Tag Archives: Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari

Zameer Uddin Shah: Sarkari Musalmaan who served country as soldier, diplomat and educationist

NEW DELHI:

Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah
Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah

Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah in his autobiography refers to himself a ‘Sarkari Musalmaan’ – a Muslim who, according to him, is pro-establishment and supports the government of the day. A Sarkari Musalmaan defines his religion in a way that is acceptable to the establishment and projects himself as a modern rationalist by being submissive, or worse, by actively pandering to the bigotry against his co-religionists.

Sarkari Musalmaan: The life and Travails of a soldier educationist released in 2018 is the story of author’s journey from a Madrassa to becoming the Deputy Chief of the Indian Army and finally the Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University.

Book Review:

Zameer Uddin Shah’s ancestors came to India from Afghanistan during early nineteenth century. Being the second of the three children of Syed Aley Mohammed Shah and Farrukh Begum, Zameer was given to his mother’s spinster sister for adoption. He grew up being more attached to his foster mother than his own. At 17, he joined the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla, Pune. Despite being a lone Muslim in his class of 200 cadets, he ‘was warmly welcomed, treated fairly and experienced affirmative action.’

Cover of the Book

The author talks of living under the shadow of his celebrity brother actor Naseeruddin Shah and being his greatest fan. Nasser always wanted to become an actor and was not as good in academics as he or even their elder brother Zaheer. He recalls Zaheer as being the smartest of all. The family photographs in the book give a visual context of author’s narrative.

The author talks about his indomitable presence in the 1971 Indo-Pak War. Being a part of several hundred officers of the Battle Axe Division, he fought for his country on the desert sands of Jaisalmer. He recounts that this was the most taxing phase of his life that had a strong bearing on his family. Nobody knew whether he would come alive from the war but he did and was awarded a prized posting as a Defence Attache to Saudi Arabia and had an opportunity of serving with Hamid Ansari, the then Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The author recounts  “The fact that my country could repose faith in me and send me to Saudi Arabia strengthened my belief in the fundamental inclusive and secular fabric of Armed forces.” He goes on to explain in detail his stay and his travels across the Middle East with supporting photographs. This part of the book comes across as a travelog and makes reading even more fun.

The famous siblings: Zameer Uddin Shah with his brother, actor Naseerudin Shah

He describes the sheer inclusiveness with which his profession treated him as a Muslim and says that ‘I never wore my religion on my sleeve. My beliefs were between me and my maker. Whilst on parade, the Army was my religion. My men cared for my sentiments too. During Ramadan fasts, they would make sure I got breakfast every morning at 3 a.m.’

The most interesting chapter of the book is the one that deals with ‘Operation Aman’, an operation that his regiment carried out to bring peace and quell the riots and communal upheaval of Gujarat in 2002. The then Chief Of Army Staff, General S Padmanabhan handed over this responsibility to Zameer Uddin Shah.

‘We landed on a dark deserted airfield in Ahmedabad’ says the author En route to Chief Minister’s residence at Gandhi Nagar he was horrified to observe the rampaging mobs, burning and pillaging the police as mute spectators. With the army at the helm of affairs, the situation finally came under control and the operation was a success. This added one more feather to his cap.

Vice-President Mohd Hamid Ansari releasing the book

In the last chapters, the author talks about his tumultuous tenure as the AMU Vice Chancellor where hostile forces kept trying to pull the rug from beneath his feet. Kapil Sibal, the then HRD Minister had offered him the post and he had taken it, despite the disapproval of his friends and family. During his tenure, the university emerged as the best one in the country according to international ranking agencies like Times Higher Education, London, and US News World Report.

Throughout the book, the author constantly tries to make a case that Indian Muslims need education above anything else and there is an urgent need to draw them into the mainstream.

‘Discrimination’ says the author does exist but it certainly affects the lesser educated. The book would interest anyone who wishes to opt for a military career and also the young Indian Muslims who think that the odds are against them. This autobiography is there to suggest otherwise.

