A child has lost its life during Delhi Development Authority’s demolition drive in Delhi Kathputli Colony, in West Delhi. One year old son of Jitu and Pooja, Aryan died late in the evening of 31st October. Yesterday, child’s house was destroyed by the authorities and the child and the parents stayed in the cold at night. It is believed that[Read More…]
In the two days demolition drive by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in assistance with Delhi Police demolished more than 1000 houses at Kathputli Colony, in West Delhi on October 30th and October 31st 2017. During the demolition, Police lathicharged on the residents mercilessly and also shot some Tear gas on them. On the basis of a Public Notice served on[Read More…]
News reports about communities and regions asserting their identity are capturing media headlines everywhere. While the media gives a lot of coverage to an event or action connected with the phenomenon — a referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan or a vote in the Catalonian parliament — the reasons that explain the assertion of identity are seldom analysed in depth. The[Read More…]
To: Hon Mr Mr. Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Prime Minister Hon Mr Anders Samuelsen, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Mr Mr. Ib Petersen, Ambassador of Denmark to the United Nations Hon Mr Carsten Staur, Ambassador of Denmark to the UN in Geneva CC: Danish members of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and other friends in the Danish Parliament Dear friends,[Read More…]
Masoumah invites Afghan mothers to speak about difficulties they face On a recent Friday at the Afghan Peace Volunteers‘ (APV) Borderfree Center, here in Kabul, thirty mothers sat cross-legged along the walls of a large meeting room. Masoumah, who co-coordinates the Center’s “Street Kids School” project, had invited the mothers to a parents meeting. Burka-clad women who wore the[Read More…]
Several days ago, I spoke with my sister on the phone about the founding of the USA. For around forty minutes, she shared information with me on the topic. Here is some of it. Recently she went to Monticello on a tour [1] and learned lots of interesting facts while there. This estate was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson,[Read More…]
There was a strange view expressed about the worldwide status of Henry David Thoreau in the New York Review of Books on August 17: “Thoreau hardly makes it onto the list of notable American authors outside of his home country.” That was followed by the assertion that “his peculiar brand of American nativism has little international appeal.” In fact, we can[Read More…]
REFLECTIONS ON HOW LITTLE IS REVEALED BY JUST-RELEASED JFK ASSASSINATION DOCUMENTS AND JUST SOME OF THE MANY REASONS WHY THERE HAD TO BE A CONSPIRACY In the recent, and supposedly last, release of files pertaining to the Kennedy assassination, most of the corporate press did not dwell on the fact that the most important and secret files were kept from[Read More…]
The Canada-Israel Nexus. Eric Walberg. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2017. For a complex and critical examination of the relationship between Canada, Israel, Judaism, and Zionism, Eric Walberg’s new work The Canada-Israel Nexus provides a challenging perspective. It is challenging in several ways. Primarily, the most important ideas are the critical lines of thought towards the impact of Zionism within Canada.[Read More…]
With a large number of patients and a shortage of night shelters, Thousand’s of patients are spending days in the subway of AIIMS metro station or on the pavement outside AIIMS, as they wait for treatment. Not all the stories of courage have to do with the act of heroism .There is another kind of Courage ,Which is dour[Read More…]
Bertold Brecht put into everyday practice Marxist collectivism and dialectical materialism in his art as few other Western writers have ever achieved.Despite accusations of avidness for money, the German poet and playwright belied any doubts about his ultimate goals: education of the people in Socialism. Moreover, the existence of some thirty volumes of Brecht’s works will bewilder readers who[Read More…]
Acharya Narendra Deva, known as the patriarch and doyen of Indian socialism, was born on 31 October 1889 in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh. But his ancestors came to UP from Sialkot. His schooling took place in Faizabad and higher education in Allahabad and Banaras. He obtained his law degree from Allahabad University and practiced law for some time. But his scholastic[Read More…]
Hate Taj Mahal as ‘ Muslim’ mausoleum
After visiting it applauding as India’s ‘ priceless gem’
A wonder!
In the heart of the country’s capital, DDA and police forces murdered democracy; forcibly demolished houses and beaten up people in Kathputli Colony. National Federation of Indian Women’s Annie Raja got gravely injured and is currently admitted in RML hospital. Women and youths were lathicharged mercilessly by DDA and Police officials, while residents scrambled to save their belongings from the[Read More…]
Over the weekend, the Spanish government moved to assert direct rule over Catalonia. This followed Madrid’s announcement on Friday that it would apply Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to seize Catalonia, dissolve its parliament and hold new elections. With Catalan nationalist officials in Barcelona announcing plans to defy Madrid after declaring independence on Friday, a crackdown by the Spanish[Read More…]
The narrative about Catalan independence is that two major cities, Madrid and Barcelona, are competing for power, and one has decided that the best path forward is to declare independence from Spain and free itself of Madrid’s dominance. There is certainly something to this narrative. As CNN reports: Catalonia accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain’s economy, and leads all regions[Read More…]
There are standoffs, threats and continuing tensions over the imminent closure of the Manus Island Detention Centre. (The politically palatable term here is “processing centre”.) This closure, instigated by legal ruling by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court in April 2016, has led to a degree of window dressing, prevarication and stalling by all parties connected with the institutionalised barbarism[Read More…]
“They are very concerned about their adversary next door,” said General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, in July. “They make no bones about it.” The “they” in question were various Eastern European and Baltic nations. “Their adversary”? Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Thomas, the commander of America’s most elite troops —[Read More…]
The biggest difference between American and Russian news-reporting has been a simple factual issue between the two sides, on what incident started the ‘New Cold War’ between the U.S. and Russia. (The original Cold War was between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and had an ideological, capitalist-versus-communist, alleged basis, but this one doesn’t — so, it’s not really a[Read More…]
As the Hadiya-Shefin matter comes up for hearing today, PUDR urges the Apex court to take note of the serious violation of democratic rights of the parties involved in this so-called case of ‘Love-Jihad’. PUDR believes that the case is being used in order to provide legitimacy to the supposed presence of ‘Love-Jihad’ or ‘terror marriages following conversion to Islam’[Read More…]
Co-Written By Alex Lantier and Alejandro López The Spanish Senate formally voted 214-47 on Friday to authorize the implementation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending parliamentary rule in Catalonia. It handed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy full powers to suspend the Catalan regional government, proceed with punitive measures outlined in Rajoy’s October 21 speech, and impose an unelected[Read More…]
The staff at the nonprofit organization HullCoin has done something very unusual in the city of Hull in northeast United Kingdom. They’ve launched their own local cryptocurrency — programmed on top of Bitcoin to be issued by nonprofits and social institutions — as a way of combating financial exclusion and other problems that are at the root of poverty. Residents of Hull can earn[Read More…]
The return of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Butcher of Kabul, is the latest symbol of the country’s destruction. This past May, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, sometimes known as the Butcher of Kabul, Afghanistan’s most famous and probably most hated warlord, returned to Kabul through a negotiated deal with the government. He arrived in a convoy of trucks, with armed followers brandishing their[Read More…]
And they fell like ninepins. Weeks of predictions, optimistic readings, and hopeful signs were dashed as the members of the highest court of Australia laid waste to members of Parliament. Citing a section in the Australian constitution that has become something of a heavy footnote in popular consciousness, the judges ruled five out of seven applicants ineligible to sit in[Read More…]
Part of the hegemonous stupidity or just plain ignorance that many people entertain is that modern democracy originated in Greece, with the French Revolution or with US Constitution writers. In other words, it’s the myth that our most modern forms of democracy came from the so-called whites. (So much for the many diverse lies in our public school books —[Read More…]
“Oh no, you don’t call people from Niger and Nigeria by the same name!” — the author’s home schooled youngest in 2006 I have reservations about Democracy Now!, but often Amy Goodman & Co. provide a highly instructive segment. A recent exchange with Nick Turse is a good example of that. It’s a telegraphic treatment, of course, of the[Read More…]
Rumors of war and the lexicon of war permeate the culture of empires, and the U.S. empire is not an exception. In a concomitant manner, the specter of violent death pervades the imagery of the U.S. entertainment industry and stalks the citizens’ dreams. Present circumstances merge with the sleeping monster of history: Close your eyes and images of cross[Read More…]
Managing money well begins with hanging on to what you have. This means avoiding unnecessary expenditure and then finding a safe place to store whatever money is left over. Making that choice—the choice to save rather than to consume—is the foundation of money management. -Stuart Rutherford The importance of savings has been understood from very early times even in[Read More…]
The blatantly false propaganda being spread by the Hindutva Sangha Parivar over Tipu Sultan is reaching outlandish proportions. A Hindutva troll is trying to teach me my own family history with regard to Tipu Sultan’s patronage of Hindu temples. She has been posting all kinds of nonsense on my timeline, disputing what I know about my own ancestors, and[Read More…]
In the drama called India we are about to open a new scene. Actually, a new episode of an old story – the so-called Babari Masjid dispute. The attempt by the spin doctors is to make it sound like the usual, ‘We Hindus are being reasonable, peaceful, non-violent and accommodative as usual. You Muslims really must get your act together[Read More…]
Dr G.N.Saibaba Professor at Delhi University and now in solitary confinement in Nagpur Central Jail has spoken out for help. Saibaba 90 per cent disabled and suffering from multiple ailments, wrote this letter to his wife Vasantha that he might not be able to survive the winter months in jail. He has been convicted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act[Read More…]
I believe that there is no political declaration throughout history that has had devastating effects such as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration has ignited wars lasting 100 years in addition that it has posed a serious to the entire globe. The evidence is that during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, The USA and the Soviet Union put their Nuclear[Read More…]
Israel subjects detained Palestinian children from Jerusalem to “extensive denial of their rights,” according to a new report. The mistreatment of child detainees is part of a wider policy “aimed at encouraging Palestinian residents to leave the city,” the Israeli rights groups B’Tselem and HaMoked state. These violations include physical abuse, sometimes amounting to torture, and other means of coercing children, usually suspected of throwing[Read More…]
There has been much sound and fury on social media recently, about the posting of a list of alleged sexual harassers in the Indian academe, on Facebook. Much of this has centred around the question of “due process”, and the importance of observing this. Before discussing this, I want to draw attention to another related point of profound importance, that[Read More…]
21-22 September 2017; Tambru, Myanmar-Bangladesh border and Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: ‘Refugee camps’ of sorts or just make shift shelters of “Rohingya” minorities of Myanmar, who have fled the genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Myanmar army and majority population, have sprung up along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. These camps are stretching from just outside of[Read More…]
Santoshi Kumari In August 2017, in KS Puttuswamy v Union of India[1], commonly known as Privacy judgment, the nine judges bench of the Supreme Court unanimously in its landmark verdict established the fundamental right to privacy and transformed the civil rights jurisprudence.The decision strengthened the claims of citizens to the individual right to privacy, personal autonomy and the bodily[Read More…]
In the recent times, we have seen an overdrive of threatening to freeze existing bank accounts unless the customers link to Aadhaar. They are also refusing to open new bank accounts without Aadhaar, citing GSR 538(E), the amendment to the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005 under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 (15 of 2003)(PMLA), on June[Read More…]
The word pain literally means “ a highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury”. If so, what I experienced during the first 3 months of my treatment was something much more than unpleasant or physical. It was a constant affliction that pervaded from the site of injury ie.my right foot upwards to my head. The most agonising[Read More…]
An interpretation of the grim, bleak story of “The Fisherman And His Wife”. … Background: “The Fisherman and His Wife” is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale no. 19. It is Aarne–Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Wikipedia Originally published: 1812 Author: Brothers Grimm Illustrator: Jacob Grimm Genre: Fairy tale Editor: Jacob Grimm ————–[Read More…]
The pain in my mind Affect my body. The pain in my body Affect my mind. Wonder whether these two Had arranged marriage Or love marriage. Since I remain single I am trying to keep away From these two idiots. K.P Sasi is a film maker, writer, activist and cartoonist. He can be reached at kpsasi36@gmail.com Hindi Translation दिमाग की[Read More…]
