At global centre-stage, “Corona” is one of the most commonly used words worldwide, and the volumes of information and misinformation on it have caused doubts and fears among the public. This article discusses the fear that Coronavirus and Covid-19 have induced in society, and therefore begins with facts. Viruses and bacteria (1) Viruses outnumber cellular life at least 10:1, and[Read More…]
Co-Written by Hemraj P Jangir & Mamta Yadav It has been more than four months but the whole world is still grappling with the pandemic. Every day we are getting distressing news and images on social media. The COVID-19 has brought many changes in our daily lives. These changes have not only been of staying at home, dining at[Read More…]
With the world seeing the rise of right-wing nationalism despite not having a great track record in governance, a natural question comes into mind regarding factors responsible for this change. There are many other instances in different parts of the world where the least probable ones got elected to power. It has left political scientists in those places struggling to[Read More…]
Dustin Pickering in conversation with Mitali Chakravarty He talks of love and religion and writes poetry that is often critiqued by some as similar to verses from the past. And his role model is from the Renaissance — Michelangelo. To some, he is a loyal friend in need, a person who whips up essays and articles on demand. He is[Read More…]
“I can’t breathe.” The end line of helpless George Floyd is burning the mighty America inside out. Mr. President is hiding in a Bunker and darkness is looming over the White House. Just like the many brutal dictators before him, the rage of the people is shattering the throne and slowly the protesters are triumphing over Trump. During this time[Read More…]
( Jaater Naame Bajjati Shob ) Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) Translation © Monish R Chatterjee 2020 The caste hooligans have long been at play Caste fraudsters gambling with human life – So touching a fellow human makes you an outcaste Is your caste, then, fragile as candy in a child’s hand? Caste hooligans playing roulette. Hookah water[Read More…]
One of the most distinguishing features of the Shaheen Bagh protests, all around the country in their various manifestations, was their lack of any overt ideology. The first encampment in Delhi was largely spontaneous, beginning in mid-December 2019 and composed of local women from the Shaheen Bagh area. Though they had local university students managing the logistics, the frontlines of[Read More…]
It is time for power to the people! Global capitalist inequality contributes directly to health pandemics, environmental degradation, and mass poverty. Elite-corporate oligarchs control the governments and political parties. They use established militarized police states to protect their vast empires of property and money worldwide. The global one percent own half of the world’s wealth, and the richest 10[Read More…]
What will Indian Economy’s rate of growth be in 2020-21 given the present lockdown? Evidence of a stalled economy are all around –unemployed workers, closed shops, factories and offices, empty roads, etc. Only essential goods are being produced and that too with some difficulty due to supply chain bottlenecks. Agriculture can function but there too, operations have been hampered[Read More…]
The labyrinth of narrow alleys and lanes that form the old quarters of Srinagar were filled with soldiers— wielding guns and batons and wearing steel helmets and other protective gear. As I made my way to Kanimazar, a small but densely-populated locality of the capital city of Indian-administered Kashmir, the bright sunlight was casting harsh shadows. Women were peeping out[Read More…]
The recent controversy which erupted in Kerala due to the twitter remarks by Maneka Gandhi has multiple political, environmental and communal angles. The controversy started on the manner in which the former Environment Minister chose to make the statement. Bharatiya Janata MP and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi recently lashed out at Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi over[Read More…]
The murder of George Floyd, an African American (46), through an act of police brutality, has over the days seen a momentous global protest. People from parts of Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, Arabian Peninsula and specially the US, witnessed several rallies condemning such an act of police violence, racial violence and ethnic minority discrimination. Such resentments from people also intensified[Read More…]
In the middle of a global pandemic, China has started an unprovoked border conflict with India. It is unravelling trust deficit and ties between two neighbours. As thousands of Chinese troops are occupying Indian territory, Mr Narendra Modi led BJP government directs the RBI to allow the Bank of China to start regular banking services in India. The Bank of[Read More…]
The sudden demise of Mr Shanti Swaroop Bauddh today is a huge loss to the Buddhist Ambedkarite movement all over the country. He was a rare breed, always energetic and truly dedicated to the cause of strengthening the Buddhist movement in India. Unlike many others, who suffer from diverse identities claiming Ambedkarism, Shanti Swaroop Bauddh actually represented those Ambedkarites who[Read More…]
To, Mr. Naveen Patnaik Chief Minister of Odisha, Bhubaneswar Sub: Regarding compensation and criminal action for death of two girls in Tamilnadu brick industry Honourable sir; Here, we are bringing before you a shocking incident that two girls of Manjher panchayat of Golamunda block of Kalahandi district named 1) Jayamani Chandi D/o Sajan Chandi age 22 and 2) Madanabati Chandi[Read More…]
