Archive for April, 2017

May Day 2017: Trample All Forms Of Sectarianism

May Day 2017: Trample All Forms Of Sectarianism

One hundred years ago, the proletariat in Petrograd celebrated the historic May Day in jubilation and honor. “Thousands of people turned out for the 1917 May Day parade. They carried […] banners and posters, which became the main elements of the decorations in Petrograd.” (Natalia Murray, “Feast in a time of plague, May Day celebrations of 1917-1918”, Baltic Worlds, vol.[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 2 comments World
The U.S. Political Scene: Whiteness And The Legitimacy Crisis of Global Capitalism

The U.S. Political Scene: Whiteness And The Legitimacy Crisis of Global Capitalism

Progressive, left, and social movement forces in the U.S. need to build on successes of the past as well as move beyond them, taking on, for instance, a more pro-active position against militarism and a deeper critique of capitalism. Reaching out across racial and gender lines to working and lower income people, such a movement cannot allow for itself to fall under the hegemony of corporatist political actors. Rather it must be a project that provides a real fight back to the Trumpian right and the permanent war state it now inhabits.

by 30/04/2017 1 comment World
The Forgotten Message Of Ambedkar To The Working Class

The Forgotten Message Of Ambedkar To The Working Class

( The following are extracts from A paper presented by Dr KS Sharma at the XXXII Indian Social Science Congress held at New Delhi from 18′” December to 22nd December 2008. The Paper quotes Dr. B. R. Ambedkar extensively and seeks to bring out some views he had expressed at one stage in his political life. A few extracts focussing[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment India
North Korea’s Military Gambit

North Korea’s Military Gambit

“All options for responding to future provocation must remain on the table.  Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by a willingness to counteract North Korean aggression if necessary.” Rex Tillerson, Apr 28, 2017 The theatre unfolding in various international forums regarding North Korea is garnering top prices for front seats.  The press corps await the next[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment World
Muslim Profiling At US Borders Escalates During President Trump’s First 100 Days

Muslim Profiling At US Borders Escalates During President Trump’s First 100 Days

  President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were a frightening experience for the seven-million strong Muslim American community. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest American Muslim civil advocacy group, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) profiling of Muslims accounted for 23 percent of cases in the first three months of 2017. This represents[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment World
Conflict Resolution: White Feathers of Peace

Conflict Resolution: White Feathers of Peace

Absolutely, I get deeply angry at the carnage that our species demonstrates towards others of our kind and other species, the ones that are a part of the natural world that we dismantle for economic growth. Yet sometimes anger is necessary as it pushes one to where he doesn’t want to tread and to be someone he’d like to avoid[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
No Just War

No Just War

  Moral Injury and Nonviolent Resistance is not an easy train read. It is, however, a “Must Read” and very compelling. In a culture where war is taken for granted, whether it be on a foreign battleground or in a domestic arena, the Lynds offer their book as a plea for Peace. Peace through nonviolent actions. Peace through voices speaking[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment Book Review
The Necessary Ground of Being for Dyslexic Activism

The Necessary Ground of Being for Dyslexic Activism

  In the early days of hip hop, most of the artists either lived in or were born in New York City’s South Bronx. That area was devastated in 1929 by the building of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which displaced 60,000 Bronx residents. Although the white residents who lived in the realm moved to the suburbs, many of the poor African-American[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 2 comments World
Witness To The Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, And The Year America Lost Its Mind And Found Its Soul

Witness To The Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, And The Year America Lost Its Mind And Found Its Soul

Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham is a valuable contribution to further understanding and popularizing the radical upsurge of the 1960s. The book is an oral history and we hear from well-known figures of the time such as Ericka Huggins, Tom Hayden and Robin[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment Book Review
Hybrid War: Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 4)

Hybrid War: Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 4)

  This is the fourth part (of 5 ) of a paragraph by paragraph commentary on a recent article posing as journalism in the March 6, 2017 issue of The New Yorker. I hope to demonstrate that this article is basically a totally mendacious concoction of cold war US propaganda constructed out of unsubstantiated opinions expressed by US government officials[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment World
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Heat Wave Scalds Orange Farmers

  Nagpur’s oranges, which were the pride of the country, are fast losing sheen. Nagpur still retains the appellation of “Orange City” but the scene today is nowhere near the mystical description that famous Englishman Major Henry Bevan gave following his visit to Nagpur in 1818. “The greatest ornament of the garden is… (an) orange tree called Cintra (santra) or[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment India
Reducing Spaces of Critical Voices And Clampdown on Human Rights Organisations

Reducing Spaces of Critical Voices And Clampdown on Human Rights Organisations

In recent times, the suppression, attempts of arm twisting and cancellation of FCRA of NGOs have been a subject of debate among various circles in India. Most of these NGOs have been either organisations belonging to minority communities or organisations critical of the Government’s policies on development or those involved with human rights issues. The recent clampdown on the human[Read More…]

by 30/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Jeremy Corbyn Is Britain’s Best Hope

Jeremy Corbyn Is Britain’s Best Hope

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has suggested the UK could join US military action against the Syrian government without parliamentary approval. Johnson said he and PM Theresa May agreed that in the event of another chemical attack by the Assad regime, it would be hard for the UK to refuse any request to join military action. No evidence has been provided that[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
 A World In Free Fall In A Dangerous Universe: Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, What’s Next, An Asteroid?

 A World In Free Fall In A Dangerous Universe: Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, What’s Next, An Asteroid?

  A universal truth was revealed by the recent chemical weapon tragedy in Syria’s Idlib Province and the MOAB bombing of Afghanistan. Namely, that as the human world continues to tear itself asunder and make a mockery of the United Nation’s concept of international law and the sovereign rights of nations – supposedly intended to protect them from unprovoked, preemptive[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
Gaza Shifa Hospital

Middle Eastern Surgeon Speaks About The ‘Ecology Of War’

  Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Dr. Gus Abu-Sitta is the head of the Plastic Surgery Department at the AUB Medical Center in Lebanon. He specializes in: reconstructive surgery. What it means in this part of the world is clear: they bring you people from the war zones, torn to pieces, missing faces, burned beyond recognition, and you have to[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
The Shame of Killing Innocent People

The Shame of Killing Innocent People

  On April 26th, 2017, in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, the Saudi-led coalition which has been waging war in Yemen for the past two years dropped leaflets informing Hodeidah’s residents of an impending attack.  One leaflet read: “Our forces of legitimacy are heading to liberate Hodeidah and end the suffering of our gracious Yemeni people. Join your legitimate government[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Climate Change And Other Dire Difficulties

Climate Change And Other Dire Difficulties

  To do nothing what-soever except minimally (such as recycling garbage) in light of coming climate change impacts for a small portion of the world — well, we know to where this feebly enacted, but basically empty non-action leads. Same-old patterns exist until forcing a change as the same-old ones are no longer workable given changing impacting variables at the[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Climate Change
Science And Wars Against The Environment

Science And Wars Against The Environment

At the Boston Science March this past Saturday, April 22 , I did not notice any signs proclaiming “SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT FOR PROFIT” or “SCIENCE FOR PEACE, NOT FOR WAR.” (1) Were there any?  The few scientists I have known personally believe that science is value-free, unconcerned with politics or morality. It exists as pure truth born of[Read More…]

Yemen: Effective Humanitarian Aid Depends on a Peace Accord

Yemen: Effective Humanitarian Aid Depends on a Peace Accord

  The United Nations (UN) together with the governments of Sweden and Switzerland which have often led humanitarian issues in the UN system held a high-level pledging conference in Geneva on April 25, 2017 to again draw attention to the deepening humanitarian crisis in war-torn Yemen, currently the largest food security emergency in the world. Some 60% of the population[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
Yassmin Abdel-Magied Censored On Anzac Day – Jingoists Trash Australian Free Speech

Yassmin Abdel-Magied Censored On Anzac Day – Jingoists Trash Australian Free Speech

  On Australia’s Anzac Day,  Muslim, feminist  social advocate and  humanitarian  journalist  Yassmin Abdel-Magied (who works for the ABC, Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC) posted on her Facebook page: “Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)”. Savaged by public outcry, Ms Abdel-Magied rapidly deleted the post and apologized. The post was correct and her silencing by rabid jingoists is[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
Turkey’s Kurdish Agenda

Turkey’s Kurdish Agenda

Any doubts that Turkey’s involvement in the conflict against Islamic State is purely symbolic were dispelled by a latest round of air strikes against Kurdish positions in northeast Syria and Iraq’s Sinjar region, killing at least 20 fighters.  (The number from Ankara is a more inflated 70).  Iraqi government officials were flawed by the action, infuriated by its audacity; the[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment World
Palestinian, Jewish Voices Must Jointly Challenge Israel’s Past

Palestinian, Jewish Voices Must Jointly Challenge Israel’s Past

  Israel has resorted to three main strategies to suppress Palestinian calls for justice and human rights, including the Right of Return for refugees. One is dedicated to rewriting history; another attempts to distract from present realities altogether and a third aims at reclaiming the Palestinian narrative as essentially an Israeli one. The rewriting of history happened much earlier than[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Palestine
Regardless Of Lifestyles We’re Too Numerous To Be Sustainable

Regardless Of Lifestyles We’re Too Numerous To Be Sustainable

To survive and live well we must reduce our population back to 2 billion as it was 80 years ago. Why did we allow our world population to keep growing to an unsustainable 7.4 billion, and passing on to our children the task of feeding and managing 9 billion people on a planet of degrading soils, acidifying and rising oceans[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 4 comments Counter Solutions
A Revolution of Values

A Revolution of Values

Angela Merkel, in her congratulatory message to Donald Trump after his election victory, struck a reminder of the values connecting Germany and America: “democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man.” Merkel alluded to the so-called Wertegemeinschaft, or community of values, that many politicians and citizens of Western countries frequently invoke. The term not only implies[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Counter Solutions
Bechtel Corporation And Iran: A Story of American Corporatism-Imperialism

Bechtel Corporation And Iran: A Story of American Corporatism-Imperialism

  (Rome) Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 resulted in the overthrow of the US-supported Pahlavi dynasty at that time under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Iranian Revolution  was a violent and widely popular overthrow of a ferocious US-inspired regime installed following the CIA-organized coup d’état of the democratically elected government led by PremierMohammad Mossadegh on August 19, 1953. Eventually led[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Globalisation
Photo by mysterykatt123

Question

When life is uncertain
Death certain
How long can 1%
Live with wealth of 99% ?

by 28/04/2017 5 comments Arts/Literature
Options Before Us: To ‘Cow Down’ or ‘Stand Up’!

Options Before Us: To ‘Cow Down’ or ‘Stand Up’!

Column article titled Silence is not an Option by Neera Chandhoke appeared in “The Hindu, April, 2017, brings to the foreground the layers of silence that the citizens of the country maintain to a maze of issues that they confront day in and day out. In nuanced ways Neera swipes at the problems that would drastically altar and significantly change[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment India
Terrorism And Militancy: Are They Quite The Same?

Terrorism And Militancy: Are They Quite The Same?

              Maoists (or Naxals, according to some) ambushed a 100-strong CRPF road-opening patrol (ROP) on 24 April in Chintagufa Police Station limits of Sukma District of Chhattisgarh, killing 25 CRPF personnel and wounding six. The Maoists were reportedly around 200 in strength, and they ruthlessly continued engaging the pinned-down CRPF patrol for about one hour. The killing and wounding[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment India
Who Runs India?

Who Runs India?

(A view of the various economic and political activities reveals that it is the Brahmins and Banias who practically run and control India!) Sometimes one wonders how such a large country is run and who really runs it? Arundhati Roy calls India, “An Upper Caste Hindu Corporate Republic”! One would have thought that she may have been saying this in[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 3 comments India
Internet Service Officially Banned In Kashmir For One Month 

Internet Service Officially Banned In Kashmir For One Month 

Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered suspension of internet services in the trouble-hit valley for a period of one month or till further orders. In an order, the Home Department has said that internet services in Kashmir valley shall not be transmitted for a period of one month or till further orders. The state home department invoked powers conferred on[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Every Story Has Two Sides: Kashmir Is No different

Every Story Has Two Sides: Kashmir Is No different

http://www.amazon.in/Scattered-Souls-Shahnaz-Bashir/dp/9352641248 I recently finished reading Shahnaz Bashir’s “Scattered Souls”, which is a collection of powerful short stories depicting the price that ordinary citizens living in Kashmir are paying because of excessive militarization. The Indian Government may justify this as much needed policing against the Kashmiri insurgents, to maintain internal security. But with all due to respect to the National Security[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
The Contradictory Bahujan of the BSP

The Contradictory Bahujan of the BSP

The BSP was formed in 1984 after a long span of preparatory activities by the All India Backward and Minorities Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) and the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4). Its founder Kanshiram used to say that the Indian society and politics is marked by the hegemony of 15% upper castes and they rule over the rest 85%[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 1 comment India
The Unwanted Male Calf

The Unwanted Male Calf

Just a few days back one of the cows at our Prerna Kendra delivered a male calf. My colleague called me to inform about the birth of it. Everyone there was waiting for the cow to deliver and as usual each one was expecting a female calf. My colleague was sad to inform me about the birth of male calf.[Read More…]

by 28/04/2017 Comments are Disabled India
The Snow Girls

The Snow Girls

The battle lines were drawn up.
The snow girls with books in backpacks.
The olive green troopers with guns.
An eagle perched on a white cloud
relayed the proceedings to Times Now.

