I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it Evelyn Beatrice Hall Durga pooja and Dussehra may be a day of celebration of Brahmanic Hindus of India. But not for the Adivasis. It is also the day when their ancestors/gods are killed and their killing is being celebrated. But not anymore.[Read More…]
President Trump initially invited the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors – a predominately Black American team, that is supportive of the current ‘Take-a-Knee’ protest that is erupting in American Sports – to come to the White House in honor of their recent NBA Championship victory. But when their super star guard, Stephen Curry, made some disparaging remarks about the invitation,[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with two shocking judgments in India, in two different cases of sexual assault. In the first, the Punjab and Haryana High Court suspended the sentences of three law students convicted of raping and blackmailing their female classmate, on the basis of unrelated and irrelevant aspects of the survivor’s lifestyle. In the second judgment, the Delhi[Read More…]
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw. -Nelson Mandela India has been bedeviled by a spate of gruesome lynchings. And at the epicenter of the country’s violent upheaval is the indolent cow which is considered sacred by Hindus .The targeted communities have lately[Read More…]
When renowned writer-poet Madhavikutty (rechristened Kamala Surayya at the twilight of her life following her conversion to Islam) died, she was buried as per Islamic customs. And her sons showed no qualms in standing in the front row to offer the customary final prayer to the departed soul. While it is a measure of their sublime sensibility and dignified equanimity,[Read More…]
On April 13, 1919, the 9th Gurkhas, 54th Sikhs & 59th Sind Rifles, on the orders of Col. Dyer, fired on an unarmed, peaceful crowd gathered to celebrate Besakhi at the Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar. As a result, 1000 people died and perhaps three times that number were injured. Even though, the crowd was overwhelmingly Sikh, one of the platoons[Read More…]
That the Asuras or Daityas or Rakshasas were the people who ruled this land is evident from the texts of the Aryans and memoirs of the Bahujans. Bali is remembered in various festivals throughout India – the Bihu festival in Assam, Balipratipada across central and north India, and Onam in south India The rivalry between Asuras, the original inhabitants of India,[Read More…]
Indications are that leaders in both the adjacent countries have one factor in common: they’ve got caught in a cleft stick. The world has witnessed numerous “cleansing operations” but rarely has it seen the unabashed capitulation of someone who was honored with the highest accolade and had the support of a wide range of people across regions. Whether it’s a[Read More…]
The UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part”. Hitler sought and effected “removal” and “annihilation” of the Jews, Churchill hated and thence deliberately starved 7 million Indians to death, and both sought to cover it up. In 2017 Trump vows to “to totally destroy North Korea”, Aung San Suu[Read More…]
The first comprehensive study of anti-Russia sanctions shows they hit EU much more than Russia. Did U.S. President Barack Obama create the anti-Russia sanctions in order to weaken the EU in its competition against America? If so, the policy has been a huge success — it has enormously damaged the EU’s economy. But, if Russia was the actual target —[Read More…]
In Massachusetts for a number of years, there’s been a recurrent radio commercial. It goes something like this: There are some great deals on foreclosed homes — really GRRREAAT! Someone had a loss and that is sad, but YOU can greatly benefit by the wonderful opportunity. So, please call [telephone number]. You will be happy you did. Imagine how well YOU[Read More…]
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic (Jhon Kennedy). A myth is a story that survives till it is debunked & during the period of its currency it is more portent & powerful than history. Myth is what we call other people’s religion and[Read More…]
“Believe in everything, nothing is sacred. Believe in nothing, everything is sacred” Quote ~ Tom Robbins in ‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues’ Man needs religion. Religion needs man. This is a generally accepted axiom. There are myriad religious practices, rituals and rites, and different regional belief systems called ‘faiths’, at least 10,000 of them in the world. According to various[Read More…]
News reports tell of the devastation left by a direct hit from Category 4 Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans already coping with damage from Hurricane Irma, which grazed the island just days before, were slammed with an even stronger storm on September 20, bringing more than a foot of rain and maximum sustained winds of at least 140 miles per hour.[Read More…]
For a few weeks recently, I woke up every day with a headache, body ache, slight fever, sinus congestion, acid reflux and inability to concentrate on anything for long. Why this was happening was a miserable mystery. There was no need for all these symptoms of physical illness to arise simultaneously as my health is otherwise good. I then realised[Read More…]
Book Review of Bruce Hoffman’s “Inside Terrorism” (Columbia University Press, 2006)The author, Bruce Hoffman, was for a long time a director at RAND Corporation in Washington, which he designates in his book as an “independent, objective, nonpartisan research institution” (p. xi).As an external observer, researcher and author, I have followed with keen interest for many years the debate surrounding the[Read More…]
Recently, the Islamic State’s purported “terror franchises” in Afghanistan and Pakistan have claimed a spate of bombings against the Shi’a and Barelvi Muslims who are regarded as heretics by Takfiris. But to contend that the Islamic State is responsible for suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan is to declare that the Taliban are responsible for the sectarian war in Syria[Read More…]
We alumni of Banaras Hindu University would like to convey to you our sense of concern about the recent developments at our alma mater namely Banaras Hindu University. Developments which have brought forward the issue of safety and security of girl students on the campus and administrations callous attitude towards it.
Mt. Bental, Golan Heights, Israel (Image by tcees) Permission Details DMCA Oxford: For Israel, the initial phase of its next long predicted war with Hezbollah is focused on neutralizing Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah while destroying factories allegedly under construction to build long-range missiles. Some Israeli recently bombed sites are also claimed to have been housing chemical weapons. Earlier[Read More…]
The nature of the rhetoric in Donald Trump’s first speech at the United Nations General Assembly was largely predictable. Even his bizarre threat to “totally destroy North Korea” was consistent with his overall style and previous warnings. But how different was his speech, if compared with the first and last UN speeches of President Barack Obama? A 19th Century English author, John Ruskin, once wrote,[Read More…]
Bengalis love to eat. To eat, is to live and not the other way round, for the fish-mongering meat-cravings ‘Bongs’. If life is a journey, then food is the destination. If life is a game then food is the reward. If life is a gift then food is the fancy wrapping paper! In a word, the imagination of the Bengali[Read More…]
“Rajya ke khajane par aapda-prabhaviton ka pehla haq hai…” Nitish is quoted as saying on the title page of the government of Bihar’s roadmap for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030.Considering 73% of Bihar is annually subject to floods, that is practically everybody. In the roadmap it says that a resilient village programme will be initiated in partnership with Panchayats and[Read More…]
Load your revolvers with our blood
While we spill you back with words of truth
Bare as the rising sun
You are a mere coward
Faceless as the night
While we are the shifting names that change to resist
Dabholkar, Kalburgi, Pansare, Gauri
The trail of fire is lit
Aim and Shoot
(With unprecedented decline in leisure Tourism, the ideal alternative is to promote Adventure Tourism for which Kashmir has unlimited potential) Tourism in Kashmir has suffered the most serious set-back during the last two years. The activity during the current season has been virtually negligible compared to some earlier years. The figures were supposed to have touched almost two million[Read More…]
In another act of utter recklessness, US President Donald Trump yesterday again threatened North Korea with destruction if it failed to totally capitulate to Washington’s demands. By declaring that military action is not only an option but could be imminent, he is relentlessly pushing the Korean Peninsula, Asia and the world toward the precipice of a calamitous war. Speaking at[Read More…]
Could declining world energy result in a turn toward authoritarianism by governments around the world? As we will see, there is no simple answer that applies to all countries. However, pursuing the question leads us on an illuminating journey through the labyrinth of relations between energy, economics, and politics. The International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration (part of[Read More…]
Perhaps the first or one of the first times that this taking the knee action became significant in the USA was when M. L. King, Jr., did it. He like many other defiant individuals of the social order acted respectfully and heartfelt Yet he was not going to stop his actions regardless of consequences, which ended in his murder. The[Read More…]
On 24th September 2017, elections to Germany’s parliament resulted in the fact that for the first time since 1949, a neo-Nazi party was elected with 12.6%, just behind Merkel’s conservatives (32.9%) and the social-democratic SPD (20.5%). Other parties entering the German parliament are the neo-liberal FDP (10.7%), the Left (9.2%), and the Greens (8.9%). Unlike the old Nazis who called[Read More…]
“Unauthorized disclosures of classified information have become a cancer which undermines presidential authority to conduct foreign policy, our national security process, and our intelligence capabilities.” William J. Casey, Director of the CIA, Nov 14, 1986 It’s the perfect dream in a nightmarish context: how do intelligence services get around the problem, in a liberal democracy, of punishing outlets that reveal[Read More…]
I urge you, Mr. Xi Jinping, President of Peoples’ Republic of China to take a good look at this photo. Do you see what I see? I see the agony. I see sadness. I also see numerous questions in the eyes of these Rohingya kids that are asking – why are we here, why our parents are not with us,[Read More…]
So I wish you well, Sarge, give ’em Hell! Kill me a thousand or so And if you ever get a war without blood and gore I’ll be the first to go [Read More…]
Gandhi Jayanti – 2 October, the date of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s birth in 1869 and the International Day of Nonviolence – offers an opportunity to reflect on human violence and to ponder ways to end it. There may be a fast way to end human violence but, if there is, Gandhi did not know it. Nor do I. Nor[Read More…]
The Banaras Hindu University episode of lathi-charge on students protesting against inaction of authorities at the molestation of a girl-student forces us, once again, to think where we are headed. The December 2012 ‘Nirbhaya’ episode, the epic struggle of the girl for survival after the brutally inhuman assault on her and the subsequent protests leading up to the Justice[Read More…]
The Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), IIT- Bombay strongly condemns the Banares Hindu University (BHU) administration and the Uttar Pradesh Police for the brutal lathi charge on largely women students protesting against the sexual harassment of a fellow student. In another regressive move in keeping with their Brahmanical feudal mentality, the UP administration and police have filed FIR on[Read More…]
While it is nobody’s suggestion that India was a tolerant land some three years back and suddenly has developed the intolerance but none can deny the facts that the goons threatening intellectuals and activists have certainly become more arrogant and encouraged by the absolute ‘disinterest’ shown by those in power. In the past few years we have lost number[Read More…]