The Citizenship Amendment Law (CAA) 2019 abolishes the essential spirit of the Constitution in many respects. The right to equality is mentioned in Article 14 of the Constitution of India which says, that there will be no discrimination on the basis of religion, caste and sex. It implies that government cannot make any law by discriminating any person based on[Read More…]
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.-Mikail Bakunin Michael Alexandrovitch Bakunin was born on 30th May, 1814, in the Russian province of Tvar. He was the eldest son of a retired diplomat, who was a member of the ancient Russian nobility. Young Michael passed his[Read More…]
“My enemy’s enemy is my friend, come to Jammu and Kashmir and realise its intensity among the ordinary people living near the border with China. The land beneath you will feel like it has slipped away”. This is the observation of many analysts in South Asia who have reported the strong indignation of locals against Indian establishment in the context[Read More…]
The cyclonic disaster and its patterns recently are receiving considerable attention from climate scientists who study the connections between storms and climate and has reported that “there is a substantial uptake in the frequency of the most intense tropical cyclones, and increases in rainfall rates within 100 km of the storm center of up to 20% since 1970 (US National[Read More…]
Death! It has always been around. Ever since we began understanding the world a bit, we knew death was a phenomenon; something, which happened only to others, mostly to the old. Of course, occasionally it happened to a few young also, in tragic accidents or illnesses, or in wars. Sadly, very often to the poor though, who had neither food[Read More…]
A 14-year-old Christian boy ,Samaru Madkami, was murdered in cold blood by a group of religious fanatics in the east-Indian state of Odisha. On the night of 4th June, 2020, a few villagers ganged up with a handful of religious fanatics who are not a part of their village and attempted to kidnap 3 Christians explained Pastor Bijay, who serves[Read More…]
The world leaders are joining hands and have spoken against racism in any form and any country. Most of them have supported people’s right to protest and concerned raised by the African American in the United States and other countries. Today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participated in an anti racist rally in his country, stood with the protesters, listened[Read More…]
In India since March 2020 we are experiencing unusual events that have shaken our faith in ourselves and made us wonder whether a new chapter is opening for humanity. The sudden spread of Corona Virus all across the world has also engulfed India and challenged our notion of invincibility. We have suddenly been made to feel helpless in spite of[Read More…]
Dear Dr. Momen: I write this to draw your attention to your recent interview with an Indian weekly The Week , published on May 31, 2020, which all of our common friends and other Bangladeshis at home and abroad have found very gratuitous, objectionable, as it grossly undermines truth, and tarnishes the image of Bangladesh, which you represent as the[Read More…]
When the lockdown is lifted, a package of interest waiver and deferring of loan repayment for businesses will be needed for them to restart. The RBI and the government will need to rethink their strategy since money by itself is not a resource. The lockdown is slowly being lifted. Still, most businesses, except those producing essentials, are not able to[Read More…]
There comes a time when shooting around in circles just hits walls, bullets splinter off sidewalks, and shatter a window here and there. But people are in safety. They watch from a distance and with self-assurance. Venezuela has received five tankers from Iran loaded with hydrocarbons – petrol gas, additives – shipped through a totally US-militarized Caribbean Sea, amidst warnings[Read More…]
The World Environment Day (henceforth WED) was initially started by the UN General Assembly in 1972, on the first day of the Stockholm Conference. The objective of this conference was primarily based on, to connect the human with nature and promote the interactions, so that harmony between environment and human could be realized. The WED is being celebrated on 5th[Read More…]
The story of the Sundari is as fascinating as its namesake—the Sundarbans, the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest, situated across coastal Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India where it is also a UNESCO world heritage site, a designated national park, a tiger reserve, and a biosphere reserve. Sundari is as elusive as the most celebrated resident of the Sundarbans—the Bengal tiger. One[Read More…]
Imagine this now: we try to create an acknowledgement for the loss of nonhuman lives in the Sundarbans caused by Cyclone Amphan—animals and trees; individual and relational; immediate and over time. That would be a monumental task and take not days or months but years and possibly even decades. Even after all of that efforts get expended, the tragedy will[Read More…]
Lately, a particular memory/image of my grandmother Sitti Fattoum has been coming back to me vividly. She’d be sitting in a chair, maybe watching TV, or at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, when suddenly, without provocation, she would clap her hands. the palm of one striking the back of the other, and say, to no one in[Read More…]
