Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী

Narendra Modi is definitely the best orator India has seen in a long while, but we must remember that he chooses his words with extreme care. So when he referred to the slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 by saying that he would feel fain even if puppy came under the wheels of  his car, he meant to convey something that many of us missed. In the same vein, the very sharp words that he selected for the farewell speech of India’s longest-serving vice president carried a message that we need to understand.

In the normal course, one would like to stay away from any controversy surrounding an organisation that one has headed for over four and a half years. But since the matter has a bearing on India’s democratic traditions and its federal polity, I would need to clear the air.

None can forget the painful scenes of mindless violence that followed the Partition, but as Govind Nihalani's iconic film, Tamas, showed, all that one needed to start a riot was to kill a particular animal and place its carcass before a place of worship. The business of riots is not really mindless, but what surprises old 'district magistrates' like us who have handled 'riots' is why they are allowed to recur and feed the new cult of communalism that has penetrated Bengal.

As a defining moment, the twenty fifth of June of 1975 has more than secured its position on the timeline of Indian history. While the Congress prays hard to just forget the ignominy of Emergency, the prime beneficiaries of this tragic phase, namely the Yadav-led socialist parties, are burping after feasting on power for several decades. As the most fearless and uncompromising opposition to India's Emergency, the Akali Dal earned lucrative political rewards, but the most interesting contender is the ruling party. It is hell-bent on appropriating all credit for everything remarkable, whether in the past or at present.

While politicians quibble over the legality of the recent rules issued by the Central government curbing the movement and trade in cattle of all types and even camels, we may like to take a look at the big picture. The oft-quoted Article 48 of the Constitution is one among the many unrealized directive principles: desirable when able. It talks of banning the slaughter of milch and draught cattle, but the point here is that no one is advocating this patently uneconomical idea. We need to understand that even the best cows become a burden to poor farmers after their lactating period is over. So do old draught animals. Most farmers, many of whom are strict vegetarians, therefore, sell them off so that other humans and cattle can be better looked after.

The unprecedented display of aggression witnessed in Bengal in April in the name of Rama Navami, has perhaps distracted the Bengali people from the good old traditional deities of Chaitra. This month, from mid-March to mid-April, has always belonged to Shiva, Shitala, Annapurana or Basanti and the very indigenous Dharma-Thakur. Bengalis were very clear that Durga came home only in Ashwin and reserved ten full holidays to rejoice in her name. What lent most colour to this month was Gajan,which is so similar to Taai-pusamin Tamil country.Throughout the month, several people dressed up as Shiva-Parvati, and wandered around streets and localities: singing, dancing and invoking Mahadev. It was the Bengali way of taking a religion to the streets, with devotion and pantomime, not with swords and threats.

Every major nation in the world has a public broadcaster and there must be some reason why they do. Before we can discuss the shortcomings of Prasar Bharati, the autonomous body that supervises Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR), we may recall that even as its Act was passed by Parliament in 1990, its spirit of autonomy was vitiated by two sections, 32 and 33, which took away with the left hand what the right gave. They ensured that all its major decisions like manpower, recruitment, service conditions, salaries and critical issues would be decided only by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B).

The 4th of June will be remembered in the history of stock markets in India for the biggest single-day fall in share prices in 4 years. The benchmark stock indexes, Sensex and Nifty, crashed by almost 6 per cent on this day when the election results to the 18th Lok Sabha started revealing that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party may not be headed towards an absolute majority on its own.