Imagine the story, the internal struggle of a new born baby born with hearing loss? For an instant, the magnitude of future and its impact on this new born child cannot be envisaged. Now imagine, how many such children are actually suffering worldwide? Quite astonishingly, a large percentage of 360 million people worldwide who suffer from deafness are young, innocent[Read More…]
With every Palestinian birth in Lebanon the resolve for Full Return deepens. (Image by Wikipedia) Permission Details DMCA [Part 1: Is Lebanon’s economy heading for free-fall?] Part 2: Granting Palestinians the right to work can salvage Lebanon’s economy: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the offspring of nearly 800,000 ethnically cleansed from their homes in Palestine during the 1948-50 Nakba, are today[Read More…]
One by one, Palestine’s classic cinemas are being erased. Municipal bulldozers razed Nablus’ al-Assi cinema in late June after the abandoned property was purchased from its owners. It was the second Palestinian cinema in the West Bank to be demolished in less than a year, after Cinema Jenin was razed last December. Al-Assi, which opened in the early 1950s, was shuttered[Read More…]
Earlier this month, the largest national organization representing farmers and agricultural workers in India, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), has announced that it has joined the BDS movement. AIKS is is spread across 21 states in India and is over 16 million members strong. AIKS has resolved to: Endorse the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies[Read More…]
Adani Port in Vizhinjam, near Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala, India has hit a road block with local people started agitating against the port. The agitation has entered into the fourth day and is likely to intensify as there is no immediate solution to their demands. Piling and other work is stalled. Hundreds of fisherfolk, including women and children,[Read More…]
As Trump’s dangerous move on Iran’s nuclear deal and his provocative reaction to North Korea undercut diplomacy, tension is rising for World War III. Discord in the international community has been amplified in conflicts of identity politics across America. Greed and power-seeking leaders’ ambition for profits never end. With ever-increased military budgets, combined with tax cuts for the rich and slashes[Read More…]
The development community seems constantly and restlessly in search of a singular approach that will solve poverty, unveiling new theories every few years only to toss them aside. The fundamental flaw with this system is that each new approach fails to break out of the underlying technocratic and specialized paradigm. We must understand that there is no precooked blueprint[Read More…]
Before the two-day debate opening today in the Spanish Senate on implementing Article 155 of the Spanish constitution to strip the Catalan regional government of its powers, Catalan officials signalled yesterday that they plan to declare independence from Spain. The invocation of Article 155 had been decided by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s cabinet on Saturday. It would install an unelected[Read More…]
Around ten years ago, I saw photos and read commentary about a factory chicken farm. Here is the description and images reiterated since I couldn’t find the old link. Chickens are afraid of not having ground under them. Yet chickens are left in small cramped wire cages with not enough room to move in any direction except to lie down[Read More…]
On 10th of October, a case of gang rape on a minor girl from Patangi area of Koraput district of Odisha was reported in the media. The victim girl belongs to the dalit community and according to her allegations the alleged rapists were in uniform put on by security forces and were carrying guns. The incident caused massive reactions from[Read More…]
The Pirate Party are buccaneering their way into European politics, having found a foothold in the testy soil of Central Europe after colonising, in small measure, various hamlets in Sweden, Germany and Iceland. The Czech Pirates (PPCZ), a term certainly exotic by current political pedigrees, managed to obtain over 10 percent of the vote, a result that gave them a[Read More…]
Donald Trump is not the only problem in the United States. The problem with the United States if truth to be known, are the American people. Sometimes it seems that the American people don’t pay attention to anything… unless it’s sensational. The day-to-day details of what the government does and how the government works isn’t interesting. The American people are[Read More…]
Human sexuality mirrors human culture. Mating dances of seduction and refusal, and acts of non-consensual aggression cannot be separated from traits witnessed, practiced, and internalised by the people of a particular society. It is impossible to close the bedroom door to the culture at large. Eros not only inhabits the genitals and the heart but Anima mundi as well.[Read More…]
This hour-long film addresses the most urgent question of the day: how to understand, and what to do about, the threat to humanity itself posed by the Trump/Pence regime. This talk—from the most radical revolutionary on the planet—makes the case for massive, sustained nonviolent outpourings to begin on November 4. It traces the roots of the regime—the deeper and[Read More…]
“As water seeks its own level, corruption creeps into the body politic to metastasize throughout society and its institutions.” –from Geoff Dutton’s NPR, the CIA and Corporatism While our mainstream media continue to distract us with the gender-based “horrors of Hollywood” and spotlights on other injustices (which do deserve our attention to some degree), the Big Picture is being ignored in the U.S.,[Read More…]
Has religion become the epicentre for our morality , safety , our dignity ? Have we as human beings sold ourselves to the judgements , agendas, inventions , lies and deceit of that which we call religion ? A few days back as I stepped into the waiting uber cab my house help handed me my things and in her[Read More…]
Looking at the strengthening negative attitude of people towards positive ideologies, cultivation of which has given the opportunity to India to stand tall among other civilisations, anti-Periyarism not only throughout the country but also in the land of Periyar itself is quite natural and that is quite visible now. At the moment, Periyarism is surviving among very few Periyarists and[Read More…]
A century has passed since the Great October Revolution. But the Revolution still stirs debate – one camp defending it while another condemning the historical development. It’s the normal within a class-based reality. Only a stupid and a lunatic will feel hurt with the condemnations of the Revolution the bourgeoisie carry on a regular basis as the Revolution harmed[Read More…]
I recently came across a novel by the name “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, by Milan Kundera. I haven’t as yet read it but its title immediately reminded me of my own ‘unbearable heaviness of being’. The immediate context was an incident I happened to hear from a friend. It might just be a very commonplace incident, would have and[Read More…]
GOP members were fuming. Republican Senator Bob Corker of the Foreign Relations Committee was incandescent; Senator Jeff Flake oozed regret and despondency. Both spoke with the freedom of those not seeking re-election, a chance, in other words, to ponder the direction of the US Republic. Ammunition for an unscripted show had been allocated, and there was no bigger target than[Read More…]
If you have you ever seen a monkey hanging from a tree by its tail and showing its red ass to onlookers, then you have seenthe animal kingdom’s representation of war. According to French playwright Jean Giraudoux, the pacifist and Legion d’onore holder in WWI, war looks just like that monkey’s ass. In 1933, on the eve of WWII,[Read More…]
The difference between debt and sovereign money is that debt has to be paid back, with interest, but sovereign money does not, though it can be taxed out of circulation by the local government if we have minted too much of it. 60 central banks got together recently to discuss the algorithms for creating and managing a sovereign electronic[Read More…]
There are 3 Apartheid Israel-related centenaries this week, namely (1) the victorious 31 October 1917 charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba that led to conquest of Palestine by Britain and massive famine, (2) the nefarious and racist UK Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 that gave Palestine to Zionists as a Jewish Homeland as an inducement to[Read More…]
The reconciliation agreement signed between rival Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, in Cairo on October 12 was not a national unity accord – at least, not yet. For the latter to be achieved, the agreement would have to make the interests of the Palestinian people a priority, above factional agendas. The leadership crisis in Palestine is not new. It[Read More…]
The West has a black history in the middle east that must be recognised. In 1916, Arabs joined the allied forces but deceived.The victorious western powers divided the region as they wished without any consideration to the peoples’ will. Then completed this crime by planting the state of Israel, which since day one spread state terrorism throughout the region.[Read More…]
Dear Men I am a woman. You meet at least one of my kind every day. You will find my kind everywhere. At home, at school, in college, at your workplace, using the public transport, working out at the gym, jogging in the park, at the cafe enjoying a nice cup of coffee or having fun at a club. So[Read More…]
The recent ban issued by the Kerala High Court on student politics and protests on campus should not and has not shocked many. This prohibition comes in a long line of attack on institutions of higher education, following the M.Phil. /Ph.D. seat cuts by U.G.C., the revised structure of N.E.T. examination and the recent mandate by the U.G.C. following Allahabad[Read More…]
Two incidents were reported from Meerut and nearby places yesterday shows the brutality of the social structure in India. One was that a woman from Balmiki community was mercilessly beaten and later she succumbed to the injuries at the hospital. That this woman Savitri Devi had gone for her regular safai work at the house of a family whose woman[Read More…]
Lord Acton’s quip that “Power tends to corrupt….and absolute power corrupts absolutely” has passed into our political lexicon seamlessly and without question. Though a fine sentiment, it misleads; in the common interpretation it suggests that powerful people are corrupt because of their power and not that they assumed power because they were willing at every turn to be corrupt. The[Read More…]
A warning by the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, that the country’s financial system faces a possible “Minsky moment” has again raised concerns over the level of the country’s debt. Zhou, who is expected to retire soon from his position as head of the central bank, made his remarks at a sideline meeting during the Chinese[Read More…]
Empires of scale are often spread thinly across fields of operations. Vast, often opaque functions on the ground are not necessarily conveyed with accuracy to the metropolitan centre. Command structures, for all the sophistication of instant modern communication, do not eliminate human error, let alone enlighten. The four US army deaths in Niger have been shrouded by the bickering unfolding[Read More…]
My state, Massachusetts in the USA, tops the list of all fifty of them based on sixty separate indices: Overall Best States Rankings | US News Best States https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings This explains why Massachusetts, ranking No. 1 in education and No. 2 in health care, occupies the overall No. 1 spot in the Best States rankings. And it … Excerpted from the[Read More…]
Environment activists and watchers will be detaching themselves briefly from their various points of resistance to observe the implications of a High Court decision in Australia that was handed down last week. The decision found that various anti-protest provisions of the Tasmanian parliament found in the Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act 2014 were invalid.[1] The Protesters Act had been passed[Read More…]
Around the world activists who are strategic thinkers face a daunting challenge to effectively tackle the multitude of violent conflicts, including the threat of human extinction, confronting human society in the early 21st century. I wrote that ‘activists who are strategic thinkers face a daunting challenge’ because there is no point deluding ourselves that the insane global elite –[Read More…]
It doesn’t matter whatsoever whether or not Einstein actually ever made that remark about how man would only have four years left if bees went south on the planet. People love to mouth off about issues when their stance can put them one-up on others. But what’s important about what anyone says about anything if the words are going[Read More…]
“He makes it Look so easy, it looks so clean He moves like God’s immaculate machine” — from Paul Simon’s “One Trick Pony” “When a person expends the least possible movement on a certain act, that is grace.” — Anton Chekov, in a letter to Maxim Gorky Most people aren’t geniuses. Most cannot juggle multiple tasks at the same[Read More…]
An anthropogenic mass extinction is underway that will affect all life on the planet and humans will struggle to survive the phenomenon. So claims Dr Rosemary Mason in a paper (2015) in the Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry. Loss of biodiversity is the most urgent of the environmental problems because this type of diversity is critical to ecosystem services and[Read More…]
“It should be instructive to think about why so many writers on alternative sites go on and on.” — Rachel Olivia O’Connor When I first started teaching college students in in 1964, I began my Comparative Literature classes by pointing out how Mark Twain once demonstrated that several inflated passages from James Fenimore Cooper’s novels — including some from[Read More…]
Finance is the cementing force that holds all the pieces of our life together. It enables money to be in the right place, at the right time, and for the right situation. To borrow and save is to move money from the future to the present or from the present to the future. To insure is to move money from[Read More…]
Change is constant and it is what history is according to Herodotus. For Greeks, it was change and for Romans it was continuity. R. G. Collingwood saw this scientificity and humanism in Greek thought were greatest contributions of Greeks to the human civilisation while substantialism and metaphysical permanency were the weaknesses of the Roman thought. The same strands of thought[Read More…]
a black man sat in the Tagore theatre balcony
and an old man with a flowing white beard sat next to him
while the Anthem was being played.
