1. Latitude <\/b>(noun): Meaning: Scope for freedom of action or thought. (\u0938\u094d\u0935\u0924\u094d\u0930)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Freedom, Liberty, Laxity, Leeway
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Limitation, Restriction, Restraint, Constraint
\nExample<\/b>: Journalists have considerable latitude <\/b>in criticizing public figures.<\/p>\n
2. Convulse <\/b>(verb): Meaning: Throw (a country) into violent social or political upheaval. (\u0905\u0936\u093e\u0902\u0924 \u0915\u0930 \u0926\u0947\u0928\u093e)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Agitate, Unsettle, Disconcert, Ruffle
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Calm, Order, Quiet, Soothe
\nExample<\/b>: In the early ’90s, the country was really convulsed <\/b>by the murder rate.<\/p>\n
3. Genesis <\/b>(noun): Meaning: The beginning or origin of something. (\u092a\u094d\u0930\u0902\u092d)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Beginning, Commencement, Outset, Inception
\nAntonyms<\/b>: End, Conclusion, Termination, Omega
\nExample<\/b>: An article in a local paper describes the genesis <\/b>and construction of the round abode.<\/p>\n
4. Replete <\/b>(adjective): Meaning: Filled with something; with a full supply of something. (\u092d\u0930\u093e \u0939\u0941)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Filled, Packed, Stuffed, Loaded, Brimming
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Lacking, Missing, Deficient, Wanting
\nExample<\/b>: His story was replete <\/b>with falsehood.<\/p>\n
5. Vociferous <\/b>(adjective): Meaning: Expressing your opinions or feelings in a loud and confident way. (\u0915\u094b\u0932\u093e\u0939\u0932\u092a\u0942\u0930\u094d)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Uproarious, Vehement, Strident, Boisterous
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Low, Quiet, Silent, Soft
\nExample<\/b>: No one was more vociferous <\/b>in condemning it than Mr Walker.<\/p>\n
6. Bequeath <\/b>(verb): Meaning: Pass (something) on or leave (something) to someone else. (\u0909\u0924\u094d\u0924\u093e\u0928 \u0915\u0930\u0928\u093e)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Hand Down, Hand On, Pass On, Impart
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Keep, Withhold, Hold Back
\nExample<\/b>: Humans who developed a spiritual sense thrived and bequeathed <\/b>that trait to their offspring.<\/p>\n
7. Efface <\/b>(verb): Meaning: To make something disappear; to remove something. (\u092e\u093f\u091f\u093e \u0926\u0947\u0928\u093e)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Remove, Eliminate, Expunge, Wipe Out
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Preserve, Conserve, Protect, Safeguard
\nExample<\/b>: With time, the words are effaced <\/b>by the rain.<\/p>\n
8. Quandary <\/b>(noun): Meaning: A state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation. (\u0909\u0932\u091d\u0928)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: State of Uncertainty, Dilemma, Plight, Predicament
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Certainty, Certitude, Sureness
\nExample<\/b>: Year after year, however, we’d always find ourselves in a quandary<\/b>.<\/p>\n
9. Deprecate <\/b>(verb): Meaning: Express disapproval of. (\u0905\u0938\u0939\u093f\u092e\u0924 \u092a\u094d\u0930 \u0915\u0930\u0928\u093e)
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Disapprove, Deplore, Abhor, Take a dim view of.
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Approve, Endorse, Approbate
\nExample<\/b>: I strongly deprecate <\/b>the use of violence by the students.<\/p>\n
10. Chasm <\/b>(noun): Meaning: A very big difference between two people or groups, for example because they have different attitudes. (\u092c\u095c\u093e \u0905\u0928\u094d\u0924
\nSynonyms<\/b>: Difference, Gulf, Breach, Schism
\nAntonyms<\/b>: Closeness, Similarity
\nExample<\/b>: The chasm <\/b>between rich and poor is growing day by day.<\/p>\nA Reward for \u2018Egregious\u2019 Violations – The Hindu Vocabulary<\/b><\/h2>\n
A balance sheet would show that more has been lost than retrieved in the Ayodhya judgment.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court of India has to be given wide latitude<\/strong> in its effort to address an unwelcome task: to resolve a dispute that has stirred up<\/strong> ancient resentments<\/strong> beyond the powers of a modern republican order to placate<\/strong>. It was a matter involving criminal trespass<\/strong>, that should have been reversed by local administrative action. Once criminality was deterred, the underlying dispute should have been settled at the local civil court.<\/p>\n That the matter finally reached a Constitution Bench is a sign of democratic dysfunction. That five Supreme Court judges achieved unanimity<\/strong> on an issue that has convulsed<\/strong> Indian politics through seven decades, points to a quite heroic effort at salving<\/strong> deep wounds.<\/p>\n Several pages into its long, reflective and often digressive judgment on the Ayodhya title dispute, and after many an excursus<\/strong> into the discipline of archaeology, the top court admits that it has been embarked on an exercise in irrelevance. \u201cA finding of title\u201d, it pronounces, \u201ccannot be based.. on… archaeological findings\u201d. Rather, the matter \u201cmust be decided on settled legal principles… applying evidentiary standards which govern a civil tr ial\u201d.<\/p>\n Likewise, after long expeditions<\/strong> to uncover textual records from history, the Bench pleads its inability to \u201centertain claims that stem from<\/strong> the actions of the Mughal rulers against Hindu places of worship\u201d. The genesis<\/strong> of the dispute spanned \u201cfour distinct legal regimes \u2014 that of Vikramaditya, the Mughals, the British and now, Independent India\u201d.<\/p>\n Constitution as watershed<\/strong><\/p>\n India\u2019s history, the court writes, is \u201creplete<\/strong> with actions that have been judged to be morally incorrect and even today are liable to trigger vociferous<\/strong> ideological debate\u201d. A moment of liberation from the torments of the past occurred at that \u201c watershed<\/strong> moment\u201d when India adopted its republican Constitution. That was when \u201cwe, the people of India\u201d \u2014 as the resonant phrase in the preamble put it \u2014 \u201cdeparted from the determination of rights and liabilities on the basis of our ideology, our religion, the colour of our skin, or the century when our ancestors arrived at these lands\u201d. It was when all Indian citizens \u201csubmitted to the rule of law\u201d.