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
Short Choices: The French Presidential Elections

Short Choices: The French Presidential Elections

The establishment got another burning in the French elections on Sunday, revealing again that there is no level of voter disgust that will not find some voice in the current range of elections.  The terror for pollsters and the establishment now is whether Marine Le Pen will realise her anti-Euro project and drag the French nation kicking and moaning into[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Egyptian Kangaroo Court Sentences 20 People To Death

Egyptian Kangaroo Court Sentences 20 People To Death

  A court of Egyptian military leader, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who assumed the title of Field Marshal after overthrowing the elected President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Monday sentenced 20 supporters of Morsi to death. The brutal military dictator el-Sisi has been cracking down on the opposition since the overthrow of President Morsi. He has killed more than 800[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Securing Sweetness For Sugarcane Souls: A Tribute To Paulo Freire

Securing Sweetness For Sugarcane Souls: A Tribute To Paulo Freire

  “…there neither is, nor has ever been, an educational practice in zero space-time—neutral in the sense of being committed only to preponderantly abstract, intangible ideas.” — Freire, Paolo (2014) Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Bloomsbury, p.67   “Paulo Freire says that reflection and action… action… action should be directed at the structures that need to be[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Photo courtesy of PIX11 News

Who Cares About Helping Homeless Women?

I hadn’t seen J. in more than a week and that was concerning. It always worries me when one of my “regulars” vanishes. Often, this situation has resulted in me eventually encountering them and getting updates about illnesses, hospital visits, and/or surgeries. Whenyour mission is offering food, clothes, supplies, and more to New York City’s homeless women, you quickly learn[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Is Pope Francis the World’s Most Powerful Advocate for Climate Stability?

Is Pope Francis the World’s Most Powerful Advocate for Climate Stability?

  Maybe not now. But that’s what he could well become. Pope Francis’ Encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” recognizes the incredible damage being done to climate change and biodiversity. Few realize how strong his beliefs are and the unused power of persuasion he has. Here’s 10 ways that power could be used. 1. Francis could call for a[Read More…]

Endless Atrocities: The US Role In Creating The North Korean Fortress-State

Endless Atrocities: The US Role In Creating The North Korean Fortress-State

Paul Atwood, a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, provides a concise summary of the history that informs North Korea’s “relations with the United States” and “drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat”. Excerpts from Atwood’s summary are here used as a framework, with other sources where indicated. Atwood notes it is[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 4 comments Imperialism
Trump, Public Imagination, And Islamophobia

Trump, Public Imagination, And Islamophobia

  Donald Trump’s crafty manipulation of Islamophobia, we are told, was one of the factors that propelled him to the presidency of the United States of America. He was very much aware of the prevalence of negative sentiments towards Islam and Muslims within segments of the American electorate. Because Islamophobia was part of the public imagination, he had no scruples[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Kashmir: Is It True?

Kashmir: Is It True?

After violent protests on April 9, the day of by polls to the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, rumors spread that the Mehbooba Mufti government had been dismissed. My next door neighbor, currently based in New Delhi called me on phone and said, ‘’I don’t know how to break this news to you, but Mehbooba Mufti is not now J &K[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
India-Bangladesh: Trust Can Take Us A Long Way

India-Bangladesh: Trust Can Take Us A Long Way

  North-eastern region of India has always been a tumultuous region since 1947. Also, this is one of the most backward regions in terms of economic and political development. It helped giving birth to the insurgency in the area, which once again, hampered its growth. It is a landlocked and mountainous region, while Bangladesh is almost situated between it and[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment South Asia
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf attends an Arab and African leaders summit meeting in Kuwait city on November 19, 2013. The summit aims at reviewing steps to promote economic ties between wealthy Gulf states and investment-thirsty Africa. AFP PHOTO/YASSER AL-ZAYYAT        (Photo credit should read YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images)

Africa’s War Lord Queen; The Bloodstained Career of Liberia’s Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson

Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson is the Harvard educated, Nobel Prize winning President of Liberia with a long bloodstained history of support for warlords both past and present. She used to be the de facto foreign minister for that most bloodthirsty of warlords former Liberian “President” Charles Taylor, and she addressed the US Congress in his support. President Johnson is the queen[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Anzac As Apologia And Religion

Anzac As Apologia And Religion

Soaked to the core, Melbournians gathered around the War Memorial in thousands, gazing at the flickering, all-resistant eternal flame in an annual tribute to Australia’s fallen.  Each year, the secular religion of Anzac (the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) receives more adherents, gathers a few more followers, and nabs a few more converts among the young. This also shows[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
The Bridgeport Herald Wages an Important Free Speech Fight

The Bridgeport Herald Wages an Important Free Speech Fight

                                                                                                                       [Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
Prosecution of Assange Is Persecution of Free Speech

Prosecution of Assange Is Persecution of Free Speech

  US authorities are reported to have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This overreach of US government toward a publisher, whose principle is aligned with the U.S. Constitution, is another sign of a crumbling façade of democracy. The Justice Department in the Obama administration could not prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing documents pertaining to the US government, because they struggled[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Donald Trump A Man of Evil?

Donald Trump A Man of Evil?

The Abrahamic concept of “evil” has to some extent left the Western vocabulary. The time has come for Americans to bring it back. They can do so by answering these questions: Is their country now under its control? Could Donald Trump and his followers bring down not just the country but human civilization? My essay provides answers. XXXXXXX As Donald[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment World
Rage Against The Establishment : Naxalbari And Dalit Panthers Movement

Rage Against The Establishment : Naxalbari And Dalit Panthers Movement

In the era when most of the government regimes all over the world are being installed by the multinational companies and transnational corporations behind the garb of parliamentary electoral set up or in the name of democracy (21st century’s – White man’s burden) to facilitate naked plunder of natural and human resources; it then becomes the responsibility of every person[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 3 comments India
Trump Does A Dirty Harry – And Africa Starves

Trump Does A Dirty Harry – And Africa Starves

So;President Trump launches 59 Tomahawk missiles(each costing over $1 million) to obliteratea Syrian air base because, we’re informed, he was moved by footage of chemically impacted children.As it turns out, it was, according to Fairfax’s Paul McGeogh, one of the Trump family members, Ivanka, who was so moved. Still, thes hocking images apparently drove the President to the final moral[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Poor Women Deliver Rich Dividends

Poor Women Deliver Rich Dividends

 We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death. From poor education to poor nutrition to vulnerable and low pay employment, the sequence of discrimination that a woman may suffer during her entire life is unacceptable but all too common. When we want to help the poor, we usually[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment Patriarchy
Photo Courtesy : https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org

How Cow Vigilantes Are Being Projected As ‘Modern Day Freedom Fighters.’

Cow vigilantes attacked six people, including a 9-year-old girl in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday and fled away with their flock. The vigilantes beat up the nomad community blue and black and the minor girl has suffered multiple fractures when the community was en route to Talwara area… (http://www.timesnow.tv/india/video/cow-vigilantes-attack-6-including-9-year-old-in-jammu/59745) In yet another chilling instance of self-styled[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 1 comment India
The Chhattisgarh PUCL Condemns The Ruthless Ambush Carried Out by Maoists at Burkapal

The Chhattisgarh PUCL Condemns The Ruthless Ambush Carried Out by Maoists at Burkapal

The Chhattisgarh PUCL severely condemns the ruthless ambush carried out by Maoists at the Burkapal area under Police Station Chintagufa limits in district Sukma on 24th April 2017, and expresses its deep grief at the killing of 25 jawans, mostly young persons of poor families. According to initial reports, this attack, the most lethal of its kind in five years,[Read More…]

by 26/04/2017 2 comments India
The Soothing Hand

The Soothing Hand

When I hear the degradation of nature I think of the tender touch of Helen Keller! When I hear of the inhuman bombings of warmongers I remember the odyssey of Homer …! When I read of children with hunger I console myself in the music of Stevie Wonder When there are so many suffering around me Still living with hope[Read More…]

by 25/04/2017 11 comments Arts/Literature
Dealing With Tragedies In Life

Dealing With Tragedies In Life

Unavoidably, we all sometimes face seemingly insurmountable tragedies in our lives that can disassemble us in dreadful ways, such as a death of an only child or a deeply loved mate. So what do we do to pull ourselves back together after such overwhelming loss? It’s all about the ways that we use outrageous, totally devastating tragedies in their aftermath[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Prafulla Samantara Receives The Goldman Environmental Prize, Asia, 2017

Prafulla Samantara Receives The Goldman Environmental Prize, Asia, 2017

New Delhi, April 24: Prafulla Samantara, National Convener, National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements and the leader of Lokshakti Abhiyan, Orissa has been awarded The Goldman Environmental Prize, Asia, 2017. The Goldman Environmental Prize honours the achievements and leadership of grassroots environmental activists for their sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the Natural environment. He has been awarded the[Read More…]

On Anzac Day Australia Ignores Its Complicity in Horrendous War Crimes & Climate Crimes

On Anzac Day Australia Ignores Its Complicity in Horrendous War Crimes & Climate Crimes

    25 April is Anzac Day commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli in 1915, the day after the commencement of the Turkish Armenian Genocide (1.5 million Armenians killed) that was precipitated by the prior prolonged Allied naval bombardment. On Anzac Day Australians utterly ignore Australia’s complicity in horrendous UK and US[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment World
The Conspiracy Behind Babri Demolition

The Conspiracy Behind Babri Demolition

  After the long wait, the Supreme Court Chief Justice J.S. Khehar opined that long pending dispute of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid should be settled out of court. (March 2017) He even offered to mediate himself in the matter. Uniformly most of the spokesperson from RSS Combine welcomed the move, while large number of Muslims and other elements have been surprised[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment Communal Harmony
More Aadhaar Numbers Leaked On Chandigarh PDS And Swacch Bharat Mission Websites

More Aadhaar Numbers Leaked On Chandigarh PDS And Swacch Bharat Mission Websites

Raising major privacy concerns truck loads of Aadhaar numbers and other personal details of individuals are being leaked. Yesterday, it was revealed that the personal details over one millions Aadhaar subscribers were leaked on a website run by the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security. Today, it is reported that the Aadhar numbers and other personal details of Public Distribution System[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment India
As Colleges re-open, Clashes In Kashmir

As Colleges re-open, Clashes In Kashmir

As colleges opened on Monday in Kashmir after five days, students of Shri Pratap Higher Secondary school clashed with police in Srinagar. Students held a march from the school premises and marched towards MA road, making their way by breaking the gate of school. The students later blocked road that was followed by clashes between forces and the students. Meanwhile,[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Our Common Oceans And Seas

Our Common Oceans And Seas

The United Nations is currently preparing a world conference 5-7 June 2017 devoted to the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal N° 14: Conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the U.N. are invited to submit recommendations for the governmental working group which is meeting 24 to 27 April[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment Counter Solutions
Mike Pence in Oz

Mike Pence in Oz

Vassal visiting time, and the next slot in the US imperium tourism schedule was one of America’s more cosy allies, Australia. The US Vice President Mike Pence popped in to keep an eye on matters just to make sure that all was in order. There had been that issue of the notable phone call, when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment World
Putin’s World: Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 3) 

Putin’s World: Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 3) 

  This  is the third part (of 5 ) of a paragraph by paragraph commentary on a recent article posing as journalism in the March 6, 2017 issue of The New Yorker. I hope to demonstrate that this article is basically a totally mendacious concoction of cold war US propaganda constructed out of unsubstantiated opinions expressed by US government officials[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment World
MaaAranganathan (1932-2017): Chonicler of the Ordinary

MaaAranganathan (1932-2017): Chonicler of the Ordinary

In the demise of MaaAranganathan, 83,the Tamil literary world has lost a writer known for bringing out deep meaning and great beauty through very simple, detailed depictions of the mundane. Known for his artistry, modernity and unique use of language Aranganathan’s tales are a product of his observations of the lives of very ordinary people and his deep study of[Read More…]

by 24/04/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
Artificial Intelligence: Socioeconomic, Political And Ethical Dimensions

Artificial Intelligence: Socioeconomic, Political And Ethical Dimensions

Introduction: Humanity’s Future in AI-Biosynthetic World In a few centuries or perhaps a few decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and biosynthetic engineering will be perfected to the degree that androids will closely resemble humans and biosynthetically engineered humans will resemble androids. Despite the nightmares of such a prospect for some scientists, humanist scholars and theologians, AI will be a dream becoming[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 2 comments Life/Philosophy
From Earth Day to The Monsanto Tribunal, Capitalism on Trial

From Earth Day to The Monsanto Tribunal, Capitalism on Trial

World Environment Day (WED) occurs on 5 June every year. Promoted by the United Nations, its aim is to encourage global awareness and action for the protection of the environment. Since its inauguration in 1974, WED has helped bring attention to various issues, including global warming, sustainable consumption and wildlife crime. We also have Earth Day, celebrated annually on 22 April. On this day. various[Read More…]

Expanding The Poetic Field. From Ford Madox Hueffer to Kate Tempest

Expanding The Poetic Field. From Ford Madox Hueffer to Kate Tempest

I have for many years now held a deep fascination for Ford Madox Hueffer’s Antwerp, a poem as little known as the man himself, a poem written in 1915 that vividly recreates the horror of the war fields of Europe during the so-called Great War and the even greater horror of mothers waiting at Charing Cross station for sons who[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 5 comments Arts/Literature
Is President Trump’s Foreign Policy Shaping Up?

Is President Trump’s Foreign Policy Shaping Up?