the rest stood up.
these two remained seated.
On Saturday, three weeks after the savage police crackdown on the October 1 Catalan independence referendum, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy formally announced the invocation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to strip Catalonia’s regional government of its powers. In its place, Madrid is to install an unelected government in Barcelona backed by the Spanish army, Guardia Civil paramilitary police and[Read More…]
It has been a week of repeated insults to U.S. adventurism and Donald Trump’s ill-defined Middle East policy. In Iraq, thanks to Iranian backing and astute negotiation, Kirkuk province is back in the hands of the Shia government in Baghdad halving the Kurds’ oil revenues. Iran now has a land bridge through Syria to the Mediterranean improving the accessibility[Read More…]
Whenever I need a sharp reminder about being fervent and adamant about hating war, I refresh myself by little remembrances and cues. Here are a few that stand out for me. Some people think that war is good for the economy since it uses resources to rebuild destroyed lands and creates jobs in the process. It supports the industrial-defense industry,[Read More…]
The Udalguri district of Assam administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), has seen a steady rise in human-elephant conflict over the past decade. The illegal human encroachment in the age-old elephant corridors of Udalguri district has posed serious threat to ecology of the district since long. What has added to that is unabated felling of trees in Khalingduar Reserve[Read More…]
The educated and intellectual who have acquired the required radicality in opposing the domination and in questioning or challenging the ahistoricality of the classical culture which is executes itself or kept alive in different means and methods (Hindu orthodox customs, traditions, ritual and festivals) have been, from the last decade or so, building counter narratives to the classical culture. These[Read More…]
What Led To The Monumental Sachar Committee Report Of 2006? Setting The Context After a lull of about a decade on the Justice Rajindar Sachar Committee Report on Muslim backwardness, sections of the media have finally brought the report again to limelight for debate and action. This is a good development. One example of this is the write-up “Shelved &[Read More…]
My Lord, May I protest? How to Protest? That is the question! “Anger is a negative emotion, but to feel a right anger and to the right degree and to the right person is a righteous action,” Aristotle the Master of Metaphor, states. But did he also tell us ‘how to’ of expressing that anger? Or say, Protest. Protest[Read More…]
Twenty four years ago, on 22 October 1993, Bijbehara, my hometown, was struck by a vicious massacre that killed scores of peaceful protestors who were demanding revocation of a military siege of famous shrine, Dargah Hazratbal. According to the state government’s own magisterial enquiry report, “a procession of 2,000 to 3,000 people” that was “entirely peaceful and unarmed” was attacked[Read More…]
As you know that the continuous peaceful resistance of our people forced the POSCO to exit finally. However, we came to learn from the media that the government of Odisha is planning to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to hand over our land to another company named JSW Steel Limited. JSW Steel Limited is a part of the Sajjan[Read More…]
A country baked to the core, its citizens roasted, an electricity grid battered to its limits. Capital cities trapping scorching heat, toasting its citizens and assaulting the young, the elderly, the infirm with temperature fluctuations. This is the vision of Australia by the end of this century according to an Australian National University study released earlier this month. The study,[Read More…]
“Too many educators have pigeon-holed their disciplines. This or that does or doesn’t fit in my classroom. Old school nonsense, particularly with the way in which high tech utilitarianism is bringing everyone down, preaching that the only way to fit in lies in acclimating to our momentum.” — Rachel Olivia O’Connor If you’re an educator in the U.S. —[Read More…]
On Friday, October 20, a mass demonstration organized by Europe’s Ahwazi community took place in Berlin, Germany. This protest entitled “we will not forget about you” demanded that the German government, headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, intervene immediately regarding Iran’s increasingly oppressive human rights violations against the Arab people of occupied Ahwaz. The demonstrators consisted of Ahwazi Arab diaspora and[Read More…]
When Yadu Krishnan (22) entered the sanctum sanctorum of Keecherival Shiv Temple in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala an age-old Indian Belief was shaken. People of the village welcomed him with the garland of flowers and traditional Drums that were once reserved for the Brahmin Tantries and Priests. The rank list available in the website of Travancore Devaswam Board places Yadu[Read More…]
I was recently asked to give a talk called, “The Approaching US Energy-Economic Crisis.” In other words, how might the United States encounter problems that lead to a crisis? As we will see, many of the problems that could lead to a crisis (such as increased wage disparity and difficulty in collecting enough taxes) are issues that we are already beginning[Read More…]
October 20th, 2017, marks the sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of Muammar Qaddafi, revolutionary Pan-Africanist and champion of the Global South. This day also marks the sixth anniversary of the historic battle of Sirte, where Qaddafi, along with an heroic army, including his son Mutassim Billal Qaddafi, and veteran freedom fighter, Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, fought until their convoy was[Read More…]
There is a necessity to change Western political literature in relation to Iran In recent years, all references by the West in relation to Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme, have been constantly and invariably accusatory, using terms such as “nuclear threat” or “nuclear danger”. The signing of the nuclear accord or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) too has not[Read More…]
A couple of days back, the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan who is the leader of CPI(M) went to Sabarimala temple and received prasadam’ from the high priest of the temple. Perhaps, he needed to save his communist ministry with the growing invasion of the Sanghis in the landscape of Kerala. That is understandable. But our super star Suresh[Read More…]
It was probably late sixties or early seventies – when a gentleman called P N Oak started appearing in Marathi magazines peddling his weird theories about well known monuments in and outside India. An article which made lot of news then was centred around Taj Mahal where it was claimed that it was ‘Tejo Maha Aalay’ or hindu god Shiva’s[Read More…]
In one of the largest, if not the largest, Neo-Nazi demonstration in Europe since WW2, 20,000 facists marched through the streets of Ukraine’s capital Kiev last weekend under the silent gaze of the western media. Other than Russian state media RT and Sputnik News facists throwing Nazi salutes and parading in their tens of thousands in a European capital didn’t[Read More…]
The Australian ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC) has launched 2 attacks on the democratically-elected, multiracial, Indian-Fijian Bainimarama Government of Fiji over (1) the China-facilitated deportation from Fiji to China of 77 young, female, Chinese, alleged sex workers, and (2) the Fiji Government’s use of the US PR firm Qorvis to manage its message intra-nationally (with asserted threats[Read More…]
It was an awkward moment for Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop. News had arrived that a New Zealand government had been formed after a lengthy period of deliberation. (The election took place on September 23.) Veteran maverick and occasional political suicide Winston Peters of the New Zealand First party had played the familiar role of kingmaker, picking the New Zealand[Read More…]
Recently, Pravda newspaper of Russia has reported [1] that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been suffering from serious sleep deprivation and that he was yawning and dozed off during a press conference with the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko while he was on a state visit to Kiev, and the video of the incident has been going viral over[Read More…]
“There will be no lasting improvement in any realm unless the excessive violence embedded in our diversions dissipates. The Hollywod celebrities who are — understandably — protesting the disgusting actions of Weinstein are routinely involved in generating much more disgusting fare for far more folks across the world. And they aid and abet our wars.” — Richard Martin Oxman ATS: Do[Read More…]
“What we do not yet know is how much of the ancient Abbasid city of Raqqa and its horseshoe walls and the gate of Baghdad built probably in the eighth century, survives. So much of Syria’s antiquity has been damaged or destroyed – sometimes quite deliberately – in this war, that few historians bother any more to decry the destruction[Read More…]
A poem for Lorca, Gauri, Santanu and all the other disappearing fireflies
Historians will tell you that an explosion of creativity occurs the moment the world starts complaining that there is nothing left to invent, or that the search for solutions has come to an end. This explosion is fate’s way of reminding us that there is always something just over the horizon of knowledge. Social entrepreneurs are now using their talent to[Read More…]
By Arpita Singh & Midhat Fatimah Kamla Devi told that they take bath in the evening to stay clean of the mud while sleeping. She is one of thousands of potters residing in the conjested village known as Kumhar Gram. Kumhar Gram situated on the outskirts of Delhi, is the largest habitat of potter’s community in India accomodating more than[Read More…]
The Sathyagraha demanding 0% GST on hand made sector is a movement to realise a promise made in the Indian Constitution Shri. Prasanna breaks his indefinite hunger strike on assurance of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that the State will support Sathyagraha’s demands in GST Council With the assurance of the Chief Minister of Karnataka Shri. Siddaramaiah that the Karnataka Government[Read More…]
The jailing this week of the leaders of the largest separatist organisations in Catalonia—Jordi Sànchez of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Jordi Cuixart of Òmnium Cultural—was met with demonstrations throughout Catalonia culminating in a 200,000-strong protest in Barcelona on Tuesday night. The incarceration of the two marks the first jailings of political prisoners since the end of the fascist[Read More…]
Co-Written By Rosemary Mason and Colin Todhunter Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the new director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). With a $4 billion annual budget, WHO’s decisions affects us all and its decisions also affect the bottom line of some of the most powerful corporations on the planet. Health is political. And health is big business. For instance, WHO[Read More…]
This is a government that takes pride in its hard headedness and faux populism. Knowing it would have to brave a sceptical, even baffled Senate, Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, resembling a bit dictator struggling for traction, decided to ignore the signals. What was required, claimed Dutton, were tougher citizenship laws to govern Australia, an ironic state of affairs given[Read More…]
A man was starving in Capri; He moved his eyes and looked at me; I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, And knew his hunger as my own. — from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Renascence A pardon is an executive forgiveness of crime; commutation is an executive lowering of a given penalty. A pardon wipes out the conviction while[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers The NAFTA-2 negotiations seem to be faltering after the fourth round of talks recently held in the United States. The Trump administration is pushing Mexico and Canada aggressively to include provisions from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in order to renegotiate NAFTA in a way that benefits US corporations. Mexico and the US[Read More…]
Some people have reluctance to continue in fostering the peace movement. It is easy to want to walk or run away. It is also easy to get discouraged or outright hopeless. Ironically, the first day that I joined the peace moment was the same one that I most desperately wanted to run away. I literally, wanted to flee with[Read More…]
