The India-Pakistan relations remain tensed after India’s surgical strikes across the Line of Control Wednesday night. India admitted that one of its soldiers is in Pakistan’s custody. The army says that 22-year-old soldier Chandu Babulal Chauhan strayed into Pakistani territory “inadvertently” on Thursday and was captured. According to the army Chauhan, a soldier of the Rashtriya Rifles, did not take[Read More…]
The “common heritage of mankind” is an ethical concept and a general concept of international law. It establishes that some localities belong to all humanity and that their resources are available for everyone’s use and benefit, taking into account future generations and the needs of developing countries. It is intended to achieve aspects of the sustainable development of common spaces[Read More…]
We, the people of India and Pakistan, stand in solidarity with each other to speak out against war in any form because, in war, we are all losers regardless of who might appear to win. We hope that the elected representatives of both countries will exercise restraint, and act with wisdom, in the interests of lasting peace in our region,[Read More…]
On Wednesday, the US Congress overturned President Obama’s veto of legislation that would permit victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and their families to sue Saudi Arabia. Declassified documents released this year confirm the involvement of Saudi intelligence agents in the funding, organization, and planning of the attacks—facts which were covered up for years by the Bush and Obama[Read More…]
It was momentous on one fundamental level. Here was the President of the United States, Barack Obama, holding the torch for a wretched ally the politicians on the Hill and others have had reservations over for many years. Saudi Arabia, ever the thorn and asset of US interests, facing the grief of families who lost members on September 11, 2001. [Read More…]
The obituaries for Shimon Peres have already appeared, no doubt prepared in advance as the news of his hospitalization reached the media. The verdict on his life is very clear and was already pronounced by US President Barack Obama: Peres was a man who changed the course of human history in his relentless search for peace in the Middle East.[Read More…]
“De mortuis nil nisi bene” is commonly translated in English with “Speak no ill of the dead”. The headlines of German obituaries on Shimon Peres outbid themselves in adulation. President Obama, however, outbid even the Germans. He praised Peres without irony as “a champion of peace. […] As Americans, we are indebted to him”, he said. He even got metaphysical:[Read More…]
A recent Essential Research poll had found 49 per cent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration, including 60 per cent of Liberal-National Coalition voters, 40 per cent of Labor voters and 34 per cent of Greens voters agreed with the proposition that Muslim Australians were not integrating (assimilating) into “Australian culture” and pose a threat to Australia. It is[Read More…]
Kashmir is a complicated problem and it is not what I individually believe in but it is what anyone who has seen the ground reality of Kashmir will agree to. As I understand, caught amidst their respective egos, India and Pakistan are absolutely not ready to compromise on Kashmir. It seems to be a political compulsion for both of them[Read More…]
As most of the world ignores or hypocritically celebrates the 147th birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on the International Day of Nonviolence on 2 October, some of us will quietly acknowledge his life by continuing to build the world that he envisioned. When asked for his message for the world, Gandhi responded with the now famous line ‘My life is[Read More…]
Responding to nationalist clamouring for retaliatory strike against Pakistan in response to attack on Uri army camp on September 18th, Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the LoC on Wednesday night, the DGMO said on Thursday in a press briefing. “Significant casualties have been caused in these strikes,” DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh said adding, “the operation has now ended.”[Read More…]
If the human species is going to overcome the many interconnected ecological catastrophes now confronting us, this moment in history requires that we entertain some bold modifications of our legal structures and political culture. We must find the means to introduce new ideas for effective and just environmental protection – locally, nationally, regionally, globally, and points in between
The investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over two years ago always had the flavour of pre-emption, caked with assumptions of premature adjudication. Neither side, be it the assembled Joint Investigation Team, nor those on the Russian side, was going to budge on the issue of the material. In the world of the post-factoid, what matters is[Read More…]
On September 21, 31 countries, including Brazil and Mexico, ratified the Paris climate agreement at a United Nations event in New York City. They joined the U.S., China, and 27 other nations which had previously committed to the agreement,bringing the total to 60 and surpassing the first of two thresholds, requiring 55 nations to ratify it. In addition, their combined[Read More…]
An interview with Miguel Ramirez, National Coordinator of the Organic Agriculture Movement of El Salvador We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers’ social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model[Read More…]
The first sign that not everything is normal as you drive down Highway 1806 toward the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota is a checkpoint manned by camouflage-clad National Guard troops. The inspection on Sept. 13 was perfunctory; they simply asked if we knew “what was going on down the road” and then waved us through, even though the car[Read More…]
“If somebody falls overboard, all you see is their head. It’s about the size of a coconut.” With those words, Captain Madeleine Habib ensured the attention of her passengers, all now digesting the image of the vastness of the sea enveloping a human body. Habib, a Tasmanian-Egyptian and an experienced captain with Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders, was delivering the[Read More…]
World Heart Day on 29 September is the World Heart Federation’s (and the world’s!) biggest platform for raising awareness about cardiovascular disease (CVD) When the editor asked me to write an article on Interventional Cardiology, I attempted that with great trepidation. Being a poor clinical cardiologist, that too of the untouchable variety, (I do not have my DM; in[Read More…]
Imagine a volleyball packed with lies being bounced back and forth across a net by one well-practiced in the art of mendacity and the other blissfully unaware of any truth. Then add a referee correcting the lies of one side but not the other, and you have a picture of the debate. The post-debate spin masters on both sides are[Read More…]
The re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the British Labour Party with an overwhelming 62% support of Labour Party members is a victory for decency and sanity over the US lackey, pro-war, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-Apartheid, pro-Zionist and neoliberal Blairite pragmatists led by about 80% of the UK Labour Party MPs and who are traitors not just to the[Read More…]
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that Ms Rita Izsák Ndiaye, UN Special Rapporteur on minority issueson problems faced by minorities in various countries, is to visit Sri Lanka from 10 to 20 October 2016. Her first three years term as the special Rapporteur started on 1st August 2011. She was given another three years on the[Read More…]
Sometime back it was announced that one full division of the Army is being inducted into South Kashmir. This additional deployment was given the name of “Operation Calm Down”. Keeping in view the objective which was to prevent and control the freedom marches emanating from every village in Kashmir, the operation should have been named as the “Operation Cow Down”[Read More…]
We know Mr Khurram Parvez, through his work with the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society to be a diligent worker for peace and human rights, and we see his incarceration as a gross violation of basic human rights in the country
Kashmir has seen a proliferation of conflict, yet responsible leadership is not yet understood by many of the leaders representing us. Rather, the so called ‘electoral leaders’ are trying to project Kashmir, through their manufactured representative democracy, from a ‘conflict state’ to a ‘post conflict state.’ The rationality given towards this exercise is the relevance of economic prosperity replacing the[Read More…]
As a researcher in Film and Gender Studies, I had great expectations of the movie PINK. I must say, the positive audience and critical reception to the film is well deserved, while it also reflects on the perfect timing of its making and release, when public discourses on issues of rape and gendered violence come down heavily on the side[Read More…]
The “peer to peer” and commons-oriented vision for a new type of civilization and economic system starts from an analysis of what is fundamentally wrong with the current economic system. Rather than put forward a utopian ideal, the P2P vision is based on generalizing the already emerging forms of peer production, peer governance, and peer property
Following the first ever United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants last week, many civil society organisations and concerned citizens are taking stock of our government’s collective response to this unprecedented global crisis. The UN Summit was two years in the making, and gave a rare opportunity for world leaders to step up their commitments to help refugees, as well[Read More…]
Ban Ki-Moon’s second term as the Secretary General of the United Nations is ending this December. He was the most ideal man for the job as far as the United States and its allies are concerned. Of course, there will always be other Ban Ki-Moons. In fact, the man himself was a modified version of his predecessor, Kofi Annan. The[Read More…]
It really doesn’t matter that these two creatures loathed and feared in varying degrees should even be conducting a debate. What, after all, is there to dispute? Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump inhabit worlds of the disparately dislikeable, and reaped the bounty of the US with varying degrees of ruthlessness.
Conversation : S V Rajadurai, V Geetha & Vidya Bhushan Rawat on Periyar’s ideology, self respect movement and opportunism of political parties S V Rajadurai is one of the leading intellectuals from Tamil Nadu who has written, in English and Tamil, on a range of issues to do with Marxism and literature; with Tamil politics and modern history, including Periyar[Read More…]
Dennis Ross was the director of policy planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, was a leading Middle East peace envoy under President Bill Clinton, served as a special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and served two years as a special assistant to President Barack Obama. As Ross has been deeply involved in[Read More…]
Most Americans know very little about Russia, and what they do know is subverted by many decades of U.S. government anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. From 1917 to Dec. 26, 1991, when the USSR imploded, Washington depicted the Soviet Union as an immoral aggressor state seeking to destroy capitalism and freedom in the United States and rule the world. Again,[Read More…]
When Jesus and the Buddha met
in a meadow of larkspurs, on a balmy day,
the bees of the valley went mad with love,
the sky and the sun were a glaze.
