Why Do Soldiers Continue to Die on the India-Pakistan Border?

Why Do Soldiers Continue to Die on the India-Pakistan Border? In 1947 India was divided by the foreign rulers by playing a game of divide and rule to which the religious fundamentalists fell prey. Since then, India and Pakistan have had a checkered history and uneasy relationship, sometimes climaxing in violent conflagrations and war. While…

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Massive Public Opposition to Konkan Refinery Project

Sukanya Shantha and Ruchira Petkar (Note: This article has been edited by us.) On May 30, around 15,000 villagers – the police had come prepared for around 10,000 protestors – gathered at the Rajiv Gandhi Maidan in Rajapur to demand an uncompromising roll-back of an oil refinery project announced by Fadnavis’s government early last year….

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Chavismo: Part IV | ‘We Are All Soldiers’

The fourth part of a series of seven articles by Marco Teruggi on Chavismo, the ongoing socialist revolutionary project in Venezuela, that the Venezuelans fondly call Bolivarian revolution. I was captivated by the man the very first time I saw him in Mar del Plata (Argentina), in 2005. He was standing before a packed stadium,…

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Saying a Firm ‘No’ To Displacement: Mahava Bharala Struggle in Rajasthan

Saying a Firm ‘No’ To Displacement: Mahava Bharala Struggle in Rajasthan At a time when there is growing social and legal agreement that farmers’ lands should not be acquired where the entire community is firmly opposed to it and when there are other options available to the government, it is inexplicable why the government has…

Four Years of Modi Government: Two Circles of Growth

Four Years of Modi Government: Two Circles of Growth The ruling dispensation in India is facing a crisis of low growth, protests by major sections of the population—farmers, youth and traders—and criticism about non fulfillment of the many promises it has made. It has announced many policies but not only is their implementation tardy, many…

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A False Step

Pranab  Mukherjee has accepted the invitation to visit the RSS headquarters at Nagpur to address the cadre. To quote RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, “Mukherjee was graceful enough to accept the invitation.” Mukherjee accepting the invite is a surprise because the place never put up the picture of Mahatma Gandhi because he represented an ideology of…

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Secularism and the State: Categorising the Nehru Model

Anil Nauriya The “Nehru Models”: The Historical Nehru Model and the Posthumous Nehru Model In most circles where opinion making on behalf of minorities takes place, one of the reasons for appreciation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach towards the minorities generally is his statement that majority communalism, that is, sectarianism, is more dangerous than minority communalism….

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The Enigma Called Gandhi

Politics in independent India has shown a tremendous obsession with Gandhi.  Khadi, worn by most politicians, protests through Satyagraha, hunger strikes, voluntarily courting arrest, civil disobedience, all carry the indelible stamp of the politics practised by Gandhi during the course of the national movement. Most rituals and symbols of Indian politics today emanate from Gandhi….