Twenty four groups working on environmental, labor and human rights wrote to the Executive Directors of World Bank not to dilute the environmental and social safeguards as the President of the World Bank visits India to explore new financing opportunities. India has been the largest recipient of World Bank loans in the history of World Bank. This also meant that[Read More…]
From the evidence that has surfaced so far, Omar Mateen, the mass murderer in Orlando, Florida, had no ties to any outside terrorist organization. Radicalized by propaganda on the internet, he was acting alone, driven by his hate and possibly fueled by his mental illness. His heinous crime was made possible by our gun ownership laws that allowed him[Read More…]
Like many of the grand schemes hatched in the wake of the 2007-2008 food price spikes, this one was a bust, by any measure. Still, ProSAVANA remains the Mozambican government’s agricultural development strategy for the region. While farmers defend their hard-won land rights, it seems they will have to look elsewhere for agricultural development.
A proverb of the indigenous people of southwestern Colombia warns: “The word without action is empty, action without the word is blind, and action and the word outside the spirit of the community is death.” Of course, many of us are on the quest to figure out precisely the opposite — how to integrate word, action and community, and thereby create flourishing commons that can unleash cascades of creativity, aliveness and innovation. That is precisely what we need right now.
The recent lower oil price predictably stimulates more consumption, but as more consumers will continue to struggle with their balance sheets, they are now more sensitive to considerable increases in the oil price. This creates for an interesting situation; the price a growing number of consumers find affordable may be lower than what the oil companies need to go after the costlier oil and retire their debts in an orderly way.
The equity and justice questions won’t go away. From the perspective of global elites, something must be done to level the playing field and take everyone’s interests into account (whether through an overarching global framework or through piecemeal national and regional efforts), or those who feel excluded will disrupt efforts toward an orderly energy transition. From the perspective of those with far lower levels of power and wealth, there is no reason to support efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption if those efforts only preserve or exacerbate economic inequality.
“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” –George Orwell March 2016 set a new record temperature for that time of year, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The global temperature was 2.30 °F (1.28 °C) warmer than the average for March from 1951 to 1980, which is used as a baseline. http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2432/[Read More…]
Today Supreme Court of India has stated that triple talaq will be tested on the touchstone of the constitution. The message is clear that constitution is supreme law of the land and anything whatsoever be its nature or form will have to follow the provisions of the constitution. This is the fundamental basis of the rule of the law. If[Read More…]
After months of anticipation, the United Kingdom has decided to leave the European Union (EU). Although, the results were fairly close – 51.9% voted to ‘Leave’ vs. 48.1% elected to ‘Remain’ – the consequences of the decision will be far-reaching. Not only will the Brits negotiate their exit from the EU (thus, the term ‘Brexit’) within the next two years,[Read More…]
Fully 81 percent of the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) supported Tuesday’s motion of no-confidence in leader Jeremy Corbyn. Just 40 Labour MPs voted against the motion, with 172 in favour. Thirteen did not vote at all and there were four spoilt ballots. The extraordinary scale of the right-wing coup, which had already seen Corbyn lose most of his shadow[Read More…]
Immigration, blood source of the United States, its motor of development, has been rocked by judicial pronouncements of late. The Obama administration had put much stock in reforming the general approach to immigration in 2014, ostensibly employing a wide reading of executive power against the possible deportation. It was always going to be haphazard, merely another periodic panacea in a[Read More…]
The roads are regarded as the ‘Lifeline of a country’ India has one of the largest and densest road networks in the world. But a newspaper recently published an alarming report stating that ‘according to 2015 data released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, 400 people die daily in road mishaps, ten times the entire global toll of[Read More…]
For one and a half decades, the environmental activists in Kerala have been fighting fighting against the destruction of rain forests, displacement of Kadar Adivasis, damage on the elephant route, destruction of Vazhachal, climate change and many other threats from the proposed Athirappalli project. The lone battle gathered support of many groups during this historic process. Later, KSSP sided with[Read More…]
The pain of birth. A breathing child arrives With the loudest unhappy tears Cursing the entry into this planet Yearning to be where once belonged. The pain of death. Clinging to the last breath Refusing to leave the touch of fresh air Hated at the time of arrival. A last struggle to maintain The life which floated on air. You[Read More…]
Deeply affected by the death of my two uncles in World War II, on 1 July 1966, the 24th anniversary of the ‘USS Sturgeon’ sinking of the Japanese prisoner-of-war ship ‘Montevideo Maru’ which killed the man after whom I am named, I decided that I would devote my life to working out why human beings are violent and then developing[Read More…]
The British working class, millions of other ordinary Brits and a swathe of British nationalists have voted for Brexit, the exit of Britain from the EU, with immigration and national self-determination being major issues. The British political Establishment, the political elites, Mainstream media, EU officials and the Americans view Brexit as irresponsible and damaging, and the Brexit supporters have[Read More…]
Knowledge is empowering. It is enriching. It keeps you aware, makes one conversant with issues and broadens your horizon in a rapidly changing world. Seen through a traditional framework, it is normally seen as something that gets imparted through the written words. Oral communication has had its vital share in broadening the horizons of knowledge as seen in[Read More…]
Recent decision of the MHRD to hike the fees of IITs, NITs and IISERs has once again made it clear that the paradigm of this government is to betray the masses and to serve the profit hungry corporates
Indian Emergency of 1975-77, is the most traumatising phase in the history of Indian politics. It has been 42 years since, Emergency took place but one can believe that its painful memories still may haunt those alive, today, who had gone through state’s abuse and misuse of constitutional powers during Emergency, in a democracy like India. Declaration of Emergency was[Read More…]
Palmyra: “Syrian Troops Looting Ancient City Of Palmyra, Says Archaeologist.” So shouted the highly respected UK Guardian’s headline of June 1, 2016 on the eve of the opening day of this month’s two-day Berlin Convergence attended by more than 170 scientists, archaeologists, architects and planners. The gathering of experts was convened to discuss how best to preserve Syria’s, and our heritage,[Read More…]
At least 36 people were killed and 147 injured when suicide attackers opened fire and blew themselves up at Istanbul’s main airport on Tuesday night, in the latest in a string of terrorist attacks in Turkey. Shortly before 10 p.m. two gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons at a security checkpoint outside Istanbul’s Ataturk airport and then detonated their explosives.[Read More…]
We live in an age of disintegration. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Greater Middle East and Africa. Across the vast swath of territory between Pakistan and Nigeria, there are at least seven ongoing wars — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and South Sudan. These conflicts are extraordinarily destructive. They are tearing apart the countries in[Read More…]
Turkey has announced to restore its diplomatic relations with Israel almost after six years gap. Turkish President Erdogan has also tendered an apology to Russia for the downing of a Russian SU-24 plane in last November, after which Russian President Putin had taken strong steps with respect to Turkey. Sanctions were put on Turkey causing a lot of harm to[Read More…]
The abortion right in the United States, given full force in Roe v Wade, has never been a plain sailing affair.[1] The language of rights is ever a prickly matter, marred by the undergrowth of burdensome reasoning and poor application. In a country where the foetus, less than quality of life, is holy, obstacles will always exist. The subject before[Read More…]
It was a warm night in Jabaliya, northeast of Gaza City. Abu Zein and his wife were fast asleep when what the couple first thought was an earthquake shook their bed so hard, its legs buckled. They immediately jumped up and ran out of the home they had only recently moved into after getting married. But outside was quiet. No[Read More…]
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expressed anger and dismay on Monday about the deal normalizing relations between Israel and Turkey that leaves them under a suffocating siege. An Israeli human rights group that monitors the decade-old Israeli blockade of Gaza has also confirmed that the deal does not end Israel’s tight control over the territory that has greatly exacerbated the[Read More…]
“These guys now with us in the [Iceland] national team were brought up on artificial pitches. Many would have had youth coaching in an indoor dome. They could go out if the weather was good, but they always had good facilities to train.” Heimer Hallgrímsson, joint Iceland football coach, BBC Sport, Nov 15, 2015 This has been a competition of[Read More…]
