A brief history of books, resistance, the police and politicians. It is humanly impossible for even the most learned judge to have read every book referred to in their court. For a brief while this week, the judge conducting the trial of activist Vernon Gonsalves, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon incident of 2018, became an example of this. That[Read More…]
You can look away now The Vale of tears has dried up And a deathly silence stalks the Dal Deserted towns, burnt orchards and shadows everywhere. Paradise will ne’er be the same again Nothing will ever be the same again We, the invisible and the damned, the rejected and the reviled, have long ceased to exist for a world gone[Read More…]
In a heartwarming instance of communal harmony, the Hindu residents of Mari village, in Nalanda district of Bihar have given their heart and soul to take care of an old mosque left abandon by the Muslims in their village. According to media report, in Mari village, due to scourge of unemployment Muslim population has slowly eased themselves out of the[Read More…]
Over 1.9 million people have been left out of the final National Register of Citizens or NRC – a list intended to identify legal residents and weed out illegal immigrants from Assam. Those left out of the NRC can appeal to the Foreigners Tribunal within 120 days. After that those left out will be sent to Detention Centers! Are we[Read More…]
Egyptian President Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s security forces have killed 17 pro Muslim Brotherhood persons in the latest incident of extra judicial killing. The security forces claimed that the people killed were involved in a car bomb near the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that killed more than 20 people in Cairo on August 4. However, how the way the[Read More…]
It was my birthday and I was both sad and glad for myself. I had lived a long life, filled with difficulties of every kind one can imagine. I had spent a good portion of it struggling to survive in the face of poverty and want. I had struggled to raise three children, mostly alone, in the midst of that[Read More…]
‘The soul of India lives in its villages’ Mahatma Gandhi While cosmopolitan cities and even many villages are being polluted increasingly, there are some villages which are resisting environmental pollution by the people living there. One such village is Khonoma in the North East of India. History Khonoma is Asia’s first green village in the hills of Nagaland. The village[Read More…]
“…always was, always will be, the land of Kashmiris” Conquest by Abrogation: The acts of the Indian government in flooding Kashmir with its troops is a coercive measure meant to control, manipulate and subjugate the terrified people of Kashmir. In the days leading up to the abrogation of Article 370, the Indian government transformed Kashmir into a landscape of fear.[Read More…]
The rise of ‘Extinction Rebellion’ signals that climate activism is moving up a gear. Further radicalisation is probably inevitable. Extinction Rebellion (or XR) is climate activism’s new face. One of its new faces at least, together with the youth climate strikers. The XR movement was created in 2018 in the UK with the stated aim of using civil disobedience and nonviolent[Read More…]
With those thousands and millions of pieces you have been broken into How long can you keep on fixing them to get through one more day? And with a cracked heart and crushed soul How long till u count yourself among the living fray? With this unthinking unfeeling existence of yours How long till u tire and call it a[Read More…]
A draft United Nations report warns “the same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilizing Earth’s marine environment is brought to heel,” according to Agence France-Presse, which exclusively reported on the 900-page scientific assessment Thursday. The forthcoming report from a U.N. body that assesses science related to the human-caused planetary emergency is[Read More…]
Recalling the stellar role of the Indian media during the infamous internal Emergency imposed by the late Indira Gandhi, Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP patriarch now forcibly retired, famously noted: “You were asked to bend but you began to crawl.” Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, well known for his love of the fourth estate right from his Gujarat days, the[Read More…]
The G7 Summit is an obsolete, useless talking shop, as Finnian Cunningham so adroitly says. RT calls it The Unbearable Pointlessness of G7. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and the United States constitute the G7 gang. It should strike any logical thinker as extremely odd that the world’s largest economy (by purchasing parity-based GDP), China, is not part of[Read More…]
What is the similarity between reservation and the special status granted to Kashmir ? The issue is of relevance since Mohan Bhagwat raked up the issue of reservation within a fortnight after Article 370 providing special status to Kashmir was abrogated. Mohan Bhagwat speaking at Gyan Utsav event at IGNOU in New Delhi on August 18 called for a discussion[Read More…]
“Capitalism tends to destroy its two sources of wealth: nature and human beings” – Karl Marx “Man lives on nature — means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for[Read More…]
The Brexit no deal prospect is engendering an element of lunacy fast seeping into every pore of the British political establishment. As with all steeped in such thinking, some of it made sense. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been inspired by a mild dictatorial urge, seeking to suspend the UK parliament five weeks out from October 31. This has been[Read More…]
PressTV Interview Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qsp1UcXqEo Background Tehran and Washington have been locked in a dispute since last year when the US unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement and re-imposed crippling sanctions on Iran. On Monday, President Donald Trump said he is ready to meet his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani within weeks after a G-7 leaders’ summit. The idea was proposed[Read More…]
Protest is back on the front burner. Protesters occupy streets in cities ranging from Hong Kong and Moscow to Khartoum and Algiers. They would likely do so in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, were it not for unprecedented pre-emptive security measures. When protest is not on the streets, it is embedded in culture wars wracking countries like the[Read More…]
Amid mounting tension over India’s annexation of Kashmir, Pakistan has successfully carried out the night training launch of a surface to surface ballistic missile. The missile “is capable of delivering multiple types of warheads up to 290 kilometres”, said military media spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor via a tweet, which also included a video of the launch. The missile is[Read More…]
On 6-7 August 2019, a fact-finding team comprising activists, academics, researchers and lawyers visited a few Pathalgadi villages in Khunti district (Ghaghara, Bhandra and Habuidih in Khunti block and Kochang and Birbanki in Arki block) to understand the Adivasis’ motivation for doing Pathalgadi and the response of the administration. The team met several residents of these and neighbouring villages and[Read More…]
Chhota Badda (Barwani) | The fast of Ms. Medha Patkar under the “Narmada Challan Satyagraha” continued for the sixth day today. The Chief Minister of the State urged Ms. Patkar to end the fast, which was rejected in the absence of a concrete plan to rehabilitate the affected. Today, 10 affected people of Bhavati, Bijasan, Ganpur, Chhota Badda, Rajghat and[Read More…]
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, yesterday signed off on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s request to suspend parliament. Known as proroguing, the move followed a visit by three Privy Council members, led by arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg. It means that parliament will stop meeting no earlier than Monday September 9 and no later than Thursday September 12, until Monday[Read More…]
In the past week, Linah al-Saafin at Al Jazeera English points out, an Israeli drone hit a Hizbullah target in Lebanon, Israeli fighter jets bombed a base in Syria with Iranian personnel, and Israel somehow hit bases of a Shiite militia in Iraq, including one on the Syria-Iraq border, killing a militiaman. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that the Iraqi[Read More…]
Kashmiri women community have been a victim of the reinforced rape culture since 1947. With the recent abrogation of Article 370 by the Modi government, the fear of violence among Kashmiri women have increased. As witnessed in the past, Kashmiri women have been a victim of gang rapes, killing and torture by the Indian armed forces. Now, with the recent[Read More…]
History is to be interrogated. Subjected to scanners, sieved and then made to make a standpoint. Eye witnesses accounts or contemporary or near contemporary sources are to be thoroughly probed, as only then, it would become a delving point to pronounce the veritable conclusion-elusive of its biasness or with any pre-judicial pretence. Obviously, the same criteria would have to be[Read More…]
The nation does not mean number all the time. However, the assimilation of number with the Hindutva self has created a situation of the legitimacy of the Hindu nation. The current results of the 2019 election stamped the majoritarian mindset in India. The great victory of the rightwing protagonists’ party Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)[1] challenged the minority mindset that India[Read More…]
In 2012, Daren Acemoglu & James A. Robinson wrote a book, Why Nations Fail, in which they point out that when political power is captured by elites, all the wealth taken by few, and opportunities and prosperity apparently disappeared for the masses at one hand. And the public insititutions operate under highly influenced and show disparity in the treatment of[Read More…]
On 20th August, 2019 Indian Express e-paper carried an unusual advertisement by the Northern India Textiles Mills Association about Indian Spinning Industry facing a huge crisis. The spinning mills are incurring huge loses, they are not in a position to buy Indian cotton, livelihood of 10 crores people, directly or indirectly, dependent on textile industry and a larger number of[Read More…]
In the light of the recent IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, (Ref 1), it is interesting to recap some of the salient features of the runaway global heating emergency that we humans find ourselves in. Slow changes of carbon dioxide, methane, and oxygen concentrations[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek After the recent Israeli attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the Middle East has found itself in the midst of undeclared war. Almost everyone in Lebanon appears to agree. “This time Israel went too far. In just two days, it bombed three countries,” I am told by a local UN staffer based in Beirut. The[Read More…]
We celebrate Labor Day by honoring workers — especially the forgotten workers. Stay-at-home mothers who home school their children are often forgotten. Others who are forgotten are those who work in school cafeterias, those who empty bedpans in nursing homes, and ordinary local guys, like my plumber. He is smart, honest and he never overcharges. These are just ordinary[Read More…]
Israel’s decision to bar two United States Democratic Representatives, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, from entering Israel and visiting Palestine has further exposed the belligerent, racist nature of the Israeli government. But our understanding of the Israeli decision, and the massive controversy and discussion it generated, should not stop there. Palestinians, who have been at the receiving end of racist[Read More…]
Recently enacted Triple Talaq Bill is a piecemeal legislation to safeguard Muslim women’s rights regarding un-Islamic practice of marriage dissolution. While discussions are still raging over the legal propriety of rendering a civil offence to cognizable criminal one and what is the raison detre of government pushing a bill that may affect only microscopic population of Muslim community at the[Read More…]
If there is any weapon that protects democracy, it is freedom to express a critical opinion. Every democratic Constitution must facilitate, declare and protect the people’s right to tell, write, represent, petition and challenge constitutionality of a policy that curbs expression en bloc. The fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) is not only exercised by journalists and TV anchors. En mass[Read More…]
Put me back in the middle of the sea, Let me struggle, learn & find a new shore. Dear Kannan Gopinathan Couple of days ago, I stumbled upon a news article that spoke about you resigning from the service. The reason for your resignation is something Bhakts and to-be-Bhakts might find really hard to digest. As you say in an interview, “If you ask me[Read More…]
The first act of the Iran Nuclear Accord took eight years. The backdrop kept changing from Geneva to Vienna but the actors were nearly all the same. Except for the representative of the European Union it was an all male, middle-age cast with little comic relief, at least on stage. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to give the[Read More…]
I am taking a long Sunday walk when I come upon them handing out leaflets in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken, in Perovo, the region of Moscow in which I reside. There are four or five of them altogether: young teenagers or those in their early twenties – handing out leaflets. They try to hand me one, and I, assuming[Read More…]
There were no black-bordered newspaper announcements of either the abrogation of the Articles 370 and 35A or the immediate clampdown imposed on Kashmir, effected as they were by devious and totalitarian, unconstitutional means. There was no broadcast-in-the-dark by any TV broadcaster. And, in the days following there was no running count of the days of incarceration for the entire valley,[Read More…]
Indo-Pakistan relations have almost never been all-smooth, least of all since the 1990s if not earlier, post the worsening of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. This was also the decade when collective efforts for people-to-people contact gained pace, with peace activists on both sides of the border coming together at forums like the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace[Read More…]
Amazon burns Each flame licks a life Each ember leads to strife How will man survive? From the meat roasted by the flames That rise as if from Earth’s insides? The birds that no longer fly Lie roasted, toasted, drained of colour. The brilliant macaw with its plumes of blue and yellow, The golden monkey that leaps from tree to[Read More…]
“Morality is a job for priests. Not P.R. men.” Tim Bell, New York Times, Feb 4, 2018 Lord Bell is dead, but his public relations tinkering, with all its gloss gilding and deception, remains. It was Tim Bell who cut his teeth in this dubious field, assisting Margaret Thatcher win the 1979 UK election through a mix of emotive tugging[Read More…]
It is an age-old question as to the extent art reflects the world we live in. Bertolt Brecht allegedly said to the contrary that art was “not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” The Marxist German playwright devised theatrical methods designed to distance the audience from the staged drama while drawing self-reflexive[Read More…]
