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The Destruction of Babri Masjid – the 25th Anniversary

THE town that is called Ayodhya in Valmiki’s Ramayana, as well as today, was known as Awadh in pre-British times. Tulsidas in his Ramcharit Manas called it Awadh-puri. It was a large city, capital of the province that was also called Awadh. It had, therefore, a large Muslim population. So it was that when Babur established the Mughal Empire in India in 1526, and Awadh or Ayodhya fell into his hands, his governor Mir Baqi built a large mosque there, which came to be known as the Babri Masjid.

Let Hadiya Take Charge of Her Life

Her case reveals how deeply the current climate created by sectarian ideologies based on a narrow reading of religious identity has pushed back women’s rights to autonomy as equal citizens. From the government to the courts, to the strengthening of conservative and regressive thinking and practice, it’s all out there in Hadiya’s case.THE Supreme Court did not allow itself to be converted into a khap panchayat, although it came close to it on Tuesday, November 28, as it heard the Hadiya case.

Chauvanistic Nationalism and ‘Gujarati Asmita’ Replace ‘Vikas’ in the BJP Poll Campaign

WHEN the slogan of ‘Vikas’ does not work, resort to the son of the soil argument to enchant people: this is the tenor that Narendra Modi seems to have adopted as he and his cabinet ministers aggressively campaign in Gujarat at the apex of the poll campaign. The BJP is not only invoking Gujarati nationalism, but is also accusing the opposition which is questioning the Gujarat model of development of siding with ‘terrorists’ and ‘casteist’ people.

Cover-up and Coercion in the Name of the “Holy Cow”

IN his much publicised annual Vijay Dashmi address to the RSS cadres, Mohan Bhagwat announced that the “Gau Rakshaks have nothing to worry” and they were only doing their patriotic duty. This announcement became necessary because the observations of the Supreme Court took a stern view of cow vigilantism and the union government was subsequently forced to warn vigilante groups to curb their activities. However, Bhagwat said that “patriotic gau rakshaks” should not worry about government pronouncements.

Nature’s Latest Grand Spectacle Reaffirms its Dialectical & Materialist Character

THE world’s scientific community, especially astronomers and cosmologists, is abuzz about the signals from a mega event that rang, quite literally, not only around the globe but also beyond it. This was the “sighting” of a collision between two neutron stars 130 million light years away! What was so significant about it that it took the scientific community by storm and led to unprecedented messaging and tweeting all across the globe?

Employment Suffers in Digital India

SPEAKING at the Digital Haryana Summit in September 2017, the minster for electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Pratap Singh said that “the country’s digital economy is growing fast and by 2020 it is expected to provide job opportunities to about 50 to 70 lakh youth”. This pipe dream let lose by the minister may make one think that the automation and digitalisation process may create new opportunities to tap the so-called ‘demographic dividend’ of the country.

Jotting of My Life

Day – Minus six months: My mother was taken to a hospital. A test was done. They found out I was inside her womb. My father and his parents forced her to a surgery. I was killed, before I could see you.Day – My birth: I had just come out of my mother’s womb. I was crying. They saw me. Instead of milk, the put some seeds in my mouth. My birthday was my death day.November 22, 2015: I was three months old. My uncle who is 50 years old took me away from my house where I was sleeping.

Oil Price Hike in the Time of BJP

 THE country is suffering again as the average price of petrol has reached Rs 75 per litre and the average diesel price has reached Rs 62 per litre by the mid-September. The retail price of petrol was this high during the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014 i.e., during the last year of the UPA-2 government. The average international price of crude oil was more than 140 US dollar per barrel (one barrel=159 litres approximately) then. The NDA government was formed in the end of May 2014.

Privacy is now an inherent right, but will Parliament act?

BY ruling not just that privacy is a fundamental right but that it is an integral part of the right to liberty, a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court, on August 24, held unanimously that the right to privacy would come under both the right to life, liberty (Article 14, Article 21 of the Constitution) and therefore part III of the constitution. The fundamental reasoning behind the verdicts delivered separately and as a collective was that these rights are the inherent rights of man, born with him, not granted by statute (even the constitution) and hence cannot be suspended or taken away.

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