By Amulya Ganguli It might not be churlish to say that the celebration of the 75th year of Indian independence is more an official event associated with the BJP than a national occasion. The fact that the BJP was ousted from Bihar while facing an angry opponent in Telangana showed that the festivities […]
The post BJP And Sangh Parivar Had Never Any Faith In An Integrated Inclusive India first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli The enforcement directorate’s relentless pursuit of the Congress and other opposition parties can prove to be counter-productive in the long run. For a start, the impression can grow that the supposedly autonomous agency is being less than professional in its targeting of the non- BJP parties. The narcotic bureau’s botched […]
The post Congress Must Stand Up To Modi Government’s ED Terrorism first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli Mamata Banerjee’s latest troubles mean that her challenge to the BJP at the national level is petering out. After the scandal involving a formerly top-ranking minister who has now been sacked, few will credit her with being a person who can give the BJP a run for its money in 2024. Her […]
The post Mamata Banerjee Has Botched Her Chances Of Playing A National Role first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli An unprecedented event in January, 2018, saw four Supreme Court judges hold a Press conference – the first and last, in their view – to announce that democracy in India is in peril because “things are not in order” in the judiciary. Four years later, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, has also voiced […]
The post Indian Judiciary Is Still Failing To Act As The Custodian Of Democracy first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli The Samajwadi Party’s defeat in two Uttar Pradesh by-elections, the Trinamool Congress’s miserable performance in the Tripura polls and the BJP’s strangulation of the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi with the help of the Shiv Sena rebels, are signs of the BJP juggernaut’s – bulldozer’s? – relentless progress in various directions. To underline […]
The post Opposition Is On Backfoot Now In Offering Big Challenge To The BJP first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli A feature of the present ruling dispensation at the centre is the fear that it has generated even among the rich and famous. The late tycoon, Rahul Bajaj, was perhaps the only one who had referred to this phenomenon of “new India” at a gathering where the BJP’s bigwigs were present. It […]
The post Fear And Sycophancy Stalking Present India Under BJP Regime first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli After three decades of political success across the length and breadth of the country from the west to the north to the centre to the north-east, the Hindutva juggernaut led by the BJP has run into heavy weather. Yet, it was a setback which was waiting to happen. Given the BJP’s anti-Muslim […]
The post Latest Prophet Row Has Put BJP Leadership In A Delicate Situation first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli Occasionally, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is seen to be engaged in calming down the Hindutva hotheads. What prompts him to undertake such an exercise is generally beyond the understanding of impartial observers. But the Sangh Parivar leader’s effort is laudable and undeniable. His latest observation that there is no need to look […]
The post Is The RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Trying To Tame The Saffron Hawks? first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli With the world waking up to the possibility of the temple-mosque disputes in India becoming yet another religious flashpoint, as the BBC has said, the worst fears of the country’s well-wishers are coming true. The apprehension that the BJP’s rise to power will increase the communal temperature is proving correct. The fond […]
The post Sangh Parivar Is Targeting Mosques To Keep Communal Fires Burning first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli The one significant outcome of the Congress’s recent Chintan Shivir in Rajasthan was Rahul Gandhi’s acknowledgement that the party has lost touch with the people. Nothing demonstrated this disconnect more than the steep fall in the party’s Lok Sabha tally to 44 in 2014 and 53 five years later. However, what the […]
The post Even After Udaipur Chintan Shivir, Congress Is Groping For Its Role first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli The Delhi police’s initial reluctance to book saffron activists for their hate speech against Muslims, and the centre’s certificate to the sedition laws before the Supreme Court, are typical signs of authoritarianism. Left unchecked, such an official attitude is bound to pave the way for an intolerant, pro-Hindu state. The only saving […]
The post BJP Is Facing Little Challenge From Its Rivals Now In National Politics first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli When the US-based commission for international religious freedom branded India as a country of “particular concern” because of its poor human rights record. a pro-BJP newspaper described the American outfit as “India-hating”. The casual dismissal of the criticism showed what external affairs minister S. Jaishankar has hailed as a confident assertion of […]
The post Mr. Jaishankar – You Can Find Out What BJP Fringe Groups Are first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli Sharad Pawar was not revealing a state secret when he accused the BJP of creating a communal situation in the country. Ever since the hijab-halal-azaan row in Karnataka and elsewhere, the BJP’s intention of raising the communal temperature has been obvious. However, the purpose is unclear. Is it related to the over-confidence […]
The post Bulldozer Is The New Weapon Of The Ruling Hindu Right In India first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli The RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, has spelt out the geographical contours of the proposed Hindu rashtra along with the warning that those opposing the Akhand Bharat concept will either be pushed aside or eliminated. This is probably the first time that such an unequivocal admonition has been issued against those who do […]
The post RSS Chief’s Akhand Bharat Fantasy Has Got Dangerous Implications first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli It is easy to understand the mindset of Narendra Modi’s acolytes. Their devotion is clearly propelled by his strongman image. What is less easy to comprehend is the admiration of the right-wing in India for Russian President Vladimir Putin. That this adoration for machismo is a rightist phenomenon is obvious. But while […]
The post Russia-Ukraine War: India In Danger Of Being On The Wrong Side first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Amulya Ganguli “It’s the economy, stupid!” was the phrase used during the 1992 US presidential contest to emphasize the challenge faced by Bill Clinton during his campaign. In India today, the BJP’s opponents have to realize that the party’s success is the result of its clever use of Hindu-Muslim animosity to advance its prospects. […]
The post Anti-Muslim Sentiment Among Sizeable Hindus Is BJP’s Trump Card In Polls first appeared on IPA Newspack.