<\/p>\n Certain continuities between republican India and the British Raj were retained. Article 372 of the Constitution allowed the adjudication<\/strong> of title bequeathed<\/strong> from before. And yet, with no clear pathway towards resolving a dispute that originated with the British conquest of Awadh in 1856, the top court invokes an extraordinary power uniquely granted under Article 142 of the Constitution, to ensure that justice is delivered to all.<\/p>\n Heroic so far in squaring impossible circles, the court wanders then into a deep moral quandary<\/strong>. It seeks to bridge \u201csignificant gaps in the positive law\u201d by applying principles of \u201cjustice, equity and good conscience\u201d. Yet it arrives at findings that negate these values.<\/p>\n December 22, 1949, roughly halfway between the adoption of the Indian Constitution and its formal entry into force, with a delinquent district magistrate looking the other way, a number of idols were smuggled into a place of worship at Ayodhya. Cutting through the mythology that has since surrounded that act, the court has declared that this was a \u201c desecration<\/strong> of the mosque and the ouster of the Muslims otherwise than by the due process of law\u201d. And then came the final act of destruction on December 6, 1992, when a monument with hoary references to In dia\u2019s history was effaced<\/strong>, in what the court recognises as \u201can egregious violation of the rule of law\u201d.<\/p>\n Offender and victim<\/strong><\/p>\n The abiding mystery with the Supreme Court ruling on Ayodhya, as the Indian republic marches ahead, would be to negotiate the complicated routine through which it seeks to reward the worst violations of the rule of law. After acknowledging all these historical wrongs, the court recognises a body that has been the most serious offender against rule of law, and awards it virtually undiluted title to the land. It seeks to placate the victims of this cycle of physical and rhetorical violence, through the award of five acres in the near vicinity<\/strong> of Ayodhya, for the 2.77 acres lost. Evidently, the court has decreed that the injuries to an entire religious community\u2019s sense of identity and belonging, can be easily redressed through seeming generosity in the quantitative sense.<\/p>\n It is an easy metric, but does it do sufficient remedy to all the principles trampled upon? An alternative metric could be used to assess how far the Supreme Court judgment bears true faith to the foundational principles of India\u2019s republican identity. Anybody with the tools to do the search, would find the word \u201cHindu\u201d occurring 1,062 times through the court\u2019s judgment, while \u201cMuslim\u201d appears 549 times. The word \u201ccitizen\u201d occurs a mere 14 times.<\/p>\n Equal citizenship was a promise that India made to itself at the time of its transition to a modern republic. B.R. Ambedkar and other preceptors<\/strong> of the democratic order knew that it was a difficult transition, because of the deep chasm<\/strong> between the assurance of political equality and the reality of social and economic inequality.<\/p>\n Ambedkar of course, had in mind a different dimension of inequality. But as the Constituent Assembly (CA) debated the issue of fundamental rights, and heard representations from the diminishing and disempowered spokespersons of communities who argued for a charter of minority rights, Govind Ballabh Pant came up with a lofty response, rendered perhaps from his privileged posture as an upper caste person. G.B. Pant\u2019s attitude and the CA\u2019s in general has been likened by scholars such as Christophe Jaffrelot, to a \u201cJacobin\u201d position, after the French revolutionary faction that insisted on the extinction<\/strong> of all intermediary loyalties between the citizen and the State, since in a republican order, none of these distinctions would have any reason to exist.<\/p>\n Equal citizenship<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking in the Constituent Assembly, G.B. Pant had deprecated<\/strong> the \u201cmorbid<\/strong> tendency\u201d, to disregard the \u201cindividual citizen who is really the backbone of the State, the pivot, the cardinal centre of all social activity, and whose happiness and satisfaction should be the goal of every social mechanism\u201d. The citizen, he regretted, had been lost in the \u201cbody known as the community\u201d, because of the \u201cdegrading habit of thinking always in terms of communities and never in terms of citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n When the intrusion<\/strong> into the Ayodhya mosque took place under his watch as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, G.B. Pant proved a little less mindful of the principle of equal citizenship. He responded vaguely to urgent demands from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, that the idols smuggled into the mosque be removed. To Nehru\u2019s worries that the commandeering<\/strong> of a Muslim place of worship might seriously impair India\u2019s claim to sovereignty over Kashmir, Pant with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as his ally responded with references to law and order compulsions.<\/p>\n This entire saga<\/strong> may have vanished into the rabbit-hole<\/strong> of history had not the course of Indian democracy exposed its assurances of republican equality as a thin cover for upper caste privilege. From being an unstated premise, sectarianism was officially reintroduced into India\u2019s electoral politics in the 1980s, as the foundations of upper caste hegemony began to falter<\/strong>. The Ayodhya dispute was one among many manifestations<\/strong> of this moment of crisis. The Supreme Court\u2019s heroic and yet logic-defying effort to set right the problem may well be too little and too late.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daily Vocabulary from The Hindu 1. Latitude (noun): Meaning: Scope for freedom of action or thought. (\u0938\u094d\u0935\u0924\u094d\u0930) Synonyms: Freedom, Liberty, … <\/p>\n