Russian forces have captured Chernobyl, a 1,000 square mile radioactive exclusion zone. But more significantly, what about Ukraine’s nuclear reactors smack dab in the middle of a theatre of war? A complicating/dangerous aspect of Russia’s invasion is the status of Chernobyl’s sister reactors, 15 reactors at four nuclear power plants exposed in a war zone of bombing, missile attacks and[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies Photo Credit: CODEPINK The defenders of Ukraine are bravely resisting Russian aggression, shaming the rest of the world and the UN Security Council for its failure to protect them. It is an encouraging sign that the Russians and Ukrainians are holding talks in Belarus that may lead to a ceasefire. All efforts must[Read More…]
When two scorpions are in a bottle, they both lose. This is the preventable danger that is growing daily, with no end game in sight, between the two nuclear superpowers, led by dictator Vladimir Putin and de facto sole decider, Joe Biden. Putin’s first argument is, Washington invented the model of aggressive, illegal invasions, and destruction of distant countries that never[Read More…]
Despite increasing budgets for water conservation and irrigation, real benefits are not reaching the villages of Bundelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh. Wrong priorities, poor planning, alienation from people and corruption have all combined to deny badly needed benefits of widely publicized government schemes to the long-suffering people of Bundelkhand. The recent revival of Kachnauda irrigation scheme in Lalitpur district[Read More…]
On December 10, 2021, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Bangladesh’s elite paramilitary force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and seven of its current and former officials accusing of human rights abuses and abductions. Even though US-Bangladesh has been enjoying a cozy relationship since the birth of Bangladesh, this sudden human-rights related sanctions have raised concern in the South Asian[Read More…]
Ignoring the vituperations of the west, Russian President, Vladimir Putin finally implemented his ‘military-technical’ threat against Ukraine on Thursday the 24th February. As expected, this produced a barrage of recriminations from those very countries of the US led NATO alliance, who had done their utmost to precipitate this situation, which had been simmering for the last eight years. Understandably, Ukrainian[Read More…]
As if killing the Child Tax Credit, blocking voting rights, gutting key climate legislation, and refusing living wages wasn’t enough, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is now promoting legislation that further punishes the poor and marginalized. Along with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, he’s introduced the PIPES Act, which undercuts key harm-reduction funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. It arrives with a[Read More…]
The following is an email I wrote on February 20 to a group of progressive political activists from Syracuse, NY, a city less than one hour’s drive west from where I live. For the last three years the Jewish Federation of Central New York (JFCNY) has sent a series of letters to the Syracuse Peace Council (SPC), a local progressive[Read More…]
Whether or not Sri Lanka cooperates with the international investigation, the OHCHR will proceed with its work as mandated and present its report to the Human Rights Council [HRC] The HRC will discuss the Report [Sri Lanka will have the right to respond] and decide on whether it will be adopted or not. If the Report is adopted and there[Read More…]
This war must be immediately terminated before it expands and sucks in the European NATO States and the United States. Towards that end President Biden must publicly announce that NATO Expansion is over for good and that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova will not be joining NATO as member States. President Biden must also call for an international peace conference for[Read More…]
Karnataka Government has passed the Anti-Conversion Bill in the Assembly despite stiff opposition from civil society and political parties. The Bill is expected to be tabled in the upper house to be made into a law. The Anti-Conversion Laws affect Christians, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and Women. It restricts the rights of an Indian citizen to choose one’s religion. It violates[Read More…]
On a trip to India 8 years ago, I picked up “A Village Awaits Doomsday” at an airport bookshop. It appeared to be an interesting read and I was glad to find it in a shop that otherwise was littered with business titles and pulp fiction. On the flight, I read it cover to cover and was at once impressed[Read More…]
When the COVID-19 pandemic started, there was initially some concern about crowding in Indian prisons. In an overpopulated, confined environment the risk of explosion of an infectious disease is always high. That is why, rights groups from several countries advocated for the decongestion of the prisons. Especially, in India, where poor health infrastructure in prisons added even more to the[Read More…]
Several students of mine on Saturday came to meet me. Since I stay near JNU, we decided to go to the campus. For those who may not know, I am teaching a paper on political science at Moti Lal Nehru College, University of Delhi. Please do not think that I am a permanent teacher. Nor am I an ad-hoc teacher.[Read More…]
by Admiral L Ramdas and Lalita Ramdas Twenty years ago, in end February 2002 we were in Palo Alto with our daughter towards the end of a successful lecture tour organised by friends –to build a coalition of groups and voices prepared to stand up against the proliferation of Nuclear weapons. It was with horror and disbelief that we watched[Read More…]
On 20th anniversary of one of the biggest genocides since 1947, we must dip our blood in memory of all the victims and pledge to disarm the breeding ground of Hindutva fascism. It is ironical that this event was staged on February 27th, the very day the Nazi storm troopers set fire on the Reichstag, which lit the first spark[Read More…]
Nights are on the panics, you filled your gun with bullets; Nights are dreadful, you shield and polish your weapons with great pride. Pride – your pride costs how many lives? You caress your pride like a baby, your only child is your weapon. Time has come; you’re ready to take charge, Your baby is well prepared- your gun is[Read More…]
Karnataka Government has passed the Anti-Conversion Bill in the Assembly despite stiff opposition from civil society and political parties. The Bill is expected to be tabled in the upper house to be made into a law. The Anti-Conversion Laws affect Christians, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and Women. It restricts the rights of an Indian citizen to choose one’s religion. It violates[Read More…]
Remember Captain Renault ( Claude Rains) in Casablanca when he had them close Rick’s Cafe Americain. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) runs to him and says ” Why are ya shutting me down?” Renault shouts back ” There’s gambling going on here.” At that moment the croupier runs over to him with a pile of chips saying ” Here’s your winnings sir.”[Read More…]
The much widely criticized PTA of 1979 described as draconian is doomed to live as long as Rajapakshas hold the reins of power in Sri Lanka. The demise of it by repealing will certainly ring the death knell of any designs of dictatorship in Sri Lanka and their hold on power. PTA -1979 was legislated as a result and consequence and aftermath[Read More…]
Today ( Feb. 27 ) is 91st death anniversary of Azad While travelling in Uttar Pradesh I have often been struck by the extent to which people still become inspired and excited by the sheer mention of the name of a freedom fighter, legends of whose courage are spread[Read More…]
PROTESTERS AGAINST BIRBHUM COAL PROJECT IN WEST BENGAL MUST BE RELEASED AND CASES WITHDRAWN STOP POLICE AND STATE REPRESSION ON PEASANTS OF DHINKIA IN ODISHA Samyukt Kisan Morcha expresses deep concern at police repression against farmers in Birbhum in West Bengal and Dhinkia in Odisha. These farmers have been protesting against land acquisition for coal mining and industry, respectively, without[Read More…]
Apparently, it is coup season in Africa, and the reasons for these upheavals always vary, from outright power grabs by opposing political factions to foreign-backed attempts at controlling central governments and resources. Pointing out governance issues identifies a serious aspect around the ‘ease’ at which coups take place successful or not. Regional and continental entities are generally at the forefront[Read More…]
The Russian predator by Ra Sh Once again, there is blood on Neruda’s streets. Once again, there are those sickening images of mothers grieving for their sons, of families looking for their bread winners, of little girls picking blood splattered flowers, of airplanes bombing housing colonies. Once again, war photos will fill pages. One will get the Pulitzer prize. Many[Read More…]
How is it that even as Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls, even as desperate youth go on a rampage to demand employment, their Chief Minister remains focused on evoking violent fantasies around the ‘M’ of the Mafia. How is it that the facts of Kairana matter so little when Adityanath evokes the “Kashmir-like” Hindu exodus? How is it that[Read More…]
