THE gruesome attack on protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on October 3 marks a new level of violence against the farmers’ movement which has been going on for the past ten months. The farmers were protesting the visit of the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was to attend a function organised by the union minister of state for home affairs, Ajay Mishra Teni.The farmers had assembled near a place where the deputy chief minister was to arrive, when a convoy of cars led by a vehicle owned by Ajay Mishra and with his son, Ashish Mishra in it,

THE September 27 bandh called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has been a big success.

THE Modi government has laid out one more plan to “clean” the books of banks, especially public banks, by helping them get rid of Rs 2 lakh crore of loans gone ‘bad’. It has announced the creation of two institutions for the purpose. The National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL), or the “bad bank” in popular parlance, will take over the bad assets of the banks. The Indian Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL), armed with the necessary expertise, will ‘manage’ these assets and sell them at the ‘best possible’ price, to recover some of the money due to the banks.

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has once again used his favourite analogy of “double engine growth” delivering “double profit” in Uttar Pradesh.  Speaking at the foundation laying ceremony of the Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh, the underlying theme of the speech also made it clear what ‘double engine’ actually means.  It is a combination of rank communal and caste appeal.With the Uttar Pradesh assembly election drawing nearer, the BJP, under Modi and Adityanath’s leadership, have embarked on the twin engine of communal and caste mobilisation.  Narendra Modi’s speech mus

SUPREME Court Judge, Justice D Y Chandrachud, has given a thoughtful and lucid talk on ‘Speaking Truth To Power: Citizens And The Law’ on the occasion of the Justice M C Chagla Memorial Lecture.In an erudite analysis of the relationship between truth and democracy and the role of citizens in speaking truth to power, Justice Chandrachud says: “Democracy needs the power of truth to survive.  As such one can consider ‘speaking truth to power’ as a right every citizen must have in a democracy, but equally as also the duty of every citizen”.He goes on to state that, “Crucially, the assumption is