Archive for August, 2016

Food Sovereignty In Rebellion: Decolonization, Autonomy, Gender Equity, And The Zapatista Solution

Food Sovereignty In Rebellion: Decolonization, Autonomy, Gender Equity, And The Zapatista Solution

When viewed in its geopolitical context, the Zapatista insurgency has opened up space for a wide range of alternative ways of re-organizing societies, economies, and food systems. Consequently, what the Zapatistas prove through their resistance (i.e., efforts in autonomous education, decolonization, and gender equity) is that a recognition of Indigenous people’s right to self-determination, in conjunction with anti-capitalist collective work and movements toward food sovereignty, can indeed provide viable alternatives to the world’s neoliberal food regime as well as revolutionize the struggle for food security.

by 30/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Saffron Heads With Neutral Masks: Spreading Disharmony Through Social Media

Saffron Heads With Neutral Masks: Spreading Disharmony Through Social Media

Noam Chomsky had coined the term ‘Manufacturing consent’ to refer to the role played by Media in creating system supportive propaganda function. The purpose of propaganda is to indoctrinate human minds to think in a particular manner through imposing necessary illusions. The five filters which enable this is through control of ownership of media owned by corporations, revenues of media[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 3 comments India
Photo by Ken Lund

Using “Protected Natural Areas” To Appropriate The Commons

Even as worldwide pressures mount to protect sites with high biological diversity, indigenous peoples and local communities are redoubling their struggles of resistance against a “solution” that claims to protect ecosystems, the establishment of protected natural areas (PNAs). The policy of establishing PNAs, which seeks to maintain the best conserved redoubts of the planet, is often at odds with the[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Balochistan And The Oil And Trade Of India And China

Balochistan And The Oil And Trade Of India And China

Prime Minister Modi’s bringing up “Balochistan” during his 15th August address was criticised, especially since he omitted to mention the on-going, acute crisis in Kashmir. While the validity of criticism of omission may hold good, mentioning Balochistan could be a calculated move to reverse India’s traditional passivity against Pakistan’s aggressive India policy. India’s turning a spotlight on Balochistan has the[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 2 comments South Asia
Loyalty

Loyalty

Most certainly in the struggle between guilt and innocence, and between loyalty and betrayal, I have never been peaceful. Walking along the lip of the precipice, you learn what loneliness is. Yet loyalty and duty and responsibility and love can save you from a leap into the dark.

by 30/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Prejudice Against Atheists Troubling

Prejudice Against Atheists Troubling

The Democratic National Committee’s conspiring to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ campaign is disturbing on many levels, but what makes me livid is that the DNC was hoping to portray Bernie Sanders as an atheist. What’s worse than the intended smear is the belief that branding someone an atheist is a smear. So what if he were atheist? Does this make him[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 3 comments World
The Kashmir Upspring

The Kashmir Upspring

A month has passed and peace seems to be an unimaginable thing in the valley of Kashmir. Burning in the political inferno, only the people of Kashmir are at the suffering end while the Indian state seems to be busy in drafting the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Amendments. With hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, brutalities and torture, the[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
(Photo: Kevin Gill/flickr/cc)

The Anthropocene Is Here: Humanity Has Pushed Earth Into A New Epoch

The Anthropocene Epoch has begun, according to a group of experts assembled at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa this week. After seven years of deliberation, members of an international working group votedunanimously on Monday to acknowledge that the Anthropocene—a geologic time interval so-dubbed by chemists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000—is real. The epoch is[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 2 comments Climate Change
#HappyToBleed Campaign Is Back

#HappyToBleed Campaign Is Back

Nikita Azad is back with #HappyToBleed campaign once again. Last year, on November 21, 2015, #HappyToBleed campaign was launched as a counter attack against the sexist statement given by Devaswom chief Prayar Gopalakrishnan who had stated that women will be allowed to enter the famous Sabarimala temple in Kerala only after a machine to “check the purity of women”. Countercurrents.org[Read More…]

by 30/08/2016 3 comments Patriarchy
Pathology Incorporated; The Facade Of American Democracy

Pathology Incorporated; The Facade Of American Democracy

With the rigged Democratic presidential nomination behind us, the US election reality show continues. The mass media is creating sensations around what has become a national embarrassment with this contest of the lesser of the two crazies. On the one hand we have Donald Trump, depicted as a quintessential narcissist and on the other, Hillary Clinton who is often portrayed[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 2 comments World
Making A Killing In Yemen

Making A Killing In Yemen

While the slaughter of Yemenis continues, the world remains silent in response to their screams. Why is that? Has the world lost its senses, especially to feel the sufferings of the tormented? In an alleged effort to defeat the Houthi rebels, a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, supported by the United States and the United Kingdom have[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 2 comments World
Children, The Media And Political Agendas

Children, The Media And Political Agendas

  The image of 5 year-old rescued from the rubble in the aftermath of a devastating airstrike in Aleppo on 17 August 2016 has reverberated around the globe. Every major media outlet— from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to the BBC and Al-Jazeera — has highlighted the picture. It shows a little boy “sitting in an ambulance[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment World
India Kashmir Protest

Disguised Mercenaries Of Kashmir

Centuries ago, public armies replaced private ones as the dominant tool of warfare. Today also the world has regressed to it’s old system and mercenaries are back. If we look at international conflicts, many countries hire contractors, some of whom are armed, to support it’s war effort in a foreign land. Sometimes however the mercenaries are also used to crush[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
US Wars Are For Empire, Not For Profit

US Wars Are For Empire, Not For Profit

Yemen is being destroyed. A US-backed “Saudi Coalition” has been bombing and shelling Yemen for 16 months. The UN puts the civilian death toll at 3700, but (aside from the question of why combatants’ lives apparently only count if they are Western soldiers) this probably vastly under-represents the death toll by both direct violence and by the indirect effects of[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Photo by Scott Clark

 A New German Raw Materials Strategy: A Modern “Enclosure Of The Commons”?

Lithium and cobalt for producing automobile batteries; titanium, chrome and palladium for desalination of sea water; ruthenium and selenium for photovoltaics, rare earths1 for cellphones and laptops – European industry relies on minerals, most of which must be imported, for developing and using numerous technologies of the future. Long-term security of supply of so-called “critical” raw materials was not considered an[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, Champion Of Kandhamal Victims, Remembered

Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, Champion Of Kandhamal Victims, Remembered

Archbishop Raphael Cheenath who played pivotal role in bringing justice to the Kandhamal pogrom victims was remembered in a function in Delhi. Archbishop Emeritus Raphael Cheenath of Kandhamal passed away in Mumbai on 14th August 2016 after a brave struggle against cancer. He was 81. The Archbishop played major role in the people’s struggle for justice after the August 2008[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment Communal Harmony
Banning Burkinis: The Politics Of Beachwear

Banning Burkinis: The Politics Of Beachwear

So the tendency continues; woman wears an outfit either provocative in its skimpiness or provocative in its conservativeness. Authorities beset by ideology intervene. The idea of control is never far away. Nor is the morally obsessed tape measurer and politically charged censor. Beaches as bastions of freedom? Forget it.

by 29/08/2016 2 comments World
Kashmir Needs Freedom: Historical Perspective

Kashmir Needs Freedom: Historical Perspective

In 1846, the then British government in India, who were not the owners of Kashmir, made a deal with Gulab singh Dogra, a feudatory of the Sikh kingdom in Punjab. His official and moral duty was to support the Sikhs in their war against British. But instead of doing his duty, he was trying to cultivate a relationship with the[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Hillary Clinton Must Be Indicted

Hillary Clinton Must Be Indicted

The Democratic candidate for the US Presidency, Hillary Clinton, is scandal-ridden. The life of the Clintons is a mere scandal starting way back with “Whitewater”.[1] To call her “crooked Hillary” seems an understatement, viewing only her four years as Secretary of State. Her judgment and her trustworthiness are nil. Never before has there been in the recent history of the[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 2 comments World
Heading Toward The Abyss With Hillary And Trump

Heading Toward The Abyss With Hillary And Trump

The media battle between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has sidetracked the impact of an unusual congressional campaign and diluted its essential meaning — voter dissatisfaction. In the democratic primary race for Washington’s 7th congressional district, State Senator Pramila Jayapal’s victory relates an important story of this election year — the public favors a new Democratic[Read More…]

by 29/08/2016 1 comment World
Anuragi: A Musical Journey

Anuragi: A Musical Journey

  Tell us something about you and your band; how you started your journey in music and how did you come together? Dr Rajesh Anuragi : I was born and raised in a small town of Hamirpur, district of UP. My father is a musician and a table player. Since school days I was always a bright student. I started[Read More…]

by 28/08/2016 2 comments Arts/Literature, Video
The Oxaca Commune And The Zapitastas: Hope From The Margins

The Oxaca Commune And The Zapitastas: Hope From The Margins

These notes offer a quick glance to ways, in the south of Mexico, in which people are regenerating the society from the bottom up. It is a new kind of revolution without leaders or vanguards, which goes beyond development and globalization. It is about displacing the economy from the center of social life, reclaiming a communal way of being, encouraging[Read More…]

by 28/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Failures Of Militarism In Countering Mega-Terrorism

Failures Of Militarism In Countering Mega-Terrorism

  The introduction of this article is devoted to the distinctive challenges posed by this era of mega-terrorism initiated by the 9/11 attacks. The article offers a critique of the American response which is based on a ‘war’ rather than a law enforcement paradigm. An argument is then made to adapt international law to new modalities of conflict while at[Read More…]

by 28/08/2016 1 comment World
Kandhamal Day Observed For Peace, Justice And Communal Harmony

Kandhamal Day Observed For Peace, Justice And Communal Harmony

Kandhamal Nyaya Shanti O Sadvabana Samaj , an organisation of Survivors of Kandhamal violence observed 8th Kandhamal Day at Balliguda on 27th August with participation of about 15000 people. On this occasion a peace rally marched from mini-stadium Balliguda to Sub-Collector office and gathered in PWD square to observe the Day. Viswa Hindu Parishat attempted to stop the march at some places. Yet, it did not deter people to hold the march peacefully.

by 28/08/2016 1 comment Communal Harmony
Photo by grungepunk2010

Crises, Capital And Co-Optation: Does Capital Need A Commons Fix?

Today economic crisis is a capitalist crisis of social stability, not a simple recession—that is, a crisis that requires a realignment of class/power relations and new systems of governance in order to re-establish growth and accumulation.1 The last two times in which a real change in capital’s governance occurred (in the post-World War II period with the embrace of “Keynesianism” and[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Montreal Declaration For Nuclear Fission Free World

Montreal Declaration For Nuclear Fission Free World

By Global Network for a nuclear-free world. As citizens of this planet inspired by the Second Thematic World Social Forum for a Nuclear-Fission-Free World, conducted in Montreal from August 8 to August 12, 2016, we are collectively calling for a mobilization of civil society around the world to bring about the elimination of all nuclear weapons, to put an end[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 4 comments World
Hillary Clinton’s Extreme End Game

Hillary Clinton’s Extreme End Game

The loathsome two are moving into full view, mustering weapons and taking aim at each other in a US election campaign that continues to be filled with colourful missives. But the one to lose most is Hillary Clinton, whose nasty appropriation of the high ground of propriety seems more contemptible by the day. On Thursday, Clinton pushed further into the[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 3 comments World
Ahwazi Protesters Demonstrate Against Recent Iranian Executions At Iran’s Embassy In Brussels

Ahwazi Protesters Demonstrate Against Recent Iranian Executions At Iran’s Embassy In Brussels

Members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) held a demonstration in front of the Iranian regime’s embassy in the Belgian capital, Brussels, on Friday August 26 to condemn the execution of three more sons of the Ahwazi resistance. The three young men, identified as Qais Disher Saleh, Ahmed Disher Saleh and Sajjad Hamid Saleh, were[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 2 comments Human Rights
Political Repression And Emergence Of Youth Uprising In Kashmir

Political Repression And Emergence Of Youth Uprising In Kashmir

The Kashmir experienced most difficult challenge in present time due to conflict. The conflict broughtcataclysmic impact on the entire Kashmir related to large scale economic loss,societal disorder , Educational Backwardness , Mass psychological Depression , forced Brutalization , oppressionetc.The conditions of everyday life are in threat.Consequently, the generation was gone astray in this social inferno. Conflict affects all segments among[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Reversing Affirmative Action For Upper Caste Elitism: Usage Of Social Media By Anti Reservation Communities

Reversing Affirmative Action For Upper Caste Elitism: Usage Of Social Media By Anti Reservation Communities

In Social Media one regularly comes across shared postings with originations from communities such as Índia against Reservation’, Índia against Caste based reservations’, Índia against Caste and Reservation’. The logic of their argument goes like this. India does not have respect for merit. As a result, a lot of the meritorious positions are lost to non-meritorious. The meritorious are hard[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment Annihilate Caste
This is the latest ABVP’s poster put up on the wall of SIS building (new) of JNU with the portrait of Dr. Ambedkar. The poster qoutes him without mentioning the reference as saying that if Dalits convert to Islam or Christianity, it will “denationalize them”. Photo: Samim Asgor Ali

Hindu Right, Ambedkar And JNU Politics

The ABVP activists are hopeful that their “achievement” of having the library renamed after Dr Ambedkar will help them woo lower-caste students, particularly Dalits. With the JNUSU elections approaching, the Hindutva organization is desperate to broaden its social base by such acts of appropriation and tokenism This is the latest ABVP’s poster put up on the wall of SIS building[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment Annihilate Caste
The Devolution Model For Peace In Kashmir

The Devolution Model For Peace In Kashmir

While there may be no real evidence of a historical Moses (for the Egyptians were obsessive about recording significant events, as an exodus of 2 M people would have been), the Hollywood version with Charlton Heston demanding, “Let my people go,” tells us not much has changed in human nature. Human lives and economic damage notwithstanding, India clings on to[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Neo-Cons, Fundies, Feddies & Con-Artists: Bush To Obama

Neo-Cons, Fundies, Feddies & Con-Artists: Bush To Obama

For as long as I have been associated with it, the University of Chicago has been a Gang of die-hard bigots and racists against Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims and other People of Color.  Indeed, it is well-known  on the Southside of Chicago that the University of Chicago has always practiced Urban Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing against its surrounding African American Communities. Don’t be[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment World
Smriti Nagpal

Two Ladies, Who Made The Mission Possible!

A 6-14 year old minor girl could be an‘object’used for dispute settlement between two parties. No matter how absurd it may sound, this practice, known as “Swara” (http://bit.ly/1PWTLKm), is prevalent in some parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, mostly in tribal belts. This is a 400 year-old tradition based on principle of “blood for blood” for dispute settlement where virgin girls[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan greets Adani Ports CEO Karan Adani in Thiruvananthapuram

Will CPM Learn From Its Mistakes In Bengal?

The former Acting Chairman of JN Port, Mumbai, Jose Paul writes: `The shipping ministry has reportedly decided to establish an International Container Transshipment Port at Colachel in Tamil Nadu at an estimated cost of about 27,000 crore. There is already a container transshipment terminal at Vallarpadam in Cochin. About 105 nautical miles south of Vallarpadam, in Vizhinjam, another container transshipment[Read More…]

by 27/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Indian Drought 2015-16:  Lessons To Be Learnt

Indian Drought 2015-16:  Lessons To Be Learnt

Co-Written by Ashish Singh & Raghu Pilla Categorized as one of the worst droughts in the history of India, drought 2015-16 has affected more than 330 million people in more than 2.5 lakh villages of 266 districts from 11 states in India. It has had a devastating impact on people’s lives as it affected water availability, agriculture, livelihoods, food production[Read More…]

Kashmir: Overshadowed Plebiscite

Kashmir: Overshadowed Plebiscite

It’s pitch dark outside as I write this as though life has decided this day to be last one. Army patrols on deserted lane outside my house are silhouettes laced with arms. Dogs are howling at a distance across street in repeated rhythms adding wilderness to imprisoned night. A faint light at a distance meets my eye as I peep[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Critique Of CEDA’s  “Economics Of Climate Change” – Neoliberalism Dooms Planet

Critique Of CEDA’s  “Economics Of Climate Change” – Neoliberalism Dooms Planet

The highly influential but neoliberal Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) has published a detailed analysis entitled The Economics of Climate Change. However this report ignores a veritable Herd of Elephants in the Room apparent to science-informed climate change analysts, ignores the acute, existential  seriousness of the worsening climate emergency, and absurdly argues for effective Business As Usual (BAU)[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Climate Change
The Affordable Care Act: A Litmus Test For American Capitalism?

The Affordable Care Act: A Litmus Test For American Capitalism?