This is a story of a survivor of the recent cyclonic storm Amphan. Amphan, (150-160 mph) a super cyclonic storm caused widespread damage in Eastern India and Bangladesh. This is the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal region since the Odisha cyclone of 1999 (160 mph). This is the strongest tropical cyclone to hit the Gangetic deltaic region[Read More…]
As global affairs intensify, I often find myself in that category of those discouraged and disillusioned, fully cynical, wondering if anything I can do is worthwhile in the long run. A global pandemic, an economic collapse preceding the pandemic and severely worsened by it (and different reactions to it); an infrastructure continually pumping more and more carbon and other chemicals[Read More…]
Many girls with higher educational qualifications from a typical North Indian family background faces a patriarchal structure which is very unique and must be pondered upon. Female subjugation is not a new phenomenon and it is there in the world since antiquity. But, nowadays we are witnessing a form of subjugation which is very different in structural framework. In past[Read More…]
“At my lowest points, the unsettling realization came to me that given the ferocity and rapidity of change with this virus, a further plunge could mean that I might not survive. Indeed, I felt so close to total suffocation that there seemed little room for further decline. I was determined to fight my way through this, but at the same[Read More…]
(The title alludes to the photo by W. Eugene and Aileen Smith, in which a mother bathes her crippled, twelve-year-old daughter…. A hundred people died and nearly a thousand were crippled as a result of mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan.) “Daughter, my daughter, I will hold you with my strong arms and let the warmth of the water enter[Read More…]
The massive bank charges introduced in past few years have greatly affected the financial state of marginalised working class. This was better understood when the team of FanIndia has talked to some people of working class who belong to the indigent sections of the society such as farmers, construction labours, aanganwadi workers, domestic workers, Cycle Rickshaw pullers, etc. As their[Read More…]
Muslim, Markaz and Corona are terms which have- in various combinations- appeared before us way too often in the past few months. As subject of fiery debates, opinionated discussions and intellectual discourses, the so-called ‘Muslim’ angle of the COVID saga has been probed a lot. In fact, as the phased ‘unlocking’ of the country begins this month, debates such as[Read More…]
What will we do when this SARS Covid-19 lock down is over? Will we go back to frantically doing what we were doing before…, rushing madly towards meeting our goals of livelihood without thinking of the damage we have been doing to the environment which had a short respite from us? Will we go back to doing with a vengeance[Read More…]
At a time when another large democracy of the world, the United States of America, is in the throes of a crisis, it is relevant to recall, for all protesters and resisters struggling for their rights, what Martin Luther King (Jr.) had said: “The non-violent resister is not physically aggressive towards the opponent. But his mind and emotions are always[Read More…]
White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed. James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region in my Mind,”[Read More…]
On 25th of May 2020, Derek Chauvin, a white American police officer has killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was on a broad day light; the police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck like a coward trophy hunter. There were eighteen complaints against Mr Chauvin; the killer police officer. He is the first white officer to be charged[Read More…]
The death of a pregnant elephant in Kerala, close to the World Environment Day has left the whole nation angry. From politicians to media persons and common man, the news of a pregnant elephant allegedly murdered by feeding a pineapple stuffed with explosives has taken the internet like a wild fire. Number of online signature campaigns have been launched and[Read More…]
by Niranta Gohain, KK Chattradhara, Manash Jyoti Chutia, Suraj Gogoi & Parag Jyoti Saikia OIL were given environmental clearance to drill for hydrocarbons in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park recently. On 27th of May a major explosion took place in one of its drilling wells causing havoc. This is a preliminary report on the event ‘The obligation to endure gives us[Read More…]
Since 2014, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has been pompously inventing new mantras as recently he has declared to make India a Self- Reliant country after a standoff with China on Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. In the current scenario when the pandemic of Coronavirus has exposed the federal government for its incompetence to handle the rising number[Read More…]
In the times of pandemic, the undoubtedly crucial question of a new leftist strategy is being broached. The Covid-19 pandemic has precipitated a massive economic crisis in which the globally integrated mechanisms of capitalism are floundering and are unable to get rid of their social insensitivity. According to IMF, the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020, second only[Read More…]
Happy Birthday Comrade Lenin! 150 years ago, on April 21, 1870, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin, was born. According to many, he was the greatest revolutionary of all times, a man who gave birth to both internationalism and anti-imperialism. It is time to “revisit Communism”. It is also time to ask some basic, essential questions: “How is it possible that[Read More…]
