(Former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Ramdas filed a petition in the Supreme Court on January 30, 2018 asking the Suprme Court to investigate the death of Judge Loya and the curcumstances around it. Here’s a testimony on the circumstances behind his action) To Whom It May Concern So Why Am I filing a Writ Petition and PIL on the[Read More…]
Academics should be collaborating, not competing for pseudoscientific rankings. At a time when federal employees are prohibited from uttering the phrase “climate change,” the right routinely attempts to undermine universities’ legitimacy, and tuitions have skyrocketed alongside student debt, it seems perverse that academics would further endanger their mission to educate and enlighten. Yet by embracing a malignant form of pseudoscience,[Read More…]
Although the genocide of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has gathered greater media attention in recent months, there is no indication that the international community is prepared to act in any meaningful way, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees stranded in border camps between Myanmar and Bangladesh. While top United Nations officials are now using the term[Read More…]
“At present, virtually all schools are preparing students for a future which will be unrecognizable, not acknowledging the social or environmental ‘deadlines’ that will dominate their lives.” — One of the author’s home schooled teens Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, about 3000 children every day. Over one million people die from malaria each year, mostly children under five years of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Advocate Syed Mujtaba and Inamul Haq In the global world, the terminology of war on terror has triggered intense debates about the role of security and liberty. The word security is enclosed with either as a governmental or exceptional practice. While is the case of liberty has been shrouded in salience. These two terms are closely looked by[Read More…]
The Latin America Seeds Collective has just released a 40-minute film (‘Seeds: Common or Corporate Property?) which documents the resistance of peasant farmers to the corporate takeover of their agriculture. The film describes how seed has been central to agriculture for 10,000 years. Farmers have been saving, exchanging and developing seeds for millennia. Seeds have been handed down from generation to[Read More…]
Perhaps Pogo is correct after all: We have found the enemy and we are it. Pogo understands what is real. In taking account of what is real, human, environmental and planetary health could be increasingly at risk because humankind denies scientific knowledge regarding the root cause of human population growth. Earth is finite; its ecology is frangible. Natural resources[Read More…]
In the end, we, all of us, have to ask ourselves whether we wish to have more of everything (manufactured goods, vacation homes, holidays in far away locations and so on) in the short term or do we want to stretch out our use of resources to give the Earth a break to heal and to try to help ensure[Read More…]
Vancouver and its North Shores are considered among the worst congested areas in Canada. A recent column in the North Shore News by Jonathan Wilkinson, Member of Parliament for North Vancouver (“A Promising Step Forward on Congestion”, Friday, January 19th, 2018) calls for immediate action to address the ever-mounting traffic congestion on the North Shore. North Shore residents and governments[Read More…]
In this age of reality television (or televised unreality), the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was not going to miss out. Unlike other chief spies who operate in habitual darkness and moving shadows, Mike Pompeo was very keen to get his voice and opinion across on the British Broadcasting Service. Pompeo specialises in seeing enemies everywhere, and to be[Read More…]
The newly formed organization popularly called T-MASS is a registered organization under the Telangana Government’s Registration Act with a name “Telangana Mass and Social Organizations”. Under its broad umbrella many Ambedkarist, Phuleite, communist, humanist, women organizations are working with a broad philosophical framework of Mahatma Phule, Ambedkar and Karl Marx. Its banners always carry the portraits of these thinkers[Read More…]
Why is there resistance to working to reduce the imbalances in earth’s systems? What is this resistance? What are these imbalances? What is earth? What are systems? What is a life that reduces imbalances? Today the world cloud, the electronic communications sector, uses much more energy than the global aviation sector. It is not possible to have a conversation[Read More…]
It could be truly comical, if it were not to be so dangerous for millions of people living all over the world. The Empire, once mighty, ruthless and frightening is now jumping around like a dog infected with rabies; it is salivating, barking loudly, its tale is stiff between its legs. It snaps left and right, and periodically it[Read More…]
“It’s not just the government’s bum that NPR wipes.” — Geoff Dutton I have 101 articles in front of me which document the degree to which National Public Radio (NPR), arguably the most popular “political” station in the U.S., is a VERY poor source of news. ZNet, Black Agenda Report andCounterpunch provide three examples of decent attacks on their documentation and agenda, and[Read More…]
On January 23rd an overcrowded smuggling boat capsized off the coast of Aden in Southern Yemen. Smugglers packed 152 passengers from Somalia and Ethiopia in the boat and then, while at sea, reportedly pulled guns on the migrants to extort additional money from them. The boat capsized, according to The Guardian, after the shooting prompted panic. The death toll,[Read More…]
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” Winston Churchill[i] On the 25 January, 2018, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.0 min to midnight, the closest it has been since[Read More…]
Herbert Block, the new executive director of the American Zionist Movement (AZM), says he wants to “rebrand” Zionism. What direction this re-branding will take is anybody’s guess, as he is still talking in the language of the existing brand of Zionism, which equates Zionism with being a Jew. The days are long gone when, as in the movement’s infancy, Zionism was largely opposed by[Read More…]
“The geologist takes up the history of the earth at the point where the archaeologist leaves it, and carries it further back into remote antiquity.” — Bal Gangadahr Tilak, The Arctic Home in the Vedas In 1793 — the year Louis XVI is guillotined, George Washington holds his first Cabinet meeting and British troops invade Haiti — a canal digger[Read More…]
“The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in.” — Arundhati Roy What Arundhati Roy says about NGOs worldwide applies to community-centered radio stations throughout the U.S. In short, those “alternative” media outlets diffuse dissent, calm citizens into accepting a “fighting the good fight” in a form that’s[Read More…]
The assassination of Kosovo’s Serb leader Oliver Ivanović on January 16th, 2018 in the northern (the Serb) part of the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica once again put on the agenda both the issue of contested land of Kosovo and Serbia’s policy toward the West, in particular, the EU. The Western (the USA/EU) client Serbia’s government is quite long time[Read More…]
Occasionally, there are things that can be done in Congress that actually accomplish something. Let me tell you about my successful effort to audit the Federal Reserve. Wall Street didn’t like losing to me on that one. Isn’t that exactly what we all say we want in a Congressman? Someone keeping an eye on our money, and swinging into action[Read More…]
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhiwas born before 148 years ago on October 2, 1869. The young Gandhi grew to manhood in the state of Gujarat, where the impact of the West was more remote than in the administrative centres of British imperialism at Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The saints and values of devotional Hinduism shaped his consciousness and reinforced his adoption of[Read More…]
Ghalib has fascinated generations of people and they have tried to understand/interpret his poetry in their own way. For any such individual it is really difficult to recollect when and how Ghalib entered her/his life and ensconced himself comfortably in one’s heart. This wanderer still faintly remembers how many of Ghalib’sshers were part of common parlance even in an area[Read More…]
We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose-George Orwell Writing in the Globe and Mail the Delhi based journalist Amrit Dhillon paints a despairingly gloomy picture[Read More…]
I am a wanderer and an explorer, I will travel to any corner of this planet if it intrigues me or catches my fancy. Somewhere in 2017, I decided that I must travel to Kashmir, maybe I was attracted to the place as it was a boiling cauldron of careless politics and tragic lives. It is strange to think about[Read More…]
A fig leaf of democracy is being developed in Egypt amid persecution of opposition, mass executions and imposition of state of emergency to give wide powers to suppress all kind of dissent of a quazi-military government of US-client President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi who deposed Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohammad Morsi in July 2013. The presidential election in Egypt[Read More…]
On January 23rd, Joe Biden virtually threw his hat into the 2020 U.S. Presidential contest, by producing for the neoconservative-neoliberal Council on Foreign Relations, a speech, and an accompanying article in their influential journal Foreign Affairs, titled, “How to Stand Up to the Kremlin: Defending Democracy Against Its Enemies”. He made clear that no one in American politics is[Read More…]
“I won’t even start with the old rule that when there’s a contract killing, it’s usually the killer who first offers their condolences.” Nenad Čanak, Radio Free Europe, Jan 22, 2018 The highest form of scandalous patriotism is real estate, often blood soaked, and almost always fortified. What one controls is often less important as who is doing so. In[Read More…]
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has asked a UK court to relinquish the arrest warrant that is keeping him confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Knightsbridge, London. If granted, he would be free to leave without fear of arrest, according to a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). “Hypothetically, yes. That would be our interpretation,” he said. Assange would then[Read More…]
The last few months has seen open threats by Karni sena towards release of the movie ‘Padmavati’. They indulged in destroying film equipments, torching the movie, burning the poster sets at the time of making of the movie and announcing gifts for physically injuring Bhansali and Deepika Padukone. Recently violence was also seen in five states – Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana,[Read More…]
Afghanistan is now facing mortal danger. It has to survive, but it is not clear how it can manage. Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, which was attacked by gunmen last Saturday, used to fit like a glove, like a grandmother’s couch. Outside, the war has been raging. Millions of Afghan lives were aimlessly broken, hundreds of thousands lost. The price of[Read More…]
In recent months, weeks, and now practically every day, our immigrant brothers and sisters have been going into the streets and into the halls of Congress, risking arrest and deportation to challenge “business as usual,” and resist the most vicious, blatant, and criminal assault on the rights, the dignity, the humanity, and the very lives of immigrants in this country[Read More…]
I’m sure you remember the oil spill from the Keystone XL pipeline last November. Did you think it was an isolated incident? Think again. In the past ten years, more than 34 million gallons of hazardous liquids have spilled from pipelines into the soil and water — and that’s just in the U.S. And the oil industry wants to construct hundreds[Read More…]
I had a dog once, Olivia. She came out of championship ancestors in Brazil. Her ultimate ancestry came out of Newfoundlands and she was gorgeous looking and acting, a lab. Her genetically connected ancestors would swim like hell with all of their muster and all that they could expend out to a cruise, merchant ship, wrecks and drag people out[Read More…]
India is a complex nation with varied culture and multiple languages. India has the second highest languages(780) after Papua New Gunea (839) according to wikipedia. But according to readmeindia.com , there are as many as 880 languages in 2016 (Total Languages in India – Past and Present , September 10, 2016). Article 343 deals with official language. Estimates of[Read More…]
The penchant of development agencies for high-yielding cows has never abated. Whenever relief measures are planned for drought-affected families in villages, free cows are considered the best aid. I have seen several villages in my career where Holstein and Jersey’s cows arrive in wagonloads and every family in these parched villages is handed a cow. However, in a drought-affected[Read More…]
The anti-mechanisation campaign in Dalli-Rajhar The anti-mechanisation movement in the iron mines was one of the distinctive campaigns for which Dalli-Rajhara became known as the nerve centre of the workers’ struggle. I was there during the intense last phase of this movement. At the time these events occurred, Chhattisgarh was a part of the state of Madhya Pradesh. It was[Read More…]
Mitchell Baker, Executive chairwomen of Mozilla published an open letter responding to the Srikrishna Committee. Mitchell is asking for indian community members and friends of Mozilla to support the demands by cosigning this letter. In 2017, the Government of India set up a committee headed by Justice Srikrishna to examine a data protection framework and draft India’s first comprehensive data[Read More…]
I felt impelled to write the following essay after reading this evaluation: The ‘ Ogre ‘ Of Violence – Rooted In Childhood by Sheshu Babu … In the USA, we have guidance counselors in schools to help stop violence. One of my relatives, a guidance counselor, runs groups for bullies and for victims of violence. Other means than group sessions[Read More…]
“Locking the stable after the horses bolt” is an old saying that seems to apply to many decisions concerning development in India. Among them are the decisions about river dredging and river cleansing. A decision has been taken to dredge the Brahmaputra to reduce floods and facilitate navigation and water transport. The Ganga is being cleaned for three decades and the present[Read More…]
The rise of far-right globalization criticism requires a new role for the Degrowth movement. ‘Progressive De-Globalization‘ could be the counter-project that is urgently needed. After the German and Austrian elections, it becomes clear once more that the rise of the new far-right is not a temporary phenomenon. Neither the difficult Brexit negotiations nor the missteps of Donald Trump are stopping[Read More…]
Trump Henchman coming
Trump College of Law
Over my dead body unopposed!