The Sarkari Mussalman: Life and travails of a soldier educationist ; Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah, Rs 599, Konark Publishers 

(Saleem Rashid Shah is a research scholar and a non-fiction book critic based in New Delh). 

source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Story / by Saleem Rashid Shah / May 2023

Ex-VP Hamid Ansari’s ‘Challenges to a liberal polity’ book review: The politics of being Indian

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

A collection of speeches and articles by former vice-president Hamid Ansari, offering engaging insights into our democracy.

Challenges to A Liberal Polity: Buy Challenges to A Liberal Polity by Ansari  M. Hamid at Low Price in India | Flipkart.com
Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity / by M Hamid Ansari / Publisher Penguin / Pages 277 /Price 799 INR

For the past decade, public discourse in India has remained sharply focused on challenges to the liberal polity and the threats that have grown to human rights. Issues of citizenship and identity are entwined inextricably in this. It is in this context that Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity assumes not only topicality but also a significance that can be overlooked only at the readers’ own peril.

Hamid Ansari is a distinguished diplomat, academic, statesman and also, the often misused word, a public intellectual. He has, in his long career, worn many hats. He has served as the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Chairman of the Minorities Commission and the Vice President of India. Throughout his life, Ansari has never shied away from speaking his mind—bluntly if need be.

The author has, at times, been exposed to unfair criticism and deliberately humiliated by persons in high office who should have known better. When bidding him farewell, PM Narendra Modi was unnecessarily sarcastic—some thought gracelessly—by mentioning that Ansari had spent most of his diplomatic career in Islamic countries and perhaps he would be more comfortable now that he was relieved of the burden of the constitutional position to freely voice criticism of whatever he didn’t agree with. The PM conveniently forgot that the former vice-president served with distinction as India’s permanent representative in the United Nations and as Chief of Protocol when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister in an era of dynamic Indian diplomacy. But, let us not digress.

This volume is a collection of speeches, forewords and articles contributed by the author on subjects that overlap and cover a vast time span from the turn of the century to the present day. The introduction is stimulating and thought-provoking. It presents a distilled essence of state-of-the-art research in political science and Indian society. This prepares the readers for what is to follow.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section deals with human rights and group rights. The subsections or mini-chapters can be read profitably as independent essays. Of particular interest are the ones titled––‘India and the Contemporary International Norms on Group Rights’, ‘Minorities and the Modern State’ and ‘Majorities and Minorities in Secular India: Sensitivity and Responsibility’.

The second section is titled ‘Indian Polity, Identity, Diversity and Citizenship’. This is more substantial than the preceding segment and covers a range of topics that should engage readers with different interests and ideological orientations. Examples include ‘Identity and Citizenship: An Indian Perspective’, ‘Religion, Religiosity and World Order’, ‘Two Obligatory -isms: Why Pluralism and Secularism is Essential to our Democracy’. There are shorter pieces like ‘The Ethics of Gandhi’ and ‘The Dead Weight of State Craft’, ‘India’s Plural Diversity is Under Threat: Some Thoughts on Contemporary Challenges in the Realm of Culture’. How one wishes that these themes had been explored in greater detail.

To some it may appear that this is nitpicking, but this is the hazard of compiling a collection of comments and observations made on commemorative occasions such as inaugurating or concluding a seminar, a workshop or writing a short preface. Ansari is primarily a scholar, who is deeply distraught by the happenings around him and is restless to share his constructive thoughts and not just the distress and despair. The tone is always cautiously optimistic.

The concluding section deals with ‘Indian-Muslim Perception and Indian Contribution to Culture of Islam’. The essays on ‘Militant Islam’, ‘Islam and Democratic Principle’ and ‘India and Islamic Civilisation: Contributions and Challenges’ deserve to be read by all Indians, particularly the young. One may disagree with the author, but it is impossible to imagine that any meaningful dialogue can take place between the majorities and minorities in India without an understanding of how the ‘other’ thinks and perceives the world.

His convocation addresses delivered at Jamia Millia Islamia (where he taught) and the AMU (his alma mater) have a different flavour. The tone is personal and evokes shared nostalgia. The final essay is a review of India and muslim world.

The book has substantial end-notes that provide useful bibliographical information. One can flip through these pages to pursue the themes dealt in the book according to one’s own inclination and at leisure.


