Extreme heatwave has hit the Canadian west coast and the northwest U.S. leading to scores of deaths. In areas, temperature rose to more than 46°C to more than 47°C. Media reports on the heat dome now covering the Pacific Northwest are telling hardship of people in the regions, melting of power cables, buckling of roads, and closure of schools, universities,[Read More…]
On July 1st the Communist Party of China turns 100.Without doubt it’s formation was one of the greatest turning points in the history of mankind. It shaped the political course of China being a precedent to many a historic event, be it the Long March of 1935,the anti-Japanese War from 1937-45 , the civil war of 1946-1949, the New Democratic[Read More…]
Political cards being gradually tried ahead of assembly elections in two crucial states- Uttar Pradesh and Punjab – cannot yet be viewed as symbols of master strategies. The simple explanation is that frustration is quite strongly visible in political parties heading the two state governments. This in itself seems sign of party heads on both sides being a little flustered[Read More…]
I A Kingly creature; now creatureless King An Empire out of breath while breathless doing Air, water, land all three commanded to remain in place and serve They wilt under the lash of gentle commerce whilst jolly plenty stumbles along in filthy blindness All living things now cringe at the gross summons of Man Yet meanwhile Gaia gathers up[Read More…]
In 2020, candidate Joe Biden promised to “rally the world” to fight “transnational terrorism.” Yet President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have failed to confront and impose sanction/penalties upon Turkey and Azerbaijan for financing, arming, and deploying the most notorious jihadist terrorists/mercenaries. These include: ISIS, the Hamza Division, Sultan Murad Brigade, Sultan Suleyman Shah Brigade, Al-Amshat Faction, Al-Nusra Front,[Read More…]
In the early 70s the Rolling Stones sized it up for we working stiffs in their song ‘ Working for the Company’: I want a real fine car, fly Miami too All the rum, I want to drink it, all the whiskey too My woman need a new dress, my daughter got to go to school I’m working so hard,[Read More…]
The district administration roped in village chiefs, self-help women’s groups, doctors and other local influencers to alleviate fear, misconceptions in Masalia Block. Dumka: Rubaya Kisku (60), a senior citizen from the Santhal Adivasi community, appeared content after getting his COVID-19 jab at a vaccination centre in Masalia Block of Jharkhand. His daughter-in-law, Turki Murmu, who had accompanied him, said[Read More…]
As the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada bake under what’s being described as a “once-in-a-millennium” heat dome, green groups on Monday reiterated the need for transformational change to address the climate emergency, while progressive U.S. lawmakers underscored the imperative for any infrastructure legislation to center climate action. Temperatures exceeded 110 degrees in Portland, Oregon for the second straight day—and the third consecutive record-setting day—on Monday, melting power[Read More…]
The record-breaking heat and intensifying drought engulfing the western U.S. right now are a stark reminder of how climate change is loading the weather dice against us. It’s making heatwaves hotter and longer, and droughts stronger. Yet, what we see today is just a fraction of what’s anticipated unless serious and immediate actions are taken to reduce carbon emissions. Last week,[Read More…]
by Mandy Smithberger & William D. Hartung President Biden’s first Pentagon budget, released late last month, is staggering by any reasonable standard. At more than $750 billion for the Defense Department and related work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy, it represents one of the highest levels of spending since World War II — far higher than the peaks of the Korean[Read More…]
When Mohammed El-Kurd said that “living in Palestine is like having a policeman in your bed,” he wasn’t employing a rhetorical device or a figure of speech. The analogy is too close to reality to be a simile or metaphor. El-Kurd would know – his family faces imminent displacement from their home so Jewish settlers can occupy their bedrooms in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood[Read More…]
The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the largest coalition of major national, regional, and local Muslim organizations, Monday sent a letter to Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken calling on the Biden administration and Congress to demand that “the Egyptian government halt its plans to conduct a mass execution of democracy activists, faith leaders, and other political prisoners in the coming days.” The letter[Read More…]
Persecution of weak and minorities is something that hyper nationalist regimes across the world swear by. Oftentimes this begins with the innovation of overt and covert tactics intending to further the other-ing process. Frequent execution of the same results in the establishment of dehumanizing norms, which ultimately becomes the dreaded weapon wielded by the regime’s agents. The increasing incidents of[Read More…]
The COVID pandemic has caused unprecedented damage across the globe. Its’ gory journey, still continues to impact our lives and the world around us. Nearly a year into the pandemic, we face a human tragedy, and a public health, humanitarian and development emergency. With India’s first case of COVID-19 reported in Jan 2020, and the Government announcement of a nationwide[Read More…]
What do you think when the first citizen of the country ‘feels’ helpless of ‘income tax’ deduction on his salary. President Kovind must be getting rupees five lakh per month as part of his salary but in a public meeting organised at his ‘birth place’, he said that over two lakh seventy five thousand rupees per month get deducted from[Read More…]
An international and independent investigation to examine the alternative hypotheses is urgently needed, and the U.S. and Chinese governments should cooperate fully and transparently with such an inquiry. Where did COVID-19 come from? The source of the pandemic is a subject of immense importance. But more than 18 months after the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), the question[Read More…]
Islam emerged in the 7th century in the south-western corner of the Asian continent. It spread very rapidly throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula. In the 16th century it was pushed out of Iberia but simultaneously penetrated what we now call the Balkans. Meanwhile, it had been extending its geographic zone eastward towards South-East Asia and[Read More…]
“I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel about the World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden appeared the year I graduated from West Point. While dimly aware that its publication qualified as a literary event, I felt[Read More…]
During his campaign for the Presidency, Joe Biden called on President Donald Trump to: “Establish and enforce health and safety standards for workplaces… The Trump Administration should immediately release and enforce an Emergency Temporary Standard… to give employers and frontline employees specific, enforceable guidance on what to do to reduce the spread of COVID.” Biden became President on January 20,[Read More…]
FOR 11 days in May this year, the world watched in horror as Israel’s missile onslaught on the civilians of Gaza went into full swing. According to the WHO, this latest barrage on the strip resulted in the killing of 278, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly people, wounding 9,000. Nearly 17,000 residential and commercial units were smashed, displacing[Read More…]
The world facing desperate situations of climate change, planetary degradation and nuclear war preparation desperately needs protection from inhumane deceiving war promoting Western media, and from where shall it come if not from the bountiful and powerful two great designated adversaries of the Western powers, China, the world’s most populous nation and largest economy, and the Russian Federation encompassing 11%[Read More…]
But the bottom line is that the German-French initiative has caused a divide within the EU, with East European and Baltic countries that are closer geographically to Russia being wary of any loosening of the EU’s approach to Moscow. Equally, the German-French initiative will alarm Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova in Russia’s ‘near abroad’. *** A thoughtful, far-sighted proposal by German[Read More…]
In this series of interviews Covid Response Watch brings you the voices of doctors, health workers, social activists and others, working at the grassroots, speaking about the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic on the lives of ordinary Indian citizens. Some aspects of the Covid disaster are new and unprecedented but many of them are also a continuation of the[Read More…]
Close to the birthday of George Orwell and the 46th anniversary of Emergency in the world’s so called largest democracy, activists came together in Surrey on Sunday, June 27, to raise their voices against the incarceration of thinkers by the Indian authorities. Organized by Radical Desi publications, the rally was held right outside the Indian Visa and Passport Application Center.[Read More…]
Ambedkar found a peculiar charm and magnetism in the appellation Bharat. He had named one of his weeklies Bahishkrit Bharat. The name of his printing press was Bharat Bhushan Printing Press. His fight for temple entry and his battle for codifying the Hindu laws speak volumes for his inner struggle. You might believe the conversion of Lord Halifax, but not[Read More…]
South Asians have a long and honorable history of migration. They took to the high seas for adventure or to escape political persecution for daring to challenge foreign rule. A substantial number left their homes to seek a better future, as the countries of their birth had suffered from plunder at the hands of colonists. Colonial rulers transported a great[Read More…]
Dear Paleface, Let’s make things right for the longstanding Indigenous inhabitants of this land. Following the late May discovery of 215 concealed burials of First Nations children at a former residential school in Canada there was a post from a Jewish group on Facebook basically saying ‘Yes, this is an example of genocide.’ I am sure there are other Jews[Read More…]
“Anyone with a sense of history would have realized that the hubristic attempt to make the world into a frontier- and culture- free single market would end in tears”; this is how Robert Skidelsky, one of the leading economists of today, observes the present economic turmoil. The predictability of mathematical modeling of neoclassical economics began to be widely questioned with[Read More…]
Courage is not having the strength to go on-it is going on when you do not have strength. —Napoleon Bonaparte Drug addiction among youth is alarmingly rampant these days. This drug addiction is destroying not only their physical health but also the vitals of psychological health. The reasons why people get addicted to drugs are countless. But the most explicit[Read More…]
With the implementation of new Information Technology act 2021 mandating the social media platforms legally under compliance, the ongoing controversy between social media and digital sovereignty seems to an end as the appointment of the grievance redressal officers and nodal officers are mandated in India in compliance with the new rules. Though, another big challenge to our democracy remains the[Read More…]
Iran’s president-elect Ebrahim Raisi addresses his first press conference in Tehran, June 21, 2021 Raisi said: “European countries and the US should look at what they have done towards the nuclear deal; the US violated the nuclear deal and the Europeans did not fulfil their undertakings. We tell the US that it is duty-bound to lift all sanctions and that[Read More…]
Actress Waheeda Rehman exuded grace in realms of the divine, reminiscent of a Greek Godess.Rarely has any Hindi film actress expressed such a degree of sensitivity, innocence, purity or simplicity. I hardly can find an adjective conveying how natural she was on screen. Her acting gave vibrations of reflection of moonlight in water or the twinkling of a petal of[Read More…]
War: How Conflict Shaped Us. Margaret MacMillan. Random House, New York. 2020. I almost did not finish reading “War: How Conflict Shaped Us”. It is not worth reading, but I worked through it anyway. Which is unfortunate as Margaret MacMillan can be an excellent writer of history. The two volumes of hers that I have read – “Paris 1919” and[Read More…]
In late April 2021, US President Joe Biden announced a withdrawal from Afghanistan. In other words, the US has been trounced in Afghanistan by its very own jihadist Frankenstein, the Taliban. The defeat of USA is covered with the ugly debris of history. The dirty war on Afghanistan was part of a disastrous process of occupying and controlling large swathes of the[Read More…]
Modern warfare is waged with high-tech weapons. Each battle fought eats up loads of ammunition and modern weapons systems need spare parts and fuel. All this meaning that no military action is possible without an advanced economy and supplies. Even terrorist organizations forced to go deep into the underground have to set up laboratories and workshops to produce homemade explosives[Read More…]
I would like us to give serious consideration to alternative media in the USA. I know a lot of us watch/listen to NPR, Pacifica Radio, Link TV and Democracy now. I am sure quite a few are members of the organizations. We are all cognizant of the fact that the so-called mainstream media are not mainstream in their out look..[Read More…]
How,or indeed why, should parties that are bitterly opposed to each other,and come election time jump at each other’s throat, are toying with the idea of of coming together,is a much discussed topic in the press today.First thing to say is,of course,that we live in very very different times.We are enjoined by circumstances to unite in order to defend something[Read More…]
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act currently offers 100 days of work to all rural households. Given the crisis in the economy and the slowdown of economic activity in urban centres, more people have now returned to their rural homes. NREGA Sangharsh Morcha on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking that the Union government extend the[Read More…]
Facilitator: – The decision of Lord Curzon to partition Bengal on 16 October 1905 provoked a great deal of public discontent and in 1908, it generated wave of public outrage. Lokmanya Tilak wrote two articles against the government on 12 May 1908, ‘The country’s misfortune’ and on 9 June 1908, ‘These measures are not sustainable’. Incidentally on April 30, 1908,[Read More…]
He began on RN Breakfast by claiming that he, and his company, would be open and transparent about mining operations. But Lucas Dow, chief executive of Adani’s Australian operations, soon revealed in his June 25 interview that his understanding of transparency was rather far from the dictionary version. When asked how the Carmichael Coal Mine was getting its water, he[Read More…]
The World is existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and climate change but lying exacerbates the threat. US lackey Australia fervently supports nuclear terrorism, fossil fuel exploitation and US-backed and genocidally racist Apartheid Israel that is a major player in both these key threats to Humanity and the Biosphere. Search analysis reveals massive lying by Australia’s taxpayer-funded ABC news organization over[Read More…]
On 2 June 2021, Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik wrote a letter to all chief ministers urging them to “unite and form a consensus that the Centre should procure Covid vaccines and distribute them free to the States.” With this rallying call, Navin Patnaik, waded into the controversy between the central and state governments over who should foot the bill[Read More…]