Factory farms are the Grim Reapers of civilization, inhumanely penning up and slaughtering cows, pigs, and chickens by the tens of millions, as well as unintentionally, but effectively, poisoning, maiming and/or killing birds, insects, amphibians, mammals, and crucial life-supporting ecosystems that are key to human life. And, it’s legal. Factory farms have suddenly arisen out of nowhere, e.g., in Iowa[Read More…]
The most obvious aspect of the Ukraine war just now is that it should end immediately, or as early as possible. If this lingers on, possibilities of new ways of spreading conflict can emerge. This has to be checked. This war and its violence should not spread. If all sides see reason, clearly it is possible for the conflict to[Read More…]
Russia has invaded Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin recognised two eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk as ‘independent’ nations and then on their ‘request’ it sent a ‘Peace Keeping Force’ to maintain order. So we have two new ‘nations’ in the world map: Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LPR) as independent. Both these two states[Read More…]
The mainstream Western media is almost unanimous in demanding that Russia and Vladimir Putin stop their military operation in Ukraine immediately. This in their opinion is the only solution to the current conflict. However, if one attempts to understand how the current conflict had evolved, one would ask not Russia but the US led Western alliance to bring down the[Read More…]
The election tempo in Uttar Pradesh is getting more communal with every phase of voting, thanks to the virulent communal campaigning of incumbent BJP. With its sizeable population, existence of diverse caste groups, active identity politics, considerable muslim minority population, the mandate of Uttar Pradesh resulting from the 403 assembly seats will be decisive in understanding the future course of[Read More…]
The first signs of the dual track in Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine have surfaced. By Thursday evening, the Kremlin held out an olive branch to the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky. Succinctly put, President Vladimir Putin expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status for Ukraine and the[Read More…]
What Caused the War? The world woke up to alarming news on the morning of 24th February when Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine in a televised address. This doesn’t come as a shock due to the fact that war clouds were looming large in the skies of Eatern Europe since mid February. Though the Russian military aggression[Read More…]
There is war. Again there is war on the European continent – war of type and magnitude not experienced in Europe since Hitler and the racism imperialism of Nazi Germany. The war now is Putin’s war. Last night, this morning, tomorrow, always the same. War is murder. It is organized murder on a large scale. War technology increases the[Read More…]
Russia’s military has moved into Ukraine despite threats of sanctions repeated ad nauseum by President Biden and other leaders of the West. Obviously, the repeated threats of sanctions have not made any difference to Putin’s behavior. This should not surprise anyone as the sanctions imposed on Russia when it annexed the Crimea in 2014 did not compel Putin to reverse[Read More…]
Russia’s long-predicted invasion of Ukraine finally happened, but the reasons for it are widely misrepresented. Basic history is necessary in order to understand it. The Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, from Russia, under the Baltic Sea, to Germany, was planned in order to enable greatly increased sales-volume of the lowest-cost natural gas, which came from Russia, into the EU, without[Read More…]
Let us write poetry in memory of peace. Let us write poetry of love in times of war. Erasing the anger, the hate, let us sing love songs for skies without warplanes, horizons without clouds of mushrooms. Let us with love deluge, fill human hearts with hope for the war to end, an ability to transcend walls drawn by[Read More…]
The state terrorist Australian Coalition Government has joined the US, UK, Apartheid Israel and other anti-Arab anti-Semitic US Alliance countries in declaring the leading Palestinian political party, Hamas, to be a terrorist group in its entirety. This false and racist decision seriously threatens anti-racist Jewish, non-Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Australians supporting the lives and human rights of the sorely[Read More…]
Despite possible sanctions and their hard-hitting economic consequences, the hunted Russian bear has got out of the den and is going after the hunters. Until recently, Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans believed that there would be no war. What we see now, however, is a full-scale Russian intervention and quite a successful one too. Where are the Russian troops going, and[Read More…]
Cynics say the situation around Ukraine benefits all parties except the Chinese. The Russians are annexing territories inhabited mostly by Russians, the Americans will sell natural gas and oil at very high prices, the Germans will push their (now cheap) green energy, and the French will open new nuclear power stations—while everyone will go on selling weapons systems because world[Read More…]
A frozen continent. Another potential frontier for conflict and competition. Antarctica is a part of the world were realpolitician meets scientist; the desire for finding exploitable resources meets environmental expectations and fears. Countries have vied for their little slice of ice, sometimes citing reasons of scientific collaboration, and often national self-interest. Much of this culminated in the establishment of the[Read More…]
Consider us at the edge of the sort of epochal change not seen for centuries, even millennia. By the middle of this century, we will be living under such radically altered circumstances that the present decade, the 2020s, will undoubtedly seem like another era entirely, akin perhaps to the Middle Ages. And I’m not talking about the future development of[Read More…]
In recent times there have been several well-intentioned studies and reports which strongly advocate raising more resources by imposing much higher taxes on the super-rich and billionaires. An increasing support for this is provided by the sharply escalating inequality of COVID times in which billionaires have increased as never before and have been amassing wealth to an unprecedented extent, at[Read More…]
On February 17, 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron held a press conference in Paris just ahead of the sixth European Union-African Union summit in Brussels along with Senegal’s President Macky Sall and Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo as well as European Council President Charles Michel. At the conference, Macron announced that the French forces would be withdrawing from Mali. This means that France and its[Read More…]
by Dr. Prashant Kumar Choudhary and Madhubrota Chatterjee Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in the past fifty years; its economy has registered the lowest GDP per capita annual growth -4.1% in 2020, which is lower than its previous worst economic downturn of 2001 (GDP per capita annual growth was -2.25%). It is not the case that its[Read More…]
There were many women who sacrificed their lives in the freedom struggle. One of them is ‘Matangini Hazra’. She was born on 19th October 1870 in the village of Hogla in Midnapore district of East Bengal to a peasant family. Due to extreme poverty at home, she married Trilochan Hajra, Aged 62, when she was barely 12 years old. From[Read More…]
The Kerala government’s obsession with huge infrastructure projects is not something new. The previous United Democratic Front (UDF) led government and the present Left Democratic Front (LDF) government have all initiated several projects in the past. But this time it is different, amidst the near apocalypse the state is going through after the three waves of the pandemic and the[Read More…]
All limits of irresponsibiity have been crossed by big powers in the build-up to Russia-Ukraine war and now its actual outbreak. Beyond the immediate issues lurks the much bigger truth that the deeply troubled humanity just cannot afford any war at this critical juncture of its history, when it stands precariously at the onset of a survival crisis caused by[Read More…]
To Shri K Chandrasekhar Rao Chief Minister Telangana Dear Shri Chandrasekhar Rao garu, I had earlier written to you on 8-2-2022 welcoming your opposition to the Centre’s unilateral proposal to privatise the Singareni Collieries. Considering it from the point of view of federalism, in that letter I had suggested that the States should come together to counter the growing threat[Read More…]
In August 2018, India’s Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government renamed the historic Mughalsarai Junction Railway Station in the state of Uttar Pradesh after the right-wing Hindu ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, most likely because the existing name referred to the Indian Muslim Mughal dynasty. Three years earlier, in May 2015, the ruling BJP officially changed the name of the[Read More…]
