Current Affairs Archives

Sep

2021

From Kabul to Quad: In Which Way World Politics is Heading?

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialAfghanistan War, China, Indian Foreign policy, QUAD, United States

Written by : Dr. Pratip Chattopadhyay Abstract: The year 2021 began with renewed enthusiasm of the United States of America and its strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific viz. Indian, Japan and Australia to reenergise the Quad forum with the first meeting (virtually) of member countries’ political head taking place in March 2021. However since July the focus of attention of US and India in particular and of world politics in general shifted to Afghanistan where usurpation of power by Taliban is underway to fill up the vacuum created by withdrawal of US troops after two decades from the country. The…

Jul

2021

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West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: Footprints of United Coalition Era in India?

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialBJP, Coalition politics, Congress, Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi, TMC

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay The assembly election of West Bengal in 2021 turned out to be a great deception for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its supporters. The Trinamul Congress (TMC), the ruling party recorded a thumping victory with 213 seats out of 292 seats in which polls were conducted. The result of the election came out as a replay of the Delhi assembly election last year. In the immediate post-election phase, we witnessed a spate of violence among the rival party members at the grass root level, then conundrum over arrest, re-arrest and finally bail of two…

Jul

2021

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The U.S. withdrawal and the uncertain future of Afghanistan

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialAfghanistan, Al-Qaeda, NATO, Taliban, United States, War in Afghanistan

Written by : : Mohammad Qais Rahmani Photo : Shutterstock.com On April 14, 2021, the U.S. President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 American troops from Afghanistan by 11 September. The date is very significant as it will mark twenty years of the al-Qaeda attacks that triggered America's invasion in Afghanistan. However, things are happening more rapidly than expected. By now It is clear that the American administration wants to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. The departure of the US troops from Bagram Airbase on July 2 in the darkness of the night without…

Jul

2021

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Can genetic manipulation of plants combat climate changes?

Current Affairs, Science & Techchange, CO2 emission, CRISPER, Greenhouse Gas

Written by : Dr. Ananya Mukherjee Photo : Shutterstock.com With the global population set to increase to nearly 10 billion by 2050, climate change has become a major global crisis. If you have been paying attention to the news, the Pacific North West in USA, such as Seattle and Oregon areas, has been experiencing temperatures as high as 104-112 degrees last weekend alone. Such events of extreme weather are becoming more and more common with a likely trend projected to continue as per the Oregon Climate Office. In recent years climate change has played an undeniable role in catastrophes like…

May

2021

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Can China Act as an Antidote for SAARC?

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialChina, Covid-19, India, SAARC, Sion-Indian conflict

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Photo : shutterstock.com Snippet: SAARC is a dead organisation for mainstream analysis in geopolitical and regional studies which is mostly inspired by realist and liberal approach to international politics. For realists the regional body doesn’t have any regional interest vis-a-vis other regions to knit them together and for the liberals the index of conflict among SAARC member-states exceeds that of cooperation and solidarity. From a constructivist perspective however SAARC still has enough reasons to carve out an identity for itself, particularly at a time when China is behaving as the continental power with its BRI…

Mar

2021

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Silence Please! Developmental Democracy is Parading in India

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialBJP, democracy, JNU, Narendra Modi, Nationalism, NDA Government

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Photo : Shutterstock.com Summary: Democracy in India has seen many twists and turns in its evolution but under the present dispensation of Narendra Modi led NDA government, democracy in India has taken a distinct developmental turn, rhetorically in slogans like ‘development for all, development with all for trust of all’, and practically through reform measures in economic sector. As against the ‘swadeshi’ and ‘nationalist’ sentiment that BJP manifests, the present developmental turn is modelled on neoliberal paradigm of development. Quite naturally because of rootedness of Indians, farmers and commoners stages protest firmly against such developmental…

Mar

2021

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Let’s Make History: Appropriating Histories to Make Newer Histories

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialBJP, Mizoram, Nationalism, North East India, Pan-Nationalism

Written by : Dr. Anup Shekhar Chakraborty Photo : Shutterstock.com Vexed Histories History writing, its interpretation, and conception of any event as history are markedly selective and involve ‘political’ choices and decisions. The methodology infused into the engagement and resource collection and documentation is strongly marked by familiarising and de-familiarising select events. Thereby the event is perceived through what Foucault calls a gaze. In many senses, the gaze of history which fills our knowledge/information for the common is marked by the statist enterprise (governance, governmentality). In short, history is a political engagement in many senses not merely because of the…

Feb

2021

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Is The Anti-Separatism Bill Of France Anti-Islam? – A Brief Report

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialAnti-separatism bill, Emmanuel Macron, France, Islamism, Jean Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen

Compiled by : Rabbani Khan Photo : Shutterstock.com On 16 February 2021, the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, adopted the controversial anti-separatism bill by 347 votes in favour, 151 against and 65 abstaining, thus facilitating the way for it to be passed into law in coming months. The text was presented to the Council of Ministers on 9 December 2020 by Gérald Darmanin, the Home Minister, and by Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate to the Home Minister in charge of Citizenship, exactly 115 years after the law on the separation of churches and state came into force.…

Jan

2021

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Defecting Democracy: The New Normal of Party-politics in India

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialAmit Shah, BJP, democracy, India, Indian Politics, Trinamul Congress

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Illustration : Avijit Ghosh Summary: Presently defection in party-politics is becoming the new norm to smoothen the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in the era of second coming of one-party system in Indian democracy. Defection as a practice is as old as party system in a democracy. However the new normaility of defection in Indian context is that defection is not resulting in new party formation or apolitical position but resulting in joining the bandwagon of BJP-ism thereby distorting the very essence of democracy itself, i.e. pluralism. In this context, this article claims that Indian…

Jan

2021

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Dance of the Dragons and the Bromance: Friendships in the Neighbourhood

Current Affairs, Politics & SocialBhutan, China, India, Narendra Modi, SAARC, Sino-India conflict, Xi Jinping

Written by : Dr. Anup Shekhar Chakraborty Photo : shutterstock.com Winds of Change: Old Friendship Questioned? What has kept India-Bhutan bromance kindling is Bhutan’s deep social imaginaries of gyagar (holy-land India) linked to the wisdom of the 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk Guru Padmasambhava. Bhutan and its people have diligently stayed true to their religio-cultural links with India- their gyagar neighbour. Over the years, India took its smaller neighbours for granted creating trust deficit among its neighbours and compelled them to wayfind newer friends – Bhutan has mostly been an exception to that trend. India Bhutan camaraderie commemorated 50 years of…