The killing of a Muslim family on June 6 in Ontario, Canada, again presented an opportunity for Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to brand himself as a voice of reason and communal harmony. However, Trudeau’s amiable and reassuring language is designed to veil a sinister reality which has, for many years, hidden the true face of Canadian politics. “This was[Read More…]
The news does not get much worse than a recent scientific report that the planet is trapping twice as much heat as it did only 14 years ago. If this one report does not turn heads and create a sense of panic to get off fossil fuels, as soon as yesterday, then nothing will ever move the needle to fix[Read More…]
Putin’s Russia is a highly toxic subject in the US’ foreign-policy discourses. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in a carefully choreographed interview, announced June 20 Sunday, “we are preparing another package of sanctions to apply” on the Kremlin…The Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov promptly noted, “This is not a signal we all expected after the summit. I[Read More…]
Take one, scene one: A man in his late thirties riding a scooter with his wife as pillion rider and a kid is standing on the leg space. Man seems to be contended, secure and satisfied with his ‘small’ possession. He has a government job and lives happily in his staff quarter. Now- Take one, scene two: A man drives[Read More…]
On June 26, lakhs of farmers and farm-workers will assemble in various border points of Delhi will observe “Save Democracy, Save Farmers” day. On that date three important occasions are coinciding — (i) completion of 7 months of the historic continuous sit-in protest of lakhs of farmers around Delhi on the border points; (ii) 7 years of first swearing in[Read More…]
Climate crisis has pushed communities in Madagascar to the verge of starvation. The World Food Programme (WFP) says resources are scarce in the country after the worst drought in four decades. The WFP said more than a quarter of people are suffering in one area. And $78.6 million is needed to fight the crisis. Climate change is the driving force[Read More…]
At a time when J&K political leaders meeting with PM, NSA is attending meeting at SCO alongwith NSA Pakistan, Ceasire promise has been kept by Pakistan and India, Peace activists getting hopeful that future may belong to a better environment where Peace will sustain. Peace activists have sent a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs with many suggestions that[Read More…]
On the 46th anniversary of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi [June 25, 1975] we are witnessing once again the farce of RSS claiming that it opposed it with full might. It is laughable to find it boasting that RSS fought against the Emergency not due to any compulsion but as article of faith in democracy. How RSS cadres ruling[Read More…]
The rise of hardline President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has prompted someanalysts to counterintuitively suggest that it could pave the way for reduced regional tensions and potential talks on a rejiggered Middle Eastern security architecture but getting from A to B is likely to prove easier said than done. Hopes that a hardline endorsement of a return to the 2015 international agreement[Read More…]
Has civilization taught us to be more friendly towards one another? Asked Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and intellectual and explains further: …Within the herd we are more friendly to each other than are many species of animals, but in our attitude towards those outside the herd, in spite of all that has been done by moralists and religious teachers,[Read More…]
Most parts of the Indian sub-continent are so highly populated and poor that the negative impact of even one large natural disaster could linger on for generations. Sundarbans, tucked between the Bay of Bengal coast of the Indian State of West Bengal and neighboring Bangladesh, has had three disasters in quick succession over the last one year. Apart from the[Read More…]
Dear all, Since a few months, the days have been special and strange for me – not special like a birthday or festival celebration. But special and strange because for the first time in the 14 years of my life I saw my grandparents, parents and many others sitting inside homes and fasting. So many “ firsts” for me since[Read More…]
June 24 marks the birth anniversary of a revolutionary poet and saint whose rebellious rhymes will always remain relevant. Kabir was born to a Muslim family of weavers in Varanasi, India in 1398. He denounced orthodoxy of both Islam and Hinduism, and was highly critical of blind faith and the brutal caste system within Hindu society. He grew up as[Read More…]
Groton and New London, Connecticut, are home to about 65,000 people, three colleges, the Coast Guard Academy, 15 nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines capable of destroying the world many times over, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat, a multi-billion-dollar private corporation that offers stock options to its shareholders and mega-salaries to its top executives as it pockets taxpayer dollars and manufactures yet more[Read More…]
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot announced in the last budget that a Fintech Park would come up in state capital Jaipur, attracting investment of about Rs3,000 crore. Over four lakh sq metres of land near the airport, adjoining the B2 Bypass and Tonk Road, would be allotted for it. “Many chartered accountants and IT professionals belonging to the state are[Read More…]
Hunger, disease and drought will afflict tens of millions of more people within decades, warns a draft UN assessment that lays bare the dire human health consequences of a warming planet. “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems,” the report says. “Humans cannot.” The forthcoming 4,000-page draft report[Read More…]
While Australian politicians languish in a world blotched by climate change scepticism and fossil fuel love-ins, global oil and gas companies have been shaken. Three titans of oil fame – Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron – faced a range of decisions in May that promise to dramatically shape their future operations. The point is not negligible, given that this triarchy produced,[Read More…]
When former US President Barack Obama used an old cliché to denigrate his political opponent, the late US Senator, John McCain, he triggered a political controversy lasting several days. “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Obama said at a campaign event in 2008. The maxim indicates that superficial changes have no bearings on outcomes[Read More…]
After a decade of his untimely demise, Michael Jackson remains the legendary artist, the undisputed king of pop that the world remembers fondly. A tribute, following the World Music Day. ‘Dusk in your skin, Flesh, blood and poetry in your dance, Deep cry, frantic rhymes in your songs, A river born in the rhythm of your burning, melting, Writhing, dissolving.’[Read More…]
Why the demand for restoring river ecosystems by decommissioning highly disruptive dams is picking up? The Snake river in the USA has been declared the most endangered river of the country this year by the organization American Rivers. The main reason is that the various species of the wild salmon fish, the most critical species of the river system, have[Read More…]
To Shri Apurva Chandra Union Labour Secretary Dear Shri Apurva Chandra, The preamble to the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 defines its primary objective to be “to regulate the employment of interstate migrant workmen and to provide for their conditions of service and for matters connected therewith“. This Act is by and large[Read More…]
The recently tabled US 413 Resolution in the US Congress led by Ms. Ross breathes fresh air, confidence and hopes for the Tamils, particularly the victimized Tamils whose grievances which commenced in 1948 reached the climax with the genocidal war crimes committed during the war [2006-2009] However, structural genocide has now taken a strong hold on their lives compounded with[Read More…]
Today we commemorate the 25th death anniversary of Comrade Nimmala Krishna Murthy who till his last breath was a crusader for the massline and liberation of the Adivasis..Inspite of baring all the adversities or twists and turns with the courage of a soldier and skill of an architect he carved out his course of struggle. At the time of his[Read More…]
By Dr. Sameeksha Dhillan & Dr. Divya Singh From an average of over 93,000 new cases per day in September last year to roughly 10,000 new COVID cases per day in February 2021, India has made great strides. This significant and consistent decline led to the withdrawal of lockdown with a partial relaxation in various sectors. Social or religious activities[Read More…]
by Bobby Ramakant and Sandeep Pandey When India was reeling under the severest impact of the Covid pandemic, and the peak of around 450,000 new cases was reported in 24 hours around mid April 2021, then an interesting chronology of events were taking place regarding the Covid vaccination programme (along with Kumbh in Uttarakhand and elections in West Bengal and[Read More…]
A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health. The study is discussed by two of the report’s authors,[Read More…]
Pauri: When the second wave of COVID-19 gripped Kui village in Pokhra Block of Pauri district, Uttarakhand, it unleashed paranoia among the villagers. “Most of the locals had fever, cough, cold and loose motions. Yet, they refrained from getting tested, fearing that if they turned out to be positive, the health department officials would take them to the hospital. They[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) before Iran’s June presidential election would help conservative hard-liners to win the election. Indeed, on Saturday, June 19, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the new President of Iran. Raisi has a record[Read More…]
Jean Paul Sartre in the preface to, ‘The Wretched of the Earth: The European elite manufactured a native elite by picking up promising adolescents, branded them with western culture, stuffed them with high sounding phrases, brought them to the ‘mother country’ and sent them back’ white washed’, where they echoed European slogans.1 The third world is not a homogeneous place.[Read More…]
On June 12, 2021, many online news portals reported an exchange of fire that took place between security forces and Maoists in Kuku-Piri forest, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Garu police station of Latehar (Jharkhand). According to reports, one Naxalite was killed and guns were found. The next day, many local newspapers highlighted that 24-year-old Bramhadev Singh of[Read More…]
Written by Leticia Martínez and René Tamayo León A three-dose regimen of Cuba’s Abdala candidate vaccine has demonstrated an efficacy of 92.28 percent, placing it well above the World Health Organization (WHO) requirement of at least 50 percent, to be recognized as an anti-COVID-19 vaccine. Over the course of 48 hours, from Saturday to Monday, Cuba, a small, poor country,[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the reasons why the institution of war continues to threaten human civilization and the biosphere, and the steps that might be taken to rid the world of war. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Why-War-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf[Read More…]
To float over such an aqueous body is to find a majestic creature unparalleled in beauty and expanse, stretching at 2,300km. There are other stunning formations on the planet, but the Great Barrier Reef has such dimension, form and cocksure brilliance as to make others shrink, not so much because of beauty as due to sheer scale and ecological variety.[Read More…]
Written by Shirish Khare & B.Sivaraman The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought a severe crisis in education across India due to prolonged closure of schools and the high costs of online education. Interestingly, it has also given momentum to several ongoing and new experiments in alternative schooling, especially aimed at rural and underprivileged students. Though it is still too early to[Read More…]
Today, the world is witnessing the Covid-19 pandemic, accompanied by other pandemics like the information pandemic (infodemic) and the Covid-19 waste pandemic. The burgeoning consumption and improper disposal practices of face masks by the community worldwide have given rise to a new environmental challenge. These materials are getting into waterways from where they reach the freshwater and marine environment, adding[Read More…]
The year was 1954 – on a windy, wet evening of February, a male child was born – the youngest sword bearer of the Brahmin clan residing in Bamunpara, Bilasipara (Dhubri district). He is the 8th child of his parents – the youngest maternal uncle or “mama” of the 3 kids born to his eldest ‘didi’. The entire Bamunpara rejoiced[Read More…]
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, published on 25 February 2021 under the Information Technology Act, 2000 will have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression of ordinary individuals, social media writers and the journalists working in print and electronic media. The Government of India is trying to usurp the power of Parliament[Read More…]
One will be amazed to compare the India of today with the same a decade ago. BJP’s getting majority in the Lok Sabha (2014) has changed the political, social and economic scenario in adverse direction. The rising prices, the free fall of economy with GDP at all time low, with India falling down on hunger index and the massive rise[Read More…]
VT Padmanabhan and Joseph Makkolil After a brutal second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Indian people are anxiously waiting for the third wave, which is expected to arrive in about 6 to 8 weeks in August-September. The first wave was driven by two variants Alpha and Delta, which were more contagious than the ancestral strains. Recently a new variant – Delta[Read More…]
Brazil’s former leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, scored a fresh legal victory on Monday after a federal court acquitted him of passive corruption charges relating to alleged political favors, citing lack of evidence. In 2017, Lula was accused of having granted political favors to automobile companies in exchange for donations of 6 million reals (around $1.2 million) to[Read More…]
Education is the backbone of any developing nation. 100% literacy is one of the first landmarks used for judging the level of development of any nation. India is a developing nation vying to become a superpower but it’s far from achieving 100% literacy. According to official statistics, India’s literacy rate hovers around 75% which leaves a quarter of the citizens[Read More…]
Many people cherish memories of visiting Mussoorie ( located near Dehradun, capital of Uttarakhand ), even called the Queen of Hill Stations in India. The famous hill resort houses the L.B.S. IAS Academy where the country’s future top civil servants are trained. The Mussorie hills divide the Ganga and Yamuna river systems which have their origin in Western Himalayan region[Read More…]
It is now out in the open.There seems to be quite a lot of dissatisfaction in the higher judiciary about the burden placed on their shoulders by the rising number of UAPA cases.The phrasing of the act is so wide and sweeping that it gives a government powers to practically put under arrest and detain anyone it finds inconvenient or[Read More…]
Media reports from the U.S. tell about environmental incidents and hardship of the common people in the society. Fracking and Children A Fort Worth Star-Telegram report (Thousands of Arlington’s schoolchildren are exposed to fracking fumes, report warns, Thu, June 17, 2021) said: More than half of Arlington’s public school children attend classes within half a mile of a natural gas[Read More…]
