Ram Puniyani

  • BJP: Hypocrisy on Political Chessboard

    Ram Puniyani This year 2011 was very eventful as far as the political arena is concerned. This year also exposed the duel attitudes of BJP on most of the issues yet again. The various issues, Anna Hazare’s movement, Government trying to bring in FDI in retail, bill for rationalization of fuel price and the deletion…

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  • Social Movements and Social Change

    Ram Puniyani All over the World and in India as well in 2011 we witnessed the uprisings to protest against injustice. In Arab world it has been against tyrannical dictatorial regimes to bring back democracy. In the US and many other European countries where ‘Occupy Wall Street’ has been the major one, the people are…

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  • Behenji: The Pragmatist Politician

    Ram Puniyani With elections looming over Uttar Pradesh horizon, recently (Nov 2011) UP Chief Minister Mayawati declared that her cabinet has approved the proposal to divide the UP state into four smaller states. She declared that only a dalit-OBC Chief Minister should be able to solve the problems of dalit-OBCs. There is also the talk…

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  • Sri Sri Ravishankar and Art of Politics

    Ram Puniyani   Ravi Shankar AS ELECTIONS in Uttar Pradesh are nearing, so is the number of travels by spiritual gurus. These gurus are giving their discourses against corruption. (November 2011). The major ones amongst them are Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Sri Sri). Sri Sri has shared space with Anna and played a…

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  • Ruining Innocent Lives: Guilt of Investigation Agencies

    Ram Puniyani Nine youth accused in Malegaon blast case of 2006 have been granted bail by the MCOCA court. (Nov 6 2011). These Muslim youth were arrested after the bomb exploded on the Shab-e-Barat, killing several people. Immediately after that the Anti Terrorist Sqaud, arrested nine Muslim youth, there was really no evidence worth its…

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  • Lord Ram’s Story: Many Tellings

    Ram Puniyani Ramayana Javanese Ballet Dance   Recently Delhi University Academic Council (Oct 2011) decided to drop the scholarly essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas” of A.K.Ramanujan, on different telling of Ram’s story from the syllabus of ‘Culture in India’ for BA Honors students. Of the four experts on the committee, one of them, whose opinion was…

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  • Godse’s Children- Hindutva Terror in India – Book Review

    Ram Puniyani (Godse’s Children- Hindutva Terror in India, Pharos Media, Delhi, Pages 400, Rs 360, Pb) Terrorist violence has been one of the major problems of recent times. This phenomenon came to popular notice more so after the 9/11 attack on WTC, which was followed by, apart from other things, popularization of the terms ‘Islamic…

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  • Kashmir, Ultra Nationalists and Path to Peaceful Solution

    Ram Puniyani Prasant Bhushan The condemnable attack on Supreme Court Lawyer and ‘team Anna’ member Prashant Bhushan on 12th October 2011, threw up many a questions. To begin with the attackers were congratulated by ‘ultra Nationalists’ like Bal Thackeray of Shiv Sena, showing the gross intolerance around certain issues in our society, more particularly those…

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  • Communal Violence (Prevention) Bill

    Ram Puniyani In a recently held meeting of the National Integration Council, in September 2011, the discussion on The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparation) Bill 2011 was on the top of the agenda. While the leaders of opposition of both the houses of parliament, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, came…

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