New Delhi | 26th Sep, 2017: National Alliance of People’s Movements condemns the Uttar Pradesh Govt’s violent, cowardly and indefensible crack down on the young women-students led movement in the BHU campus, seeking a University space with equal rights for women and freedom from sexual harassment and violence. That the long standing and quite simple demands of the students were[Read More…]
Big Promises, Big Claims
You have often made
But each of these
Have turned out to be fake
A five-meter tall resplendent Quadriga sculpture tops the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Wellington Arch in London, The Bolshoy Theater in Moscow, the Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome, and other important structures elsewhere. Quadriga is a Latin word (quad=square plus yoke or iugum), the name of the two-wheel chariot drawn by four horses (not three as the Russian Troika)[Read More…]
The incident at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) must not be seen in isolation as they are ‘mainstream’ in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. As reported at many places the Lanka market eve teasing is famously known as ‘Lanketing’. BHU is not an oasis like JNU which is an island widely different from the culture of Delhi and Varanasi as a city[Read More…]
“We hope for a unified Iraq to annihilate ISIS, and certainly a unified Iraq to push back on Iran.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House spokeswoman, Sep 25, 2017 What a gamble, and a seemingly ugly one. The merchants of propaganda have naturally been busy with this new, and petulant, kid on the block. Three areas of Iraqi Kurdistan have gone[Read More…]
To say Donald Trump’s UN speech last week was an embarrassment for his country is to understate the case; to say it made the U.S. a laughing stock is closer to the mark. A cornucopia of falsehoods and half-truths, it included the risible assertion of America’s respect for the sovereignty of other nations; North Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan,[Read More…]
It is hard to reconcile how a government that sold out the civilian population of Palestine can celebrate the shameful letter Lord Balfour sent to Lord Rothschild. Although termed in language that presented itself as only offering a homeland to the Jewish people, with no discrimination to be brought against the indigenous Palestinian population, it is evident the agreement was[Read More…]
Hundreds of National Football League players took part in symbolic protest actions against police violence Sunday, kneeling or sitting during the playing of the US national anthem before professional football games, or locking arms with those who did. Dozens of players have been taking part in such protests since the beginning of the season, angered by the continuing police shootings[Read More…]
“The recipe for her success, which she has only latterly discovered, is that she’s been able to develop an image as someone who is tuned in to the German soul.” Oskar Niedermayer, Sep 22, 2017 Modular furniture divinities, or corporations, may not be the best points of comparison for a politician, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited it. She[Read More…]
Although people often conflate democracy and liberalism but there is a fine distinction between politics and culture; a democratic system of governance falls in the category of politics, while liberalism, as a value system, falls under the rubric of culture. When we say that Islam and democracy are inconsistent, we make a category mistake as serious as the Islamists’ misconception[Read More…]
Co-Written by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese With just a week left before Congress’ budget reconciliation process ends, the Senate is once again peddling a poorly-thought out plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). If Senators vote before the September 30 deadline, they only need 50 votes instead of the filibuster-proof 60 votes to pass amendments. And once again, people are rising up[Read More…]
President Trump has picked the right argument in America’s Cultural War, but his BDS Movement against America’s protesting NFL, NBA, MLB athletes First Amendment ‘Freedom of Speech’ rights is totally wrong-headed. Henceforth, whenever any American athlete decides to protest during the playing of the national anthem to call attention to the nauseating extent of racism, prejudice, jingoism, sexism and xenophobia[Read More…]
“We continue to stand with Ukraine against the illegal illegitimate incursion of Russia into Ukrainian territorial sovereignty and their attempts to destabilize Ukraine economically and many other ways,” Trudeau said. CBC, September 22, 2017. Donbas The Canadian government operates under as many double standards as that of the U.S. and its other NATO allies. Russia did not invade Donbas,[Read More…]
It is all done in a fully barefaced manner. Those who are not part of this world could never even dream about such a ‘perfect’ design. You come to your club, in my case to The Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand (FCCT), and immediately the long arm of indoctrination begins stretching towards you. You place yourself on a comfortable couch,[Read More…]
This song is for Agartala-based journalist Shantanu Bhowmik who fell last Wednesday to the marauding wrath of Hindutva-Fascist forces who are stirring race-violence based on historical indignations and inequities in Tripura today
Peace Teach-In, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, September 23, 2017 It is the Unlimited Imperialists along the line of Alexander, Rome, Napoleon and Hitler who are now in charge of conducting American foreign policy… 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[Read More…]
The truth is that quite a number of Nobel prize winners do not deserve receipt of the award. … Look at Obama (O-bomb-a), for example: Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than … https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/…/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-t… Jan 17, 2017 – The use of drones aligned with Obama’s ambition to keep up the war … Obama ordered more drone[Read More…]
“This was a violent and criminal act, nothing whatsoever to do with the point of view of those of us who favour a yes vote.” Senator George Brandis, Australian Attorney-General, Sep 22, 2017 It came, less out of the blue than out of the ether of the expected. “A 38 year old North Hobart man has been charged,” went the[Read More…]
We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death. The global statistics on poverty are numbing. The real brunt has always fallen on women and sometimes it is very cruel. Women are commonly married young, quickly become mothers, and are then burdened by stringent domestic and financial responsibilities.[Read More…]
The vacuum populism creates for itself after digging the grave of liberalism reveals that it faces its own ‘crisis of replacement’. It is the same paradox which Gramsci had faced, confronting a time when “the old is dying and the new is powerless to be born”. “In this interregnum”, he wrote “a great variety of morbid symptoms arise.” Populism just might be the morbid symptom of our time, and it is fatal to mistake the symptom for a cure.
About 50 demonstrators showed up at a rally for Rohingya refugees at Surrey’s Holland Park on Saturday evening. The Surrey Center Liberal MP Randeep Singh Sarai was also in attendance. He was the only elected official to be present. Since the rally was held in his riding he came to speak in solidarity with the victims of ethnic cleansing in[Read More…]
As I and Dr. Bheenaveni Ramaiah (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Osmania University), one of my relatives, my Driver narrowly missed a major murderous attack at Parakal, Bhupalpally district on 23/9/2017 by the Arya-Vysya forces at 4.45 pm. In this context, I am issuing this statement. They were about 30 and more people with big stones in their hands at the[Read More…]
For Americans with means, Parenting has become pathology. In Class War, Megan Erickson explains this phenomenon with a combination of economic and sociological analysis coupled with enormous empathy. Drawing on broad-ranging knowledge, Erickson identifies causes of parents’ legitimate stress of which much is rooted in the Education System which itself derives its spirit not from notions of Citizenship but of[Read More…]
When the German transatlantic liner the St. Louis set off with 900 German Jews seeking refuge, it was 1939 and they were trying to escape what became one of the most despicable events in European history. Neither Canada nor the United States offered to help the people on this ship and it sailed on to Cuba. Seventy-eight years later, almost 400,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the last week of August. In an ethnic cleansing[Read More…]
Middle Ages, crusades, against the Stedinger, 1233 / 1234, defeat of Stedinger in the Battle of Altenesch === Children often tend to follow parents and the parents’ socio-cultural group into whatever religious beliefs that the parents have. In other words, they will become a Catholic if their parents were … or a Hindu or a “whatever else.” My parents raised[Read More…]
The state of freedom of expression in India continues to deteriorate. Writers who voice dissenting viewpoints continue to be at risk for harassment and murder, and India’s defamation laws continue to be exploited by self-interested parties to prevent the publication of material that may well be in the public interest. A culture of intolerance linked to an emerging nationalist discourse[Read More…]
“That’s why Israel’s policy regarding the nuclear deal with Iran is very simple: Change it or cancel it. Fix it or nix it.” Benjamin Netanyahu, UN General Assembly Address, 2017 While he is very much the traditional politician, whose sheen has been corrupted, whose approach to policy merits suspicion, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was happy with US President Donald Trump. Trump[Read More…]
Part 1* “The problem with Israel thus is not a policy here or there, but its overall strategy that has not changed since 1948 and is as cruel, and far more effective, than some of the ethnic cleansers now in action elsewhere in the Middle East and in the world as a whole.” Ilan Pappé and Samer Jaber The nature[Read More…]
The Indian Express has silently withdrawn the report of sale of #NDTV. It was strange because an Express story does not come that easily to be refused. The track record of the Indian Express as far as the mainstream media is concern, is far superior and authentic to any of its contemporaries. Even today, the news stories in the Indian[Read More…]
What can be more ironic and catastrophic when a renowned linguist loses her language altogether,as the deadly Alzheimer’s disease (AD) fiercely ravages her brain? That is what did happen to Alice Howland, a professor and a linguistics expert at Columbia University, New York. Initially, it started with her inability to remember the word ‘lexicon’ while giving a lecture. From[Read More…]
There is much attention on the plight of the Roghingas in the media these days. Rohingas are an ethnic population of over one million Sunni Muslims living in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine state. They are being persecuted by their own government and the United Nations has called them as the world’s most persecuted community. Since last one decade, scores of Rohingyas[Read More…]
And the cop will not go to jail. This is what has sparked protests by thousands in St. Louis from September 15 through today. In 2011, St. Louis cop Jason Stockley fired 5-7 shots at Anthony Lamar Smith, killing him. Stockley claimed that Smith was selling drugs and chased him at high speed and shot him to defend himself. [Read More…]
“13 youth including two teenagers died of pellets since July 2016” The use of pellet guns to quell protestors in Indian administered Kashmir by Indian Army over the years has killed 13 youth and left more than 1000 completely or partially sightless. Ninth class student, Shahid, underwent six operations so far in his left eye in less than a year[Read More…]
Dear Gowri, Hope my letters are not disturbing you… but as days pass and events that disturb and confuse multiply, how can I not write and share with you?… Please pardon me! The first 2 letters (Letter 1, Letter 2) have had different kinds of responses…most of the readers took to the emotional aspects that it was filled with, some[Read More…]