Aisha Sultana, a native of Lakshadweep’s Chetlat island, is today one of India’s visible faces in the cry for justice! She is a well-known actor and director and an activist. Lakshadweep, a Union Territory, is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian Sea: a paradise with pristine beauty. Its 70,000-strong population is predominantly Muslim (with smaller percentages of Hindus[Read More…]
Vaccine equity is not working because besides the role played by the fascists and the authoritarian regimes in denying vaccine access to their population, also, it is behind the cloak of human rights that the western countries are not sharing the knowledge of production and manufacturing of the basic life-saving technologies in the times of pandemic. The G7 Summit pledged[Read More…]
Amid the sweeping pandemic and the health emergency across the country, some may have missed the headline that Cairn Energy, a leading UK-based oil and gas exploration corporation, had filed a suit in New York to claim the international assets of Air India, the State-owned airline of India. The basis of Cairn’s demand is that it claims that the Indian[Read More…]
This may seem a paradox but the truth is that the United States does not realise that Iran’s presidential election result — the resounding victory of the conservative head of the judiciary Ebrahim Raisi — can be an optimal outcome. Raisi has impeccable credentials as a hardliner who belongs to the powerful religious establishment and happens to be a genuinely popular public[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, I understand from recent news reports (https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/mha-tells-supreme-court-ex-gratia-payment-rs-4-lakh-covid-19-deaths-affordability-states) that the Centre has contended before the apex court that it would not be able to pay an ex-gratia relief of Rs 4 lakhs to Covid victims for the reason that “utilisation of scarce resources for giving ex-gratia, may have unfortunate consequences of affecting the pandemic response and health[Read More…]
In the messy, underhanded world of global health responses to COVID-19 it was only appropriate that lawyers should find themselves enriched on respective sides of a dispute about vaccine supply. The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been getting a good deal of bad press, with its COVID vaccines seen to be a riskier proposition, notably to younger adults, than those of[Read More…]
47th G7 meeting was held at Cornwall, UK in May this year. The May G7 meeting was significant for many reasons but most importantly that this was also Jo Biden’s first foreign outing as the President of USA. Although the meeting announced more prominently, COVID 19 and Climate Change as its agenda, the real purpose of the meeting was to[Read More…]
Fifteen months ago, the SARS-CoV-2 virus unleashed Covid-19. Since then, it’s killed more than 3.8 million people worldwide (and possibly many more). Finally, a return to normalcy seems likely for a distinct minority of the world’s people, those living mainly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and China. That’s not surprising. The concentration of wealth and power[Read More…]
Meena Kumari was without doubt one of the most sensitive, creative and impactful actresses ever to have flashed on the Hindi silver screen. Sadly she left the world too early, not even living half of a complete life. The story or theme of her life was all about tragedy. I place her amongst the greatest Hindi film actresses ever, in[Read More…]
“Hum jo Tareek rahoan mein marai gai,” (We, who were ambushed in dark alleys…) — Faiz Ahmad Faiz.1 During their 200-year rule over India, the British colonizers had, among other self-serving measures, introduced an education system which would inhibit innovation and produce clerks for their administration. In spite of that, the movement for liberty and social justice grew among Indians.[Read More…]
During lockdown, the ban on sand mining in the Matigara block of Siliguri in West Bengal has left over 2000 labourers struggling to make ends meet. Siliguri: In the Matigara block of Siliguri, West Bengal, over 2000 labourers who are solely dependent on the sand lifting business along the Balasun river, believe if COVID-19 won’t kill them, hunger definitely will.[Read More…]
In India, diet diversity has increased a great deal in the last 20 years. Diet is one of the cornerstones of diabetes care. There has been a rapant increase in excessive and unbalanced intakes of energy, saturated and trans fatty acids, salt and sugar which has led to increased risk of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity[Read More…]
Veteran Hindi author and editor Ramesh Upadhyaya passed away recently at the age of 79 in Delhi. His contributions to Hindi literature and journalism as well as education spread over more than five decades were invaluable. He received several awards including the prestigious Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award. His perspective was that of a left-oriented thinker with deep commitments to social[Read More…]
By Ch SN Murthy and Dr S. Jatin Kumar We are grieved to learn and inform the sad news that Com. PS Hochimin ( 51) died June 17 morning in Thrissur, Kerala. He fell sick some weeks ago, his friend reported, subsequently tested Covid positive, developed complications, hospitalized, and died. His last rites were conducted as per Covid protocol. We[Read More…]
A report released Friday by the United Nations Refugee Agency finds that more than 82 million people across the globe were forcibly displaced by war, persecution, the climate crisis, and other factors by the end of 2020, a record high that one international aid group called “an epic failure of humanity.” The U.N.’s annual Global Trends in Forced Displacement (pdf) assessment estimates that girls and[Read More…]
Two leaders of two great nations meet at a neutral venue known for its peaceful locales and absolute neutral position world over. President Joe Biden of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russian Federation came to Geneva for their first face to face meet after the United States saw a change in the government. President Putin had in[Read More…]
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration ignored the advice of its own expert advisory committee and approved the first new treatment for Alzheimer’s in 18 years. Called Aduhelm, it carries a substantial risk of painful brain swelling and bleeding, requires monthly infusions, and comes with an eye-popping list price of $56,000 per year. These caveats might be fine if[Read More…]
Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin met in Geneva on Wednesday, June 16. Both separately noted that the talks went well. “There’s been no hostility,” Putin said. “On the contrary, our meeting took place in a constructive spirit.” Biden meanwhile declared “the tone of the entire meeting… was good. Positive.” The spirit may have been constructive and the tone positive,[Read More…]
Putin said, “..We can see attempts at destroying the relationship between Russia and China. We can see that those attempts are being made in practical policies. And your questions, too, have to do with it. This is, perhaps, the salience of the Geneva summit…” Russia and China have congruent interest in lending support to each other to create space for[Read More…]
Written by Ashish Kumar Singh & Wakar Amin India consists of a population with different sets of profiles of socio-culturally diverse identities scattered within it. Any vaccination program which is aimed at covering the whole population has to use a diverse and heterogeneous strategy like the population of the country. Not to mention the fact that the enormous size of[Read More…]
In the middle of a raging pandemic no demolition of houses should take place and no one should be made homeless or evicted from their established place of residence. This simple statement has a universal resonance. Take it to any part of world, to anyone concerned with basic human values, not to mention human rights, and they will endorse this.[Read More…]
Struggle for Right to Life, Housing and Rehabilitation of 1 lakh people continues.. New Delhi, 18 June,2021: The 50 year old secular Khori village, near Surajkund tourist spot (Faridabad, Harayana), inhabited by various sections is on the verge of being uprooted because of the Supreme Court order. Despite the existence of various farmhouses and high rise hotel buildings , the[Read More…]
It has been almost a year since I joined IIT Gandhinagar, and about six months since Indian farmers have been protesting against the three controversial farm laws. Around the time the protests began, a new hobby group with a focus on society and politics emerged at IIT Gandhinagar. The group, called ‘Awaam‘, laid down its objectives and stated that it[Read More…]
Deepak Sharma has been found guilty by the North Vancouver provincial court. The former President of the Abbotsford Hindu temple was charged for sexual assault of a woman in his cab in January, 2019. Following a trial, Judge Patricia Bond delivered her verdict on Friday. The date for sentencing is yet to be set. Sharma had been driving for North[Read More…]
Statement by writers and readers of Gujarati literature about threats issued against them in the journal Shabdsrushti Gujarat Sahitya Akademi whose autonomy was wrested by the Gujarat government, which then turned it into a government institution, publishes a journal named Shabdsrushti. The June 2021 issue of Shabdsrushti carries an anonymous piece of writing titled “No, This Is Not a Poem,[Read More…]
A most encouraging phenomena has emerged in Punjab in the last week with 4most qualitative protests engulfing Punjab in Bathinda , Amritsar ,Sangrur and Nawanshahr against the detention of the intellectuals fabricated as Maoists. The speakers at the very core exposed link between saffron Hindutva politics and the patronage to corporate groups like Ambani or Adani.They portrayed how the trend[Read More…]
In whodunnits, two universal patterns can be seen as emerging. First, The murderer is suggestive of the vicious society at large; that s/he is part of the system that normalises killing. Then, the killer’s vengeance was not indeed aimed at the victims, but at the world which has already symbolically murdered him or her. These patterns, subtly different from each[Read More…]
Speculations abound over Taliban’s aim to exploit the vacuum left by the partial withdrawal of US-NATO troop to seize control of the capital Kabul and re-establish an Islamic Emirate, similar to the one the US dislodged from power after its 2001 invasion. The ground reality seems to confirm these concerns about an impending civil war. Violence and territorial contestations are[Read More…]
India’s social sector expenditures are amongst the lowest among all major economies of the world. In this concluding part of our budget analysis of Union Budget 2021-22, we present proposals on how the Centre can more than double its social sector expenditures. Part I: Snapshot of Subsidies Given to Rich in Budgets According to the Economic Survey, the annual document[Read More…]
As we make virtue out of necessity by celebrating Earth Day, Environment Day, Water Day….a pandemic like Covid-19 only debunks our claims to protect and respect nature. In the course of evolution, as we graduated from animal kingdom to human kingdom and exerted our dominance fueled and fooled by our belief of superiority and arrogance about our superior intelligence, the[Read More…]
In 2018, before the pandemic, the Afro Asian Bank in its Global Wealth Migration Review reported that 15,000 rich persons migrated out of China, 7,000 from Russia, 5,000 from India and 4,000 from Turkey. The report says that one main reason for outmigration from a country is safety. Religious disturbances are said to be the second reason. The presence of[Read More…]
The second wave of the covid-19 infection has had a devastating impact on the lives and livelihoods of people across the country. Universal vaccination is one of the important interventions towards containing the spread of the disease and mitigating its impact. As we move ahead towards recovery, the government must take adequate measures to ensure that there is equitable distribution[Read More…]
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said North Korea should prepare for both dialogue and confrontation with the United States, particularly confrontation, state media KCNA reported on Friday. It was Kim’s first direct comment on the Biden administration. The remarks came during Thursday’s plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s central committee, after an earlier session where Kim called for[Read More…]
Family Portrait of NATO Allies, Brussels, Belgium, June 14, 2021 The NATO brings to mind the classic paradigm of someone all dressed up and nowhere to go. It has to constantly reinvent a reason for its existence. The NATO is a lucrative hunting ground for the American arms industry. The bigger the NATO’s threat perceptions, the greater the scope for[Read More…]
Ajmer Singh Aulakh was one of the most creative and impactful writers and playwrights in the history of the revolutionary movement on Punjab or India, whose mark will live forever. Sadly 4 years ago .on June 15th he left us, after suffering from a prolonged period with Cancer. His name will permanently illuminate in the annals of revolutionary artists, like[Read More…]
Written by Satyam S & S.N. Ali Fraz Rezvi A historical analysis of the communist politics involved in the formation of the Jharkhand state in India ‘Jharkhand can never be separated. It can only be liberated and the gap between the liberation of Jharkhand and the liberation of the country as a whole is not beyond the February revolution and[Read More…]
On June 13, 2021, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out a statement welcoming the new Israeli government and outlining Canada’s support for all things Israeli. The full statement is available on the government website [https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2021/06/13/statement-prime-minister-formation-new-government-israel] and contains many simplistic platitudes that conceal too many ugly realities. Without deconstructing all of it there are some salient points that do stand[Read More…]
Tough Truths Are Desperately Needed About America’s Lost Wars Americans may already be lying themselves out of what little remains of their democracy. The big lie uniting and motivating today’s Republicans is, of course, that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, won the 2020 presidential election. Other big lies in our recent past include the notion that climate change is nothing[Read More…]
PBL: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to catch a fish and he will never go hungry”. This simple quote emphasizes the key tenet of education – providing people with the means to succeed in their future endeavours. But does our education system fulfil the basic needs of the people? The[Read More…]
For evolving the best possible policy response to an ongoing pandemic it is very important to monitor the available data and take the most rational decisions based on this. In this context the increased overall mortality recorded from March to May in particular is very disturbing and needs urgent attention of the authorities, with a view to understanding this reality, [Read More…]
Nation = People + Country + Constitution A nation is the synergetic sum of a country’s people with their social and cultural resources, who live within the boundaries of the country with its natural and economic resources, and the rules by which the people live and work. The “rule book” for India is the Constitution of India. It was the[Read More…]
In this series of interviews, Covid Response Watch brings you the voices of doctors, health workers, social activists and others, working at the grassroots, speaking about the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic on the lives of ordinary Indian citizens. Some aspects of the Covid disaster are new and unprecedented but many of them are also a continuation of the[Read More…]
