By all appearances, the 2024 general elections was projected – most of all by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies, and significant sections o
As India heads towards the home run of its 18th General Election-with just the last of the seven phases to be held on June 1, the slogans, posturing,
Why do parties with ideologies corrosive to basic democratic values - liberty, equality, and fraternity - enjoy democratic endorsements in India and e
India’s General Election to the 18 thLok Sabha (LS, the House of the People) has the makings of a high-stakes contest. The early decades sa
India’s plural tradition, safeguarded by a constitutional commitment to a secular democracy, is going through challenging times. The founding ideals o
As India steps into its 77thyear of Independence, it has moved a considerable distance from its lofty founding vision of ushering in a new
In many countries across the world, the active omnipresence of conflicting ideologies is nowhere as apparent as when it comes to official textbooks. G
What are schools meant to do for adolescent-aged children? Are they merely institutions that instil conformity while imparting basic knowledge of the
Sedition laws sit at the crossroads of politics and society, and law and justice. The political nature of this “offence against the state” tests the l
Article 124A, characterised aptly by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, as the “prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code de
In India's hierarchy of roadways, its millions of pedestrians are reduced to helpless trundlers. Despite the reality that they constitute the single l
Calamities throw a critical spotlight on state policies. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate, governments of the world, medical researchers, c
Views of leaders occupy prominent positions in the popular narrative in any society: they set a tone for political and social discourse and play a rol
India's road network carries close to 90 per cent of the country's passenger traffic and about 60 per cent of its freight. This sector also includes t
In most developed countries, ports are managed by municipal or provincial governments, with the federal government overseeing only border control, com
India's political discourse, which reached a national characteristic during the freedom struggle, has travelled through several phases since Independe
For more than 100 days now India’s farmers have protested at the Shinghu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders outside the national capital, New Delhi. Earlier,
A common challenge faced by governments across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic is to identify patients affected by the virus. The two tests ado
The contentious issue of cow slaughter has been revived with the notification of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets
Video: Romila Thapar - In Her Own Words This is an extended video interview with Romila Thapar , Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and India’s best-known historian of early India. Prof. Thapar is known for her unwavering commitment to the principles of secularism and equal citizenship, which has often made her the target of attacks by the religious right wing. In this 80-minute interview, which was shot in Washington D.C. in 2004, Prof. Thapar talks about concerns arising from the growth of Hindutva and her own reluctant acceptance of the role of a public intellectual in the face of two equal challenges: The Hindu right’s attacks on professional history via a kind of myth-history and the threat to democracy from political majoritarianism: “One is the attack on professional history …The other is, of course, the much more widespread question of the politics of Hindutva. If this kind of Hindutva history is aimed at what it is aimed at, which is the primacy of the Hindu and the primacy of the Hindu citizen, and Hindu majoritarian rule replacing democracy, then one is opposed to it as a democrat and as a secular intellectual.”Professor Thapar also speaks about her PhD dissertation on Asoka, her early years and initiation into history, her student life in London, the intellectual encounters she has had with the eminent sociologist, M.N. Srinivas, the influence that D.D. Kosambi’s Marxist historiography had on Indian historians, especially her, and about the raid on Somnath Temple and the various versions of it recorded in scriptures and edicts of different times.Prof. Thapar has helped found the famous Centre for Historical Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and is an active proponent of innovative approaches to the study of history. Direction : Chetan Shah Producer : Itty Abraham Interviewer : David Ludden [This article’s headline was updated on June 23, 2017.] Releated Links: 1. Chakravarti R. 2015 . “ Linking the past and the present “, Frontline , September 18. 2. Video of Prof. Thapar’s lecture at Kalakshetra, which was hosted on The Hindu Centre’s website can be accessed here .
Always volatile, the situation in the Kashmir Valley has taken a turn for the worse in the year since Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander, wa
Since 1983, the Supreme Court has been using the "shock to the conscience of the society" as a ground for imposition of the death penalty. I
The Union government’s contention in the Supreme Court, in defence of the Aadhaar Act, that India’s citizens lack a fundamental right to privacy, may
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