South Asia Citizens Web

Can we please stop the nation worship, glory-talk and world class mumbo-jumbo for a few minutes and think about the people in factories, slums and villages? What is a nation less its people?

THE cowardly assassination of a leading rationalist near Mumbai on Tuesday is a grim reminder of the threat faced by those that question the brazen political patronage the Indian state bestows on vendors of blind faith and obscurantism.

What we have to remember is that BJP as a party cannot and should not be compared with any other party, as BJP is not just and electoral party, it is basically the electoral wing of RSS, whose agenda is opposed to the agenda of secular democratic India

An ordinary viewer of the electronic media, who is not inclined to read the print media in some detail, is likely to get a completely skewed version of Indian foreign policy and even risk semi literacy of world affairs. The reason is not difficult to fathom. Most Indian TV News Channels are obsessed primarily with three issues: India’s disputes with Pakistan, conflict and competition with China, and strategic relations with the USA.

Renowned rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar was assasinated on the streets of Pune on 20 th August [2013]. A multifaceted man - a medical doctor by training, writer-editor by aptitude and a campaigner by choice - he was a leading light of the rationalist movement and was engaged in fighting superstition and black magic through the organisation he led ’Andhashradha Nirmoolan Samity’ with a network of its 200 branches spread in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka.