The number of global cases of coronavirus infection reached 3.22 Million while the global number of deaths reached 227,420. U.S. coronavirus deaths pass 60,000 The Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. has passed 60,000 on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The deaths are now above the figure predicted by the latest model used by Dr Anthony Fauci, U.S. President[Read More…]
New Zealand Prime Minister comforting a Muslim woman in the aftermath of the mosque massacre in Auckland, New Zealand in 2019 As of April 30, 2020, there were 3 018 952 confirmed and 207 973 deaths globally[3] and counting though Australia’s Chief Health Officer speculates that given that these numbers cover only those who have been clinically tested and recorded[Read More…]
President Donald Trump has ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation’s food supply amid the coronavirus pandemic — BBC Report dated April 29. An estimated 3,300 US meatpacking workers have been diagnosed with coronavirus and 20 have died. BBC reported: He invoked a Korean War-era law from the 1950s to mandate that the plants continue to[Read More…]
Co-Written by K Rajasekharan Nayar, Muhammed Shaffi & Anant Kumar When human beings face uncertainties, they invent justifications to overcome the anxieties that accompany them. The COVID pandemic is especially characterized by such a phenomenon which affected not just ordinary people but even the scientists and governments. The science of the infection played a major role in shaping our response[Read More…]
With COVID-19 pandemic almost convulsing the whole world, global cooperation and a collective response seems indispensable to negotiate multiple challenges arising out of this unpardonable enemy. The challenges that range from threats to public health, economic recovery, food security,[Read More…]
‘The workers’ and peasants’ government… calls upon all the belligerent peoples and their government to start immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace. By a just or democratic peace, for which the overwhelming majority of the working class and other working people of all the belligerent countries, exhausted, tormented and racked by the war are craving [we mean] an immediate[Read More…]
Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan is the Chairman of Delhi Minority Commission. For a few days he has been a victim of severe attack from the Hindu communal forces as well as a section of media. They are targeting him for posting a tweet. The communal forces have alleged that he had threatened them of taking up the issue of Indian[Read More…]
Co-Written by Bobby Ramakant, Surabhi Agarwal and Sandeep Pandey Ram Shankar met with a fatal hit-and-run accident in rural area of Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh on 16 April, 2020 and was referred by the District Hospital to Trauma Centre of King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow. He could not be admitted there and was referred to nearby Balrampur[Read More…]
“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it,” urged the Earl of Chesterfield in a letter of advice to his son penned in 1749. “No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” This has not tended to be the view of university governors the world over,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Stan Cox & Priti Gulati Cox Note: I began designing this table-runner just before the COVID-19 pandemic blew up in the United States. In the time I have been embroidering it, rates of death and misery have soared while wealth generation and carbon emissions (the two subjects of this work) have ended their decades-long rise and have plummeted.[Read More…]
An interesting film to watch is Gavin Hood’s 2015 Eye in the Sky. It captures the tremendous tension of a joint US/UK drone missile ‘ Kill ‘ mission in Kenya. The movie had to make the targeted terrorist cell look extremely dangerous. The two most dangerous ones were a British citizen working hand in hand with her Al Qaeda type[Read More…]
Shortly after an agreement to form a “national emergency government” in Israel, leader of the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) party, Benny Gantz, tweeted triumphantly that ‘democracy’ in Israel has been ‘safeguarded’. But how is a deal that would grant Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a veto power over the very judicial system which will determine his fate, a[Read More…]
The outbreak of Corona Virus has surely affected every nation and India is under huge threat with the rising trends every day. It is true that mostly those countries having highest level of liberalization, privatization and globalization had the speedy spread of corona virus infection than the third world countries. The outbreak of the Covid-19 brought complex questions and challenges[Read More…]
Salim Bhai please Get out of the house It is burning Please get out It is but one room I cannot leave It is my house After all Salim Bhai please Get out of the house It is burning Please get out It is but two rooms I cannot leave It is my neighborhood After all Salim Bhai please Get[Read More…]
Sadgati (1981) marked a watershed in Satyajit Ray’s career. He suffered a massive heart attack soon after Sadgati was in the can, and never recovered fully from the blow. And he was not quite the same artist ever again. You realise this as you watch Sadgati after[Read More…]
As the sun sets in the gloomy sky, I sit down to write my scattered thoughts and shattered feelings after reading the death of one of my favourite actors in contemporary times. Mr Irrfan Khan’s death justifies the poetic prediction of T. S Eliot; April is truly the cruellest month in memories and desires of life. It is death that[Read More…]
Rumours can shape mass psyche if they are based on familiar cultural cues Many had thought that the crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown would bring back basic questions about healthcare, education and capitalism, but we are witnessing instead a preoccupation with conspiracies. Many continue to believe that the Muslims and the Tablighi Jamaat are singularly[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Sitharaman, Your Ministry has already announced concessions/ procedural relaxations etc. for business enterprises and industries in the context of COVID19 crisis. There are businesses who have violated the laws that provide social security to the workers. There have been instances of some enterprises guilty of non-payment of past wages, contributions to provident[Read More…]
Name of the Book: Borders of an Epidemic: Covid 19 and Migrant Workers Name of the Publisher: Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG), Kolkata Editor: Ranabir Samadar Year of Publication: 2020 COVID 19 is a major health challenge the country is currently witnessing. As on 29th April 2020, India is said to have 31,332 COVID cases and seen 1,008 COVID deaths.[Read More…]
Corona attack on India seems to have suddenly changed our understanding of Safai karmacharis of India. They are now seen as desh bhakts even by those who never recognized their desh bhakti. When the life of rich who treated them lowly and unworthy of respect and dignity are in danger as never before, they are recognizing what I call the[Read More…]
The great thing about the COVID-19 crisis is that the bourgeoisie has been revealed to be sheeplike in their behaviour, which is very good news for climate justice. An example comes from India. When the Government called for a lockdown, the 15 million tax payers in India took to home isolation like fish to water. If India had been the[Read More…]
Although it is somewhat banal to say, it should never be forgotten how the First World War traumatized the political and cultural life of Europe, especially in the German speaking world. Heidegger’s, Jasper’s, Freud’s, Junger’s, Hesse’s (not to mention Hitler’s) inter-war works are unthinkable without this bloody caesura in European history. In a profound sense, the inter-war period in Germany[Read More…]
“Dance on broken glass; Build castles with shattered dreams Wear your tears like precious pearls. Proud. Strong. Unshakable.” –Anita Krizaan At such a time as ours, I can identify with the first three lines, but not the last three. As I read the poem, I utter instead, “Ah, what dark tunnels are we crossing?” I can’t believe that it has[Read More…]
At no stage in modern Indian history have Muslims been put to such a hard test. Every action of theirs is being viewed with a suspicious lens and even their positive contributions are being viewed in negative light or are being deftly airbrushed as insignificant. The mainstream narrative is being so orchestrated as to pigeon hole the entire community into[Read More…]
The streets of Jayanagar, a residential area in Bengaluru are strewn with spring flowers. Yellow copper pods, lilac crape myrtles, pink-and-white honges and orange gulmohurs blaze overhead and underfoot; vitality and senescence mirroring each other. The normally hard surfaces – kerb, pavement, road and concrete – are softened by fallen petals and the duff of stamens from rain trees. Every[Read More…]
“The world is at your doorstep, but please do not step out” The world has been turned topsy-turvy, caught within the clutches of a pandemic – COVID ’19 which has made this fast moving world grind to a halt. Eerie silence on the roads, deserted public spaces, restricted social interactions, no public gatherings, no religious worship – lockdown has been[Read More…]
A virtual protest was organized on Monday, April 27 to raise voices for journalists being harassed in India-occupied Kashmir. Attended by South Asian journalists and community activists from various parts of the globe, the rally was remotely held in North Delta in the light of the public health emergency because of COVID 19. The speakers unanimously condemned the slapping of[Read More…]
Energy analysts have long assumed that, given time, growing international concern over climate change would result in a vast restructuring of the global energy enterprise. The result: a greener, less climate-degrading system. In this future, fossil fuels would be overtaken by renewables, while oil, gas, and coal would be relegated to an increasingly marginal role in the global energy equation.[Read More…]
In mid April 2020, a report issued by the United States State Department called “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report)” raised concerns that China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nur site, in violation of its Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings. The U.S. report also[Read More…]
I know all about these days. And, no, I am not self-pitying over them. Instead I see them as part and parcel of being alive. We all have to endure them and go through rather than around them. After all, all that we have is effort and can’t guarantee outcomes. We can’t change outcomes in general, although can do so[Read More…]
A few weeks back, a heart wrenching short video thronged internet, displaying a man scooping and collecting milk hurriedly, in a container that was spilt on a road, while a pack of stray dogs were drinking the same milk. This scramble between the man and the dogs sent shivers down the spines and visualized the unheard pangs of destitute in[Read More…]
COVID-19 has imposed mandatory lockdowns in many countries including India. However, since the lockdown has been imposed, attention is being focused on its economic repercussions and on providing food and shelter to poor and migrants. But the pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities and created challenges at other fronts too. More specifically, women’s lack of autonomy in the patriarchal homes is further[Read More…]
There is no choice between saving lives and protecting livelihood. The State has to strike a balance between them. The lockdown exit programme should be a balancing act between the lives and livelihood. Every sector of our country has come to a screeching halt. The sudden announcement of the lockdown generated panic in the minds of all the citizens more[Read More…]
As more than three million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded worldwide, more than 210,000 people have died, and both the World Health Organization (WHO) and world leaders face criticism for mishandling the coronavirus, officially Covid-19, pandemic, the WHO director-general claimed: Countries that ignored the WHO’s advice at the end of January have been less successful in tackling the Covid-19[Read More…]
The world is going through difficult times, as one of its kind in century, Corona virus has hit the earth with all its might, claiming more than 211,768 lives and infecting over 3,073,603 World over. Forget about developing and third world countries that lack proper health infrastructure to cater the infected patient population, but developed countries like United States of[Read More…]
The world is facing a health emergency of COVID- 19 which has forced to take some anomalous steps to save human life from this deadly virus. Humans are making efforts to adjust in this uncanny situation. Though this virus is equally dangerous for all of us but a section of society is even adversely affected because of the systematically organized[Read More…]
The struggle of a working class from source region to destination; report of the migration crisis from Rural Odisha The world is in the throes of a massive crisis, one that is not unprecedented, but, perhaps that caught us off-guard. At a time when enemies were being realised through the markedness of borders, nationalities and wealth, the COVID-19 brought to[Read More…]
Memorandum to the Chief Minister of Odisha on Sagada Forest Evictions in Kalahandi To Navin Patnaik Chief Minister of Odisha, Bhubaneswar Honourable Sir, We would like to bring to your notice, the illegal and forced eviction of 32 Adivasi families of Nehela village under Jugsaipatna Panchayat in Kalahandi district by officials of Odisha’s Forest department. On 24th April 2020, at[Read More…]
The Bhartiya Janata Party led government in India has a penchant for doing things in a ‘surgical strike’ manner, a much publicised military operation they carried out against Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out demonetisation in November 2016 at a few hours notice leaving the common citizens stranded with Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes which had suddenly become[Read More…]
“Mr Assange will be facing a David and Goliath battle with his hands tied behind his back.” Edward Fitzgerald QC, lawyer for Julian Assange, April 27, 2020 Julian Assange must have had time amidst cramped and hostile surrounds, paper work, pleas and applications, to ponder what circle of Dante’s Hell he finds himself in. Ailing but still battling, the WikiLeaks[Read More…]
We’re losing our freedom of speech. We are losing freedom of religion. We are losing freedom of the press. Roger Ailes Objective and unbiased journalism should be encouraged but in Kashmir it is considered as a crime. A true and professional journalist is said to be the mouthpiece of people. But the irony of the fact is that this mouthpiece[Read More…]
Co-Written by Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD For all the uncertainties the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the world, especially in the US, one thing seems evident. Our neoliberal capitalist civilization has proven itself to be unprepared for unexpected crises and catastrophes. For decades, the US has been falling behind other developed nations to infuse economic resiliency in society. Not[Read More…]
Sinclair Lewis wrote an important novel in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here. In the fictitious book, based on the threats at the time of fascism taking root in the USA, we see how this virus spread. As with Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America we see how Charles Lindbergh’s leadership in the America First movement of the 1930s[Read More…]
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote the book named ‘Silent Spring’ which influenced lots of academics and environmentalists also leading to environmental movements in the US and elsewhere against human onslaughts on nature. It appeared a romantic view on environment but highlighted the negative impacts of the pesticide use in agriculture and generated debates especially when the world was trying to[Read More…]
The COVID-19 pandemic, as on April 20, has infected more than 2.3 million individuals and led to over 160,000 deaths across the globe. These are indeed trying times for the entire global community. The People’s Health Movement unequivocally denounces this move by the US Trump Administration to defund World Health Organisation (WHO) and calls for building global solidarity to address[Read More…]
It has become almost common that activists, dissenters, journalists, etc are being severely assaulted or imprisoned and detained for months without trial. But even children are not being spared by authoritarian regimes. They are being targeted by missiles or war weapons in many countries. Global study A report was published by The United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of[Read More…]
This pandemic (COVID -19) situation is hitting the marginalized poor the worst because of their inherent vulnerable condition. The entire country is being converted to a police state with an absolute power exercised by police to mercilessly beat anyone on street. It is mostly the poor and marginalized on the streets who are being harassed and humiliated. The socially and[Read More…]
Annie Ohana, a well-known award winning social justice educator, has sent a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister urging him to stand up for an Indian scholar who is being incarcerated under inhuman conditions. Wheelchair-bound GN Saibaba used to teach at Delhi University before being convicted in 2017 after being branded as a Maoist sympathizer. Suffering with 19 ailments, his[Read More…]
The Ordinance on punishing “miscreants” who attack healthcare personnel was issued on April 22. Whether it would really put an end to attacks etc is to be seen in practice. A few case studies of attacks on doctors and their media coverage will be useful in this connection. Hence this news analysis. Adarsh Pratap Singh, President of AIIMS Healthcare Professional[Read More…]
More than 206,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than Over 2.9 million people worldwide have tested positive. In the U.S., more than 54,000 people have died, while there have been over 950,000 confirmed cases. U.S. President Trump’s economic adviser said the U.S. jobless rates from the coronavirus crisis would be[Read More…]
Syrian missile defenses responded to an attack by Israeli warplanes, intercepting several missiles over Damascus launched from Lebanese airspace, Syria’s SANA news agency reported. A video found online purportedly showed the Syrian missile shield being activated to shoot down missiles, reportedly fired by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Lebanese airspace. There have been unconfirmed reports that at least three[Read More…]
Gulf of Guinea continues to be world’s most dangerous route for international shipping trade. Called as ‘world piracy hotspot’, it has now eclipsed the troubled waters off Somalia in the Horn of Africa, by becoming a new epicenter for piracy, looting and kidnappings. According to International Maritime Bureau, almost eighty two percent of maritime kidnappings in the world occurred in[Read More…]
Historically, the idea of Bengali renaissance and anti-colonial struggles dominated the folklores of Indian intellectual awakening, political consciousness, and social reforms led by upper caste and upper-class Hindus. “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” reflects Eurocentric propaganda based on narrow nationalist glory. Such ideological narrative is based on singularity of Bengali renaissance, which dominated, destroyed, and marginalised the representation[Read More…]
Ramadhan comes as the 9th month of Islamic Calendar and brings with it infinite mercy of Almighty on humanity. Mercy in the form of divine guidance, spiritual nourishment, compassion, and moral training. The Islamic calendar is purely a lunar calendar. Ramadan starts when the new crescent moon is first visible in the night sky. Month-long fasting ends with the celebration of Eid[Read More…]
Mahabharata and Ramayana are considered as biggest epics (Mahakavya) of India are again in popular discussion with the repeat telecast of serials on Doordarshan amid Covid-19 crisis. Those who have access of television are watching the serial with great interest and rising TRPs of Doordarshan are proof of it. Coming to Mahabharata, the authorship of the great epic is accredited[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal In recent weeks the Indian Government has – in a seeming show of altruism – been gifting the drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to a number of countries ostensibly to be used as a prophylactic measure by health care professionals managing n-coronavirus patients. Those countries have – through return post/email – duly acknowledged[Read More…]
Oh My!!! What is Amy Goodman of Democracy Now going to do about the apparent feud between her political priest Michael Moore and her Ecological Guru McKibben? She has proudly and frequently presented both on her show as experts on the environment, economics and politics. Michael Moore’s new film, Planet of The Humans, shows miles and miles of footage of[Read More…]
Given the exponentially rising death toll from COVID-19 and the devastating social and economic effects of brutal lockdowns, what could a humane and progressive response to the global pandemic look like? This is what Bolivia’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) has sought to outline in #PutLivesFirst, its detailed and comprehensive plan for tackling COVID-19 and its social and economic impacts. The[Read More…]
Lockdown Musings Series 1 As the reality about Corona related Lockdown and Stay indoors deepens and intensifies, the social and political atmosphere around one acquires a rarefied feel with each and every moment bearing subtle and powerful insights and realisations. The experiences and real life stories that one comes across throws light into the fragility of human existence in a[Read More…]
Historically, in hyper-crises, local and global systems can change fundamentally. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit first China and then the rest of the globe, the question of whether the American imperial era might be faltering was already on the table, amid that country’s endless wars and with the world’s most capricious leader. When humanity emerges from this devastating crisis of[Read More…]
Palghar incident again reminds me of my first encounter with the word mob lynching. How far we have come but the mob still looks and sound the same in its form and execution. When I was doing my masters. After the completion of the course I confronted a job interview in placement cell in Aligarh Muslim University. I wanted to[Read More…]
Although President Trump, in his daily press conferences, attempts to show that his administration is succeeding in containing the epidemic, the April 22, 2020 report from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries demonstrated the opposite — the United States had 1/3 of the Corona Virus cases and 1/4 of the corona virus deaths worldwide. Could the response be more catastrophic? TOTAL CASES TOTAL DEATHS[Read More…]
On April 24th, Comrade Mahesh, a student activist in Uttarakhand and secretary of the Lalkuan Unit of Parivartankami Chatra Sangathan (PACHHAS), had been charged by the Uttarakhand Police for participating in a day-long hunger strike. Mahesh had peacefully observed the strike from inside his home demanding provisions for workers, students and other people bereft of food and supplies due to[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo The prophecies are here and it is a foregone conclusion: the post-coronavirus world will look fundamentally different from anything that we have seen or experienced, at least since the end of World War II. Even before the ‘curve flattened’ in many countries that have experienced high death tolls – let alone economic devastation[Read More…]
The name of the latest enormous transfer of wealth to the one percent, the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act, represents a public relations coup. Unsurprisingly, this great sounding title misrepresents the bill’s contents. Pattern of transferring wealth upward Unfortunately, this bill is essentially a repeat of the bailout of Wall Street during the Great Recession that further[Read More…]
April 25th, 2020 marks the end of the first month of India’s gigantic, country-wide lockdown to counter and check the spread of the COVID -19 – Corona virus. As the Prime Minister gets down to discuss on 27th April, 2020, with the CMs of all the states of India, about whether to continue fully or partially with the biggest ever[Read More…]
The mute boy as slender as a willow sapling looks at the world with eyes big and bright by light intake and color. He does not look at the world as others look. He looks in his own way His world is a world of maenad laughter. His world is a world of confusion; a world he can[Read More…]
“The coronavirus pandemic has made abundantly clear that if life is to thrive on this Earth, human and nonhuman, we need cooperation at all scales—global, regional, binational, within a nation, interstate, and in our local communities. And we need to learn how to coexist with and have compassion for our nonhuman relatives—and acknowledge in the midst of this pandemic that bats[Read More…]
“The most widely known visual representation of “justice” is a balanced scale. Imagine this now. We get up on the right scale-pan with our cattle and pigs—and all the rest of the wild mammals on Earth from land and the seas, blue whales and elephants included, jump up on the left scale-pan. The scale tips disproportionately to the right with[Read More…]
The COVID-19 has taught us that we are in an emergency. In 2019 a teenager named Greta Thumberg was crying hoarse that we are in an emergency and no one was listening. It’s time for us to take stock of the matter. Which is the greater emergency, this COVID-19 emergency or the climate emergency that Greta Thumberg was warning about?[Read More…]
This year Nature has given us a clear message. It sent us COVID 19 and halted capitalism for 4 months, made us stop burning fossil fuels and use just the bare essentials. And it has rewarded us with clean air, cleaned up our rivers and lakes, improved our human relations and restored wild life. There are dolphin in the Ganges[Read More…]
Introduction International relations academia shaped by many schools of thoughts and different schools of ideologies. The evaluation process of the field dominated by these ideological groups and different school of thoughts in altered time frames. These groups describe the phenomenon of International System based on their straightforward aspirations, because of that the field itself found ambiguous and complicated to define.[Read More…]
With the imposition of nationwide lockdown in India, there have been a number of incidences of the hardships associated with the individual life and their survival, particularly for migrant workers, daily wagers, poor people and many more. Though, incidences of such hardship continually hit the national media with breaking headlines which led to stirring the governments for introspection, improvement and[Read More…]
The Black Sea is dying. Under the current bad environmental conditions, more than one hundred sixty million people in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Romania and Turkey are exposed to danger. The amount of marine litter in the Black Sea is twice as high as in the Mediterranean Sea. The concentration of some toxins exceed their threshold value, according to results[Read More…]
Co-Written by Rabiya Yaseen Bazaz & Professor Mohammad Akram Students in Jammu and Kashmir also deserve high-speed internet for their educational needs during the outbreak of COVID-19 “More than 1.5 billion students and youth across the planet are affected by the closure of school and university” due to the COVID-19 outbreak, said UNESCO recently. In order to limit the disruption of[Read More…]
“They have decided to extend the lockdown by another three weeks!” said Chicken Number One, who was always the first with the news. The information set off a wave of outrage among the five thousand plus birds at the Corona Chicken Farm, the cacophony almost blowing the tin shed above their heads. “Our food supplies are dwindling, we can’t go[Read More…]
The Panopticon Gaze, that was once a metaphor to study the relation between system of fabricated social control of civilians in a disciplinary situation, is now a global reality amid the Coronavirus outbreak, and is being deployed by the government worldwide to supervise every movement of its citizens. The result of this deployed surveillance has led to a social acceptance[Read More…]
Dear Kannan Gopinathan, My name is Mohsin and I am from a place where the snow-capped mountains, scenic splendour, exquisite monuments, mesmerising meadows, beautiful lakes, the gigantic chinar trees are held caged with barbed wires along with the very beautful and hospitable people called Kashmir, the Indian adminstered one. Let me tell you a little more about myself and Kashmir[Read More…]
Unusual behavioural or emotional responses are normally expressed when abnormal situations like emergencies or tragedies happen in our society. Some try to justify such situations by attributing them to supernatural powers, our own past conduct, or even past life. But in the case of the present pandemic, we have sometimes gone to the extreme- a new syndrome, a pandemic of[Read More…]
The Human Rights Forum (HRF) takes strong exception to the Supreme Court quashing of the order providing 100 per cent reservation to Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates for the posts of teachers in schools in the Scheduled Areas. The 22-4-2020 verdict by a 5-judge Constitution Bench is deeply regressive and undermines hard-won rights of the Adivasis. Contrary to what the Supreme[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister of India The Covid-19 pandemic, and the government’s response to it in the form of a hastily implemented national lockdown, has created an unprecedented crisis for the people of India. As the lockdown now enters its fifth week, from the perspective of the urban and rural poor who form the overwhelming majority of our population,[Read More…]
Illness can often fall into the category of the obsessive, becoming a sport for mugs, sufferers and observers alike. The following often feature: the hypochondriac, the speculator of disease, the gossip about how far gone a person is who has contracted something or rather. When it comes to tyrants, such speculation becomes a thrill of sorts, with rich lashings of[Read More…]
Back in November 2016, the Indian government decided to remove all 500- and 1000-rupee notes from circulation overnight without prior notice. This effectively removed 86% of cash in a country that was almost 90% cash reliant. The notes became worthless and people were asked to hand them in to banks. They would only receive what they had deposited in dribs[Read More…]
The COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in anxieties and mental health stress for many in an era of self-isolation in places like North America But a group of oppressed people in the world’s so called largest democracy, has been enduring social ostracizing for centuries. Dalits continue to face blatant discrimination under a brutal caste system practised by Indian society, in[Read More…]
Remembering Great Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan ( 22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) on his hundredth death anniversary –Team Umang Library It was the year 1913 when Srinivasa Ramanujan, then an ordinary clerk in Madras Port Trust, drafted letters to Prof G H Hardy, then a leading mathematician at Cambridge University, containing his mathematical theorems. The rest as we know[Read More…]
In the last two decades, the gender landscape in rural India has been greening, and women are now on the cusp of a powerful social and political revolution. The harbinger of this change is a unique policy experiment in village-level governance, the Panchayat Raj Act, which has brought transformative results for the weakest of the weak: the village women. In[Read More…]
There have been 15 flu pandemics in the last 500 years. Only those since 1890s have been restrained scientifically. The “Asian flu” of 1957 and the “Hong Kong flu” of 1968, were both encountered with modern tools of disease surveillance as compared to the 1918 Spanish Flu. There was no World Health Organization then, and efforts to track the outbreak[Read More…]
Co-Written by Afaq Ahmad Mir & Zaraq Jahan It is a time when people from every section of the society are talking of a single discourse known globally as Covid-19. This pandemic has spread all across the globe and is contaminating humans, filling societies with fear, anxiety, horror and creating a new social stigma. Meanwhile, organizations from diverse backgrounds are[Read More…]
At the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, a few weeks ago, Italians seemed to have found a moment of national unity when the country’s lockdown began March 9. Everyone understood that it was a difficult moment, but took it as a challenge to fight the virus together. Italian flags were hung from windows and people sang from their balconies and windows. More[Read More…]
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani created the foundation for Hindutva forces to access power by forming BJP led coalition governments in New Delhi. This duo experimented with the troika of liberal, moderate and hard-line Hindutva slogans during the Babri Mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi movement to mobilise and expand their electoral base among the masses. They happily compromised their so-called RSS ideology of[Read More…]
World Health Organization’s Head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, suggested five P’s to fight the deadly Virus all over the world — Prevention, Preparedness, Public health, Political leadership, and People. One of the first Indian states to implement these suggestions as well as key takeaways from their past experience is Kerala. The State has dealt with Nipah virus in 2018-19. It is[Read More…]
About 2,000 + members from transgender community and few allies across India wrote to the Union Home, Finance & Social Justice Ministries seeking Special Package for Covid Lockdown. Demanding subsistence allowance, rationkits, health support & protection from eviction. Assert rights as per NALSA. Letter welcomes NISD support but points out that interim relief of Rs. 1,500 / – covered[Read More…]
Co-Written by Priyanka Singh & Sujeet Singh What haunts more these days is not the Monster disease called Covid-19, but the harrowing position of the women in the middle of this Pandemic Era. It remains a poisonous truth of our society, that the women in the 21st century has still not got the same status as men. The degraded state of[Read More…]
A case study on the Role of Dams on the River Periyar during the 2018 Kerala Floods Note: This analysis of the 2018 Kerala Floods, completed in September 2018 could not be published due to health and other reasons. The first phase of the 2018 floods before August 15 was more due to mismanagement or hoarding of water in the[Read More…]
The ending of my Countercurrents article published on April 20, did not sit well with some people including my daughter. The reason being that I had mentioned Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos donating $100 million to nonprofit Feeding America that helps food banks across the country to feed families in need. “Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is[Read More…]
The largest residential house (40,000 SFT) in India’s Kerala state is in Wayanad district. It is owned by a businessman named Arackal Joy. Hailing from a farmer’s family, he made his fortunes through sheer hard work and of course with some luck. He has refineries in Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah in the UAE and supplied lubricants to ships and[Read More…]
At almost every step of the way, Trump has helped cause the coronavirus to spread and obstructed medical supplies from reaching places in need. It amounts to an undeclared war by the US president on his own country. Vacating his role as national leader, President Donald Trump had instructed the states to acquire their own ventilators and PPE. Then his[Read More…]
“Without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, global warming is likely to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above today’s normal during the 21st century and that is dangerously close to the temperature of 6 degrees Centigrade above normal that initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago when 96%* of all marine species and 70% of[Read More…]
Celebrating 50 years of Earth Day, Michael Moore, executive producer and the director Jeff Gibbs re-released their daunting and alarming documentary about the heart and soul of America’s Green Movement in a compelling film: Planet of the Humans (2019). According to Michael Moore: “This is perhaps the most urgent film we’ve shown in the 15-year history of our film festival.”[Read More…]
In recent times the issues of Muslim minority has been discussed much over the issues of their citizenship but many more important socio-economic issues have been left out while focus has been more on religious identity issues. The issues such as employment, land, business, education, health, access to basic amenities and most important participation in governance has been ignored since[Read More…]
“I told you Shakespeare had a sister, but She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word lives in you and me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed”. Virginia Woolf A patient[Read More…]
Between my stomach and your hands You choose to select your hands And leave my stomach aside By prioritising your scarcity over my scarcity When my stomach cries for food You choose to convert my food into your sanitiser And convince me that this is what I need it at this point of time And not something which I really[Read More…]
Me: Did you see the latest news on Trump. Crazy times. Such anti-immigrant hysterics. Incredible racism rearing its ugly head. TLIA: Seriously. My cousin from India applied for a Green Card and it’s going to take a long time now, it may not even happen. He’s super successful and wants to build a business here. Trump is so racist it[Read More…]
India has tragically witnessed the phenomenon of lynching becoming dominant during last few years. It was particularly around the issue of Holy Cow-Beef, that lynchings became more prevalent and two communities had to face the brunt of it, Muslims and dalits. The IndiaSpend data showed the rise of the incidents from 2014 and that close to 90% of victims were[Read More…]
The relationships between political parties and people are going through a turbulent transformation during this historical period in India. To what extend have the political parties strived to be the true representations of people of this country is a question which needs some clarification. We have elected members of parliament, but whether they are in a position to play the[Read More…]
On Friday, according to AFP, the number of people who have lost their lives to the COVID-19, passed 190,000 and continues to rise. There is some cause for hope that the tide may be about to turn as testing capabilities grow worldwide and human trials for a vaccine get underway. The AFP reports that a total of 190,089 people passed[Read More…]
Over the last two weeks, across New Delhi, numerous activists and students have been targeted and harassed by the Delhi Police. Operating under an open-ended FIR, the police are attempting to accuse these persons, many of whom are engaged in providing indispensable relief work to workers and people bereft of food and other supplies due to the ill-planned COVID-19 induced[Read More…]
Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages, said Spiro Agnew. I wonder what the late US vice president would have thought of Indian media, especially the cacophonic television channels forever obsessing over the long vilified Indian Muslim. As if being Muslims in Modi’s ‘new India’ was not challenging enough, they now have to suffer the[Read More…]
This is Part-2 of a report. “ The Union Cabinet in its meeting held on 22nd April 2020 has approved promulgation of an Ordinance to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to protect healthcare service personnel and property including their living/working premises against violence during epidemics. The President has given his assent for promulgation of the Ordinance. The Ordinance provides for making[Read More…]
In unnamed small town, there was a pathole in the road. People repeatedly facing problems with that pathole, resorted to the governor for a solution. The governor asked for three days-time to think about a solution. Three days later, the people returned to the governor for the solution. The governor, known for his wisdom and decisive decisions asked the people,[Read More…]
Hearing about the trend of recruiting child soldiers for war, in and around us, is not unusual. Scholars such as Vera Achvarina and Simon Reich ascertain that since 1975, Africa has had largest concentration of conflicts and child soldiers. Mark Drumbl further states that about forty percent of child soldiers in the world are present in Africa. Child soldiers mostly[Read More…]
I am uneasy writing about Jorge Luis Borges (b.1899, Buenos Aires, d. 1986, Geneva). Borges wrote so much that I have not read; yet his world of myth and fantasy and magic and metaphysics has so influenced me that since I am here in his city where I can feel Borges the man rather than only Borges the artist and[Read More…]
Kashmir’s story, ravaged from misreporting and state-sponsored journalism in the past more than three decades has been pushed to an extreme, with hardly any representation in media to the local populace to speak for themselves and question the narratives crafted in the studios, thousands of miles away. The traditional mass media usually tends to less inclusion of community voices, as[Read More…]
The COVID-19 emergency has exposed our societies’ failure to address the needs of billions of people. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a fundamental truth about human nature: There are those among us eager to exploit the suffering of others for personal gain. We can be reassured, however, by how few of them there are. Their actions contrast starkly with the far[Read More…]
As controversies about the “reopening” of America loom over our lives, nothing seems as intrinsically irrelevant — yet possibly as critically important — as how soon major spectator sports return. If sports don’t trump religion as the opiate of the masses, they have, until recently, been at least the background music of most of our lives. So here’s my[Read More…]
George Orwell once rightly said that “The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” American writer and humorist Mark Twain said that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” It shows that a lie has vast market and adequate consumers, whereas, it[Read More…]
The self-help group movement has been one of the most powerful incubators of female entrepreneurship in rural India. While there were several young semi-literate women who had homegrown skillsets, absence of capital and regressive social norms prevented them from taking a full plunge and setting up their own independent business. A membership of a self-help group, however, enabled these women[Read More…]
Years ago You imposed lockdown On our actions Aspirations Choices Voices…. You imposed lockdown On our thoughts Our minds Our movements Our expressions …. We were ‘socially’ distanced Discriminated Oppressed Repressed…. Now you are promoting ‘social’ distancing Instead of explaining ‘physical’ distancing Paving way to convince people of tradition Glorifying caste system and its logical coronation …. Your lockdown of[Read More…]
Someone sent me a nasty email that put a vituperative comment about Planned Parenthood selling blood or something related to abortions. A right-winger religiously and otherwise, he seemed irate about it. However, I deleted his message without reading it. It didn’t shock me as it had, apparently, done to him. Besides, he hates all abortions, it seems, even when women[Read More…]
Co-Written by Varsha Sharma and Sandeep Pandey The coronavirus crisis lockdown has made one thing very clear that food is the single most important thing that human beings need. Life can go on without internet connections or mobile phones but not without food. While the economy was totally shutdown the only people who were allowed to freely move about were[Read More…]
As we know that the world is in the grip of a raging coronavirus pandemic and uncertainty and fear are gripping everywhere. Amidst the widespread of Covid 19 when every country is taking steps to contain and trying to find a way to tackle one of the worst disease of recent times, TV anchors and media organisations and right wing[Read More…]
Pandemics have historically been breeding grounds for fake news and conspiracy theories . And this one is by a scientist who lost credibility among his peers, and scientific agencies around Europe, says By Dr. Felix Bast. The 2008 Nobel Laureate for physiology or medicine from France, Luc Antoine Montagnier, caught the media’s attention when he recently endorsed a COVID-19 conspiracy theory –[Read More…]
After a long time I came out of my home yesterday (14.04.2020) for a stroll in the corridors of our apartment. I was laid down by a paralytic stroke more than a year ago, and am yet to recover my full movements. Incidentally, I bumped on my neighbour. The moment she saw me, she said “Ah, Long Time… Not[Read More…]
It wasn’t easy for Arunachalam Muruganantham, a simple man living in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu to anchor the issue of menstrual hygiene, a matter which remains very private with women especially in a nation like India, to be brought into spotlight by a man. Popularly known as the Padman of India, after the movie which was based upon his story about[Read More…]
Amidst the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the media is filled with news of attacks on healthcare workers and professionals. To a nation with a very short span of memory, it should be reminded that it is not a new or sudden phenomenon. It has been happening since a long time in this country and also has been the center of media[Read More…]
May we be receptive to the wisdom of nature and the knowledge that if her laws are obeyed, our lands and people will flourish May we save the planet from present practices of destruction and allow the raw wounds of the earth to heal May we bring back the natural harmony of nature and restore to our souls the richness[Read More…]
While movement curb during the lockdown is preventing people to do their usual work, members of Bhubaneswar Bikash Sangathan are leaving no stones unturned to help the needy through their networks and volunteers in urban slums of the capital city. Sashikala Jena, a 72 years old woman from Mundasahi slums in Palasuni area of Bhubaneswar staying all alone leaving nobody[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar, Shabanaroze Chowdhury and Arathi P Rao The body fluids and transmission of infections have been now well-known. The role of intimate contacts between males and females during sexual intercourse have been held responsible for transmitting HIV/AIDS. History reveals many diseases which have been acquired through genital contact. Syphilis, a bacterial disease, for instance, is transmitted[Read More…]
I have to admit I suffer from acute katsaridaphobia — My Kastaridaphobia is stronger than my fear of COVID19 or cows. While COVID is being kept at bay with isolation, masks, lockdowns and quarantines and cows can be kept at bay by gates in India and can only be seen in restricted areas in Singapore, creatures that cause Katsaridaphobia cannot[Read More…]
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy” Iranian gunboats, should they harass American vessels at sea. His declaration comes after a confrontation in the Persian Gulf. “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” the U.S. president[Read More…]
It has so come to pass that we only impart religion to our little bundles of joy while abandoning them almost exclusively to the not-so-innocent hands of schools for their ‘secular’ education. While there has always been a debate about how much state propaganda is really thrust down the throat of malleable minds at an early age to destroy their[Read More…]
Since centuries, the royal family and its members have displayed a “Spirit of Tolerance” and practice this ideal candidly to welcome ethnic nationalities to UAE. A proverb, ‘Action speaks louder than words’, suffice the vision and empathy of the royal family of UAE. In pursuant to this farsightedness and compassion, the royal family of UAE gave permission to build a[Read More…]
In August 2019, as world watched the China-US trade war play out, another tit for tat spat occurred between South Korea and Japan, as it threatened the world’s tech supply chain and made the global economy more uncertain. It came at an unfavourable time when Brexit was also looming, and putting businesses under an onslaught. The dispute involves historical grievances[Read More…]
Global CO₂ rise and warming rates have reached a large factor to an order of magnitude higher than those of the past geological and mass extinction events, with major implications for the shift in climate zones and the nature and speed of current extreme weather events. Given the abrupt change in state of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere-land system, accelerating since the mid-20ᵗʰ[Read More…]
War commemorations nurse a dirty secret, though it is one displayed with a peacock flourish. The victors bring out the celebratory paraphernalia and talk about noble ideas; the defeated, quite simply, do not. We won, we celebrate and we, somehow, got things right. You, defeated, eat it, beat it. This does not quite work well with the ANZAC tradition, born,[Read More…]
What about my family…my daughter…their future… These are the very first thoughts that pierced through my slowly fading consciousness as I tried to keep my eyes open, worrying that closing them would mean closing them forever. It was that fateful night of October 10, 2014, an unforgettable experience. The accident It was just an ordinary day. My job, as a[Read More…]
Singer/Songwriter Neil Young wrote the song ‘ Four Dead in Ohio’ for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Four Dead In Ohio Lyrics Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’. We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin’. Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it. Soldiers are gunning us down. Should have been done long ago. What if[Read More…]
It was intended to be a Machiavellian move, but the decision by Benny Gantz, leader of Israel’s Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) coalition, to join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led government is likely to destabilize the political fabric of Israeli society for years to come. In a surprising move, Gantz has entered into precarious political compromises, whereby he would become the Speaker[Read More…]
The COVID-19 crisis has spurred an entrepreneurial wave across the country. Rural women, particularly the farmers among them, have also jumped on board. They are, in fact, better placed to cope with the pandemic as their own uncertain lives pose every day challenges and keep testing their resilience. They carry the greater burden of nature’s cruelties and also have the[Read More…]
GUWAHATI: In a hair raising incident, two brothers were allegedly lynched by a mob of irate villagers in the victims residence in Athiabari village near Simaluguri in Lower Assam’s Baksa district 120 kms of Guwahati at about 8 am on April 22. Police suspect that the vicious assault have occurred out of ‘village enmity ‘ as the villagers were fed[Read More…]
When some media outlets reported about starvation of the stranded workers during the lockdown due to the coronavirus, several other heartbreaking incidents came to light. 39 year old Ranveer Singh died midway as he walked from Delhi to Morena in MP. He was a delivery boy in a Delhi restaurant and left the capital because there was no social and[Read More…]
“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform”. When these women knew what they could do for the society and how they can be influencers rather than the mere recipient, they made it the unwavering truth of their lives. Their only mission was to help the people around who need them the[Read More…]
Spring in Kashmir has its own and unique charm and elegance, precisely for its unique geographic positioning and that’s what makes it to stand different from the rest of world. Spring comes breaking through the spell of chilly usually dull winter and eventually infuses a new life into everything particularly the plants/vegetation, besides the physical bearing, it psychologically resonates the[Read More…]
Hotchpotch is my favourite food. But hotchpotch in service is not good, rather more than bad. In combating COVID -19, hotchpotch is seen everywhere in Bangladesh. Theft of relief materials by ruling Awami League men has become a regular phenomenon in the country. Shortage of testing kits for COVID -19 is another problem. American national Sally Dugman, who is noted[Read More…]
I float down the river. It can be any river imagined. Yet it is here despite a vision Devised to make it real. It stretches back in time To the Big Bang And into a nearly imaginable future Until the Earth is swallowed By a dying expanding sun That swallows our planet fully as it is engulfed. Such ponderous thoughts[Read More…]
God bless the cherry-pickers! They swarm upon the ground— picking, picking, picking what’s unerringly found. They love low-hanging branches where picking’s easily done. They abhor a wealth of chances. “Tough nuts” they always shun! They tell you what you’ve heard a hundred thousand times. They claim the final word is easy—and it rhymes! They know the way to Timbuktu. They[Read More…]
Ordinance to treat offences against doctors as non bailable and cognizable issued This is Part-1 of a two part report. Indian Medical Association (IMA) withdrew its protest,slated for today, April 22, after their meeting with the Home Minister and the Health Minister. Safety and dignity of our doctors at their work place is non-negotiable, Union Home Minister Amit Shah[Read More…]
The beloved Dr Ismail Hussain of Kurnool of AP is no more but he leaves behind a rich legacy of philanthropy Thousands of people regretted having had no occasion to grieve their beloved doctor. Had it been an ordinary day, a lakh of people might have thronged the funeral. Dr Ismail is a household name among the poor of the[Read More…]
With more than 200 million hungry people, India is the home to the largest number of hungry people in the world. More than 190 million people in India sleep without food daily. One out of 4 to 5 children in India is malnourished. Malnourished people are prone to different diseases much more easily than the nourished lot. Needless to say that this[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister To Shri Narendra Modiji Prime Minister Dear Shri Modiji, The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued elaborate instructions to the States to observe a national lockdown by invoking the legal provisions under the Disaster Management Act. The Home Ministry has been admonishing all those States that have violated those instructions. The States in turn have been prosecuting[Read More…]
COVID-19 outbreak was declared as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020. Since then WHO has declared it as a pandemic affecting more than 115 countries around the globe. India has seen its first COVID-19 case in Kerala on 30th January 2020. However, until the 13th march Ministry of Health didn’t consider it as a Public Health Emergency for the country. But, soon cases were[Read More…]
There can be some positive gains from the impact of Corona. People can take back , reclaim spaces that belong to them. In Mumbai the fancy dome of the National Sports Club of India, a site of beauty and fashion pageants, a playground for the rich, has been taken over by the municipal corporation for quarantine. It is originally a[Read More…]
Co-Written by Bipasha Saikia and Bishaldeep Kakati The global doors of connectivity have been locked up owing to the outbreak of COVID-19. The race to flatten the pandemic curve can be learnt from the drastic containment measures by governments across the globe. The acute seriousness shown towards COVID-19 has also raised questions on the casual approach of the world community[Read More…]
Lenin, today, April 22, on his 150th birth anniversary, teaches lessons crucial in this capitalism-ravaged world, a world that witnesses murder at mass scale with the cloak of a pandemic. And, this pandemic is one of the direct consequences of capitalism, the system that slashed public healthcare for decades in countries, sold out public healthcare to private capital, enslaved science[Read More…]
We are in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic and medical emergency which generations have not witnessed. We are together fighting this and in all optimism we shall be able to curtail the effect of virus. Lockdown for curtailing movement and infection? Done. Exempting essential items? Done. Announcing relief package? Done. Categorically announcing relief provisions for the poorest and[Read More…]
(Bimari se darr nahi lagta saaab, Bhook se lagta hai..) Since the COVID-19 lockdown, Indian news media has focused on the patients, efforts of the medical fraternity, police and government departments. There is no doubt that these frontline fighters deserve a big salute for all they did and are doing to save lives. A careful scrutiny of news content on[Read More…]
As the world is dealing with the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, pandemic, the head of the UN food agency warned Tuesday that, the world is also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action isn’t taken. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley told the[Read More…]
They are rather good at raking in the cash; rather poor at sharing it. Google and Facebook have radiated, strafed and shrivelled hundreds of news outlets across the globe with their information sharing platforms while celebrating choice, advertising revenue and traffic. The idea of whether such content is news is irrelevant: what is shared, be it news, rumour or supposition,[Read More…]
2019 Amazon wildfires, that lit up in August, led to an international concern about the fate of the rainforests, responsible for world’s twenty percent oxygen, often called as the ‘lungs of the world’. The country’s National Institute for Space Research reported that there were more than eighty thousand fires, the most that it had ever recorded. It was nearly an eighty percent[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal Accessed on 22.04.2020 at 9.49 a.m. Worldwide 168 Countries Have Fewer Cases, Deaths Than India The grim message conveyed by the title of this article should make rulers in India sit up. Their initial complacency coupled with child-like attitude of being contended with the fact that Indians are better off[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies Photo: Daily Express Little by little, Americans are understanding just how badly our government has let us down by its belated and disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how thousands more people are dying as a result. But there are two other crises we face that our government is totally[Read More…]
My mom contracted polio when she was 14. She survived and learned to walk again, but my life was deeply affected by that virus. Today, as our larger society attempts to self-distance and self-isolate, my family has texted about the polio quarantine my mom was put under: how my grandma fearfully checked my aunt’s temperature every night because she shared[Read More…]
Co-Written by Stan Cox and Ezra Silk For weeks, pandemic-induced overbuying has resulted in shortages of staple foods and sanitation products. With their shelves stripped, supermarkets are donating much less to food banks just as those services are being overwhelmed by a surge of newly jobless clients. Disinfectant wipes are selling for extortionate prices online — if they are available at all.[Read More…]
Fifty years ago I and other conservationists and public health advocates were thrilled with the idea of an annual Earth Day celebration to honor our planet. At that time, I had more requests from television and radio to speak about health, nutrition and the early natural food movement. I had never received before any requests to speak about the environment,[Read More…]
Rory Fanning, following two deployments to Afghanistan with the 2nd Army Ranger Battalion, became one of the first U.S. Army Rangers to resist the Iraq war and the Global War on Terror. In 2008–2009 he walked across the United States for the Pat Tillman Foundation. Rory is the author of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the[Read More…]
The world is heading towards worst economic recession in its history. The governments are worried about their citizenry and future of their country. But Mr Narendra Modi cares very little as long as his popularity and electoral victory remains intact. Mr Modi fiddles with the future of India and Indians by manipulating the public mind with the help of mass[Read More…]
The Spirit, Politics, and Rituals of Ramadan are the three main topics of this article. Ramadan is pronounced Ramzan in the Subcontinent, Iran, Turkey, and the Central Asian Republics wherever the Persian linguistic influence exists, elsewhere in the world, it is Ramadan. In the Arabic language, “Z” is “D” and hence Ramadan. About 50 Random pictures of Ramadan around the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Badre Alam Khan & Dastagir Khan It is to be noted that South Asia is the land of several Sufis and Saints (like, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Amir Khusro, Dara Sikoh and Kabir, etc,) who taught us human and universal values like love, devotions, compassion, brotherhood, social equality and of course spread out the message of communal harmony among religious[Read More…]
Popular perceptions form the base of many an acts of violence and violation of human rights of deprived sections of society. In India from mid-eighties many an event has shaped the perceptions and intensified Hate towards the religious minorities. Already the rise of communal politics during freedom movement had created a uniform image of minorities, Muslims in particular. This has[Read More…]
Many people are concerned today with the low price of oil. Others are concerned about slowing or stopping COVID-19. Is there any way forward? I gave a few hints regarding what is ahead in my last post, Economies won’t be able to recover after shutdowns. We live in a world with a self-organizing economy, made up of components such as businesses, customers,[Read More…]
How people behave when the Covid-19 lockdown measures are lifted will vary. There are horses and mules among us. When the rider falls off the horse, the horse usually waits for her to get back on. The mule on the other hand, might kick, stomp or bite the rider. Twelve years have passed since the 2008 financial meltdown. Millions of[Read More…]
On the Coercive Measures Taken by the Governments and Capitalists against Stranded Migrant Labour Comrades and Friends, The steps taken by the Central Government on the movement of stranded labour within the states and union territories by issuing a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) is a death knell for the rights of workers. Let us unite against those taking advantage of[Read More…]
U.S. oil market has crashed. The price of U.S. oil turned negative for the first time in history. The U.S. oil industry is facing a doomsday scenario. Hundreds of U.S. oil companies could go bankrupt. Many U.S. oil companies took on too much debt during the good times. Some of them will not be able to survive this historic downturn.[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has created debates on many issues including church and similar institutions. A number of letters in Los Angeles Times is a show of that debate, which indicates the impact the pandemic is making on many parts of life. The “Letters to the Editor: Churches don’t have a 1st Amendment right to ruin public health” in Los Angeles[Read More…]
Co-Written by Praveen Srivastava, Anand Mathew, Joseph Nitilal and Sandeep Pandey With lockdown extended and little relaxation in some essential services, the plights of poor are not going to reduce for sure. Lakhs of migrant labourers are struck in metro cities, far away from their homes. The concern which government demonstrated in arranging buses to send 1,800 pilgrims from Haridwar[Read More…]
From the time coronavirus crisis was being talked about and its spread took place in India, we the many sister organisations working under the Catholic Church of Varanasi were in conversation with each other to prepare ourselves to respond to this emerging crisis. It was clear to us all that this seems to be totally a new disaster unimaginable and[Read More…]
COVID-19 has shaken the world. It has already led to the loss or devastation of countless lives, while many people in vital professions are working day and night to attend to the sick and stop further spread. Personal and social losses, and the fight to stop these, demand our continued respect and support. At the same time, it is critical[Read More…]
Since 2015, India is facing widespread drought conditions, with around six hundred million Indians facing extreme drought stress. The Indian government has accepted this fact in its own report ‘Composite Water Management Index: A Tool For Water Management’, published in June 2018. The repercussions are such that farmers, hit by crop failures, are struggling to stay prosperous. Droughts have also[Read More…]
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a real roller-coaster ride as far as geo-politics is concerned. Through the chaos and the barrage of information and updates on the on-going pandemic, there are still those, especially among the political elite who have moved ahead of the pandemic management curve and have begun investing time and energy into calling for accountability and reparations[Read More…]
Marx was the first to criticize capitalism in a concerted way, but Lenin was the first to topple it. In the Tsarist snow, he planted the seed of socialism, and it grew into the enormous Eastern bloc; a canopy over a third of humanity that plunged some into eternal darkness, but many into the light of a new dawn. Now[Read More…]
It was the summer of 2018 when I was vacationing in Moscow with my family. One of the most memorable parts of our trip was a tour of Red Square, especially the tomb where the towering leader of the communist revolution rests permanently. Lenin, who led the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 that changed the course of world history, was never[Read More…]
From being accused of separatism, unresponsiveness to change, and even of corona spread, Muslims find themselves in impossible situations in one part or the other of the world. History is witness that from the 7th century till 17th century Muslims had some stake in worldly affairs. After that, they have been sidelined and gradually eclipsed. There are economical and socio-political reasons[Read More…]
In the midst of a global pandemic, as COVID-19 and lockdowns grip the world, many of us feel a sense of pause, like the breaks were suddenly pulled all around us — and for many of us, there is only a mythology of pause, since the violence that plagued our lives before COVID-19 continues to impact us, if not[Read More…]
There is surprisingly a certain degree of optimism around at the moment, despite virtually entire populations and economies on lockdown. Although things are really bad for millions right now due to the effects of lockdown, economist Mariana Mazzucato believes that the Covid-19 crisis will shine light on societal and economic systems all across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of[Read More…]
What causes much more death and tragedy throughout the world, for several decades than Covid-19, but does not cause panic and hysteria, and, is not considered an emergency? It’s TB Folks! Tuberculosis Tuberculosis – or TB, as it’s commonly called — is a contagious infection that usually attacks your lungs. It can spread to other parts of your body, like your brain and spine.[Read More…]
The Canada-based Punjabi media fraternity has strongly condemned the recent arrests of towering Indian scholars and the criminal case filed against a female photojournalist in the disputed territory of Kashmir. On April 14, well known Indian authors and activists Anand Teltumbde and Gauram Navlakha were forced to surrender under motivated charges filed against them to suppress the voices of dissent.[Read More…]
A farrago of failures of the authorities is confounding India’s desperate struggle against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), as the nation is facing a prolonged lockdown. As public services collapsed with the abrupt imposition of the world’s biggest – and toughest – lockdown that quarantined the population of 1.3 billion from 25 March, there are fears that the unfolding humanitarian tragedy[Read More…]
The media, the Indian as well as the international, have covered the continuing plight of the inter-state migrants resulting from the nation-wide lock-down announced with a calculated abruptness, not uncharacteristic of the Government of India (GOI) judging from the disastrous demonetization and the hurried and thoughtless implementation of GST. Yet, none in the media has given a proper explanation for[Read More…]
Zimbabwe’s food security poses a serious threat to national security, as it can cause civil unrest and general insecurity in the country. Zimbabwe is facing the worst food shortage in recent memory. Once known as the breadbasket of the continent, the country is now facing its most serious crises. It has resulted in a lot of fear and loss of[Read More…]
This article looks at three event happened in the months of March and April, during Covid19 pandemic in India i.e. People’s applause for health workers on 22nd March; popularly known as Janta curfew, on 5the April both appealed by the PM, and the national broadcasting of serial Ramayana for entertainment of the whole country during lockdown influenced by the leader[Read More…]
Aaj Woh Kashmir Hai Mehkoom-O- Majboor –O- Faqeer Kal Jise Ahl-E- Nazar Khete Thay Iran-E- Sagheer. Sir Allama Iqbal Kashmir has witnessed a cataclysmic change in the last couple of years. The political conditions and other allied things are responsible for the same. David Devdas in his book “The Generation of Rage in Kashmir” points out that 2008,[Read More…]
Expressing gratitude for the assistance being provided by a medical brigade of Cuban doctors in the Italian region of Lombardy, the Italian region most affected by the new SARS COV-2 virus, the Communist Party of Italy sent a message to the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, and to President of[Read More…]
As demand dries down and storage runs out, the price of U.S. oil has fallen to a level not seen since 1999. Crude prices in U.S.’ oil capital are getting dangerously close to zero. The oil market has come under intense pressure during the coronavirus pandemic with a huge slump in demand. The price of a barrel of West Texas[Read More…]
The second death anniversary of Justice Rajinder Sachar falls on 20 April 2020. On this solemn occasion as we remember him it is necessary to understand that his concerns about the ever-increasing alienation of Muslims in Indian society were very deep. Apart from being concerned, he also had a keen grasp of this complex problem. He always considered this problem[Read More…]
Things are getting dizzy in the White House on what, exactly, is being done to “open the economy”. Cranky advocates for the financial argument over the restrictions of public health have been attempting to claw back some ground. As Jonathan Chait puts it, “The anti-public health faction either believes the dangers of the coronavirus have been exaggerated, or that the[Read More…]
Anaheim, California: Cars were lined up about a half mile long in both directions of the 57 Freeway to get to Second Harvest Food Bank On March 30, the-stay-at home order became Maryland law at 8 p.m. that night. Since then a common scene that most news media are carrying – from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, from Pennsylvania to Baltimore, people[Read More…]
My partner and I have been fighting about politics since we met in 1965. I was 13. She was 18 and my summer camp counselor. (It was another 14 years before we became a couple.) We spent that first summer arguing about the Vietnam War. I was convinced that the U.S. never should have gotten involved there. Though she agreed,[Read More…]
We’re confronted with competing theories about the origin of this novel coronavirus and competing strategies for dealing with it, as well as gross uncertainties in the absolute number of infections and recoveries. The things that are easiest to track are the number of hospitalizations of the diagnosed, and those actually dying with the virus while hospitalized or in a secure[Read More…]
