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Cover-up and Coercion in the Name of the “Holy Cow”

IN his much publicised annual Vijay Dashmi address to the RSS cadres, Mohan Bhagwat announced that the “Gau Rakshaks have nothing to worry” and they were only doing their patriotic duty. This announcement became necessary because the observations of the Supreme Court took a stern view of cow vigilantism and the union government was subsequently forced to warn vigilante groups to curb their activities. However, Bhagwat said that “patriotic gau rakshaks” should not worry about government pronouncements.

Nature’s Latest Grand Spectacle Reaffirms its Dialectical & Materialist Character

THE world’s scientific community, especially astronomers and cosmologists, is abuzz about the signals from a mega event that rang, quite literally, not only around the globe but also beyond it. This was the “sighting” of a collision between two neutron stars 130 million light years away! What was so significant about it that it took the scientific community by storm and led to unprecedented messaging and tweeting all across the globe?

Employment Suffers in Digital India

SPEAKING at the Digital Haryana Summit in September 2017, the minster for electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Pratap Singh said that “the country’s digital economy is growing fast and by 2020 it is expected to provide job opportunities to about 50 to 70 lakh youth”. This pipe dream let lose by the minister may make one think that the automation and digitalisation process may create new opportunities to tap the so-called ‘demographic dividend’ of the country.

Jotting of My Life

Day – Minus six months: My mother was taken to a hospital. A test was done. They found out I was inside her womb. My father and his parents forced her to a surgery. I was killed, before I could see you.

Day – My birth: I had just come out of my mother’s womb. I was crying. They saw me. Instead of milk, the put some seeds in my mouth. My birthday was my death day.

November 22, 2015: I was three months old. My uncle who is 50 years old took me away from my house where I was sleeping. He raped and killed me.

Railway Reforms: Pursuit of Profit Trumps Public Interest

NEO-LIBERAL economic policies are set to unbound the Indian Railways, the country’s largest public transport. “Rail by market and not by the government” is the mantra of the Modi regime. The Indian Railways is crying for funds for capacity expansion and safety, but the government refuses to acknowledge it. Why should this network be a “Sarkari monolith”? -- is the argument forwarded by the propagators of its privatisaion.

The Debroy Committee Report

Privacy is now an inherent right, but will Parliament act?

BY ruling not just that privacy is a fundamental right but that it is an integral part of the right to liberty, a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court, on August 24, held unanimously that the right to privacy would come under both the right to life, liberty (Article 14, Article 21 of the Constitution) and therefore part III of the constitution. The fundamental reasoning behind the verdicts delivered separately and as a collective was that these rights are the inherent rights of man, born with him, not granted by statute (even the constitution) and hence cannot be suspended or taken away.

Roads of Battle Greet G-20 Summit

THE recent protests that welcomed the G20 Summit are a reflection of the brewing discontent against the continuing global economic crisis. With their future at stake, young people constituting the majority of the protesters led the way in expressing dissent. They stood up bravely to police brutality. Creativity was on wide display during all the days of protest before and during the Summit.

That Attraction...Socialism

A RECENT media report revealed a startling fact: “Around 580,000 respondents in 35 countries were asked the question: Would you actively participate in large-scale uprising against the generation in power if it happened in the next days or months? More than half of 18-34 year-olds said yes”. This shows the latent discontent among the youth today. And it is not without reason.

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