2009, Vol XLIV No 8.
[Why is the world, including India, silent about the neocolonial plunder of the Congo?] Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: africa, Burundi, Capitalism, Colonialism, Coltan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Imperialism, India in Africa, Neocolonial plunder, primitive accumulation, Rwanda, Uganda, underdevelopment, United Nations, US
Categories : EPW, Politics, War and Imperialism
Why Padma Awards?
9 02 2009Should the Indian State continue to confer national awards that have been devalued by lobbying and favouritism?
The following is the text of the draft I wrote for the EPW edit on this topic. The final edit can be read here. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: national award, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shree, Padma Vibhushan
Categories : EPW, Politics, Pop goes the Culture
Israel versus Humanity
12 01 2009On the night of 9-10 November 1938, the Nazis killed dozens of Jews in Germany, sent thousands to concentration camps and destroyed Jewish properties and synagogues in an orgy of violence which removed all doubts about the nature of persecution Jews faced under the Nazi regime and was a precursor of what was to come. Writing 10 days after this Nazi pogrom, which is known today as the Kristallnacht, Mohandas Gandhi said, “…the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history.” But, he went on to add, “…my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me”, Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: Gaza, Holocaust, Israel, M.K. Gandhi, Palestine, War
Categories : EPW, History, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Secularisation, War and Imperialism
Watershed to end the Bloodshed? Jammu and Kashmir Elections, 2008
6 01 2009The significantly high voter turnout in the recently concluded seven-phase elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has become the leitmotif around which all analysis of this event is being structured. This is not entirely misplaced given the large-scale public demonstrations favouring azaadi, or independence, in the Kashmir Valley in the middle of the year posed a question mark on the advisability of holding elections in the State. Even New Delhi had appeared to have doubts about convening elections so soon after the Amarnath agitations had exposed regional and religious fault lines in the State. The separatists, on their part, had seemed to strengthen sufficiently by that agitation to overcome their own divisions and unite again under a single All Parties Hurriyat Conference and had given out a call to boycott these elections. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Azaadi, Elections, Hurriyat, Jammu, Kashmir
Categories : EPW, India - Pakistan, Politics
A Liberal Interpretation of India’s Future
2 01 2009Review of
INDIA EXPRESS: the future of a new superpower
Daniel Lak, Penguin/Viking, New Delhi, 2008, pp. xx + 314, hardcover, Rs. 499, (Indian edition)
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Tags: Britain, Imperialism, India, Liberal Superpower, United States of America
Categories : Book Review, History, India - Pakistan, Politics, War and Imperialism
The False Promise of Multi-Polarity in International Relations
16 09 2008
With the collapse of the USSR and other socialist States in the late 1980s and early 1990s, multipolarity became the much sought after ideal for almost all progressives as they sought resources to counter the rampant global strides of the sole superpower, the USA. Today when a return of the former socialist States is neither possible nor perhaps even desirable, multipolarity is seen as perhaps the only option to hedge in the arrogant brutality of the US war machine. I would like to argue that multipolarity is like the “opium of the masses”, it is merely a “sigh of the oppressed creature” which provides fleeting relief in times of trouble, but like opium it is a poison which may even prove fatal in the long run. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: Imperialism, International Relations, NATO, Non-Aligned Movement, Soviet Union
Categories : Politics, The Post Column, War and Imperialism
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