April has been an eventful month geopolitically so far. President Trump carried out a much-trumpeted-about Tomahawk missile strike at the Syrian regime, held responsible by him for a nerve-agent attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, a province largely held by rebels. Trump has changed his mind on China, which he previously accused as a ‘currency manipulator’. He[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 2 comments World
epa05919710 Demonstrators hold flags of the region of Al-Ahwaz as they take part in a rally in support of the Ahwazi minority in Iran, in Berlin, Germany, 21 April 2017. Dozens of demonstrators took part in the march striving for the recognition of this minority and their human rights. The Ahwazi live within the Iranian province of Khuzestan and constitute an ethnic, linguistic and cultural minority in Iran.  EPA/FELIPE TRUEBA

Ahwazi Exiles Hold Four Massive Freedom Rallies in London, The Hague, Canberra, And Berlin

 Demonstrators hold flags of the region of Al-Ahwaz as they take part in a rally in support of the Ahwazi people in Iran, in Berlin, Germany, 21 April 2017. Dozens of demonstrators took part in the march striving for the recognition of this population and their human rights. Ahwazi exiles marked important anniversaries in the state’s history during the past[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Saving The Amazon Reef

Saving The Amazon Reef

The Great Barrier Reef on the north-east coast of Australia which contains the world’s largest collection of coral reefs, has been the only reef which has been in the news of late  and has a UNESCO heritage label. Today with oceans heating up reefs are threatened and the world holds its breath, hoping to reverse the trend. Interestingly, a newly[Read More…]

Lynching of Mashal Khan: Roots of Rage

Lynching of Mashal Khan: Roots of Rage

How does one move on with all this deep, searing pain over the mob lynching of a body that bore a beautiful heart and a precious mind? And with our senses still reeling, we hear of at least two more horror stories of blasphemy related violence. Grueling as it is, one has to navigate a path out of the all-consuming[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 1 comment South Asia
Climate Change As Genocide

Climate Change As Genocide

 Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O’Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries—Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan—as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 1 comment Climate Change
Books, North Korea And Trump’s Sanity

Books, North Korea And Trump’s Sanity

  How many books have been authored by Donald Trump?  The answer:  a steady stream totaling a whopping 17 — more than enough to keep a full-time writer fully occupied without all of Mr. Trump’s other activities.  The word ‘writer’ of course is key, for Mr. Trump has not actually written any of them.  He hires a ghost writer and[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 2 comments World
Children As Songbirds

Children As Songbirds

  “We live in one global environment with a huge number of ecological, economic, social, and political pressures tearing at its only dimly perceived, basically uninterpreted and uncomprehended fabric. Anyone with even a vague consciousness of this whole is alarmed at how such remorselessly selfish and narrow interests – patriotism, chauvinism, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds – can in fact[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Kashmir: Time For UN To Act

Kashmir: Time For UN To Act

There has been no transparency in discussions arising from bilateral talks on Kashmir. From the last few years, calling off the Kashmir dispute has been the favourite argument arising out of Indian media commentators and political leaders. It is because of existing narration of implanting fervent Indian nationalism inside Kashmir valley. Economic development, financial incentives and being part of India’s[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Non State Actors And Moral Policing

Non State Actors And Moral Policing

In the recent past, one has witnessed violence being increasingly inflicted by actors such as Gau Rakshaks, Anti Romeo squads and Hindu Yuva Vahini. Violence by Hindu senas, Ram senas, Bajrang dal was always there. These are extra-constitutional actors aiming to impose a culture through usage of physical violence. Under the current National regime and State regimes in BJP ruled[Read More…]

by 22/04/2017 2 comments Communal Harmony
Trump, The DOJ And Julian Assange

Trump, The DOJ And Julian Assange

“I’m glad that the Justice Department has found a way to go after Assange.  He’s gotten a free ride for too long.” Rep. Peter King (R-New York), Apr 20, 2017 There had been some doubts from initial enthusiasts about WikiLeaks once information from leaks released on its site started puncturing holes in an already worn Democratic campaign in 2016.  Accusations[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 1 comment World
On hard substrata, frequently observed epilithic organisms include corals, actiniarians, hydroids, sponges, ascidians and crinoids - from 2011 seamounts expedition in the SW Indian O_C_IUCN [fwdslash] NERC

An Expedition to Explore Life on Undersea Mountains

For the common man, mountains are a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. In geography we were taught that a mountain is generally steeper than a hill. And that mountains are formed with movement between tectonic plates or volcanoes erupting. So it is amazing to know that[Read More…]

The US Aggression on Syria And The Principles of a “Just War”

The US Aggression on Syria And The Principles of a “Just War”

The US military forces committed a classical example of the aggression on one sovereign and independent state on April 6th, 2017 by bombing a territory of Syrian Arab Republic by 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles killing civilians who are proclaimed as usually as “collateral damage”. A formal excuse for the aggression was based as many times before (from Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan,[Read More…]

Trump Is Tragically Off Course

Trump Is Tragically Off Course

Last spring Donald Trump was widely viewed as a petulant oddity in the primary race. Nonetheless, he won the electoral vote; and here we are – an unprepared commander-in-chief who recently discovered new tools of an intoxicating military. I cannot be alone in thinking that Mr. Trump is tragically off course. Mr. Trump inherited a nation that is perpetually at[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 2 comments Uncategorized
International Collaboration to End Violence

International Collaboration to End Violence

While much of the world is engulfed in violence of one sort or another (whether violence in the home or on the street, exploitation, ecological destruction or war), a global network of individuals and organizations is committed to ending this violence in all of its manifestations. With individual signatories in 100 countries and organizational endorsements in 35 countries, each of[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Latest Lancet Data Imply Adani Australian Coal Project Will  Kill 1.4 Million Indians

Latest Lancet Data Imply Adani Australian Coal Project Will  Kill 1.4 Million Indians

  A multi-author 2017 paper in the prestigious UK medical journal The Lancet estimates 1.1 million Indian deaths annually from ambient (outdoor) air pollution, notably from fine carbon particulates (PM2.5). Assuming coal burning causes 50% of ambient air pollution in India, pollutants from the burning of coal exported to India from the giant, Australia-approved Adani coal mine will eventually kill[Read More…]

The Football Analogy for Activists

The Football Analogy for Activists

  “Billy Graham, a key figure at the Christian Woodstock in 1972, once compared life to a golf course, where it was only important to follow the rules in order to be embraced by the Lord once the game was over.” —  Vine Deloria, Jr. in conversation with the author Explo ’72 was a gigantic rally held at the Cotton[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Iqra Is Recovering

Iqra Is Recovering

Student of Nawa Kadal College Srinagar, Iqra, who was injured during the student protests on Monday is stable and recovering in hospital. A resident of Rajouri Kadal, Iqra, was seriously injured after a paramilitary CRPF trooper used his catapult to target her. She was hit by a stone on the left side of her head, caused a concussion and fracture.[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Why Are You In Deep Slumber Mr. Secretary General?

Why Are You In Deep Slumber Mr. Secretary General?

  The worst crimes against humanity committed by India in Kashmir are going unchallenged. The absence of  any censure or reprimand by the international community particularly UN, is taken  as a  license or tacit  permission by India to continue with its dastardly & grotesque  action  of annihilating the natives of the place, physically, socially & economically. And while as the[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Political Economy of Cow-Mentality in India

Political Economy of Cow-Mentality in India

  India is a mosaic of great cultures. Not now. The culture which we inherited from our founding fathers and martyrs who wanted to preserve the greatness would be ashamed to see India today. India today which is digital, India which is nuclear  and India one of the fastest growing economies of the world is now also the land of[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 3 comments Communal Harmony
Caste, Gender And Other Such Issues Should Be Dealt With As Class Struggle: Anand Teltumbde

Caste, Gender And Other Such Issues Should Be Dealt With As Class Struggle: Anand Teltumbde

Anand Teltumbde is a civil rights activist, political analyst, columnist and author of many books. He has a long association with peoples’ struggle spanning over three decades backing his theorizations on various issues.  Trained in technology and management from the top institutes in the country, he marshals his insights of the modern techno-managerial world to sharpen strategies of struggles. In[Read More…]

by 21/04/2017 5 comments Annihilate Caste
On one of the riverbanks

Trump – In North Korea You Will Be Murdering Human Beings!

When I think about North Korea, what first comes to my mind is a mist over the calm and majestic surface of the Taedong River near Pyongyang. Next I always recall two lovers, locked in a tender and almost desperate embrace, sitting side by side on the shore. I saw them every day, while taking brisk walks at dawn. Now[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 2 comments Imperialism
China Reinforces Border Claims Within Days of Dalai Lama’s Visit To Arunachal Pradesh

China Reinforces Border Claims Within Days of Dalai Lama’s Visit To Arunachal Pradesh

  China has renamed six places in Arunachal Pradesh in retaliation against the Dalai Lama’s visit to India’s easternmost state. The move is apparently aimed at reaffirming Beijing’s territorial sovereignty to the region. China’s civil affairs ministry carried out the name changes on April 13, a day after the Dalai Lama left Arunachal Pradesh following a nine-day high-profile visit. The[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 1 comment South Asia
Review: Black Subjugation in America

Review: Black Subjugation in America

Books Reviewed in this Essay: Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race. London and New York: Verso, 2012. Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. On a recent visit to[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 1 comment Book Review
Kashmir Flood 2017: Yet Another Nightmare!

Kashmir Flood 2017: Yet Another Nightmare!

(Srinagar has once again passed through a nightmarish situation due to a sudden flood in River Jhelum. It is nature’s warning for a big one which may hit us soon unless preventive measures are taken on a war footing!) Just two days of incessant heavy rain swelled River Jhelum to dangerous flood level. There was panic all over and many[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
The Army As The Politicians Human Shield?

The Army As The Politicians Human Shield?

              The recent video clip of a civilian strapped to the front of an army vehicle deployed in internal security (IS) operations in Kashmir has made headlines. Many army veterans are defending it as a tactical means to avoid stone-pelting and thus permit operations with minimal bloodshed of protestors and army personnel alike. Some journalists aver that this tactic[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
America’s Longest War Drags On In Afghanistan

America’s Longest War Drags On In Afghanistan

The US national security advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, was in Afghanistan over the weekend, speaking with President Ashraf Ghani and General John Nicholson, the US military commander in the country. The aim of the talks, the Military Times reported prior to McMaster’s arrival in Kabul, was to “assess whether more military personnel are needed to break the stalemate there.”[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Cults of Old Age: The Passing of Emma Morano

Cults of Old Age: The Passing of Emma Morano

The novelist Anthony Powell spoke of old age as penalisation for a crime one had not committed.  Obviously, not being biblically inclined in that sense, the antics of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were discounted. Through the histories on the subject of aging, mythologies have accumulated as eager moss crossing moist rock.  These have assumed something of[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment World
Life in a ‘Degrowth’ Economy, And Why You Might Actually Enjoy It

Life in a ‘Degrowth’ Economy, And Why You Might Actually Enjoy It

What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever. But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in?[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment Counter Solutions
Setting An Example

Setting An Example

    When I was a child, I took it for granted that my world would always be surrounded by the beauty and wonder of many other species included in it. For example, I thought that it was normal to see many mourning doves flap out of a stand of trees next to my home while starting, shortly before dawn’s[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Paintings Without Frames, Living Without Games

Paintings Without Frames, Living Without Games

“Near Eastern religions have a propensity for building massive temples and tombs and this tradition has been emulated by Christian tendencies to construct gigantic cathedrals. Temples, churches, and synagogues separate the faithful from the secular world and from the natural world as if religion needs to be isolated from the rest of human activities.” — Vine Deloria, Jr., God is Red:[Read More…]

Edward Said

When Daesh Is Defeated: Who Will Fill The Intellectual Vacuum In The Arab World?

  Back in the Middle East for a few months, I find myself astounded by the absence of the strong voices of Arab intellectuals. The region that has given rise to the likes of Michel Aflaq, George Habash, Rached al-Ghannouchi, Edward Said and numerous others has marginalized its intellectuals. Arab visionaries have either been coopted by the exuberant funds allocated[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment World
Israel Celebrates 50 Years As Occupier

Israel Celebrates 50 Years As Occupier

  Nazareth: Israel is to hold lavish celebrations over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of what it calls the “liberation of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights” – or what the rest of us describe as the birth of the occupation. The centrepiece event will take place in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. The West Bank settlement[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment Palestine
Making Microfinance Work For People

Making Microfinance Work For People

The claims of microfinance are not necessarily dubious but then as the saying goes, there are three sides to every story—your side, his side and the truth. The good claims are trumpeted and the bad evidence is rubbished. It is a reminder that those who provide microfinancial services   need to monitor carefully not only their positive impacts but also their[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment India
An Open Letter From A Kashmiri Student To The People Of India

An Open Letter From A Kashmiri Student To The People Of India

Dear all I am a Kashmiri student of psychology. While studying the topic of resistance to persuasion, I came across this: “Few of us like orders or being told what to do. We all have probably experienced advertisers, politicians or individuals pressurising us to change our attitude about some issue.  In all such cases if we feel like our personal[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 16 comments Kashmir
Minorities And Dissenters Under Intimidation And Deep Stress In South Asia:  The lynching of  Mashal Khan

Minorities And Dissenters Under Intimidation And Deep Stress In South Asia:  The lynching of  Mashal Khan

  ‘If you are black or you are brown or you are gay or you are lesbian or you are Trans or you are Introvert , Anyone that is treating you unkindly , It’s only because they are afraid or they have been taught to be afraid of how important you are. Because being different means you make a difference. so[Read More…]

Talk Bhima or Bhim, Walk Manu

Talk Bhima or Bhim, Walk Manu

  ..nothing to eat nothing to wear boundless is the anguish who indeed can bear to see such misery among the world’s creatures let my soul be condemned to hell but let the Universe be redeemed. – Bhima Bhoi,   [Source: BiswamoyPati in Religion and social ‘subversion’, Re-examining colonial Orissa (EPW, July/2010).,BidyutMohanty in Orissa famine of 1866 Demographic and economic[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment India
Donald Trump, North Korea And Nuclear Brinkmanship