New Delhi, September 22: The current model of development has a far wide acceptance by the political parties and executive, but has it been accepted by the Indian people, the vast majority which has silently suffered at its altar, questioned Hannan Mollah, former MP (CPIM) and Secretary, All India KisanSabha. He was speaking at a public meeting organized by Delhi[Read More…]
The Times was none too pleased, riled and concerned. Contributors to The Spectator were wondering whether an imminent implosion was about to take place. Who would profit from this act of suicide, this ritual of Tory party cannibalism? The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, naturally. The Tories, Britain’s drivers of Brexit, have gone from trouble to potential disaster. It all came[Read More…]
The following is a presentation made at a workshop organized by the Asian Human Rights Commission and the May 18th Foundation (14-16th September 2017) on the preparations for the 20th Anniversary of the Asian Human Rights Charter 1998. This paper addresses the direction the Asian human rights movement should take in order to contribute to the improved enjoyment of rights[Read More…]
Position Paper prepared by All India Forum of Forest Movements Deforestation and compensatory afforestation: communities victimized twice India’s forests continue to be diverted for non-forest purposes to provide land for development projects routinely cleared by the concerned regulatory authorities: despite a number of legislative safeguards (as provided by acts like Forest Rights Act and PESA), such diversions usually happen without[Read More…]
Expressing shock at the brutal murder of a young television scribe in Tripura, the Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) demands a high level probe into the incident and urges the Manik Sarkar led Left government at Agartala to book the culprits under the law. The forum also reiterated its old demand for a special protection law for scribes on duty. The[Read More…]
Suhi Saver– a Punjab based media outlet has made a history as the Zindabad Trust started by world renowned author Arundhati Roy picked it up for the award. Shiv Inder Singh who runs Suhi Saver website that covers alternative politics in Punjab is known for his pro people journalism. Singh has widely covered issues that are generally ignored by the[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump’s fascistic tirade at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, in which he declared Washington “ready, willing and able” to “totally destroy North Korea,” shocked and horrified people around the world yesterday. The North Korean regime’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that it might now attack US targets if it detects that US[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a film maker, writer, activist and cartoonist. He can be reached at kpsasi36@gmail.com
Peasant movement leaders have been arrested enmass across Chhattisgarh since yesterday night. The government of Chhattisgarh is scared that peasants and farmers have been raising the voice of farmers suicide, issues of compensation of crop loss, bonus and other issues. Instead of resolving the problem the government is engaged in an enmass action against the leaders of such movement. The[Read More…]
A documentary on the plight of the Rohingyas For them, dignity – safety – well-being are pious words. For them, it’s a constant struggle – of their bare existence or, survival. The Rohingya has been a victim of denial and deprivation for ages, over occasions. The world requires to step up, to come forward, be part of the global ethics.[Read More…]
I met a woman around ten years ago, who told me that she would continue to have children (concerning which she already had five) since she has no intention to ever get a job. She considered the household as her providence of concern and her husband responsible for finances. She proudly added that her husband had just received his CPA[Read More…]
Among ongoing outrageous actions and in defiance of international law, Israel’s HabayitHayehudi party has just approved a plan for annexing the remaining occupied Palestinian territory “while either facilitating the exit of Palestinian residents or allowing them to remain but without voting rights.” This is by no means a surprising outcome, nor is it simply a reflection of so-called right-wing[Read More…]
REASON #1: Consider the category 4 and 5 hurricanes that have developed in one season — the intensity attributed to climate change. The latest, hurricane Maria devastated Dominica lost some of its force but still hit Puerto Rico as a category four — the worst in living memory. About two weeks earlier, hurricane Irma flattened St. Maarten with 225 mph[Read More…]
(The all-out assault launched by the Hindutva forces in completely wiping out the Kashmiri identity necessitates an equally united front from the entire State to defend and safeguard it) The first question is what is “Kashmiri” identity? Kashmiris constitute a nation which is thousands of years old. In fact, a written record of Kashmiri nation penned down by an illustrious[Read More…]
Donald Trump’s appearance before the General Assembly of the United Nations could have been a rare highlight of his chaotic young presidency. If Trump had just repeated his inauguration address, the audience would have burst out in gales of laughter. Instead, they countered his bluster not only against North Korea and Iran but also against the UN body as a[Read More…]
Text of letter to The Chairperson, Kerala State Women’s Commission: Sub: The virtual house arrest of Dr Hadiya at the residence of Sri Asokan. Dear Madam We, the undersigned, a group concerned about the protection of citizens’ rights in India, wish to bring to your notice what may be potentially a serious violation of such rights, in the case of[Read More…]
A 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the Mexico City megalopolis at 1:14 in the afternoon on Tuesday, knocking down dozens buildings, leaving large clouds of dust and smoke across the horizon. The scenes of solidarity were immediate, as thousands rushed to join rescue efforts and other disaster management tasks, such as directing appeals of aid and recue on social media, organizing[Read More…]
The term Dialectical Materialism was not used by Marx himself but by subsequent Marxists to delineate the synthesis of Marx’s critiques of Hegel’s Dialectics, which he called idealist and Feuerbach’s materialism, which he called mechanical or metaphysical. For the first time the term Dialectical Materialism was used by Plekhanov in 1891.Five years after Marx’s death Engels expressed his and Marx’s[Read More…]
For last three years’ residents of Bhangar, mainly from the villages of Khamarait, MachhiBhanga, Tona, Gazipur etc. of Polerhat 2 Panchayet in Bhangar Assembly Constituency are protesting against forceful acquisition of 13.5 Acre of highly fertile, multi-crop land for setting up of a 2×500 MW, 440/220 KV Power Grid substation by PGCIL (Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd).[Read More…]
Edward Snowden’s politburo for secret documents has finally begun to release NSA files on the highly classified (and not so highly classified) activities of the USA in Ethiopia. In an article in The Intercept by veteran Horn of Africa journalist Nick Turse we find the latest chapter of another long awaited expose of the role of Pax Americana in Ethiopia.[Read More…]
There is a great irony in the fact that Israel is seeking a seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Since its establishment atop the ruins of Palestinian cities and villages in 1948, Israel has had the most precarious relationship with the world’s largest international body. It has desperately sought to be legitimized by the UN, while it has[Read More…]
It was never spectacular, but the Australian media scape is set to become duller, more contained, and more controlled with changes to the Broadcasting Services Act. In an environment strewn with the corpses of papers and outlets strapped for cash, calls for reforming the media market have been heard across the spectrum. The foggy deception being perpetrated by the Turnbull[Read More…]
Washington’s interest in the Syrian civil war is partly about ensuring Israel’s regional security and partly it is about doing the bidding of America’s regional Sunni allies: Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arab States. Saudi Arabia, which has been vying for power as the leader of the Sunni bloc against the Shi’a-dominated Iran in the regional geopolitics, was staunchly against[Read More…]
Trump’s speech at the UN this morning is one of the best speeches I have heard aimed at an ignorant uninformed audience, essentially his Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers, and his political state handlers. Staying on script from the teleprompters, it was obvious that while many of these ideas were his, most of the writing, indeed probably all of[Read More…]
Here we go again! Years after most Americans forgot about the longest warthis country ever fought, American soldiers are again being deployed to Afghanistan. For almost 16 years now, at the command of three presidents and a sadly forgettable succession of generals, they have gone round and round like so many motorists trapped on a rotary with no exit. This time their[Read More…]
T.G. Venaktesh, an extremist Arya Vysya leader held a press conference on 18/9/2017 in a luxury hotel in Hyderabad with an extremist, conspitorial Arya Vysya team and issued a threat against me that he would kill or hang me in the streets. This person is an MP from the TDP and supposed be the richest man after Gandi Madhava Rao[Read More…]
It makes no difference as to your skin color, your religion, your ethnic background, your moral standings, your country of origin, your political views, your anything else. Someone, all the same, is out to “get you.” If you are Muslim. some people are looking to destroy you as they did for this poor child: I reject this butchery of another[Read More…]
Is it possible to historicize the commons, to describe the evolution of the commons over time? This is our first draft and preliminary attempt to do so. To do this we must of course define the commons. We generally agree with the definition that was given by David Bollier and others and which derives from the work of Elinor Ostrom[Read More…]
Nazareth: The eldest son of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found himself an unlikely poster boy for David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, and the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer. Last week these cheerleaders for Jew hatred described 27-year-old Yair Netanyahu as “awesome” and “a total bro” for posting a grossly anti-semitic image on social media. It[Read More…]
A Facebook friend’s post set me thinking the other day. Her son, while memorizing an essay on the Independence Day, and reading the names of Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, the Rani of Jhansi and Mahatma Gandhi listed as martyrs, raised the query – “Gandhi died after Independence. Why, then, has he been characterized as a martyr?” The[Read More…]
Psychoanalysis has always been a bit harsh, if not downright suspicious of altruism. However, the spectacle of the overwhelming concern for Muslim women from Prime Minister Modi to U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the whole gamut of Hindu organisations does seem to strain credulity a trifle. Perhaps, the caution of psychology to step back and examine our narcissistic feelings[Read More…]
A Synopsis of the Presentation, before a United Nations Panel in Geneva, made by Ms Niloufer Bhagwat on 18th September, 2017 The allegations directed against the Syrian Arab Republic in the recent 28 August 2017 report of what is referred to as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic , with the word ‘ Independent’ emphasized[Read More…]
It seems to have reached a point of near exhaustion. What will the President of the United States do next? The money was on some diplomatic mayhem, a series of insults, and a trashing of various aspects of the organisation some Americans regard as a world government. But Donald Trump surprised those at the United Nations with a modest tone,[Read More…]
We didn’t listen then
and aren’t listening still.
Perhaps we never will.
Who do you think will win
the Doomsday Bowl?
Aung San Suu Kyi,
take the flowers out of your hair
and place them on a Rohingya mass grave
to show you care.
