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The recent stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela site in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, is but a chapter in the denialism of tragic deaths in India. Nonetheless, it raises concerns. The refusal to acknowledge systemic failures in the management of the Kumbh Mela can be made sense of in two different ways. First, in likening the […]
Two weeks ago, US President Donald Trump sacked the first African American Chairman of the US Military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown. Trump’s professed rationale for removing the highest-ranking military officer in the US was to eliminate Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) programmes of which the General was an advocate. Brown […]
Bengaluru: In his 119th episode of Mann Ki Baat on February 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was all praise for India’s indigenous tribal communities. Many wild species are “deeply embedded” in our history and culture, Modi said, and several tribes revere them as gods and goddesses. He cited the examples of Waghoba, the leopard god that some tribal […]
The Modi government may adopt an ostrich-like attitude or even justify what the Americans have done, but the fact remains that for Indians, the manner in which hundreds of undocumented Indians were sent back was viewed as a national humiliation. First person accounts of their hardship – cuffs on hands and feet, long flights on military […]
It is rather rich of the Supreme Court to preach morality when, not too long ago, not a single Supreme Court judge publicly objected to their Chief Justice presiding over cases despite serious allegations of sexual harassment. On February 17, the Supreme Court heard YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia’s plea for interim protection in multiple obscenity cases […]
New Delhi: Over two weeks have passed since Abdul Razzak, a hotel-owner in Gujarat’s Kheda district, saw images of his hotel being flashed across the local media as a part of what he calls a “smear campaign”. The owner of Rangoli Hotel, Razzak heaves a weary sigh today, even as his voice appears flummoxed. “Ours is […]
What do chained Indian deportees – undocumented workers expelled from the United States – returning home often after mistreatment and forced hunger spells say about the government of India? Some returning Sikhs were forced to take off their turbans, hustled in US military aircraft, leaving the United States shortly before the Indian PM himself left for […]
New Delhi: Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi recorded his dissent in the meeting of the selection committee to pick the next chief election commissioner (CEC), calling the composition of the committee itself lopsided, The Wire has learnt. A meeting of the selection committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and […]
Jalandhar: Notwithstanding uproar over American authorities’ treatment of Indian deportees as well as New Delhi flagging its concern, authorities aboard the US military flight carrying the second tranche of deportees in a month removed passengers’ handcuffs and shackles 20 minutes before landing at the Amritsar airport on Saturday (February 15) night, deportees said. A total of […]
New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government, along with Hindu monastic heads, have marketed the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj as a once-in-a-lifetime event taking place after 144 years due to a rare celestial alignment. We cannot approve or disapprove the celestial aspect of the event, given that it pertains to the faith of millions of […]
It has been in the news lately that Gujarati migrants make up a huge portion of those who have been deported by the Trump administration to India. In fact, it is understood that Gujaratis are overrepresented among illegal Indian migrants in the US at large. In 2023, out of 67,391 Indian illegal migrants in the US, […]
The government took almost a day to come up with estimates of the dead in the Kumbh stampedes. It did its best to not give out details, until being forced to say “30 died”. Subsequent reports put the numbers of the dead at 79, at least. Official figures are gung-ho on bathers attending the grand event, they […]
The Congress Party is entitled to its view that the Delhi vote is by no means an endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership but a rejection of Arvind Kejriwal’s experiment in politics of deceit and deception. A grain of truth, perhaps. The BJP, of course, has earned crowing rights. The established rites of sycophancy […]
Eighty-seven-year-old Zakia Jafri passed away on February 1, 2025. But our country’s judiciary did not give her justice till the end. The heinous incident of Gulbarg Society was not carried out by just an agitated mob, a very big personality was behind it. Doubts arise because despite the police commissioner of Ahmedabad and the local […]
As Delhi went to polls on February 5, 2025, the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party may have just fought its biggest battle in its little over a decade of existence. Confronted with the proverbial 10-year-old itch of the electorate, the Arvind Kejriwal-led organisation had three mammoth challenges. One, it had to overcome the increasing impression that […]
New Delhi: The air hangs heavy with the combined weight of dust, diesel fumes, and simmering discontent. As the spring sun begins its descent, casting long shadows across the labyrinthine lanes of Karawal Nagar and Mustafabad, the residents of these two Northeast Delhi constituencies prepare to make a choice that will shape not only their immediate […]
New Delhi: Ever since 42 persons were killed in a stampede at the Allahabad Railway station during the 2013 Maha Kumbh Mela, Mohammad Azam Khan, the senior Muslim leader of the Samajwadi Party, has been widely projected by the Bharatiya Janata Party as the villain behind the tragedy. Khan, who was the state’s urban development minister […]
The politicisation of this year’s Maha Kumbh has reached unprecedented levels with the number of attendees taking a dip in the Ganga being inflated to unreasonable figures, solely to make the fair appear excessively grand. The Shahi Snan has also been renamed as Amrit Snan – a bath to attain immortality – perhaps to appease an inherent inferiority complex. […]
New Delhi: The Daulat Ram College (DRC) in Delhi University (DU) on Wednesday (January 22) organised a religious programme in the premises of the institute commemorating the first anniversary of consecration of Hindu deity Ram’s idol in the newly-constructed temple in Ayodhya. Labelled as “Shri Ramlalla Virajman ki Pranpatishtha ki Pratham Varshgaanth (first anniversary of the consecration of […]
New Delhi: Anita Bose Pfaff, daughter of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, has made a heartfelt appeal to the Union government to bring back her father’s mortal remains from Tokyo, Japan, where they have been kept in Renkoji Temple for decades. This demand comes on the eve of Bose’s 128th birth anniversary, which is celebrated as Parakram […]
