Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: KASHMIR – THREE MONTHS LATER
Editors
For the vast majority of the people of Kashmir, the agony continues with no end in sight. Dribs and drabs of the reduction of oppressive measures, like restoration of landline telephones that few people have, treated by the credulous Indian media as restoration of normalcy, cut little ice with the local populace; they are akin to the rolls of toilet paper that Trump tossed out to hungry and ailing Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of hurricane Maria. For many of the thousands arrested and even those subsequently released, their plight is becoming truly Orwellian. Read more…
TERM MOB LYNCHING COMES FROM BIBLE, SAYS MOHAN BHAGWAT
Vidya (India Today)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday said that some incidents of violence such as lynchings were actually being branded to defame India, Hindu society and create fear among some communities. Read more…
HOW HATE WORKS
Rakesh Shukla
Commenting on the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Gujarat State Assembly elections in December 2017, where the incumbent party had barely managed a majority, journalist Revati Laul writes in her book The Anatomy of Hate, “In Gujarat, it seemed as if there was no more room for the hate to grow.” In the context of the massive victory for the BJP in the 2019 general elections – in Gujarat alone, the BJP won all 26 parliamentary seats – it is ironic to read Laul’s assessment – that they had gone “as far as they could”. Read more…
EU MPS IN KASHMIR – A DIPLOMATIC BLUNDER?
Seema Mustafa
NEW DELHI: Kashmir has indeed become a Pandora’s box that either the only very stupid or the very callous could open. And follow the decision not with acts of wisdom but the very opposite as is evident in the much touted visit of 23 European Union Parliamentarians to the Valley. That too after Indian MPs have not been allowed to take a step outside of the Srinagar airport, and requests by American Senators for such permission has been turned down. Not to speak of the United Nations and the foreign media. Read more…
IN PAKISTAN, FISHING VILLAGES ARE LOSING THEIR LIVELIHOODS AS THE INDUS DRIES UP
Akhtar Hafeez
The province of Sindh is grappling with an acute water shortage, a crisis which the government hopes to address through the construction of more dams along the Indus river. While fundraising for these megastructures continues in Pakistan, fisherman and delta communities along the river fear the worst, as they are transported back to 1991 when the Water Apportionment Accord between the country’s four provinces was inked – and when the fate of the fishing community was sealed. Read more…
SRI LANKA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: PAST IN THE PRESENT
R.K. Radhakrishnan
There were quite a few visitors at the world’s emptiest airport, the Chinese-built Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, just over 200 kilometres south of Colombo, on October 12, just like every other day. No scheduled commercial aircraft has operated from the airport for the past three years. The visitors, all local Sinhalese Sri Lankans, were there to experience the airport, built at a cost of over $200 million. Read more…
MANDATE FOR A STRONG OPPOSITION
EPW Editorial on Elections in Maharashtra and Haryana
Arrogance of power can be undermined by the reassertion of social contradictions.
The results of the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana have punctured the myth of the invincibility of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Inflated claims made by its leaders regarding the huge number of seats have fallen flat as its tally has come down from the 2014 assembly results, and forming the government on its own has been reduced to a pipe dream. Read more…
HARD TIMES HAVE PAKISTANI HINDUS LOOKING TO INDIA, WHERE SOME FIND ONLY DISAPPOINTMENT
Maria Abi-Habib
JODHPUR, India — By the time an angry Muslim mob stormed the local Hindu school and ransacked an adjacent temple a few weeks ago, many members of Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority had already been wondering whether it was worth trying to stay in a country where they felt increasingly unsafe. Read more…
INDIAN ECONOMY HEADING TOWARDS DISASTER, ABHIJIT BANERJEE SAID DAYS BEFORE WINNING NOBEL
Remya Nair
New Delhi: India is “barreling down” the path to disaster with its decision to cut taxes for the rich and making unnecessary public investments that could “explode government debt”, economist Abhijit Banerjee said, days before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Read more…
NUCLEAR DANGERS OF THE NAVAL KIND
Zia Mian, M V Ramana And A H Nayyar
In 2019, a new set of nuclear dangers emerged for Southasia. The growing danger was underscored during the military crisis between India and Pakistan in February 2019, when India put one or more of its nuclear submarines on “operational deployment mode.” During the crisis, the Pakistani Navy claimed to intercept an Indian submarine. No one has confirmed if this interception involved an Indian submarine carrying nuclear weapons. With India and Pakistan on an accelerated programme of acquiring and developing nuclear submarines, Southasia needs to pay urgent attention to the risks of nuclear accidents at sea. Read more…
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