Millions of immigrants, including 800,000 DACA recipients (“Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought here as children), were betrayed and dealt a very serious blow today when the Democrats caved in to the Republicans and voted to reopen the government. Already last Friday, top Democrat Senator Schumer, in trying to make a deal with Trump, agreed to link the fate of Dreamers[Read More…]
PUDR CONDEMNS INSTITUTIONAL MURDER AND GANGRAPE OF A MINOR DALIT GIRL BY SECURITY FORCES IN KUNDULI, ODISHA DEMANDS PROPER INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION PUDR grieves and rages at the suicide of the young girl from Kunduli, Koraput district on 22 January 2018, who succumbed to the failure of the State to guarantee justice and to secure the freedom of its citizens. On 10 October[Read More…]
Let me at the outset profoundly thank Sir Ganga Ram Heritage Foundation, Lahore for giving me opportunity to participate and speak on this very relevant issue, ‘DrAmbedkar’s mission of annihilation of castes and present situation’. Sir Ganga Ram’s story is that of hard work, success and then philanthropy. In fact, many of us had just known about Sir Ganga Ram[Read More…]
India’s democracy, social setup and secularism is in grave danger. And this danger has become more visible now. The pace with which Indian society is indoctrinated with the hatred of muslims, dalits and other marginal communities is increasing with each passing day. Killing of dalits and muslims on smaller pretexts is going on with no stop to these heinous[Read More…]
The BJP last year observed September 17, as Liberation of Hyderabad Day’, celebrating the Indian government’spolice action’ (a euphemism for what was actually a military invasion) in 1948, which led to the integration of the Nizam’s princely state into the Indian Union. It claims that its political ancestors (members of the Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and other[Read More…]
One of the most dispiriting features of modern development discourse is the strong influence of elitism. One of the pitfalls of elitism is that it places a disproportionate value on the style rather than the content of the approach. There are authors and writers on rural development who arrogate to themselves the right to hand out certificates for best practices.[Read More…]
Bitcoin’s price explosion made news headlines this last year. Topics of digital assets entered onto dinner tables and friendly chats at work places. Fever of the digital gold rush that has swept mainstream finance became contagious. Institutional funds are now entering into cryptos, seemingly hedging their bets with their “sugar high” bubble economy. Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan CEO who previously[Read More…]
Most of us have been brought up to believe that we’d be damn fools to think any differently from the way everybody else thinks. We are brought up to conform and not call attention to ourselves or our views. Independent thinking is considered neither good for our own welfare, nor for anybody else. We are consciously taught that our course[Read More…]
Death pressed 3 bullets on an old man
The old man uttered two words
On a God that Death did not know
The old man did not die
He walked past with a smile.
A few days ago Oxfam reported on wealth inequality: The richest one percent wrapped their hands around 82 percent of the wealth created last year. Worse the 3.7 billion people comprising the poor half of humanity gained nothing. If anyone in the U.S. thinks those poor are remote, take a walk along with Leilani Farha, a Canadian lawyer and UN[Read More…]
White Australia has had a nasty record of Sinophobia from persecution of Chinese gold miners (involving exclusion, deportations and violent riots), exclusion from jobs and unions, exclusion from immigration via the White Australia Policy, and war against Chinese in the Boxer Rebellion and the Korean War. 45 years of rapprochement has been interrupted with present Australian support for Trump[Read More…]
On January 20th, CBS News bannered “Terrorism no longer the military’s top priority, Mattis says” and opened: “There is a major change in U.S. military strategy. On Friday, more than 16 years after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said terrorism is no longer the No. 1 priority.” The report said, “Maintaining a military advantage over China and[Read More…]
Not long after Nirmala Geghate took over as sarpanch in Wanoja, a remote hamlet in northern Maharashtra, groups of young men stopped hanging out in front of the shop at the village square, where they used to ogle and catcall female laborers who walked by in dusty saris. There were several ripple effects of the new found women power[Read More…]
Dear Rahul, ( A Tryst with Congress? ) Felt like writing to you after your being hailed as the new messiah of Indian secularism. Today you charm the youth and warm our hearts. This new avatar is refreshing, what with your carrying your own luggage, standing in an airport queue, watching Star Wars or wishing a grandma happy b’day.[Read More…]
The scene of thugs in the street throwing stones at innocent school children send a chilling message that the Hindutva groups are deliberately using the entire Padmavat controversy to mobilise their disgruntled caste groups. In a democratic state, we have to abide by the institutions and their authorities. If the Supreme Court has cleared the film Padmavat, we don’t[Read More…]
A new research by scientists at the San Diego State University finds, to put it briefly, a correlation between over-use of Smartphone and teens’ increased unhappiness. All major news providers have prominently presented the news of the study. Overall finding of the study annoys all parents, guardians and responsible citizens. It’s not the only study that finds such annoying facts[Read More…]
On January 15, millions of Americans commemorated Martin Luther King’s Day. His famous speech, ‘I Have a Dream’ was repeated numerous times in media outlets as a reminder of the evil of racism, which is being resurrected in a most pronounced way in American society. But that is only one version of Dr. King that is allowed to be[Read More…]
Novak Djokovic, on returning to competitive tennis at the Australian Open, caused something of a a stir that a revolt in the game was brewing. Was it about ball boys or girls, or his smooth unblemished victory against the unfortunate Donald Young? Umpires and adjudications? Nothing of the sort. It was tennis players, and the old issue of remuneration. At[Read More…]
Reports on Anti-Semitism are booming. Most of these stories are produced by Zionist organizations, the Israeli government or close affiliates to both of them pretending, however, non-partisanship. Just recently the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs released the 2017 Anti-Semitism Report that showed an increase in racist incidents against Jews, especially in Western Europe such as France, the UK, and Germany.[1][Read More…]
(A tributeto a great idea; ‘The Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases’@ University of Baltimore) Immanuel Kunt…living in Ballarat, a provincial Australian city with a population of 100,000 plus…felt inspired when readingabout the activities of a new organisation of concerned world-wide citizens called The Coalition Against U.S. Military Bases.From the hidden cryptographic depths of his mind, a valued item of[Read More…]
“Foul, coarse language is a first cousin to apocalyptic talk, and nihilism aligns easily — finds a home –with writers who have a limited and hard-edged vocabulary. Where is delicacy today?” — one of the author’s home schooled teenage charges I basically like Street’s writing very much, although I’ve always had some reservations about his work and his activism.[Read More…]
“She was the greatest healer of modern times.” — The Venerable Pope Pius XII “She was the greatest saint of modern times.” — Pope Saint Pius X “The Little Flower demonstrated the power of love.” — Flannery O’Connor Why can’t U.S. third parties fly? How do they manage to not take off during these times? With more than two million visitors a[Read More…]
He was pious, but rarely went to Church and did not like priests. But he spoke with rapture about Christ. —Baron Vrangel on Dostoevsky. Alexander Blok’s narrative poem, “Twelve” is undoubtedly a central text of the Russian Revolution, an event that has served as one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. But since the[Read More…]
This past summer – on the 54th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech – Dr. Bernice King and the King Center invited me to Atlanta to speak at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Dr. King asked me: “How do we do good to those who hate us? Because that’s where we are today. There’s a lot[Read More…]
Dr Rajagopala Chidambaram, one of India’s distinguished experimental physicists having immense contribution in developing the country as a formidable nuclear power, inspired generations of scientists in making outstanding contributions to many aspects of basic science and nuclear technology. On the sidelines of 8th Indian Particle Accelerator Conference (InPAC) held in Indore from January 9 to 12, Sourav Banerjee catches[Read More…]
One of our big challenges in wildlife conservation is to stop poaching and habitat degradation which leads to animal human conflict which always has only one ending, destruction of the animal.The backbone of the conservation team in a Reserve Forest or a National Park is the Forest Guard. This individual lives inside the forest, many in the Core Areas in[Read More…]
(The people seem to be socially disconnected physically from each other due to the events of last couple of decades. This in turn has resulted in many psychological problems!) In 2015, Medicines Sans Frontier conducted a survey in Kashmir about the mental health of the people. “Nearly 1 in 5 adults (19%) in the Kashmir Valley is living with significant[Read More…]
Political gathering in political activity is a significant phenomenon in Indian democracy what we are regularly experienced. We see that a huge crowd congregates whenever the particular political party calls for in a particular place and date. Density of a crowd varies sometimes because the party rules the then government it obviously claims the highest congregation. Is it due to[Read More…]
(And if your goal be truth, Is this the right road— Europe’s faults all glossed, and all Islam’s held to so strict an audit?) -Sir Muhammad Iqbal Too often in the news, Islam is only associated with terrorism and extremism. An uninformed viewer may think: How could anyone in their right minds find inspiration and solace from such a[Read More…]
Progressive Kerala ruled by a communist government is witnessing a protest by dalits against a caste wall built by upper caste Hindus, in Vadaympadi near Kochi. On sunday the police unleashed its brutal force on the protesters and destroyed their protest tent injuring many protesters. Two journalists covering the police atrocities were arrested branding them as Maoists. Abhilash Padacherry, Editor[Read More…]
An aadivasi woman died of hunger in Dhowadnagal village in Hiranpur block of this Jharkhand district. According to the villagers, the woman, identified as Lakhi Murmu (30), had not received food grains under the PDS scheme for the past four months resulting in her starvation death since she could not link her Aadhaar card to the PDS scheme. The villagers[Read More…]
The biggest problem for families in Cuba these days is the financial difficulties caused by the United States blockade. It has not been removed even though diplomatic relations were established following former President Obama’s visit to Cuba. This is due to, among other things, the fact that there are laws that have to be repealed by the US Congress. So[Read More…]
