Archive for November, 2019

WSS Condemns IIT-Ms Inaction regarding the Institutional Murder of Fathima Latheef

WSS Condemns IIT-Ms Inaction regarding the Institutional Murder of Fathima Latheef

  On November 9th 2019, 19 year old Fathima Latheef, a first year topper student of IIT-Madras, committed suicide citing harassment by Prof. Sudarshan Padmanabhan in a note left behind on her cell phone. This is the fifth suicide on the campus of the elite institution this year with Fathima being victim to not just institutional casteism but anti-muslim harassment from[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Iraqi prime minister offers resignation after army unleashes bloodbath

Iraqi prime minister offers resignation after army unleashes bloodbath

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi declared on Friday that he will resign in the wake of the bloodiest day yet in two months of mass protests against social inequality, mass unemployment, the failure of basic public services and rampant corruption. “I will submit to the esteemed parliament a formal letter requesting my resignation from the premiership,” he said. While[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Why We Strike Again

Why We Strike Again

Co-Written by Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer and Angela Valenzuela After more than a year of grim scientific projections and growing activism, world leaders, and the public alike are increasingly recognizing the severity and urgency of the climate crisis. And yet nothing has been done. For more than a year, children and young people from around the world have been striking[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 3 comments Climate Change
From Ad-hocism to Guest: Delhi University on the road to Contractual Teaching Norms

From Ad-hocism to Guest: Delhi University on the road to Contractual Teaching Norms

An official communication from the office of the Vice- Chancellor, University of Delhi dated 28th August, 2019 has put the teaching career of more than 4500 ad-hoc teachers in jeopardy. The letter directs all DU colleges to appoint only guest faculty, instead of ad-hoc faculty as has been the norm in DU since 1990s, from academic session 2019-20 in case[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Aarey forest destruction halted, Metro Railway is not the best solution

Aarey forest destruction halted, Metro Railway is not the best solution

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s decision to stay construction of the Metro rail car shed at the controversial Aarey forest site in Mumbai needs to be seen in the proper perspective. The point is people are not against development, they are against an insensitive system riding rough shod over them. The point is people are seeing through the one size fits[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 1 comment India
Buddhist heritage site at Udayagiri Hills, Odisha

Who is responsible for destroying magnificent Buddhist places of learning in Odisha

Modern day Odisha is known to be the ‘epicenter’ of Brahmanism as the socio-cultural-economic dominance of the brahmanical castes in Odisha is complete. One wonders as what happened to it and why Odisha, once the hub of Buddhist activities and culture completely lost to it. I am sure a fair analysis of history need to be done in the greater[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Delhi’s air pollution woes require an out of the box solution

Delhi’s air pollution woes require an out of the box solution

Every October as the rains recede, Delhi prepares to choke on poisoned air which peaks for 3 months from around Deepawali. This year the Delhi Government even asked public for suggestions on how to cope with these recurrent foul air episodes, which was particularly bad this year. PM2.5 (particulate matter below 2.5 microns in diameter) concentrations, a good surrogate for[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
 When the World Observes the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

 When the World Observes the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Generally, international days are to celebrate or remember special events or achievements of humanity. These occasions can give understandings about the day and educate the international community on specific issues. It can also help to invite international attention and to mobilise political will to address global issues. By creating special observances, the United Nations Organisations (UNO) promotes general awareness and[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 1 comment Uncategorized
 Alex Lo Tells Us What We Already Know:  The U.S. Chooses Whose and What Rights Matter

 Alex Lo Tells Us What We Already Know:  The U.S. Chooses Whose and What Rights Matter

Alex Lo is one of my favorite journalists; he writes for one of my favorite non-left newspapers, “The South China Morning Post.” This morning he wrote a piece, which while merely stating the obvious, does so with remarkable clarity and understated eloquence.  The title of his article: “The United States is once again selective in caring about rights.” He opens[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
One Pound Capitalism, a Pinch of Democracy, and Leonard Peltier’s Thanksgiving Statement

One Pound Capitalism, a Pinch of Democracy, and Leonard Peltier’s Thanksgiving Statement

(Includes a meal brought to you by Discomfort Foods) I’ve been living on Custer Street in Salina, Kansas since the day I moved to the United States from India in 2000. At that time I had no idea who General George Armstrong Custer was and what he had stood for. Now I do. On Thanksgiving Day I was in my[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 1 comment World
What the U.S. House’s Impeachment Inquiry Wouldn’t Ask Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

What the U.S. House’s Impeachment Inquiry Wouldn’t Ask Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Turkey, the increasingly wayward NATO member, has been making more national and international headlines than usual. On Oct. 29, for instance, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed (405-11) Resolution 296.  It recognized the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, and other Christian genocides committed by Turkey. A contentious, widely criticized White House meeting involving President Trump, Turkey’s autocratic President Erdogan, and Republican[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Talking Faiz : ‘In This Hour of Madness’

Talking Faiz : ‘In This Hour of Madness’

Academician, writer and social activist Zaheer Ali in Conversation with SubhashGatade about his latest book ‘Romancing With Revolution : Life and Works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’ (Aakar Books, Delhi, 2019) and why Faiz is ‘ extremely relevant in today’s India’ This is the hour of madness, this too the hour of chain and noose You may hold the cage in[Read More…]

by 30/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Iraqis Rise Up Against 16 Years of ‘Made in the USA’ Corruption

Iraqis Rise Up Against 16 Years of ‘Made in the USA’ Corruption

Iraqis are mourning 60 protesters killed by police and soldiers on Thursday in Baghdad, Najaf and Nasiriyah. Nearly 400 protesters have been killed since hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets at the beginning of October. Human rights groups have described the crisis in Iraq as a “bloodbath,” Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has announced he will resign, and Sweden has opened an investigation against Iraqi Defense[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Rapid and deep decarbonization of power supply worldwide is required to limit global warming

Rapid and deep decarbonization of power supply worldwide is required to limit global warming

A rapid and deep decarbonization of power supply worldwide is required to limit global warming to well below 2 °C. Beyond greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the power sector is also responsible for numerous other environmental impacts. An international team of scientists in their study has found this. Producing electricity in a climate-friendly brings huge benefits for our health – mainly due[Read More…]

Pro-Zionist Australian PM Accepts Zionist Jerusalem Prize & Soils Australia

Pro-Zionist Australian PM Accepts Zionist Jerusalem Prize & Soils Australia

As reported by Mainstream media, on  21 November 2019 the Australian Coalition PM, Scott Morrison, accepted the Australian Zionist Jerusalem Prize.  The  extremist Coalition Australian Government  and most  of the  cowardly Labor Opposition  fervently support Zionism and nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, serial war criminal and democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. Ignored by Mainstream media,  on 22 November 2019 anti-racist  Jewish Australian writer[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Alien Invaders and the Ethic of the Earth

Alien Invaders and the Ethic of the Earth

Imagine this rather typical SF scenario: alien invaders arrive on Earth. They are vastly superior in intelligence, technology, and most importantly, ethics. They quickly perceive that Earthlings are a dire mortal threat to the Earth’s biosphere. They reason that they must take decisive action soon, or else the Earth will meet its biological death. What are they to do? First,[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
The Hong Kong Revolt – A View From the Left In Response to Brancati and Law

The Hong Kong Revolt – A View From the Left In Response to Brancati and Law

Let me begin by saying that whenever people rise up against the powers that be, which in modern times are primarily capitalist and liberal democratic, it reflects well on the people: it bespeaks their courage, their social sense of self, their feelings of unity and of power and hence the actual power of their unity. Without question, the resistance of[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 3 comments World
Supreme Court’s attempt to destabilize the government of Imran Khan

Supreme Court’s attempt to destabilize the government of Imran Khan

The Supreme Court of Pakistan Thursday (Nov 28) limited the three years extension in the term of Army Chief of Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa to six month. A three-member court bench led by the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who retires in less than one month, on Wednesday (Nov. 27) suspended Prime Minister Imran Khan’s August 2019[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Without Involving Women We Can’t Build A Strong Bahujan Movement As Espoused By Jotiba Phule

Without Involving Women We Can’t Build A Strong Bahujan Movement As Espoused By Jotiba Phule

For any one to understand Joti Ba Phule, it is the pre-essential quality that change begins from home. We speak a lot, lecture others about change and communicate with people in such a language unknown to them or un-understandable to them. Many times, I found, people speak of their ‘knowledge’ and not what the audiences want. In India, the biggest[Read More…]

by 29/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Student Movement and Public Education

Student Movement and Public Education

The movement of Students along with other Universities and Institutes of Excellence in the country do raise questions on the importance of Public Education. Education in India has always received a low priority with only about 3% of the National Budget spent on Education. Even within this, there is a lot of inequity with IITs, IIMs receiving the larger share[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
China warns U.S. for interference in Hong Kong and threatens of firm counter measures

China warns U.S. for interference in Hong Kong and threatens of firm counter measures

China has warned that continued U.S .meddling in Hong Kong is “doomed to fail” and threatened “firm counter measures,” after President Donald Trump passed two bills backing ongoing protests in the territory. Washington has “ignored facts” and “blatantly supported violent radicals who oppose the rule of law” in Hong Kong, the Foreign Ministry of China said on Thursday. The warning[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Modi’s absurdly costly projects Being questioned by experts

Modi’s absurdly costly projects Being questioned by experts

The Modi government’s extravagant projects are being seriously questioned by experts. These include the Metro rail projects and the absurdly expensive proposed high speed railway between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. With the Shiv Sena-led coalition government assuming power in Maharashtra, the high speed project is likely to face strong opposition. Metro railway alone cannot solve urban traffic and transport problems. There[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 1 comment India
Britain’s Chief Rabbi is helping to stoke antisemitism

Britain’s Chief Rabbi is helping to stoke antisemitism

Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has not only misrepresented the known facts about Labour and its supposed antisemitism crisis. He has not only interfered in an overtly, politically partisan manner in the December 12 election campaign by suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn – against all evidence – is an antisemite. By speaking out as the voice of British Jews – a false[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 1 comment World
A One Legged Horse

A One Legged Horse

In my opinion this aptly describes our country at the moment. We are in the throes of a general election. The country has been embroiled in a near civil war over the issue of Brexit for the last three years. Mr Boris Johnson, never one to ever speak the truth, decided to call a general election on December 12th simply[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 1 comment World
VP Singh must be remembered to encourage honesty and integrity in our political life

VP Singh must be remembered to encourage honesty and integrity in our political life

In this age of Manustream media, when your history is being rewritten and when every attempt is being made to erase the glorious chapters, forget leaders who have immense contribution towards social justice and secularism, it is our duty to continuously remembering them whether the brahmanical media has time for them or not or whether they consider them ‘irrelevant’ today.[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Thanksgiving Also Means Giving Thanks For Our Planet

Thanksgiving Also Means Giving Thanks For Our Planet

It is Thanksgiving holiday in the US.  The Europeans do not celebrate Thanksgiving and the European Parliament has held an election.  It has chosen former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as the new President of the European Commission.  Hailing from a political family of conservatives — her father narrowly lost a party leadership election to Franz Josef Strauss[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
China’s Renewed Coal Boom

China’s Renewed Coal Boom

China’s failure to kick a long-standing addiction to coal has thrown a knockout punch to the Paris Agreement of 2015, including its 195 signatories. Suddenly, out of the blue, the world has turned upside down! Sixteen months ago July 16th, 2018: “China and the European Union on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris climate change pact and called other[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 1 comment Climate Change
“Ahlan Simsim”:Thirty minutes with the Muppets

“Ahlan Simsim”:Thirty minutes with the Muppets

“Sesame Street” and the International Rescue Committee have collaborated in efforts to help Syrian refugee children. A new program called “AhlanSimsim” is set to air in February 2020. Quite often I think about what kind of trauma and distress the Syrian refugee children are going through in the camps of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. I am specifically talking about[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The Most Enduring Media Cover-Up

The Most Enduring Media Cover-Up

Clearing the FOG hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese interviewed Alison Weir, journalist and founder of If Americans Knew, a website that provides factual information about the Israeli State and Palestine. Weir describes how she learned firsthand that US media provide a false and one-sided narrative about Occupied Palestine and why she has dedicated the past twenty years to counter that.[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
A new solidarity fund for South Africa’s embattled frontline activists

A new solidarity fund for South Africa’s embattled frontline activists

South Africa Human Rights Defenders Fund aims to provide holistic support and solidarity to community based human rights defenders working on land, housing and environmental rights Whilst the crackdown against civil society and human rights defenders in Mozambique and Zimbabwe this year received widespread international attention and press coverage, less is known about the steady increase in harassment, intimidation and[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Iran’s Barter Deals with China Help Iran Decoupling from Western Economies

Iran’s Barter Deals with China Help Iran Decoupling from Western Economies

According to a PressTV Report of 24 November, 2019, Iran and China are working on a trade or barter deal that would circumvent US sanctions. It would bypass US-dollar denominated transactions, exchanging Iranian oil for Chinese goods and services and investments. The head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA), Masoud Khansari told Teheran’s Tasnim news[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
(Drawing: Mr. Fish/TruthDig)

 Manning: US Working Class War Hero

Manning, is an incredible example of the American Working Class leading the way forward, (showing the way, if you will), for the rest of the World’s Workers, in their quest for Justice and Dignity. His Affidavit (on the 5th of May, 2019, below), as to the reasons why he will not betray the others involved to a Grand Jury is[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 1 comment World
 “One Country, Two Systems” : Chinese Socialism Vs Hong Kong’s Capitalism – Hong Kong update- Part 2

 “One Country, Two Systems” : Chinese Socialism Vs Hong Kong’s Capitalism – Hong Kong update- Part 2

 Hong Kong has been gripped by more than five months of social unrest, claimingly sparked by an extradition bill that would have allowed for the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions with which the city has no such agreement, including mainland China.The Bill was withdrawn several weeks ago, but the protests continued, in fact intensified, hinting at the imperialists’ conspiracy, chiefly[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
For Hiba, 18 months old pellet victim of Kashmir

For Hiba, 18 months old pellet victim of Kashmir

She cries in pain, Mother, hold me tight, I feel cold. Mother tells her, It is not cold, It is the icicles making you chill. She laments, Mother, hold me tight. It is darker than the night around, Mother tells her, It is not the night that is dark. It is the burnt coal surrounding the village. She whispers, Mother,[Read More…]

by 28/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
The Choice Is Ours: Extinction or Rebellion?

The Choice Is Ours: Extinction or Rebellion?

