The bad news stemming from the ill-planned and ill-managed U.S. evacuation of the Afghan capital just kept coming in. The Washington Post put it this way in blowing the whistle on the culminating disaster: “U.S. military admits ‘horrible mistake’ in Kabul drone strike that killed 10 Afghans.” Following the August 26th terrorist attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport that took the lives of 13[Read More…]
A new vice chancellor has been appointed in Delhi University (DU) after a wait of six months. Prof. Yogesh Singh will conduct the affairs of DU from the vice chancellor office. His predecessor Prof. Yogesh Tyagi, in the last phase of his tenure met with a serious illness. Unfortunately, at such a time he also became a victim of[Read More…]
A film on struggles of slum-dwellers, won the first top international award for India Much before the advent of the new wave in Indian cinema, during the decade of the 1950s several films of great social commitment which reflected the ideals of the freedom movement. However what is even more remarkable is that even before independence, braving the even higher[Read More…]
Songs That Reflect The Political Consciousness Of The People During Revolutionary Times Of Telangana Peasants’ Armed Struggle (1946-51) By MA Krishna and S. Jatin Kumar Photo (by Sunil Jena): Peasant Revolutionaries of Telangana 1946-51: Training in arms and drill. Telangana people’s armed struggle (1946-51) spawned a huge literature in Telugu, particularly hundreds of songs and stories. A few novels too[Read More…]
Pope Francis thanked a youth climate activist conference on Wednesday for the participants’ “dreams and projects of goodness” and encouraged them to keep up their advocacy of action to combat climate change. Speaking in Spanish via video to the Youth4Climate event in Milan, which drew 400 young activists from 197 countries, the Pope said their work is “for the good of humanity,”[Read More…]
Love jihad is a highly debated topic in India today. Whenever the issue starts to peter out someone will come up with a statement or an action to bring it back to the limelight. The latest being Pala Bishop’s controversial statement about both love jihad and narcotics jihad. Narcotics jihad is something that was hitherto unheard of , the credit[Read More…]
When I was growing up in Kolkata, every monsoon the streets would get flooded. I remember looking forward to the days when school would get cancelled and I would get to stay home and watch cartoons. I would look out from the balcony to see life carrying on, people wading through sometimes waist-deep murky brown water. Somehow it all still[Read More…]
Before describing possible features of a future ecosocialism, it is worthwhile to consider why such a system is even needed. Why can’t the problems that ecosocialism would solve also be remedied within the current global capitalist system? Part I of this essay addresses that question by summarizing recent scientific reports on the state of the climate and extent of the[Read More…]
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has written yet another opinion piece in the Washington Post, sensing a turning point lies ahead with the Biden Administration assembling a sustainable, durable policy toward Afghanistan taking into account the new reality of the Taliban government. Quintessentially, Imran Khan revisited his argument in the earlier WaPo piece in July where he had concluded: “I believe that promoting economic[Read More…]
If there was any reason to halt a farcical train of legal proceedings, then the case against Julian Assange would have to be the standard bearing example. Since last year, the efforts by the US government to pursue his extradition to the vicious purgatory of American justice has seen more than a fair share of obscene revelations. While prosecutors for[Read More…]
On September 25, 2021, Afghanistan’s Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammad Hanif said that his government does not want “help and cooperation from the world like the previous government. The old system was supported by the international community for 20 years but still failed.” It is fair to say that Hanif has no experience in running a complex economy, since he has spent[Read More…]
An urgent task is awaiting us: considering the progression of events, we must quickly liberate ourselves from the limits and confines placed on the Afghanistan discourse, which have been imposed by US-centered Western propaganda for over 20 years, and counting. A first step is that we must not allow the future political discourse pertaining to this very subject to remain[Read More…]
The UN Secretary General His Excellency Mr. Antonio Guterres in his September 2020 document titled United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech said: “Fighting hate, discrimination, racism and inequality is at the core of United Nations principles and the Organization’s work…Hate speech, including online, has become one of the most frequent methods for spreading divisive and discriminatory[Read More…]
The Piramals are the in-laws of the Mukesh Ambani family. This article has for its reference point a new high rise luxury building recently built by the Piramals in Mumbai. The capture of textile mill land by capitalists and throwing out thousands of workers from central area in Mumbai is one of the biggest land scandals in modern India. I[Read More…]
Review of ‘ From ‘Nazneen to Naina’ “To get a name is one of the few things that cannot be bought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted.” – British writer Samuel Johnson ( 1709-1784) – poet, playwright, essayist, biographer, critic, editor The idea to be fascinated by individuals –[Read More…]
Two years ago, when Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro favorably promoted the idea of labor for children as young as eight or nine, his minister for Human Rights, Family, and Women shot back: “Let us be clear that for children to work is a violation of their rights, something that cannot be allowed.” The Brazilian National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of[Read More…]
What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not! I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this country’s 20-year-long Afghan nightmare. Where to begin (or end, for that[Read More…]
The political division in Palestinian society is deep-rooted, and must not be reduced to convenient claims about the ‘Hamas-Fatah split’, elections, the Oslo accords and subsequent disagreements. The division is linked to events that preceded all of these, and not even the death or incapacitation of the octogenarian, Mahmoud Abbas, will advance Palestinian unity by an iota. Palestinian political disunity[Read More…]
While the European Union votes to phase out animal research, the United States wants more. In the last two years, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has invested nearly $29 million to breed more monkeys for biomedical research, with an additional $7.5 million to be spent by October. The investments, which include infrastructure improvements at the U.S. National Primate Research[Read More…]
On 22 September 2020, André Vltchek, quietly passed away – on a night-ride from the Black Sea in Turkey to Istanbul, accompanied by his wife, Rossie. He just fell asleep in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car and didn’t wake up. His legacy is diverse, heavy in substance and revealing – revealing about the world, about the dark forces[Read More…]
At world level an increasing number of eminent doctors have been expressing anguish since the advent of COVID-19 that that they are under increasing pressure to work only in the narrow confines of what is imposed from above, and when they they try to act on the basis of the best of their judgment then they face undue opposition and[Read More…]
Whether PM-CARES did not care for RTI? We get this doubt because PMO refused to give information about the thousands of crores of rupees of public money given into the accounts of government-controlled PM CARES fund. An under-secretary of PMO in Government of India filed affidavit on behalf of PM CARES before Delhi High Court on September 23 and claimed[Read More…]
Afghanistan is now a hot issue among the world powers. China has talked to NATO while Russian Foreign Minister has said about a common approach by U.S., China, Russia and Pakistan. Media reports said: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has held a virtual meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, amid longstanding disagreements between[Read More…]
In an increasingly convoluted world of religions and cultures, it is imperative to develop and foster social harmony so as to meet the challenges posed by diversity. Recognizing religious diversity and differences is quite important today, and it is quite significant that all religions sustain and reinforce mutual understanding and empathy through dialogue. They also have an obligation to uphold[Read More…]
I do not generally opine on the internal affairs of any political party. Hence, I have no comments on the machinations of leadership change in Punjab and the strength or potential of the new leadership. I will only say that Captain Amarinder Singh, a veteran leader of about 80 years, was punished by the Congress high command for not visiting[Read More…]
Diminishing return as a concept- Unmixed blessing is a rarity. It is difficult to find in social science a concept that takes care of everything. The notion of intersectionality is one such case. It is supposed to be an advancement over social stratification categories like race, caste, class, gender. However, if we look closely, we can see that it has[Read More…]
September 28 is the 113th birth anniversary of the most loved and remembered freedom fighter of India Shahid Bhagat Singh. It is also the 30th death anniversary of Shahid Shankar Guha Niyogi. Subhash Chandra Bose while broadcasting his message to people of India from his Azad Hind Fauz camps had referred to Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of Nation ([Read More…]
The big take-away of Germany’s first election of the post-Merkel era is that none of the parties has ‘won’ and each of the parties has reason to look miserable and feel disappointed with their performance. A new political landscape is struggling to be born. For the ruling Christian Democrats [CDU], this has been their worst ever performance in post-war history, faring significantly[Read More…]
Today, September 28, is the 30th death anniversary of Comrade Shankar Guha Niyogi (February 14, 1943 – September 28, 1991). He was murdered by the agents of the capitalist class. He was just 48 years old! In spite of the efforts of good lawyers like Kannabiran, his murderers went unpunished because of the collusion between the state, bureaucracy and judiciary[Read More…]
The 48th UN Human Rights Council’s sessions has evoked much interest for Sri Lanka’s Human Rights activists and Government coupled with mixed signals from the Human Rights Commissioner. While the Commissioner appreciates Sri Lanka’s moves which are apparently opportunistic and face saving farcical measures, she has also issued a warning to Sri Lanka that it will remain in the watch[Read More…]
Even as the fear of the third Covid wave lingers, for the sex workers in Kolkata and other districts of Bengal, life is just about limping back to a fragmented, broken and incomplete sense of ‘normalcy’. This is but a semblance of normalcy, coming as it does after a prolonged period of hardship and difficulty. A ‘sense of normalcy’, which[Read More…]
‘China eyes on Afghan copper’, ‘Pakistan has become the mistress of China’, ‘Britain is a lapdog of the America’, ‘France is furious over the submarine deal’, ‘India trying re-entry in Kabul through Iran via Russia’. The media across the globe has turned into a noisy circus with its fear-provoking news headlines. It is forcing many people to say goodbye to[Read More…]
An explosive investigative report by Yahoo News has revealed plans at the highest levels of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Trump administration to illegally kidnap or even assassinate WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange when he was an internationally recognised political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy. Based on discussions with more than 30 former US officials, the report alleges conduct on[Read More…]
A few videos surfaced from Darrang, Assam. In one of the videos, a poor man was seen running with a lathi in his hand towards the security forces. There were alteast ten armed men in uniform. He was alone. With angst in his eyes, he attacked the troops and then, the next movement, he was lying there, lifelessly. There was[Read More…]
To Shri Ram Nath Kovind President of India Respected Rashtrapati Ji, It has been widely reported ( https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cji-50-womens-reservation-judiciary-7535963/) that Shri N V Ramana, Chief Justice of India (CJI) has recently made a statement on the need for 50% reservation for women in the judiciary. He is reported to have made the following observations on the subject, while addressing the Lady Advocates[Read More…]
President Joe Biden began his presidency with a promise to confront Saudi Arabia and treat the murderous regime as a “pariah.” In particular, he pledged to end “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” Yet nearly eight months later little has changed. The president undercut his initial promise when he said “We’re going to[Read More…]
Given the state of the Indian media today, it is difficult to cut through the Indian-American rhetoric from a distance of 10,000 kilometres and get a rounded view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States and his meeting with President Biden. So much has changed since Modi last visited America two years ago. India has changed, America[Read More…]
As a parting shot, on its way out of Afghanistan, the United States military launched a drone attack that the Pentagon called a “righteous strike.” The final missile fired during 20 years of occupation, that August 29th airstrike averted an Islamic State car-bomb attack on the last American troops at Kabul’s airport. At least, that’s what the Pentagon told the[Read More…]
One of the problems with capitalism is that it is driving us towards disaster. Greed is good? Adam Smith (1723-1790) maintained that individual self-interest can and should be the principle guiding our economic behavior . He told the readers of his book “The Wealth of Nations”, that, as if guided by an invisible hand, individual self-interest leads to the general[Read More…]
Every little girl has a dream A dream to study, a dream to play, A dream to dance, a dream to fly, A dream[Read More…]
Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers By Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-64259-124-8 Paperback Like many of you, I use an iPhone. It is a technological wonder and allows me to do things unimaginable even a few years ago; it has more computer power than NASA had[Read More…]
In recent decades India has heard a lot about such appealing, consoling programs like the Ganga Action Plan, the Yamuna Action Plan, the National River Conservation Plan and finally Namami Gange. So it is all the more disturbing to know from recent reports and other indicators that the problem of river pollution remains serious, endangering health of human beings and[Read More…]