Heat wave is scorching the U.S. West. More than 50 million people in eight U.S. states were under heat warnings Tuesday as the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) urged people to remain hydrated and stay indoors. A week of triple-digit temperatures made worse by climate crisis is forecast across much of the U.S. West this week, with records poised to fall[Read More…]
The lockdown-induced loss of livelihoods has left many vulnerable villagers in Madhya Pradesh unable to feed their families even two square meals a day. Bhopal: Four-year-old Gudiya* (name changed) smiles shyly as she eats salted rice from a plate that she shares with her two sisters. The three girls from Birhulia village in Umaria, Madhya Pradesh haven’t eaten dal[Read More…]
On June 14, 2021, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke at the inaugural Pakistan-Afghanistan Bilateral Dialogue in Islamabad. His tone was mildly aggressive. Talking about USA’s pullout from Afghanistan, Qureshi said: “If the objective of going to Washington is starting a new blame game and holding Pakistan responsible for all the ills and the lack of progress in the[Read More…]
The recently concluded meetings of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Cornwall from the 11th to 13th of June 2021, have reaffirmed their commitment to a post pandemic world based on twin planks; i) revive capitalism and ii) reinstate imperialism. These twin decaying and dangerous ideals are central to the Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique by[Read More…]
The cat is out of the bag at last.Kapil Sibal is one of the twenty-three dissidents who wrote a letter to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi pleading for organisational reforms leading to the installation of an elected president in place of one who was alleged to have inherited it.He was indirectly blaming the latter for the poll disasters Congress suffered.He[Read More…]
Kate Elizabeth Russell dedicates her exemplary work, My Dark Vanessa to “the real life Dolores Hazes and Vanessa Wyes whose stories have not yet been heard, believed, or understood”. As I begin to read this, I already get a whiff of what I am in for. The existing scholarship around the realm of English Literature has already turned the predatory[Read More…]
On 16 June 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin met with US President Joe Biden to discuss the tense bilateral relationship. Despite differences in Russia’s specific bilateral relations with NATO members such as Germany over economic ties and the gas pipeline, or Turkey-Russia strategic relations, to name two examples, Biden presumably spoke as the senior partner of the Atlantic alliance. Judging[Read More…]
The US is aware that if it crosses China’s red line on the Taiwan question, there is going to be a heavy a price to pay at the cost of US own interests… All this only underlines that the US has realised the importance and necessity of bringing the China-US economic trade ties back on track… *** The European countries[Read More…]
Farm laws and food The Farmers’ agitation starting 26 November 2020, was against three Farm Laws. The Essential Commodities Amendment Act, 2020, (ECA Act) is one of them. ECA Act amends the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, (EC Act) enacted “in the interest of the general public, for the control of the production, supply and distribution of, and trade and commerce”,[Read More…]
Although India enjoys the reputation of being the leading milk producer of world, India’s overwhelming majority of small dairy farmers are facing increasing problems and among them those who are landless face a truly precarious situation. What is more, these problems have increased even more during recent weeks when both the private dairy units and to a lesser extent the[Read More…]
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is as much American as he is Israeli. While other Israeli leaders have made their strong relationship with Washington a cornerstone in their politics, Netanyahu’s political style was essentially American from the start. Netanyahu spent many of his formative years in the United States. He lived in Philadelphia as a child, graduated from Cheltenham High[Read More…]
Six people, from Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson to Sahib Kaur Dhaliwal, a young student from the University of Ottawa, have been presented with medals of courage by a Canada-based online magazine that covers alternative politics. Radical Desi, which started its journey in 2014, had established a medal bearing the quote of Desmond Tutu: “if you are neutral in situations[Read More…]
Written by Raminder Kaur and Shirin M Rai Abstract COVID-19 has revealed deep inequalities in our societies based on class, race, ethnicity, gender, age and region. These inequalities have also been marked by national borders and borderings especially between the global North and South. Orientated between India and the UK, we adopt a mobile and doubly reflexive lens characteristic[Read More…]
Just hours after far-right marchers chanted “Death to Arabs!” during a demonstration in the streets of Jerusalem, Israeli war planes bombarded the occupied Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning in the first series of airstrikes launched by the new government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former IDF officer who once boasted that he has “killed a lot of Arabs.” While initial reports indicated that[Read More…]
Imagine a world where no one was suffering from any of the preventable diseases, be it non-communicable diseases (NCDs) or infectious diseases, or had to die untimely due to diseases that were primarily avoidable! Also imagine a tobacco free world – imagine a world where healthy balanced nutrition for all was a reality – where health for all was not[Read More…]
The Central board of secondary education has cancelled class X and class XII examinations. They have sent a formula for awarding marks to the students of class X this year based on best result of the school for the last three years. Also, for different subjects there is another criterion for awarding marks. For all other subjects except for second[Read More…]
Food nourishes life. Our farmers produce more than enough food to feed all the people on the planet but due to socially unjust and ecologically unsustainable food systems, many people are forced to go hungry. Moreover farmers who help nurture life, continue to struggle for their livelihoods and human rights. In lead up to 2021 World Localization Day, farmers from[Read More…]
Sangli (Maharashtra): In more normal times it would have been the joyous strains of the sitar, sarod and tanpura filling the air in the historic town of Miraj in Sangli district of western Maharashtra, close to the Karnataka border. After a year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the town is now shrouded only in a melancholy silence. Repeated lockdowns have[Read More…]
Coal is a hot issue in this energy-starved world. There is a drive to get out of coal for a better climate. But coal is coming back in Europe. A Bloomberg report said: “Europe is so short of natural gas that the continent — usually seen as the poster child for the global fight against emissions — is turning to[Read More…]
Somali-born and Muslim American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently caused a storm by Tweeting “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice”. She was variously criticized[Read More…]
Lawless Intimidation : “These allegations against Aisha Sultana cannot make even the prima facie charge of sedition, as per the definition and judicial interpretation of Section 124A of IPC.” “Despite the severe criticism of the Centre for its gross abuse of the draconian British law of sedition, and Supreme Court’s admonition, the behaviour of rulers did not change.” ***[Read More…]
What will life be like after peak oil, in an age of major climate shifts? Hollywood movies often depict it as a bleak, dystopian world where each day is a struggle to survive after every system we depend on has been stripped away. Unfortunately, that version of the story seems to be on track so far. Despite mounting scientific consensus on[Read More…]
In 1992, a Canadian ecologist named William Rees coined the term “ecological footprint,” a measurement of how much any entity was impacting the planet’s ecology. A decade later, British Petroleum started promoting a new term: “carbon footprint.” In a splashy ad campaign, the company unveiled the first of its many carbon footprint calculators as a way for individuals to measure[Read More…]
Asha worker Kamlesh from Haryana explained how, in a time of crisis, the government machinery can prove a hurdle – when people were reeling under the fear of the coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic last year, there were Union ministers and ministers from Haryana asserting that Muslims who gathered for the Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin, New Delhi,[Read More…]
Today, June 15, 2021, Israeli Jewish supremacists are marching in East Jerusalem as Palestinians call for a ‘Day of Rage’ in response. “We call on all free people everywhere to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and its just cause and end the Israeli aggression on our people and holy places,” The Committee of Islamic and National Groups stated.[Read More…]
Karl Marx’s 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy[i] represents one of the clearest reflections of the development of his and Engels’ thought. In what amounts to a short four and a half pages, Marx concisely exhibits the resulting conclusions of more than two decades worth of studies – from his first encounter with the economic[Read More…]
These days my conversations with friends about the new administration go something like this: “Biden’s doing better than I thought he would.” “Yeah. Vaccinations, infrastructure, acknowledging racism in policing. A lot of pieces of the Green New Deal, without calling it that. The child subsidies. It’s kind of amazing.” “But on the military–” “Yeah, same old, same old.” As my friends and[Read More…]
Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies The world has been treated to successive spectacles of national leaders gathering at a G7 Summit in Cornwall and a NATO Summit in Brussels. The U.S. corporate media have portrayed these summits as chances for President Biden to rally the leaders of the world’s democratic nations in a coordinated response to[Read More…]
Surely, the friendly ambience has helped Biden to inject a certain Cold War overtone to the G7 proceedings…But without doubt, the G7 has brought to the fore that there is sharp disagreement among the United States and its allies about how to respond to China’s rising power. Europe — especially, the two major European powers Germany and France — does[Read More…]
Today is the 12th death anniversary of legendary Comrade Harbhajan Singh Sohi.Comrade Harbhajan Sohi or HBS was one of the greatest comrades to have ever dipped his feet in the history of the Indian Communist Movement. No comrade was a greater protagonist of the mass line in the last 4 decades after the death of T.Nagi Reddy.He had mastery over[Read More…]
Lakshadweep is one of eight Union Territories, which is under the newly appointed controversial Administrator. The Ganatantrik Adhikar Suraksha Sangathan, Odisha (GASS) is vehemently denouncing the repressive measures taken by the Administrator. The Administrator since January has been taking various steps against the people of Lakshadweep like in name of bringing ‘reforms’ in the island it is actually bringing threat[Read More…]
Australia’s biggest exporting state on Tuesday urged Canberra to stop antagonizing China, the country’s top trade partner, in remarks that came amid escalating criticism of Beijing led by the U.S., Australia’s main ally. “This isn’t about kowtowing to other countries and giving in,” Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan said at Australia’s biggest oil and gas industry conference, being held in[Read More…]
Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday, June 14, commemorated the massacre of more than 3,000 Bosniaks during the war between 1992 and 1995. Bosnian news agency provided a graphic account of the massacre. On June 14, 1992, more than 70 civilians were burned alive by Bosnian Serb forces in the eastern Bosnian city of Visegrad, where soldiers locked up Muslim Bosniak women, children[Read More…]
NAPM Condemns the unjustifiable order of the Supreme Court to Evict around One Lakh Residents of Khori Gaon, Haryana, without Rehabilitation in the Middle of the Pandemic Right to Housing of Working-Class people Living in Precarious Conditions is inalienable: ‘Environmental Protection’ cannot be an excuse to deprive vulnerable people of shelter 15th June, 2021: National Alliance of People’s Movements denounces[Read More…]
After 12 years, Israel finally inaugurated a new prime minister. While being hailed by many as the opportunity for a fresh start, Naftali Bennett is at best a continuer of Netanyahu’s policies and at worst an ideologue whose positions are to the right of Netanyahu’s. In 2013, as Middle East peace talks were set to resume after a five-year freeze,[Read More…]
On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza. “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now[Read More…]
Australian officials and paper mad types are running out of ideas as to how to be cruel towards refugees. We need to give them some credit: for years they have tried to do what most autocratic and murderous regimes do in a heartbeat: ignore international law, treat it with disdain and use those feeble excuses in the service of sovereignty.[Read More…]
For the first time in its history, legions of civilians in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are forging courageous resistance against a bloody military dictatorship — together. This in a country of enormous ethnic diversity, many languages and religions, and entrenched sexism. Such defiance reflects a desperate yearning for genuine democracy. In the November 2020 elections, when the military’s party[Read More…]
Q-Who are the workers who perform the most essential tasks, also earn the highest appreciation but get the least justice? Ans. -Sanitation workers. Since historical times, sanitation workers have suffered the most injustice in India. Perhaps oppressor sections thought that the most effective, even though highly unjust , means to ensure the ready availability of this essential service at a[Read More…]
by Don Fitz and the Green Party of St. Louis People the world over are opposing fossil fuel extraction in an incalculable number of ways. It is now clear that burning fossil fuels threatens millions of Life forms and could be laying the foundation for the extermination of Humanity. But what about “alternative” energy? As progressives stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those[Read More…]
Amidst India’s unfolding Covid disaster, the southern Indian state of Kerala has been lauded for its effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in controlling mortality. What are the factors that help explain Kerala’s record? This two-part analysis attempts to unravel the secrets of Kerala’s impressive performance against Covid, based on extensive interviews with key officials involved. This is the[Read More…]
“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge” (Nicolaus Copernicus). Socratic knowledge in its true essence is neither any teaching in the conventional sense of world nor about filling the empty minds of largely passive students with facts and figures acquired through mugging[Read More…]