“Let us sit on the grass,” said Buddha.
And they rested their traveling bones.
One in cambric, the other in saffron,
and the air was the color of amber.
On 9/11/2001, Donald Trump did a live phone interview with New York’s WWOR. Digging this up 15 years later, Politico and Mother Jones pointed out how Trump bragged about the new status of his 71-story Trump Tower, “40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the[Read More…]
The first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was a political and cultural abomination. It demonstrated, in both style and substance, the thoroughgoing decay of American capitalist society over many decades. It says a great deal about the US political system that, out of 330 million people in America, the choice for president has been narrowed down to these[Read More…]
The UN just announced that due to drought and famine over 300,000 Somali children are suffering from severe malnutrition. This means that over 100 children are already dying everyday from starvation. Soon the number will reach many hundreds a day, bringing back memories of the most recent Great Horn of Africa drought in 2011-12 when the UN admitted that 250,000,[Read More…]
Buen Vivir is a proposal aimed at making visible and expressible aspects of reality that are ignored by the dominant paradigm. It is a proposal from a radical and spiritual perspective of ecology, and is logically incompatible with development and industrialization. It speaks of the possibility of living in common, for which the very concept “development” is not only insufficient but mistaken.
Bruce Charles ‘Bill’ Mollison (born 1928 in Stanley, Tasmania, Australia and died today, 24 September 2016 in Sisters Beach, Tasmania). A few people are born who are world class heroes to those who know them and unkown to the great majority, until one day their inescapable influence floats to the surface and is generally recognised for the cream it is.[Read More…]
He has proven to be one of the most stubborn of creatures in a political sense. Unlike the dinosaur of political thinking he has been accused of being, British Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn continues to survive the meteorites, and more nuanced weapons, directed at him. The initial strategy from Labour MPs was to oust their leader in July on procedural grounds. [Read More…]
Is it not ironic that two very similar insurgencies have simultaneously been going on in Pakistan for the last several years: the Baloch insurgency in the Balochistan province and the insurgency of the Pashtun tribesmen in the tribal areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the United States-occupied Afghanistan. The Pakistani neoliberals fully sympathize with the oppressed Baloch nationalists but when it[Read More…]
The truth is we don’t know. We pretend that we can continue to dodge the mass terrors like the one a generation ago, where we eluded a nuclear annihilation. It is now more often that we find asking ourselves, that for how long the Earth will last, when we have poisoned the water and soils and trampled thousands of creatures[Read More…]
I stumbled across so many posts on social media about the new bollywood movie, PINK. Watching a few clips of the movie, compelled me to write something that has been in my sub conscious mind for a long time now. Movies can create a social impact. I recall one such instance; a friend of mine refused to pay a kickback[Read More…]
When Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers chose to remain seated during the national anthem on August 26 prior to the start of the team’s game against the Green Bay Packers, as the rest of the stadium stood, he was not the only one engaging in a political act. But Kaepernick was likely the only one doing so consciously.[Read More…]
In this essay, we look at the case of the “salt collectors” of the PinkLake, also called Lake Retba or Lac Rose, in the rural area of Dakar, Senegal, and the development of communities’ sustenance
“Essentially she is now being tortured as punishment for an act of desperation.” Nancy Hollander, lawyer for Chelsea Manning, Sep 24, 2016 It was not sufficient for US military authorities to sentence whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the onerous, disproportionate sentence of 35 years imprisonment for conniving with WikiLeaks in releasing classified material. (People have gotten less for gruesome, remorseless murders.) [Read More…]
As the eve of the 2016 US presidential election draws nearer, and the world inches that much closer to the edge of their seats, wondering who the winner will be to lay claim to the world’s most powerful seat for committing acts of good or evil, there is yet another David & Goliath story unfolding. It’s yet one more[Read More…]
Time is about to run out on holding global warming to two degrees. The next President needs to be prepared to act promptly and decisively to assure that the world changes direction. The world’s seeming inability to make progress on climate change appears to be more a refusal to jeopardize growth of the GDP, even though economic growth (a) has arguably[Read More…]
The new paper ‘A Framework for Reforming India’s Forest Biodiversity Management Regime’ by Dr S. Faizi and Dr M. Ravichandran published in the UN journal Natural Resources Forum in its August 2016 issue provides a rare insight into India’s forest management and outlines a trajectory for reforming the forest management departing from the colonial approach and taking on board the[Read More…]
“Some conflicts do not yield to compromise and can be resolved only through struggle.” – Gene Sharp, “Power and Struggle” The strangely twisted presidential election campaign of 2016 coincides, in Detroit, with the gradually spreading realization that this utterly broken system will continue to fail at delivering broadly shared, equitable “recovery”. The historic emergency-managed bankruptcy in 2013-14, courtesy of[Read More…]
Parvez Khurram, the noted human rights defender has finally been booked under Public safety Act (PSA) and sent to Kotbalwal jail 300 Kms away from his native place in an alien weather, hostile environment and intimidating conditions. Many Kashmiri detunes lodged earlier in this jail have complained of highly communalized atmosphere prevailing there. It is the same jail where few[Read More…]
US President Barack H. Obama has vetoed on Friday a bill which was passed by both houses of the US Congress allowing the victims to sue a foreign states; which could include Saudi Arabia. Barack Obama is of the view that it will jeopardize their relations with Saudi Arabia which are based on historical affinity. During the Second World War[Read More…]
From the beginning, we knew that this election would never happen. An election of representatives for any office involves the belief that they will represent the electorate. In the past, this system has been imperfect and undemocratic, but developing tools of mass persuasion have taken voting societies further and further away from democracy. In 2016 USA things have reached the[Read More…]
Instances of rape are quite common in India. According to National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), about 93 rapes take place in India every day. Two different perspectives emerge in relation to cause of rapes. There is a prevalent patriarchal view with a base in feudal mindset, which blames the victim. It argues that rapes do happen due to lack[Read More…]
First of, what is meant by “deep state”? According to ex-CIA Philip Giraldi, “Every country has a deep state of some kind even if it goes by another name. ‘The Establishment’ or ‘old boys’ network’ was widely recognized in twentieth century Britain. ‘Establishment’ has often also been used in the United States, describing a community of shared values and[Read More…]
There has been an adverse trend in the food and agriculture sector in recent times with the control of seeds and chemical inputs being consolidated through various proposed mergers. If these mergers go through, it would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector. Over the past couple of decades, there has already been a restriction of choice with[Read More…]
We pay our tributes to Mahatma Jothirao Phule, the founder of Satya Sodhak Samaj, on this 143rd year of its foundation, namely September 24, 1873. Mahatma Jothirao Phule, and his wife Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule, declared war on brahmanic-casteist culture and religion. This Maharashtrian couple presented the first major anti-caste ideology and led a mass activism against the ascriptive norms and[Read More…]
Washington based think tank and advocacy group Oil Change International in association with 14 other climate change groups have come out with a very relevant report which assesses the fossil fuel production and its likely impact on the climate change which has received global attention in the recent time in Paris climate meet where new goals for global warming were[Read More…]
Shatila Palestinian Refugee camp, Beirut: The intense summer heat was gone and the evening was breezy and cool that fateful Thursday evening, September 15, 1982, according to survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre who, 34 years later, still remember and recount many details of the slaughter that was soon to follow. It was following the 9/14/1982 assassination of President-elect BachirGemayel, leader[Read More…]
America’s mendacious, serial invader, war criminal, climate criminal and human rights-violating President Barack Obama made his last speech to the UN General Assembly on 20 September 2016, a speech characterized by massive lying by omission that is far , far worse than lying by commission because the latter can at least be refuted and subject to public debate. As revealed[Read More…]
The planet could pass the critical 1.5°C global temperature threshold in a decade—and is already two-thirds of the way to hit that warming limit, climate scientists warned on Thursday. Speaking at a University of Oxford conference this week, led by leading U.K. climate researcher Richard Betts, scientists said global greenhouse gas emissions are not likely to slow down quickly enough[Read More…]
I am a settler on this land but have spent the past couple of years supporting indigenous battles against new oil pipelines. These are the front lines of the struggle to end the desecration of Mother Earth, the catastrophes of climate change, and the ongoing genocidal occupation of Indigenous lands that makes that all possible. Across the continent, Big Oil[Read More…]
