It’s no aberration that the first anniversary of the return to power of the United Progressive Alliance should coincide with a tsunami of grassroots protests: from Orissa to Maharashtra, and from Tamil Nadu to Uttarakhand, through tribal Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The protests represent popular resistance to UPA-2’s industrialisation and mining policies and its zealous... Read more
Why do you think the elections led to no clear winners? Two reasons: first there is a general disaffection with the political class as a whole and loyalties to particular political parties has been steadily diminishing, even since the 2005 election. Secondly, I think a key reason for the impasse was that there were very few differences between the parties on key issues, with there was no... Read more
In the aftermath of the dismal outcomes of the Copenhagen climate summit, US chief climate envoy Jonathan Pershing was quick to blame the failure on the UN's inclusive approach and proposed that some future meetings should be restricted to major countries. “[It is] impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail,”... Read more
At long last, the uniformly hysterical tone that dominated the early public debate on the Maoists’ killing of 76 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Dantewada has partially yielded to a somewhat sober response from political leaders. Congress general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh has stepped out and questioned home minister P Chidambaram’s hardline... Read more
Is Congress worth running for?As someone that comes from civil society, I am often asked this question.I do not blame people for being so cynical. After a year in the institution, I cannot deny that all they have heard about the House of Representatives is true.Chronic Absenteeism and other Foibles The problem goes beyond the chronic absenteeism that forces the House leadership, for lack of a... Read more
It started on a low – with all three leaders defining "immigration" as a problem and promising "tougher" action – and it didn't get much better. From the economy to Afghanistan to "law and order" there was an unspoken consensus upheld by a host of unasked questions.In the exchange on Afghanistan, the millions of voters who support a withdrawal of troops were treated as if they didn't exist. On... Read more
So resigned have Indians become to the idea of impunity for the powerful, especially in respect of hate speeches and crimes targeting ethno-religious groups, that the mere summoning of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the Special Investigation Team generated near-euphoric responses from the media.That Modi was questioned on the Gulberg Society massacre case and related issues for nine... Read more
When Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, was sworn in to a second term in January, he proclaimed Bolivia a plurinational state that would construct “communitarian socialism.” In an accompanying address, Vice President Álvaro Garcia Linare, envisioned a “socialist horizon” for Bolivia, characterized by “well-being, making the wealth communal, drawing on our heritage . . .” The process “will not be... Read more
While the outcome of the general election may be in doubt, the insubstantial nature of the political frenzy preceding it is entirely predictable. The ping-pong of buzzwords and soundbites, the hunt for gaffes, the formulaic promises to ‘listen’, the gurgle of briefings and punditry: the dismal spectacle has become familiar.For all its democratic claims, the election campaign serves mainly to... Read more
