Valley’s youth say Peaceful political protests are the most effective means for achieving political aspirations. Estrangement from India is matched by the lack of interest in Pakistan In 2010 the Ministry of Home Affairs had commissioned a focussed survey on the priorities and aspirations of Kashmir’s new generation, which had spearheaded the long spell of unrest, and found that 54 per cent of them identified “Azadi” as their preferred “final status...

Let down by governments that curb free speech, we have become our own hecklers In free speech jurisprudence, there is a concept called a “heckler’s veto”. It means the ability — but not the right — of a private actor, the heckler, to be loud and obnoxious enough to obscure the free speech of others. By pattern, a heckler is someone who is unable to defend his argument by legitimate use...

Political parties shout from rooftops that politics should be delinked from criminals, but a look at their nominees for Phase I of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections makes it clear that both are inseparable and, in fact, two sides of the same coin. As many as 109 (out of the 284 analysed) candidates have declared in their affidavits that they are facing criminal cases and 46 of them have been booked...

-The Times of India Out of the candidates contesting in the first phase of state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, at least 38 percent have criminal cases registered against them, 51 percent are millionaires and only seven percent are women. Almost all major political parties have fielded candidates who have criminal cases registered against them. Samajwadi Party has 28 out of 55 (51 %), Bahujan Samaj Party 24 out of 55 (44...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....