Donald Trump, North Korea And Nuclear Brinkmanship

Warring toddlers, fanatical children, one-eyed adolescents who confuse noise with constructive contribution – this is the state of the world, with the recent, and ongoing spat chapter of Washington and Pyongyang. However you wish to describe the stout, proud and foolishly dangerous Kim Jong-un, murderous leader of North Korea, comparisons must diminish somewhat before the trigger happy CEO of United[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 2 comments World
USA Moves Toward Major Intervention In Yemen

USA Moves Toward Major Intervention In Yemen

The USA, according to Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis, he who ordered the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq, is about to take a major step towards direct intervention in support of the Saudi Arabia war on the Yemeni people. According to Jeffrey St. Clair, Editor of Counterpunch, this war has already seen 90,000 Saudi airstrikes on Yemen, or[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 2)- Cold War 2.0

Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker and the “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 2)- Cold War 2.0

  This  is the second part (of 5 ) of a paragraph by paragraph commentary on a recent article posing as journalism in the March 6, 2017 issue of The New Yorker. I hope to demonstrate that this article is basically a totally mendacious concoction of cold war US propaganda constructed out of unsubstantiated opinions expressed by US government officials and various[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 1 comment World
BJP’s Rise in UP Shows the Need for a Real Progressive Alternative and Not Votebank Politics

BJP’s Rise in UP Shows the Need for a Real Progressive Alternative and Not Votebank Politics

Even as social media remains abuzz with the fake news of Yogi Adityanath, the newly appointed CM of Uttar Pradesh, cutting down reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in private medical colleges (which never existed in the first place), what has taken the country by storm is BJP’s major upset in the UP assembly elections of 2017. Known to be[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 1 comment India
Deconstructing Yogi’s Meat Politics

Deconstructing Yogi’s Meat Politics

  The crackdown on illegal abattoirs was one of the first decisions taken by Yogi Adityanath soon after taking over as Chief Minister of the most populous and politically crucial state of the country following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) resounding victory in the recently held assembly elections. The UP is the country’s largest meat exporting state having a business[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 1 comment World
A top shot of the Okhla Sabzi Mandi

Photo Essay: Okhla Sabzi Mandi, Life in Action

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;” (As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7) The quoted lines, written by Shakespeare somehow, explain the cycle of our life. We are born and then we die. But it’s the “in between” where we actually live. We’re actors of the play called ‘Life’ and we go[Read More…]

by 18/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Erdogan Clinches Victory In Turkish Constitutional Referendum

Erdogan Clinches Victory In Turkish Constitutional Referendum

  The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sunday (April 16) achieved victory in a historic referendum on a package of constitutional amendments that will introduce presidential form of government like France and the United States. In a press conference in Istanbul following his party’s declaration of victory, Erdoğan said that unofficial results showed there were about 25m yes votes, 1.3m[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment World
Kashmir On Boil Again As Student Protests Spread

Kashmir On Boil Again As Student Protests Spread

Protests against the Pulwama raids by police have escalated to other towns outside Srinagar. While Srinagar police is battling students in SP College, reports about similar protests came from Shopian, Sopore, Pattan, Gaderbal and now from Kashmir University. Police reportedly used force at almost all places. The students of various colleges boycotted their classes and staged protests inside their college[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
The Mother Of All Bombs Goes To Afghanistan

The Mother Of All Bombs Goes To Afghanistan

These are the times where magnitude and size matters. Bombs in number with much heft and presence are being sought to root out those non-state jihadists of the Prophet, destructively maiming and killing all before them in the name of the next heavily drawn out cause. On Friday, United States armed forces busied themselves with dropping such a weapon of[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
MOAB: Muslim Lands Are Testing Ground For Dangerous Weapons?

MOAB: Muslim Lands Are Testing Ground For Dangerous Weapons?

  The U.S. Thursday (April 13) dropped a bomb with an explosive force equal to 11 tons of TNT on a cave complex used by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) , the Pentagon said. The bomb is officially called a GBU-43 or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the origin of its nickname as[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Don’t Poison Yourself: A Warning As It’s Too Late For Us!

Don’t Poison Yourself: A Warning As It’s Too Late For Us!

Yesterday one of my friends visited my home. I offered her big fluffy kernels of organic popcorn cooked in sunflower oil. I recommend both products: Great Northern Popcorn Organic Yellow Gourmet Popcorn All Natural, 5 Pounds and Baja Precious – Organic Sunflower Oil, 750ml (25.3 Fl Oz). You don’t have these products in your country? Then go for something comparable.[Read More…]

Kashmir : A Human Rights Hell

Kashmir : A Human Rights Hell

Kashmir is undoubtedly the human rights hell of the world . The tale of human misfortune in Kashmir is of unprecedented nature. Every form of brutal human rights violations and tactics of suppression have been committed against the masses of Kashmir to quell their sentiments of solution and right to self determination . Most of the voices of conscience in[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Socio-Political and Economic Aspects Of Fluorosis

Socio-Political and Economic Aspects Of Fluorosis

A Presentation made at XL Indian Social Science Congress, Dec 19-23, 2016, University of Mysore, Mysuru , focused on PEOPLES HEALTH AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN INDIA. It was widely appreciated as one focussing on a key problem faced by vast masses of India, neglected by all the (un-)concerned agencies

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Statue of Bhagat Singh:Generating Revolutionary Spirit In The Hearts Of Toiling Masses

Statue of Bhagat Singh:Generating Revolutionary Spirit In The Hearts Of Toiling Masses

    “We don’t have any faith in statue-worship but as a symbol the importance of a statue cannot be underestimated. We adore our homes with the pictures or statues of our heroes, mentors or beloved ones and these pictures or statues inspire and enthuse us. Had the statues been devoid of any importance then after the defeat of socialism and[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 2 comments India
In India Any Social Activist Can Be Arrested, Charged And Tried – Sans Evidence – For Terrorism: Kobad Ghandy’s Case – Part II – The Punjab Trial

In India Any Social Activist Can Be Arrested, Charged And Tried – Sans Evidence – For Terrorism: Kobad Ghandy’s Case – Part II – The Punjab Trial

The first part of the article (Countercurrents.org, 14.03.2017) dealt with Kobad Ghandy’s trial under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in Delhi, during which he was detained in Tihar Jail for about seven years!; and acquitted by the court of charges under UAPA on 10 June, 2016!! Kobad Ghandy was acquitted of even being a member of CPI (Maoist).

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Kashmir Today Needs A Healing Touch

Kashmir Today Needs A Healing Touch

What is the meaning of victory of Farooq Abdullah from the Srinagar constituency where not even 7% votes polled. In many of the booths merely 2% votes were polled. I know there are past precedences of such a situation in at least three Indian states when people boycotted and government determinedly went for polls and were ‘able’ to form governments.[Read More…]

by 17/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Commander-in-Chief Trump Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on Afghanistan

Commander-in-Chief Trump Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on Afghanistan

Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump unleashed one of the most powerful U.S. bombs—the 20,000 pound GBU-43, known as “the mother of all bombs”—on Afghanistan on Thursday, the Pentagon has confirmed. The MOAB, which stands for massive ordinance air blast, reportedly struck an Islamic State (ISIS) tunnel complex in Nangarhar province. According to the Department of Defense statement, “the strike was designed to[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 1 comment World
Pompeo, Power And WikiLeaks

Pompeo, Power And WikiLeaks

“Vested interests deflect from the facts that WikiLeaks publishes by demonizing its brave staff and me.” Julian Assange, The Washington Post, Apr 11, 2017. The Central Intelligence Agency’s current director, Mike Pompeo, has a view of history much like that of any bureaucrat as understood by the great sociologist Max Weber. The essential, fundamental purpose of bureaucracy is a rationale[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 1 comment World
Pollutants From Adani Coal Mine Will Eventually Kill About 0.5 Million Indians

Pollutants From Adani Coal Mine Will Eventually Kill About 0.5 Million Indians

  Under a climate criminal Coalition Government Australia is lurching towards an environmental and human catastrophe represented by the huge, Government-approved Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland. Pollutants from burning Australian coal exported from the proposed Adani coal mine are  estimated to kill 13,000 people annually and 500,000 people over the lifetime of the coal mine.[Read More…]

Lines From The Edge Of Darkness

Lines From The Edge Of Darkness

At a time when military planners intensify the demonic work of softening the world up for a normalisation of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the ever-growing fields of war, let our hearts more fully awaken to the pain of the world, and particularly to the pain of those innocents caught up in war and preparations for war.

by 14/04/2017 2 comments Arts/Literature
Kashmiri Youth Tied In Front Of Army Jeep As Human Shield

Kashmiri Youth Tied In Front Of Army Jeep As Human Shield

A Kashmiri civilian is tied to an Indian army jeep as a human shield in Beerwa, Budgam area of Kashmir. The Indian army personnel on the top of the jeep is warning local Kashmiris of same fate if they pelt stones. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah has tweeted a photograph and a video, showing a Kashmiri youth tied by Indian[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
 How The Insurgencies In Middle East Are Not Terrorism?

 How The Insurgencies In Middle East Are Not Terrorism?

The definition of the term “terrorism” has been deliberately left undefined by the Western powers to use it as a catch-all pretext to justify their interventionist policy in the energy-rich Islamic countries. Depending on context, “terrorism” can mean two markedly distinct phenomena: that are, religious extremism or militancy. If terrorism is understood as religious extremism, then that is a cultural[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 1 comment World
What Does An “America-First” Foreign Policy Actually Mean? 

What Does An “America-First” Foreign Policy Actually Mean? 

  What does an “America-first” foreign policy look like under President Donald Trump? As a start, forget the ancient label of “isolationism.”  With the end of Trump’s first 100 days approaching, it looks more like a military-first policy aimed at achieving global hegemony, which means it’s a potential doomsday machine. Candidate Trump vowed he’d make the U.S. military so strong[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Laos Plain of Jars - village fence made of American bombs

Now Only Rational Thinking Can Save The World!

  Scenario ONE: Imagine that you are on board a ship, which is slowly sinking. There is no land in sight, and your radio transmitter is not functioning properly. There are several people on board and you care for them, deeply. You don’t want this to be the end of ‘everything’. What do you do? A) You fix for yourself[Read More…]

by 14/04/2017 4 comments World
Ambedkar, Nationalism And The Emerging Crises In India

Ambedkar, Nationalism And The Emerging Crises In India

Today is Ambedkar Jayanti. It would be appropriate to take a re-look at Ambedkar’s idea of nationalism in the face of virulent Hindutva nationalism in India and also on the global context

Keystone XL And America’s Psychopathic Government

Keystone XL And America’s Psychopathic Government

 Keystone XL Pipeline is a long-controversial proposed Canadian pipeline project through the U.S. north to south, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, to trans-ship the world’s most global-warming filthiest oil, from Canada’s tar-sands, to be burnt and used in Europe. On March 24th, U.S. President Trump informed the to-be-owner of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, that he gives them[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment Environmental Protection
Palestine Retold: Palestine’s Tragic Anniversaries Are Not Only About Remembrance

Palestine Retold: Palestine’s Tragic Anniversaries Are Not Only About Remembrance

For Palestinians, 2017 is a year of significant anniversaries. While historians mark May 15th as the anniversary of the date on which Palestinians were expelled from their historic homeland in 1948, the fact is the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians began in earnest in 1947. In strict historical terms 1947 and ‘48 were the years in which Palestine was conquered[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment Palestine
If Assad Must Go, So Must All The Warmongers

If Assad Must Go, So Must All The Warmongers

The real truth revealed by the chemical weapon tragedy in Syria’s Idlib Province is that as the world continues to tear itself asunder and make a mockery of the United Nation’s concept of international law and the sovereign rights of nations – supposedly intended to protect them from such unprovoked, preemptive attacks by rogue countries like the United States and[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment World
A Syrian man collects samples from the site of a suspected toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, on April 5, 2017.
International outrage is mounting over a suspected chemical attack that killed scores of civilians in Khan Sheikhun on April 4, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Omar haj kadour

MIT Rocket Scientist Questions White House Claims On Syria Chemical Attack

  One of the world’s leading rocket scientists, national security advisor and MIT Professor Theodore Postol, who has won awards for debunking claims about missile defense systems and has been a scientific adviser to the US Chief of Naval Operations, says today in a nine-page report that a four-page report released by the Trump administration yesterday intended to blame the[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment World
A Financial Toll Tax: Transform, Not Reform, The Tax System

A Financial Toll Tax: Transform, Not Reform, The Tax System

I recently awoke from a rather pleasant dream in which members of Congress and the President embraced the unique proposition that they had been elected to serve the People of the United States. Congress had determined that healthcare was a matter of right (by simply reducing the age at which a person qualified for Medicare to birth) and that every[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment World
LUKOMORYE—Poets Pave The Road To The Golden Age

LUKOMORYE—Poets Pave The Road To The Golden Age

(Rome) The recent death of the Russian poet with whom I was acquainted, Yevgheny Yevtushenko, prompted these considerations of the role of poets in social-cultural-political progress in general and in a particularly spectacular fashion in Russia. In few other countries have poets played a more significant than in Russia. Nonetheless, for centuries Russian poets have been harassed, persecuted, and punished[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
Kashmir: Election “Balloon” Deflated!

Kashmir: Election “Balloon” Deflated!