This book is for all. The general reader, who has no scholarly pretensions, too can turn the pages of this book with great pleasure. Many a time, the author peppers the prose with Urdu couplets that hook the reader to his line of arguments. One such piece is his Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Memorial lecture. Most people remember this vice-president as the supine individual who signed on the dotted line with dimmer when Indira Gandhi declared Emergency at midnight. Ansari, however,  has used the book brilliantly to make some hard- hitting comments that are im- possible not to take on the chin.

The chapter begins with: Yaad-e-maazi azaab hai yaa rab/ Chheen le mujhse hafiza mera (The memory of the past is torturous, O God/Take away my memory from me), and concludes with: “Can the amnesia, the compromises and the misconceptions of recent and not-so-recent past be overcome?” Yes, only if meaningful alternative is offered. We do stand at the crossroads.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Books / by Pushpesh Pant / Express News Service / November 06th, 2022

‘By Many a Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life’ review: Reflections of a nationalist

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

In his autobiography, Hamid Ansari, Vice-President for two terms, brings to the fore the predicament of Indian Muslims, who still live in the shadow of Partition

The Indian republic has had 13 vice-presidents since 1952 and only two, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and Hamid Ansari, got two terms in office. Therefore, it would be natural and tempting to focus on Ansari’s vice-presidential years, but it needs to be kept in mind that the post of Vice-President is essentially an inconsequential office in terms of power and authority; to the extent, the Vice-President also doubles up as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha does allow the incumbent some wiggle room, but that too can be misleading. Of the 13 men, only one, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, had some political heft but he too was to discover that parliamentary conventions and politicians’ conveniences ensure that a party man gets cordoned off from the power vortex.

Civility and grace

The other hat Ansari wore for many years was that of an Indian diplomat. He was a competent, loyal foot-soldier and at his joyful best when crossing swords with Pakistani counterparts at global forums. It would perhaps be most rewarding to read the book as the reflections of a nationalist Indian Muslim.

Ansari acquaints readers with a different generation that valued civility, grace, erudition, and took pride in its love for scholarship, language and poetry.

He anchors himself firmly in the nationalist milieu; early in the book we are informed that his father spurned Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s invitation, on the eve of August 14, 1947, to all senior Muslim officers to proceed to Pakistan. The senior Ansari expressed his inability “to change my country.” The Ansari family was only one of the two at the senior level to stay back in India. A choice was made: India was home.

Modernist at heart

This confidence in the new, free India was justified when Ansari made it to the elite Indian Foreign Service. A meritocracy was at work. The new arrangements were fair, in letter and spirit, and being a Muslim attracted no discrimination nor endowed any advantage.

He locates himself unapologetically in the modernist milieu. He fell for — then married — a young “cigarette-smoking and sherry-sipping” woman. He did not defer to traditionalists and conservatives. There is not an obscurantist bone in this doubly cosmopolitan man, who is just as much at ease in any western environs as he is well-versed in the civilisational richness of the global Islamic world.

Consequently, he never allowed himself to get inveigled in the intrigues and pettiness that soon came to define the Muslim political crowd, especially when Muslim leaders and the masses got entangled with the exigencies of electoral politics. Nor was he unobservant of the unhealthy tendencies creeping upon Muslim society and its institutions.

For precisely this reason his reflections on the state of the Indian Muslims command our attention and respect.

Ansari acknowledges that from the very beginning the Indian Muslims have lived under “a shadow of physical and psychological insecurity” because they were made “to carry, unfairly, the burden of political events and compromises that resulted from the Partition.” And, as the Sachar Committee Report would record, they remain on “the margins of structures of political, economic and social relevance.”

Islam and nationalism

Given our own constitutional commitments, Ansari wants to underline “the imperative to recognise pluralism and secularism as the normative principles of politics” along with “an unflinching adherence to principles of equality and equal treatment.”

He is not reticent about reflecting on the unresolved and unsettled equation between Islam and nationalism. A ‘successful synthesis of Islam and nationalism’ is very much feasible, because, as he argues, invoking Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, “…nationality is not synonymous with religious community since the two are in the shape of concentric circles that do not collide…”

Nor, for him, is there any fundamental incompatibility between Islam and democracy in the Asian Muslim world.

