Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

  28.4.25 BY R.K. MISRA There is many a catch between the bolt and the latch. A nation numbed, still seeking to come to terms with the pulse of Pehalgam. A laughing, smiling crowd of merrymakers whose reverie was disrupted by blood and gore with 26 people succumbing to terror attacks and numerous other injured. India is a country which stands steamrollered by grief. The pain is palpable as people line up at the Attari border in Amritsar district to scurry back to Pakistan as the deadline for departure ends. Medical visas issued to Pakistani nationals are valid only up to April 29. The neighbours may have denied any role in the attack but India is holding Pakistan- based terror outfits complicit for the coldblooded killings and has clamped down with a set of retaliatory measures. It includes closure of the main border crossing, suspension of a landmark water sharing treaty an expulsion of some diplomats. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has threatened to pursue the agre...

  BY R.K. MISRA     It takes a big heart to light a memorial candle and a small mind to start a bushfire.   A surefire formula that involved cleaving to conquer, over two decades ago, is showing signs of a nation-devouring blaze. Tiny Fragments seem flawless from a distance but are in fact, explosive fuses awaiting ignition. There are numerous cases, listed from time to time, of the selective use of law and justice by the executive dribbling for the ruling party in their unabashed pursuits of majoritarian, electoral politics. The latest case is that of the demolition of a dargah in Nashik, Maharashtra which had spiraled into violence. Published reports state that the Maharashtra Waqf tribunal and the civic body has taken cognizance of its decades old existence. The judicial melee that followed saw the dargah panel move the Supreme Court but before it could hear the plea, the civic body demolished the entire dargah. The apex court has, nevertheless, stayed the d...

  BY R.K. MISRA   Coincidence is a word best used when levers and pulleys- that levitate, gravitate and manipulate- remain unseen. So words and events need to be strung together to make cogent sense. Let’s try. Ahmedabad in Gujarat hosted the 84 th session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) on April 8 and 9 for the first time after 64 years. For long the party had avoided taking the bull by the horns. It decided to strike in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s heartland. Those who are aware of the regulated retaliation and flexible response that follows any foray into their homeland, did not have to wait for long. Call it corny coincidence, hustled happenstance or persisting pattern. Forty-eight hours later (April 12) the Enforcement Directorate(ED) announced that it has served notices to take possession of immoveable assets worth Rs 661 crores in Delhi, Mumbai and Lucknow- as part of a money laundering probe- belonging to Associated Journals Ltd.(AJL) that owns the Nat...

  BY R.K.MISRA Governments are greedy. Whether it is power, pelf or public wealth. Give them a land to helm and they seek the world to overwhelm.   Turn the gaze yonder, and the most powerful come into view.   Turn it nearer home and watch the executive straining every nerve and sinew!   How else would one have the Supreme Court into sharp focus for the second week going . ”Prayagraj demolitions inhuman, illegal, shock conscience, says SC, orders Rs.10 lakh for each”, screamed national headlines on April 2. And yet there seems no end in sight. On April 7, says the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, “There is a complete breakdown of rule of law in Uttar Pradesh”, after the Supreme Court comes across FIRs filed by the state police in civil cases. At the receiving end of the Supreme Court’s wrath was the Yogi Adityanath government and the Prayagraj civic body. ‘The act of demolition was not only illegal but also violative of the most important fundament...

  BY R.K. MISRA Poisoned percepts betray their own patterns. More so when policing, like poker, degenerates into the continuation of politics by other means. The Supreme Court of India, had harsh words for the Gujarat Police which should reverberate through the uniformed force countrywide. Quashing an FIR filed against Congress MP, Imran Pratapgarhi over his social media post with a poem “ Ae khoon Ke pyase baat suno ”,it ruled that the right of citizens to express themselves could not be trampled upon on” flimsy and fanciful” grounds. ”No offence is attracted” and police must understand the meaning of written and spoken words before registering a case in such matters, it noted.   The Apex Court on March 28 said the fundamental right to free speech through poetry, theatre, stand-up comedy, and satire must be cherished. The cops had charged the Congress MP with inciting discord through his poem on “suffering injustice with love”. The judgment came following an appeal fi...

  BY R.K. MISRA Vanity is the quicksand of reason .It sucks into the muck.   Many a glory seeking political gamble began with fanning dormant ambers only to find the fiery red of the flames descend on their dreams like the blackening haze of falling ashes.   What began as a face-off between the Centre and Tamil Nadu over the non-implementation of the 3- language formula as part of the National Education Policy (NEP) has now engulfed many more issues critical to the Southern states. Barring Chandrababu Naidu’s, Andhra Pradesh, all the others-Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have come together on a common platform. That the mounting disquiet amongst the Southern states of the country is crossing the bounds to engulf leaders of other opposition states as well as political entities should be cause for concern for the BJP- ruled Centre which is hobbling on the crutches of Naidu and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. Both have been put on notice for their sil...