  (Total boycott accompanied by gruesome mayhem clearly shows the oft bandied “Balloon” of elections has been fully deflated!) George Bernard Shaw had said “Democracy is a balloon filled with hot air. Fools watch it when it rises and the clever pick their pockets”! This has been happening in Kashmir from the very start. The best excuse oft used by[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Holy Cow: One More lynching

Holy Cow: One More lynching

  One Pehlu Khan from Haryana came to the cattle fair in Jaipur to purchase a buffalo. He was a dairy farmer. In the fair he was impressed by high milk yielding Cow and bought that instead of his plan of buying a buffalo. On way back in Alwar ‘Go Rakshak’ (Protectors of Cow) attacked his group and mercilessly beat[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment Communal Harmony
Healing India’s Suicidal Farmers

Healing India’s Suicidal Farmers

  How many deaths will it take ‘til he knows That too many people have died The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the wind. –Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate India’s economy may be soaring, but agriculture remains its Achilles’ heel, the source of livelihood for hundreds of millions of people but a fraction[Read More…]

by 13/04/2017 1 comment India
Forced Removal From United Airlines

Forced Removal From United Airlines

Flying United Airlines was never a pleasant business. Functional, sterile, with staff more appropriately disposed to a deep freeze morgue than the hot blood of enthusiastic living, the airline was always an entity you wished ill towards, even as the flight started taking off.  Dreams of flying  a Gulf carrier or Singapore Airlines would fill the mind in the uneasy[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 2 comments World
Common Decency: The Voight-Kampff Test

Common Decency: The Voight-Kampff Test

I once stayed up all night reading a book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip Dick.  The book was made into the movie Blade Runner.  The main character in the book, Rick Deckard, has to figure out something that seems like quite a challenge: is he a human being, or is he a “replicant”? Replicants are artificial beings[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 2 comments Video, World
Proven US Alliance Lying Over Chemical Weapons Attack & Trump Pretext For Destruction Of Syria

Proven US Alliance Lying Over Chemical Weapons Attack & Trump Pretext For Destruction Of Syria

  The Russian and Syrian denials are true if they are innocent and lies if they are guilty of the suspected  chemical weapons attack that killed 90 people including 30 children in Syria. However Trump, US and US Alliance certitude over Russian and Syrian guilt is clear, proven, warmongering lying in the absence of findings from expert and independent investigators.[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
The Silver Lining of Trump’s Ownership of Regime Change Policy in Syria

The Silver Lining of Trump’s Ownership of Regime Change Policy in Syria

On a positive note, it has been a good development that the Trump administration has owned the “regime change” policy of the Obama administration in Syria by launching cruise missiles strike against the Syrian air force in al-Shayrat air base. Because over the decades, it has been a convenient stratagem of the Western powers with two-party political systems, particularly the[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker And The “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 1)

Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker And The “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 1)

This  is the first part (of 5 ) of a paragraph by paragraph commentary on a recent article posing as journalism in the March 6, 2017 issue of The New Yorker. I hope to demonstrate that this article is basically a totally mendacious concoction of cold war US propaganda constructed out of unsubstantiated opinions expressed by US government officials and[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 1 comment World
School in Aleppo - still smiling despite pain

Photo Essay: Reflecting On Syria

Ms. Yayoi Segiis based in Beirut, Lebanon, and she has worked in Syria for almost 3 years. She is extremely passionate about the country, which she admires and tries to support in her position as an accomplished specialist in national education development. She agreed to share her collection of personal photos from Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.

by 12/04/2017 1 comment World
Africa And India: Let’s Build Stronger People To People Relations

Africa And India: Let’s Build Stronger People To People Relations

Recent attacks upon African people in India has come as a shock for many of us who believe in equality and human rights. Though, no words are enough to condemn this incident, I not only condemn this, but as an Indian national, I also apologise to every African citizen for this shameful incident that happened in my country by my[Read More…]

by 12/04/2017 1 comment India
Crimea: From World War 0 To World War III

Crimea: From World War 0 To World War III

Today, we remember little about what we call the Crimean war (1853-1856), even though it was the largest war ever fought in history up to that moment. It prefigured many of the elements that would later reappear in the two world wars of the 20th century, so much that we might call it “World War 0.” It included fossil fuels[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 2 comments World
Al-Shayrat Airfield Attack Violates UN Charter

Al-Shayrat Airfield Attack Violates UN Charter

In early morning darkness on April 7th the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian al-Shayrat Airfield from two American destroyers stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It described the targets as Syrian fighter jets, radar, fuel facilities used for the aircraft. It asserted prior notification of Russian authorities, and offered the assurance that precautions were taken to[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Joining The War Train: Trump’s Liberal Cheer Leaders

Joining The War Train: Trump’s Liberal Cheer Leaders

“Action is consolatory.  It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.” Joseph Conrad, Nostromo (1904). At the psychological heart of every liberal is a milk soft tendency to succumb to the authoritarian personality, a feeling that, just around the corner, resistance will fold.  Before such authority, adoration and bruising follow in menacing union. As US President[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
A Syrian man collects samples from the site of a suspected toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, on April 5, 2017.
International outrage is mounting over a suspected chemical attack that killed scores of civilians in Khan Sheikhun on April 4, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Omar haj kadour

 The Gassing Game In Syria: Regime Change And Beyond

  The use of chemical weapons in Sheikhun, in the Idlib province of Syria on 4th April 2017 was a heinous act. The world has rightly condemned it. Because it was so cruel and callous, it is vital that the truth about the attack is established as soon as possible.  The United States of America and a number of its[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment World
Trudeau Poodles For Empire

Trudeau Poodles For Empire

“Russia needs to be aware, made aware of its responsibility in the bloody actions last week by the Assad regime and therefore we are always open to working with our friends, allies and partners allies to send clear messages through sanctions and other means to Russia.” PM Justin Trudeau. Canada’s PM Trudeau displayed all the sycophancy of a stalwart U.S.[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Can Red Sea Corals Save The Worlds Reefs?

Can Red Sea Corals Save The Worlds Reefs?

Hot water tolerant Red Sea corals could be the key to saving the worlds reefs. It will take an international effort to create the massive coral nurseries here in the Red Sea needed to begin to bring back to life the enormous areas of bleached dead coral reefs in places like The Great Barrier Reef in Australia, or from the[Read More…]

Mourning The Death Of ‘The City Of Ideas’

Mourning The Death Of ‘The City Of Ideas’

There was once a city called ‘The City of Ideas’. It was known far and wide for its culture of questioning, debating, discussing, disagreeing, arguing and naturally, generating more and more ideas in the process. It was a city filled with numerous schools, colleges, Universities and Institutions of learning. People from all over the world vied to earn themselves the[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment India
The Case For A Truth And Reconciliation Commission In Kashmir

The Case For A Truth And Reconciliation Commission In Kashmir

The recent deaths of eight young civilians on the polling day once again underscores the need move beyond the sovereignty versus azaadi debate or even the embittered dynamics of the neighbourhood territorial dispute and mend fences closer home, before the embers of dissatisfaction spill over the streets again.The narrative should shift stance on justice dispensation, a crucial facet, which is often ignored by the political class and state institutions alike.

by 11/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Racially Motivated Attacks On Africans In India Rooted In Casteism

Racially Motivated Attacks On Africans In India Rooted In Casteism

Over the last 2-3 years there have been a surge in targeted attacks on African nationals living in India, people from the North-Eastern provinces settled elsewhere in our country, people belonging to minority communities and members of backward castes particularly Dalits. Last year alone a Congolese teacher was attacked and killed in Delhi, a group of six Africans—two women, a[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment India
Tamil Nadu farmers strip outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Office in protest demanding waiver of loans

In Champaran’s Centenary, Indian Farmers Await Another Gandhi

   This is the centenary year of  the Champaran sayagraha (policy of passive political resistance)  – the first experiment by  Mahatma Gandhi of his epic philosophy .This tool  was to become Gandhi’s most powerful amour  and  earned him  a cherished and coveted place  in the pantheon of world ‘s legendary leaders . Gandhi launched his satyagraha in Champaran district on[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 1 comment India
The U.S. Navy’s Anti-Environmental Broadside In The Gulf of Alaska 

The U.S. Navy’s Anti-Environmental Broadside In The Gulf of Alaska 

It’s war in the Gulf and the U.S. Navy is on hand to protect us. No, not that Gulf! I’m talking about the Gulf of Alaska and it’s actually mock war — if, that is, you don’t happen to be a fin whale or a wild salmon. This May, the Navy will again sail its warships into the Gulf of[Read More…]

by 10/04/2017 1 comment Environmental Protection
“A homeless sleeps amid a snow storm outside the White House in Washington D.C., capital of the United States…” [Photo: Xinhua/Zhang Jun]

On Finding A Homeless Person In A Blizzard!

  Personally if I were to find even one homeless person sleeping in the icy snow not far from my home, I’d make it a habit to always nightly check the area for others in the same condition and, in the least, call a local shelter for a pick-up of him, give him hot tea and a sandwich, as well[Read More…]

by 10/04/2017 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Syria Chemical Weapon Attack:  Truth Comes At A Cost

Syria Chemical Weapon Attack:  Truth Comes At A Cost

  Shooting from the hip with unerring accuracy was the Wild West according to Hollywood.  As anyone who has ever fired a pistol will tell you it is improbable, and historically the West’s few gun duels were rather unremarkable.  The latest hip-shooter is of course Donald J. Trump whose foreign policy seems to turn on a dime — from not[Read More…]

by 10/04/2017 2 comments World
Australia, India And Coal Proliferation

Australia, India And Coal Proliferation

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in New Delhi today on a four-day visit. It is widely expected that he will advocate for, among other things, increased coal and Uranium export from Australia to India. The issue of coal export to India gains significance in the backdrop that world’s largest coal mine in Australia is being planned to be developed[Read More…]

Trump’s Syria Attack Poses New Conundrums For The Anti-War Movement

Trump’s Syria Attack Poses New Conundrums For The Anti-War Movement

There is widespread criticism of Trump’s Syria attack on the left, and many of the reasons stated are spot on: The attack was surely not motivated by humanitarian considerations, contrary to what is claimed. The attack is illegal, both under US and international law, and hence constitutes an act of war. The US has been conducting military strikes in Syria[Read More…]

by 10/04/2017 1 comment World
WSS Condemns Threats By Bajrang Dal On WSS Activist In Assam

WSS Condemns Threats By Bajrang Dal On WSS Activist In Assam

Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) strongly condemns the manner in which our member Ms Bondita Acharya, a well known women’s activist from Jorhat, Assam, is being criminally intimidated, abused in sexual language, defamed and trolled on her Facebook account only because she expressed her personal opinion regarding eating of beef, a common practice in her state of[Read More…]

Photo by Teknorat

Science Needs To Be Set Free For The Good Of Mankind

  This article is based on the Presidential Speech by well-known physician, Dr BM Hegde at the 40th Annual Congress of the Indian Social Science Academy, held in Mysore, Dec 19-23, 2016. We are publishing the entire content of the speech in the light of the many brilliant and thought-provoking observations made on science and health but cannot verify all the[Read More…]

by 10/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Arms And The Babies: Unbridled Compassion For All The Casualties of War

Arms And The Babies: Unbridled Compassion For All The Casualties of War

We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided. And those who have an interest in keeping the machinery of war going are a[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Trump Strikes Syria

Trump Strikes Syria

All bets are off in the latest round of escalation in the Syrian conflict.  The attack on al-Shayrat airbase involving 59 cruise missiles launched from the USS Ross and Porter in the Eastern Mediterranean was meant to be a lesson of sorts. For US President Donald Trump, it was in the “national interest of the United States” to deter the[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Trump Attacks Syria: A Gambit And A War Crime

Trump Attacks Syria: A Gambit And A War Crime

There are contradictory opinions about who on last Tuesday April 4th used chemical weapons, which killed more than 80 civilians including children in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in Syria. Some pundits impute the deadly Sarin gas attack to Bashar al-Assad, while others believe terrorists belonging to the al-Nusra Front, which is an al Qaeda surrogate and friends with[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Holy Cow

Holy Cow

Madhavikutty, the renowned Malayalm writer, was ahead of her times. Here is a short story she wrote in Malayalam in the sixties. It foretells what’s happening in India now.   One day, while a boy was picking up banana skin from the waste bin and eating it, a cow reached there and grabbed it from him. He pushed the cow[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
How Can You Eat At A Time Like This?

How Can You Eat At A Time Like This?

  “The horror in Syria is terrible, but much worse has been going on in the Congo — greater numbers sacrificed — for a much longer period of time… with our clear complicity.” — one of the author’s home schooled youngsters Comedian Mitch Hedberg used to tell a joke about the Dufresnes which is germane today. If you viewed the[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment World
Credit: Ben Thomson

What if I told you 2,000 women per year are murdered by men they know? (Interview with Dawn Wilcox)

On May 28, 2016, a gorilla named Harambe was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo. A small child had fallen into the primate’s enclosure and… well, you know the rest. “As I watched the sort of public outrage and mourning rarely afforded murdered women, it was the final straw,” explains Dawn Wilcox, a registered nurse for 22 years. Wilcox is no “expert,”[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 3 comments Patriarchy
Bankim’s ‘Bharat’ -Pro-British, Anti-Muslim And Pro-Brahminical

Bankim’s ‘Bharat’ -Pro-British, Anti-Muslim And Pro-Brahminical

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who is considered as the father of Hindu Rashtra, has written three novels all in the last ten years of his life: Anandmath, Debi Choudhurani and Sitaram. All of them can be justly described as anti-Muslim. B.C.C played an important role in reducing Indian nationalism to Hindu nationalism, which is anti-Muslim to the[Read More…]

Bridging The Gender Gap

Bridging The Gender Gap

Pride and dignity would belong to women if only men would leave them alone. Egyptian Proverb Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. India has a larger relative economic value at stake from advancing gender equality than any of the ten regions analyzed in a McKinsey Global Institute report, The Power of Parity:[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Patriarchy
A washerman washing clothes inside the cement tubs at the ghat.