In 2013 Narendra Dhabolkar, who was fighting to get the Anti-Superstition law passed in Maharashtra and led a campaign for rationalism, and against blind faith all his life, was killed. This was followed by the killings of Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi in 2015. And this year, Gauri Lankesh. All of them have reputation for being fiercely opposed to caste[Read More…]
On the one hand, people will deduce that their best interests are served by investing in productive activities that ameliorate deprivation of one kind or another. On the other hand, people will always try to legitimize the means they use as acceptable practice when faced with competition for access to valuable resources. It’s also the case that…like Endymion…people tend[Read More…]
As the American media pumps up its Russophobic rhretoric, escalating the status of the Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation from “rival” to “adversary” to “enemy, ” and the crisis from “rivalry” to “The equivalent of war,” finally to (unqualified) “war,” numerous urgent questions arise. These questions are, for the most part, ignored by our “mainstream media” (MSM) by which[Read More…]
While democracy has become problematic in several countries, on 5th January 2014, Bangladesh crossed the threshold of “illiberal democracy” to enter the domain of “authoritarian dynastic democracy” under Indian tutelage. The symptoms of the disease called “Orwellian State” are already visible here. The fictional Big Brother of Nineteen Eighty-Four is already breathing on the neck of Bangladesh, from across[Read More…]
This article was published in a book Social Movements in Contemporary India edited by SK Chaube in 1996 Many small Nadis join to make the Mahanadi. This statement of Shankar Guha Niyogi, the architect and the ideologue of the Chhattisgarh movement under the red –green banner of Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), explains the motif of its slogan, ‘A New Chhattisgarh for a[Read More…]
The New Indian Express on 16th July 2017 carried a report that three members of a Dalit family died within 15 days in Gokarna district, due to starvation. It was further stated in the report that the deceased possessed BPL cards but did not get ration since April, as they did not have Aadhaar numbers, however, the District Commissioner denied[Read More…]
Encounter currently playing at the Cultch theater in Vancouver is a drama worth watching for those who continue to idealize India as the world’s so called largest democracy. Based on Draupadi– a short fiction by the late Bengali author Mahashweta Devi it is the story of a tribal woman Dopdi (played by Dr. Aparna Sindhoor) who is an indigenous activist fighting for[Read More…]
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s announcement last week to set up an urban arts commission for Mumbai is well intentioned. But it comes at an odd time. Several leaders of his party, the BJP, at the national level have shown little respect for some of the finest monuments of the country and now party MLA Sangeet Som calls the Taj[Read More…]
Ai Weiwei said: “Everything is art. Everything is political”. Art and politics are not subjects separated from each other and for good artists, everything they do is political. So, it was quite appropriate that the first thing that the audience saw, when they streamed in to watch the latest staging of Deepan Sivaraman’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, was the[Read More…]
आधार ही क्या अब जीवन का अधार है
आधार ही से क्या अब जीवन का संचार है
बन्द किवाड़ो के पिछे से सुनाई पड़ती है सिसकती आहें
On Tuesday, the Iraqi government troops have retaken the oil-rich northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk from the Kurds who had controlled the province since June 2014 when the Islamic State overran Mosul. What exactly transpired is still unclear but the two Iraqi factions of the Kurds, the Erbil-based KDP Kurds and the Suleimaniyah-based PUK Kurds, are accusing each other of[Read More…]
Nazareth: There is something truly exasperating about digesting the steady flow of horror stories relating to Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. In part, of course, it is because the reports that Weinstein allegedly raped and sexually assaulted women over decades are deeply disturbing. In part, it is because one can be certain that there are still young aspiring actresses desperate[Read More…]
A federal judge in Hawaii on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump’s third Muslim travel ban, just hours before it was set to take effect on Wednesday October 18. Trump issued a proclamation on September 24 restricting travel to the US from nationals of eight countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, North Korea and[Read More…]
“The ‘Great Firewall of China’ – the world’s most extensive effort to try to control cyberspace – has become more formidable under President Xi Jinping. Authorities have closed some video and audio streaming websites, limited online access to foreign and ‘foreign-inspired’ television programs, stiffened penalties for ‘spreading rumor’ via social media and restricted access to virtual private networks.” — Reuters.com,[Read More…]
Knock, Knock
“Who‘s there?”
“Hunger”
“Hunger who?”
“Santoshi hai?”
In perhaps the first Aadhaar linked starvation death 11 year old girl Santoshi Kumari died at her village, Karimati, in Jharkhand since her family’s ration card was not linked to Aadhaar. Santoshi had not eaten for eight days before her death on September 28, according to a Scroll.in report; she was unable to avail of the mid-day meal she usually[Read More…]
The spectacular victory of Punjab state Congress President in the Gurdaspur parliamentary by-election is a big jot to the advocates of cow politics across India. Sunil Jakhar defeated the BJP candidate Swaran Salaraia by a huge margin of 193, 219 votes. The by-election was caused by the death of sitting BJP MP Vinod Khanna – who represented the constituency for[Read More…]
Colin Kaepernick’s Herculean-like combat that has led him from the football gridiron into the American Coliseum’s arena can be likened to yet another modern mythic-hero who has taken on the American Empire and its modern civilization’s many-headed VIPERS – Vicious, Industrial, Political, Economic, Regimented Systems – who will venomously attack whoever dares threaten them with combat. The warrior[Read More…]
A number of recent, press articles, including an over 8,000-word feature piece in The New York Times have asked, to quote the Times’ headline, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” Although the question was proffered, the reporters and editors responsible for the articles remain resolutely obtuse to the obvious: The bughouse crazy environment of[Read More…]
Many years ago, I wrote a piece which I posted on my blog called, ‘Same Chairs, Different Bottoms’. Here it is for those who may not have read it. It is necessarily full of Indian (and Hindi) idiom which is not translatable so I apologize to those who don’t understand Hindi in advance. Also you need to know something of[Read More…]
The Supreme Court has banned sale of fire crackers in Delhi NCR. The news item then narrates that many will lose jobs as they are employed by the fire cracker industry. 85 % of fire crackers are manufactured at Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. As per the report, more than 3 lakhs employees are employed in making fire crackers & nearly 5 lakhs in ancillary industries[Read More…]
The Only Disability In Life Is A Bad Attitude Scott Hamilton In a country where most assaults, attempts of rape and humiliation of women are under – reported, the condition of disabled women is even worse. They are easily vulnerable to manipulations of men who, on the pretext of assisting them, try to achieve sadistic satisfaction by their devious[Read More…]
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. —F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors Of Socialism I firmly believe it is possible to eliminate poverty in our country— provided we re-examine the wisdom of our professional approaches. The poor are poor not because they are[Read More…]
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered an offensive by Iraqi army units and pro-government Shia militias Monday to capture the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The attack, which reportedly provoked clashes in some areas between Iraqi units and Peshmerga fighters, threatens not only to further destabilize Iraq, but could prove the trigger[Read More…]
Co-Written By Andre Vltchek and Rossie Indira From Yogyakarta and KarangKlethak Village: Djokopekik (who uses only one name, as is common in Java) could easily be described as the greatest living Indonesian painter. He is something of an anomaly in his country, where vulgar pop art, pop music and almost absolute submission to Western pro-market dogmas, religious rituals, and feudal[Read More…]
When I was nineteen years old, I walked to a grocery store from my parents’ home outside of a high fence concerning which inside was a mental institution around a mile away from their home. Then there was a vocalized whistle from inside. I turned and saw a mental patient, out for an airing and exercise no doubt, drop his[Read More…]
One of the recurring accusations of the recent Arya Vysya agitators and their associate Paripurnanada Swamy, a hater of St. Mother Theresa and Christian human service, against me is that I have a Christian agenda behind my writing. This is absolutely false. I have some academic association with an organization called the Good Shepherd Society that established an English medium[Read More…]
The Hillary Clinton mope tour, which should have reached a high water mark, has gone global. It entails drumming up her credentials (immaculate, we are told, but unnoticed), and pouring upon the man who beat her to the White house (a danger to the world). The latter is the fundamental point: Donald Trump would not have won, not because of[Read More…]
To understand the United States’ stratagem in the Pacific, and against North Korea in particular, one has to understand the fundamental changes that are under way in that region. China’s clout as an Asian superpower and as a global economic powerhouse has been growing at a rapid speed. The US’ belated ‘pivot to Asia’ to counter China’s rise has[Read More…]
In order to simplify the Syrian theater of proxy wars, it can be divided into three separate and distinct zones of influence: that are, the Syrian government-controlled areas, the regions administered by the Syrian Kurds and the areas occupied by the Syrian opposition. Excluding Idlib in northwestern Syria, which has been occupied by the Syrian opposition, all the major population[Read More…]
“Suppose that some great disaster were to sweep ten million families out to sea and leave ‘em on a desert island to starve and rot. That would be … an act of God, maybe. But suppose a manner of government that humans have set up and directed, drives ten million families into the pit of poverty and starvation? That’s no[Read More…]
Nazareth: At first glance, the decision last week by the Trump administration, followed immediately by Israel, to quit the United Nation’s cultural agency seems strange. Why penalise a body that promotes clean water, literacy, heritage preservation and women’s rights? Washington’s claim that the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) is biased against Israel obscures the real crimes the[Read More…]
After taking office Donald Trump has rendered the world restless through threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician. Kim Jong-Un, Supreme Leader of the DPRK.[Read More…]
A uniquely wayward president, Donald Trump, has managed to isolate the United States equally uniquely, and contrary to the stated position of his Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Adviser (respectively Rex Tillersen, John Mattis and H.R. McMaster) by scuttling the 2015 Iran nuclear deal citing issues outside its scope. His charges have been dismissed categorically[Read More…]
This is not about justice or injustice, humanity or inhumanity, compassion or cruelty in a non-Islamic country Canada where I live where the true principles of Islam are being upheld in spirit; it is about injustice, inhumanity and cruelty in an Islamic country: Pakistan. I’ve chosen the media platform of countercurrents to publish this short article as I believe[Read More…]
A claim often made by the Government is that India is emerging as a strong nation. Military alliance with powerful nations is shown as a sign of this growing strength. Growing alliance with United States, Israel and more vocal stand against Pakistan and China is cited as reason for the same. Defining strength is often dictated in the ‘militaristic’ sense,[Read More…]
