South Asia Citizens Web

How, then, will the new government consolidate power? It will be a combination of the president’s authoritarian moves, veiled in the promise of technocratic efficiency and seeming aloofness from politics, and the prime minister’s hard-nosed political moves in parliament, with populist manoeuvring. The dual power centre will try to discipline and disable the judiciary, media and people’s movements. They will seek validation from their long-nurtured nationalist social base, may re-activate the security apparatus for surveillance and crackdowns, and lean on the most forthcoming external actors for financial support — be it India, China, the US or the capital markets.

A film of the labour of gardners in Bombay

Shaukat’s memoir provides a luminous account of her new life in a Bombay bursting with new ideas in the company of gregarious comrades: Sajjad Zaheer and his wife Razia, the affable duo of Munish Saxena and S M Mehdi, Sardar Jafri and his wife Sultana who took Shaukat under her wing, the parsimonious Party Treasurer Comrade S V Ghate ...

28th Nov, 2019: In yet another of its egregious legislative misadventures, the BJP Government with support from some other parties, passed the regressive ’Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights)’ Bill, in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, despite wide-spread opposition by members of the transgender, intersex and gender non-confirming communities, seeking referral of the Bill to a Select Committee.

The November 9 judgment of Supreme Court gives the entire 2.77 acres of the Babri Mosque land to the deity Ramlalla Virajman, It also directs the central government to form a trust to oversee the construction of a temple at the site of the erstwhile mosque. These decisions of the highest court have pushed the country towards a religion based majoritarian polity, where matters of faith would stand above the rule of law, and faith of the majority community will be treated supreme.