It won’t be an exaggeration to say Kashmir is the worst conflict area in the world. Look anywhere else in the world where there are conflicts, there is no communication crack down. From Gaza to West Papua, from Hong Kong to the Yellow Vests in France….. the world knows what’s happening there. However in Jammu and Kashmir of India, we[Read More…]
Colonialism is setting the world on fire. Taking leadership from the people who have been resisting its violence for centuries, while protecting non-extractive ways of life, is our best hope of putting out the flames. It was an epic case of projection. Lashing out at the attacks on his Amazon-incinerating policies, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro accused French President Emmanuel Macron of having[Read More…]
How climate change is forcing the relocation of species, including our own In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, designed to appropriate to the United States lands occupied by aboriginal Americans. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, but the army under Commander in Chief Andrew Jackson acted anyway. Now a lightning rod for condemnation of the expropriation of indigenous[Read More…]
As fires rage across tens of thousands square km the Amazon forest, dubbed the Planet’s lungs, producing some 20 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere, with some 72,843 fires in Brazil this year, where fires on such a scale are uncommon, as well as through Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, southern Europe and elsewhere,they herald a world where increasing temperatures and[Read More…]
On 28 October 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected President of Brazil with 55.1% of the vote – and with a gigantic help from Cambridge Analytica. At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in January 2019 in Davos Switzerland, Bolsonaro made a sumptuous presentation, “We Are Building a New Brazil”. He outlined a program that put literally Brazil up for sale, and especially[Read More…]
On August 25th, 2019, Israel attacked Lebanon. It has done it again. Just as it attacked Syria, the same night. RT reported the same day: “Israeli drone flights were “an open attack on Lebanese sovereignty” and an assault on UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Hariri said on Sunday, just hours after reports of two Israeli UAV incidents[Read More…]
Part1-BDS Defeating Israel does not sit well with the American public. Although defeat does not seem possible, the word intimates the destruction of all Israelis. Changing Israel into a nation that preserves some of the characteristics that guided many to embrace an earlier expressed vision — creation of a nation that is a light upon all nations — albeit a[Read More…]
One of the brothers Koch, David, has shuffled off this mortal coil, and the pious few looking at his passing may well think he is making it tough for camels passing through needles. As part of the Brothers Koch, he presided over a corporate empire that did its pinching best to wrest control from the purses of public accountability in[Read More…]
People often ask and hint at the similarities between the Hong Kong protests and the French Yellow Vests. The former started on 31 March and are approaching their 19th week – the Yellow Vests (YV) have celebrated last weekend their 40th week of protests. As of recently some voices of Macron-infiltrates into the YV movement – or Fifth Columnists –[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J S Davies Among the frontrunners in the Democratic Party presidential primary, Senators Warren and Sanders not only have the most progressive domestic agenda, but also the most anti-war, pro-diplomacy foreign policy agenda. The sharpest distinction between them is that Sanders has voted against over 80% of recent record military spending bills in the Senate, while[Read More…]
Each expression of beauty is an act of love. Every manifestation of love is an act of beauty. To make a warrior’s choice in the clarity of human evolution is to invite the flowering of beauty. To make a warrior’s choice within the possibilities of wisdom is to work intimately in the garden of love. A person does not need[Read More…]
The specter of nuclear war haunts tensions between India and Pakistan, and the disputed territory of Kashmir could provide the spark that lights South Asia’s nuclear fuse, warns Strafor, a geopolitical intelligence think tank that provides strategic analysis and forecasting to individuals and organizations around the world. With passions again running high in Kashmir, the stakes for the region and[Read More…]
Tsunami of aggressive nationalism Across USA, Europe and beyond Internationalism is my creed; patriotism acceptable But not the sedition law My ancestors born in Pakistan Part of undivided India Communal partitioning in 1947 Affected lives My mother born in 1921 At Suri Mohalla, Rawalpindi Completed her studies At middle school, Rawalpindi At school she learnt needle work[Read More…]
Equality. Freedom. Justice. Secularity. Rights. Federalism. People’s government. That’s the general view of democracy we have in our minds. Democracy promises to incorporate all these values while administrating the institutions of society, economy and polity. To be specific, what democracy is to people is what a sickle is to a farmer- a tool to bring good days. But, despite all[Read More…]
Pope Francis urges protection of “that lung of forests” and French President Macron says G7 nations pledged help at summit Brazil’s army on Sunday deployed aircraft to battle the raging fires in the Amazon as global concern and outrage over the potential consequences—and the destructive causes—of the disaster grow. The military operations involving C-130 aircraft to put out fires came after Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro triggered global[Read More…]
“Locally, city-wide, state-wide, nationally, internationally we must join the fight as if our lives depends upon it, because they do. Now’s the time to join the movement for stopping global climate change and for climate justice.” Wildfires burning in the Amazon and Siberia, unrelenting heat waves, 100-year floods happening yearly are signs of our times—the worst of times. A global[Read More…]
Argument 1: Localism is inevitable. Globalization was made possible by long-distance transport, communications, and capital flows. It fits with widespread assumptions about progress and economic growth leading to a better future. But there are good reasons to think that our current bout of globalization is actually a brief, fragile, and highly problematic phase of human history. Societies seem to pass[Read More…]
Insentience cannot have intelligence, but the modern public relations revolution would have you think otherwise. Smart phones, smart bombs, and, it follows, Smart Cities (capitalising such terms implies false authority), do not exist in that sense, whatever their cheer squad emissaries in High Tech land claim. They are merely a masterfully daft celebration of tactically deployed cults: there is a[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia’s planned awarding of mandates for the management of an initial public offering (IPO) by its national oil company Aramco is likely to serve as a bell weather for how Riyadh balances its relations with the United States and China. In an early indication that Western financial institutions like Goldman Sachs may be losing their near monopoly, Saudi[Read More…]
On 26th August 2019 The Consulate General of Israel in Mumbai, along with one Indo-Israel Friendship Association, is organising a public discussion on “Leaders’ Idea of Nations in the Context of Zionism and Hindutva” at the Convocation Hall of University of Mumbai. The poster of the event displays images of Theodor Herzl and V.D. Savarkar. This is only an expression[Read More…]
Statement by concerned mediapersons on the Press Council’s intervention application in the petition filed by Ms Anuradha Bhasin We, the undersigned individual journalists and media organisations, express our grave concern at the decision of the Press Council of India to intervene in the petition filed by Kashmir Times Executive Editor Anuradha Bhasin. The Press Council of India’s petition has sought[Read More…]
(Note: This essay was written by Bhagwan Das in 2005 on my request. Actually Bhagwan Das proposed to write a book on Untouchables role in Indian Army and he had collected some material also but he could not. It was because Bhagwan Das himself had served in Royal Air Force as Radar Operator and was deployed on Burma border to[Read More…]
In a shocking development India’s Media watch dog, The Press Council of India (PCI) has moved the Supreme Court supporting the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir government’s decision to impose restrictions on communication in the state following the abrogation of Article 370. The council, a statutory body led by a former Supreme Court judge and meant to preserve freedom of[Read More…]
In an article by Shoaib Daniyal, published in www.scroll.in under the title Why are angry Dalits recalling a Delhi sultan to protest the demolition of a bhakti saint’s temple? It is stated “They claim that the plot on which the shrine stood was gifted to the sect by Sikandar Lodi six centuries ago”. https://scroll.in/article/934967/why-are-angry-dalits-recalling-a-delhi-sultan-to-protest-the-demolition-of-a-bhakti-saints-temple I would like to put in[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers Update: Protests continued in Hong Kong this weekend. The protesters returned to the use of violence and the police responded. The South China Morning Post reported: “In a now familiar pattern, the protesters threw bricks, petrol bombs, corrosive liquid and other projectiles at the police, who responded with tear gas, pepper balls and sponge[Read More…]
Kudos to Narendra Modi and his hefty henchman, Amit Shah. They have managed to transform India’s image overnight from that of being the world’s largest democracy into a highhanded occupation power. Something that Pakistan couldn’t quite accomplish over the past 73 years despite its best efforts. The much feted democracy is today being compared to the Apartheid states of Israel[Read More…]
In what feels like a parallel life devoid of the ugliness of the present, I enjoy watching the Doctor Who series. It’s just a fun wholesome sci-fi show, where an alien who just goes by ‘Doctor’ travels through time and space in a machine which from the outside looks like an old British police box. The Doctor dashes through time[Read More…]
“He came, he saw and he concurred“ – Caption of a RK Laxman cartoon in early 90 s AAP’s stand on article 370 has confused and disheartened many. For its workers the party has opened itself to attacks by its adversaries because of its support to stripping of statehood for Jammu and Kashmir and thus weakening its own plank for[Read More…]
CDRO severely condemns the death of Patnaik Harijan – a 45-year-old undertrial in Kalahandi district of Odisha on August 23, 2019. The deceased, a daily wage labourer from Rengapalli village of Lanjigarh block, was declared dead at VIMSAR, Burla where he was admitted by the Bhawanipatna jail authorities in critical condition. He had been in prison since four months. He[Read More…]
I do not wish the sun to rise And I do not wish the moon to disappear The carpenter who made this bed Has done more than he could dream for Saving me from the nightmare of getting up To see what I do not wish to see And to hear what I do not wish to hear If ever[Read More…]
I use a simple formula, perhaps too simple, to teach my students the different categories of philosophical thinking. It is difficult to explain without a visual, but I will try. To begin with there are the two polar opposite ways of thinking, the Metaphysical and the Materialist, or, if one prefers, the Religious and the Scientific. The Metaphysical seeks explanations[Read More…]
Pia Klemp, the former captain of the refugee rescue ship Juventa, who together with her crew saved thousands of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea, is refusing to accept an honorary prize bestowed by the Socialist Party mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. The 36-year-old from Germany announced her decision in a post on her personal Facebook page on Tuesday. She states:[Read More…]
Resistance to corporate rule at the policy level will need to be coupled with the generation of alternatives from below, to fill the gaps left by the departing old system. The Promise and Pitfalls of Localism The fact that the language of localism is being increasingly co-opted by authoritarians around the world is itself a sign of localism’s appeal. Left[Read More…]
A decade ago several prominent climate scientists discussed the prospects of a 4C Earth. Their concern was qualified “… if greenhouse gases do not slow down, then expect a 4C Earth by 2055.”Of course, that would be catastrophic, and one can only assume those scientists must have recognized real risks. Otherwise, why address the issue of 4C by 2055 in[Read More…]
The 18 nations of the Pacific Islands Forum recently held their 50th meeting. US lackey and climate criminal Australia brought an anti-China American agenda, offered a $500 million dollar bribe (stolen and rebranded from its miniscule Aid budget), and sabotaged the consensus Forum statement on action over the worsening climate change threat to Island Nations. Humanity is existentially threatened by[Read More…]
Recent diametrically opposed responses to repression of Muslims by China, India and other Asian countries highlight deep differences among Gulf states that ripple across Asia. The different responses were evident in Gulf reactions to India’s unilateral withdrawal of Kashmir’s autonomy and Qatar’s reversal of its support of China’s brutal clampdown on Turkic Muslims in its troubled, north-western province of Xinjiang.[Read More…]
Jeff Bezos is the owner of the daily newspaper in Washington DC, the Washington Post, which leads America’s news-media and their almost 100% support of (and promotions for) neoconservatism — American imperialism, or wars. This includes sanctions, coups, and military invasions, against countries that America’s billionaires want to control but don’t yet control — such as Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia,[Read More…]
In his first speech to parliament as British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said: “Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.” Johnson reads from a well-rehearsed script. The ‘GM will feed the world mantra’ is pure industry spin. There is already enough[Read More…]
As far as Tamils are concerned the forthcoming elections [Presidential and Parliamentary] is not going to solve any of the burning problems faced by the Tamils since independence, in 1948. Since independence Tamils and Tamil leaders were betrayed, cheated by the two major political parties United National Party UNP and Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] As far as Tamils are[Read More…]
Tughlabad is a town situated in Delhi National Capital Regions. This area is not fully developed as compared to other posh localities of Delhi. Several big or small forts were built in this area during the reign of Sultan Ibrahm Lodi(1517-1526). Tughlabad is politically hot area due to the presence[Read More…]