When BJP national president Amit Shah descended on northern Kerala recently as part of his ‘save Kerala mission’, he brought along with him a gaggle of journalists to gauge the menace of “Red-Jihadi terror” in the state. The embedded journalists looked around with rubbernecking curiosity for mass graves of RSS men killed by CPM cadres. They, however, could not[Read More…]
The social media is flooding with #metoo (me too) hashtags. Sexual assault survivors are using this hashtag to call out on the cancer-like spread of sexual crime in our society. This is a consequence of the disclosure of Hollywood’s larger than life (nay, God?) figure Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predatoriness . More and more actresses have publicly stated their harassment at[Read More…]
Free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick is filing a collusion grievance against National Football League (NFL) owners, according to a document obtained by ABC News. The filing, which demands an arbitration hearing on the matter, says the NFL and its owners “have colluded to deprive Mr. Kaepernick of employment rights in retaliation for Mr. Kaepernick’s leadership and advocacy for equality and social[Read More…]
Bad deals. Very bad – unless, of course, they are minted in the United States, with Make America Great Again credentials. Hardly the stuff of presidential clout and oratorical flair, but the US president is making good his word to rain on the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with an overbearing enthusiasm.[Read More…]
“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” Proverb Western governments that have servilely abrogated to a foreign power, i.e. Israel, their responsibilities to uphold international law can no longer claim national sovereignty nor a moral high-ground. These states have become bystanders to Israeli war crimes and genocide and are corrupt mouthpieces parroting Zionist platitudes that undermine Palestinian[Read More…]
Let’s not extend it to an ‘end’; your lips, thirty two barricades for my fleet
I once had whiskeys of your sigh, I had laughed off the ice
Beyond the border, two hundred lovers in order
Your desire for the garment martyred mine, my gun shot your soul thrice
This spring I was diagnosed with cancer and I have just finished a treatment consisting of seven weeks of radiation aided by chemo therapy. Things look good now. I had a very treatable cancer; I have had effective treatment as quickly as possible. As a long time climate activist totally preoccupied with trying to get to effective climate mitigation my[Read More…]
You may have seen the famous documentary, Four Horsemen. In this film is this quote: When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. ~ Frederic Bastiat I ask myself why[Read More…]
Recently I was reminded of my chat with a friend, an evangelical Christian whose father, now dead, was a charismatic minister. My friend, a chemical engineer, worked at a high powered nanotech firm when we had the following conversation and I’ve known him for almost twenty years since then. He subsequently went on to Raytheon, a humongous maker of lethal[Read More…]
I met Samar Sen only once in life in February 1980 on my first visit to Calcutta. But I knew his name from much earlier period, perhaps from 1969 or so, when I may have seen Frontier for first time at my home town Rampura Phul in Bathinda district of Punjab. I became regular reader of ‘Frontier’ from 1971, when[Read More…]
Two dialectically opposed, prevailing theories are that large scale events (such as wars, famines, plagues, and so on) shape the course of history and, counterpoised, singular beings (like Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford, Adolf Hitler, Mohandas Gandhi, etc.) do so. This, of course, is like arguing over which came first — the chicken or the egg, as happenings mold people and[Read More…]
Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned in Israel for eighteen years because he blew the whistle on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. He felt he had “an obligation to tell the people of Israel what was going on behind their backs” at a supposed nuclear research facility which was actually producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. His punishment for breaking the silence[Read More…]
It’s a relationship of dirty toxicity, but these abound when universities establish ties with regimes and certain entities. These might take the form of investments. Or they can become matters, somewhat euphemistically, of intellectual exchange. Certainly, for some figures such as the president of the University of New Haven, Steven H. Kaplan, an agreement with King Fahd Security College in[Read More…]
America under President Trump continues to foster an agenda of extreme perplexity, triviality and confusion in dealing with urgent global affairs. If the administration were to learn from the history, it must be candid, focused and redirect its strengths and weaknesses from the past and usher a new strategic direction of change and adaptability to the present and futuristic challenges[Read More…]
Managing money well begins with hanging on to what you have. This means avoiding unnecessary expenditure and then finding a safe place to store whatever money is left over. Making that choice—the choice to save rather than to consume—is the foundation of money management.” -Stuart Rutherford More than four decades ago, the idea of microcredit was born out of[Read More…]
Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely (Al-Quran, Chapter5, Verse 32). This article has been jotted down in response and not in reaction to an Anti-Terrorism Day[Read More…]
HEALTH-this term needs no introduction after all our cordial conversations are filled with it which goes like this, “kya haal,sehat cha theeki” (how are you and how is your health?). But how often do we use the term “mental health”?” “zehni tabyat cha theek” (how is your mental health)perhaps our etiquettes don’t allow it!! But why? Are not our[Read More…]
If I were to describe Islam in three words, there is nothing there besides sex, crime and murder. So the question for you is not whether Rohingya will stay here or the Musulman will leave here…. Now, what’s the question is that everyone is being brought here (The banner in the back reads: Drive Out Rohingya Save India Protest.… Thank[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump vowed Friday that he will use his presidential powers to blow up the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran unless it is quickly amended to Washington’s satisfaction. “In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated,” declared Trump. “It is under continuous review[Read More…]
It was with almost unseemly haste that Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian factions, announced that they had reached a preliminary unity agreement in Cairo on 12 October, after two days of negotiations. The deal has been greeted with some fanfare. Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, called it “a declaration of the end to division and a return to national Palestinian[Read More…]
He is the inimitable, true political ugliness, the bad boy with a mistimed punch. While not quite professorial in his lunacy (that honour will have to go to Pauline Hanson of One Nation, whose sincere bigotry remains pungent), he aspires to it with a greater sense of reason. This Exocet missile of Australian politics continues to direct his power and[Read More…]
“If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men[Read More…]
Damascus: Despite the 12/12/2017 announcement by rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah that a deal has been agreed to during this month’s Cairo Reconciliation talks and that details would be announced later, it is doubtful that substantive progress will result. Or that this time the results will differ much from the preceding half-dozen still-born ones over the past decade. When[Read More…]
“Raqqa will never be the same”, claims Abu Adam Al-Britani in a 72 minute long tape that was issued late last month. He provides a chilling account of the scale of death and destruction in the city that was a de facto capital of the Islamic state in Syria, when the group formally declared the Islamic Caliphate in the[Read More…]
“But who really knows? Who can tell where all arose? For the Gods themselves came after Creation. Who then shall proclaim how Creation happened?” Nasadiya Sukta, Rig Veda Since Independence from colonial rule, India has emerged as a successful modern democracy,holding regular elections, with a functioning judiciary, smooth transitions of power and a very fine Constitution. It is even[Read More…]
This is not a history but an attempt to understand what probably happened in those last years that led to the demise of Hyderabad as an independent country and its annexation by the newly independent India. It is speculation; perhaps informed speculation; I hope, intelligent speculation, but speculation nevertheless. I am not speaking chronologically or relating incidents but attempting to[Read More…]
(International Day for the Eradication of Poverty –17 October 2017) This year marks the 25th anniversary of the declaration by the United Nations of 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. We have still a long way to go for making this world poverty free .One of the key strategies for eliminating poverty is focusing on women and girls. Achieving gender[Read More…]
Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy was on full display Thursday when the State Department announced that the United States is withdrawing from UNESCO over the United Nations cultural body’s supposed “anti-Israel bias.” Under President Barack Obama, the US had already cut funding to the agency because of a US law that restricts support to UN bodies that recognize Palestine as a state. UNESCO[Read More…]
Many people can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea that if we want lessening climate change problems and curtailment of other sorts of devastation like massive spills and air pollution, we need to use less fossil fuels. We also have to stop taking away more and more of the natural world for economic development, stop personally using up[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with Nepal, where a distressing case of caste discrimination saw a 14-year-old Dalit girl paraded in Belbari Municipality-2 of Morang district with shoes around her neck, soot smeared on her face, and the tag of ‘thief’ stuck on her body. She was also beaten with nettle greens, causing her body to swell. Although the police[Read More…]
In the Caste ridden Indian Society, the role of priest has long been considered a preserve of the Brahmans. This is purely determined by birth. Only a person born in a Brahmin family is considered eligible to become a priest, if the person acquires grip over religious rituals and mantras. Any non-Brahmin and more particularly a Dalit becoming a priest[Read More…]
I recently came across a wonderful introduction to Islam titled Islam Is Good: Muslims Should Follow It by Sanjiv Bhatla that compresses encyclopedic insights in a small volume. His study of the Prophet is primarily based on Martin Lings’ book. For the Quran’s interpretation, he relies on the translation by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan and supplements it with that of Abdullah Yusuf li.
It is a matter of great concern that on 10th October 2017, a minor girl aged about 14 years, a student of government run Sorisapada residential school for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe was allegedly gang-raped at gunpoint by a group of four persons in security uniform in a forest area near Lenjiguda village in Potangi Police Station limit under Koraput district. This inhuman and barbaric incident has appeared in all mass electronic as well as print media, which has shocked and annoyed the concerned citizens of the Society.
(Note : This article would appear in the coming issue of ‘Think India Quarterly’) ..Kovind acknowledged that “the key to India’s success is its diversity” and “our diversity is the core that makes us so unique” and ended his speech with a call to build an egalitarian society as “envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and Deendayal Upadhyayaji”… The Congress took[Read More…]
Habib Jaber, the head of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, has been interviewed on the Saudi TV station “alekhbariya” where he spoke about the movement, its struggle, and the future vision for it, and the Iranian regime. _____________________________ Between revolution and reformation, there is always an unstable period of time where the direction of the movement[Read More…]
No God can punish more
And no God can save.
This walk can only be beautiful
With a determined act of walking
The destination can be empty
But those who walk
Need not feel guilty
For their crime
Of being born as human.