Some years ago, the then vice-president of Monsanto Robert T Fraley asked, “Why do people doubt science”. He posed the question partly because he had difficulty in believing that some people had valid concerns about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. Critics were questioning the science behind GM technology and the impacts of GMOs because they could[Read More…]
In 2018, I read an article about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is here: https://archive.org/stream/catholicradical/catholicradical-2018-10 The eyewitness acount to the happening included this information: “… August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan. A short, wiry 37-year- old Basque Jesuit priest served as Novice Master on the outskirts of the city. He tells what happened that morning: “The roof tiles,[Read More…]
The things they say about suburbia are true. It’s leafy and has lots of parks. And if there was a place the state could operate a Stasi style network of informants, suburbia would be the place. The white net-curtains, the perfect cover. I’ve lived in my part of London suburbia all my life and seen it change. Before the population[Read More…]
With the schools and colleges being shut due to the covid-19 pandemic the respective ministry and departments have advised the institutions to ask teachers to keep engaging students academically through e-platforms. Good enough, as in such times this is the only solution available. However, how much of good it would be is decided by the varied class structures Indian society[Read More…]
It seems Kerala state in India has successfully controlled the spread of COVID 19 virus in its geographical limits. Global community is now wondering whether this success model can be replicated in other parts of the planet. This article examines whether there is any such possibility through a socio-epidemiological lens. Kerala Model – Version 1 Historical moorings of Kerala model[Read More…]
A medical emergency is no pretext to impose a political emergency. How many policemen in civil clothes are required to deliver a mere summons to an editor of a web journal 700-k away in an age of email and WhatsApp? The recent action of the Uttar Pradesh police, where it sent a posse of 7-8 policemen, in civil clothes, in[Read More…]
A pandemic is a situation where a disease spreads to various countries and continents globally in a short time. Even before one understands the nature and progression of the disease, it kills a number of people. The present Covid-19 virus was declared as a pandemic by the World health organisation (WHO) on 11thMarch 2020. To understand what a pandemic means,[Read More…]
History sometimes presents uncanny parallels raising similar questions. In February 1933, on the eve of national elections in Germany, the German Parliament was set on fire. The flames over central Berlin were later described as the torch which triggered off bigger crimes. The Nazis blamed the communists for the fire and issued orders to shoot at sight and arrest without[Read More…]
Seven decades ago, Dr B.R Ambedkar declared that India was entering the life of contradictions. Across political front, India had achieved equality i.e. one man, one vote, one value. However, India, then, had not achieved equality on social and economic fronts, the status quo, which continues till date. But what probably could have baffled Dr. B.R.Ambedkar is not only the[Read More…]
It is obvious that the coronavirus pandemic will be front-page news for a good part of 2020. And for good reason, since its human toll and social dislocation has been devastating. Though not theorized in this way, this crisis can also be understood as yet another significant marker of our ‘Age of Transition.’ The world system of the past five[Read More…]
Coronavirus has become global pandemic without any viable treatment, only practical solution to contain is to social distancing and for the same almost whole world is under lockdown including India. But unfortunately, Tablighi Markaz failed to do unintentionally but communally charged mainstream media appears to portray it as a deliberate action. Presently world is facing Novel Coronavirus which has engulfed[Read More…]
Pakistan, like many parts of the world, has announced a lockdown in most of the country. In some of the cities, however, there is a partial lockdown. The district Kech in Balochistan is partially locked down (from morning till five in the evenings with essential services still open like groceries, vegetables, banks, medical stores etc). However, all of the educational[Read More…]
As of April 17, 2020COVID 19, a health hazard of unimaginable proportions has infected 2020 1.9 million and killed more than 150000 and counting. However, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer speculates that given that these official numbers are based on those who have been tested and recorded as infected and as large numbers remain untested and unrecorded especially in developing countries,[Read More…]
Kashmir once known for her incredible natural beauty, scenic splendour, and picturesque locale has undeniably remained an epicentre of conflict, violence, clashes, and disagreements. The ongoing conflict has impacted every sphere of life in the valley. Among various others, a quite saddening and extremely desolating thing to observe is that education has been one of the worst-hit sectors. One of[Read More…]
Tolerance and dissent are two indispensable characteristics of stable state and societies. From the past State and empires have flourished while, developing the character of dissent and tolerance within their spaces. The present State of affairs throughout the world are a worrisome concern for everyone keeping the approach these states depict towards different communities. History as a discipline has much[Read More…]
The transparent people cannot be seen Is that true? The transparent people have no emotions Is that true? In a field, on a bus Walking down the road Singing, in pain The sun is no friend Nor is the rain The transparent people float Smiling in pictures No flowers at home The transparent people From towns on a map Forever[Read More…]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, April 14, announced that country’s lockdown will be extended till 3rd May. All sorts of praises and criticisms followed the announcement. Since then it has been the topic discussion amongst the Indian middle class as they sit in the comfort of their houses, posting pictures of their newly learned skills on social media, a[Read More…]
The corona virus pandemic has spread in more than 210 countries and disrupted social and economic life across the globe. It has changed our working, playing and learning style: schools are closed, online homework is given and parents are asked to supervise their kids, offices are shutdown, sports leagues have been cancelled, and many people have been asked to work from home. Lockdown[Read More…]
The colonial and imperialist militaries, political and economic systems are defeated by the mutilating powers of the pestilence. The COVID-19 virus is controlling our so-called modern lifestyles and quarantining ourselves within walls of our rooms to reflect and reimagine. The ‘end of history’, ‘clash of civilisations’ and ‘there is no alternative’ were three rotten ideological theses advanced to established market[Read More…]
The trust is the factor which makes one belief upon the things. The societal and political relations depend upon trust. It is a trust which makes societies, one man’s relationship with others possible. So we can infer that societies exist and get built upon trust. And if this very trust in any sphere of society loses grip whole society feels[Read More…]
Here’s a quotation from “Trump Rex” by John Feffer at https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/trump-rex: “Athens survived the plague, though its democracy was compromised by war and disease. America, too, will live on. But it will have lost some further measure of its greatness thanks in no small part to the man who, however cynically, wanted to make it great again.” Well, in relation, I’m[Read More…]
The social implications of the corona pandemic in India are proving to be as grave as its pathological ones. The country’s resolve to fight corona- by no means insignificant- has, however, led to certain outcomes that have caused reprehensible damage to the social and moral constitution. The reported twenty-two people dying on the roads- trying to reach a ‘safer’ place[Read More…]
The country has entered the second round of the lockdown. This time too, if some economic activities are omitted, then there is nothing special in the guidelines issued by the government for the relief of the common man. Whatever the reasoning, the truth is that the Prime Minister had announced the lockdown last time without any preparation and this time[Read More…]
My God the Almighty! I tender my sincere praises and thanks at your feet for having created a beautiful space of communication between you and me, through the crisis of Corona pandemic! Many believe that it is you who have allowed this pandemic. Some others think that it is your wrath. The common perception is that you are punishing the[Read More…]
The conflict between the US and China is not simply economic — it has political, cultural and military dimensions. For quite a while, world’s two largest economies, or superpowers, as a matter of fact, have been locked in a trade war. The result has been imposition of tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each other’s goods.[Read More…]
India’s Internet shutdown in Kashmir is the longest ever in a democracy.The Washington Post Internet ban in Kashmir is a norm now. Prior to the abrogation of Article 370, the authorities would snap mobile connectivity and Internet services intermittently citing security reasons. But with the abrogation of Article 370 on 5th August 2019, Kashmir has remained cut off[Read More…]
Politicians, as any political class, will nurse their favourite prejudice. And when there is a crisis, those prejudices will be fanned and praised to the heavens. For some politicians, who find the whole business of lockdowns and business restrictions all too much, someone has to pay for COVID-19. Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts takes up the theme that is being pushed[Read More…]
“But what of the price of peace?” asked Jesuit priest and war resister Daniel Berrigan, writing from federal prison in 1969, doing time for his part in the destruction of draft records. “I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease[Read More…]
Stay Safe. Stay Home. The birds flew home. They had nests. Stay Safe. Stay Home. But, men? Did all men have a place to stay? A place they could rest? A place that housed their beds? “1.6 billion worldwide lack adequate housing”. Stay Safe. Stay Home. A place that shelters them from Death by[Read More…]
CO-Written by Akshat Jain & Divij Oberoi In the great ancient tradition of our country (bharat ki mahan aur pracheen sanskriti), we have yet again decided to start a witch-hunt against the members of a minority community. While this kind of witch hunting had become confined to villages due to the evil machinations of secular-rationalists, it is now being restarted[Read More…]
Shamsul Islam is a former professor of political science at University of Delhi. He is known in academia as a leftist scholar. Apart from academics, he has also been involved in theatre and other cultural activities. He mostly writes on religious fundamentalism. His work on the RSS has been cited by many scholars. But the discussion here I would like to[Read More…]
Undaunted Cuba’s act of solidarity, in real terms, in today’s pandemic ravaged world is a modern day epic. Now, none, but the Empire, declines the fact. Cuba’s role in facing the pandemic in countries is unparallel in human history: the island-country facing the longest-ever imperial economic blockade in human history is reaching humanity in countries with medical assistance in defeating[Read More…]
Do you remember the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back? It is an illustration of how overloaded systems are sensitive to small perturbations. Could the COVID-19 epidemic be the straw that breaks the back of the world’s economy? Like an overloaded camel, the world’s economy is strained by at least two tremendous burdens: one is the increasing[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shivani Dwivedi & Ashish Kajla All the banks, especially the public sector banks have a moral obligation and social responsibility of promoting financial inclusion and social welfare. The banks run on the deposits and when a bank sinks, depositors lose their savings. Therefore, deposit holders have a right to the common and basic banking services for free of[Read More…]
Famous German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel was the first philosopher who linked social science and natural science by applying the principle of Thesis, Anti-Thesis and Synthesis. He effectively separated State and Religion while allowing them to function in their separate spheres. and advanced the scientific thinking of modern world. In these times of coronavirus war on humanity, we must understand his[Read More…]
“When I described the tumor in my esophagus as a “blind, emotionless, alien,” I suppose that even I couldn’t help awarding it some of the qualities of a living thing. That at least I know to be a mistake: an instance of the pathetic fallacy by which we ascribe animate qualities to inanimate phenomena.” – Christopher Hitchens, Mortality The world,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Amit Kumar & Puja Pal The outbreak of COVID-19 and the measures taken to deal with pandemic have an unprecedented impact on informal sector workers. ILO predicted that coronavirus could cause loss of 25 million jobs across the world. Global unemployment which already stood at 190 million before the spread of coronavirus, can further rise drastically. The pandemic[Read More…]
Lockdown to counter coronavirus, officially Covid-19, in the U.S. has created political controversy in the country. Political leaders are exchanging tirades, threatening measures considered beyond constitution, and groups of people protesting while armed militiamen are joining the anti-lockdown protest. Cuomo extends New York lockdown in coordination with other states New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended his state’s social-distancing measures[Read More…]
India’s tryst with COVID-19 Pandemic began with a Nationwide lockdown on March 25, 2020. The shock and awe specialist Prime Minister Narendra Modi approached the issue with the same theatrics that he displayed during demonetization. Events that unfolded ever since have shown the utter disregard and rather disdain for the poor and hapless that political leaders across India possess. It[Read More…]
Last night, I got a call from my cousin sister. She is a Nurse in a big hospital in NY. She was calling me after a long time. In fact, I started getting many such phone calls from several other friends and relatives after the current pandemic driven global lockdown. Glad that people are finding more time to interact as[Read More…]
A joint Statement by the Nepalese intellectuals, writers and journalists, demanding immediate release of Varvara Rao, Prof. Saibaba, cultural activist Maila Lama and other social activists and political prisoners. Along with the Corona terror, we are facing state terror imposed by the fascist regimes. Nepalese revolutionary cultural- activist Maila Lama is kept in jail along with other political prisoners[Read More…]
The world has been forced to adopt economically hugely expensive lockdown measures to stem the huge mortality associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. However the global Action Cost/Deaths ratio is about $3 million per death for tackling the world-wide Covid-19 pandemic but merely about $9,000 per death for tackling malaria that massively and disproportionately impacts the Developing World. When the Covid-19[Read More…]
The US president is in a warring mood. Having declared himself a president at war, a meaningless gesture given that the US is always, somewhere in the world, at war, finding necessary enemies in distraction was always going to be a priority. Donald Trump already had the “China virus” in his artillery, attaching nationality to pathogen. Now, and it took[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis An old road between Balikpapan and Samarinda passes through the poor villages, through rural slums, as well as stalls selling second-rate local fruits. The cheap, unhygienic eateries, are now half-empty. While the traffic is still heavy here, the ‘real action’ is somewhere else; a few kilometers away, where the new motorway is[Read More…]
The attack on the students by the state and the right wing extremism, represented by RSS that took off with Mr. Modi’s ascendance to power in the center, has intensified in the last one year along with the ongoing of failures of the government on the economic fronts. The ruling classes, in order to divert the popular attention from the[Read More…]
Campaign Against State Repression demands the immediate release of Yogesh Swamy and all such activists being targeted and detained by the Delhi Police during the COVID-19 lockdown! Today, in the most brazen manner, the Delhi Police’s Special Cell has picked up Comrade Yogesh Swamy. A national vice president of Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) and member of Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, Yogesh[Read More…]
Preparing for a pandemic requires understanding that a change in the relationship between people is primary and the production of things is secondary and flows from social factors. Investors in profit-based medicine cannot comprehend this concept. Nothing could exemplify it more clearly than Cuba’s response to the corona virus (COVID-19). The US dawdled for months before reacting. Cuba’s preparation for[Read More…]
Introduction There have been a series of peace attempts to solve the civil war by political arrangements until the Rajapaksa regime decided to declare war against LTTE in 2006. The first peace rounds marked by Bandaranaike and Chelvanayagam in 1957. The Senanayake- Chelvanayagam peace talks in 1965 followed by Round Table conference 1983, All-Party conference 1984, Thimpu Bhutan talks 1985,[Read More…]