It is two months since the government controlled by Aung San Suu Kyi took charge in Myanmar. The elections that brought her to power were free despite western fears that the military regime would not allow freedom. The question being asked today is “to what extent will Myanmar change?” Amid what look like earth shattering events is there continuity with[Read More…]
(PHOTO: Albert enjoys a canoe ride in Austin, TX.) Since Albert’s release on his birthday, February 19th, a few short months ago, he’s been really busy… After nearly a month of visiting with family and friends in New Orleans sharing more birthday cake than he’s been able to consume in over forty years, Albert has been catching up with his[Read More…]
If Salvador Dali were around today he might have captured the mood of the nation best in a painting. But, you could simulate one for yourself by piecing together these wildly varying, discordant sentiments in your head: “Sheis an extremely ambitious liberal interventionist hawk….[and] was the leading figure behind the destruction of Libya…If Hillary Clinton gets into office, it means[Read More…]
This is the shades of democracy where socially and politically privileged caste and class predominantly exercise their power. Generally, it is understood that, in democracy, everyone is equal before the law, it seems to be an abstract principle, and the actual case is gross unequal. The inequality of power is exercised in a democracy to function at the cost to[Read More…]
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will stay permanently above 400 parts per million (ppm) this year due to El Nino—and will likely not drop below that number again “within our lifetimes,” according to a study published this week in the journal Nature. The milestone represents a symbolic threshold that scientists and environmentalists had long sought to avoid. Greenhouse gases have jumped 48[Read More…]
Mumbai | 27th June, 2016: A full front page advertisement on the first anniversary of the smart cities that ran on many national daily on Saturday carried announcements worth Rupees thousands of crores. Crores of Rupees that spent on advertisements and the fancy event, which was organized in Pune on Satarday to celebrate the first anniversary of smart cities, was[Read More…]
“In Bastar, a man dies once, but a woman dies twice, once when she’s stripped of every ounce of her dignity, paraded, brutalized by a gang of uniformed mercenaries; and later, by a bullet. And yet these Adivasi women and girls, prefer to go out and face the consequences rather than sending their menfolk out to die like an[Read More…]
Jeremy Corbyn, the grand hope of the Labour Party in Britain, is being politically assassinated. The process has been a gradual one, coming in the form of poison administered over a series of months and thinly veiled promises. But now, the issue has become even more violent. The anti-Corbyn clique is now brandishing its weapons in the open. The Brexit[Read More…]
Costs to utility companies from the introduction of distributed solar PV are somewhat balanced by the fact that added solar capacity helps reduce the strain on electric grids on summer days when demand soars and utilities must buy additional power at high rates. Nevertheless, as more residential and business customers install their own PV systems, revenues to the utility industry are starting to decline.[72] Industry-sponsored studies warn that the trend could eventually lead to a radical transformation of energy markets, on a scale similar to the restructuring of the telecommunications industry following the advent of the Internet and cell phones.
The fretting in the financial markets after Great Britain’s voters narrowly decided to leave the European Union (EU), a move dubbed Brexit, was less about immediate effects–there aren’t any since it would take Britain up to two years to withdraw–and more about a foreboding that other countries will want out, too. In addition, some think it likely that Scottish independence[Read More…]
The enraged liberal reaction to the Brexit vote is in full flood. The anger is pathological – and helps to shed light on why a majority of Britons voted for leaving the European Union, just as earlier a majority of Labour party members voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader. A few years ago the American writer Chris Hedges wrote[Read More…]
Write that ‘Japan is part of the neo-colonialist clique’, and you will never again be invited to participate in any public debate conducted by Japanese mass media outlets. And that is exactly what I wrote several months ago, after being approached by an important publication based in Okinawa.
Today, and very urgently even as I write, for all the foregoing reasons, with the monsoon about to break, the people of the Narmada River valley are in imminent danger of being flooded out of their homes and lands or drowned, due to the rising waters in the reservoirs behind the hundreds of small, medium and large dams, which have been constructed on Narmada river and its tributaries over the years. In particular, the SSP dam at its finished height of 138.68-metres with the sluice gates installed, threatens the lives of around 40,000 PAFs in Madhya Pradesh. Clearly, there is a disaster-in-the-making; India urgently needs to do something now.
Erdogan’s diploma-problem could turn out to have considerable global significance. If his diploma-problem fades away, then Turkey’s dictatorship will be established quite firmly, and Turkey’s Constitution will be empty verbiage, but Erdogan’s supporters will probably be even more passionate for him than they now are, because of their fears of the demons that he trumpets: Kurds, Shiites, etc. He’s an ordinary tyrant, in an extraordinary position, and thus is a tyrant with extraordinarily many foreign allies. That might pull him through.
The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy and the media.
In a previous report, I indicated “Why Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches Are Relevant”, but not what they contained. The present report indicates what they contained. One speech in particular will be cited and quoted from as an example here, to show the type of thing that all of her corporate speeches contained, which she doesn’t want the general public to know[Read More…]
By pushing austerity and commodification of public services, people are now more economically insecure with less wealth and lower incomes. The response of many is anger. Some protest austerity, others blame people of a different skin color, heritage or ethnicity. The surprise vote in the UK to leave the European Union is the latest, and perhaps the biggest, example of the blowback economic and political elites are getting for their actions.
Implicit in all the rhetoric promoting globalization is the premise that the rest of the world can and should be brought up to the standard of living of the West, and America in particular. For much of the world the American Dream – though a constantly moving target – is globalization’s ultimate endpoint.
There remains a conspicuous fear in the US Republic that civilization must be a centralising endeavour. Smaller states only matter if they are wedged into a series of agreements and arrangements with an overseeing hegemon. The hegemon dictates the measures to be taken, even if they may be cushioned by promises of good relations and a false sense of autonomy.
Last month, Hyderabad police registered a case against Prof. Kancha Ilaiah for writing an article in a Telugu daily, entitled ‘Is God not a democrat’? The article questioned inequality in society and discussed concept of god. For doing so the professor was reproached for insulting sentiments of a community and charged for promoting enmity between different religious groups under section[Read More…]
“When people cheat in any arena, they diminish themselves-they threaten their own self-esteem and their relationships with others by undermining the trust they have in their ability to succeed and in their ability to be true.” – Cheryl Hughes I have been wondering about this normal blood pressure for the last sixty years ever since I joined the MBBS class[Read More…]
A group of Gaza fishermen were working an early morning shift when the Israeli navy opened fire. Rajab Abu Riyala and his brother Khaled were shot during that 31 May incident. A bullet had to be removed from Rajab’s knee as a result. They were among five fishermen arrested on two vessels by Israel. All were brought to Ashdod, a[Read More…]
A documentary by Vidya Bhushan Rawat on the Ayodhya issue and how it affected the communal harmony of India. It is being republished in the context of resurgent Hindutva programme in India which catapulted Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. This documentary is all the more significant in the context of the coming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Twenty-four hour news networks are both terrible and worthy sites to gauge herd-like assumptions. A gaze at CNN over the coverage of the Brexit over the course of Friday suggested the dismay, growing into outrage that the infallible market had somehow failed to detect the Leave voters on its all divine radar.
(CNS): India carries the highest global burden of TB – a curable disease that kills one Indian every 90 seconds. There are 2.2 million new cases of TB in the country every year, out of which an estimated 71,000 cases are of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). This curable disease kills 110,000 HIV-associated TB cases also emerging annually in India,[Read More…]
The PUCL is deeply concerned at the growing caste atrocities on dalits by the upper caste communities in the state, particularly in the rural areas. Of more concern is the deliberate inaction by the government machinery in providing protection to the dalit communities and making a mockery of the Prevention of Atrocities Act (1989). The recent incident in Kamagarh is an example of this. On 3rd June, 2016, eleven dalit houses were burnt down allegedly by the upper caste (Sabarna) of the village Kamagarh of the eponymous Panchayat in the Aska Block of Ganjam District.