SOLAR-SCAM TAINTED CHANDY BUDGES NOT
By Amulya Ganguli
The Congress’s barefaced conduct in Kerala is typical of the coarseness, which Natwar Singh said he had detected in Sonia Gandhi in his autobiography, One Life Is Not Enough.
Oommen Chandy’s decision to stay on in the chief minister’s post by claiming that nothing has been proved as yet against him in the solar scam will not surprise the general public who are aware of the average politician’s fondness for the seat of power. They prefer to stick to it till all the options are exhausted. Given the slowness of the legal process, Chandy can hope to remain ensconced till the assembly elections.
What is unacceptable, however, is his move to reinstate even those who had left his ministry on various charges of corruption. These include the excise minister, K. Babu, who had been implicat
FATAL ANTI-DALIT BIAS OF MODI’S MINISTERS
By Amulya Ganguli
In a voice choked with (feigned?) emotion, Narendra Modi told the Ambedkar University convocation last Friday that Rohith Vemula was forced to take his own life. But he did not specify who forced the Dalit student although the prime minister knew that the “culprits” were in his cabinet. Moreover, they are likely to continue in their posts despite their guilt – unless they are booked for the abetment of suicide.
The two “guilty” ministers, however, must be wondering what they did wrong. After all, when labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya shot off a letter to the “high school girl” – SmritiIrani has studied only up to Class XII – in the human resource development ministry, complaining about how Hyderabad University has become a “den of casteism, extremism and anti-national politics”
MODI DESTROYING MULTICULTURAL INDIA
By Amulya Ganguli
Narendra Modi may have his own reasons for flaunting his Hindu background, but to rope in visiting dignitaries subscribing to other religions to his own displays of faith is odd, to say the least. The sight, therefore, of the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, participating in the Hindu ritual of offering aarti or obeisance to Mother Ganga in Modi’s company was without precedent in the world of diplomacy.
It is not known what was said in the tour schedule about this form of worship which must have been cleared by the Japanese before the visit. It is possible that Shinzo Abe presumed that he will merely be a witness to a puja like any other tourist. But to stand on the bank of the river as mantras are chanted and various invocations made was something which rarely constitutes a part of an official itinerar
TRANSFORMING INDIA’S SECULAR MAKEUP By Amulya Ganguli It is slowly becoming clear that Narendra Modi is pursuing the twin agenda…
CHURNING IS ON IN SAFFRON CAMP By Amulya Ganguli The saffron brotherhood has a remarkable capacity to let loose new…
CONGRESS DILEMMA SEES NO SIGNS OF ABATING By Amulya Ganguli There was an English monarch in the 11th century who…
VINDICTIVE OFFICIAL ACTIONS BEGIN By Amulya Ganguli Narendra Modi may have moved on politically from the traumatic events of 2002,…
PRIDE CAN’T REPLACE GOOD JUDGEMENT By Amulya Ganguli Narendra Modi’s political instincts have been shaped by two events – the…
By Amulya Ganguli The losers have banded together again. Their perseverance is admirable considering that repeated failures of the so-called Third Front or Janata experiment of constituting a non-Congress, non-BJP outfit haven’t dissuaded them. Probably, the success of the first memorable effort in 1977 which saved democracy in India continues to motivate them. As a result, whenever there is a low ebb in the political […]
By Amulya Ganguli The history of communism in India is one of strategic miscalculations at the national level as a result of blinkered tactical manoeuvres in the states. The outcome is that while the comrades have remained a marginal force at the centre, their main ideological adversary, viz. the BJP, has made major gains. Arguably, the roots of this fallout lie in the initial premise of […]
By Amulya Ganguli The writing is on the wall. To save itself, the Congress has no option but to bid farewell to the Nehru-Gandhi family. Therefore, the 100-odd supporters of the party who recently clamoured for the elevation of Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra to senior party positions are mistaken. If the 129-year-old party is to have a future, it has to make a new beginning under a new […]
By Amulya Ganguli As always, the electorate has sent a clear message to every party in the just concluded elections. For the BJP, the memo is that the regional parties cannot be ignored, as the Maharashtra results have shown. It was the same lesson which the BJP learnt in the parliamentary polls when it could not breach the regional fortresses of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, […]
By Amulya Ganguli West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s decline in the eyes of the middle class began within days of her assumption of office when she rushed to a police station to secure the release of several anti-socials who had been rounded up by the police on the charges of hooliganism. That the head of the government would personally go to a thana in aid […]
By Amulya Ganguli Even as the secular – sorry, “sickular” – brigade is upset over the live telecast of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s speech on Doordarshan, they seem to have missed a few tell-tale omissions in his address to the Hindu nation. For instance, there was no mention of the Ram temple or love jehad or conversions – issues that have agitated the saffronites for years […]
