Reform (Not Uniform) Personal Laws
P Chidambaram, in his column for The Indian Express, writes about the need for reform of personal laws and how it has been on the national agenda since the making of the Constitution, and was among the top concerns of the first Parliament of India.
Chidambaram writes, "As personal laws stand today, there is gender discrimination as well as non-gender based discrimination, some unscientific and unhealthy practices as well as reprehensible practices and customs. Undoubtedly, these aspects of personal laws need to be reformed."
"The Hon’ble Prime Minister has framed the issue in a manner permitting only a binary response — for or against the UCC. This approach treats the people of India as dumb driven sheep. A nuanced approach will be to start a meaningful conversation on the reforms that need to be made in all personal laws, Muslim law included. The key word is reform, not uniform."P Chidambaram in The Indian Express
Master of None
In their piece for The Telegraph, Amit S Ray and V Upadhyay, write about the National Education Policy (NEP) and the consequences of the introduction of a Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) with the provision of direct admission to PhD after the FYUP without the need for a master’s degree.
"The proposed FYUP is designed to overcome the limitation of the existing three-year undergraduate programme by introducing an additional year of training. It also has the laudable objective of exposing undergraduates to other areas of knowledge in addition to the core subject of specialisation in these four years. But this creates a trap because the additional year of training in the new programme does not necessarily reflect greater coverage of courses in the core subject area. As a matter of fact, a quick look at the course requirements of the existing three-year honours programme in comparison with the proposed FYUP reveals that the core subject carries 108 out of 148 credits in the former case while it carries only 80 out of 160 credits in the latter. This means that the training in the core subject is actually getting squeezed in the proposed FYUP. Hence, it is difficult to visualise how it can effectively compensate for the academic value-addition of the skipped master’s degree."Amit S Ray and V Upadhyay, in The Telegraph
The Perfect Frame
Rinku Ghosh, in her column for The Indian Express, writes about yesteryear women actors such as Zeenat Aman, Rekha, and Sharmila Tagore pushing boundaries with magazine cover features, a distinctive social media presence, and neatly carved out roles on the silver screen.
"Sadly, the women who managed to carve out their distinctive persona despite the monolithic sway of the heroes through the ’70s and ’80s, are not even offered age-appropriate roles. Hollywood let in older protagonists a long time ago — Jessica Tandy won an Oscar at 80 helming a film called Driving Ms Daisy (1989) and Katherine Hepburn held the trophy at 75 for On a Golden Pond (1981)," Ghosh writes.
"On the contrary, our yesteryear women actors have unfortunately been boxed in with an expiry date. But that hasn’t dimmed their spirit, which is far more incandescent than the cloned generation of today’s women actors. They are demanding we sit up and take notice."Rinku Ghosh in The Indian Express
Shinde Feeling Shaky on Top
As the churn in Maharashtra politics continues with a split within the state's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) engineered by Ajit Pawar, nephew of veteran politician and party supremo Sharad Pawar, Anita Katyal, in her piece in the Deccan Chronicle, writes about the concerns plaguing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Katyal writes, "Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde has every reason to worry following the induction of rebel Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar as deputy chief minister in his government. Besides the fact that Pawar Jr has declared he would like a stab at the top post in the state, the NCP leader’s past record shows how he has proved unlucky for the four chief ministers under whom he served as a deputy."
"Ajit Pawar held this post when Congress chief minister Ashok Chavan was shown the door when he was embroiled in the Adarsh building scam. Next came Prithiviraj Chavan but his stint as chief minister, too, was cut short following differences between the Congress and the NCP. In 2019, Ajit Pawar was again sworn in as deputy chief minister after he defied his party leadership and joined hands with Bharatiya Janata Party’s Devendra Fadnavis who took oath as chief minister for the second time."Anita Katyal in the Deccan Chronicle
Dangers of Pigeon-Holing in Positive Discrimination
Suvagato Chowdhury, in his piece for The Statesman, writes about the global implications of the US Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious admission rules based on a pair of cases challenging “affirmative action” at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
"The relevance of the judgment in the Indian context can hardly be ignored. In the US context, affirmative action is a policy initiative in which a person’s race and ethnicity are taken into account to extend education opportunities, primarily aimed at minority groups who have been 'disadvantaged' by the colour of skin or ethnicity and have been subject to historical prejudices," Chowdhury writes.