Due to capitalism’s rapaciousness, our species is hurtling towards ecocide at a frightening pace. In the early twentieth century, tens of millions died under the Stalinist regime. We blame these deaths on the wickedness of socialism. Later, in Germany, around 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in gas chambers. We blame these deaths on the ills of fascism. At the[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 2 comments Counter Solutions
UN report calls for “radical transformations” to avert global climate catastrophe

UN report calls for “radical transformations” to avert global climate catastrophe

The United Nations Environment Programme issued its tenth Emissions Gap Report yesterday, which highlighted the stark failure of the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb global greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming. Even if countries hold themselves to their emissions pledges from four years ago, the report warns that global average temperatures will still increase to 3.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 1 comment Climate Change
Argentina’s president-elect Alberto Fernandez rejects remaining IMF money

Argentina’s president-elect Alberto Fernandez rejects remaining IMF money

Argentina’s leftist president-elect Alberto Fernandez said Tuesday that he would renounce the remaining $11 billion tranche of the country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan as soon as he takes office next month. Outgoing center-right President Mauricio Macri agreed a massive $57 billion loan package last year, but the austerity measures he imposed failed to right the economy. “What I want[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 1 comment World
Israel’s Next Move: The Real Danger in US Decision to Normalize Illegal Jewish Settlements  

Israel’s Next Move: The Real Danger in US Decision to Normalize Illegal Jewish Settlements  

It is hardly shocking that the United States government has finally decreed that illegal Jewish settlements which have been built in defiance of international law, are, somehow, “consistent” with international law. US foreign policy has been edging closer towards this conclusion for some time. Since his advent to the White House in January 2017, President Donald Trump has unleashed a[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Hong Kong Poll Results X-Rayed

Hong Kong Poll Results X-Rayed

  (This is Part-1 of a two part Report) Landslide victory for Hong Kong pro-democracy parties in de facto protest referendum : This ( it was CNN’s) is the tone and tenor of headlines in mainstream media.There is nothing new in this kind of reportage for Indians fed on inobjectivity and hyperboles.   This notion however needs to be objectively analysed,[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 The Decline of the “Constitutional Morality” in the Current Political Scenario

 The Decline of the “Constitutional Morality” in the Current Political Scenario

On 26th November 2019 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of our Constitution Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized that we should celebrate the Constitution Day with pride and enthusiasms. It is to be noted that on 26th November 1949, the Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in accordance with the recommendation of the Cabinet Mission plan.[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
What can you do to make this Thanksgiving a meaningful holiday? 

What can you do to make this Thanksgiving a meaningful holiday? 

Do you recall a situation when you gave a gift or complimented someone, but they did not thank you? Did you feel something was missing? Later, if that person came back and said, thanks, did you feel a sense of completion to that transaction of giving and receiving? If your attitude was affected, it also got restored, didn’t it? Likewise,[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The Age of Trump, the End of What?

The Age of Trump, the End of What?

French king Louis XV reputedly said, “Après moi, le déluge.” (“After me, the flood.”) Whether that line was really his remains unclear, but not long after his death did come the French Revolution. We should be so lucky! Our all-American version of Louis XV, Donald I, is incapable, I suspect, of even imagining a world after him. Given the historically unprecedented way[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
India is not quite yet a Hindu Rashtra: 70th Constitution Day

India is not quite yet a Hindu Rashtra: 70th Constitution Day

In January 2018, four top Supreme Court Judges in a surprise move, held a press conference declaring that ” Democracy is at stake, and we have a debt to the nation.” Justice Ranjan Gogoi, as he then was, had also remarked that, “independent judges and noisy journalists are democracy’s first line of defence”. Three of these judges have retired  as[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Statement of Preliminary Findings of a Fact-Finding visit to Assam on the Updating of the NRC

Statement of Preliminary Findings of a Fact-Finding visit to Assam on the Updating of the NRC

  Between the 5th and 10th of November 2019, a nine person team comprising of members of Women against Sexual Violence and State repression (WSS) visited the state of Assam in order to understand the implications of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC), particularly for the most marginalised people of Assam. The team travelled to the Barak Valley region,[Read More…]

by 27/11/2019 1 comment Human Rights
UN Report Warns Only Rapid and Transformational Action Can Stave Off Global Climate Disaster

UN Report Warns Only Rapid and Transformational Action Can Stave Off Global Climate Disaster

An alarming United Nations report released Tuesday said global temperatures are on track to rise as much as 3.9°C by the end of the century, meaning only drastic and unprecedented emissions reductions can stave off the most devastating consequences of the climate crisis. The annual Emissions Gap report (pdf) from the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) warns that nations’ commitments under the Paris climate accord—from which U.S.[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 3 comments Climate Change
The Lies About Assange Must Stop Now

The Lies About Assange Must Stop Now

If Julian Assange were to succumb to the cruelties heaped upon him, week after week, month after month, year upon year, as doctors warn, newspapers like The Guardian will share the responsibility, writes John Pilger. Newspapers and other media in the United States and Britain have recently declared a passion for freedom of speech, especially their right to publish freely.  They are worried by the “Assange[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 1 comment Human Rights
Gunfire, clash in second night of violence in Lebanon while business group calls for general strike

Gunfire, clash in second night of violence in Lebanon while business group calls for general strike

  Lebanon is going through turmoil.   Clashes between supporters of Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, and Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal turned into gunfire in Beirut late on Monday, reported state news agency NNA. The clashes marked the second consecutive night of violence linked to Lebanon’s political crisis, threatening to tip largely peaceful demonstrations directed at the country’s ruling[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Will Latin America Learn?

Will Latin America Learn?

Lessons from Bolivia. Where Che was Murdered. Where Again a Coup was Staged. Forty-six years and two months. Eduardo Galeano wrote La Trampa on events of Chile that happened on September 11, 1973, in a few touching paragraphs. The last two we can reread now. “In those difficult times, the workers were discovering the secrets of economy. They were understanding[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Is Netanyahu ready to inflame war to escape his legal troubles?

Is Netanyahu ready to inflame war to escape his legal troubles?

Nazareth: The decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on three separate criminal counts pushes the country’s already unprecedented electoral stalemate into the entirely uncharted territory of a constitutional crisis. There is no legal precedent for a sitting prime minister facing a trial – in Netanyahu’s case, for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 1 comment World
7 Billion + Population Problem

7 Billion + Population Problem

This is meant to be an article for activist education and therefore on the one hand it starts with explaining basic concepts; on the other hand it avoids academic references. The population problem is complex and has been debated since Marx’s time. In the past leftists maintained that it is not a real problem, but a creation of capitalism. However[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 1 comment Resource Crisis
The Real Deal on the War in Yemen

The Real Deal on the War in Yemen

The latest war in Yemen, ongoing since 2015, started when the Houthi tribes in the north made a deal with former President Saleh (whose son remained head of the army under the agreement made with the Saudis to get him to vacate the Yemen Presidency) to work together to conquer all of Yemen militarily. The Houthis and the Yemen Army[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 1 comment World
Global Turmoil: Ethics offer a way out of the crisis

Global Turmoil: Ethics offer a way out of the crisis

Rarely is out-of-the-box thinking needed more than in this era of geopolitical, political and economic turmoil. The stakes couldn’t be higher in a world in which civilizationalist leaders risk shepherding in an era of even greater political violence, disenfranchisement and marginalisation, and mass migration. The risks are magnified by the fact that players that traditionally stood up for at least[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Where the World Meets: the Role of Sri Lanka in Indo-Pacific Theatre

Where the World Meets: the Role of Sri Lanka in Indo-Pacific Theatre

The island nation: Sri Lanka began to increasingly feature in discussions on the Indo- Pacific geopolitical environment in recent years, particularly in the light of Chinese led Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) and as a nation which has been occupying a strategic location astride the Indian Ocean lines of communication. Sri Lanka has been attracting the interests of major powers[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Constitutional morality can only come through humanist principles of Baba Saheb Ambedkar

Constitutional morality can only come through humanist principles of Baba Saheb Ambedkar

The President of India is speaking about ‘constitutional morality’ while the prime minister is saying that Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar would have been the ‘proudest’ person to see the ‘democracy’ flourishing in India and the ‘success’ of our ‘democracy’. Yesterday, friends talked about Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj and we were sitting in the place ‘owned’ by Lord Jaggannath. It is reported[Read More…]

by 26/11/2019 1 comment India
13 Protesters killed in a day in Iraq while death toll reaches 342

13 Protesters killed in a day in Iraq while death toll reaches 342

At least 13 protesters were killed and 150 were injured Sunday in Baghdad and the southern cities of Basra and Nasiriya during clashes between security forces and the protesters. Sunday was one of the “worst” days since protests began. Many of these deaths were due to the use of live ammunition and tear gas by security forces against demonstrators. At least 342 people have been killed in[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The breach of the Paris climate accord

The breach of the Paris climate accord

Since its inception the Paris climate accord has been in questiondue to,among other(1) its broad definition, intended to keep a mean global temperature rise this century to below 1.5oC and efforts to limit temperature increase well below 2oC above pre-industrial levels; (2) its non-binding nature; accounting tricks by vested interests. The goal assumes pre-determined limits can be placed on greenhouse[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 2 comments Climate Change
 Poor people must be accommodated in the climate change discussion

 Poor people must be accommodated in the climate change discussion

Poor people are not generally concerned about the adverse affects of climate change. Atleast this was the conclusion that several recent articles wanted to reach as far as I understood by reading them. These articles had mentioned poor people’s lack of understanding about the climate change as the major reason for their dis-concern. While this cannot be denied outright, it cannot[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Popes Against Nuclear Weapons

Popes Against Nuclear Weapons

The Vatican comes with its ills, contradictions and blatant hypocrisies in the field of moral theology and human existence, but on the issue of atomic and nuclear weapons, the position has been fairly consistent, if marked by gradual evolution.  On February 8, 1948, Pope Pius XII held an audience with members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.  “What misfortunes,” he[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 Bearing Witness to the Costs of War

 Bearing Witness to the Costs of War

There is some incongruity between my role as an editor of a book about the costs of America’s wars and my identity as a military spouse. I’m deeply disturbed at the scale of human suffering caused by those conflicts and yet I’ve unintentionally contributed to the war effort through the life I’ve chosen. I am the co-editor with Catherine Lutz[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 1 comment Imperialism
China – The Belt and Road Initiative – The Bridge that Spans the World

China – The Belt and Road Initiative – The Bridge that Spans the World

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, is based on a 2,100-year-old trade route between the Middle East and Eastern Asia, called the Silk Road. It wound its ways across the huge landmass Eurasia to the most eastern parts of China. It favored trading, based on the Taoist philosophy of harmony and peaceful coexistence –[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Armenian genocide resolution reaffirms the ‘g-word’ is a tool for U.S. interests

Armenian genocide resolution reaffirms the ‘g-word’ is a tool for U.S. interests

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in an overwhelming bipartisan majority to officially recognize the Armenian genocide more than a century after the atrocities were committed. The motion was a departure from decades of U.S. government refusal because of its ‘realpolitik’ considerations of regional ally and fellow NATO member, the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire’s successor state[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 2 comments World
New Cold War and the Attack on Saudi Oil Installations

New Cold War and the Attack on Saudi Oil Installations

The September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility in eastern Saudi Arabia was an Armageddon for the global oil industry because it processes five million barrels crude oil per day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s total oil production.   The subversive attack sent jitters across the global markets and the oil price surged 15%, the biggest spike witnessed[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 1 comment World
Hunger Games: Food Abundance and Twisted Truths  

Hunger Games: Food Abundance and Twisted Truths  

The world already produces enough food to feed 10 billion people but over two billion are experiencing micronutrient deficiencies (of which 821 million were classed as chronically undernourished in 2018). However, supporters of genetic engineering (GE) crops continually push the narrative that GE technology is required if we are to feed the world and properly support farmers. First of all, it must be[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Ayodhya: Adding insult to injury

Ayodhya: Adding insult to injury

If the bizarre Ayodhya verdict of India’s Supreme Court is a classic case of adding insult to injury, on the one hand, it marks the final and total surrender of the country’s democratic institutions to Hindutva, on the other. But this had long been coming and should have been apparent to all those watching the meltdown of the republic under[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Maharashtra governor’s action unconstitutional

Maharashtra governor’s action unconstitutional

The Maharashtra Farce which was played at the ‘stroke of late night’ yesterday with President Kovind signing the removal of the Presidential Rule there therefore allowing the Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari to swear in Devendra Fednavis and Ajeet Panwar as Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of the state is the modus operandi of how two leaders who are running[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 1 comment India
Empress With A Pen!

Empress With A Pen!

A poem on Arundhati Roy Fountain pen unfurling from the curls After the blood carpet why history never unfurls Everyone makes a full stop with decoration To declare how it’s “The End of Imagination” Millions think of the magician thinking above Her pen thinks how he bluffs wearing a glove Curating the structured Homo sapiens To validate that they work[Read More…]

by 25/11/2019 3 comments Arts/Literature
Rising seas threaten US Pacific nuclear dump

Rising seas threaten US Pacific nuclear dump

According to reports from the Marshall Islands, plutonium is leaking into the Pacific Ocean from a massive concrete bunker the United States built in the 1950s to dispose of nuclear waste. A potential disaster is looming. Situated mid-way between Hawaii and Australia, the Marshall Islands has a population of 53,000 people. The island chain was occupied by Allied forces in[Read More…]

by 23/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized, World
Photo by woodleywonderworks

Climate needs real business leadership

Climate change is real, happening. It is human caused – mostly through our use of fossil fuels, and could be catastrophic, could be a tragic end to our present evolution. Without effective mitigation. But we’ve gone three decades of failure to even slow the increase in burning coal, oil and natural gas, with consequential greenhouse gases (GHGs) increasing in the[Read More…]

by 23/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Evil Hour in Honduras: A Banana Republic Lives On

Evil Hour in Honduras: A Banana Republic Lives On

 If motivated to find the pinnacle of callous and hypocritical American statecraft one would have no shortage of choices. Of course the Middle East alone provides quite a bevy. From the numerous betrayals of the Kurds, to the ceaseless support for the House of Saud, including in its brutal war in Yemen, to the billions of dollars regularly pumped into[Read More…]

by 23/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Mending Gulf fences could weaken support for US sanctions against Iran

Mending Gulf fences could weaken support for US sanctions against Iran

Saudi efforts to negotiate an end to the Yemen war in a bid to open a dialogue with Iran could call into question continued Gulf support for US President Donald J. Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic republic. Saudi officials hope that talks mediated by Oman and Britain between the kingdom and Houthi rebels will lead to a revival[Read More…]

by 23/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
JNU Must Be Protected

JNU Must Be Protected

The surge in demand for market skills led to a complete overhaul of higher education with the result being universities becoming mere affiliation hosting bodies for the vocational colleges located at a distance from its main campus. Once the demand overshot even this customary practice was done away with and autonomous institutes were allowed to function outside the purview of[Read More…]

by 23/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
“They’re killing us like dogs” – A Massacre in Bolivia and a Plea for Help

“They’re killing us like dogs” – A Massacre in Bolivia and a Plea for Help

I am writing from Bolivia just days after witnessing the November 19 military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto, and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession on November 21 to commemorate the dead. These are examples, unfortunately, of the modus operandi of the de facto government that seized control in a coup[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 2 comments World, Editor's Picks
We hold human life sacred: Bhagat Singh

We hold human life sacred: Bhagat Singh

“We are next to none in our love for humanity. Far from having any malice against any individual, we hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages, nor, therefore, a disgrace to the country […]” This was the statement by Bhagat Singh and B K Dutta in the sessions court, Delhi, on June 6, 1929.[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
People’s protests pass more than a month in Chile

People’s protests pass more than a month in Chile

People in thousands joined in protests in Chile on Monday (November 18). It marked the first month of the most serious public protests against neo-liberal policies in recent time in Chile. The protests show the people’s distrust of the social agenda the government announced, and the parliamentary agreement on a new constitution. Anti-riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 1 comment World
Ayodhya Verdict: Muslims Won The Case But Lost The Land

Ayodhya Verdict: Muslims Won The Case But Lost The Land

  Why is the Hindu media, newspapers and news channels so gung-ho over All India Muslim Personal Law Board ( AIMPLB)-the prime most Muslim body in the nation, deciding to file Review in the judgement of Ramjamanbhumi/Babri Masjid, Ayodhya, Faizabad, UP  case of Nov 9, in which the site where Babri Masjid existed has been given to Hindus and a[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
 Jharkhand Government downplays repression in Pathalgadi villages through misinformation

 Jharkhand Government downplays repression in Pathalgadi villages through misinformation

On 19 November, the news portal Scroll.in reported, on the basis of analysis of 19 First Information Reports (FIRs) filed in cases related to Pathalgadi movement in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, that 10000 people were accused of sedition as ‘unknowns’ in the FIRs. The Khunti police in a statement on 21 November called the media reports “totally incorrect” and “hugely inflated”.[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Lies Which The West Manufactures And Then Consumes

Lies Which The West Manufactures And Then Consumes

  After my work in the Middle East had finished, at least for the time being, I was waiting for my flight to Santiago de Chile.In Paris.I could count on a few ‘free’ days, processing what I had heard and witnessed in Beirut. Day after day, for long hours, I sat in a lounge, typing and typing; reflecting and typing.[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 4 comments World
The Argentines are still influenced by Eva Perón

The Argentines are still influenced by Eva Perón

SeñoraEva Maria Duarte de Perónwas one of Argentina’s most beloved first ladies.Sixty-six years after Eva’s death, the persistence of Peronism makes her one of the most fascinating characters in Argentina. Peronism has a deep rooted influence on the political structure of this Latin American nation. Long after Juan and Eva Perón, Peronist legacy is very much alive and it seems[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
White Helmets Founder: Casualty of Turf War in Syria’s Idlib

White Helmets Founder: Casualty of Turf War in Syria’s Idlib

Reputed Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported [1] on Thursday that the Turkish police had identified the cause of death of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, as ruptured aorta in the chest, and not the fractured skull as previously described by the police in its preliminary report. Le Mesurier was found dead on November 11 in suspicious[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 The War on Words in Donald Trump’s White House

 The War on Words in Donald Trump’s White House

How to Fudge, Obfuscate, and Lie Our Way into a New Universe These days, witnessing the administration’s never-ending cruelty at the border, the shenanigans of a White House caught red-handed in attempted bribery in Ukraine, and the disarray of this country’s foreign policy, I feel like I’m seeing a much-scarier remake of a familiar old movie. The cast of characters[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
New Report On FBI Spying Shows Need For Congressional Investigation

New Report On FBI Spying Shows Need For Congressional Investigation

by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers Clearing the FOG (forces of greed) hosts Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers interviewed Chip Gibbons, an expert on Constitutional Law and the legal and policy counsel for Defending Rights and Dissent about a recent right to protest victory in Washington, DC plus his new report, “Still Spying on Dissent: The enduring problem of FBI[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
One Pound Capitalism, a Pinch of Democracy, and an Impeachment

One Pound Capitalism, a Pinch of Democracy, and an Impeachment

(Includes a recipe brought to you by Discomfort Foods) In February 2018 on Fox News, Laura Ingraham ended her interview with former CIA director James Woolsey by asking him if the United States continues to “mess around in other people’s elections.” To which Woolsey, as though tasting the tasty lie in his mouth, replied: “Welllllllll aummmm yum yum yum yum[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
RTI never harms judicial independence

RTI never harms judicial independence

The Supreme Court decided its appeal. The Constitution Bench of five judges settled its own doubts by declaring that the judiciary as such is a public authority and hence answerable under Right to Information Act, on 13th November 2019. This is special because it was deciding the appeals filed by its own officers. One can also criticise that Supreme Court[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Not Really Supreme

Not Really Supreme

After the verdict of supreme court on Ayodhya, the words of justice JS Verma that supreme court is supreme but not infallible, becomes more relevant. Often sitting before television and watching hotly news debates over Ayodhya dispute with full of fiery assertive slogan like mandir wahin banayenge (temple will be built there only) has become a part of my entertainment.[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
POSCO to Jindal: A Fact Finding Report

POSCO to Jindal: A Fact Finding Report

A four-member fact-finding team of Ganatantrik Adhikar Surakhya Sangathan, Odisha visited Gadakujanga, Dhinkia, Noliasahi and Govindapur villages of Jagatsinghpur district on 19th November 2019. The government of Odisha is handing over the land already acquired for POSCO to Jindal Steel Works Ltd for setting up of a steel plant (13.2MTPA capacity), Cement plant (10MTPA), Power plant (900MW) and a port[Read More…]

by 22/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
 Lithium, Geopolitics and The Laws of the Dialectic

 Lithium, Geopolitics and The Laws of the Dialectic

The first article I confronted when I opened my email this morning was F. William Enghdahl’s short but extremely informative piece in “Global Research” titled “China, USA and the Geopolitics of Lithium”.  In it he elaborates in far greater detail the point also brought out by Vijay Prashad in his article, “After Evo, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia”[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Facebook and Google, “Surveillance Giants”, threaten human rights, says Amnesty

Facebook and Google, “Surveillance Giants”, threaten human rights, says Amnesty

  Tech titans Google and Facebook employ “surveillance-based business models” that threaten human rights and erode privacy worldwide, said Amnesty International (AI) in its new report Surveillance Giants: How the Business Model of Google and Facebook Threatens Human Rights (Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, UK). The AI in its report called for an end to the[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Opposition MPs Could Try To Impeach The President of India For His Executive Orders of 5th, 6th August, 2019 Regarding Kashmir

Opposition MPs Could Try To Impeach The President of India For His Executive Orders of 5th, 6th August, 2019 Regarding Kashmir

The opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) in RajyaSabha(Council of States) could initiate the proceedings for the impeachment of the President of India for violation of the Constitution in right earnest in this winter session of the Parliament. Article 61 of the Constitution of India details the procedure for impeachment of the President. One fourth of the total number of MPs[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Neoliberalism Backfires

Neoliberalism Backfires

Nick Hanauer, a self-professed capitalist billionaire, spoke at a TED conference only recently. He exposed neoliberalism’s brand of capitalism getting away with murder in plain sight. Mr. Hanauer described himself: “After a 30-year career in capitalism spanning three dozen companies, generating tens of billions of dollars in market value, I’m not in the top one percent (1.0%), I’m in the[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
China – Bolivia – a Lithium Deal – No More?

China – Bolivia – a Lithium Deal – No More?

China has by far the largest lithium market. China produces already today the most electric cars, about 1 million in 2018, and will at least triplicate their production by 2025 – and in the following decade or two, demand is expected to increase exponentially. Bolivia has the world’s largest – by far – known lithium reserves. A long-term win-win contract[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
In place of shock and despair, need is to understand the situation and move on

In place of shock and despair, need is to understand the situation and move on

On November 9, 2019 Supreme Court delivered its verdict on Babri Mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi Temple dispute. In contrast to simple thinking that the dispute regarding political Ram has come to an end and there was need to move on, many people courted arrest in state like Kerala against Supreme Court verdict, and criticisms against those at higher echelons of establishment have[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Abrogation of Article 370 and the Aftermath

Abrogation of Article 370 and the Aftermath

Kashmir issue has always been a tool for all the mainstream political parties in general and BJP in particular to invoke it for the consolidation of Hindu vote bank. After doing all the wrongs with the state of Jammu and Kashmir from overthrowing Sheikh Abdullah from the office in 1953 to Election rigging of 1987; abrogation of Article 370 was[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Another Syllogism of Death

Another Syllogism of Death

  Examination of Israel’s November 2019 missile attacks on Gaza reveals deliberate actions that can be expressed by propositions, which lead to formulation of a syllogism – a syllogism of death that does not spare civilians. Israeli military targeted Bahaa Abu al-Ata, “a top Islamic Jihad commander,” who, Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed, “… was a ticking bomb, in the midst[Read More…]

by 21/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Fighting For America’s Soul

Fighting For America’s Soul

Democratic institutions are in danger Today there is a deep split in public opinion in the United States. Democratic institutions are in danger from racism and neo-fascism. Progressives are fighting to save the values and institutions on which their country was founded. They are fighting to save America’s soul. Racism, discrimination and xenophobia Progressives today would like to eliminate all[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Military and police crackdown on gas plant blockade in Bolivia, 2 dead

Military and police crackdown on gas plant blockade in Bolivia, 2 dead

With armored vehicles and helicopters, Bolivian military forces and police used tear gas to crack down on protesters blocking access to a major gas plant, operated by state-run YPFB, in El Alto city on Tuesday. Helicopters flew above roads around the Senkata gas plant while heavily armed police dispersed protesters with tear gas and bullets. The number of dead was 2[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Colonialism and Academic Knowledge Production

Colonialism and Academic Knowledge Production

Colonialism and knowledge production: Colonialism is much more than establishing colonies in the non-western world to exploit raw materials for the western metropolitan centres. It is a system of hegemonic power and domination of the colonized by the colonizers, economic, physical as well as psychological. Colonialism is a product of ‘western’ civilization who is obliged for its internal reason to[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Media in 2019 : Dissenters versus the banal agitprop in Indian Politics

Media in 2019 : Dissenters versus the banal agitprop in Indian Politics

If one is constantly imbued with certain kinds of the doctrine and thought processes through reinforcing visuals or ideas, gradually it starts to set its place in their subconscious.  That’s how ideology works, its 24*7 presence around us through the media, songs, posters, street art or the cinema can internalize or mould the gravest of the wrongs. Freud would call[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
A Harmless Anecdote of a Frivolous Quarrel

A Harmless Anecdote of a Frivolous Quarrel

The Oudh Public School was hosting a modelling clay workshop. The eve of the event found next-door neighbours and best friends Ram Lal and Rahim Babbar embroiled in a particularly harsh squabble. Mere minutes into the event, an apparent dispute had emerged. Ram was of the opinion that he was the rightful owner of the piece of clay that his[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Stand with JNU

Stand with JNU

The issues raised by the students and teaching fraternity of JNU are highly important and need to be understood in the right spirit, at the time when there is a sinister campaign going on to discredit the University and shut its door for the poorest of the poor of the country. Why is there so much of hatred towards JNU[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Build Peace And Friendship On The Foundation Of Kartarpur

Build Peace And Friendship On The Foundation Of Kartarpur

Co-Written by Sandeep Pandey and Arundhati Dhuru It was heartening to hear Narendra Modi praise Imran Khan for facilitating the opening of 4.7 km corridor so that Sikh pilgrims from India could visit the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur in Pakistan, after a mostly anti-Pakistan narrative first during the general elections and then after the decision related to Jammu and[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Dropped Investigations: Julian Assange, Sex and Sweden

Dropped Investigations: Julian Assange, Sex and Sweden

Sex, the late Gore Vidal astutely observed, is politics, and not merely from the vantage point of those who wish to police it.  In the case of whistleblowers, claims of aberrant, unlawful sex serves the purpose of diminishing credibility, tarring and feathering the individual and furnishing a distraction.  Forget what was disclosed; focus, instead, on the moral character of the[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Occupied Palestine: From BDS To ODS

Occupied Palestine: From BDS To ODS

Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers We spent the last week in Occupied Palestinian Territory, commonly referred to as Israel, where we traveled around the country to visit communities in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Bethlehem, the West Bank, the Nagab, and more. We call Israel Occupied Palestine because it is not just the West Bank and Gaza that are occupied, but[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 1 comment Palestine
The Olive Branch or The Gun?

The Olive Branch or The Gun?

“Today I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat, do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.” Yasser Arafat November 13th 1974 UN General Assembly. The late Abu Ammar – Yasser Arafat -believed not only his Arab[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 1 comment Palestine
A 12-Step Program to Opioid Justice

A 12-Step Program to Opioid Justice

It was evening and we were in a windowless room in a Massachusetts jail. We had just finished a class — on job interview skills — and, with only a few minutes remaining, the women began voicing their shared fear. Upon their release, would someone really hire them? Beneath that concern lurked another one: Would they be able to avoid[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Release of Western Hostages and Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan

Release of Western Hostages and Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan

Three Taliban commanders have been released today, on Tuesday, by the Afghan government as part of a prisoner swap involving two Western hostages. Reportedly, the militant leaders, including senior Taliban leader Anas Haqqani, had landed in Qatar, which hosts the Taliban political office. In exchange, two university professors identified as US citizen Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks were reportedly[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Why, Indeed, Aren’t Americans Rising Up Like the People of Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, Hong Kong, etc.? A Response to Benjamin and Davies

Why, Indeed, Aren’t Americans Rising Up Like the People of Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, Hong Kong, etc.? A Response to Benjamin and Davies

  It is a very good question that Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies pose  in their recent Countercurrents article – “Why aren’t Americans rising up like the people of Chile and Lebanon?”  It is a good question and they give several very good answers to it; answers the people of America and the people of the world need to[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Rights?

Rights?

Do these women have rights? These women who break rocks These women who carry bricks These women who in Temples please Gods What Gods? Devdasis? Can they Me Too? Farmers’ wives, sweepers, Women who clean dirt From homes and yet Live in dirt themselves. Women who could not go to school Can they Me Too? Women who remain Unlettered, Unfed,[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 2 comments Arts/Literature
Pegasus Targeted Persons demand probe from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology

Pegasus Targeted Persons demand probe from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology

In a letter sent today to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, 17 persons who were informed by WhatsApp Inc that their electronic devices had been targeted by advanced spyware, Pegasus, have demanded a detailed probe into the cyber-attack that occurred earlier this year. The Standing Committee, chaired by Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthpuram, is scheduled[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Democracy, Hindu Majoritarianism and Question of the Socio-economic Rights

Democracy, Hindu Majoritarianism and Question of the Socio-economic Rights

  The public lecture in the memory of Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer has been organized by the Department of Political Science, Jamia, Millia Islamia in collaboration with the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (Mumbai) on the theme of “Democracy versus Majoritarianism” on 18th November, 2019 at JMI. The keynote of memorial address was delivered by the eminent left-[Read More…]

by 20/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Communal Harmony
How citizens can become agents of environmental change? Scientists’ suggestion

How citizens can become agents of environmental change? Scientists’ suggestion

Citizens participating in preservation of environment are an important aspect of fighting decay of environment. Scientists have proposed (“Researchers explore how citizens can become agents of environmental change: A blueprint for how to educate people to maximize their impact.”) a blueprint for methods of educating people to maximize impact of people’s participation. By walking in the woods, rafting a river,[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Venice Is Flooded—A Look at Our Coastal Future

Venice Is Flooded—A Look at Our Coastal Future

 Co-Written by Arshad M. Khan and Meena Miriam Yust If humans have been lucky, basking in the comforting warmth of an inter-glacial period for the last 10,000 years, that luck may be about to turn.  Rest assured we are not entering a glacial period.  No, our quest for greater comfort has us pumping fossil fuel residues in the air—particularly CO2—warming[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 1 comment Climate Change
 Thinking Outside the Grid

 Thinking Outside the Grid

Thirty years ago, a friend of mine published a book called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save The Earth. It described the huge environmental benefits that would result if everyone made some simple adjustments to their way of life. Six hundred thousand gallons of gas could be saved every day, for example, if every commuter car carried just one[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 1 comment Counter Solutions
Stephen Miller Is a NAZI, Not a So-Called “White Nationalist”

Stephen Miller Is a NAZI, Not a So-Called “White Nationalist”

  The Fact That Millions Are Not in the Streets and Demanding His Ouster Shows How Late Is the Hour This week a former associate of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller revealed more than 900 racist emails written by Miller, the mastermind of the Trump immigration policy. In these emails, Miller complains bitterly about Confederate flags being taken down[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Ram Janmabhoomi on the moon

Ram Janmabhoomi on the moon

“You do not mean the moon?” I asked incredulously. Sarbajnanam gave a patient but an all-knowing smile. “Yes, the moon” he said. “You mean, there is a Ram Janmabhoomi on the moon?”, I barely stammered out these words, completely flabbergasted. “And why not? Do you think Ram was a mere earthly creature?” Sarbajnanam (or maybe we should call him SJ[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
The era emerged from “Ruwan Weli Saya”: Aftermath of Presidential Election in Sri Lanka

The era emerged from “Ruwan Weli Saya”: Aftermath of Presidential Election in Sri Lanka

Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe and Eshan Jayawardane Civilizational influence in shaping national political consciousness is an indispensable factor   that one cannot deny or completely abandon albeit how rationalized or tries to be radical he is. The Oath ceremony of the president of the US is traditionally culminated by pledging alliance to the US constitution and God and the people in[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Funeral in Kashmir

Funeral in Kashmir

Exile, Or, Home? They asked, Which home? The one you bulldozed, Or the one you occupied, They are furious, And, Outraged, Or, the one that is a rubble, They look They scare, stay there, Hands up, How can I stay without name Without face Or without eyes. Leave then, Go in exile They laugh Or smirk, How can I go[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
J. N. U.

J. N. U.

J.N.U a university where voices speak up where streets protest where classes struggle where birds are still free where azaadi isn’t just a word where democracy lives Sutputra Radheye: He is a young Indian poet for whom poetry is a medium of protest against the authority. He channelizes his words to write what he sees, and how he sees.He doesn’t[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 1 comment Arts/Literature
Police Brutally Attack JNU Students

Police Brutally Attack JNU Students

Thousands of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India, who were marching to parliament to protest the massive hike in hostel fees were detained and baton-charged, leaving some of them grievously injured yesterday. The students continued their march but were stopped at many places. The protesters said they would not relent until the government withdrew the fee[Read More…]

by 19/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Hidden Hardships – Pregnancy and Child Birth in Rural India

Hidden Hardships – Pregnancy and Child Birth in Rural India

The hardships endured by rural women during pregnancy and childbirth tend to go unnoticed. Their husbands and in-laws rarely go out of their way to support them as they experience fatigue, illness and pain. Public services, too, are grossly deficient. A recent survey sheds light on this hidden ordeal. The JABS Survey The Jaccha-Baccha Survey (JABS), conducted by student volunteers[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment India
The Coup That Ousted Morales

The Coup That Ousted Morales

Any human being who values justice and freedom would condemn the coup that ousted the Bolivian president Evo Morales on the 10th of November 2019. Morales obtained 47.08 % of the vote to secure a fourth term as president in the election held on the 20th of October. Since his vote was more than 10% of what his closest rival[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment World
Hong Kong: Protesters set massive fire on university, throw petrol bombs 

Hong Kong: Protesters set massive fire on university, throw petrol bombs 

Massive fires raged at the campus of Hong Kong Polytech University (PolyU), where anti-government protesters have holed up, and pelting petrol bombs at riot police, who have taken position around the university campus. The protesters feared police raid in the campus. The campus turned into a battleground between the rioters hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police, and police firing[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment World
Maduro and Morales on gringos and dictatorship

Maduro and Morales on gringos and dictatorship

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced this Sunday that the country’s right-wing has received more than US$400 million with the objective of buying politicians, policemen and members of the Bolivarian National Armed Force, to put them at the service of foreign nations’ interests. During an interview for the ‘Jose Vicente Hoy’ show, Maduro affirmed that despite bribes, the Venezuelan Armed Forces have remained loyal to the Constitution, the[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment World
Travesty of Justice

Travesty of Justice

Justice, in normal parlance, is supposedly neutral and seemingly fair attainment of what is equitable, righteous and just in its moral correctness, ethical consideration, rational perspective and from legal point of view. Edmund Burke sees justice from the prism of humanity and reason while Mahatma Gandhi has evoked the conscience to envision justice. Bentham upheld utilitarian principles that promote human[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment India
Ayodhya: Can a Dispute Reach Closure if it Still Causes Pain?

Ayodhya: Can a Dispute Reach Closure if it Still Causes Pain?

Coexistence between social groups was a social reality and a primary tenet of Indian life, long before the word secular was included in its Constitution in 1976. Now that a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has delivered a “historic” judgement on the Babri Masjid dispute, there is a sense of disquiet. This is not just on account of the[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
A New Age?

A New Age?

Many throughout the world are beginning to understand that our continuance on this planet will require recognition of the presence of an underlying planetary and cosmic “implicate order.” (David Bohm) And they are beginning to understand that humanity is not now living in a harmonious relationship with that order. These many are beginning to recognize that it will call for[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Cultural History – John Avery Offers Another Freely Downloadable Book

Cultural History – John Avery Offers Another Freely Downloadable Book

Reformed teaching of history Human nature has two sides: It has a dark side, to which nationalism and militarism appeal; but our species also has a genius for cooperation, which we can see in the growth of culture. Our modern civilization has been built up by means of a worldwide exchange of ideas and inventions. It is built on the[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment Book Review
America’s Arms Sales Addiction

America’s Arms Sales Addiction

  The 50-Year History of U.S. Dominance of the Middle Eastern Arms Trade It’s no secret that Donald Trump is one of the most aggressive arms salesmen in history. How do we know? Because he tells us so at every conceivable opportunity. It started with his much exaggerated “$110 billion arms deal” with Saudi Arabia, announced on his first foreign trip as[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
A Changed Israel – Only route to Middle East peace

A Changed Israel – Only route to Middle East peace

The world hosts many oppressions — Royhingya in Myanmar, ethnic groups in both North and South Sudan, Shi’a communities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are just a few examples. Although a large part of the international community sympathizes with the oppressed groups, petitions world bodies to relieve the oppressions, and provides some relief and support, substantial action is not taken to[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Letting the Side Down: Prince Andrew, the Royal Family and Jeffrey Epstein

Letting the Side Down: Prince Andrew, the Royal Family and Jeffrey Epstein

The choking cloud of Jeffrey Epstein’s paedophilic legacy has been floating over the Atlantic for some time.  It does its best (or worst) in matters of US and British celebrity, warts and all.  It has not, for instance, exempted the British Royal Family, whose cupboard stocked with misbehaviours and raunchiness got just more crowded with the antics of the Duke[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 1 comment World
India Exits the RCEP: What Happens Next?

India Exits the RCEP: What Happens Next?

On November 4, India announced its decision to exit the negotiations on the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a mega-regional free trade agreement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed the decision at the third RCEP Summit that took place in Bangkok. The summit was attended by the leaders of all 16 RCEP Participating Countries (RPCs). The full text of[Read More…]

by 18/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India, Globalisation
Bolivia – A Color Revolution – or a New Surge for Latin American Independence?

Bolivia – A Color Revolution – or a New Surge for Latin American Independence?

Like Túpac Katari, indigenous Aymara leader more than 200 years ago, confronting the Spaniards, Evo Morales was betrayed and ‘dismembered’ by his own people, recruited and paid by the agents of the most destructive, nefarious and murderous dark elite that governs and has governed for over two hundred years our planet, the United States of America. With their worthless fiat-Ponzi-pyramid[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Zakia Soman: We Must Fight the Men of Religion

Zakia Soman: We Must Fight the Men of Religion

ZakiaSoman, the founder of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (an organisation of Muslim women in India), has been the wheel behind the mass movement demanding the law to criminalise the draconian practice of Triple Talaq.Soman, the epitome of pluralistic faith, remained untouched of hatred peddled in the aftermath of 2002 Gujarat violence while her activism brought together thousands of women to[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Justice for Fathima Latheef: Normalisation of Islamophobic violence in Indian institutions

Justice for Fathima Latheef: Normalisation of Islamophobic violence in Indian institutions

The institutional murder of nineteen year old Fathima Latheef at IIT Madras has once again hogged the national limelight on the oppressive nature of India’s higher educational institutions, especially technical institutions. The stark irony of anti-caste movement is the mocking fact that the very educational institutions established to ensure upward mobility of marginalised sections continue to benevolently patronize the neo-casteism.[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
How Western Media Bias Allows Israel to Getaway with Murder in Gaza

How Western Media Bias Allows Israel to Getaway with Murder in Gaza

An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent, and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when”. The answer came on November 12, when the Israeli military launched a major[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
 Deaths of Jamal Khashoggi and White Helmets Founder Le Mesurier

 Deaths of Jamal Khashoggi and White Helmets Founder Le Mesurier

There are a lot of similarities in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October last year and the alleged suicide of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, who was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. Before his[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Understanding the Deep State’s Propaganda

Understanding the Deep State’s Propaganda

Propaganda is essential to the Deep State’s operation. The Deep State is the small number of people who control the organizations that donate the majority of the funds which finance the political careers of national officials, such as Presidents, Prime Ministers, and members of the national legislature. Almost always, the members of the Deep State are the controlling stockholders in[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Cuba, the “criminal” country

Cuba, the “criminal” country

Cuba is the “criminal-country”. That’s central reason that pushes imperialism to punish Cuba. Following imperialism’s directive and advice, a number of countries have rejected Cuba’s offer for medical help during those countries’ hours of need, when natural disasters battered parts of the countries on different occasions. Now, in the latest series of punishing Cuba, imperialism backed coup-authorities in Bolivia harassed[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Ramdev must apologise for his insulting remark on Periyar

Ramdev must apologise for his insulting remark on Periyar

A statement made by Ramdev on Periyar is on the air and is being circulated. He calls Periyar and other who spoke of Moolniwasi philosophy as ‘intellectual terrorists’. One should not take Ramdev too seriously as he has got exposed completely and if there was a neutral government both ED and IT department would have arrested him. He is the[Read More…]

by 17/11/2019 6 comments India
Five Killed In Bolivia As Security Forces Opened Fire On Supporters Of Evo Morales

Five Killed In Bolivia As Security Forces Opened Fire On Supporters Of Evo Morales

Security forces opened fire on supporters of evicted Bolivian President Evo Morales in a central town of Sacaba, killing at least five people, injuring dozens. Most of the dead and injured Friday in Sacaba near the city of Cochabamba suffered bullet wounds, Guadalberto Lara, director of the town’s Mexico Hospital, told The Associated Press. He called it the worst violence[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 1 comment World
EVO YES, battered with graffitti

Evo Morales Overthrown, But Bolivian Socialism Will Be Victorious!

  They pledged to do it, and they did – Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites” – they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America. One day, they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 1 comment World
Evo Morales: Victim of the Longing for Lithium and yes, the Chinese American Trade War

Evo Morales: Victim of the Longing for Lithium and yes, the Chinese American Trade War

Evo Morales spoke the truth when he explained the reason for his fall as leader of his country – it was for no other reason than because he was a socialist who sought to socialize the resources of his country and serve the interests of his people at the expense of the profits of international capitalist corporations.  From the time[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 2 comments World
Abdul Jabbar: The victim who fought for victims

Abdul Jabbar: The victim who fought for victims

Another anniversary of Bhopal Gas tragedy will pass by next month but still many poor people are suffering the after effects of the release of poisonous gas. Many activists are still engaged in struggle for justice. One of the oldest activist Abdul Jabbar led the largest group of survivors of the Union Carbide gas leak in 1984. Activism Abdul Jabbar[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 2 comments India
The Relevance of Nehruvian ideals of Secularism, Socialism and Minority Rights in the contemporary Political Scenario

The Relevance of Nehruvian ideals of Secularism, Socialism and Minority Rights in the contemporary Political Scenario

 Barring the Hindu Right, the Left-liberals and secular oriented academics and civil society groups have time and again emphasized that Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s secular legacy needs to be remembered in the current political scenario. While remembering the contributions of Nehru on the occasion of his 130th birth anniversary, at New Delhi, the Congress President Sonia Gandhi vividly reminded us that[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 1 comment India
Kashmir After Abrogation of Article 370: Lies and Propaganda Galore

Kashmir After Abrogation of Article 370: Lies and Propaganda Galore

It is over three months that the Article 370 has been abrogated. The procedure laid down by the law has been given a go bye and through a majority in Lok Sabha, bypassing the people of Kashmir the act has been done. While many a falsehood has been promoted, lately two such surfaced yet again. Paying tribute to Sardar Patel[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Why have India’s elite institutions become murderers of Dalit Adivasi-Muslim scholars ?

Why have India’s elite institutions become murderers of Dalit Adivasi-Muslim scholars ?

The suicide of bright young scholar Fathima Latheef at the IIT Madras is reflective of the brutal and atrocious caste order prevailing in these institutions which discriminate against Dalit, OBC, Adivasi and Muslim students. This suicide is an institutional murder where the masterminds and caste supremacists are well protected. The list is long in recent years as how bright young[Read More…]

by 16/11/2019 2 comments India
Growth continues to slow in major economies

Growth continues to slow in major economies

Data from the world’s major economies, released over the past few days, show that the “synchronised” global slowdown pointed to by the International Monetary Fund is worsening. In its report on the latest figures from China, the world’s second largest economy, Bloomberg said the “engines of China’s economy are spluttering with exports falling, factory output slowing, investment at a record[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Security forces violently clash with people as Evo Morales warns government not to stain with blood

Security forces violently clash with people as Evo Morales warns government not to stain with blood

Bolivia has flared up with violent clashes between people protesting the coup and security forces. Fresh clashes have broken out in as the self-declared interim president Jeanine Anez faced challenges to her leadership in the Bolivia Congress and the streets from supporters of the exiled President Evo Morales. Evo Morales, forced out by the armed forces in the country has[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 1 comment World
What is your religion? Life In Occupied Palestine!

What is your religion? Life In Occupied Palestine!

  Israeli soldiers’ demand to know one’s religion, begs two larger questions: What does it mean to “be” a certain religion? And for what purpose is the question being asked? “Religion” here has nothing to do with theology, but with descent, one’s lineage — essential information for a state founded and perpetuated on the basis of ethnic identity. If Israel’s[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
After Morales Ousted in Coup, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia

After Morales Ousted in Coup, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to bring economic and social democracy to his long-exploited country. It is important to recall that Bolivia has suffered a series of coups, often conducted by the military and the[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 1 comment World
Tinderbox Earth

Tinderbox Earth

The effects of encroaching deserts andof fire storms onterrestrial forests, originally developed under moderate conditions distinct from those emerging under rapid global warming and extreme weather events, may have been underestimated. Average global temperatures do not tell the story — it is the increasingly frequent weather anomalies which do. Powerful psychological factors prevent many scientists from expressing their worst fears,a[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 1 comment Climate Change
What the U.S. Military Will Be Doing in a Climate Crisis Future

What the U.S. Military Will Be Doing in a Climate Crisis Future

The Situation Room, October 2039: the president and vice president, senior generals and admirals, key cabinet members, and other top national security officers huddle around computer screens as aides speak to key officials across the country. Some screens are focused on Hurricane Monica, continuing its catastrophic path through the Carolinas and Virginia; others are following Hurricane Nicholas, now pummeling Florida and[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Was the Founder of White Helmets Killed by Islamic State?

Was the Founder of White Helmets Killed by Islamic State?

The founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was a former British army veteran and a private security contractor from 2008 to 2012 working for Good Harbor [1], run by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration counter-terrorism czar. Much[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Why aren’t Americans rising up like the people of Chile and Lebanon?

Why aren’t Americans rising up like the people of Chile and Lebanon?

Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies The waves of protests breaking out in country after country around the world beg the question: Why aren’t Americans rising up in peaceful protest like our neighbors? We live at the very heart of this neoliberal system that is force-feeding the systemic injustice and inequality of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism to[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 1 comment World
Impeachment: What Is At Risk

Impeachment: What Is At Risk

Today, as the public phase of impeachment hearings are underway, I am watching while reading from the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Sadly, I admit to not trusting the American people as much as I might to see clearly, think honestly, and do what is right.  I would welcome being mistaken in my skepticism. However, I am certain not to trust[Read More…]

by 15/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Evo Morales Photo: Granma

Evo’s “crime”: Bretton Woods bosses were kicked out of Bolivia

While Empire-blessed dirty dictators, notorious for murdering and looting, survive, Evo Morales, the socialist leader forced out of presidency by an Empire-engineered coup in Bolivia, had to take political asylum as his physical security was threatened in Bolivia. The Empire-fed bloodhounds are after Evo. Even, he was denied airspace for his safe air transit to Mexico, his place of political[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 1 comment World
Does The Appeal For Peace And Harmony Apply To Hindutva Brigade As Well For Future?

Does The Appeal For Peace And Harmony Apply To Hindutva Brigade As Well For Future?

Co-Written by Sandeep Pandey, Yugal Kishore Shashtri and Lubna Sarwath With the exception of few, every leader of political or social importance is making an appeal to the common people to maintain peace and communal harmony in the wake of Supreme Court judgement in the Ram Janambhumi-Babri Masjid case as part of which the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Bolivians protest self-declared “interim president” and police tear gas thousands of Evo Morales supporters

Bolivians protest self-declared “interim president” and police tear gas thousands of Evo Morales supporters

Thousands of supporters of deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales gathered in La Paz, the Bolivian capital city, to demand the resignation of self-declared “interim” leader Jeanine Anez. Riot police squared off the protesters during street clashes. Thousands of Bolivians are demonstrating against the coup, which was orchestrated by opposition leaders Luis Fernando Camacho and Carlos Mesa and supported by the country’s[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Business as Usual: Evo Morales and the Coup Condition

Business as Usual: Evo Morales and the Coup Condition

There is an inherent bestiality in the politics of the Americas that signals coup, assassination and disruption.  No state is ever allowed to go through what is weakly called a transition, except over corpses, tortures and morgues.  When a social experiment is conducted, rulers must ensure their wills are well inked ahead of time.  Opponents, often funded and sponsored by[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 1 comment World
Ayodhya Judgement and Justice

Ayodhya Judgement and Justice

The Ayodhya Judgement to hand over the disputed land for construction of Ram temple and providing alternative land to Muslims for construction of Mosque is being welcomed not only by the Sangh Parivar but also the parties which claim to be secular. This includes Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Telugu Desam Party. This is being[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Ayodhya Judgement Unjust: An Assault on the Secular Fabric of the Constitution

Ayodhya Judgement Unjust: An Assault on the Secular Fabric of the Constitution

The National Alliance of People’s Movements condemns the ‘unanimous’ verdict by the 5-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya matter. The judgement, instead of holding accountable before law all those who criminally demolished the 450 year old Babri Masjid has rewarded the violators. The judgement legitimizes majoritarianism and mobocracy and strikes at the very secular fabric of our[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
We Will Take Our Forest Rights

We Will Take Our Forest Rights

National Adivasi Alliance (NAA), a collective of people’s organizations  espousing the cause of the tribals’ on Forest Rights Act (FRA) drawn from  Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand and Delhi assembled at Rangapadar in Kalahandi district of Odisha. In its National Review and planning meeting held on 12th and 13th October 2019, the NAA registered its[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 1 comment India
Extrapolating 11,000 Scientists’ Climate Emergency Warning To 2030 Catastrophe

Extrapolating 11,000 Scientists’ Climate Emergency Warning To 2030 Catastrophe

Over 11,000 scientists have signed up to a World scientists’ warning of a Climate Emergency that sets out trends in 24 climate-related  areas over the last 40 years.  Scientists became aware of the climate change threat from greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in the 1980s,  but in 23 of these 24 areas the trends are (a) huge, (b) in the wrong[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 2 comments Climate Change
A Lesson for the Palestinian Leadership: Real Reasons behind Israel’s Arrest and Release of Labadi, Mi’ri

A Lesson for the Palestinian Leadership: Real Reasons behind Israel’s Arrest and Release of Labadi, Mi’ri

The release on November 6 of two Jordanian nationals, Heba al-Labadi and Abdul Rahman Mi’ri from Israeli prisons was a bittersweet moment. The pair were finally reunited with their families after harrowing experiences in Israel. Sadly, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are still denied their freedom, still subjected to all sorts of hardships at the hands of their Israeli jailers. Despite[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Jakarta polluted, unloved

Abandoning Jakarta, Moving Capital To Borneo – Cynicism, Corruption, Murder

Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It is wrong, totally wrong to abandon Jakarta and try to build some Potemkin village in the middle of Borneo, an island known in Indonesia as Kalimantan. There are many reasons why, and we will be addressing at least some of them here. But before we begin, let us state the obvious:the cowardly and spineless[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Congress And BJP Have Triumphed Over Ayodhya

Congress And BJP Have Triumphed Over Ayodhya

Muslims had pinned their every hope for Justice in Ramjanambhumi/Babri Masjid case, for it was only Supreme Court where-in laid their last recoup. But, the spleen in the name of Ram Mandir, now guaranteed on the demolished site of Babri Masjid, Ayodhya, Faizabad, UP since the Karachi born LK Advani charioted his Rath Yatra (Sep 25, 1900) from Somnath to[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
The Ayodhya Verdict: Majoritarianism At Play?

The Ayodhya Verdict: Majoritarianism At Play?

Raja bola raat hai, Mantri bola raat hai Court bola raat hai Yeh subah-subah kee baat hai (The King said it was night; The Ministers said it was night; The Court said it was night; It was early morning) The Court of the Honorable Chief Justice of India’s below the central dome of the Supreme Court building, is the setting[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Winning The Land, Losing The Country

Winning The Land, Losing The Country

There are many  dreadful things we all know about human societies and institutions, which are absolutely true and yet we like to think otherwise, lest we come across as being too cynical. Even more so we live in the hope that, some of our wishful thinking about how things really are, will rub off on reality and magically produce a[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
The Verdict for A Common Future

The Verdict for A Common Future

The changes from a pretension of secularism to a majoritarian Hindutva culture within the mainstream psyche was slow and steady during the post independent India. The growth of Islamophobia from the partition period to the destruction of Babari Masjid was one stage in this. The destruction of Babari Masjid and its justification changed the pace in which communal forces acted[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Bystander

I had heard of people in abusive relationships— Of torture made to disappear, Of tyrannies of the mind calculated to blind and crippling dependence cultivated, Of phantom foes and spectral fears and hollow promises renewed, Of shrunken lives under constant vigil terrorised into compliance, Of gaslit rebellion and curfewed movement, isolated from the world’s concern; I marvelled at how all[Read More…]

by 14/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
A self-appointed president, soldiers and violence dominate Bolivia, 6 citizens already shot  

A self-appointed president, soldiers and violence dominate Bolivia, 6 citizens already shot  

Jeanine Áñez, a senator from the rightist opposition camp, declared herself president of Bolivia on Tuesday although the legislative body failed to meet with the constitutional requirements for such a move. The Parliament did not achieve a quorum because the lawmakers of the Movement to Socialism (MAS), the movement ousted president Evo Morales represented, could not attend, due to a lack of[Read More…]

by 13/11/2019 1 comment World
Death of Secular And Democratic India      

Death of Secular And Democratic India      

  Ayodhya Verdict unravels a new sensibility and a distinctly different social reality, in several diverse ways. One aspect to be mentioned here is the extraordinary rush of appeals for peace in the country. With large battalions of police force deployed throughout the nation, the government and mass media and the social media sent out appeals again and again. The[Read More…]

by 13/11/2019 1 comment India
Saudi King Salman presents President Donald Trump with The Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud Medal at the Royal Court Palace, Saturday, May 20, 2017, in Riyadh. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

 The Perfectly Legal Ways Foreign Powers Subvert American Democracy

Co-Written by Ryan Summers and Ben Freeman Foreign influence in America is the topic du jour. From the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s request that a foreign power investigate a political opponent to the indictment of associates of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, for illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, the nation has been transfixed by news of illegal foreign influence in the political[Read More…]

by 13/11/2019 2 comments World
Armistice And Remembrance Day: What Does It Mean To Palestinian People And Dream Of Universal Peace?

Armistice And Remembrance Day: What Does It Mean To Palestinian People And Dream Of Universal Peace?

The world has just honored yet another Armistice Day – Remembrance Day – Veterans Day for all those who lost their lives in armed defense of their nation’s right to exist and remain a free people. Nation’s like the United States, Canada, Australia, UK and Israel pay constant tribute to those key battles and wars that once determined their continued[Read More…]

by 13/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Water Water Everywhere……

Water Water Everywhere……

I just interviewed former World Bank staff member and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig via telephone at his home in Geneva. Koenig had just returned from South America , a place where he has travelled to many times . One of the issues that he is very passionate about is the agenda by ( so called ) world health and finance[Read More…]

by 13/11/2019 2 comments World
Imperialist imprint in Bolivia coup

Imperialist imprint in Bolivia coup

Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible. Donald Trump, the US President, has said in a statement: “The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.” Who these “people” are? The fascists, the rich, the appropriators,[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 1 comment Imperialism
Plane carrying Morales lands in Paraguay after getting refusal from Peru

Plane carrying Morales lands in Paraguay after getting refusal from Peru

Paraguayan media including the newspaper ABC Color reported on Tuesday: An aircraft of the Mexican Air Force carrying resigned Bolivian President Evo Morales has landed in Paraguay after a request for landing in Peru was rejected. At the same time, thousands of pro-Evo protesters were marching towards Bolivia’s legislative assembly. The plane was supposed to refuel in Peru before heading[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Incinerating Logic: Bush Fires and Climate Change

Incinerating Logic: Bush Fires and Climate Change

Despite the Internet, connectivity, and linking technologies, distance has not shrunk the Australian sense of self, an often provincial appraisal of the world seen in slow motion and stills.  Whether it’s the “flower revolution” or Michel Foucault, trends and ideas are often delayed, and seem almost cutely anachronistic by the time they make landfall down under.  Wedded to the insatiable[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Countering Hypocrisy of Ruling Class on English Medium Education in Government Schools

Countering Hypocrisy of Ruling Class on English Medium Education in Government Schools

The Y.S.Jaganmohan Reddy Government recently issued orders for implementation of English medium in Government schools from the academic year 2020-21. It said that from next academic year from class 1 to 6th all Government schools will teach in English medium with one subject compulsory in Telugu. The orders are issued almost seven months in advance before the academic year starts.[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
 Now That US GIs Have Been Duly Honored Let Everyone Everywhere Remember Their Invasions Were Criminal

 Now That US GIs Have Been Duly Honored Let Everyone Everywhere Remember Their Invasions Were Criminal

US GIs have been duly honored on Veterans Day. Now let everyone remember regarding any order to invade and or kill in another country: “An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Climate Confusion, Angst, and Sleeplessness

Climate Confusion, Angst, and Sleeplessness

Climate change is a nagging issue for many people because it is so big, diverse, and overwhelming, as big as the planet itself. So, how to explain climate change? Sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and even anthropologists and economists have tackled the phenomenon of Climate Weltschmerz, meaning people experience angst as the enormity of climate change overrides sensibilities, and sanity, and sadly[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review, Climate Change
Israel is silencing the last voices trying to stop abuses against Palestinians

Israel is silencing the last voices trying to stop abuses against Palestinians

Nazareth: It has been a week of appalling abuses committed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank – little different from the other 2,670 weeks endured by Palestinians since the occupation began in 1967. The difference this past week was that several entirely unexceptional human rights violations that had been caught on film went viral on social media. One shows[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
China’s Vision for the Future: “Give Peace a Chance”

China’s Vision for the Future: “Give Peace a Chance”

Text of Peter Koenig’s Presentation at the International Forum on “China’s 70-Year Development and the Construction of the Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”, Shanghai, November 2019 China’s vision for the future is “Give Peace a Chance”. It is also the title of one of John Lennon’s most prominent songs. It became the anthem for the anti-war movement, at the[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Greenpeace volunteers fly Peace Doves, bearing messages of peace, "No More Hiroshima", "Yes to Peace",  "No to Rokkasho" in Japanese and in English, beside the A-Bomb Dome Memorial in Hiroshima. 
Greenpeace renews their calls for peace and make this anniversary a message to world leaders to make real their commitments to nuclear disarmament, including the Japanese government to abandon plans to produce nuclear weapons.

Ending Violence, Exploitation, Ecological Destruction and War: Creating a Culture of Peace

The date 11 November is well known and commemorated in many parts of the world because it marks the Armistice ending World War I – ‘the Great War’ – in 1918. In the evocative words used by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an atheist humanist, in his novel Breakfast of Champions, the day is remembered thus: ‘When I was a boy …[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
A reflection on the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7

A reflection on the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7

“Whether nuclear weapons are actually illegal under international or domestic law (a doubtful proposition) is not relevant or an appropriate issue to litigate in this case,” so ruled Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, late on Friday October 18. This last-minute order, restricting the defense of seven antinuclear activists at a[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
What’s Ailing The Economy?

What’s Ailing The Economy?

When the chief investment officer (CIO) at one of the world’s largest asset managers, PIMCO, publically admits what you have been saying and writing for the past 10 years then it is both a time of worry and hope. Worry: because when the present economic system – built on greed, deception and speculation – will collapse then it will spread[Read More…]

by 12/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Attempt to Gag the Media by the AP Government

Attempt to Gag the Media by the AP Government

The Human Rights Forum (HRF) calls upon the AP government to rescind GO 2430. The GO, issued on 30-10-2019 accords permission to government functionaries to file complaints and lodge appropriate cases through public prosecutor against defamatory news items in the print, electronic and social media. HRF believes GO 2430 undermines the fundamental freedom of the Press and expression and is[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Babri Masjid-wikimedia

Babri Judgment and Portents for Future

The Supreme Court judgment on Babri Mosque-Ram Janmbhumi dispute gave the verdict that the whole land where the mosque stood from 1528 to 6th December 1992 be given to the ‘Hindu Side’, Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas, set up by VHP. Just to recall it was demolished in broad day light by the RSS combine led by Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
COPYRIGHT THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s

Finality At Ayodhya

Whether one likes it or not, celebrates it or rues it, appreciates it or criticizes it, the unanimous Ayodhya verdict by a 5-Judge constitution bench is now law. Flawed it may be, imbued with strange logic in places it may be, but it is final, because the Supreme Court is structurally supreme and constitutionally final. Following the Ayodhya verdict, a[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
We will come back, says Bolivia’s Evo Morales after rightist coup forces him to resign

We will come back, says Bolivia’s Evo Morales after rightist coup forces him to resign

Amidst a right wing coup, Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign Sunday. Evo’s forced exit from the Bolivian presidency was a right wing coup by army and police chieftains with imperialist backing. Prior to the putsch, imperialism-backed rightists organized unrest, violence and arson including setting fire to residences of two governors’ and of Evo’s sister. The rightists organized[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 1 comment World
48000 RTC workers of Telangana on strike for 37 days : It is a stalemate now

48000 RTC workers of Telangana on strike for 37 days : It is a stalemate now

The strike by 48000 workers and employees of  Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has completed 37 days by now. It is a stalemate now, caused chiefly by the adamant attitude of State Government led by TRS headed by Chief Minister KCR. The High Court had several sittings till now, but could not end the stalemate, and is going to[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Fascistic Vox party surges in Spanish election as hung parliament emerges

Fascistic Vox party surges in Spanish election as hung parliament emerges

The pro-fascist Vox party surged into third place in national elections in Spain Sunday, doubling its presence from 24 to 52 seats in the Congress as a hung parliament emerged for the fourth straight election in Spain since 2015. Absention rose to over 30 percent, after a reactionary election campaign oriented around calls for violent police repression of mass protests[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Of warnings and their ripple effects

Of warnings and their ripple effects

In her testimony to the US Congress, Greta Thunberg did not prepare a statement for submission to the record. Instead, she submitted the most recent scientific report, issued by the IPCC three weeks earlier. She said simply, “I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 1 comment Climate Change
 The Greatest Scam in History: How the Energy Companies Took Us All

 The Greatest Scam in History: How the Energy Companies Took Us All

It’s a tale for all time. What might be the greatest scam in history or, at least, the one that threatens to take history down with it. Think of it as the climate-change scam that beat science, big time. Scientists have been seriously investigating the subject of human-made climate change since the late 1950s and political leaders have been discussing[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 4 comments Climate Change
The Persecution of Julian Assange

The Persecution of Julian Assange

 “Australia is a glaring absence in this case. They’re just not around, as if Assange was not an Australian citizen”, UN Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Nils Melzer. The Australian political and media establishments attitudes toward Julian Assange is summed up by no other than one of Australia’s most despicable corporate journalists. In early May 2019, The Melbourne Age newspaper published[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 4 comments Human Rights
Omnicide

Omnicide

For the new generations You and bride, side-by-side At new son’s cradle side, First son at grandpa’s side, Daughter at grandma’s side, All at full tableside— Fortunate family! Springtime ride, riverside. Summer swim, oceanside. Autumn hike, mountainside. Winter song, fireside. Countryside, cityside, Sweet life of bourgeoisie! But there’s another side— Rat-race-cide, ed-debt-cide, Rush-hour- cide, autocide, Boob-tube-cide, junk-food-cide, Beer-gut-cide, pharma-cide— All[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Agrarian Crisis and Malnutrition: GM Agriculture Is Not the Answer

Agrarian Crisis and Malnutrition: GM Agriculture Is Not the Answer

M S Swaminathan is often referred to as the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution. In 2009, he said that  no scientific evidence had emerged to justify concerns about genetically modified (GM) crops, often regarded as stage two of the Green Revolution. In a December 2018 paper in the journal Current Science, however, it was argued that Bt insecticidal cotton (India’s only officially[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
For the memory of “Chatto”:  Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and his anarchist tendency as a way for Indian independence

For the memory of “Chatto”:  Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and his anarchist tendency as a way for Indian independence

The whole story of Indian independence struggle against British empire was a glamorous saga with many dedications and it epitomizes the courage held by a nation despite its people were trampled under imperial yoke. However, it seems to indicate the larger picture of Indian independence movement has been narrated from how Gandhi launched his famous Satyagraha as a mean to[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Exit Azad! Enter Savarkar!!

Exit Azad! Enter Savarkar!!

Last year, a statue of freedom fighter and first education minister of independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was destroyed by Hindutva mobs at Kankinara in North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. At the time, there were communal flare-ups in many districts of the state in the aftermath of aggressive Ram Navami marches, the first of their kind in the[Read More…]

by 11/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Walls in the Head: Ostalgia and the Berlin Wall Three Decades Later

Walls in the Head: Ostalgia and the Berlin Wall Three Decades Later

Walls have always served a dual purpose: they keep people in, and others out.  The mentality of the wall is one of imprisonment and exclusion.  Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we see such infrastructure, both symbolically and in actuality, potent. On August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic began construction of the structure officially dubbed the[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
What’s Joker’s Joke?

What’s Joker’s Joke?

“Cause how many times can you wake up in this comic book and plant flowers?” – Rodriguez, “Cause” It’s not funny, that’s for sure. When I went to see Joker, the new Todd Philips’ film, there were five other people in the theater in the liberal, up-scale tourist town populated by wealthy second-home owners, exiles for the most part from[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Downtown Doha

Qatar: Education As A Weapon

Text and photos: Andre Vltchek There seems to be no limit to Qataris tossing around their wealth. This tiny kingdom with 2.6 million inhabitantsis full of ridiculously lavish gold-plated palaces, most of them built with terrible taste. It is overflowing with Lamborghini racing cars and Rolls Royce limousines, and now, even with ludicrously wasteful air-conditioned sidewalks (cold air blows from[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
It doesn’t end with Babri Mosque: The dispute may cast a long shadow on the future of mosques in India

It doesn’t end with Babri Mosque: The dispute may cast a long shadow on the future of mosques in India

India’s Supreme Court on Saturday granted Hindus permission to build a temple at the centuries-old site of Babri Mosque demolished in 1992 by Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) led right-wing mobs. In their unanimous and historic judgment, the five Supreme Court judges stated that the site rightfully belonged to Hindus, based upon the claim it is the birthplace of their god[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
COPYRIGHT THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s

Ayodhya – Babri Masjid- Just A Verdict, Not Justice

On 09-Nov-19, Hon. Supreme Court of India’s 5 judges Constitution bench comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Dhananjay Chandrachud, Sharad Bobde, Ashok Bhushan & Abdul Nazir given entire 2.77 acre land to Hindus. By seeing the judgment it is not clear whether all 5 judges agreed to it or someone dissented like in Aadhar validity case where Justice Chandrachud given a scathing[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
House of Gods or Plea for Peace

House of Gods or Plea for Peace

Oh house of Gods! Oh house of Gods! Temples or Mosques Churches or Synagogues Displaced they stand— A black stone Rectangle or phallic Does it matter? In streams refugees pour out Bloodshed, Gore Hatred and More More and More Ring- a- round the roses Pocketful of doses You think when they Burnt, Singed, they would have learnt Flames should be[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 1 comment Arts/Literature
Babri Masjid-wikimedia

 Ayodhya reflections  

A Mosque stood in Ayodhya, it was built in the 15th century – since then, Tulsidas, the writer of the Ramayana, (that is the story of Lord Ram) did not write that Lord Ram was born in the precise place the mosque stood, Swami Vivekananda, the Icon of Hinduism did not mention it. The surveys did not indicate that, nor[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Ayodhya verdict incomplete without bringing perpetrators of the demolition of Babari Masjid to justice

Ayodhya verdict incomplete without bringing perpetrators of the demolition of Babari Masjid to justice

The Ayodhya verdict is out. People are interpreting it according to their positions. A one thousand page verdict will have many point and perhaps would be useful for the scholars as a research material. There are things which make verdict the best possible solution in todays vitiated political climate. It is unambiguous that the court has been unanimous in ‘respecting’[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
 SC Verdict on Ayodhya: My Conscience Does Not Allow Me to Celebrate It

 SC Verdict on Ayodhya: My Conscience Does Not Allow Me to Celebrate It

What if the Ram temple were demolished on December 6, 1992 instead of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya? Do you think the Supreme Court judgment would have been the same? Do you think the demolished structure would have been given to the party that was involved in razing it to the ground or supporting its demolition? These questions are unlikely[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Lurking Fears of Tamils After Presidential Election on November 16, 2019

Lurking Fears of Tamils After Presidential Election on November 16, 2019

The Presidential election on November 16, 2019 will usher in a new President, either Gotabaya Rajapaksha or Sajith Premadasa. Intensive campaign with promises suiting the locations and people are pouring from candidates to woo the voters, particularly Tamils by Sajith Premadasa. The promises thrown before Tamils will have a short life span as their deaths will be a certainty once[Read More…]

by 10/11/2019 Comments are Disabled South Asia
My Country

My Country

They tell me it is your country, but prove your love to keep the peace, gift the land to us to please, and obey the majority or cease. They tell me it is your country but as long as I don’t affirm my belief, remain silent when in grief, and mourn my history in silence. They tell me it is[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 2 comments Arts/Literature
Babri Masjid Verdict: My House Demolished, I Go To Court, Court Awards The Land To The Demolisher, Is This Justice?

Babri Masjid Verdict: My House Demolished, I Go To Court, Court Awards The Land To The Demolisher, Is This Justice?

Someone demolished my house. I went to court to get justice. The court ordered that the demolisher can build house in the place where my house stood. As a consolation I’ve been allotted some land. Is this justice? This is a fictitious scenario, but not dissimilar to what happened to Rama Janmabhumi – Babri Masjid that was delivered in the[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 30 comments India
Lula Is Free

Lula Is Free

Co-Written by Ana Paula Vargas and Vijay Prashad Just before 5pm on Friday the 8th of November, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of his prison in Curitiba (Brazil). Lula went to prison in April last year on a 12-year sentence. Five-hundred and eighty days of prison are now over, as the Federal Supreme Court ruled that[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 1 comment World
Aerial view over two walruses on an ice floe in front of Kvitøya (White Island) in the Svalbard Archipelago.

Ignoring Climate Catastrophes

The planet is coming apart at the seams right before the eyes of scientists at work in remote fringe areas of the North where permafrost crumbles and collapses. It’s abrupt climate change at work in real time,but the governing leaders of the world either don’t care or don’t know. If they did, there would already be a worldwide Climate Marshall[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 2 comments Climate Change
Schweitzer’s ‘Reverence for Life’ In The Age of Trump And Modi

Schweitzer’s ‘Reverence for Life’ In The Age of Trump And Modi

Forever known by his phrase ‘reverence for life’, Albert Schweitzer was a theologian, moral philosopher, physician and missionary.  He was born in Alsace when it was German, and became a French citizen when it reverted back to France after the First World War. To him this reverence implied regard for and a duty to all human beings, not “confined to[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Charter for Conservatism: The ALP Campaign Review

Charter for Conservatism: The ALP Campaign Review

Reports on electoral strategies are often written in order to be avoided.  They are scripted for the express purpose of gathering dust on shelves, or decaying in digital files rarely to be consulted except by historians.  But the review of the reasons why the Australian Labor Party lost the May 2019 Australian federal election was deemed of particular interest.  Authored[Read More…]

by 09/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The Climate Strikers Walked Out of School. Next, Let’s Walk Off the Job

The Climate Strikers Walked Out of School. Next, Let’s Walk Off the Job

We can leverage our power as workers through high-impact, disruptive labor strikes that halt the economy’s gears until politicians can no longer ignore us, and are forced to cede to demands that will save the world. This September, the world erupted when over 7 million people — young and old—poured into the streets for the Global Climate Strike. The mass action, which made a Green New[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
UN overwhelmingly votes for ending U.S. blockade against Cuba

UN overwhelmingly votes for ending U.S. blockade against Cuba

12:05 pm The voting process begins. Result: 187 in favor; 3 against; 2 abstentions Against: Israel, the United States, Brazil Abstaining: Colombia and Ukraine The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday overwhelming voted in favor of the resolution demanding ending of the U.S. blockade against Cuba with 187 countries voting in favor, three including the U.S. against while two countries abstained.[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 3 comments World
Red Dots

Red Dots

I heard In real or in a dream? Home is white… Or red? Tulip tree is buried…. In ice, Or in debris? Kangri is in shed. Or dead in the cold? My pheran… The one with red dots on chest…. Is like a scarecrow on tilted pole, Or cut into shreds? Who tells me?????? My umbilical cord…… Is missing……………… In[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Open Letter to the Government of India from Pegasus Targeted Persons

Open Letter to the Government of India from Pegasus Targeted Persons

We, the undersigned, have all received messages from WhatsApp Inc. over the last fortnight, informing us that our mobile devices were the target by a highly sophisticated cyberattack. According to this message, an attempt was made to send spyware to our electronic devices through the WhatsApp video calling service, highly compromising our digital security. WhatsApp attributes this attack to a[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 2 comments Human Rights
COPYRIGHT THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s

Babri Masjid And The Two Chairmen Of Shia – Sunni Waqf Boards

As the Ramjanambhumi/Babri Masjid, Ayodhya/Faizabad,UP case draws to a close the Muslim society faultlines, contradictions, loopholes and potholes have all as yet again come out in the open. In fact since independence out of the thousands of Muslim organisations, devoted to charity, welfare, human rights, culture or community service, probably all been have ‘engineered’ by agents or agencies . The[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Corporate Mammon: Amazon and the Seattle Council Elections

Corporate Mammon: Amazon and the Seattle Council Elections

An enduring US political tradition was in evidence in Seattle recently.  Amazon had decided that the city council elections would be too important to leave alone.  Seattle was their city after all.  The aim of the company was much in keeping with the manor lord who prosecutes keen poachers: fund pro-business candidates sympathetic to its cause and defeat such Amazon[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Watching My Students Turn Into Soldiers of Empire

Watching My Students Turn Into Soldiers of Empire

Patches, pins, medals, and badges are the visible signs of an exclusive military culture, a silent language by which soldiers and officers judge each other’s experiences, accomplishments, and general worth. In July 2001, when I first walked through the gate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point at the ripe young age of 17, the “combat patch” on one’s[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
The Phony Anti-Defamation League’s Genocide Legislation

The Phony Anti-Defamation League’s Genocide Legislation

  Why did I testify at the Massachusetts State House on Oct. 7 against legislation that would require public schools to teach the Jewish Holocaust, Armenian and Greek Genocides, and other genocides and “atrocities”? Good question, especially as I’m an Armenian American journalist and activist.  My Christian grandparents landed on these shores over 120 years ago. My answers: A brazenly[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Did Iran Conduct the Abqaiq Attack with Russia’s Blessings?

Did Iran Conduct the Abqaiq Attack with Russia’s Blessings?

Although the Houthi rebels based in Yemen claimed the responsibility for the September 14 complex attack involving drones and cruise missiles on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and they have UAV-X drones having a range of 1,500 kilometers, Washington dismissed the possibility. Instead, it accused Tehran of mounting the[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
A Warning Against German Fascism

A Warning Against German Fascism

  Part biography and part astute analysis of traditional fascism (1920s and 1940s) and of today’s version, US politician Madeleine Albright clarifies not just what fascism is but she also outlines the differences between it as a time-bound political movement and populism. Albright was the first female Secretary of State in US history, serving from 1997 to 2001 under Bill[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 1 comment Book Review
Daring to Study Domestic Violence: Who is the Victim?

Daring to Study Domestic Violence: Who is the Victim?

As an international student in UC-Berkeley who has only been in the United States for just over a month, my journey has not only been geographical, from Nanjing, China to Berkeley, USA, but also philosophical and intellectual. When going through the course offerings list, my attention was drawn by a seminar called “Intimate Partner Violence and the Law.” This was[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election And The True Face of Tamil National Alliance

Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election And The True Face of Tamil National Alliance

The cat is finally out of the bag. The secretly well-kept decision of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to back Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party is now disclosed 10 days before the election, after playing the hide and seek and cat and mouse games. TNA leadership particularly Sumanthiran and Sampanthan have been making often confusing and conflicting statements hiding[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 1 comment South Asia
The Rise of ‘Tele-Nationalism’ in Safron Era

The Rise of ‘Tele-Nationalism’ in Safron Era

Nation, and nationalism can be, at times, quite confusing terms at philosophical level of thinking. Why am I saying so? Because of a simple fact- every nation has a different nationalism despite having the same fabrics in it. It is like all the nations are wearing clothes which are made of thread, but each have its own form and characteristics.[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
No intervention is needed: Mexico tells U.S.

No intervention is needed: Mexico tells U.S.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said: Mexico does not need “foreign intervention” to deal with its security issues. The Mexican President was making comments following an offer of “help” from U.S. President Donald Trump after the ambush and murder of a family from the U.S. “It’s a firm no,” he said on Tuesday morning. He said: “Of course[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The Great October Revolution: Lenin’s telegram

The Great October Revolution: Lenin’s telegram

A group of great scholars unremittingly condemns the Great October Revolution and the Bolsheviks for leading the revolution. They deny looking at the reality the revolution and the Bolsheviks were encountering. A look at the telegrams and messages Lenin sent, and taking into consideration the circumstances in which those were sent help perceive the reality within which Lenin and his[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 1 comment World
 Neoliberalism’s children rise up to demand justice in Chile and the world

 Neoliberalism’s children rise up to demand justice in Chile and the world

Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies Uprisings against the corrupt, generation-long dominance of neoliberal “center-right” and “center-left” governments that benefit the wealthy and multinational corporations at the expense of working people are sweeping country after country all over the world. In this Autumn of Discontent, people from Chile, Haiti and Honduras to Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon are[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 8 comments World
First Muslim woman elected to Virginia Senate

First Muslim woman elected to Virginia Senate

Ghazala Hashmi on Tuesday (Nov. 5) became the first Muslim women elected to the Virginia Senate. Ghazala Hashmi, 55, upset the Republican incumbent Glen Sturtevant to represent a district based in Chesterfield County. With all 70 precincts reporting, Hashmi won 43,806 votes, while Sturtevant had 36,811 votes. Sturtevant narrowly won in 2015 against his Democratic opponent. Her victory helped to[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Curfew Panda

Curfew Panda

It seems a tall, ambitious and very authoritarian order: imposing bans on persons under the age of 18 from playing online games between 22:00 and 08:00; rationing gaming on weekdays to 90 minutes and three hours on holidays and weekends.  This is the response of the People’s Republic of China to fears that video game addiction must be combated, less[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
PKT3207 - 225418

PETROGRAD: Soldiers of the Keksgolm Regiment in 1917.

Remembering October Revolution: There can be no Alternative to Class Struggle

Over the last one hundred and two years, the Great October Revolution in Russia has been celebrated and condemned, cherished and abhorred, epitomized as a struggle for emancipation and identified asa “coup by criminals”. It has been subjected to merciless criticism and skeptical scrutiny, by a part of the “left” and, of course, the entire right. The one thing that[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 2 comments World
FILE- In this May 11, 2017, file photo, members of a design team at Cirque du Soleil demonstrate use of Microsoft's HoloLens device in helping to virtually design a set at the Microsoft Build 2017 developers conference in Seattle. Federal contract records show the U.S. Army has awarded Microsoft a $480 million contract to supply its HoloLens headsets to soldiers. The head-mounted displays use augmented reality, which means viewers can see virtual imagery superimposed over the real-world scenery in front of them. Microsoft says the technology will provide troops with better information to make decisions.(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

Microsoft Should Not Fund Israeli Spying on Palestinians

  In the past, Israel used basic technologies to identify Palestinians who take part in protests and mobilize the people in various popular activities. TV news footage or newspaper photos were thoroughly deciphered, often with the help of Israel’s collaborators in the Occupied Territories, and the ‘culprits’ would be identified, summoned to meet Shin Bet intelligence officers or arrested from[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Is there a place for ethics in Smart Cities?

Is there a place for ethics in Smart Cities?

It is difficult to win a debate on ethics when you are pitted against a crowd of tech-acolytes. I was taking the position that a more vital consideration in developing cities are ethical ones rather than the smartness of the technology utilised in the infrastructure and running of facilities or services in cities. The organisers of the Maxis Innovation Dialogue[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Tranquility of Visual Memory: The Tibet Film Festival

Tranquility of Visual Memory: The Tibet Film Festival

The lights dim, the crowd goes quiet, and viewers begin to leave worries of this world behind, anticipating instead a new and mysterious alternative world that will soon envelop their eyes and ears…Films create worlds…! (Brent Plate) Film festivals across the globe are more often than not venues to celebrate masterpiece works of art-house filmmakers, creating space for indie cinema,[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 2 comments Arts/Literature
Politainment: Why Hindutva Brigade Spews Lies

Politainment: Why Hindutva Brigade Spews Lies

History is witness that Buddhism, which originated in the Indian subcontinent, posed a challenge to brahmanical Hinduism. It is also recorded history that Buddhism was completely wiped out of this region centuries later, through means violent and non-violent. But the Hindutva supremacists, compelled by their desire and fantasy to re-shape national identity, want India’s past to match their views on[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Monologue of an Oligarch – For K. P. Sasi 

Monologue of an Oligarch – For K. P. Sasi 

  Who should rule a family, community or commonwealth, humanity? What hierarchy should we, who know what’s best impose on those who don’t?   We ask them in elections, though that doesn’t guarantee that our Divine Right to command and then consume the fruits of rule will be confirmed. It’s best if we don’t ask, just act instead to organize[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Poisoning Your Children

Poisoning Your Children

Do you have the right to screw up your children’s lives by poisoning them against fellow humans, in our case, fellow Americans?  If you are biased towards others, that is entirely up to you, but you have the choice to free yourself and enjoy the rest of your life or carry it to your grave or crematorium. A doctor kid,[Read More…]

by 07/11/2019 1 comment Life/Philosophy
To “Collaborate” is to Capitulate:  Seattle City Council District 3 Results

To “Collaborate” is to Capitulate: Seattle City Council District 3 Results

Though traveling, I eagerly awaited the Seattle election results on November 5th; all day I had a knot in my stomach and a sense of foreboding.  “Is it possible they were in the end too powerful for her to withstand?” I asked myself.  Hardly a psephologist and with no particular apparatus to gauge the effects of the Goliath versus David[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists foresee untold human suffering

Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists foresee untold human suffering

Governments are failing to address the climate crisis, says a new study, which is based on 40 years of data on a range of measures. Another team said: Paris carbon-cutting pledges are “too little, too late”. The alarming assessments came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump formally notified the UN of the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Climate[Read More…]

Review: “Homo Deus” By Yuval Harari – Palestinian Genocide & Climate Genocide Ignored

Review: “Homo Deus” By Yuval Harari – Palestinian Genocide & Climate Genocide Ignored

“Homo Deus. A brief history of tomorrow” by secular Jewish Israeli historian Yuval Harari  is fascinating, well-organized  and best-selling,   but is also a Eurocentric and Anglocentric book with massive omissions e.g. the deadly  subjugation of the Palestinians and the Third World in general, existential threats to Humanity (Homo sapiens) from nuclear weapons and climate change, and the worsening Climate Genocide[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 2 comments Book Review
Dear Son….

Dear Son….

Dear son, You must be aware of the many happenings in Kerala, including the arrest of young men in recent days. As sleep evaded me and I lie awake at midnight, I felt like sharing some thoughts with you. These are my dreams and hopes for a person like you with intense thoughts and stances in life. I am aware[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 3 comments Life/Philosophy
The fatal nexus – Atmospheric CO2 and the mass extinction of species

The fatal nexus – Atmospheric CO2 and the mass extinction of species

 As the concentration of atmospheric CO2has risen to 408 ppm and the total greenhouse gas level, including methane and nitrous oxide, combine to near500 parts per million CO2-equivalent, the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, currently melting at an accelerated rate, has been exceeded. The consequent expansion of tropics and the shift of climate zones toward the[Read More…]

At A Crossroads Before Critical Mass

At A Crossroads Before Critical Mass

The terrible and terrifying conditions of wind and fire devastating parts of California are showing us what happens when Earth Trauma approaches critical mass. We are not yet at global critical mass, but we do continue to move ever closer. Critical mass relative to environmental trauma or environmental catastrophe would be when either one of two major developments occur, both[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
 U.S., UK, & France, certainly committed an international war crime against Syria on 14 April 2018

 U.S., UK, & France, certainly committed an international war crime against Syria on 14 April 2018

It is now clear that on 14 April 2018, the three Governments of U.S., UK, and France, fired over a hundred missiles against Syria, on no more ‘justification’ than staged videos that had been done by those regimes’ own proxy boots-on-the-ground fighters in Syria, who are trying to overthrow Syria’s existing, non-sectarian Government and replace it by a Sharia-law regime[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 Prelude to a Socioeconomic Class Analysis of/in Academia (as a Precursor to Classlessness)

 Prelude to a Socioeconomic Class Analysis of/in Academia (as a Precursor to Classlessness)

Lately, in an Introduction to Cultural Studies class I’m teaching at the University of California, Riverside, in between oral surgery and putting in work for lecture duties at another institution, I’ve been discussing socioeconomic class on – and as satirized as well as normalized by – The Simpsons. For this multi-part lecture focused on the class dynamics of everyone’s favorite[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Escaping from the Inescapable Casino of “Free” Market Capitalism

Escaping from the Inescapable Casino of “Free” Market Capitalism

An excellent article “The Inescapable Casino”, written by a professor of mathematics is definitely worth reading.   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/   The article shows how-physics and mathematics can describe the distribution of wealth in modern economies with unprecedented accuracy.  Oxfam estimates that today some 26 individuals possess as much household wealth as the lower half of the world’s population combined—over 3.5 billion people!  Statistics[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Understanding Autism through a TV mom’s eyes

Understanding Autism through a TV mom’s eyes

A few nights ago, I watched a poignant and slightly heart wrenching Bengali drama on YouTube that shines a light on disorders like autism. It was the first time that I saw a drama script was written to raise awareness about autism in a developing country like Bangladesh. The 2014 drama showcases what parenting a child with special needs is[Read More…]

by 06/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Death toll mounts as Iraqi protests defy repression

Death toll mounts as Iraqi protests defy repression

Iraqi protesters and security forces clashed at the edge of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone Monday, leaving at least another six demonstrators dead and scores more wounded as the mass protests that have gripped the country continued into their second month. Monday’s clashes came after demonstrators forced their way across the Ahar Bridge, which spans the Tigris River, and into[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Castle Black, the Syrian Withdrawal, and the Battle of the Bases

Castle Black, the Syrian Withdrawal, and the Battle of the Bases

They called it Castle Black, an obvious homage to the famed frozen citadel from the HBO series Game of Thrones. In the fantasy world of GoT, it’s the stronghold of the Night’s Watch, the French Foreign Legion-esque guardians of the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. This Castle Black, however, was all too real and occupied by U.S. Special Operations forces, America’s most elite troops.[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
People are rising against neoliberalism in Latin America: Maduro

People are rising against neoliberalism in Latin America: Maduro

Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, said: People across the Latin America region are rising against “savage capitalism” especially the neoliberal model pushed by the International Monetary Fund. Maduro was delivering his closing statement at the III Anti-Imperialist Congress against Neoliberalism held in Havana Sunday. Maduro said that although neoliberalism seems to have taken the reins in Latin America, it is[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 2 comments World
Ayodhya Storm Will Pass, The Dignity And Honor Of Supreme Court Can Not Be Compromised Because Of It

Ayodhya Storm Will Pass, The Dignity And Honor Of Supreme Court Can Not Be Compromised Because Of It

When Babri Masjid had lay demolished on December 6, 1992, at the hands of Hindu fanatics, the world sympathised with Muslims of India. Muslims were outraged, betrayed and flabbergasted and resorted to legal recourse to safe Babri Masjid, which is now seeking completion, coupled with virtually nothing coming their way as far as demolition accused, which is BJP top echelon,[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Haste And Brinkmanship Inadvisable In Reaching A Naga Accord

Haste And Brinkmanship Inadvisable In Reaching A Naga Accord

By Sandeep, Babloo Loitongbam and Meera Sanghamitra Thuingaleng Muivah, the supreme leader of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) says that Nagaland may be weaker in material sense but it is strong in politics. No wonder, the organisation which started of as an insurgent group was able to engage Government of India in a process of dialogue for 22[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Gordon Dam, Southwest National Park, Tasmania, Australia (2008). Creator: JJ Harrison. Via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gordon_Dam.jpg

Dammed Good Question about the Green New Deal

Hydroelectric power from dams might be the thorniest question that proponents of the Green New Deal (GND) have to grapple with. Providing more energy than solar and wind combined, dams could well become the backup for energy if it proves impossible to get off of fossil fuels fast enough. An August 2019 forum on the GND included representatives from the Sunrise Movement, Renew[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
The Metamorphosis of the Deep State

The Metamorphosis of the Deep State

It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There’s something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of “conspiracytheorists” is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor.  But with a twisted[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 1 comment World
Who’s Responsible For Poor Air Quality in Delhi?

Who’s Responsible For Poor Air Quality in Delhi?

Delhi’s choking is in the news every year during this period. This year, it broke all the ‘box office’ records of worst air quality. The Supreme Court ‘acted’ as a ‘concerned’ authority. It asked the Delhi and other related government to ‘stop’ ‘blame’ game. It has given some order and ‘decided’ that ‘enough’ is ‘enough’. Arvind Kejriwal blamed the Punjab[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
The Rise of the Hindu Majoritarianism: A Threat to Secularism, Pluralism and religious minorities  

The Rise of the Hindu Majoritarianism: A Threat to Secularism, Pluralism and religious minorities  

While discussing the rise of the Hindu nationalism, a noted French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot has reminded in his recent study that the sole purpose of the RSS-BJP combine is to capture state power and transform the Indian democracy into the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ ( the Hindu Nation). After 2014 and more importantly in 2019 general elections, the dreams of building the[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Animal World – Cartoon by K.P Sasi

Animal World – Cartoon by K.P Sasi

The Kerala police has arrested two Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists, Alan Shuhaib and Thaha Fazal under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) from Kozhikode on Saturday. The two were accused of having circulated notices criticising the alleged encounter killing of four Maoists in the Manjakkatti forests in Palakkad district. K.P Sasi is a film maker,[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 1 comment Arts/Literature
© Sarah Shenker/Survival International

Amazon Guardian Shot Dead By Loggers

An indigenous Amazon Guardian has been shot dead by loggers and another wounded after they were ambushed by loggers. Paulo Paulino Guajajara, known also as Kwahu Tenetehar, was shot in the neck and died in the forest. His colleague, Tainaky Tenetehar, was shot in the back and arm but escaped. The Amazon Guardians have been patrolling their territory in the[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
U.S. debt exceeds $23 trillion for the first time in history 

U.S. debt exceeds $23 trillion for the first time in history 

U.S. Treasury Department figures released Friday show: U.S. public debt has surpassed $23 trillion for the first time in history, rising more than 100 percent in less than a decade and more than a trillion dollars this year alone. Of the total, less than US$17 trillion is owed to individuals, while the remaining $6 trillion comes from loans within government agencies.[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 2 comments World
The Scar, an antidote for Dalit Assertion and Emancipation !

The Scar, an antidote for Dalit Assertion and Emancipation !

I am an  untouchable My whole body is filled with the scent of the earth My whole life’s filled with the sorrow of veTTi, My eyes are filled with the heat of the sun, My head is covered with dried braids Like the branches of a Banyan Hardened by sun and rain. You pushed me outside the village, You asked[Read More…]

Islamic State Exacts Revenge on Turkey for Selling Al-Baghdadi Out

Islamic State Exacts Revenge on Turkey for Selling Al-Baghdadi Out

A car bomb exploded [1] in northern Syria killing 13 and wounding 20. The blast on Saturday ripped through a crowded market in Tal Abyad, a town recently occupied by Turkish-backed militant proxies. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blast targeted pro-Turkey fighters and civilians were also among the dead. Even though the Turkish Defense Ministry promptly laid[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Down the Rabbit Hole With Donald Trump

Down the Rabbit Hole With Donald Trump

There can be no question about it. Donald Trump is Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts. “Off with his head!” was the president’s essential suggestion for — to offer just one example — a certain whistleblower who fingered him on that now notorious Ukrainian phone call. And if The Donald hasn’t also been playing the roles of White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, and other characters from Carroll’s[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 1 comment World
Global protests: Russia and China risk ending up on the wrong side of history

Global protests: Russia and China risk ending up on the wrong side of history

  Widespread perceptions see Russia together with China as the rising powers in the Middle East as a result of America’s flip flops in Syria and US president Donald J. Trump’s transactional approach towards foreign policy as well as Russian and Chinese support for regimes irrespective of how non-performing and/or repressive they may be. Russia has sought to capitalize in[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
M.I.T. Fall 2019 Report on Work of the Future: A Blind and Blinding Bias Towards Capitalism

M.I.T. Fall 2019 Report on Work of the Future: A Blind and Blinding Bias Towards Capitalism

Pt. 4: We Have Nothing to Fear but Capitalism Itself Like a world that rides on the slow and bumpy back of The Turtle, The M.I.T Report on the Work of the Future balances precariously on the four legs of four assumptions. The first of these, as I have discussed in the first part of this article, is that that[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Sikhs as a religious minority in Kashmir

Sikhs as a religious minority in Kashmir

by Dr Wakar Amin & Ashish Kumar Singh  While the status of Jammu and Kashmir has been changed, there remain various issues yet to be redressed by the current Modi-led NDA government. One among them is to maintain the peaceful co-existence of different religious communities in the state. As per the 2011 census data, Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim[Read More…]

by 04/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Julian Assange’s Life Is at Risk, Says United Nations Expert

Julian Assange’s Life Is at Risk, Says United Nations Expert

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture reiterated Friday a warning that Julian Assange’s life is at risk and said the WikiLeaks founder must not be extradited to the United States as a consequence of  “exposing serious governmental misconduct.” “While the U.S. government prosecutes Mr. Assange for publishing information about serious human rights violations, including torture and murder, the officials[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Congress Party sans Gandhis

Congress Party sans Gandhis

Tons of papers by thousands of popular writers in India & abroad have been written while giving advice to the Gandhis on how to revive the party. A few like Sagarika Ghosh suggested forming a new party called the“Swatantra Congress Party” without ideological baggage. Mary Tully, a renowned writer has suggested to shed darbari culture & centralization of power. In[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Consecration

Consecration

My spine is bent, Sir You can see the bones jutting out; My hands I have stretched, To touch your feet My index finger on your right toe: Can’t you see, Yes? Thank you! (glee) I beg your pardon? Yes, I made sure I burnt all the books before we met And my pen is now the river My brain[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 4 comments Arts/Literature
Open Letter to Yale University Authorities – Don’t Steal/Hijack/Subvert the Collective Work of ABVA, New Delhi, India.Scrap Brudner Prize 2019

Open Letter to Yale University Authorities – Don’t Steal/Hijack/Subvert the Collective Work of ABVA, New Delhi, India.Scrap Brudner Prize 2019

It has been brought to our notice that the official website of LGBT Studies, Yale University states that the Brudner prize 2019-20 is being awarded posthumously to Siddhartha Gautam(SG) for his invaluable contribution to the LGBT struggle in India. SG joined AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) briefly for about two years and worked with six other co-authors of Less than[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
The Missing Pieces of Al-Baghdadi’s Execution Puzzle

The Missing Pieces of Al-Baghdadi’s Execution Puzzle

Casting aspersions over the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed [1] while speaking to Rossiya 24 broadcaster that the Islamic State and its slain “caliph” were the spawns of the United States. Being a skilled diplomat having intimate knowledge of happenings on the ground in Syria, his statement merits serious consideration. It’s important to[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
China Breaks the Western Debt Stranglehold on the World

China Breaks the Western Debt Stranglehold on the World

The west has colonized, exploited, ravaged and assassinated the people of the Global South for hundreds of years. Up to the mid-20th Century Europe has occupied Africa, and large parts of Asia. In Latin America, though much of the sub-Continent was “freed” from Spain and Portugal in the 19th Century – a new kind of colonization followed by the new[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 2 comments World
BJP’s Nationalism and Electoral Chessboard

BJP’s Nationalism and Electoral Chessboard

BJP is a party with a difference in more ways than one. It is the major electoral formation which contrary to the values of Indian Constitution of secular, democratic nation, holds that India is a Hindu nation. It is the only party which is the electoral wing of RSS, the organization formed and pursuing Hindu Nationalism. BJP also has the distinction[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Tamilnadu will always reject Hindutva project to eliminate Dravidian identity work of EVR Periyar

Tamilnadu will always reject Hindutva project to eliminate Dravidian identity work of EVR Periyar

Iconic statue of EVR Periyar at the Periyar Thidal. His powerful presence in the Dravidian land ensured that the hate-mongering caste supremacists remain out of the power game in Tamilnadu but now the Tamil land is being targeted by the Hindutva forces and their agenda is to finish the Dravidian movement in the state. I asked this question to Dr[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Goodbye, Tipu Sultan

Goodbye, Tipu Sultan

Ghatam Bhindyat, Patam Chhindyat, Kuryat Rasbharohanam Yenken Prakaren, Prasidho Purusho Bhavet Break earthen pots, tear clothes, ride a donkey: Men try to achieve popularity by any means. It was 2006 and DH Shankarmurthy, a nondescript swayamsevak, was handling the higher education ministry in the HD Kumarswamy-led coalition government suddenly hit the national headlines. The trigger was his unusual demand to[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Support the Struggle of the People of Gobindpur, Nuagaon and Dhinkia

Support the Struggle of the People of Gobindpur, Nuagaon and Dhinkia

We condemn the clandestine and illegal manner in which the Odisha government is facilitating the transfer of land acquired from the local betel vine growers and fisherfolk in Jagatsinghpur district to Jindal Steel Works. The alienation of agriculturally fertile land from the peasantry for the purpose of industry snatches away from them their perennial source of income and livelihood. The[Read More…]

by 03/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Balfour Declaration: A Wrong Waiting To Be Righted

Balfour Declaration: A Wrong Waiting To Be Righted

Today, November 2nd 2019 is the 102nd anniversary of one of the darkest days in the bloody history of the British Empire. For exactly 102 years ago today the then British Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour wrote a personal letter to Lord Walter Rothschild in which he gifted him Palestine as a ‘home’ for the Jews. That fact that Palestine,[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 2 comments Palestine
Proposed withdrawal of US troops in Syria

Proposed withdrawal of US troops in Syria

President Trump has stated his intent to withdraw US troops from Syria on several occasions since March 2018. Each time politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, supported by the corporate-controlled media, have, based on US imperial interests, vehemently challenged the withdrawal proposal. These folks also based their opposition to withdrawal on their supposed concerns for the Syrian Kurds.[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Scott Morrison’s Authoritarian Streak: Crushing Anti-Mining Protest in Australia

Scott Morrison’s Authoritarian Streak: Crushing Anti-Mining Protest in Australia

The Prime Minister of Australia is fuming.  Having made his mark on Australian politics by being the mining sector’s most avid defender, Scott Morrison was disturbed by the week’s events in Melbourne that saw clashes between police and protesters outside the sixth annual international mining and resources conference. It made sense for the protesters to kick up a fuss at[Read More…]

Poomani’s ” Heat”

Poomani’s ” Heat”

कठीण आला काळ, मातीशी तुटे नाळ, युगाचा अंध खेळ, डोळेच केले गहाळ. सावात दिसे चोर, घुबडात दिसे मोर, लहानात दिसे थोर, थोरात दिसे पोर. –   Ballad from the movie ‘Court’ There is only one way to shorten and ease the convulsions of the old society and the bloody birth of new – revolutionary terror. Karl Marx   Justice has always[Read More…]

Dalit Man Killed By Upper Caste In Uttar Pradesh

Dalit Man Killed By Upper Caste In Uttar Pradesh

He was the only son of his landless parents in a village named as Udaypura in Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh. When the brick kiln season is off, most of the people from Mushahar community who live on the river bank are engaged in fishing as they have no other source of food.. This time, with so much of rain,[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
How Controlling Syria’s Oil Serves Washington’s Strategic Objectives?

How Controlling Syria’s Oil Serves Washington’s Strategic Objectives?

Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria. After the drawdown of US troops at Erdogan’s insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria, the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and at al-Tanf military[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Attitude

Attitude

“Can we change their attitude?” “No.” “Can they change their own attitude?” “Yes.” “So, what is our goal? To change their attitude, or to convince them that they need to change it themselves?” “That is challenging, difficult, will take sweat and tears……….do I really want to even try it?” “Ah! We are now at the root of the problem and[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Cost of inaction to prevent and treat TB is (very) high

Cost of inaction to prevent and treat TB is (very) high

Prevention of TB was the focus of many a sessions at the 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Hyderabad, India, on the theme of ‘Ending the Emergency: Science, Leadership, Action.’ This conference comes one year after the first ever United Nations High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB. One of the commitments made in the political declaration of the UNHLM[Read More…]

by 02/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Kashmir: Supreme Court’s delaying tactics

Kashmir: Supreme Court’s delaying tactics

To infringe upon the privacy ofcitizens and convert the country into a surveillance state the government enacted Adhaar Act. There were atleast 30 challenges to the law in the apex court.The court gave the interim judgment prohibiting government from making it compulsory.The government didn’t listen and by the time the final judgement came had implemented over 50 centrally sponsored schemes[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
Tethering Pegasus: WhatsApp takes NSO Group to Court

Tethering Pegasus: WhatsApp takes NSO Group to Court

A lawsuit filed in a US federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday threw up a few interesting, and disturbing considerations. In it, the Facebook-owned platform WhatsApp advanced an allegation that now seems commonplace: that the Israeli spyware Pegasus (known in computer wonderland as a remote access trojan) had again made an appearance, deployed against 1,400 WhatsApp users.  In a[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
U.S. soldiers enter Syria and U.S. armored vehicles near Syria-Turkey border

U.S. soldiers enter Syria and U.S. armored vehicles near Syria-Turkey border

U.S. troops and armored vehicles entered Syria Thursday with the proclaimed mission to protect oil fields from the Islamic State (ISIS). Dozens of U.S. soldiers and fewer than 10 Bradley armored vehicles moved into the northeastern part of Syria. On the other hand, citing a witness and Reuters video footage a Beirut datelined and “U.S. forces patrolling in Syria near[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Who is the Unknown Jihadist Named as Islamic State’s New Caliph?

Who is the Unknown Jihadist Named as Islamic State’s New Caliph?

Confirming the deaths of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State’s spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who was killed in a US airstrike in northwest Syria a day after the killing of al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s al-Furqan media has announced Abu Ibrahim Hashemi al-Quraishi as the new caliph of the terrorist organization. Al-Quraishi is such an obscure jihadist that even national[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Donald Trump and the Ten Commandments (Plus One) of the National Security State

Donald Trump and the Ten Commandments (Plus One) of the National Security State

Let us stipulate at the outset that Donald Trump is a vulgar and dishonest fraud without a principled bone in his corpulent frame. Yet history is nothing if not a tale overflowing with irony. Despite his massive shortcomings, President Trump appears intent on recalibrating America’s role in the world. Initiating a long-overdue process of aligning U.S. policy with actually existing[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 1 comment World
Reminiscence of Soviet soft power and the way it influenced Third World

Reminiscence of Soviet soft power and the way it influenced Third World

by Punsara Amarasinghe & Prof. Sanjay Rajhans   The exact meaning carved by Joseph Nye in coining his notable concept “Soft Power”referred to a strong influence over states where as governments cannot totally get rid of its influence. Because, unlike the hard power which pushes states to the edge, the influence of soft power brings more sentimental effects to targeted[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 The Weaponization of Food in the Age of Sanctions

 The Weaponization of Food in the Age of Sanctions

Our drive to satisfy our need for food and water has stoked the physical and social evolution of our species; it has driven us to wander, labor, innovate.  The avoidance of hunger and thirst has been the bedrock upon which great human communities have been erected and cooperative actions taken up.  The need for food and water have also driven[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 1 comment World
Gowher Rizvi’s 1976 Article, “The Killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – Perspectives on Recent Bangladesh History”: A Review

Gowher Rizvi’s 1976 Article, “The Killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – Perspectives on Recent Bangladesh History”: A Review

This is a review of an academic article by Ali Gowher (aka Gowher Rizvi), who is the International affairs Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh. I strongly believe Rizvi’s partisan vies and unsubstantiated assertions have marred the quality of the academic exercise. Had Mujib’s Soviet-style one-party dictatorship (the BAKSAL regime) survived a decade or so, what is Bangladesh[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled South Asia
The Ancestor’s Tale Offers a Fascinating Journey Back to our Roots

The Ancestor’s Tale Offers a Fascinating Journey Back to our Roots

The Ancestor’s Tale (2nd ed.) (2016).  Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong.  Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Great Britain. The subject of Richard Dawkins’s popular-science books has always been ambitious: life itself.  The Ancestor’s Tale is an even more ambitious entry in his oeuvre.  It dives into the findings, challenges,and methods of evolutionary science using the frame narrative from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: a[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Private School Teachers: Species of Deprived Dignity

Private School Teachers: Species of Deprived Dignity

George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm is the clear cut reflection of the cruelties put by the authorities. In this novel the author has expounded the exploitative lot of the society. Same could be said of the private school teachers who despite being the disseminators of real and quality education in our society are still the worst sufferers. They work tirelessly[Read More…]

by 01/11/2019 Comments are Disabled India
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