This vote is expected to trigger a wide range of far-reaching social, economic and geo-political ramifications at the domestic, European and international levels. Many of these effects would be long-term and are yet to be fully comprehended. Even though the Leave vote was largely influenced by the immigration issue but other important concerns have not been given adequate attention.
According to the Syrian General who commanded the whole neutralization of the ISIS “Erase” project, and who generously gave these observer hours of his and his staff’s time, all of Palmyra and the close-in surrounding area are now cleansed of bobby-traps and are safe. The General proclaimed just this week that Palmyra and our cultural heritage sites here are ready and waiting to again receive foreign friends.
As six months of the year rolls on, India emerges as one of the worst places for working journalists similar to the troubled nations including Mexico, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq. The largest democracy
of the globe witnessed the murder of three journalists in the first
half of 2016, where the populous country lost five journalists to
assailants last year. As nobody has been convicted in all eight
journo-murder cases, the Indian media fraternity rose to the occasion
for special protection laws and also for a national action plan to
safeguard the media persons.
Alfred de Zayas, the U.N.’s Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, is assigned the task to apply the standards of international law to proposed treaties, to determine whether they’re in accord with international law. On Friday, June 24th, he issued his finding on three large proposed treaties regarding international trade among Atlantic countries: TTIP, TISA, and CETA. Earlier, on February 2nd, he had issued a similar finding on the proposed TPP treaty between Pacific countries, and his conclusion there was the same: that the proposed treaty violates international laws, and is inconsistent with democracy.
The Indian Supreme Court never tires of asking for apology for this or that inanity usually for some perceived contempt of court. The Supreme Court ought to cultivate and demonstrate its sensitivity to its earlier decisions which were contemptuous of the people of India. The judges of the Supreme Court are servants of the people. In a democracy it is the people who are supreme. About time the Supreme Court en banc tenders an unconditional apology to the mass victims of state abuse during 1975-77, as also to the entire people of India.
Instead of accelerating further integration, the member states should reclaim more sovereignty from Brussels. The EU nomenclature is out of touch with the real world. They do not serve the interest of the peoples but rather corporate interests such as the TTIP negotiations show that are held in camera. If the EU doesn’t change track, it will fall apart.
The policy makers of the developing countries must not fall prey to such deceptive arguments, instead, they must formulate policies which suit the interests of their working classes. The only trouble is that the governments of the Third World are dependent on foreign investment and the global loan sharks, that’s why, they cannot adopt an independent economic and trade policy.
The exit EU referendum needs to be seen in the perspective of the use of EU as a political tool by US. The US has controlled the European continent by NATO; EU which was the result of intra continental economic forces after the Second World War has been now used by USA for its geostrategic gains, when EU ventured into Ukraine not to the liking of the Russia. EU after the vote needs to understand that its illogical arguments against Russian interests have weakened it in final way.
The Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliot was wishing to get voters out for the cause, circulating a message that, “There is a very real chance that voters in London and Scotland will vote to keep us in the EU today despite the heartlands of the country voting to leave.” The circulated email also sported a picture from a “leafy”[Read More…]
A sword age, axe age, shields are cloven, a wind age, wolf age, ere the world sinks — Volupsa There is no question that anthropogenic activity has profoundly damaged the vast interrelated web of ecological systems that maintain the conditions for life on this planet. Similarly there is an increasingly agreement among climate scientists that we are currently in the[Read More…]
In the historic port city of Yalta, located on the Crimean Peninsula, we visited the site where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, in February of 1945, concluded negotiations ending World War II. These leaders and their top advisors were also present at the creation of the United Nations and other instruments of international negotiation and non-military cooperation. Tragically, the creation of[Read More…]
Describing itself as a major ‘global communications, stakeholder engagement and business strategy’ company, APCO Worldwide is a lobby/PR agency with firm links to the Wall Street/corporate America establishment (arguably, part of it) and functions to serve its global agenda. India PM Narendra Modi turned to APCO to help transform his image and turn him into electable pro-corporate PM material. It also helped Modi[Read More…]
In 2014 Narendra Modi rode a massive campaign promising Acche Din for the people of our country. After suffering for 2 years from the witch-hunting of the minorities, murders of Dalits and fund cuts for marginalized students, the country has realized that the rule by the Sangh led government is not going to have any favorable impact on their lives.[Read More…]
A billboard for Comcast pitches a lineup of “reality” shows, with this caption, “Recommended for you. Because real reality is boring.” In contemporary America, real reality is also less real than Big Brother’s cartoony version. While we’re driving, walking, at work, lying in bed or even in the bathroom, Big Brother dictates what we know. Big Brother’s hypnotic screens[Read More…]
Far too many facts pertaining to the Orlando massacre by Omar Mateen raise serious questions about the ghastly killing of American citizens as a False Flag opertion of the FBI. The fact that the gory incident came within days days of the death of Mohammed Ali, whose passing away had re-awakened American and global interest in the Islam he lived[Read More…]
General David Rodriguez might be a modern military celebrity — if he hadn’t spent his career ducking the spotlight. After graduating from West Point in 1976, he began his long march up the chain of command, serving in Operation Just Cause (the U.S. invasion of Panama) and Operation Desert Storm (Iraq War 1.0) before becoming deputy commander of United States[Read More…]
By J Nigam and Shalu Nigam Mature men and some women in mysterious black coats, a weary face listening, though with little attention, to these two segments arguing, fighting, abusing and shouting, and an allegorical lady justice with blindfolds balancing some scales- that’s a courtroom in my eyes as a four year old child! Though I had barely opened my[Read More…]
In the midst of what undoubtedly will be the nastiest and most expensive presidential campaign in American history, it is important to remember that the question is not so much whether a candidate is a good or bad person, but rather what should and will be the policies, objectives, and consequences of her or his administration? What do the People[Read More…]
While the Brexit debate has become a matter of colliding blocs of speculators and crystal ball gazers, a glaring aspect has come to the fore. Virtually nothing has been said about the role played by human rights, Britain’s role in building it up and inspiration in the European Convention of Human Rights, or the issue about citizenship. In that sense,[Read More…]
Finally, the outcasts from society seem to be getting a livable place but it needs finishing touches to make it presentable! In the famous HollywoodmovieBen-Hur, Jesus Christ visits a Leper Colony on the outskirts of the city. The lepers lived in the shabbiest conditions totally outcast from the society. Jesus touches them and they are cured. It is a fact[Read More…]
Entire communities in the West Bank either have no access to water or have had their water supply reduced almost by half. This alarming development has been taking place for weeks, since Israel’s national water company, “Mekorot”, decided to cut off – or significantly reduce – its water supply to Jenin, Salfit and many villages around Nablus, among other[Read More…]
There are professionals from NGOs and academic institutions associated with supporting developing countries to make their biodiversity plans for 2018-2022. Some NGOs and academic institutions are good and some are bad. And it may well be that the 43 countries whose projected budgets for 2018-2022 are uploaded on the CBD website did not take any advice from the appointed[Read More…]
“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion” (Thomas Paine) “Most Americans go along with unaccountable murder, torture, and detention without evidence, which proclaims their gullibility to the entire world. There has never in history been a population as unaware as Americans. The world is amazed that an insouciant people[Read More…]
A journalism professor accused of making insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union minister Smriti Irani has been jailed for insulting Lord Rama. Professor BP Mahesh Guru, who teaches at the Mysore University, was arrested on June 17 when he appeared before a Mysore court in connection with a case registered against him for allegedly insulting the Hindu god[Read More…]
Ashkenazim feared that one day the Arab Jews might make a political alliance with the native population, the Palestinians. Then the Ashkenazim would be outnumbered. The Mizrahim, who came from countries as diverse as Morocco and Iraq, had a lot more in common with Palestinians than they did with the recently arrived Europeans.
Bernie Sanders, who has been for many months the presumptive thorn in the side of the now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, has the chance to sink with a trace. He began as one of the few independent Senators from his own chamber. He can go down blazing with impetuous, non-aligned fury, while doing what has been unthinkable in US politics for generations: create a third electoral force.