Title: Unbecoming: A Memoir of Disobedience Author: Anuradha Bhagwati Publisher: Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster Inc. “After a lifetime of buckling to the demands of her strict Indian parents, Anuradha Bhagwati abandons grad school in the Ivy League to join the Marines—the fiercest, most violent, most masculine branch of the military—determined to prove herself there in ways, she couldn’t before.[Read More…]
The government of Odisha announced a huge financial ‘package’ of Rs17,000 crore in its cabinet meeting held on 29th May 2020. The government claims all declared funds would benefit people who are affected due to lockdown. Will it serve the objective? Who really would be benefited from it? Modification of Tourism policy: The cabinet took its first decision that the[Read More…]
In the summer of 1995, when I was 18, I started visiting Tent City, a temporary encampment in an abandoned lot in northeast Philadelphia. About 40 families had taken up residence in tents, shacks, and other makeshift structures. Among them were people of various races, ages, and sexual orientations, all homeless and fighting for the right to live. Tent City was set up[Read More…]
You might as well turn off that boob tube ASAP. The bull excrement is running wild! Where does one start? Well, let’s go to that sea of new human interest corporate commercials saying how they all ‘ Care about you during this pandemic’. All those nice and decent companies want to see you through this, of course IF you use[Read More…]
There exists consensus that had such an eruption of nationwide and supporting global protest on a scale even approximating that following the police murder of George Floyd occurred in a country not part of the USA bootlicking club regime change action would swiftly follow. After all, the 21st century is[Read More…]
Co-Written by Atul and Sandeep Pandey This is a matter of concern because the current policies of Goverment of India have pulverised the polity in Jammu and Kashmir and the recovery of a healthy democracy appears to have a remote chance here. That this should happen in world’s largest democracy with institutions of governance completely failing the people of J&K[Read More…]
He smiles, he laughs through the prison bars to shake me up from my early morning dreams , his morning greeting is clanking a huge bunch of keys into the cage of my life sentence. (From ‘Ode to a Prison Guard…. By Prof. G. N. Saibaba written on 1 May 2017 ‘A World of Silence is Blown into Smithereens’ ,[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has released an unprecedented level of actions and reactions that has shaken the world. In this article we will focus only on India and see what good can come out of this major shakeup. As you can see we are optimists! We will consider the following aspects: 1. The lock down 2. The sufferings of migrant labour[Read More…]
Submission made by Human Rights Forum (HRF) to the High Power Committee (HPC) probing the styrene gas leak on May 7, 2020 from the LG Polymers India Pvt Ltd (LGPI) plant at RR Venkatapuram in Visakhapatnam. The Human Rights Forum is a citizens’ forum established with the objective of working for protection of Constitutionally guaranteed/internationally recognised rights of the people.[Read More…]
India’s Lt General Harinder Singh is slated to meet his Chinese counterpart on June 6 as part of efforts to sort out the weeks-long row along the LAC, said Lt Gen (Retired) SL Narasimhan, a China expert, and now a Member of NSA Advisory Board. It will be the highest level of talks between the two in recent past.[Read More…]
“I can’t breathe…”. These were the last words of forty-six-year-old black African American George Floyd. He uttered them when he was being strangled to death by the white American police. His “crime” was his accidental birth in a community that is not a white race. Similarly, Dalits, Adivasis, lower castes and minority Muslims get strangled in India. Their “crime” is[Read More…]
Anti-Muslim propaganda fails to die in India. After the Tabligi Jamat now Muslims of Malappuram district of Kerala is being targeted for killing of a pregnant elephant that was apparently done to death by eating pineapple laced with explosives. According to forest officials, the wild elephant had left the forests of the Silent Valley in Palakkad district and wandered into[Read More…]
In the first week of June, 36 years ago (1984) Indian army attacked the Golden Temple Amritsar, the holiest shrine of Sikhs for what was propagated to ‘flushing out terrorists entrenched there’. How much truth that official euphemism carried and how much the army action codenamed as “Operation Blue Star” succeeded in chastising the Sikh dissent has been and will[Read More…]
“It’s My Face Man!….I Didn’t Do Nothing Serious Man!….Please!…Please!…Please!…I Can’t Breathe!….Please!…Man!…Please!….Somebody!….Please!…Man!….I Can’t Breathe!….I Can’t Breathe!….Please!….(inaudible),,,,Man!…Can’t Breathe!….My Face!….Just Get Up!….I Can’t Breathe!…Please!….(inaudible)….I Can’t Breathe!…Shit!….I Can’t Move!….Mama!…Mama!…My Knee!….My Nuts!….I’m Through!….I’m Through!….I’m Claustrophobic!….My Stomach Hurts!…My Neck Hurts!….Everythin’ Hurts!…Some Water!…Somethin!….Please!….Please!….Can’t breathe!….Officer!….Don’t Kill Me!….They Gonna’ Kill Me Man!….Come on Man!….I Can’t Breathe!….I Can’t Breathe!…..They Gonna Kill Me!….They Gonna Kill Me!…I Can’t Breathe!…I Can’t Breathe!….Please, Sir!….Please!…Please!…Please!…I[Read More…]
