RESEARCH

But it was a manifestation of the "functional anarchy" that India is known to be, which unravelled in central Delhi this week , as non-violent demonstrators bore the brunt of a frustrated police force I am managing to write this post with immense difficulty in typing as my right hand that received a big blow from a policeman's lathi last evening is reluctant to cooperate in this necessary exercise of reporting the eyewitness account. I was surrounded by five Delhi Police and RAF personnel who dealt massive blows all over my body in a fit of rage even as I kept screaming that I was a peaceful protester exercising my democratic right. I am not joining the demonstrations today because a few more hits in the same parts of the body will render me motionless, while I am entrusted with the task of organisation building. The day before yesterday, 22 December, we were squatting around the canopy at a distance of about half-a-kilometre from North Block where Rajpath ends,

Subramanian Swamy's allegat ion of Soni a-Rahul Gandhi indulging in a Rs 1,600 crore fraud contains questions more credible than the points of defence pu t up by the Congress, n otwithstanding the fact that every allegation by the Janata Party president is viewed by his detractors through the lenses of his past record of frequently changing alliances, communal diatribes and intemperate attacks on the person of his target at a given point of time “S ince when has it become legal for a political party to extend a loan?” Subramanian Swamy asks, questioning what appears a dubious business transaction between a dysfunctional media house, whose newspaper was launched by the first prime minister of the country, and a purported non-profit company, the majority stakes of which are held by the Indian National Congress's first family. The question is valid. Attacking his decade-long pet hate Seeking an explanation as to why a general body meeting of shareholders of Associ

क्या रसोई की छोटी-मोटी ज़रूरियात के लिए आप वाहन से इतनी दूर पधारेंगे? दे शीय व्यवसायों के स्वार्थ की रक्षा के नाम पर पिछले कई सालों से जगह-जगह एक पाखण्ड का मंचन हो रहा है। दावा यह है कि यह स्वदेशी जागरण या आंदोलन है। परन्तु इन मंचों पर एकत्र वक्ताओं और नीचे जुटे श्रोताओं पर एक नज़र दौड़ाइए तो यह स्वदेशी नहीं बल्कि स्व-बनिया अभियान सा प्रतीत होता है। बोलने वाले दुकानदार, सुनने वाले भी दुकानदार; या फिर ऐसी राजनैतिक पार्टी के लोग जो पार्टी मूलतः इन्हीं दुकानदारों के चंदे से चलती है। प्रतिपक्ष की सबसे बड़ी पार्टी इस मामले में कितना पाखण्डी है यह  इस रपट  ( http://m.indianexpress. com/story_mobile.php?storyid= 882221 ) से जानिये। वैसे आज भारतीय जनता पार्टी विपक्ष की भूमिका उसी प्रकार निभा रही है जैसे सन् २००२ ई० में कांग्रेस ने निभाई थी। उस वर्ष १६ दिसंबर को आज की सत्तारूढ़ पार्टी ने मुख्य प्रतिपक्ष के नाते संसद में कैसी शंका जताई थी यह  इन उद्धृतियों  ( http://www. indiankanoon.org/doc/1378142/ )  से जानिये। इस मामले में सरकार का यदि कोई दोष है तो वह राजनैतिक है, अर्थनैतिक नहीं।

This Indian Express page one anchor is a classic case exposing how little journalists know what is happening on the activism front At centre of stirs against graft, a body with RSS links, ex-babus I n the story referred to above, correspondent Manoj CG jumps to a facile conclusion based on random quotes without delving deep into the facts, that too more than a year since the events alluded to in the story transpired. While it is a fact that two members of India against Corruption  —  Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi  —  were among the empanelled speakers in Vivekananda International Foundation-hosted seminar on 1 and 2 April 2011, it was no way a bid to either shape the respective movements led by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev or bring the two civil society leaders together, much as the second is desired and has been a constant endeavour for the last two years on the part of many RSS  swayamsevak s. Following are the facts beyond what Manoj reports: The movement that has Hazare as

How Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Co took the unassuming people of this country for a ride [ Click on the headline to hear Shambhu Dutt Sharma speak ] T he 5-8 April spectacle at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, was nothing but a corporate conspiracy of expending the energies of the Great Indian Huddle-and-Muddle Class, as mass mobilisation by Baba Ramdev and satyagraha by veteran Gandhian Shambhu Dutt Sharma was making them increasingly jittery. The unfolding of the events also suggests, at least in hindsight and going by the confessions of a drunk journalist, that the UPA Government was complicit in the act of trickery. When the pressure was building up : Baba Ramdev addressing a rally at Ramlila Maidan on 27 February 2011; the group went on to submit a memorandum containing 10 demands to the President To grab maximum eyeballs, the show was timed conveniently to fall between the end of the ICC World Cup tournament and the beginning of DLF-sponsored Indian Premier Leag