This time around, Siddhartha let Yashodhara go to attain nirvana instead of you. In your colourful palace she sits forlorn. The colours fail to brighten her day. They disgust her. Yashodhara will leave you with a delicate flower in your bosom. Not to worry, you’ve attained enlightenment, right? You’ll figure this one out too. Look at the forlorn footprints behind[Read More…]
As a concerned and responsible citizen of India, we not only stand in solidarity with Teesta and others at the Sabrang Trust but we would also like to donate so that the various activities undertaken by the Trust runs smoothly. We would also like to appeal the fellow citizens. The NRIs who still retain their Indian passports can donate as well.
The number of people around the globe displaced by war, armed conflict and persecution at the end of 2015 was higher than ever before. A report titled Global Trends, published on World Refugee Day by the UNHCR, counted 65.3 million displaced persons, the first time it has surpassed 60 million since the collection of figures began in 1951. Compared to[Read More…]
Children suffer the most from fossil fuel burning. Fossil fuel combustion and associated air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO2) is the root cause of much of children’s ill health children today as well as their uncertain future. There are strong scientific arguments, as well persuasive economic ones, for reducing the world’s dependence on energy generated by the burning of fossil[Read More…]
The time has come for serious introspection in America. The Nation is locked in a race between self-discovery and self-destruction. It is losing that race. It needs to recognize that the present equation does not equate. It is off-balance. America needs to reformulate a new equation. More wars based on the old equation will not do. Unfettered release of the human psyche as we now see in the current political scene will not do. And as for that critical evangelical Christian voting block; they need to understand that the Nation will be saved not by their belief in Jesus as their Savior, but by living his example.
Train engines pulling 100 oil tank cars that derail causing fires and explosions, trucks and 50-year-old pipelines that leak and explode into fireballs releasing toxic methane into the air, contributing to leaks in the protective ozone layer, are just three problems related to fracking, according to an expert on fracking. “You can live 100 miles away from the nearest gas[Read More…]
Europe is about to faces a series of difficult decisions that will affect its future for years to come. The social contradictions of keeping an expanding globalized economy running, which at the same time disenfranchises millions of workers, are now too obvious to turn a blind eye to. Many efforts towards making a livable European community are in disarray, and most of the benefits accrue to the core EU states of Germany, the UK (for now), and France.
The AntiDiplomatico(Italy) interviews philosopher, Andre Vltchek: “Russia and China are forming an incredible defensive wall to protect humanity from Western terrorism.” By Alessandro Bianchi Interviews Andre Vltchek Andre Vltchek has become renowned in Italy for being the co-author, along with Noam Chomsky, of the famous book “Western Terrorism” (Ponte alle Grazie). A documentary filmmaker, novelist, essayist, philosopher and intellectual, multi-faceted Vltchek[Read More…]
Stories about shipwrecks on the regular trade routes round the world have always been exciting news. And most of us are only familiar with the Titanic and the treasures unearthed from the wreck. Recently an international research team has discovered spectacular artifacts during its ongoing excavation of the famous Antikythera Shipwreck (circa 65 B.C.) this month. The shipwreck is located[Read More…]
Communal violence is the big bane of Indian society. While on one hand the innocents are killed the guilty mostly get away without any punishment. The rate of prosecution of riot cases is very low. Even where punishments are meted out the big fish are let off while the foot soldiers get punished. Apart from these observations what is[Read More…]
INTRODUCTION Today’s United States is a more realistic version of the type of society that George Orwell fictionally described in his allegorical novel 1984. Like in 1984, the American public don’t know that they’re merely the tools of some unseen aristocracy who manipulate them by fear of ‘the other’, some ‘enemy’ group — manipulate the public via the media,[Read More…]
(A Speech delivered in the seminar on “Dr Ambedkar’s Relevance today and in the future” on 16 June 2016 to mark the centenary of Dr Bhimroa Ramji Ambedkar’s arrival at the London School of Economics) Mahatma Gandhi once observed that Dr Ambedkar would never let history ignore him. For nearly a decade after his death, history did try ignoring him.[Read More…]
Showing up in Friendly Lounge, beaming Maria said to bartender Manon, “How’s my baby? Come here and give me a hug! How are your job applications?” “Nothing yet, but I have a couple of interviews coming up.” For the last six months, Manon has been trying to get hired as a school counselor. She only gets one shift a[Read More…]
A great seed and biodiversity piracy is underway and it must be stopped. The privateers of today include not just the corporations — which are becoming fewer and larger through mergers — but also individuals like Bill Gates, the “richest man in the world”. When the Green Revolution was pushed in India and Mexico, farmers’ seeds were “rounded-up” and locked[Read More…]
“To get 51 signatures on a dissent channel message is remarkable and suggests a very broad consensus at the working level responsible for implementing policy decisions, that the current [Syria] policy is failing and is destined to keep failing.” Robert Ford, The Detroit News, Jun 18, 2016 The entire messiness of the Syrian conflict should be an object lesson repudiating[Read More…]
The recent “lone wolf” attack at a gay night club in Orlando which saw 50 people being brutally killed has sent shock waves across the globe. The incident has rightly been condemned from politicians to ordinary people in no uncertain terms. However, the outpouring of condolence has seen a parallel political development that was quick to point fingers on how[Read More…]
Being female in this world means having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us. One does not make choices in freedom. Instead, one conforms in body type and behavior and values to become an object of male sexual desire, which requires an abandonment of a wide-ranging capacity for choice… Andrea Dworkin[Read More…]
The United States and Norway this week announced (1) they would offset the greenhouse gas emissions from their aviation industry by buying voluntary emission reduction credits from reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forests. The plan would violate the Rio Declaration in two ways. The Declaration says that States have, in accordance with the Charter of[Read More…]
The NATO Founding Act was agreed to between the U.S. and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn’t invade his country. When his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, the representatives of U.S. President GHW Bush told him[Read More…]
There are dangerous provocations along Russia’s western border that have received little or incredibly one-sided coverage by the U.S. media. Thus the U.S. public is not aware of the possibility of a major conflict between two nuclear-armed powers occurring due to an accident or misinterpretation. The genesis of this current situation goes back in ancient history to 1989 and[Read More…]
93% of the people who are locked up in the U.S. in order to meet the minimum legal requirements for the number of people who must be locked up on possible violations of U.S. immigration laws, are locked in for-profit prisons, which are owned by corporations that heavily fund a few politicians, including Hillary Clinton. That 93% finding was published[Read More…]
(Rome) A bit of bit of real European history not in the books yet: in the 1960s and extending into the 1980s there was widespread concern, preoccupation and discontent in Germany, in Europe, unease and a sensation of insecurity. The Communist East appeared to many people as an ominous threat, though it is now common knowledge that it was[Read More…]
In the days following the horrific attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando – one of the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history, which claimed the lives of 49 people (50 counting the shooter) and left over 50 wounded – evidence began to mount that the gunman likely possessed multiple motives. This evidence is not surprising in light of[Read More…]
The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a difference? If we look at China’s coal production and consumption in BP’s 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy (SRWE), this is what we see: Figure 1. China’s production and consumption of coal based on BP 2016 SRWE. Figure 2[Read More…]
A hegemonic power never says sorry. Three recent episodes underscore this truism. When US President Barack Obama offered a floral wreath at the cenotaph of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on 27 May 2016, some peace advocates in the United States, in Japan and in other parts of the world hoped against hope that he would say “sorry” for the[Read More…]
Bombay Gymkhana Mumbai: The 140-year-old Bombay Gymkhana asserted its elite and exclusive character earlier this month. It voted after much debate not to admit senior government officers as members. But then how come this class, so keen to preserve its privilege , has for years so openly intruded upon public space just outside its premises for almost 20 years ?.[Read More…]
Terrorists provide alibis for hungry security establishments in search of themselves. Their physical effect is always small relative to the psychic disturbances they cause. Know thyself, urges the Delphic maxim, but self-knowledge implies an acceptance of ignorance. Nothing doing when it comes to the issue of finding the elusive “lone wolf” terrorist, a creature that has become more irritant than[Read More…]
Annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions presently total 64 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent with methanogenic livestock production contributing over 50%. With annual emissions of CO2 per se from industry at a record high, and with Humanity and the Biosphere existentially threatened by the Methane Bomb of the warming Arctic in coming decades, we must all urgently adopt a vegetarian or[Read More…]