Yeh dharti hai balidaan ki. This land is of sacrifice. Yesterday PM Narendra Modi unveiled the second largest dam in the world- the Sardar Sarovar dam. This construction has been mired in controversy ever since its inception, 1961. For several years now the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has been protesting against the release of water into the dam as it[Read More…]
It will be nine years today since the Special Cell of Delhi Police claimed to have unravelled the conspiracy of the serial blasts that had struck the capital city the previous week, and the ‘encounter’ that resulted in the death of Inspector Sharma, a veteran of dozens of encounters and two young men, Atif Ameen and Sajid. NHRC and the[Read More…]
Dear Mr. Riiju, This is a letter from an ordinary citizen of India who has been working with the refugees for over two decades. I am deeply disturbed and in a way appalled to see your arguments before the parliament of India about the Rohingyas. This has definitely set the cat among the pigeons by calling them illegal immigrants and[Read More…]
Indians Abroad for Plural India (IAPI) and South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) condemn the Government of India’s endorsement of the Myanmar government’s treatment of the Rohingya minority that has been described by the UN as “ethnic cleansing” and the Hindu nationalist BJP government’s determination to expel the Rohigya refugees already in India as illegal immigrants. Rohingyas[Read More…]
Dear friends This comes as an urgent appeal to you seeking support and solidarity for Mr. Prabhakar Gwal. Gwal has been a well known people’s judge from Chhattisgarh. Gwal a Chief Judicial Magistrate who was known for his integrity was dismissed in April 2016. He was last posted as Chief Judicial Magistrate in Sukma where from he was dismissed[Read More…]
I began my association with the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in early 1979, when I sent a hand-written book review to Krishna Raj – my first contribution to EPW, from the field where I was collecting data for my PhD thesis. I continued my association well into 2004 – about which I had written in the EPW of May[Read More…]
The Chennai High court bench quashed the Goondas case on rights activists Thirumurugan Gandhi, Daison, Ilamaran and Arun Kumar today. The Activists were arrested in May for conducting a candle light vigil in Marina beach to commemorate the genocide of Eelam Tamils. Following the arrest cases under sections 147,148, 143, 188,341 and 506 [ii] IPC r/w 7[i] CLA act and[Read More…]
The number of people suffering from malnutrition worldwide rose to 815 million in 2016, rising by 38 million from the year before. According to a new report co-signed by five United Nations agencies and charities, and made public by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAOUN) on Friday, this was the first such year-to-year increase in a century.[Read More…]
Before Hurricane Harvey had displaced hundreds of pets, a similar tragedy ravaged Kaziranga Wildlife Reserve in Assam killing more than 200 animals. Usually animals move to higher ground but the sudden onset of floods this time caused by severe monsoon rains meant there was very little time to do so. After floods in July drowned animals as well, it is[Read More…]
Deployed to the Houston area to assist in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, U.S. military forces hadn’t even completed their assignments when they were hurriedly dispatched to Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to face Irma, the fiercest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. Florida Governor Rick Scott, who had sent members of the state National Guard to[Read More…]
By Phil Rockstroh, John Steppling, and Hiroyuki Hamada, Phil Rockstroh: I awoke, in our family’s flat in Munich, Germany, lashed and buffeted by thoughts of massive, Climate Change-strengthened storms, and jotted down the musings below, and then was seized by thoughts of the means terrifying storms, storms that deliver the vast, monstrous message of the indifferent, terrible fury of nature’s compensatory[Read More…]
The crisis over North Korea’s reckless but successful pursuit of nuclear- weapon capability and the misguided response thereto by the United States (US) is taking the world nearer to an unnecessary and perfectly avoidable catastrophe. Let us see where we are, why we are there, and how we can get out of the mess. The coverage in the international media[Read More…]
WORLD: (BURMA/MYANMAR) A statement calling to end the violence committed against the Rohingya community in Myanmar, and urging the Government of Myanmar to recognise the human rights of the Rohingya people Today, on 15 September 2017, a group of 58 Asian human rights defenders, including the Chairpersons of the National Human Rights Commissions of: Indonesia, Nepal, Timor Leste, and the[Read More…]
Badwani, September 17 : We believe that the drama of dedication of the Sardar Sarovar Project to the Nation on Prime Minister’s Birthday was a complete failure. This was evident not only by the fact that except for Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani, no one else turned up, as was announced that all BJP ruled CMs will participate. The grand[Read More…]
I was not yet nine but I distinctly remember the day when for the first time I witnessed people celebrating the murder of a person. In Mangalore my home town, on 31st January 1948 members of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha distributed sweets to celebrate the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi the previous day. There have been many more such[Read More…]
Blue Whale Challenge has now become the grist for the gossip mill, the tech savvy adolescents are often seen ruminating about the same and many of them even try to download this rumoured deadly suicide game from the play store application of their smart phones. Little do they know that it exists only in closed groups and private message conversations.[Read More…]
There is another Bullet Train.
A 7.65 Calibre Make in India model
that passes through stations with
strange names like Kulburgi South
Pansare West and Dhabolkar Central
Its destination set in Bangalore
where it rockets through a pulsating heart.
Imagine you’re driving your shiny new car too fast along a wet, curvy road. You turn a corner and realize you’re heading straight for a crowd of pedestrians. If you slam on your brakes, you’d probably skid and damage your car. So you keep your foot on the accelerator, heading straight for the crowd, knowing they’ll be killed and maimed,[Read More…]
Australia is second only to Trump America as a supporter of Apartheid Israel. 7 non-Jewish MPs but not 6 Jewish MPs have been referred to the High Court over Section 44 of the Australian Constitution that makes politicians ineligible to be MPs if they have not renounced entitlement to or actual citizenship of a foreign country. However Australia’s pro-Zionist PM[Read More…]
The Athenian Charvak Protagoras (490-420 BC), a sophist was an atheist, a rarity those days in Greece. One of the false charges against Socrates in the Athenian judicial assembly consisting of 1000 judges was corrupting the youth by spreading atheism. Plao’s last work, LAWS, restrains the state from capital punishents except for the serious crimes, like atheism. Sophists were alien[Read More…]
We, the People are at Loss in Global Affairs We the People of the Globe, We the conscientious Humanity are not the focal point of global political agenda for peace, security and future-making. The contemporary global leadership is obsessed with its own pitfalls of failing accountability to the global mankind. The corporate managed global media networks view the people as[Read More…]
Dear Gauri, It is 10 days since I wrote to you…2 days ago- September 15th was the International Day of Democracy with the theme Democracy and Conflict Prevention focusing on strengthening democratic institutions to promote peace and stability through strong leadership, strengthen civic society and empower women…it goes on. Somehow this day as many other days, I miss you…want to[Read More…]
Kashmir center for social & Development studies(KCSDS) submitted a memorandum to congress delegation headed by former Prime Minster, Sh. Manmohan Singh,visiting J&K on 16th-17th September 2017. KCSDS is an Advocacy Centre and the largest civil society formation in the state. It highlights and carries out advocacy on all issues of economic, social, cultural, environmental and political nature It also[Read More…]
Incidents in St. Louis in the US are not exception in US social scene. Labor regularly protests against anti-labor measures in France. People gathered near the courthouse in St. Louis to protest a court ruling on September 15. Hundreds of people took part in the massive protest. At night, protesters blocked highways, damaged public and private property, broke windows, threw[Read More…]
Glocorpital Global corporate capital has its ever stronger clutches on all economic sectors all over the world. As a precursor it forces such sectors into ‘modification’ so that it could take full control of them. The modifications are: exposing & subjecting them into rigid science & technology, research, standardization, sector subjugation, colossal product transformation (massive value addition), and giant marketization.[Read More…]
These are really ‘bure din‘ for the spiritual gurus of India. While the likes of Ram Rahim, AsaramBapus and Rampal are cooling their heels behind bars for their not so spiritual acts, Sant Swami BhimanandJiMaharajChitrakoot Wale who is also known as “Ichadaari Baba” among his followers has also joined them for running a high profile sex racket. It was[Read More…]
It all began with an announcement, made public on the website of the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Chelsea Manning would be joining a curious array of Visiting Fellows, including Mr Disaster, Robby Mook, and Sean Bumbling Spicer. (Manning, Spicer and Mook has a curious ring to it, the name, perhaps, of an error-prone debt recovery agency.)[Read More…]
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut: This week commemorates the 35th anniversary of the Wednesday, Sept. 15 to Saturday, Sept. 18, Sabra-Shatila Massacre in the Fakhani neighborhood of Beirut. For many of the families and loved ones of the victims, as is certainly the case with this observer, it seems as though the Sabra-Shatila Massacre was committed at most four or five[Read More…]
Since time immemorial, individuals have banded together into groups (tribes, prides, flocks, clans, companies, towns, religious congregations, nations, etc.) to serve the mutual aims of members. For the most part, they cooperate together, although in a hierarchical system with an organized “pecking order,” so as to compete against other groups similarly formed into collective units. Apparently, such a pattern has[Read More…]
The density/no density debate on Canada’s northern shores, in every one of its urban settings, like what is going on everywhere else in the world, continues to fuel the never-ending hostilities between the Nimbys and the Yimbys. The NIMBYS and the YIMBYS, one could argue, are the two basic human personality-types that exist in the world; both of whom are[Read More…]
Perhaps,
One of the main mistakes of my life
Was that I was born.
But I can assure you,
I could not help it.
I was not responsible.
Badwani, Madhya Pradesh | September 15, 2017: The statement by the chief minister of Gujarat, Mr. Vijay Rupani on Narmada Dam inauguration, on the eve of the Grand Ceremony planned to celebrate PM’s birthday begins and ends with falsehood. All the lies as well as serious mistakes, certainly it doesn’t behove the chief minister of state that is to control,[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh was shot to death on September 5, 2017. A consistent critic of Hindutva politics and right-wing Hindu extremism, the journalist-activist edited Gauri Lankesh Patrike her own weekly. She was not the first. In August 2015, Malleshappo M. Kalburgi, a noted scholar who was opposed to superstition in Hinduism, was assassinated. Both Lankesh and Kalburgi were staunch proponents[Read More…]
This documentary is on Pehlu Khan Murder and Cow vigilantes active in Haryana.
A birthday message to Prime Minister of India, prepared by Canadian Journalist Gurpreet Sing. Gurpreet Singh is a Canada- based journalist who publishes Radical Desi- a monthly magazine that covers alternative politics.
