https://www.theindiaforum.in/book-reviews/elegy-gandhis-un-gandhian-india

Harmony Siganporia, Walking from Dandi: In Search of Vikas. Oxford University Press. 2022

'Vikas' and an Uneasy Peace: Retracing the Dandi Path That Gandhi Once Walked
An excerpt from 'Walking from Dandi: In Search of Vikas'.

There is a difference between legal reporting and political reporting.  Which one should legal correspondents adopt?

A classic example is this

Supreme Court refuses to stay EC's Sena order; issues notice on team Thackeray plea https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/supreme-court-refuses-to-stay-ecs-sena-order-issues-notice-on-team-thackeray-plea/articleshow/98161554.cms

Do you report that the SC refuses to stay ECs Sena order?on the ground that they cannot pass an order which has the effect of staying the EC order without hearing the other party..

Or do you report that the SC issued notice on a plea filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the EC order and ordered listing of the case after two weeks.

Or that The Shinde faction gave a verbal undertaking that it would not take precipitative action against the Thackeray faction by issuing disqualification proceedings.

Or that the bench refused to pass directions on a plea about the offices and bank accounts of the party being taken over by the Shinde group. on the ground that the EC order is confined to the allotment of the symbol.

Uddhav Thackeray vs Eknath Shinde | Supreme Court refuses to stay EC order on Shiv Sena https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/uddhav-thackeray-vs-eknath-shinde-supreme-court-refuses-to-stay-ec-order-on-shiv-sena/article66540090.ece
The Supreme Court however has allowed a prayer by the Thackeray faction to allow an Election Commission interim order February 22, 2023 04:24 pm |

Supreme Court refuses to stay EC order to recognise Eknath Shinde faction as real Shiv Sena https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/supreme-court-refuses-to-stay-ec-order-to-recognise-eknath-shinde-faction-as-real-shiv-sena-482166
‘We cannot pass an order to stay the election commission order. We are entertaining the SLP’, the SC Bench said

What took Muslim leaders 75 yrs to let women into mosques?  Feroze Methiborwala   Feb 23, 2023https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/what-took-this-muslim-body-75-years-to-allow-women-into-mosques/articleshow/98170533.cms  Muslim women’s entry into mosques is a moral victory, but why did it take AIMPLB 75 years to state the obvious?

Massive U.S. dollar dump? BRICS to launch new currency causing tsunami of inflation - Andy Schectman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzI0oyxQ218

 Feb 16, 2023Andy Schectman, President and Owner of Miles Franklin, discusses his thesis that the world is poised for a monetary reset which would result in the BRICS having their own reserve currency, likely backed by gold, and how this goes hand-in-hand with de-dollarization trends that are currently unfolding. He tells Michelle Makori, Editor-in-Chief and Lead Anchor at Kitco News, how a 'tsunami of inflation' would ensue as dollars are repatriated to the United States, which would cause a corresponding 'crash' in asset prices as interest rates rise accordingly.

0:00 - Central bank gold
6:00 - China's Belt and Road Initiative
7:11 - Saudi Arabia and the Petrodollar
9:22 - Weaponization of the dollar
10:43 - BRICS strength
13:34 - Bifurcation of monetary system
18:02 - Kinetic war?
20:48 - Russia and Ukraine
23:01 - U.S. military might
24:35 - De-dollarization
31:15 - Timeline for reset
32:05 - Own nothing, be happy?
36:50 - Insiders buying precious metals
38:33 - Central bank digital currencies
40:16 - Gold
43:20 - Bitcoin
43:51 - Canada's gold reserves
44:55 - Mastermind behind the Reset?
46:17 - Anything that can derail this?
49:02 - Investment implications

What's Next For Adani Group? | What Should SEBI Be Doing | Full Debate With Rajdeep sardesai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sfxwu51wXI 23/2/2023 Shares of Adani Group's flagship firm -- Adani Enterprises -- fell sharply in Wednesday's trade, extending their fall for the fourth straight session. The stock slumped 11.95 per cent to hit a day low of Rs 1,381.05 over its previous close of Rs 1,568.40. The apples-to-airport conglomerate's other listed entities also felt the pain after Wikipedia claimed that sockpuppets - some of them being the online encyclopedia's employees - created 'puffery' around Gautam Adani, his family and the group by adding non-neutral material and removing warnings from the information.

Saurav Majumdar, Business Today

Hemandra Hazari, Main silence is from the regulator.

Mr alok Churiwala, Former BSE defends the regulator, the market seems to have stabilised..

Kranti .. Bathini.. we need to wait and see.  Adani seems to be paying its debt, and let the dust settle..

wake up call for adani as Swaminathan Ayer has

Modi’s model is at last revealed for what it is: violent Hindu nationalism underwritten by big business Arundhati Roy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/18/narendra-modi-hindu-nationalism-india-gautam-adani The BBC-Hindenburg moment has been portrayed by the Indian media as nothing short of an attack on India’s twin towers – Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and India’s biggest industrialist, Gautam Adani, who was, until recently, the world’s third richest man. The charges laid against them aren’t subtle. The BBC film implicates Modi in the abetment of mass murder. The Hindenburg report, published on 24 January, accuses Adani of pulling “the largest con in corporate history” (an allegation that the Adani Group strongly denies).  

