Indian History - The Facts by Ashish Joshi

India Should Be Grateful to Alauddin Khilji for Thwarting the Mongol Invasions *******************************  At a time when most of the medieval world was laid waste by the brutality of the Mongol armies, Khilji kept India – and its culture and civilisation – safe. What is not well-known, is that Khilji, for all his faults, saved India from the murderous Mongols, who tried to invade the Indian subcontinent six times during his reign as the sultan of Delhi, and failed miserably, thanks to his brilliance as a general, the quality, discipline, and bravery of his army and its commanders, and their superior military tactics. What the Mongol invaders inflicted on Persia, the Caliphate of Baghdad, Russia, and elsewhere is well documented – genocide, the destruction of infrastructure, and the destruction of native culture, literature, and religious institutions. Their habit of leaving conquered countries as wastelands that would not spring back for at least a hundred years, and t

Leadership in the 21st Century by Field Marshal  Sam Manekshaw, MC                        {Sam with Joe {Dad} "Vice President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am fully conscious of the honour and privilege which is mine to be invited here to address you this evening. The honour is even greater that you should have invited a soldier when you could have invited any number of VVIPs. General Choudhury, I thank you for the very kind words you spoke about me. You have told us all the good things that Field Marshal Cariappa has done. But one big thing that he did, you haven’t mentioned. He taught the Indian Army to be completely apolitical. Ours is one country, where soldiers have kept out of politics. I think that was the biggest achievement of Field Marshal Cariappa, the greatest service to this country. ...the real problem for all our difficulties, all our shortages, etc. is lack of leadership. Some years ago, I was invited to a Rotary club function at Madras. It was stated that t

Economic History: Nehru's economic policy : Context & Contribution ************************* { Picture :Nehru switching on the power house of the Bhakra hydro-electric project} The counterfactual & casual narrative in India today has condemned Nehru as an amateur in economic policy. Neoliberal Indian economists in Ivy Leagues and those in India influenced by them claim that the country skipped a big chance to play catch-up to the rich West because of Nehru’s fatal flirtation with socialism. This infatuation, they insist, put clamps on the animal spirits of India's private enterprise, withdrew the country from the benefits of world trade and plagued it with inefficient and corrupt public sector undertakings for decades. Even Nehru’s supporters – while admiring his insistence on a “scientific temper” and industrialisation - tend to claim that he was  focussed on State intervention & role of PSUs at the cost of private initiative . Nehru, writes Ramchandra Gu

On 3rd April, 2018 the Supreme Court stated that  Article 370 had acquired permanent status through years of existence, making its abrogation impossible. The observation came from a bench of Justices Adarsh K Goel and R F Nariman on a petition by  Kumari Vijayalakshmi Jha who sought a declaration that Article 370 was a temporary provision that lapsed with the dissolution of the J&K Constituent Assembly on January 26, 1957. She had also sought a declaration that the constitution of J&K was void, inoperative and in breach of the Constitution. Justice Nariman  had drawn additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta's attention to the SC's 2017 judgment in State Bank of India vs Santosh Gupta case and stated that the controversy over Article 370 was settled by the court ruling the provision had acquired permanent space in the Constitution and it could no longer be abrogated. The SC has already stated since the Constituent Assembly of the state ceased to exist, the Pre