The presidential tweet scorning climate change, namely “We could do with some of that climate change here,” after severe blizzards hit the U.S. east coast, could not have been more inopportune! Figures published last Thursday (January 16) by the world’s three main organizations monitoring global temperatures (NASA, NOAA and the UK Met Office) show 2017 to be the warmest on[Read More…]
Behind the Headlines: Turkish F-16s attack the Kurdish held city of Afrin in Syria All the news today is about Turkey attacking Afrin, a Kurdish governed city in northern Syria and threatening another Kurdish run city named Manbj. This is a very dangerous situation and another devastating assault on the Syrian people who have already suffered so much from[Read More…]
Important official legal disclaimer: This is a short work of fiction. Any resemblances to real people, people you may know, people you think you may know, etc., is entirely deliberate. When I’m at work I’m staring at a screen. When I’m not at work I’m staring at screens. Checking social media. Scrolling through updates. Scrolling through friends. Scrolling through[Read More…]
Republicans in the U.S. House have made available to all members of the House an allegedly scandalous “memo” that allegedly summarizes the FBI’s cooperation with the Democratic Party during the 2016 Presidential election; but, supposedly, no House member is being allowed to make this evidence available to the public, because, supposedly, as Republican House Intelligence Committee member Mike Conaway from[Read More…]
“There are unconscious actors among them and involuntary actors; the genuine are always rare, especially genuine actors.” – Friedrick Nietzche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra “Any artist [person] who goes in for being famous in our society must know that it is not he who will become famous, but someone else under his name, someone who will eventually escape him and perhaps[Read More…]
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. I trust that the thrust of this article will resonate with the readers of the Asian-based alternative media outlet which I write exclusively for these days. Building “a strong and robust public school system” along the lines delineated in Satvinderpal Kaur’s recent[Read More…]
For thousands of years physicians took oaths to always act in the patient’s best interest when providing care. At the heart of medical ethics, this moral code was passed down through the centuries and reaffirmed by The World Medical Association (WMA) in 1949 and again in 2006. Additionally they specified:”A physician shall not allow his/her judgment to be influenced by[Read More…]
As our world spirals deeper into an abyss from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves, some very prominent activists have lamented the lack of human solidarity in the face of the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya. See ‘The Rohingya tragedy shows human solidarity is a lie’ and ‘Wrongs of rights activism around Rohingyas’. While I share the[Read More…]
The #BDS Movement is a nonviolent grassroots movement originating in the occupied territory of Palestine. Its overriding principles are consistency and commitment to universal human rights, and it has proven to be effective, as a tactic, not least for changing the conversation on Israel. [See What is BDS]. The fact that the BDS Movement is a rights-based, apolitical approach does not mean[Read More…]
The Indian village has, for long, been viewed as a convenient entry-point for understanding Indian society. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi had emphatically declared: “The soul of India lives in its villages”. Even after 70 years of Independence, in the wake of urbanisation, villages are at the core of the country’s soul. For social anthropologists,[Read More…]
The Government of India celebrated the 1st year of demonetization. Opposition of the Government observed “Kala Dibas”. Demonetization was a foul programme. However, initially, people in Bottom of Pyramid were very happy, and they thought that it was good step. They believed that rich people would become poor and they would get monetary rewards from the Government in their[Read More…]
Western man, to whose numbers we count men and women beneficiaries of capitalism in all its facets, must mend his ways or accept the extinction of the human race. One of the mistakes he must rectify is his psychological tendency to foist the job of mitigating global warming on the poor in the name of meeting sustainable development goals. For[Read More…]
The Theory of Evolution appears to suggest that, unlike many lower order species, humans are actually less evolved for failing to carry forward its learning through its genes. May be there is something more to life than what evolutionary biologists and other scientists have been feeding us. The text book responses are neither appear logical nor consistent with evolution theory.[Read More…]
Threats to databases In an age of exploding data, information and knowledge, both human and machine, cyber security is as much a necessity for personal privacy as it is for internal and external national security, or for day-to-day economic activities and operation of social and economic infrastructure systems. Cyber security also constitutes the defensive part of modern warfare[Read More…]
“The Prime Minister wants a ‘New India’. Employment needs in that new India could only be fulfilled through revival and development of agriculture. Corporate industries would create jobless growth. Need of the hour is to keep the interest of farmers on priority.” Swaminathan, whose 2006 report on agriculture has been used in election manifestos of BJP, has demanded the[Read More…]
The suicide of the minor dalit girl in Kunduli of Koraput district in Odisha on 22 January is a moment of reckoning for everyone fighting against the heinous crime of violence against women. She had accused four security personnel of gangrape on October 10, 2017. Very typical of incidence of sexual violence where the accused happen to be police, army[Read More…]
In a tragic turn of events the sensational October 10 kunduli gang rape victim, dalit minor girl, committed suicide at her house frustrated over the police inaction and investigation into the case. The victim girl was rescued in a critical condition from her house in Musaguda village and taken to the Kunduli Community Health Centre where the doctors declared her[Read More…]
Six prosperous doctors of different generations in my family inspired me to be a doctor. After I entered Medical College, the Medical College Democratic Students’ Association taught me to dream anew of being a very different kind of doctor…a doctor like Dr. Norman Bethune, like Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis. But where would I go? There was no anti-Franco resistance in Spain[Read More…]
It seemed so much busier, much more manic and crowded than the one year that had passed. Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump continues to excite the same headlines and explosions that began even before he made it to the White House. By the time he got there, there were protests galore at agendas yet to be implemented, decrees yet[Read More…]
In India, there is a push to drive people from the countryside into cities. The mainstream narrative implies that urbanisation is natural in the evolution of societies and constitutes progress. The World Bank wants India to relocate 400 million people to urban centres. Former Chief Finance Minister P. Chidambaram once stated that 85% of the population would eventually live in[Read More…]
CWI supporter Mohamed Diaeldin Mohamed Satti, 21, known as “Hamudi”, is among the protesters who have been arrested by the Sudanese State last week, as part of the brutal response of Al Bashir’s regime to the ensuing wave of protests against skyrocketing prices and austerity. Hamudi’s arrest took place last Wednesday afternoon, as he participated in a peaceful march in central[Read More…]
Eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, according to a new report published by Oxfam to mark the annual meeting of political and business leaders in Davos. Oxfam’s report, ‘An economy for the 99 percent’, shows that the gap between rich and poor is far greater than had[Read More…]
Hindu Rashtra benefits from the miserable underfunding of the Indian judiciary leading to what is objectively speaking a dysfunctional and for the poor more or less non-functional judiciary. The millions of cases pending at all levels of the Indian judiciary benefit Narendra Modi and Amit Shaw’s Hindu Rashtra project by encouraging extra-judicial settlement of disputes. In a functioning system[Read More…]
Nazareth: Last week Israeli military officials for the first time echoed what human rights groups and the United Nations have been saying for some time: that Gaza’s economy and infrastructure stand on the brink of collapse. They should know. More than 10 years ago the Israeli army tightened its grip on Gaza, enforcing a blockade on goods coming in[Read More…]
The world must save the Holy City from Israel, fearlessly confront false claims, challenge the cruelty and expose the lies. Campaigners for justice — and that includes civil society in all countries — need to re-frame the Palestine-Israel narrative and demolish the Zionist fantasy.……Zionists claim Jerusalem is theirs by right. Actually, it was already 2000 years old and an[Read More…]
The news cycle these days moves fast and furious, especially when it comes to our esteemed President Donald Trump. The reader may remember that a few days back Trump referred to parts of the planet as peopled by “shithole countries,” including Haiti and all of Africa, among other places. Trump was greeted with nearly unanimous, bipartisan condemnation for his blatant[Read More…]
Hama, Syria: Rather than the conventional wisdom of a “wrapping up,” of Syria’s seven years of civil war, this observer calculates that the conflict is on a trajectory to expand during 2018. Granted, over the past six monthsthere have been perhaps more than a dozen inflated declarations of “Victory.” including 2 or 3 of the “Devine Victory” variety from three[Read More…]
From ancient times, violence in society has been an integral part. There were killings and brutal murders. But, now-a-days, we are witnessing extreme form of ‘sadistic’ and gruesome violence that is chilling and heart- wrenching to say the least. For instance, Haryana singer Mamta Sharma found dead with throat slit ( published 18 -1- 2018 hindustantimes.com). In another incident,[Read More…]
I heard a very touching account yesterday. It involved a house for which a whole home burned practically to the ground in a town near mine. So a local Go-Fund site was set up to help the family living there. Then $60,000 USD was raised for the family to restart their lives. Anyone who thinks that this money for a[Read More…]
Childhood is in difficult circumstances in various places across the globe. Global processes and societal structure shape childhood in different domains of children’s lives. Various social, economic, cultural, and political agencies (e.g., parents, family, governments) are responsible for unhappy and lost childhood. Children are the future continuance of societies, and have therefore been trained to replicate the material and intellectual[Read More…]
According to a news report from the capital, the 2018 Union Budget will be Modi budget as the PM is meeting finance minister Arun Jaitley and top officials of the PMO & finance ministry on a daily basis. Normally, the prime ministers have adopted hands-off approach to the budget-making exercise and interact with their FMs once or twice on policy[Read More…]
Generations pass and lives change
But the seeds of hatred never lose its range