We, concerned citizens and organizations in Odisha, are shocked and outraged at the death of Pattnaik Harijan, a resident of Rengapalli village, Lanjigarh block, Kalahandi district at the Burla Medical College Hospital while in the custody of Kalahandi jail authorities and administration. He died yesterday, Friday, August 23 when he was brought from Bhawanipatna Jail with high fever. We are[Read More…]
Energy transitions have historically taken many decades, half centuries. But now, to stay under even a 2C (and not the much safer 1.5C) global rise in temperature, greenhouse gas emissions must be halved in each of the upcoming decades. Climate change is now a sprint with heavy emission reduction needed as quickly as possible. A carbon pricing aided decarbonization where[Read More…]
Satellite imagery reveals that at least a quarter of the Amazon rainforest is on fire or covered in soot and ash across the four Brazilian Amazonian states: Amazonas, Rondônia, Mato Grosso and Pará. A combination of dry summer heat exacerbated by climate change, planned burnings and expanded deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has sparked at least 9,507 new wildfires in[Read More…]
High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest. While many of the images currently being shared on social media and by news outlets are from past fires — some from as long as 15 years ago — satellites can provide a near real-time view of what’s unfolding in the Amazon. With[Read More…]
Something is causing the worlds glaciers and mountain ice fields to melt. And, despite your first thought, it is not the ongoing climate catastrophe. It does not matter where on Earth the glaciers and mountain ice fields are located, they are all melting. Moreover, the projected timeframe for some of them to disappear altogether is ‘imminently’; that is, within years.[Read More…]
Brazil’s big commercial hub, Sao Paulo, went dark on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been to Sao Paulo in late August. It is bright. Accu-Weather quoted Brazilian meteorologist Josélia Pegorim from an O Globo interview: “The smoke didn’t come from fires in the state of Sao Paulo, but from very dense wildfires that have been happening for several days in Rondônia and Bolivia.” That[Read More…]
DemocraciaAbierta had access to PowerPoints from a meeting between members of the Bolsonaro government. The slides show that the current government intends to use the president’s hate speech to diminish the power of minorities living in the region and to implement predatory projects that could have a devastating environmental impact for the Amazon. Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro’s government[Read More…]
The Amazon is burning and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is to blame. That’s the general consensus from observers and green groups who say the right-wing firebrand’s anti-environmental policies shoulder the lion’s share of the responsibility for thousands of fires across the rainforest, known as the world’s lungs The fires, as writer Wendi Muse pointed out on Twitter, aren’t spontaneous, but[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal On 22 August, 2019 leaders of most major opposition parties demonstrated at the national protest site, JantarMantar, New Delhi, India from 11 a.m. to 1.15 p.m. The all party demonstration was organized to urge immediate release of leaders detained in J & K; to save democracy and to protect human[Read More…]
Haven’t the critics worked it out yet? US President Donald Trump chugs to the coal of nonsense that may come in the wrapping of some sense. Initial mad-cat comments, when cobbled together, might reveal some pattern in time. Take, for instance, the recent offer to purchase Greenland. Considered laughable, purchasing territories has notable, historical precedent in US foreign policy. Territorial[Read More…]
We often hear the statement, “When oil supply is lower, oil prices will rise because of scarcity.” Now, we are getting to see firsthand whether oil prices really do rise, as oil supplies become more scarce. Figure 1. Figure from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report for August 2019 showing world and OPEC oil production by month. Figure 1 shows that world[Read More…]
It used to be done regularly and it worked: The West identified a country as its enemy, unleashed its professional propaganda against it, then administered a series of sanctions, starving and murdering children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. If the country did not collapse within months or just couple of years, the bombing would begin. And the nation, totally[Read More…]
Co-Written by Bhabani Shankar Nayak & Ernesto Gallo What is happening to democracies across the globe? Neoliberalism and the rise of authoritarianism are moving together and, by dismantling social harmonies and states, are threatening democracy’s very existence. In fact they are combining and consolidating in different forms, of which three look more remarkable. First, there is the rise of nationalist[Read More…]
So far it’s been the hottest summer ever recorded — June was the hottest June, and July was the hottest month ever. France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands had their hottest days of all time, joining countries from Cuba to Vietnam and Togo to the Reunion Islands. This is dangerous for two reasons. One, it’s destroying the planet. And[Read More…]
I have yet to find the time to sit down and write a thorough response to Dan Corjescu’s last piece “On the Metaphysics of Revolution”, which was, to my mind, a gross misinterpretation of Socrates in particular, and on the evolution of revolutionary thought in philosophy in general. However, on the appearance of this, his second piece, I promised myself[Read More…]
These are strange times. A state can just get ‘obliterated’ from the map of the nation. Constitutional propriety is set aside to deprive millions of citizens of their basic human rights while a significant section of the rest of the country ‘rejoices’ over it all. A large section of the media has abandoned its role as watchdog of democracy but[Read More…]
We, the undersigned — Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, members of all marginalised communities and anti-caste allies of India — condemn the support shown by certain Dalit–Bahujan political party leaders to the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s decision of diluting Article 370 of Constitution of India through fraudulent means. Our heart goes out to the people of Kashmir who are in a confused[Read More…]
The next president should declare a Climate Emergency, which will give the president powers to act rapidly and decisively to confront the climate crisis. The president should also create a cabinet-level Office of Climate Mobilization for the coordination of all federal agencies in mobilizing the nation’s resources to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions and 100% clean renewable energy by 2030.[Read More…]
When phrases such as “the deep state” and “conspiracy theory” become staples of both the corporate mainstream media and the alternative press, we know the realities behind these phrases have outlasted their usefulness for the ruling elites that control the United States and for their critics,each of whom uses them refutably or corrobatively. These phrases are bandied about so often[Read More…]
It is well known that Mahatma Gandhi began his meetings with a all faith prayer – reciting portions from various religious texts. Gandhi was a firm believer in the idea of communal harmony. From his childhood as he used to nurse his father, he got an opportunity to listen to his father’s friends, belonging to different religions including Islam and[Read More…]
‘ Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves’ Naomi Klein from ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’ Many analysts have presented critique of the Abrogation of Article 370 and its impact on the political and social conditions but not much has been expressed about the causes of such hasty policy decisions.[Read More…]
Sometimes I do not like meeting people Whenever I do not like meeting myself Meaningless actions and meaningless words Among the multitude of meaningless people Make me feel the need to enjoy the absurdity To understand that a word in need Is just a word indeed. And when the heaven fell on earth I thought it was a dead flower[Read More…]
Israeli Jewish settlers are on a rampage in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. While settler violence is part of everyday routine in Palestine, the violence of recent weeks is directly linked to the general elections in Israel, scheduled to be held on September 17. The previous elections, on April 9, failed to bring about political stability. Although Israeli leader Benjamin[Read More…]
The early warning signals are blaring, and a disaster is in the making. It will tear the nation apart severely impairing the economic prosperity gained in the last twenty years. Terrorism in the likes of Afghanistan was never a part of India, but the conditions are ripe to give birth to it. The United States has much to lose, first[Read More…]
My candid association with Dr. Biswamoy Pati began somewhere around 2012 when I eventually settled down for social history of health and medicine as my research theme for MPhil/PhD which was met by an equally enthusiastic and generous response by Dr. Pati. Although he had taught us earlier the paper on Social History of Modern India during post-graduation, the deplorable[Read More…]
The contradiction of praxis is the eternal contradiction of Capitalism with its innate attribute of unceasing accumulation. It means opposite to what it says. It appropriated political power and established itself with the slogans of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity but its very existence depends on the contrary principles, as its prominent organic intellectual Adam Smith has aptly defined the historical progress (of[Read More…]
David B. Lauterwasser writes: Very few people today think that our global civilization is on the brink of collapse. Most of the news consist of disturbing stories on increasingly overwhelming issues that, plainly spoken, seem impossible to solve. And yet, no one even recognizes that it is collapse that’s started to unfold all around us. Only the fewest today think that[Read More…]
We feel that even if all possible sci entific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all —Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Recently I received an angry note about the persistence of religion in the modern world as proof of the world’s ongoing irrationality in response to some of my comments in my lately published article[Read More…]
Some corporations and governments have used the US public as guinea pigs in uncontrolled experiments conducted without the public’s approval. They were often gambling with our well being when they introduced new products or conducted risky tests. In contrast, there were usually few risks for the CEOs or government officials in charge of these unacknowledged experiments. If serious harm occurred,[Read More…]
We will never accept the Mark of the Beast In these times, many in the Americas and the Caribbean are giving in to geo-political fatalism. Their argument is that because we are locatedin the so-called “backyard” of the Empire, we must inevitably accept the mark of the beast. We have survived centuries of enslavement and colonialism no thanks to such[Read More…]
Co-Written by Aruna Roy and Nachiket Udupa Those of us who care for integrity, principle and constitutional values as citizens of India have a huge task ahead. When Independence was dreamt of, it must have seemed impossible “Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no[Read More…]
By CDRO AND GASS On August 18, a report titled “Corporate Loot and People’s Resistance in Niyamgiri” was released at the CDRO Convention on UAPA and other Draconian Law held in Jalandhar, Punjab. The report is an outcome of a joint fact-finding visit by a 16-member team from April 26-28, 2019 from All India Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization (CDRO)[Read More…]
Israel is actively encouraging and ready to facilitate mass emigration of Palestinians from Gaza, according to a senior government official. “Israel is ready to carry the costs of helping Gazans emigrate,” and would potentially use air force bases in Israel for that purpose, The Times of Israel reported on Monday. The unnamed official, in Kyiv as part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s delegation to Ukraine,[Read More…]
I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Fascism, Then and Now”. It can be freely downloaded from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Fascism-then-and-now-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Please circulate the link to your friends who might be interested. Parallels between fascism of the 1930’w and neo-fascism today There are many extremely worrying similarities between fascism in Europe in the 1930’s and[Read More…]
It is not just Article 370, the President’s Order has also amended Article 367, changing the substantive character of an important provision besides abolishing the entire Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir. Article 370 is meant for preserving autonomy for Jammu & Kashmir, leaving decision-making power regarding relationship with the Centre to the State’s Constituent Assembly. It is a serious limitation[Read More…]
Right-wing extremists’ politics in India has now stamped absolutely as an authentic politics in the majority expectation. Now the question is about its future concerning India as a nation laden in the cultural foundation of conservatism and purity. Does India, as a society, will be moulded through the power of right-wing politics into a single cultural system? The recent rise[Read More…]
Perhaps the immutable forces of Nature are beginning to take charge of the total food supply for human consumption. That is to say, Nature is taking control of the human food supply out of human hands where that control has resided for the past 10,000 years. There is something terrible and tragic in the course of human events that is[Read More…]
BREXIT deadline is 31 October 2019. On 23 June 2016, the British people voted 52% against 48% to leave the European Union. In England alone, the margin was somewhat higher, 53.4% for leaving the EU, against 46.6% for staying. In the meantime we know, that this result was influenced by Cambridge Analytica, the same as the Trump Presidency was apparently[Read More…]
It is an established, and a very well-known fact that Israel is a genocidal, terrorist, ethnic-cleansing colonial state. Backed by a genocidal blood-thirsty real estate elitist god (read the Old Testament/the Torah) with a racist enslaving anti-goyim supremacist and vengeful religion, similar to ISIS terrorists of today, Zionist Jewish terrorist gangs such as the Stern, the Irgun, the Palmach and[Read More…]
Socrates was the first revolutionary. He opened up with a legendary oracular search the inner space from which the individual, as we understand him today, would eventually emerge. His “daemon” was that which spoke the necessary freedom and autonomy to become what we are. His was the first lesson. His student, Plato, brought on the second movement. He postulated the[Read More…]
The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. ~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton Ideal teacher could be somebody who has empathy, understanding, patience and the ability to provide the knowledge of what student seeks in a comprehensive manner by helping him to liberate his mind. Unfortunately not many[Read More…]