I wasn’t at first going to listen to Rosemary Barton’s interview (CBC) with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg considering I would probably not learn anything new. But I did and I didn’t – I did listen and I didn’t learn anything new, the interview only reinforced previously held ideas. In general that falls into two parts. First it reminded me[Read More…]
This news-report consists of a compilation of accounts that Crimeans have given to human rights groups or directly posted to the internet, regarding their experiences when the freely elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who had received 75% of the votes of Crimeans, was violently overthrown during January and February of 2014. On 20 February 2014, eight busloads of people[Read More…]
On achieving independence in 1947, it was expected and believed that India will become a nation wherein there will be no place for any kind of seclusion, exclusion and suppression in the name of caste, religion, sex or language. With the same objective, the founding fathers of our nation gave us a Constitution which guarantees the values of equality, equity[Read More…]
Those who still believe in the official story of 9/11, are more naive than children, who still believe in Sancta Claus and the Easter Bunny. After having penetrated deeply into the matter, as I have edited the forthcoming book by 9/11 expert Elias Davidsson on this topic, which is going to be published in Germany, I can only appeal to[Read More…]
The Karnataka police have arrested BP Mahesh Chandra Guru, a professor in the journalism department of Mysore University and a well-known Phule-Ambedkarite writer. Professor Guru had made some sharp comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union HRD minister Smriti Irani at a function organized in the university recently to pay tributes to Rohit Vemula. He had also allegedly insulted[Read More…]
Bhagwan Das is one of the most prominent faces of Ambedkarite movement. He worked with Baba Saheb Ambedkar and brought out the unpublished work of Baba Saheb : Thus Spoke Ambedkar. An excellent narrator, Bhagwan Das wrote numerous books including his famous ‘ main bhangi hoon’, narrating the conditions of person from manual scavenging community. In this conversation with Vidya[Read More…]
Neoliberalism or free-market fundamentalism The central dogma of neoliberalism is economic growth, achieved by: # Increasing competition through deregulation (watering-down of social, welfare, health, labour and environmental laws), and opening domestic markets to foreign competition, and # Severely limiting the role of the State by privatization of state assets and liberalization of economic policies, simultaneously increasing corporate influence and involvement[Read More…]
It is more often a rare experience to be a part of a ‘critical insider’ while being with a movie. Politics is also very rarely seen in the ‘foreground’ in the ‘making’ of a movie – the most widely visible practice is to place it in the ‘background.’ What politically goes in between these spaces (background and foreground) is also[Read More…]
We, the CBD Alliance, the global platform of civil society and academic organisations working on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), congratulate your government for the decision to re-join the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The three Rio conventions including the UNCCD are of great importance to developing countries and Indigenous Peoples. The Rio Declaration that is incorporated in the UNCCD gives States the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The same responsibility is contained in Article 3 and Article 14 (d) of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
“Russia and Poland are in top place in the hooligan chart. England has dropped down a long way.” Andrei Malosolov, Jun 15, 2016 It had gone into something of a hibernating state, but it is clear that the European Football Championship in France is being made an example of by that scourge of sport, the football hooligan. The modus operandi[Read More…]
A senior Iranian regime judiciary official has issued the final confirmation of the death penalty for three Ahwazi rights activists, with another four sentenced to between 25 and 35 years in prison, as well as exile. Gholam-Hossein Mohsen Eie’I, the First Deputy Head of the Iranian regime’s Judiciary, confirmed the sentences in an interview with the regime-affiliated Moj News[Read More…]
Other than the fact that elections are being conducted it cannot be said that there is Government in India. The upper caste, which constitutes barely 5 to 7% of the population of the country, has hijacked it. In 2015 2 crore Indians travelled abroad, or around1.6% of the population. If each of these 2 crore people had one crore in[Read More…]
When the democratically elected President of Ukraine was violently overthrown in February 2014 and replaced by a rabidly anti-Russian regime, not only the residents in the areas of Ukraine that had voted heavily for him (Crimea having voted 75% for him, and Donbass having voted 90% for him) were terrified by what they viewed to be a bloodthirsty new regime,[Read More…]
NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to “protect Europe from aggression”; but today it is aggressive tool of the United States. Today NATO is threatening to drive Europe into an all-destroying thermonuclear war with Russia. In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means[Read More…]
How do we evaluate yesterday’s honeymoon meeting between Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Karan Adani? 1. During the last few days, the news that Adani would step back from Vlizhinjam and that he would go ahead with Colachel Port had given some hopes to activists in Kerala and worries for activists in Tamil Nadu. But with yesterday’s meeting, Karan[Read More…]
A wave of the left in Kerala has caught many people by surprise. Perhaps, ten days before the state assembly elections, nobody could predict that the people of Kerala would express such major support to LDF in this manner, though the possible success was predicted by many. What was more welcome was also the list of promises which the LDF[Read More…]
Many of us, especially hailing from urban middle class, have this strange hope on governance of Indian society and its state. We have formulated our own Constitution in 1950 and , actually, turned it as a technical document scripting some rules of our living. We agreed on it, whatever it is ; we approved it, however it is, and we[Read More…]
The advent of the Arab Spring marked a cataclysmic shift in the way Middle East was perceived across the globe. The Arabs living in the complex countries of this region suddenly saw their hitherto dormant lives brimming with new hopes and aspirations. Chaos, mayhem and bloodshed on an unimaginable scale had seen four dictators being ruthlessly toppled from their seat[Read More…]
“SPARTACUS“ is a powerful novel of ancient slave society with rich meaning for the liberation struggle of our day. It is brilliantly written, and in certain sections probably represents the high point in the development of Howard Fast’s superb craftsmanship. The story of Spartacus and his army of slave warriors is one of the great epics of history. Early in[Read More…]
As read and admired by political novelist Gaither Stewart
One day
I will open the windows of my dreams
to watch men and women
young and old
hugging and kissing
singing and dancing
without the poison of hatred
and without the guilt
of their silence.
As someone who grew up in Bangalore and came into an identity through Bengaluru, there is a deeply wrenching dichotomy one is forced to negotiate and live with. Janaki Nair’s wonderful book on Bengaluru, The Promise of the Metropolis, traces this to a spatial and linguistic division between the pete (native quarters) and the cantonment (British military station). This[Read More…]
“(At dawn) … I will resist … (Since) upon the wall there is still a white sheet … And my fingers are yet to (completely) dissolve.” This is a translated verse from Mu’in Bseiso’ “Three Walls of the Torture Chamber”. He was -and remains – one of Gaza’s most influential intellectual and renowned poets. After Israel occupied the Gaza Strip[Read More…]
Motoyuki Shibata in New York City In Japan, even a serious writer may be seen on mass advertising, and a translator can become a star. One of Japan’s most famous intellectuals, Motoyuki Shibata is a specialist on American literature. He has translated books by Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster, Steven Millhauser and Stuart Dybek, among others. Shibata is also the editor[Read More…]
Mumbai: A man murdered a woman in Mumbai recently because he was afraid she was going to deprive him of his job as a temporary watchman. This shows the crisis of employment in Mumbai. And this is a city which among all places in India is supposed to provide the maximum employment opportunity. And the watchman security industry is one[Read More…]
Our present generation is living out of the spiritually vacuous philosophies of modernism and post-modernism, the cancerous ideologies of free-market economics and unrestrained economic growth, and the corporate and political tyrannies that have nurtured an energised ethos of transience. The triumphalism of modernity has effectively wiped from our collective memories a coherent view of just what has gone down in[Read More…]
Islamophobia has become a significant factor driving politics in many western countries. Islamophobia – fear of Muslims – is now highly visible among European populations concerned about terrorist responses from Islamic groups claiming Jihadi links. However, it is also evident among those same populations in relation to the refugee flow from the Middle East. In addition, Islamophobia is highly evident[Read More…]
From “Positano,” a 1953 article by John Steinbeck: About ten years ago a Moslem came to Positano, liked it and settled. For a time he was self-supporting but gradually he ran out of assets and still he stayed. The town supported him and took care of him. Just as the mayor was their only Communist, this was their only Moslem.[Read More…]
According to Dilip Kashmir is the root cause of enduring enmity between India and Pakistan. Three wars have been fought by the rivals on this, “toxic bone of contention”. He quotes President Bill Clinton who called the India Pakistan border in Kashmir as the most dangerous place on Earth! The most worrisome aspect is the Indian Cold Start doctrine involving massive tank thrusts and Pakistan’s response with the tactical nuclear weapons at the disposal of the field commanders. A limited encounter can rapidly escalate and result in a total nuclear exchange. It is a more worrisome scenario than Richter Scale 8 earthquake!