Most Americans live far from the path of the Dakota Access pipeline—they won’t be able to visit the encampments on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation where representatives of more than 200 tribes have come together in the most dramatic show of force of this environmental moment. They won’t be able to participate in the daily nonviolent battle along the Missouri[Read More…]
On a Saturday in mid-September, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard ambles through the Sacred Stone Camp, which she founded on her family’s land this spring to stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The camp started small, but as media attention—and support—grew over the summer, it swelled by the end of August beyond its physical capacity into overflow camps. The[Read More…]
The United States has been at war for 15 years — wars intensified by a Nobel Peace Laureate. The cost is now estimated by reliable sources in the trillions and worldwide casualties in the millions. Post-traumatic stress disorder has reached epidemic proportions: an average of 22 US veterans are committing suicide … each day. So inured to violence, the police[Read More…]
On 19 September 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on « Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants » – a complex of issues which have become important and emotional issues in many countries. Restrictive migration policies deny many migrants the possibility of acquiring a regular migrant status, and as a result, the migrants end up being[Read More…]
My Dear Prime Minister, I am constrained to write to you, because of the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir, the attack on our air station in Pathankot , and now in Uri, where we have lost precious lives not to mention the many injured. The lack of response by India to the latest attack, has clearly been due in[Read More…]
Pakistan- India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) PIPFPD expresses its concern over the growing tensions between India and Pakistan following militants’ attack on strategically important army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. The leadership of both the countries needs to urgently act towards defusing the tense scenario rather than fuelling it. We appeal to the saner voices of[Read More…]
Following the 18 September attack on the army’s Uri camp, government is reportedly contemplating strong diplomatic-military initiatives to counter Pakistan’s growing audacity. But strangely, the Home Minister and the National Security Advisor (NSA) appear to be taking all the initiatives, ordering the NIA to investigate the attack, and leaving a rather subdued Defence Minister, while the External Affairs Minister[Read More…]
Demography is destiny, and the destiny of aging Europeans is long run death. How the demographic strategists have dealt with this varies, but the tendency in various countries is either to accept refugees en masse (the now questioned Merkel solution for Germany), or encourage home breeding through various initiatives. The latter point became an issue in Italy when the population[Read More…]
Light from the sun was emerging from the horizon which could awaken the city. The routine of those who stepped into the city has just started. The busy city will give you the taste of the well-planned development. One WhatsApp message could awaken you by alarming the packed schedule of the day. It is indeed an interesting moment of[Read More…]
The reintroduction of a multiparty system in Nepal in 1990 after the peaceful revolution against the autocratic Monarchial Panchayat regime1 provided political space for communities to get organized and manage common pool resources, including water and forest. The state established new policies and funding mechanisms to support the evolution of new types of grassroots-based, self-governing institutions. The energies released from this[Read More…]
One of the major treaties to combat climate change is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is a binding multilateral agreement that entered into force in 1994 with the objective of “. . . stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Its[Read More…]
Ecological economist, Gandhian thinker and author Mark Lindley has some stark warnings for the future of hi-tech societies, and a few ‘prescriptions’ for India and for economists, who he says vastly underestimate the gravity of the looming environmental crises. Ecologise and Graama Seva Sangha recently organised a lecture series by Lindley in Bangalore.
There are still seasons in Standing Rock – for now. The contrast with Southern California, where I live, couldn’t be starker. The grass is green and lush, the air is fresh, the smell of rain never too far away, and the river winds through the meadows and between the hills full and with great purpose. The nights are growing cold[Read More…]
The Yazidi people are an ethno-religious group resulting from a mixture of Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. They are monotheistic, worshipping one God and a prophet named Sheikh Adi Ibn Musafir Al-Umawi. Their holy text includes Jesus, Mary, Adam and Eve, Moses, Mohammed, and other prophets shared in monotheism. The Yazidis have resided in Northern Iraq/Kurdistan since Mesopotamian times, along with[Read More…]
In Charlotte, North Carolina emergency has been imposed due to the violence spreading in the city after the strong reaction of the local people when a black man Keith Lamont Scott was killed by the local police on the suspicion that he was armed with fire arms and was not ready to disarm even after the callings by the police.[Read More…]
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) was created by Pax Americana to provide a cover for CIA agents under the pretext of helping the 3rd World. US Imperialism has to do some good or its potential targets would not open their doors to intelligence agents posing as do gooders, so USAID was created. Today the USAID is headed by[Read More…]
Watch Shy Bismillah Finds Friends from 34 Afghan Provinces From top left clockwise: Pashtun – Barath, Tajik – Malik, Uzbek – Habib, Hazara – Nemat, Afghans – All, Human Family Members – All “1948?” Habib remarked at how long it had taken for the human family to agree in writing that “all human beings ( including himself, Barath, Malik,[Read More…]
In 1381, for the first and only time, the dreaded Tower of London was captured from the King of England. The forces that seized it did not belong to a foreign power; nor were they rebellious workers – they were peasants who went on to behead the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury who were, after the king, the[Read More…]
Drive from Bismarck, North Dakota, to the Standing Rock encampment, and the sign that something unusual is happening is abrupt: a checkpoint staffed by the National Guard. Continue south, past rolling grasslands with an occasional farmhouse, until there is nothing but open space. Catch a glimpse of the Missouri River meandering back and forth, and a flock of white pelicans[Read More…]
“We will also participate in a US-led program to re-settle Central American refugees currently in a resettlement centre in Costa Rica.” Malcolm Turnbull, Australian PM, Sep 21, 2016 It used to be claimed that you could not let the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, go anywhere with any degree of freedom. The mouth would open, the madness would come out. His[Read More…]
The so called“leaders” of Kashmir have always behaved like vultures waiting one upon the other to feed on the dead bodies of the innocent Kashmiris! A general observation made by most of the Kashmir watchers is that there has so far been no sincere and upright leader who could lead the people to salvation. Since 1586 the country of[Read More…]
China and Russia conducted joint naval exercises in the South China Sea last week. Five Russian and ten Chinese ships participated in eight days of drills covering joint air defense, anti-submarine operations, landing, island-seizing, search and rescue operations, and weapons use. In the single largest naval exercise undertaken by the two, the Russian fleet comprised an Udaloy class anti-submarine[Read More…]
A Facebook debate with a friend after I had shared a post has thrown a myriad aspects of the topic. This aroused curiosity in my mind which culminated in this write up. Itcomes at the backdrop of the terrorist attack in Uri, a town in the Baramullah district of Jammu and Kashmiron September 18, where 18 Indian soldiers lost their[Read More…]
Chip Ward has made the clear case for our needing to collectively address Climate Change issues with Native Americans in mind, and it’s undeniable that any inroads which black activists carve out respecting identity issues won’t amount to nearly enough if — simultaneously — certain environmental matters aren’t faced up to post haste. By us all, colors all across the spectrum
A report and list of demands by Mehnatkash Mahila Sangathan, Delhi Since the past one month, entire Delhi is in the grip of fever. Diseases like Dengue used to break out every monsoon, but this year, Chikungunya and Malaria have been added to the list. While no section of the city is left untouched, the worst affected are the poor[Read More…]
Some around the world were saying that the situation had deteriorated to the point where the US was turning into a “rogue state.” Pronouncements by populist Donald Trump casting American inner cities as “war zones” seemed to reconfirm this. Many in America were leaning toward that same conclusion. Internationally the country had become politically gridlocked in a toxic Democrat-Republican civil[Read More…]
After the BJP came to power in Assam in May 2016, the state government has unleashed a reign of terror to execute its fascistic agendas. Within 2 months into power, the government opened fire and killed a 25 year old man Mintu Deuri, during a protest organized in Raha against the transfer of the site for a proposed AIIMS in[Read More…]
The tensions between those engaged in the dangerous and compromising pursuit of whistleblowing, and those who use the fruit of such efforts has been all too coarsely revealed in the Washington Post stance on Edward Snowden.[1] Oliver Stone’s Snowden has done a good deal of stirring on its release, suggesting that the pardon powers of the Presidential office should be[Read More…]
The commons is no magic talisman, nor a panacea. Nor are network platforms. But they do enable us to rediscover that sovereignty does not ultimately reside in the state or market (especially in these times), but within ourselves, together.