The Vancouver-based Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI) honoured Sarwan Singh Aujla, a retired school principal from Punjab and an author for keeping the story of Rehamt Ali Wajidke alive. Wajidke was a member of the Ghadar Party that was formed in North America in 1913 by the Indian immigrants to fight back against British occupation of their home country[Read More…]
In a menacing speech to the Spanish Congress on Wednesday, Popular Party (PP) Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stated that, in response to Catalan regional Premier Carles Puigdemont’s speech affirming the October 1 independence referendum, he was preparing to invoke Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. This provision allows Madrid to suspend the authority of the Catalan regional government and seize[Read More…]
Since I’m (almost) halfway through my ‘history of the world’ blog cycle, I thought I’d take a halftime break and write about something else this week. Especially since an urgent task has suddenly presented itself to me – the need to save George Monbiot from becoming an ecomodernist. Now, let me start by saying that, week in week out for[Read More…]
Egypt’s enthusiasm to arbitrate between feuding Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, is not the outcome of a sudden awakening of conscience. Cairo has, in fact, played a destructive role in manipulating Palestinian division to its favor, while keeping the Rafah border crossing under lock and key. However, the Egyptian leadership is clearly operating in coordination with Israel and the[Read More…]
Civil advocacy groups are disappointed at the Supreme Court order on Muslim Ban 2.0. The Supreme Court of the United States Tuesday (Oct 10) issued an order in Trump vs. International Refugee Assistance Project dismissing the case from its docket. The case had been before the Court after a lower court blocked the President’s second attempt to impose a[Read More…]
At the end of last month, Tesla boss Elon Musk held a party in South Australia’s mid-north. It seemed premature, but Musk was typically confident. Construction on what will be the world’s most powerful lithium ion battery was going well. It had to. Musk has made a self-testing gamble with the South Australian government: complete the project within 100-days and[Read More…]
After Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize-winning novel “The God of Small Things” the world had been waiting for 20 years for her second novel. Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” has been well worth the wait – it is a marvellous feast of poetry, prose, characters, causes, good, evil, the expected and the unexpected by a master story-teller and truth-teller[Read More…]
“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare…. I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do…. No dream,[Read More…]
(Mohan Bhagwat’s declaration of integrating Kashmir fully into India may, on the contrary, begin the process of disintegration of India itself!) The Oxford dictionary defines “Integration” as an action to bring together different countries, blocks, units and so on for political or economic integration. The best example of the process is the European Union. The integrated countries or states retain[Read More…]
The bad news is we have been deluged with bad, even mortifying, news, and for such an extended period of time, the mind reels in bafflement as the spirit sinks. Despair seems an apt response to events one cannot reconcile, of circumstances of which one cannot gain perspective nor control. “The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the[Read More…]
An Egyptian Court sentenced eight people to death Tuesday and 50 others to life in prison for their role in a case known as the storming of Helwan Police Station. According to prosecution, on 14 August 2013 protesters stormed Helwan Police Station, which led to the killing of three police officers and two civilians. The police station and 20[Read More…]
Speaking Tuesday evening before the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, regional premier Carles Puigdemont announced that Catalonia would secede from Spain, in line with the result of the October 1 Catalan independence referendum. However, he put off a formal declaration of independence for now and requested negotiations with the central government in Madrid. The Popular Party (PP) government of Prime Minister[Read More…]
Statement by Izquierda Revolucionaria The rebellion of the Catalan people on 1 October forced the Spanish capitalist regime and the right wing Partido Popular (People’s Party/PP) government onto the ropes, opening a revolutionary crisis in Catalonia. The reactionary forces wasted no time in their response: using all methods at their disposal, and with the absolute monopoly in the media and[Read More…]
Beyond the core sickness of America’s cultural and societal life, personified by such illnesses that riddle America’s collective body, like: the .1% who perpetually erode the overall health and well-being of the other 99%; the massive structural racism, political and economic inequality, gender injustices, violated constitutional First Amendment rights; there lies a potential healing of the nation’s social consciousness[Read More…]
The implications of the stampede which killed 23 people and injured 39 at Elphinstone road railway station in Mumbai on September 29, are larger than we have seen so far. I visited the station and surrounding area three days in the last one week and noticed that the treatment of commuters is far more inhuman than we thought. Two[Read More…]
In a story published on June 13, 2017, in the Hindustan Times, Bobby Ghosh, the Ex-editor-in-Chief of Hindustan Times, argued that Nobel prize must be rescinded from those who do not live up to Nobel standards, thus, an audit of the work and worlds of all living laureates must be scrutinised[1]. Accordingly, Ghosh highlighted five undeserving Nobel laureates namely- European Union[Read More…]
In Las Vegas on 1 October 2017, it appears that one man (although it might have been more) killed 59 people and shot and injured another 241 (with almost 300 more injured while fleeing). The incident got a lot of publicity, partly because the man managed to kill more people than most mass killers. However, because the killer was[Read More…]
“While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” — Eugene V. Debs “This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jitamanyu Sahoo & Monis Ahmad The repetition of the ghastly episode were 49 children died in Farrukhabad at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital this September is nothing but a reflection of our health inequities that is deep rooted in our public healthcare system. In all 19 children died during delivery and 30 children at the hospital’s unit for newborns,[Read More…]
I linked my Aadhaar to my PAN card.
Then I linked my PAN card to my bank account.
Then I linked my Aadhaar to my bank account.
Then I linked my Aadhaar to my tax return.
Then I linked my Aadhaar to my LPG gas connection.
Then I linked my Aadhaar to my mobile phone.
Then the Government issued a decree ordering
that all persons must link their Aadhaar to their heartbeat
within three months or face discontinuation of the heartbeat.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alexandra Corker’s much-awaited “The Restoration Years: America in the Post-Trump Era” jumped to the top of the best-seller lists almost immediately. The Harvard professor and I spoke in her Cambridge home about the revelations in that volume. BW: Why don’t we start with the title of the book? Why “Restoration”? Donald Trump, as many may remember,[Read More…]
“To lead you to an overwhelming question…/Oh do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.” – T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock If you find yourself lost and confused in a dark wood, then perhaps following this network of knots strung on a long string of dates listed below will help[Read More…]
Many may not know that world cerebral palsy day was celebrated on Friday October 6. It is a movement of people with ‘ cerebral palsy’ and their families, and their organisations which support them in 52 countries. It’s vision is to ensure that children and adults with CP ( cerebral palsy) have same rights, accesses and opportunities as anyone[Read More…]
Some promises are made and kept; others disavowed. But the ‘promise’ made by Arthur James Balfour in what became known as the ‘Balfour Declaration’ to the leaders of the Zionist Jewish community in Britain one hundred years ago, was only honored in part: it established a state for the Jews and attempted to destroy the Palestinian nation. In fact,[Read More…]
India’s saffron wing finally seems to be losing the war in Social Media. The foothold it had achieved in social media appears to be ending. Social Media had played an important role in widening its support base among sections of the middle class and youth. It had built up a cadre of supporters ideologically in line with the saffron forces.[Read More…]
It was close to midnight, and I was sitting at a small campfire with Sybilla and Josh Medlin in back of an old warehouse in an impoverished section of the city. The Medlins paid $20,000 for the warehouse. It came with three lots. They use the lots for gardens. The produce they grow is shared with neighbors and the local[Read More…]
“I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.” Senator Bob Corker on Donald Trump, New York Times, Oct 8, 2017 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may well be pulling out what tender remains of his hair are left. With the North Korean-Trump spat now personalised to the point[Read More…]
Co-Written By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in Washington, DC in the combined March for Racial Justice and March for Black Women. Native Americans joined black and brown people to lead the march. At the march, Rev. Graylan Hagler said, “White Supremacy has been given aid and comfort by a so-called president and so-called administration,[Read More…]
History of genocidal crimes against Koreans in their own beloved country by the USA before and after it became the sole world superpower as a result of the Second World War, which could not have happened without mega enormous investment in, and joint venturing by US corporations and banks in building impoverished Nazi Germany up to world #1 military force.[Read More…]
Microfinance — an approach to financial inclusion based on providing small loans and other financial services to poor people, and primarily women-has generated considerable enthusiasm, not just in the development community but also at political levels In the last decade and half microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India have struggled to gain legitimacy as credible institutions even though they have[Read More…]
From Jakarta and Yogyakarta: It was once again a hot, muggy day in Jakarta. The air was full of pollutants, epic traffic jams blocking entire center of the city. Biasa, as locals would say, or in a lax translation, ‘business as usual’. It is September 29th, 2017, Friday, just one day before the most sinister anniversary in the[Read More…]
My deepest fear is that I will simply die one day
Crying for what might have been
The earth will be free of carrying my burden
And there will be no trace of my passing
Namo…nnamaha! Vande Mataram!
Mothers and sisters, our salutations to you!
Only make sure your limbs are fully swathed
Smothered with textile, yard upon yard of silk or polyester
Head covered, face veiled with ghungat or scarf.
The U.S.-North Korea confrontation has reached a perilous level and the risk of war is serious. The best starting point to take stock of the perilous face-off betweenthe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) and the United States of America is President Trump’s maiden speech at the UN General Assembly on 19 September 2017.Trump said, “The United States has great[Read More…]
Consider, if you will, these two indisputable facts. First, the United States is today more or less permanently engaged in hostilities in not one faraway place, but at least seven. Second, the vast majority of the American people could not care less. Nor can it be said that we don’t care because we don’t know. True, government authorities withhold certain[Read More…]
To say that the U.S. public don’t care if ‘news’media lie, is shocking, but I shall here present evidence that it actually is true — not in some mere theory, but in empirical fact. A typical example of Americans not caring about the truthfulness, nor even about the honesty, of their sources of alleged ‘news’, is that, during the[Read More…]
“Revolution in society must begin with the inner, psychological revolution of the individual. Most of us want to see a radical transformation of the social structure…however radical that social revolution may be its nature is static if there is no inward revolution, no psychological transformation…However much and however wisely legislation may be promulgated, society is always in the process[Read More…]
The globalised industrial food system that transnational agri-food conglomerates promote is failing to feed the world. It is responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises. Whether it involves the undermining or destruction of what were once largely self-sufficient agrarian economies in Africa or the devastating impacts of soy cultivation in Argentina, localised, traditional methods of food production have given way[Read More…]
Our cave-day ancestors were probably very clever, resourceful, rational, logical and pre-scientific. They had to be so in a difficult world in order to stay alive in a hostile, barely supportive environment. They had to be so to bring generations of us forward 200,000 years for humans to the point that we all now exist. They brought us here[Read More…]
We presently are using whatever we can, with little to no concerns for our children’s future, as they, on present trend have little prospect and less to no chance that their offspring will be able to survive. Yet the continuation of life is life’s primary concern. But not in civilisation, with the new socioeconomic system of global capitalism, education primary[Read More…]
Removing from travel booklet
The imposing citadel bright
Cannot fool the tourist
Wah Taj!
