The Right Perspective

Terror calls for a hard martial response. And that should entail no guilt  (from DailyO) It was like any other Thursday morning. I rolled out of my bed and took a quick look outside my bedroom window — one can never trust the notorious swing of Chicago weather. We go to bed with a foot of snow on the ground and wake up to a temperature that may feel like a heat wave. I was happy that there was no fresh snow on my driveway and I did not have to shovel before heading out of my house. Relieved, I went downstairs to the kitchen. I put all the ingredients for ‘adarak-wali chai’ in a pot to boil on the stove. And, as usual, I picked up my phone and started going through my Twitter feed. As the water-milk mix in the pot started to rise, my heart started to sink. I turned the stove to the lowest heat setting and started to scroll down my phone. There had been a terror attack in Kashmir and several CRPF soldiers were killed.  The casualty count star...

(from DailyO ) A remarkable wind of change that swept the United States in the recently concluded mid-term elections saw a record number of female lawmakers sent to Washington DC. The elections also saw a record number of women contesting polls nationwide for national and state legislatures as well as gubernatorial posts. The impending 2020 presidential race already has five women from the Democratic Party who would like to have an opportunity to challenge Donald Trump, the incumbent Republican, for the top post. The list includes Elizabeth Warren,  Tulsi Gabbard , Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar. Kamala Harriss is the other woman of Indian origin who has decided to challenge Donald Trump in 2020. (Source: Reuters) Among all Democratic presidential contenders, Tulsi Gabbard stands out for various reasons. One reason is that many pundits consider Gabbard an underdog as well as an outlier in the Democrat establishment. Owing to her differences with t...

(from DailyO ) It was like any other Thursday morning. I rolled out of my bed and took a quick look outside my bedroom window — one can never trust the notorious swing of Chicago weather. We go to bed with a foot of snow on the ground and wake up to a temperature that may feel like a heat wave. I was happy that there was no fresh snow on my driveway and I did not have to shovel before heading out of my house. Relieved, I went downstairs to the kitchen. I put all the ingredients for ‘adarak-wali chai’ in a pot to boil on the stove. And, as usual, I picked up my phone and started going through my Twitter feed. As the water-milk mix in the pot started to rise, my heart started to sink. I turned the stove to the lowest heat setting and started to scroll down my phone. There had been a terror attack in Kashmir and several CRPF soldiers were killed.  The casualty count started with 15-20. By the time I headed out to work, it had already reached 40. Pulwama Attac...

From a firebrand socialist who organised the biggest Railway Strike in the history of India to becoming the Defence Minister of India - George Fernandes The eighth of May, 1974 wasn’t an ordinary day in India.  The Indian Railway, the ‘lifeline’ of the Indian economy, the engine that moved India quite literally, wasn’t moving at all.  The workers of India’s single largest employer had struck work.  Never before had there been a strike that included the entire network of railway employees and claimed the support of almost all unions, including rival factions.  The entire nation came to a standstill. The person behind this strike of such magnitude and far-reaching consequences was George Mathew Fernandes. An icon, a maverick, a rebel, a hero, a face of resistance, George was born to John Joseph and Alice Martha on June 3, 1903 in Mangalore.  Hailing from a deeply religious and devout Catholic family, George was a trained priest. But George ultimat...

MISA, Emergency, forced sterilisations: Why is Priyanka Gandhi resembling Indira Gandhi a good thing?  (via DailyO) Growing up in Patna, Bihar, in the 1970s, I had a front-row view of the events of the historic JP movement.  The then-Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, had just been found guilty of violating electoral laws by the Allahabad High Court. She retaliated by proclaiming a National Emergency on the midnight of June 25, 1975. Constitutional rights were curtailed, Opposition leaders were imprisoned, and the PM was authorised to rule by decree, bypassing Parliament.  Under JP, youth across North India rallied against the Emergency — and against Indira Gandhi.  (Photo: India Today Archives) Jayaprakash Narayan, affectionately called 'JP', an ageing, frail Socialist leader, galvanised the youth across North India to oppose the Emergency, with his call of ‘Sampoorna Kranti’, the total revolution. Protest marches, arrests, extended curfews were the orde...

This article appeared in  the DailyO When Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, announced her intention to run for US president on CNN’s  The Van Jones Show  on January 12, she became the first Hindu to do so.  Gabbard, currently serving her second term in the US Congress, represents the 2nd congressional district of Hawaii. She was first elected to the Congress in 2012.  Gabbard is a member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs committee. She served as the vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2013, a testimony of her rising clout in the Democratic Party.  She later resigned from the post in 2015.  Gabbard is also a co-chair of Congressional India Caucus. Tulsi Gabbard is the first Hindu woman to run for the top job in America. (Photo: AP/file) Born into an interracial family (Samoan father, Mike, and a White mother, Carol), Gabbard moved to Hawaii in 1983 at the age of two. She was elected to the Hawaii State H...

Dr. Rajendra Prasad: Correspondence and Select Documents ~ Avatans Kumar Today, as we celebrate the birth anniversary of Dr. Rajendra Prasad (or Rajen Babu), here is an interesting episode in the political life of the first President of the Republic of India. The Constituent Assembly was tasked to frame the Constitution of the Republic of India.  Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the President of the Assembly. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to make C. Rajgopapalchari the interim President of the Republic of India.  Rajaji, at that time, was serving as the Governor General of independent India.  Pandit Nehru wrote a letter to Rajen Babu about his ‘consultation’ with Vallabhbhai Patel regarding this issue.  In his letter, Nehru indicates that Patel agrees with him.  Panditji writes: “I have discussed this matter with Vallabhbhai and we felt that the safest and the best course from a number of points of view was to allow presen...