Neerja Chowdhury under an appropriate title, “Can Didi become the Dada of national opposition? Mamata has advantages, but her disadvantages are more formidable”, had expressed her views on the current situation at the national scene in Times of India of 3 June 2021 (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/can-didi-become-the-dada-of-national-opposition-mamata-has-advantages-but-her-disadvantages-are-more-formidable/ ), which I found to be very timely and I wanted to further supplement[Read More…]
Andrea Meza’s life forever changed when she heard the words “Viva Mexico”, said a June 13, 2021 media report. But, there were some more facts from a reality, which is out-and-out capitalist. In May, Meza was crowned the 69th Miss Universe. The pageant was broadcast from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Hollywood in Florida. It was aired to more than[Read More…]
Today on June 14th we celebrate the 93rd birthday of the legendary Che Guevera.He carves a permanent niche amongst the great revolutionaries and crusaders for the liberation of man. Che may be no longer with us but his spirit is not dead and buried and still sparkles in a most subtle manner. In many areas of the world today Che’s[Read More…]
G7 is divided over the China issue. A report by The Telegraph (“China divides G7 as Biden calls for international investigation into origins of Covid-19”, June 14, 2021) said: “Joe Biden has called for an international investigation to establish whether Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory as he tried to rally G7 leaders behind a ‘competition with autocracies.’ “But his remarks about a[Read More…]
Some four months ago, a devastating flood ravaged the Chamoli district in the Indian Himalayas, killing over 200 people. The flood was caused by a massive landslide, which also involved a glacier. Researchers at the University of Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and ETH Zurich have now analyzed the causes, scope and impact[Read More…]
It is surprising India does not figure in the Venice architecture biennale exhibition, perhaps the most important architecture international event. It is on currently, it opened last month. With all its aggressive posturing on the Central vista project, the Indian government should have showcased the project to the world. Even small countries are participating ,ranging from Albania to Uzbekistan. Our[Read More…]
The global scene is deeply disturbing. The wealth of billionaires is increasing even as the starvation-scarred world cries for help; astronomical surges in inequality are pushing an ever greater number of people into a state of pure deprivation; the repressive powers of capitalist states all over the world are being steadily strengthened to silence the growing disquiet in streets and[Read More…]
Undergoing the process of having to screen our bodies invaded by an external touch also makes us vulnerable to unidentified sexual perversion. But does having to undergo the same if exercised by people of our respective genders make us any less vulnerable? Established heterosexual foundations so far has led to the screening of women and men bodies by their gender[Read More…]
The impact of the two COVID waves and attendant lockdowns on Indian households and workers cannot be overstated. Even before the devastating second wave, several sources suggest that millions of households became poor, reversing hard-fought gains in poverty reduction. More than half of the informal workforce lost work and incomes, and over two-thirds experienced increased hunger (see Annexure 2 in this note). Poorer[Read More…]
The Western Ruling class constantly strives to isolate the US working class from radical workers organizing around the globe. Capitalists understand that communication amongst the workers would allow them to see through the lies of capitalist imperialism and build a global class solidarity which would be incredibly threatening to the interests of the ruling class. For this same reason, the[Read More…]
Amidst India’s unfolding Covid disaster, the southern Indian state of Kerala has been lauded for its effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in controllsing mortality. As of June 2, Kerala, despite having the third highest cumulative case count in the country (9,60,000), had the second lowest death rate (.36%) with 3,508 fatalities. In contrast, the state of Delhi, home[Read More…]
Domestic workers generally lead a life of low wages and struggle for survival in Indian cities. However what they have faced in recent times is an unprecedented crisis. Periodic lockdowns have led to widespread loss of work and income. This extends often for a period much beyond the period of lockdown. This has led to increasing hunger and malnutrition. In[Read More…]
The BJP and Mr Narendra Modi had promised “Achhe din” (good days) and “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas” (with all, development for all, faith of all) to capture the political power in Delhi. The majority of corporate media and many liberal intellectuals have projected him as a reformer, popular and experienced leader, who can claim Indian century in the[Read More…]
It is most encouraging witnessing the youth emerging at the forefront of the agitation against farm bills, displaying the intensity of coal fire in a furnace. In recent days they have illuminated the flame of resistance to a crescendo to crystallise a sustained movement. Youth club shave been set up and cultural programmes performed to galvanise the youth and integrate[Read More…]
We forget history at our own peril. In the 1980s, more than two lakh newborn babies used to die every year in India due to a dreaded infection. This, when that preventable disease was already only of academic interest in the developed world. WHO and the Indian government worked together to address the factors leading to the disproportionately high rates[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the urgent changes that are needed to save our planet and our collective future. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/A-Critical-Decade-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Humanity has reached a critical decade A new report, published on 14 March, 2021[Read More…]
Summits often feature grand statements and needless fripperies. In Cornwall, the leaders of the G7 countries were trying to position and promote their relevance as the vanguard of democratic good sense and values. They, the message went, remained relevant, valuable and essential to the order of the earth, despite challenges posed by the autocrats. Never let contradiction get in the[Read More…]
Adjectives such as intolerant, rigid, and incompatible are often associated with Islam. It has been part of usual propaganda carried without context, with vested political motives, and half-baked assertions. It is more viewed in the west and an increasing number of other places as a religion more inclined towards violence and critical of modern civilization. Many authors have argued in[Read More…]
Homo sapiens is a creature of earth, not separate from the natural world. Just as it is for other species within the web of life of earth, food is a fundamental basis of life for the human species. There are other factors that help sustain life, but food is a root cause of the growth of all species (3,4,5). Population[Read More…]
Pakistani officials have privately begun confirming a secret visit to Islamabad of CIA Director William Burns and are suggesting that he was firmly told that Pakistan would not host the spy agency’s drone bases on its territory, according to the daily Dawn. This comes after New York Times in an article published on June 6 claimed that Mr Burns had[Read More…]
My submission is that the Feudal system, Army, Bureucrats and Mullahs constitue the Evil Quad of Pakistan. What do we mean by feudalism? It has several facets-moral and ethical values, political and economic system ,market economy integrating with it etc. In my view all the above are a composite whole. Moral and ethical values get far more exposure as they[Read More…]
It was the virtual ‘midnight knock’! The irony was that the knock took place in broad daylight, and expectedly in a blatantly unjust, uncivilised and unconstitutional manner. On 6 June 2018, Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson were arrested from their residences in various parts of the country. The arrests of others then continued in[Read More…]
To The Chief Minister of Odisha Bhubaneswar, Odisha Sub-Lack of human sensitivity in treatment and transparency in the process of dissemination of information on the patients in the COVID hospitals. Sir, As per the standard practice and operating norms in the treatment of patients in the COVID hospitals once a patient is admitted into the hospital the patient goes entirely[Read More…]
The sharp growth in Covid19 cases across the districts of North Bengal from a few month alarms the concerned citizen across the country, mostly the tea lovers. There is no uncertainty that the pandemic has reached community transmission even in the rural fringes of the country including the tea gardens of Darjeeling Hills or North Bengal as a whole. In[Read More…]
Housing right or the right to shelter is a very basic human right that deserves universal recognition and respect. This needs to be re-emphasized at a time when some decisions in violation of this are being taken and there are a lot of apprehensions regarding whether these may become more frequent. Of course no right can be absolute or arbitrary,[Read More…]
The eyes of the world media audience are on Cornwall, a south-west England holiday destination, over the next couple of days as the powerful Group of Seven (G7) summit is going on there. The usual allies — the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US — are joined on this occasion by Australia, South Korea, India and South[Read More…]
Written by Bobby Ramakant and Sandeep Pandey Well known Hindustani classical singer Padma Vibhushan Channulal Mishra, chosen as one of the proposers of Narendra Modi in Lok Sabha elections, lost his wife and elder daughter to Covid in private hospitals in Varanasi. Younger daughter has accused Medwin Hospital of charging Rs. 1.5 lakhs for treatement of her sister and not[Read More…]
We, the Core Group members of Vikalp Sangam (Alternative Confluences), are shocked at the recent developments in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. The actions of the Administrator of the UT, Mr. Praful Khoda Patel, are arbitrary and insensitive, and will have irreversible ecological, social and cultural impacts on the inhabitants of Lakshadweep and the rich and fragile ecosystem in and[Read More…]
Series Note: We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns implemented in response, continue to deliver a series of economic, social and psychological shocks to the world. In this time of chaos, some of the world’s most powerful interest groups have stepped forward claiming that this crisis presents an opportunity to ‘reset’[Read More…]
Earlier this year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the entry of Greg Chappell into the arena of International cricket which was against England at Perth in February in 1971. Ironically he scored a century in his debut after coming in with his side in a precarious position of 107 for the loss of five wickets. From the very word[Read More…]
Worldwide chemical emissions are six times global warming emissions. This hidden dilemma is fully exposed in a superbly researched new book by science writer Julian Cribb: Earth Detox, How and Why We Must Clean Up Our Planet, Cambridge University Press, scheduled for release August 2021. The planet has become a toxic soup of tested, untested, and inadequately tested chemicals that[Read More…]
Dr. Krishna Upadhyaya, a fellow traveller in the struggles for emancipation of bonded labourers in Nepal, in his latest Novel ‘The Ghosts in the Hills’ ventures to deep dive into the important but less narrated phase of Nepal’s recent history, the Maoist uprising. It falls within the genre of historical novels. It is not a factual narrative of the Maoist[Read More…]
Recently, I wanted to show my wife a picture, so I opened the photos app on my phone and promptly panicked when I saw what was there. It’s not what you think. A lot of people are worried about what’s lurking on their smartphones. Compromising photos. Illicit text messages. Embarrassing contacts. Porn. What I noticed was a video in the[Read More…]
Budget and Nutrition Schemes Hunger and Malnutrition ‘Emergency’ India’s rulers may be claiming that the country is heading towards becoming a global superpower, but what is for sure is that its hunger levels are amongst the worst in the world. The Global Hunger Index (GHI), a multidimensional statistical tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally and by country[Read More…]
Many questions still remain unanswered by Assam forest department over the mysterious deaths of 18 wild Asiatic elephants on Bamunipahar in Nagaon locality on 12 May (as the authority claimed) because the final report rested on the assumption (not scientific analysis) that the bulky animals died due to electrocution by a major thunderbolt. Analysing many loopholes in the investigation report,[Read More…]
In the eastern Asia region, Taiwan has become a sensitive topic, especially as Japan, the U.S. and some other U.S. allies move closer to Taipei. Relations with Taiwan is unofficial Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a regular news conference Friday that “Japan’s position is to maintain relations with Taiwan as those of practical and non-governmental” as stated in[Read More…]
Very sadly our beloved comrade Vira Sathidar left us recently at the age of 61 on April 13th due to covid illness.Ironically he expired on the very date of the historic Jallianawalla Bagh massacre. I can’t express how bereaved it made so many around feel or my personal affection for him. One of the liveliest and most positive comrades within[Read More…]
The US President Joe Biden’s op-ed in Washington Post My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies will draw wide attention in world capitals from Brussels to Beijing. He says right at the outset that this weeklong trip to Europe, the first overseas trip of his presidency, is “about realising America’s renewed commitment to our allies and[Read More…]
Written by P.S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal Incidents happening in Lakshadweep under the ruthless Administrator Praful Patel are very disturbing even during these unusual times. Memory goes back to June 1975 when under cover of Internal Emergency a similar exercise was carried out in Muslim dominated area of in and around Jama Masjid, old Delhi. It so happened that Sanjay[Read More…]
Series Note: We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns implemented in response, continue to deliver a series of economic, social and psychological shocks to the world. In this time of chaos, some of the world’s most powerful interest groups have stepped forward claiming that this crisis presents an opportunity to ‘reset’[Read More…]
Sincere Tony is again on the stump, promoting his vision of how best to return to a lovely, unruffled world of capitalist endeavour, circuit lecturing and summit meetings that no longer need to be held online. And when Blair has visions, they are bound to be highly selective and keen in terms of his own bank account, not to mention[Read More…]
You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked and you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard but you don’t understand Just what you will say when you get home Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones? You raise up your head[Read More…]
We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition which, for the first time, includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. If we are to accept this logic, the leader of Ra’am, Mansour Abbas, is a mover and shaker of history, the same way that[Read More…]
Written by B.Sivaraman & Kumudini Pati Online classes have become the main mode of learning for millions of school students across India due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with its repeated lockdowns and social distancing measures. The shift however is proving to be extremely painful for families in small towns and rural areas for many reasons, especially high costs of purchasing[Read More…]
