THE Jammu and Kashmir administration is taking steps which seek to obliterate the historical legacy and identity of the Kashmiri people while promoting measures which will heighten the communal divide between Jammu and the Valley.

July 13 has been traditionally observed as Martyrs Day in Kashmir to commemorate the memory of 22 people who were killed in firing by the Maharaja’s police in 1931 while protesting against the feudal monarchy. 

THE Central Committee of the CPI(M) has called for a mass campaign throughout the country on the major issues facing the people like price rise, unemployment, livelihood of farmers and agricultural workers, against privatisation and attacks on the working class and the overall onslaught on democracy and democratic rights by the Modi government.

ON the last day of his tenure as chief justice on August 26, Justice Ramana referred the pleas on political parties promising freebies to a three-judge bench to be decided by the new chief justice of India.  The Supreme Court, getting into the freebies issue, is an example of misplaced priorities and entering into an area which is not the business of the higher judiciary.

THE Modi government is deepening strategic ties with the United States on all fronts.  Three events which took place in the last few weeks highlight this growing proximity to the geopolitical designs of the United States. 

PRIME Minister, Narendra Modi, spoke recently about how a strong government should be.  Addressing a university convocation in Chennai on July 29, Modi said: “A strong government does not control everything or everyone.  It controls the system’s impulse to interfere…A strong government does not move into every domain”.  He further said: “A strong government’s strength lies in its humility to accept that it cannot know or do everything”.