I was fascinated to learn that a new exhibit at the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG), in Rochester, New York, celebrates Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream. For those who have not heard of this groundbreaking work, a quick Google search yields this synopsis on Wikipedia: Sultana’s Dream is a 1905 feminist utopian story written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist,[Read More…]
John Lennon, prolific as a writer as much as a performer, wrote this: Working Class Hero As soon as you’re born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all A working class hero is something to be A working class hero is something[Read More…]
Socialist (Party) India in collaboration with volunteers on the ground has been working actively for providing relief to low-income communities in Uttar Pradesh. The main focus of the relief work is providing food security to the marginalised sections of the society. With the extension of lockdown till 3rd May 2020, the hardships of the daily wagers, migrant workers and low[Read More…]
Joint statement in support of the Public Health Service Campaign Corona is certainly a dangerous Virus but the reason it has turned into a pandemic is certainly the making of capitalism. Decades of reckless policies of neo-liberalism led to constant neglect of public health care services to facilitate entry and expansion of private capital. It has turned even the basic[Read More…]
In retrospect, it’s no surprise that, after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, dystopian fiction enjoyed a spike in popularity. However, novels like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which soared on Amazon, would prove more horror stories than roadmaps. Like so many ominous sounds from a dark basement, they provided good scares but didn’t foreshadow the actual Trumpian[Read More…]
To, The Chief Minister, Odisha Bhubaneswar Sub: 1) Request for passing a Government Order for no lay-off of workers/employees from private companies/farms/educational institutions/private hospitals/media institutions etc. 2) Transfer of Rs. 1500 to all casual/contract workers other than income tax payers/govt. or public sector employees/GST account holders Honourable Chief Minister, The Director General of WHO has correctly said that the[Read More…]
Tackling a social calamity is not like fighting a war which works best when a leader can use top-down power to order everyone to do what the leader wants — with no need for consultation. In contrast, what is needed for dealing with a social calamity is participatory governance and alert public discussion. We have reason to take pride[Read More…]
Worldwide, more than two million people have contracted coronavirus, officially Covid-19, Wednesday since the lethal outbreak began last December, passing another dark milestone, and the worst hit country is the U.S. Globally, more than 132,000 people have died. And in this situation, the U.S. is continuing its war against the World Health organization (WHO) and China. According to data from[Read More…]
The United States is unleashing a war against the World Health organization (WHO) as U.S. cuts funding to probe its ‘China ties’. However, the UN Chief has said: “Now is not the time!” The UN chief says WHO is “critical” in global war against Covid-19. As the pandemic rages on in some 185 countries, the U.S. has escalated a rhetorical[Read More…]
It was the summer of 1945. Britain & the Allied forces had just won the Second World War against the Axis powers under the leadership of Winston Churchill and the coalition government of conservative and labour parties. This coalition government was rock solid during the war time with conservation party leader Churchill as the Prime Minister and labour leader Clement[Read More…]
Co-Written by Brishti Banerjee and Nitin Meshram Abstract: Migrant workers from different parts of the country are stranded and pushed to vulnerable conditions as a result of the pandemic. They are walking kilometres (reverse migrating) to reach their native place, they are denied access to basic services, and every single day of the lockdown they are struggling to make both[Read More…]
Is the segregation of wards for Hindu and Muslim coronavirus patients in a civil hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat a detached and aberrant act in Indian social and body politic? No. One could mention a long list of incidents like this in recent; pregnant woman being barred medical attention for being a Muslim in Rajasthan, the brutal beating of Mehboob Ali[Read More…]
Why Ambedkar means to me? Chauvinistic never realised the contribution of his vision and works toward the progress of Dalit Bahujan. Baba Saheb fought his entire life for the protection & upliftment of Oppressed classes and that is why today Dalits, Tribes, Labour, Women progressing or able to live with rights & dignity. Babasaheb is the one who is still[Read More…]
Democracy is established on the foundation of questions, and when there remains a scissor to cut off the questions that the administration feels to be against them, then it does not remain a practical and real democracy. Rather, it becomes either an authoritarian nation, or democracy becomes just a word on a page that can be erased whenever felt as[Read More…]
For decades, the United States has been antagonistic to the most important international organization on Earth – the United Nations. It is because the organization has periodically rebelled and refused to take direct diktats from Washington. Although greatly influenced by the West, the U.N. has always insisted on a certain degree of independence, for which it has been criticized, bullied[Read More…]
Spitting at someone is a universal insult. In Israel, however, spitting at Palestinians is an entirely different story. Now that we know that the deadly coronavirus can be transmitted through saliva droplets, Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish settlers are working extra hard to spit at as many Palestinians, their cars, doorknobs, and so on, as possible. If this sounds to[Read More…]
Co-Written by Badre Alam Khan & Dastagir Khan In spite of educated from prestigious university like Columbia and Landon School of Economy (LSE), Babasaheb Ambedkar (1891-1956) had struggled a lot in his entire life and faced caste discriminations, humiliations and experienced untouchability during his lifetime. After the 129 years of his birth, still the larger conditions of India’s Dalits in[Read More…]
The word “Untouchability”, in common parlance, is arguably associated with the lowest caste people of India – the Dalits. The pyramid of caste hierarchy is supported and regulated by the ‘Varna System’. However, there is neither scientific reason in the creation of a hierarchical division of the people nor having a moral stand to justify any corner of the existence[Read More…]
We, the people of India irrespective of out religion, caste, sex, etc. have adopted this Constitution with a vision to constitute India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic, but the question arises irrefutably is that- have we been able to uphold the noble visions of constitution makers?. Perhaps, no. One by one we, overtly or covertly, at our very[Read More…]
Co-Written by Anandi Sharan and Nihal Ahmed After the declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic by the WHO, around 4 billion people are locked down. In India the loss of GDP due to the COVID-19 pandemic may be 10% of GDP and there may be zero growth and very low prospect of recovery of the industrial sector in India. The[Read More…]
I must go where my conscience takes me not where I am supposed to go. I must do what my conscience dictates, in fact demands. I cannot succumb. I have made mistakes and I’ll repent forever, not in some magical way but in a very practical way. I will learn to want less and thus to have more freedom for[Read More…]
Their worthy works have helped people in 224 villages of rural Kandhamal. Kandhamal: With the pandemic comes the stigma, superstitions and fear about the disease among people. Meet the social army of 10 of Jeebika Suraksha Manch of Kandhamal who have shouldered responsibilities to inform communities about the COVID-19 Pandemic. To oust the myths and provide a basic scientific understanding[Read More…]
A new study in Nature (April 2020) casts a disturbing light on the prospects of abrupt ecosystem collapse. The report analyzes the probabilities of collapsing ecosystems en masse, and not simply the loss of individual species. (Source: Trisos, C.H. et al, The Projected Timing of Abrupt Ecological Disruption From Climate Change, Nature, April 8, 2020) The paper states that a[Read More…]
This is Part-2 of a Report. Part-1 appeared with the title: 200 Million Indian Muslims Vilified, now in the name of Covid-19. “Coronavirus may die…but the virus of communal disharmony will be hard to kill when this is over.” — Khalid Rasheed, Chairman of Islamic Center of India The anti-Muslim tirade has become the new normal so much so that it[Read More…]
Corona virus outbreak or the great COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world, the governments of the world, the people and of course a first year economic student as well. Living in this phase and going through all these days, feels like we are going to have enough stories to tell to our grandchildren and enough to boast about to our[Read More…]
On August 7th, 2019, in what was billed by Mike Hurst, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, as the largest single-state immigration enforcement action in U.S. history, ICE raided seven poultry packing plants in Mississippi. The plants included three owned by Peco Foods, one owned by Koch Foods in Morton, Mississippi, one Pearl River Foods in Carthage,[Read More…]
Nazareth: The Palestinians of Gaza know all about lockdowns. For the past 13 years, some two million of them have endured a closure by Israel more extreme than anything experienced by almost any other society – including even now, as the world hunkers down to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Israel has been carrying out an unprecedented experiment in[Read More…]
A Report by the Stranded Workers Action Network With the 21 day COVID-19 lockdown extended to 40 days and no additional relief measures announced, migrant worker distress will only increase. Scenes of their discontent and resistance against the lockdown and its extension came to the fore recently in Surat and Mumbai as thousands gathered on the street. All they want[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world in 2020 is possibly the biggest medical crisis to hit mankind. It has forced a large section of the world’s population in an unprecedented lockdown. Countries across the globe are making efforts to counter the rising problem. Some responses have yielded positive results, like Singapore’s rigorous testing and prompt quarantining of positive[Read More…]
Our admiration, interest, and respect spikes for countries where the spread of Covid-19 is flattened or limited with early measures. As we track global statistics on a daily basis, any country with less than 1000 cases makes us react with Wow and How. As we scroll further down the list, those with 500 or less than 100 cases make us feel positive and[Read More…]
Eminent poets from all parts of the country including Gulzar have sought the immediate release of Varavara Rao, imprisoned in Maharashtra as an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. In a representation submitted to Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi, the poets sought the release of the 80-year old Rao in view of the health emergency in the country on account[Read More…]
Covid-19 death toll in England and Wales have shot up dramatically, with one in every five now linked to the coronavirus, while the UK government has been accused of underreporting fatalities among the elderly in care homes. New data published on Tuesday by the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS), which detail all deaths in hospitals and out in the[Read More…]
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information on U.S. National Security Agency, has warned that governments may use the coronavirus to curtail freedoms. Snowden, in an exclusive interview with Vice, said that governments may take advantage of the pandemic to impose authoritarian rules on populations. Snowden said, “As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we[Read More…]
Together we can decrease the level of violence, raise awareness of our activities and save lives around the world. The impact of a day of global ceasefire and non-violence cannot be misunderstood. Jeremy Gilley When the whole world is grappling with the lethal issue of Coronovirus, The Pakistani and Indian troopers are at loggerheads with each other in Keran[Read More…]
The acronym COVID-19 is derived from ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019’ was firstly reported in humans in Wuhan, China in late December, 2019 emerged as a rapidly spreading pandemic with its unprecedented outbreak. Within 100 days of its birth, it has attacked 14,31,973 people, of which 82,096 were lost their lives. Its unimaginable eruption reached 202 nations and every person in the[Read More…]
As the world passes through the unchartered territory of the present corona pandemic, everything seems turned topsy-turvy. Immediate and prolonged lockdown has affected each and everybody in some way or the other. Stress resulting from the different daily routines with the drastically different working conditions has taken a heavy toll on individual well-being. The most subtle effect is on direct[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jitamanyu Sahoo & Syed Mujtaba Hussain The World Health Organisation(WHO) is currently facing an image problem. We all are aware about the existence of WHO but very few have any idea about what it does. Is it a world medical association, a transnational health body or a source for technical medical reports with an overview of bureaucracy. According[Read More…]
On Easter Sunday Andrea Bocelli performing at the historic Duomo cathedral in Milan. The cathedral is closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic. This past Easter Sunday (April 12), Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed a solo concert titled “Music for Hope” to promote “love, healing and hope to Italy and the world.” The next day, he gave an[Read More…]
The covid-19 scare is increasing day by day, the life of a common man continues to suffer badly. As the whole world is observing lockdown in order to maintain social distancing to decrease the spread of the deadly pandemic. People are staying inside homes. The people who have contacts with the positive cases or have travel history to the affected[Read More…]
Abstract: Even before the full impact of COVID-19 on Health of Indians is clear, the economic impact of the measures to deal with the pandemic are already posing grave concern. The paper highlights the global overview of the pandemic on economic situation. Indian economy was in dire straits even before COVID-19 reached shores. Specifically, the lockdown and other movement restrictions[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the changes that we must make to create a better world after the pandemic has ended. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rebuilding-After-Corona-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf A better world is possible! It is hard to predict how long the terrible[Read More…]
The intemperate volcano that is the US President has done much to burn its way through prominent appointments. As the title of former GOP strategist Rick Wilson’s book goes, Everything Trump Touches Dies. There seem few more important individuals in the United States than Dr Anthony Fauci, and that, for the White House, is a problem. No burning bushel can[Read More…]
Allow us to go home At a time when we are stuck in your cities Neither continuing here for earning livelihood by staying Nor getting a privilege to practice your set norms With economic activities coming to a halt And stoppage of all the work and no means to earn We are least motivated to stay back And want to[Read More…]
On the birth anniversary of a towering social justice activist and an architect of the Indian constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, members and supporters of Indians Abroad (IAPI) for Pluralist India took out a car rally outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver on Tuesday, April 14. Ambedkar was born in a so called untouchable family, and faced caste-based discrimination in the[Read More…]
Chennai April 15, 2020: On March 22, at 5 PM when the nation clapped and beat the vessels to cheer up those fighting the Corona war did anyone thought about Home Guards who are on the forefront to take cudgels with the unseen enemy? In a candid interview, Mr. Manjit Singh Nayyar, Assistant Commandant General for the Home Guards, listed[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shamayita Sen and Debabrota Basu On 14th April 2020 Indian Prime Minister (PM) announced the extension of the lockdown conceived to stall the spread of COVID-19 pandemic till May 3rd. The ‘shock lockdown’ which took effect from March 24th is evidently an ill-conceived and ill-executed strategy to confront the pandemic. While the percentage of casualty is steadily rising, the lockdown[Read More…]
Where do we begin? Shall we say it started in 2019 to keep it lighter or should we dive back into history and completely indulge ourselves in finding the origins of the political turmoil in India. The task is tedious, if not difficult, to research – pogroms, occupation, attempts to cleanse one particular community – what we see is a[Read More…]
Yashveer Goyal has established himself as a role model for the Indian youth in sports and Information Technology, in spite of being born with a hearing disability. Now, he has come to the support of jailed Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Twenty-year-old Goyal of Bathinda, Punjab was born in 1999 into a modest family, to a journalist father, Chander Parkash.[Read More…]
Let me quote a Trumpian figure from long ago, Henry Ford. That’s right, the bigot who created the Ford Motor Company (and once even ran for president). Back in 1916, in an interview with a Chicago Tribune reporter, he offered this bit of wisdom on the subject of history: “Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic and the global economic meltdown forced Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Russia to call time out in a war that was less about prices and more about market share and survival of the fittest. The agreement among producers to cut production by 10 million barrels a day amounts to a ceasefire that[Read More…]