Over 50 eminent international figures including members of several European parliaments academics, lawyers, Nobel laureates, civil society leaders, and diasporic organisations have signed a joint statement urging the Indian government to show compassion and responsibility in the current Covid emergency, and call upon the authorities to release all arrested human rights defenders into safe conditions in the light of the[Read More…]
In the second major container ship accident in Sri Lankan waters in the past year, the X-Press Pearl, which was awaiting entry to Colombo port, caught fire on May 20 after a chemical leak. All attempts to douse the fire failed and the ship sank about 10 nautical miles off the west coast of Sri Lanka, creating major problems for[Read More…]
The hawkish Prime Minister of India, who is generally prompt in denouncing terrorism anywhere in the world, remains quiet over the recent killings of four members of a Muslim family in Ontario. On Sunday, 74-year-old Talat Afzaal, her 46-year-old son Salman Afzaal, 44-year-old daughter-in-law Madiha Salman and 15-year-old granddaughter Yumma Afzaal, were struck by a vehicle in a pre-planned manner[Read More…]
Series Note: We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns implemented in response, continue to deliver a series of economic, social and psychological shocks to the world. In this time of chaos, some of the world’s most powerful interest groups have stepped forward claiming that this crisis presents an opportunity to ‘reset’[Read More…]
Pune (Maharashtra): For decades, the second week of March has marked the start of the popular traditional wrestling season, that attract hundreds of participants and big audiences in the villages of western Maharashtra. Held as part of travelling fairs, that also include folk theater and music performances such as tamasha and lavani, farming communities look forward eagerly to watching the[Read More…]
How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s legacy, now that his historic leadership is likely to end.[Read More…]
In these Covid times, “There is an ongoing attempt to reframe G7 as the representative and champion of the democratic world in the struggle against autocracy, shorthand for China…. West’s indifference to the vaccination needs of the developing world will be on full display at the G7 summit”. *** Fine words will accompany the G7 summit this week. Much will[Read More…]
Written by Tridivesh Singh Maini & Karan Bidani Introduction Remittances play an important role in the economic growth of Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMIC). South Asia is considered to be the largest recipient of remittances in the world. More than One-Fifth of the global remittances between 2015-2019 came to South Asia (India received close to USD 360 billion in[Read More…]
I first met Indigenous wisdom keepers as a child. After days of off-road driving to the Gran Sabana in Venezuela, we had arrived at the ancestral lands of the Pemón people, where they still lived. “Go fill up your thermoses with water from the river,” my father said. As I got out of the car with my round, red canteen[Read More…]
Four members of a Muslim family in London, Ontario were brutally slain Sunday night in a hit-and-run attack that police have described as “premeditated” and motivated by “hate” towards Islam and Muslims. Police have revealed next to nothing about what they know about the far-right political views and connections of the 20-year-old assailant, Nathaniel Veltman. But they have characterized his[Read More…]
The present state of Muslims in India and elsewhere in the world is so beautifully captured in the following poignant words of one of the most celebrated contemporary Muslim intellectuals, Ziauddin Sardar in one of his books: “Muslims are sundered, divided and factional within, as much as they cherish a sense of superiority over other societies that they lack within[Read More…]
Those of you drawing sustenance and stimulation from the traditional acronym UFO best brace yourselves. The less exciting and dull term accepted by the defence clerks – unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – is renewing its march into the extra-terrestrial hinterland. On June 25, the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force will release a declassified report to Congress that will do little to[Read More…]
At some point before the summer of 2018, an arms deal from the US to Saudi Arabia was sealed and delivered. A 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands, was part of that sale. On August 9th, 2018 one of those Lockheed Martin bombs was dropped on a school bus full of Yemeni children. They were[Read More…]
“Unbearable.” That’s the title of Reza Khandan’s gut-wrenching Ms. Magazine report from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) Qarchak prison for women. Khandan is the husband of attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who is imprisoned there for the “crime” of representing activists for human and women’s rights. What is so “unbearable”? “Entering these cells is like being transported back to the Middle Ages,” Khandan writes,[Read More…]
Dominic Xavier offers his take on Parliament passing a bill equating the Delhi government with the lieutenant governor and not Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party elected government. .. In 2014, after BJP came to power in Centre winning all seven seats in Lok Sabha from Delhi, they thought NCT also will come under their rule. But to their great surprise,[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a film-maker, Cartoonist, writer and activist GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
I went to a birthday party recently. The celebrants greeted each other with hugs on the patio. After an outdoor barbeque dinner, we stood shoulder to shoulder around the island in the kitchen, eating cake from small paper plates. We sang “Happy Birthday.” Ordinarily, an event like that wouldn’t be worth noting, but these aren’t exactly ordinary times. In this[Read More…]
Written by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores With his wide-brimmed peasant hat and oversized teacher’s pencil held high, Peru’s Pedro Castillo has been traveling the country exhorting voters to get behind a call that has been particularly urgent during this devastating pandemic: “No más pobres en un país rico” – No more poor people in a rich country. In a[Read More…]
New data released Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate measurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in over four million years. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and[Read More…]
The International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based affiliate of the Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD), has released a special report outlining various pathways to ensure a world with a net zero carbon emissions rate by 2050. The report, which is titled Net Zero by 2050, states that in order to achieve a carbon neutral world by that year producers[Read More…]
Without doubt Dilip Vengsarkar is one of the finest batsmen ever to have graced a cricket field. This week we commemorate the feat of Dilip Vengsarkar becoming the 1st overseas batsman ever to score three consecutive centuries in test matches at Lords. It is a landmark that would inscribe a permanent place in the museum of cricket. We also coincidentally[Read More…]
Dozens of major websites — including The New York Times, CNN, Reddit, Spotify, Twitch, GitHub, gov.uk, Hulu, HBO Max, PayPal, Vimeo, Shopify — were beginning to return online Tuesday morning after crashing in an apparent massive internet outage. The cause of the outage was not immediately clear. Fastly, a popular content delivery network (CDN), confirmed it was experiencing an outage on its[Read More…]
COVID-19—a gray rhino event COVID-19 is a gray rhino event, an event that is highly probable and with a large impact. It can be seen well in advance due to its size and early warning signs, but which are ignored. Now over a year into the pandemic, India remains completely unprepared for COVID-19’s second wave. India did not foresee COVID-19[Read More…]
Authoritarianism’s Popular Base Inexorably linked to self-identity molded by the social environment, political identity, shaped by social class and the hegemonic culture, largely determines the individual’s participation in the political arena. Not the only factor that shapes political behavior, social mobility along with cultural conditioning is the catalyst to molding political identity. In the age of mass politics where bourgeois[Read More…]
An extremely important recent statement on critical issues faced by humankind was recently released in late April by 126 Nobel Laureates. This statement was inspired by the discussions at the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit , issued by the Steering Committee and co-signed by Nobel Laureates and experts. This statement is titled Our Planet, Our Future—A Call for Action (OPOF-CA). While this[Read More…]
Prior consultation with the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) mandatory for policy changes in Lakshadweep- Appeal for intervention` To Shri Ram Nath Kovind President of India Respected Rashtrapatiji, I understand that that the Administrator of Lakshadweep has formulated a number of far reaching regulations, such as the Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation (LDAR), the Lakshadweep Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation,[Read More…]
Apprehension of contracting the disease and concurrent nationwide lockdown created uncertainty among millions of laborers compelling them to migrate from cities. Migrant workers are spine of unorganized workforce in Indian economy (1). An estimate by (Geetika et al., 2020) states that 90% of women workforce is engaged in informal sector in which 70% come from rural areas who migrate seasonally.[Read More…]
Written by Kunzang Deachen, Chozin Palmo and Jigmet Singge Ladakh – high on the Tibetan Plateau at the northern extreme of India – is the place we call home. The vast majority of Ladakhis are villagers, who have, for centuries, provided for most of their physical and emotional needs through interdependent webs of relationship with the land and with community. We[Read More…]
Introduction Our ability to achieve a livable future for all depends on whether we can foster an unprecedented degree of social learning. There is no change without learning, and no learning without change. But with the stakes higher than ever before, time is worryingly short. How, under such urgency, do we effect such a large-scale paradigm shift? Formal education systems[Read More…]
A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that worries about the COVID pandemic in the United States are at their lowest level since it began. Only half of Americans are either “very worried” (15%) or “somewhat worried” (35%) about the virus, while the other half are “not very worried” (30%) or “not worried at all” (20%). But the news from around[Read More…]
Across Asia, a surge in coronavirus cases is prompting fresh restrictions and pushing people further into poverty. While fast-moving vaccination drives are allowing developed economies to bounce back, most Asian countries have managed to vaccinate less than 10 percent of their populations. As the WTO TRIPS Council meets for talks today, the Peoples Vaccine Alliance-Asia has called upon leaders of[Read More…]
Italian police has found out that there are criminal syndicates, mainly the Camorra, involved in illegally hunting of date mussels in Naples, which is tearing down the reefs of Naples, mainly along the Amalfi coast and around the island of Capri. After three year long probe including wire taps, surveillance, and nearly hundred suspects, the police eventually cracked down with[Read More…]
I am writing this tribute to Jailed Professor G.N.Saibaba, commemorating the third anniversary of the attack on the Urban intellectuals in Mumbai. Professor G.N.Saibaba is in my view today the best son of our land today. It is hard to visualize a physically impaired person face and resist the iron feet of oppression with the same magnitude. Professor G.N.Saibaba is[Read More…]
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced that Saudi Arabia was no longer an oil-producing country. “Saudi Arabia is no longer an oil country, it’s an energy-producing country,” the Energy Minister told S&P Global Platts this week. But that does not mean Saudi Arabia is planning on producing any fewer barrels of oil. And it does not mean[Read More…]
The whole world is looking forward to the meeting of the new US President Joe Biden with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Although the Kremlin and the White House urge people not to expect too much from the June 16 summit, one still wants to believe that a personal meeting by the leaders of the two rival powers will lead[Read More…]
This has been a fantasy of Danish governments for some time. There have been gazes of admiration towards countries like Australia, where processing refugees and asylum-seekers is a task offloaded, with cash incentives, to third countries (Papua New Guinea and Nauru come to mind). Danish politicians, notably a good number among the Social Democrats, have dreamed about doing the same[Read More…]
In descending order, the most fervent supporters of Apartheid Israel and hence of Apartheid are the Anglosphere democracies of the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. Apartheid Israel has had 4 elections in the last 2 years but in their massive coverage of these elections the Zionist- and US Government-beholden Mainstream media of these Anglosphere democracies overwhelmingly ignore the hard[Read More…]
Let me start with my friend and the boat. Admittedly, they might not seem to have anything to do with each other. The boat, a guided-missile destroyer named the USS Curtis Wilbur, reportedly passed through the Straits of Taiwan and into the South China Sea, skirting the Paracel Islands that China has claimed as its own. It represented yet another Biden-era challenge to the planet’s rising[Read More…]
“(W)e haven’t even started to talk about what might be ‘possible’ and are still mostly arguing about what is ‘feasible without compromising economic growth.’ These are of course extremely different things, and the latter will not get us anywhere near the 1.5 degrees C target.” Damon Matthews Although last weeks court cases and shareholder battles have been (rightly) called a[Read More…]
The tree reaches…the way a hand Reaches–towards the sky, sunlight, rain, the moon; Towards all things known…and yet to be. Upward, Outward…towards our better selves…and others’ Better selves; towards new and old “realities”– What may be, and what has been. We can’t grasp All there is to grasp…but, open-hearted, We can reach all that is attainable. Wales’ tallest tree had[Read More…]
We are supposedly natural allies: the Biggest (Indian) and greatest (US) “democracies”, sharing the same values, it is claimed. People know and see how US has been fighting for democracy around the world, at great expense of US dollars waging wars and killing millions. It “sacrificed” thousands of American men too in those expeditions, still going on. India too[Read More…]
When I saw Umberto D. recently I was so complete engrossed in it that I completely forgot where I was for some time. What is it that makes a senior citizen in India today identify so completely with the elderly character of a film made in Italy and that too about seven decades back in 1952? I may be at[Read More…]
Dr. Ambedkar had said, “Political power is the key to all problems and Dalits can get their emancipation by uniting and seizing power. Political power should be used for the development of the society.” Therefore, he also called upon the Dalits to win political power. That is why Dr. Ambedkar raised the demand for minority status for Dalits and political[Read More…]