Yet, as he puts it, there is global dimension to the followers of Islam. The Muslim communities all over, including India, do subscribe “to an emotional bond of ‘Muslim-ness.’ The sentiment is amorphous as well as real; it is usually taken for granted but gets evoked at times of stress when protection physical or emotional, is perceived to be required.”

Ansari also tackles the ticklish issue of the majority-minorities syndrome in a democratic society. He argues for a need to move beyond ‘assimilation’ and ‘tolerance’. Both are inadequate from the minority perspective. While ‘tolerance’ does prohibit discrimination, it does not endorse diversity, and, therefore, leaves room for the problematic ‘other.’ And, of course, ‘assimilation’ simply boils down to absorption of the minority personality in the larger, majority crowd.

He comes across as a rare breed in these vulgar times. Instead of stridency, Ansari contextualises the many ‘accidents’ of his life with subtlety and sensitivity. With enormous reasonableness he enjoins us to ponder on the matrix of ‘accommodation’ and ‘acceptance’ intersecting with temptations of majoritarian politics. Perhaps it is this very gentleness in reminding us of our obligations to the social contract inherent in the Constitution that Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocked on the occasion of Hamid Ansari’s last day as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Neither leopard is willing to change his spots.

By Many a Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life; M. Hamid Ansari, Rupa, ₹595.

The reviewer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Reviews / by Harish Khare / March 13th, 2021

A doctor and his legacy

NEW DELHI :

Taking up the challenging task of achieving unity and tolerance

M.H. Ansari viewing an exhibition on Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari at the M.F. Hussain Art Gallery, 2015
M.H. Ansari viewing an exhibition on Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari at the M.F. Hussain Art Gallery, 2015

Fifty-six is no age to die. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, MD, MS, with a tall reputation in London’s Lock Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital, and ‘free Doctor’ to uncountable poor in Delhi, was on a train bringing him back to his hometown, Delhi, from Mussoorie where he had gone to treat the Nawab of Rampur when, on May 10, 1936, a heart attack – his first and fatal – took him away. He was four years short of sixty.

Doctors are human and death’s sudden grasp comes to medical luminaries just as it comes to ordinary mortals. Ansari must have been in some disbelief at his heart’s capitulation. But his death shocked a whole world beyond himself, a world of grateful and trusting patients, former patients, friends, families of patients, countless Congress and Muslim League leaders who were his patients, some of them, and fellow freedom fighters, all. For he had been more, incredibly more, than the ‘good Doctor sahib‘. He had been, for over two decades, a political guide and pathfinder to all those who believed in India’s plural integrity and in India’s destiny as a leader of progressive causes globally.

The Balkan War in 1912 saw 32-year-old Ansari lead a medical team from India to Turkey to help wounded Turkish forces in what was not just a humanitarian act but one that formed lasting bonds, as the medical mission of the doctor, Dwarkanath Kotnis, to China in 1938 during the Sino-Japanese war was to do. The Kotnis Mission has been the subject of a film, Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani by V. Shantaram, for which K.A. Abbas wrote the script. A film has to come on Dr. Ansari Ki Amar Kahani about that mission’s work. Mrinal Sen could well have made such a film a decade ago but perhaps Javed Akhtar or Shyam Benegal will yet do it, for it cries out, filmographically and civilizationally, to be done.

M.A. Ansari’s life as such needs to be known, not for his sake – he is beyond the reach of recognition or neglect – but ours. Being invited to play a constructive political role in the formulation of the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League in 1916 and to preside over the Muslim League’s sessions in 1918 and 1920, Ansari emerged as a sturdy champion of the Khilafat Movement and Hindu-Muslim unity.

His commitment to that cause soon steered away from League politics, the separate electorates idea and all that was to lead to the demand for Pakistan. This resulted in his becoming inevitably, a general secretary of the Indian National Congress in 1920, 1922, 1926, 1929, 1931 and 1932 and in 1927, its president. A former president of the Muslim League becoming president of the Indian National Congress? Incredible, but incredible things did happen in Gandhi’s and Nehru’s India.