In Trying times such as these, when the world is handling the flux of cataclysmic events due to Corona-outbreak, one thing that comes as certain is that life as we knew it has changed. The discourses have already been divided between a pre and post Corona world and humanity at large is dealing with a giant shift where the threat[Read More…]
As the world is fighting against Covid-19, which has drastically damaged the countries including US, China, Italy, Spain which were far more developed in healthcare and their economy was also strong. But the pandemic has made them kneel on toes. The Medical, Nursing and Paramedical staff is fighting on the fore front without caring for themselves as there is shortage[Read More…]
(This is part-1 of a two part report) Let us begin with the latest news : “We cannot curb the freedom of press,” a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said, on April 13 Monday. Very much welcome, but for the context. The very next day, April 14, BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, in compliance of[Read More…]
Knocks repeated knocks Dead of night Pounding The Door and the Heart Friends and Loved Ones Left to cry Fate awaits No Garlands Jagged edges cut Deeply Our silence Even deeper Biko, Anand Together The wages of deceit In a dying nation Romi Mahajan in an Author, Marketer, Investor, and Activist SIGN UP FOR COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWS LETTER
Over 3500 jurists, academics, actors, artists, writers and people from all walks of life have endorsed a statement expressing shock at the action of the Uttar Pradesh government and police under Yogi Adityanath in filing criminal charges against The Wire and one of its founding editors, Siddharth Varadarajan for an entirely factual story on the Covid-19 and religious events. This[Read More…]
Co-Written by Akshat Jain and Evita Das Sharjeel’s family has not heard from him since 11 March and he can’t even speak to his lawyer. Incarcerated in Guwahati, he is being denied these human rights apparently due to the exigencies of the virus and the need for isolation. Have we suspended all rights and freedoms in this country on the[Read More…]
Special spittoons… “not to spit inside public buildings or outdoor spaces”…was never been the regular behavior of an American until the War on Tuberculosis impacted the community at the end of 19th century. Crisis always stimuli actions and responses, it alters society not sometimes but often for its good by creating better habits and practices. Many infrastructural developments and healthy[Read More…]
The Indians are witnessing a psychological split like never before, forming the trails of episodes of communal aggression. In the meantime, every gathering of peers or relatives has formed into mushrooms of public spheres wherein the two binary categories are engrossed advocating leftist or rightist ideology. This might have installed a robust miniature democracy in every household but nevertheless, it[Read More…]
Farooque Chowdhury Interviews Michael D. Yates In the backdrop of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Michael D. Yates, decades-long union activist, director of Monthly Review Press and former Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine, discusses condition of the working people and steps required. The interview of Professor Michael Yates, whose academic fields include labor economics and the relationship between capital and[Read More…]
The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, passed 119,000 on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2 million people have tested positive for the virus. Germany saw its new coronavirus cases fall for the fifth consecutive day. The U.S. has had more than 23,000 deaths and 682,000 COVID-19 cases, leading the world in both[Read More…]
Despite the misleading title, I will not talk to you today about the coronavirus, but of that other, far more insidious crisis that we cannot hope to solve with a vaccine. The global ecological crisis: a crisis in which we are the virus. I would like to share with you some brief reflections on human agency, human nature and their relationship with the possibility[Read More…]
The cloudy Tuesday’s dawn brought nothing- no rain, no nor’wester, but a smiling morning – a sunny day. Nor’wester is a seasonal storm in Bangladesh, the West Bengal in India as well. It sweeps over the region in Baishakh, the first month of Bangla calendar. Very often, it comes on the first day of the month. Defying hassles Bangla speaking[Read More…]
Since the first scheme for women empowerment i.e. Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) in 1982-83 India has come a long way laying a pathway of schemes to walk for the women of our nation. Women and child empowerment has always been through schemes, which describe a definitive road to be taken. These schemes do support to[Read More…]
The recent ruling of the Hon’ble Supreme Court asking the State governments to exercise their discretion and will, to better put it as ‘an internal matter of the States’, in granting reservation benefits to SC and ST communities in matters of appointment and promotions in public posts is receiving mixed reviews. While many, if not all, among the non-recipient of[Read More…]
Protest against the fascist onslaught on democratic rights activists and curbing of democracy On 14th April,2020, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha surrendered and were arrested by the NIA, pursuant to order of the Supreme Court rejecting interim protection. This order paved the way for the arrest of two more scholars under the draconian laws for their exercise of the right[Read More…]
PUCL strongly deprecates and deplores the rejection by the Supreme Court on 07th April, 2020, of the Petition filed by Gautam Navalakha and Prof. Anand Teltumbde seeking additional time to surrender before the trial court in the Bhīma Koregaon, case in view of both of them being over 65 years old and being in the `high risk category’ as[Read More…]
As I prepare to Ieave to surrender before the NIA headquarters in Delhi I am glad that Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Indira Banerjee gave me another week of freedom when they passed the order on April 8, 2020. A week of freedom means a lot in my condition, even in the age of lockdown. Their order resolved the predicament[Read More…]
The following piece was initially drafted before the nationwide alarm and lockdown over Covid-19. However, the description it provides here of the ‘nation of the rich’ complements the description and pictures we now see of the nation of destituted labourers struggling to reach their homes in the villages. — Editor I. Introduction The idea of being a citizen perhaps has[Read More…]
In No Exit, the translated title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, Huis Clos, three deceased characters find themselves in a room, ostensibly in Hell, in what transpires as a permanent wait. Locked after being ushered in by a valet, with quite literally no means of escape, they are confronted with each other’s moods, lies and eventual confessions. Sadism, cowardice and mendacity[Read More…]
For many years now, it has been obvious that in both North America and Europe, smearing and provoking China has become an extremely lucrative business, even career. There are entire ‘institutes’ and NGOs dedicated strictly to such activities, and there are individuals who are groomed to become anti-Chinese warriors. Peter Navarro, a neo-con and a right-wing combatant, has been, for[Read More…]
We are living in defining times. Never in living memory has the world seen something like the Covid-19 virus and the disruption that it has caused all over the world. Not in living memory or history. There are those who claim that it is a hoax. But dead bodies don’t lie. The world has come to a halt. Literally speaking.[Read More…]
Today India proudly celebrates the 129th birth anniversary of its greatest icons of all time Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar. For millions, Dr Ambedkar is not merely a political head or a leader but part and parcel of their daily life, the first name that they utter when they get up early in the morning or sleep in the night. Such[Read More…]
Chennai April 13, 2020: Guru Nanak College at Velachery here has opened its doors to migrant workers from across the country stranded due to COVID-19 lock down. Most of these migrant works were stranded at the Central station and caught in a situation of nowhere to go due to the sudden announcement lock down in the country. In such crucial[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister To Shri Narendra Modiji Prime Minister Dear Shri Modiji, The sudden announcement of the lockdown three weeks ago has left lakhs of migrant workers helpless. It has deprived almost all marginal families across the country of their livelihoods. They need urgent help, care and succour. While some of those workers have ration cards and[Read More…]
A man struggled in the desert heat with his mouth as parched as sandpaper. He was fading fast from lack of the basic essentials to exist, number one being water. Someone hands him a giant bottle of water and he is so appreciative. He drinks the water, but hours later on his journey through the unforgiving sands, he realizes that[Read More…]
A deepfake of the President of Delhi state chief of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party went viral on WhatsApp in the country earlier this year. Deepfakes are AI-generated fake videos depicting individuals who, in reality, never appeared in the staged scene. This 21st- century “Photoshop” has the potential to greatly manipulate public opinion. This is evident in two party-approved[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Minister for Corporate Affairs Govt of India Dear Smt Sitharaman, I write this letter in connection with the way your Ministry has interpreted Schedule VII under Section 135 of the Companies Act to arrive at the conclusion that the funds contributed by corporates to any Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) do not come within the ambit[Read More…]
Reasons may be different but for Kashmiris lockdown ,due to COVID 19, is nothing new. During past thirty years people in this part have experienced many occasions when they had to sit inside and not venture out . On some occasions parties seeking separation from mainland India have been giving calls for general strike across the state and on other[Read More…]
A novel coronavirus (CoV) is a new strain of coronavirus. The disease caused by the novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China, has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – ‘CO’ stands for corona, ‘VI’ for virus, and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as ‘2019 novel coronavirus’ or ‘2019-nCoV.’ [UNICEF] The COVID-19 virus is a new[Read More…]
Open letter to the People of India I am aware this may be completely drowned in the motivated cacophony of the BJP-RSS combine and the subservient media but I still think it may be worth talking to you as I do not know whether I would get another opportunity. Since August 2018, when the police raided my house in faculty[Read More…]
According to the 2011 Economic and Caste Census, 4.42 crore families out of total families in India belong to the Scheduled Castes (Dalits). Only 23% of these families live in good houses, 2% in habitable houses and 12% in dilapidated houses. 24% of these families live in grass pallet, polythene and mud houses. It is clear from these figures that[Read More…]
A vast ozone hole, probably the biggest on record in the north, has opened in the skies above the Arctic, on the other side of the planet from the infamous hole that forms each year above the Antarctica, better-known Antarctic ozone hole. It rivals the Antarctic ozone hole. Scientists from the European Space Agency said this week that this rare[Read More…]
South Asia is on course for its worst economic performance in 40 years, with decades of progress in the battle against poverty at risk, because of coronavirus, the World Bank (WB) said Sunday. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan and other countries in the region, which have 1.8 billion people and some of the planet’s most densely populated cities, have[Read More…]
(IAS officer who resigned from the elite service over denial of freedom to the people of Kashmir) Respected Sir; It has been almost eight months since you resigned from the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS). How easy or hard it would have been for you to resign from a post which every youngster in India is dreaming of, I often[Read More…]
COVID-19 has left India’s population under lockdown and curfew. Once more India has had to cope with Narendra Modi’s ‘shock and awe’ policy of short-notice announcements. These proclamations are issued rather callously and with total disregard for the welfare of people and an absence of disaster preparedness and management stratagem. Chaos followed as shops closed down, markets were emptied of[Read More…]
In the uncertain and unsettling time of the COVID-19 crisis, we may be wise to consider our good fortune and family. We are fortunate, in fact, that our family bonds exist and we have loved ones at all. This testifies to God’s ever shining mercy. However, in the current crisis we should also consider those who are distant from[Read More…]
An Open Letter To The Chief Minister On The Distress Of Migrant Workers In The Wake Of The Extension Of The Lockdown In Odisha Jan Adhikar Manch To, Shri Naveen Pattnaik, Chief Minister, Odisha Dear Sir, We, in Jan Adhikar Manch, an alliance of trade unions, people’s organizations and individuals, wish to make you aware of the worsening plight[Read More…]
Tories worshipping Britain’s National Health System are akin to fanatical carnivores who suddenly extol the virtues of vegans. Has the grave response to COVID-19 signalled a change of heart? In the case of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it was all heart, quite literally. It might have stopped beating and that scruffy, buffoonish essence of a man, a compulsive hand[Read More…]
Despite a deep economic recession, a profound political crisis and international sanctions that have ravaged its health sector, the South American nation of Venezuela is demonstrating that prioritising lives is possible in the battle against COVID-19. As of March 30, Venezuela had 135 confirmed cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus, including three who subsequently died. The battle to[Read More…]
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) virus, which causes Covid-19, seemed to emerge from deepest history, from the Black Death of the 14th century and the “Spanish Flu” of 1918. In just months, it has infected more than 1.5 million people and claimed more than 88,000 lives. The virus continues to spread almost everywhere. In no time at all, it’s shattered the[Read More…]
Dear Baba, You will never believe it. The 8 billion population of the world is put under lockdown due to the spread of a pandemic the corona virus. The blossoms of spring are no more infusing new life into us. The experts say this spiky shaped virus has mutated from two mammals; one of them is a bat. That same[Read More…]
by Mahboob A. Khawaja, Lambert Academic Publishing Germany: 12/2019: 537 Pages Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD in interdisciplinary Social Science (Syracuse University, New York, USA), an academia and international scholar believes in One Global Humanity living peacefully on One Earth and shares new ideas and vision for change and critical thinking action to transform the obsolete global systems of thinking and[Read More…]
Corona Virus has wreaked havoc all over the world. Thousand have been killed by this deadly virus. It is after 1918 Spanish flu that such a large scale disruption has been caused to public life and people at this scale have got killed with no end in sight in the near future. Governments all over the world have been taking[Read More…]
Jai Bhim! Coinciding with the upcoming Ambedkar Jayanti, Dr. Anand Teltumbde, one of India’s foremost public intellectuals and the strongest legatee of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s tradition of struggling for a truly democratic India, will be complying with the Supreme Court’s order to surrender to the jail authorities. He will be surrendering on the 14th April 2020, between 12 noon – 2[Read More…]
I have never had such a long unending weekend.. Celebrating clear blue skies, a greater fluttering of birds and the flowers sprouting like never before. A lovely pink moon adorned the Universe this morning. Inhaling all this wonderous views, doing deep breathing exercises, holding the breath to the count of fourty was an exhilarating joy.. Then I thought of the[Read More…]
Social justice activists came together on Saturday, April 11 to raise their voices for a physically challenged Delhi University Professor incarcerated in an Indian jail. Wheelchair-bound G.N. Saibaba, who is ninety percent disabled below the waist, is serving a life sentence under inhuman conditions. His health continues to deteriorate because of 19 ailments and he remains vulnerable following the worldwide[Read More…]
Every crisis is boom for some and bane for others. Over $8 trillion economic package have been announced by north American and European nations plus $1 trillion by Japan whereas total known lobal gold reserves amounts to $9.5 trillion. But where this money will go: business elite or commons. Is this helicopter money as discussed in economic textbooks or win[Read More…]
1 By the end of the last decade of the twentieth century, the discussion in India on or about poverty by all mainstream political parties, forums and mediums had almost ended. There was a general consensus among the ruling classes that there is no poverty in the country. The sight of poverty is due to the poor themselves and is[Read More…]
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio Shakespeare’s Hamlet might have much to sneer about given his mental state and the context in the play of that name. His words are loaded with irony and sarcasm, no doubt. Perhaps the actor also would be advised[Read More…]
