Opinion October 02, 1985, Forty Years Ago: Israel Bombs PLO HQ

India strongly condemned the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis, describing it as a “heinous attack which is in flagrant violation of all norms of civilised behaviour”. “India as the chair of the Non-Aligned Movement and on its own behalf condemns the blatant act of Israeli aggression against Tunisia and the Palestinian people,” a Foreign Office statement said. It called upon all countries to “renounce this barbaric act of violence which has shocked the conscience of mankind.”

Caste and Conversion

The Supreme Court upheld the presidential order of 1950 that a Hindu belonging to a Scheduled Caste lost his caste label on conversion to Christianity. Only Hindu and Sikh members of the Scheduled Castes are presumed to be suffering from the oppressive tradition of casteism, not Christians, according to a division bench presided over by Chief Justice P N Bhagwati.

Beijing wooing CPI

There are fairly sharp differences in the Communist Party of India over the feelers from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for developing party-to-party relations with the CPI. The CCP already has such relations with the CPI(M). Beijing’s overtures are significant considering that it was Indian communists’ attitude towards the Chinese after the 1962 Sino-Indian war that led to a split in the CPI and the formation of the CPI(M).