On the morning of February 22 in a very tragic accident in an illegal firecrackers factory at Baathu (Una district of Himachal Pradesh), six women migrant workers were burnt to death. These included mother and daughter from a single family. 14 other workers, most of them also women migrant workers, were injured. In most cases injuries are serious. In fact[Read More…]
On 2 August 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered the Iraqi army to invade and occupy Kuwait in an operation that led to Iraq’s defeat in war, rebellions crushed in blood, 13 years of UN sanctions, defeat in a second war, foreign occupation, and two decades of civil conflict that is only now drawing to an end. More than thirty years later, Vladimir Putin sent[Read More…]
Russia’s recognition of the ‘people’s republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass on Monday is a watershed event. In a manner of speaking, by this decision President Vladimir Putin crossed the Rubicon. But a tumultuous period lies ahead. Moscow followed up by putting the legal underpinnings in place “to deploy troops to these regions,” concluding two treaties on[Read More…]
When Nelson Mandela was freed from his Robben Island prison on February 11, 1991, my family, friends and neighbors followed the event with keen interest as they gathered in the living room of my old home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. This emotional event took place years before Mandela uttered his famous quote “our freedom is[Read More…]
People across the world who seek justice do what they can and must to respond to the plight of Palestinians who remain trapped in a deepening cycle of violence, humiliation and despair. Palestinians have called out to their brothers and sisters in around the world as their suffering proliferates. They shed tears as they shout in anguish: “Enough is enough.[Read More…]
Amidst of all its failures, the troika of capitalism, reactionary nationalism and imperialism move together to continue its false relevance with the help of its traditional weapons of war and regional conflicts. It is a response to divert the radical agendas and promises of rising social and political movements against capitalism and imperialism. It is within this context; one needs[Read More…]
Note: In this series of articles senior journalist Amit Sengupta examines the role of the Indian media during the two years of the Covid pandemic. Part One: Locked up during Lockdown Even as the affluent and the middle classes were rejoicing the banging of thalis and utensils on their balconies to beat an incipient virus which had just arrived in[Read More…]
That academia which preaches justice is itself an unjust environment has been pointed out by some of the academia themselves (Kumar 2016, Guru 2002). The major complaint is that the marginalised do not get due recognition. I published a book in 2011 out of my PhD (Khora 2011). However, it has not been referred in academic writings in India in[Read More…]
This baby boomer can recall watching a NY Giants football game on the boob tube 60 years ago. Towards the end of the game one of the teams called a timeout. The network went to performer Julie London singing a Marlboro cigarette commercial. As the clock reached one minute they broke to the field as the teams were at the[Read More…]
People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) expresses serious concern over the malafide action of the police in implicating local villagers and human rights defenders with fabricated cases following the incident that happened on 19th February, 2022 in Dhinkia. It needs to be noted that in response to a number of PILs about the police repressions in Dhinkia and requesting the[Read More…]
by Deva Prasad M and Navaneeth M S The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow, although described by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a big step forward, in-ground, was uneventful and continuation of the status quo with few bright promises that gave optimism to the future trajectory of climate change negotiations. The[Read More…]
The demise of two outstanding , organic intellectuals who served the cause of annihilation of caste and the destruction of capitalist system and highlighted a number of burning social problems in Tamil Nadu and the rest of the world passed largely unnoticed or ignored by the mainstream media , while activists in Dalit , Periyarist and Communist movements could pay[Read More…]
Yesterday, 22 February, was Kasturba Gandhi’s 78th death anniversary. Kasturba died in 1944 and at the time she was in prison, arrested on 9 August 1942, the first day of the “Quit India Movement”. Gandhiji had already been arrested the previous evening, and both of them along with some of their closest colleagues were imprisoned at the Agha Khan Palace[Read More…]
To Shri A K Bhalla Union Home Secretary Dear Shri Bhalla, The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seems to be rushing into privatising the electricity distribution systems in the Union Territories (UTs). I understand that the proposal to privatise the Chandigarh DISCOM is at an advanced stage. So is the case with the DISCOMs in Dadra & Nagar Haveli,[Read More…]
On January 10, 2022, the Indian Government implemented the Citizen Amendment Act(CAA) . According to this law, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians are welcome from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Taking cue from it, many persecuted Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are migrating to India from Afghanistan. “A friend in need is a friend indeed” seems to be the policy of India[Read More…]
In the 18th century a migration took to the Donbas region of Ukraine which Tsarist Russia named “New Russia” after rich coal resources were discovered. The man who was chosen to facilitate mining and to develop steel mills was John Hughes who was born in Wales. He had become a well-known developer of steel mills in England and armor plating[Read More…]
If you regularly drink water from plastic bottles, you’re likely ingesting even more plastic than the average consumer. We are no better protected from plasticized air outdoors than we are indoors. Minuscule plastic fibers, fragments, foam, and films are shed from plastic stuff and are perpetually floating into and free-falling down on us from the atmosphere. Rain flushes micro- and[Read More…]
It is no coincidence that a wave of schools in Karnataka suddenly began banning students from wearing hijab at the exact same time that the state government was passing a so-called “anti-conversion” law to criminalize freedom of religion. About the hijab ban, we might well ask: what’s next? Will beards be banned? Will the Sikh dastar be done away with?[Read More…]
Lately, random verses from the Bible have been popping into my mind unbidden, like St. Paul’s famous line from Galatians, “A person reaps what they sow.” The words sprang into my consciousness when I learned of the death of the 95-year-old Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who helped encourage Martin Luther King to declare his opposition to the Vietnam[Read More…]
Review of Munich: the Edge of War|Netflix, 2022 When I first saw an advertisement for Munich: The Edge of War appear on my Netflix search screen, my blood pressure rose palpably. I knew that I had to watch it and that parts of the movie would be objectionable, from a historical and moral point of view. I avoided watching it[Read More…]
Events in the war crisis over Ukraine between Russia and NATO overtook each other on Monday. The day began with news that two reconnaissance-sabotage units of the Ukrainian army had crossed into Russia’s Rostov region and ended with Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering Russian troops to enter the East Ukrainian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk which he had just[Read More…]
With the re-opening of schools, there is a need for pedagogic support for students belonging to the marginalized sections to help them acquire linguistic, numerical, and cognitive competencies. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the contradiction between instrumentalism and morality as educational aims has reached the state of a full-blown crisis. This has percolated in the educational institutions as they[Read More…]
![Savarkar’s Original Petitions To The British Begging Forgiveness (1913, 1914, 1920) [Source: National Archives of India]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Savarkar-Petition-2-Page-1-200x150.jpg "Savarkar’s Original Petitions To The British Begging Forgiveness (1913, 1914, 1920) [Source: National Archives of India] 140")
First time these are being made available in original form. The credit to gather all these goes to Mr. Amit Indurkar and his friends who are intensely involved in unearthing anti-national and anti-humanity documents of Savarkar. (22 February 2022) Mercy Petition-Savarkar 14-11-1913 (2 pages) Mercy Petition-Savarkar-1914 (3 pages) MERCY PETITION-SAVARKAR-30-03-1920 (total pages 4) Compiled by Shamsul Islam
US President Theodore Roosevelt never had much time for peace, seeing its returns as distinctly less than those of war. Despite his love of military conflict and its touted benefits, he was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering peace in the Russo-Japanese War. But for old Teddy peaceniks were sissies, degenerates, and probably sexually dubious.[Read More…]