Review of “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State” by Samuel Stein. Verso, 2019. Real Estate is the world’s largest asset class. The numbers are staggering- globally, real estate in aggregate is worth approximately $230 trillion. Of this, residential real estate is the majority player, worth approximately $180 trillion. This far exceeds the value of all stocks and is[Read More…]
Friends and Family of Sudha Bharadwaj are extremely worried over the alarming and disturbing news of the rising Covid-19 infection in Byculla women’s jail forcing the authorities to seal the premise. Last week, in a prison supervised phone conversation Koel Sen had with her mother Shoma Sen, former professor of English from Nagpur University, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case[Read More…]
October 2, this year,is not only observed as the birthday of Gandhi, it is also a World Ostomy Day. Ostomy is an artificial opening during operation in the organ of the body such as a colostomy, ileostomy or gastrostomy , a stoma. Ostomy surgery is a life saving procedure that allows bodily waste pass through a surgically created stoma on[Read More…]
The Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India –Marxist-Leninist (UCCRI -ML) supports the call for a Bharat Bandh on September 27, 2021, given by the various farmers’ organizations to oppose the Modi Government’s farm laws. It is clear to one and all that the Modi Government’s policies are meant to favour big business houses and big landlords to amass huge[Read More…]
Withdrawal of US army from Afghanistan has led to the Taliban coming to power. The scene created in Afghanistan has been very disturbing. The minorities trying to flee, the Muslims attempting to leave the country desperately have made a sad spectacle. This has drawn global attention to the phenomenon in Afghanistan. The past record of Taliban rule is flashing in[Read More…]
Today, September 26, 2021, is World Rivers Day. World Rivers Day is a global celebration of the world’s waterways, observed every year on the last Sunday in September. Established in 2005, it highlights the many values of rivers and strives to increase public awareness while encouraging the improved stewardship of rivers around the world. Rivers in every country face an[Read More…]
By coincidence, perhaps, on the same day that President Biden hosted the first Quad summit, he also cleared the way for a senior executive of Huawei Technologies to return to Beijing — “removing one major irritant between the two superpowers,” as the New York Times put it. Meng Wanzhouthe’s release made headlines overshadowing the QUAD event. Beijing reciprocated instantly by releasing[Read More…]
Bhopal: Sundari, a wind-instrument is held in high regard among musicians of Maharashtra, as the younger sister of the better-known Shehnai. But sadly, the Sundari-organists in Solapur, are still reeling from the consequences of the pandemic trying out odd jobs to make ends meet after COVID-19 took a toll on their livelihood. “I tried to become an auto-driver a few[Read More…]
People squirm in unease when I refer to the legacy of Nazism while discussing present proponents of Hindutva.But once one sets aside quibbles the mindset of both camps cannot fail to strike one with their remarkable likeness. The fundamental generic unity lies in their deep discomfort with any strand of thought,culture or language that does not agree with their paradigm[Read More…]
Kamla Bhasin, who passed away in wee hours of Saturday, was a social scientist, development professional, poet, author and a stalwart of women’s movement in India and South Asia who advocated gender equality in every walk of life. Throughout her life she has been[Read More…]
India PM took part on Friday afternoon the White House Quad meeting. His relaxed face with smile and Biden’s hearty open smile in a WH photo can speak volumes. Or? The focussed Quad priorities on the rule of law, navigation and overflight freedom, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic values and territorial integrity of states and support for smaller states of[Read More…]
A new report, jointly issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) on work-related deaths for the year 2016, shows that workplace-related diseases and injuries led to the deaths of 1.9 million people in that year. The WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-Related Burden of Disease and Injury, 2000-2016, conducted before the outbreak of the[Read More…]
Kamla Bhasin passed away in the early hours today ( September 25 2021) at the age of 75. She will be remembered by many people and several organizations in South Asia (and elsewhere) to whom she reached out at several levels with many-sided contributions. She made valuable and original contributions to feminist thinking and theory, particularly in the context of[Read More…]
We, members of Ganatantrik Adhikar Surakhya Sangathan (Odisha), are deeply shocked and enraged with the vindictive attitude of the government of Odisha towards the tribals of the state. The government of Odisha has started hounding tribal leaders of Mali Hill defying statutory and constitutional provisions as well as time to time verdict of the Apex court. The arrests are happening[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister Subject: Promotion of decentralised solar electricity generation, in preference to large centralised solar generation projects To Shri Narendra D Modi Prime Minister Dear Shri Modi, Over the last few years, as a part of the global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change, India has rightly taken conscious strides towards a shift from fossil[Read More…]
Looks India is high on the weed of Hateriotism, every day there is one incident of Hate crime getting reported on social media but unfortunately, it gets comfortably ignored by the media in the mainstream. Saw one of the most horrific & depressing videos from #Assam. Where a Muslim poor man who wanted to save his land and home protested[Read More…]
Even a couple of days before it hapless Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, or anybody outside a charmed circle,had any idea that they will be set upon by hordes of murderers and hate=filled fanatics. Secrecy and suddenness are the basic elements of such mass assaults on life and property of victims of pogroms. Secrecy is no longer so important as[Read More…]
Like in a Wagnerian music drama, there is an associated melodic theme that accompanies the situations behind the two big regional developments last week — the announcement of the AUKUS, security alliance of three “maritime democracies” on September 15 and Iran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as full member on September 17. Both developments broke the glass ceiling. The[Read More…]
While we observe World Lung Day, let us also pay heed to the latest policy guidelines on one of the major preventable risk factors of deadliest of lung diseases: air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) has released its latest Air Quality Guidelines that after rigorous scientific review has lowered the maximum upper limit of six top deadly air pollutants.[Read More…]
On September 23 , in Gannaur area of Sonipat district, Haryana, the collpase of a roof led to 25 students of grade 3 getting injured. They were rushed to hospital. In addition three other persons including a teacher were injured too. This tragic incident has once again highlighted the need for significant improvement in safety conditions in school—governmet schools as[Read More…]
When we hear of “economic reform”, we think of policies that might make for greater growth and efficiency. However, what we often get is liberalization, privatization and globalization, all of which are aimed at facilitating large corporate players. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Agreements are not negotiated so much by sovereign nations as corporate interests. Farmers, workers[Read More…]
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, a co-founder of the Taliban who will control prisons under the new regime in Afghanistan, said strict punishment, including amputations and executions, will return. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said in Kabul during an interview, which was published Thursday by the[Read More…]
We are shaken and frozen. Is this the last sky? We can hardly gather words to write this. Assembling them to describe the heinousness of the crime we saw is both painful and difficult. On Thursday, a body, a Muslim body was not only gunned down in cold blood from a close range, but a government photographer, masked his[Read More…]
The AUKUS despite being coined a security partnership, is a nuclear arms deal aimed at increasing pressure against China and should be cause for concern On September 15, 2021, the heads of government of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the formation of AUKUS, “a new enhanced trilateral security partnership” between these three countries. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison[Read More…]
With that orange haired brute of a president supposedly ushered out of the White House with moralising delight, the Biden administration was all keen to turn over a new leaf. There would be more diplomacy, and still more diplomacy. There would be a more humanitarian approach to refugees and asylum seekers – forget, he claimed, the Border Wall. Kindness would[Read More…]
This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Covid, climate and biodiversity are among the topics they are expected to address. Indeed, on September 21, in his sobering yet passionate address to the assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres focused attention on all[Read More…]
The Palestinian political scene remains bleak. The status quo in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continues to be backed by the international community at the behest of the the Zionist regime, which is comfortable with having its cake and eating it too, and why shouldn’t it be? In March 2015, then Israeli economy minister Naftali Bennett even proposed[Read More…]
By October 5, 2021 English language life in India is 204 years. For the last few years the celebration of Indian English Day on that day is catching up. Ever since the first English medium school started in the then Calcutta in 1817 on October 5, India never allowed that language to die. It has been growing and growing not[Read More…]
As a religious studies professor, I know a parable when I see one. Consider the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the final events in this country’s war in Afghanistan as just such a parable taken directly from the history of our moment. The heart-wrenching last days of that war amounted to a cautionary tale about the nature of[Read More…]
Ambassador Atul Keshap’s meet with RSS’s Mohan Bhagwat “sent a terrible message,” says HRW’s Asia Advocacy Director “Meeting with the head of a paramilitary, ideologically-driven organization that promotes extraordinarily racist and, some might say, even autocratic ideas, is highly troubling,” declared Human Rights Watch’s Asia Advocacy Director John Sifton in regards to US Ambassador Atul Keshap’s 8 September 2021 meeting[Read More…]
Global food prices have risen 33 percent in the last 12 months, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Basic staples such as vegetable oil, grains and meat have shown some of the highest increases. Coming on top of the economic catastrophe visited on billions by the pandemic, these pressures will fuel inflation making it difficult for[Read More…]
Hundreds of environment defenders have been murdered in countries. Environment defenders face lethal attacks and violence. Global Witness in Last Line of Defence report said: In 2020, we recorded 227 lethal attacks – an average of more than four people a week – making it once again the most dangerous year on record for people defending their homes, land and[Read More…]
On September 9th the world commemorated the 45th death anniversary of Chairman Mao Tse Tung. His spirit virtually engulfed the entire globe penetrating the hearts of the opressed masses in depth unparalleled by any political leader. His path breaking experiments defined a new epoch in mankind. The era is still that of Lenin’s or that of Imperialism but is Mao[Read More…]
On May 4th of 2021, as the second wave of COVID-19 raged in the hills of Darjeeling, a group of youth came up with an initiative called “We Shall Overcome” to lead their community in the battle against the pandemic. COVID-19 had scorched the Darjeeling hills creating panic among the people, especially rural areas of the hilly district where medical[Read More…]
Zakaria Zubeidi is one of six Palestinian prisoners who, on September 6, tunneled their way out of Gilboa, a notorious, high-security Israeli prison. Zubeidi was recaptured a few days later. The large bruises on Zubeidi’s face told a harrowing story, that of a daring escape and of a violent arrest. However, the story does not begin, nor end, there. Twenty[Read More…]
![The UK Carrier Strike Group 2021, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, departing the UK [Credit: Royal Navy/Flickr]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/AUKUS-200x150.jpg "How AUKUS May Damage NATO 157")
The fallout over the AUKUS deal, as we are now seeing, has been a severe rift in relations between two historic allies, the U.S. and France. And the collateral damage may also include NATO. Only weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden courageously ended the war in Afghanistan—in the face of bitter opposition from the media and Congress—came the announcement of the formation of AUKUS,[Read More…]
Scenes of thousands of Afghans flooding the Kabul International Airport to flee the country as Taliban fighters were quickly consolidating their control over the capital, raised many questions, leading amongst them: who are these people and why are they running away? In the US and other Western media, answers were readily available: they were mostly ‘translators’, Afghans who ‘collaborated’[Read More…]
Just a few days ago, the international human-rights groups called INVESTIGATE PH released its final report on the Philippine State’s violations of civil and political human rights aggravated by the lack of domestic remedies to address widespread abuses by the Duterte regime. The first six months of 2021 witnessed an unprecedented rampage of extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests, disappearances, and[Read More…]
The fridays for future organisation that cropped up from worldwide student protest launch first by a lone Swedish girl student of Class IX, Greta Thunberg starting from August-September 2018, has called for a Global Climate Strike on coming Friday, September 24, 2021. For millions of Farmers and Farm labourers in India who are in the 10-month continuing protest sit-in around[Read More…]
It is now one year since controversial farm bills were passed into law in India in September 2020. The three bills and the subsequent legislation have triggered a massive 15-month farmers’ protest that has attracted worldwide attention and support. Farmers, farmers’ unions and their representatives demand that the laws be repealed and state that they will not accept a[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies President Biden addressed the UN General Assembly on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a “point of no return,” and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. “We will lead not just with the example of our power but, God willing,[Read More…]
In a day when America is ruling over a global Empire maintained with violent enforcement to insure universal subordination to its will; and in a day when a military-style domestic police state relentlessly makes sure anti-government protest and dissent is contained, the patriarchal part of that America has been enhanced and strengthened. Feminist movements have launched long, fierce struggles[Read More…]
Everyone agrees that we should get adequate adequate vitamins in our food. But supposing someone first removes the vitamins in your natural food and then asks you to pay extra for artificially putting the vitamins back in this food then what will be your reaction? Surely you will protest against this, and your protest will be all the louder if[Read More…]
NDCW-National Dalit Christian Watch- expresses it deep anguish and displeasure against the recent unwarranted, unethical and un-Christian remark made by the Bishop of Pala, Mar Joseph Kallarangat of the Syro Malabar Church that ‘Narcotics Jihad is being used to lure Christian Youth’. This disparaging remark has caused, not only an unprecedented controversy in the socio – religio- political spheres of[Read More…]
The second half of the thirties for the Weimar Republic in Germany was marked by both aspirations and apprehensions.The rise of the Nazis,with the connivance at their political thuggery by the police,did arouse anxiety,but Hitler as yet had not earned his evil charisma.The largest group in parliament were the Social Democrats,who were denounced as ‘social fascists’ simply for not joining[Read More…]
The ongoing wildfires in California are again threatening the state’s millennia-old giant sequoia (also known as giant redwood) trees in central California. The most immediate danger is from the KNP Complex, a recent merging of the recently sparked Paradise Fire and Colony Fire, which has grown to 25,142 acres and is 0 percent contained. The wild land blaze has already[Read More…]
Heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires are devastating communities around the world, and they will only grow more severe. While climate-change deniers remain powerful, the need for urgent action is now recognized well beyond activist circles. Governments, international organizations, and even business and finance are bowing to the inevitable—or so it seems. In fact, the world has wasted decades tinkering with[Read More…]
A business bad in standard of business has been done, and the business involves the World Bank (WB) and China. Media reports said: Some investors and campaigners expressed dismay on September 17, 2021 at revelations that the WB leaders pressured staff to boost China’s score in an influential report that ranks countries on how easy it is to do business[Read More…]
Many parts of the world observed today, September 22, as the international car-free day, a day for freedom and safety for pedestrians. The United Nations has supported priority for pedestrians. But the Indian government is busy encouraging cars, it has just announced a productivity linked incentive (PLI) scheme to subsidise the industry to the tune of thousands of crores of[Read More…]
As York prepares to welcome Afghan refugees, housing is becoming a critical issue. It is not that York lacks rental housing, but rather that it lacks affordable housing, a particular problem for people who will likely have left their country with nothing. This article seeks to offer an alternative solution and to investigate ways and means of welcoming more refugees[Read More…]
Does the death penalty work ? Or is it an anachronism which is long past its “use by” date ? But still continues to remain in use ? According to Amnesty International, there are 106 countries where use of the death penalty is not allowed by law and 8 countries which permit the death penalty only for serious crimes in[Read More…]
Respected journalist Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces is imperative reading for its detonating exposé of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan and the systematic cover-ups at varying levels of the Australian Defence Force operations. Willacy’s window on war crimes is narrow, focusing on three SAS members of Squadron 3; Soldier A, Soldier B and Soldier C who murdered in chilling bloodlust innocent Afghan farmers in 2012. It[Read More…]
Today, September 22 is the World Car Free Day. It is celebrated in many cities around the world to create awareness about how our locality will look and feel like without cars. It started on an ad hoc basis after the 1973 oil crisis. Only in 2000 it became a self-standing day held on September 22. On this day a[Read More…]
Instead of restoring the degraded Sukhatal, developmental authorities are converting the alive wetland into a dead swimming pool, thereby killing its wetland status forever and creating deadly repercussions for the Nainital Town. A wetland restoration project is expected to repair a degraded wetland back to its original and healthy condition. For this, the wetland is modified without disrupting its original[Read More…]
India has established an elaborate three-tier system of decentralisation known as Panchayati Raj. This is in tune with the three tier administrative system of village panchayat, block and district level. However some changes in this system have been overdue. Before making some important suggestions this writer will like to clarify that no retrenchment or loss of job ( or even[Read More…]
As the weeks long birthday festivity of the leadership is rejoiced country wide, the covid is still raging. The carnival is in line with the post covid decisions and actions of the leadership demonstrating a pursuit of personal power and glory instead of national interest in the times of disease and death. The national interest, a term synonymous with the[Read More…]
Raju’s death and version of suicide, in Telangana on September16 , is questioned by human rights activists, women groups, public spirited lawyers as also by the mother and wife of the killed suspect. It may not be just a coincidence, but dead body was found within a day after a Minister declared that certainly the suspect will be ‘encountered’ following[Read More…]
From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world was officially launched on Tuesday, September 21 at the Press Club of the Union Territory. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on her film career so far, and what she has faced[Read More…]
The costs and consequences of America’s twenty-first-century wars have by now been well-documented — a staggering $8 trillion in expenditures and more than 380,000 civilian deaths, as calculated by Brown University’s Costs of War project. The question of who has benefited most from such an orgy of military spending has, unfortunately, received far less attention. Corporations large and small have left the[Read More…]
The world stands at a critical juncture of the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries that lack the first round of vaccine coverage are extraordinarily vulnerable to the highly infectious Delta variant, and are also seedbeds for new variants that could quickly spread worldwide. The Lancet COVID-19 Commission, which I chair, is working urgently with the United Nations system to strengthen the multilateral response.[Read More…]
Recent decision of the United Kingdom (UK) to consider fully vaccinated Indians along with some other nationalities as ‘unvaccinated’ lacks scientific merit and instead stinks of white supremacy and apartheid era. It is important to mention that 90% of the vaccines rolled out in India are Covishield. Covishield vaccine, is Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, whose research was done by UK based[Read More…]
Comrade Gananath Patro contributed more to sowing the seeds of the mass revolutionary movement in Orissa, than any comrade. He sacrificed many a lucrative career to serve the people. Few comrades were ever as down to earth or simple, or as astute in how to tackle specific situations. Till his last breath he strived to sharpen the sword of mass[Read More…]
People trying to migrate to the U.S. tell their stories, which have been collected from media reports. Migrant Charlie Jean had crossed back into Ciudad Acuña from the camps to get food for his wife and three daughters, ages 2, 5 and 12. He was waiting on the Mexican side for a restaurant to bring him an order of rice.[Read More…]
In a massive show of force, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) mounted officers attempted to contain migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, on September 19, 2021. Thousands of Haitian migrants have been arriving to Del Rio, Texas, as authorities attempt to close the border to stop the flow of[Read More…]
It seems utterly beyond debate but acknowledging legal rights to clean hair has assumed the makings of a slow march over the years. The 1956 Clean Air Act in Britain arose from the lethal effects of London’s 1952 killer smog, which is said to have taken some 12,000 lives. The Act granted powers to establish smoke-free zones and subsidise householders[Read More…]
Let us go there, you and I, hoping chocolates fall from the sky. Let us go into a hilly terrain, where flows the ancient Amu Darya, where Marco Polo watched sheep graze on the grass of Pamirs. Do they still browse or is it tamam shud with a rat-a-tat-tat? Has the river turned red? Incarnadined, gaze ghosts unwounded[Read More…]
Shimla: When restrictions were imposed last year to contain the coronavirus, Ajay Rattan (38) faced the same troubles other farmers did. To begin with, fertilisers and pesticides were not available. As markets were shut, he did not know where to sell his produce. Having run out of options, Rattan, who is from Niun village in Bilaspur district of Himachal, used[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Only a few weeks ago, a Reichsbürger in Germany shot a police officer with a crossbow during a house’s search in a remote town called Linden, in the north of Hessen. The Reichsbürger is accused of attempted manslaughter and he was sent to prison until his court hearing. Violent attacks by the right-wing extremist Reichsbürger are nothing out of[Read More…]
The wide spread effectiveness of the ‘Taking the Knee’ phenomenon is proof that celebrities have extraordinary power to influence public action in protest of social injustice (This would seem to imply, by the way, that a celebrity’s power to influence brings a higher level of citizen responsibility to speak out – yet so few do.) One sports celebrity’s protest against[Read More…]
Twenty years and more ago climate talk concerned long term global warming effects not really occurring until mid-twenty-first century at earliest with most problems occurring toward the end of the century. I remember thinking I would not see the changes as the forecasts were well beyond my lifespan. There were signs of change, obviously, or it would not be an[Read More…]
by Stan Cox and Priti Gulati Cox From the field and kitchen of discomfort food So much carbon dioxide has now accumulated in the atmosphere that it’s no longer possible to prevent a dangerous rise in global temperatures through purely technological means. In other words, it’s too late to prevent catastrophic ecological damage and human suffering simply through building more[Read More…]
A report released recently by NCD Alliance during the Annual Global Week for Action on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), calls for integration of NCDs prevention and care into global health initiatives and universal health coverage. Jointly produced by the George Institute for Global Health and NCD Alliance, the report makes a call for breaking down the existing silos in global health,[Read More…]
Beijing has condemned the announcement last Thursday of a new AUKUS military pact between the US, Britain and Australia, which is focused on the Indo-Pacific and aimed against China. The Chinese government has also taken aim at the associated decision to assist Australia in building nuclear-powered submarines. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticised the three countries for being “extremely irresponsible.”[Read More…]
After taking the unprecedented step Friday of recalling its ambassadors to the United States and Australia, Paris continued this weekend to denounce the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance announced by Biden on Wednesday. While the alliance targets China, it was prepared behind the backs of the European Union (EU) and led Australia to cancel a €56 billion deal to buy French-made submarines.[Read More…]
Demonstrations protesting the killing the death in custody of Chairman Gonzalo are encompassing many parts of Europe. Streets of Hamburg, Rome, Paris or Amsterdam were swept with the power of a torrent. Their intensity have made the rulers world over tremble, who patronised his murder. Most encouraging witnessing the participation of youth whose anger simmered at a boiling point. They[Read More…]
Female employees of the Kabul municipality have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital said Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers. The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs is another sign that[Read More…]
USA may operationalize the 2016 Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), by insisting on building a military base in India, for use as a staging area for beyond-the-horizon surveillance and “launching attacks on terrorists in and around Afghanistan”. The US Administration is embarrassed by its capitulation to Taliban (signing a peace treaty with Taliban at Doha, February 2020, to allow[Read More…]
The path to an ecological civilization is paved by reclaiming the commons—our common home, the Earth, and the commons of the Earth family, of which we are a part. Through reclaiming the commons, we can imagine possibility for our common future, and we can sow the seeds of abundance through “commoning.” In the commons, we care and share—for the Earth[Read More…]
In ancient Greek mythology, Cassandra was a priestess who was able to predict the future but unable to convince others to act upon her prophecies. The fate of Cassandra seems particularly relevant today, for there has been ample warning about three developments that threaten continued human existence—preparations for nuclear war, climate change, and disease pandemics—without, however, adequate measures being taken[Read More…]
Yoda, the Jedi Master in the Star Wars films, once pointed out that the future is all too difficult to see and it’s hard to deny his insight. Yet I’d argue that, when it comes to the U.S. military and its wars, Yoda was just plain wrong. That part of the future is all too easy to imagine. It involves, you won’t[Read More…]
