<b>Yashwant Sinha</b>, former Union Minister for Finance and Union Minister for External Affairs was a prominent member of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. Today, he is one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s severest critics, even though his son, Jayant Sinha, is in the current Union Council of Ministers. In this interview with <b>Smita Gupta</b> and <b>Puja Mehra</b>, he shares his assessment of the four years of Prime Minister Modi’s government on a range of political and economic issues. A former civil servant, Sinha also talks about the possible political scenarios ahead of the next general elections in 2019, the BJP’s electoral prospects, and the manner in which the Prime Minister has conducted the affairs of government and politics. He touches upon issues such as Kashmir, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Cabinet System, and gives his projection on how the BJP will fare in the next general elections, scheduled for 2019. Excerpts:

Though quantitative evidence suggests that women are more likely to suffer from physical pain than men, little is known about their lived experiences. Nor are the processes and mechanisms through which social determinants of health cause pain well&nbsp;...

M. Karunanidhi (1924-2018) who cut his teeth in politics as a teenager was inseparable from Tamil Nadu politics until his passing on August 7, 2018. For close to five decades, irrespective of whether he was in power or not, he was a central piece on Tamil Nadu’s chessboard. An orator who could hold his audience spell-bound, a party organiser who was among those instrumental in taking the founding ideology of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) to all corners of the State, a five-time Chief Minister – the first in 1969 - Karunanidhi navigated the tricky waters of politics effortlessly. In this article, <b>Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi, journalist and former Tamil Nadu Correspondent for <i>The Hindustan Times</i></b>, who reported from the State for eight years from 2010 to 2018, writes on the manner in which Karunanidhi called the shots not only in Tamil Nadu but at the national level as well. Karunanidhi, he writes, will be remembered most for his federal legacy through which “he maintained and strengthened the federal structure of the country that the Constitution guaranteed”.

One of the high points in the political life of the late former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, was his opposition to the Emergency. The challenge was much more for Karunanidhi who held office as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In this article, <b>M.G. Devasahayam, former Army and Indian Administrative Service officer</b>, recalls Karunanidhi's "passion for freedom and democracy, and the willingness to make sacrifices to defend and protect these precious gifts".

The ninety-one year old <b>Dr. H.V. Hande, former Health Minister, Tamil Nadu</b>, is a political leader who has seen the late former Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, from close quarters; but always as a political opponent. Hande, who practises at his hospital in Shenoy Nagar, Chennai, sits in Room #1, and attends to patients with professional warmth. One of the highpoints of his political career, during which he was a member of the Madras Legislative Council and later the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, is his contest against Karunanidhi at the Anna Nagar Assembly constituency, in which he gave the former Chief Minister a tough electoral fight, and lost by a mere 699 votes. Verbal duels between Hande and Karunanidhi were a regular feature of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly when the former was an MLA and the latter was Chief Minister. In this conversation, with <b>V.S. Sambandan, Chief Administrative Officer, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy</b>, Hande shares his views about the late Chief Minister and his convictions, be it opposing the Emergency or working for the have-nots. Excerpts:

Farm loan waivers have always evoked strong emotions. The latest instance is from the southern State, Karnataka, where the new ruling coalition announced the write-off close on the heels of a similar announcement by the outgoing government a few months ago. <b>S. Rajendran, Resident Representative, Karnataka, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy</b>, writes on the politics of farm loan waivers, and discusses its intentions, outcomes, and policy alternatives.

From Swayamsevak to the Prime Minister of India: The Hindu Centre captures vignettes from the spectacular political journey of Vajpayee, who died in New Delhi on August 16, 2018 at the age of 93.

An act of magnanimity by his long-time associate, Lal Krishna Advani, set Atal Bihari Vajpayee on a journey of accomplishment that he had been convinced was not in his destiny. And then, things changed, and so quickly, that in the space of five years Vajpayee moved from the margins of party politics to its centre and from there to becoming the Prime Minister of India. As Prime Minister, he will be remembered most for his innovative outreach to Pakistan and Kashmir and the warmth he shared with his allies, and across much of the Opposition. Yet, Vajpayee tended to flit between positions, alternately revealing a statesman-like breadth of vision and echoing the bigoted ranks of the Sangh Parivar, which he joined as a schoolboy in 1939, and whose Hindu worldview he shared all his life. To the outside world, Vajpayee was a liberal caught in an illiberal party. But in his own words, he was a “swayamsevak first”. In this essay, <b>Vidya Subrahmaniam, Senior Fellow, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy</b>, traces Vajpayee’s career landmarks, dilemmas, and ideological flip-flops while simultaneously attempting to answer the question: Who was Atal Bihari Vajpayee?

Nearly 60 years after it was passed, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) remains a piece of legislation that evokes sharp responses. At the core of the difference of opinion is the issue of immunity. In this article, <b>M.G. Devasahayam, former Army and Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer</b>, invokes the Army Doctrine and points out that in contrast to its primary role to protect India against any external threats by deterrence or by waging war, the Army’s secondary role, under the purview of which AFSPA would fall, is to “assist Government agencies to cope with ‘proxy war’ and other internal threats and provide aid to civil authority when requisitioned for the purpose”. By this very definition, he points out, deployment of the Army in internal conflicts cannot be long term or permanent, though “this is what it has become in Jammu & Kashmir and the northeast, given the pathetic state of civil governance, corruption and inefficiency of police forces”. Terming AFSPA as one of the more draconian legislations that the Indian Parliament has passed, he argues that giving it a free run would be suicidal for the democratic republic of India.

The political exclusion of Rohingya Muslims in post-colonial Burma and the waves of violence against them in the form of a state-sponsored campaign of massacre, rape and arson is now widely seen as ethnic cleansing and as crimes against humanity. It&nbsp;...

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been consistently claiming that its Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are unique and that tampering is not feasible under real election conditions with its security protocol and administrative safeguards in place. Notwithstanding the ECI’s claims, at various points in time, the entire spectrum of political parties in India [including BJP and Congress] have expressed their reservations about the integrity of its EVMs. There have also been demands to revert to paper ballots. Confidence in the integrity of EVMs is important for voters to trust the outcomes of elections. The ECI cannot allow this confidence to be eroded.</br></br>In this Policy Watch, <b>K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty</b>, a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, examines the vulnerabilities of Electronic Voting Machines, the adequacy of its security protocol and administrative safeguards, and the risks due to the perfunctory implementation of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail systems. He provides several practical administrative and technical suggestions to make Indian EVMs tamper-proof. His interest in this matter is strictly apolitical and nothing more than preserving the integrity of India’s electoral process and enhancing its credibility in the eyes of political parties and voters.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been consistently claiming that its Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are unique and that tampering is not feasible under real election conditions with its security protocol and administrative safeguards in&nbsp;...