Photo Essay: We Treat Your Clothes Like Our Babies

Devi Prasad Sadan Ghat has managed to exist and battle the innovations of technology that brought washing machines to every household. Almost hidden and unnoticed by people the biggest dhobi ghat in Delhi is located in CP at the otherwise quiet and serene Hailey lane. Families of 60 washermen, try to sustain themselves by washing and ironing clothes from dawn[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 3 comments Life/Philosophy
Voice Of The Voiceless: People’s Tribunal Of Acquitted Innocents

Voice Of The Voiceless: People’s Tribunal Of Acquitted Innocents

Being imprisoned for a crime one did not commit, being acquitted and freed after going through a hard ordeal of physical and mental agony, granting of ‘Good Service Entry’ to those officers whose hands played key role in unreasonably locking up innocent persons in prisons, being denied any sort of a compensation for the deprival of valuable years of their[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
North East Indian Organisations Express Solidarity In Response To Discrimination And Assault Against African Nationalities

North East Indian Organisations Express Solidarity In Response To Discrimination And Assault Against African Nationalities

The undersigned students’ organisations and unions from North East India, would like to extend solidarity with people of African origin living in India and particularly those who were attacked in Greater Noida recently. We empathise with the violence, ordeals, and humiliation faced by Africans in India. We are distressed to learn of the ongoing situation, and denial of the Indian[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Internet Shut Down In Srinagar

Internet Shut Down In Srinagar

Internet services in three districts falling under the Srinagar Parliamentary constituency, going to polls tomorrow, will be shut down from midnight as a precautionary measure to prevent floating of rumours by anti- national elements. Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal, which form part of the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, will have no Internet connections amid reports that Pakistan-based groups were engaged in[Read More…]

by 09/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
American Militarism As A Way Of Life: Beyond Syria And The Middle East

American Militarism As A Way Of Life: Beyond Syria And The Middle East

Introduction Nothing unifies America at home and rallies support among its allies quicker than a bombing of a Muslim nation, no matter the ideological, political, and moral justifications about the military option as a first resort before or after the bombing. Governments divided and lacking popular support, governments questioned by a segment of the military, political and business elites, and[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
US Threatens More Strikes After Cruise Missiles Hit Syria

US Threatens More Strikes After Cruise Missiles Hit Syria

The day after US warships rained some 60 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian government airbase, US officials made it clear that this unilateral and criminal attack against an oppressed former colonial country is merely the first shot in what is to be an escalating and widening campaign of American military aggression. The governor of Syria’s central Homs province reported Friday[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment World
Why Promoters Of Biometric UID Aadhaar Are Wrong And Irresponsible

Why Promoters Of Biometric UID Aadhaar Are Wrong And Irresponsible

When asked about why India chose to go with the UID/Aadhaar model when several countries like France, Britain and Germany have disbanded such identification projects, Nandan Nilekani, a former official of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) replied, “Their purpose was not development, inclusion, saving government money or curbing corruption. How can you compare Aadhaar with the smart card project[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment India
The Civilized World Strikes Again

The Civilized World Strikes Again

It is apparent given the timelines and the lack of time given to verifying the validity of accusations concerning the gas attack in Homs, Syria, that plans had already been coordinated for such an attack. Watching the mainstream media the viewer receives the impression from the wording of the announcers reports and questions for the “experts” that the matter was[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
And The Winner Is Raytheon

And The Winner Is Raytheon

The attack on Syria is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, International Law, and the Geneva Convention.  Why did President Trump make this disastrous decision? We may never know why. BUT we do know that the decision was not made to protect those ‘beautiful little babies’.  No U.S. president in recent history has ever placed any value on the lives of babies,[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 2 comments Imperialism
Australian Commitment To Unlimited Natural Gas Exploitation Threatens Planet & Invites Global Blowback

Australian Commitment To Unlimited Natural Gas Exploitation Threatens Planet & Invites Global Blowback

  Australia is a major exporter of coal, gas and iron ore, and is set to become the world’s largest exporter of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG).  However, depending upon the degree of systemic gas leakage,  burning gas for power may be worse greenhouse gas (GHG)-wise than burning coal.  However a remorselessly neoliberal, anti-science and anti-environment  Australia is committed to massive[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Climate Change
STEM The Tide

STEM The Tide

  Fifty years ago Dr. King risked his life to tell us that ‘the world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve,” that a nation focused on military defense more than social uplift “is approaching spiritual death,’ and that we still had a choice: “nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”  How much longer will[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment World
The Politicization Of Cow In North East India

The Politicization Of Cow In North East India

Three people, including a minor, was arrested on 5th of April for cooking beef. The news is not from  the state of Uttar Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, where eating or possessing cattle meat is prohibited. Sadly, It is a news from the North Eastern part of India and to be precise, it is from Jorhat district of Assam. “They bought beef[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Communal Harmony
Give These Tenacious Women Some Flashlights

Give These Tenacious Women Some Flashlights

  Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression. – Margaret Sanger Providing women with more and better opportunities to fulfill their social, economic, and political roles is now deemed so essential for reducing poverty and[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Patriarchy
Of Celebrating India’s 100th Independence Day After 30 Years……

Of Celebrating India’s 100th Independence Day After 30 Years……

After 30 years from now India will be celebrating its 100thyear of independence from the colonial rule. What will happen in the year 2047-48? Will India be able to fulfill the vision of those who fought for the freedom? Will the country be able to adapt itself to the dreams and aspirations of the present and the future citizens of[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment India
Pehlu Khans In A Soulless India

Pehlu Khans In A Soulless India

These communal incidents are becoming a commonplace and the religious fervor of the people who commit them are proud to be a participant of this mad race to fulfill their brutal agendas. With the streets getting bloodier and darker, turning a blind eye to such incidents could mean an end the delicate social fabric of love and mutual harmony of our country and converting minorities to mere statues and puppets divorced from their own religious ideologies.

by 08/04/2017 2 comments Communal Harmony
Babri Masjid Ramjanmbhoomi Dispute: Need For Justice

Babri Masjid Ramjanmbhoomi Dispute: Need For Justice

  After the long wait, the Supreme Court Chief Justice J.S. Khehar opined that long pending dispute of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid should be settled out of court. (March 2017) He even offered to mediate himself in the matter. Uniformly most of the spokesperson from RSS Combine welcomed the move, while large number of Muslims and other elements have been surprised as the[Read More…]

by 08/04/2017 1 comment Communal Harmony
American Unlimited Imperialism:Syria

American Unlimited Imperialism:Syria

Historically, this latest eruption of American militarism at the start of the 21st Century is akin to that of America opening the 20th Century by means of the U.S.-instigated Spanish-American War in 1898. Then the Republican administration of President William McKinley stole their colonial empire from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a near genocidal war[Read More…]

Empire’s Aggression On Syria

Empire’s Aggression On Syria

With the pounding of 59 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles on Shayrat airbase in Syria the Empire has widened its aggression in the strategically crucial country. The sounds of destruction announce imperialism’s and aggression, interference and intervention. This is the sound of “peace” imperialism likes to impose on peoples of other countries. Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Donald[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 3 comments Imperialism
US Launches Cruise Missile Attack Against Syrian Government

US Launches Cruise Missile Attack Against Syrian Government

  Between 8 and 9 p.m., US Eastern Time Thursday, two US warships in the Mediterranean fired a barrage of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base at Shayrat, near the city of Homs. The attack is the first direct assault by the United States on the Russian- and Iranian-backed government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 1 comment World
Photo by MarioGuti / iStock.

The Reign Of ‘Humanity’

I am told it was the best moment of their lives When my parents saw my pretty little face, they say they forgot all strife They loved me, adored me I felt I was the most blessed child They made me feel special, beautiful, strong, dignified, let me have fun, allowed me to get wild In the world I grew[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 3 comments Life/Philosophy
US Public Directed To Condemn Chemical Attacks And Election Interference – Unless Carried Out by US or Collaborators

US Public Directed To Condemn Chemical Attacks And Election Interference – Unless Carried Out by US or Collaborators

  Dr. Noam Chomsky, a scholar who taught classes on US foreign policy at MIT and whom International Business Times notes is “one of the world’s most eminent academics and political commentators”, gave a more than one hour-long interview this week to Democracy Now.  In it, he points out that while the US government and oligarchy (see below) encourages US[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 2 comments Imperialism
Pic credit: www.enincon.com

From Syria To Monsanto: A Moribund System Of Deceit And Destruction

  Today, as the dominant global power, the US roles out its brand of unfettered capitalism across the world. US citizens constitute just five percent of the world’s population but consume 24 percent of global energy. Consider the consequences of a US-style model of ‘development’ if it were to be aspired to and copied throughout the world (which it is in places[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 1 comment Globalisation
Eyes On Eternity Versus Eyes On The Prize: Dedicated To Gil Scott-Heron

Eyes On Eternity Versus Eyes On The Prize: Dedicated To Gil Scott-Heron

  Henry Hampton‘s work — like his groundbreaking Eyes on the Prize (1987-1990) — should be applauded. His grand efforts and accomplishments — along with those of his many hardworking, talented colleagues, such as the dedicated and incomparable Judy Richardson — are praiseworthy by any standards. That said, to have one’s eyes on any prize in the realm of social activism usually means a[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Pope Francis Meets 4 Imams To Open A Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Pope Francis Meets 4 Imams To Open A Christian-Muslim Dialogue

  Pope Francis Wednesday (April 5) held a private audience with a delegation of four Imams from England who were accompanied by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster.  Pope Francis told the imams that listening to each other was essential for the common future of humanity as we walk together in our shared lives. “What we should do to[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 2 comments World
Razak Kottakkal

Razak Kottakkal: A Legend of ‘Light And Shadow’

Putting my “camera between the skin of a person and his shirt is the most difficult thing for me,” says Henri Cartier-Bresson, a renowned French humanist photographer. Cartier-Bresson was speaking of his predicament as a photographer while taking a portrait. Cartier-Bresson’s anxiety was apparently about reaching the subject/object as close as possible – an intellectually fascinating but a real time challenge[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 2 comments Arts/Literature
Rice threshing near Sangrur, SE Punjab, India. (Photo:  Neil Palmer (CIAT)/flickr/cc)

In India’s Villages Women Are A Solution, Not A Problem

  Women are the mainstays of small-scale agriculture, the farm labour force and day-to-day family subsistence. The biggest myth is that the rural woman is part of her land’s wealth.  Yes, but only to the extent of generating it.  They don’t own land but produce secondary crops, gather food and firewood, process, store and prepare family food and fetch water[Read More…]

by 07/04/2017 1 comment Patriarchy
Trump, Syria, And Chemical Weapons: What We Know, What We Don’t, And The Dangers Ahead

Trump, Syria, And Chemical Weapons: What We Know, What We Don’t, And The Dangers Ahead

Let’s start with what we don’t know. Experts remain uncertain what chemical(s) were involved in the horrific chemical attack, almost certainly from the air, on the village of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province in Syria.  The nerve agent sarin, chlorine, and unknown combinations of chemicals have all been identified as possible, but in the first 48 hours nothing has been[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment World
Angry, Desperate, Rejected

Angry, Desperate, Rejected

Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his boldest and perhaps most defining speech. It alienated liberal allies in the North and the Northern press, plus many in King’s own civil rights movement, and prompted President Johnson to withdraw King’s secret service detail. Exactly one year later, forty-nine years ago on April 4, he was assassinated. He said, “As[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment World
Unseasonal Rain And Snow Wreak Havoc In Kashmir

Unseasonal Rain And Snow Wreak Havoc In Kashmir

Due to continuous rain and snow, two passengers went missing after a cab plunged into river in Dandipora Kokernag area of Islamabad district of Jammu & Kashmir on Thursday afternoon. The vehicle in which eight passengers were travelling from Kokernag to Larnoo, plunged into Nalla Brangi, said SHO Larnoo, while talking with Counter currents. Six people were rescued with the[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) looks on as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi speaks during a meeting at the Plaza Hotel on September 19, 2016 in New York. / AFP PHOTO / DOMINICK REUTER

President Trump Welcomes Egyptian Dictator, The Butcher Of Cairo

President Donald Trump Monday, April 3, 2017, welcomed the Egyptian military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who assumed the title of  Field Marshal after arresting and deposing the democratically elected President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013. After the meeting Trump told the press: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 2 comments World
Normalization In The Name Of Peace: How Israel Understands The Arab Peace Initiative

Normalization In The Name Of Peace: How Israel Understands The Arab Peace Initiative

Once more, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is taking center stage. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted during his speech before the recently-concluded Arab League Summit in Jordan, that the Initiative is the only solution on the table; asserting that it will not be changed or even tweaked. But why is this Initiative, which was put forward by Saudi Arabia 15 years[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Palestine
Ice And Busts: The Lost War On Drugs In Australia

Ice And Busts: The Lost War On Drugs In Australia

It was hard to tell whether Australia’s Federal Police authorities, along with their Victorian colleagues, were gloating at their latest effort.  Thrilled at the unearthing of a stash of methamphetamine, a form of it colloquially known as ice, trumpeted as the “biggest seizure” in Australian history, there was a sense of achievement. They had gotten one up on the drugs[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment World
Tapping Into The Creativity Of The Poor

Tapping Into The Creativity Of The Poor

I always believe that people can do wonders, if their energy is channelized and focused on a given task. Tomorrows are made by people. A lesson I learnt early in life is that great leaders don’t teach. They touch and transform. They don’t instruct; they inspire by their conduct and disposition. They help people discover within themselves the strength to[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Inter-Sectoral And Well-Coordinated Battle To #endTB Is Imperative To Deliver On Agenda 2030

Inter-Sectoral And Well-Coordinated Battle To #endTB Is Imperative To Deliver On Agenda 2030

(CNS): Growing political commitment of governments globally to #endTB is indeed welcoming but governments need to walk the talk too to #endTB and deliver on promises of integrated sustainable development by 2030. Reality check on any specific indicator to show progress made towards ending TB will raise serious concerns regarding meeting these commitments in a timely manner. For example, TB[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
 Decolonisation Of “Modern Medical System: The Need To March Towards People Oriented Holistic System

 Decolonisation Of “Modern Medical System: The Need To March Towards People Oriented Holistic System

Text of a Speech circulated on Dec24, 2016, at XL Indian Social Science Congress Organized by Indian Social Sciences Academy(ISSA) , held from 19th Dec. 2016 and 24th Dec. 2016, in collaboration with University of Mysore, Mysuru, Karnataka

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
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.