Today when we tried to hold a Press Conference at the Ram Janki temple in Saryu Kunj, Vasishtha Kund, Ayodhya at 11 am at the venue of the two days meeting on communal harmony on 17-18 August, 2019, which was to be addressed by Professor Ram Puniyani, and which was not allowed to be held, to explain the purpose of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers Hong Kong is one of the most extreme examples of big finance, neoliberal capitalism in the world. As a result, many people in Hong Kong are suffering from great economic insecurity in a city with 93 billionaires, second-most of any city. Hong Kong is suffering the effects of being colonized by Britain for more than[Read More…]
Britain’s Boris Johnson is driving his country to the cliff face, along the way mouthing and spouting all manner of populist reassurances. Still fresh in the job, he declared that UK preparations for a no-deal Brexit on October 31, when Britain would leave the European Union, would receive a boost – a “turbocharge”, no less. Michael Gove, now chancellor of[Read More…]
I, Winston Smith… I mean, Tom Engelhardt… have not just been reading a dystopian novel, but, it seems, living one — and I suspect I’ve been living one all my life. Yes, I recently reread George Orwell’s classic 1949 novel, 1984. In it, Winston Smith, a secret opponent of the totalitarian world of Oceania, one of three great imperial superpowers left[Read More…]
Many lobbyists talk a lot about critics of genetic engineering technology denying choice to farmers. They say that farmers should have access to a range of tools and technologies to maximise choice and options. At the same time, somewhat ironically, they decry organic agriculture and proven agroecological approaches, presumably because these practices have no need for the proprietary inputs of the[Read More…]
On Monday August 5, 2019, Modi government abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave special autonomy status to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir; and Ladakh. The move has led to mixed reactions in India though buoyed by the Hindutva ideology the majority who no doubt sees[Read More…]
Since the arrival Modi in our political scenario in 2002, India has steadily drifted into world of “pseudo-reality”. By 2019, India has fallen deep into “the abyss of a totalitarian society”. Yet another “master-stroke” hurtling India towards disaster. The problem here is that since 1947 the UN has regarded the whole of Kashmir (held by India and Pakistan) as “disputed[Read More…]
Co-Written by Meena Miriam Yust and Arshad Khan When Chelsea Rochman at the University of Toronto and colleagues began their study on medakas (small Japanese rice paddy fish), they did not expect to find what they did. They first soaked ground-up polyethylene in San Diego Bay for three months and then fed it to these fish along with a laboratory diet. They[Read More…]
We condemn the house arrest of Advocate Mohammd Shoaib, Sandeep Pandey and other friends on 11th and 16th August, 2019 on the issue of staging one hour candle light demonstration in support of people of Jammu and Kashmir and for preventing Professor Ram Puniyani, Sandeep Panday, Rajeev Yadav, Hafeez Kidwai and others from reaching Ayodhya on 17th August, 2019 for[Read More…]
It was predictably ugly: in tone, in regret, and, in some ways, disgust. Australia emerged from the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting isolated, the true spoiler of the party which saw 17 states facing the obstinacy of one. It had taken place on Tuvalu, some two hours flight north of Fiji. The capital Funafuti is located on vanishing land; the[Read More…]
The Delhi unit of Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), no doubt, is making all cunning efforts to win the forthcoming Municipal Corporation Delhi(MCD) elections in Delhi. The BJP Delhi unit chief, Manoj Tiwari, a popular Bhojpuri singer, is inviting & cajoling all disgruntled, tired, hopeless, disloyal and corrupt Congress and Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) party erstwhile leaders in the hope to strengthen the[Read More…]
Is it because when ‘God’ created this land, with its sweeping landscapes, its proud hills, its sweet streams, its succulent figs, its crunchy grapes, its juicy oranges and its mighty olive trees he was overwhelmed with its beauty? Maybe because of all this he decided to call this land his own and, as such, plagued it or blessed it from[Read More…]
In an apparent shift in its ‘no first use of nuclear option’ doctrine, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said Friday (August 16) that while India has strictly adhered to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s doctrine of ‘No First Use’ (NFU) of nuclear weapons, “what happens in future depends on the circumstances”. In a visit to Pokhran in western India, the site of[Read More…]
The din struck by videos of the gaming variety; its forced causal link (always alleged, never proved) to altering conduct, continues its relentless march across the discussion forums in the United States and beyond. The almost casual butcheries – actual, not as opposed to digital – have gone on unabated, the next extremist taking a murderous shot at his role[Read More…]
The ethic that dehumanises dalits continues 72 years after the country’s Independence. ‘What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty,[Read More…]
What do a planned US$15 billion Saudi investment in petroleum-related Indian businesses and a controversial boxing championship have in common? Both reflect a world in which power and economics drive policy, politics and business at the expense of fundamental rights. And both underscore an emerging new world order in which might is right, a jungle in which dissenters, minorities and[Read More…]
The Standing Committee on Defence, 2017-18 of the Sixteenth Lok Sabha highlights the idea of Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured). The Committee expressed concern over the import content of equipments produced and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation, Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings because of the dependence it creates for military hardware on foreign suppliers.[Read More…]
Kashmir`s antiquity dates back to about 3000 BC, to make it contemporaneous to the Indus valley civilization. Kashmir has been a great seat of learning during the Vedic period, a part of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BC under Asoka, who founded the city of Srinagar. Srinagar is also known as ‘Paradise on Earth’. I shall not go[Read More…]
The Unlawful Activities Prevention Amendment Bill 2019 has been passed after days of deadlock between the government and the opposition parties in Rajya Sabha. The bill gives Central government the POWER to designate/tag/label individuals as terrorists on the basis of suspicion without following any formal judicial process. When designated as terrorists an individual can appeal to Union home secretary, who[Read More…]
A soul without a body was walking Wondering how much time was left in his life The corpses on the side of the road Seemed to be breathing A man with a chopped hand Was struggling to ride a bicycle Women hid their faces For the shame others have done to them The past was best to be forgotten The[Read More…]
As climate scientists raise alarm over hotter and hotter global temperatures, a top U.S. weather agency reported on Thursday that July 2019 was the hottest month the planet has ever experienced since the government began recording global temperatures nearly 140 years ago. NOAA’s monthly Global Climate Report revealed that last month the average worldwide temperature was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the average[Read More…]
Markets around the world fell yesterday in response to the biggest fall on Wall Street for the year on Wednesday, amid further indications from bond markets and production data that the global economy is moving into recession. In response to the Wall Street decline, markets in Asia fell with Japan’s Topix index down 1 percent while the Australian market dropped[Read More…]
Since several committees have recommended the creation of the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or equivalent position, here issue is not taken with the government finally getting round to creating the post. The problem is the maneuvering – amounting to musical chairs – attending the naming of its first incumbent. That the creation of the position has[Read More…]
Social activist and Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey was put under house arrest again. In a brief mail he said, ” The police arrived again today at my and advocate Mohammad Shoaib’s place to house arrest us and other activists an hour and a half before candle light demonstration at Gandhi statue, Hazratganj, Lucknow scheduled at 6 pm.” On August[Read More…]
August 12th 2018 marks the first anniversary of the death of Samir Amin, a man who, in my view, was the first, and perhaps the most prolific, global organic intellectual in history. He quite literally traversed the seven continents, meeting with local lefts wherever he could find landfall, participating in their discussions, and building from them some of the most[Read More…]
For how long will discourse on the plight of the Palestinian people be hostage to the notion that “impartial observers”, i.e., the silent majority on Israel, must be addressed in a manner that accounts for “where they are, not where we’d like them to be”? And who defines where these people are in the first place? According to Robert Cohen,[Read More…]
I have to say it doesn’t take very long for Kansas’ 1st district Rep. Roger Marshall and his staff to feel like as though they are the victims of their constituents’ concerns and not the other way around. This time it started on Sunday, August 4 with some singing and chalking on Rep. Marshall’s sidewalk. The chalking included images as[Read More…]
It is to be remembered that the late Prof. Mushirul Hasan who was born on 15th August 1949 and passed away -after four years of his serious accident- on 10th December 2018 at Delhi. At the outset, let me admit that Prof. Hasan had cherished and epitomized the rich heritage of India’s secular and plural legacy. Prof Hasan’s academic[Read More…]
Since the major aim of capitalists is to see that maximum production can be extracted from labor, exploitation of workers becomes a key factor. Ordinary workers, thus, face constant harassment, humiliation, misery and burden of work. Disabled, in addition, face alienation and abuse both from the employers as well as society. The Merriam Webster Dictionary offers two definitions of disability.[Read More…]
The manner and intent of Indian Establishment in sending of the Indian army to the Golden Temple in Amritsar on 3 June 1984 and degradation in special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir on 5 August (2019) bear a lot of similarities. Both actions were sudden and unexpected carried with excessive use of the armed forces. These two events were[Read More…]
Mid-August is when the subcontinent celebrates independence from Britain. Born in a cauldron of hate 72 years ago, India today is again filling it to the brim. In one fell swoop, Mr. Modi has denuded Kashmir of the flimsy shroud purporting to preserve its cultural and territorial integrity through articles 370 and 35A in the constitution — the latter empowering[Read More…]
It’s hard to believe that more than four years have passed since the police shot Amílcar Pérez-López a few blocks from my house in San Francisco’s Mission District. He was an immigrant, 20 years old, and his remittances were the sole support for his mother and siblings in Guatemala. On February 26, 2015, two undercover police officers shot him six times[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kamalesh Roy & Anuja Dutta For three decades now, Tirupur – a town in Tamil Nadu – has been engaged in the production of fabric and garment export business. This initiative – established as a coalition of few cotton mills – has emerged as the economic backbone of nearly four lakh workers depending on a mechanized mode of[Read More…]
On the night of broken glass he reads a poem by Faiz. Outside, someone drives under influence down a frail bridge across the river, after the rains. jo toot gaya, so toot gaya ‘Khuda Hafiz. Khuda Hafiz, Would there be salvage after the wreck?’ asks the squeaky wiper blades to the tune of filmy rain dance that fogs the pane.[Read More…]
Caste system not only intact but strengthened. People facing untouchability still a reality. Manual scavenging still prevalent despite tall claims of swachh bharat People dying of hunger Children and girls still being trafficked. Violence against women one of the dirtiest realities of our society Honor killings are nothing but preservation of caste supremacy and to terrorise the lower castes Superstition[Read More…]
Glaciers in West Antarctica have thinned and accelerated in the last few decades. A new paper provides some of the first evidence that this is due to human activities. It’s been some time since I wrote anything for RealClimate. In the interim there’s been a lot of important new work in the area of my primary research interest – Antarctica. Much[Read More…]
In front of our eyes green forests are blackened by fire, draughts turn grassy planes to brown semi-deserts,fertile fields are flooded by muddy water,white snow and ice melt to pale blue water and clear blue skies turn grey with aerosols. Preamble The inhabitants of planet Earth are in the process of destroying the habitability of their world through the perpetration[Read More…]
Socialist Freedom The workers of the world are yet to unite to accomplish their over-a-century-long pending task of overcoming what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. They have yet to move on to the phase of “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Karl Marx and[Read More…]
This essay is in regard to a crime that too often goes unmentioned when the conversations turn towards political analysis, the contemporary journalistic scene, and broader social critique: the crime of being extremely online. What does it mean to be extremely online? It mostly is as straightforward as it sounds. Generally, activities such as spending too much time on the[Read More…]
(Wisdom-King Achala: The Unshakeable) Presented here are some tales and some verses by Bhusukupa, mystic, poet, who lived in the eastern parts of the Indian subcontinent around a millennium ago. Lovers of Bangla literature remember him as the poet who wrote seven and a half poems of the Chawrjyapawd collection that contains verses that speak of the Tantric SahajaYana or[Read More…]
The word freedom has never fully revealed itself to me. When we were kids, the day off from school, or a my dad having time to take us kids for a round around the city, or my mother looking happy about not having to cook a meal because we were invited elsewhere seemed akin to what might be freedom. Before[Read More…]
I was present at this amazing, historical Press Conference at Press Club of India today afternoon, by a team just back from its Kashmir visit from August 9 to 13 with its Report on Kashmir after abrogation of Art. 370. Team consisted of Jean Dreze, economist, Maimoona Mollah, AIWDA, Kavita Krishnan, CPI- ML (Maale) and Vimal Bhai, NAPM. What was[Read More…]
