People don’t want to see politics being hogged by time-tested politicians who have failed people’s expectations time and again.
The only way to preserve our newly acquired freedom is to put power where it belongs—to the people.
Post-revolution challenges and the new generation’s role in shaping our future
Democracy cannot operate as a simple majority steamroller, as we also saw in the early days of our independence.
The July-August uprising cannot afford to falter in the face of an entrenched opposition within political parties.
The mutilation done to the nation would require more than run of the mill actions or traditional approach.
Isn’t it time for India to come to terms with the reality about its neighbours, particularly about its most strategically located neighbour, Bangladesh?
Reform is not only overdue, but it has also become urgent given the rot that has engulfed the security sector, particularly over the last 15 years of misrule.
The police handling of the entire anti-quota episode so far reminds me of the pictorial idiom that one finds displayed in many public places in China and Japan, in particular in the form of three primates popularly known as the thinking sages or the wise apes, each covering three of the five main sensory organs.
It is a pity that a student organisation with a long democratic tradition has come to be seen as a synonym for violence, tender-grabbing, extortion and such like culpable acts.
“An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain—the equality of all men.”
When we are told by our leaders that democracy is in firm ground, maybe a dispassionate look at the matter is in order. The best that one can describe the prevailing democracy is by labelling it as a command democracy displaying monocratic tendencies. It would be hard also to disagree with anyone who chooses to define the present system as one run by a single party.
It seems that America under Trump is becoming gradually protectionist, reviving the memories and the experiences of the '20s and '30s era of the last century.
Religious festivals come as blessings to people; in Bangladesh they come as blessings too, but perhaps more so for a coterie of a few, and looked forward to with both hope and trepidation.
The likely reenactment of the Athenian historian's account of the 27-year-long Peloponnesian War which Graham Allison draws his imagery from in his book Destined for War:
First it was the Transpacific Partnership then the Paris climate agreement and now the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump has succeeded in torpedoing.
The optimists see the historic events of April 27, 2018 in the Peace Village in the demilitarised zone at Panmunjom, which happens to be the only contact point between two countries but one nation, as the foundation for a permanent reconciliation and enduring peace. The skeptics would like to agree but attach a rider of uncertainty. They wonder at Kim's climb down from the high horse and willingness to engage, and would rather wait to see more
The civilised world has stopped altogether questioning the legality of military actions of countries mighty and powerful beyond their own borders since the illegal occupation of Iraq by the US and its coalition of the willing (for some countries the entire world is their area of interest, and thus their intentions and actions, they assert, cannot be circumscribed by political boundaries). However, in this instance one might nonetheless ask whether the aim of the air strike on Syrian targets on April 13 by US, Britain and France, would actually meet the stated US objective—deterring Assad.