Experienced foreign policy analysts such as Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, and Pepe Escobar, while agreeing that the Biden administration is clearly guilty of provoking Russia over Ukraine, are divided over whether it will lead to war. All agree that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine and that it is clearly justified in demanding safe borders by insisting U.S./NATO withdraw[Read More…]
Mainstream US media continues to celebrate the supposed strength of the US economy. Almost daily, headlines speak of hopeful numbers, sustainable growth, positive trends and constant gains. The reality on the ground, however, tells of something entirely different, which raises the questions: Are Americans being lied to? And for what purpose? “US Economy Grew 1.7% in Fourth Quarter, Capping a[Read More…]
If responsibilities with respect to a most deserving and vulnerable section of our population increase significantly and the government also accepts that responsibilities have increased yet refuses to increase the budget in accordance with increased responsibilities, then surely this is a case of serious injustice. If on top of it even the limited allocations are frequently cut mid-year and so[Read More…]
Reports say some authority in central(union) government had rejected the tableaux from three states for the Republic Day parade.What does the republic stand for? Not a centralized state,but as CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury had insisted in Parliament during the first Modi government ‘a union of states’.He had invoked the Constitution.But leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley had promptly retorted that[Read More…]
Tamil Nadu has reportedly made clear to the Supreme Court that it does not want the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO) to be set up in a sensitive ecological zone in the Western Ghats at great cost to wildlife, biodiversity, and by ignoring the local opposition and public agitations to the project. Neutrinos are esoteric Neutrinos, first postulated in 1930 by[Read More…]
In a forceful and passionate interview, where both her anger and anguish are clearly visible, the Executive Director of Hindus for Human Rights, a US-based civil society organisation, says that her organization will “certainly intensify and escalate” efforts to lobby the US Congress and Biden Administration to speak out against Hindutva and India’s treatment of minorities and muslims in particular.[Read More…]
Proposed electoral reforms not only evokes a procedural and constitutional debate, but has deeper implications for India’s engagement on the idea of public trust File image of an Aadhaar card | Photo: Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg A central procedural aspect of any democratic nation is manifested in its legislative elections. The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 passed by both[Read More…]
Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests. Conditions of mad instability are fostered. Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change. Nothing is more counter-intuitive than the effort to isolate, cripple and strangulate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. For all the[Read More…]
Book Review: Where is India Headed? An Historical Critique by Dr Vinod Mubayi, Media Society and Sahithya Pravarthaka, 2021. It was April 2017, UP elections had just concluded, writing about the loss of composite culture, the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, Vinod Mubayi, in his essay UP Elections and Consequence said, ‘the early signs are not reassuring’. The essay foretold that the country[Read More…]
The Sangh Parivar claims to be a cultural organization. Core supporters of its ideology are upper caste and/or the educated elite. Quite naturally it gives importance to education. It is opposed to caste based reservation in the name of honouring merit. The irony is among the top leadership of Sangh Parivar or it affiliate organisations there are hardly any intelligent[Read More…]
There has been a steep increase in child labour in the country during the Covid pandemic period that shows severe economic distress among large sections of the population. The figures of the government itself are telling that apart from the mental, physical health of the children, this virus has forced them to work at a young age. Children have started[Read More…]
The United Nations, UN Human Rights Council and the International Community will now understand Sri Lanka’s policy of non-compliance of any recommendations of the UN or UNHRC. The following long standing core issues still to be investigated and perpetrators punished, On the evening of January 02, 2006, amid New Year’s celebrations at Trincomalee beach Sri Lankan security forces shot and[Read More…]
“Confide in struggles not in elections” called the Peoples Welfare Rally. of the Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta(Ugrahan).On February 17th farmers, farm-labourers, women, youth, industrial labourers, contractual labourers and toiling people flooded Barnala grain market. Scene resembled a festival of the masses. Revolutionary democratic spirit was elevated to a height rarely transcended or scaled in Punjab or even India, with an[Read More…]
Recently, I started reading Raghuram Rajan‘s ‘The Third Pillar’, in which he brilliantly describes the critical role of community in a nation and how the state and markets do not give much importance to it. I could not help but circumspect those 3 pillars from the perspective of our country, where the state and markets have become powerful by oppressing[Read More…]
The “Freedom Convoy” protest has left Ottawa, Canada, in gridlock for three weeks, and on Friday, police began a major operation to clear out the remaining protesters and vehicles. Police said more than 100 people were arrested and that some protesters had assaulted officers. Freedom Convoys are also being organized in other countries. In a few countries this has already[Read More…]
At an extraordinary press conference Friday afternoon, US President Joe Biden declared that he was “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin had made “the decision to invade” Ukraine and advance on the country’s capital Kiev. Biden said that the White House “expected” such a move “within the coming week, within the coming days.” In a 10-minute speech, Biden warned that “such[Read More…]
by Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant Global health thought leader Dr Tim France rightly tweeted, “Here is the WHO stating explicitly what most people I know are saying to one another privately: Is not it really risky to lift all COVID-19 related measures now, with the virus still circulating in high levels? Clearly, in these global experts’ minds, the[Read More…]
I am the Agar wood or Oud tree that has been growing for more than 5 decades in the green campus of the heritage space in the city –the Residency and Guest house . It would be better to say that I “was the agar tree” because now I am just logs with little or no life left in me.[Read More…]
Since it started in early 2020 the COVID pandemic has posed great challenges for many with hearing and visual impairments, particularly children. Talking with the help of hands or facial expression is the most convenient way for a person dealing with hearing impairment to communicate. Even a person with visual impairment requires support of objects and humans to move around[Read More…]
United States’ expertise at holding strategic command over controlling operation of diplomatic reins may well be assumed to have fumbled a little at propagation of so-called Ukraine-crisis because of alleged military designs of Russia. Yes, to a considerable degree, greater part of the world still depends on going by what is stated by White House as well as American media.[Read More…]
With legislative and presidential elections coming up in Colombia, the supposedly “oldest democracy in Latin America” will see if it can consolidate the most precarious and recent peace on the continent. The Latin American and Caribbean electoral calendar for 2022 promises to be no less hectic than that of the previous year. Among the upcoming elections and referendums that are slated for this year—Costa[Read More…]
Man-made chemicals have exceeded the limits of safety for the planet. This statement comes from the first-ever major scientific warning based upon a study of the dangers posed by the flood of chemicals across the globe as three hundred fifty thousand (350,000) chemicals slosh throughout the planet. “We have overwhelming evidence of negative impacts on Earth systems, including biodiversity and[Read More…]
The question of Reparations for the historical crime of slavery is not primarily about money. Rather it is about spiritual cleansing and healing. It is about recognizing the fact that systemic physical and mental torture have long hands that stretch out across time and space. It is about acknowledging the attempted physical and spiritual destruction of a people and the[Read More…]
As village after village is being visited by the political elite of the state of Punjab to make promises and appease the voters for 20th February (when their fate gets decided by the population of the state), the members of BKU (Ekta) Ugrahan – the largest Kisan union in Punjab – was busy preparing for its Lok Kalyan rally, which[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 many aspects of[Read More…]