Drawing close to the Mahatma’s eclectic nationalism, Ansari became Gandhi’s ‘Delhi host’ in his old Delhi manor called ‘Darussalam’ and physician to members of Gandhi’s family, including his grandson, Rasik, son of Harilal Gandhi, who contracted typhoid in 1929 while on a visit to Delhi (from eating roadside jalebis, as Rasik himself explained) and in spite of Ansari’s valiant efforts, could not be saved. Gandhi was touring the North West Frontier at the time. Ansari sent him a telegram conveying the news. Gandhi steeled himself. “I loved the boy,” he wrote, “I had placed high hopes on him…” The trauma brought the doctor and the Mahatma closer to one another.

Ansari was instrumental in the founding of the Jamia Millia Islamia, and bringing to it a whole host of nationalists, Muslim and Hindu, to learn and to teach. In return for learning Urdu, Gandhi’s youngest son, Devadas, was recruited to teach the Jamia spinning. Ansari was Jamia’s chancellor when he died.

Liberation from mutual animosity and mistrust among Hindus and Muslims was for him a passion. Ansari was, to use an old-fashioned phrase, a man of God. He was also a man of Science. His being a man of science doubtless had something to do with his harbouring his eminently rational goal of wanting Hindus and Muslims to live in civilized amity, not conflict.

As it happened, on the very day Ansari died, Gandhi was meeting in the Nandi Hills, near Mysore, India’s most famous man of science, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman. If a man of god can be a man of science, a man of science can be a man of god.

Raman to Gandhi: “The growing discoveries in the science of astronomy and physics seem to me to be further and further revelations of God. (But) Mahatmaji, religions cannot unite. (Only) Science offers the best opportunity for a complete fellowship. All men of science are brothers.”

Gandhi to Raman: “What about the converse? All who are not men of science are not brothers?” ( The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 62, pages 387-9)

Within a few hours of this conversation, M.A. Ansari, man of science and of god, brother to all who came in contact with him personally, professionally or politically, lay dead in his railway coach.

Gandhi had gone to the Nandi Hills with Sardar Patel, among others, for a ‘health’ sojourn at Ansari’s behest. When the news reached him the next day, he was stunned. Penning a tribute for the Associate Press, he described him as “the poor man’s physician if he was also that of the Princes” and said, “His death will be mourned by thousands for whom he was their sole consolation and guide.” He added: “…He was my infallible guide on Hindu-Muslim questions. He and I were just planning an attack on the growing social evils.”

An attack on social evils. Strong words, scorching words. What was the biggest ‘social evil’ that Gandhi was exercised most about in 1936? Hindu-Muslim mistrust.

He needed a guide from among the Muslim community to tackle this. And, with Ansari, that guide was gone. At a loss to find a successor he turned first to Zakir Husain. “I ask, will you take Dr Ansari’s place?” On Zakir Sahib not agreeing, he turned then to Maulana Azad for that crucial assistance. It is entirely reasonable to suppose that had Ansari lived he would have played a defining role as a symbol, spokesman and strategist for Hindu-Muslim unity in the Constituent Assembly and then, very probably, in 1950, become president or vice-president of India. He would have been only 70, the age at which his grand-nephew, Mohammad Hamid Ansari, first became vice-president of India.

What was the main concern – ‘social evil’ – forcefully, passionately expressed in Vice-President Ansari’s farewell address to Rajya Sabha? The challenge to Hindu-Muslim unity, pluralism, not as mere ‘tolerance’ but in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s words: cultural intimacy.

We know what Vice-President Ansari, descended from that great name in Indian pluralism – Dr M.A. Ansari – who rejected everything that led to Pakistan, has received by way of a ‘reward’.

Seventy five years after the Quit India Movement, 70 years after Independence, we the people of India, brothers and sisters in plural mutuality, must tell the shatterers of India’s unity, Hindu, Muslim and other: Quit, quit terrorizing India.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online editon / Home> Opinion / by Gopalkrishna Gandhi / August 22nd, 2017

Free media, a necessity in a free society: Ansari

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

Vice President Hamid Ansari, AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the release of National Herald’s commemorative publication, “70 years of India’s Independence” on Monday. Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Vice President Hamid Ansari, AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the release of National Herald’s commemorative publication, “70 years of India’s Independence” on Monday. Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Bengaluru :

Vice President Mohammand Hamid Ansari, on Monday, said a free media is not only beneficial but also a necessity in a free society and any attack on press freedom will result in jeopardising citizens’ rights.

