Body, Nation and Resistance in the ...
This article is based on the 25th Chandrashekar...
Environment
Development Vs Dispossession: Dhinkia Rejects IOCL Pipeline
Lekshmi Sujatha | November 23, 2020
Spotlight on Diwali: Environment or Entertainment?
Bishaldeep Kakati | November 11, 2020
Serious Threat to Food and Farming – GM Lobby Plans New Offensive With Gene Edited Crops
Bharat Dogra | November 3, 2020
Featured Stories
World
A Comparison of Respect for the Sanctity of Mosques in France, the US, and China
France has seen a spate of attacks carried out by radicalized Muslims. The attacks and killings must be denounced. But more so must one denounce the terrorism and killings carried out by the French state against Muslims in its wars abroad. In a move that gives a strong inkling of French values, the French state has targeted 76 mosques for[Read More…]
India
Respect The Democratic Right Of Protest, Repeal The Recent Anti-Farmer Legislations
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties is committed to the defence and promotion of civil liberties in India, irrespective of differences regarding the political and economic institutions that maybe suitable for the country. The aim of the PUCL is clearly to uphold and promote by peaceful means the democratic way of life throughout India. To us it is an article[Read More…]
Globalisation
Dispossession and Imperialism Repackaged as ‘Feeding the World’
The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations. Smallholder farmers are being criminalised and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion. In 2014, the Oakland Institute found that institutional investors, including[Read More…]
Human Rights
Rights Organisations Demand Quashing of UAPA, Sedition Charges Against Activists
In November, 67 Adivasi, Dalit and human rights activists were booked by the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana police under UAPA and charged with sedition for alleged “maoist links”. In late-November, police officials in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana booked 67 Adivasi, Dalit and human rights activists under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and under sedition charges for alleged “maoist[Read More…]
Imperialism
Ready or Not, Here They Come
A Military Spouse’s Perspective on Bringing the Troops Home from Afghanistan and Iraq By the end of this year, the White House will reportedly have finally brought home a third of the 7,500 troops still stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq (against the advice of President Trump’s own military leaders). While there have been stories galore about the global security implications of this plan, there has[Read More…]
Communal Harmony
Do we really practice Communal Harmony?
India observes communal harmony week from 19th to 25th November. This was started in 1992 by National Foundation for Communal Harmony (NFCH), an autonomous body under Ministry of Home Affairs. The aim of the week is to promote fraternity, maintain peace & communal harmony, and to run a fundraising campaign for children affected by violence. However, majority do not know[Read More…]
Climate Change
Climate Change in India: On-ground reality and Solutions
Climate Change: National Geographic defines climate change as “the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns”. The major cause of climate change is accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Earth’s atmosphere. Human activity like burning of fossil fuels can be attributed to the recent increase in GHG emissions. There have been many international efforts for a coordinated response to[Read More…]
Environmental Protection
Development Vs Dispossession: Dhinkia Rejects IOCL Pipeline
Just as it takes grit and perseverance to break the mighty mountains, standing up to the oppressor demands conviction, solidarity and sustained agitations. Dhinkia, a small village in the costal district Jagatsinghpur of the Odisha state is a living testimony to this. Famous for its sweetest paan (betel vines), the village (also a Gram Panchayat) for decades has seen the[Read More…]
Counter Solutions
What Is the Alternative Farming and Food System That India Needs?
As the attention of people of India is focused on agriculture in the context of the farmers’ movement, this is a good time to initiate a debate on exactly what sort of alternative system of farming and food the country needs. It is not enough to criticize the existing system, we should be clear about what we actually need. If[Read More…]
Resource Crisis
Fossil Fuel Production Is Reaching Limits in a Strange Way
Strangely enough, the limit we seem to be reaching with respect to fossil fuel extraction comes from low prices. At low prices, the extraction of oil, coal, and natural gas becomes unprofitable. Producers go bankrupt, or they voluntarily cut back production in an attempt to force prices higher. As the result of these forces, production tends to fall. This limit comes long[Read More…]
Alternative Energy
Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA
The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries. That is according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020. The 464-page outlook, published today by the IEA, also outlines the “extraordinarily turbulent” impact of coronavirus and the “highly uncertain” future of global energy use[Read More…]
Patriarchy
Case Study: Reverse Domestic Violence
Mansur Durrani’s Wife Gets One Month Jail! Forgiven!! We read the words “domestic violence” and our default understanding is a husband bashing up his wife. There is no denying that a vast majority of domestic violence cases put wives at the receiving end. More so in families where alcohol consumption is prevalent. But there is also an increasing trend of[Read More…]
Palestine
Moving Past Apartheid: One-State is not Ideal Justice, but It is Just and Possible
Once again, Europe’s top diplomats expressed their ‘deep concern’ regarding Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement expansion, again evoking the maxim that Israeli actions “threaten the viability of the two-state solution”. This position was communicated by EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Josep Borrell, on November 19, during a video-conference with Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international[Read More…]
South Asia
United Nations Failure And Sri Lanka’s Defiance
The fate of the UNHRC Resolutions 30/1 of 2015 and 40/1 of 2019 Sri Lanka’s democracy completely changed and is now ruled by a dictatorial Sinhala Buddhist President elected by the majority Sinhala Buddhist voters. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution has placed him with absolute powers over judiciary, police, election and other independent Commissions which functioned independently without political[Read More…]
Annihilate Caste
Caste and Abnormality
Absurd Scientific claims: The Brahmins induce below normal thinking by advocating absurdities. Their claims rest on the stories/fables told in their old books, Ramayana, Mahabharata or various Puranas. Some such claims are: a) Aeroplane in the Ramayana period b) Plastic surgery (claim by Ganesh deity which has human neck and head and lower part a elephant body) c) Existence of[Read More…]
Life/Philosophy
Establishment journalists are piling on to smear Robert Fisk now he cannot answer back
Something remarkable even by the usually dismal standards of the stenographic media blue-tick brigade has been happening in the past few days. Leading journalists in the corporate media have suddenly felt the urgent need not only to criticise the late, much-respected foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, but to pile in against him, using the most outrageous smears imaginable. He is suddenly[Read More…]
Arts/Literature
We, the farmers of this country…
You shove us, you beat us, you bury us alive. Yet we, the farmers of this country are reborn like that one resolute corn plant. You cringe, you grin, you plead for our votes and notes. If WE made you win, WE can make you fall too! We’re the fields, we, the crops, then why are we the prisoners of[Read More…]
Book Review
Khalid Hosseini’s “A Thousand Splendid Suns”: Giving Voice to the Voiceless
The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini poignantly writes the story of brave and courageous Afghan women who have lived under the debilitating shadows of patriarchal oppression, endless violence and war. Khaled Hosseini’s novel argues how the patriarchy and persistent conditions of conflict have multiplied the oppression on women in Afghanistan. However, this is to make it clear[Read More…]