At the time of my death, it only appears strange
That for no fault of mine, I receive death in exchange
Education at the school level, though it takes years to bear fruits, is recognized as crucial factor for social ,economic and cultural development. Education is an important indicator of inclusive growth and social change. School level education is the most crucial stage spanning the first fifteen years of life. It lays the foundation for the development of the child’s[Read More…]
Evolution of scientific mind serves as a prerequisite to the scientific evolution of society requiring a sustained commitment to science, and its governance “Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it,” remarked Dr A.P. J. Abdul Kalam – a quintessential name in the arena of Indian space and nuclear technology. Early this month, the annual session[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ashish Kumar Singh & Lenin Raghuvanshi Knowing how to read is knowing how to walk. Knowing how to write is knowing how to ascend. Feet, arms, wings, all these are given to man By his first and most humble schoolbooks[i]. Education is the primary vehicle by which marginalized individuals and communities lift themselves from the vicious circle of[Read More…]
In an ashram perched high on a hill above the city of Guwahati is a small exhibit commemorating the life of India’s most famous son. Alongside a bed where Mahatma Gandhi himself slept is a display reminding visitors of something the man himself said in 1921: “Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so[Read More…]
It’s a cruel saga, and one that promises no immediate end. Turkey, considered one of the more potent of powers within the NATO alliance, has manoeuvred itself into a play that Washington will find hard to avoid. For Ankara, one thing must not happen as Islamic State forces gradually vanish, or more likely metamorphose into the next force they will,[Read More…]
Few documentaries have had quite this impact, so much so that it has ushered in the unfortunate combination of war and plastic, two terms that sit uneasily together, if at all. Tears were recorded; anxiety levels were propelled as Sir David Attenborough tore and tugged at heart strings in his production Blue Planet II. The oceans, warned the documentary maker,[Read More…]
The Earth is having to deal with continuous, largely unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases, along with soil degradation, mass extinction of species, destruction of ecosystems, and disruption of nitrogen, phosphorous, and water cycles. Meanwhile, efforts to head off the planet-wide ecological crisis remain trapped in a game of rock-paper-scissors. [1] Let’s start with the “paper,” which represents the kinds of[Read More…]
Maybe we just have to admit that the day of violence is here, and maybe we just have to give up and let violence take its course. The nation won’t listen to our voice – maybe it’ll heed the voice of violence. – Martin Luther King, Jr. (1) In “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Cold War”, Thomas Noer describes[Read More…]
There is a ‘new normal’ in cyclical recessions, namely, that the recovery cycle is itself recessionary for the vast majority of the population, not just in periphery countries that invariably suffer much more during contracting economic cycles, but in core countries as well. One of the biggest myths about the contracting cycles is the underlying assumption that they have an[Read More…]
The more overtures, sudden but entirely appropriate, being made by North Korea to their South Korean counterparts, the more concern seems to emanate from quarters in Washington and Tokyo. A recurring streak in these engagements is the fear that Pyongyang is simply prevaricating, distracting and diverting: they are having us all for fools. This betrays the whole premise of how[Read More…]
Here it goes again! Several countries of Oceania (also known as South Pacific Nations), or however you want to call that vast, beautiful but thoroughly devastated part of the world, have voted “for Israel”, “for the United States’ proposed resolution at the United Nations”, and therefore, “against Palestine”. As reported on December 22, 2017 by Al Jazeera: “The United[Read More…]
Part I- False charges of anti-Semitism and undue attention to World War II Holocaust Effective mechanisms for halting Israel’s oppression, impeding the drive to incorporate all of former Palestine into a greater Israel, and preventing the Palestinians from becoming completely subservient to Israel’s dictates has been elusive. Obvious, and not entirely accepted, is that Israel has no intention of[Read More…]
During the last 24 hours, 72 Turkish jets have reportedly struck 150 targets inside the Kurdish-controlled Afrin district in north-western Syria in which six civilians and three Kurdish militiamen have lost their lives. And today, Turkish ground troops in armoured vehicles have intruded five kilometres inside Afrin from Syria’s northern border with Turkey. In addition, Turkey has also mobilised the[Read More…]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the United States “does not want to keep Syria as a state in its current borders”, accusing Washington of seeking to establish a Kurdish-controlled entity along Turkish and Iraqi border zones. Speaking at an annual press conference in Moscow to review the past year’s diplomatic activities on Monday Jan 13, Lavrov said:[Read More…]
In a recent article, I documented that “U.S. Again Supports Al Qaeda in Syria”. In a prior article, I had documented that since 2012 the U.S. Government has cooperated with the Sauds’ plan to install in Syria a fundamentalist-Sunni government to replace Syria’s existing secular Government, and that the fundamentalist-Sunni organization Al Qaeda has been the U.S. Government’s chief organization[Read More…]
It is always sadly amusing to listen to the CBC to discuss foreign propaganda – usually Russian – while assuming that all they report is simply accurate news that has neither been censored or vetted by anyone, but is simply the gospel. RT “lies” This response stems from a short clip I caught of CBC’s Wendy Mesley (”The Weekly” January[Read More…]
I used to be proud of my town. It spend close to $280,000 in legal fees (derived largely from my and others’ tax fees) to stop a propane facility directly above the aquifer water source that serves my part of town. The lawsuit for this happening went from state level wherein protection of community, our water supply, our neighborhoods, our[Read More…]
“Our faith in technology consumes resources and begets complacency. “ — from Jennifer L. Lieberman’s “Why Technology Will Not Solve Our Criminal Justice Problems” To lay oneself out in respect or obedience does not require that one believe in a Supreme Being of any particular kind, does not demand that one assert anything except acknowledgement of there being inscrutable[Read More…]
Co-Written By Rosemary Mason and Colin Todhunter If the proposed Monsanto-Bayer merger goes through, the new company would control more than 25 per cent of the global supply of commercial seeds and pesticides. Monsanto held a 26% market share of all seeds sold in 2011. Bayer sells 17% of the world’s total agrochemicals and also has a seeds sector. If competition authorities pass the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ashish Kumar Singh, Vidya Bhooshan Singh & Siddhartha Negi Biodiversity of India The term ‘biodiversity’ is a contraction of ‘biological diversity’, which is being used in conservation science. ‘Biological diversity’ in its current sense began to be used in the early 1980s, with interest in the concept elevated by publications such as ‘Limits to Growth’, which discussed the[Read More…]
From every nook and corner of the world, a term; “Progress and Development” resounds regularly. Over this term, there is existing competition among nations. Nations strive hard; utilize a big chunk of their budget on this name. However, the concept of progress and development we hold lets us down at once especially the moment we experience moral bankruptcy, discrimination, injustice,[Read More…]
A development professional’s career demands not just technical skills but empathy; not a form of empathy that comes from superiority, but one born from a profound humility. l’ve learned hard lessons that have shaped my ideas about good principles and practices in development. The most abiding lesson is that we should value people over projects, and at the same time value[Read More…]
The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interests.[Read More…]
It is possible to feed more than 9 billion people with organic production methods with a small increase in the required crop acreage and with decreased greenhouse gas emission. But this assumes considerable reduction in food wastage and in the quantities of feed grown to animals. That is the conclusion in the paper Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with[Read More…]
Citizens’ Enquiry finds rising rates of kidney failure, deaths in villages surrounding IREL’s monazite processing facility in Chatrapur Block, Ganjam District Reports of unusually high rates of chronic kidney disease and death due to kidney failure in a cluster of villages in Chhattrapur Block of Ganjam District of Odisha state, India have recently been covered by The Wire and a[Read More…]
I wish Caryl Churchill would write a follow up to her play Seven Jewish Children and call it Seven Palestinian Children. Churchill’s play, first produced in February of 2009, was “for Gaza”, and was predictably received along political lines, either as a “heartfelt lamentation” on one side and “wantonly inflammatory” on the other — inflammatory in the same way as the[Read More…]
I spent much of yesterday with some kids the world forgot. Young, remarkably sturdy and resilient,theycan often be naïve and almost willfully gullible. They inhabit a world that delights in tripping them up and watching them fall. They are Kabul’s Street Kids. Every Friday morning, roughly 100 of these forgotten children sit in noisy – sometimes raucous – groups of[Read More…]
I told Dr. [Bernice] King that we must keep making our voices heard. Not in hate – but in strength and determination. Because the fights over discrimination, over voting rights, over criminal justice, over economic and environmental justice – these fights are not relics of history. We are in these fights right now, every single day. As her father [M.[Read More…]
Inquisitive observers of the Middle Eastern politics would naturally wonder why do Western powers prop up the Gulf’s petro-monarchies, knowing fully well that they are the ones responsible for nurturing Islamic extremism? Does this not run counter to their professed goal of eliminating Islamic radicalism and terrorism? Seemingly, the Western powers support the Gulf’s autocrats because it has been a[Read More…]
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov has said that his country was supplying military equipment to Pakistan. Morgulov’s statement came on Thursday (Jan 18) in a geo-political conference organized jointly by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and an Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF). The Russian Minister was joined in the discussion by the Indian Minister of State[Read More…]
Ay Chaand Yahan Na Nikla Kar! Yeh Des Hai Andhe Lougoo Ka! (O! moon. Do not Rise here! Our’s is a country of Blinds!) These verses of Habib Jaalib are a fair display of our contemporary world. The[Read More…]
The pairs of feet that passed him by in a second
Equals 2 x 60x 60x24x 766 = 13,23,64,800, say 13 crores.
The 2011 census pegs the population of Kerala at 3.33 crores.
Which shows that Kerala trampled over him
four times in 766 days,
without seeing him.
That’s statistics for you.