There is a pressing issuein American health care that warrants at least a modicum of airtime from radio talk show pundits—a soft headed lot that continues to spin the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as a textbook failure of state meddling in the marketplace. Though they do not earnestly care, the free market mouth pieces on talk radio – who[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment World
Photo by lilyrothrock

Subtle But Effective: Modern Forms Of Enclosures

The history of the commons can be read as the expansion of the market sphere and of private decision-making over goods that hitherto were subject to common rules. From this point of view, the late 20th century technologies are double-edged: They have made it possible to expand the commons by offering new modes of regulation, favoring the non-market sphere and[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Despots “Donate” To Clinton Foundation, Receive Weapons From Hillary: Leaked Docs

Despots “Donate” To Clinton Foundation, Receive Weapons From Hillary: Leaked Docs

Newly leaked documents provide further details on what Harpers magazine calls the Clinton family’s “slush fund”, the Clinton Foundation. As Secretary of State (the US government position chiefly responsible for coordinating US international arms trafficking), Hillary Clinton accepted millions of dollars in “donations” from the dictator of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa, then increased US weapons sales to him[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment World
Turkey And The End Of An Era Of Imperial Control

Turkey And The End Of An Era Of Imperial Control

 The attempted coup and its aftermath in Turkey on July 15th have provoked heated debate on its meaning and ramifications. The will of the Turkish people to unflinchingly defend their democratic experiment, regardless of the particular regime or leader in power, has been remarkable. Nevertheless, critics are pointing to the Turkish leader Erdogan’s heavy-handed tactics to consolidate power afterwards, involving[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
What Makes A Hate Group?

What Makes A Hate Group?

“As a matter of fact, you have had a person attend your protests in Camp Douglas who has threatened to kill our Deputies.”This piece of startling news was revealed to me in a letter from Juneau County, Wisconsin, Undersheriff Craig Stuchlik dated July 25. I had written to the sheriff’s department requesting documents under the Open Records Law and for[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment World
Hillary Clinton Is Spreading Islamist Extremism

Hillary Clinton Is Spreading Islamist Extremism

If the West in general and the United States in particular, left the Arab and Muslim world alone and in peace, we would most likely never see all those terrorist attacks, which are rocking the world from Indonesia to France. There would be no Mujahedeen and its mutation into al-Qaida; in Afghanistan or elsewhere. There would be no traces of[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism
How Veterans Are Losing The War At Home 

How Veterans Are Losing The War At Home 

A friend of mine, a Vietnam vet, told me about a veteran of the Iraq War who, when some civilian said, “Thank you for your service,” replied: “I didn’t serve, I was used.” That got me thinking about the many ways today’s veterans are used, conned, and exploited by big gamers right here at home. Near the end of his[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 2 comments Imperialism
September 11 Reflection And The USS Liberty

September 11 Reflection And The USS Liberty

Fifteen years ago on September 11, America and most of the World were united. Today the USA is more divided than since the Civil War. On this 9/11, this reporter will be delivering the speech at the end of this article which explains HOW and WHY I got aboard the cause of the USS LIBERTY Veterans. It also furthers the chapter THAT DAY[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 2 comments World
Dr. Ambedkar’s Historical Speech At Agra

Dr. Ambedkar’s Historical Speech At Agra

 (Note: This is Dr. Ambedkar’s historical speech (18th March, 1956)  in which he had put forward his experiences and the future strategy. In this speech he had addressed different sections of society. In fact it was a guideline for future Dalit movement but it is quite agonising to say that Dalits have forgotten it. It is reflected in a sharp[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Annihilate Caste
Kashmir: Struggle Of A Long Forgotten People

Kashmir: Struggle Of A Long Forgotten People

We live in times when Indian military establishment has been given a privilege. It is been tamed by the forces of nationalism, an entity that wants to entail its dogma. An irony indeed. After two lakh people attending a militant’s funeral, the historical anger, army colonies and beef ban controversy; it has once again proved to the world that Kashmiri[Read More…]

by 26/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
The Raoul Wallenberg stamp, released by Canada Post on Thursday January 17, 2013, is shown. Wallenberg is credited with saving at least 20,000 Jews in Budapest during the Second World War by giving them Swedish travel documents, or moving them to safe houses. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO

We All Need Chutzpah

The meaning of “chutzpah: is as follows:Chutzpah (/ˈhʊtspə/ or /ˈxʊtspə/)[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ (חֻוצְפָּה), meaning “insolence”, “cheek” or “audacity”. The modern English usage of the word has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Biden Meets With Erdogan, Backs Turkish Invasion Of Syria

Biden Meets With Erdogan, Backs Turkish Invasion Of Syria

Under the pretext of “strengthening Turkey’s security by clearing terrorist groups from the border and maintaining Syria’s territorial integrity,” the Turkish army launched a major escalation of the war in Syria on Wednesday with a cross-border operation codenamed Euphrates Shield. Turkish units began their assault on ISIS and Kurdish militia forces at 4 AM local time, backed by tanks and[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment World
Dam Building: Who’s “Backward”- Subsistence Cultures Or Modern “Development”?

Dam Building: Who’s “Backward”- Subsistence Cultures Or Modern “Development”?

Very often, the collective assertions of movements for economic, political or social justice represent just the surface of a complex agenda. If one clicks on their claims, like on a hypertext, one might unravel its layers and discover the less visible spheres of values, traditions and philosophies that animate them – in short, the identities of the people involved. It[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Self-Sustainability Of Community Radio: Stories From India

Self-Sustainability Of Community Radio: Stories From India

The legalization of setting up a Community Radio Station came after a long and voiced revolution from various grass-root organizations, individuals and communities. Community Radio is not just something which is feeding the people’s mind with few people’s choices, interests and beliefs, its inception goes back to the logic of providing Voice to the Voiceless, Being A Tool of Development[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Tokyo Trilateral Meet Shows China Is Troubled Of North Korean Adventurism

Tokyo Trilateral Meet Shows China Is Troubled Of North Korean Adventurism

The developments in Far East since few days are quite complex. Three major developments have taken place. First US and South Korea have been involved in the joint annual drill which North Korea has criticized saying that it is in fact an invasion drill with a clear aim to destroy the country. Second development is launch of the submarine missile[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment World
Unwanted Images: The Nauru Incident Reports

Unwanted Images: The Nauru Incident Reports

When the first reports came through about the unfolding Holocaust during the Second World War, audiences were incredulous.  Surely no industrialised society could quite go so far?  Killings, yes; butcheries, certainly.  But a mass-scale industrialised gassing and massacring of whole populations was simply not tenable.  The same treatment could be said in the context of the gulag system and Stalinist[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
Sajjad Lone And “Chewable” Nationhood!

Sajjad Lone And “Chewable” Nationhood!

The author of the ‘vision document’, “Achievable Nationhood” has modified it to become the “Chewable Nationhood”! Sajjad Lone, a minister in the ruling coalition, in an interview to NDTV’s Burkha Dutt said that only 5 percent people are involved in the present uprising in Kashmir. According to him 95 percent people are sitting inside their homes. He also added that[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
 The Kashmir Stalemate: Time To End The Conundrum

 The Kashmir Stalemate: Time To End The Conundrum

  Kashmir is the age old dispute between India and Pakistan, yet its history and problems are remarkably little known to other than a small group of concerned people. The unitary structure and centralizing ideological belief of the Indian system of blotted democracy gave shape to ethnic separatism in the chronically restive state of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmir have been[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
Dalit Uprising And After: Why Hindutva Would Not Be The Same Again

Dalit Uprising And After: Why Hindutva Would Not Be The Same Again

  When I was born I was not a child I was a dream, a dream of revolt that my mother, oppressed for thousands of years , dreamt. Still it is untouched in my eyes Covered with wrinkles of thousand years, her face her eyes, two lakes overflowing with tears have watered my body….. – SahilParmar* Well known Gujarati poet[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Annihilate Caste
Racial Profiling Of African Americans In US And Caste Discrimination In India

Racial Profiling Of African Americans In US And Caste Discrimination In India

The African-American community has long suspected that they have been profiled, unjustly pulled over and killed by the police for the most ridiculous reasons. The typical response of the police and the authorities has been that the cops acted in self-defense and the broader community of whites and other privileged sections of the society supported the cops. Things began to[Read More…]

VP Singh – The Crusader Of OBCs

VP Singh – The Crusader Of OBCs

Amongst Greats like Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule, BabaSaheb Ambedakar , Periyar , OBCs should not forget the contribution of another Crusader of Backward classes V.P Singh who gave reservations to Backward classes by implementing the Mandal commission report. 1990 was a crucial time when even after 43 years of Indian independence OBCs did not get their due which[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Annihilate Caste
Remembering B.P Mandal & V.P Singh

Remembering B.P Mandal & V.P Singh

Today is 25th August, the day a champion of the rights of the oppressed , Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal was born 98 years back. Today, he will be remembered for his many contributions to the cause of upliftment of the downtrodden, but particularly for his role as Chairman of the Second Backward Classes Commission, which released in 1980 what later became[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Punishing The Messenger: Israel’s War On NGOs Takes A Worrying Turn

Punishing The Messenger: Israel’s War On NGOs Takes A Worrying Turn

“You deserve to see your loved ones suffer and die. But, maybe, you would be hurt before them,” was part of a threatening message received by a staff member at ‘Al-Mezan’, a Gaza-based human rights group. The photo attached to the email was of the exterior of the activist’s home. The gist of the message: ‘we are coming for you.’[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Leftists For Trump

Leftists For Trump

I am a leftist for Trump. As an alumni of “Leftists for Bush” and living these past 10 years in the Horn of Africa, I cant help myself. I am irresistibly drawn to “Leftists for Trump”. Of course if I was living in the good old U-S-of A I would be in the streets demonstrating against The Trumpster. But then[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Lessons From Kandhamal

Lessons From Kandhamal

Today is the 8th anniversary of Kandhamal pogrom. When we look back on one of the worst communal violence against Christian communities in the history of modern India, what lessons can be learnt? In 2015 August, I was in Kandhamal on the 7th anniversary of the Kandhamal pogrom. When I marched with a sea of people through the streets of[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Communal Harmony
Scorched Visions Of Kandhamal

Scorched Visions Of Kandhamal

Today is 8th anniversary of Kandhamal pogrom, one of the worst communal violences against Christians in India. On this occasion we are publishing an interview with renowned film maker K.P Sasi who has completed a documentary on the pogrom “Voices from the Ruins: Kandhamal in Search of Justice” Voices from the Ruins: Kandhamal in Search of Justice, the latest documentary[Read More…]

by 25/08/2016 1 comment Communal Harmony
Turkey Shells ISIS And Kurdish Forces In Syria

Turkey Shells ISIS And Kurdish Forces In Syria

Following last week’s threats by Washington to attack Syrian government war planes bombing US-backed Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian town of Hasakeh, Turkey has launched artillery barrages against both ISIS fighters and Kurdish militia in and near the Syrian border town of Jarablus. Turkey claims shells that fell Monday on its border towns of Karkamis and Kilis were fired[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 1 comment World
Photo by Public Domain Photos

Water As A Commons: Only Fundamental Change Can Save Us

Half the tropical forests in the world – the lungs of our ecosystems – are gone; by 2030, at the current rate of harvest, only 10 percent will be left standing. Ninety percent of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practices. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, “There is no blue frontier[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
The War On Cash

The War On Cash

Banks, governments, credit card companies and fintech evangelists all want us to believe a cashless future is inevitable and good. But this isn’t a frictionless utopia says Brett Scott, and it’s time to fight back Several months ago I stayed in an offbeat Amsterdam hotel that brewed its own beer but refused to accept cash for it. Instead, they forced[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
IPCC Special Report To Scrutinise ‘Feasibility’ Of 1.5C Climate Goal

IPCC Special Report To Scrutinise ‘Feasibility’ Of 1.5C Climate Goal

The head of the United Nation’s climate body has called for a thorough assessment of the feasibility of the international goal to limit warming to 1.5C. Dr Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told delegates at a meeting in Geneva, which is designed to flesh out the contents of a special report on 1.5C, that[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 1 comment Climate Change
Giang in Fort Indiantown Gap

Postcard From The End Of America: Fort Indiantown Gap, PA

  It’s remarkable that I’ve been friends with Giang for nearly four decades. We’ve spent but a year in the same state and, frankly, have little in common. Giang studied computer science, business administration and engineering technology. He makes more in a year than I do in ten. He drinks Bud Lite and recycles corny metaphors and analogies. A director[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Rising Divorces In India

Rising Divorces In India

When a marriage is no longer sacrosanct, can assisting in getting a divorce be called profane?

by 24/08/2016 1 comment Patriarchy
Tributes To B.P Mandal: The Crusader Of OBCs On His 98th Birth Anniversary

Tributes To B.P Mandal: The Crusader Of OBCs On His 98th Birth Anniversary

Bindheshwari Prasad Mandal (1918–1982) was an Indian parliamentarian, social reformer of the country who served as the chairman of the Second Backward Classes Commission, popularly known as the Mandal Commission. The commission’s report mobilised a segment of the Indian population known as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and affirmed the affirmative action practice under Indian law whereby members of underprivileged castes were[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 9 comments Annihilate Caste
Nonviolent Revolt In The Twenty-First Century

Nonviolent Revolt In The Twenty-First Century

I sometimes wonder whether one of the ways in which ‘Amercian exceptionalism’ manifests is that many US scholars and others are unable to consider the contributions of those who are not from the USA. For example, I routinely read about studies of Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates (such as strategist James Lawson) in relation to nonviolence while the[Read More…]

by 24/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Has Modi’s Roar Distorted The Baloch Struggle?

Has Modi’s Roar Distorted The Baloch Struggle?

Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, a rare orator and one of the few strong individuals ever produced in post-partition Bharat has expressed his displeasure with the way the Pakistan authorities are handling the cause of Balochistan.  The alarming expressions were a part of his Independence Day speech. Subsequent to his speech, many Indian pundits have come out with their[Read More…]

by 23/08/2016 1 comment South Asia
Photo by Phillie Casablanca

Mining As A Threat To The Commons: The Case Of South America

The latest cycle of mining expansion in South America dates from the mid-1990s. Since then, levels of investment in exploration and exploitation have generally held steady. Such investment has benefited from reforms in the laws governing mining in almost all countries, and the high demand for basic minerals for industrial use, especially in China and India, which have translated into high prices.[Read More…]

Wild Democracy: A Biodiversity Of Resistance And Renewal

Wild Democracy: A Biodiversity Of Resistance And Renewal

Introduction With characteristic insight, the great American philosopher, John Dewey, once wrote: ‘Every generation has to accomplish democracy over again for itself.’[1] His point was that, at each moment in history, citizens and nations inevitably face unique challenges and problems, so we should not assume the democratic institutions and practices inherited from the past will be adequate for the conditions of[Read More…]

by 23/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Helsinki Timebank: Currency As A Commons

Helsinki Timebank: Currency As A Commons

It is fair to say that this essential principle of timebanking stands in stark contrast to the premises of the current money system and capitalist markets, which value everyone’s time and effort in highly unequal ways. Timebanking provides an alternative by helping people meet important personal and household needs in more socially satisfying, equal ways.

by 23/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
U.S. Invades Syria, And Warns Russia

U.S. Invades Syria, And Warns Russia

On Monday, August 22nd, the United States government — which demands the overthrow of the internationally-recognized-as-legal government of Syria — officially announced that America’s military forces in Syria will continue to occupy Syrian land, no matter what the Syrian government says, and will shoot down any Syrian planes that fly over U.S. forces there and that attack them. As reported[Read More…]

by 23/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism
BJP, Dalits, And The ‘Cow Politics.’

BJP, Dalits, And The ‘Cow Politics.’