Mr. Ansari, who launched National Herald’s commemorative publication – “70 years of India’s Independence” – in the presence of All India Congress Committee Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a function here, said the State should not impede the free flow of information.

When faced with unjust restrictions and the threat of attack, self-censorship in the media could have the opposite effect, aiding the covering up of abuses and fostering frustration among marginalised communities.

Mr. Ansari also said the Constitutional framework provided for required intervention by the State to ensure smooth working of the press and society; but the laws state that it should only be in the interest of the public at large. “The media, if it is to remain true to its calling, has to do likewise. In an open society like ours, we need a responsible press to hold power to account. This is why freedom of press under Article 19 (1)(A) of the Constitution is subject only to reasonable restrictions in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, public order, decency, contempt of court, defamation and incitement to an offence.”

The Supreme Court has held that ‘freedom of speech and of the press is the Ark of the Covenant of Democracy’ because public criticism is essential to the working of its institutions. In this age of ‘post-truths’ and ‘alternative facts’ where ‘advertorials’ and ‘response features’ edge-out editorials, “we would do well to recall Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of the press playing its role of a watchdog in democracy and look at the ethos and principles that powered his journalism.”

Noting that Nehru, who started National Herald newspaper, believed that media was a pillar of democracy, Mr. Ansari said he envisioned a free, unfettered and honest press. “Nehru watched over the interests of media persons in independent India.”

The Working Journalists Act, which tried to give a degree of protection to journalists, to ensure freedom of press, was largely Nehru’s doing.” However, the Act, I believe, is now in disuse, and short term contracts, that make journalists beholden to the ‘preferred lines’ of the publications, are in vogue.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said it was heartening to note that the Associated Journals Ltd. is reviving National Herald by launching its English website and resuming phased publication as a multi-media outlet, focusing primarily on a news presence in digital form.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – June 12th, 2017

Ansari warns of public despair fuelled by inequality

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

Vice-President Hamid Ansari at the inaugural session of The Huddle in Bengaluru on Friday.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari at the inaugural session of The Huddle in Bengaluru on Friday.

Gap between rich and poor is not narrowing, he says at The Huddle

Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Friday called attention to the increasing economic inequality worldwide, particularly in India with all its social and political consequences, and noted that protest movements globally are being fuelled by public despair.

Delivering the inaugural address, titled ‘Living in Febrile Times’, at The Huddle, a three-day conclave of ideas, he said, “We need to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. Can we just accept the growing insularity, intolerance and discrimination?”

Noting that the gap between the rich and poor shows no sign of narrowing, Mr. Ansari suggested that the situation demands impatience with business-as-usual development policies. “Perhaps the time has come,” he said, “to move the development discourse beyond the current discussion of outcomes and opportunities. A conceptual framework is provided by Amartya Sen and others who see human capabilities as the capacity and freedom to choose and to act; and calls for opportunities that give individuals the freedom to pursue a life of their own choosing to be equalised.” He linked such a compact back to the Preamble to the Constitution and cited the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report of 2017 to frame the dangers of failing to bridge income inequality: the rise of populism. In India, he pointed out, the richest 1% have claim to 60% of the country’s wealth, and the bottom 50% to 2%. “Rising inequality is seen as a contributing cause for the rise of authoritarian leaders, often with a divisive agenda fuelled by sectarianism, xenophobia and nationalism,” he said.

Rising inequality results in conflict, and threatens the stability of democracies. Surveying protests worldwide such as the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring, he highlighted the Naxalite issue: “The growing threat of left extremism, which has been repeatedly acknowledged as the gravest security threat to [the] Indian state, has its roots in economic deprivation and inequality in access to resources.”