Recently, there was violence in Maharashtra on 1st January 2018 as persons carrying saffron flags attacked people at Bhima Koregaon. In the violence a person died, many injured and vehicles were damaged. The propaganda by rightwing media is to attribute the violence to ‘instigating speeches’ by younger activists who had gathered. The saffron attempt at depicting violence in Bhima Koregaon[Read More…]
Kamal Haasan has called for strengthening a Pan Indian Dravidian identity and asked the chief ministers of all the South Indian States : Tamilnadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to have a join front so that they can have regional autonomy as well as act as a front against the north Indian Aryan dominance. As per a report[Read More…]
Open letter to Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India 200 ANNIVERSAY OF THE BATTLE OF BHIMA- KOREGAON AND CONTINUING ATROCITIES AGAINST DALITS AND MINORITIES IN INDIA This open letter by UK organisations listed at the end call on you, the Prime minster of India, to take action against the perpetrators of violence against Dalits. We also call on you[Read More…]
With the instrumental value of education acquiring center-stage in today’s world, it is being increasingly and more and more vociferously argued that forging and fostering strong education-industry linkages is the need of the hour. Two reports that I read in the Indian Express (http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/digitisation-partnership-of-ideas-4951582/) and (http://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/bharti-airtel-foundation-artificial-intelligence-4952074/), encouraged me to articulate my thoughts on this growing trend, which is generally portrayed[Read More…]
The murder of a Pashtun man in Karachi by the Sindh police last week has brought renewed attention to the brutal practices of Pakistan’s police and security forces. According to his relatives, Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old from the war-torn region of South Waziristan, was kidnapped by plainclothes police officers in Karachi earlier this month. On January 16, Mehsud’s family was[Read More…]
I was impressed by the pleasant ambience of the Trivandrum railway station and the bus depot for long distance travel which is just across the road. This is how public transport should be but this has become so rare due to the callousness of our politicians and bureaucrats. The whole area is clean. And travel is really seamless. I[Read More…]
Joan: I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God. Robert: They come from your imagination. Joan: Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us. — from Shaw’s Saint Joan No matter whether one believes in God, I should think that everyone who’s been paying attention to our horrid societal and environmental momentum[Read More…]
“In some sections of South Africa 38% of men, two in five, admit to having forced a woman to have sex, but what’s going on in Cape Town right now is at least just as bad as that kind of widespread violation, worse than the coltan slavery.” — one of the author’s home schooled teenage students In the most recent[Read More…]
CHAPTER ONE – NIYOGI AND HIS MISSION[1] I used to say, somewhat in amusement and somewhat grievingly, “I belong to the B-team of Niyogi”. The A-team consisted of Binayak da (Dr Binayak Sen) and Ashish da (Dr Ashish Kumar Kundu). Saibal da (Dr Saibal Jana), Chanchala di ( Dr Chanchala Samajdar) and I used to manage the affairs of the[Read More…]
Journalist Nick Turse, who has reported extensively on US military operations in Africa, was recently told that he has been deemed “not a legitimate journalist” by AFRICOM, the US military command which oversees operations across the continent. The move is of a piece with the US government’s drive to silence critical reporting by alternative news outlets and comes amid the[Read More…]
The Last Oil is not a warning that we are running out of oil. On the contrary, there is so much oil — and gas and coal and other unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and methane hydrates — that if we continue to dig up and burn all these fuel sources, we will push the Earth’s climate toward a runaway[Read More…]
Andre Vltchek interviewed by Mostafa Afzalzadeh Q – M.A.: Why do you think the western countries are trying to use people against Iran and not use military force? What is the difference? A – A.V.: It is because Iran is ‘not alone’. If the West were to dare use military force against Iran, directly, there would be an immediate response[Read More…]
On Thursday, January 11, the sixteenth anniversary of the opening of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was marked by a coalition of 15 human rights organizations gathered in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in Washington, DC. An interfaith prayer service was followed by a rally featuring song and poetry and addresses by[Read More…]
How strange it is that the African American community has been, either openly or indifferently, supportive of white racist regime change, imperialist bombings, invasions and bloody occupations in smaller nations of people whose skin color is of various hues even though MLK condemned them as “atrocity wars and covert violence on three continents since 1945 to maintain unjust predatory investment in countries overseas,”[Read More…]
The last Judge of the National Green Tribunal southern bench retired last week. Now there are none. Narendra Modi and Amit Shaw who head the most anti-environment Government and political party India has ever had, must be happy. In this year’s Finance Act they and their Yogis had smuggled in changes to how Tribunal members should be appointed in[Read More…]
Since coming to power, Macron has given the impression of forging ahead with new agendas and ideas crafted from a novel perspective. This has been far from the case. True, the man’s novelty has shone through in doing what seemed to be the undoable: establish a power base against traditional powerbrokers and carve out a good slice of the electoral[Read More…]
I propose here a modified version of a post that I published last year on “Chimeras“. I argue here that all our troubles are epistemological in nature: we don’t know how to find the truth. In the Earthsea series, Ursula Le Guin gave us some hints – although no solution – about this dilemma. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable[Read More…]
When I shook hands with Eric Greitens following the 2016 debate for Missouri Governor, none of us on the Green team imagined that, a year before, he had tied a woman up, blindfolded her, undressed her, photographed her and warned that he would release the photo if she ever said what happened. The story made local and US news on[Read More…]
I remember my first impression of the Reality Television program American Idol. I cringed at the thought, what if, a young Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, or the members of The Clash had been forced to have their talents appraised by the sort of shallow celebrities, supercilious moderators, and gallery of lowest common denominator-giddy cretins attendant to the hype-driven fare. Yet[Read More…]
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said Saturday (Jan 13) that Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s remarks about Pakistan amount to “invitation for nuclear encounter”. Asif was reacting to Rawat’s Wednesday remark that his forces are ready to call Pakistan’s “nuclear bluff” and cross the border to carry out any operation if asked by the government. “We will[Read More…]
Western capitalist countries, especially the United States, have become grotesquely unequal, with a significant portion of their populations angst-ridden, miserable, and living within a framework of economic stagnation. Observing how Donald Trump chooses monologue over dialogue,tweeting and quacking-on about his ‘smartness’, is to witness American exceptionalism firsthand.Smartness appears to be the cloakthat conceals the expropriation of wealth, a practice common[Read More…]
War, namely, the use of actual force hovers in the background, while warfare, which is really all other means in relations between states, remains the Trumpian leitmotif. Contumely for African countries one day, invective for Iran the next. Last week it was Pakistan. It’s all grist for a presidential mill in a psychedelic world where facts swirl about on[Read More…]
( A Declaration that was authored by the Pan-Africanist and Socialist popular forces of the Caribbean nation of Barbados at Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday 13th January 2018, and submitted to the people and civil society organizations of the Caribbean for their endorsement and adoption) DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE CARIBBEAN We, the under-signed representatives of the sovereign people of the Caribbean, hereby[Read More…]
Yesterday morning, while I was drinking coffee and reading and my wife was getting ready for work, we heard an emergency alert sound from our phones. I figured it would be a storm warning, but the weather was clear. My wife looked at her phone and said a missile was coming. She immediately sprang into action, grabbed a gallon of[Read More…]
“We are missing our deadlines.” — S. Suzuki It would be like saying the state of San Francisco when you should have said the state of California. Waikiki is a beachfront neighborhood of Honolulu on the south shore of O’ahu in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It’s no more an “island” than San Francisco is a state. So how[Read More…]
On January 1, 2018, thousands of Dalit families that had gathered at Bhima Koregaon to pay homage to the Dalit Mahar martyrs of the Anglo-Maratha war of 1818, were targeted and attacked by members of extreme right wing Hindutva groups. The saffron goons not only pelted the Dalit gathering, where there were thousands of women and children, with large stones,[Read More…]
The news of the demise of the unassuming, down-to-earth Anand Prakash, who led the struggle for justice for Ruchika Girhotra tirelessly for 26 long years once again brought to my mind the words of a young woman relating the story of her fight for justice to me – “Power and pelf hold sway and ordinary folk like me stand no[Read More…]
As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole. Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will be encouraged to make the day one of service.Such service does not include King’s[Read More…]
The GOP-controlled House of Representatives is prohibiting Members of Congress from discussing impeachment of President Trump, when they give speeches on the Floor of the House. When I first heard about this, back in May of 2017, my jaw dropped. Under the Constitution, the U.S. House of Representatives is the body responsible for impeaching the President of the United[Read More…]
“You can indulge your righteous rage, but the things it comes out of are pretty cheap. The trick is to make yourself an instrument of your own policy. Whether you like it or not, that’s the highest effectiveness man has achieved.” — Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead Principles invite us to do something about the morass of[Read More…]
On October 12, 1961 Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first African-American fighter pilot died. I went to his funeral in the French War Veterans section of the Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York because I had only been a few feet away from him In Peekskill, New York in 1949 (as a six-year-old) when a racist, “patriotic” crowd almost beat[Read More…]
The percentage of moisturizers sold in the United States as “fragrance free” that contain a fragrance is 45. Of moisturizers sold as “hypoallergenic” that contain a common allergen it’s 83. But the misrepresentation of a lotion or cream used to prevent dryness in the skin, though wrong and deserving of consequences, is nothing when it comes to disingenuous organic[Read More…]
The recent “mistake” in Hawaii which sent many people running for cover, as if they could actually protect themselves from an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea pushed my envelope on several counts. It’s too early to have a handle on all of the important variables at the moment, but I can ask a few questions: Why — at[Read More…]
An act of creation is only half the story: the other half is the community into which that creation lands. The realm of blending is all-important. Novelty is insufficient — what’s also required is resonance with one’s society. That should be obvious, but it’s not. For instance, the “creativity” involved in the Occupy hey day in New York sparked a[Read More…]
Letter to a friend: My region of the USA is starting to collapse in some places due to too many people using up too many resources. Eventually the overall economy will collapse since we will run out of fossil fuels and certain other critical resources. … My local water is garbage (fecal material, other potentially poisonous materials, and road chemicals[Read More…]
The ICCABI a group of academics, activists and artists in India, came together in 2010 to campaign against yet another apartheid regime by extending support to the international campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. They have issued the following statement which, in essence, calls on citizens committed to dismantling apartheid in Israel to refuse to be a[Read More…]
A recent report by IndiaSpend states that professional moneylenders, who can charge up to four times more interest than the government’s banking system, hold more rural debt than ever, from 19.6 percent in 2002 to 28.2 percent in 2013. According to a 2017 study by Stanford University’s Center on Global Poverty and Development, farmers take loans from informal sources at high rates of interest[Read More…]
It is the patriarchal fixation with fathers and husbands as feudal heads of indian households where sanctities are attached to family units, that leads to normalization of corruption in a judicial system that is unsurprisingly spearheaded by the brahminical chiefs. No matter what the chief of the family does, it has to be a hush-hush affair and not be made[Read More…]
The already battered international standing of the US government has been dealt a further blow by the revelation that President Trump labeled some of the most oppressed and impoverished nations as “shithole countries.” Disgust and anger over the openly racist comments the US president made at a meeting with congressional leaders on Thursday have only been intensified by Trump’s belated[Read More…]