The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity in which nearly 3,000 people died has been commemorated around the world with massive Mainstream media (MSM) coverage. However respect for the victims has been grossly violated by the Orwellian lying of Zionist -beholden US and US Alliance MSM that ignore the horrible realities that the US did 9/11 and that over 30[Read More…]
“The culture of peace is universal. It is shared by people and nations Worldwide. Today’s “culture of war” is a US hegemonic project predicated on the creation of conflict and divisions within and between countries. It is this (unilateral) project of global warfare which is intent upon destroying civilization.” (Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “Towards a Culture of World Peace”. Global Research:[Read More…]
Indications are not lacking in American foreign policy (FP) that the man who took Oval Office in January on an anti-pandemic agenda is bereft of fresh innovative ideas to create world peace and regain American economic strength to lead the world. Where is Biden’s world leadership heading for, if it only withers in engendering wars, confronting Russia and China wherever[Read More…]
Of the many institutions affected by the Covid pandemic and repeated lockdowns, the case of public libraries closing down is the most saddening. In Maharashtra, such libraries were a staple part of daily life for students and residents of many towns and cities across the state in the pre-pandemic period. Today they are in dire straits due to a variety[Read More…]
What can the new Chief Minister of Punjab Charanjit Singh Channi be expected to achieve within less than a year? Paradoxically, change of guard in Punjab as well as Gujarat doesn’t spell much of a surprise as several other chief ministers have been subject to the same move. One is nevertheless tempted to deliberate on the tendency of respective party heads[Read More…]
India has suffered for a long time from significant levels of malnutrition and hunger. It is very important to give high priority to rducing this. Unfortunately, some fiercely propagated solutions such as mandatory fortification of staple food products and promotion of GM crops are motivated more by promotion of big business interests than by actual reduction of malnutrition. In fact[Read More…]
Marx had famously said that the history of all existing societies is the history of class struggle. In this context, if one looks into the history of Himachal Pradesh then one can hardly disregard the fact that classes of several sorts had their struggles in the spatial dimensions of what is now known as Himachal. The homogeneity of society which[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Capitalism will not lead the way out of climate catastrophe (Markus Spiske) A few days ago, President Biden was urging climate action when saying, we don’t have much more than 10 years. Fighting global warming is inextricably linked to what Bill McKibben and others call climate justice. Commonly, many like to distinguish between climate[Read More…]
Imam Malik Mujahid (IMM): US Ambassador Atul Keshap is a temporary ambassador to India. He is Indian–American. He has met the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — RSS, that is — its chief, Bhagwat. That’s a serious issue, but it seems to have not created any noise in America. It’s like American ambassador in Germany meeting Hitler before he came into power. But[Read More…]
The Covid pandemic has hard drilled the lesson why health and social security of each one of us is inter-dependent on health and social security of one another. But do we see more equity (or inequity) in the Covid response, such as the rollout of the vaccination worldwide? Inequitable distribution of vaccine, diagnostics, oxygen, personnel protective equipment, and other necessary[Read More…]
Six years ago, I wrote an article that appeared on Countercurrents, just as this one does. The piece was strident, even didactic, but was in large part a plea. The notion was to explain why the pathology of “free content” creates a race to the bottom in journalism. A byproduct of this is that – given the “no free lunch”[Read More…]
The dramatic announcement this week of the AUKUS military alliance between the US, Britain and Australia has made the fault lines of a terrible war between nuclear-armed powers explicit. Hatched in months of secret negotiations, the pact revives the World War II alliance in the Pacific against Japan—this time against China. The militarist character of the agreement was underscored by[Read More…]
![Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Jean-Yves-Le-Drian-200x150.jpg "Paris recalls ambassadors to US, Australia over anti-Chinese AUKUS alliance 266")
Last night, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian recalled France’s ambassadors to the United States and Australia after the announcement Wednesday of the AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) alliance. Australia had repudiated a massive €56 billion arms deal with France for attack submarines, to instead obtain them from Washington and London. Le Drian’s communiqué stated: “At the request of the President of the Republic,[Read More…]
The sixth report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms yet again that we are rapidly destabilizing the climate and making the earth a more dangerous and biologically impoverished planet. No surprise; we’ve known this since the 1970s. The primary cause of the worsening situation, however, is not the combustion of fossil fuels, but the massive political dereliction that has[Read More…]
“Often, I think of taking my own life. I go to orchards and choose the place where I had made the gallows. My mother knows that I am going through a lot of stress, so she has become my shadow. The day I saw the helplessness in my brother’s eyes when he was being arrested by Indian security forces for[Read More…]
The baby-boom generation is ending its lap in the human race, and the Fridays-for-future generation is beginning its run. Generational shifts of power are symbolized by the image of passing the torch, but now what the older has to pass on to the younger seems not a torch but a time bomb, a legacy of crises. To find a way[Read More…]
Facing unrelenting criticism over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden Administration is insisting that the United States will maintain a capability to launch airstrikes in Afghanistan, regardless of the legal limitations and possibility of perpetuating the war. The Biden Administration vows to keep in place an “over-the-horizon capability,” meaning that the United States will still be able to strike targets in Afghanistan[Read More…]
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has given new license to the killing of Indigenous people in Brazil. Before he came to power in 2019, it wasn’t clear what he wanted to build, but he knew exactly who and what he wanted to destroy: the Indigenous people and the Amazon rainforest, respectively. “Bolsonaro attacked a woman first, the land, our mother,” the Indigenous leader Célia[Read More…]
The recent outburst against Communists by a spokesman of India’s ruling right wing Hindu nationalist BJP should come as a wakeup call for those fighting against each other over the control of an ongoing farmers’ agitation in Punjab. Harinder Singh Kahlon had asked for throwing “comrades” behind bars for instigating the peasantry struggle. The Indian farmers have been camping outside[Read More…]
Recently a controversy has erupted around the ‘planned mandatory fortification of Edible Oil with Vitamin A and Vitamin D and Rice with Vitamin B12, Iron and Folic Acid’, as announced by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Early this year the FSSAI had issued draft regulation for mandatory fortification of edible oils and proposal for mandatory[Read More…]
One must go back a few decades to understand the birth of Taliban and the continuity of this phenomenon that has shaken the world, quite literally. Yes the world underneath one’s foot shook on 9/11/2001, tremors caused by the country cousin of Taliban called Al Qaida. Getting back to a few decades as proposed in the beginning, it started around[Read More…]
Although the rather inelegant term “allyship” had not yet become part of the social-justice lexicon, I first bumped into the complexity of being an ally in 1988 when I belatedly started to take feminism seriously. I was following a feminist anti-pornography group that challenged men’s use and abuse of women in the sexual-exploitation industries. That is the term I use[Read More…]
The UK (in partnership with Italy) will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP26 in Glasgow on October 31- November 12, 2021. COP26 will be one of the most significant meetings in modern human history, comparable to the meeting of the Big Three at the Tehran Conference November 28, 1943 when the Normandy invasion was agreed,[Read More…]
The Taliban’s rapid advance in Afghanistan has briefly stalled only in the face of strong resistance mounted by the people of the country’s recalcitrant mountainous province of Panjshir. Whoever controls the region’s passes controls the routes leading to China and Tajikistan, but to seize this mountain valley and, most importantly, to keep it permanently under control has always been a[Read More…]
This year there was international outrage when a frail 84-year-old Jesuit priest with Parkinson’s disease, Stan Swamy, died after being held in an Indian jail in inhumane conditions, on flimsy charges. When he was eventually moved to hospital, he tested positive for Covid and went on to suffer a cardiac arrest. He had devotedly served the poor and defended their[Read More…]
Fatima Kakkar, MD, MPH (@DrFatimaKakkar) wrote: Proudly wearing in our traditional, colourful, vibrant Afghan clothes #DoNotTouchMyClothes #AfghanWoman #AfghanistanCulture #AfganistanWomen Afghan women are protesting Taliban imposed women dress code. At the same time, Taliban organized a head to toe veiled women gathering at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021 attended by a few dozens of women[Read More…]
Recent crime statistics released by the NCRB for the year 2020 shows that the rate of atrocities on Dalits in Uttar Pradesh is much higher than the crime rate at the national level. It is to be known that the population of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh is 21% of the total population of the state, while the crime of atrocities[Read More…]
On July 6th this year, we commemorated the 45th death anniversary of Marshall Chu Teh.,Few Comrades ever so creatively applied the military line of chairman Mao or illustrated the spiritual metamorphosis within a revolutionary as Chu.. His name will be permanently enshrined amongst the heroes of the Chinese Revolution. and great military or Communists in world history. Today his spirit[Read More…]
Corona Pandemic has deteriorated the Education System of Odisha, and of the country also. The Schools and Colleges have been closed since one and a half year. As a result of which the students have been deprived of from proper education. Now, the shops, markets, malls, religious institutions and cinema halls etc. have been given the permission to[Read More…]
ABVA members wearing black T-shirts addressing the press at the Ashoka hotel, New Delhi during the Second Asia Pacific AIDS conference, November 1992 In April 1994 ABVA filed a Civil Writ Petition no. 1784 of 1994 titled AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan vs. Union of India and others in the Delhi High Court (DHC) asking for striking down inter alia entire[Read More…]
Density is desirable in the modern world. Flourishing Cities and their thriving suburbs being living examples of the lure of density. The density which seemed alluring in the past rendered cities vulnerable and perilous amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. As the virus spread, the chorus against urban proximity grew louder. Lockdowns turning lively vibrant cities dormant, their survival being questioned,[Read More…]
The recent victory of the BJP in 70 plus seats in the assembly, while emerging as the main opposition, and its stupendous and surprising gain of 19 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections in 2019, have been attributed to the effective grassroots mobilization of the RSS in both the electoral and non-electoral arena in the state. It is believed[Read More…]
OVER 600 ACADEMICS, ADVOCATES, ACTIVISTS, CIVIL SERVANTS, WRITERS, FILM MAKERS, JOURNALISTS, MUSICIANS, ARTISTS and OTHERS. CONDEMN THE RAIDS ON THE OFFICES AND PRIVATE HOME OF ONE OF INDIA’S LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS & PEACE ACTIVISTS, HARSH MANDER Harsh Mander is widely known in India and internationally as a leading peace and social harmony activist of India who was earlier also as[Read More…]
The Nizam taking oath as Raj Pramukh, the first governor, of Hyderabad state on January 26, 1950.He continued in the post until 1956 October. The recalcitrant Nizam of Hyderabad ((Right in the photo) surrendered to Indian army on Sep 17, 1948, after hardly five days of resistance, and agreed to merge in India. The 50,000-strong Army continued its offensive, for three[Read More…]
On September 8, 2021, at least five media houses and six offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) were vandalized in three of Tripura’s eight districts by the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). These instances of violence come after a growth in the intensity of the Left’s political activity. While the center-right Congress Party is in a freefall and the Trinamool[Read More…]
Even for the smallest ailment, people, these days, resort to medicine. They trust that medicines can ‘cure’ the root cause of the disease. Some people take refuge in medicines even without any detectable illness. Nowadays, the SOLUTION to all the PROBLEMS is prescribed in the form of medicines. The answer to everything must be a ‘product’ – this is a[Read More…]
The Land of the Free, Where So Many of the Brave Are Homeless. Resisting Evictions Amid a Pandemic Over the past weeks, multiple crises have merged: a crisis of democracy with the most significant attack on voting rights since Reconstruction; a climate crisis with lives and livelihoods upended in the Gulf Coast and the Northeast by extreme weather events and in the West by[Read More…]
Government pleads in Supreme Court in defence of its stubborn refusal to disclose if it has used Pegasus spyware against civilian targets,that terrorists might disappear from the radar if the answer is made public.But the moment it became known that it could be used against suspected terrorists,they would have taken prompt precaution to disable the spyware or dive deeper into[Read More…]
Conditions in all spheres of life is going from bad to worse. On September 13, ‘political prisoners’day was observed. On that day, Jatin Das, friend of Bhagat Singh and member of Hindustan Republican Socialist Association, passed away after 63 days of hunger strike. He demanded ‘political prisoners’ status to those who have been jailed by the State. Even 92 years[Read More…]
Earlier this year on 13th March, we commemorated the 50th death anniversary of Comrade Sushital Roy Chowdhury,,who died in mysterious circumstances in 1971. Formally he is declared to have died out of heart attack. Few comrades as valiantly waged a crusade to confront left adventurism fostered by the C.P.I.(ML)led by Charu Mazumdar and establish the massline.Sadly even today sections of[Read More…]
