Justice Sachar’s Way to Stop the Alienation of Muslims
Remembering Justice Rajinder Sachar’s concerns about the ever-increasing alienation of Muslims in Indian society, on the occasion of his second death anniversary on 20 April.
We Are Seeing, for the First Time, a Sustained Countrywide Movement Led by Women
Sangbida Lahiri In this winter of discontent, in every procession, in every demonstration, in every protest—from JNU to Jamia or Aligarh to Jadavpur—the front rows are occupied by young women. The independent nation has never seen such a sustained political agitation led by young women—vociferously, unfailingly and determinedly. Who are these protesting, shouting…
Govt Spent Most ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ Funds on Advertisements
Courtesy: The Wire Staff The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) on Thursday admitted that a majority of funds allocated to the much-touted Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme was spent on advertisements instead of any concrete work. Ever since the scheme was launched in 2015, prime minister Narendra Modi has sought to…
Three Letters to Chief Ministers that Nehru Wrote
Courtesy: The Wire Staff Different prime ministers choose to communicate in different ways. If tweets, radio broadcasts and speeches at rallies are Narendra Modi’s preferred modes of communication, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, believed in letters—snail-mail, in today’s parlance. Soon after he assumed office in August 1947, Nehru began a tradition of writing…
Why there is No Good News for India’s Healthcare
Bharat Dogra Over the last two years, the most common comment on allocations for the health sector in the union budgets was that there has been “some increase” in it. However, any headline that really captures the wider reality would have said that the ‘government has fallen behind health commitments by over Rs 30,000…
Modi Govt Continues Neglect of Dalits, Adivasis
Subodh Varma In the past five years, Dalit communities have been deprived of a staggering Rs 272 thousand crore while Adivasi communities have suffered a loss of Rs 114 thousand crores due to drastic under-allocation in successive Budgets. This emerges from an analysis of Budgetary allocations done by National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights…
The Trump and Modi Show: Of Tangri Kebabs and Cannibal Cows
Madhumita Dutta, Sirisha Naidu Indians love eating their tangri kebabs, i.e., barbequed chicken drumsticks, and the Americans are eager to sell them the millions of tons of chicken legs they have piled up in their freezers. The leaders of the two of the biggest so-called democracies are magnanimously obliging both sellers and clients during…
Exploring Citizenship
Dunu Roy There is no doubt that the Delhi elections have been comprehensively lost by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but the sub-text is that it improved its vote share from 32.2 per cent in 2015 to 38.5 per cent this time. The Aam Admi Party (AAP) kept its share of 54.3 per cent in…
The Time Has Come to Bring Ambedkar and Gandhi Together
Ramachandra Guha In an interview that he gave last year, the Kannada writer (and activist), Devanur Mahadeva, urged democrats not to view Ambedkar and Gandhi as rivals and adversaries. In the journey towards true equality, he said, they should rather be seen as colleagues and co-workers. Thus, as Mahadeva remarked: “Ambedkar had to…
100 Years of Mooknayak, Ambedkar’s First Newspaper
Prabodhan Pol In India, despite the presence of peculiar social institutions like caste, the role of the newspapers in social reforms movement was not just limited to articulation of specific concerns of individual reformers. But they also laid the foundations of a mass churning that aspired for democratic values. On January 31, 1920,…