We, feminists in India, strongly condemn the murder of George Floyd, an African-American, by a white officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, and express our deep solidarity with the people’s resistance against police violence presently raging in the US and many other parts of the world. Words from George Floyd in his death throes, “I cannot breathe”, speak to each one of[Read More…]
Much has been written in academic and trade publications on leadership. This is a topic which is always current and relevant. Harvard Business Review has dedicated a Special Summer 2020 Issue on “How to LEAD in a Time of CRISIS.” This is indeed the biggest crisis facing America in recent memory. With death attributed to COVID-19 exceeding the 100,000 mark,[Read More…]
The plight of migrant workers during the lockdown period has necessitated to examine the law prevailing relating to the migrant workmen. We have witnessed reverse migration and the pathetic conditions faced by the migrant workmen in the process. Thousands of migrant workmen started trekking hundreds of kilometres to their villages in spite of the tightened surveillance by the authorities to[Read More…]
Every year, 5 June is celebrated as World Environment Day globally. Also called People’s day, this day is meant to encourage people to save and protect the environment. World Environment Day 2020 is spotlighting the importance of Biodiversity. According to the United Nations, the theme for this year is ‘Biodiversity’ with the slogan[Read More…]
(Hey Mor Durbhaga Desh) Rabindranath Tagore Translation © Monish R Chatterjee 2020 O my wretched country For each one upon whom you have heaped insult Through insult it is, one day, you shall be their equal! Him you have denied the very rights of a human being Left standing before you, degraded, yet took not into your lap- Through insult[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jitamanyu Sahoo & Syed Mujtaba Hussain The current pandemic situation across the globe has accentuated the pre-existing trend of mental health issues to the global forefront. What is more alarming is most of the world is under complete or partial lockdown and people living or developing mental health issues are unable to access the basic treatment. The emergence[Read More…]
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela. Derived from a Latin word “ Educatum” it means the act of teaching or training. The training to nourish the good qualities in human beings and to bring out the best in every individual. Education seeks to develop the innate capacities of man.[Read More…]
A review of Prateek Vats’ film “Eeb Allay Ooo” which revolves around the life of a migrant worker recruited as a contractual monkey repeller in Delhi. In his paper titled The Beautiful Expanding Future of Poverty, Ashis Nandy elaborated on the difference between absolute and relative poverty. While relative poverty is when one is receiving an income that is below[Read More…]
The national lockdown which started on 25 March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID 19 has caused unprecedented distress across the country. The lockdown has been especially brutal for migrants, homeless, and other poor people. It has resulted in large-scale starvation, denial of medical care, exhaustion, accidents of people travelling back home, police atrocities and other gross hardships, which[Read More…]
Mass movements are not always oppositional movements. The mass movements can be offensive, defensive and alternative at the same time. It offers progressive alternatives to face and recover from various crisis. Mass movements establish lasting solidarities between different social, religious, cultural, economic, political and professional groups. It helps to overcome the old barriers and established fault lines of regressive societies. [Read More…]
In the last few weeks we saw some hard hitting ‘statements’ made by some big legal names. The Solicitor General of India, Mr Tushar Mehta made many allegation accusing some former judges, some high courts and senior lawyers for trying to ‘influence’ the court. It is the same gentleman who spoke that there is no migration crisis in India and[Read More…]
Here is one thing I can write with an unusual degree of certainty and confidence: Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin would not have been charged with the (third-degree) murder of George Floyd had the United States not been teetering on a knife edge of open revolt. Had demonstrators not turned out in massive numbers on the streets and refused to be corralled[Read More…]
I have to admit that I am very enthusiastic about taking the knee. It is a symbolic gesture. Now, my knees are cruddy. They got so bad that twice I was taken by ambulance to a hospital and a rehabilitation center. The fact is that I couldn’t walk and my knees got ruined by saving a policeman’s life. Would I[Read More…]
In any given life, there are certain events that remain firmly imprinted in our memories. I carry an indelible memory of an evening in late May 1989. I had just returned home from a meeting and my wife excitedly called me into the television room. On the screen were images of tens of thousands of young people gathered at Tiananmen[Read More…]
The unprecedented migrant-labor crisis in times of corona pandemic was in fact a ticking time-bomb that policy makers and development experts chose to overlook as India’s urban population grew to around 31% according to last held 2011 Census. World Bank’s estimates pitch these numbers to 34% in 2017, and predict that with this upward slope, above 50% of India will[Read More…]