“In these four years, I also saw with, some disquiet, forces of divisiveness and intolerance trying to raise their ugly head. Attacks on weaker sections that militate against our national ethos are aberrations that need to be dealt with firmly. The collective wisdom of our society and our polity gives me confidence that such forces will remain marginalized, and India’s[Read More…]

by 23/08/2016 2 comments Communal Harmony
Dissecting Suicide Bombing For Answers

Dissecting Suicide Bombing For Answers

That perception is prelude to reality is implicit. We may believe it in our bones but it is not always so, particularly in the case of suicide bombing. For example, our gut reactions for prevention would only exacerbate the situation. And the origins of suicide bombing it turns out belie common belief. So asserts the University of Chicago’s Robert Pape,[Read More…]

by 23/08/2016 1 comment World
Suicide Bombing Kills 51 At Wedding In Turkey

Suicide Bombing Kills 51 At Wedding In Turkey

Fifty-one people died and 69 were injured Saturday when a horrific suicide bombing hit a Kurdish wedding in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the border with Syria. At least 17 of the wounded are severely injured and clinging to life. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has confirmed that one of its members was getting married at the wedding.[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment World
Photo by notfrancois

Let’s Become A Part Of The Commons Once Again

Alas education in civilization justifies and encourages ruthless greed. It seems that all vertebrates go through a learning process and all mammals need or do better with an education from their parents and siblings. However, people are completely dependent on human interaction to be able to participate in any social setting. That is we must learn from other people to[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Shifting Alliances: Turkey, Russia And The Kurds

Shifting Alliances: Turkey, Russia And The Kurds

It is an irrefutable fact that the United States sponsors the militants, but only for a limited period of time in order to achieve certain policy objectives. For instance: the United States nurtured the Afghan jihadists during the Cold War against the erstwhile Soviet Union from 1979 to 1988, but after the signing of Geneva Accords and the consequent withdrawal[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Labouring Hours: Sweden’s Six-Hour Working Day

Labouring Hours: Sweden’s Six-Hour Working Day

Sweden has been in the news of late for attempting to take the Marxist spirit to heart, with employers seeking to maximise the value of labour from the shorter work time offered. The latest reduction will take the form of a six-hour working day, though trials were already taking place last year.

by 22/08/2016 1 comment World
Kashmir: Passing The Parcel

Kashmir: Passing The Parcel

Kashmir has been continuously on the boil ever since Burhan Wani was killed 44 days ago. Appeals by the BJP-PDP state government and the union government to Kashmiri youth to not agitate, have been predictably ineffective. That the problem is political at its root has been pointed out by many, who have (again predictably) been dubbed by the ruling dispensation[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
The Undoing Of Kashmir

The Undoing Of Kashmir

‘Only Kashmir is ray of hope in the time when the subcontinent is in darkness’ – Gandhi (Aug, 1947) During the time of partition, when communal riots were erupted at every place, valley of Kashmir remained calm and no communal violence erupted in Kashmir among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Mahatma Gandhi saw it as an example that could be torch[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
The Coming Financial Enclosure Of The Commons

The Coming Financial Enclosure Of The Commons

Financial speculation in food commodities has become one of the main drivers of food price volatility, with devastating impacts on small producers and the poor. Yet the disruptive influence of financial speculation on food markets is only a preview of future crises. International financial markets are now attempting to dominate many conventional markets as a long-term strategy to extract greater[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment Globalisation
Developmental Challenges In Northeast India: Perceptible Reflections On Mizoram

Developmental Challenges In Northeast India: Perceptible Reflections On Mizoram

The main aim of this paper is to study the nature of developmental process in the Northeast Indian state of Mizoram in the post-statehood period. The study is focused on the social, economic, cultural and political perspectives of development in the state. It also tries to identify the problems and prospects in the context of several developmental strategies that were[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment India
What Does It Mean When War Hawks Say, “Never Trump”? 

What Does It Mean When War Hawks Say, “Never Trump”? 

It’s not every day that Republicans publish an open letter announcing that their presidential candidate is unfit for office. But lately this sort of thing has been happening more and more frequently. The most recent example: we just heard from 50 representatives of the national security apparatus, men — and a few women — who served under Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Remembering Legendary Humanist Ramswroop Verma

Remembering Legendary Humanist Ramswroop Verma

Being a humanist, it is time to speak of Mahamana Ramswroop Verma, one of the tallest leaders of socialist movement in Uttar Pradesh and founder of Arjak Sangh which was constantly working to eradicate social evils, bring social change and demolish the brahmanical structure. And the ways it adopted were unique. If any one read the books written by Verma,[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Sri Lanka: Dear Mr. President! — ( An Open Letter)

Sri Lanka: Dear Mr. President! — ( An Open Letter)

Dear Mr. President, The wave of political enthusiasm which generates hope for a nation sans, bribery & corruption, mismanagement of the state resources, and the cunning culture of bureaucracy, in general the culture of cheating the ordinary citizen, is sadly being shattering and flattening, though you are still managing to keep the high tone in the course correction. It is[Read More…]

by 22/08/2016 1 comment South Asia
Illegal Reactor Experiments At The Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, India

Illegal Reactor Experiments At The Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, India

What is being done at KKNPP-1 is known as ‘power up-rate experiment’ defined as “the operation beyond the power level licensed by the regulatory body” (IAEA). There are three types of power uprates: (i) “measurement uncertainty recapture” uprate, which involves an increase of less than 2% and is achieved by implementing enhanced techniques for calculating reactor power levels, (ii) “stretch” uprates where increases are between 2 and 7% and (iii) “extended” uprates with increases of up to 20%. Stretch and extended uprates involve changes to instrumentation settings and significant modifications to turbines, condensate pumps, motors, main generators and/or transformers. Since an uprated machine is made to work beyond the design limit, there is always a risk of an accident

by 21/08/2016 2 comments India
Failed Indian Land Reforms- C J I Highlights The Issue

Failed Indian Land Reforms- C J I Highlights The Issue

Chief Justice Supreme Court T S Thakur known for highlighting the socially relevant issues has explicitly brought into focus the gaps between the constitutional sprit and the reality prevailing at the realistic social world. In Shimla he stated that ‘Constitution of India provides equal rights to all, but in a society long oppressed by foreign rule and stark social and[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 1 comment India
Death Of Two Workers In Anna University Was Due To Negligence

Death Of Two Workers In Anna University Was Due To Negligence

The team concluded that the tragic death of the two young workers was preventable and was caused due to the negligence of the employers – Anna University in its capacity as the principal employer and Kavimeena Rubber Products in its capacity as the direct employer.

by 21/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
Photo by MDGLillehammer

Genetically Engineered Promises & Farming Realities

The biggest problem with genetic engineering in agriculture is that it runs completely against the grain of sustainable agriculture. It separates the domain of science from the domain of farming community. It externalizes everything that was internal to the communities and formed the basis of sustainability: seeds, manure, pest control and more than anything, community knowledge of agriculture. Biotechnology in[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Claims Of Exoneration: The Case Of Slobodan Milošević

Claims Of Exoneration: The Case Of Slobodan Milošević

Every age needs its cult of demonology.  It creates a social target of unified indignation and moral outrage. Finally, we can find a figure, prey upon it, and feel good that things are orderly in the world.  In the savage wars of the Balkans during the 1990s, the identification of good sides over bad, of noble warriors over ignoble ones,[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 1 comment Uncategorized
Obama’s Legacy Of Failure In The Middle East

Obama’s Legacy Of Failure In The Middle East

In order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on the present, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside. In the case of the creation of Islamic State, for instance,[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 2 comments Imperialism
Jignesh Mevani: A Leader Is Born

Jignesh Mevani: A Leader Is Born

Very successful press conference at the Press Club of India, New Delhi by Jignesh Mevani, lawyer and Dalit activist from Gujarat. Very good attendance. Lot of questioning by journos’ almost amounting to interrogation, which Jignesh tackled very well. Jignesh Mevani was at the same time fire and brimstone lashing away at Mr. Modi and the BJP, and also Captain Cool[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 5 comments Annihilate Caste
Kashmir: A Cry From Hell!

Kashmir: A Cry From Hell!

I cry! The people of Kashmir cry! We cry for the future of our children. We cry in pain and agony but our suffering and misery goes unnoticed rather people pretend to deaf and blind. Our screams annoy our own brothers and sisters and we are looked down as damned and evil mongers.

by 21/08/2016 6 comments Kashmir
The “Gold Star” Dishonesty Of The 2016 US Presidential Election

The “Gold Star” Dishonesty Of The 2016 US Presidential Election

On August 28, 2016, the Democratic Party at its convention for nominating Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate had Khizr Khan as a political attacker against the Republication Party nominee, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump, with his usual thin skin, retaliated by criticizing the fact that while Mr. Khan talked, his wife sat silently next to him. Mr. Khan is a[Read More…]

by 21/08/2016 3 comments World
31 Years Of Narmada Bachao Andolan: Revolutionary Cultural Protest In Delhi

31 Years Of Narmada Bachao Andolan: Revolutionary Cultural Protest In Delhi

Jantar Mantar. 20 August, 2016: Hundreds of Narmada supporters came together for an evening filled with songs, slogans and speeches today. As Narmada Bachao Andolan marked its 31st year of resistance against illegal displacement on 16 August, a series of protests and demonstrations are being held across the nation. Today’s demonstration was kicked off with a fiery speech by Vimal[Read More…]

Western Propaganda: So Simple But So Effective!

Western Propaganda: So Simple But So Effective!

When some time ago Noam Chomsky and I met at MIT, in order to write a book “On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”and to produce a filmwith the same titletogether,the topic we mainly aimed at discussing was that of the countless genocides the West has committed all over the world since the end of the WWII. The second[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism
The Global Land Grab: The New Enclosures

The Global Land Grab: The New Enclosures

Consider this. It is 1607. The English have been taking lands in Ireland for several centuries. First written down in the 7th century, Irish customary law is sophisticated and still administered by trained traditional magistrates (Brehons). Now rulings in the English courts on Gavelkind (1605) and Tanistry (1607) finally deny that customary law delivers property rights. Family holdings are made[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
IRmep Lawsuit Seeks to End US-Israel Nuclear Deceptions 

IRmep Lawsuit Seeks to End US-Israel Nuclear Deceptions 

In D.C. on 8 August 2016, Grant Smith the director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy [IRmep], filed this lawsuit  against President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Director of CIA John O. Brennan, Secretary of Department of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary Department of Treasury Jacob Lew, Secretary Department of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of Department of Commerce Penny Pritzker  [Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 1 comment World
Inside the Middle East – Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth

Inside the Middle East – Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth

Reading Inside the Middle East is quite an adventure. I learned that I probably am a fairly quixotic fanatic tilting at windmills; that I need to learn how to be a critical thinker “demanding that concepts and narratives be replaced with facts and reality;” that I “need to fine tune [my] critical thinking and analytical capacities; all that so I[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 2 comments Book Review
Photo by Daquella manera

Let’s Build A Regenerative World

The current state of American politics must make us question whether any of our leaders in the Beltway can be described as “grown-ups”, i.e., fully mature and sane individuals. Between the endless war crimes, corporate corruption, lobbyists who bribe congressmen and write legislation, and the ineptitude of federal entities who are supposed to protect our health such as the FDA,[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
  Drop FIR Against Amnesty Intl India!

  Drop FIR Against Amnesty Intl India!

PUCL (People’s Union For Civil Liberties) condemns the actions of the Bengaluru Police in foisting a case of sedition, creating enmity and other charges against Amnesty International India and unnamed staff for holding a meeting on 13th August, 2016 in Bengaluru on human rights abuses in Kashmir in which families of victims participated. From the statement of Amnesty it is[Read More…]

ABVP Activists Try To Storm Amnesty Office In Bangalore

ABVP Activists Try To Storm Amnesty Office In Bangalore

More than 100 members of a right-wing student organization attempted to storm Amnesty International’s office in Bangalore, on Friday. The protesters from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), who tried to storm the building with petrol bottles, were caned by police and detained. On Friday morning, Bengaluru police had barricaded road leading to the Amnesty International’s office anticipating protests. However, the[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 2 comments India
Masculinity Goes To The Movies…

Masculinity Goes To The Movies…

Recently, I was tagged on Facebook to participate in something called the “80s Music Challenge.” I excitedly agreed but such social media shenanigans did not come without an ugly lesson. You see, when I contemplated which songs to post, I encountered many that contained horribly insensitive and misogynistic lyrics — by performers like Public Enemy, Van Halen, Beastie Boys, Ice[Read More…]

by 20/08/2016 1 comment Patriarchy
Turkey, Let Us Not Celebrate Yet!

Turkey, Let Us Not Celebrate Yet!

So many would like this to happen – to see Turkey go, to leave NATO, to break its psychological, political and economic dependency on the West. Now that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies are quarreling with the United States and the EU, there is suddenly great hope that Turkey may thoroughly re-think its position in the world, strengthen its[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 2 comments World
US Pushes Regime Change In South Sudan; UN Intervenes To Protect Rebel Leader

US Pushes Regime Change In South Sudan; UN Intervenes To Protect Rebel Leader

The USA and its soon to be departed lap dog at the UN, General Secretary Ban Ki Moon are pushing for regime change in South Sudan. The reason the USA wants to rid itself of President Salva Kiir, the internationally recognized leader of South Sudan and replace him with rebel leader Reik Machar is because the US wants to deny[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism
Terrorism In Pakistan And South Asia

Terrorism In Pakistan And South Asia

The recent bout of terrorist attacks in Pakistan reminds us once again that it is one of the worst victims of terrorism perpetrated by religious extremist groups claiming their adherence to what they call the puritan Islam. According to Global Terrorism Index the top 5 countries affected by terrorism include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria accounting for 78 percent[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 1 comment South Asia
The Boy In The Ambulance Offers Glimpse Of ‘Profound Horrors’ In Syria

The Boy In The Ambulance Offers Glimpse Of ‘Profound Horrors’ In Syria

Laying bare the horrors of Syria’s ongoing civil war, heartbreaking footage of a young boy rescued from the rubble following an airstrike in Aleppo has gone viral. Much as last year’s photos of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi—”The Boy on the Beach“—offered a stark reminder of the human toll of the refugee crisis, the images of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh—”The Boy in the[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 2 comments World
The Commons: A Historical Concept Of Property Rights

The Commons: A Historical Concept Of Property Rights

The commons, a historical concept, has become an object of interest for the modern social sciences and the general public like few before it. It is well known that it became famous due to Garrett Hardin and his influential article, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin 1968). Hardin had extrapolated from the historical phenomenon of the commons to identify principles[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Photo by runneralan2004

Four Important Lessons From Cuba’s Urban Food Survival Strategy

Cuba has come a long way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the loss of imports crucial for the island nation’s industrial agriculture system—such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers—left Cuba with a severe food crisis in the 1990s. Today, Cuba has become a regional leader in sustainable agricultural research. Within its practices and institutions lies a model for[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Vast swathes of forest in Arariboia have been destroyed by illegal loggers and by fires which the authorities have failed to contain.
© INPE

Amazon Fires Threaten To Wipe Out Uncontacted Indigenous People

Forest fires are raging in an indigenous territory on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, threatening to wipe out uncontacted members of the Awá tribe. Small groups of neighboring Guajajara Indians were forced to spend days attempting to contain the blaze in the absence of government agents, until an Environment Ministry-led fire-fighting operation began last week. Forest fires started by[Read More…]

History In The Making, Dalit Leaders Must Step Up To It

History In The Making, Dalit Leaders Must Step Up To It

It is not surprising that the recent protests by dalits, especially the vigorous one in Ahmedabad following the Una incident in which four dalits were mercilessly beaten for skinning dead cows have evoked global attention: this is the first time in living memory that dalits have spontaeneously come together in large numbers to protest an atrocity committed over performing a[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 2 comments Annihilate Caste
Closing Manus Island’s Detention Centre: The Search For Alternative Cruelties

Closing Manus Island’s Detention Centre: The Search For Alternative Cruelties

It all goes back to April, when the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court found the Manus Island detention facility, ostensibly directed and run by the Australian government, in breach of the PNG Constitution. By the order of the court, “Both the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments shall forthwith take all steps necessary to cease and prevent the continued unconstitutional[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
Trump Could Kill The Constitution For The Sake Of White Supremacy Unless Clinton Shows It’s Still Alive For All Of Us

Trump Could Kill The Constitution For The Sake Of White Supremacy Unless Clinton Shows It’s Still Alive For All Of Us

There is a disturbingly realistic assessment by Trump’s followers that Trump won’t kill constitutional government because it is already dead. Constitutional government will not win a decisive victory and likely not a victory at all unless Hillary makes a clean break with her all-too-well-known past and offers a full restoration of constitutional government..

by 19/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
A BJP Local Leader Killed By Cow Vigilantes In Karnataka

A BJP Local Leader Killed By Cow Vigilantes In Karnataka

A BJP local leader in Karnataka who was transporting cows in a vehicle died after he was attacked allegedly by right wing Hindutva group called Hindu Jagrana Vedike. Praveen Poojary, 29, was traveling with a friend Akshay Devadiga when they were stopped and thrashed by men. Poojary died of his injuries in hospital four hours after the assault. Devadiga is[Read More…]

by 19/08/2016 2 comments India
Growing Disquiet In Washington Over Russian-Iranian Actions In Syria

