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Swapan Dasgupta
West Bengal politics is at a crucial stage
Unlike some Western democracies where the attachment to political parties tend to be lifelong, there is considerable fluidity in political affiliations for activists. This is partly because — with the exception of the Congress, the BJP, Communists and a handful of regional parties — the party system in India is...
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Fair distribution of Covid shots must
22 November 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
Trump’s loss not that resounding
08 November 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
Clash of civilisations does exist in France
01 November 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
Can Modi’s appeal do wonders for Nitish?
25 October 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
No need to rewrite Jinnah’s history
18 October 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
Free & fair polls seem impossible in Bengal
11 October 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta -
Lessons learnt from Hathras mishandling
04 October 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta
State needs to act for public good
Covid-19 is a public health issue that demands state action to, first, ‘flatten the curve' and then make the environment safe for people. And this is where national character assumes significance. At the heart of public policy is the question of the quantum of demands a state can legitimately make...
Everyone whistling in dark on Covid
Looking at two different parts of the world, it is sometimes difficult to believe that the whole world is engaged in a relentless but common battle against a deadly — and often lethal — viral illness that has been dubbed Covid-19. First, there is the case of the United Kingdom. Prime...
World awaits wonder drug to treat Covid
According to an ANI report this Saturday (September 12) morning, the past 24 hours saw 97,570 new cases of people infected with Covid-19, with the national tally now crossing the 46 lakh mark. Although the gap between the percentage of recovered cases and percentage of active cases is getting wider,...
Cry over suspension of Question Hour absurd
There is a constitutional obligation for Parliament to meet every six months. Under the exceptional circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic it would have been entirely in order for the Government to have convened a token one or two session of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, meet the constitutional...
Withdrawal of Delhi riots book anti-Right
Some two decades or so, when I was still a full-time journalist, a controversy erupted over an aspect of history writing in India. The publication where I worked naturally commissioned a report on the kerfuffle and a mid-level reporter was entrusted with the task. As the editor supervising the news...
Polls during Covid: Debates imperative
The Election Commission of India has notified elaborate guidelines for the conduct of Assembly elections and by-elections during the Covid-19 pandemic. Considering the extraordinary circumstances in which a crucial element of democratic life has to be maintained, the guidelines attempt to maintain the essence of competitive politics while safeguarding ordinary...
Can’t afford mistakes of Partition again
During my schooldays in Kolkata in the second half of the 1960s, most newspapers published Independence Day supplements. A recurrent feature of these supplements was a question: is Partition irreversible? The question was understandable. Perhaps relatively unnoticed by the rest of India for whom Partition — and the horrors associated with...