What Should Actually Make The Doctors Angry

The recent strike of doctors across Maharashtra (and other parts of the country) against violence unleashed on them by disgruntled relatives of patients have thrown up uncomfortable questions. Whenever and wherever, violence must be abhorred and condemned in all its forms. Without doubt, all healthcare providers should be ensured safety at places of work. Violence at place of work can[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Kashmir’s Stone Pelters Are Fighting For A Cause: Farooq Abdullah

Kashmir’s Stone Pelters Are Fighting For A Cause: Farooq Abdullah

Former Chief Minister and Supremo of National Conference (NC) Dr Farooq Abdullah, on Wednesday come out in support of stone pelters in Kashmir and lashed out at the Modi government. Former CM , Farooq Abdullah Who is also contesting the by-election to Srinagar Lok Sabha seat as the joint candidate of opposition National Conference and Congress. While reacting to Prime[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
The Hindu Rashtra And Kashmir!

The Hindu Rashtra And Kashmir!

  (With the unprecedented victory of BJP in the U.P. elections giving rise to militant Hindutva proclaiming India to be a Hindu Rashtra, the relationship of Kashmir to India loses the very basic premise of accession!) After the recent phenomenal success in the U.P. elections, the RSS is going full steam ahead to give practical shape to Golwalkar’s dream of[Read More…]

by 06/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Open Letter To President Of India On UID/Aadhaar

Open Letter To President Of India On UID/Aadhaar

We solemnly and earnestly appeal to you to save the present and future citizens from unlimited government as a consequence of an unlimited database of Indians and anonymous financing of political parties under the Aadhaar Act, 2016 and amended Companies Act, 2013 by seeking Hon’ble Supreme Court’s opinion under Article 143(2) of the Constitution of India on the constitutionality of biometric UID/Aadhaar in supreme national interest. This Article has not been used so far but extraordinary situations create compelling logic for extraordinary patriotic steps which can set a healthy precedent for all times to come.

by 06/04/2017 1 comment India
Carbon Levels Could Hit Pre-Human State By Mid-Century

Carbon Levels Could Hit Pre-Human State By Mid-Century

Current carbon dioxide levels are unprecedented in human history and could reach a level unseen in millennia if their rates continue at this pace, a new report out Tuesday warns. Research published in Nature Communications finds that if fossil fuel use continues unabated, the atmosphere could revert “to values of CO2 not seen since the early Eocene (50 million years[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Climate Change
The Balfour Declaration 1917  —  2017: 100 Years Of Deceit, Devastation And Genocide

The Balfour Declaration 1917  —  2017: 100 Years Of Deceit, Devastation And Genocide

  Since 1948 the state of Israel has celebrated annually its independence as a nation, though it is not clear from what or whom it has declared independence. The UN had portioned Palestine in November of 1947 and the British Mandate had made clear that its last day in Palestine would be May 15, of 1948. The Zionists determined that[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 2 comments Palestine
A Response To Nandan Nilekani On Aadhaar

A Response To Nandan Nilekani On Aadhaar

This article was written as a rebuttal on the article that appeared in Business Line on April 1, 2017. It might be slightly technical but I will try to keep it within comprehensible limits for a person without Computer Science degree. Claim 1 from Nandan Nilekani: When seeding and authentication are done properly, the success rate is over 95 per[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment India
Trump America, Trudeau Canada & Turnbull Australia Doom World With Unlimited Greenhouse Gas Pollution

Trump America, Trudeau Canada & Turnbull Australia Doom World With Unlimited Greenhouse Gas Pollution

  US President Donald Trump, Trumpist Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull and pro-oil sands Canadian PM Justin Trudeau are acutely threatening the world with unlimited greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from unlimited fossil fuel exploitation.  For the  US Canada and Australia, full exploitation of presently recoverable fossil fuel reserves would generate GHG pollution vastly exceeding (37-fold) the whole world’s remaining Terminal Carbon[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 2 comments Climate Change
Love, Western Nihilism And Revolutionary Optimism

Love, Western Nihilism And Revolutionary Optimism

  How dreadfully depressing life has become in almost all of the Western cities! How awful and sad. It is not that these cities are not rich; they are. Of course things are deteriorating there, the infrastructure is crumbling and there are signs of social inequality, even misery, at every corner. But if compared to almost all other parts of[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Putin Through The U.S. Lense….

Putin Through The U.S. Lense….

Vladimir Putin is the devil incarnate of the present media frenzy supporting all things USA! USA! USA!. Having just read a trio of books concerning Putin it is obvious that the lense through which Putin is viewed has blinders on the side and rose coloured tints as a lense coating. The blinders are those things the authors just do not[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment World
Reclaiming Relevance: BRICS And The New Multipolarity

Reclaiming Relevance: BRICS And The New Multipolarity

The association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, popularly known as BRICS, finds itself at an interesting juncture in its existence. After limited success in restructuring international financial institutions, which was the stated intention of the forum, the BRICS governments established the New Development Bank that has been functioning for more than two years. At a time when[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Globalisation
An Interview With Anand Patwardhan

An Interview With Anand Patwardhan

For over 40 years Anand Patwardhan’s documentary films have stood for freedom of expression. He faced censorship on numerous occasions, took the government to court, and won each time. Anand is not just a filmmaker but an activist in the cause of Indian democracy, clearly under threat today. In this candid conversation with Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Anand discusses his views[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
I’m Human, Right?

I’m Human, Right?

  “Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.” – Office Of High Commissioner, Human Rights  Referring to the definition given above,[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Mahishasur: A people’s Hero

Mahishasur: A people’s Hero

Alternative Readings of the Durga-Mahishasur Myth. A Revolt Against Brahmanical Epistemology: The beginning of a new cultural renaissance in India The alternative readings of myths from Brahmanical mythological reservoir mark the beginning of a new cultural consciousness among the Dalits, Adivasis and other deprived sections of the Indian society. The deprived peoples have realized that the Brahmanism has been able to[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 5 comments Book Review
Caste System Remains The Biggest Threat To Democracy

Caste System Remains The Biggest Threat To Democracy

Despite a great threat to their own existence inside the JNU campuses which is being ‘cleaned’ to maintain Brahmanical purity and hegemony ( it was always there but in a better ‘coordinated’ and sophisticated way) the young Ambedkarites of Birsa Ambedkar Student Association ( BAPSA) today protested against the killing of a young Dalit boy in Telangana a few days[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment Annihilate Caste
A Partnership For Banishing Poverty

A Partnership For Banishing Poverty

  Any sensible government must learn to unleash the energy of its people and get them to perform instead of trying to get a bureaucracy to perform ―Verghese Kurien, I Too Had a Dream Tackling poverty requires an approach that must start with the people themselves and encourages the initiative, creativity and drive from below. The strategy must be at the[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment India
Cornish Pagan & Male Nude Art Sculpture created in Cornwall (UK) by British Artist Malcolm Lidbury http://www.malenudesculpture.blogspot.com.  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Nudity

Then he thought he should have a drink
And all the bars were closed.
They told him ` get married and you will be fine’
Then he just asked them this:
`Will it cover my nudity?’

by 05/04/2017 2 comments Arts/Literature
Women Activists Demand Disbandment Of Anti-Romeo Squads

Women Activists Demand Disbandment Of Anti-Romeo Squads

“Anti-Romeo Squads” are policemen and women and vigilante groups, operating outside the purview of law, with the support of the Uttar Pradesh State, which threaten women’s freedoms. The serious issue of violence against women and routine sexual harassment of women in Uttar Pradesh cannot be addressed by setting up anti-Romeo squads. These “squads” impose their own aggressive and arbitrary code[Read More…]

by 05/04/2017 1 comment India, Patriarchy
Israel Steps Up Dirty Tricks Against Boycott Leaders

Israel Steps Up Dirty Tricks Against Boycott Leaders

Nazareth: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed cohorts of Israel loyalists in the United States by video link last week at the annual conference of Aipac, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They should, he said, follow his government’s example and defend Israel on the “moral battlefield” against the growing threat of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment Palestine
The Question I Get Asked The Most

The Question I Get Asked The Most

The questions come after talks, on Twitter, in the days’ incoming tide of email—sometimes even in old-fashioned letters that arrive in envelopes. The most common one by far is also the simplest: What can I do? I bet I’ve been asked it 10,000 times by now and—like a climate scientist predicting the temperature—I’m pretty sure I’m erring on the low[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment Climate Change
Iranian Militia Shoots Disabled Activist Dead In His Home In Front Of His Children

Iranian Militia Shoots Disabled Activist Dead In His Home In Front Of His Children

Iranian regime militia shot an unarmed wheelchair-bound disabled Ahwazi activist dead in front of his wife and children in their home, apparently “revenge” for his civil rights activism. The armed group belonging to the Basiji (also known as Sāzmān-e Basij-e Mostaz’afin), one of the five forces of the ‘Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution’, stormed into 39-year-old Saeed[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Kandhamal: Introspection Of Initiative For Justice

Kandhamal: Introspection Of Initiative For Justice

Violence is the bane of Indian society and a manifest agenda of communal forces, which thrive on divisive politics and polarization. This is part of their political agenda. While Hindu-Muslim violence during British period had a particular beginning and characteristics, the same violence became anti-Muslim violence after Independence. The major brunt of communal violence has been borne by Muslim community[Read More…]

Iraq Rejects Displaying Kurdish Flag In Kirkuk Fearing Establishment Of Greater Kurdistan

Iraq Rejects Displaying Kurdish Flag In Kirkuk Fearing Establishment Of Greater Kurdistan

The Iraqi parliament on Saturday, April 1, 2017, voted against raising the flag of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on public buildings and institutions in the city of Kirkuk. In a session attended by 186 members of the 328-seat parliament, the MPs voted in favor of flying only the Iraqi flag on Kirkuk’s public buildings. Kurdish lawmakers have walked out[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment World
Indian Muslims: Looking Ahead

Indian Muslims: Looking Ahead

If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: never lie to yourself.            ~ Paulo Coelho UP elections are over and the results are out. They are surprising for some of us who have become used to living our lives in slumber. But for those who had their eyes open, the result in UP was neither unexpected[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 8 comments Communal Harmony
South Sudan “Rebels” And The CIA; Show Me The Money!

South Sudan “Rebels” And The CIA; Show Me The Money!

For going on 3 years now a “rebel army” of some 20,000 South Sudanese soldiers have been fighting to overthrow the Salva Kiir government without any visible means of support. The government has oil revenues and aid funds but the “rebels” (and their propaganda arm in the west) have not been asked by anyone in the international media to “show[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment World
The New South African Revolution

The New South African Revolution

South Africa is poised on a knife edge. Anything can happen. Last week Pravin Gordhan the Minister of Finance and former head of the S African Revenue Service, plus his deputy were recalled from London in the midst of a promotional roadshow for potential investors. Upon their return home, each was fired by the very president who appointed them. You[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 2 comments World
The Hazara Dilemma: Ghani In Australia

The Hazara Dilemma: Ghani In Australia

Australian government officials are at it again, and the visit by President Ashaf Ghani to Canberra on Sunday piqued interest amongst various members of the Afghan community concerned about the next innovation in cruelty practiced by Canberra. If there is something exceptional in the otherwise dreary annals of Australian policy making in recent years, repelling unwanted refugees and asylum seekers[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment World
Trump Administration’s Reversal of Obama Era Policy in Syria

Trump Administration’s Reversal of Obama Era Policy in Syria

   The editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s prestigious al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, has revealed in his recent editorial [1] that Tulsi Gabbard, the United States Representative for Hawaii whose trip to Syria in January and meeting with Bashar al-Assad was widely reported in media, had conveyed President Trump’s offer of cooperation to Assad during the meeting. The editorial in Arabic is full[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment World
US Selectively Invokes Liberal Virtues To Serve War Propaganda: Bashar Assad Today; Bertrand Russell In 1922

US Selectively Invokes Liberal Virtues To Serve War Propaganda: Bashar Assad Today; Bertrand Russell In 1922

Interviewer: “All sides in this war have been accused of civilian casualties, but Western media has been almost completely silent about the atrocities committed by the rebels” [who, according to internal US government analysis, operate predominantly under the umbrellas of al Qaeda and ISIS, which are directly sponsored by US-backed dictatorships including Saudi Arabia and Qatar].Syrian president Bashar Assad: “Whenever[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Edited photo by Mickey Z. (Original photo by Mark Sandten/Bongarts/Getty Images)

That Time When Male Violence Altered The History Of Women’s Tennis

Not too long ago, while leaving the gym, I overheard a conversation about the best female tennis players of all-time. As I walked home, I pondered my own list and came up with five women with whom we’re on a first name basis: Serena, Steffi, Martina, Chrissie, and Venus. When considering who might be next, I suddenly remembered Monica Seles.[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment Patriarchy
Kashmiris Not Against Tourism, Neither Supporters Of Terrorism: APHC

Kashmiris Not Against Tourism, Neither Supporters Of Terrorism: APHC

Reacting to the recent statement of PM Narendra Modi where-in he asked the Kashmiri youth to choose between terrorism and tourism, the APHC in a statement said , ” Kashmiris were not against the tourism, neither were they supporters of terrorism” . Stating that the Kashmiris were not against the development and progress, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference ( APHC)[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 2 comments Kashmir
Education Still Far From The Reach Of Many Girls

Education Still Far From The Reach Of Many Girls

Education is instrumental in empowering girls and women, and eventually their entire families; therefore India is determined to educate all children, especially the girl child. By declaring education as a fundamental right, constitutional provisions were made to provide free and compulsory education to all children ages six to fourteen. Since the Right to Education (RTE) was enacted in 2010, gross[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
A Bold, ‘Outside The Box’ Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change

A Bold, ‘Outside The Box’ Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change

Are you confused about climate change/global warming: is it real, or is it fake news? And if it is real, what can be done about it? I have just published (April 2017) a peer-reviewed article on this subject and what we can do about it in the (relatively new) journal “Class, Race and Corporate Power” on this very subject, and[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 3 comments Climate Change, Video
Trump In Outer Space: The NASA Bill

Trump In Outer Space: The NASA Bill

“You could send Congress to space.” Senator Ted Cruz, Mar 21, 2017 The NASA authorisation bill was another Trump huff and puff show, brimming with the usual air of minted if misplaced confidence.  “My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronauts I was honoured to sign the NASA Transition Authorization Act right into law.” The bill was meant[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment World
Fake News In The U.S Endangering Russian Ties While Corruption Pays Off Big

Fake News In The U.S Endangering Russian Ties While Corruption Pays Off Big

  The incessant drumbeat demonizing Russia has reached a crescendo here in the U.S. Half-truths lead, and outright lies follow. A Congressman on National Public Radio accuses the Russians of interfering in the November election; as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he should know better. The hacking was during the primaries six months previously. It revealed a corrupt Democratic[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment World
I Am An ‘Indian Muslim’!