We are free to choose but every choice has a price https://scroll.in/article/849804/this-photograph-of-two-murdered-teens-should-disturb-an-india-that-has-normalised-hate “Hate: It has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved a single one yet.” Maya Angelou We seem to be living in times when some people appear to be bent on challenging this law of nature – that fire burns and the[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a film maker, writer, activist and cartoonist. He can be reached at kpsasi36@gmail.com
In considering the essential problem of how to produce and distribute material wealth, virtually all of the great economists in Western history have ignored the significance of the commons—the shared resources of nature and society that people inherit, create and utilize. Despite sharp differences in concept and ideology, economic thinkers from Smith, Ricardo, and Marx to Keynes, Hayek, Mises and Schumpeter[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with Burma, where many Rohingya are suffering horrific injuries and loss of limbs by landmines along the Burma-Bangladesh border in their attempt to flee the violence. After the militant Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) attacked several police posts on August 25, the Burmese government carried out a brutal counter-insurgency clampdown. The UN estimates some 300,000[Read More…]
Badwani, Madhya Pradesh | September 15, 2017: In an unprecedented turn of event, Madhya Pradesh Government coercive measures resulting drowning of more than 40000 families living in the submergence area of Sardar Sarovar Dam. Since yesterday, water level is continuously rising and now reached to 128.50 meters drowning Rajghat, Nisarpur and other villages. Water level is continuously rising after release[Read More…]
“I have an obligation to my conscience – and I believe to the country – to stand up against any efforts to justify leaks of sensitive national security information.” Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director, CIA, Sep 14, 2017 Michael Morrell could barely stomach the revelation, which tormented him like indigestible gruel. Chelsea Manning was coming to Harvard’s Institute of Politics. [Read More…]
Freelance workers are known to be intrepid by nature. But perhaps the bravest — and most vulnerable — among them are those who don’t have anyone to rely on for financial help, in case they become disabled or too ill to work. That problem appears to have been addressed in the Netherlands, thanks to a trio that came up with the[Read More…]
Pacific Northwest forests are on fire. Several blazes are out of control, threatening rural towns, jumping rivers and highways, and covering Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and other cities in smoke and falling ash. Temperatures this summer are an average of 3.6 degrees higher than the last half of the 20th century, according to the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group analysis published in[Read More…]
Few might know that UN observes international day of democracy on 15 September which was started in 2007 by a resolution in general assembly. All the UN member states are expected to observe this day. The 2017 theme of this day is ‘ Democracy and Conflict prevention’. It focusses on the critical need to strengthen democratic institutions to promote[Read More…]
Gaither Stewart’s Babylon Falling is unusual in that the author has assembled a collection of twenty-four plus one essays, thought pieces and articles, which, taken together, form a step-by-step intellectual autobiography that reflects and relates the story of his own social-cultural-political development. In his proposal to the publisher the author in his usual manner of self-doubt expressed the hope that in this,[Read More…]
The concept Social Smuggling I coined in my book Post-Hindu India (Sage 2009) has generated a law and order issue, created by the Arya Vysya organizations of the two Telugu States. The Vysya Associations have issued a death threat to me for applying this concept to the Vysya model of caste based business historically leading to a massive amount of[Read More…]
The word “private” has the meanings: (1) belonging to a particular person (his/her own body or his/her own property), (2) not sharing thoughts or feelings with others, and (3) not connected with a person’s work or official role. From this adjective, we obtain the abstract noun “privacy”, which means “a state in which one is not watched or disturbed by[Read More…]
This land is a mark on the forehead
A bullet yet to be drenched in red
Where death comes in split peels of seconds
Licking its bleached teeth tasting
Yet of yesterday’s slaughters
And the world exhales a bad breath –
ROHINGYA
The world stares in SILENCE
India is a home of millions of refugees and asylum seekers such as Tibetans, Afghani, Burmese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankans and Africans. In past, Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) has applauded India’s refugee’s policy. In fact, Indian hospitality of welcoming foreigner is rooted in ancient Indian tradition of ‘Athithi Devo Bhav’ meaning Guest is (our) God. However,[Read More…]
It’s a tale of creation, a tale of struggle. It’s a narration of survival, a narration of lesson to survive. Sundarban Sramajeebee Haaspaataal, the Sunderbans Toilers’ Hospital, is the central character in the story. It’s a social organization in all its senses. It has been built up bit by bit with dream-love-labor-sacrifice-patience of many human beings. Farm laborers, poor peasants,[Read More…]
There is very little to be gained pondering whether celebrity journalism should be protected with the zeal that some of its advocates do. A person with the dirt-directed fanaticism of a Piers Morgan is not to be treasured and his court losses in defamation actions have, at times, warranted jubilation. But nor do the victors – in one notable case,[Read More…]
The Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Berkeley University has once again polarized the Hindu Right and so called secularists in the Indian politics. Gandhi was in US to address the university students where he attacked the current right wing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He pointed out how sectarian[Read More…]
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Your book Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization is a manifesto for the unification of the labor union movement around the world. In your opinion, is this idea a requirement in the resistance to the ultra liberal offensive? Is the idea of a global labor union front feasible? Dr. Kim Scipes: I think we have to be careful about the[Read More…]
(The bits and pieces of the incomplete flyover of Srinagar in fact reflect the true state of Kashmir’s development in almost all sectors!) The most appropriate word to describe the state of developmental activities in Kashmir in any field is “adhocism”! Everything is done on the whims and fancies of the rulers always given to flattery from one and all![Read More…]
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system.
It is crystal clear—unlike the smoky skies where I live–to most of us who are willing to consider the facts: this summer’s ‘natural’ disasters have been seeded anthropogenically. Wildfires in the northwestern United States and Canada, in Greenland, and in Europe are often referred to in the media as ‘unprecedented’ in size and fury. Hurricanes and monsoons, with their attendant[Read More…]
Claim and Qualification For the first time in well over 70 years, the words “capitalism” and “socialism” can be circulated among the general public in the United States. However, what I am going to claim in this article is that the only way 21st century socialism is going to get any traction or respect from the working class is if[Read More…]
[Prefatory Note: I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Yazdi, a pharmologist living in Houston until the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, for the last 35 years of his life. A close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini, Dr. Yazdi became Foreign Minister in the Interim Government established immediately after the revolution succeeded, but resigned following the seizure of the American Embassy in[Read More…]
I need your help. It is as simple as that! I have to impress my town that this potential development is a very bad idea. So please sign your name, town, state (province, district or whatever you name it) and country in the comment section. Here’s the situation in a nutshell: Apparently, a couple with a relatively small acreage was[Read More…]
On August 30, 2017, the Reserve Bank of India released its Annual Report for 2016-17 which revealed that 98.8 percent of scrapped currency notes has come back into the Indian banking system. This mind-blowing statistics has put a serious question mark over the efficacy of demonetization move because it was anticipated by the government that a large portion of[Read More…]
The Vancouver chapter of Malyali Samajam has set an example of how to preserve diversity and pluralism when religious fanaticism continues to grow in India under a right wing Hindu nationalist government. A body that represents Canadian citizens and immigrants from Kerala celebrated Onam Festival inside a Church in Surrey this past Saturday. Apart from that Eid was also celebrated[Read More…]
The word Decidim translated from Catalan means we decide, and it’s the name of Barcelona’s digital infrastructure for participatory democracy. One part functional database and one part political statement, organizers say Decidim is key to a broad digital transformation that is taking place in Barcelona — its institutions, markets, and economy. Organized by the Barcelona City Council, Barcelona’s citizens participate in a new digital[Read More…]
Ethiopia’s new “ Grand Renaissance Dam”, scheduled to be completed next year, will take close to half (40%) of the Nile River’s water every year for the next 5 years as it fills up. How is Egyptian President Al Sisi going to survive for the next 5 years without almost half the Nile’s water when the country is presently suffering[Read More…]
Rarely does the virus speak so formidably to the condition he is a product of. The soiling, devastating strategist Steve Bannon, despite exiting the Trump administration, remains within it (symbolically at least), moving about with effect and influence. But it is a legacy of mixed curses that bodes ill for the Republican Party. The one call he repeats with truncheon[Read More…]
The decades old brutal crackdown by Myanmar army, police, nationalist monks and Buddhist fundamentalists on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State in the country’s northwestern region has intensified in recent months, is no doubt one the most unaccounted human tragedies of our era. The Rohingya Muslims comprising more than 1.1 million souls apart from another million scattered in different countries, have been living in Myanmar[Read More…]
To a certain extent, Aung San Suu Kyi is a false prophet. Glorified by the west for many years, she was made a ‘democracy icon’ because she opposed the same forces in her country, Burma, at the time that the US-led western coalition isolated Rangoon for its alliance with China. Aung San Suu Kyi played her role as expected,[Read More…]
When it comes to the “world’s greatest military,” the news has been shocking. Two fast U.S. Navy ships colliding with slow-moving commercial vessels with tragic loss of life. An Air Force that has been in the air continuously for years and yet doesn’t have enough pilots to fly its combat jets. Ground troops who find themselves fighting “rebels” in Syria previously armed and trained by[Read More…]
The world has marked the 16th anniversary of the US 9-11 atrocity in which about 3,000 people were killed. However unremarked are the 32 million Muslims killed through violence, 5 million, or deprivation, 27 million, in the post-9-11 US War on Terror; the 1973 US-backed Chilean Coup on 9-11 (3,000 killed, 300,000 subsequent deaths from deprivation); and the 1906 founding[Read More…]
At the People’s Climate March back last spring, all along that vast river of people, the atmosphere was electric. But electricity was also the focus of too many of the signs and banners. Yes, here and there were solid “System Change, Not Climate Change” – themed signs and banners. But the bulk of slogans on display asserted or implied[Read More…]
The American Medical Association (A.M.A.) has an electronic news bulletin, “AMA Morning Rounds”– It reads, “The AMA promotes the art and science of medicine and the betterment of Public Health.” The AMA has regular reports on the opioid epidemic such as the Sept 2, 2017 report: “The First Count of “Fentanyl Deaths in 2016: Up 540% in Three Years.”[Read More…]
(Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Dr. Ajay Gudavarthy for the provocative discussions in the class which led to writing this paper.) (Abstract: Emotions in politics are always being neglected and side-lined. Liberal democracies broad understanding of public sphere which is based on ‘reason’ and ‘individual freedom’ is backfiring.It is in this background this paper tries to shed some light on[Read More…]
The next stage of the case involving the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is to be heard on 15 September in the Supreme Court (SC). GM mustard could be India’s first commercially cultivated GM food crop, which could very well open the floodgates to the commercialisation of various other food crops that are in the pipeline. Lead[Read More…]
Plato’s theory of communism is just opposite to Marxian theory of communism that seeks to eventually establish a classless and hence stateless society, as according to it the state is instrument of the domination in the hands of ruling classes. Plato’s theory of communism that is used as one of instruments of consolidation of the hierarchically ‘well ordered’ state[Read More…]
I was disturbed and appalled to read these two compositions: Children Can’t Wait: Taking Steps Towards Their Protective Present – Mahima Sukheja Pradhuman Dies Due To Gross Negligence And Bad Governance – Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava Whenever I get upset and this is the way that I’ve been since a little girl, I chase that which bothers me like white on[Read More…]
Economists have given us a model of how prices and quantities of goods are supposed to interact. Figure 1. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand[Read More…]