Way back in 1972, a tribal girl was raped in custody by two constables in Desai Ganj Police Station in Maharashtra. The Supreme Court in Tuka Ram v State of Maharashtra[1](also known as Mathura’s rape case) acquitted the two accused policemen on the ground that the victim has raised no alarm, there was no visible injury mark on her[Read More…]
Will BSP nurture budding young Ambedkarite or become a family party ? Today we remember a great social scientist of India who changed the nature of politics and political movement in India. Whatever the brahmanical elite may say about him, late Kanshiram influenced the Indian polity more than anyone else in mid 1980s and the impact is still felt but[Read More…]
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. (Shakespeare’s As You Like It) Muslim Rohingyas, after their centuries-old native and independent Arakanempire, now the Rakhine state that belongs to the militant Buddhist Myanmar, have been subject to a brutal ethnic cleansing for[Read More…]
While coming back from work, I got in to a Sumo. I found a seat beside a nonlocal young boy. He too was travelling back from work, which I came to know later. While we both were on our way back home, a middle aged lady in a very unusual way asked this nonlocal boy “Why you guys keep chopping[Read More…]
(World Mental Health Day -10th October 2017) According to an India Spend report, the number of Indians suffering from mental illness exceeds that of the population of South Africa. At present, the mentally ill account for nearly 6.5 percent of the country’s population and it is estimated that by 2020 this number will increase to a staggering 20 percent. Further, the[Read More…]
Shankar Guha Niyogi was a leader with immense integrity and political purpose-fulness in life. And I am aware that I am not the right person to write about him. But since certain memories haunt me, I feel it may be good to relieve myself by writing about him. The time was 1979-80. My mind was filled with Marxian politics and[Read More…]
(ROME) When in 1978 the 31-year old Afghan Communist politician-activist, Mohammad Najibullah, arrived in Tehran, “exiled” to neighboring Iran as Afghanistan’s Ambassador, I had just left Iran where I had worked throughout the year of 1977. Najibullah’s political party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had come to power in Kabul in April, 1978 in what is known[Read More…]
“There are no right hands for the wrong weapons.” Beatrice Fihn, ICAN Executive Director, Oct 6, 2017 Few times in history show the remarkable gulf between international civic action and international political constipation. The will of approaching a world without nuclear weapons has been matched every step of the way with the desire and wish to acquire or keep them.[Read More…]
If there is a mass shooting and anyone is asked where, the answer is likely to be the United States. The reason of course is the easy availability of guns, even guns that fire like machine guns. The Second Amendment allows the ‘right to bear arms’ — to prevent tyranny say the proponents. Yet, the world has moved beyond[Read More…]
A boy often falling over other boys Having a big company of girls Trying to be a classical dancer Hands used to move like waves of a sea Giving everything the perfect texture Had Rabindranath, Had Rituparno Girls spending their time with coffee mugs Discussing about the hunky boys Busy in revealing the underwear Alongwith the serpentine biceps Talks[Read More…]
A collection of quotes From Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd’s Speeches SC/ST/OBCs are nationalists, What About Narendra Modi’s Big Brothers’ Capital. How many jobs they get in that capital?—-Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd Minorities are nationalists, What about Amith Shaw’s Industrialists? – Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd How many minorities get jobs in his private empire?—Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd Foot Soldiers Are Nationalists, Why their brothers and sisters[Read More…]
There are numerous unconfirmed reports of troops being sent to Catalonia and nearby regions ahead of a possible unilateral declaration on independence early next week. Spain’s political establishment is openly talking of invoking Article 116 of the Spanish constitution, laying the basis for the imposition of martial law. According to military sources cited in the right-wing newspaper OkDiario, troops are being[Read More…]
This week’s words from the Levant offer contending messages for Israel’s and Hezbollah’s friends and foes alike: “We are naturally unhappy about the fact that Lebanon will be largely destroyed. Ask Iran why this may well happen? But be assured that it won’t drag on for anything close to 34 days like last time. (July 2006). We urge all civilians[Read More…]
The battle against Donald Trump and his sycophants is a battle against evil. It is a battle against the dark side of the human mind. It is a battle for human survival. It must now begin with all intensity. The word “Evil” as originally defined by the Abrahamic religions has left the Western vernacular. Time to bring it back in[Read More…]
Once upon a time, on the banks of a great river in the north of our world there lay a land called Shenanigonia. The citizens of Shenanigonia were honest folk who lived in peace in their stone houses. The years went by and everyone prospered and lived healthy lives. Then one day, an extraordinary thing happened to disturb the[Read More…]
President of the European Council, Mr. Donald Franciszek and the President of the European Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker are on a visit to New Delhi from 5th to 7th October 2017 for the 14th India-EU summit in Delhi. The summit is perceived as an opportunity for reviving bilateral ties for both the parties. Marking the 55th anniversary since the establishment[Read More…]
A couple of weeks ago I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it was at the time when several news agencies were reporting the Rohingya crisis unfolding in Myanmar. There was social media frenzy around the atrocities by the Myanmar security forces and the radio silence from Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. This international uproar was a result of 100,000s[Read More…]
Co-Written by Gowhar Naz and Neha Sharma “Braid Chopping”, the name needs no identification; no introduction. The term has spread its terror across whole Jammu and Kashmir.The term more terrifying than any of the deadliest weapon and any other damn thing. But then the mind reverberates and stresses on the “hows” and the “whys” of the incidents.If you say that[Read More…]
My harvest without a red bell
From my farm
Beneath the well
Watching those eyes burn
Even when few clouds assist
And few turn soft pillows
Making it my debt
I am the last crop
With Spanish military and police units already being deployed, Madrid has signaled that it is preparing a brutal crackdown in Catalonia. Spain’s Constitutional Court yesterday said that Monday’s planned session of the Catalan regional parliament, at which it was expected that the separatist parties would make a unilateral declaration of independence, must not take place. Coming after failing in a[Read More…]
Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has been cooperating with Russia in Syria against Washington’s interests since last year and has recently placed an order for the Russian-made S-400 missile system. Similarly, the Saudi King Salman, who is on a landmark state visit to Moscow, has signed several cooperation agreements with Kremlin and has also expressed his[Read More…]
The Great October Revolution in Russia changed the world forever. Since November 7, 1917, a century, the world has ceased to be the same: the world is no more under absolute control of the world capital all the time, the world can’t be absolutely dictated by the world imperialism all the time, the world can’t be compelled to carry[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with the death of 60 Rohingya in a boat capsize off Bangladesh on September 28, as they were fleeing violence in Burma. A UN spokesman said 23 people were confirmed dead and 40 more were “missing and presumed drowned”. Dozens of Rohingya have already died trying to cross into Bangladesh amid a military crackdown in[Read More…]
Never miss an opportunity in the security business. A massacre in Las Vegas has sent its tremors through the establishments, and made its way across the Pacific into the corridors of Canberra and the Prime Minister’s office. Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull is very keen to make hay out of blood, and has suggested another broadening of the security state: the creation[Read More…]
Background information and precursors to this assessment: Growing Up With A Monster In Your Life! and The Bad Brother! The dysfunctional worker: Around twenty-five years ago, my sister, her husband and their three children traveled to our mother’s resort to spend Thanksgiving there. They figured that nobody would be present due to the resort only operating during the summer. Much[Read More…]
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written into the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in 1787 as the replacement-Constitution for this country, replacing the prior Articles of Confederation, which had bound the United States together as the nation’s first Constitution. We Americans live under America’s second Constitution, but the terms-of-reference in it are the same as[Read More…]
There is a beautiful teaching story from Korea of a Zen master and his disciple. The master took him to the bank of a stream that flowed between rocks. There he made a small paper boat and floated it on the water. He told his disciple to follow the boat and report back to him about its journey. The disciple[Read More…]
A major policy shift has been taking place in the Indian commodity derivatives market since September 2015, when the commodity regulatory body, Forward Markets Commission, was formally merged with the capital market regulator – the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). In June 2017, SEBI opened up the commodity derivatives markets to institutional investors for the first time[Read More…]
Today when thousands marched to protect their democratic right to protest and dissent from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar, the National Green Tribunal dwelt a severe blow to that freedom when it asked to immediately put a stop to all forms of protests at the Jantar Mantar because they ‘spread’ ‘noise pollution’. The court said that people living in the[Read More…]
We’ve all done it at one point: look up at the stars and wonder about the meaning of it all. Is the universe infinite? Is there life on other planets? Is someone looking back at us, right now, somewhere out there in the inconceivable vastness of space? How small, how fragile must the world seem to him -,- Little more[Read More…]
“Shame people with no knowledge or understanding of Libya want to play politics with the appallingly dangerous reality in Sirte.” Boris Johnson, Twitter, Oct 3, 2017 The Conservative Party conference in Manchester was always going to hinge on an important question: what would Boris Johnson do to steal the show? Having demonstrated the hardest of lines on the issue of[Read More…]
The Las Vegas gunman wasn’t operating merely as a gunman but as a sniper, and yet the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment makes no distinctions whatsoever regarding handguns versus snipers’ weapons — automatic (or semi-automatic) rifles which spew bullets so fast the Las Vegas shooter was able in the brief time-span of only around ten minutes to murder at least[Read More…]
Vietnam Napalm attack “Stupid is as stupid does.” — Forrest Gump 25 great forrest gump quotes – YouTube ▶ 7:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc_JXiRanlI Feb 16, 2015 – Uploaded by PonAdidas Forrest Gump Quotes 1994. One of my friends was drafted to be a soldier in the Vietnam War. He couldn’t wiggle out of the duty since he was not a conscientious objector[Read More…]
I want to begin with a brief thumbnail view at global geopolitics since the collapse of the Soviet Union under President Gorbachev. This was an event that was widely applauded and rejoiced, including by Muslims worldwide. Little did they realize what it would lead to. For a military state, an economy based on war, an enemy is essential. When the[Read More…]
Well known writer, Kamla Surayya was born in a conservative Nair Hindu family (Nalappat) in 1934. She embraced Islam in 1999 at the Age of 65 and changed her name from Kamla Das to Kamla Surayya. Many conservative Hindu sections became totally contemptuous to her for this behaviour. The Sangh Parivar accusations and attacks on her went on till her[Read More…]
Keeping tabs on those murdered for their rational, questioning world views, you realise that the dead are reminders of civilizational values that have been handed down by the great dissenting traditions of thought in this sub-continent. Whether rational, agnostic, atheist, or shramanic in origin, these traditions have sustained their vigour through time, though they appear to be eclipsed by more[Read More…]
This was in the 13th century. 5 centuries had passed since the marauding Vedantic forces led by Adi Shankaracharya had torn into the sanghas, monasteries and stupas of the Buddhist. Meanwhile, General Vijay Sen had risen in coup from the barracks of the last Pala kings of Bengal to deal the final staggering blow to the last Buddhist dynasty of[Read More…]
[Editor’s note: This interview has been excerpted from Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, the new book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian to be published this December.] David Barsamian: You have spoken about the difference between Trump’s buffoonery, which gets endlessly covered by the media, and the actual policies he is striving to enact, which receive less attention.[Read More…]
Sultan, Ali’s brother, was killed in August 2016. Hussein, Bismillah’s uncle, was killed in April 2017. I don’t want Rahman, Inaam’s brother, to end up being killed. Rahman is now training to be a soldier. Both Sultan and Hussein were Afghan soldiers in their twenties. They joined the army because there were no other viable jobs available. Their families needed[Read More…]
Co-Written by Stan Cox and Paul Cox Donald Trump’s sadistic attacks on the people of Puerto Rico got most of the headlines, but it is colonial exploitation that created the unnatural disaster that continues to play out in America’s Caribbean territories. Many, including Trump, predict that the debt burden will make it extremely difficult for Puerto Rico to rebuild after[Read More…]
How would you feel if you unknowingly give away Rs 500 note to the auto person instead of Rs 20 note and realize after he drives away? How would you live if in every monetary transaction, there is no way for you to identify the notes, coins and total amount? How would you feel if every time you want to[Read More…]
BDS stands for ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’. The BDS Movement was the outcome of several events that shaped the Palestinian national struggle and international solidarity with the Palestinian people following the Second Uprising (Intifada) in 2000. Building on a decades-long tradition of civil disobedience and popular resistance, and invigorated by growing international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle as exhibited[Read More…]
In 1985, when I was studying at the IIM Ahmedabad, our Professor of Organization Behaviour (OB) Area was Prof. Pulin Garg. One day he told us a very interesting story which has remained in my mind all these decades. He told us that some years earlier Ford Foundation, the American NGO, did a project to help village farmers to enhance[Read More…]
During the last few decades of my social life I have interacted with three kinds of communists. The first variety belong to those who were inspired, motivated and activated through ideological grounds. This section is fast becoming a rare species in today’s context. There could be a number of reasons for the decline of this community and at this moment,[Read More…]
My name is Appu.I am studying in 4th Standard in a school near my hamlet Sambarkod in Attapady. I want to share with you the story of a wild elephant who has been the friend of us children for some years. We share the waters of the river Shiruvani with many animals, the grandest one being this huge tusker and[Read More…]
One seldom hears any of the persons..saying, “Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu.”- Dr. B. R Ambedkar. “Frankly Prashant, if I weren’t an exceptional student, I would have committed suicide long ago.” His statement chilled my bones; having been known him for years, I knew he was not given to exaggeration or needless drama. He was serious. [Read More…]
The American empire is coming to an end. The U.S. economy is being drained by wars in the Middle East and vast military expansion around the globe. It is burdened by growing deficits, along with the devastating effects of deindustrialization and global trade agreements. Our democracy has been captured and destroyed by corporations that steadily demand more tax cuts, more deregulation and[Read More…]
Nazareth: Palestinians and Israelis watched last week’s referendum of Iraq’s Kurds with special interest. Israeli officials and many ordinary Palestinians were delighted – for very different reasons – to see an overwhelming vote to split away from Iraq. Given the backlash from Baghdad and anger from Iran and Turkey, which have restive Kurdish minorities, the creation of a Kurdistan[Read More…]
Thousands of police and civil guards carried out savage repression in Catalonia to try to prevent the right to vote in the referendum on 1 October. The state forces smashed glass doors of schools used as polling stations and stole ballot boxes. The riot police were sent by the Partido Popular (PP) government and the State against tens of thousands[Read More…]
India is being cornered to open up its markets at the ongoing negotiations of the Regional Com-prehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).A free trade agreement between 16 Asian countries, including massive manufacturers like China, RCEP will bring down import duties to zero on goods, both agricultural and industrial, for more than 92 per cent of tariff lines. Being the world’s largest trade agreement, it will impact half of the world’s population including 420 million small family farms that produce 80 per cent of Asia’s food.