Growing Disquiet In Washington Over Russian-Iranian Actions In Syria

Russian bombers used an air base in the northwest of Iran for a second day Wednesday to attack targets inside Syria described by Moscow as arms depots and command centers used to support jihadist militias fighting Syrian government forces for control of the city of Aleppo. The air strikes, carried out by Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers and SU-34 tactical bombers, mark[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 3 comments World
And Then They Came For Amnesty And Seema Mustafa

And Then They Came For Amnesty And Seema Mustafa

It was a matter of time – one by one, the most outspoken and critical voices in the media, in civil society and in standing up for human rights are being picked out and attempts being made to silence them. Just confirming that Seema Mustafa – good friend, outstanding journalist and a fearless activist for the Idea of India as[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 4 comments India
National Fish Workers Forum Passes Resolution Against New Commercial Ports And Demands Scheduled Tribe Status For Fisher People

National Fish Workers Forum Passes Resolution Against New Commercial Ports And Demands Scheduled Tribe Status For Fisher People

The Annual Executive Committee meeting of National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) was held on August 11th and 12th at the Govt. Guest House, Pondicherry. The following are the decisions made and resolutions taken in the meeting:   It was decided to hold the annual general body meet of NFF for the year at Tuticorin on 9th and 10th of December2016 and observing[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Photo by USDAgov

The Commoning Of Patterns And The Patterns Of Commoning: A Short Sketch

   What would you have to think of if you want to build a liveable house? Maybe you would start looking at the environmental factors, an identifiable neighborhood, green areas nearby. You would look at the building site and choose to improve what’s there. You would create open space towards the south, and give it a distinct positive form. The[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
The Obama Doctrine Is Ravaging The Middle East 

The Obama Doctrine Is Ravaging The Middle East 

Everyone seems to have a theory on how to obliterate ISIS, or ‘Daesh’. However, two points are rarely raised: one, concerning the origins of the group and the second, on whether there are genuine intentions to defeat it, in the first place. We must boldly address the first to unravel the enigma behind the rise and growth of ‘Daesh’ –[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
The Hypocrisies Of Commemoration: Dispute At Long Tan

The Hypocrisies Of Commemoration: Dispute At Long Tan

One of the stranger sights in international relations is that of a defeated State seeking to commemorate its fallen in a country whose affairs it sought to disrupt.  Australia is particularly adept at this, having obtained near exclusive entitlements to commemorate the landings at Gallipoli in Turkey on an annual basis, thereby inculcating successive generations with the notion that the[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment World
Gary Corseri

 Interview With Gary Corseri On US Foreign Policy

Muslim Press has conducted an interview with poet, writer, and columnist Gary Corseri to discuss the foreign policy of the United States. Here’s the full text of this interview: MP: Thank you for agreeing to give us an interview Mr. Corseri. Gary Corseri: Thank you for asking! MP: Let me begin by asking: how did you become a political activist? Gary[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism
HuffPo Goes Haywire Against Russia, For Hillary

HuffPo Goes Haywire Against Russia, For Hillary

  As part of their campaign for Hillary Clinton to become President, Huffington Post bannered their home-page on the night of Tuesday August 16th, “TRUMP BRINGS KREMLIN APOLOGIST TO INTEL BRIEFING!”, and linked to their news story that’s headlined against Trump, “Donald Trump To Bring Adviser With Russia Ties To Classified Briefing: Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will join Trump at Wednesday’s top-secret session.” Those “Russia Ties”[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment World
The real Reasons Behind Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment

The real Reasons Behind Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment

  Brazil’s Senate voted on August 10, 2016 to hold an impeachment trial for the nation’s suspended president Dilma Rousseff, a process that could see her permanently removed from office. The vote in favor of trying Rousseff, who was suspended from the presidency in May, was 59 in favor, 21 against. The Senate suspended Rousseff, the South American nation’s first[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Kashmir: Negotiators, Not Soldiers!

Kashmir: Negotiators, Not Soldiers!

Kashmir can be pacified by sincere and honest efforts for sorting out the basic political problem through dialogue and not by sending more and more soldiers to brutalize the people! According to a report in the Citizen, New Delhi had been planning to unleash a special program in Kashmir. It has been reported that the intention was to handover the[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
People waiting to get registered at Motihari District Government Hospital in East Champaran, Bihar. With so few doctors employed to work in the public sector of healthcare in India, this scene is typical.

Health Impoverishment: Has India’s Healthcare System Privatised Enough?

Ratna Devi and her nine year old daughter Seema (names changed) came to AIIMS, New Delhi with a large tumor over Seema’s knee. The tumor was not a new discovery and had been thriving on the little girl like a blood sucking leech for the last one year. An enquiry revealed that the family was from Rajasthan, around four hundred[Read More…]

by 18/08/2016 3 comments India
The Dalits Rally

The Dalits Rally

  There comes a time when one needs to speak; I speak of the Una Independence Day Rally of Dalits, at the end of a 10-day 400-km Dalit Asmita Yatra following a massive Dalit congregation at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on July 31. Whatever one’s political, social or religious preferences, inclinations or beliefs, anybody who has respect for the Constitution of India[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 2 comments Annihilate Caste
Photo by opensourceway

Technology And The Commons

“Jens had to cultivate a strong, unified mind to counteract the disparate landscapes, societies, conditions. He jumped from a monthlong spring hunt to a helicopter that would take him to Nuuk to testify in front of Parliament. On behalf of the Hunters’ Council, he was working hard to ban the use of snowmobiles and prohibit fishing boats in Inglefield Sound,[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
The Potato Park Of Peru

The Potato Park Of Peru

Drive an hour northeast from Cusco, Peru, and you will encounter some beautiful high mountain lakes, historic Inca ruins, and the richest diversity of potatoes on the planet. Approximately 2,300 of the 4,000 known potato varieties in the world are grown here, making it one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. The 7,000 Quechua people who live on[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Grassroots Movements, Degrowth And ‘New Economies’

Grassroots Movements, Degrowth And ‘New Economies’

There are numerous grassroots movements and initiatives worldwide with the ambition to contribute to transformative change towards more sustainable, resilient and just societies. Many of them have a specific vision on the economy and relate to alternative visions of a ‘New Economy’. The research project TRANSIT highlights four prominent strands of new economy thinking in state-of-the-art discussions: degrowth, collaborative economy, solidarity[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Fingers On The Button: “First Use” And US Nuclear Weapons

Fingers On The Button: “First Use” And US Nuclear Weapons

Do you wait till the prospect of obliteration is upon you?  Or initiate, blithely, a nuclear holocaust upon your enemy as a matter of what is termed “first use” by the nuclear weapon high priests?  Neither prospect is particularly attractive, for each assumes the unthinkable made possible, madness made real. In one way, even articulating a policy on first use[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 1 comment World
Una March: Challenging The Caste Barriers

Una March: Challenging The Caste Barriers

The Dalit march from Ahmedabad to Una has emerged as an important social revolt of the Dalits in Gujarat.This mass up-surgence is challenging the very base of the caste system. It is questioning the logic of division of work based on clean and unclean tasks among upper castes and Dalits respectively. On the basis of this division of labor, traditionally[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Street Vendors In Bangalore Organise Protest March

Street Vendors In Bangalore Organise Protest March

Bruhat Bengaluru Beedhi Vyapari Sanghatanegala Okkuta, a federation of street vendor unions across Bangalore, organised a protest march in Bengaluru on August 3rd 2016. The call for the protest/bandh was to bring to light the series of evictions that have been happening in Bengaluru by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, Resident Welfare Associations and the Police. It was also to articulate[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 Comments are Disabled India
​Narmada Bachao Andolan Completes 31 Years Of Struggle

​Narmada Bachao Andolan Completes 31 Years Of Struggle

Supporters from Mumbai express solidarity with the movement which continues to fight for justice reaching to ALL – especially to the most deprived amongst the citizens of our country Mumbai | 16th August, 2016: The Narmada Bachao Andolan movement which started 31 full years ago in India, led to a discourse and push for an alternate, least destructive development model[Read More…]

The Pelletised Face Of Kashmir

The Pelletised Face Of Kashmir

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights is horrified that the Rajya Sabha which debated the situation in Jammu and Kashmir on August 10, could not muster resolve to call for an immediate halt to use of pellet guns, which is not used anywhere in either India or the world for policing. Since the killing of Burhan Muzzafar Wani on July 8,[Read More…]

CAMPA: The Return Of British Raj To Forest

CAMPA: The Return Of British Raj To Forest

It was first time in the Indian history, when the Indian State had officially accepted the historical injustice committed to the Adivasis and other forest dweller communities, and promised to right the historic wrongs by recognizing their traditional rights over the forest and forest land under the Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006,[Read More…]

Amnesty International India Refutes Charges Of Sedition

Amnesty International India Refutes Charges Of Sedition

On 15 August, a First Information Report was reportedly registered against Amnesty International India with regard to an event held on 13 August, based on a complaint filed by an ABVP representative. The allegations mentioned in the complaint are without substance. They are preventing the families of victims of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir from having their stories heard. And preventing civil society organisations from enabling these families to exercise their constitutional right to justice

by 17/08/2016 1 comment India
Countercurrents.org Annual Subcription Campaign, Please Support Us!

Countercurrents.org Annual Subcription Campaign, Please Support Us!

It’s over a year since I wrote a note of this sort. So many things happened in this period, some good, some very bad. Global warming is alarmingly tottering on the very dangerous mark. The past year so record breaking monthly heat records, disastrous floods, droughts and storms. 400 ppm is the new normal now. The resource wars have broken[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 2 comments Editor's Picks
Maudany, Your Freedom Is Our Freedom!

Maudany, Your Freedom Is Our Freedom!

Sixty nine years of India’s freedom is over now. And fifteen and a half years of Abdul Nasar Maudany as an under trial is over today on August 17, 2016! Perhaps it is time to analyse the implications of both these facts. `When the entire people of this country have food to eat, house to sleep, water to drink, light,[Read More…]

by 17/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
 Saudi-Led Coalition Kills Eleven People In A MSF Hospital In Yemen 

 Saudi-Led Coalition Kills Eleven People In A MSF Hospital In Yemen 

Saudi Arabia air strike has killed  eleven people in a hospital in Yemen. The attack was targeted on a hospital run by France based NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres , the hospital is located in Abs district of northern Yemen’s  Hajja province. Saudi Arabia at present is leading a coalition of countries to attack the Yemen based Houthis  rebels which have[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 2 comments World
Photo by Rod Waddington

Subsistence: Perspective For A Society Based On Commons

Subsistence is the sum total of everything that humans need to survive: food and drink, protection from cold and heat, caring and company. If subsistence needs are met, life can continue (Mies/Bennholdt-Thomsen 1999). Many aspects of subsistence – goods and activities – have been transformed into commodities, but by far not all of them. After all, not only children, but[Read More…]

The Solar Transition

The Solar Transition

Although futurists aren’t supposed to make predictions, the notion that our energy system is switching much more quickly than expected from fossil fuels to renewables, and that solar energy will be at the front of that change, suddenly doesn’t seem so controversial. Of course, the speed of the change still matters, certainly in terms of global warming outcomes. And yet[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 1 comment Alternative Energy
July 2016 was "the warmest month of any in a data record that can be extended back to the nineteenth century," according to the U.K.-based Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS). Hot enough to fry an egg, they say. (Photo: Jen/cc/flickr)

The Earth Just Experienced The Hottest Month On The Books

On Monday it was confirmed that the Earth has broken an ominous climate milestone amid a wave of troubling records: July 2016 was the hottest recorded month—ever. According to new NASA data, the global mean surface temperatures last month were 0.84° Celsius (1.51° Fahrenheit) above average and was the warmest July in their data set, which dates back to 1880.[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 1 comment Climate Change
Freedom From AFSPA In J&K And Manipur

Freedom From AFSPA In J&K And Manipur

  As India celebrates its anniversary of independence from the British rule it, is worthwhile to ask when the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur will get freedom from the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act 1958 (AFSPA) which is no less than being living under the colonial rule. The law that the British conceived in the wake of quit[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 2 comments Human Rights
Black And White Lives Matter

Black And White Lives Matter

Forty-six years imprisonment is the sentence for the killer whale Lolita who was captured in the Pacific Northwest off Canada and Washington State in 1970. For what crime? For being a juvenile in a sought-after clan, the charismatic black and white species Orcinus orca (killer whale), star of aquarium show biz. That whale shows have fallen into disrepute, especially after[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 2 comments World
Should India And Pakistan Invite Back British Rule?

Should India And Pakistan Invite Back British Rule?

  Preposterous! you say.  Take a closer look: The countries have now been independent for 69 years.  Just a few days before the recent Independence Day(s) festivities — the two countries have a difference of opinion on when and celebrate on different days — a man named Matibool returning home from a night shift as a security guard was run[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 2 comments South Asia
A Still Uncertain Election

A Still Uncertain Election

Is it possible that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will self-destruct well before the election?  It certainly looked that way, given one major blunder after another in the days after his nomination at the July 18–21 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Here’s another question: Or is it possible he can win? Both options are still on the table because despite[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 2 comments World
50 Years of Kothari Commission Report

50 Years of Kothari Commission Report

This year marks 50th anniversary of Kothari commission report on education. In its after-life of half-a-century, the report continues to occupy an important place in discussions on education in India irrespective of the distinct ideological positions that may go on to frame these discussions. While some of the recommendations get echoed by a wide range of bodies including policy and[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 1 comment India
The Irony Of ‘Hamilton’ Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Advocacy For Puerto Rico

The Irony Of ‘Hamilton’ Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Advocacy For Puerto Rico

  As the economic and humanitarian crisis has worsened in Puerto Rico in recent months, playwright and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, has given voice in interviews and Op-Eds to the severity of the crisis among ordinary Puerto Ricans. Miranda called the island’s debt crisis a matter of “life and death,” saying, “I have a lot of family who are struggling in Puerto Rico,[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
The Way To The Spring: Life And Death In Palestine

The Way To The Spring: Life And Death In Palestine

A small town in Palestinian West Bank, north of Jerusalem, Nabi Saleh, essentially the home-town of the Tamimi clan, has like all other Palestinian towns suffered under the occupation of Israeli military forces and settler villages. Ben Ehrenreich’s book “The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine” documents his many months in the town and in surrounding areas.[Read More…]

by 16/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Book Review, Palestine
Innocence

Innocence

Dostoevsky’s Myshkin has retained much of his innocence and therefore, like real innocents in real life, is considered odd, naïve and ignorant by others who are already branded by “experience” and are just muddling through life in a world in which innocence dies away while the great majority of people, ignorant of their former childhood innocence, strives to toe the line and be like others

by 16/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
In Historic Una Rally Dalits Pledge Never To Dispose Off Dead Cattle Or Do Sanitation Work 

In Historic Una Rally Dalits Pledge Never To Dispose Off Dead Cattle Or Do Sanitation Work 

Thousands of Dalits gathered in Una, Gujarat on Independence Day pledged never to do sanitation work and never to dispose off dead cattle ever again. Radhika Vemula, mother of late Rohith Vemula who committed suicide at Hyderabad university hostel in January this year due to harassment by university authorities, unfurled the national flag in the massive rally. It was the[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 4 comments Annihilate Caste
Photo by christophercjensen

Why Distinguish Common Goods From Public Goods?