Interview with ANDRE VLTCHEK by ALESSANDRO BIANCCHI, Chief Editor of Anti-Diplomatico 1) AB: The geographic location of Afghanistan has always occupied a central role. The April peace talks between Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and China seemed to have put an end to the persistent and dominant American presence in the country. What’s your opinion? AV: What you have mentioned is extremely important,[Read More…]
Now it is a Raging Controversy whether it should be a Day of Celebration This article begins with current context of a political controversy, then briefly gives some factual accounts and a historical background. Then it gives Extracts from writings of DV Rao (1917-1984), veteran communist revolutionary leader of Telangana People’s Armed Struggle (1946-51) , who lived through those times [Read More…]
The Trump administration is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in secret, just as President Obama did with the TPP. Over the past two decades, NAFTA has resulted in workers losing their jobs and being replaced by machinery, ruined family farms throughout the continent, displaced communities and privatized social services, environmental disasters like the BP oil[Read More…]
That’s what they called it— a technical error, a “mistake,” the bombs that went astray during an attack in Sanaa, capital of Yemen. They were targeting rebels in a crowded neighborhood when they dropped their load on the house where Buthaina lived with her parents and siblings. A child of 4 or 5 now homeless and alone, her face profoundly[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh’s parting gift is a brilliant and courageous editorial. It is clear that, like Hitler, Modi cannot survive as the Prime Minister (let alone project a larger-than-life image), without his Goebbelsian propaganda machinery which constantly churns out lies and damn lies. Today, Modi’s advantage is technology, which is incomparably far more advanced and can be easily manipulated. Instead of[Read More…]
The websites of Frontier Weekly & Milansagar have collectively published some poetry in the Bangla language, all of which were written by Naxalbari activists of the 1970s, who were to lose their lives to state violence in that decade, on this page, where they have documented the works of nine such martyr-poets. Presented hereinbelow are translations of one poem each[Read More…]
On a Sunday morning, I woke up to a plethora of messages on social media about the increased outrage amongst parents in Gurgaon against a top school of India. The issue concerned the murder after an attempt to sexual assault of a 7 year old child within the school premise by a bus conductor. With no other available option, I[Read More…]
(In context to the changes brought out by the Maharshtra State Board in the History curriculum for Standards VII and IX) Imagine that you are a detective. You will probably relate the nature of your work to solving jigsaw puzzles. As a detective, you will be required to put together the missing pieces and arrive at a plausible explanation of[Read More…]
Predictably enough, the recent Supreme Court order affirming that privacy is a fundamental right sent Aadhaar’s public-relations machine into damage control mode. After denying the right to privacy for years, the government promptly changed gear and welcomed the judgment. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), suddenly asserted, “The Aadhaar Act is based on the premise that privacy is[Read More…]
It has all the ingredients of screwball stand up comedy, the necessary corrective to end-of-the-world scenarios. “And there she was, Irma, blowing herself through the room… And I shot her.” But humour is in scant supply for authorities who have been paying attention to the relentless movements of Hurricane Irma. Irma, who sounds like a gentle, tea sipping teetotal passing[Read More…]
The myth can have a greater effect than an untruth, and those who are in the business of manufacturing and building them never go out of business. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has, for months, busily promoted a new myth: that of being European saviour, the man with healing visions and supportive panaceas, a counter weight to the toxicity of Trumpland.[Read More…]
It’s been almost one hundred years since the Balfour Declaration and we are still trying to “understand” Zionism and Jewish supremacy in Palestine. For a long time, what stood in the way of full understanding is the desire in Jewish intellectual circles on the left to fuse Zionism and Socialism in the belief that such a fusion would achieve[Read More…]
In Hellenic times, theatre was regarded as the institution that held all other institutions up to public examination and scrutiny. Its’ function was to focus on the limits of drama as a shared physical experience monitoring social and political responses to the order of the time. Those who attended theatre may have presupposed that ideas had the power to act[Read More…]
One of the English phrases says that “Pen is mightier than the sword”. The attempt by sword to put down pen is purely a result of fear that Pen has created. Starting from Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, the series of attempts to put an end to their lives is a result of this fear. Each of them had[Read More…]
While the progressive forces were gearing up to celebrate the birth anniversary of Paash – a revolutionary Punjabi poet on September 9, the news of the assassination of Gauri Lankesh shook everyone to the core. Paash was a byproduct of the radical communist movement also known as naxalite movement of late 1960s that united the oppressed communities and the[Read More…]
This third essay on my new metaphor for effectively treating climate change is about climate change being potentially fatal for all we know and love, potentially fatal for civilization as we know it, maybe even for humanity itself. Do we need to consider a major disruption in our society and economy for effective treatment of what could be a fatal disease?[Read More…]
Foreign capital is dictating the prevailing development agenda in India. The aim is to replace current structures with a system of industrial agriculture suited to the needs of Western agribusiness, food processing and retail concerns (see this). The plan is for a fraction of the population left in farming working on contracts for large suppliers and large chain supermarkets offering a diet[Read More…]
And after your lightning and thunder
A fresh rain will come
Sprouting new buds and petals
Spreading diverse colours of freedom.
That song I will sing
For the sake of all songs to come!
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was a non-teaching day for me. I was home when the phone rang at 9 A.M. It was my daughter, who was on a week’s vacation with her future husband. “Turn on the TV,” she said. “Why?” I asked. “Haven’t you heard? A plane hit the World Trade Tower.” I turned the TV on and watched[Read More…]
A silent genocide of Myanmar (also known as Burma) Muslims is in progress. Such is the urgency shown by Burmese Govt. to annihilate its Rohingya Muslims that it has even used Gunship helicopters to fire lethal & heavy ammunition on fleeing Muslims. The international community is a mute spectator to the organized holocaust and 57 Muslim Countries, except with[Read More…]
By Sally Dugman I’ve identified four main orientation for some others and myself to rise against the status quo (or norm if a different term is preferred). Here they are: 1.) Extreme fear mixed with horror: My daughter as a teenager had a girlfriend, Megan, whose frail and weak mother kept nearly dying from repeated episodes of breast cancer. It[Read More…]
The American aristocracy want inequality of rights, with two basic polar-opposite classes: the ‘elite’, with themselves at the top of everything, and everybody else below them, as subjects to be ruled by them, in such ways as they (themselves, and their fellow ‘elite’) can agree to do. They are convinced that they have earned their high status, in one[Read More…]
Lawyers across Kashmir boycotted court work for four consecutive days from 4th to 7th September 2017 against the summoning of the President of High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), Advocate Mian Qayoom by NIA (National Investigation Agency). The lawyers at Srinagar court complex as well as the High Court had also staged protests under the banner of JKHCBA. They were[Read More…]
Six weeks before the killing of Osama Bin Laden, on 16 March 2011, a CIA’s private contractor Raymond Davis, who had previously worked for Erik Prince’s infamous Blackwater security firm, was released from a prison in Lahore and was secretly flown to the US. On 27 January 2011, Raymond Davis had killed two armed men on a busy street in[Read More…]
Chhattisgarh state has been a battleground for two conflicting world-views and two models of development that are at loggerheads with each other. Successive governments, representing the interests of global and national capital have been pursuing a policy of emptying tribal villages to hand over the vast forest and mineral resources to private corporations. The mineral rich Dandakaranya forest spanning over[Read More…]
When a child dies with that unlimited possibilities too die. Not only parents but all those who have emotions except politicians, school administration and their organizations also cry. The sad death of Pradhuman inside a toilet of Ryan International School by slitting his throat is horrible incident which has caused much trauma on all Indians. There are several dimensions of[Read More…]
Across every population of people in the world, there are the same classifications of mental illness. The topic has to be looked at from an empirical, scientifically derived angle and with brain studies using the scientific method of inquiry.The causes are genetic (such as in clinical depression and schizophrenia), brain damage from trauma like repeated head blows as take place[Read More…]
The scenario set in with the outrageous murder of Gauri Lankesh is fraught with unprecedented social costs and perilous political consequences. Gauri today is much more than a journalist for a country of 1.3 billion people. We are made to believe, through an orchestrated propaganda, that the system in place under the leadership of Narendra Modi is not responsible[Read More…]
Hurricane Irma: Above is Island Barbuda with 95% or more of everything damaged, including homes, businesses, infrastructure and more. Electricity is expected to be gone for six months, I read. … More deaths are expected as there is no food and no fresh water. So the destruction is gargantuan in scale. Below is Anguilla Island with Irma. Below are[Read More…]
On that dreadful evening of 5th September, if Gauri Lankesh had seen her own corpse lying in a pool of blood outside her house she would have -I am very sure- simply smiled For even in her death she had done what was closest to her heart – expose India’s saffron supremacists for what they really were. A sorry[Read More…]
ਫਰੀਦਾਲੋੜੈਦਾਖਬਿਜਉਰੀਆਂਕਿਕਰਿਬੀਜੈਜਟੁ॥੨੩॥{ਪੰਨਾ੧੩੭੯} Farid, the farmer plants thorny acacia, and wishes for yeild of raisins (SGGS p. 1379) This is the high point of debates and discussion on the Dera Sacha Sauda issue. Media, Political sphere, civil society, opponents and defenders of the Dera have their own views. No body is making an effort to dig deeper to get at the root[Read More…]
I read this article with great interest. http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/c/21887818 The final sentence is salutary. I want to add that whether governments or judges guard or curtail rights will depend on what we, the people, do about it. Active citizenship is not something that we are used to. We are still used to being the ‘ruled’, looking up to our elected governments[Read More…]
“In the other room Rateau was looking at the canvas, completely blank, in the center of which Jonas had merely written in very small letters a word that could be made out, but without any certainty as to whether it should be read solitary or solidary.” Albert Camus, “The Artist at Work” A solitary, early Sunday morning walk in the[Read More…]
Coming on the heels of the explosive RBI verdict on demonetization, the outrage over Lankesh’s murder is more than just whataboutery. It speaks volumes about the elite left liberal forces and their comfortable politics. I am not among those who say that we must wait till the police investigation is through before pronouncing who’s responsible. There are too any arrows[Read More…]
Ambassador Ajay Marotrao GONDANE High Commission of India Canberra, Australia Your Excellency I mourn and rage with India for the assassination of respected journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh. Progressive and principled, she upheld the journalistic legacy of rigorous advocacy for human equality and rights in the spirit of India’s freedom-fighting journalists Tilak, Gandhi, Vidyarthi, Bhagat Singh who would be desolate that the[Read More…]
When pen Becomes gun Ideas flow like bullets The enemy Picks up gun Unable to withstand the ‘ fire’ of ideas And sprays bullets To eliminate ideas Still, Question remains As it did for ages and ages What are we going to fight over to-day? What is your grudge?’ The fight Never ends ‘ To- day, the deliberate increase[Read More…]
My dear Aung San Suu Kyi I am now elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya. In my heart you are a dearly beloved younger sister. For years I had a photograph of you on my[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with Burma, where Rohingya refugees continue streaming to Bangladesh after violence erupted in Rakhine state just over a week ago. Although the Bangladesh government has a zero-tolerance refugee policy, it seems that security officials are ignoring government orders and allowing refugees to cross the border. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has released satellite imagery showing that[Read More…]
Scratch the skin of a saint, claimed George Orwell, and you are bound to find a sinner with an extensive resume. Such resumes are evaluated in these modern times by accolades, awards, and summits. The Noble Peace Prize tends to be crowning affirmation that somewhere along the line, you sufficiently fouled up to merit it. The calls, some even shrill,[Read More…]
But I am someone you just cannot curb
I am a voice that refuses to die
You may bleed my heart but it refuses to cry
I am the eyes that refuse to blink
”I will do what i can and I will say
What I should. These intolerant voices
Find strength in our silence.