The U.S. on Thursday criticized Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s declaration of “solidarity” with Russia during a visit there this week. A Reuters report from Brasilia said: “The timing of the president of Brazil expressing solidarity with Russia, just as Russian forces are preparing to launch attacks on Ukrainian cities, could not be worse,” the U.S. State Department said. “It undermines[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies Every day brings new noise and fury in the crisis over Ukraine, mostly from Washington. But what is really likely to happen? There are three possible scenarios: The first is that Russia will suddenly launch an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The second is that the Ukrainian government in Kyiv will launch an escalation[Read More…]
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain. On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously[Read More…]
On January 21, 2022, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach attended a talk in New Delhi, India, organized by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. Schönbach was speaking as the chief of Germany’s navy during his visit to the institute. “What he really wants is respect,” Schönbach said, referring to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. “And my god, giving someone respect is low cost, even no[Read More…]
The world took little notice last month when over 100 Bedouin, a third of them minors, were arrested in the Negev/Naqab desert in Southern Israel. They were protesting the Jewish National Fund’s planting trees on 300 dunams as part of a 5,000 dunam (1,236 acre) afforestation project on land where 300,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel live and farm. Because the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish[Read More…]
As the title states, the Washington DC Think Tank crowd have been itching, along with the military industrial complex, for another major war. They are still attempting to draw Iran into a trap but so far that hasn’t worked because of the pragmatism of the Iranian leadership. However, they knew they could rattle Vladmir Putin’s cage with the threat of[Read More…]
The fragile geopolitical nature of the Balkans has allowed Russia to consistently undermine Western integration attempts in the region. While foreign interference is nothing new in Europe’s underbelly, it has historically been limited to regional powers and the U.S. But China’s recent collaboration with Russia in supporting ethnic separatism in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) reveals that Beijing is happy to challenge the[Read More…]
As awareness of the Palestinian crisis grows and empathy for the Palestinian people increases, organizations search frantically for a solution to Israel’s continuous theft of Palestinian lands and oppression of the native peoples. Justice looks to establishing a single state, where Israelis and Palestinians live as equals and in harmony. The single state solution arrived with improved understanding of the[Read More…]
The 14 year old brother and 10 year old sister hurried with their mother across the crowded city to reach their grandmother’s shop by the road side . Most evenings they came here to help the grandmother pack up the containers and other materials, untie the long chain of masks that she sold ever since Covid phase and also drop[Read More…]
The February 5 order of Government of Karnataka banning wearing of Hijab and High court interim order restraining wearing of any form of religious attire has brought to fore the Hijab issue. While the BJP may try to show itself in progressive and modernity light, there are 3 M’s behind the move of Government of Karnataka. Karnataka has emerged as[Read More…]
Politically and culturally this baby boomer feels like the odd man out. Each day it compounds itself as no matter where I look is there any rational thinking. Perhaps I am related to Robert Heinlein’s main character in his 1961 novel ‘ Stranger in a Strange Land’, born on Earth and raised on Mars. Methinks perhaps Pluto or somewhere further[Read More…]
Sometimes life has a way of making you realize things about yourself. Recently, I discovered that an urge of mine, almost four decades old, had been the very opposite of that of a rural Tennessee school board this January. In another life, I played a role in what could be thought of as the unbanning of the graphic novel Maus.[Read More…]
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, stirred up a series of trolls and memes on social media recently by claiming that “Corona does not spread in salt water”, during a press conference related to the Gangasagar Mela. The Gangasagar mela is an annual pilgrimage for Hindus, held every year during the makar sankranti festival, when thousands from all[Read More…]
The assembly elections in five states, being held from February 10 to March 7, 2022, are bound to have an impact on both: the politics of power and the politics of ideology. The impact of these elections on the politics of power is being discussed more and more in political parties, mass media and citizens’ discourse. With the acceptance and[Read More…]
Events are exposing the threats and lies that the NATO powers are using to launch a war drive against Russia. Yesterday, the date US officials had said would see the beginning of Russia’s conquest of Ukraine, came and went without any Russian invasion whatsoever, and Russia in fact pulled back units deployed along its border with Ukraine for military exercises.[Read More…]
Joe Biden told the American people, on 15 February 2022, “The United States and NATO are not a threat to Russia. … To the citizens of Russia: You are not our enemy.” He expected Americans and Russians to believe that America’s anti-Russian military alliance (NATO) wasn’t hostile to Russia, wasn’t against it, didn’t consider it to be even an enemy[Read More…]
Well irrigated paddy fields and rich economy, as shown in Telugu cinemas come to one’s mind whenever there is any reference to East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh (AP) in India which are part of central coastal region of the state where canal irrigation and capitalism arrived earliest, thanks to a record 3.5 km long Dowlaiswaram[Read More…]
The current split in the African Union (AU) over Israel’s Observer membership status is emblematic of a larger conflict that could potentially split the African continent’s largest political institutions. Africa is currently facing one of its most crucial decisions regarding Palestine and Israel. The repercussions of this decision could be as significant as the 1975 Resolution 77 (XII) by the[Read More…]
Incompetent politicians and diplomats are on the level with ill-prepared generals fighting current wars with dated methods. They err, they stumble, and they may well be responsible for the next idiotic slander, misfire or misunderstanding. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is synonymous with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s idea of groping diplomacy. Graceless, all confusion, and much ignorance besides, she has[Read More…]
Since the Korean war, the USA could not pass a reasonable long time without at least one enemy, if not more, around the globe. It constantly finds a foe on the horizon. They can find or discover an adversary when needed and notably, they need it always! No need to give chronological examples to readers. And in Washington’s lens, it[Read More…]
Recent reports from Bihar have pointed to the building up a movement of flood and erosion affected people of Bihar against denial of promised relief and rehabilitation. In addition longer term issues of the injustice done to people caught between embankments on two sides are also being raised. Although the emphasis of the movement just now is more on[Read More…]
On Tuesday, the day before the United States had previously claimed Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he doubled down on his threats of a “bloody, destructive war” even though no Russian invasion was forthcoming. Earlier in the day, the Russian government, which has insisted that it has no[Read More…]
Russia does not want to invade Ukraine Both Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, and its Foreign Secretary, Sergey Laverov, have repeatedly stated that Russia does not intend to invade Ukraine. Logic also tells us that if they had wished to do so, they would have done it long ago. The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is a western invention.[Read More…]
2021 Disinvestment Policy: The sweeping, ill-advised disinvestment policy announced by the NDA government in December, 2021 has put most of the national wealth on a distress sale. The few oligarchs who fund the political parties and issue diktats on policy are waiting with their war chests of funds ready to buy the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) for a song,[Read More…]
Several leading experts and veterans of the dairy sector in India have recently stated in a joint statement that they are worried about the recent privatisation trends in the National Dairy Development Board which had been engaged so far in advancing cooperatives based dairy development. In fact this trend extends to some other dairy institutions also, sending strong signals that[Read More…]
