The decline of West Bengal
The Trinamool Congress fought the West Bengal assembly elections on the plank of “poriborton” promising to turn the state’s fortunes around after a debilitating 34 years of Communist rule. Yet five years down the line, actual “poriborton”, still eludes the state and its misfortune still continues even after four decades. …
BONDS THAT TRANSCEND PRESENT
In India’s engagement with France, through alliances of climate, energy and culture, are the defining contours of a deeply strategic partnership. France is indeed emerging as the civilisational partner from the West. This partnership is not artificially created, but has evolved organically While Japan is one of India’s pre-eminent civilisational …
OLD, NEW CRISIS BENGAL FACES
While Syama Prasad Mookerjee strove hard to ensure that Bengali Hindus live and thrive in free India, his early death and a lack of leadership in West Bengal altered the political dynamics. In three odd decades, the CPI(M)-led Left Front changed the State’s demography When Syama Prasad Mookerjee decided to …
Macaulay Acolytes Halting Transition of Our Heritage
In his A History of Civilisations, a classic study of the origins and evolutions of civilisations, legendary French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) came up, among other things, with a simple and yet perceptive description of civilisation. “A civilisation”, he wrote, “can be approached, only in the long term, taking hold …
LOVE FOR THE OLD, REGARD FOR NEW
Swami Vivekananda laughed at facile explanations of Indian unity and argued instead that these things could only be made to serve old India’s turn if she already possessed a deep organic unity that went beyond issues such as a common language of affairs Swami Vivekananda’s call to make the greatness …
Intellectuals’ Intolerance Against PM a Class Hatred
Interestingly in 2007, when the self-proclaimed proletarian government of West Bengal fired on farmers who were just trying to protect their lands against seizure in Nandigram and killed more than a dozen—though the report was that many more were killed—most intellectuals in the state remained silent and did not write …
THE LEFT’S DIALECTICAL DELUSION
Will the CPI(M) totter and collapse under the burden of a calcified load of outdated jargons and political claptrap or will it lunge and clutch at the Congress buoy and survive, as an effigy of its old self? The communist party’s Kolkata plenum offered some answers That the Communist Party …
FOCUS ON OUR REVOLUTIONARY PAST
By bringing back the likes of Shyamji Krishna Verma, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Muhammad Barkatullah, Veer Savarkar and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose into the national discourse, Narendra Modi is unshackling the forgotten revolutionary movement for Indian independence When he returned with the ashes of revolutionary nationalist Shyamji Krishna Verma and interred …
Diplomacy – the Narendra Modi approach
The Prime Minister of India ought to be able to travel with ease in the South Asian region without hindrance, encumbrance or hesitation. Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Kabul and his sudden stopover in Lahore is symbolic of the fact that in her quest to evolve into a responsible and …
The Hatred of Congress’ First Family for Modi Will Intensify
It is an interesting phenomenon that a particular political party and its sustaining dynasty continues to be irreconcilable to the fact that it has lost the people’s mandate and has been designated to live without the power that comes with it, at least for five years. The year 2015 has …
STRUGGLE TO LIBERATE EDUCATION
The goals of education as articulated by Prime Minister Modi, when he referred to Shiksha ki Sanskriti, essentially look at evolving a true and living education. The new education policy outreach is a first and fine effort at trying to assess that possibility and hope The Ministry of Human Resources …
Congress resorts to falsehood to cover its confusion
The Congress seems to have relapsed into one of those phases it periodically suffers from – that of denigrating institutions and concocting scenarios to not only mislead people but generate a false discourse. When the people of Chennai and Tamil Nadu faced some of the worst floods in a century, …
CELEBRATION OF INDIAN CULTURE
Historically, India has sought to evolve methods of education that would recognise the country’s rich repository of arts, theatre, drama, music. A sense of those past efforts was tangible at the HRD Ministry’s Kala Utsav, which was launched in Delhi on December 8 The effort to integrate culture in education …
Kala Utsav Hopes to Fuse Culture with Education
Kala Utsav—the festival of arts and culture, a flagship attempt of the Ministry of Human Resource Development that took off in the national capital on December 8, is indeed an effort that not only celebrates the rich cultural and artistic diversity of India but also primarily aspires to integrate culture …