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Can the Indian Left seize its Phoenix Moment? - A book review by G. Sampath

Divided into eight chapters and spanning 500-odd pages buttressed by voluminous endnotes The Phoenix Moment begins with the founding of the Communist Party of India in 1925 . . . Now, after almost a century of training itself not to think, and not to venture beyond narrow Parliamentary politics, can the Left undertake a bold and honest introspection with a potential for radical course correction?

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Book Review: Behind the Left’s decline (Roshan Kishore)

Praful Bidwai’s book, The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left provides a comprehensive political history of the Indian Left

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Book Review: Saving What’s Left (Ajith Pillai)

While Praful Bidwai’s critique of the Left is sympathetic at one level, it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to addressing flaws that have dogged the communist movement in India

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Book Review: How the Left was lost (Archis Mohan)

In this book, published posthumously, author pulls no punches in detailing the reasons for the "terminal decline" of the Left movement in India

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Kejriwal’s winner-takes-all intolerance bodes ill for AAP

. . . there’s no long-term future for AAP unless it democratises itself and broadens its horizons beyond winning elections.

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Aam Aadmi’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Kejriwal must show vision

It may appear to be an unfortunate coincidence to many that serious dissension should break out in India’s political wunderkind, the Aam Aadmi Party, within a few weeks of its spectacular victory in the Delhi Assembly elections, which stopped the Narendra Modi juggernaut.

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'आप' की जीत से मजबूत होंगे वामदल?

ऐसा 25 साल में दूसरी बार हुआ जब एक उभरती हुई राजनीतिक शक्ति ने भारतीय जनता पार्टी का बढ़ता रथ रोका है.

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Beyond Congress’s Leadership Failure: An existential crisis

It’s a telling comment on the state of the Indian National Congress that a four-member committee it appointed four months ago to devise a strategy to rejuvenate the party and fight the Modi government has turned out a non-starter.

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Indian politics has a new moral force

''A stunning victory in Delhi’s state assembly for the anti-establishment Aam Aadmi party has brought Narendra Modi down to earth Aam Aadmi Party win election in Delhi''

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Mufti seriously risks loosing the plot in Kashmir

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national leadership has officially confirmed that it’s in talks with the People’s Democratic Party to form a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir. This proposal is endorsed by a surprisingly large number of self-avowed well-wishers of the Kashmiri people, as well as cynical “realists” who believe that such a coalition of extremes, between India’s unitarian-nationalists and the Kashmir Valley’s “soft-separatists”, is J&K’s best chance of having a stable government which paves the way for its greater integration into India. The parties’ respective core-bases, Jammu and the Valley, they argue, “complement” each other. Arithmetically too, the two — with respectively 25 and 28 seats — would command a solid majority in the 87-seat Assembly.

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The Janata Parivar 2.0 Initiative: Real hope or illusion?

Among the more interesting recent developments in Indian politics is the attempt to regroup fragments of the old Janata Parivar and launch a new, reunified party which recreates the once-powerful Socialist current in politics. Long a part of the Left, this current was second in importance only to the Communists until the 1970s.

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Hindutva: Back to the Savarkar-Hedgewar ideal?

Nothing in Indian politics has dismayed me recently as much as a report (The Hindu, November 22) on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s success in attracting 600 middle-class professional families in Noida to a late-night education-cum-entertainment event featuring preacher Satyanarayan Mourya. Each family paid Rs300 to attend it. Mourya is a crasser version of Ritambhara. He speaks (http://communalism.blogspot.in/2014/11/india-rss-outreach-show-with-baba.html) execrable language while attacking Muslims, and invokes Hindutva pride by claiming that ancient India gave the world geometry and airplanes, besides mastering space and nuclear technologies, achievements that today’s youth have all but forgotten under the evil influence of modern Western culture.

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Modi’s Reshuffle & Maharashtra Mess: Politics gets more cynical

All those who expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deliver on his election-campaign promise of cleaning up Indian politics of money power and crime, making a break with short-term caste-and-community calculations, and placing merit above personal loyalty, would be sorely disappointed at his cabinet reshuffle, including the induction of 21 new ministers.

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An Emerging New Social Coalition?: The BJP’s latest victories

With its impressive performance in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has clearly reconfirmed its status, established by the Lok Sabha elections, as the principal pole or central point of reference in Indian politics. Behind its latest success, and not least its marginalisation of established regional parties in the two states, lie medium- and long-term factors which are likely to influence Indian politics for some time to come.

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Natwar Singh’s Hollow ‘Disclosures’: But Congress’s crisis is grim

Mr Singh sheds very little light on a tumultuous period in history which saw the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a newly aggressive United States, and a drastic re-alignment of India’s foreign policy towards it, in which he himself played a part. He presents himself as a staunch defender of India’s independent foreign policy and Non-Alignment, when the recent record shows the opposite.

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Natwar’s disclosures and Congress’ crisis

India’s former foreign minister Natwar Singh is no ordinary diplomat-turned-politician. A part of the Establishment for half-a-century, he is well educated, widely travelled, a close witness to major events, and capable of reflection. So when he published his memoirs One Life is Not Enough, readers expected more from him than from the recent book on Manmohan Singh by his former media adviser, Sanjaya Baru.

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Polls Driven By Bigotry & Big Money: Is the EC failing the public?

Two weeks ago, many public-spirited Indians complimented the Election Commission for banning public speeches and rallies by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh chief campaign manager Amit Shah, and the Samajwadi Party’s fiery Azam Khan, both of whom had made provocative speeches for or against religious groups. This action was seen as in keeping with the Commission’s mandate, legally well-founded, even-handed, exemplary in punishing/deterring the use of communal means during canvassing, and encouraging the conduct of elections in a free and fair manner, as befits a democracy.

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Bigotry, big money and India

Two weeks ago, many public-spirited Indians complimented the country’s Election Commission for banning public campaigning by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh chief election manager Amit Shah, and the Samajwadi Party’s fiery Azam Khan, both of whom spoke provocatively for or against specific religious groups.

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Not fielding Priyanka against Modi is a blunder

Narendra Modi files his nomination in Varanasi, Praful Bidwai believes 'a straight contest against Priyanka would have put Modi on the defensive and forced him to concentrate on Varanasi.'

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Baru’s book: too much hype, too little real disclosure

The Accidental Prime Minister, the book by Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004-08, has become a sensational best-seller primarily because its release was timed to coincide with the election campaign. Unsurprisingly, the BJP seized upon it to repeat its pet charge about Singh being India’s “weakest-ever” PM, and otherwise malign the Congress.

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