‘We don’t know what his belief system was at this time.’ Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, Oct 2, 2017 Those gathered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas were doing what revellers always do. But the script would not let them persist in their pleasures, to let them be, communing together before their figures of country music. What[Read More…]
Most of us are familiar with the Politically Correct (PC) World View. William Deresiewicz describes the view, which he calls the “religion of success,” as follows: There is a right way to think and a right way to talk, and also a right set of things to think and talk about. Secularism is taken for granted. Environmentalism is a sacred cause. Issues[Read More…]
It’s a capricious irony of history that the word bourgeois, which most clearly pinpoints the capitalist class, is perceived by nearly everyone, including the bourgeois themselves, as an epithet and is almost universally despised. Generally we conceive of the bourgeois in reference to their over emphasis on form and formality, [the aversion to making waves, no matter how unjust the situation], in[Read More…]
The Karnataka Bar Council has called on all advocates to abstain from work on October 4 as a mark of protest against the transfer of Justice Jayant Patel, which prevented his elevation to the seat of Chief Justice of the High Court. In its protest letter to the CJI, the Council has held that the transfer exposed lack of transparency[Read More…]
I live in the so-called “pinko state,” MA, USA. (I never even once met a Commie here.) However, I can tell you that my state is NOT in debt unlike PA, has a robust plan for WICCA (Wicca – Cultural Approaches to Pediatric Palliative Care …), supports Medicaid (Massachusetts MassHealth (Medicaid) | Benefits.gov) and has UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. This means that[Read More…]
At the silver jubilee celebrations of the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta (Advocates) Parishad in Hyderabad, RSS chief Bhagwat cited the abuse of power during emergency as an example of immorality in our law and demanded that entire system be based on the ethos of the society rather than, assumably, jurisprudence alone. But while citing the 1975 emergency to elicit immorality[Read More…]
Aadhaar, India’s ambitious biometric ID project, was portrayed as one that would enhance India’s welfare efforts by promoting inclusion and reducing corruption. From being a voluntary ID, it has become de facto compulsory for most welfare programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Public Distribution System (PDS). Despite early warnings of its limited role[Read More…]
The clamour having died down, now is a good time to logically dissect the article, separating rhetoric from reason and focussing on the rights issue that lies at its centre. Co-Written By Sheikh Attar and Palvi Singh Ghonkrokta In 2015, the constitutional validity of Article 35(A) was challenged, with a petition filed in the Supreme Court by the Jammu[Read More…]
I do not have a coffin to shroud my dead son, how can I wear a black flag of ISIS to terrorise you country? With all the strength I am left with, I plead and advocate that I too am a human being. Do not ask me my creed, my colour, my religion, my caste and my decent and I[Read More…]
Dear Gauri, It is many days since I wrote to you. This must have been the longest month in my life- the days since I first heard about your killing. I should say you were very much in my thoughts as each day brought news about events and happenings in this “great” country of ours that is fast losing humane[Read More…]
Cuba has, for decades, been a form of political pathology for US political consciousness. Fidel Castro loomed in his indestructible guise, tormenting a succession of American presidents with his seeming indestructibility. Efforts at deposing and assassination had conspicuously failed. It was left, then, to Washington to insulate, seal off and keep Cuba as an infectious patient of international relations, fearing[Read More…]
The benign-sounding term “settler” or “settlement” is used so often in the news without reference to Jewish colonization of Palestine that the world often loses sight of the immoral nature of the Zionist project in Palestine. The term is used to describe Jews moving illegally to the West Bank, and commandeering land that belongs to Palestinians. Waves of Jews moving[Read More…]
Earlier this year, the Sisters of St. Brigid invited me to speak at their Feile Bride celebration in Kildare, Ireland. The theme of the gathering was: “Allow the Voice of the Suffering to Speak.” The Sisters have embraced numerous projects to protect the environment, welcome refugees and nonviolently resist wars. I felt grateful to reconnect with people who so vigorously[Read More…]
Hello Justin, I hope you understand that while I must be critical of you and your government I have a great deal of empathy for everyone involved in this wicked problem climate change. I recognize that there are severe constraints upon you and every other national leader. But we still need effective mitigation urgently or climate change promises to become[Read More…]
The Alliance for Justice And Accountability (AJA), an umbrella coalition of progressive organizations across the United States, today condemned the life-threatening attacks against renowned author and Dalit scholar Kancha Illaiah by members of the Arya Vysyas community. The attack was an attempt on the life of the outspoken political philosopher who has authored several books including “Why I am not[Read More…]
This world is a coin. It has two faces. Both joined together but both different; often the opposite of one another. I am speaking about social media, the coin which on one side has convenience, communication and companionship and on the other, lies, ignorance and hatred. Both made possible by technology which like all technology is value neutral. What we[Read More…]
India, largest democracy of the globe, remains a bad place for working journalists irrespective of the regimes in power at New Delhi or any province capital. The populous country witnesses the murder of around five media persons on average in a year and that has not been changed for decades. The land of Bishnu, Buddha and Bapu has however[Read More…]
One cultivated myth of human endeavour is the creaky and far from convincing idea that politics and sport are strangers, gazing indifferently from distant across tables, never to engage. Battles on the field can be waged without politics, while politics excludes sport with allergic vigour. The pretence leads to curious spectacles. It means that the International Olympic Committee can be[Read More…]
In the recent past, Government of India has tried to construct an argument that Rohingyas are a security threat to the Nation. Home Ministry has tried to indicate that Rohingyas pose security challenge and are recruited by terror groups. This point has been used to state that they need to be deported. RSS chief Mohan Bagawat the ideological mouthpiece of[Read More…]
The UN Security Council held its first meeting on Rohingya in nine years last Thursday (September 28, 2017). The language was harshly critical of Myanmar. Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the situation as a “human rights nightmare” and “urged Myanmar to end its military operations”. The number of Rohingya refugees has meanwhile mushroomed to more than 500,000. All the[Read More…]
Comparing testimony from Vietnamese women and American soldiers, Gina Marie Weaver, in her book Ideologies of Forgetting: Rape in The Vietnam War, finds that rape of Vietnamese women by American troops during the US invasion of Vietnam was a “widespread”, “everyday occurrence” that was essentially “condoned”, even encouraged, by the military, and had its foundation in military training and US culture. [Read More…]
We met at the wrong time,
which, as chance would have it,
is always the right time. No one
who doesn’t know will ever know
what passion can do to calendars.
The National Commission of women will visit the BHU soon after the University opens in-order to enquire into the sexual violence incident, the police attack that happened and the false cases filed along with looking at the incidents of discrimination that the women students have complained for over two years. This was communicated to a group of BHU students by[Read More…]
To some, the title of my column today might be utterly ridiculous, as it suggests it’s time for Bangladesh to have a foreign policy. They might raise eyebrows at my suggestion that, Bangladesh is going without any foreign policy, since 2009. To them, Bangladesh has a sound foreign policy under a seasoned career diplomat as Foreign Minister, and an[Read More…]
“Why do we forget our childhood? With rare exceptions we have no memory of our first four or five or six years, and yet we have to only watch the development of our own children during this period to realize that these are the most exciting, the most formative years of our life. Schachtel’ s theory is that our[Read More…]
Plum Island, MA “The entire coast of Massachusetts has been compromised and needs to be refortified,” he said. “We keep being told we need to wait for studies. We’re out of time.” – Bob Connors, Storm devastating to Plum Island – The Boston Globe Every time that I see hurricane or major other storm damage, it hits me like[Read More…]
Lokesh Sori who protested the Mahisashur vadh during Durga Puja and filed an FIR against puja committee members has been arrested. Saturday night the members of the organising committee filed an FIR against him to which the police acted quickly. His whereabouts are unknown. One source says that he has been sent to Kanker jail. Another source says that he[Read More…]
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
Criminal Justice And Freedom of Speech 
75,000 Climate Protesters Marched In New York With Demand To End Fossil Fuels 
On the Dark Side of the Moon.. 
Avoiding the War on Terror would have saved over 10 million lives at home and abroad 
The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
Climate Emergency Update, September 2023 
My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom 
How Can We Understand the Passage of Time? 
Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
Ukrainian president holds crisis talks in Washington amid failure of “spring offensive” 
Zelensky Faces Difficult Time In Washington D.C. 
Stumbling Towards Old Age And Looking for Someone to Lean On 
Tolstoy’s Dilemma 
Ukraine Peace Activists Protest During Zelensky White House Visit 
“Our world is becoming unhinged”: Antonio Guterres 
How Chances of Direct War between the USA and Russia Are Increasing G20 Biofuel Alliance threatens Food security 
Thousands Of Auto Workers Strike In Three U.S. Plants, Face Financial Hardship 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