The devastating recession of 2008–09 and its volatile aftermath have focused everyone’s attention on the global economy. There is growing agreement that better policies, laws and institutions are needed, but will the next economy be fair and equal for all inhabitants of Earth? No one really knows. Yet one thing is certain: the political will to create a democratically restructured[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Sri Lanka And Office Of The Missing Person

Sri Lanka And Office Of The Missing Person

Sri Lanka with one of the worst records in human rights violations has come up with a positive step. It has passed the missing person bill with some amendments in unanimous way. The bill was passed with the support of TNA and JVP. The passed bill has certain good features; it will try to search and identify about 65000 missing[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 3 comments South Asia
Not In Our Name

Not In Our Name

Sitting comfortably in my hostel room in the campus, I wonder what is transpiring there in the valley, back at home. Of course I know what I get to know through mainstream media, alternate media but they usually speak of the numbers. What they don’t tell us is what goes on in the mind of a person who is living[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Rudy List and Henry Herskovitz

Obscured American: Rudy List The Retired Math Professor

  Though each life is rich, some are staggeringly so. Over four days in July, I had a series of conversations with Rudy List at his house in Dexter, Michigan. A 74-year-old retired math professor, Rudy introduced me to Hua Luogeng, Zitang Zhang and Terence Tao. In return, I told him about Otto Dix, Cindy Sherman, Honey Boo Boo and[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Frecha Amar, 84, an Israeli Jew of Moroccan descent, holds a picture of her baby, who she says was abducted in 1958, at her home in the village of Kfar Chabad, near Tel-Aviv (AFP PHOTO / MENAHEM KAHANA)

The Dark Secret Of Israel’s Stolen Babies

  Nazareth: It is Israel’s darkest secret – or so argues one Israeli journalist – in a country whose short history is replete with dark episodes. Last month Tzachi Hanegbi, minister for national security, became the first government official to admit that hundreds of babies had been stolen from their mothers in the years immediately following Israel’s creation in 1948. In[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment World
Confusions Of A Patriot

Confusions Of A Patriot

The tender coconut that you once gave me
Was certainly more tasty,
Than a nation you have offered
To keep me alive and to shape a meaning
For your existence than mine!

by 15/08/2016 2 comments Arts/Literature
A Country Of Poor People But Not For Poor People

A Country Of Poor People But Not For Poor People

We are celebrating the 70th Independence Day today and let’s have a look at the condition of the poor in our country. “We are a country of poor people but not for poor people,” the Delhi High Court bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar said on August 3, 2016 while hearing the PIL on rehabilitation of manual scavengers in Delhi

by 15/08/2016 4 comments World
Caste – the Actual Cost of Empowerment? Dalit Women & NREGA- A Study of the Poverty, Social Exclusion & Shame Nexus

Caste – the Actual Cost of Empowerment? Dalit Women & NREGA- A Study of the Poverty, Social Exclusion & Shame Nexus

This book “The Actual Cost of Caste: MGNREGA On The Ground” seeks to examine the lives of rural Dalit women in private as well as public spheres. A theoretical framework of poverty, shame and social exclusion has been used to explore the objectives. The study goes further and analyses one of India’s biggest social security programs, the Mahatma Gandhi National[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Photo: Franklin Lamb. Yabroud citizens repairing their Cathedral in March of 2014. (Photo: Franklin Lamb 8/11/2016).

As Our Cultural Heritage In Syria Hemorrhages, Villagers Work To Restore It

Qalamoun Mountains, Syria: Reports continue nearly daily of yet more damage to our archeological treasures Syria. A few examples include the recent ISIS destruction at Tal Ajaja, one of Syria’s most important 2nd century AD Assyrianperiod. “More than 40 percent of Tal Ajaja was destroyed or has been ravaged by IS recently”has revealed Khaled Ahmo, the Director of Antiquities in Hasakeh.[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment World
Why Intervention Is Worse Than Dictatorship

Why Intervention Is Worse Than Dictatorship

Let me take this opportunity to make it clear that I am in no way sympathetic towards the unrepresentative Middle Eastern dictators in general and Bashar al-Assad in particular, but in order to assign blame for the wrongdoing in Syria, we need to remind ourselves of the elementary distinction between the constant and variable factors. Bear in mind that Bashar[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
In The Shade Of Fallen Chinar

In The Shade Of Fallen Chinar

“In the shade of fallen chinar” is a short documentary that was shot in kashmir valley a few days before the current unrest began, It takes a peep into the lives of a group of young kashmiri artist’s who are also University students. It talks about the factors that inspires their art and how it takes the form of resistance[Read More…]

by 15/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir, Video
The Tragedy Of The Anticommons

The Tragedy Of The Anticommons

This essay introduces the tragedy of the anticommons. What’s that? Let’s start with something familiar: a commons. When too many people share a single resource, we tend to overuse it – we may overfish the oceans and pollute the air. This wasteful overuse is a tragedy of the unmanaged commons. How do we solve such a tragedy? Often, by creating[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 3 comments Counter Solutions
“It All Turns On Affection”

“It All Turns On Affection”

Land and people have suffered together, as invariably they must. Under the rule of industrial economics, the land, our country, has been pillaged for the enrichment, supposedly, of those humans who have claimed the right to own or exploit it without limit. Of the land-community much has been consumed, much has been wasted, almost nothing has flourished. But this has not been inevitable. We do not have to live as if we are alone.

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
The Open Source School Redefines Education in Italy

The Open Source School Redefines Education in Italy

Threading elements of the great educational experiments of Bauhaus and Roycroft Community models together with Pierre Levy’s modern definition of “collective intelligence,” La Scuola Open Source (The Open Source School) embodies the principles of the sharing movement. Its success hinges on cooperative work, co-design, shared skills, and an open source culture. The school’s 13 co-founders believe in the power of people’s[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
The Discrete Charm Of Economic Growth

The Discrete Charm Of Economic Growth

At the outset Balthazar briefly summarizes his own intellectual journey as an economist, looking back on his earlier assumption that the economy as a whole was the spontaneous result of innumerable interacting trends interacting in a complex manner, and could be ultimately traced to individual preferences. This is the common perspective of most mainstream economists, who view the economic system[Read More…]

Photo by yuoak / iStock.

How To Break The Power Of Money

Our current political chaos has a simple explanation. The economic system is driving environmental collapse, economic desperation, political corruption, and financial instability. And it isn’t working for the vast majority of people. It serves mainly the interests of a financial oligarchy that in the United States dominates the establishment wings of both the Republican and Democratic parties. So voters are[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
US Military Prepares New Offensives In Syria And Iraq

US Military Prepares New Offensives In Syria And Iraq

Even as tensions are rising with Russia in Eastern Europe and China in Asia, the United States has launched a new war in Libya and is preparing a major military escalation in the Middle East, nominally directed against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In an interview yesterday with USA Today, Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan confirmed that[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 2 comments World
Donald Trump And The ISIS Factor

Donald Trump And The ISIS Factor

Ever straddling that fine line between the absurd and the puncturing revelation, Donald J. Trump’s “ISIS” remarks about the Obama administration and the Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, were vintage.  “[Obama] was the founder of ISIS absolutely, the way he removed our troops. … I call them [Obama and Hillary Clinton] co-founders.” In a political environment where sarcasm is set[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 1 comment World
Narendra Modi, The Machiavellian Prince Of India

Narendra Modi, The Machiavellian Prince Of India

We have a Prime Minister who said that this government is for the Dalits, and the same Prime Minsiter says nothing when Dalits are publicly flogged by the gau rakshaks. Everybody knows on whose side he stands, but with his rhetoric he tries to convince the civilised world that he criticises the vigilantism that targets the Dalits

by 13/08/2016 4 comments India
Irom Sharmila Gets Solidarity From Kerala

Irom Sharmila Gets Solidarity From Kerala

In solidarity with Irom Sharmila’s novel method of struggle against the draconian law of AFSPA, Solidarity Youth Movement held programs in different parts of Kerala. Programs were held in front of the Secretariat at Trivandrum and the Fort Kochi Beach at Ernakulam.

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
The Bourgeoisie And The Bourgeois Democratic Revolution

The Bourgeoisie And The Bourgeois Democratic Revolution

The following is an extract from chapter one of 1NDIA MORTGAGED by Tarimela Nagi Reddy ,pages 2-8, 1971. It narrates how transfer of power took place and it was not real independence

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Book Review
Demand For Dismissal Of Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi And Apologies For Insulting The Tribal Community

Demand For Dismissal Of Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi And Apologies For Insulting The Tribal Community

Kiran Bedi, Ex IAS officer, an active member of a political party and Puducherry Lt Governor, has insulted and condemned de-notified tribes by tweeting on 2ndAugust: ”Ex-criminal tribes are known to be very cruel. They are hardcore professionals in committing crimes. Rarely caught and/or convicted”.

by 13/08/2016 2 comments Annihilate Caste
 Uncle “Sham” Says “Dance”…. And The Band Plays On….

 Uncle “Sham” Says “Dance”…. And The Band Plays On….

    I recall from my early teens, the “Judgment at Nuremberg” movie, which made a big impression then about “justice” and the “rightness and virtue” of the Allied cause.  But when I watched the movie on TV, years later, it was the Richard Widmark character–one of the prosecuting colonels, I believe–who made the deepest impression because, by the end[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 2 comments Life/Philosophy
How Obama AdministrationEncouraged The Rise Of Islamic State?

How Obama AdministrationEncouraged The Rise Of Islamic State?

Although, I admit that Donald Trump’s recent remarks that Obama Administration willfullycreated the Islamic State were a bit facile, but it is an irrefutable fact that Obama Administration’s policy of nurturing the Syrian militants against the Assad regime from August 2011 to August 2014 created the ideal circumstances which led to the creation of not just Islamic State but myriads[Read More…]

by 13/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Insha Malik, Victim Of Pellet Attack, Suffering From Deadly Brain Infection

Insha Malik, Victim Of Pellet Attack, Suffering From Deadly Brain Infection

Insha Malik, the 14 year old victim of Indian Army’s use of indiscriminate pellet attack on protesters in Kashmir valley, may be suffering from deadly brain infection. Kashmir Observer report quoting unnamed doctors in AIIMS New Delhi where she is undergoing treatment said “some of the pellets, which pierced her body particularly face couldn’t be timely removed from the nasal[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Hilary Clinton – History Repeats Itself?

Hilary Clinton – History Repeats Itself?

Once upon a time, there was a man called James Buchanan. He was a Democrat, a Secretary of State and then the President of the United States. A good friend of mine, a historian, told me about him. Buchanan was the last U.S. President who previously served as Secretary of State. He was a Pennsylvania native, and he took his[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 2 comments World
Hillary Clinton Invoked Possible Assassination Of Obama As Reason To Stay In Race in ’08

Hillary Clinton Invoked Possible Assassination Of Obama As Reason To Stay In Race in ’08

After Donald Trump’s comment this week that could possibly have been interpreted to be leaning towards brushing with suggesting the assassination or imprisonment of Hillary Clinton, or, more likely, as Robert Parry pointed out, some kind of violent revolution, Clinton Tweeted: “A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.” Putting[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 2 comments World
Photo by Kamil Porembiński

Common Goods Don’t Simply Exist – They Are Created

We can turn our attention to the question of what we want to do with our common resources. That is what really matters, for common goods exist only if we produce them – and they will remain only if we take care of them.

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Human Nature: An Evolutionary Paradox

Human Nature: An Evolutionary Paradox

Today, human greed and folly are destroying the global environment. As if this were not enough, there is a great threat to civilization and the biosphere from an all-destroying thermonuclear war. Both of these severe existential threats  are due to faults our inherited emotional nature. From the standpoint of evolutionary theory, this is a paradox. As a species, we are[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
The Flagging Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: The US Election And Free Trade Politics

The Flagging Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: The US Election And Free Trade Politics

Being savaged by Donald J. Trump on one side of the electoral aisle, and modestly beaten by the Democratic presumptive candidate, Hillary Clinton, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is lying somewhere between near death and miraculous survival.  Those breathing life into that unfortunate beast remain politicians who embraced the mythology of free trade while never questioning what was free. The scurrying[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Globalisation
Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

Language Patterns, The Media, And Cultural Re-Storying

It’s fashionable these days to summon the concept of narrative for effecting change, whether it’s to evoke brand loyalty, to create demand for some product or, on a rather more substantive scale, to persuade humans to live more peaceably on the planet. I’d personally prefer to see its mysterious power deployed in pursuit of a lot more of the latter[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
US Sells Battle Tanks To Saudi Arabia As It Renews Assault On Yemen

US Sells Battle Tanks To Saudi Arabia As It Renews Assault On Yemen

In a clear signal of American imperialism’s unrelenting commitment to the Saudi monarchy and its ongoing war against Yemen, the United States’ State Department approved the sale of one hundred and fifty Abrams main battle tanks to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. The tanks, designed for large-scale ground warfare, are part of a larger package of American weaponry, valued at $1.15[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
New Emails Shed Further Light On Hillary Clinton’s Corruption As Secretary Of State

New Emails Shed Further Light On Hillary Clinton’s Corruption As Secretary Of State

On Tuesday, the conservative legal group Judicial Watch released 296 pages of State Department records spanning Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. These records include 44 email exchanges that were deliberately withheld from the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton gave the State Department for their investigation into her use of a private email server.[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment World
March for Clean Energy in Philadelphia. Photo by Paul and Cathy / Flickr.

Why Say No To The TPP? Corporations Already Have Too Much Power

 It took two days for 60 members of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance to plant the heirloom seeds by hand. It was the spring of 2014, and there were prayers, burning of sage and sweetgrass, and, one by one, volunteers pressed the red corn seeds into the earth of Art and Helen Tanderup’s farm in Neligh, Nebraska. There, along the[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Globalisation
Obama And Clinton Co-Founders Of ISIS?

Obama And Clinton Co-Founders Of ISIS?

On 10 August 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused president Barak Hussein Obama and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton of co-founding the jihadist rebel organization ISIS (Islamic State) operating mainly in Syria and Iraq but with operative in many Middle Eastern countries and around the world. Trump used Obama’s full name to provoke a racist-xenophobic response from the public[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Review: Samah Sabawi’s‘Tales Of A City By The Sea’

Review: Samah Sabawi’s‘Tales Of A City By The Sea’

How do you talk about a situation so heavily overlaid with the politics of pain that to even mention the word ‘Gaza’ creates division? Reactions that teeter between fear and resistance, ignorance and involvement, suspicion and commitment. How do we face the reality that it is civilians, especially children, women and the elderly who suffer most in protracted situations of[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Pakistan’s Dirty War In Balochistan

Pakistan’s Dirty War In Balochistan

Quetta hospital bomb blast, killing more than 90 people, is the latest grim reminder to the ceaseless violence in Pakistan’s strife-torn volatile province of Balochistan. The deafening blast that ripped through scores of mourners in a Quetta hospital on Monday (August 8) has killed at least 93 people, mainly lawyers, in this year’s bloodiest terror attack in Pakistan. The massive[Read More…]

by 12/08/2016 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Media Silence And The Agrochemicals Industry: The Slow Poisoning Of Health And The Environment  

Media Silence And The Agrochemicals Industry: The Slow Poisoning Of Health And The Environment  

It’s an all too common tale of dirty deeds, shady deals and propaganda. Rosemary Mason’s recent open letter to journalists at The Guardian outlines how the media is failing the public by not properly reporting on the regulatory delinquency relating to GM food and the harmful chemicals being applied to crops. Much of the media is even (unwittingly) acting as[Read More…]

Irom Sharmila ends her 16-year fast by tasting honey, in Imphal on Tuesday. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar/The Hindu

Irom Sharmila: Death Of A Fast

  Irom Sharmila’s withdrawal of her fast has come as a blow in varying degrees to many. There are also many others who welcome her decision to end her fast instead of sticking on to it at ridiculous levels. I am thinking of the many NGO leaders who invested their energy and money on Irom with the hope that their[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 2 comments Human Rights
Kashmir: Pushed Against The Wall

Kashmir: Pushed Against The Wall

  What we witnessed after the killing of Hizb commander Burhan Wani in Kashmir, is literally the rape of democracy by those who claim to be the largest democracy in world. Whether it is in terms of firing at unarmed protesters, use of dangerous pellets, choking political space, banning newspaper publication, cutting all means of communication and continuous curfews, India[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Curfew As An Instrument Of Mass Torture In Kashmir

Curfew As An Instrument Of Mass Torture In Kashmir

For over a month practically the entire Kashmir valley has been under a state of curfew. The innocuous term curfew camouflages the extreme torture and suffering inflicted on the people; curfew actually is ‘house arrest’ of every citizen from a newborn to a person in his nineties

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
Photo Credit: Mediamatterspakistan.org

Prevention Of Electronic Crime Bill (PEC) Continues Draconian Laws In Pakistan

  The state of Pakistan is all set to unleash its iron fist by promulgating laws that curb free speech. This is a proactive step taken by the State to muzzle criticism and silence dissent. Freedom of speech and expression form the bedrock upon which the pillars of democracy stand; this freedom allows the public to air grievances and to[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights, South Asia
Bungling The Australian Census

Bungling The Australian Census

Each country needs its exceptionalist message, its sui generis theme. We do something here no one else does, and such like. In Australia, there are many things deemed exceptional.  Compulsory voting, on pain of a fine, is one such case.  Compulsory voting in a census is another extension of that same philosophy. To not submit, and be damned by the[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment World
Photo by xddorox

Rethinking The Social Welfare State In Light Of The Commons

When we talk about commons in Europe, the question usually arises whether public services are also to be considered commons. In order to answer this question, we must examine our understanding of the (social welfare) state on the one hand and the concept of the “public” on the other. FROM THE SOCIAL WELFARE STATE TO THE NEOLIBERAL COMPETITION STATE1 The[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Resistance must be more than blockades and protest. (Photo: Eric Wüstenhagen/flickr/cc)

Free People From ‘Dictatorship’ Of The 0.01%

“The only way to counter globalisation—just a plot of land in some central place, keep it covered in grass, let there be a single tree, even a wild tree.” This is how dear friend and eminent writer Mahasweta Devi, who passed away on July 28, at the age of 90, quietly laid out her imagination for freedom in our times[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Globalisation
Kashmir: Siege Without End!