We spent five days (9-13 August 2019) traveling extensively in Kashmir. Our visit began on 9 August 2019 – four days after the Indian government abrogated Articles 370 and 35A, dissolved the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated it into two Union Territories. When we arrived in Srinagar on 9 August, we found the city silenced and desolated by curfew, and[Read More…]
Writing under the title of “If the El Paso shooter had been Muslim”, Moustafa Bayoumi stated the obvious. “If the El Paso shooter had been a Muslim,” Bayoumi wrote in the British Guardian newspaper on August 6, US President Donald Trump “would be lobbing accusations such as ‘Islam hates us’ in the direction of Muslims and not lecturing the public[Read More…]
Sea level has been stable, at current levels, throughout recorded history for 5,000 years. That’s about to change. Still, it’s very difficult for people to imagine a change in sea level after 5,000 years of rock solid stability. Nevertheless, assuming sea levels do rise markedly, one of the biggest questions of the century is whether the world is prepared for[Read More…]
Choosing up teams of nations to make military alliances to wage war….we have to stop doing that. We now need one alliance, of all nations, to wage the real war against the real existential threat. Climate heating. Our global annual military spending of $2,000,000,000,000 ($2 trillion) should not be wasted on war. Climate heating is the enemy we created and[Read More…]
Australia has always nursed a contradictory, repressive relationship with its Pacific neighbours. Being a satrap of great powers, it has performed the role of gate keeper and monitor of regional instability, a condescending, often paternalistic agent. At stages, it has also entertained more direct colonial interests. For almost seven decades, Australia controlled Papua New Guinea, assuming power over the former[Read More…]
Since the removal of the US-backed Shah in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the US has enacted 4 decades of deadly hostility to Iran through sanctions and violence that can be described as a 4-decade US War on Iran. 1 million Iranians died in the 1980-1988 US-backed Iran-Iraq War and 3 million Iranians died avoidably from deprivation in 4 decades of[Read More…]
Paul Findley one of the most remarkable Congressmen that the US House of Representatives had produced since the Second World War passed away on the 9th of August 2019. He was 98 years old. He was first elected to Congress in 1960 from a district in Illinois once represented by Abraham Lincoln, his immortal hero. Findley was elected 11 times[Read More…]
Basic income, also called Universal basic income (UBI), Citizen’s income (CI), Citizen basic income, Basic income guarantee, or Universal Demogrant in different countries or regions is a capitalist reform project, a proposed periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. The income will be (i) unconditional (ii) periodical (iii) non withdrawable i.e.[Read More…]
The scene begins with a man theatrically putting on a white lab coat,matching mask and transparent protective glasses before adjusting his left glove with a dramatic snap while an array of beakers bubble in the background. The viewer then encounters an anonymous man in a white lab coat who carefully (and rather pointlessly) transfers non-descript pink liquid from one beaker[Read More…]
The current turmoil in financial markets was set off by the Trump administration’s threat to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods and its decision to label China a “currency manipulator,” following Beijing’s move to allow the renminbi to fall. The extreme volatility has prompted questions about the stability of the global financial system. But the[Read More…]
The Hong Kong International Airport resumed operations on Tuesday, a day after all flights were cancelled due to violent acts by protesters. Media reports said: Despite resumption of activities of the HK international airport, still over 200 flights in and out of China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region have been cancelled on Tuesday. Thousands of protesters rallied at the airport,[Read More…]
When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I looked to the heavens: to God and Christianity (as arbitrated by the Catholic Church) and to the soaring warbirds of the U.S. military, which I believed kept us safe. To my mind then, they were classic manifestations of American technological superiority over the godless Communists. With all its scandals, especially[Read More…]
Karl Marx’s words are resilient – history is indeed “the history of class struggles.” Not solely, because history has also been marked by gender, race, and religious struggles; but class struggles have and do shape the world we live in today. Not to see the events occurring in the world through the lens of historical class conflict between the bourgeoisie[Read More…]
Distortion of Com.T Nagi Reddy’s views is not the way to pay real homage to him How fragile is India’s Constitution, and how illusory are its claims of sovereignty, independence, democracy, secularism and socialism has been noticed repeatedly over the last 70 plus years after 1947 August. RTI and Article 370 were the most recent shocks to some people who[Read More…]
The parliament of India on 6th August put its stamp of approval on bills abrogating article 370 and downgrading the state of Jammu and Kashmir to two union territories. When the representatives of the people of India were deciding the fate of the state, the people of J&K were forced into collective house arrests. Armed forces imposed curfew like restrictions[Read More…]
Dear Prime Minister Modi, We, the undersigned civil society activists and organizations, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and academics from around the globe, write to express our deep concern regarding the recent actions your government has taken over the past week in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. The state’s unilateral repeal of the special status of Jammu & Kashmir,[Read More…]
Economist and activist Jean Dreze, who has co-authored books with Nobel laureates, such as Amartya Sen and Angus Deaton, was in the headlines for a placard he carried to a protest rally in Delhi earlier this week. His placard challenged the government’s most critical justification for its controversial move to scrap Article 35A and read down Article 370 in Jammu[Read More…]
Obama’s Unending Wars – Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Jeremy Kuzmarov. Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2019. Obama is a shining light in comparison to his two bookends, George Bush and Donald Trump. His manner is calm and focussed as he presents his ideas with well mannered rhetorical flourishes, speaking in terms of hope, peace, change,[Read More…]
I used to be a Democrat, until the majority of Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted in 2002 for George W. Bush’s 2003 catastrophic invasion of Iraq, even though everything that Bush and his Administration were alleging the invasion to be based on were mere lies, by him and his Administration. A Senator or Representative is supposed to represent the[Read More…]
I thought I knew what it meant, but I looked up the definition of insanity anyway: mentally deranged, not of sound mind; irrational [Concise Oxford Dictionary]. That is a rather broad spectrum and on more reflection includes not only Trump and his minions, but everyone else of us at least one time or another – including myself. Irrational How often[Read More…]
India’s decision to deprive Kashmir of its autonomy, alongside a clampdown in the troubled north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang and US-backed Israeli annexation of Arab land, is the latest indication of what a new world order led by civilizational leaders may look like. In dealing with recent conflicts, US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli and Indian prime ministers Benyamin Netanyahu[Read More…]
It is not just the arrogant, rich and drunken drivers who cause road crashes . Even professors in IITs, the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, tend to drive or tended to drive rashly within the campus injuring students. Dinesh Mohan, professor from IIT Delhi and the country’s foremost expert on road crashes, points out that when speed breakers were put[Read More…]
Kerala flood 2019: A view of a flood-affected region in Malappuram district on Sunday. (PTI Photo) Monsoon fury has gripped central and southern Indian States. The floods have crippled life in vast areas, affecting millions. The death toll from floods in the Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu rose to at least 150 on Sunday,[Read More…]
Rescue workers help residents after Typhoon Lekima hit the city of Linhai The death toll from typhoon Lekima in eastern China rose to 44 people on Monday morning, according to official data, as the storm continued up the coast, racking up billions of dollars in economic losses and widely disrupting travel. This is the third-largest typhoon in China’s history. Typhoon[Read More…]
Rescue workers search for bodies under debris and mud after a landslide in Mon state, Myanmar, August 10. © Thomson Reuters Foods and rain-pressed landslide are taking a heavy toll in Myanmar. Troops have been deployed to flood-hit parts of Myanmar on Sunday to help with relief efforts after rising waters left thousands stranded and the death toll from a[Read More…]
Lynching alone has not been the only fallout of making Holy cow as central to the agenda of Hindu nationalist BJP and its co travelers towards Hindu Rashtra. In the dreaded phenomenon of lynching the major victims have been the religious minorities and dalits as highlighted by in the letter of 49 eminent film and other personalities. This is just[Read More…]
From PIL Watch Group archives The PIL Watch Group strongly condemns the reprehensible act of the Indian Govt. in relation to Jammu and Kashmir set in motion on 5 August, 2019. All assurances given to the people of Kashmir by the Indian Govt. since 1947 stand withdrawn through a sleight of hand by a brute majority in Parliament; as also[Read More…]
A version of this essay was presented at the “Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial?” conference, Lund University, Sweden, May 8, 2019. The royal, prophetic, and apocalyptic traditions in the Hebrew and Christian bibles provide a compelling framework for understanding progressive intellectual and political work today, as we face the task not only of struggling to create a just and sustainable world[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flower “We oppose the extraterritorial application of unilateral measures.“ That is not Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Russia, or China talking about the most recent unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States against Venezuela, i.e. economic sanctions that have become an economic blockade, but the European Union. Even allies who have embarrassed themselves by recognizing the[Read More…]
Faction: a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. James Madison Never has the word “conspiracy” been spoken so easily. Never has the[Read More…]
Within minutes of news about his death in a Manhattan jail cell Saturday morning, theories spread with pestilential vigour. Was Jeffrey Epstein murdered? Accepting the premise without qualification, the next question followed: Who did it? MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was not giving anyone time to wonder. “A guy who had information that would have destroyed rich and powerful men’s lives[Read More…]
Call it a summer whim or something about this grim moment of ours, but I had an urge to post at TomDispatch my very first piece of published writing. It appeared 48 years ago in what was, at the time, one of the more obscure journals on the face of the Earth, one I helped found as a then-antiwar-China-scholar-to-be: the Bulletin of Concerned Asian[Read More…]
Sacred Games-2 is slated to begin from August 15 on Netflix Cinema is the worst form of expression, and particularly more so, when we are bombarded with over 400 hours of news, real news, enacted news in our 24 hours, round the year, which has rendered an ordinary citizen gasping. Even real time wars, street to street battles and massacres[Read More…]
The poem is based on a brief observational study done by my team and I on the Pirana landfill site in Ahmedabad. The poem is meant as a satirical take on the social and environmental repercussions of landfill sites, and our attempts to not acknowledge the same. It is intended not to preach, but provoke individuals to take cognizance of[Read More…]
Social activist and Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey and his activist wife Arundhati Dhuru were put under house arrest in Lucknow on Sunday to prevent them from holding a protest dharna against the revocation of article 370 and communication blockade in Jammu and Kashmir. The proposed protest ‘Stand for Kashmir’ was to be held on Sunday evening at the GPO[Read More…]
With Pilar Viviente, Gary Corseri and some esteemed friends Photo: “A Tower of Understanding”. By Pilar Viviente, Venice, 2019 “Life can certainly throw us some hardballs, that’s for sure! But that is the thing about life—unfathomable, mysterious, beautiful and ugly all on one plate, one sitting, one incarnation.” — Antonio C. S. Rosa “Nous sommecomme des nainsjuche sur des epaules[Read More…]
A friend had asked– What about gender discrimination in the valley? Can you guarantee that after Kashmiris are given Azaadi, violence against women would stop in the region?” The questions presume that Indians troops are occupying Kashmir because of Kashmiri-driven discrimination against women. Those new in the feminist theory would fall in the trap set by the Indian state and[Read More…]
“UrfeAalo” a play by Whistle Blower Theatre group, forces its audience to confront the harsh reality of manual scavenging – an occupation which is no less oppressive than bonded labor. It talks about Nilesh, a Valmiki trying to get out of the caste imposed occupation. Nilesh while in school was associated with a theatre group for social awareness, and he[Read More…]
Rainforests are a crucial feature of Earth’s biosphere. Apart from being critical to Earth’s climate and vital carbon sinks, the major player in Earth’s hydrological (water) cycle, a massive producer of oxygen and home to most of the world’s species, rainforests are the home of a large indigenous human population. They are also the source of many vital resources, including[Read More…]
Text and Photos by Andre Vltchek Most of the people in the West or in North Asia usually never think about it, but Southeast Asia is one of the most depressed and depressing parts of the world. It has been through genocides, wars and atrocious military regimes. Then, those monstrous income disparities. According to The Bangkok Post, in 2018,“the 10%[Read More…]
Imagine just for a moment, the World would stand up in unison, sick and tired of the aggressive killer arrogance of the United States and her vassals – and their joint war-force called NATO – and this World, our World, what’s left of it when you deduct Washington and its Brussels allies, would at once block every shipment of everything[Read More…]
A ghazal for all Kashmiris and In Memoriam Agha Shahid Ali Soldiers have died in vain and will again. Lovers have kissed in rain and will again. Neighbors dispute, tragically lose all calm. Nations have split in twain and will again. Beauty gives power to hurt or heal with balm. Passion brings exquisite pain and will[Read More…]
Currently there are celebrations in sections of Indian society and there is a pall of gloom in Kashmir. On Tuesday 5th August (2019), by a Presidential order Article 370 has been revoked along with article 35 A. Interestingly the citizens of Kashmir, the traders of Kashmir scattered in different parts of the country are under immense tension about the well[Read More…]
“Maine aisa Hindustan kabhi nahin dekha!” In six words, Farooq Abdullah may have captured the trauma and acute sense of betrayal of his people. The three-time chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir broke down like a child during a media interaction at his Srinagar residence. The National Conference leader and son of the late Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir,[Read More…]
Sabarmati is reminiscent of the times of Mahatma Gandhi who set up his Ashram on its banks. Today, the Sabarmati river reminds us of the ambitious riverfront project taken up by our Prime Minister, which resulted in a stretch of glistening yet stagnant water. The lesser noticed river stretch downstream is no more than a channel that carries sewage from[Read More…]
NEW DELHI, August 10: Today, Ms. Anuradha Bhasin, the Executive Editor of Kashmir Times, has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India seeking directions to ensure that the State creates an enabling environment for journalists and all other media personnel in all parts of Jammu and Kashmir to practise their profession, and that the debilitating restrictions imposed[Read More…]
Many years ago, in the 1970’s I remember seeing a Russian tractor. India used to have a bilateral trade agreement with the USSR by which we bought all kinds of goods from Russia and paid for them in Indian Rupees, whereby we were able to conserve our meagre foreign exchange. You can read more about that agreement here http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1953/16.html Russia bought[Read More…]
Mondoweiss, a progressive Jewish media, Friday published a researched article by Zainab Ramahi, a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law, comparing the struggle of the people of Kashmir and Palestine. Zainab Ramahi argues that reviewing the literature on the Indian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and its origins, it is not hard to draw the connection to Israel’s[Read More…]
Numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts conclude that the US Government was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed) with some asserting Israeli and Saudi involvement, but US-beholden Western Mainstream media are united in blind belief in the official version of mendacious George Bush. However resolutely ignored is the UNODC report that 0.6 million people die[Read More…]
The Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in Disturbed Areas Act, 1986 (Government would have passed another bill in Lok sabha while you read the names) or in short, Disturbed Areas Act 1986, was meant to arrest the distress sale of assets in the areas frequently affected by communal[Read More…]
The step of Narendra Modi government on August 5, abrogating the Article 370 of Jammu and Kashmir, is going to alter the internal and external politics of the country for at least the next fifty years. Congress, PDP, NC, JKPC and the entire opposition was caught unawares, but perhaps, the Modi government started to prepare for it, as it took[Read More…]
In the name of family We destroy the same In the name of peace We build wastelands Imagine, please, imagine please do A little girl at your bosom Imagine, please, imagine please do A young boy laughing loud The warmth of embrace The exuberance of dawn The deep love and grace Forever now gone Joy knows no home Absolute and[Read More…]
Federal District Judge Anthony Trenga rejected a motion Monday from imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning to reconsider the imposition of daily fines for her principled refusal to testify before a grand jury impaneled to bring frame-up charges against WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange. Manning has been held in contempt of court for 149 days in the Alexandria City Jail. She[Read More…]
Terror grips the most militarized zone in the world after India’s Central Government terminated Jammu and Kashmir’s 70-year-old “special status” as the first step towards stripping the disputed region of statehood entirely. Internationally infamous as the world’s hottest potential nuclear flashpoint, J&K originally acceded to India in 1947 only on the condition that the newly-formed country be restricted from interfering[Read More…]
Hong Kong is hot with protests, and with a photo of foreign diplomats and protest leaders. Media reports said: Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said on Friday only departing passengers with travel documents will be allowed to enter the terminal as anti-government activists gear up for a three-day rally to raise awareness among tourists entering the city. The move comes as[Read More…]
One afternoon in New York City in the spring of 1964, I marched at the head of a small civil rights demonstration, one of the few white people in the group. I was carrying a watermelon. It was a Dick Gregory joke. To say the least, not everyone liked that joke, but I thought it was hilarious, a jab by[Read More…]
By A Proud Member of the NRA Ever notice how people who don’t own guns never shoot anyone? You have to wonder about people like that. I mean, they don’t feel the need for even a little girly handgun to defend themselves and their wives and sweet innocent children from criminals and riff raff, and Mexican rapists sneaking over the[Read More…]
Shi Jiangtao, a former diplomat writing in the South China Morning Post, says a fresh row between Beijing and New Delhi over India’s decision to split the hotly contested region of Kashmir into two territories could cast fresh uncertainty over bilateral ties amid signs of growing strategic competition. Parts of Kashmir are claimed by the two regional giants as well[Read More…]
In an unprecedented move to fulfill its manifestoed promises, the Central Government has, through a Presidential Order, rendered Article 370 of the Indian Constitution inoperative ipso facto. While the frenzy of netizens has hailed it as a firm footing towards full integration of the state of Jammu & Kashmir into the Union of India, certain legal infirmities could pose a[Read More…]
The majority-minority cleavages seem to be sharper in democracies than in other systems. Ever since the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 (9/11), Muslims all over the world are ‘under siege’. That’s how the Pakistani-American sociologist Akbar Ahmed titled his book Islam Under Siege (2003). He could see how the tide[Read More…]
Pastorals from across the country meeting in Gujarat GOPNAAD, ‘Mera’ village, Becharaji, Mehsana, Gujarat: ‘It is the high time to reestablish the contribution of pastorals for sustainability of the environment, in the context where humanity has reached a verge of crisis’. With this as the central objective, pastorals from 15states in India are meeting to mobilize themselves on 10-11 August[Read More…]
August 9, 2019 is the 77th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, famously known as the August Revolution and an important milestone in the history of India’s freedom movement. The 75th anniversary of this movement, a movement which was fuelled by the intense desire for freedom of the Indian people, was celebrated two years ago on 9 August 2017. On[Read More…]
The dedicated journal Countercurrents.org has sustained for almost two decades. Writers and readers from all parts of the world have appreciated the relevance of this crucial effort. After an experience of two decades of social journalism, Countercurrents.org has decided to get involved in the production of books with a difference, through a venture titled ‘Imagination Unlimited’. The rationale for this[Read More…]
Amnesty International (AI) has urged travelers to be cautious amid a “human rights crisis” which it blames on “ubiquity of firearms” and U.S. government reluctance to confiscate them. It is a historic development regarding the U.S., because it was the U.S., which regularly issue travel warnings to its citizens visiting other countries. The AI aims to hold up a mirror[Read More…]
As per the decision the present day government took in the Parliament on 5 August 2019 the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir accorded under Article 370 of the Constitution of India has ended. The Article 35A also has ceased to exist. Consequently Jammu and Kashmir will no longer be even a full-fledged state. The entire area[Read More…]
The euphoria in the country over the Kashmir situation is just another pointer of the diabolic nature of our species. The population is rejoicing over the revoking of Article 370 and Article 35a, calling it a much awaited move and appreciating the gutsy attitude of this Government. The covert and horrendous means used to achieve this end are termed as[Read More…]
Co-Written by Rahul Pandey and Sandeep Pandey In a single stroke of decisions, the Indian government has revoked Articles 370 and 35A, bifurcated J&K into J&K and Ladakh, and reduced their status to Union Territories. While there are questions about the legal soundness of these decisions, their moral illegitimacy lies in the fact that none of the stakeholders in J&K[Read More…]
On July 29, 4-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was reportedly summoned for interrogation by the Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem. The news, originally reported by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), was later denied by the Israeli police, likely to lessen the impact of the PR disaster that followed. The Israelis are not denying the story in its entirety, but are rather arguing that it was[Read More…]
On the day after America’s weekend shooting rampage that killed 31 people and wounded dozens more in El Paso and Dayton, president Trump told the nation in a 10-minute address, what he sees as the causes of and cures for gun violence in the U.S. As causes, he mentioned: “Racism, bigotry and white supremacy” adding, “These sinister ideologies must be[Read More…]
The US is in the midst of an epidemic of mass killings. In the 215 days so far this year, the US has seen 252 mass shootings – an average of more than one a day. The reasons why this is happening are pretty obvious: too many guns, inadequate gun laws, a culture of militarism that glorifies violence, misogyny, and[Read More…]
Ablikim Yusuf, a 53-year old Uyghur Muslim seeking a safe haven from potential Chinese persecution, landed this week in the United States, his new home. But Mr. Yusuf’s perilous search that took him from Pakistan to Qatar to Bosnia Herzegovina where was refused entry and back to Qatar highlighted China’s inability to enforce its depiction of the brutal clampdown on[Read More…]
Flaws in Indian education system have been discussed at length by various analysts and root causes have also been pointed out. Still, the situation has not improved. Marginalised sections find difficult to pursue higher study even though some of them successfully clear entrance exam and enter reputed institutes like IITs and IIMs. Drop- outs The surge in enrollment of dalits[Read More…]
The abrogation of Article 370 that binds India to Jammu and Kashmir by the current BJP government has come as a rude shock to those who believed in the famous slogan “Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat, Insaniyat” as a road map to tackle the problems of alienation in the restive state north of India. The BJP government with a sledge hammer of brute[Read More…]
Is tweaking of Babasaheb’s iconic slogan — Educate, Organise, Agitate — by the Gujarat government part of a pan-India phenomenon in the saffron camp? Does anyone still remember the ‘re-editing’ of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi during National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-I period when demands were raised that it should to be scrapped and the original collected works should to be reinstated so that readers/scholars[Read More…]
Greenland is one of the biggest targets for global warming, in part, because it’s so big it’s hard to miss.And sure enough, only recently crazy halting weather with inordinate hot temperature hit Greenland bull’s-eye, dead-on with one helluva meltdown. That’s bad news for pretty much everybody on the planet. On the hottest days, the melt-off could fill 3 million Olympic-sized[Read More…]
Dear oh dear Ilhan We see you in our sleep We see you when awake We hear you in all of our being There is nothing like a voice That wavers never at all There is nothing like the strength Of dignity withal Please don’t ever tire Your energies should never wane Stay vigilant dear Ilhan You bless us with[Read More…]
When it comes to heat, extreme weather, wildfires, and melting glaciers, the planet is now in what the media increasingly refers to as “record” territory, as climate change’s momentum outpaces predictions. In such a situation, in a country whose president and administration seem hell-bent on doing everything they conceivably can to make matters worse, the Green New Deal (GND) seems to offer at[Read More…]
Today, we are in the grip of a globalised system of capitalism which drives narcissism, domination, ego, anthropocentrism, speciesism and plunder. A system that is using up oil, water and other resources much faster than they can ever be regenerated. We have poisoned the rivers and oceans, destroyed natural habitats, driven wildlife species to (the edge of) extinction and have altered[Read More…]
Every year there is shortfall of rain in South India, Karnataka & Tamil Nadu which share Cauvery river water, go into crisis mode. The dispute is primarily because the total water demand exceeds the total water available in the Cauvery basin. Each year, with less water available and increasing demand, the demand-driven dispute becomes more fierce. Beyond Cauvery India, with[Read More…]
One may ask why we still think it important to understand the theories and practices of those who came to power in Russia in 1917 and those who have governed for some three quarters of a century with falsehood marking the entire course of the regime’s rise and demise – November 7, 1917 to December 26, 1990. It matters vitally[Read More…]
The final battle to the nation’s most vexed problem Ramjanambhumi/Babri Masjid title suit, which has bogged the country from the past seven decades, has started from onwards to August 6th, on the basis of a day-to-day hearing, which means i.e. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in a constitution bench at the Supreme Court of India headed by Chief Justice of[Read More…]
The United States is trying to build up coalition for its Gulf expedition. The world power is finding a few friends while a few of its friends are not feeling easy with joining the war-coalition and the world power is facing problems in building up the war axis. Media reports said: U.S. allies feel ‘ashamed’, say Zarif The U.S. is[Read More…]
It is clear that the United Kingdom could not have thought this through. Was it a touch of the Suez jitters, the haunting syndrome of 1956 leaving a false impression that the Old Empire still had it? To taunt a power already under the watchful and punitive eye of the United States was never a recipe for equanimity and calm[Read More…]