The extraordinary statement “we cannot truly die” is found on page 133 of Joseph Selbie’s book, The Physics of God (New Page Books, 2021). Indeed, it’s a book for people who want to understand and believe that there is more to life’s course than earthly corporeal existence. Based upon reams of fascinating scientific and metaphysical research, Selbie connects the dots[Read More…]
Three Generations of Conspicuous Destruction by the Military-Industrial Complex In my lifetime of nearly 60 years, America has waged five major wars, winning one decisively, then throwing that victory away, while losing the other four disastrously. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as the Global War on Terror, were the losses, of course; the Cold War being the solitary win[Read More…]
I’ve previously written concerning [Yemen, The War That Should Have Never Been And How To Achieve Peace: Countercurrents: 13/02/2022] the fact the War in Yemen should never have occurred in the first place and the what and how required to achieve peace; either by dividing Yemen in two, North and South Yemen as per the pre-1990 borders, or under a[Read More…]
From politicians to academics, Americans who speak against Hindutva face harsh backlash, protests, and violent threats. When US Senator and then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticized then President Donald Trump’s “failure of leadership on human rights” for having dismissed the issue of the February 2020 anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi as “up to India,” it was not long before a senior leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya[Read More…]
The sunlight dazzles in the breeze sparkling its way through the window The rays of the sun touch my brow and embrace the body in full splendor The roses you loved, the magnolia you planted, the jasmine you potted The roses have withered, magnolia stands tall, the jasmine blooms in all its charm The breeze is slow, birds are silent,[Read More…]
We are aware of how the #MeToo movement began in 2017, in the United States of America, and spread to other parts of the world. I will not go into the timeline here. I will, though, begin with how it hit the Indian sub-continent. In 2018, as the movement spread in media, politics, film industry, art worlds etc. in India,[Read More…]
A new situation is being emerged in some parts of North India. The states where elections are being held include Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab. Uttar Pradesh A new picture is emerging in this state which is the integration of Bahujan castes like never before. Yadav, Jatt, Kurmi, Rajbhar etc. The integration of OBC castes and some Dalit castes, who had[Read More…]
The raging controversy around Hijab is taking disturbing proportions. In Udupi Karnataka Muslim girls alleged that they were denied entry in to the classroom if they wear Hijab. Then we saw the gates of the institute being shut on the hijab wearing girls. Also we witnessed the shameful-despicable act of the vigilantes wearing saffron turban and shawls obstructing the lone[Read More…]
![A view of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022 [Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/US-Embassy-in-Kyiv-Ukraine-200x150.jpg "US moves embassy from Ukraine’s capital Kiev to the western city of Lviv 260")
Amid an ongoing war frenzy in the American media, the US cleared out its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and relocated its diplomatic staff 340 miles west to Lviv, near the border with Poland. Since Thursday, the Biden administration and the corporate press have peddled unsubstantiated allegations that a Russian invasion is “imminent,” naming Wednesday as a potential date[Read More…]
For several months now people of Dhinkia in Jagashinghpur district of Orissa have been protesting against the project of Utkal Steel Industries Ltd. belonging to US$13 billion JSW group, owned by Sajjan Jindal . On 14th January state atrocity against protesters became inhumane. They were subjected to brutal lathi charge. Elderly-children-women nobody was spared from the ruthless lathi charge. More[Read More…]
The drums of war are beating again! It is at the border between Russia and Ukraine and in the corridors of the power elites in Washington. It is kind of shocking to see the readiness for another war so soon among the Neocons considering the recent debacle in Afghanistan, an epic failure of a global power surrendering to a ragtag[Read More…]
Muskan Khan, the lone Karnataka (India) Muslim student in Hijab, standing up against Hindu extremists; Source: CNN In the past, there were no countries. There were civilizations and empires and then, there were nations of small ethnic and linguistic groups. ‘Country’, is a colonial construct and thus a very a recent idea. For example, before British colonised ‘India’, it did[Read More…]
In an action that combines brazen theft, imperialist brutality and unlimited hypocrisy, the Biden administration announced Friday that it will seize control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than return them to the Afghanistan central bank. Media attention has largely been devoted to Biden’s splitting of the $7[Read More…]
Elections to the Vidhan Sabha in five states – Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur – took off, with the first round in Uttar Pradesh on 10 February. And a month later, we will have the results out on 10 March. These elections are being considered very critical – not just for the political parties and individuals in the[Read More…]
Sri Lanka is a democracy only in its most slovenly application, and even if it is a full, blazing beacon of a democracy, the category offers no protection or excuse for what that “democracy” so gruesomely did to Tamils by using banned cluster bombs and phosphorous to wipe out the Tamils trapped inside the war zone. Most unfortunate for all[Read More…]
Non-sovereign nation Start at the top: Canada is not free and does not control its own sovereignty as a fully independent country. Much of this is by choice as an offspring of the British Empire. Canada’s foreign policy is very much in line with U.S. foreign policy, or more broadly it is fully in line with the Anglo-American Five Eyes[Read More…]
Just a few days back, an incident took place around the wearing of hijab by Muskan Khan. It has created huge controversies, leading to a deeply polarized situation in the realm of politics and society. This incident has created pan-Indian reactions and it has become an international issue. In this hijab row, political leaders and the so-called secular parties have[Read More…]
On a biting cold day in January this year, the city of Prayagraj witnessed a day long demonstration by a group of cooks employed by the government’s Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) for school children. They were demanding their pay, withheld for over eight months at the peak of the Covid pandemic, by the Uttar Pradesh regime without giving any reasons.[Read More…]
by Ra’ana Dilruba Yasmin and Robert H. Stiver “I have never doubted that apartheid – because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil – was going to bite the dust eventually.” ~Desmond Tutu, 2007 Along with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nelson Mandela ‘Madiba,’ and Martin Luther King, Jr., the world has lost one of the greatest souls of the last two centuries or[Read More…]
Debating on religion, culture, and nationalism is a challenging task in contemporary times. Given the multifarious dimensions of issues related to religion and nationalism, this has become extremely complex today, more than ever before in the history of philosophy. This is the theme of a special lecture by Italian philosopher Dr Sabrina Lei, Director, Tawasul International Centre for Publishing, Research[Read More…]
The atmospheric level of the potent greenhouse gas (GHG) methane (CH4) is increasing, and is now nearly triple the pre-industrial level. There is a positive feedback loop in the Arctic with increased methane leading to warming and thence to further increase in atmospheric methane. In the warming Arctic methane release is occurring from huge methane-water clathrate deposits, and increasingly from[Read More…]
Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, including structural genocide, commenced in 1948 soon after the independence. As defined in the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, genocide includes “killing members of the group, or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, with intent to destroy in whole or part of a said national, ethnical, racial or[Read More…]
Public Intellectual – The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim. Richard Falk. Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA. 2021. Writing an autobiography after experiencing the greater part of a century as a public intellectual has resulted in Richard Falk’s superbly written story covering many of the major events of the Twentieth and nascent Twenty-first Centuries. Public Intellectual is densely written with ideas and[Read More…]
In military history, the term “we learn from history, that we never learned from history” could be no truer than in Yemen. Two wars are raging in Yemen that the United States and the UK are complicit in: the first conflict has been a continuous counterterrorism battle against a Yemeni Al Qaeda’s affiliate, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula[Read More…]