Kashmir: Siege Without End!

Last Sunday when I logged into the Facebook, it came up with my memory of the year 2010. It was an article titled “The Stubborn Delhi” which I had written for my column, Kashmir First, in Greater Kashmir. Somehow the software in the Facebook seemed to have very good intelligence as the article was very much relevant to the present[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
With Joking Russian TV The Best Source of Electronic News And Information Available –  Woe Is Us!  

With Joking Russian TV The Best Source of Electronic News And Information Available –  Woe Is Us!  

  In 1950, Einstein explained why our civilization continues to be “like an axe in the had of the pathological criminal,”: “Under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control the main sources of information (press, radio, education). Mysteriously, our best independent journalists, top intellectuals and historians, are of no help. Even on RT’s ten more serious shows there is no urging of[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 2 comments Imperialism
Divide And Rule: How Factionalism In Palestine Is Killing Prospect For Freedom 

Divide And Rule: How Factionalism In Palestine Is Killing Prospect For Freedom 

 As Palestinians in the Occupied Territories begin preparations for local elections which are scheduled for next October, division and factionalism are rearing their ugly head. Palestinian political platforms and social media are abuzz with self-defeating propaganda: Fatah supporters attacking Hamas’ alleged failures, and Hamas’ supporters doing the same. What is conveniently overlooked by all sides is that the performance of[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Palestine
The Horror Of Childhood Under Occupation

The Horror Of Childhood Under Occupation

Norma Hashim’s engagement with the issue of Palestinian prisoners has previously produced one book — The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag — which has been described by former hunger-striker Hana al-Shalabi as “A humane, beautiful, valuable but painful book.” Hashim’s Dreaming of Freedom is worthy of a similar description. In this collection children recount their experiences of solitary confinement, beatings, torture and humiliation[Read More…]

by 11/08/2016 1 comment Palestine
Ban Implementation of Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2016 in its Present Form

Ban Implementation of Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2016 in its Present Form

Adivasis Janajati Adhikar Manch (AJAM) in collaboration with Adivasi Adhikar Manch (AAM) and other local sangathans have observed “International Day of World Indigenous Peoples” today on 9th August 2016 in various states across India. In Odisha, the day is being observed with gatherings of more than 700 adivasis with traditional music and dance at Umerkote Block head quarters, Nabarangpur District[Read More…]

Zionist-Subverted Oberlin College Trashes Academic Free Speech And Suspends Professor Joy Karega

Zionist-Subverted Oberlin College Trashes Academic Free Speech And Suspends Professor Joy Karega

  Oberlin College, one of the first US colleges to have admitted Blacks, Women, Jews and Catholics, has given in to pressure from the genocidally racist  Zionist Lobby and suspended female African-American academic Dr Joy Karega, assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition, who has been falsely defamed as an  anti-Semite and vilified for opposing corporate control of government, Israeli Gaza[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 3 comments Human Rights
The Bristol Pound i

The ‘Rooted’ People

With the climate emergency now breaking upon the world, some may wonder whether human society is going to be capable of an effective response. It seems that our current toolkit is threefold. First there is the political dimension. The Green party is making substantial progress and other parties are lining up their own positions in regard to climate change. Second are the organisations, like the[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Planetary Boundaries—Governing Emerging Risks And Opportunities

Planetary Boundaries—Governing Emerging Risks And Opportunities

The notion of planetary boundaries can be seen as a way to frame governance reform. This discussion introduces key elements of governance in a world with boundaries: deep reform of international governance, such as the United Nations system and trade treaties; emerging ecological concepts and principles in international law; the role of economics for the biosphere; and, the need to integrate different kinds of knowledge—from the local to the global.

by 10/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Photo by cgride555

Feminism And The Politics Of The Commons

Reproduction precedes social production. Touch the women, touch the rock. 1 – Peter Linebaugh At least since the Zapatistas took over the zócalo in San Cristobal de las Casas on December 31, 1993, to protest legislation dissolving the ejidal lands of Mexico, the concept of “the commons” has been gaining popularity.2 There are important reasons why this apparently archaic idea has[Read More…]

Refugee Trauma On Nauru: The Leaked Incident Reports

Refugee Trauma On Nauru: The Leaked Incident Reports

“Do I have to kill myself to go to Australia?” Asylum seeker, Nauru, March 2, 2015 Human sensibility has been given another sound beating with the leak of 2,116 incident reports from Australia’s remorseless detention camp on Nauru.  The reports total some 8,000 pages covering the period of May 2013 to October 2015 and were published by the Guardian on[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
Humans Are Poisoning The Ocean—And It’s Poisoning Us Back

Humans Are Poisoning The Ocean—And It’s Poisoning Us Back

It’s no secret that we have trashed, poisoned, and warmed oceans at an unprecedented ratevia human-caused climate change and pollution. It seems that oceans may be paying us back in kind, according to a new study that found levels of bacteria responsible for life-threatening illnesses spiking in the North Atlantic region. The study published Monday in the Proceedings of the[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Erdogan Resets Relations With Russia

Erdogan Resets Relations With Russia

 On Tuesday, August 9, 2016, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in St. Petersburg to hold talks with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was Erdogan’s first foreign visit since the July 15 abortive coup against his elected government. St. Petersburg is Putin’s hometown. Addressing a joint press conference after the talk, Putin said: “I believe that we have all the necessary prerequisites[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Obstacle To Peace: The US Role In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Obstacle To Peace: The US Role In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

It is obvious to most in the world that the U.S. and Israel are symbiotically linked to each other – each using the other for their own purposes, some of which are common, others that are not. In Obstacle to Peace Jeremy Hammond dissects current events and the relationships between the two countries demonstrating that the biggest obstacle to peace[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Mordechai Vanunu: Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower And Hostage 

Mordechai Vanunu: Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower And Hostage 

  A hostage is understood to be a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands; or one that is involuntarily controlled by an outside influence.   Mordechai Vanunu Israel’s Nuclear Whistleblower claimed the title  “The Last Hostage” at his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Channels with this iconic response to Israel’s July 4 indictment against him: On 4 July 2016, Vanunu[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 5 comments World
Existential Threats And Our Belief Systems

Existential Threats And Our Belief Systems

This new Homo sapiens contradictory planetary reality leaves not just the western world, but the whole world in search for answers. We need to find the reason we are heading so rapidly toward dangerous shoals. How could we, the most clever and brilliant primate ever, be bringing on our own demise? Where did we all go so wrong? Could it[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
A Nonviolent Strategy To End War

A Nonviolent Strategy To End War

There is a long history of anti-war and peace activism. Much of this activism has focused on ending a particular war. Some of this activism has been directed at ending a particular aspect of war, such as the use of a type of weapon. Some of it has aimed to prevent a type of war, such as ‘aggressive war’ or[Read More…]

by 10/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Photo by Seabamirum

 First Thoughts For A Phenomenology Of The Commons

The commons are not concessions. They are resources that belong to the people as a matter of life necessity. Everybody has a right of an equal share of the commons and must be empowered by law to claim equal and direct access to it. Everybody has equal responsibility to the commons and shares a direct responsibility to transfer its wealth[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Washington Escalates Covert Backing For Al Qaeda Militias In Aleppo

Washington Escalates Covert Backing For Al Qaeda Militias In Aleppo

US-backed militias fighting against the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad have broken through the Russian and Syrian government encirclement of their positions inside the war-ravaged northern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to Western media. During fierce battles over the weekend, the US-backed, Islamist-led militia coalition known as Jaysh al Fateh overran military bases in southwest Aleppo and secured an[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 2 comments Imperialism
The Election From Hell

The Election From Hell

As the world careens toward “an environment never experienced before,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the two parties to the American spectacle continues to insist that climate change is a hoax. Meanwhile, the other party, the one theoretically promoting much-needed responses to climate change, wasn’t even willing to highlight the subject in prime time on any of the last three days of its convention. In other words, the deepest, most unnerving realities of our world are, in essence, missing in action in election 2016. You want to be afraid? Be afraid of that!

by 09/08/2016 3 comments World
Why Urban Rich Kids, Not Poor Taliban Terrorise Bangladesh?

Why Urban Rich Kids, Not Poor Taliban Terrorise Bangladesh?

Locals and foreigners in Dhaka formally grieved for the victims of the Gulshan Attack one month after the incident. The local and international reaction to the July 1 terror attack at Gulshan has been far more intensive than the collective reaction to all the previous terror attacks in Bangladesh since 1999; there had never been any such mass grieving for[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 1 comment South Asia
Cow Protectors: Fake And Real

Cow Protectors: Fake And Real

The Prime Minister came out with statements condemning the act of Cow vigilante groups. By stating that most of self styled cow protectors are anti-social elements, he tried to create a dichotomy that there are fake and real protectors. Fake protectors are into anti social activities, resort to violence, and ignore important issues such as cow deaths due to consumption[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 3 comments India
Pages From History : The Quit India Movement A Critical Appraisal

Pages From History : The Quit India Movement A Critical Appraisal

(EXTRACT from  People’s Democratic Revolution in India – An Explanation of the Programme—By DV Rao,1971 The Third National Struggle (1930-1934) It was the period when the world capitalist system was caught in the grip of a crisis, and fascism raised its ugly head. The German, Japan and Italian imperialisms had established a fascist system to suppress revolutions in their country[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 2 comments India
An Open Letter To Mehbooba Mufti

An Open Letter To Mehbooba Mufti

I am very much shocked to see how you made U turn in your statements. When 2008, 2010 unrest was on peak, you came out on streets, ragged, screamed even locked the secretariat, roared with your party members that people are being brutally supressed and then killed.

by 09/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
An Updated Version Of The “Peak Oil” Story

An Updated Version Of The “Peak Oil” Story

The Peak Oil story got some things right. Back in 1998, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère wrote an article published in Scientific American called, “The End of Cheap Oil.” In it they said: Our analysis of the discovery and production of oil fields around the world suggests that within the next decade, the supply of conventional oil will be unable to keep[Read More…]

by 09/08/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Modi Says “Shoot”! But Whom?

Modi Says “Shoot”! But Whom?

Narendra Modi’s high octane poll campaign was littered with the promise of Development, with a capital D. Big business, in India and abroad, had bought his promise too. And now, after a little more than 2 years old premiership, the developments under his watch have rattled most of them. The ‘developments’ were not the “development” they were looking for. Further,[Read More…]

by 08/08/2016 3 comments India
Photo by my little red suitcase

The Structural Communality Of The Commons

The commons are as varied as life itself, and yet everyone involved with them shares common convictions. If we wish to understand these convictions, we must realize what commons mean in a practical sense, what their function is and always has been. That in turn includes that we concern ourselves with people. After all, commons or common goods are precisely[Read More…]

by 08/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Detained For Terror: Proposed Indefinite Detention Laws In Australia

Detained For Terror: Proposed Indefinite Detention Laws In Australia

The Turnbull government has come down rather heavily in its response to a spate of attacks in France and Germany, deciding that it is time that something be done in the face of this supposed global madness. The prime minister Malcolm Turnbull decided to press the issue in a letter to state leaders urging for the creation of a national regime to indefinitely detain terrorists even after the point of serving their sentence.

by 08/08/2016 1 comment World
Koodankulam: Transfer Of A Failed And Unsafe Reactor Through Video Conference Between Kremlin And Delhi

Koodankulam: Transfer Of A Failed And Unsafe Reactor Through Video Conference Between Kremlin And Delhi

On 5th August 2016, the Russian News Agency TASS reported from Moscow that on 10 August 2016, “the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part via videoconference in the ceremony dedicated to handover of the first power unit of Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KKNPP-1) to the Indian side” and during the conference the “leaders of both nations will hail the fact of plant’s first unit”

by 08/08/2016 1 comment India
Mohammed El Halabi, World Vision's Area Development Programme Manager in Gaza, meets with children displaced by the violence during the brief ceasefire. Photo by Mohammad Awed

Israel and The World Vision Crime Sham

 The crackpot Israeli Hasbara* Circus featuring the four clowns of the truth apocalypse, Shin Bet, the Israel government, Shurat HaDin and the mainstream media fools, has, yet again, hit the world stage with the usual lame show of fact contortions, tight rope slander  and smoke and mirrors fantasies. Taking a leaf from the Bush-Blair weapons of mass destruction hoax, Israel[Read More…]

by 08/08/2016 1 comment Palestine
Detroit gas station, 2011

Obscured American: Hank The Small Business Financial Advisor

  I had spent four days in Ann Arbor, Dexter and Chelsea. This stay allowed me to experience a whiter and more Norman Rockwell Michigan. On two previous trips, I was confined to mostly black and car wrecked Detroit. Flying out from Detroit Airport, I bought two National coneys and, boy, were they sad. Hotdogs, chili, onion, mustard and buns[Read More…]

by 08/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Questioning The Urban, Mainstream Perception Of Kashmir

Questioning The Urban, Mainstream Perception Of Kashmir

The Kashmir unrest refuses to show any signs of decline. Innocent Kashmiris are getting caught unawares to the incessant sprinkling of pellets toward them. The hyper patriot news channels look all but certain to mobilize people to attack the numero uno rogue State of South Asia. And in response, the equally genuflecting audience for this baying-for-the-others-blood journalism is gearing up[Read More…]

by 08/08/2016 1 comment Kashmir
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015 file photo, relatives and comrades pray as they surround the Hezbollah flag-draped coffins of Shiite fighters who were killed in Syria, during a rally to mark the 13th day of the Shiite mourning period of Muharram, in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon. At tightly guarded facilities in south Lebanon, men as young as 17 undergo intensive training on how to use automatic rifles and heavy machine guns before being shipped off to Syria to fight alongside President Bashar Assad's forces. The training is part of a massive Hezbollah recruitment effort to make up for its human losses in Syria's war, now approaching the death toll incurred by the group during 18 years of fighting Israeli occupation.(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

Team Clinton Focuses On The Demise Of Hezbollah

  Tel Hara, on the Golan Plain, Syria: The likely next American President, Hilary Clinton is fielding an array of foreign policy advisers, a few being sort of table scraps from the Bush administration and others having resigned from Obama’s. They are today preparing white papers on all manner of “adjustments” to what the presumed 45th American President reportedly believes was a[Read More…]

by 07/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Hiroshima – Nagasaki And U.S. Mythology

Hiroshima – Nagasaki And U.S. Mythology

The U.S. public has been kept in the dark or misled about foreign policy for much of our history. For example, as we commemorate the 71st anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let’s re-examine the myth of necessity of those barbaric acts. The myth that just won’t die and is believed by most Americans is[Read More…]

by 07/08/2016 2 comments World
Institutions And Trust In Commons: Dealing With Social Dilemmas

Institutions And Trust In Commons: Dealing With Social Dilemmas

From a game-theoretic point of view, commons represent both a chance and a problem. Game-theory is a mathematical tool that allows us to analyze decision-making in situations with social interdependencies such as sports, where a team has to decide either to play defensively or offensively in a match against another team, or economic situations, where companies have to decide whether[Read More…]

by 07/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
The Key Haven trial would run for between six and 22 months and the company said it could release anywhere from 20 to 100 GMO mosquitoes per person on the island. (Photo: stevenw12339/cc/flickr)

Amid Zika Scare, FDA Clears Way For GMO Mosquito Trial In Florida

In a move that public health advocates are calling “irresponsible and frightening,” the U.S. Food and Drug Association on Friday cleared the experimental release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Key Haven, Florida. Pivoting off of the recent news that there is an outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus that has infected over a dozen people in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, the[Read More…]

Narmada Water Rising In Feet And Meters

Narmada Water Rising In Feet And Meters

Narmada water is rising in feet and meters as the gates of the upstream dams are opened up, thousands of cusecs of water are reaching the most downstream of the dams, Sardar Sarovar, filling the reservoir, partly formed. At Rajghat, when Satyagrahis are sitting in batches, teams from 4 villages from 4 tehsils every day, water level is rising. Samarpit[Read More…]

 Is Globalization Responsible For ANC Decline In South Africa Local Elections

 Is Globalization Responsible For ANC Decline In South Africa Local Elections

African National Congress (ANC) the symbol of South African apartheid movement and widely recognized as the face of African people is all set to lose its control in the South African political landscape. The local municipal elections results have shown that its voting share has declined to 53.83% and the total seats obtained stand at 5,020 (last announcement). This is[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 3 comments World
Battered Women Syndrome: Applying This Legal Doctrine In The Indian Context

Battered Women Syndrome: Applying This Legal Doctrine In The Indian Context

Over the last decade, a shift in approach towards domestic violence has taken place and several legal reforms have been directed to assist the survivors. The Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act is one of such law that has been enacted in the year 2005 to provide civil remedies to the survivors besides criminalizing domestic violence. While these legal[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment Patriarchy
Photo by poptech

Resilience Thinking

Resilience: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks. The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, published by the UK government in 2010, was a bold and powerful statement of intent for a low-carbon economy in the UK (HMG 2009). It stated that by[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Farm Hack: A Commons For Agricultural Innovation

Farm Hack: A Commons For Agricultural Innovation

In 2011, a community of farmers, designers, developers, engineers, architects, roboticists and open source thinkers came together in Boston, Massachusetts, to explore a simple yet radical idea – that great improvements in agriculture could be achieved by reducing barriers to knowledge exchange. They were convinced that transforming agricultural technology into a commons would result in a more adaptive, open and[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Clean Energy Revolution In Philadelphia: A Photo Essay

Clean Energy Revolution In Philadelphia: A Photo Essay

On Sunday, July 24, a day before the opening of the Democratic National Convention amid turmoil in Philadelphia, the U.S. climate justice movement seized the moment to convene and march in large numbers for a clean energy revolution. Despite sweltering temperatures exceeding 95 degrees (an uncomfortable irony lost on no one), as many as 10,000 people or more demanded a[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment Alternative Energy
The Olympic Gold Obsession: An Australian Condition

The Olympic Gold Obsession: An Australian Condition

Obsessions of any sort, notably of a consuming nature, are never healthy matters.  The drive to win gold, laced with a desperation often reflected in steroid consumption and psychological battering, has made the Olympic Games the least of savoury spectacles. Even worse than the physical reduction of the athlete to mechanism and medal winning machine is the complicity towards it[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment World
The Biggest Elephant In Our Rooms Stands 5’2” Tall, And Her Name Is Chelsea

The Biggest Elephant In Our Rooms Stands 5’2” Tall, And Her Name Is Chelsea

Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein visited Topeka, Kansas on July 2, and I was there. Listening to her make her case that afternoon was like a breath of fresh air this election season. Dr. Stein touched on almost all of the policy issues, both domestic and foreign, that all of us 20-odd people present in that Ramada Inn room cared[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 3 comments Human Rights
After witnessing a catastrophic oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 1971, John Francis got out of his car, took a vow of silence, and walked for the next 22 years. /Photo by Gabriela Urda.

