The ghost of Malegaon
Hindutva terror banks on majoritarian prejudice in the criminal justice system as much as the larger public opinion, which assumes that Muslims are guilty even of terror attacks that clearly target their own community.
Crisis of cashlessness
Long queues outside banks and ATMs have become a common sight following PM Narendra Modi’s announcement to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. (Express Photo: Praveen Khanna)
Hardest hit, most invisible
“We have to dig wells every day in order to quench our thirst”. This popular Hindi saying recurred in conversations when I walked Delhi’s streets to understand how the abrupt withdrawal of old currency notes had impacted Delhi’s poorest, homeless and casual workers, and people dependent on charity.
Rather than fighting for those displaced by the Muzaffarnagar riots, it appears to be parroting majoritarian, communal stereotyping.
It is highly unfortunate that the NHRC report plays into the communal stereotype that dates back to Partition — of Muslim young men sexually harassing Hindu girls.
Muzaffarnagar, three years later
On September 7 2013, a gale of hate violence hit districts of western Uttar Pradesh, destroying and displacing thousands. Three years later, the large majority of these hate refugees remain exiled permanently from the villages of their birth, painfully rebuilding their lives in small makeshift colonies.
People of India have let down Irom Sharmila
Irom Sharmila holds a press conference after breaking her fast in Imphal, north-eastern Indian state of Manipur. Earlier on Tuesday, a judge had granted her bail after she assured him that she planned to end her fast.
A law against children
Home-based work absolves the owners and managers of global supply chains from any legal obligations of fair wages, healthy work conditions and social protection to the actual end-line workers who labour in isolated home-based units.
Unseeing the drought
The people of India’s villages carry collective memories of centuries of calamitous losses of sometimes millions of lives in famines. Famines have been pushed into history, unarguably one of free India’s greatest accomplishments.
No jobs in sight
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan raised many hackles with his demand for affirmative action or job reservations for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in the private sector.
Can an Indian spring be far behind?
Kanhaiya says he does not want to make a career in politics. I wish he would: I cannot think of a single national leader from any party who can match his love for his country, its oppressed people and its Constitution. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar)