Editorial

Even as representatives assembled in Mumbai for the third meeting of the united opposition, now known by the acronym INDIA, the Modi government announced an extraordinary session of Parliament from 18 to 22 September. The way the session was announced close on the heels of the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament, and that too absolutely unilaterally without any consultation with the opposition and in brazen violation of established parliamentary norms, has understandably raised suspicions about the government's motive.

The successful soft-landing of Chandrayaan3 undoubtedly marks a historic achievement for ISRO. This is the first time a lunar mission has landed in the Moon's south pole which is expected to open up further prospects of study and exploration of the lunar reality. A major milestone of India's scientific prowess like this also has the potential to inspire India's overall forward march in the realm of science and technology in general and space exploration in particular.

The clamour for junking India's Constitution, a long-standing agenda of the Hindu supremacist camp, is now out in the open. The most audacious advocacy for a new constitution has come in the form of a newspaper article written by economist Bibek Debroy on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of India's independence.

As India observed the 76th anniversary of independence, PM Narendra Modi turned his tenth Independence Day address from Lal Qila into yet another desperate election speech. His tired rhetoric against corruption and dynastic politics only revealed his growing fear of the rising anger of the people and the emerging signs of political unity against his fascist rule.

The stay granted by the Supreme Court on the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the Modi surname defamation case marks a turning point in India's unfolding political situation. The Modi government has mastered the art of legitimising its relentless assault on the Constitution and subversion of democracy by pushing it through Parliament and various constitutional bodies and securing seals of judicial approval for all its steps. The script of the so-called Modi surname case followed this sinister trajectory till it reached the Supreme Court.

Manipur has been burning for three months now. Three months of continued violence has rendered more than sixty thousand people homeless in their own state. While the stories and occasional video clips of this violence have attracted international attention, the globe-trotting Prime Minister of India has not yet had time to visit Manipur.

The viral video of two Kuki women being paraded naked and sexually assaulted by a mob of Meitei men in Manipur has drawn the attention of the whole world to the complete collapse of the rule of law in Manipur. The incident had happened in the presence of the local police on the 4th of May, the day after violence erupted in the state. The FIR about the incident was filed on 18 May, and a complaint was mailed to the National Commission for Women by two women activists and the North American Manipur Tribal Association on 12 June.

Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! Galvanised by this clarion call of democracy, the people of France had risen in triumphant revolt in 1789 against the hated citadel of monarchical repression. The storming of the Parisian Bastille prison heralded the historic advent of the modern era of democratic republics. One hundred and sixty years later it was this spirit of freedom that became the underpinning of the Constitution of republican India when political power was wrested from the control of British colonialism into Indian hands.

Shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the pitch of the clamour for the Uniform Civil Code in the course of his address to booth-level BJP activists in Bhopal, a viral video surfaced from the same state that showed a power-drunk BJP youth leader Pravesh Shukla urinating on an Adivasi labourer Dasmat Ravat. The video gave a shocking and graphic portrayal of the kind of (un)civil code that actually prevails on the ground in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP has been in power for nearly two decades.

Exactly a year after engineering defections in the Shiv Sena, the Modi-Shah regime has now targeted the Nationalist Congress Party. Ajit Pawar has once again been sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister in Maharashtra. What made this Sunday coup especially sensational was that it happened within seventy-two hours of PM Modi’s ‘guarantee’ speech in Madhya Pradesh where he had melodramatically announced that if the opposition guaranteed corruption, Modi stood for guarantee of action against the corrupt.