Our generation is facing a pandemic for the first time, though we have heard about different epidemics in the recent past be it Ebola outburst in African countries, attacks of Zika virus, and the memory of H1N1 flu is still bright. But the disease Covid-19 caused by SARS COV-2 is unique in many ways, it is less lethal than the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Geeta Kashyap & Harikrishnan Bhaskaran ‘Tusi ki karoge je Rozana Spokesman nu band kar den di naubat aa jaye’ (What will you do if condition arises to close Rozana Spokesman), was an unusual appeal as a banner head appeared in Rozana Spokesman, a Punjabi newspaper published in the Indian state of Punjab on 10th May. In its 15[Read More…]
Robert Reich’s new work, The System, offers a wide-ranging critique of our nation’s contemporary political and economic ills. Reich does a brilliant job succinctly reminding us of the scale and scope of corporate corruption, economic inequality, and political spinelessness in America. Reich’s diagnosis is on point and there is not much to quibble with. Reich focuses the first half[Read More…]
There is something weird fact about pandemic or world catastrophe: it always and invariably benefits the Crony capitalists the most. Incidentally this time the pandemic has been named to sound like Crona, as if it were the male counterpart of Crony. Remember the pandemic Y2K of 1999? Yeah, everywhere there was a propagated fear; let come 1st January 2000, all[Read More…]
Most people in India seem to believe that COVID-19 has wrecked the country’s socio-economic system and that the poor are feeling its worst effects. That does not seem to tally with the reality. The pandemic has not wrecked the system but has exposed the weaknesses existing in it already. As Paul Carr says COVID-19 “feeds off social and environmental injustice,[Read More…]
All human rights, democratic rights and Gandhian organisation with support from few trade unions came forward and did a 30km long footmarch from Bhubaneswar to Cuttack city in Odisha. On this scorching summer day of 31st May at temperature above 40 degree near about 30 people dared to walk the distance. All of them had placards written, ‘Workers have built[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents evidence supporting the thesis that elimination of excessive economic inequality makes societies happier and better. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Benefits-of-Equality-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Ideals of the Enlightenment The Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment was an intellectual and[Read More…]
There is no denying of the fact that Tamils in Sri Lanka have been at the receiving end since 1948, when power was transferred to the majority Sinhala Government. Successive Sinhala Governments continued and still continue the marginalisation of minorities to achieve their goal of a SINHALA-BUDDHIST STATE. A majoritarian mindset that is comfortable with demonising minority communities – or[Read More…]
The food crisis that could follow in the wake of the various lockdowns that were implemented on the back of the coronavirus may have long-lasting consequences. We are already seeing food shortages in the making. In India, for instance, supply chains have been disrupted, farm input systems for the supply of seeds and fertilisers have almost collapsed in some places[Read More…]
Innocent brothers and sisters it’s time to wake up, wake up, wake up Brothers and sisters it’s time to say something, do something, make ’em Mmm I wonder, how many Blacks lives, how many Black lives How many heartbeats turned into flatlines – “How Many” by Miguel Just when the news about the way African-Americans were being disproportionately affected by the[Read More…]
Rohingya people, who have no identity of their own, are now facing another danger. Pandemic COVID-19 took away one of the Rohingya, who took shelter at a camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh on the wake of genocide in their own land in Myanmar. United News of Bangladesh reported that the man died from coronavirus infection while undergoing treatment at[Read More…]
It is inevitable that the virus will spread anywhere people gather in numbers. India went for the world’s toughest lockdown in March, when just about 500 Covid-19 cases had been reported. And it has started withdrawing the lockdown when India has become the seventh-worst pandemic-affected nation, with over 1.91 lakh infections and close to 5,500 deaths. India is registering giant[Read More…]
This is Part-5 of a series of articles on a crisis in India-Nepal relations. Part-4 was titled India-Nepal Border Dispute : The International Ramifications. It mainly dealt with attempts made in vain to topple a communist regime, the NCP-Oli-led Nepal govt, and the international context and import of the still unfolding controversy. This one, Part-5, focuses on US hegemonic role[Read More…]
As I write this piece, rainfalls have started along the Konkan coast, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red alert and 33 National Disaster Response Force teams have been deployed in anticipation of Cyclone Nisarga to Mumbai and its neighbouring districts. Nisarga, coming just two weeks after Amphan, is expected to result in a severe cyclonic storm[Read More…]
Introduction Birds are chirping, highways have quieted, rush hour traffic follows easily, airports have been shut down, smog has disappeared, reviving sunny and blue skies. COVID-19 has left this earth with dramatic drops in air pollution and a hope to solve the climate crisis by putting a halt to several harmful practices. It has drastically changed life on a global[Read More…]