Let them learn to argue using words
instead of threats”
The murders of rationalists in India must make us all think as to how the Indian tradition of dissent and reasoning would survive. The tradition of dissent and rationality is not foreign to India. Historically speaking the Indian philosophical thoughts are classified as either orthodox or heterodox. The heterodox school can be broadly classified as those who used logic, rational[Read More…]
Radical Desi is delighted to announce that it has presented Life Time Achievement Award to David Barsamian – a US based journalist for giving voice through alternative media to the oppressed communities and those fighting against repression at an event held at SFU Harbour Center on Friday evening. Those who presented the award to Barsamian included Chinmoy Banerjee, Parshotam Dosanjh[Read More…]
When rationalists are murdered by obscurantists, secularists by religious zealots, and humanists by fascists, people typically react in one of four ways: 1. Mentally register the murder and then move on as though nothing has really changed; 2. Empathize with the victim’s family by mouthing some pieties and then move on as though nothing really changed in their lives;[Read More…]
I don’t know if you came across a piece of news from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, published a few days back in several national dailies. No wonder you might have missed it, it was (purposely) snug in one tight corner of most papers like a hibernating animal, meant to be left untouched. Well, the news was that a twenty-seven-year-old, hungry man, Sunil[Read More…]
Exactly two years and five days after the fatal shooting of writer M M Kalburgi, the dastardly killing of journalist and editor Gauri Lankesh yesterday is being seen as a clear indication that Hindutva forces are still at work, chillingly picking out the targets on their list of intellectuals and writers inimical to them. While a number of theories have[Read More…]
A few reports Dawn, a leading newspaper from Pakistan, carries are not only revealing and startling; but significant and meaningful also. Most of the reports cited below are from the newspaper’s September 6, 2017 issue. Foreign minister speaks: We acted like a proxy A report said: “Following the BRICS nations’ ‘regional security concern’ over the militant groups allegedly based[Read More…]
George Orwell, the author of the ‘Burmese Days’ once said that, “Every saint is a sinner until proven innocent”. Aung San Su Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate who is currently presiding over one of the most horrendous genocides of our time of her country’s ethnic minority, the Rohyngas- has never been a saintnor is she likely to be one in[Read More…]
For those living in the northern climes of our great country, the season is just beginning to change. Summer has lost its worst heat. The air smells and tastes different … like Spring except that unlike Spring, instead of freshness … there is an undertone of decay. At the end of the American century, her voice has become as[Read More…]
Thirumurugan Gandhi, an activist and chief co-ordinator of the May 17 Movement and Daison, Ilamaran and Arun Kumar of Tamilarvidiyalkatchi are behind Bars in Tamil Nadu for over 100 days. Their crime was to light candle in memory of the Eelam Tamils who were massacred in the 2009 civil war in Srilanka. Over 1,50,000 Eelam Tamils lost their lives in[Read More…]
For those of us committed to systematically reducing and, one day, ending human violence, it is vital to understand what is causing and driving it so that effective strategies can be developed for dealing with violence in its myriad contexts. For an understanding of the fundamental cause of violence, see ‘Why Violence?’ However, while we can tackle violence at[Read More…]
Various scribbles have started to pepper the conversation started by the adventurous Mike Pompeo after he branded WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence agency before the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (This would have generated a wry smile of content from Julian Assange.) The words of the Central Intelligence Agency chief are worth retelling in their mind distorting wonder: “It’s time[Read More…]
“Inglorious Empire. What the British did to India” by writer and celebrated Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is a must-read, powerful, 294-page excoriation of 200 years of rapacious British rule over India that should be in every library, and especially those in British Commonwealth countries. However Tharoor is iconoclast-lite and massively understates the horrendous mass murder of Indians through imposed[Read More…]
For decades billionaire Foundations and conservative politicians have been spreading the big lie that Social Security is broke (https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/romina-boccia/social-security-going-broke). Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote, “When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it”. The fact is that the US Government has borrowed some $3 Trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund—money now owed[Read More…]
The RBI has come out with its Annual Report 2016-17. The report says that 98.96% of the demonetized notes have returned to the banking system. Of the 15.44 lakh crores worth of currency in circulation in the form of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, 15.28 lakh crores has returned back. This is in contrast to the argument put forth[Read More…]
Here’s a common example of authentically fake-news journalism, the type that’s pervasive in the U.S. — not something like “Saddam’s WMD,” which changed history, but the ordinary everyday type of lies by the American press, being mixed-in with truths so as not to be 100% fictitious, but just enough truths so as to gild the lily of lies that all[Read More…]
Co-Written By John O’Connor and Louise Williams For the third time in eight years, public sector workers in Connecticut have voted for concessions. State employees have sacrificed a total of $7 billion to close budget deficits in 2009, 2011, and now 2017. With Connecticut existing in a perpetual state of red ink, the unions’ State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) opened[Read More…]
Premise: Reporting on the still unresolved abduction and murder of statesman, Aldo Moro, by the Red Brigades in 1978—or at least in their name—the current Rome occasionally left-wing investigative magazine, Espresso, reports that not only the USA but also many European leaders considered Premier Moro’s project to bring the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into the Rome government destabilizing and of[Read More…]
I just took a bullet for the remaining bits of humanity
The baton passes on
We will take it forward from here
Dear Gouri.. A few hours ago, above the loud and deafening sounds of the guns that fired into the air to give you a “honourable state farewell”, I heard the calls of the parakeets frightened to flight by the noise. I felt you squirm even in the coldness of the murder that fate and human intolerance brought on your frail[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh was executed. What else do you call a bullet in the forehead? We know why. The question to those who did it and those with whose support they did it is, ‘Now what?’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/asia/gauri-lankesh-india-dead.html?mcubz=0 The problem with using ‘ultimate’ strategies is that when they fail, you have nothing left. Ultimate strategies also indicate another fatal flaw, that you[Read More…]
The Press Club of India did not have space to even stand yesterday. The outpouring of grief and anger in the street as well as on the social media on the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh compelled many veterans to join hand and speak up against the culture of intimidation and violence against those who differ with the current[Read More…]
Perhaps what they don’t realise
People can be eliminated
But not their ideas
Their ideas will only percolate
And continue to inspire generations
Late on the fifth of September noted journalist and human rights’ activist, Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at her residence by unidentified assailants in Bengaluru. Lankesh was the editor of her weekly tabloid, ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ which stood strongly against the right wing communal politics and also ferociously critiqued the Hindutva politics in Bengaluru. Her strong writings, both in English[Read More…]
Some of us are not free. We belong like individual pearls attached to a long, long chain to which we will be forever connected and to which we have bondage as the links hold us in placement enslaved. Yes, we are not free. We are enchained. This chain stretches way back before us in time and it will stretch[Read More…]
The local South Asian activists came together to hold demonstration against the gruesome murder of Gauri Lankesh at the Holland Park in Surrey on Wednesday evening. Lankesh was a famous journalist who was fatally shot outside her house in Benguluru, India on September 5. She was a well known critic of growing violence by Hindu fundamentalists in India under a[Read More…]
In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, anger and disbelief, protests erupted across the country against the assassination of senior journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh. Lankesh was shot dead at point-blank range at her home yesterday. Candlelight vigils were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and in Kolkata, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee participated. Protests were held in Gauri Lankesh’s home town[Read More…]
Is it not time to say
Enough is enough
We will not allow you anymore
To spread your venom
Or poison more minds
Nor let you intimidate us into silence
Or feel the fear you want us to feel
That till we drive you to the ground
We will not rest in peace
Nor will Gauri
#Dhabolkar
#Kalburgi
#Pansare
Or anyone else you kill.
Gauri, you are more than a memory
You are a direction
For a world that should not be !
The fad of ‘tolerance’ is fast getting exposed but this is particularly for those who have been crying that we have suddenly become intolerance. The brutal murder of Gauri Lankesh is a reminder of the changing times that we are living in India. That those who are 24X7 on their twitter talking about greatness of our civilisation, remain conspicuous[Read More…]
New Delhi | September 06, 2017: National Alliance of People’s Movements is deeply shocked and shattered at the cowardly and cold-blooded murder of well-known journalist, editor and fearless firebrand activist, Gauri Lankesh who, time and again, locked horns with divisive, communal and casteist forces, in particular the right-wing Hindutva brigade. We have enough reason to believe that her political assassination[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh (55) , a senior journalist and a vocal anti-communal activist was shot dead in at her residence in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru. According to police officials she was shot dead from close range when she was standing at her house in Rajarajeswari Nagar. According to eye witnesses, the 55-year-old journalist was standing near the gate of her house[Read More…]
I believe “genocide” is the right word to describe the ongoing mass killing, rape, and expropriation of Rohingyas in Mayanmar. Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) first used the expression in 1943, to denote the mass killings, rapes, torture, extortions, and marginalization of Jews and others in Axis-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. As Lemkin has defined genocide,[Read More…]
The statement before members of the United Nations Security Council was both brash and high strung. The US ambassador had clearly decided that firm words were needed to understand the continuing military advances of North Korea. To do so, Nikki Haley, far from the sharpest tool in the US diplomatic toolbox, hit upon what Kim Jong-un was doing: “begging for[Read More…]
It seemed as though last months election in Kenya would be, as always, stolen fair and square. Instead a Supreme Court hand picked by the Kenyatta Royal Family revolted and for the first time in African history declared the election “null and void” and ordered a re-vote. Kenya has been ruled since independence over half a century ago by the[Read More…]
“Give us the chance to compete, to see our capabilities, to compare, to see the benefit we can bring with our [drone] system.” Shaul Shahar, Israel Aerospace Industries Vice-President, March 2, 2017 A certain part of you should go on vacation when a drone company, certainly one dedicated to killing, gets less custom to do what it does best. The[Read More…]
There, said it! Zionism contradicts not only human rights but also universal justice. Zionism is above all. No less than the Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked said this at a conference organized by the Israeli Bar Association in Tel Aviv.[1] Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy call her “Israel’s Minister of Truth.”[2] Right-wing Zionist ideology negates human rights. Shaked and their[Read More…]
The alternative set of policies in the Left armoury, the ideology of the Left and its sense of the present are the best weapons for combating the Sangh Parivar rule, although this is an unpalatable fact and lies contrary to this truth are being fed into popular consciousness in numerous ways. The decimation of the Left in parliamentary electoral terms[Read More…]
In a letter to late Kamleshwar, once late Rahi MasoomRaza had sought a reply from him asking that, “YaarKamleshwar ye mausambadalkyonahiirahahai!”This impression seems true for present situations. When the echo of slogan schanted against muslimsat the time of partition, long erased from the public memory have not only been resurrected but has become more emboldened and shrill, the dehumanization of[Read More…]
We are extremely thankful to you for your support during various mass actions, 17 days fast and confinement in the hospitals as well as Dhar and Badwani jails, all as a part of our ‘Satyagrah’ on the path of Ahimsa, esp. visiting Narmada Valley. Our various statements, letters, actions and reactions by our satyagrahis in the streets, inside the parliament,[Read More…]
I have read lots lately on no-go zones across the world. Often Muslims are named and blamed for the contention in dangerous geographical locations and the no-go conditions therein located: Islam & London — Jihad Is Bred in No-Go Zones | National Review Europe’s no-go zones: Inside the lawless ghettos that breed and harbour terrorists So I want to dispel[Read More…]
The science on climate change has become extremely strong as the final draft of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Climate Science Special Report showed. The document was leaked last month because scientists feared the Trump administration would amend, suppress or destroy it. The report describes overwhelming evidence of man-made climate change impacting us right now and the urgent need to get to zero net carbon emissions.