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but everybody does it. As long as we’ve had language—for tens of thousands of years, at last estimate—we’ve been able to formulate the question, “What will tomorrow bring?” The answers have ranged from idyllic to hellish, though the reality has been, more often than not, “a lot like today.” Since the Industrial Revolution,[Read More…]
“A photograph, no matter how emotionally wrenching, can only do so much,” wrote Paul Slovic and Nicole Smith Dahmen in QZ.com. The photograph referenced in their comment was that of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body was washed ashore on some Turkish beach in September 2015. It has been over a year since that tragic photograph – of an innocent child, face-down and[Read More…]
The pellets fired by the so called security forces on the 15 year old Insha has not only left her physically crippled but unveiled the masque of state brutality and its systematic saga of oppression. To keep its geographical lust kicking violence in the valley has always been used as a last resort to quell the popular sentiment even at[Read More…]
Illustration from the paper “The Sower’s Way.” by Sgouridis, Csala and Bardi recently published in the IOP Environmental Research Letters journal. The main points of the paper are summarized in a previous post. Note how fast the production of energy must fall in order to prevent temperatures from rising above the 2°C limit. It is a true “Seneca collapse“, necessary[Read More…]
What really causes falling productivity growth? The answer seems to be very much energy-related. Human labor by itself does not cause productivity growth. It is human labor, leveraged by various tools, that leads to productivity growth. These tools are made using energy, and they often use energy to operate. A decrease in energy consumption by the business sector can be[Read More…]
One of the silliest arguments of climate deniers goes like this: the atmosphere with its greenhouse gases cannot warm the Earth’s surface, because it is colder than the surface. But heat always flows from warm to cold and never vice versa, as stated in the second law of thermodynamics. The freshly baked Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts has recently phrased it[Read More…]
The armed conflict in Kashmir has reached a dangerous point. The killing of 17 Indian soldiers in the Uri camp, 6 kilometres from the Line of Control (LoC) that separates the two state protagonists, India and Pakistan, could lead to a further deterioration of a volatile situation that threatens to spiral into a much larger conflagration. Indian authorities allege[Read More…]
The premiere of Oliver Stone’s film Snowden Live brilliantly depicts the intellectual and emotional underpinning that motivated Edward Snowden to first enter into and then defect from the CIA with the revelatory files that have since become a fundamental game-changer in not only American but World History. The convergence of this film with the Standing Rock Sioux Indians defiance of[Read More…]
Cowboys and Indians are at it again. Americans who don’t live in the West may think that the historic clash of Native Americans and pioneering settlers is long past because the Indians were, after all, defeated and now drive cars, watch television, and shop at Walmart. Not so. That classic American narrative is back big time, only the Indians are[Read More…]
This was not a typical festive ‘first world’ outing, as its need and idea arose not from leisure, but from trauma. Recently, Hadisa was broken after an ‘endless’ night of crouching nervously in the dark of her University dormitory, while bomb blasts and gunshots were ending precious lives only a hair’s breath away. Nemat, in a safe space which softened[Read More…]
Vijoo Krishnan recently led a team of CPI(M) and its mass organizations to the historic Dalit Asmita Yatra (culminating in Una on 15-Aug 2016). In the light of this, and participation of the party in various anti-caste uprisings in the country, Dalit Camera poses a few questions to Vijoo about the party’s role in Annihilation of Caste and their effort to bring about a Left-Ambedkarite unity.
Kabul River and Standing Rock Sioux Zekerullah sometimes worries about the water crisis in his country Government officials and business people today routinely negotiate, “We’d like to extract the oil.” Or gas, or such and such a mineral. Water? “Oh don’t worry, we’ll see to that too….” But they’re not angels, and their bottom line is profit, so, Nature[Read More…]
NATO will deploy an additional 4,000 soldiers in Poland and the Baltic states in May 2017, with some units sent to Eastern Europe in advance. This was confirmed by a NATO spokesman after the US-led military alliance held consultations in Split, Croatia at the weekend. According to a Wall Street Journal report, about 1,000 American soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry[Read More…]
Nazareth: The announcement last week by the United States of the largest military aid package in its history – to Israel – was a win for both sides. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast that his lobbying had boosted aid from $3.1 billion to $3.8bn a year – a 22 per cent increase – for a decade starting[Read More…]
The journey of young people in Kashmir from childhood to adulthood nowadays is rumbling around Prison. These young people are meeting on this journey with probation officers, instead of teacher; they are going to court dates instead of class; they are emerging from their 20s not with degrees in business and science, but with criminal records. In Kashmir peaceful[Read More…]
The people of my generation, particularly those who were associated with students’ movement in 1970s, still have memories of fascist terrorism unleashed during the Emergency. The book under review book that people having view a different to Modi, that is Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, have memories worse than those of seventies. In every area Modi’s undeclared emergency is more frightening[Read More…]
About a year ago, a weather-beaten, middle-aged man asked me for money on the platform of the Mountain View Caltrain station. I gave him three dollars. He thanked me, and asked what I did for work. I introduced myself, learned his name, Jeff, and we shook hands. I pulled out a card from my computer bag, and handed it to[Read More…]
It is a performance where few are laughing. The DPRK has demonstrated again why it remains by far the most theatrically foolish yet prescient of powers. Held hostage by the plump boyish leader, Kim Jung-un the nuclear program of that benighted state has been doing more than just stuttering along. It seems to be positively screaming away. Everything about the[Read More…]
As citizens of the USA with a presidential election approaching you have a wonderful opportunity to ponder whether to participate in this election or to participate in the ongoing American Revolution. Your first revolution might have overthrown the authority of the British monarchy and aristocracy but the one in progress must remove the US elite which has executed a political[Read More…]
Indian government’s recent decision to provide shelter to the secessionist Baloch leaders has internationalized the issue of low intensity civil war in Pakistan’s largest province of Balochistan where the army of Pakistan has launched a brutal operation to control the rebellion of Baloch nationalists. On Friday, CNN-News18 quoted Indian official sources as saying that India is all set to[Read More…]
Global oilseed, agribusiness and biotech corporations are engaged in a long-term attack on India’s local cooking oil producers. In just 20 years, they have reduced India from self-sufficiency in cooking oil to importing half its needs. Now the government’s attempts to impose GM mustard seed threaten to wipe out a crop at the root of Indian food and farming traditions. In[Read More…]
Everybody knows that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are inveterate liars; but, do Americans really care? The vast majority of us care only as partisans in politics, not as partisans for truth and against lies. And that’s why democracy has died in America. (Please click on the link here, wherever you question this, or any other given assertion’s[Read More…]
Last week, Oliver Stone’s biopic “Snowden” hit the theaters. The film illuminates the life of Edward Snowden between 2004 and 2013, aiming to humanize one of the most wanted men in the world. Just before its release, a public campaign was launched urging President Obama to pardon this renowned NSA whistleblower. The massive US government persecution of truthtellers over the[Read More…]
Devinder Sharma is a founder member of Kisan Ekta, – that claims to be a union of 65 farming organisations. He has no doubt that his Ekta represents ‘400 million farmers, fishermen and farm workers’, and he a member of the three person coordinating committee of the recently launched outfit. But does Devinder Sharma, a close associate of the controversial[Read More…]
The dawn attack on 18 Sep on the army’s Uri camp by Pakistan-trained militants resulted in 17 troops killed and 30 more wounded. The fact that attackers were four in number, has attracted the attention of the media, which labels them as terrorists, while politicians term the attack as cowardly. There are some issues which need consideration. First,[Read More…]
In Europe, oppression is never really called by its true ugly name. It is constantly concealed by lofty slogans such as culture, even tolerance. Repression, discrimination and harassment are administered in order for the ‘entire society to be free’. Or so at least the official narrative goes. In France, recent and ugly row overso-called burkinis, a swimsuit used by[Read More…]
Four militants stormed an Army base barely 50 metres from the Brigade Headquarters in Uri sector, 6 km from the Line of Control (LoC), killing 17 soldiers and wounding 23, nine of them critically, at 4.30 am Sunday morning. It is the highest casualty suffered by the Army in a single attack in Kashmir in the past two decades. The[Read More…]
The disclosure of confidential material has its own sometimes fraught ethics. When it comes to medical information, assumptions abound that confidentiality comes first. Not, however, in international sports, a notorious field where the corrupt rub shoulders with the desperate; where perspectives of the supposedly level playing field meet unevenness and disadvantage. In such a case, disclosures can be both political[Read More…]
The path of Japan’s economic and social development after World War II has followed the trajectory of most industrialized countries: the pursuit of high economic growth on the assumption that higher per capita income would ensure people’s life satisfaction. But, according to a survey published by the Japanese central government, life satisfaction constantly declined from 1984 to 2005. Two out[Read More…]
I recently sent my last kid off for her senior year of college. There are rituals to such moments, and because dad-confessions are not among them, I just carried boxes and kept quiet. But what I really wanted to say to her — rather than see you later, call this weekend, do you need money? — was: I’m sorry. Like[Read More…]