We find ourselves in yet another Trump outrage cycle. After famously calling Haiti, El Salvador and the entire continent of Africa “shitholes,” there is a high level of righteous indignation among media outlets against Trump. This will dissipate, soon to be replaced by a new, improved outrage. What is noteworthy about many of these cycles of condemnation is that Trump is often[Read More…]
When I was six, my parents put me in footed pajamas that were cozy and warm. Then they took turns reading me a short bedtime story so that I could have sweet, interesting dreams. Afterwords, they kissed me, tucked the bedding around me and told me that they were going to awaken me in a few hours to listen to[Read More…]
Some years ago an amusing satirical article in the Buenos Aires leftwing daily, Pagina 12, made me want to cry. In five thousand words the Argentinean journalist José Pablo Feinmann, ridiculed, among other things, the whole concept of the great wall the U.S. Bush government projected along the border with Mexico. “What? Raise a wall. The gringos must be very[Read More…]
Net neutrality has been one of the most studied and controversial areas of policy making for nearly one-and-a-half-decades now, since the term was coined back in 2003. As the US has been the most innovative nation in fueling the digital revolution globally, much of the regulations on it also has originated from the US, namely the Federal Communications Commission[Read More…]
Fourteen Palestinian boys and girls under the age of 18 were shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the year. There were 21 fewer children killed than in 2016, which was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in the past decade. In addition to those 14 shot and killed[Read More…]
The Italian chemistry professor Ugo Bardi has written a book about the Seneca effect. He refers to the abrupt collapse of systems: observed in avalanches and balloons, but also in financial market bubbles and powerful empires. By Jantje Hannover When a balloon bursts or an avalanche takes place, it is a network structure that suddenly reorganizes. (image stock & people /[Read More…]
January 11, 2018 marked the 16th year that Guantanamo prison has exclusively imprisoned Muslim men, subjecting many of them to torture and arbitrary detention. About thirty people gathered in Washington D.C., convened by Witness Against Torture, (WAT), for a weeklong fast intended to close Guantanamo and abolish torture forever. Six days ago, Matt Daloisio arrived from New York City[Read More…]
“Glory be to God for dappled things” — Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty “The big conversation we need within government has still not begun.” George Monbiot responding to UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s new environmental proposal, very much echoing the essential message embedded in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’… which focuses on Care for Our Common Home. The punchline to this piece —[Read More…]
I knew Aaron Swartz. Aaron was an internet leader and free-speech advocate who helped organize the worldwide movement to keep the internet free from censorship and corporate control. Now more than ever, we should listen to his story and what he fought for. Aaron committed suicide at the young age of 26 after downloading JSTOR articles without JSTOR’s permission. He[Read More…]
The planned Joint Citizens Protest against world biggest Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of 12 –digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar numbers happened at the Parliament Street from 3 pm onwards on12th of January, 2018. More such protests are planned across the districts and cities in the country. Several speakers at the protest site demanded immediate stoppage of the biometric UID/Aadhaar number database project. [Read More…]
The Indian Association of People’s Lawyers applauds the courageous step taken by the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court in placing, before “we, the people” as the ultimate authority, the impasse that has been created by the refusal of the Chief Justice of India to respond to their legitimate and responsible concerns over his recent administrative actions. In their[Read More…]
The People’s Union For Civil Liberties (PUCL) is seriously concerned over the implication of issues raised by the 4 senior most SC judges after the Chief Justice of India (CJI) going public about their disagreement with the CJI over functioning of the judicial institution both in its administrative as also judicial sphere of functioning. In the Press Conference today, all[Read More…]
First reported by the Washington Post, and then confirmed by various other outlets, President Donald Trump’s racism sparked renewed outrage on Thursday—and the #ShitHoleDon hashtag—after it was learned he referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shitholes countries” during a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers. “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump reportedly said, according to people[Read More…]
Ignoring this morning Friday January 12 2017 press conference held by Justice Chelameswar the senior most Justice of India after the Chief Justice, along with the next three senior most judges of the Supreme Court, at his home in New Delhi, the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra continued with business as usual at the Supreme Court. At their[Read More…]
People yearn for alternatives to industrial agriculture, but they are worried. They see large-scale operations relying on corporate-supplied chemical inputs as the only high-productivity farming model. Another approach might be kinder to the environment and less risky for consumers, but, they assume, it would not be up to the task of providing all the food needed by our still-growing global[Read More…]
‘I have noticed that even people who claim that everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, lok before they cross the road ‘ From Black Holes and Baby Universes and other Essays ‘If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault , but it is no good to blame the world or expecting[Read More…]
“Do you know what it’s like on the outside?” — from the Bee Gees’ New York Mining Disaster 1941 The mudslides in Montecito and elsewhere throughout southern California are far more horrifying than anything being reported in the press. The devastation is simply one of those things that not only goes beyond words but exceeds what is possible to[Read More…]
In an unprecdented move four judges of the Supreme Court of India went public with their grievances against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra by holding a press conference. They said democracy in India is at stake. NDTV reported: They said that repeated attempts to alert the Chief Justice to their concerns -including a meeting with him this morning-[Read More…]
“Why do men then now not reck his rod?” — a line from God’s Grandeur “Progressives, generally, are not at home with controversial religious issues, in part because they cannot deal with phenomena which they’ve only encountered in the telegraphic sound bites offered by political debate. It is characteristic of the narrow logic of left-of-center citizens that when they[Read More…]
Fire and Fury. Inside the Trump White House, Little, Brown 2018. One wonders how the public got so thrilled by a book that combines all the D. C. gossip and tittle-tattle between two boards, which the tabloids published about Trump’s chaotic White House so far. The book was a media coup that only served the financial advantage of the author;[Read More…]
The public perception of Muslim women is one of stubborn stereotypes: supposedly powerless and oppressed, behind walls and veils, demure, voiceless and silent figures, discriminated and bereft of even basic rights. Contrary to this general belief, Muslim women have held the flag of enlightenment throughout history. The early Muslim community recognised and honoured a wide spectrum of female roles and[Read More…]
As the BJP dipped below hundred seats in the recently concluded election in Gujarat, it was nervousness and not a sense of triumph that absorbed the party supporters at large. The word ‘vikas’ was wilfully abandoned during the campaigns and ‘Gujarat model’ was convincingly voted out in rural Gujarat. A lot has been rightly said about the glaring limitations of[Read More…]
Around 160,000 employees in the automotive, steel and electrical industries have engaged in token strikes called by the IG Metall union, which is currently negotiating a new wage contract for 3.9 million workers in Germany’s largest industrial sector. The actions include workers at Porsche, Daimler, Bosch and other auto, auto parts and electrical companies like Siemens and AEG. A rally[Read More…]
Michael Wolff is laughing, if not gloating, all his way to the bank. Money bags are singing; bank accounts are being filled. Doubts about the free publicity his work on the Trump White House would receive would have abated with the tweeting complex that is the current and singular US president, one Donald J. Trump. Call something fake, and it’s[Read More…]
A Bayer marketing professional recently stated on Twitter that critics of GMOs deny choice to farmers. It’s a common accusation by the pro-GMO lobby. In a previous article, I noted the idea that GMOs offer increased choice is erroneous and that, by implication, corporations like Bayer or Monsanto restrict options. Much evidence suggests that GMOs provide a false choice. However, to[Read More…]
As my nation stands betrothed to World Hunger Index and Bullet train, it is quite incomprehensive, which beau she will meet at the altar-towards the end of 2019. The cacophony for more power, more votes, more solidarity grows within the usual suspects of political alliances. With each passing day India descends into another abyss of political turmoil, the stakes[Read More…]
Neoliberal Totalitarianism and the Social Contract Abstract Analyzing aspects of the rightwing populist tide arising largely in reaction to the pluralistic-diversity model of neoliberalism, this essay examines the evolving social contract that normalizes systemic exploitation and repression in the name of capitalist growth. Amid incessant indoctrination by the media representing big capital, people try to make sense of whether their[Read More…]
The “people’s Pope” is striking all the right notes: concern for the poor, for the climate change, sympathy for all who suffer under oppression, and apology of sorts for sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Yet something is amiss amid all these verbal proclamations: Genuine reform – reform of the “Universal Church” whose oppressive and archaic dogmas have[Read More…]
This will be a nonpartisan commentary about U.S. politics, as viewed by an American historian who is disgusted with the profoundly corrupt U.S. Government — not merely the political Parties, but the billionaires who effectively control them. Not everyone who finds Trump and the Republican Party to be beneath contempt is a Democrat. All that this commentator is is a[Read More…]
“Ay, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head—a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.” — lines from Act IV, Scene 1 of As You Like It, which remind the author of what all shelled gastropods have to offer us, and what our fate[Read More…]
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx “So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa Lest you think — looking at the quotes above —[Read More…]
I’ll be the first to admit that I have lived high on the hog for parts of my life. I have traveled to Europe and the Caribbean numerous times each. I was on a huge cruise ship coming back to the USA from France when I was a child. I’ve flown back and forth across the USA for work and[Read More…]
Sonoma County, Northern California: Putting the words “death” and “café” together may seem unusual. In the United States, many of us ignore our own pending, inevitable mortality. Many Americans do not accept that they will surely die, much less talk openly about it with others, especially strangers. On the other hand going to one’s favorite café is something that[Read More…]
(The only meeting ground between the two Asian countries of India and Pakistan is the extreme poverty of the masses on the two sides of the divide!) It has been reported that the National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan met in Thailand on December 27, secretly! The meeting is reported to have been useful and it is claimed that[Read More…]
“Our society has become so unequal. The wealthy need to be taxed more” -Rohini Nilekani In an information saturated age such as ours corporate spin is sine qua non of business reporting where the narrative is controlled by the few to the detriment of the many. None is more evident than in the dominant narrative leading to the resignation of[Read More…]
The Belgian city of Ghent plays host to a broad range of projects and initiatives around the commons. But it has yet to adopt a model which really places a commons-focused approach and logic at the core of its institutions and processes. Recent work undertaken by experts on the commons provides a roadmap for the city to re-imagine and reconfigure[Read More…]
Last week protests broke out in the city of Isfahan, spreading to Iran’s remaining cities, including the capital, Tehran. The riots have given voice to calls for socio-economic change amid rising deprivation and unemployment among young people and a sense of injustice among poorer Iranians. These groups have suffered the brunt of inefficient economic management and the effects of the[Read More…]
Once upon a time, we worried about oil and other energy. Now, a song from 1930 seems to be appropriate: Today, we have a surplus of oil, which we are trying to use up. That never happened before, or did it? Well, actually, it did, back around 1930. As most of us remember, that was not a pleasant time. It[Read More…]
In an excellent article, published by Al Jazeera, Shenila Khoja-Moolji wonders why the West (including its stalwart feminists) have not been galvanized to protest and demand the release of a 16-year old Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, detained by Israeli authorities for defending her home and family from Israeli soldiers, soon after they had shot her 15-year old cousin in the face[Read More…]