On June 6, 2021, Israeli occupation forces detained Palestinian activist and journalist Muna al-Kurd, the leader of the campaign against the ethnic cleansing of the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah. A day before, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Givara Budeiri was arrested by Israeli police while covering a demonstration in the same area; she was later released from custody. What do[Read More…]
Not a day goes by these days without a casual remark about animal extermination in Australia. Mice have moved to the front of the queue in terms of animal species Australians would most like to liquidate. The language used has various registers: sombre and regretful; grave and scientific; panicked and bloody. This is all ordinary fare and is characterised by[Read More…]
Why does the US advocate a free market while doing its utmost to stifle it? The current US-China economic war is a perfect example of this perplexing question. The legacy of Milton Friedman, the founder of America’s modern political economy, was a representation of this very dichotomy: the use, misuse and manipulation of the concept of the free market. Through[Read More…]
The Jewish Chronicle has bitterly criticized Pakistani You Tubers for their anti-Israel and anti-Jews mind-set and position. The world’s biggest video sharing platform is hosting extreme antisemitism in the Urdu language, the Jewish Chronicle said Friday. The rash of antisemitic clips, produced by YouTubers who attract millions of views, spread fake news about Israel, naked Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories about[Read More…]
The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) is deeply disturbed by the judgement pronounced by a District & Sessions Court at Mapusa, Goa, on May 21, 2021, acquitting journalist Tarun Tejpal, the Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka magazine, who was charged, in 2013, of the rape, unlawful confinement and sexual harassment of a young woman journalist working at the magazine. In what is[Read More…]
New Delhi, June 5: The Delhi Government’s Saheli Samanvay Kendras (SSKs) have emerged as emergency response centres for the community during the ongoing pandemic. Distribution of additional relief, ration, health supplies and awareness-raising on the vaccine and other issues related to the Coronavirus is taking place through these centres that are located in densely populated, low-resourced areas with large resettled[Read More…]
Chennai: As I complete my long discussion with Muthukumar, he politely asks me if he can ask me a question. “Please do” I say and he asks “Sir, I had mortgaged my wife’s jewels with a private lender only recently, now I have no job .Will they give me any waiver for I cannot pay the dues?”. His question comes[Read More…]
Narendra Modi, like his predecessors, P.V Narasimha Rao and others, visited the central Asian countries in July 2015. Although, he became the first Indian prime minister to visit all five of them. Back then in 2015, Modi signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and agreements related to defence and military technical cooperation with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. In the future, it[Read More…]
Written by VT Padmanabhan and Joseph Makkoli The second wave of Covid-19 that began in Jan 2021 is on the decline, as epidemiologists expect that the infection rates would reach the nadir in a month or so. The second wave can also be called as India wave as the pandemic grew much faster here. It can also be called as[Read More…]
Comrade Satnam or Gurmeet Singh was one of the most original thinkers in the ranks of the democratic revolutionary movement. Rarely in recent times could we meet a human being with such a degree of intelligence or sensitivity. I met him first in December in 2015 in Patiala, staying a night at his place. He was inactive politically being compelled[Read More…]
U.S. state Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) issued a declaration on Thursday that urges residents to pray for rain as the state experiences record drought. At least 90% of the state is currently experiencing “extreme” to “exceptional” drought, the two worst categories, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. “I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing[Read More…]
“Every man must have a philosophy of life, for everyone must have a standard by which to measure his conduct. And philosophy is nothing but a standard by which to measure”. -Dr. B.R. AMBEDKAR- The 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) State Assembly elections are getting closer. The BJP central leadership has already started deliberations. By hook or by crook, the BJP[Read More…]
Written by Dr. Rabiya Yaseen Bazaz & Professor Mohammad Akram Mental health is a state of well-being whereby individuals recognize their abilities, try to cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and make a contribution to their communities. According to World Health Organisation (WHO),mental, physical and social health are interwoven strands of life and as our[Read More…]
India is often mentioned as a success-story of rural decentralization which, to some extent , it is. All villages and even hamlets ( wards) have their elected members and headperson in place in panchayats, or elected village councils. Women have representation ranging from 33 per cent to 50 per cent. Weaker sections have reservations to ensure their election in reasonable[Read More…]
To create global awareness about the importance of a healthy environment, world environment day is celebrated every year on June 5. Also known as, Eco day or simply Environment day, world environment day was established by UN General Assembly in 1972. Its celebrations are theme-based and each year a particular theme is declared by United Nations. The theme of first-world[Read More…]
There is a growing call to save Lakshadweep islands from attempts to destroy them socially, culturally and ecologically. One of the key demands is for the government of India to recall the Administrator appointed in Lakshadweep immediately and ensure democratic rights to decision-making are held by the islanders. The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) condemned and opposed the recent[Read More…]
President Gotabaya’s compelling necessity to install a military dictator rule is due to many reasons, some of which can be listed as follows:- The military mindset of the President is also an underlying factor propelling and influencing his thinking. He has to put an end to the accusations of UNHRC, UN and other civil groups, namly the commission of war[Read More…]
Today, Germany is a major investor in Serbia and has a significant impact on strengthening the Serbian economy. Suffice it to say that 75,000 workers work in German companies in Serbia. The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has repeatedly stated in public that in a few years the number of Serbian workers in German companies in Serbia will exceed 100,000.[Read More…]
In 1996 India took a great step forward in terms of empowering rural tribal communities, a step which moreover was very much in continuity with Gandhian traditions of gram swaraj or village self-rule ( genuine decentralization based on justice and equality) and so India was a particularly good country for introducing such a step. This was in the form of[Read More…]
He is an old man, truly a very old man, and the sudden crashing into splintered smallness of his life is playing out on a tightrope, a fraying tightrope, sawed at along a razor’s edge. Tense he is and dread-beset between vulnerable tears and collapse and imploding rage. He is an old man clutching his palsy hands, with a broken[Read More…]
The murderous founding of the state of Israel at the cost of Arab and Jewish lives was brought about by the torching of Palestine into permanent civil war precipitated by an illegal and sham incendiary partition resolution forced through a incomplete incipient UN by American pressure and threats.[1] The resolution embodying a preposterous UN plan of dividing Palestine into seven[Read More…]
The special theme of the World Environment Day observed on June 5 relates this year to the restoration of ecosystems, certainly a subject of very great importance in times of so much ecological ruin. It is even more encouraging, and of more durable value, that the United Nations has declared 2021-30 to be the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration and[Read More…]
Developments on the world stage are stunning. Almost every day, geopolitical incidents and moves are appearing magical. The developments are challenging the Empire’s geopolitics in regions. Months ago, the Empire gave an impression that it’ll regain ground whatever has been lost, prestige that slipped down from its crown. Immediate moves were taken, at least for public view. Those were image-rebuilding[Read More…]
National Alliance of People’s Movements Strongly Condemns BJP’s Authoritarian Maneuvers to Destroy Lakshadweep Socially and Ecologically The Union Government must Recall their Administrator immediately and Ensure democratic rights to decision-making are held by the Islanders 4th June, 2021: National Alliance of People’s Movements condemns and opposes the recent measures brought in and proposed by the Lakshadweep Union Territory Administrator, Praful[Read More…]
I have never before detested a character like Sudhakaran in THIMIRAM (Cataract) in my movie-watching experience! And, that’s irreconcilable by all means. Actor K K Sudhakaran confuses the audience by calling the lead character the same name through a film, THIMIRAM, recently released on an OTT platform, NeeStream. K K Sudhakaran is not an actor new to Mollywood movies but[Read More…]
A group of 126 Nobel laureates and other experts on Thursday called on the leaders of the G7 nations and the United Nations secretary-general to help put the global community on a path to establishing “a new relationship with the planet,” as the world continues to battle the Covid-19 pandemic and faces a coming decade which will be “decisive” in determining[Read More…]
Sputnik V has already been soft launched in India on May 14 as part of a pilot study with a top official of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories receiving the first jab in India. ..Single-dose Sputnik Light could be first single-dose vaccine launched in India. The biggest commercial consignment of Sputnik-V vaccines arrived in Hyderabad on june 1, at 3:40 am with[Read More…]
To Shri Rajiv Gauba Cabinet Secretary Govt of India Dear Shri Gauba, The Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy 21-4-2021 (PANCVS) notified by the Union Health Ministry has given a free license to the vaccine manufacturers to set prices arbitrarily, ostensibly in a transparent manner, as indicated in Para 8(ii) below. “Manufacturers would in a transparent manner make[Read More…]
To Shri Arjun Munda, Minister of Tribal Affairs, Government of India Subject: Covid-19, lock down and health crisis in Adivasi areas – urgent intervention called for Dear Sir, We, a group of concerned citizens engaged with Adivasis and their organisations submitted an assessment report to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in May 2020 highlighting the problems that Adivasis and other[Read More…]
At a time when there is perhaps more need than ever before in human history for re-establishing and reasserting the protective relationship between nature and people , the Narmada Bachao Aandolan (NBA—Save the Narmada River and Its People Movement) in Central-Western India sought to accomplish this in very meaningful ways with continuity extending over several decades. The peaceful movement was[Read More…]
There is an increasing realization that the mobilization of people on environmental issues will be increasingly important in the days and years to come. Left to themselves the world leadership will be unable to make some of the most important changes in time. So a considerable strengthening of environmental movement all over the world with a clearer vision and proper[Read More…]
The pandemic- tobacco is killing around 40 lakh people every year in India alone, while corona killed 3.29 lakh only so far from first and second waves. There was an interesting question before Supreme Court, whether a person has a right to die. That led to another question whether ‘life’ includes ‘death’. What is life? The line between two dots[Read More…]
A must see movie for all Americans is ” Inherit the Wind” ( 1960, Stanley Kramer, Director). To those who never saw this film, it accurately portrays the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial of substitute high school teacher John Scopes was for breaking Tennessee’s Butler Act, which forbade the teaching of evolution in state funded schools.[Read More…]
Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Imran stepping his first foot into the arena of test cricket, at Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham.It was reminiscent of Amitabh Bacchan flashing on the Hindi film screen for the first time, where he hardly even looked a shadow of his later self. It would have been very hard for anyone to gauge[Read More…]
Now that we’re all unmasking and the economy seems set to roar into the 2020s, what will we remember about how disastrously, how malignantly, the Trump administration behaved as the pandemic took hold? And will anyone be held to account for it? The instinct to forget pandemics, as I’ve pointed out when it came to the 1918 “Spanish flu,” has historically been[Read More…]
The following observations tell at least one aspect of the reality yet dominated by the Empire. Bonnie Kristian, fellow at Defense Priorities, writes in Business Insider (“Bashar Assad’s inevitable presidential victory is another sign of the limits on the US’s power”, June 2, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/bashar-assads-inevitable-presidential-victory-is-another-sign-of-the-limits-on-the-uss-power/amp_articleshow/83175304.cms): “For the United States, Assad’s re-election should be a reiteration of the great foreign-policy lesson[Read More…]
There have been reports that Denmark’s military agency has helped the United States to spy, on leading European politicians, including Angela Merkel. The European Union is now demanding answers. Danmarks Radio, a Danish public broadcaster, said that US National Security Agency (NSA), whose alleged tapping of Merkel’s phone was made known by Edward Snowden in 2013, also used Danish Defense[Read More…]
On May 5 Supreme Court quashed Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act (SEBC Act) of 2018, providing reservation to Maratha community in public services and educational institutions. This judgement is significant in multiple ways thanks to the increasing lobbying power of reservation politics, both at centre and state. After the Indira Sawhney verdict of 1992, this[Read More…]
For the past six years, we have been told that India has got a strong government with a strong leader. The measurements of the Prime Minister’s chest became the centre of a political strategy that emphasised, what some saw as, his political strength and to resolve issues with an iron-fist approach. The onslaught of the pandemic and its consistent mismanagement[Read More…]
On 25 May 2021, the Indian Bar Association (IBA) served a 51-page legal notice on Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), for “her act of spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfil her agenda.” The Mumbai-based IBA is an association of lawyers who strive to bring transparency and accountability[Read More…]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday made a rare and what they called “extraordinary” plea for international cooperation and investment. “By now it has become abundantly clear there will be no broad-based recovery without an end to the health crisis,” the four bodies said in a joint statement.[Read More…]