On September 17th, U.S. President Barack Obama, the boss of the U.S. Government’s Executive Branch — including of federal investigations and prosecutions (including of FBI decisons not to investigate, and not to prosecute) — said that, in this Presidential election, “My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot,” and that a voter’s failure[Read More…]
The Syrian crisis has now moved into a serious zone where the next developments will bring the opposite groups, which were recently involved in a ceasefire deal, to a direct confrontation in more lethal way than the prevailing stage. The reason is not very hard to comprehend as in a strike by US led coalition forces; 62 Syrian soldiers have[Read More…]
The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is responding to poll numbers and other indications of declining support among younger voters by deploying its most prominent surrogates to college campuses. The moves come a day after two national surveys, one conducted by Quinnipiac University and the other by CBS News and the New York Times, found that more than[Read More…]
On most Indian news channels at prime time, one may find comedy, drama, action, political propaganda, advertisements, war rhetoric and what not. Be it ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’, dramas of Star Plus or Colours, dance shows like ‘Natch baliye’ etc, Bollywood gossip, funny news like presence of ghosts or treasures somewhere, noise of pseudo analysts, furious debates (where most anchors[Read More…]
By Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK) In a rare and incredible order on 16th September 2016, the Delhi High Court dismissed the copyright infringement case filed in August 2012 by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor and Francis Group against Rameshwari Photocopy Shop in Delhi School of Economics and Delhi University. Justice R.S. Endlaw[Read More…]
Island mentalities do not travel well. When their sellers hawk the agenda before world forums, these start looking ludicrous. Coming close to this ludicrous display is Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has done what other Australian prime ministers have in previous years: sell the great discovery, the great hit of life on how best to protect borders in the[Read More…]
26 years ago in the summer of 1989, the Kashmir Valley was in the grip of full-fledged rebel insurrection. Hordes of young, Kalashnikov-wielding men were roaming the streets and neighbourhoods of Srinagar capital and the valley’s other towns like Baramulla, Anantnag and Sopore. The sound of gunfires and explosions mingled with chants of azaadi emanating from demonstrations large and small.[Read More…]
The worst fears of human rights advocates were realized on 15th September when noted human rights defender from Kashmir, Khurram Parvez, was prevented at Delhi Airport from boarding a flight to Geneva, where he was scheduled to attend the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session. The next day he was illegally detained in a Srinagar Police Station[Read More…]
(Putting the entire valley of Kashmir under curfew on the most important Muslim religious festival of Eid-ul-Adah is the first event of its kind in the entire recorded history of Kashmir!) Eid-ul-Adah is the most pious and revered festival in the Muslim world. It is in remembrance to the symbolic sacrifice which God asked Prophet Ibrahim to offer. Well, Kashmiris[Read More…]
You wake up in the morning pretending to be fresh in this world full of gadgets making you sleep at 4 a.m., the first thing in today’s world you do is not rushing towards the most peaceful place shedding the load of junk you ate last night, but what you do is grabbing the gadget which did not let you[Read More…]
The text below is a second installment from my essay, “Transnational Republics of Commoning: Reinventing Governance through Emergent Networking,” published by Friends of the Earth UK. The third and final part of the essay will appear next. Read Part I Digital Commons as a New Species of Production and Governance To return to our original question: How can we develop[Read More…]
Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization denounces the arrest of Khurram Parvez on the intervening night of 15-16 September at 12.30 AM from his house at Srinagar. He had returned from Delhi in the very morning of 15th September after being detained for nearly two hours and prevented from travelling to Geneva for the UN Human Rights Council’s meeting. Khurram Parvez[Read More…]
Born out of cataclysm in 1948, the Kashmir problem remains alive and unwell. In the latest iteration of the long self-determination struggle, 75 protesters have been killed by Indian security forces firing pellet loaded shotguns to control the demonstrations; over 7000 have been injured including 117 who have fully or partially lost eyesight, a tragedy worsened by their young[Read More…]
Erode Venkata Ramasamy Naickar(17 September 1879 – 24 December 1973), commonly known as Periyar also referred as E. V. R. or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist, freedom fighter and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. Biography Born in 1879 into a rich family of Balijas (traders) in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district, Periyar was a pious[Read More…]
As fate would have it, the pilgrimage’s odyssey across Turtle Island first began as a one year sojourn among the Hunkpatina people on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, located near the Big Bend of the Missouri River at Fort Thompson, South Dakota. The Hunkpatina at Crow Creek were the descendants of Chief Long Crow and his people who had been[Read More…]
Over the past 15 years many highly respected academics and experts have come forward to challenge the official narrative on the collapse of the WTC towers forwarded by the U.S. government. The official government position holds that the collapse of all three towers was due to intense heat inside of the buildings. But a new forensic investigation into the collapse[Read More…]
A 29-year-old man who was allegedly beaten up by gau rakshaks or cow vigilantes in Ahmedabad four days ago died of his injuries at a hospital in Ahmedabad on Friday. Mohammad Ayyub was allegedly attacked by a group of cow vigilantes on Tuesday while he and another man Sameer Sheikh were transporting a cow and a calf, police said. Pratik[Read More…]
I am often asked what the commons has to contribute to solving our climate change problems. Since most commons are rather small scale and local, there is a presumption that such commons cannot possibly deal with a problem as massive and literally global as climate change. I think this view is mistaken. The nation-state as now constituted, in its close[Read More…]
The UK Foreign Affairs Committee was a long time coming with this judgment, but when it came, it provided a firm reminder about how far the 2011 intervention against the Gaddafi regime was not merely flawed but calamitous in its consequences. There had been no coherent strategy on the part of the Cameron government; the campaign had not been “informed[Read More…]
“This is day 70 of the brutal military siege in Kashmir. The number of fatalities differs from one source to the next but estimates are between 84 & 90 as of today. Up to 11,000 have been injured, nearly 500 of them by live ammunition, many with head & spinal cord injuries from bullets, pellets, & grenades, many are disfigured[Read More…]
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is the third best university ranked by HRD (Human Resource Development) ministry in India. Apart from its academic contributions, JNU recently got international and national attention due to the trail of incidents related to the arrest of some of its students under sedition charges. JNU has been portrayed by the left inclined writers and the left[Read More…]
Let’s engage in a way to produce goods and create value that is free, fair, and sustainable! What is peer production and commons economics? More importantly, how can they help bring about a thriving economy that work for people and planet? The following 10 ideas for action are the result of 10 years of research at the P2P Foundation on the[Read More…]
Yesterday I watched Ms. Clinton on television screen, stumbling towards her van, after attending a ceremony at the WTC in New York City. She had to be grabbed by both arms by her aids, and then literally pulled into the vehicle. Embarrassing? Not really. People get exhausted; they get sick and sometimes they can even hardly remain standing on their[Read More…]
The Obama administration has signed a $38 billion military aid pact with Israel in what the State Department boasts is the “single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in US history.” The record agreement will provide Israel with $3.8 billion annually over 10 years beginning in 2019, up from $3.1 billion under the current deal. At a time when the US[Read More…]
In a year of record-setting heat on a blistered globe, with fast-warmingoceans, fast-melting ice caps, and fast-rising sea levels, ratification of the December 2015 Paris climate summit agreement — already endorsed by most nations — should be a complete no-brainer. That it isn’t tells you a great deal about our world. Global geopolitics and the possible rightward lurch of many countries (including a potential deal-breaking election in[Read More…]
I read Seema Mustafa’s evocative and heart wrenching piece with sadness and a deep deep sense of foreboding. And what follows is a stream of conscience set of thought and emotions which kept coming almost endlessly. I have not had the heart to pick up the phone and wish any of our friends and family Eid Mubarak this Eid. And[Read More…]
One hundred and eighty million workers in India went out on strike on 2 September. It is the largest strike in human history. Workers came from all sectors – from the mines and crèches, from the rail yards and the banks. All trade unions – except the one backed by the RSS – backed the strike. Even workers in the[Read More…]
News broke this week that Monsanto accepted a $66 billion takeover bid from Bayer. The new company would control more than 25 per cent of the global supply of commercial seeds and pesticides. Bayer’s crop chemicals business is the world’s second largest after Syngenta, and Monsanto is the leading commercial seeds business. Monsanto held a 26 per cent market share of all seeds sold[Read More…]
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in UK has directly indicted the former PM David Cameron in allowing the collapse of Libya as an organized nation state and to throw it into chaos and also to assist the Islamic State to proliferate in the region and beyond. The report shows that in big and successful democracies- how the administration is[Read More…]
True film aficionados who are old enough probably know that there were three cinematic versions of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (TIOTBS). Doesn’t matter, though, whether or not you’re familiar with them. I’ll give you enough to chew on here, and then hit you with why there needs to be another one made. The first two TIOTBS films had[Read More…]
Portraying Onam as Vamana Jayanthi is just another step by Sangh Parivar forces to bring all festivals into the hindutva fold which is essential to project the idea of hindu rashtra, a homogeneous culture of Hindi-Hindu-Hindutva.