Of late, terrorists or unknown assailants have killed freethinking writers and bloggers, a couple of foreign nationals, and two LGBT activists in Bangladesh, around 36 people since February 2015. And almost ritualistically, killers have been bragging about their acts, and proclaiming to be al Qaeda, ISIS, Ansar al-Islam, or Ansarullah Bangla Team affiliates. Interestingly, some Bangladeshi politicians claim (a) various[Read More…]
A Bangladeshi MP – who paradoxically represents the ruling coalition as well as its opposition in the parliament – recently played the proverbial role of the judge, jury and prosecutor. He and his associates publicly tortured and humiliated a headmaster of a local school at Narayanganj, for his “blasphemous” comments against Islam. I don’t want to discuss the alleged blasphemy[Read More…]
The attitude towards murder is one thing on which hardly any progress can be made in Sri Lanka. Murder is regarded as quite normal and not something to worry too much about. This attitude is also something that should worry everyone. It is this attitude we see in the proposed Office of Missing Persons (OMP). In most cases, the simple[Read More…]
Mehbooba Mufti’s assertion that Horticulture and Handicrafts have more potential than Tourism is a very bold statement based on reality which,if followed up honestly could make Kashmir’s economy self-reliant
Diaspora, deracination, or displacement are chronicled civilisational processes and must not be confused as entirely new burgeoning political or cultural subjects. Sometimes galvanized by national economic catastrophes, sometimes by droughts and famines, sometimes by political instabilities and ‘culture wars’, sometimes by natural calamities, and sometimes by natural human hunger to trade or explore, these processes indeed form a historical subject.[Read More…]
Kashmir’s peculiar identity has influenced its politics, both mainstream and separatists in past as well as in present. Identities are crucial for determining the future course of political process. Slogans like freedom, self rule and autonomy share one thing in common, all want to preserve the Kashmiri Identity. People feel alienated when governments try to mutilate their identities. The alienation[Read More…]
Conquest and tyranny, at some earlier period, dispossessed man of his rights, and he is now recovering them. And as the tide of all human affairs has its ebb and flow in directions contrary to each other, so also is it in this. Government founded on a moral theory, on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights[Read More…]
Nazareth: In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday’s summit in France – the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon. As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic[Read More…]
Israeli society is constantly swerving to the Right and, by doing so, the country’s entire political paradigm is redefined regularly. Israel is now ‘ruled by the most extreme rightwing government in its history’ has grown from being an informed assessment to a dull cliché over the course of only a few years. In fact, that exact line was used in[Read More…]
“Under the cover of darkness, there is no limit to the expansion of Big Brother.” Ilan Gilon, Meretz Party (Israel), Times of Israel, Feb 4, 2016 While Israel’s central justification for its often reactionary policies is couched in hyper-exceptionalist rhetoric, nourished by the ashes of Holocaust remembrance, current interest in censoring the Internet is far from exceptional. Like a machine[Read More…]
It is hundred years since Dr B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) wrote, CASTES IN INDIA: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, a Paper he presented on 9th May 1916 at an Anthropology Seminar at Columbia University. That was one of his earliest significant works, a scholarly work ; written by the scholar when he was 25, much before he became a politician. In[Read More…]
Paper presented at the 2016 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences – Sessions: Caste Oppression Today, University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) By Dalit Assertion, I mean: The right to influence, assert, demand, express frustration, offer alternatives, and strategically align actions to achieve the overall objective of creating an inclusive society where caste is not a barrier or a discriminatory factor[Read More…]
This is a monograph of an organization which is involved in reclaiming the Bahujan’s historical legacy of resistance and struggle for right to dignity for all Bahujans and creating knowledge, based on Buddha, Charvak, Kabeer, Basavanna, Phule-Ambedkar, Shahu and Periyar’s ideology. Predominantly it is talking about Bahujan Rashtra and countering the concept of Hindu Rashtra. The organization consistently following the[Read More…]
Just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections Muzaffarnagar erupted in violence in which nearly 80 Muslims died, and thousands fled their villages. Now with the 2017 Assembly elections due in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP seems to have activated its machinery yet again. BJP MP Hukum Singh from Kairana claimed that hundreds of Hindu families are being forced to leave Kairana,[Read More…]
For many of us, beef has become ‘news’ of unpleasant sort. There is now a forensic report after eight month from a lab in Mathura which claims that the meat found inside the lynched man, Mohammad Akhlaq’s home at Dadri “belonged to beef or a cow progeny”. It is in contrast with an earlier report by the Greater Noida Veterinary[Read More…]
The performance of the Modi Government during last two years has to be seen in the light of the promises made in the electoral campaign and on the barometer of values of Indian Constitution of pluralism and diversity. Acche din had become a buzzword, black money being retrieved and being deposited in everybody’s bank account was looked forward to and[Read More…]
One does not have to read Marx to understand how debt-based money in the form of credit to corporations, – chosen by banks on the basis of their ability to make profit, – leads to an accumulation of money in the hands of those few who create the money and are given the credit. Profiteering, in short, capitalism, is incompatible[Read More…]
The decision on whether to renew EU approval for the herbicide glyphosate is to go to an appeals panel on 23 June after a last ditch attempt to get a temporary re-authorisation failed on 6 June (for some background information, see this). It is unclear if the meeting will produce the majority vote needed to pass the authorisation. The current[Read More…]
Critiques of the modern nation-state have been growing in recent decades, due to the abysmal failures of the capitalist, neoliberal order. In particular, conservative-libertarian arguments are tinged with isolationist and protectionist trade rhetoric, low taxes and regulations, and supply-side economics. On the other side, the mild leftism of social-democratic reforms promote endless government spending, increases in social programs and minimum[Read More…]
Diminshing Employment opportunities There is a popular story about a journalist being taken around a modern process industry that is fully automated. The factory owner proudly announces that whole process is ‘untouched by human hands’. In the control center, the journalist finds an operator and a dog. The journo enquires, “I understand why the man is there? But what is[Read More…]
These Black farmers don’t stop at healthy food. They’re healing trauma, instilling collective values, and changing the way their communities think about the land.