In conditions of high land inequalities, how can benefits of irrigation be taken to weaker sections? Generally the biggest, more powerful and resourceful landowners also try to grab more water. Even if due care is taken to ensure that the smaller farmers are not left out, not much can be done if most of the village households are landless workers.[Read More…]
Orwellian domination by Zionists and the Zionist-beholden US means that the Mainstream media of the so-called “Free World” of Western US Alliance countries (the Anglosphere and the EU NATO countries) are not so free when it comes to reportage on Apartheid Israel. By way of example, the Zionist-subverted Australian ABC (the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently officially[Read More…]
This morning, I woke up to two beep sounds of my instagram notification the vibration felt like a thunderbolt ringing my lousy brain cells in bleak mid-dawn. I immediately unlocked my phone, the notification panel was all jammed with posts on a trending campaign #notallmen. By the time I flipped my quilt, partially hanging on the edge of my bed[Read More…]
It has been revealed in recently released statistics that over 8700 persons died on railway tracks during 2020. Officials have also stated that most of them are likely to be migrant workers walking along railway tracks while returning home. This is also confirmed by the fact that most of the passenger trains were cancelled during this year. Hence normally there[Read More…]
Pune, Maharashtra:“People are not ready to go to the local government hospital to get treated for Corona. They think that from there the doctor will send them to the district hospital in Amravati, where there will be no treatment. They will only get sick and die. Even their dead body will be secretively disposed by the officers and family members[Read More…]
A pandemic crisis. A state of emergency. Overwhelming public opinion bristling with alarm. Notwithstanding these factors, Tokyo is still on track to host the Olympics that was cancelled last year in response to the global pandemic. The first sports team – Australia’s softball crew – has touched down. Is all this folly, bravery or self-interest? On a daily basis, the[Read More…]
The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and pointlessly begging for[Read More…]
The poetry of earth is never dead -John Keats This is Sanjiv Bhatla’s maiden collection of poems. He has several authoritative and scholarly works on religious and spiritual subjects also to his credit. His poems are equally brilliant and bear out the finer sensibilities in him. His anthology was originally published by Orient Longman (now Orient Black Swan).It has now[Read More…]
Global economy was on its knees, as trade ramifications from Suez Canal started to appear when the trade artery in Egypt was blocked, almost for a week, after a giant container ship, called Evergreen, owned by the Taiwanese company, Evergreen Marine ran around on the bank, of the canal, after apparently being deviated by high winds, on 23 March 2021.[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a film maker, cartoonist, writer and an activist GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
On May 31, 2021, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is reported to have served a show- cause notice on the former West Bengal Chief Secretary, Alapan Bandopadhyay, for not attending a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, under a stringent provision of the Disaster Management Act that entails imprisonment up to two years. Bandopadhyay had been found fault[Read More…]
We, the members of various Human Rights Organisations and Concerned individuals, condemn the appointment of former SC Judge, Shri Arun Kumar Mishra, as the next Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India by the selection Committee headed by the Prime Minister. What is troubling is that the decision to appoint Justice Arun Kumar Mishra as NHRC Head[Read More…]
Traditional Wisdom and Community Involvement Contribute Best to Saving Precious Drops of Water While the need for rainwater harvesting is now very widely recognized, the results achieved at many places are not very good. Hence there is much to learn from the experience of those organizations which have achieved high levels of success and repute in such efforts. Quite often[Read More…]
The second wave in recent weeks has overwhelmed the healthcare system, leaving hospitals and people both struggling to cope with critical drugs and oxygen in short supply. The situation now seems a little under control with infections slowing down. Pandemic has revealed a lot of mismanagement on the part of the government. Many sections of the society have skipped the[Read More…]
The union government has stated that it will be giving very high priority to its schemes to provide tap water to all homes. It has been claimed that this work has been progressing well in the middle of all the recent problems at record levels. In addition the government has stated that this will be supported by increase in adequate[Read More…]
The working conditions of labor during industrial revolution was characterized by long working hours (12-16 hour shifts), low wages, unsafe working conditions and lack of worker rights. The labor movements which arose articulated for a need to improve the conditions of labor. The demands included the need to have freedom to form association, collective bargaining, having free labor, equal pay,[Read More…]
Garkhal is a small settlement which is part of a panchayat area yet has strong orientation towards urban life, being located close to the famous tourist resort of Kasauli. Here about 40 persons have been earning their livelihood from travel related activities, including taxis, pick-ups , private buses etc. There has been very little work in pandemic times for them[Read More…]
Written by Thomas Klikauer and Catherine Link At the end May 2021, Australian media reported on a multinational company receiving a $121 million contract to keep asylum seekers locked away on a remote island of Papua New Guinea (PNG) for good. Ever since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and even more so since Karl Marx’s Value, Price and Profits (1865),[Read More…]
In June 1971, exactly 50 years ago at Edgbaston cricket ground at Birmingham in England, the bespectacled Zaheer Abbas gave the first flash of his illustrious cricketing career .His monumental 274 was amongst cricket’s classics taking aestheticism to regions of the sublime. For nine hours, ten minutes spectators were virtually put into a trance witnessing the glorious strokes all around[Read More…]
Sold under the pretence of a quest for optimising well-being and ‘happiness’, capitalism thrives on the exploitation of peoples and the environment. What really matters is the strive to maintain viable profit margins. The prevailing economic system demands ever-increasing levels of extraction, production and consumption and needs a certain level of annual GDP growth for large firms to make sufficient profit.[Read More…]
The 294-seated West Bengal Assembly Elections were held in 8 phases from March 27 to April 29, 2021. It was a three-cornered fight amongst All India Trinamool Congress seeking a third term, Congress and Left front fighting together (collectively called the Sanjukta Morcha), and BJP hoping to make its mark in the Eastern state. While TMC struggled to retain their[Read More…]
“Cow dung, cow urine didn’t work. Groundless argument. Tomorrow I will eat fish”. In mid-May this year, this simple Facebook post about the futility of bovine waste as a cure for Covid-19, was enough to get Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a journalist from Imphal, Manipur arrested for ‘sedition’ . The post upset members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it came[Read More…]
Unfounded or unconfirmed charges of antisemitism made by US pro-Israel organizations which are then parroted by the pro-Zionist US mainstream press, always increase when Israeli actions become so hideous they shame even some of its most dedicated supporters. With the latest Israeli shelling of Gaza, its evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, and the continuing Israeli[Read More…]
Russophobia and Sinophobia are so widely prevalent among the US foreign policy elite… Despite US statements against Kremlin or Beijing…highlighted by Indian media… Neither China nor Russia regards that the US is qualified to speak to them from a position of strength. Biden has outlined that his foreign policy vision will be domestically driven and linked to the American middle[Read More…]
It seems appropriate that the 2020-2021 school year in Portland, Oregon, began amid toxic smoke from the catastrophic wildfires that blanketed many parts of the state for almost two weeks. The night before the first day of school, the smoke alarm in my bedroom went off. Looking back, I see it as a clarion call, a shrieking, beeping warning of all the[Read More…]
Bernie Sanders was not so favoured and fashionable at the international stage, until he ran for the Democratic presidential election nomination in 2016. The 2016 election was also remarkable in terms of the opposition he gained. However, his overly left wing political assertiveness struck a chord with the Democratic American youth, and other disenchanted voters, who believed that America was[Read More…]
Several regions of acute water-scarcity have emerged in India and during summer these expend to a much wider area. Droughts are also becoming more frequent and this has added to water scarcity, sometimes for very prolonged periods. While the creation of new sanitation facilities in villages is less than what is often claimed, still to the extent that these[Read More…]
In face of the current intersectional crisis brought by the second wave of Covid-19, PM Modi tends to maintain his charisma and authority by following the Machiavellian politics of shedding off the blame for bad deeds and taking credit for the achievements. Modi government is trying to play dual card to save its image from the Covid-19 crisis. Firstly by[Read More…]
How Image text to speech conversion (ITTS) technology can be used to help voters with disability in seeing verify their cast votes Section 11 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, states that the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commissions shall ensure that all polling stations are accessible to persons with disabilities and all materials[Read More…]
Monsoon rains are likely to hit India’s southern coast around June 3, largely in line with typical patterns, the state-run India Meteorological Department said in its latest revised forecast on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the weather office had said the start of the monsoon would be on May 31. The leading edge of the southwest monsoon advanced across central[Read More…]
The genome of the oppressor lies in the oppressed. Once the oppressed gets the power and privilege he too becomes the oppressor. The bitter experience of oppression and the memory it leaves in the subconscious mind serve as fertile ground for the oppressed to turn oppressor when the equations change. In the absence of reforms and education, the origin of oppression remain[Read More…]
“Cultivation of the Mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence” – said Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Well, what could be more stimulating and productive than art? The art of creating something, where the brain intercepts an idea and grows it into a manifold entity. Whether it’s writing an article, a poem, a story or making a painting, a[Read More…]
Posing the Question This year marks the 57th anniversary of Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1964). This text, although plagued with a pessimistic spirit, was a great source of inspiration for the development of the New Left and the May 68 uprisings. The question we must ask ourselves is whether a text that predates the last 50 years of neoliberalism has[Read More…]
Places have left their mark in the historical narrative – Lidice, where the Nazis, in the late spring of 1942, executed 173 men from the Czech village in reprisal for the assassination of Deputy of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich; Wounded Knee, where, on December 29, 1890, a dispute between soldiers from the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment and an arrested band of[Read More…]
THE HOLY DAY & SANCTITY OF THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY Memorial Day is traditionally all about recognizing and keeping alive the supreme sacrifices of all the world’s fallen men, women and children warriors who once put themselves and their lives on the line, and ended up paying the ultimate price – their very existence in this world. On that[Read More…]
Dear sisters, We write this in deep anguish and fear. We fear for our community, the land we belong to and a special way of life. We live in one of the islands in the U.T of Lakshadweep which is very much in the news for the wrong and most cruel details . We should be in the news for[Read More…]
For 3 continuous days under the tutelage of the Bharatiya Kisan Union(Ugrahan) farmers demanding adequate arrangements for health facilities for the people related to the Corona epidemic, lit the spark of resistance at it’s optimum magnitude. The venue literally resembled the convocation of a huge army battalion making the impact f a Tsunami.It was a spectacle for anyone to witness[Read More…]
Men, masculinities, and gender equality 
EU Warns After Russia Plans To Place Tactical Nuclear Weapon In Belarus 
A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells 
Media and the March to War 
The Basic Issue is not of Taking Sides in Superpower Rivalry, it is of Durable Peace to Save Earth’s Life 
The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell 
“…I want poetry to be detonated like a bomb!” -Nathalie Quintane 
Bundelkhand Must Choose its Priorities Carefully 
Citizenship: Beyond the Forked Vision 
Caste-wise census is necessary for balanced development 
Tribal woman murdered after rape in Rohtas and strong protest demanding punishment of culprits 
Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today 
Labor in market, and the mainstream economics 
Serbia Shall Never Forget NATO Aggression, Vows Serb President 
Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy 
The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution 
The Contemporary Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg 
Does Court Judgement on Rahul Gandhi Breach Human Rights (Freedom of Expression) 
From Oslo to Sharm el-Sheik 
Is Washington now Khan’s Buddy? 
Nord Stream sabotage was to undercut Germany, says Seymour Hersh It Will Be Hard And Cost A Lot Of Blood For Ukraine To Kick Out Russians, Says Top U.S. General 
Saudi – Iran rapprochement: A chance for peace 
Day 30 of the NREGA Protest: Students and Activists Detained by the Delhi Police An Irrational Verdict? 
Trump Rot at the EPA 
AUKUS, the Australian Labor Party, and Growing Dissent 
Palestinians Don’t Exist? 
The Long Arm of Washington Extends Into Africa’s Sahel 
Radio Fatherland!! 
Bellies of the Rich Swell Further on the Back of Hunger 
The Big Picture And The Small – Part II 
2500 people urge Chief Minister of Karnataka to protect farmers, pastoralists and Dalits from Supreme injustice 
Our Global Water Crisis 
3.5 Million March Across France Opposing Macron’s Pension Reform 
Election Commission of India must question the presence political nominees on BEL’s and ECIL’s Boards 
Ihan Omar Introduces Legislation to Combat Islamophobia 
Narendra Modi’s Cricket Coup 
The Big Picture And The Small 
Prophesies, Then and Now – My Life at World’s End 
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…]
A Second Wave of India’s Emergency
Why should a country in the grip of a deadly wave of Covid-19, with people dying all around, remember the Emergency, a nationwide suspension of democracy, that happened almost half a century ago? One simple but somewhat trite answer is, those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. A follow up is ‘Oops! We learned nothing from[Read More…]