The debate on caste, not just OBC, census is becoming a serious political issue in the country. But the secular, liberal and left intellectuals–economists, sociologists, political scientists– are behaving as if they are a neutral force on this issue. Would they have behaved in the same way if the Government were to say that it would not do religion census as well? I am sure they would not. They would have filled the[Read More…]
In one of his interviews before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, blamed the American failure in Afghanistan on a change in Washington’s mission from anti-terrorism to “nation building.” In his view, Washington should just have held strategic sites in the country to keep terrorists off balance and not engaged in an ambitious reconstruction of[Read More…]
In England, they’d plan a park, build it but wouldn’t complete it until they could observe for a while the foot tracks of walkers, before deciding where to lay the pathways for optimal utility. The Blinken Administration and Modi Govt apparently think they don’t have that luxury when it comes to Afghanistan. That is the troubling signal out of the Congressional[Read More…]
From the houses we live in to the food we eat and the education we receive, living a good life requires materials and energy. For many, this means an increase in wellbeing requires an increase in resource use. This necessity has been used by some commentators to argue that eradicating poverty is at odds with the need to reduce emissions and tackle climate change.[Read More…]
Despite the outpouring of international sympathy for Afghans who fled their country after the Taliban takeover last month, it’s by no means certain this will translate into receiving the refuge they are entitled to under international law. Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland and Russia have categorically said they won’t accept new Afghan arrivals. Slovenia’s foreign minister even reportedly issued an outrageous warning[Read More…]
The Current Situation Shockingly, today’s climate crisis is driven by a mere increase of 1˚C in global temperature, primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Unless we take urgent action, the temperature could increase by four times that level within the lifetimes of our children, leaving them to face an apocalyptic future. In the US alone, the recent floods on the[Read More…]
The August 29 U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed ten civilians, including seven children, demonstrates the bankruptcy of the war on terror. Like many other drone strikes, the strike in Kabul targeted innocent people and achieved nothing except to blow up civilians that had the misfortune to be in the vicinity. According to two recent investigative reports in The New York Times and The Washington[Read More…]
Is this climate change? I asked as rains lashed out. Oh, that is a subject for experts, the bald man with a goatee said. We stood on the clouds and watched the water slowly submerge — seeping through the marshes rising, rising till it covered the fields, the houses. The cattle — did they swim? The cats and dogs?[Read More…]
25 years before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, a Russian Jewish Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it exists “behind an iron wall” of defense. Jabotinsky was speaking figuratively. However, future Zionist leaders, who embraced Jabotinsky’s teachings, eventually turned the principle of the iron wall into a[Read More…]
From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world, will be officially released at Chandigarh Press Club on Tuesday, September 21. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on the film career of the famous Bollywood diva, and what she has faced[Read More…]
Our planet cannot handle an eternal growth model. We live in a finite system and capitalist innovation can only take us so far. Eventually we run out of resources. Climate appears to be the limit. Too often climate change is reduced to quantification of greenhouse glasses or melting ice caps. These indicators of climate change are important to verify the[Read More…]
“Dismantling Global Hindutva”, the online global conference was recently held from 10 to 12th September 2021. It was addressed by nearly 15 activists and scholars who are working on the intolerant politics and different facets of the rising Hindu nationalism at home in India and abroad. Fifty two US universities (their 70 departments) came together to put this big meeting,[Read More…]
Even as the parliament was lost in protests on Pegasus, the Modi Govt pushed the Bills on Tribunals, with contents rejected by the Supreme Court. The bench of Chief Justice of India and two judges put the government on the dock about the complete absence of material justifying the Bill and also the lack of proper debate in the Parliament[Read More…]
Canadian imperialism in Africa has had a rare social media moment. On Twiter K. Diallo recently posted a map of the continent with the sum of Canadian mining investment in each African country under the words “75% of mining companies globally are now Canadian. Canada is a great source of corporate neocolonialism expansion.” The tweet received 25,000 likes and 8,500 retweets. But[Read More…]
The title of an unputdownable 1980 classic by Peter Hopkirk comes to mind even as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation are preparing to hold back-to-back summit meetings at Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 17. Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia tells the breathtaking story of the intrepid men[Read More…]
This article is adapted from POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (New Society Publishers, September 2021) by Richard Heinberg Climate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In this flawed framing, humanity has simply made a mistake in its choice of energy sources; the solution entails switching sources and building enough carbon-sucking machines to clear the atmosphere of[Read More…]
Bart Everson, a Gaian and the convener of the Crescent City Gaian Guild in New Orleans, writes about his experience living through Hurricane Ida and her aftermath. If only my back didn’t ache, I could really enjoy this hurricane. Such were my thoughts as the outer bands of Hurricane Ida bore down on my home in New Orleans. I was sitting[Read More…]
As the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly begins Tuesday amid an unrelenting wave of extreme weather, thousands of academics from around the globe are urging governments to negotiate an international treaty to bring about a rapid and just transition away from coal, oil, and gas—”the main cause of the climate emergency.” In an open letter delivered on Monday, 2,185 scientists from 81 countries[Read More…]
Globally, bees and butterflies, the winged beauties of the insect-beasty world, are dying, vanishing from habitat and planet. Bees and butterflies are pollinators. Without them, there will be no flowers. But it does not stop there. The agricultural food chain of humanity collapses. A horrifying explosion of worldwide starvation then results. What happens when people are chronically hungry? What are[Read More…]
In recent years the import bill for edible oils has been increasing in a very big way and some big initiative was expected from the union government to reduce this. The direction of government plans was indicated earlier also but more formally the new plans for the edible oil sector were announced on August 18. These indicate that the government[Read More…]
Disagreements over how to assess the American exodus from Afghanistan have kept the pundits busy these last weeks, even though there wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been said before. For some of them, however, that was irrelevant. Having overseen or promoted the failed Afghan War themselves, all the while brandishing various “metrics” of success, they were engaged in transparent reputation-salvaging. Not[Read More…]
A Review of Andrey Mir’s “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers.” While there are several books analyzing the impact of social media on society, Andrey Mir’s book “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization” distinguishes itself by focusing on the impact of social media on traditional media. The defining analysis of traditional[Read More…]
Under the invitation of the joint front of the rural and farm labour organizations, Ten thousand dalit agricultural labour gheraoed the house of Captain Amrinder Singh at Moti Mahal in Patiala. He was forced to issue a written letter to scrap metres on electricity bills and pay occupation of labourers cut plots in a month, allot residential plots and scrap[Read More…]
Many writings about Hindi are ‘breast beating’ in the style of Bharatendu Harishchandra’s ‘Bharat Durdasha’. This article has a positive attitude towards Hindi Literature. The history of literary Hindi is relatively brief, starting only around 1860. Modern literary Hindi has an even shorter history, beginning around 1936 with the death of Premchand. In this short period Hindi has covered some[Read More…]
The incipient signs of a US retrenchment from Saudi Arabia have appeared in a series of moves in the past 2-3 weeks. On a parallel track, the Biden Administration is factoring in that new Iranian government is returning to the negotiating table at Vienna on nuclear issues. The interconnected maneuverings are predicated, indirectly at least at this point, on an[Read More…]
Underscoring the necessity of immediate and sweeping action to take on the climate emergency, a World Bank report revealed Monday that 216 million people across six global regions could be forced to move within their countries by midcentury. Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration includes analyses for East Asia and the Pacific, North Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia,[Read More…]
“Wally, Wally, quick, come and look at this!” These were the words of my roommate on a balmy Taiwanese evening on September 11th, 2001. Emerging into the living room I was just in time to see a plane slam into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Walking through the door to work the next morning, I[Read More…]
In a particular deli store in South Melbourne, a tongue-and-cheek message is attached to the cash register. “Bitcoin accepted there,” it proclaims brightly. Naturally, it is nothing of the sort, a teasing ruse for the punters and those casting an eye in the direction of the store. Cold hard cash remains king, albeit one with a tarnished crown; pandemic times[Read More…]
“The rising power of American Muslims” is the title of special issue of The Newsweek on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It published an article by Steve Friess under the title: Since 9/11, US Muslims have gained unprecedented political, cultural influence. It’s been an impressive 2021 so far for Muslim Americans. The U.S. Senate, that bastion of partisan gridlock, overwhelmingly[Read More…]
“I am unable to face hunger, future, illness, fee debt, house rent and unemployment” said the four page suicide note. On the night of 27 August 2021 Ravi Thackeray*, an engineer in Bhopal’s Sahara township, aided by his wife Ranjana*, slit the throats of their young son Chirag* and daughter Gunjan* with stone cutters. Soon after, the couple consumed poison[Read More…]
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was presented with a medal on Sunday, September 12 at Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. Vancouver-based online magazine Radical Desi, which covers alternative politics, gives out medals to individuals who speak out and stand up against injustice and repression anywhere in the world. Nijjar was honoured for organizing special prayers for the indigenous children whose unmarked[Read More…]
In recent weeks, the sages of Matri Sadan, an ashram based in Haridwar ( Uttarakhand ) have been very active in their efforts to protect Ganga river. Their preferred method has been again to fast to draw attention to numerous violations of earlier promises to protect the Ganga river. At the time of writing this on September 13, the fast[Read More…]
As the mainstream press spent this past weekend once again ensuring that Americans never forget the fear and anger of 9/11 which prompted 20 years of war, 10 of the latest victims of 9/11 were being wiped from historical memory. Just two weeks before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a US drone killed the Ahmadi family, including seven children. In[Read More…]
A Debacle Marks the Decline of Washington’s World Leadership The collapse of the American project in Afghanistan may fade fast from the news here, but don’t be fooled. It couldn’t be more significant in ways few in this country can even begin to grasp. “Remember, this is not Saigon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a television audience on August 15th, the[Read More…]
The election of a Pradhan in a small village in UP The following account is almost verbatim from what was related to us in a close-group discussion[1]. Given the sensitivity of situation we will keep the protagonists and the various characters anonymous. Also, because there is nothing unique about this account; it is merely an example of what is probably[Read More…]
According to Reuters, more than 500,000 farmers attended a rally in the city of Muzaffarnagar in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on 5 September. Hundreds of thousands more turned out for other rallies in the state. Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmers’ leader, said this would breathe fresh life into the Indian farmers’ protest movement. He added: “We will intensify[Read More…]
A few days ago , a few guys were travelling in an electric rickshaw at about 11 pm in the night. The driver , possibly to break the monotony of the hour had some loud music playing on his FM Radio. One of the passengers asked for the music to be turned off or at least toned down. The driver[Read More…]
Chairman Gonzalo or Abimael Guzman is no more. His was not a natural death but an assassination by the Peruvian state. Exactly 29 years ago on September 12th he was captured by the Peruvian police and placed in the Callao prison.Inspite of a sustained worldwide campaign to demand his release, the Peruvian state kept him entrenched within the jail walls.[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses religious ethics and cosmology. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2021/09/Who-is-my-Neighbor-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf One often hears the question: “Is there a conflict between science and religion?” In my opinion, there are two aspects to religion – ethics[Read More…]
The steady militarisation of US foreign policy has hampered its ability to address real security concerns that threaten not just American people but the entire planet. A reckoning with America’s failed national security policy is long overdue. Our calamitous misadventures in the Middle East and the global financial collapse of 2008 dramatically exposed the bankruptcy and failures of the bipartisan[Read More…]
