THE Gujarat election campaign has witnessed the lowest levels of vituperative communal rhetoric and scare-mongering targeting Muslims.  The main culprit for this base campaign is Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. The election speeches of Narendra Modi were marked by a string of allegations and canards which were meant to create a communal imagery of Muslims and link them to Pakistan.  Rahul Gandhi becoming Congress president would usher in `Aurangzeb raj’; some obscure Kashmiri Muslim Congress worker is accused of casting a slur on Narendra Modi’s parentage; it was alleged that some ret

DECEMBER 6 marks the completion of 25 years of the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.  This was a momentous day for India.  What was demolished  was not just a 16th century mosque, but it was a direct challenge to the Indian Constitution and its secular-republican values.December 6, 1992 can be seen as the milestone from where began the march of the Hindutva forces for political power.  25 years later, those forces are ensconced in the seat of power in Delhi.What were the deceitful moves by the RSS-led forces then?  They betrayed a solemn oath given to the Supreme Court that whateve

THE draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam is to be published by December 31, 2017 as per the direction of the Supreme Court of India. The updating of the NRC of 1951 constitutes a key part of the implementation of the Assam Accord of 1985 which had fixed March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for determining illegal migrants who came after that date.The updating of the NRC is thus a vital step in settling the “foreigners” issue in Assam. It would allay the fears about illegal migration harboured by the Asomiya and indigenous communities.

THE first visit to India of the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, marked another step in the US gambit to draw India fully into a strategic-military alliance in what is called the “Indo-Pacific” region.Before his visit, Tillerson made a significant speech at a think-tank in Washington entitled, “Defining Our Relationship with India for the Next Century”.

CONTRARY to the strident statements against black money and corruption, the Modi government and the BJP are, in practice, taking step after step to shield corruption and to allow the rich to launder black money.  Three such instances have occurred in the recent period.In the first case, the Modi government has raised the upper limit for buying jewellery without submitting PAN-Aadhar details to Rs 2 lakh per transaction.  Earlier, in August this year, the government had amended the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to make PAN and Aadhar mandatory for jewellery purchases above Rs 50,000 per