South Asia Citizens Web

In the three and a half years since Maharashtra passed a law against such practices, there have been hundreds of cases against fraudulent godmen who thrived on the superstition and fears of many

Something insidious has been happening to our commemorations of Independence over the last two decades or so. It seems as if the horror of Partition is gradually coming to displace the idea of freedom and dominate our annual reflections on the momentous events of August 1947. How did this shift occur, and what are its implications?

Sindh Labour Conference was organised by the National Labour Council in collaboration with the Sindh Labour Solidarity Committee and the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) was held on 12 -13 August 2017 in Karachi

the absence of a single representative of Bengal’s Left in the Upper House over which the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu will preside brings Gupta to mind. He was the Rajya Sabha’s longest serving member. Elected to the first House in 1952 and a member till he died (appropriately enough in Moscow) in 1981, he was specially felicitated when the House celebrated its 100th session and 25th anniversary in 1977. Other Rajya Sabha members from Bengal sustained the tradition of public service, among them, Gurudas Dasgupta with his sharp eye for corporate misdemeanour, the Marxist economist, Biplab Dasgupta, Bharati Ray, academic and pro vice-chancellor, and from a different walk of life, the eminent film-maker, Mrinal Sen. They were not failed activists who had to be smuggled into the parliamentary pipeline. Nor were they party hacks to be rewarded. They were people of quality and ability who added lustre to the Rajya Sabha.

People’s Voice
In its recommendation to NCERT, Shiksha Sanskriti Uthan Nyas, an RSS affiliate asks for removal of English, Urdu and Arabic words, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore; extracts from painter M F Husain’s autobiography; references to the Mughal emperors as benevolent, to the BJP as a “Hindu” party., an apology tendered by former prime minister Manmohan Singhover the 1984 riots; and a sentence that “nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002”. (25th July 2017) As such (…)