Urban farming has gained momentum in recent years as a result of increased awareness of environmental issues and the desire to feed people living in cities sustainably. For Cuba in the 1990s, however,the shift to an urban agricultural economy was a matter of life or death. The Plaza de la Revolución is supposed to embody the spirit of revolutionary Cuba.[Read More…]
Angela and Fania Davis. YES! Photo by Kristin Little. Angela Davis and her sister Fania Davis were working for social justice before many of today’s activists were born. From their childhood in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, where their friends were victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, to their association with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party, to[Read More…]
Energy Policy recently published a study conducted on the EROEI of Photo-Voltaics (PV) technologies installed in Switzerland. The end result is a remarkably low figure of 0.8:1, well below any EROEI assessments ever conducted on this energy technology. Such a figure naturally made the delight of those campaigning against renewable energy, who take at face value any hints of negative[Read More…]
Charles Hall is known for his multiple and important contributions in the field of sustainability, and in particular for having introduced the concept of Energy Return on Energy Investment, EROI or EROEI. He is now emeritus and still active in research; among other things as chief editor of the new Springer journal: “Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, BERQ. Here, he[Read More…]
I am reporting here the results of a small survey that I carried out last week among the members of a discussion forum; mainly experts in renewable energy (*). It was a very informal poll; not meant to have statistical value. But some 70 people responded out of a total of 167 members; so I think these results have a[Read More…]
Joe the plumber is a real person, but also an abstraction for the troubled American blue collar worker. In a previous post, I argued that a global transition to 100% renewable energy would be very expensive, but possible and that it could also be fast enough to avoid exceeding the emission targets set by the COP21. This opinion triggered the[Read More…]
Record carbon dioxide levels are set to surpass the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM) this year and will likely never fall below that line again in our lifetimes, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists at the UK Met Office used emissions data, sea surface temperature figures, and a climate[Read More…]
[This essay is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books).] In January 2015, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced its famous Doomsday Clock to three minutes before midnight, a threat level that had not been reached for 30 years. The Bulletin’s statement explaining this advance toward catastrophe invoked the two major threats to survival:[Read More…]
Threatened by climate change, pollution, overfishing, and oil spills, the world’s oceans are suffering, scientists warned on Wednesday—the day designated by the United Nations as one to honor the deep blue sea. From widespread coral bleaching to floundering fish species to garbage stretching across the water’s surface and hundreds of feet down, it’s clear that human activity is taking its[Read More…]
Censoring climate change and its reporting is a big business, notably among fossil fuel obsessives and those in denial. It continues to fulfil a role in the policies of Australia’s Turnbull government. Even after the demise of Tony Abbott last year, his successor continues to scrub his own environmental credentials from his profile. As he does so, an assortment of[Read More…]
On the surface, things appear normal. The status quo of life in America circa 2016 isn’t to everyone’s liking, but at least the system is still working after a fashion. The price of oil is going up a bit: that means the cost of driving is also creeping higher, but steeper prices provide a little welcome relief for an oil[Read More…]
The RSS did not participate in the freedom struggle, and that it was responsible for Gandhi’s assassination, are facts that are not new. These arguments have been used repeatedly against the RSS since the Independence of India in 1947. The RSS does not claim a stake in the freedom struggle, but refutes the accusation of being party to Gandhi’s assassination.[Read More…]
The world’s economies are facing a glut and there is excess manufacturing capacity, amounting to almost 30%, and China is no less a culprit with almost 40% overcapacity. The “Johnny-Come-Lately”, India is going to face a stone wall with its efforts to build a huge manufacturing capacity to take on China at this stage. And the trillions of dollars of investment required are supposed to be met through FDI inflows. The first question that stares us in the face is, “who in his right mind will be willing to invest in new manufacturing capacity, when there is so much over capacity coupled with slackening demand?”
From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 2011 as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to be ending: “There are those on the American political scene who are calling for us not to reposition [to Asia], but to come home. They seek a downsizing of our foreign engagement in favor of our pressing domestic priorities. These impulses are understandable,[Read More…]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is sending 4,000 additional troops to Eastern Europe in the name of reassuring Poland and the Baltic states, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed on Monday. “We will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multi-national battalions in the Baltic states and Poland,” Stoltenberg told NATO officials. The US, Germany and Britain will[Read More…]
There are some who would believe that collaboration at the pan-European level could facilitate a path to genuine economic decentralization. Others are convinced that those steps to localize can best be taken by first leaving the EU. Still others don’t favor either of these paths. We are not trying to tell UK readers how (or even whether) to vote; we are asking you to help us shed light on and bring sanity to this volatile situation. Whichever way you vote, please reject the glaringly stupid rhetoric in the media. Speak out, let your voice be heard for ecological and economic sanity, for a fundamental turnaround
Punjab is a predominantly patriarchal agrarian society . Men head the family and women playing a subordinate role . Sikhism and Hinduism are the major religions , with Muslims and Christians as Minorties . What are Punjabis thoughts on Sex , Sexuality , Transgender and Homosexuality ? Punjabi people are deeply religious and religion dictates sexual attitudes . Kam /[Read More…]
A communal organization derives its ideology, base and support from religion and tradition, that is, from the past or the existing social order, and functions as a bridge between religion and politics. Tradition is the continuation of the ‘glorious past’ as perceived, and projected, by the ideologies of such organizations, which may or may not bear any resemblance to historical[Read More…]
Ed. note: This is the introduction to Richard Heinberg’s and David Fridley’s new book, Our Renewable Future, now available from Island Press. Post Carbon Institute’s companion website, ourrenewablefuture.org has also just been launched.The book is available to order and also to read on the website as a complete set of online chapters. By Richard Heinberg & David Fridley The next[Read More…]
There is a fine line between prevention and normalisation of any entity. When an event manifests itself through the acceptance of society , passively as an everyday occurrence or something that is unavoidable, it already is nurturing a dysfunctional repressed violent idea. One of the celebrated deviant normalcy in the Indian society is that of a Rape. What imparts it[Read More…]
By Shobha Aggarwal & Dr. P.S. Sahni “If there are two daughters born in the home, and the third child born is also a daughter, then she is told, now I want a son, so get another wife. Even if the fault is with the man, the entire burden of the fault is on the woman’s head, and so our[Read More…]
An Investigation into Police and Land-lord Repression on Land Struggle of Dalit Peasants in Villages of Sangrur District of Indian Punjab By Janhastakshep
A team of journalists and activists, deputed by The Milli Gazette, on 14 June 2016 visited the town of Kairana in Western Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district which is in the national news due to the claim by the local BJP member of Parliament Hukum Singh that 346 Hindu families have been forced to flee Kairana town due to threats from[Read More…]
I spent the last year working with co-author David Fridley and Post Carbon Institute staff on a just-published book, Our Renewable Future. The process was a pleasure: everyone involved (including the twenty or so experts we interviewed or consulted) was delightful to work with, and I personally learned an enormous amount along the way. But we also encountered a prickly[Read More…]
“I’ll walk in the rain by your side; I’ll cling to the warmth of your hand. I’ll do anything to keep you satisfied, I’ll love you more than anybody can.” John Denver may have written this song for his baby, but for me my first love is my hometown, Nainital. I have grown up with the smell of the lake[Read More…]
Rational risk management is crucial for societal safety and successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. However the anti-science, anti-environment, pro-fossil fuels Australian Coalition Government has utterly perverted this process in relation to the worsening climate emergency through spin, lying by commission, lying by omission and censorship. Critically, Coalition Government[Read More…]
We are fully under the influence of petroleum demand destruction. The global oil market can’t function without real oil production price discovery, which doesn’t exist in the currently deflationary global economy, which forces indebted producers to sell far below cost. Both supply and demand seem to cyclic in nature and we are not finished with the supply destruction phase, which[Read More…]