‘Deaths in Farmers’ Protest 2020’ portal provides details of over 700 women and men who died during the year-long, peaceful farmers’ movement. The records are a testimony of lives shortened by neglect and harsh living conditions, made harsher due to state apathy. Men and women died of stress, dehydration, by suicides and were ran over by speeding vehicles, the list[Read More…]
The oceans of the world are undergoing a dangerous and damaging upheaval that manifests throughout scientific studies of late. Whether it’s the world’s fisheries of the Bering Strait or coral reefs of the Mediterranean Sea or emaciated Gray Whales along the Pacific coastline, study after study after study describes sudden, sharp downturns in all categories of marine life. What is[Read More…]
Oil and gas CEOs were too chicken to show up to a recent congressional hearing—perhaps fearing that their climate pledges will be revealed as nothing more than slick PR. Everywhere around us there is evidence of climate change, from the increase in winter storms such as New England’s late January blizzard, to California’s recent record-breaking winter heat wave. Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and[Read More…]
On February 8, 2022, UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) Afghanistan sent out a bleak set of tweets. One of the tweets, which included a photograph of a child lying in a hospital bed with her mother seated beside her, said: “Having recently recovered from acute watery diarrhea, two years old Soria is back in hospital, this time suffering from edema and wasting.[Read More…]
In Karnataka, there have been incidents of Muslim girls being banned from attending college for wearing hijab; when they insisted on exercising their right to do so, Hindu students donned saffron scarves to intimidate them, raising slogans of “Jai Shri Ram (praise Lord Ram)” while going to college. In response to these events, the state’s Education Department said, “In some[Read More…]
In Bhawanigarh in Punjab on February 10th the Zameen Prapt Sangharsh Commitee held the Begampura conference on the issue of the implementation of the land ceilings act on the Occasion of birthday Guru Ravidas .Comprising around 2000 persons it was a most qualitative assembly in channelizing the wrath of the agricultural dalit labour against the oppressive social order. It also[Read More…]
Two popular words — ‘worker’ and ‘labourer’ were absent in the finance minister’s speech. This signifies a paternalistic approach to workers where workers are not holders of any legitimate rights over re-distributed wealth. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech while presenting Budget 2022 is littered with words, ‘jobs’ and ‘employment’. The words reflect the core ideological position of the budget. What[Read More…]
Celebrated thinker Noam Chomsky said the “pathology of Islamophobia”, now growing throughout the West, was “taking its most lethal form in India where the Modi government is systematically dismantling Indian secular democracy and turning the country into a Hindu ethnocracy”. Chomsky’s comments came in a recorded message to a congressional briefing — the third in a month organised by US-based[Read More…]
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been claiming that UP model has become ‘ideal’ for the rest of the country. Darbari media has already given Uttar Pradesh one of the best ‘governed’ state. As first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh has completed yesterday, things are not that rosy for the ruling BJP as they were claiming and hence[Read More…]
People in the United States must recognize the suffering their country continues inflicting in Afghanistan. During visits to Kabul, Afghanistan, over the past decade, I particularly relished lingering over breakfasts on chilly winter mornings with my young hosts who were on their winter break from school. Seated on the floor, wearing coats and hats and draped with blankets, we’d sip[Read More…]
Rakesh Tikait visits Swami Sivananda Image courtesy: हिन्दुस्तान टीम, हरिद्वार In June 2011 Swami Nigamananda died fasting for more than a hundred days. Later, Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand (formerly known as professor G D Agarwal the pioneer Environmental Engineer at IIT Kanpur and one of the initiators of Pollution Control Boards of our country) died in October 2018 fasting 112[Read More…]
For a long period of time, Bangladesh has been striving to ensure food security at home by planning to shop farmland abroad. Recently, South Sudan, an African country, has expressed interest in leasing a vast area of its fallow land to Bangladesh in order to collaborate in agricultural production, processing, and marketing in the central African countries. This is not[Read More…]
The Republican Party has become irresponsible In recent years, and especially since Donald Trump’s term as president, the Republican party has become irresponsible. Republican Senators and members of the House of Representatives no longer act to promote whatever is best for their country and the planet. Instead they block whatever the Democratic Party tries to achieve. The Republican Party is[Read More…]
As soon as Moscow received an American response to its security demands in Ukraine, it answered indirectly by announcing greater military integration between it and three South American countries, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Washington’s response, on January 26, to Russia’s demands of withdrawing NATO forces from Eastern Europe and ending talks about a possible Kyiv membership in the US-led alliance,[Read More…]
Global warming has been extremely profitable for billionaires, even though many of them mouth and endorse policies (but only failed and failing ones) against global warming. All of this will be fully documented here. The public are actually strongly opposed to global warming, but they are very confused about the matter, largely because the policies that are advocated (by billionaire-fronts)[Read More…]
The Republic of Cyprus is an island state that is situated in the eastern Mediterranean just 45 miles from Turkey, 65 miles from Syria and 125 miles from Palestine. The country gained its independence from the British 62 years ago. It is a “consociational” republic between its Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking people. It is also a member of the European Union,[Read More…]
The film has “Why I killed Gandhi” was recently released. It is an attempt to glorify Nathuram Godse the killer of Mahatma Gandhi. One of its clip, the one related to Godse’s Testimony in Punjab High court is doing rounds in the social media. In the long clip Godse unabashedly falsifies the events and gives them a communal slant. It[Read More…]
Though I could not meet Naren Hansda, the esteemed teacher, yet, but I have heard stories regarding him from friends and also read some articles on him; and hence I am not hesitant in using this hashtag #stand_with_naren_hansda. Photo Courtesy: Ayna Soren (Facebook) Naren Hansda is an unusual man. Naren Hansda is not only a Santali folk singer – Starting[Read More…]
Veer Narayan Singh (1795-1857) is remembered today as a great freedom fighter of Chattisgarh and India who sacrificed his life fighting colonial rulers. A huge cricket stadium has been named after him in Chattisgarh, and this provides a convenient identity point with him to the youth. However there is more to his valiant life that we need to know and[Read More…]
Many prominent citizens in India demanded for a Repeal of All Anti-Conversion Laws in India, in the context of the Anti-Conversion Bill scheduled to be tabled in Karnataka Upper House on February 14, 2022. The initial signatories for the Petition to the President of India included nationally well known citizens like Admiral L Ramdas ( Former Chief of Naval Staff of[Read More…]
Since the beginning of COVID, most political parties have competed against each other in claiming how they provided relief material to those most affected by the pandemic. While the State governments and the central government announced various packages for the people political leaders were seen distributing food and medical kits among the people. In West Bengal too, Covid relief work[Read More…]
Ecologists around the world are making the case for societies to change the systems that oversee development and resource extraction so that ecosystem functionality—which supports all life—can be maintained or restored. Geologists have classified most epochs in Earth’s history according to fossils, radiometric dating and composition of the strata. The widely endorsed label for our current era, the Anthropocene, describes the extent[Read More…]
At the turn of the 20th Century, the astonishing advances in science emboldened humanity, giving rise to confidence that science could, at last, as the fountainhead of truth provide the wherewithal for a stable and equitable social order for a sustainable future. In such a world, God was dead and religion regarded as a bundle of superstitions and blind faith.[Read More…]
Modern sustainability evolved from forest management of the 18th century, and its ancient roots go back even further. Could it help with today’s climate crisis and lumber shortage? The proverb “necessity is the mother of invention” has roots that go back to Aesop’s fable “The Crow and the Pitcher” and to Plato’s “Republic.” It is realistic to assume that Hans[Read More…]