Even the most ardent capitalists/imperialists know that they and their predecessors have destroyed earth. For this reason alone the material conditions are right for those forces to self-destruct. After this happy event, – to which we are all of course joyously contributing by every means possible, – the world’s forests and coasts and other natural landscapes will be handed over[Read More…]
In a recent article on the Huffington Post, Stan Sorscher reports the graph above and asks the question of what could have happened in the early 1970s that changed everything. Impressive, but what caused this “something” that happened in the early 1970s? According to Sorscher, X marks the spot. In this case, “X” is our choice of national values. We[Read More…]
The only function of “intellectual property” is to snatch scarcity from the jaws of abundance — to take goods that, thanks to the advance of human knowledge, should naturally be getting cheaper, and make them artificially expensive. This is nowhere more evident than in the war corporations are fighting against their own customers’ right to repair the items they purchase.[Read More…]
The four-yearly World Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has just taken place in Hawai’i. The congress is the largest global meeting on nature’s conservation. This year a controversial motion was debated regarding incorporating the language and mechanisms of “natural capital” into IUCN policy. But what is “natural capital”? And why use it to refer[Read More…]
One of the most controversially discussed key tracks during the 5th International Degrowth Conference 2016 in Budapest was “Degrowth and other social movements”. Can degrowth be considered a movement? Does degrowth embrace all kinds of movements struggling for a sustainable future? On one hand, the notion of “degrowth movement(s)” was rigorously criticized for fragmenting the political struggle. It was also[Read More…]
In another indication of the terrible price paid by working people in the United States and all over the globe for the crimes of US imperialism, a new reportfrom Brown University estimates that Washington has squandered nearly $5 trillion since September 11, 2001 on the wars launched under the pretext of fighting terrorism. The report coincides with the 15th anniversary[Read More…]
India is steeped in a synthesized controversy created by Monsanto on the first GMO crop supposedly approved for commercialization. Engaged in litigation on many fronts, Monsanto is trying to subvert India’s patent laws: Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Right Act, Essential Commodities Act and Competition Act. It is behaving as if there is no Parliament, no democracy, no sovereign[Read More…]
In 2006, when Rob Hopkins moved from Ireland to the small English town of Totnes with his family and co-founded the first Transition Town Initiative in the world with some friends, he surely never imagined what he was starting. Six years on, there are more than 500 “official” Transition Town initiatives in more than 38 countries, and several thousand more[Read More…]
I had gone to cover the Wild Wood Spa, a resort in Kundapur, which is spread out over a large area with hundreds of ancient trees on the property. As we were walking around the property the owner Mr Shetty pointed up to the broad trunk of a ficus tree. In a hole in the trunk which was sealed with[Read More…]
Thousands of Native Americans resurrected the fighting spirit of their forefathers as they stood in unprecedented unity to contest an oil company’s desecration of their sacred land in North Dakota. Considering its burdened historical context, this has been one of the most moving events in recent memory. The standoff, involving 5,000-strong Native American protesters, including representatives of 200 tribes and environmental[Read More…]
“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.” -Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle It’s almost time for our quadrennial political distraction, masquerading as the US presidential election. As opposed to previous elections, this one feels quite different. Even with Obama/Romney in 2012, important, basic economic issues were discussed, health care reform was questioned, and[Read More…]
Indifference is an American-European story. As French chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg sang of his love for Brigitte Bardot: “What does the weather matter, what matters the wind? Better your absence than your indifference.” Or Gilbert Bécaud: “Indifference kills with small blows.” The indifference of one person to the other in a dwindling love affair is emblematic of the terrible impact of[Read More…]
The latest statistics put out by the National Crime Record Bureau gives the Haryana state of India a dubious distinction. It stands second in the number of complaints lodged with the police, second only to Uttar Pradesh. That the population, in general, views police as the last resort in cases of injustice, puts the statistics in perspective. Haryana, the state[Read More…]
The festival of Eid turned out to be a day of mourning for many Kashmiris as curfew was clamped across the Kashmir valley. Two youth were killed in clashes and scores injured. Police said as many as 44 stone pelting incidents were reported across the valley. Mustafa Mir, 22, son of Hameed Mir of Dachigam village of Bandipora died during[Read More…]
I am not sure where each of you is, in your own reading and assessment of the situation, but I am now more or less convinced that life as we ‘know’ it, both here in ever ’emerging’ India, and worldwide, is going to change very rapidly in an unprecedented direction – and very possibly we will all experience this directly in[Read More…]
Nazareth: Is Israel on the verge of civil war, as a growing number of Israeli commentators suggest, with its Jewish population deeply riven over the future of the occupation? On one side is a new peace movement, Decision at 50, stuffed with former political and security leaders. Ehud Barak, a previous prime minister who appears to be seeking a political comeback,[Read More…]
Streets and plazas are the spaces of the public, the spaces where people encounter each other. Such encounters can be fleeting or intense, but they always imply the possibility of lingering. Yet lingering is difficult if not impossible if our roads are designed to serve the needs of traffic practically to the exclusion of everything else. The concept of Shared[Read More…]
Lakshman Rekha, a film by Geetika Tondon looks at how conversations in the media are played out in cases of sexual assault in India. This twenty minute short premiered in July 2016 at the inaugural session of the Film Club, Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad, in the presence of the film maker. The film was followed by an[Read More…]
“…As the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars invisible by day” are the immortal words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alas! this does not hold ground for many people in countries of Asia Pacific (and maybe elsewhere too). The elderly are getting pushed more into a dark night devoid of stars. The erosion of traditional livelihoods and[Read More…]
The last few months have seen unprecedented Dalit mobilisation throughout India against attacks by the Sangh fringe forces on Dalits and Muslims and the BJP leadership’s tacit and sometimes not so tacit approval at various levels. State machinery in the form of the Police were stationed on several University campuses with sedition cases against students in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)[Read More…]
Another month, another temperature record shattered. NASA data released Monday shows not only that last month was the hottest August since record-keeping started in 1880, but that it tied with July for the warmest month in the last 136 years. According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, August 2016’s temperature was 0.16 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest August[Read More…]
This year’s massive buildup of resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline follows closely on the heels of the victory over Keystone XL pipeline, something often credited to feverish organizing by 350.org. But years before 350’s involvement, there was the Indigenous Environmental Network, which launched that movement and its “Keep It In the Ground” messaging. This time, with nearly 200 tribes[Read More…]
In the face of multiple converging crises, mere sustainability is no longer enough. Too much damage has already been done. We need to restore ecosystem and community health, and create regenerative systems that allow us to face uncertainty creatively. After the post-war Baby Boomers came Generation X, followed by Generation Y – the millennials – and Generation Z – the[Read More…]
Al-Moaddamiyeh, Damascus Countryside: September 8, 2016 was a long hot tense day at the border-crossing at al-Moaddamiyeh, at town roughly ten kilometers southwest of Damascus. Approximately 135 Syrian soldiers and 35 volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARCS) evacuated more than 300, mainly civilians, who have spent the past more than four years trapped, two years in Daraya and[Read More…]
Co-Written By Margrit Kennedy & Declan Kennedy Since 1985, an intentional community of about 100 adults and 40 children in the middle of Lower Saxony, Germany, has created the “Lebensgarten Steyerberg” out of a munitions factory housing project built in the late 1930s for World War II.1 The anchor of the community, which is spread out over 65 buildings, is a large community[Read More…]
Two women who were allegedly gang-raped two weeks ago in the Mewat region of Haryana one of the women told news reporters that attackers asked her if she ate beef. “They asked if we eat beef. We said we don’t, but they insisted we did. Then they said we’re hurting you before so you don’t and that if we tell[Read More…]
Just a few weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he cares about the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza more than the Palestinian leadership does, he posted a new video message on his Facebook wall, arguing that any future dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would amount to “ethnic cleansing.” He went on to intimate that insofar as the U.S. and other western countries support the uprooting of Israeli settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, they were, in effect, supporting the cleansing of Jews
The west uses “democracy”, as in elections, to control Africa. This has resulted in over half a century of murder and mayhem because all but one African country is a mixture of different ethnicity’s and nationalities with tribalism dominant in African societies. Elections mean tribal winners and tribal losers and no in between, or consensus based governance. This has been[Read More…]
It’s moment of victory given the way incumbent Hon’ble Chief Justice of India has reacted to many a pleas and taken up the matter of ‘judicial clerkships’ in Jammu & Kashmir and by directions from Hon’ble Supreme Court, Jammu & Kashmir High Court has eventually[Read More…]
What did Dilma Rousseff do to warrant impeachment? According to her opponents, she falsified the accounts to exaggerate the health of the economy, a practice not uncommon among governors. In her case, a fiscal court rejected the 2014 accounting report, which under normal circumstances would have prompted a revision; instead the Senate plotters seized upon it to draw up impeachment[Read More…]
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all
Don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin
at the beginning of crime But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing
For our dead.
Humanity has waged war against the natural world for millennia, intensifying with the industrial revolution, culminating with 9/11 terror and resulting perma-war, and threatening now to collapse the biosphere. Centuries ago an epic wave of ecological terror swept from Northern Europe as the industrial revolution and colonialism put a price on everything, liquidating natural ecosystems for illusory consumption by some,[Read More…]
In response to my recent article on US imperial wars some people objected to my characterisation of the US empire. I wrote: “In global terms the US has never been more powerful” and some were quick to point out that the US empire is very weak. To those people I want to say that we are both right, but the[Read More…]
Sixty-six years ago this summer, on my 16th birthday, I went to work for the daily newspaper in the small East Texas town of Marshall where I grew up. It was a good place to be a cub reporter — small enough to navigate but big enough to keep me busy and learning something every day. I soon had a[Read More…]
“Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September’s Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their[Read More…]
If we examine Kashmir’s history, notorious events like the Kashmir Conspiracy Case of 1958-1959 were events when leaders like Sheikh Abdullah became hypocritical double agents and were interestingly bailed later on. It actually fueled a proxy war and questioned the character of our leaders. These events were actually not good examples of serving the nation one belonged to. They were[Read More…]
A recent USA Today poll found 76% of voters want debates with four candidates including not just the two most hated candidates in history, the Republican and Democratic nominees and their vice presidential running mates, but Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Greens, and Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarians. Any candidate on enough ballots to achieve[Read More…]
“In these times of ever more blatant marketing of public space, the aspiration to plant potatoes precisely there – and without restricting entry – is nothing less than revolutionary,” writes Sabine Rohlf in her book review of Urban Gardening.1 Indeed, we can observe the return of gardens to the city everywhere and see it as an expression of a changing relationship[Read More…]
For Muslims now, 15 years since 9/11, ‘it seems more people are more openly hateful’ (Penn Live) Muslim Americans still struggle with hate crimes, 15 years after 9/11 (AOL) 15 years after 9/11, unwelcome spotlight returns to Islam (USA Today) Muslims are still under attack for their beliefs 15 years after 9/11 (Desert News) These headlines best reflect the dilemma[Read More…]
Major kudos go out to the Texas-based, crude oil Energy Transfer Partners and their multitude of Wall Street financiers that reads like a lineup of who’s-who from the financial world (Sunoco, Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, US Bank, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of Nova Scotia, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley,[Read More…]
On Friday, September 9th, America’s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first ‘cease-fire’, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired by America’s allies Saudi Arabia and[Read More…]
U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning announced she began a hunger strike in protest of her prison conditions as she serves a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents. Advocacy group Fight for the Future shared a statement from the 28-year-old transgender woman as she demanded written assurances from the Army she will receive all of the medically prescribed recommendations for her[Read More…]
An arrest warrant has been issued in North Dakota for Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman. Goodman was charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor offense. A team from Democracy Now! was in North Dakota last week to cover the Native American-led protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Sept. 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the[Read More…]
Day 64 of Kashmir shut down. One more youth died of pellet firing. A 23-year-old was killed in forces action in Batengoo village of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Saturday, taking the overall death toll in the current uprising to 78. The deceased has been identified as Yawar Ahmad, son of Mushtaq Ahmad. Medical Superintendent District Hospital Anantnag Dr Majeed[Read More…]
This article is not about Colin Kaepernick. It’s also not about other athletes who have joined him in expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo and the injustice inherent in it. No, this article is not about particular celebrities or individuals. Instead, it is about the depths to which we’ve fallen. We. Not them. We all. A young athlete-disgusted with[Read More…]
“How would we know when we are commoning?” a young woman asked me at Contact Summit 2011, a major unconference running concurrently with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, October 2011. (An “unconference” is a gathering based on participant-generated content.) When I announced the invitation to my session on commoning, I introduced it by quoting the motto of[Read More…]
The Western herbal medicine tradition represents a neglected and devalued repository of much of the knowledge developed over many thousands of years of medical experience in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas. Practitioners of herbal medicine throughout the world continue to make use of several hundred medicinally-active plants many of which have a long and established history. A few among[Read More…]
Consumers are familiar with the term, sponsored by. Someone put up some scratch and in turn gets the right to sell their wares. It’s a business deal. We’ve seen the word “sponsor”, in this sense, prefaced by another word, like “official”, or “proud”. Official sponsor means something like…actually it doesn’t mean anything beyond what sponsor means. It’s merely trying to[Read More…]
It is now September 2016, just two months before the Presidential elections, and both political camps have already managed to disgust a great number of the US voters, by offering almost no comprehensive political or economic program, by offering… close to nothing! While Donald Trump is lashing out at the ‘enemy within’, during his dark moments that are increasingly resembling[Read More…]
At the end of August, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to six Latin American countries: Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela. On what was mainly a business tour, Zarif discussed megaprojects like the Grand Interoceanic canal. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that “Iran has such a position that it can pick its political friends and trade[Read More…]
Did you happen to notice that after more than a decade of the ‘news’ media’s demanding publication of “the missing 28 pages” (which turned out actually to have been 29 pages) from the U.S. Congress’s investigation into 9/11, the document’s press-coverage, finally, on 15 July 2016, turned out to have been little-to-none? And did you notice that the little there[Read More…]
It happens that the offices of YES! are in a building complex that also houses Studio Hanson | Roberts, one of the leading zoo-design firms in the world. As a result, I recently found myself breaking bread with a group of folks shaping the future of U.S. zoos. The conversation quickly turned to the future of zoos, their relevance to modern[Read More…]
A series of “game-changing” developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing. Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s attempt to halt its construction. Shortly afterward, however, the[Read More…]
At Cannonball, North Dakota, the people keep coming. The occupation to stop construction of the Dakota Access pipeline has become the largest gathering of the nation’s tribes in more than 100 years. It’s the first time all seven bands of the Sioux Nation have come together since the Battle of Little Bighorn. On Thursday, dozens of tribal families from throughout[Read More…]
Since the campaign to push and promote Narendra Modi as a prime ministerial candidate began, and was remorselessly funded by corporate houses from 2013 on, the current dominant Indian political regime’s relationship with an autonomous media has been the subject matter of furious debate. Heavy corporate investment in the election campaign and the same corporate share in television network holdings[Read More…]
India’s beef ban politics has taken a turn for the bizarre with Haryana police have started collecting samples of Biryani sold in Mewat district, the states only Muslim dominated district. The biryani checks are taking place days ahead of Eid festival. The biryani checks have taken many by surprise asking whether the police should be focusing on other crimes in[Read More…]
The African Union is the west’s gendarme in Africa with it’s combined national armed forces increasingly primed to invade and occupy rather than keep the peace. The latest potential victim of the African Union, backed by its big brother, the UN, is South Sudan. Before that Burundi was threatened with invasion by the AU “peacekeepers”. And this is just the[Read More…]
By now, local currencies and alternative exchange systems have become familiar themes in the media, even in mainstream newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, as well as on both local and network TV. These reports focus mainly on attempts to keep money circulating locally instead of “leaking out,” as a way of enhancing the vitality[Read More…]
From its creation, the people of the United States have had a special relationship with the person they choose to lead their republic. Given extraordinary—even dictatorial—powers by the Constitution, the President is expected to not only be a wise and effective administrator, but to possess the moral compass established by George Washington, the Nation’s first president. In his book[Read More…]
As the world is now well aware, Syria has been consumed by violence for years now. What people are less aware of, however, is why it has been raging for so long. According to the western narrative, the Syrian conflict — the deadliest conflict of the 21st century — started with Assad’s forces violently clamping down on peaceful oppositions and[Read More…]
UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki Moon’s speech at the Bandaranayake International Memorial Conference Hall (BMICH) in Colombo to citizens of the South of Sri-Lanka showed that he has revived his Eastern wisdom. He tactfully told the audience that Sri-Lanka was responsible for part of the war crimes that was committed in the past. The crimes against the minorities reached[Read More…]