Gautam Adani. With a small group of Gujarati industrialists he set up a new platform of businessmen known as the Resurgent Group of Gujarat. They denounced Modi’s critics and supported him as he launched a new political career as Hindu Hriday Samrat, the Emperor of Hindu Hearts, or, more accurately, the consolidator of the Hindu vote-bank.

In 2003, they held an investors’ summit called Vibrant Gujarat. So was born what is known as the Gujarat model of “development”: violent Hindu nationalism underwritten by serious corporate money.

‘This is the biggest attack on Modi-Adani’ । HINDENBURG REPORT । BBC SURVEY । ARUNDHATI ROY  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUIfC-SVCgc 23.2.23 The Hindenburg report and the BBC documentary were like an attack on the Twin Towers. It has caused tremendous damage to Modi-Adani. That's why Modi is nervous as well as furious. This is a big opportunity for the opposition parties, but they have to be united and work day and night. In conversation with noted author and social activist Arundhati Roy-

https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/budget-injustice-for-minorities/ 

At a time when minority communities have been passing through difficult times and need reassurance and support, the union budget has come as a rude jolt for them with its big cuts in allocations for such obvious priorities as education and skills. What is more, as the now available data shows, there were very big cuts in the previous year 2022-23.

These cuts in the previous year as well as huge disruptions faced by informal sector workers and small-scale entrepreneurs due to pandemic related factors had created conditions in which the Ministry of Minority Affairs needed a significant increase in its resources for the year 2023-24, but exactly the reverse has happened.

The original allocation for the Ministry of Minority Affairs( called Budget Estimate or BE) was INR 5020 crore in 2022-23, but this faced a very severe cut to INR 2612 crore when the Revised Estimate (RE) for this year was prepared, a very big cut indeed. In 2023-24 INR 3097 crore has been allocated, which is not only much less than the BE of the previous year, but in fact is even much less than the actual expenditure even of 2021-22, which was placed at INR 4323 crore.

The Umbrella Program for Development of Minorities has been listed by the government as one of the ‘Core of the Core Schemes’, testifying to the importance of this program. However this has not spared this program from being cut heavily. INR 1810 was allocated in the BE for this in 2022-23, but at the time of preparing RE for this program, this was cut by over two-thirds to just INR 530  crore, making a mockery of the original allocation. Imposing such a heavy cut without any extensive parliamentary or public consultation in a ‘core of the core’ scheme raises serious questions about budgetary ethics and transparency.

What are supposed to be obvious priorities such as education and skill development have also not been spared at the time of making cuts. In the context of central sector schemes, the allocation for ‘education empowerment’ of minorities was cut from INR 2515 crore to INR 1584 crore during 2022-23 (change from BE to RR) . The allocation for 2023-24 for this is INR is 1689 crore which is less than even the actual expenditure for 2021-22, placed at INR 2249 crore.

The allocation for ‘Skill Development and Livelihoods’ of minorities faced a cut from INR 491 crore in the BE of 2022-23 to RE of INR 330 crore. This has been further cut to an alarming extent in 2023-24 to INR 64 crore. This is less than one one-seventh of the actual expenditure of INR 499 crore in 2021-22 (and here we are not even including the inflationary aspects).

In the context of ‘Special Programs of Minorities’, there was a cut from BE of INR 53 crore to INR 32 crore in 2022-23. This has been cut further to INR 26 crore in 2023-24.

The only saving grace in 2023-24 appears to be the allocation of INR 540 crore for PM-Virasat ka Samvardhan (PM Vikas). It will be interesting to see how this fund is spent. However this cannot make up for the big cuts in crucial issues like education and skill development.

Clearly various cuts in matters of critical importance for minorities are highly regrettable and the government should already start thinking in terms of upward revision of these allocations.

Bharat Dogra

20/02/2023

India has witnessed growth and acceleration of Hindutva agenda from 2014 onwards. The growth of BJP, penetration of communal propaganda through social media, decline of independent media, decline of institutions, and emergence of autocrat leader who gets identified as liberator of majority has contributed to this trend. However, the acceleration of Hindutva agenda has also been equally accompanied by different forms of citizen resistance. This resistance has challenged the core tenets of Hindutva. Some of these are described below: – https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/citizen-resistance-in-the-age-of-hindutva/?swcfpc=1 

Award Wapsi

Una protest

Rohit Vemula protests

JNU Nationalist Debates

JNU Nationalist Debates

Hizab not as restriction to attend educational institutions

Independent youtube media channels

Bharat jodo yatra

T. Navin

17/02/2023

Citizen resistance in the age of Hindutva: Lessons and Way forward by T. Navin 21/02/2023

क्या Modi सरकार ने NPS का पैसा अदाणी की कंपनियों पर लगा दिया है ?: Abhay Dubey, कांग्रेस प्रवक्ता https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n2ctvuMTGs