Past & Politics

Mohondas Karamchand Gandhi. An individual sometimes referred to as Bapu or sometimes as the Mahatma. A man whose ideals inspired many not only in India but throughout the world in their own struggles against injustice and oppression. What makes him so revered till this date is the unique mode of methods he adopted to oust an exploitative colonial power. Today a lot of efforts have been made to dent on the rich legacy this man has left. However needless to say, a lot of it is outright exaggeration. Gandhi and Kasturba were married at a very young age. Gandhi prohibited doctors to prescribe Western Medicine when the latter was suffering from pneumonia relying only on Indian medicine which later led to her death in 1944. Gandhi like all other human beings had his fair share of flaws. He abused his wife. He was unkind towards his children. Allegations that he tried to mould the sexuality of his grandnieces have too been raised which however have never been constructively proved...

Popularly remembered as 'The Lion of Punjab' Lala Lajpat Rai was born on 28th January 1865 at Jagraon in  the Punjab presidency.  His father, Munshi Radha Krishna Agarwal was the teacher of Persian and Urdu of the Government school in Dhudike married to Gulab Devi, the Lala's mother. His early education began at the Government Higher Secondary School in Rewari where his father was transferred in 1870. Upon completing his schooling, he began to pursue law at the Government College, Lahore where he came in contact with other noteworthy members of the freedom struggle Lala Hans Raj and Pandit Guru Dutt. Being brought up in a Hindu household, Lajpat Rai was attracted to the ideals of Swami Dayanand Saraswati and his Arya Samaj. Upon becoming the member of the Society's Lahore Branch, Rai founded the Arya-Gazette which strengthened his beliefs in the tenets of Hinduism. According to him, Hinduism paved way for a humane society on which Indian lifestyle should be based. Howev...

Auschwitz. A name that is synonymous with fascist oppression and religious persecution. One of the largest Concentration camps built by the Nazis, it was 1,000 m long and 400 m wide, consisting primarily of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story; a second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were constructed. Initially built to imprison Polish political prisoners, it was used to realise Hitler's 'Final Solution' where 1.3 million Jews where transported via freight trains as the Nazis increased their boundaries throughout Europe to be killed by being gassed or medical experiments or by starvation and individual executions.  The Auschwitz Concentration Camp was one of the largest Concentration camps built by the Nazis. It was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1979. The final days of the camp was far more horrific than the five years it existed. As the Nazis gradually began to realise that they were fighting a lost war, they incr...

When the lockdown began in March 2020, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry came up with the splendid news of re-telecasting the extremely popular Ramayana and Mahabharata on Doordarshan, two of the highest viewed shows in the history of television. First telecasted on 25th January 1987, it was the most expensive show at that time with a budget of ₹9 lakhs per episode. A brainchild of Ramanand Sagar who had been planning such a show since the 70s, it emerged to earn a consistent viewership as compared with other contemporary soap operas of those era like Hum Log and Buniyad. A show which could effectively portray the bests of Indian culture unfortunately had catastrophic political implications. The Rajiv Gandhi government of the day inspite of having a thumping majority in the Lok Sabha was growing quite unpopular owing to reasons such as the Shah Bano Case, the Bofors Scandal and the gradual fading of the Indira Gandhi sympathy. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement too was gradually gain...

As the Congress Party intends to meet on the 22nd of January perhaps to kick off the leadership election process, five month after 23 senior leaders of the Grand Old Party wrote a letter to the Interim President, Sonia Gandhi calling for sweeping changes in the Party and demanding Elections to the official positions, it must take a lesson from the Chintan Shivir at Panchmari in 1998 and the Shimla Shivir in 2003. Nearly 20 years have passed since these landmark sessions but the similarities of then and now are certainly prominent. The Congress had lost power in the 1998 Elections and it's seats had dwindled both at State and Centre Levels. The Chintan Shivir witnessed Sonia Gandhi being elected as the President of the party. On her inaugural address, she mentioned several vital points that have stark resemblance with today's crisis within the Congress. She had mentioned that what was far more concerning than the electoral losses was the loss of their support base amongst those ...

In 2004, the Dutch Government had passed the historic Wet kinderopvang or the Childcare Act that provided childcare benefits to the working families (defined to be Single parent families or families in which both parents are working) and is to be spent on professional babysitters or daycares. Although the programme falls under the  Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, the scheme is enforced by the Tax and Customs Administration under the Ministry of Finance who are also responsible for any fraud prevention in the course of the scheme's implementation. The Act was controversial in several senses as various daycare agencies began to commit fraud. The flaws of the Dutch Social welfare system particularly came to light when several Bulgarian migrants by applying for housing, healthcare and childcare allowances received about 4 million euros between 2007 and 2013 following which they left the country. This was followed by the adoption of stricter measures such as checking eligibil...

Georgia's run-off Elections for the two seats in the Senate prove to be a massive setback for the Republicans. The run-off elections were conducted since none of the candidates from the state could muster the 50% vote required to be declared a victor according to the state's Constitution in the November General Elections. Both the seats were held by Republicans, Senator Kelly Loeffler and Senator David Perdue. The Democrats won both seats with Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff being elected to the Upper House of the US Congress . The Four contenders. Raphael Warnock (D) vs Kelly Loeffler (R) and Jon Ossoff (D) vs David Perdue (R). The run-off Elections were significant. Politically it proved a distaste the American citizens had for the entire fraud campaign that was built by Donald Trump led Republican party in states like Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania where there was a turnout of postal ballots and a last minite change from the Red camp to the blue securing Biden...

On 19 December last year, Veteran TMC leader and one of its founding Members, Subhendu Adhikary had quit from the TMC to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. He had resigned from his Ministerial positions on 27 November and his seat in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on 16th December where he was representing the Nandigram Constituency. Adhikary was one of the principal faces of the party due to his role in the Nandigram movement when he led the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee at a time when the former Left Front Government had acquired 10,000 acres of land in the village to set up a special Economic zone. Coming from a very political family, with his father and siblings being in active politics, he is credited to increase the TMC's footprint in the Jangal Mahal districts. He had been an MP from 2009-16 and had represented Nandigram post the 2016 Assembly polls. Mamata Banerjee along with Subhendu Adhikary and Sishir Adhikary. The former was the Minister of Transport ...