There is a real – but largely concealed – war which is taking place throughout the African continent. It involves the United States, an invigorated Russia and a rising China. The outcome of the war is likely to define the future of the continent and its global outlook. It is easy to pin the blame on US President Donald Trump,[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia is seeking to buy Israeli defense systems and working with Israel to prevent Iran’s expansion in the Middle East, according to the Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung. Basler Zeitung reported on Monday (Jan 8) a “secret alliance” between Saudi Arabia and Israel, intended “to restrain Iran’s expansion in the region, despite the absence of any official relations between the[Read More…]
It used to be that the New York Times and the Washington Post competed against each other to be the chief propagandist for the hundred or so top firms who sell to the U.S. federal government — the 100 top “federal contractors,” almost all of which are Pentagon contractors — mainly these are weapons-manufacturing firms, such as the biggest,[Read More…]
A long-standing French protectorate briefly occupied by Japan during World War II, Cambodia became independent in 1953 as the French finally withdrew from Indochina. Under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia remained officially neutral, including during the subsequent US war on Indochina. However, by the mid-1960s, parts of the eastern provinces of Cambodia were bases for North Vietnamese[Read More…]
I’m in with the in crowd I go where the in crowd goes I’m in with the in crowd And I know what the in crowd knows — opening lines to Dobie Gray’s The “In” Crowd “There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” — Flannery O’Connor “It’s not a popular notion, but no advance in social[Read More…]
In the beginning there was a huge Man named Brahma. He was huge and immortal. Then the Gods who have always been there cut him into four pieces. From the wise Head came the wise Brahmin, from the strong Hands came the strong Kshatriyas, from the big sweaty torso & belly came the Vaishya mass of agile traders & from[Read More…]
Nazareth: Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi may not be what Israelis had in mind when, over many years, they criticised Palestinians for not producing a Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. Eventually, colonised peoples bring to the fore a figure best suited to challenge the rotten values at the core of the society oppressing them. Ahed is well qualified for the task.[Read More…]
The Trump administration announced Monday, Jan 8, that it will end “temporary protected status” (TPS) that was first granted to Salvadorans nearly two decades ago. Roughly 263,000 people from El Salvador are covered by the program, which allowed the immigrants to stay and work in the United States legally. According to Gabe Ortiz of Daily Kos, with this marking[Read More…]
Protests in Iran are winding down, and the streets in most of the cities are becoming quiet again. But the question remains: who was behind the ‘events’ that took at least 22 human lives? The diplomatic and media storm is far from abiding with questions about the origin of the protests. What really took place in Iran at the very[Read More…]
Kabul, January 2017: The number of visitors passing through the Afghan Peace Volunteers'(APVs’) Borderfree Nonviolence Community Center in Kabul is incredible. Each afternoon, nearly sixty high-school-age students attend free classes to prepare them for the rigorous KanKor test, required of every Afghan desiring to attend public university. By 8:00 this morning, women from neighboring districts had begun arriving on foot,[Read More…]
In the late 1980’s, I lived in a different town than my current one in MA, USA. Every now and then, maybe about once a week, an industrial plant about a mile from my home would sound a whistle. Then suddenly the air surrounding my home would be filled with something that smelled sickeningly sweet. It tasted, too, that way[Read More…]
“I know I am going to have terrible problems with this painting, but I am determined to do it….” Picasso to Dora Maar in anticipation of creating his now world famous mural-sized oil painting, one of the most moving anti-war artworks in history… not well-received initially, and not appreciated in many quarters for a very long time. In 1962 John[Read More…]
Love, let us never forget that there are people in this troubled world, men especially, who are very different from you and I—who think abstractly and pride themselves on the suppression of emotion and the will with which they hold clearly, if ever so grimly, to their goals—men of unwavering principle, if not obsessive and infernal ideologies. Strong men, men[Read More…]
“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell. And[Read More…]
“…creation can only be understood as a gift….” — Pope Francis underscoring that faith tells us that the earth is not a possession to be used and destroyed… very much in the spirit of indigenous beliefs Pope Francis sees the cause of the collective crises in what he calls a “technocratic” mentality, one that considers “the rise of a[Read More…]
I was recently talking to a mother , who is still waiting for his son’s return. Although she was not wailing, but her moist eyes was saying it all. The pain and agony was visible on his face. She has seen her son disappear before her eyes. She has tried everything, from going to army camps to police posts[Read More…]
Last week, the Pakistani government callously doubled down on its strategy of using Afghan refugees as pawns in its ongoing political dispute with Afghanistan when it refused to grant a long-term extension of their stay in Pakistan. Islamabad’s move will anger Kabul, which has struggled to absorb and reintegrate the massive influx of Afghans returning from Pakistan in recent years.[Read More…]
Subramanyam Swami, a BJP leader, said, development alone was not enough to garner votes in elections, what was required was emotions and that in turn, required a cultural awareness. (Times of India, 27th November, 16) This is what Golwalkar had said earlier. He said ‘We have achieved mind revolution ‘man kranti ‘ The victory of BJP in the recent elections[Read More…]
The Political Economy of Hindu Rashtra is a mix of manic use of State power to line the pockets of the upper castes combined with abject subjection of the State to the globalisation of finance. By this means since 2014 BJP may have achieved its aim of establishing Hindu Rashtra in India and communalising the political discourse for the[Read More…]
Of all the lawful acts the most detestable to God is divorce. – Prophet Muhammad [This an authentic saying recorded by Abdullah ibn Umar, a highly respected companion of the prophet in an authoritative treatise “Divorce (Kitab Al-Talaq)” of Sunan Abu-Dawud (Ref. 63-2173)] India is currently mired in a war between theology and law as it tries to articulate[Read More…]
Every action produces an effect and every effect
in turn becomes a cause and produces still further
effects, and causes, and effects, and causes, and
effects and causes…
Like spreading ripples of water
It’s been very cold over North America for days, but globally, 2017 has ended up smashing the record for the hottest year on record without an El Niño. And that has scientists worried, since the warmest years usually happen when the long-term human-caused global warming trend gets a short-term boost from an El Niño’s enhanced warming in the tropical Pacific.[Read More…]
Before I began this essay I read through some of my past forays that mentioned climate change and capitalism, the first I think, being in 2006 where I opined in a piece on the ‘War on Terror’: Perhaps the impending climate catastrophe as well as the genocidal actions of the US will force us to finally start thinking and acting[Read More…]
Pakistan’s alliance with the United States seems to be coming towards an end following the US decision to suspend security aid, Pakistan Minister of Foreign Affairs Khawaja Asif told the Wall Street Journal on Friday (Jan. 5). Asif said he believes the US-Pakistan relations are now at risk, especially after the tensions heightened and moods turned sour when President Donald Trump[Read More…]
One of the myths perpetuated by the pro-GMO (genetically modified organisms) lobby is that critics of GMOs in agriculture are denying choice to farmers and have an ideological agenda. The narrative is that farmers should have access to a range of tools and technologies, including GM crops. Before addressing this issue, we should remind ourselves that GMOs have been[Read More…]
The most important historical event of recent times was a coup that occurred in 2014 and caused what’s now called ‘the new Cold War’, which is even worse than the original one was; and, yet, Western ‘news’media never reported the coup as being anything like what it was, when it happened; and, it still isn’t being recognized by Western[Read More…]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed deep shock over the execution of 20 people in Egypt within one week, amid concerns that due process and fair trial guarantees did not appear to have been followed. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday, January 2, five men who had[Read More…]
To The Editor in Chief The Tribune Harish Khare Sir, I, as a common, unemployed youth of this country like many others unemployed and distressed youths, who have been struggling to survive every day with the hope that “acchhe din” will arrive, would like to thank you for exposing the sham of this so called democracy who first give us[Read More…]
The last time that I voted for a USA president was in the Al Gore vs Bush, Jr. (the shrub in relation to his bigger and more adept daddy, the bush) contention. Since Gore would take my state of MA, USA, I voted for the Green Party candidate since that political group needed money in their coffers and clout[Read More…]
Many Iranian authorities have claimed that the recent protests in Iran are a result of foreign instigation, pointing fingers at the USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia & the MEK. There have been a series of provocations that have led Iranian authorities to believe a joint initiative is being carried by these different groups. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security[Read More…]
Zionism [see http://state-of-terror.net/] is an insidious ideology. Its ideologues often gain traction by well-placed and oft repeated constructs – in films and TV series, in posts and comments on social media, and even in academia. So, it is no wonder that people end up having ideas about certain things, like the nature of Israel, the Zionist Jewish state, or[Read More…]
Mahtama Gandhi ~ “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly[Read More…]
A number of journalistic forums including Editors Guild of India have condemned the filing of FIR against Rachna Khaira, a reporter of The Tribune who exposed the data breach of UIDAI that implements Indiia’s coercive and panopticon AAdhaar cards. Editors Guild of India released this stement: The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned over reports that the Deputy Director[Read More…]
The United States Government says that Syria’s Government caused the U.N.-estimated “at least $250 billion” cost to restore Syria from the destruction that Syria’s war produced, and so Syria’s Government should pay those reconstruction costs. That link is to a New York Times article, which explicitly blames Syrian “President Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless triumph” — which was won against all[Read More…]
The decision to try the leading Nazis at Nuremberg meant developing a system of due process, providing them with defense attorneys and, it has often been forgotten, with access to spiritual counsel. To Heinrich “Henry” Gerecke, an American Lutheran from the Midwest, fell the strange and theologically complex duty of providing succor to men marked, if any ever have[Read More…]
Rashidieh Palestinian camp, on the border of Occupied Palestine: The first ever official census of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was finally released on 12/21/2017 in Beirut. The village by village and camp by camp survey by 500 specialists found that only 174,422 Palestinian refugees are living these days in the country. Counted were al Palestinians living in the 12 official[Read More…]
President Trump’s decision announced on 6th December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to order the transfer of US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem reminds one of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel. Trump has ignored the claims of Palestinians to have their capital in[Read More…]
A lot has been discussed about ‘Aadhar’ and its impact on common people. Economists, political and social scientists and many other academicians have elaborately analysed the futility of the project. One more angle of introspecting aadhar is the impact on disabled persons, especially those who have problems with their fingers or eyes or both. While the poor are facing[Read More…]
The silhouette of the large mosque, brick-like but for a bulbous dome, looks blurry in the downpour past the minarets as the imposing wide red brick gates, herald you into the hallowed precincts of an institution—one of the most influential institutions in the world that frames Islamic discourse in the subcontinent. The occasional rain is heavy, lending a sparkle to the green paddies[Read More…]
From past few days we have been witnessing on our television channels or social media news portals debating over just and unjust forms of protest. But the moot able theme that underlies all these debates and news reporting is how we construe, what is Resistance? And what is Violence? A common dictionary meaning of Resistance is: the act or power[Read More…]
Freedom of opinion also means we are all entitled to opinions and that we don’t necessarily have to share the same opinion about anything. The difference in opinion paves way for a debate which may or may not settle the root cause, this type of aggression and war of words are nothing unfamiliar but with the advent of social media[Read More…]
The incidences of Bhima Koregoan have come up as yet another battleground of Dalits’ liberation movement against a Hindutva fascist state run by caste system. The incidences and the videos have been rolling around is just shocking. The symbol of yester-century’s valiant and brave battle and victory over the atrocious ruling Peshwas by a small unit of 500 Dalits (Mahar’s),[Read More…]