Co-Written by Akhter Hussain Bhat & Noorain Batool Khan The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a worldwide threat and a major healthcare concern. Since its outbreak in China, the virus has so far affected more than 5.72 million people with over 3.56 lakh deaths globally causing widespread concern, fear, anxiety and stress. Owing to the severe infectious nature of[Read More…]
Human equality is a major problem of India. Historically ownership of property created human inequality in all countries. Caste gradations in education also created an unbridgeable inequality in India. This inequality has been carried very successfully to modern India through caste system and education. Fighting for human equality from power is more difficult than fighting from civil society even in[Read More…]
With the humans locked up inside, the past few months of Corona-pandemic have given us a world with nature reclaiming its space. The reduced levels of air-pollution have given a chance to rare-sighted mountains and peaks to reveal themselves to populations where their visibility had become folktales, only to be shared by elders as memories of yester years. AQI in[Read More…]
Minneapolis could not have happened at a worse time for the US elites. While violence perpetrated against African Americans by White police officers has happened a number of times before, its occurrence right in the midst of a huge health emergency that has already claimed more than a 100,000 lives and a related massive economic disaster that has robbed 30[Read More…]
Today, the Republic of India faces its gravest moment since it was born seventy years ago. What has hit the second most populous nation in the world – just in the last few months itself – is nothing short of a crisis of Biblical proportions. An untreatable viral epidemic, a debilitating lockdown, a collapsed economy, hunger stalking every corner of[Read More…]
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the last 3 months has failed on almost every front. Not only has it been unsuccessful in containing the exponential spread of the disease, but has through its actions given rise to one of the biggest humanitarian crises our country has ever seen. It has violated[Read More…]
When I wrote an essay on Dr. B.R Ambedkar years back in school, I portrayed him in my writing as a brilliant man who drafted the constitution of India and as a leader who vehemently opposed to the discrimination towards the untouchables. Little did I know, that these adjectives that I has used for him was just a tip of[Read More…]
The rise of China is not only a hope for the Asian people but also inspires working class people all over the world. It instils hopes that there is an alternative to predatory capitalism of the west. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) played a major role in transforming China as a major world power while uplifting many Chinese from poverty,[Read More…]
More than two centuries of lies are now getting exposed. Bizarre tales about freedom and democracy are collapsing like houses of cards. One man’s death triggers an avalanche of rage in those who for years, decades and centuries, have been humiliated, ruined, and exterminated. It always happens just like this throughout the history of humankind – one single death, one[Read More…]
After the completion of one year of Modi-2.0, several supporters of the BJP are now busy in underlining the huge success and achievements of the Modi-Shah duo in the public domain. They claim, PM Modi with a landslide victory in 2019, has done historic job after passing legislation (like triple talaq, the abolition of Article 370, and Citizenship Amendment Act).[Read More…]
About a month ago, when, as it seems now, the covid-19 world was still young and economy reopenings were still few, Mike Davis, the American labor organizer, wrote an ominous piece titled, Reopening the Economy Will Send Us to Hell. It almost seemed contrary to the common wisdom that the world needed to reopen as it was choking because of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ishfaq Abdullah & Ishfaq Ahmad wani History has a commanding role in the formation of nations and past is used as a means to instill in people sense of belongingness to the nation. Approach to studying past determines the political, social and cultural environment of nations. History as a discipline plays an important role in politically socialising citizens[Read More…]
At their best teachers are everyday gods, standing at the entry to the world. If they are fair and good, they are possibly the most morally impressive adults. For a while, they are the law, they are the knowledge, they are the justice. Theirs is the profession that creates all other professions. Teachers are greatly valued in all religions. Every[Read More…]
`Do you have a beard? Do you have knowledge about the Constitutional Rights and the guts to stand up for those rights? Congrats, officially, now you an anti-national and be ready to be beaten up’ `Sorry I thought you are a Muslim’ Currently, India is achieving greater hights by attacking Muslims. Recently, the Madhya Pradesh police also joined the anti-Muslim[Read More…]
Health Ministry and Home Ministry Failed The Masses Early on in the epidemic the Prime Minister of India exhorted the corporate media to inform the masses that countries in Europe; the USA; and a few others were facing the brunt of the Pandemic. Hardly a few hundred Indians were infected with the virus then. Not so any longer. The powers[Read More…]