Unable to pay the ambulance drivers INR 1500, or around USD 22, a young mother was forced to sit out the night with her child’s dead body outside a hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district. This happened less than two weeks after a nationwide outrage over the ordeal of a tribal man named Dana Majhi thousands of kilometers away, in[Read More…]
I was travelling in Europe last month, and was very disappointed by what I saw and heard. There is a lack of unity between Western workers and the workers of the world. The gap between the prosperity of a few highly professionalised workers in the West who are more and more aligned with the capitalists and managers, and the[Read More…]
In September 2010, a group of NATO brass, security analysts and other policy elites held a conference called “Protecting the Global Commons.” Attendees were described as “senior representatives from the EU institutions and NATO, with national government officials, industry, the international and specialised media, think-tanks, academia and NGOs” – surely one of the oddest group of “commoners” ever assembled. The[Read More…]
A bill is expected to come up for a vote in the U.S. Senate on Friday September 9th that could enable Saudis to be prosecuted for financing the 9/11 attacks, but the Saudi royal family are pouring millions into buying key members of Congress to block the vote. On 17 March of this year, the Sauds set up in Washington a[Read More…]
(The constitutional provision of “Freedom of Expression” has been modified to“Suppression of freedom of expression by the State” in Kashmir!) Article 19, in part III of the Constitution, about Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, states, (1) All citizens shall have the right :- (a) to freedom of speech and expression. (b) to assemble peaceably and without arms.[Read More…]
Apparently it is impossible to continue to exist without righteous indignation at the present. There are more than enough reasons to exercise your anger. In fact, it is becoming more and more difficult to continue to contain ones anger. Everyday debilitating news brings us close and closer towards breaking our own vows of resistance and restraint at social indifference and[Read More…]
I recently took up the challenge to talk about inner transition in the garden of an eco-village project in Värmland County, Sweden. A lot of sun, beautiful place, no flip-chart or power points. Here is a short account of what I talked about. To me, getting to the heart of inner transition is about understanding our own dual nature: if[Read More…]
In July, the Caine Prize for African Writing was awarded to Lidudumalingani Mgombothi. The 10,000 pounds sterling award recognizes African writers for short stories written in English. His story, “Memories We Lost,” is graced with beautifully expressed sentences, and one in particular is apt for the role often played by governments: “Secrets stay buried for so long, but one day[Read More…]
Division within Palestinian society has reached unprecedented levels, becoming a major hurdle on the path of any unified strategy to end Israel’s violent occupation or to rally Palestinians behind a single objective. Newly-appointed Israeli ultra-nationalist, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, understands this too well. His tactic since his ascension to office last May is centered on investing more in these divisions as[Read More…]
Our dreams of Justice and Democracy is only becoming more extinct every day. By neglecting the civil right and enforcing atrocious terror laws, the state is exercising despotism over the lives of the citizens. These laws were established in 1857 to suppress the struggles of India’s First War of Independence. These were the terror laws that were cooked by the[Read More…]
I got involved in the whole drones process because I was representing people in Guantanamo Bay. And when President Obama came into office he says we’re going to close Guantanamo Bay and fairly quickly it dawned on me that yeah he didn’t like Guantanamo, so they were just going out and killing the people instead of locking them up. And[Read More…]
Disability is not a curse, for those who actually live with it. It’s ironical, that those who are so called “able bodied” time and again make persons with disabilities realize that they are disabled and they lack something which is very important for the survival of human beings on this earth. Based on my own experiences, I can say for[Read More…]
On an average about 200 people have been injured per day or about eight per hour. The number of injured over a period of sixty days is frightening and calls for a comparison with other conflict situations in the last hundred years where the Indian army/ British Indian Army was engaged with an uprising within the country or a conflict with a neighbouring country.
The Indian e-commerce company Flipkart which was ridiculed last year for sending a sexist email to female customers has done it again, this time with an offensive advertisement that reinforces the stereotype of Gorkha/Chowkidar. The advertisements designed to promote the recently launched “Flipkart Assured” customer loyalty service had insensitively characterized Gorkhas in the role of security guard. Though it is[Read More…]
Imagine that a group of highly concentrated transnational corporations in the knowledge industries such as pharmaceuticals, high-tech, and entertainment pack so much lobbying clout that they can convince the governments of the industrialized world to bully developing countries to “harmonize” their copyright, patent and trademarks laws into a global intellectual property regime. That is what happened in the 1990s when[Read More…]
There are many of us educated urbanites who haven’t even heard about places like the Bastar region in Chhattisgarh. The reasons are obvious. The mainstream media hardly reports about the region and makes sure that reports from local journalists and stringers are censored if not silenced. Recent reports of false cases being used to arrest journalists in Chhattisgarh is a[Read More…]
The Southern Birdwing has a magnificent wing span. I have seen them in Goa and often wondered if it was a butterfly or a small bird! Karnataka plans to announce the Southern Birdwing (Troides minos) as its state butterfly. It’s stunning beauty will leave one in no doubt as to why. Butterfly lover Haneesh KM says, ” Butterflies symbolise freedom,[Read More…]
We often read comparisons between the prices of solar energy or wind energy with the prices of fossil fuels. It is encouraging to see that renewables are rapidly becoming competitive, and are often cheaper than coal or oil. In fact, if coal, oil and natural gas were given their correct prices renewables would be recognized as being incomparably cheaper than[Read More…]
Btaaboura is a tiny village in the mountains of northern Lebanon. It is connected to the main motorway by a narrow winding road. It could be just anywhere in the Christian part of this country: white stone houses, olive groves, wine grapes, bare hills. Like elsewhere, the wealth is hardly backed by hard work. It is mainly sustained by remittances[Read More…]
I thought of giving the more provocative title of—Are you a racist or casteist, here is a simple test for you—but decided to go with the more sober title that you see. Most of us do not want to be painted with a racist or a casteist paint brush and would not express such brash opinions even if we harbor[Read More…]
As I read of the latest coup in Brazil, once again removing a democratically elected leader from power, my anger surged. Not again! However, as I see and read about the ongoing massive protests, as well as calls by prominent community leaders to mobilize in defense of your country’s democracy, I feel great hope for Brazil. Having been a nonviolent[Read More…]
On the second anniversary of the 2014 Kashmir flood – dubbed by some as the worst in a century – I write this short piece as a victim of climate change. I was in New Delhi when the flooding began. Having spoken to my parents on the very morning of the flood, I was told that the muddied Jhelum waters[Read More…]
Sometimes the real news is in the details — or even in the discrepancies. Take, for instance, missions by America’s most elite troops in Africa. It was September 2014. The sky was bright and clear and ice blue as the camouflage-clad men walked to the open door and tumbled out into nothing. One moment members of the U.S. 19th Special[Read More…]
It seems that some who have the ears of U.S. elite decision-makers are at least shifting away from wishing to provoke wars with Russia and China. In recent articles, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Thomas Graham, two architects of the U.S. cold war with Russia, have acknowledged that the era of uncontested U.S. global imperialism is coming to an end. Both analysts[Read More…]
Commemoration of Swaminathan Calls for a Revisit of Green Revolution 
Antarctica Hits Records as Global Heat Looms Large for 2024 
Book Review: Building A Just World Order 
Canada Needs Urgent Reforms to Bring Long-Delayed Justice to its Indigenous People 
Ukraine: Peace Comes through Mutual Respect 
Canada’s Proclivity To White Wash Its Nazi Citizenry & Nazi Affiliation Past 
Clamour for Teachers Grows in Jharkhand – Parents Write to CM 
Rifts in INDIA Alliance 
At the Brink? Contemplating the Unimaginable Costs of a Nuclear War 
Cruel Prerogatives: Braverman on Refugees at the AEI 
The Perilous Path From Western Domination to De-Dollarization 
From the Contemporary History of the Balkans: Greece and Slavo-Macedonians (1913-1993) 
The Ethnic Violence in Manipur, India, Explained 
New Report Exposes Grave Injustice to Villagers in the Name of Expanding Tourism and Parks in Tanzania 
Ending Opioid Addiction and Deaths through Creative Strategies 
Solitude: A Source of Empowerment 
Dr.K.S.Sharma Turns 90 
The Unholy Origins of Castes in India 
Union Health Ministry placing a cap on new medical colleges in States on the basis of the population criterion violates federalism 
Reflections on the Revolutionary Legacy of Makhan Singh in Kenya 
Armenian civilians flee Nagorno-Karabakh after new offensive by Azerbaijan 
Manipur: a statement of concern and suggestions for peaceful resolution 
Global Leaders Plead for Peace in Ukraine at UN 
Ghosts of the Past: For Israel, War on UNESCO is an Existential Battle 
Keeping Cattle on Public Land Is Bad for People, Cows, Wildlife, and the Planet 
The United States in the World: Making Sense of the Past Forty Years (1981-2023) 
Canadian Youth At Risk and the Discrimination of Marginalized Demographics 
While Searching Worldwide for Terrorists, Uncle Sam Should Also Look in a Mirror 
American Abrams tanks roll into Ukraine 
An open letter to JNU VC – Your association with RSS defies humanism, anti-colonial struggle Indian democracy! 
From Education to Incarceration 
Tunakataa! Saying ‘No’ to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya 
Rising Islamophobia and Communal Discord: An Alarming Trend in BJP-Ruled States 
Speak Truth to Power and Pay the Price! 
USA’s Wars Took 12 Million Lives in The Last 25 Years US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
