Table of Contents
Dangerous tactics
- Recent attacks by Maoists suggests that their ability to strike remains strong.
- The government’s strategy of using military force while earmarking funds for infrastructure and welfare programmes in the districts most affected by left-wing extremism has weakened the Maoists.
- The change of guard in the CPI (Maoist) leadership also suggests that it has moved towards further militarisation to secure its guerrilla forces’ influence.
- People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India into the CPI (Maoist) in 2004.
- “Red Corridor” spanning central and northcentral India, marked by rural deprivation.
- Rather than focussing on socio-economic struggles to uplift peasants and tribals in this region, the Maoists relied on waging a military battle against the state with the intention of capturing power through violent means.
- This was largely due to a gross and mindless misreading of the nature of the Indian state and its democratic institutions.
- The change in leadership of the CPI (Maoist) and its recent actions suggest there is no end in sight to this insurgency in the near term — a sad reality for tribals caught in the crossfire.
The reason for renaming places
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- Gurgaon into Gurugram: Dronacharya, who had tried to disable his student
- We have been told and we believe
- “Sone Ki Chidiya (a golden bird)”
- This historical imagination leads us to believe that the golden age ended with the coming of the Muslims and all we have to do now is go back to that period.
- The subconscious feeling is that nothing new was created in this period, especially during the time of Muslim rule.
- It feeds on a deep-seated inferiority complex.
- Nearly 95% of Muslims in India were originally Hindus who were later converted, and it is therefore possible to restore them to their Hinduness.
- The renaming of places and “reclaiming” of monuments are part of a large and long process of cultural genocide.
- The term might be extreme for some people, but for Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, the cultural destruction of a group is as important as the physical annihilation of its members.
- National psychology
- The Discovery of India: Jawaharlal Nehru describes India as an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie have been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer has completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.
- Nehru understood the way cultures grow.
- A drug is being generated and it is putting people on a high. It is the drug of victory.
A history we must confront
- To ignore their deaths because this was not ‘our’ war would be a grave dishonour.
- We studied ancient Indian history, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, etc. in school.
- Back on the subcontinent, we worked our way up to the 20th century, and then to the freedom movement, eliding the Great War.
- Yes, the Quit India Movement was vital, but we cannot continue to allow the sacrifices of India’s soldiers to be merely supporting structures in our history.
Game changers
- Demonetisation appears to be a disaster and the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax seems to have had a negative impact on the financial capacity of a substantial number of people.
- Name changing has, therefore, become a convenient ploy to deflect people’s attention from the government’s economic incompetence.
- Setting the country on the road to industrialisation and laying the foundations on which it could build its technological capacity was a similarly impressive accomplishment.
Important News
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- Rafale deal not done in a hurry: Centre
- The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approved the procurement of the 36 Rafale jets well over a year after the Indo-French Joint Statement to acquire the aircraft “as quickly as possible” was issued, said a government note in the Supreme Court on the Rafale deal.
- Since 2002, over 1,100 contracts valued at ₹7.45 lakh crore were successfully concluded using the DPP structure, introduced after the Kargil War.
- Union Minister Ananth Kumar dead
- Senior BJP leader and Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, and Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar passed away at a private hospital here around 2 a.m. on Monday. He was 59.
- SC frowns on tardy CVC submission
- A 24-hour delay by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in filing its report on the inquiry against exiled CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma led the Supreme Court to adjourn Monday’s crucial hearing to November 16 (Friday).
- In Oct., retail inflation cools to 3.31%
- Consumer inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, eased in October to 3.31%, from 3.77% the previous month, owing to slowing price growth in the food, housing, and footwear segments.
- Deny MSP to stubble burners: NGT
- Stating that State governments had failed to curb stubble burning, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday summoned the Chief Secretaries of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
- No stones replaced at Konark Sun Temple: ASI
- The ASI on Monday clarified that not a single stone carving has been replaced at the Sun Temple in Konark and denied allegations of replacement of artistic stone works at the world heritage monument.
- The ASI is the custodian of the 13th Century shrine.
- Creation of a green belt to protect the temple stones from saline breeze and sand blasting from the nearby Bay of Bengal has further contributed to the retarded rate of deterioration of stones, he said in the statement.
- Abu Dhabi firm inks deal to store crude in India
- Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd. (ISPRL) to explore the possibility of storing ADNOC crude oil at ISPRL’s underground oil storage facility at Padur in Karnataka, which has a 2.5 million-tonne (~17 million barrels) capacity.
- China postpones lifting ban on rhino, tiger parts
- China appeared to backtrack on a controversial decision to lift a ban on trading tiger bones and rhinoceros horns, saying it has been postponed, state media reported on Monday. It had announced last month that it would allow the sale of rhino and tiger products under “special circumstances”.
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