Kolkata: Bengal’s food minister and a top leader of the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), Jyoti Priya Mallick, on December 4, in the district of North 24-Parganas where a majority of the Dalit refugee sect Matuas reside, gave an open invitation to BJP’s MP from Bongaon and a top leader of the Matua community, Shantanu Thakur, …
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Niamian/Fatehpur/Baras (Punjab): There is an uprising in Punjab. People in the state are acutely aware that they are at the epicentre of the ongoing farmers’ stir. They know that all eyes – domestic and international – are on the farmers’ movement. Many in the cadre are enjoying this attention. Elaborate discussions on Twitter spats between celebrities, …
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Manusmriti (MS) is an ancient legal text or ‘dharmashastra’ of Hinduism. It describes the social system from the time of the Aryans. This country had, by all accounts, an advanced civilisation and culture at the time, dating back to 3500 BC, even to 6000 or 8000 BC, according to some historians. Its people were peace-loving, mainly …
Continue reading “The Manusmriti and a Divided Nation- P.B. Sawant”
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In the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the murder of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, protesters across the United States demanded the removal of racist statues and symbols. Many supported the demand. To some protectors of culture, it caused discomfort. To them, the call was anarchist in nature. But both the demand to …
Continue reading “Symbols Serve Oppressors, That Is Why Manu Must Fall/ Pallikonda Manikanta”
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The habitually self-possessed chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, is now unmistakably a rattled man. Given that a large measure of his cool thus far has tended to reside in secure longevity at the top, be it in this camp or that, he seems frazzled at being called out by large sections of the people …
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Left parties and their alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the ensuing Bihar assembly elections is touted to be a formidable one, given that the former continues to command significant support in pockets. However, while the RJD leadership has been enthusiastic about its alliance with Communist Party of India (ML-Liberation), which is currently …
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The life and work of Saheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh and his death by hanging at Lahore at the hands of British imperialism on March 23, 1931, has been a great saga of inspiration to all those who cherish sovereignty, secularism and socialism – ideals for which he and his comrades fought valiantly to the end. Bhagat …
Continue reading “Remembering Saheed Bhagat Singh on his 113th Birth Anniversary”
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Our journey together was horrifically and abruptly cut short. On Wednesday, March 23, 1988, a group of Khalistanis assassinated my father. But, they were never able to touch the most crucial parts of Pash’s being: his beliefs, ideology and spirit. Born on September 9, 1950 at village Talwandi Salem in Jalandhar, Avtar Singh Sandhu wrote …
Continue reading “Pash, my father: Daughter Winkle Sandhu remembers the revolutionary Punjabi poet”
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It is indeed baffling that so many democratic, liberal, progressive, or just plain decent, voices should be upset over a ‘nationalist’ news channel wanting to air an exposé about an unholy conspiracy to “infiltrate Muslims” into government services. Without being privy to the contents of “exposé” by the pro-RSS media house, let me say, based …
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During a recent phone conversation with senior counsel Ravi Varma Kumar, I asked him, “How is the Supreme Court doing?” We were talking in the background of the judgment by the three-judge Supreme Court bench which found that Prashant Bhushan’s tweets were in contempt of the court. Ravi said, “The judiciary itself makes an allegation; it initiates …
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