My Walking Pilgrimage

I clearly remember learning to walk. I remember falling and the frustration of trying to stand on my feet unsupported, without the help of parents. Finally, there was the euphoria of one day rising by myself. Like a young bird flying, my hands flapped, and my feet lifted to make the first wobbly steps to the other side of the[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
‘Swachch Bharat Without ‘Untouchability And Caste Discrimination’

‘Swachch Bharat Without ‘Untouchability And Caste Discrimination’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is ‘honoring’ a safai karmchari from Hyderabad Municipal Corporation for his ‘commitment’ to the duty. NDTV’s Uma Sudhir reported that the said ‘civic worker’ always come before time and has not taken leave for a single day even during emergencies. He is the leader of his team of safai karmcharis and work day and night to[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 2 comments Annihilate Caste
Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics And The Partition Of India

Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics And The Partition Of India

Joya Chatterjee’s path breaking work, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, shows how decisive was the minority Bengali Hindu community’s role in the secondary partition of Bengal in 1947, so is Neeti Nair’s Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2011) another seminal study of the minority Punjabi Hindu community’s important role in the partition of the Punjab between India and Pakistan

by 06/08/2016 2 comments Book Review, South Asia
Why the Modern Nuclear Project Will Persist: At Least Until We Focus Action On Why It Is Persisting

Why the Modern Nuclear Project Will Persist: At Least Until We Focus Action On Why It Is Persisting

In Hiroshima, Japan, seventy-one years ago exactly from the midnight hour that I’m writing this, most people were asleep except for the night owls and diligent lovers.  I’d guess that most especially the middle school students would uniformly be deep in the throes of the land of Nod, since on the morrow—August 6, a school day—they’d all be up bright[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 7 comments Imperialism, World
Hiroshima And Nuclear Power: The Truth Of The Matter

Hiroshima And Nuclear Power: The Truth Of The Matter

On my grandfather’s sixtieth birthday on July 16th, 1945, the atomic bomb was tested in USA’s Nevada desert, and the world lost its nuclear innocence. Twenty-one days later, on August 6th, the experiment was live-tested on Japanese people when USA dropped a 15-kiloton Uranium-235 fission bomb on Hiroshima. The same day, the experiment was hailed in The New York Times[Read More…]

by 06/08/2016 3 comments Imperialism, World
Rio Olympics Overshadowed By Social Crisis

Rio Olympics Overshadowed By Social Crisis

 The 2016 summer Olympic games will open today, Friday August 5, in Rio de Janeiro at 8:00pm (local time), when the Olympic flame will be lit in Rio de Janeiro’s prestigious Maracanã Stadium. Some 11,500 athletes representing 28 sports and 207 nations, are expected to participate; 306 events have been scheduled. The Rio event is the 29th since the Olympics[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment World
 Is Democracy Consistent With Islam?

 Is Democracy Consistent With Islam?

Some people are under the impression that democracy and Islam are incompatible. But I don’t see any contradiction between democracy and Islam, as such. Though, I admit, that there is some friction between Islam and liberalism. When we say that there is a contradiction between Islam and democracy, we make a category mistake which is a serious logical fallacy. There[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
History And Nation Making

History And Nation Making

In a seminal lecture delivered sometimes in 1970 at the Syracuse University, Amilcar Cabral stressed the importance of History in the making of a nation. Cabral’s concern was the need to reclaim the past and the traditions of the African people, ravaged by Western European colonialism as an integral part of decolonization. Cabral’s project was in the same lines as[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment Book Review
Abdul Nasar Maudany: Fifteen And Half Years In Prison As An `Under Trial’

Abdul Nasar Maudany: Fifteen And Half Years In Prison As An `Under Trial’

The human rights violations on Abdul Nasar Maudany still remain as a deep question on the functioning of Indian democracy. He was arrested on August 17, 2010, adding him as the 31st person `accused’ to be involved in the Bangalore blast case of 2008. Maudany’s name was not there in the first list of the accused persons. However, it was[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
CAMPA Has Greed Written All Over It

CAMPA Has Greed Written All Over It

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, also known as the CAMPA bill, which was passed last week by the RajyaSabha (Upper House) of the Indian Parliament will not just lead to more cutting offorests, but also compromise forest and indigenous communities rights. That the fund has accumulated a whopping Rs 42,000 crores during the last decade is worrying enough considering the[Read More…]

Mann ki Baat 2: A Speech By Narendra Modi

Mann ki Baat 2: A Speech By Narendra Modi

My Dear Indians, in my last speech I had shared my dream of a Saffron India and a Corporate India. Let me continue on this further and emphasise that these remain my primary goals and I would never compromise on these. During 2014 elections, I had said that I would replicate Gujarat model. I only meant that this would be[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 2 comments India
Armed Struggle Is Not Terrorism

Armed Struggle Is Not Terrorism

The more I read or listen to the debates & discourses on Indian media, both print & electronic, the more I am bemused at the ignorance or deliberate attempt to ignore the fundamental question of Kashmir dispute. That question is simply a political one created by an international promise of right of self determination to people of J&K upon partition[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 2 comments Kashmir
Fires Of Illusion: Guarding The Olympic Flame In Rio

Fires Of Illusion: Guarding The Olympic Flame In Rio

“The investment is not for us, it’s for the foreigners.” Felipe Paiva, Rio favela resident, CBC, Aug 3, 2016 The hideous mess that is the Olympic spectacle is about to be charged at the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. Its lead-up has been tumultuous, suggesting that any ideal of peaceful reflection by states, participants, and observers about the broader[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment World
Photo Credit:https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/1/005/0aa/2dc/0f8efd6.jpg

We Are Not Born As Egoists

A woman is writing a letter, and her pen drops to the floor. She leans across the desk and tries to pick it up, but she can’t reach it. A small boy realizes that he can help her. He walks over to the pen, picks it up and hands it to the woman. This is an experiment with twenty-month-old children.[Read More…]

CIC’s Autonomous Projects Of Collective Initiative #5: Calafou

CIC’s Autonomous Projects Of Collective Initiative #5: Calafou

One of the most interesting autonomous projects associated with the Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC) is Calafou, the self-proclaimed “post-capitalist colony” which settled in 2011 in the ruins of an abandoned industrial village in the Catalan county of l’Anoia, about 65km away from Barcelona. The colony was set up with the participation of several CIC members with the aim of becoming[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
 UK  Parliament Endorses Terracidal Nuclear Terrorism  

 UK  Parliament Endorses Terracidal Nuclear Terrorism  

  The UK Parliament recently overwhelmingly supported renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system, with a psychopathic  new UK PM Theresa May declaring her preparedness to kill vast numbers of people with nuclear weapons. Total nuclear disarmament can and should happen. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, decent people around the world must[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Still The Political Project Calls To Us

Still The Political Project Calls To Us

  “But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.”—Friedrich Nietzsche, The New Idol,Thus Spoke Zarathustra “Many people, it is true, never contemplate the possibility of total power; the very thought of it scares them.”—Simone Weil, On the Abolition of All Political Parties Not long[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
U.S. Gov’t. Refused U.S. Entry To Jihadist It Employs For Overthrowing Assad

U.S. Gov’t. Refused U.S. Entry To Jihadist It Employs For Overthrowing Assad

  A four-minute video that was posted to youtube on April 29th documents that the U.S. government has been lying about an organization, the White Helmets, the U.S. government hires to assist Syria’s Al Qaeda, called “Al Nusra,” to dispose of corpses of persons Al Nusra executes. Nusra kills Syrian government soldiers; and, according to Seymour Hersh and other investigative journalists, has, throughout the Syrian war,[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Land To The Tiller: Revisiting The Unfinished Land Reforms Agenda

Land To The Tiller: Revisiting The Unfinished Land Reforms Agenda

ActionAid India has recently come up with a report on the issues of Land Rights in India. Land, forest and water being three major issues for the larger part of the world, the report is an important document to be read and discussed at multiple levels. Titled as “Land to the Tiller: Revisiting the Unfinished Land Reforms Agenda”, was an outcome of the research on land reforms and the recommendations for implementation of the land reforms in 11 states (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh).

by 05/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
New York Times Calls Modi’s Silence “Shameful”

New York Times Calls Modi’s Silence “Shameful”

  One doesn’t often see a respected international media house asking a democratic republic’s prime minister to break his silence in an editorial. Even more rare is it to see this “silence” tagged with the adjective “shameful”. The New York Times did exactly that today, 4 August 2016. The editorial forewarns Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, of the bleak[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 6 comments India
The Decay Of American Politics

The Decay Of American Politics

My earliest recollection of national politics dates back exactly 60 years to the moment, in the summer of 1956, when I watched the political conventions in the company of that wondrous new addition to our family, television.  My parents were supporting President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a second term and that was good enough for me.  Even as a youngster,[Read More…]

by 05/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Photo Credit: international.fisheries.org

Efficiency And The Commons

Efficiency is the spiritual practice of the religion of scientific management. Under its spell, we have not only privatized once abundant shared natural resources, but we have also privatized our intellectual and cultural commons Chris Corrigan questions the mantra of market efficiency, offsetting it against commoning: This morning, I’m reading this article. It’s a review of two books charting the[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning: “I Became Very, Very Sad” During Torture

Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning: “I Became Very, Very Sad” During Torture

A 2015 interview with Amnesty International, published Tuesday in theGuardian, sheds light on the conditions faced by US Army whistleblower, political prisoner, and torture victim Chelsea Manning, who attempted suicide on July 5 and now faces a vindictive campaign of retaliation by the military. Chelsea Manning (born Bradley Manning), formerly a US Army specialist stationed in Iraq, is a whistleblower[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
An Open Letter To PM Modi From A Sikh Of Kashmir

An Open Letter To PM Modi From A Sikh Of Kashmir

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I write to you today because like so many of my fellow Sikhs from Kashmir, I am both rejected and dejected. No one can deny the stark truth that the Sikhs in Kashmir – a prominent community that remained very much upright at every peril in the past is passing through trying times. Sikhs in Kashmir[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Kashmir
Meaningless Words: Terrorism, Mental Health And The London Knife Attack

Meaningless Words: Terrorism, Mental Health And The London Knife Attack

“And this is what disturbs me: the fact that people today, despite living with more safety and wealth and access to information than anyone in human history, feel as though the world is going crazy and something drastic must be changed.” Mark Manson, Jul 28, 2016 How quick one judges.  The warning about taking the draught of knowledge deeply, as[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 1 comment World
Courtesy: UNICEF

It’s Breast Feeding Week 2016

We were sitting in Bonefish Grill in Omaha, Nebraska,  eating my favourite Bang Bang Shrimp.  The whole restaurant was packed to capacity, with a big crowd still waiting to be seated. Our food had arrived and suddenly the baby began to cry. It was her feed time. In seconds my  friend, swiftly covered herself with her feeding sling and very[Read More…]

Image By  Charlotte 'Lottie' Dingle 
http://www.seeingwetiko.com/charlotte-lottie-dingle

Seeing Wetiko

One of the most important languages for expressing the values of the commons, I have come to realize, is art. It can often express visceral knowledge more effectively than words and give those insights a more powerful cultural reality. Those were my thoughts when I saw “Seeing Wetiko,” an “online gallery” of artworks, music and videos just released by the global arts[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
The Narmada River Valley Disaster: Open Letter To Chief Justice Of India

The Narmada River Valley Disaster: Open Letter To Chief Justice Of India

I have again very recently (29, 30 & 31 July 2016) travelled in the Narmada Valley to meet PAFs in the submergence villages after the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) dam has been raised to its finished height of 138.68-m, with installation of the sluice gates. The on-going monsoon has already raised the water level upstream of the SSP dam and when it rises further as it surely will, it will submerge many villages and habitations, drowning 45,000 PAFs (2,25,000 people). The situation for these PAFs is therefore grim and very serious.

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Kashmir’s Women Rulers

Kashmir’s Women Rulers

Right from the earliest times Kashmir has had some women rulers. There are three womenwho have made an imprint on Kashmir’s history Pandit Kalhana in Rajatarangini, his treatise on the Kashmiri Kings from the ancient times,which was written in twelfth century AD mentions about some of the women rulers of Kashmir. The most famous ruler has been Rani Didda who[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Kashmir
 Uniform Civil Code: Why And How?

 Uniform Civil Code: Why And How?