![Fire and smoke billowing from Norwegian-owned Front Altair tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Sea of Oman on June 13, 2019 [Credit: ISNA]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Front-Altair-tanker-200x150.jpg "Whose Gulf is it anyway? 556")
The Persian Gulf with its Strait of Hormuz is considered the vital area for the global economy because it is the main marine corridor for oil tankers. Free and safe navigation for oil tankers are of utmost importance and are guaranteed by international laws. Throughout history of the Gulf its navigation was threatened only twice; once during the late 1980s[Read More…]
Russia, backed by China, hoping to exploit mounting doubts in the Gulf about the reliability of the United States as the region’s sole security guarantor, is proposing a radical overhaul of the security architecture in an area that is home to massive oil and gas reserves and some of the world’s most strategic waterways. Chinese backing for Russia’s proposed collective[Read More…]
A case in the backyard The city of Ahmedabad has grown to become one of the finest in country. The economic progress of the state has often been publicized across the country as something that other states should strive for. And it often feels so. The state has a remarkable growth strategy to boast of. It ranks high in terms[Read More…]
The PUCL condemns the abrogation of key portions of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and the bifurcation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and taking away its statehood. While the deed by itself is deceitful, the manner in which it was done is even more so. All the constitutional provisions, procedures, safeguards and values have been disregarded. What[Read More…]
Has civilization taught us to be more friendly towards one another? Asked Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and intellectual and explains further: …Within the herd we are more friendly to each other than are many species of animals, but in our attitude towards those outside the herd, in spite of all that has been done by moralists and religious teachers,[Read More…]
Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center, has warned that Indian Prime Minister Narenra Modi’s sudden move in Kashmir could backfire badly. “Sure enough, on Aug. 5, India announced that it plans to revoke Article 370, a constitutional clause dating back to 1949 that gives Jammu and Kashmir its special autonomous status. The scale of this move cannot[Read More…]
National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) unequivocally condemns the indefensible and totalitarian move of the BJP-led NDA Govt. to repeal Article 370 of the Constitution by way of a Presidential Order and introduce a Bill for bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, not only without but seemingly in violation of the consent of the[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a cartoonist, film maker and writer. SIGN UP FOR COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWS LETTER
If any confirmation was needed Narendra Modi is determined to cast himself as a carbon copy of Indira Gandhi- albeit one with a venomous, communal edge – you need not look further than his latest Kashmir gamble. There is true ‘Indira-style’ audacity written all over his regime’s decision to scrap the special status given to the Himalayan state under the[Read More…]
July 28 is the death anniversary of the of veteran communist leader Tarimala Nagi Reddy, known and called by comrades as com. TN. He was a lifelong fighter for the revolutionary program he has committed and dreamed of. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, he attracted hundreds of cadres towards the Communist movement in the process of carrying out his[Read More…]
The U.S. is planning escalation of its war program in Asia. There is news on its plan to deploy missile in Asia. The move will increase tension in the continent amid threat of new arms race. The U.S. is hoping to deploy new ground-based intermediate-range missiles to Asia “sooner rather than later,” U.S. defense chief Mark Esper said of a[Read More…]
There are stories that are unrelated to the news, but can explain much better than many combat reports, why people like meare fighting against the Empire and imperialism, with such determination and vehemence. Not all stories are ‘big’ or ‘heroic’; not all include famous people or iconic struggles. Not all take place onbattlefields. But they ‘humanize’ the struggle. Once in[Read More…]
The president of US has shown the world how racist he and his great nation have fallen from grace. He attacked four progressive congresswomen of color from the Democratic Party whom he directed his ugly, vicious, and vile vitriol at: Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Talaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MAS). “On Sunday evening, he initiated an attack[Read More…]
Article 368 of the Constitution of India is titled ‘Power of Parliament to amend the Constitution and procedure thereof’. Clauses 1 and 2 of the same state: “Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, Parliament may in exercise of its constituent power amend by way of addition, variation or repeal any provision of this Constitution in accordance with the procedure laid down[Read More…]
In June, I delivered a keynote presentation on Australia’s vulnerability to climate change and our policy challenges at the annual meeting of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the main conference for those working in the climate science community. I saw it as an opportunity to summarise the post-election political and scientific reality we now face. As one of the[Read More…]
I An anniversary falls today, Which most of us ignore, Though thousands were just burned away: Birth of atomic war. In summer, 1945, Near end of WWII, When most of us were not alive, A nightmare became true. On Monday morning, August 6, At 8:15 a.m. Enola Gay performed some tricks Of nuclear mayhem. A monster[Read More…]
A number of commentators have linked the killing of 20 people at a Walmart store in El Paso in the United States of America on Saturday 3rd August 2019 to the rising tide of White Supremacism. White Supremacism is a belief that whites are superior to others and therefore have a right to dominate them. There were elements of such[Read More…]
Recently, I was browsing through a bunch of articles when one headline in the New York Times caught my attention. It read “How to disclose a disability to your employer (and whether you should?)”. My first response was to ignore it on the grounds of being ignorant and inconsiderate. A closer introspection, though, led me to the conclusion that the report[Read More…]
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” -Nelson Mandela On 12th June 2019, ILO celebrated 100 years of promoting help and social justice to labor and their family. On this day, ILO defined one of their sustainable development goals as global commitment to eradicate child labor aligning with[Read More…]
In times when the nation treats the public universities as liabilities, we should be crystal clear in demarcating: what is a university and what it is not? A university is not a factory that processes raw materials and brings out finished products. It cannot be reduced into a laboratory that conducts experiments to come up with the desired result. It[Read More…]
Celebrate, Celebrate the Independence Day While Munch-like screams explode Like fireworks lighting the night sky Silent, vociferous, full of angst Unable to speak Bleak, bleak, bleak. Oh, the cruelty of life! The anger and strife Guernica revisited each time. This is not just about soldiers who die. But about all those who silently cry For a dozen different whys? A[Read More…]
At the stroke of the midnight hour on 5 August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir was blanketed in a state of siege. 35,000 fresh troops in addition to the existing 6.5 lakhs were present with orders to shoot, curfew, internet and phone shut down, media black out, and all major elected leaders under house arrest. Already, there was escalated aggression over[Read More…]
The agenda is clear. Whip up frenzy and sentiments outside Kashmir for the ‘bold’ decision on it. The celebrations on the street look as if you have ‘occupied’ a territory and the way responses are coming they reflect how much divisions we have created in this country. Right and wrongs are now clearly based on your religious identity. The decision[Read More…]
Apparently taking que from Israeli policy to implant Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government Monday (August 5) revoked the special status of Jammu Kashmir under articles 35A and 370 of the constitution which forbid Indians from outside the region from buying land or permanently settling in the Muslim-majority territory.By repealing Article 370 of[Read More…]
In this post, I will attempt to break down the constitutional changes to Article 370, and highlight some key legal issues surrounding them. In essence, to understand what has happened today, there are three important documents. At the heart of everything is Presidential Order C.O. 272, which constitutes the basis for everything that follows. The second is a Statutory Resolutionintroduced in the[Read More…]
People in Venezuela shall defend the Bolivarian Revolution. To defend the land, the people are prepared for battle. This is the promise by the people in the land the revolution is moving forward with its transforming process. Therefore, Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has said: Venezuela is “prepared for battle” if the US imposes quarantine. “We are all prepared[Read More…]
Hundreds of mothers, students and other volunteers demanding action on gun control marched on the White House and the Capitol on the heels of the deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas on Saturday. Several other similar protest demonstrations were also held across the U.S. Members of activists group Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action organized the march. The protesters[Read More…]
The government of India has abolished the special status given through the constitution to Kashmir through a presidential order. Home Minister Amit Shah informed parliament that Article 370 has been abolished with the President signing an order that comes into effect “at once.” The government has also said it wants parliament to clear a proposal that bifurcates the state of[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump is a master of the withdrawal method. That said, it is often forgotten that the United States remains that most fickle of creatures, joining, or abandoning international regimes that might be seen to jar with the national interest. Initial preparations for such global arrangements tend to be initially optimistic, even rosy. Eager to draft a suitable[Read More…]
Co-Written by Nia Harris, Cassandra Stimpson, and Ben Freeman A Marilyn has once again seduced a president. This time, though, it’s not a movie star; it’s Marillyn Hewson, the head of Lockheed Martin, the nation’s top defense contractor and the largest weapons producer in the world. In the last month, Donald Trump and Hewson have seemed inseparable. They “saved” jobs at a helicopter plant.[Read More…]
There could not have been a better choice than Ravish Kumar for this year’s Magsaysay Award. Ravish has demonstrated exemplary courage in questioning the sectarian, communal, jingoistic and irrational politics which has dominated the narrative in this country over the last five years when one by one most of the saner voices were made to disappear, some made compromises or[Read More…]
Theatre and India share a long relationship dating 5000 years ago. The earliest form of theatre was Sanskrit theatre. Bharata’s ‘Natya Shastra’ was the one of the earliest play enacted in India. Indian theatre was heavily influenced by the people who ruled over the country. During the Islamic rule in the country, theatre was mostly forbidden throughout the nation. However,[Read More…]
Judgement by Anonymous Before God’s footstool to confess A poor soul knelt, and bowed his head; “I failed,” he cried. The Master said, “Thou didst thy best—that is success!” It was December 1980. I was sitting on the veranda of my house in Guyana. It was about 9.00 pm, dark, balmy evening in the tropics. As usual on most days in[Read More…]
I cannot speak anymore the language of my oppressors. My memory gradually corroded by a billion ants folds into itself. I cannot think anymore, my eyes are vacant, perpetually wandering. I’m defenceless as ever, I put my papers in place and patiently await my turn at the guillotine for them to press the button, for them to cut off my[Read More…]
TB is preventable, treatable and curable. Science shows how can we effectively prevent, accurately diagnose, treat with effective regimen, and eventually cure TB. But are not we failing to translate scientific wisdom in public health gains? How can we explain over 10 million new cases of TB and 1.6 million TB deaths (including 300,000 TB deaths among people living with[Read More…]
“ Keeping trust is glorious, and breaking trust is disgraceful..” In a move straight out of George Orwell’s famous 1984, China is in the process of implementing a nationwide “Social Credit Check System.” It is a national reputation system aimed towards standardizing China’s citizens’ and businesses’ reputation or ‘Social Credit”. This system will be implemented by gathering information through mass[Read More…]
The number of tribal movements across the country has surgedand the tribal people are starting to gain the confidence to raise their voice against getting exploited. The landmark judgments like Vedanta-Dongria Kondh verdict has given them this confidence. The tribal communities are strongly associated with their land, culture and ethnicity and most of their struggles happen against institutions which try[Read More…]
Academic year of 2019 – 20 begun in June – July. Multiple educational reforms are implemented by state and central governments in India. Kerala is inter alia a topper state in India in respect of literacy having 96 percentage in 2018. It has been striving for achieving sheer and comprehensive literacy rate in coming years. However higher educational achievements of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Meena Miriam Yust and Arshad M. Khan The practice of recycling has everything to commend it: On a finite planet, it conserves resources; it is meretricious allowing us, as it does, to pin a mental merit badge on our chests as we ready the assigned recycling bin once a week; and it is an activity that is all[Read More…]
Philosopher Hannah Arendt found common causes of genocidal Western European imperialism on 5 continents and genocidal 20th century fascism as an alliance between the mob and capital, with a commonality in this union of extreme nationalism, lying, rapacity, atrocity-justifying racism and anti-humanism. Today American Trumpism is ferociously anti-intellectual, anti-humanist, nationalist and racist, with genocidal Trump threats to “totally destroy” or[Read More…]
(This is originally a speech by journalist Ravish Kumar , winner of the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award.) What was once considered unacceptable and unethical in the public domain has been made entirely acceptable and ethical by the mainstream media in the last five years. Not only is the media celebrating existing immoralities, it is also scaling new heights of impropriety. Crudity[Read More…]
