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Letter to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath by PS Krishnan, IAS (Retd), Former Secretary to Government of India , Ministry of Welfare; Member, National Monitoring Committee for Education of SCs, STs and Persons with Disabilities, Government of India: As a person working country-wide for the legitimate rights of scheduled castes, STs and SEBCs during my entire service in the IAS from 1956 to 1990 and before that and after that, spanning nearly seven decades, I request you to consider taking the following measures:

By Kamal Mitra Chenoy*
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership, which has refused to read the writing on the wall despite many warnings, weakening its progressive and popular narrative and going in for high pitched confrontations with the Union government, lieutenant governors (LGs), and Arun Jaitley, has paid a heavy price at the hustings.

By Sadhan Mukherjee* In 1963, the then East German writer Christa Wolf created a worldwide sensation when her book Divided Heaven came out. The basic story is that just before the Berlin Wall came up, a couple from East Germany, Manfred and Rita, visits West Berlin, the show piece of the West. Theirs is the story of love as well as sacrifice. The glitter of the West could not convince Rita to stay on in West Berlin and she goes back to East Germany.

By Fr. Cedric Prakash sj*
There is a steely determination in Zozan. As one listens to this 25-year old woman, one cannot but feel that she will go places. In a very casual way, she shares what she would like to do most in life: to learn new languages and to travel to distant lands.
In some ways, Zozan Hassan Khalil has begun doing both. She has already crossed international boundaries but as a refugee.

Text of the letter, which retired IAS bureaucrats, of 1968 batch, have written to Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Rane on the lynching of Pehlu Khan:
We are very disturbed by the lynching and murder of Pehlu Khan in Alwar. He was attacked on April 1st at Behror in Alwar District and died of the injuries a few days later.

By Sadhan Mukherjee*
Supreme Court Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan’s write-up on Rising Fascism in India (click HERE to read) makes an interesting reading, but I beg to disagree with him on several counts. He hangs his write-up on a single peg of history which does not apply even to all European countries.

By Prashan Bhushan* “In the 20th century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances.

Bharati Sinha, a Delhi-based journalist, earlier with the India Today group, writes on her Facebook timeline on how she is being harassed by ICICI Bank in Delhi. We reproduce the text:
I am an extremely private person and use Facebook strictly as a public platform. I have never used smartphone and am only on the public platform of Facebook. I have used smart phone only for a few months early last year, to know and see how it works.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj*
April 19th was New Year Day for the Yazidis. It was a joy to meet with some of them in Sarsink in the Dohuk District of Iraq on that day, to greet them with a “Jajna ta Piroz”. Each family had a tray laden with several bowls filled with cookies, boiled eggs with their shells colourfully painted), candies and fruits (and for good measure, a packet of cigarettes too!). They happily shared these, with some soft drinks, to those who visited them. It was a similar experience the next day at Sharya-Khadima.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj*
Fr Frans Van Der Lugt was someone special: he was a complete human being. He was warm and compassionate to all; to the youth, he was an inspirer and motivator, who never tired of long walks; to the elderly, he was a friend and mentor; little children loved to cling to his long legs; for Muslims and Christians, he was a bridge-builder, a person who could draw the best out of them; for the spiritually weak and lost, he was a source of strength and a patient listener.

By Amaresh Misra* This is in response to the view that Hindus and Muslims did participate in the freedom movement under Gandhi and fought under one flag in post-independence wars. But never, never did they unite with reverence and respect for each other's religions as in 1857.
The concept of religion in 1857 worked as a uniting, and not a divisive, force.

By Snehasata Manav*
Today, Indian universities and academia are witnessing an unprecedented and outspoken threat towards the very idea of their existence. Universities are the spaces where knowledge is expected to be generated; where even the most eccentric ideas are supposed to be discussed and debated; where difficult questions are desired to be raised and answered.

By Anand Mazgaokar*
The biggest crisis of the year 2017 -- something that caused turmoil in Parliament, Government, ruling alliance -- has been "resolved". The astuteness, accommodativeness, ability to find ‘middle ground’, of our politicians has "saved" the day.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*
Despite a great threat to their own existence inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus which is being 'cleaned' to maintain brahmanical hegemony (it was always there but in a better 'coordinated' and sophisticated way) the young Ambedkarites of Birsa Ambedkar Student Association ( BAPSA) on Wednesday protested against the killing of a young Dalit boy in Telangana a few days back. The brutal killing of Madhukar whose only fault was to have fallen in love with a girl belonging to Kapu community of Chiranjivi fame.

By Nandini Oza*
I remember the year 2004 when I was teaching a post graduate course in social work in the Government College in Barwani, Madhya Pradesh (MP) when Bhartiya Janta Party’s (BJP) Uma Bharti became the Chief Minister (CM) of the State. Soon after, the regional press extensively reported that a dress code for girls in the colleges of MP was to be implemented soon by the BJP Government. The reason given was “provocative dresses” worn by the students were leading to “perversions”

By Devinder Sharma*
I fail to understand. How come farm loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Punjab is considered to be bad economics, bad politics whereas massive loan waiver for the big corporate is construed to be good economics, leading to economic growth.