Dancing with the US Devil

THE ghost of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi must be dancing away in her grave at Rajghat in New Delhi. Over three decades after she sanctioned the first nuclear bomb test at Pokhran in 1974 – and shocked the world – India has finally been recognized as a member of the global club of nuclear-armed states. ....Full text

Nanavati Commission Report:
Getting Away With Murder

(In 1984, when thousands of Sikhs in the capital city were burned alive in a State-sponsored bloodbath, a citizens’ team of PUDR-PUCL visited the affected areas and prepared a report – Who Are the Guilty - that was testimony against the State’s pleas that the violence was a ‘spontaneous’ outburst of grief and anger following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In conversation with Liberation, Uma Chakravarti, one of the many who helped that team to put the investigations together, reflects on the implications of the 1984 victims’ frustrated quest for justice in the light of the Nanavati Commission Report.) ....Full text

EC Must Deter Criminals, and not Disenfranchise Citizens

THE Election Commission of India has asked that names of all those against whom non-bailable warrants (NBWs) are pending for over six months be deleted from voters’ lists. The Commission argues that since voters are expected to ordinarily reside at their given addresses, ‘absconders’ are obvious candidates for deletion. This, the EC would have us believe, would put an effective brake on criminalisation of electoral politics. Ironically, a delegation of RJD MPs that met the EC to oppose this order included the infamous criminal MP from Siwan, Md. Shahabuddin, who has got as many as six NBWs pending against him. The EC ....Full text

Washing Away the Myth of ‘Mumbai to Shanghai’

ON 26th July and the week that followed, Mumbai was devastated by floods. It is ironical that more than 400 people died in the most modern city of India directly due to the floods. Another 4-500 people died a few weeks later in outbreaks of various diseases. This disaster has exposed the vulnerability of the city ... ....Full text

‘Suspicion’ – Or License for State Repression?

SUSPICION seems to be the umbrella explanation and excuse for State-sponsored murder and suppression of civil liberties. In London – the Brazilian electrician de Menezies was a ‘suspected’ suicide bomber – that was offered as justification for the fact that the police pumped bullets into him even after he had been overpowered. The 3 boys in Kupwara shot by .... ....Full text

Reversal of Land Reforms:

CPI(M)’s Achilles’ Heel in West Bengal

THE countrywide official campaign for reversal of land reforms has assumed a particularly farcical dimension in West Bengal. On August 4, the State Assembly witnessed a rare unity of the treasury and opposition benches when the House resolved to pass the West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill after ridding it of the most controversial clause 14q which had proposed to do away with rural land ceiling on a whole set of pretexts. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and industries minister Nirupam Sen were however absent during the vote. While Bhattacharjee walked out minutes before the Bill was put to vote, Sen did not attend the House at all. The unity in this case however meant not the opposition supporting the treasury bench, but vice versa, as Left Front MLAs backed an amendment moved by the opposition Trinamool Congress! This manoeuvre was necessary because apparently a government cannot retract or amend a bill placed by itself! .... ....Full text