If Only We Had Wings…

R KELLY, the now disgraced pop star, had famously sung, ‘I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky…spread my wings and fly away…’ That song, with the beautiful video of Michael Jordan dunking the ball in the basket was really fascinating. That was then, it was only a fascination. A fantasy. But these are the days when fantasies turn into realities and myths. From there, it is not a long flight to become part of our history syllabus. Let us see how it is done.A textbook for Class VIII students in Karnataka teaches us that one can easily fly.

Is this the End of Justice?

THE Amrit Mahotsav celebrations of 75 years of Indian independence were indelibly marred by the shocking remission granted on that day by the government of Gujarat to 11 persons who had been convicted of multiple rape and murder committed by them during the horrific carnage of Muslims that took place in the state in 2002. When news of this remission became public, Bilkis Bano, the only survivor of the crimes, could only say ‘Is this the end of Justice’?MEMORIES HAUNT ONCE AGAINI was part of a CPI(M)-AIDWA delegation along with Brinda Karat, Kiran Moghe, Mariam Dhawale, Sub

75 Years since Independence: Where India Stands in Road Accidents?

THE government celebrated ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ to mark 75 years of India’s Independence in a big way. Like many other burning issues of the people, the major issue of road accidents/fatalities and the miseries of the victims and their families was also ignored or sidelined. The government has recently released the statistics and an analysis report on road accidents.India stands number one in the world in road accidents and related deaths. As many as 1,31,714 persons were killed and 3,48,279 injured due to road accidents in 2020.

Electricity Amendment Bill 2022 Last Nail on the Public Electricity Sector in India

ON August 8, 2022, the government of India witnessed the anger and rage of more than one million electricity employees against its autocratic deceiving move to introduce the Electricity Amendment Bill 2022 in the parliament.

134th Birth Anniversary of Kakababu: New Present Has to Be Built in the Light of Past Traditions

SINCE 1963, we have been observing the birth anniversary of Comrade Muzaffar Ahmad, popularly known to one and all as ‘Kakababu’. We observe his birthday not merely for the sake of remembrance. Our aim is to learn from his efforts in building a movement and forging a struggle, from his giant endeavour to build an organisation from scratch under adverse circumstances with the goals and objectives to build the Communist Party in this country.

70th Anniversary of India’s Independence: Powerful Struggles Alone Can Build Alternative Narrative

AS India marks its 70th anniversary of independence, it is necessary to recollect that the current political and social battles that are going on in our country emerge from a continuous ideological battle between three distinct visions of what should be the character of the political and social structure of post-independent India that arose during the course of our epic freedom struggle, particularly in the decade of the 1920s. The mainstream Congress vision had articulated that independent India should be a secular democratic Republic.

BSNL’s Revival Package: Tall Claims and Bitter Truths

THE government has once again tom-tommed that it would be spending Rs 1.64 lakh crore to revive BSNL. This second revival package was announced on July 27, 2022. The government had already announced a similar revival package for BSNL and MTNL on October 23, 2019, in which the government had promised to spend Rs 70,000 crore for the revival of both the public sector telecom companies. A loud message is being sent to the general public of this country that the government is squandering a huge amount of tax payers’ money, for the so called revival of BSNL.

GST Rate Hikes and the Tweets Of Union Finance Minister

REFERRING to a list of 12 grains and their flours, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that “GST on these goods shall apply when supplied in ‘pre-packaged and labelled’ commodities attracting the provisions of Legal Metrology Act. For example, items like pulses, cereals like rice, wheat, and flour, etc, earlier attracted GST at the rate of 5 per cent when branded and packed in unit container. From July 18, 2022, these items would attract GST when “pre-packaged and labelled”.BRANDED AND UNBRANDEDLet us clarify this rigmarole.

Imploding the PSUs from Within

THE hoarding raised just outside the police headquarters in Delhi, by the RSS’s mouthpiece, Panchjanya is a pointer to the fact that the public sector is doomed to be ruined. Panchjanya, which is a weekly newspaper of the RSS held a conference on sustainability in Hotel Le Meridien, Delhi. Something which was not even imagined a few years back, the paper has spent lavish money to hold such a conference. This hoarding still hangs on the walls despite the fact that the event was held a month ago.

The Invisibilisation of Dalits in UP

REPORTS of attacks on minorities, especially Muslims, in Uttar Pradesh have become commonplace. Justifications of these attacks are a regular feature on high-decibel, provocative tv ‘debates’. Hindi newspapers are also full of these reports and justifications. This has become a tested way of deepening religious polarization which has paid rich political dividends for the ruling party. Attacks on dalit men, women and children occurring with greater frequency and intensity after 2017 are, however, absent from the mainstream electronic media and hard to find in the newspapers where they fi

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