South Asia Citizens Web

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 (…)

EVEN as they prepare to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their birth, Pakistan and India may want to reflect on why they have not been able to live as amicable neighbours. Both nations saw triumph and tragedy in 1947 — colonial rule was at an end, but the bloody events of Partition are seared in the subcontinent’s memory, a legacy that should have taught them to cherish freedom and to promote peace. Instead, the decades have been marked by conflict and tensions, recriminations and threats. The tendency on both sides to constantly paint the other in an unfavourable light has not helped. Perhaps one example of this is contained in some of the textbooks used by students in both countries.

Jean Dreze speech on growing communalism in Jharkhand in Prabhat Khabar conclave in Ranchi which was disrupted by BJP ministers

Historically, the Partition of 1947 fragmented the writing community by redistributing its members into two separate territorial nations. One of the significant consequences of the Partition was the migration of Urdu writers of Muslim origin to Pakistan.