(CNS): Global processes for development should be rooted in and informed by the grassroots movements. But is there a gap or disconnection? Can we do better to ensure that development discourses at all levels are plugged in affected communities on the frontlines? Governments often fail to, meaningfully and centrally, engage the people on the ground, in processes around global agendas[Read More…]
Please help the people in Houston, Lord.
And, while You’re at it, in Palestine, too!
Though worlds apart, they are kindred,
as all suffering creatures are kindred.
On 30 August the much awaited receipt figures of demonetized currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations were released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its Annual Report. It said 15.28 lakh crores out of total 15.44 lakh crores, i.e., 99% of the demonetized currency notes of Rs. 1000 and Rs 500 were received back in[Read More…]
We are now into reckless territory with the latest North Korean nuclear test – in all probability a genuine hydrogen weapon – sending the ever reckless US President Donald Trump into a true state of belligerent adolescence. After Saturday midnight, Washington time, when the test is meant to have taken place, Trump took little time to start pushing out those[Read More…]
Onam is a festival celebrated by all the Malayalis across the world. It is a secular festival celebrated by all the Malayalis irrespective of their religion. It is a nostalgic remebrance of a past where all Malayalis lived in harmony. According to the legends Mahabali was a just Asura king. In his kingdom everyone was equally treated. There was no[Read More…]
On July 9, New York magazine published “The Uninhabitable Earth,” a worst-case climate change scenario suggesting that our current human course may produce an unlivable future for Earth. A burst of media commentary and controversy followed, and it quickly became the most-read article in the magazine’s history. I’m often struck in conversations with friends and colleagues by the number who feel that[Read More…]
So frequently is the word ‘freedom’ employed in the political vernacular, it has come to mean whatever the listener desires. For Mr. Trump, it is one word in the volcanic plume countering a society’s rhythm, designed to attract attention. That he has garnered in spades, enough to win him the highest office in the land. To many freedom is[Read More…]
by Farooque Chowdhury and Fred Magdoff Amidst imperialist interference, the people in Venezuela are carrying on the task of reorganizing their society. Real-life picture in Venezuela is far different from new-reports the mainstream media continuously circulates. The following interview of Christina Schiavoni, a researcher and food sovereignty activists, provides a different view of the life of the Venezuelan people than[Read More…]
It’s a pretty curious thing to see: marriage being defended at all. Like slavery, and not necessarily inconsistent with it, marriage is an institution. It embraces codes. It imparts obligations, duties, and rights. And it creeps up on you. In Australia, flawed campaigns are being waged in its name. This has been occasioned by an absence of parliamentary will. Abdicating[Read More…]
Editor’s Note: The University of Oxford Interviews Professor Franklin Lamb about the Future of Syria. Interview conducted by graduate students from Oxford Universities Middle East Center, St Anthony’s College, UK. August, 2017. Franklin Lamb is Oxford University Research Fellow, Oxford, UK Franklin Lamb is a Doctor of Philosophy in international law and is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford,[Read More…]
After Nitish Kumar abandoned the Mahaghatbandhan to form a government with the BJP in Bihar, someone aptly coined a new term for him: ‘Khursi Kumar’. He has fooled no one with his rhetoric of having ended the alliance on the isssue of corruption; the people have long learnt to smell a political rat. As pointed out by political analysts[Read More…]
During my first assignment at Aurangabad, my boss, R. P. Mehta, was a little bemused at the amicable way I treated my clients, given banks’ notoriety for poor customer service. Mehta was given the impression by my colleagues that I was liberal in my approach with borrowers and hypersensitive to customer complaints. Mehta could be ruthless with errant staff and[Read More…]
Due to the presence of violence in everydayness, people in general are tormented, both mentally and psychologically, which have larger detrimental consequences in the state of Mizoram. Therefore, the state of Mizoram instead of exploiting the project of identity and nationalism, they must build an environment where humanity thrives and uphold the identity of ‘land of peace’.
India is a plural society comprising people belonging to different cultures, regions, religions and ethnicities. It has a rich history of inclusive character evident through its accommodation as well assimilation of religions and cultures arising outside its own territory. In spite of such an array of plurality, India has stood out as one of the successful democracies in the world.[Read More…]
Fasting, according to Mahatma Gandhi, is a tactic that should be used only when other avenues of redress have been explored and failed. In a struggle that has spanned over 30 years, Medha Patkar and her Save the Narmada movement (Narmada Bachao Andolan, NBA) certainly cannot be accused of not using every possible avenue to secure justice for some 60[Read More…]
Nazareth: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a crushing rebuke to the perennial optimists roused to hopes of imminent peace by the visit to the Middle East last week of Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. At an event on Monday in the West Bank celebrating the half-centenary of Israeli occupation, Netanyahu effectively admitted that US efforts to revive[Read More…]
Honorable President Shri Ram Nath Kovindji, Let me at the outset congratulate you on assuming office as the 14th President of the Republic of India. The Armed Forces of India – of whom you are the Supreme Commander, have a different and special relationship with their President and I was especially struck by your unambiguous reference to the fact that[Read More…]
The Rohingyas — or at least some Rohingyas — are now being projected as terrorists, as “Jihadists” out to kill Myanmar soldiers and civilians. Myanmar leaders including Aung San SuuKyi have spoken along these lines. This view of the Rohingyas is being propagated by the Myanmar government with greater zeal since a small armed group called the ArakanRohingya Salvation[Read More…]
It has been two decades, and a stocktake of the conspiracy theories over the circumstances of Princess Diana’s death in the Pont de l’Alma road Tunnel will reveal the same inventory as were spawned in the immediate aftermath of her demise. No response short of fanciful will do; no planned horror, however improbable, can be dismissed. Importantly, there must be[Read More…]
On August 26th, Morning Consult headlined “More Voters Want Pence as President Than Trump, Poll Shows” and reported that “In a choice between the president of the United States and his second-in-command, more voters say Vice President Mike Pence should take charge of the country.” On August 27th, Axios bannered “First Cohn, now Tillerson, turn on Trump”, and reported that[Read More…]
Rae Bareli, with a population of about thirty five lakhs is slowly heading towards a city full of narrow alleys. Around two lakh people belonging to different class and caste resides in the urban areas. Most of the houses here came up randomly since the development of the area was never done in the lines of a housing society. One[Read More…]
On August 29, the Vancouver-based Khalsa Credit Union (KCU) donated a cheque worth $ 30,000 to a foundation that was established to help Hindus and Sikhs being persecuted by the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. At a well attended community awards event of the KCU, Manmeet Singh Bhullar foundation received the money to immediately help the families of the minority[Read More…]
The cat is out of the bag. The data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proves that as was predicted Narendra Modi’s demonetisation was a ‘monumental disaster’. The data shows that 99 % of the demonetised currencies returned to the system. Of the 15.44 lakh crore demonetised money, 15.28 lakh crore returned to the banks. A simple question rises,[Read More…]
Nuclear Turns Fashionable 
Taiwan’s Quest to Upgrade Its Battle Readiness Continues to Evolve 
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Both Blocs Behind Iron Curtain? 
Demand for scrapping of iron fortified rice distribution in India’s public food schemes intensifies 
Government destroying public spaces rather than protecting them 
Dalit agricultural labour organisations stage protests in Punjab 
The Influence of Higher Wages and Better Job Opportunities on Migration from Small Towns to Big Cities or Other Regions 
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International body slams Media Repression in Kashmir During G-20 Event 
More Than 43 Million People In Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia Suffer Due To Droughts 
Shudra Wrestlers Vs Ksatriya Controllers: The Battle For Women’s Rights 
Blindman’s Buff-America’s Continuing Quest to Hide Torture 
Ever Again – Setting the Stage for the Genocide of the Palestinian People 
Does China Have a Huge Problem Despite Impressive Economic Development? 
Capitalist Exploitation Entrenched in Kenya 
A Call for Safe and Ethical AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Health 
Farruggio for President 2024 
Cracks in India’s armoury – Achilles’ heel in the security and intelligence apparatus 
Whose Sentiments are Hurt? 
On Doing the Most Important Thing 
Inauguration of new Parliament complex on Savarkar’s birthday shall not whitewash his anti-national and anti-human crimes 
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On 56th Anniversary of Naxalbari 
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Censorship Of Stan Grant, Indigenous Australians & Palestinians, Julian Assange & Truth Tellers 
How Women Wrestlers’ Movement Has Become a Wider Symbol for Justice, Dignity and Safety for Women 
Not On Our Dime!’: Why US Democrats Are Growingly Challenging Israel 
How The U.S. War on Taiwanese Semiconductors Might Benefit Japan 
The Deplorable Work Conditions Behind Harrods’ $7,000 ‘Ambootia Snow Mist’ Darjeeling Tea 
Capturing Carbon With Machines Is a Failure—So Why Are We Subsidizing It? 
Political Illusions & 2024 Polls! 
Freedom libraries: Liberating minds for action against oppression and exploitation 
Who are the Muslims and Christians in India: Understanding the ‘Hindu’ fear of Muslims and Christians 
Tribute to Mrinal Sen on Birth Centenary 
UK special forces operated secretly in 19 countries since 2011 
Veil is anti-Quran 
Why the World Needs Peaceful Revolution and How This Can Unfold Over a Decade 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