Calling for equity in development, Mr. Ansari cautioned against writing off inequity as an “inconvenient truth” in the quest for a “shining future”. He counselled a rethink on the trickle down model of growth, and cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impact of “our material progress” – as well as an appraisal of India’s investment in human capital and public goods.

Equity is integral to justice and fairness, he said, and went on to ask the ‘uncomfortable question’: “Are conflicts and human suffering the new normal? To what extent are they induced by failed ventures in [the] quest for unrealisable utopias?”

Earlier having made a passing reference to the age of “post-truths” and “alternate facts”, Mr. Ansari’s was in total a plea to see the complete picture: not just the rising incomes of many, but also the rising inequality in wealth and income; not just the number of people lifted out of abject poverty, but also “the majority of people on the planet today… in countries where economic disparities are bigger than they were a generation ago.”

source:  http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Special Correspondent / February 11th, 2017

Vice-President Ansari to open JSS Science & Technology University on July 23

Mysuru, KARNATAKA  / KOLKATA /  NEW DELHI :

Dr. B.G. Sangameshwar, VC, JSS Science and Technology University, is seen addressing a press meet at SJCE this morning as Dr. K. Lokesh, Registrar, Prof. M.H. Dhananjaya, Director, Technical Education Division, JSS Mahavidyapeetha and Dr. Shakeeb-Ur-Rehman, Principal, SJCE, look on.
Dr. B.G. Sangameshwar, VC, JSS Science and Technology University, is seen addressing a press meet at SJCE this morning as Dr. K. Lokesh, Registrar, Prof. M.H. Dhananjaya, Director, Technical Education Division, JSS Mahavidyapeetha and Dr. Shakeeb-Ur-Rehman, Principal, SJCE, look on.

Mysuru ;

(US&PV)- Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari will inaugurate the JSS Science and Technology University and unveil the foundation plaque of Academic Block building at JSS Technical Institutions Campus (SJCE) here on July 23 at 11 am.

Disclosing this at a press meet at SJCE premises here this morning, JSS Science and Technology University Vice-Chancellor Dr. B.G. Sangameshwar said that Chief Minister Siddharamaiah would launch the new website of the University on the occasion.

Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala will preside over the programme. Suttur Seer Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Swamiji will grace the occasion.

District in-Charge Minister Dr. H.C. Mahadevappa, Minister for Higher Education Basavaraj Rayareddy, MP Pratap Simha, MLA Vasu and Mayor B.L. Bhyrappa will be the guests of honour.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / July 20th, 2016

Morocco: New Delhi Eyes Big Investments, Indian Vice-President to Visit Rabat

KOLKATA (West Bengal) / UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

 REUTERS
REUTERS

The Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari is expected in Morocco from May 30 to June 1, a visit expected to highlight by the signing of several Memoranda of Understanding (MoU.)

The Indian Vice-President’s visit is taking place few months after King Mohammed VI visited India to participate in the India-Africa summit held in October last year. The king was the guest of honor of the India-Africa summit.

During this diplomatic visit, the first in 50 years since the last visit of an Indian Vice-President, Ansari will hold talks with Moroccan officials on a wide range of issues including economy and UN Security Council expansion, Indian sources say.

“This visit intends to further strengthen the cordial relations between the two countries, further develop and diversify profile of bilateral economic cooperation and explore new avenues of co-operation and partnership on a wide range of issues of shared interest,” a statement from the Indian external Affairs Ministry said.

The Indian Vice-President will also launch, together with the Head of the Moroccan Government Abdelilah Benkirane, the India-Morocco Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to Indian sources.

Besides the political dimension of the trip, a special accent will be put on the economic issues as India plans to expand market outreach of its cars and truck manufacturers.

MoUs will be signed in education, IT and communication technology sectors during the visit.

Several economic initiatives have been undertaken by both sides over the past months. Last month, officials of the two countries’ ministries of transports mulled in Mumbai the idea to launch a direct air link between the two countries.

Also in the course of April, a team of Moroccan business people visited New Delhi to study business partnership opportunities that can be established between India and Morocco.

source: http://www.northafricapost.com / The North Africa Post / Home> Headlines> Morocco / by Kamailoudini Tagba / May 27th, 2016