What is called as Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is as such dealing with the personal laws (marriage, divorce, maintenance, custody and inheritance). Our criminal and civil laws are same for all the religious communities but our personal laws have been related and linked to religion. So there are separate laws for Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Ironically Jain, Buddhists and Sikhs[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Communal Harmony
 Stop Criminalising Communities

 Stop Criminalising Communities

The term ‘criminal tribe’ was introduced by the British in the legal system. It was definitely a racial profiling or clubbing of communities. It is not strange therefore most of the ‘criminal tribes’ were either Dalits, OBCs or aadivasis. Based on crime committed by one or two individuals, an entire community was placed as criminal tribe by the law which[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Kabali: From Caste To Consciousness

Kabali: From Caste To Consciousness

Last month, before Kabali released some of the Dalits in Tamil Nadu posted a merged picture on face book, which had Dr. Ambedkar, in his usual pride and impressive posture, on the one side and actor Rajnikanth on the other side. I responded to them, “Do not compare Rajinikanth with Ambedkar”. They replied “Rajini seems to be imitating and emulating[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 1 comment Arts/Literature
 America’s Oligarchs Support Clinton Almost Unanimously

 America’s Oligarchs Support Clinton Almost Unanimously

The results are already in, even before the official campaign-finance final figures will become available after the election. Though a large percentage of the people funding the campaign advertising will never be made public — due to recent Supreme Court decisions allowing “dark money” — data already exist on the final product of the campaigns (including both the above-board and[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Patriotic Muslim Dad Hails Dead Son’s Participation In US Crime Against Humanity In Iraq    

Patriotic Muslim Dad Hails Dead Son’s Participation In US Crime Against Humanity In Iraq    

Sen. Clinton voted for an obvious International Crime Against Humanity in Iraq. Prez Candidate Clinton features at her nominating convention a Muslin father, whose son died participating in US crime against Muslim people ranting about what a bad guy her opponent Donald Trump is, though Trump had spoken out against the illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq. Trump also faulted[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
 The Climate Activist Mistake And What Is Needed Now

 The Climate Activist Mistake And What Is Needed Now

John Michael Greer has written a provocative essay: Climate Change Activism: a Postmortem. His list of activist mistakes should be interesting to many of you but Greer makes the same tactical error as the activists he derides in his ‘postmortem’. Greer is still concerned about winning political and economic battles instead of getting to necessary emergency government as quickly as[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 7 comments Climate Change
The Revolution We Are Waiting For

The Revolution We Are Waiting For

But don’t talk about revolution That’s going a bit too far —Phil Ochs Everyone is buoyed by the recent Dalit uprising in Gujarat, as we should be. Much as the struggle of the Hyderabad university students taught us to fight against all odds despite the grief that we carry in our hearts, the recent incident of Dalits in Gujarat refusing[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
It Is Not “Ridiculous” To Reject Hillary; It Is Not Undemocratic To Disrupt The DNC

It Is Not “Ridiculous” To Reject Hillary; It Is Not Undemocratic To Disrupt The DNC

In a post on Aotearoa’s The Daily Blog, a supposedly “leftist” blogger, Chris Trotter, took “Bernie’s die-hard supporters” to task for being “ridiculous”. He was endorsing Sarah Silverman’s words, but after some inconsequential waffle, he took it a bit further: “That makes the ‘Bernie or Bust’ crowd something much more than ridiculous, Sarah, it makes them dangerous.” Trotter is not[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Photo Credit: bio.miami.edu

The Economy Of Wastefulness: The Biology Of The Commons

There is an all-enclosing commons-economy which has been successful for billions of years: the biosphere. Its ecology is the terrestrial household of energy, matter, beings, relationships and meanings which contains any manmade economy and only allows for it to exist. Sunlight, oxygen, drinking water, climate, soil and energy – the products and processes of this household – also nourish the[Read More…]

by 04/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Photo by Nathan  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nathan_Hamblen

My Rocky Road To The Commons

“The Pyrenees, they are not all that high up – their outlines are gently curved, sharp ridges few and far between, and all the peaks are rounded. It seems like music frozen in place in this high country” (Kurt Tucholsky, celebrated German journalist and author, 1927). We are standing on the Col de Peyreget, where a small sign says we[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
More Airstrikes In New US War In Libya

More Airstrikes In New US War In Libya

US airstrikes on the Libyan coast city of Sirte, which began on Monday, continued yesterday as part of what American officials have made clear will be an ongoing military campaign. While nominally directed against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias, the fresh eruption of American militarism is more broadly aimed at ensuring US dominance in the region. Pentagon[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 1 comment World
Monsanto In India: Meet The New Boss – Same As The Old Boss?

Monsanto In India: Meet The New Boss – Same As The Old Boss?

In capitalism, the state’s primary role is to secure the interests of private capital. The institutions of globalised capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO right down to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private wealth accumulation that results in the forms of structural inequalities and violence (unemployment, poverty, population displacement,[Read More…]

 Protest In Toronto For Abdul Wahid Baloch

 Protest In Toronto For Abdul Wahid Baloch

The   atrocities of Pakistan in the  Balochistan are well known at the global level. To save its skin it has shifted the blame n the neighboring   country like India. Its coercive methods have adversely impacted the local Baloch leaders and the common fellows along with the human right activists and all those who protest against such atrocities. The recent incident[Read More…]

Hiroshima Day – ” A Call For Sustaining  Life On Earth “

Hiroshima Day – ” A Call For Sustaining  Life On Earth “

Life on earth can be  sustained by closing down all nuclear power plants and dismantling  all nuclear war heads. The nuclear war heads present on earth are capable of destroying the planet earth 15 to 20 times. This madness of destroying the earth 15 to 20 times is really cynical. Once nuclear war heads destroy the earth, all life will[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 1 comment World
My Response To Bill Clinton: On (My) Liberty And (Your) America

My Response To Bill Clinton: On (My) Liberty And (Your) America

  Donald Trump wants to keep us out of the country altogether.  But Bill Clinton, former president and husband of a Democratic presidential nominee, does not mind us staying, as long as we, Muslims, behave ourselves. Welcome to America where racial profiling is the country’s most popular idea, and where citizenship is now conditioned on blind obedience. This is what[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 1 comment World
Climate Change Is Here And Now, Dire NOAA Report Warns

Climate Change Is Here And Now, Dire NOAA Report Warns

Environmental records of all kinds are being shattered as climate change takes effect in real time, scientists warned on Tuesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released its annual State of the Climate report with the dire warning that 2015 was the hottest year on record since at least the mid-to-late 19th century, confirming the “toppling of several symbolic[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 1 comment Climate Change
The Washington Vaccination Ploy: Puerto Rico And The Zika Quandary

The Washington Vaccination Ploy: Puerto Rico And The Zika Quandary

Should you fear receiving the needle from a stranger?  Yes.  Should you fear receiving it from a person you know all too well as a historical abuser?  Even more so.  Empires do it, states do it, and even local agencies do it.  Let’s all, as it were, vaccinate for all in this perverted paraphrasing of the Cole Porter song, the[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
Turkey Says Obama Lies — U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup

Turkey Says Obama Lies — U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup

U.S. President Barack Obama has been resisting the demands of the Turkish government to extradite the person that Turkey alleges was behind the failed July 15th Turkish coup-attempt, and the Turks are now stepping up pressure against Washington by implying that Obama has been lying about Washington’s advance knowledge regarding the coup. The Turkish government is preparing a formal extradition[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 Comments are Disabled World
 Unity With Ideological Clarity Is The Only Way To Defeat Hegemonists

 Unity With Ideological Clarity Is The Only Way To Defeat Hegemonists

We know the violence against the Dalits, Muslims, aadivasis and Christians is on the rise and it need to be resisted fully. That law and order agencies are not doing their duties as prescribed to them under the constitution of India. Now we have the ‘Sawan ka mahina’ and thousands of ‘Kanwad yatris’ have occupied the national high way from[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Communal Harmony
 Israeli Racism Unmasks Netanyahu Goodwill Video

 Israeli Racism Unmasks Netanyahu Goodwill Video

Nazareth: Was it meant as an epic parody or an insult to his audience’s intelligence? It was hard to tell. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to apologise for last year’s notorious election-day comment, when he warned that “the Arabs are coming out to vote in droves” – a reference to the fifth of Israel’s population who[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Palestine
An Essay On Cow

An Essay On Cow

The lesson on Cow is a popular lesson among School children. If School Children were asked to recite an essay on Cow in present times, it would go like this: Cow is a sacred animal for some Hindus. Cow is our new national animal. This is not yet made official. But our Government led by Sri. Narendra Modi ji has made[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 5 comments India
A response To “Gate Of The Sun” By Elias Khoury

A response To “Gate Of The Sun” By Elias Khoury

On this hot Italian late afternoon, after over a week inside the literary work entitled Gate of the Sun, I am still wandering in the gossamer framework of the novel constructed by a great writer and storyteller, Elias Khoury, a 531-page “story” consisting of the stories, incidents, histories, lives and deaths narrated by the author’s canvas of countless characters. I[Read More…]

by 03/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 When AFRICOM Evaluates Itself, The News Is Grim

 When AFRICOM Evaluates Itself, The News Is Grim

It’s rare to hear one top military commander publicly badmouth another, call attention to his faults, or simply point out his shortcomings. Despite a seemingly endless supply of debacles from strategic setbacks to quagmire conflicts since 9/11, the top brass rarely criticize each other or, even in retirement, utter a word about the failings of their predecessors or successors.  Think[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
“You Can’t Handle The Truth!”

“You Can’t Handle The Truth!”

Movie buffs will recognize this title as the most memorable line from “A Few Good Men” (1992), spoken by the character Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson (“You can’t handle the truth!” is #29 in the American Film Institute’s list of 100 top movie quotes). I hereby propose it as the subtext of the recently concluded Republican and Democratic national[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Degrowth Meets Convivialism: Pathways To A Convivial Society

Degrowth Meets Convivialism: Pathways To A Convivial Society

The concept of convivialism has attracted some attention in recent years. When giving it a closer look – even superficially – it soon reveals its proximity to the degrowth concept and movement. But what exactly constitutes this proximity and where are the differences? Below I will give a short summary of what we can understand by degrowth in practical and theoretical terms. Then I will[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Save Yourselves, Women Of India, As The Republic Will Not

Save Yourselves, Women Of India, As The Republic Will Not

Delhi, the national capital of India, has witnessed another gory incident involving the rape-murder of a minor. This time, a 16-year-old was allegedly raped, strangled, and then set on fire in her own house in East Delhi. The police reportedly tried to pass off the crime as suicide, filing a case of rape and murder only after the autopsy proved[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 2 comments Patriarchy
Wave Of Panic Across Sardar Sarovar Affected Areas As Water Level Rises

Wave Of Panic Across Sardar Sarovar Affected Areas As Water Level Rises

Badwani: Every time it rains in the Nimad plains of Narmada basin, the terror of an impending doom stirs in the heart of every Narmada Jal – Jangal – Jameen satyagrahi sitting on an indefinite demonstration since the 29th of July of this year in Rajghat of district Badwani in Madhya Pradesh. It is the third consecutive year since the[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Russian Helicopter Shot Down In Syria As Battle Rages Over Aleppo

Russian Helicopter Shot Down In Syria As Battle Rages Over Aleppo

Five Russian servicemen were killed Monday when US-backed Islamist opposition militias shot down a helicopter in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province. The downing of the helicopter took place as fighting raged in Aleppo between US-backed opposition militias and Russian and Syrian government forces. The helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb, halfway between Aleppo and Khmeimim air base, where many Russian aircraft[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 2 comments World
Mickey and his mom share a hug. Photo credit: Mickey Z.

What My Mom Taught Me About LOVE

I wasn’t supposed to be born. After my mother gave birth to my sister, the doctors told her she’d never have another child. They couldn’t say exactly why (she was eventually diagnosed with endometriosis) but they were pretty damn certain… in that unique way doctors tend to be pretty damn certain. Wisely, my mother ignored such white coat condescension and[Read More…]

by 02/08/2016 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Rubbishing Pauline Hanson: The Campaign Continues

Rubbishing Pauline Hanson: The Campaign Continues

A virus of populism, as it has come to be called, has rattled established classes across the countries of Europe, the United States, and, to a lesser extent, Australia. The latter case remains striking for the return of the reactionary Pauline Hanson to office last month in the July 2 elections. Much of this was the subject of the documentary Pauline Hanson: Please Explain!, which aired on the SBS network on July 31.

by 02/08/2016 1 comment World
A Palestinian woman fills a jerrican with spring water on June 27, 2016 in Salfit, north of Ramallah, where some of the West Bank village's inhabitants have been without water for days. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have gone without water in recent weeks, victims of the latest dispute between Israeli and Palestinian officials over the region's most valuable resource. Photo by Nedal Eshtayah

Israel’s Hydro-Apartheid Keeps West Bank Thirsty

Water shortages are not new for Palestinians. Whether in the occupied Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the supply of water flowing into Palestinian homes is strictly capped or obstructed by Israel. As temperatures climb during the summer, taps run dry. Clemens Messerschmid, a German hydrologist who has worked with Palestinians on their water supply for two[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Palestine
Erdogan Accuses US Of Supporting Failed Coup In Turkey

Erdogan Accuses US Of Supporting Failed Coup In Turkey

Relations between Ankara and Washington are deteriorating rapidly following the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, which the Turkish government believes was supported by the Obama administration. In a series of stunning statements on Friday, delivered from the bombed-out ruins of a police base in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan directly accused the US government of backing the coup.

by 01/08/2016 2 comments World
John D. Liu On Regenerative Ecology And Naturalized Economies

John D. Liu On Regenerative Ecology And Naturalized Economies

 “If we say that money comes from ecological function instead from extraction, manufacturing buying and selling, then we have a system in which all human efforts go toward restoring, protecting and preserving ecological function. That is what we need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, to ensure food security, to ensure that human civilizations survive. Our monetary system must[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
Depletion: If A Jellyfish Stings You, You Know Why

Depletion: If A Jellyfish Stings You, You Know Why

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine showed me three bright red stripes she had on her arm. It was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a jellyfish while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, it has become a normal occurrence; it seems to be normal that, when you swim in the sea, you have to maintain[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
The Military-Industrial Complex Of Pakistan

The Military-Industrial Complex Of Pakistan

Before the signing of the Iran nuclear deal last year, BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban, alleged in a report [1] that Pakistan’s military has made a clandestine deal with Saudi Arabia that in the event of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Pakistan would provide ready-made nuclear warheads along with delivery systems to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it should be remembered that[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 4 comments South Asia
New Education Policy 2016: Same Pizza With A Few Saffron Toppings?

New Education Policy 2016: Same Pizza With A Few Saffron Toppings?

  Recently the contents of the New Education Policy 2016 draw the attention of many stakeholders including academicians in particular. A detailed look at the policy found to be very ordinary; it’s the same wine in new bottle, even it’s failed to address the RSS doctrine on education in totality. The drafting Committee consisted of three bureaucrats and ex NCERT[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 4 comments India
Nationalists or Notionalists: Nationalism And Hindu Right Wing In India

Nationalists or Notionalists: Nationalism And Hindu Right Wing In India

Nationalism by itself may not be a bad word depending on who defines it. Though it may not be the highest form of progressive political identity, it still has progressive, liberal and plural content to it. For the right wing in India, it remains a single nation. Nationalism for it has little to do with the values that emerged from[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Communal Harmony
 Review Of Movie “A Bitter Lime” – Disenchanted First World Couple Escape To Third World Guyana

 Review Of Movie “A Bitter Lime” – Disenchanted First World Couple Escape To Third World Guyana

“A Bitter Lime” is a variously funny to  Kafkaesque movie about a rich and young but disenchanted First World couple leaving Los Angeles for Georgetown in Third World  Guyana. A beautifully filmed and poetic movie, “A Bitter Lime” touches on escapism, existential angst, North-South, Man-Nature and love.  Directed by Australian Max De Bowen (Max Orter) , “A Bitter Lime” is[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 3 comments Arts/Literature
Olympic Chaos: The Rio Games In World Of Global Sporting Corruption

Olympic Chaos: The Rio Games In World Of Global Sporting Corruption

Wounds have opened; recriminations are all around. The Rio Olympic Games, even before the first act, has already shown how it will be one of the more interesting ones for all the wrong reasons. (Eventually, such wrong reasons tend to seem right.) A glaring feature of the latest ruckus lies in the administration (or maladministration) of international sport.  Disagreement, for[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment World
Protests In Ahwaz As 8 Hospital Patients  Die In 3 days

Protests In Ahwaz As 8 Hospital Patients  Die In 3 days

Dozens of Ahwazi Arab citizens gathered in front of the Sina Hospital in the regional capital Ahwaz to protest about the deaths of eight Arab patients there within a two-day period, with some dying of kidney failure and others from inflammation of the digestive tract due to medical negligence by hospital staff, according to Iranian state media.   Other patients with[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Human Rights
What Does The EU Stand For: Globalization or Universalism?

What Does The EU Stand For: Globalization or Universalism?

What is the purpose of the European Union? This question has been of the minds of everyone following the UK vote in favor of Brexit. Yet in the mad scramble to make sense of the United Kingdom’s rejection of the EU, little lucid commentary has been made. European leaders, the fawning media, and UK citizens alike portrayed the vote as[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Globalisation
 Summarizing ‘The Missing 28 Pages’: Who Was Behind 9/11?

 Summarizing ‘The Missing 28 Pages’: Who Was Behind 9/11?

The following summary consists of quotations from the suppressed 29 pages (previously miscalled ’28 pages’) themselves, so that the accuracy of this summary won’t be doubted. The entire document is here; and, of course, it provides much more information adding to the account that’s here merely summarized by these quotations from it. The document focuses mainly on FBI information regarding two[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment World
America’s Recent Achievements In The Middle East

America’s Recent Achievements In The Middle East

Here are before-and-after pictures, at https://twitter.com/MAL0mt/status/701077438525263873/photo/1, of what the U.S. government has achieved, in the Middle East: What’s especially interesting there, is that in all of these missions, except for Iraq, the U.S. was doing it with the key participation of the Saud family, the royals who own Saudi Arabia, and who are the world’s largest buyers of American weaponry. Since Barack Obama came[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Dalit Anger Boils Over In Gujarat

Dalit Anger Boils Over In Gujarat

The simmering anger of Dalits of Gujarat over the flogging of Dalit youths by Gau Rakshaks (cow protection squad) in Utna boiled over into a massive rally in Ahmedabad and they vowed not dispose of animal carcasses, clean sewer lines, two dirty jobs which the dalits do as a centuries old practice since the upper caste people refuse to do[Read More…]

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