During the 90’s when the global corporate lobby and their accessories aggressively advocating for and advancing towards establishing the systems of ‘Globalization’, the socially /environmentally concerned communities all over the world warned against the global maneuvering. They predicted various key impacts that are one by one emerging up now. As the corporate houses and their bosses are swindling money as[Read More…]
Am I a Christian? Well, the answer all depends on one’s loose or rigid definitions about what it means to be Christian. I know some people who would say that I am not so since I don’t follow their own particular Christian religion. They also express views that they dislike people of color living in slums in the US, as[Read More…]
An already slowing economy has been dealt a body blow by the pandemic as production and employment are hit, severely affecting the unorganised sector which employs 94 percent of the workforce. On March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a complete lockdown for three weeks for 1.3 billion Indians. All hell broke loose for unorganised sector workers and in[Read More…]
The rediscovery of scientific collaboration across borders is a welcome development. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Marie Curie. Does the 5G network have any link to the novel coronavirus outbreak?” Well, any sane person on this part of Earth[Read More…]
To Shri I Srinivas Secretary Ministry of Corporate Affairs Govt of India Dear Shri Srinivas, I am grateful to you for so promptly responding to my letter issued today on the apparent injustice meted out to the States by your Ministry in issuing a clarification to the effect that the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) does not qualify for receiving[Read More…]
Nurses- The corona warriors are battling tirelessly on the frontline to combat the disease. Patient care is a partnership between skilled healthcare professionals of all levels of training. Nurses are Amazing and often contribute much to the success of patient care, as Nurses have been at the forefront of care. Things aren’t going to work if the team isn’t whole[Read More…]
A sacred fire was lit, around which priests who had come from Tanjore performed rituals and chanted hymns. ‘Tryst with destiny’ was delivered by Jawaharlal at a time stipulated by Hindu astrologers. Following that, when the whole world fell asleep, India woke to freedom[1]. The hegemonic rituals that were associated with the foundation of the republic and the travesty that[Read More…]
It’s not wrong to criticize government, its policies and politicians in both ruling and opposition when they are on wrong side. In democratic system, criticism always makes state to run efficiently; also criticism just for the sake of criticism is of no use, giving alternatives is also necessary for the smooth functioning of state. Different parties may come in power[Read More…]
To Shri I Srinivas Secretary Ministry of Corporate Affairs Govt of India Dear Shri Srinivas, I have come across a news report today (https://thewire.in/business/corporate-affairst-ministry-csr-pm-cares-cm-relief-fund) that your Ministry has issued a “clarification” to the effect that corporate contributions under Section 135 of the Companies Act to the State Chief Minister’s Relief Fund shall not qualify for benefits applicable to[Read More…]
India’s Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, once the world’s largest read daily, with close links to the right wing Hindu outfits called “Sangh Parivar” is hate Muslim media factory. The vernacular newspaper with wide circulation in the communal tinderbox, Uttar Pradesh indulged in creating Islamophobia and communal polarization of the society when Covid- 19 pandemic‘s curve is steeply rising in the[Read More…]
Sambalpur, Odisha: What can be the better way to describe how women do better off than men in many fields , by telling the story of a village woman who came forward to help poor people during the lockdown due to COVID 19 and produced masks for poor people in cheap rate in her locality in Sambalpur district of Odisha.[Read More…]
I am a 29 year old professional who has been staying away from home from the last 11 years. Being very much conscious about academics, studies, grades and future, I had always focused on my education and knowledge gaining. Even now, when we are all in the lockdown phase, I keep myself more engrossed in publication works, blog/article writing, reading[Read More…]
It should not be a matter of distinction, but Julian Assange is a figure who is becoming the apotheosis of political imprisonment. This seems laughable to those convinced he is an agent without scruple, a compromiser of the Fourth Estate, a figure best packed off to a prison system that will, in all assuredness, kill him. That’s if he even[Read More…]
The government has an opportunity right now to save Indians from deep recession, and in many cases, starvation, notes Kalyan Singhal. Thanks to the imaginative leadership of the Indian government, India is the first country in the world to implement a total lockdown to protect its citizens from the lethal coronavirus. However, the Indian government’s current economic package of Rs[Read More…]
I do not wish Boris Johnson to die. I only wish him to suffer. As paradoxical as it might sound, I don’t mean this in a sadistic way. Suffering is part of the human life; it is as integral to our experience as the drawing in of air, or the feeling of sunlight against the skin. Hospitals are places of suffering;[Read More…]
The government’s response to the global Covid19 pandemic has been the best so far. But it would be futile to look at the government to come to the rescue when the impact of this pandemic will be at its peak all over the country. In such a case individuals, groups and communities need to support each other to overcome this[Read More…]
With the outbreak of corona-virus from China to the world since December 2019, it has once again challenged the State security and highlights the exigency of ‘human security’ which is visible to all. The United Nations General Assembly resolution 66/290 addresses ‘human security’ as an approach in identifying and addressing cross-cutting challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of an[Read More…]
For too long, the movers of the word have been blind or neglectful of the connection between economic growth, global climate crisis and mass extermination of wildlife “It took 12 days for cases [of coronavirus infections] to rise from 100 to 1,000 in our country,” said Mr. Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary of the Indian Health Ministry, on March 30, 2020, arguing[Read More…]
The question which keeps most of the political scientists perplexed is, “Whether right-wing nationalism is there to stay or liberal democracy will stage a comeback.” Both issues are related as cause and effect. Liberal democracy can bounce back only when right-wing nationalism is a spent force, and people fully realize its drawbacks. The surge of right-wing nationalism started in 2011[Read More…]
Venezuela has been under a nationwide quarantine since mid-March as the government battles to quash the coronavirus before it overwhelms its health system. In this endeavour, the government of President Nicolas Maduro faces many challenges, not least of which is the state of its embattled health system that has suffered from years of economic sanctions and the return of thousands[Read More…]
It is a capricious little virus with a funny crown and a flimsy protein coat, zipping across the planet, leaving behind a trail of utter confusion, death and destruction. And as nations rush to prevent exposure to COVID-19’s deadly effects, the virus is in turn exposing each one of them for whatever they are – good, bad or ugly. Depending[Read More…]
Release Dr. G. N. Saibaba from Nagpur Central Jail in the face of an imminent threat to his life exacerbated by the COVID-19. Release all the incarcerated voices of democracy and uphold their right to life Over the last six years, the health of Dr. G. N. Saibaba, incarcerated in Nagpur Central Jail, has deteriorated alarmingly. Prof. Saibaba is a[Read More…]
There is no such thing as Islamophobia. There is only anti-Islamism. A Hindu, Christian, or secular liberal does not have a mental illness that makes them afraid of Muslims, they are against Islam as a political ideology and value system. The same is true of homophobia which is really just a cover for anti-homosexualism, which is the political assertion of[Read More…]
The underlying human horror and destruction from the nearly worldwide coved-19 disease is truly daunting. Not to undercut the seriousness of the devastation, but this type of happening is hardly new. For example, consider the Black Plague that wiped out half of Europe and the fact that many British people are immune to Smallpox unlike many Native Americans whose ancestors[Read More…]
Ever since the detection of the first COVID—19 positive case in Wuhan China, the pandemic has swept over almost the entire globe and has landed us in extremely frightening, challenging and testing times. The virus has made us face a serious public health crisis and changed the whole world overnight. Tens of thousands have lost their lives and more than[Read More…]
Part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where the infamous power plant explosion occurred in 1986 is on fire, and radiation in the area is spiking- reported Live Science. The report said, The fire covers about 50 acres (20 hectares) near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka in Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, according to CNN. In a Facebook post, Yegor Firsov, head of Ukraine’s ecological[Read More…]
Bernie Sanders is a self-described Democratic Socialist – though the Left prefers to describe him as a Social Democrat, as he does not subscribe to abolition of capitalism or workers’ ownership of the means of production! Bernie Sanders, the longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history, an independent senator from Vermont, who has served in government since 1981, had first time campaigned for[Read More…]
U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has virtually been, so to speak, tarred and feathered by the American press and run out of the U.S. election on a rail. Amidst the horrific COVID-19 Pandemic, that has all but over-shadowed and sidelined the U.S. Presidential election process, the progressive movement that Bernie Sanders had fostered represented a strong sentiment among elements[Read More…]
It’s all about the lever of balance. Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit. Like plasticine, the scope of power during times of an emergency extends. But at what point does a state of public health become a police state? In time, we may find these to be not[Read More…]
Keeping busy: Tao Wang at his home during the lockdown period in Wuhan, China. (Courtesy: Tao Wang) I run a research group made up of more than 20 graduate students, and in a “normal” workday my job is to supervise and direct them on research activities related to opto-electronic devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes. I also teach[Read More…]
There is a high water mark of the tide of the deluge that has swept through India in the name of coronavirus currently raging in India. From Assam to Kernataka and Delhi to Telangana. More than the pandemic it is hatred that is sown far and wide. Momidul Islam in Golaghat, Assam remarks that “The virus will go away in[Read More…]
The night was still… so very silent… ominous for that matter. It seemed at first, or rather smelled, the similar essence of any evening in Spring. The air had about it that perfumed scent of the garden, the trees and the flowers, now so awake and alive by the sun’s departure hours earlier. Night ruled the sky, with only freckles[Read More…]
I have been fascinated by the word and concept of ‘the Passion’ for more than 50 years. I first came across it in the early sixties, in Beyond Desire (1956), a biographical novel of the German musician Mendelssohn by Pierre La Mure. The central theme of the novel is the discovery of the scores of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (1727)[Read More…]
After the demise of C.Sarathchandran, Satish has reached almost all People’s struggle fronts in Kerala with a small handycam for the past 10 years. He has documented all of these. Though he was unable to systematically convert them into documentaries, this was a huge parallel documentation. But the floods of 2018 ravaged and destroyed all these valuable documents from[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders[Read More…]
Reading Hannah Arendt’s Introduction to Benjamin’s Illuminations German-Jewish intellectuals, the alienated hommes de lettres of early twentieth century German-speaking Central Europe, constituted a class within that complex and multi-layered Jewish society against which a few of them rebelled, a rebellion which however could not prevent the dark disaster awaiting[Read More…]
Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily. Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown’. My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever[Read More…]
From the ‘ Book of Revelations’ in the New Testament God sent forth the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ( White Horse, Black Horse, Red Horse and Pale Horse ) or as Ezekiel lists them: ” Sword , Famine, Wild Beasts and Plague”. Well, this NEW set of Four Horsemen are here to represent the utter personal and economic horror[Read More…]
‘’ But we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes.’’ (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens) It was on 21st of August,2019 when I, after a long summer break of three months boarded a plane at Srinagar International Airport for Delhi to[Read More…]
A decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers like Russia to temporarily end a price war and cut production amounts to a time-out rather than an end to what is likely to erupt at some point in the future as a tripartite war. More immediately, the decision averts a significant deterioration in relations between[Read More…]
Here are the main findings of a quick survey of essential facilities in rural Jharkhand (ration shops, dal-bhat kendras, anganwadis, among others) conducted by members of the right to food campaign during the first week of April 2020. “Observers” dispersed over 50 blocks in 19 districts were asked to check the local facilities and report their observations over the phone.[Read More…]
Statement of the “Indian Scientists Response to Covid19”, a voluntary group of about 400 scientists. Over the past few days, several prominent media personalities and politicians have suggested that the primary blame for the continued growth of the COVID-19 epidemic in India lies with a Tablighi Jamaat event that was held in Delhi on March 13. The available data does[Read More…]
This is a rejoinder to an article entitled No Excuses, Please, For What Happened At Nizamuddin Markaz. I am responding for two reasons: 1. This article is on a platform that bears more credibility than the others, 2. The author is a ‘Senior Journalist and Political Analyst’. Truth be told, I do not know the writer- as he doesn’t know[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shivani Dwivedi & Ashish Kajla The savings of people deposited in banks form the capital of banks which banks lend to borrowers. Banks earn interest on the loans issued to borrowers. The cost of operating expenses including salaries comes from this interest on the loans issued by banks. The saving account depositors receive interest on their savings, and[Read More…]
Increased panic buying of food due to coronavirus lockdowns has led to price spikes for the world’s two staple grains – rice and wheat. Reuters data showed, rice prices are now the highest since late April 2013. Importers have rushed to stockpile the goods, while exporters have curbed shipments. The price of rice has hit seven-year highs, while wheat futures[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world will turn global economic growth “sharply negative” in 2020, triggering the worst fallout since the 1930s Great Depression, with only a partial recovery seen in 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. Georgieva painted a far bleaker picture of the social and economic impact of the new coronavirus than even[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. P.S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal Governments all over the world – and not just in the developed west – are scrambling to get ventilators imported from the few countries which manufacture this machine e.g. China, Germany. The cost per piece is about Rs. five hundred thousand (Rs. 500,000)! The figure is about one and a half times[Read More…]
In the 1990s, the three Cs — credit card, condo, car — defined “status” among the bourgeoisie. Now, another C has overtaken all the three Cs, the Big C — Corona. A tiny virus has brought mankind to its knees with all kinds of stories, rumours and the threat of depleted numbers and economies. As with anything big, many narratives[Read More…]
The Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi gave a call for Deepa-andolana , a movement to light the lamps, to unify 130 crore Indians in their fight against the deadly virus, Corona, on April 5, 2020 at 9 pm for 9 minutes. The million dollar question has been : Can lighting a lamp for 9 minutes drive away, as suggested,[Read More…]
Champagne corks will be popping in the Trump Empire, for good reason. Whatever happens come November, the exit of Senator Bernie Sanders from the US presidential race will be a relief. The fractured republic can be reassured that the Democrats have not moved on, stuck, as it were, in the glades of vengeful melancholia and supposedly safe bets. Divisions will[Read More…]
In his scathing critique of Gandhi in “What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables”, Ambedkar takes on Gandhi´s views on technology, arguing that Gandhism is suited to a society which does not believe in democracy, and hence will lead to a situation where human beings “must keep on toiling ceaselessly for a pittance and remain a brute”. For[Read More…]
Sanctions are both illegal and immoral According to the United Nations Charter, only the Security Council may impose sanctions. No individual nation may do so. Nevertheless, the United States currently imposes economic sanctions on Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equitorial Guinea, Eritria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Myanmar,[Read More…]