I Am An ‘Indian Muslim’!

The Indian Constitution opens up as, “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN, SOCIALIST, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment Communal Harmony
How Fair Is The Media?

How Fair Is The Media?

   There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil. -Walter Lippmann In an ideal world, journalism is a profession of incredible integrity. Good journalists are amongst the most dexterous and skilled people in the world—and also the most respected. We have all benefited from the work of indefatigable journalists who[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Image Credit: FirstPost

Post-Sept 29 Surgical Strikes, Frequency Of Terror Incidents Increased, Locals In Militant Ranks Swelled

Jammu and Kashmir witnessed no thaw in the militant activities, killings, fresh recruitments and infiltration attempts even after the September 29, 2016 surgical strike claim across the line of control (LOC) of the central government. On 29 September, 2016 i.e. eleven days after the Uri attack, the Indian army said it had conducted surgical strikes against suspected militants in Pakistani-administered[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Grenade Attack At Nowhatta, Srinagar : Policeman Killed, Around A Dozen Personnel Injured

Grenade Attack At Nowhatta, Srinagar : Policeman Killed, Around A Dozen Personnel Injured

One policeman named Shamin Ahmad was killed while around a dozen injured after unidentified gunmen lobbed a grenade at a joint party of police and paramilitary CRPF in Nowhatta area of Srinagar downtown Sunday evening. “Constable Shamim Ahmad was killed in the grenade attack,” Police said. The police constable and other injured policemen were rushed to hospital for treatment but[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Seven Things That Need To Happen To Keep Global Temperature Rise Below 2C

Seven Things That Need To Happen To Keep Global Temperature Rise Below 2C

In late 2015, the world agreed to limit the global temperature rise to “well below 2C”. Ever since the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, scientists, think tanks and policymakers have been scrambling to define exactly what meeting this temperature limit will mean in policy and investment terms. A new report released this week by the International Energy[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment Counter Solutions
PM Modi Inaugurates Chenani – Nashri Tunnel, Kashmir Observs Shut down

PM Modi Inaugurates Chenani – Nashri Tunnel, Kashmir Observs Shut down

Udhampur: Amid high alert and multi-tiered security, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, India’s longest road tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway today, making it operational for traffic. Multi-tier security was put in place ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit amid alert along the border and high degree of vigilance in Jammu and Kashmir. However reports suggest that there[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
Bolivia To Host Global ‘World Without Walls’ People’s Summit On Migrant And Refugee Rights

Bolivia To Host Global ‘World Without Walls’ People’s Summit On Migrant And Refugee Rights

Bolivia’s government and social movements have announced they will host a global people’s summit on migrants and refugee rights. The “People’s Conference for a World without Walls and Universal Citizenship”, set for June 20 and 21, is expected to draw together immigration experts and pro-migrant and refugee rights organisations and activists from around the world. “Given the alarming situation of[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 2 comments Human Rights
Tell Me How Long  Have I To Wait For A Peaceful Kashmir?

Tell Me How Long  Have I To Wait For A Peaceful Kashmir?

The each death on the streets of Kashmir resonate the belief that Kashmir once called paradise on earth has become a lost paradise on earth. The streets are witness to blood oozing out from warm bodies.The place of encounter sites reiterates the support and desire to live in a peaceful Kashmir. The brutal killings of innocent people on the streets[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
America’s Fraudulent Government

America’s Fraudulent Government

  Lee Fang at The Intercept revealed on March 31st, that the Republican Party were defrauding the American people with assertions that their Party has an alternative to Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — and that they’ll pass it if and when they come to power. His headline summarized the considerable evidence for this, “GOP Lawmakers Now Admit Years of[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment World
Honoring the Million-Petaled Flower And Steve Biko

Honoring the Million-Petaled Flower And Steve Biko

  “We live on a beautiful and a delightful planet, which is so awesome and so perfect that we wonder at its creation.” — The opening to Prithiraj Dullay’s Humanity on the Road to Extinction? Early this morning, I half-awoke thinking of Steve Biko, who was murdered in the midst of my raising funds for the fight against South African[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment World
Ayad al-Jumaili And Islamic State’s Command Structure

Ayad al-Jumaili And Islamic State’s Command Structure

Islamic State’s second-in-command, Ayad al-Jumaili, has been killed in an airstrike in al-Qaim region on Iraq’s border with Syria. The most important fact to note in al-Jumaili’s biography is that was the head of the terror group’s internal security unit and that he had previously served as an intelligence officer in Iraq’s Baathist army until 2003. Excluding al-Baghdadi who was[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment World
Insights Of A Cancer Survivor With Indomitable Spirit

Insights Of A Cancer Survivor With Indomitable Spirit

“One night, in the summer of 2013, I felt a twitch in my breast. It was something like if you hurt your toenail. Having a family history of cancer, I did not want to take any chance, and promptly saw my doctor the very next day. He reassured me that there was nothing to worry, more so because there was[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
J&K Tops Chart In Issuing Gun-Licences

J&K Tops Chart In Issuing Gun-Licences

Believe it or not but Jammu and Kashmir has become second state in the country which has issued highest number of Gun Licenses in the country. J&K is second only after the country’s most populous state in the country, Uttar Pradesh where Deputy Commissioner’s have issued more than 3 lakh gun licenses. In Utter Pradesh, more than 1277914 persons have[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment Kashmir
India’s Social Programmes Need Passionate Managers

India’s Social Programmes Need Passionate Managers

India spends more on programs for the poor than most developing countries, but it has failed to eradicate poverty because of widespread corruption and faulty government administration. India is not getting the ‘bang for the rupee’ that its significant expenditure would there is need for a radical overhaul of India’s social programs. Marginal changes alone may not deliver the kind[Read More…]

by 02/04/2017 1 comment India
A Lunatic Is On The Loose !

A Lunatic Is On The Loose !

Now we have heard the whisper again
That India may change
Its no-first use-nuclear policy
It is enough for counter lunatics
To convert sanity into lunacy
To transform the meanings
Of `peace and harmony’.

by 02/04/2017 4 comments Arts/Literature
Preventing Starvation By Filling Backpacks

Preventing Starvation By Filling Backpacks

  Any amount of income above these amounts listed below translates to one’s family presumably not being in poverty in the USA. So no or very few government benefits accrue for those involved in low income status if above the federal impoverishment guidelines. To put it all in a realistic perspective, let’s look at the monthly cost for a one[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment World
The confirmation comes soon after a report from the U.K. Met Office in June warned that the planet was well on its way toward that grim milestone. (Photo: Kevin Gill/flickr/cc)

Humanity On The Road To Extinction?

  We live on a beautiful and a delightful planet, which is so awesome and so perfect that we wonder at its creation. This has to be the greatest gift given to humanity by the force that created our world. We can call this force ‘God’ or some other force. We can only marvel at the purity and its absolute[Read More…]

Hawaii Judge Extends Order Blocking Trump’s Muslim Ban 2.0

Hawaii Judge Extends Order Blocking Trump’s Muslim Ban 2.0

  Hawaii Federal Judge Derrick Watson extended his order blocking President Trump’s travel ban to six Muslim majority countries Wednesday, as the state’s attorney general denounced the executive order as a “Muslim ban”. Hawaii’s attorney general Douglas Chin told the judge the controversial measure issued by President Trump on January 27 and then revised on March 6 was like a[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment World
Confronting European Racism

Confronting European Racism

That Europe has jumped to the Right and the Far Right is no longer a matter of debate. Each day sees a a new and closer ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of the rejected, the unwanted, the ‘other’ and those variously described as not belonging to Europe. To use an Apartheid term: the Non-Europeans. Each day sees a more outrageous ‘debate’[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment Human Rights
Sebastian Gorka: Dreams of Fighting Jihad

Sebastian Gorka: Dreams of Fighting Jihad

Counter-terrorism has been a pop field for some decades. As vague as what it purports to counter, it has generated a pundocracy of sorts, guns and mouths for hire across the US imperium and its associate powers. Much of this resembles the various fictions common during the Cold War: the notion that insurgencies could be defeated from the outside; the[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment World
A New Path For Politics

A New Path For Politics

Today,Sarvodaya Karnataka Party merges with Swaraj India. I do not see anything new in this neither am I surprised by this. Because we, who founded Sarvodaya Karnataka, and Yogendra Yadav and his companions, who founded Swaraj India, have walked together harbouring dreams of building a healthy India, even before the birth of Sarvodaya Karnataka and Swaraj India.Hence this seems to[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment India
The Much-Maligned Views Of Rania Khalek On Syria

The Much-Maligned Views Of Rania Khalek On Syria

When journalist Rania Khalek’s lecture was cancelled on February 27, the group that invited her, Students for Justice in Palestine – University of North Carolina (SJP-UNC) issued a statement saying that the cancellation was because of Rania’s “views” on Syria, and that they believed “her invitation would mistakenly imply SJP to hold such views”. They also added that they “do[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment World
Why Mohan Bhagwat Will Not Be The President Of India?

Why Mohan Bhagwat Will Not Be The President Of India?

In the scheme of RSS’s Hindu nation concept the government or the state is secondary to nation. That means political power is secondary. Ex RSS chief m s Golwalkar in his book “We or our Nationhood Defined” 1939, has categorically stated ‘We stand for national regeneration and not for that half hazard bundle of political rights – the state.’ (p.3)[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment India
Brexit And Away!

Brexit And Away!

Painful moves and painful movements have been underway in Brexiting Britain.  Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK initiated the Brexit bluster via letter, and March 29, 2017 may well go down in the annals of the European project as more than a mere bruising farewell. The letter has the sense of having cake and munching on it too.  There[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 Comments are Disabled World
Are The Arab Leaders Doing Their Job?

Are The Arab Leaders Doing Their Job?

  The Arab League does not represent the masses but the symbolic thrones of power managed by the secretive police apparatus and questionable authority of leaders assembled for two days at the Dead Sea resort (Jordan).Any rational observers cannot imagine the usefulness and productive outcomes of the conference. All the major Arab actors except Bashar al-Assad (Syria) were present to[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 Comments are Disabled World
North-South Perspepctives On Istanbul Principles And Agenda 2030 For Sustainable Development

North-South Perspepctives On Istanbul Principles And Agenda 2030 For Sustainable Development

  (CNS): The eight Istanbul Principles, adopted in 2010 by over two hundred civil society organisations (CSOs) from 82 countries, constitute a statement of common values and approaches to guide CSOs’ work. Seven years down the line, civil society has made strides in improving their effectiveness and accountability. However, progress in realizing Istanbul Principles in CSO practice, depends largely on[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Trump And A National Policy Based On Ignorance

Trump And A National Policy Based On Ignorance

                               President Trump, in announcing his immigration and travel ban stated “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” He added, “… it is[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 Comments are Disabled World
Ayodhya Case Should Be Decided By The Supreme Court, No Scope For Mutual Settlement: Justice Sachar

Ayodhya Case Should Be Decided By The Supreme Court, No Scope For Mutual Settlement: Justice Sachar

The suggestion of chief Justice of India to even act as a mediator in pending Babri Masjid demolition case, showed his concern but was a little odd considering that it has come at the instance of an inter meddler, and without parties involved being before the Court – that is why it caused amongst the parties a certain concern. In[Read More…]

Bangladesh, Social Media And Longings In A Bizarro World

Bangladesh, Social Media And Longings In A Bizarro World

  It definitely looks like law enforcement in Bangladesh–as also apparently in many other countries, e.g. reference: the British Home Minister’s recent opinions regarding social media, not forgetting similar persistent efforts in the US–is going through a phase that maybe described as mid-life crisis. That’s the time when people—especially men, we’re told, but lots of women too though theirs are[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment South Asia
Whither Rights – Of Life, Food, And Everything In Between

Whither Rights – Of Life, Food, And Everything In Between

The recent elections – from civic body elections in Maharashtra to Assembly elections across India – have indeed marked a watershed moment in the life of the Republic. Ironically, they have not done so for the discourse they have produced in the Indian media – discourse ranging from the imminent threat of fascism to sectarian strife. They have marked a[Read More…]

by 01/04/2017 1 comment India