It has been said that what is required in dealing with the Trump administration is less an army of diplomats than keen and attentive psychiatrists. Those psychiatrists would have had dreams of splendour contemplating how a statement about having access to a nuclear button could quite become this. It all began, as it tends to do, with a goading remark[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jason W. Moore & Raj Patel Settled agriculture, cities, nation-states, information technology and every other facet of the modern world have unfolded within a long era of climatic good fortune. Those days are gone. Sea levels are rising; climate is becoming less stable; average temperatures are increasing. Civilization emerged in a geological era known as the Holocene. Some[Read More…]
The Israeli government is planning a series of measures aimed at fully denying Palestinians their legal rights in Jerusalem and precluding any future peace settlement based on sharing the city between Israel and a future Palestinian state. One of the most aggressive measures to date is a bill that was approved by the Israeli Knesset on Tuesday, January 2.[Read More…]
The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party began on October 18 last year and lasted for a week. At congresses in the Chinese Communist Party, the more than 2000 delegates first choose a central committee consisting of about 200 full members and approximately 200 alternative members. Then the 25 members of Politburo of the Central Committee are elected,[Read More…]
In No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Bell recounts his conversation with a woman who complains about “right-wing” politics: “She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any[Read More…]
Schoolyard name calling by an American president might be unusual, it might be undiplomatic, it might even be childish, yet it had the world riveted — if only for a short moment — on the antics of ‘rocket man’ and the Donald. The ‘nuclear button is on my desk says one’; ‘my button is bigger than yours and works[Read More…]
Because he was not a partisan in the Cold War between the U.S./NATO and the U.S.S.R, Albert Camus was an odd ball. As a result, he was criticized by the right, left, and center. His allegiance was to truth, not ideologies. He opposed state murder, terrorism, and warfare from all quarters. An artistic anarchist with a passionate spiritual hunger,[Read More…]
Whether we are aware of it or not, we stand to witness now what will be history tomorrow. A history that will do its provenance proud, in fact, leaving it a lot more glorious. Even the xenophobic right who asked for this new chapter in the first place, are left with no ‘foreign conspiracy’ theory to tout. For ‘Bhima Koregaon[Read More…]
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt In India, the priorities of village people are constantly undergoing changes. These are, in fact, a result of the changes the development landscape is undergoing.[Read More…]
“You don’t want to be a spiritual slug.” — Howard Zinn, speaking at the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2004 “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” — from Shakespeare’s Hamlet Right after my partner and I put on a free three-day cultural/social/political event in Santa Cruz, California in 2004, which[Read More…]
Ambrose pinto’s death after struggling with treacherous cancer for about Six months on 3 January of 2018 made me feel that this year would be bad for Dalits. His smiling face, hopeful of change, keeps flashing through my mind. I last met him when I gave a special lecture at Indian Social Institute Benuluru on January 20, 2017, in[Read More…]
The Israeli military filed 12 charges on Monday against Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi. The 16-year-old, who was filmed in an encounter with soldiers in her home village of Nabi Saleh last month, could remain in Israeli prisons for years if convicted on charges including throwing stones, incitement and assaulting and threatening a soldier. Israel’s military tribunals are notorious for their near-100 percent conviction rate against[Read More…]
Are we going for retribution or transformation? In the last two weeks, there has been a great deal of controversy and commentary on recent comments from the actor Matt Damon about the #MeToo movement. This has ranged from substantive critiques to complaints that the problem is that he, as a man, is speaking at all. There has even been[Read More…]
A day after bitter criticism of Pakistan from President Donald Trump, China supported Pakistan by lauding its efforts for “outstanding contribution against terrorism” which should be acknowledged by “the international community”. At the regular press conference of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, on Tuesday was asked: US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the US has[Read More…]
Henry Thoreau, the 19th century American poet, naturalist and philosopher once remarked: “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look to affect the quality of the[Read More…]
In perhaps the biggest identity data breach in history, India’s entire Aadhaar data has been breached by fraudsters and over one billion Aadhaar details that includes name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email are on sail for just Rs 500. Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) is the biggest collection of identities[Read More…]
John Scales Avery is one of the most important voices of our times today. I had the honour of interviewing him last year. https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/15/interview-with-john-scales-avery-one-of-the-greatest-living-intellectuals-on-earth/ He cares so much for the health of the planet and worries about a calamity that’s facing humanity, and all other species on earth. He has written a lot for Countercurrents.org. He has collected all his[Read More…]
Iran has been rocked for the past six days by protests against food-price rises, mass joblessness, ever-widening social inequality, and the Islamic Republic’s brutal austerity program and political repression. The protests began last Thursday in Iran’s second largest city, Mashhad, and the neighboring centers of Neyshabur and Kashmar, then spread to the capital Tehran and more than three-dozen other cities[Read More…]
Two’s a company; three’s a crowd. More? This issue is preoccupying political and policing figures in the city considered by the Economist Intelligence Unit the most liveable in the world, bettering a whole host of other seemingly more appropriate candidates. So liveable, in fact, that it houses all sorts. Having repeatedly boasted, self-congratulated and beamed at the idea that Australia[Read More…]
There is only one pathway to avert the crisis humanity is heading toward, and it is to deeply feel the connection with the ecosystem we are a part of. But understand, this is not an ecological argument, this is not about the climate or other environmental systems. The latest exposure of the predatory behavior of some men is much closer[Read More…]
Each day, we can see new evidence that the economy fails to serve people or planet. Stewart Wallis, former executive director of the New Economics Foundation, speaks with Tellus Senior Fellow Allen White about how to galvanize action for a new economy. You began your career in business but have since become a strong advocate of a new economic paradigm. What shaped this[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret World Events Ensure Major Transformations Are On The Horizon. The Movement Must Ensure That Economic, Racial And Environmental Justice And Peace Are Realized In The Transformational Era In our last article, we predicted that the 2020’s will be an era of transformation. We focused on the development of the movement since the “Take-Off” phase of[Read More…]
The new tax law is NOT principally a handout, motivated by corporate greed—although greedy hands are seeking to maximize and game its benefits, which are utterly skewed to the wealthy. This tax bill is a conscious and strategic move to deal with economic contradictions and imperialist great-power needs. Yes, the tax bill will accelerate the upward redistribution and concentration[Read More…]
43 years ago, my parents owned a public swimming pool. In the summer season, there was a lifeguard that I remember fondly. He was a handsome, kind and idealistic young man, always with a pipe in the corner of his mouth. He studied to be a priest and wanted to visit the Amazon someday. He could talk about it passionately[Read More…]
A saying from the Bible’s story of Cain and Abel. After Cain had murdered his brother Abel, God asked him where his brother was. Cain answered, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” Note : Cain’s words have come to symbolize people’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of their fellows — their “brothers” in the extended[Read More…]
C0-Written by Ashish Kumar Singh, Vidya Bhooshan Singh & Siddhartha Negi ‘It’s my destiny to serve Maa Ganga’ said the current Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi after being elected in May 2014 to Parliament from Varanasi. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote, “The Ganges, above all, is the river of India which has held India’s heart[Read More…]
We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’[Read More…]
Ambedkarites are agitated all over the country as the despicable attempts of the Hindutva affiliated organisations in Pune attacked the massive assembly of people who had come to pay their respect to 800 brave Mahar soldiers who with the help of British had defeated the then powerful army of the Peshwas which numbered around 30,000 at the battle of Bhima[Read More…]
December 31, 2017: It is a dream come true being back among friends in Kabul! Streams of dented Toyotas (They are all Toyotas!) with windscreens cracked like bolts of lightning still jockey for position on roads where traffic lights and common sense hold little sway. Carts of vegetables drawn by donkeys or dragged by men without dreams continue clotting the already stuttering traffic,[Read More…]
Jewish identity politics complicate the Palestinian response to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Sometimes it seems impossible to address the crux of the matter, the Jewish state Nakba in Palestine, without being subjected to attacks one way or another. On the last day of 2017, I posted a meme on my Facebook wall that provoked a long and heated argument. The meme[Read More…]
Dear Friends, Revolutionary Greetings and Happy New Year from our struggle. Hope, 2018 will give us hope and peace. If you can kindly recollect, we have informed you about the withdrawal of POSCO due to the continuous peaceful resistance of our people and also because of your overwhelming support to our cause. However, the saga of repression is continuing in[Read More…]
‘Braille is knowledge , and knowledge is power’ – Louis Braille For many years, visually disabled and blind had to depend on Braille script as the main form of communication. Even now, when modern tools like cassette recordings, voice synthesizers, computer compatible speech softwares are available, braille continues to be a major form of reading and writing source for[Read More…]
Etwariya Devi, a 67-year-old widow, died of hunger and exhaustion on 25 December in Sonpurwa village of Majhiaon block of Garhwa district (Jharkhand). She lived with her son Ghura Vishwakarma, daughter-in-law Usha Devi and their three children in a dilapidated kutcha house. The family has a hand-to-mouth existence and is routinely unable to access adequate nutrition. Surviving the day on[Read More…]
Dear Countercurrents family (present and future)— 2017 was a tough year all around. Hot and cold wars continue, the environment further degrades and Trumpism/Putinism/Modiism reigns. One can get depressed- forlorn even- by the array of monsters to fight. Humanity in many ways appears to be stepping backwards, embracing narrow and racist nationalism, further eroding the rights of women, reveling in[Read More…]
[Prefatory Note: This post is the modified text of an interview on behalf of the Tasnim News Agency in Iran as conducted by Mohammed Hassani. It tries to assess the wider implications of the UN reaction to Trump’s December 6th decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to follow this by relocating the American Embassy from Tel Aviv[Read More…]
Most of the reviews or newspaper reports about Amit Masurkar’s Newton is about its entry to Oscar’s or it has been labelled as “black comedy”, “Satire” and the critics even went on to say that it has been plagiarised from an Iranian film called Secret Ballot (2001). I sometimes wonder how many movies, songs; beats are just copy cuts of[Read More…]
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. -Thomas Merton, Love and Living Henry Thoreau, the 19th century writer, naturalist and philosopher once remarked: “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few[Read More…]
There is multi-dimensional, post-election analysis of the high voltage Gujarat Assembly Election at the end of 2017. Some analyst identified it as one man show like ‘Modi Magic’; few others indentified Congress’s moral victory, urban-rural electoral division or the consequences of agrarian crisis. Every political Pandit has his own rationality or assumption based on certain variables. While teaching social studies[Read More…]
As a new year begins, it becomes necessary to review the legal pronouncements of the past year. 2017 has been replete with many significant judgments by the Supreme Court for India’s jurisprudence. While there are some judgments worthy of mention for the controversial nature and media reportage associated to it, such as that of Ram Rahim’s conviction, upholding of sentence[Read More…]
As another year is coming to an end, we witnessed huge turmoil everywhere. The intimidation to dissenters continued while political opponents were targeted as usual by the Hindutva groups. Mob lynching and cow terrorism aggravated all over the country and as the state remained subdued and muted, the goons with political patronage had a field day during the year.[Read More…]
From Education to Incarceration 
Tunakataa! Saying ‘No’ to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya 
Rising Islamophobia and Communal Discord: An Alarming Trend in BJP-Ruled States 
Speak Truth to Power and Pay the Price! 
USA’s Wars Took 12 Million Lives in The Last 25 Years 
US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“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 
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…]