The Taliban hoisted their black and white flag on the presidential palace in Kabul on September 11, which happens to be the twentieth anniversary of the Al-Qaeda’s attack on New York and Washington, DC. The symbolism is too obvious to be missed. Although the Taliban had no hand in the 9/11 attacks, it took the brunt of the US’ revenge[Read More…]
This is a story of victory for the earth and of the end of the Keystone XL pipeline. It also involves the Dakota Access pipeline and the Standing Rock Lakota reservation, indeed the entire world, all of which is threatened by our desperate last burst of fossil fuel exploitation. It is a story of what the dogged persistence and creativity[Read More…]
In the fight to address climate change, renewable energy companies are often assumed to be Jedi Knights. Valiantly struggling to save the planet, wind and solar interests are thought to be locked in mortal combat with large fossil fuel corporations that continue to mine, drill, and blast through the earth’s fragile ecosystems, dragging us all into a grim and sweaty[Read More…]
In recent years increasing medical evidence has poured in regarding the serious adverse health impacts of prolonged standing. These advese impacts have been noticed in many lines of work as a serious occupational risk. Women workers are even more vulnerable than men workers. In this context the Tamil Nadu Government deserves praise for recently introducing an amendment in the Works[Read More…]
This is the second part of my conversation with Dr Manisha Bangar in which she speaks about the health crisis in India and how the government is trying to privatise things, how our response during the Corona period was lacking things. She also gives us understanding of people opposing nutritious meals for children in the mid-day meal. Dr Manisha Bangar[Read More…]
The virus has left a lasting imprint on the present generation. Many people have not yet recovered fully from the infection and many others still lamenting on the loss of their dear ones and coping with the new realities. It is understandable that the pains will take long time to perish. Apart from such tragedies all over the world, which[Read More…]
Southern superstar Dhanush’s Tamil film ‘Karnan’ has been released on OTT platform on Amazon Prime Video. The film had earlier been released in cinemas. The film, which was screened in Corona, is getting huge response from the audience. The most interesting thing is that breaking the linguistic wall, the film is being favored from south to north. This has been[Read More…]
Washington-based global lender the World Bank, through concessional lending arms, has gone to bat for Bangladesh to foster its development initiatives since 1972; committing more than $30 billion by backing priorities in economic, social and infrastructural development. Since 2018, this UN affiliated multilateral body, largest source of financial assistance to developing nations, has committed a total $590 million grant to[Read More…]
On 13th September we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Lin Biao,due to a plane crash in 1971 , when allegedly attempting to flee to the Soviet Union. Lin is one of the most controversial or complex and impactful characters of the Communist Movement. Few leaders more befitted the role of a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde.[Read More…]
What our lives have become. Unless a spectacle of life is created no one is bothered. The marginalised section of the society understands this insensitivity of our political class very well; be it women, people with disability, sexual minorities, religious minorities, Dalits, tribal, economically weaker and oppressed section of our society though together they are the major part of the[Read More…]
On July 9, 2021, the government of Rwanda said that it had deployed 1,000 troops to Mozambique to battle al-Shabaab fighters, who had seized the northern province of Cabo Delgado. A month later, on August 8, Rwandan troops captured the port city of Mocímboa da Praia, where just off the coast sits a massive natural gas concession held by the French energy company TotalEnergies[Read More…]
Anniversaries can provide occasions for reflection and deep consideration. Past errors and misjudgements can be considered soberly; historical distance provides perspective. Mature reflections may be permitted. But they can also serve the opposite purpose: to cake, cloak and mask the record. The gooey name GWOT, otherwise known as the Global War on Terrorism, is some two decades old, and it[Read More…]
Suddenly, the idea put forth by French President, Emmanuel Macron, late last year does not seem so far-fetched or untenable after all. Following the US-NATO hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan, European countries are now forced to consider the once unthinkable: a gradual dismantling from US dominance. When, on September 29, 2020, Macron uttered these words: “We, some countries more than others,[Read More…]
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was among a small group of U.S. citizens who sat on milk crates or stood holding signs, across from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan. We had been fasting from solid foods for a month, calling for an end to brutal economic warfare waged against Iraq through imposition of[Read More…]
In a very insightful essay published a couple of weeks before Canada’s election call, Senator Rosa Galvez called for a seachange from neoliberal government to building government back better to handle the recovery from Covid and to mitigate climate change: “We need democracy back—stronger, wiser, and more open to new ideas—with all its checks and balances restored. Governments must[Read More…]
On September 11 the world rightly pays homage to the nearly 3000 victims of the horrible 9/11 attack in the USA. However on this day we should in addition also remember the perhaps even higher number of victims of the US-assisted military coup in Chile on September 11 1973 which also resulted in the highly tragic and widely mourned death[Read More…]
Many commentators from different ideological orientations provide a false equivalence of American withdrawal from Afghanistan with the fall of Saigon. It is false because American imperialism was thoroughly defeated by the revolutionary programmes and fighting spirit of Viet Cong. It led to rise of united, egalitarian, democratic, peaceful, and prosperous Vietnam. On the other hand, the imperialist invasion has ruined[Read More…]
The Ganesh festival is celebrated country-wide with prayers and rituals, greetings are exchanged, and various food delicacies are prepared. When we relish the delicacies, it is appropriate to remember that every one of those preparations is based upon farm produce, be it grains, vegetables, fruits, or the banana leaves on which the feast is served. This farm produce is the[Read More…]
‘Welcome to Kashmir’ one of my Kashmiri friends sighed and exclaimed after I had explained to him about our experience in Srinagar. ‘The way you were thrown out from Kashmir doesn’t indicate mere humiliation to you, but it exhibits the grimed situation here’ he opined. Every time I had prepared to visit the valley earlier, my plans were obstructed by[Read More…]
On September 11th, we mourn the 20th anniversary of one of the most sensational terrorist attacks, delivering a knockout punch in the very belly of the superpower, America. We commiserate the innocent lives lost or sufferers of mortal wounds. However there is no question that it was America that created the breeding pit and in many ways literally asked for[Read More…]
Twenty years after the events of 9/11, 2001, and in the midst of the messy withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, it seems apropriate to question the validity of the so-called “War on Terror”. The Costs of War project estimates the America’s 20-years of wars, initiated with the supposed intention of fighting terrorism, have killed almost a million peoiple,[Read More…]
Apartheid Israel and the UK are among world leaders in Covid-19 vaccination having achieved 63% and 64% of total population fully vaccinated, respectively. However premature cessation of Lockdown and related measures in these countries has led to increased infection and death. For economic and political reasons Australia proposes to follow suit when it achieves substantial vaccination in a few months’[Read More…]
It was all marvellous for Paul Wolfowitz to get on Australian television (why bother?) to brusquely discuss those attacks on US soil in September 2001 and criticism of the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces. After two decades, the former US deputy secretary of defense has not mellowed. With each show, interview and podium performance Wolfowitz gives, there is a[Read More…]
The death of dreams was considered the most dangerous. Avtar Singh Sandhu ‘Pash’ was a supporter of expressed socio-political freedom. Pash is known as the poet who composed his revolutionary poems and questioned the system. Pash started writing poetry at an early age. By the time the Khalistani movement in Punjab reached its peak, he was opposed to the movement[Read More…]
By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young German coronavirus conspiracy theories are available for just €24.99. Germany’s right-wing media are cashing in on the fear of the pandemic. It is good business when selling snake oil and right-wing ideology. At the top is Germany’s right-wing extremist and loosely AfD-affiliated Compact magazine. It is among the clear winners of the Coronavirus pandemic.[Read More…]
Half of Nagaland is degraded, flags new report Six states in northeastern India were among the top 10 places in the country with the highest rates of desertification between 2003 and 2018, according to a recent report. These are Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. Punjab, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand in northern India also witnessed some[Read More…]
The Covid pandemic has adversely affected every section of society in some way or the other in India. The biggest impact, in social and economic terms, however seems to have been on women, for whom the pandemic period has been a nightmare of sorts. Crimes against women have increased significantly as per the monthly crime reports of Rajasthan Police. From[Read More…]
Congress leaders were probably not prepared for taxing political signals surfacing from Punjab. Political drama kicked by Punjab’s Congress Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and a recent opinion poll survey, predicting Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) gaining more votes than other parties in coming state polls certainly demand deliberation on what is really suggested by these factors? Undeniably, both pose a major[Read More…]
Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is a burgeoning technology poised to revolutionize the world and bring significant change to global society. AI offers new capabilities and efficiency for humanity in the areas of finance, governance, healthcare, criminal justice, energy, and countless other fields and industries. However, similar to a double-edged sword, the technology also generates serious risks, particularly for the most[Read More…]
The beautification/renovation of Jallianwala Bagh Memorial done by the central government through a Gujarat-based private company has come under criticism. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on 28th August. The details of observations made and objections raised by a range of people – scholars, common citizens, peoples’ representatives – from India and abroad have come in the press. Simultaneously[Read More…]
by Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox Time is fast running out. The world’s affluent nations, with their abundant greenhouse emissions, have to finally drag themselves across the starting line and begin phasing out fossil fuels at the accelerated pace that the climate emergency demands. And if they can manage to do that, they clearly will need to quickly build[Read More…]
Himanta Biswa Sharma,the much-toasted chief minister of Assam, has announced with trademark fanfare that thirty years after the last land-settlement survey he is launching a new land-survey to precisely demarcate,and record the land-rights of Assam with the latest, most modern equipment.There will be no more middle-men in business.Every owner of land will be in undisturbed possession of his land,he thunders,and[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Looking back on it now, the 1990s were an age of innocence for America. The Cold War was over and our leaders promised us a “peace dividend.” There was no TSA to make us take off our shoes at airports (how many bombs have they found in those billions of shoes?). The[Read More…]
As the world appproaches the solemn occasion of the 20th anniversary of the most horrible 9/11 attack, it feels weighed down also with the recent reality of the Taliban , still maintaining its links with Al-Queda, being back in the seat of power in Kabul. Questions relating to the when, where and why of the war against terror going wrong[Read More…]
A recent report by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) reveals that uranium contamination of groundwater is on the rise with Punjab and Haryana being the most affected. Groundwater continues to be extracted at frightening proportions in India and the fear of severe depletion of groundwater resources in the coming years is real. As if this is not enough, the available[Read More…]
GREENVILLE, CA — At 10 a.m. on July 22nd, I interviewed a New York University professor about using autonomous robots, drones, and other unmanned devices to suppress structural and wildland fires. I sent the interview to an online transcription service, walked down the steps of my second-floor office and a block to the Greenville post office, where I mailed a[Read More…]
In the film, Dafan found on YouTube, a young civil engineer is giving a tour of a construction site to his manager and boss. When a worker at the site has an accident and sustains serious injuries, he is rushed to hospital. But despite the best efforts of the doctors, he dies. At this stage, the manager leaves after giving[Read More…]
Cubans living abroad have been unable to send remittances to their loved ones on the island due to the unilateral coercive measure imposed by Donald Trump just before leaving office With the money she earns cleaning houses in the morning and an office at night, Virgen Elena Pupo, a 47-year-old Cuban migrant, has managed to raise her family in Washington,[Read More…]
The regional states will be shell-shocked by the brazen way Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government that is guaranteed to preserve Rawalpindi’s control over the levers of power in Kabul. There are several things to be noted about the so-called interim government announced by the Taliban on September[Read More…]
A momentous statement has just been published in the British medical journal The Lancet and in 200 other health journals. It is the global equivalent of the diagnosis you never want to hear in your own doctor’s office, complete with concurring second opinions from 200 other doctors. The statement’s authors are the editors of those journals, themselves doctors or highly trained health scientists,[Read More…]