Rare are the occasions when the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) — which could be said to be the biggest organisation of Hindu men — moves beyond its founder member Dr Hedgewar to build memorials. Whatever might be the consideration behind it, but it came as a little surprise that the RSS has decided to start a school in the memory[Read More…]
I want to share one of the incidents that I encountered recently. But before that, I would like to set the context. I am a student at IIM Ahmedabad (PGP 2). As a part of my curriculum, I have taken a course called TSM (Transformational Social Movement) where we have been taught about many social movements by our professor, Dr.[Read More…]
[Source: gaylaxymag.com] Last month, while researching on Sex Worker’s rights movements in India for an academic project, I came across some extremely disturbing incidents mentioned by VAMP (Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad) and other online articles describing the plight of Sex Worker’s in our country. One of the most glaring incidents mentioned by them was of a sex worker with speech[Read More…]
At a very young age, I learned about gender inequality that pervades our society. I was just six when my sister was born and my elation knew no bounds. However, I was bewildered that my sister was not welcomed with excitement and enthusiasm by some. Back then, I wasn’t able to comprehend the mocking gibes made by the conservative sundry[Read More…]
Education is often used as a parameter to measure the development of a country. It is the fundamental right of every human that makes them empowered, assists in growth and enables better decision making for them individually as well as for the nation as a whole.However, these benefits presumethe existence of a sound education system. Since children represent that segment[Read More…]
It is a measure of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru that the BJP ideologues and their followers can’t stop referring to them, no matter how idiotically and venally they do so. To blame Nehru for everything – as is the wont if these demagogues – is to imbue him with the absolute power that indeed he never[Read More…]
Washington formally scrapped the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty Friday, bringing the world a major step closer to nuclear war. The treaty, signed over 30 years ago by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, banned a whole class of weapons that had placed the world on a hair trigger for a nuclear conflict. Both countries agreed to[Read More…]
There was something or everything so very extraordinarily different to Khushwant Singh that even after five years of his passing away he holds sway. At the recently concluded Khushwant Singh Literary Festival at King’s College, London, it got more than apparent that the man’s views and viewpoints were of great significance. Perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss to state that he[Read More…]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10139739/Nelson-Mandela-the-orator-his-most-powerful-speeches.html “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” These are one of the most famous words of a leader who is looked up everywhere with the highest of regards- NELSON MANDELA. How his solidarity with the Palestinian struggle is related to his own legacy of struggling against Apartheid is a little tricky[Read More…]
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” – Kofi Annan According to the Right to Education act, “Every child within the age group of 6 to 14 must be provided with free and compulsory education.” The act came into the referendum in the year 2001 to increase the[Read More…]
The UAPA bill has been ultimately passed by the Rajya Sabha yesterday. UAPA refer to Unlawful Activities Prevention Act under which the Central government has got a right to ‘designate’ an individual as a terrorist. While there is no immediate threat to arrest, the person will have to appeal to the government with in forty days of his/her name appearing[Read More…]
With quarter of world’s population infected with latent TB (not active TB disease), and in the light of scientific fact that every new case of active TB disease comes from this pool of population infected with latent TB, the writing on the wall is clear: we cannot put TB prevention on the blindspot anymore if we are to eliminate TB[Read More…]
Paresh Chattopadhyay once visited me at my rented residence after we launched our party, the World Socialist Party (India) here in Calcutta (now Kolkata), 1-3 March 1995. He listened to my long speech via audio cassette of Bishnupur public meeting and highly appreciated it. After a detailed discussion he agreed to send articles in the event we published a journal[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sandeep Pandey and Sanjay Singh A fact to which the press, and by extension the public, did not pay much attention was when Narendra Modi, serving Chief Minister of Gujarat, came to New Delhi in 2014 to take oath as Prime Minister, he used Adani’s aircraft. The implication of it only now dawns on us as Adani emerges[Read More…]
Towards a better democracy that can overcome unethical polity brewing in Karnataka that is ready to submerge the rest of India Some times good things come out in crisis situations. Won’t it be great if a way towards better and more democratic governance could bloom out of the current constitutional crisis in Karnataka. We need not go into the crisis[Read More…]
Global mean warming / cooling rates over the last 2,000 years. In red are the periods (each across 51 years) in which the reconstructed temperatures increased. Global temperatures decreased in the periods in blue. The green line shows that the maximum expected warming rate without anthropogenic influence is just under 0.6 degrees per century. Climate models (dashed orange line) are[Read More…]
There is a Canadian federal election on the horizon. The campaigning has already begun. I’m a long time climate activist who thinks that you should know a very important perspective on climate change and, in particular, mitigation strategies in Canada (election issue). But what I have to tell you is out of the box, outside the Overton Window, heretical;[Read More…]
Their lives can help us today I would like to announce the publication of a book describing the lives of some of the people who have contributed importantly to economic thought. Their lives can help us today, as the world faces a crisis that has both economic dimensions. The book can be freely downloaded from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Lives-in-economics-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The[Read More…]
On July 23, Emyra Wajapi, a leader of Wajapi indigenous tribe, was allegedly killed by the garmipeiros or the gold miners in Northern Brazil in the Amazon Forest. Three days later, around 50 garmipeiros invaded the 600,000-hectare Wajapi indigenous reserve in the state of Amapa. The garmipeiros were armed with automatic rifles and shotguns and they threatened the villagers. The[Read More…]
Facts force out myths. The following facts narrate condition of a part of teachers, students and an education system in a society that overflows with resources. A survey of teachers, 1,038 in total, from 45 US states, conducted in July 6-10, 2019, found: Ninety-six percent of teachers surveyed pay for school supplies for their students. (Fishbowl, “96 percent of teachers[Read More…]
The government of Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria is accused of violence, brutality and gross violation of Human Rights. Since he grabbed power in 1983 through a military coup, imprisonment, torture and kidnappings have become the tools to silence his critics. His main targets of political imprisonments have been students, journalists, human rights activists and clerics alike. While he continues to[Read More…]
There is a venom in international refugee policy that refuses to go away: officials charged with their tasks, passing on their labours to those who might see the UN Refugee Convention as empty wording, rather than strict injunction carved upon stone. They have all become manifest in the policy of deferral: humanitarian problems are for others to solve. We will[Read More…]
Ever since Imran Khan became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018, the winds have changed. While his predecessors, though generally leaning eastwards, have often wavered between the US and the China orbit, Khan is in the process of clearly defining his alliances with the east, in particular China. This is for the good of his country, for[Read More…]
PREFACE TO MY RUSSIAN BOOK I am Russian. That’s how I feel and therefore, that’s what I am. I was born in Russia, in the Soviet Union – in what was and still is a stunningly beautiful city on the Neva River called Leningrad. For some reason, out of the almost 20 books that I have written, only 2[Read More…]
Post independence Sri Lanka brought in several official dispositions that gave preference to the Sinhalese majority. The Sinhala Only Act introduced by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1956, for example, recognized Sinhalese as the only official language of the country. The 1950s also saw the launching of several development projects by[Read More…]
Along rivers prone to overflowing, people sometimes talk of preparing for a 100-year flood — a dangerous surge of muddy, debris-filled water so overwhelming it appears only once a century. In our political world, we are now seeing a 100-year flood of toxic debris. The sludge washing ashore includes President Trump’s continuing cries of “fake news!” and “traitors”; his rage[Read More…]
Baltimore, Oh Baltimore You have things on your mind You have children to feed and trees to tend You have ties that strongly bind No fool, no demagogue, no trickster Could ever fool you deep No hateful and crude cad Should make you cringe or weep You rise when hate is strong Your daughters and sons see clear Baltimore, Oh[Read More…]
Why three Chief Ministers- Biju Patnaik (Odisha), K Chandrasekhar Rao (Telangana) and Y S Jaganmohan Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) have shown greater loyalty to NDA than the NDA Chief Ministers in helping the BJP to push through the controversial RTI Amendments Bill 2019, is a big political question. (See open Letter to three CMs below.) Why three Chief Ministers- Biju Patnaik[Read More…]
Denotified Tribes: Denotified Tribes (DNTs) are the tribes which were listed by British under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 which notified certain tribes as “criminals,” regardless of the activities of individual members. The DNTs being a nomadic group have remained outside the Indian constitution and have not received any constitution rights and welfare activities. The Criminals Tribe Act was revoked, and Habitual offenders[Read More…]
The liberation of humanity is dependent on raising above immediate ‘identities’. The identities may be that of caste, class, religion, region, race, gender, ethnicity, language etc. However, it becomes a challenge in a society where differences and unequal relationship based on these factors already exist in society. Those subjected to oppression on the basis of caste, class, religion, region, race,[Read More…]
(Himalaya is called the Abode of the Gods due to its serenity and spiritual ambiance. We should always make it a point to preserve the serenity of these mountains by keeping these clean) Himalaya has been popularly called the “Abode of the Gods”. Not only have the holy men been meditating in these cool and serene heights but there are[Read More…]
In a ruling published late Tuesday, Judge John Koeltl of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, delivered a devastating blow to the US-led conspiracy against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In his ruling, Judge Koeltl, a Bill Clinton nominee and former Assistant Special Prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, dismissed “with prejudice” a civil lawsuit[Read More…]
Preface: Modi 2. The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear (Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 1930). Narendra Damodardas Modi, the man who began his political journey as a Pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has been re-elected Prime Minister[Read More…]
United States’ Iran-show is not moving smoothly. It is not always getting wholehearted support from all of its friends. The Strait of Hormuz initiative by the U.S. is part of the show, and it is facing the same problem. An example is Germany. Germany will refuse to take part in a U.S.-led maritime mission in the Strait of Hormuz, German[Read More…]
Patriotism, respect for law, and allegiance are demands placed upon the citizen by the state. Such awesome authority, being capable of misuse, should always have to justify itself. Does the state accept this small burden? The responsibility of the citizen is to insist upon it. But how? And through what medium? It is commonly suggested that power ultimately lies with[Read More…]
A recent ban on a militant, Iranian-backed Shiite group raised the spectre of the Saudi Iranian rivalry spilling onto Nigerian streets as security forces launched a manhunt to find the alleged Boko Haram operatives who killed 65 people attending a funeral. Nigeria, Africa’s foremost oil producer, banned the Iranian-backed Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) this weekend after demonstrations in the[Read More…]
It is now more than a year since Asma Jahangir left us. As August 14-15 approaches, one cannot but recall her, for she was someone who worked tirelessly for human rights as well as better and smoother, peaceful Indo-Pakistan relations. People like her (characterised as an icon and a crusader) and the work they do retain their relevance for not[Read More…]
There has been a lot of debate on the draft of new policy on education. Many analysts have exposed loopholes and contradictions in the policy. Inaccessibility Though the government has eloquently spoken of ‘Divyang’ – disabled persons possessing ‘divine limbs’ and powers,even the ‘ access’ contents, considered as ‘a key guiding principle’ by the Draft has not been made available[Read More…]
Today, the world over, a number of issues confronting the societies are discussed day in and day out and intellectual analysis and outpourings start to emanate once the issue at stake draws the attention of masses in the society, Healthcare is one such issue which holds a tremendous significance in[Read More…]
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
Criminal Justice And Freedom of Speech 
75,000 Climate Protesters Marched In New York With Demand To End Fossil Fuels 
On the Dark Side of the Moon.. 
Avoiding the War on Terror would have saved over 10 million lives at home and abroad 
The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
Climate Emergency Update, September 2023 
My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom 
How Can We Understand the Passage of Time? 
Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
Ukrainian president holds crisis talks in Washington amid failure of “spring offensive” 
Zelensky Faces Difficult Time In Washington D.C. 
Stumbling Towards Old Age And Looking for Someone to Lean On 
Tolstoy’s Dilemma 
Ukraine Peace Activists Protest During Zelensky White House Visit 
“Our world is becoming unhinged”: Antonio Guterres 
How Chances of Direct War between the USA and Russia Are Increasing G20 Biofuel Alliance threatens Food security 
Thousands Of Auto Workers Strike In Three U.S. Plants, Face Financial Hardship 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