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers The nationwide uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd and other recent racially-motivated events is a response to the bi-partisan failed state in which we live. It comes in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic and the largest economic collapse in the US in more than a century. These three crises have[Read More…]
Mobs are unruly, headless things. The message is the action. The platform is often violence. But what is happening across the United States cannot simply be labelled as a looting-leads-to-shooting episode. It ranks as another chapter of enraged despair and untidy opportunism. It all began with a savage act in South Minneapolis, a killing grotesque for its indifference. The hunter[Read More…]
Sometimes, One needs to get away from the torrid darkness of words. A darkness that annihilates. Swirling, twirling a blackness laced with blood, anger, hate Marginalised — Sometimes from a brutal knee Sometimes a mob or a bloody bullet kiss — Violent Death Drops in the ocean connect all lands called continents Mourning Mothers’[Read More…]
To mark the martyrdom day of the fifth master of the Sikhs, Guru Arjan Dev ji, South Asian community activists came together on Sunday, May 31, to raise voices for political prisoners being incarcerated in the Indian jails. Organized by Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI), the rally against state violence was held at the Surrey-Delta Guru Nanak Sikh temple.[Read More…]
Why the United States bears responsibility for Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. An entire generation of Yemeni children has suffered the traumas of war, many of them orphaned, maimed, malnourished, or displaced. The United Nations reports a death toll of 100,000 people in that nation’s ongoing war, with an additional 131,000 people dying from hunger, disease, and a lack of medical care. A report from Save the Children,[Read More…]
Class of 2020, wherever you are, I had planned to address you on this graduation day. But how can I? Yes, I know that former President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks all took part in elaborate online graduation ceremonies, offering commentary, advice, and encouragement in our now campus-less world, but I’m a hapless old guy with a flip phone from another age. And,[Read More…]
Country is under lockdown. Most of the activities related to production and construction have come to a standstill barring few. One such is the construction of the Ram temple. The path for this has been cleared by the Supreme Court judgement. This judgement has been not widely debated as ‘Muslim side’ had conceded that whatever be the decision of SC,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Firdous Hameed Parey & Ishfaq Abdullah “Secrets of Kashmir Valley” is written by a well known and reputed Author Farhana Qazi. The Author is an American scholar with good reputation of writing on conflicts in the Islamic world. The book has 308 pages and its publication[Read More…]
Indigenous Australians & Palestinians: Treaty, Truth, Voice, Referendum & Senator Lidia Thorpe 
Kya Sharmsaar hai hindustan……are wrestling champions of India going the Mohammed Ali way? 
Legislative Gaps Helping Overseas Shell Companies? 
Book Review: Marginalised but not Defeated 
When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War? 
AUKUS, Congress and Cold Feet 
The Wars We Don’t (Care to) See – Aggression Made Easy 
Raising the Palestinian flag in Daley Plaza Center, Chicago: A powerful symbolic gesture 
Shocking Lack of Concern for World’s Safety by War Mongering Elite 
Has Hindutva been defeated in Karnataka? 
UN Agencies Warn ‘Acute Food Insecurity’ Likely to Worsen in 18 Hunger Hot Spots 
Meta and Privacy: The Economy of Data Transgressions 
A Response to The New York Times’ Ritualistic Denunciation of Mao’s Cultural Revolution… 
GM Crops Likely to Worsen Climate Change Related Problems for Farmers 
Symbolism of Sengol 
Forget GDP growth, it’s sustainable wellbeing we need to aim for 
Supremes Declare War on Wetlands 
Kings Coronation, Victory Day Parade and Perverse Values 
A critical approach to the exploration of Identity & Violence: An attempt by the young researchers of EDRU 
Delay in Census enumeration, unreliable death registration and fake Aadhaar cards adversely impact integrity of elections, leads to misuse of public funds 
Special Significance of the Next Decade in Human History, and a Campaign Linked to This 
Prophets of Doom: Kissinger and the ‘Intellectual’ Decline of the West 
“Free Trade” as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm 
Memorialize USA Lies About Each Mistaken Undeclared War Americans Remembered Today Gave Their Lives 
Tipu Sultan: Fallacies and Facts around the Historical Figure in India 
The intertwined history of caste and census in India 
A Tale of Two Indias 
Dismantle the structures of sexual violence, NOT the protesters’ tent! 
CDRO condemns the manhandling of the protesting wrestlers 
From Deathly Silence to Violence: The journey of Wrestlers struggling for Justice 
Workers Protests break out in China 
Now I Am Ravana’s Head 
Noam Chomsky on Why This Is the Most Dangerous Point in Human History 
HAK Birthdays: Henry Kissinger Turns 100 
Brotherhood and Friendship in a time of War- Reflections on The Mercenary, by Jeffrey E. Stern 
Weaknesses of the National Security Strategy 2022 – Part 8: The NSS falsely claims that Russia and Putin have malicious goals and spurn negotiation 
What role did trade unions play in the struggle for independence in Kenya? 
A Timely Warning on Avoiding the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that Deserves Wide Attention 
Tinsel Gods 
Kirti Kisan Union conducts massive rally in Moga on issue of Canal Water 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