A large Israeli army campaign is taking social media by storm. The unstated aim of what is known as the “#Untie_Our_Hands” initiative is the desire to kill, with no accountability, more Palestinian protesters at the Gaza fence. The campaign was motivated by the killing of an Israeli sniper, Barel Hadaria Shmueli, who was reportedly shot from the Palestinian side of[Read More…]
We who are so easily dismissed as ‘ Conspiracy Nuts’ know, both intuitively and through careful research, that there was lots more about what really went down the morning of September 11th, 2001. When I first read David Ray Griffin’s 2004 bestseller 9/11 The New Pearl Harbor I literally could not put it down. He laid out countless facts that[Read More…]
[This is the final part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought (GST) and ZNet. The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout on 7/3/21 and 6/10/21. The second portion was a response by Fitz to Pollin’s articles. The third portion was a rejoinder by Pollin to[Read More…]
[This is the third part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought (GST) and ZNet. The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout on 7/3/21 and 6/10/21. The second portion was a response by Don Fitz which appeared in GST and ZNet. The final portion will be[Read More…]
In late February last year Nitin Singh, a tourist guide at the famous Taj Mahal in Agra was on top of the world. He had been entrusted with the prestigious task of showing US President Donald Trump the Mughal monument to love during his tour of India as part of the ‘Namaste Trump’ event organised by the Modi government. He[Read More…]
In a promising apple village of district Anantnag, Sirhama, the month of September was used to be a busy month. It used to be a month of dreams, aspirations, hope and the result of hardwork as it is the month in which the people start the apple harvesting. Throughout the year, the harvesting season is cherished and looked as source[Read More…]
Thousands of Adivasis involved in the “Pathalgari Movement” were criminalized for fighting for their collective rights to self-determination and protection of their lands, territories, and natural resources in Jharkhand State of India. Forty-six year old Ladu Nag from the Munda Adivasi (Indigenous) community is bound to live alone after her husband Neta Nag, a resident of Kevda village in Khunti[Read More…]
As one enters the Air India staff colony in Kalina in Mumbai one is struck by the large football field, a lovely sight right at the entrance. The ground is now full of overgrown grass. It is a very big complex with abundant greenery and other very large open spaces. With the forthcoming privatization we will lose this vital space.[Read More…]
With Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan, the memories of horror stories of yesteryears have been rekindled. When in power they not only implemented their version of Sharia law but also undertook the horrifying oppression of women. That was not all; they went onto impose dress and beard code on men and went on to destroy the Lord Gautama Buddha’s[Read More…]
New Taliban Government On 07.09.2021 a new Taliban government in Afghanistan was formed. Mullah Muhammad Hassan is declared Prime Minister of Afghanistan. Two important members of Taliban are appointed Deputy Prime Minister – Mullah Abdul Ghani and Moalvi Abdul Salam Hanafi. All stakeholders were expecting an inclusive government in Afghanistan but that did not happen. The Taliban have also announced[Read More…]
by T.Venkat & Mathivanan Series introduction: For the past year and half, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or colloquially called the ‘100 days employment scheme’ has been in great demand in rural Tamil Nadu. While it had already proved its value as an anti-poverty measure across rural India, its popularity has only multiplied during the economic depression[Read More…]
by Akhter Hussain Bhat & Dr. Mohammad Akram As of September 08, 2021, according to WHO, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected 222 countries and territories, with more than 220 million cases and 4.59 million deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread mortality and has exposed the weaknesses of health-care systems worldwide. National responses to the pandemic have varied from[Read More…]
A monkey came to our home. It saw plenty of space to roam! Elated, it went from room to room Looking nook and corner It saw my computer … The shining screen caught it’s eyes It sat on the table, looked here and there twice! Scanned the keyboard Began to type word after word. Finding the sounds odd, It went[Read More…]
Panjshir has fallen to the Taliban with a bang — and a whimper. The bang is because a 40-year old legend lies shattered, the legend of the invincibility of Panjshir Valley. And the whimper is because the short-lived ‘resistance’ had a tame ending. A BBC report said the revolt’s two top leaders Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh were not even[Read More…]
“We told you so” rings hollow. In the face of tens of thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars spent, and countless communities destroyed, pointing out that early critics of the U.S. “war on terror” were accurate seems crass and cruel, sanctimonious and self-serving. But it’s also dangerous to ignore the dissenters. Those of us who were active in[Read More…]
[This is the second part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought and ZNet. The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout here and here. The third portion will be a short rejoinder by Pollin to this article. The final portion will be a short closing statement[Read More…]
The civil society is now grappled with new expressions like “brownfield investment” which means a company or government entity takes over the existing production facilities to facilitate launching a new production activity. Best example for this financial resource strategy is ‘foreign direct investment.’ An alternative expression to this is a ‘greenfield investment,‘ wherein a fresh plant is constructed. In the[Read More…]
They weren’t kidding when they called Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.” Indeed, that cemetery has just taken another imperial body. And it wasn’t pretty, was it? Not that anyone should be surprised. Even after 20 years of preparation, a burial never is. In fact, the shock and awe(fulness) in Kabul and Washington over these last weeks shouldn’t have been surprising, given[Read More…]
Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the historical development[Read More…]
Speaking from the White House on August 31, President Joe Biden lied to the people of the U.S. and to the world: “Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.” The U.S. war on Afghanistan did not end— it has only adapted to technological advances and morphed[Read More…]
Some years ago, I was lucky enough to have a rich email dialogue with Colonel David Glantz, the foremost historian of the Eastern Front in World War 2. He was gracious in his thoughts and supportive of the lay-history I was doing. He even offered a compliment or two for some of the thoughts I had regarding the redaction of[Read More…]
Members of the South Asian community came together to remember the slain Indian journalist at Surrey’s Holland Park on Sunday, September 5. Gauri Lankesh was a daring editor, who was allegedly murdered by right wing extremists in Bengaluru in 2017. On the fourth anniversary of her assassination, a vigil was organized by Radical Desi, an online magazine that covers alternative[Read More…]
Environmentalist and campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason recently wrote an open letter to the head of the Pesticides Unit at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Jose Tarazona. (Since this article was written, Jose Tarazona has stepped down from his position and the letter has been forwarded to his successors, Manuela Tiramani and Benedicte Vagenede.) Mason wrote to Tarazona because the[Read More…]
Anyone who ever tried to invade Afghanistan was inevitably defeated. The multiethnic mountainous country has become a grave for the British, the Russians, and now for the Americans and their European allies. To make matters worse, the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan laid bare the political weakness and inconsistency of the White House that could not create a sense of[Read More…]
When the ongoing farmers’ protest in India began last year in the states of Punjab and Haryana, nobody could predict that it would go on for so long and its resonance would be felt across the country. It’s been going on for nine months now and is the longest running protest by farmers in Indian history. The farmers have been[Read More…]
I’m a climate scientist and on Wednesday night, I watched the rain outside my New York City window break the local record for the most accumulation in an hour. It was an event that caused catastrophic flooding and infrastructure failures across both the New York Metro area and a wide swath of the Northeast US, delivered by the remnant of a powerful hurricane[Read More…]
A massive Kissan Panchayat was held in Muzfarnagar, UP on September 5 and resolved to intensify ongoing agitation and called for Bharat Bandh on Sept 27. The Panchayat organized by Samyukth Kisan Morcha witnessed a huge congregation of farmers and farm workers from 22 states from all over India. Large presence of youth and farm women is visibly seen. BKU,[Read More…]
Keshav Desiraju, India’s former health secretary who made a lasting contribution to public health in India, breathed his last on September 5. He died from ‘acute coronary syndrome’. He inherited the scholarly legacy of his grandfather, India’s much-admired second President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and contributed at least two very important books which reflected the diversity of his interests. He will be[Read More…]
By overstating China’s military readiness to launch an attack on Taiwan – and downplaying its own ability to withstand it – the opportunistic Taipei government is trying hard to attract more backing from the US and its allies. Taiwan’s parliament has just delivered its annual report on the capability of China’s military to launch an attack on the island. The document was[Read More…]
With the discovery of fossils, artifacts, and ‘destroyed’ cities, archaeologists and historians have uncovered the hidden mysteries of events and cultures that preceded society. Ancient Greece (Greek: Romanized Hellas) was a similar ancient culture dating back to the 12th century BC (9th century BC) to the 9th century BC (600 BCE). The Greeks made significant contributions to the four fields[Read More…]
New research published Friday suggests that melting Arctic sea ice caused by global heating may be responsible for the deadly deep freeze that devastated much of North America and plunged millions of Texans into darkness in February. While climate researchers have previously connected the phenomena of polar heating and mid-latitute freezes, a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science is the first to link Arctic warming[Read More…]
The boiling pot of indignation is simmering at it’s optimum point after the attack on the farmers in rally at Moga.The ruling classes are embarrassed in their very backyard, sending shivers down their spine. Contradictions are intensifying within the ruling classes at an unprecedented scale with farmers assaulted even in a Shiromani Akali Dal rally. The Moga police on Thursday[Read More…]
Larrikin is a word often, and inaccurately used, in Australian political lingo. Australia’s longest serving Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was known as one such figure. He was praised as the great communicator and healer between the forces of labour and capital, enjoyed imbibing, his sports and varied female company. He could also be vain and ruthless. In June, a[Read More…]
T Venkat and Mathivanan Series introduction: For the past year and half, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or colloquially called the ‘100 days employment scheme’ has been in great demand in rural Tamil Nadu. While it had already proved its value as an anti-poverty measure across rural India, its popularity has only multiplied during the economic depression[Read More…]
Gail Omvedt was a towering figure in the social sciences in India for decades. Author of over 25 books and a series of well-received columns for the Hindu of yesteryears, she was also an incisive and insightful analyst of Indian society, and a grounded grassroots activist as well. Despite being born and educated in the US, she made India her[Read More…]
During the Vidhan Sabha session yesterday, various organisations of agricultural or landless labour of Punjab, converged at the public district headquarters in 5 districts and hundreds of villages of Punjab, inspite of the intervention of heavy rainfall. On the other hand levies like electricity bills are imposed on them. It was undertaken as a follow up of a 3 day[Read More…]
The Hon. Naveen Patnaik Chief Minister, Odisha Sub: Request for the release of Upakuliya Jami o Jangala Surakhya Samiti member Mr. Batakrushna Swain Honorable Sir, We the undersigned people, regret to convey our dissatisfaction regarding the change in the definition of crime in our state. Though the drought situation is not new in the state, however, the increase in the[Read More…]
As the drive to expand renewable energy capacity speeds up, there is a rush for lithium and other materials around the world. What will the expansion of rare earth mining in Latin America mean for the indigenous communities and workers who have historically borne the harms of extractivism? Thea Riofrancos, author of Resource Radicals (Duke University Press, 2020), explains how the energy[Read More…]
What if, compañera and sister, we learn not only to scream out of pain, but to find the way, place, and time to scream a new world into being? Just think, sister and compañera, things are so bad that in order to stay alive we have to create another world.’ Coordinators of the Zapatista Women for the Second International Gathering of Women Who Struggle[Read More…]
In 2007, I travelled throughout Afghanistan with an Afghan-Canadian research partner,(1) and we asked more than one hundred Afghans: What do you think about the international intervention in Afghanistan? It was as evident then as it has been proven now that a critical mass of Afghans perceived the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan as illegitimate, unnecessary, and serving the interests[Read More…]
In the vast history of imperialist exploitation few episodes match the depravity of Haiti’s debt of independence. Military blackmail of a small country by a superpower, prioritizing “property rights” over human rights, racial capitalism, a sellout “light skinned” local bourgeoise and the way our past haunts the present are all part of the story. After winning their liberation from slavery[Read More…]
The Taliban’s lightning fast takeover of Afghanistan was amazingly achieved with relatively little killing and bloodshed. Since the rout of the government, an entity essentially installed by the US, the Taliban has been assuring the Afghan people that its governance style will be more moderate than under its previous rule. Many people in Afghanistan are very fearful and particularly skeptical[Read More…]