$50 per barrel oil is clearly less impossible to live with than $30 per barrel oil, because most businesses cannot make a profit with $30 per barrel oil. But is $50 per barrel oil helpful? I would argue that it really is not. When oil was over $100 per barrel, human beings in many countries were getting the benefit of[Read More…]
For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses and low prices. What is going on that was missed by M. King Hubbert, Harold Hotelling, and by the popular understanding of supply and demand? The underlying assumption in these[Read More…]
I approach the subject of the physics of energy and the economy with some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? There are not many people who understand dissipative systems, and very few who understand how an economy operates. The combination leads to an awfully lot of false beliefs about the energy[Read More…]
The traditional understanding of supply and demand works in some limited cases–will a manufacturer make red dresses or blue dresses? The manufacturer’s choice doesn’t make much difference to the economic system as a whole, except perhaps in the amount of red and blue dye sold, so it is easy to accommodate. Figure 1. From Wikipedia: The price P of a[Read More…]
Usually, we don’t stop to think about how the whole economy works together. A major reason is that we have been lacking data to see long-term relationships. In this post, I show some longer-term time series relating to energy growth, GDP growth, and debt growth–going back to 1820 in some cases–that help us understand our situation better. When examining these[Read More…]
The price of oil is down. How should we expect the economy to perform in 2015 and 2016? Newspapers in the United States seem to emphasize the positive aspects of the drop in prices. I have written Ten Reasons Why High Oil Prices are a Problem. If our only problem were high oil prices, then low oil prices would seem to[Read More…]
Israel’s parliament adopted a sweeping law on Wednesday that critics warn further criminalizes Palestinian political activity by expanding what it defines as “terrorism.” Meanwhile, it has emerged that Israel has subjected a Palestinian journalist and prisoners’ rights worker from Jerusalem to more than a month of secret, abusive interrogation. Israel has also renewed the detention without charge of a Palestinian[Read More…]
Since 1983, Sharon Tennison has worked to develop ordinary citizens’ capacities to avert international crises, focusing on relations between the U.S. and Russia. Now, amid a rising crisis in relations between the U.S. and Russia, she has organized a delegation which assembled in Moscow yesterday for a two week visit. I joined the group yesterday, and happened to finish reading[Read More…]
Some time ago, a colleague of mine told me the story of when he had been in charge of the installation ofone of the first photovoltaic plants in Italy, in 1984 (shown in the figure, on the right). He told me that, shortly after the installation, a high-ranking politician came to visit the plant. As a demonstration, my colleague connected[Read More…]
America’s War for the Greater Middle East – A military history. Andrew J. Bacevich. Random House, New York, 2016. Andrew Bacevich has written a series of books on the topic of U.S. imperialism and U.S. military power. His latest work, America’s War for the Greater Middle East [the GME War] is the latest in this series and as with the[Read More…]
By Dr. P.S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Chairman, All Parties Hurriyat Conference has appealed to the people to observe solidarity with the Kashmiri prisoners on Friday the 17 June, 2016. Geelani has called the continuous imprisonment of pro-freedom leader Masarat Alam Bhat since 2010 as extremely cruel. He lamented the silence of the State Government as[Read More…]
Karl Marx, among other critics of imperialism, had some kind words for British colonial rule in India, especially in regard to the prevalent rule of law in the colony. The civil and criminal laws, as evolved in Bangladesh – as in all the former British colonies, worldwide – are based on the British Common Law. However, barring a handful of[Read More…]
There is a long history of social critics and progressive thinkers offering critiques of human society. Among those who are better known, Karl Marx offered a critique of capitalism, anarchists have critiqued the state, Mohandas K. Gandhi offered a critique of industrial society, Sigmund Freud and Herbert Marcuse offered critiques of civilization, and feminists have critiqued patriarchy. In addition, critiques[Read More…]
On Tuesday, June 14th, NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO’s Article V “collective defense” provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country. The preliminary[Read More…]
London: Much of Britain is recoiling in the wake of the death of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was shot and stabbed on Thursday in broad daylight outside the public library in Birstall to the shouts of “Britain first!” It was the first killing of a serving MP since Ian Gow, whose life was taken by Irish Republicans in 1990.[Read More…]
Born in Reykjavík in 1978, Norðdahl was raised in Ísafjörður, a fishing village of just 2,623 people in northwest Iceland. Its population has been shrinking for several decades. Norðdahl’s father was a fisherman, and his mother a school teacher. Starting with his first job in a shrimp factory at age 12, Norðdahl has worked as a hotel night watchman, cook[Read More…]
Toxics Watch Alliance (TWA) disapproves of efforts by foreign Shipowners and Shipbreakers to outwit UN’s Basel Convention on transboundary movement of hazardous end-of-life ships, threatening India’s maritime security and environmental and occupational health of workers in the ship breaking facilities in Indian waters. These ship owners have been lobbying with the Ministry of Shipping to amend the Shipbreaking Code 2013[Read More…]
A presentation made at London School of Economics on 16th June 2016 in the conference organised by Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhists organisations, UK in collaboration with London School of Economics to commemorate 100 years of Dr Ambedkar’s association with London School of Economics. It is a privilege to be able to speak to you on this historic occasion to[Read More…]
A new report by leading sustainability experts has reaffirmed the case for a paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems – fundamental to which is a call for redistributing power back into the hands of those who feed the world. By Adam Parsons An alternative vision of farming and food systems has long been upheld by civil society[Read More…]
I woke up the next morning to the atrocious news of gangrape and murder of Madkam Hidme, an Adivasi girl in Sukma district’s village Gumpad. She was picked up from home, gangraped and then shot in cold blood by a gang of bloodthirsty, estrogen shooting men, dressed in an attire given by government that miraculously shields them against all legal shenanigans. Two days before this, a 12 year old child was similarly raped by a policeman in the same district. This is happening everyday in these villages. Every single day.
The Narendra Modi led Indian government cancelled on Thursday the registration of Sabrang Trust run by social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand. Teesta and her NGOs are on the forefront of civil society campaign against the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, in which over 1000 muslims were massacred. She was active in bringing to justice many Sangh Parivar[Read More…]
World Environment Day in India: Doing Justice with the Day 
Ben Roberts-Smith: The Breaking of a Plaster Saint 
Do we All need Religion? An Introspection 
Obama, Kissinger and the Nobel Peace Prize 
The Politics of Erdogan and Western Anxieties 
The Compulsion to Intervene – Why Washington Underwrites Violence in Ukraine 
Just War and Just War Theory 
Stolen Heirloom or poppycock 
‘Simply Inconceivable’ to Dump Fukushima Water in Pacific, Critics Say After Latest IAEA Report 
Eradicate Dowry, Eliminate Dowry Violence 
Growing number of elderly homeless in the US 
Rise Up in Solidarity with Protesting Wrestlers 
Plastic Pollution in Destinations: A Growing Threat to Environmental Sustainability 
The US Censors Dissenting Voices: On the Attacks Against the Midwestern Marx Institute 
The US Government Should At Least Listen to this Wisdom of its Top Experts on the Ukraine Crisis 
Indigenous Australians & Palestinians: Treaty, Truth, Voice, Referendum & Senator Lidia Thorpe 
Kya Sharmsaar hai hindustan……are wrestling champions of India going the Mohammed Ali way? 
Legislative Gaps Helping Overseas Shell Companies? 
Book Review: Marginalised but not Defeated 
When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War? 
AUKUS, Congress and Cold Feet 
The Wars We Don’t (Care to) See – Aggression Made Easy 
Raising the Palestinian flag in Daley Plaza Center, Chicago: A powerful symbolic gesture 
Shocking Lack of Concern for World’s Safety by War Mongering Elite 
Has Hindutva been defeated in Karnataka? 
UN Agencies Warn ‘Acute Food Insecurity’ Likely to Worsen in 18 Hunger Hot Spots 
Meta and Privacy: The Economy of Data Transgressions 
A Response to The New York Times’ Ritualistic Denunciation of Mao’s Cultural Revolution… 
GM Crops Likely to Worsen Climate Change Related Problems for Farmers 
Symbolism of Sengol 
Forget GDP growth, it’s sustainable wellbeing we need to aim for 
Supremes Declare War on Wetlands 
Kings Coronation, Victory Day Parade and Perverse Values 
A critical approach to the exploration of Identity & Violence: An attempt by the young researchers of EDRU 
Delay in Census enumeration, unreliable death registration and fake Aadhaar cards adversely impact integrity of elections, leads to misuse of public funds 
Special Significance of the Next Decade in Human History, and a Campaign Linked to This 
Prophets of Doom: Kissinger and the ‘Intellectual’ Decline of the West 
“Free Trade” as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm 
Memorialize USA Lies About Each Mistaken Undeclared War Americans Remembered Today Gave Their Lives 
Tipu Sultan: Fallacies and Facts around the Historical Figure in India 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