"The close analogy to India would be the reservation and quota system in higher education (and jobs). However, the fundamental difference between the two is that unlike in India, there is no specified 'percentage' or quota in US educational institutions to promote affirmative action. In delivering the judgment, the US Supreme Court by a majority of 6:3 effectively overruled a landmark affirmative action precedent."Suvagato Chowdhury in The Statesman
A Personal Laundry
Senior journalist Tavleen writes in The Indian Express about the theatrical split within the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra, "Political analysts have taken these days to seriously discussing the BJP’s laundromat and its magical powers. They make jokes about how corrupt, crooked politicians pass through the washing machines in this legendary laundry and come out smelling of saffron and lotuses."
"Amorality and cynicism are things you get used to if you cover Indian politics as long as I have, but what has shaken me to the core is the brazenness with which the BJP continues to talk of morality and patriotism. Not to speak of the arrogance with which they sit on a high pedestal making charges of anti-nationalism against opposition leaders and unfriendly journalists. No sooner do these ‘anti-national’ creatures show signs of kowtowing and obeisance than they are passed through those miraculous washing machines in the BJP laundromat and judged patriots and idealists."Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express
Overhaul That Aviation Industry Needs
In her piece for The New Indian Express, Anuradha Goyal writes about the plight of India's aviation industry.
Goyal writes, "Social media is full of airline woes – unreasonable fares, no refunds, overpriced food, cancelled flights and an attempt to sell every possible seat and anything that can be commoditised. Buying a ticket does not guarantee a flight, seat, or class you booked. At the same time, airlines are not making great profits."
"Flying has changed greatly in the last few decades, from being an elite privilege to mass transportation, just like buses and trains. If the number of airports and airport capacity has multiplied in the last decade, the number of air travellers has increased several times."Anuradha Goyal in The New Indian Express
Reckoning For Multiculturalism
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ram Madhav, in his piece for The Indian Express, writes about the killing of a teenager of North African descent in a Paris suburb by a French police officer.
"France is the land of revolutions. We know of three revolutions, in 1789, 1830 and 1848. But there were many short, 'near-revolutions' too. They were not peaceful. They involved a lot of bloodshed. But they were intended for a noble cause and brought France the reputation of being the birthplace of the rights of man," Madhav writes.
"The brutal killing of a teenager of North African descent in a Paris suburb by a French police officer was an abominable crime that calls for serious stocktaking within the police establishment. But the violence that followed, rather than being any 'politically conscious social movement', degenerated into looting and arson by hoodlums, identified largely as from among the immigrant population."Ram Madhav in The Indian Express
No Country for The Rich
Leher Kala, in her column for The Indian Express, writes about why more and more Indians are surrendering their passports and relinquishing Indian citizenship.
"That Indians have always been desperate to leave India is not news — anyone growing up in the 1980s will recall the awe and admiration with which we greeted the foreign-settled aunt or uncle, who’d return bearing chocolates and other goodies. Those days an excursion to the international airport was a momentous occasion since hardly anybody travelled," Kala writes.
"For decades, the symbol of the Hindustani achiever was someone who made it out of the frugality of pre-liberalisation India, and through grit and gumption asserted themselves in the global arena. The wannabe expatriate Indian of today has nothing in common with his predecessors, economic migrants who were hungry for opportunities unavailable here. The exodus now is by the rarefied one per cent, well educated and discerning, so at home in Monte Carlo that they’ve become faintly disapproving of Delhi."Leher Kala in The Indian Express
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