Professor Noam Chomsky was interviewed recently about war and peace. One of the facts that he mentioned, which of course NO ONE in our embedded mainstream media ever reports is this: “ Some background facts may be useful. According to the major international monitor, SIPRI, “The growth in total [military] spending in 2020 was largely influenced by expenditure patterns in the[Read More…]
Minister of Justice Ali Sabry at a Zoom discussion on 30 August 2021 disclosed that the President in Cabinet meetings and outside has again and again stressed to us his following stand on the issue of disappeared persons. ” If anyone disappeared, there is no need to investigate the reasons for his disappearance. Do not try to find out if[Read More…]
Tricontinental published their “One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India” on September 1, 2020 [1]. We are dealing with it only snappily. From here one can learn what may be called a ‘left’ way to rewrite history of the ‘communist’ movement; a ‘left way’, that is certainly different rom a ‘communist’ way – where the ‘left’ stands for decent[Read More…]
Massive flooding inundated broad swaths of the US northeast on Wednesday night, including New York City and downstate New York, as well as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Areas of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were also flooded, and tornadoes were reported on Cape Cod. At least 43 people are dead and more than 250,000 households and businesses are without power.[Read More…]
The Amazon rainforest is arguably the world’s premier asset. Indeed, it’s the world’s most crucial asset in a myriad of ways, nothing on Earth compares. Yet, it is infernally stressed because of inordinate drought. The bulk of the Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil, where, according to the title of an article in NASA, Earth Observatory, the country headline says[Read More…]
In May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a visit to Greenland. In a rather unedifying way, he was called ‘Tony’ by his hosts, a disarming point that was bound to open the floodgates of insincerity. For all the convivial stuffing, there was a certain sting to the occasion: the previous Trump administration had revisited a fantasy long nurtured[Read More…]
The people of Kendrapada district of Odisha are fighting peacefully for last two years to save their river Kharasrota. This river is the lifeline of farmers, fishing communities and other communities living besides the river. The Kharasrota river is the source of life and livelihoods for the people of Odisha in general and people of Kendrapada and Jajpur in particular.[Read More…]
Around a month on August 5th, ago we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Saroj Dutta,which was landmark or black day in the history of the Indian Communist movement. Whatever his gross errors as a Marxist revolutionary, his spirit will shimmer for ever like a lotus in full bloom, in the annals of the Indian Communist Movement. Without[Read More…]
The last week in Himachal Pradesh has witnessed a surge of disappointment and discontent among apple growers of Himachal Pradesh as the price received by them has been much below their expectations. Local newspapers have been full of these reports and Amar Ujala, a leading Hindi newspaper, went to the extent of full page coverage of this issue, apart from[Read More…]
In a society built on inequities based on class, caste, gender, race – existence of constitutional legislations for benefit of oppressed does not by itself ensure their welfare. It requires a conscious collective action by the oppressed against exploitation. It requires a change in mindset from ‘fearful’ to ‘fearless minds’. The book by Vivek Pandit titled ‘Fearless Minds’ tries to[Read More…]
A young woman comes to office wearing dark goggles. As her colleagues direct enquiring glances towards her, she says that of late she hasn’t had much sleep and has developed dark circles under her eyes. But her colleagues seem to think they are bruises. In the evening , in the lift of her housing society, a particularly intrusive neighbour looks[Read More…]
MEA’s statement Aug 31 said Indian envoy Deepak Mittal met Sher Mohd Abbas Stanekzai, Head of Taliban’s Political Office, in Doha that day, in the first formal exchange. India’s concerns were raised that “Aghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner.” And he “assured that these issues would be positively addressed.” It is high[Read More…]
Developments in Afghanistan, prior to and after its takeover by the Taliban, remind us of the political realignment of global powers in Europe on the eve of the 2nd World War. Although a tiny state (covering 652,000 km – slightly smaller than Texas – with a population of 26.5 million), Afghanistan might well be the pivot on which the reconfiguration[Read More…]
The visit to Tianjin by President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry on September 1-3 is assuming a huge dimension holding promise as a defining moment in the tense bilateral relationship between China and the US. Unlike Kerry’s previous visit in April to Shanghai, his conversation has broadened and deepened this time around, going well beyond climate change issues. Chinese State[Read More…]
The Covid pandemic has made life difficult for 67-year-old Shyam Soni, a sculptor by profession and a resident of Jaipur’s Shastri Nagar. With hardly any work coming in, Soni is struggling hard to make a living for the last 18 months. His son 44-year-old Rahul Soni who was also into sculpting has already left the profession and joined his friend[Read More…]
The Covid Pandemic and Climate Crisis underscores a fatal split in the 21st Century within every society and human being’s better survival instinct’s, mirrored by the irresponsibility of the corporate world’s resistance to a genuine worldwide carbon emissions tax strategy to protect us all from ultimate climate calamity. On all sides of the arguments there exists blood brothers and sisters[Read More…]
As the City of Toronto is less than a week away from the ‘Festival of Festivals’ Indian Cinema has nothing much to write home about except two movies, although the total number of films selected for screening is one-third of its usual strength. And that too not from the major filmmakers. Nithin Lukose’s PAKA (River of Blood) and Ritwik Pareek’s[Read More…]
Com. Ramnath left us a few days ago at the age of 83. He suffered a heart attack and passed away in his sleep early in the morning of August 31st. He was unwell for the last several years but his health had deteriorated severely recently. Without doubt he played an integral role in the history of the Indian Communist[Read More…]
I was a college student on 9/11. The ensuing “War on Terror,” anchored by the bombing and U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, has been with us ever since—virtually my entire adult life. President Biden was right to end the war in Afghanistan and follow through on a deal that his predecessor Donald Trump had negotiated with the Taliban. As Biden explained, “After 20 years, I’ve[Read More…]
Legislation banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy took effect in Texas at midnight after the US Supreme Court did not act on an emergency appeal by Texas abortion providers Tuesday. Senate Bill 8, ushered through the Republican-dominated state legislature and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, prohibits abortions whenever an ultrasound can detect a “fetal heartbeat,”[Read More…]
The Jewish Chronicle, a weekly newspaper that was saved from liquidation last year by a consortium led by a former senior adviser to Theresa May, has been exposed as having a quite astonishing record of journalistic failings. Over the past three years, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the misnamed and feeble “press regulator” created by the billionaire-owned corporate media,[Read More…]
Kerala has given birth to many women achievers in the last century. This is a quick analysis based on case studies of three women achievers, from the areas of science, politics, and law. Though these three achievers are selected purposively and there could be some possibility of a selection bias, this analysis offers some key insights. ANNA MANI (23 August[Read More…]
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. Yet, it is possible to satisfy humanity’s universal needs fairly—and keep the world livable. What is enough? Put that question to any economist or politician, and you are likely to get a blank stare in return.[Read More…]
When the US State Department announced that it would host a virtual ministerial meeting on August 30 with “key partners on Afghanistan,” there was an element of surprise in the list of participants. Apart from the US’ NATO and EU allies, there was a solitary non-western partner country — Qatar. What qualified this peninsular Arab country to be invited to join such a privileged circle of America’s[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It has often been said that predictions are hard to make – particularly when they concern the future. We have seen it many times in recent years and this may just as well apply to the upcoming federal election in Germany scheduled for 26th September 2021. Unlike the USA’s first past the post system[Read More…]
For twenty years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither one of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as ‘illegal’, ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation.’ The framing of the US ‘military intervention’ in Afghanistan, starting on October 7, 2001, as the official start of what was dubbed[Read More…]
If you enter any kitchen in rural and small town India chances are you will see these gleaming objects all around. On top of the stove, used to store drinking water, near the space for worshipping various deities, as dinner plates. These are the copper and brass utensils that have been part of Indian homes for centuries – handed down[Read More…]
On August 18, the Supreme Court rejected another attempt of the banks to wriggle out of accountability and responsibility under Right to Information Act. Surprisingly the Central Government joins these petitioners. Whom are they facilitating- the scamsters, big loan defaulters etc? Then why dacoits and way side robbers should be jailed? It is the basic principle of good governance that[Read More…]
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calls it an ‘insult to the nation.CPI(M) general secretary describes it as “an attempt to erase all traces of British atrocities in India”.It is both and much,much more.It is a shocking yet dead pan attempt to change the very meaning of India’s freedom movement.As objective observers and analysts of colonialism and imperialism have repeatedly underlined, all[Read More…]
With the final U.S. soldiers leaving Afghanistan earlier this week after nearly 20 years of occupation and war, a new analysis released Wednesday shows the United States will ultimately spend upwards of $8 trillion and that nearly one million people have lost their lives so far in the so-called “global war on terror” that was launched after the attacks of September[Read More…]
US President Joe Biden delivered a speech Tuesday afternoon declaring an end to the 20-year US war in Afghanistan. Coming the day after a C-17 military transport plane flew the last US troops out of Kabul and in the midst of celebrations in the streets of Afghanistan of the end of US occupation, Biden’s speech included statements never before heard[Read More…]
No more profoundly disturbing statement was needed. In the dying days of the official US departure from Kabul, a US drone etched its butcher’s legacy with a strike supposedly intended for the blood-lusty terrorist group ISIS-K, an abbreviation of Islamic State in Khorasan Province. Its members had taken responsibility for blasts outside Harmid Karzai International Airport that had cost the[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young At the end of August 2021, Germany’s right-wing Axel Springer bought the US political magazine Politico for about $1bn (€850m) – the most expensive acquisition in the history of Germany’s right-wing Springer Group. Until the Springer takeover, Politico used to belong to the Capitol News Company of media owner Robert Allbritton. Allbritton founded Politico[Read More…]
On April 12th earlier this year the Communist revolutionary movement commemorated the 12th death anniversary of veteran Comrade Gundahar Murmu. He passed away leaving his wife, four daughters, son, relatives and comrades but his memories will be embedded forever in the revolutionary movement like an inextinguishable red light shimmering. Few comrades ever from West Bengal staged such an invaluable crusade[Read More…]
France’s Global Warming Predicament 
The Spark 
Vanishing of Many Stretches of Aravalli Hills Will Prove Very Costly 
The End of Title 42 and the Triumph of the Border-Industrial Complex 
A New Direction for the World Bank? 
Conspiracy! Whose Conspiracy? 
Wrestlers’ struggle for justice : Will it endure? 
‘Digital India Bill’: Some things to worry about 
Electricity wasted in Mumbai as energy supply is cut off for hours in towns 
Samalkha Nestle Workers Union stage protest against preventing formation of Union 
Odisha rail accident- BSNL’s commendable performance- Should India diminish its public sector, allow private oligarchs to profiteer? 
Wildfire Smoke Chokes Canada and Eastern US 
Terracidal But Ignored Carbon Debt From Gas Exploitation By The World & Climate Criminal Australia 
China and Palestine: No To ‘Piecemeal Crisis Management’ 
Can China and the United States Establish Mutual Respect to Lessen Tensions? 
How Empire Fabricates Atrocities 
For Balanced Progress, Indian Railways Must Get Their Priorities Right 
Determining Scheduled Area: An Update 
The new Parliament house may be dangerously undemocratic 
Ranajit Guha: A duality of literature and history 
DIPAM’s hasty moves to disinvest the government’s residual share in HZL highly imprudent and against the public interest 
A Climate of Betrayal 
Deserving Each Other: The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Merger 
The World Economy Is Changing—the People Know, but Their Leaders Don’t 
Tribute to Chris Hani on 30th martyrdom Anniversary 
Proper Treatment of Rail Accident Victims Demands Long-term Commitment and Support 
What the Kailasa Con Job Reveals About the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh Release activists incarcerated in Bhima Koregaon Case 
The writing is on the wall: Farmers warn Parliamentarians 
The End Stage of American Empire 
End the culture of impunity and arrest accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh now 
Brasilia summit: Lula and Maduro reboot regional integration 
Steaming Ahead: Sikkim’s First Rail Project to Boost Connectivity by 2024 
Five years behind bars for five activists 
Five Years Since The First Arrests In Bhima-Koregaon Case 
Diluted Sovereignty: A Very Australian Example 
Conflict, Migration, and Demography in Russia and Its Border Regions 
Railway Safety Has Been Short of Funds, Needs Early Increase 
Notes on two recent sensations 
A shocking picture of health apathy….. 
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…]