A succession of events in recent weeks all point to the inescapable fact that nearly 75 years of Israel’s painstaking efforts aimed at hiding the truth about its origins and its current racially-driven apartheid regime are failing miserably. The world is finally waking up, and Israel is losing ground quicker than its ability to gain new supporters, or to whitewash[Read More…]
The firing of the five Arab journalists from work on German television in Arabic Deutsche Welle, is a disgrace to Germany and everyone who claims freedom of opinion. I may not fully agree with one of the fired journalists that freedom of opinion in Europe is an illusion, but it is even more when it crosses the red line drawn[Read More…]
by Bharat Dogra and Kumar Gautam An issue of increasing worldwide concern is that more people have been pushed into poverty and deprivation in COVID times, negating years of progress and promise. In this context, the need for equality-led economic recovery is being increasingly emphasized and engaging a lot of attention of economists and policy-makers. This need is even more[Read More…]
Key points of analysis by constituents of Vikalp Sangam This analysis looks at the environmental implications of India’s Union Budget 2022-23 in three dimensions: Direct allocations for Environment Indirect allocations for Environment in non-environment sectors Allocations for other sectors with environmental impacts Overall, the picture is bleak. There are some welcome allocations and indications of shifts in thinking (e.g. in[Read More…]
Apple orchards have become a very important part of the economy of several parts of the Himalayan region in India. This is particularly true of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, and to a lesser extent Uttarakhand. However in recent times the orchard owners and local apple traders have become increasingly worried about the increasing imports of cheaper apples from Iran. These[Read More…]
Everything that reminds people of Nehru’s legacy is being smashed.Along with it the ideas of democracy and all-round development he espoused so tenaciously. Now there is no need to put him on a pedestal and burn incense to his memory.He had his faults,but he had been practically the founder of modern Indian democracy as we know it[Read More…]
Incidents centering Ukraine are showing many sides of the U.S. These include credibility. A Politico report (Spy world wary as Biden team keeps leaking Russia intel, February 9, 2022) said: “The Biden administration has gone to unusual lengths to publicly share intelligence about Russia’s threat to Ukraine, using targeted media leaks and other methods to warn the world of everything[Read More…]
In an order that legitimizes the decision of state education institutions to prohibit Muslim girl students from wearing the hijab (headscarf), the Karnataka government said on February 5, 2021, that “clothes which disturb equality, integrity and public law and order should not be worn”. This seemingly innocuous directive comes hard on the heels of several disturbing incidents. Whereas Muslim girl[Read More…]
Selection of Charanjit Singh Channi as party’s Chief Minister-face in Punjab may have enhanced chances of Congress faring better in coming assembly elections than was presumed not too long ago. In 117-member Punjab Assembly, 59 seats are needed to form a majority. During the 2017 elections, Congress won 77 seats, two lesser than it secured in 2012. Aam Aadmi Party[Read More…]
It is embarrassing to any right-thinking person to read that since January 7, a two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court has been conducting daily hearings of a clutch of petitions asking for the marital rape exception under the Indian Penal Code to be struck down. India remains one of the few countries in the world that does not treat[Read More…]
Drinking water contamination is one of the factors for cancer in Punjab, with at least 90 cancer patients for every 100,000 population, higher than the national average of 80, reveals a survey (January 28,2013) by the Punjab government ( downtoearth.org.in). Geo-genic factors are complicated by anthropogenic causes, including those related to recklessness in Green Revolution. There are a few districts[Read More…]
Tamil Nādu abolishes the competitive examinations for admissions to medical colleges Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act (2007) abolished the Common Entrance Test (CET) and proposed the Pre University exam marks as the criterion for admission to professional courses. This applies for admission to medical colleges run by the state government. However, now the government of TN wants[Read More…]
The history of the Olympic Games shows both the struggle by China and the Global South to be accepted by the U.S. and other imperialist nations, as well as alternative models to it. In the early 1990s, barely a decade after rejoining the Olympic movement, Beijing launched a bid to host the 2000 Games. Unfortunately by then, U.S. policy had begun to[Read More…]
Friedrich Engels’ Dialectics of Nature has been arguably the most polemic ‘book’ within the corpus of classical Marxist literature. It is fair to say that since its initial 1925[1] publication in German and Russian, one can infer a ‘Marxists’ political orientation based on their assessment of Engels’ text. However, the centrality of the ‘text’ in the debate between the artificial bifurcation of ‘soviet’[Read More…]
The incidents happening in the southern part of Karnataka are deeply distressing and need to be resolved at the earliest. Unfortunately, rather than resolving the issue the current regime wanted to escalate it further and as the modus operandi is, ruling party encouraged the students to counter demand of the Muslim girls wearing Hijab with saffron scarves. Friends were converted[Read More…]
Mukul Kesavan recently wrote that ‘a Muslim citizen’s default state is a state of culpability’. He cannot be more right than that. What has transpired in recent past, and continues to simmer, in the Indian social and public space, is the hate against its Muslim citizens. The propaganda is not merely limited to speeches, it has gone into actions; and[Read More…]
The Strategic Blunder of the 1990s That Set the Stage for Today’s Ukrainian Crisis Understandably enough, commentaries on the crisis between Russia and the West tend to dwell on Ukraine. After all, more than 100,000 Russian soldiers and a fearsome array of weaponry have now been emplaced around the Ukrainian border. Still, such a narrow perspective deflects attention from an[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. A December 2021 poll found that a plurality of Americans in both political parties prefer to resolve differences over[Read More…]
On February 1st, 2022 Amnesty International released a report titled, “Apartheid Against Palestinians is a Cruel System of Domination and a Crime Against Humanity”. Amnesty’s report declares, says Agnes Callamard, Amnesty Intl’s Secretary General, “Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and[Read More…]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a rather controversial comment, while addressing a Hindu religious women’s organization called the `Brahmakumaris’ on January 21. He reminded his listeners: “In the last 75 years, we only kept talking about rights, fighting for rights and wasting our time. The issue of rights may be right to some extent in certain circumstances, but neglecting one’s[Read More…]
After thousands of US troops arrived in Eastern Europe this weekend to threaten Russia’s western borders, the European Union (EU) powers held high-level talks yesterday. French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to Washington for talks with US President Joe Biden, both to discuss NATO propaganda claims that[Read More…]
“The splitting of the atom has changed everything, bar man’s way of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes” Albert Einstein Figure 1. Thucydides On a rapidly warming planet engulfed by bush fires, collapsing glaciers, floods and rising oceans the last thing needed is the growing threat of a nuclear war between superpowers possessing fatal arsenals capable of poisoning[Read More…]
To Shri K Chandrasekhar Rao Chief Minister Telangana Dear Shri Chandrasekhar Rao garu, I welcome your statement expressing Telangana government’s opposition to the Centre’s move to privatise Singareni Collieries. It has certainly set the tone for a wider coalition being formed among the States to protect federalism. The NDA government has gone berserk by adopting a sweeping policy to disinvest the[Read More…]
I was making all kinds of films all these years, but mostly non-fiction films. The idiom of story-telling in my films were more or less indebted to a fictional tradition. I pushed the boundaries to such an extent that it becomes invalid after a point if I could hook my viewers. In some films, obviously a viewer – friendly idiom[Read More…]
During the visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing on Friday, the world attention was focused on how far China would go in support of Russia in the latter’s standoff with the US and NATO. From the joint statement issued after the visit, China has given fulsome support to Russia, endorsing Moscow’s demand for security guarantee and its opposition to NATO[Read More…]
There are some things that strain credulity. There are the dubious accounts of virgin births. There are the resolute flat earth theorists and denialists of the moon landing. To this can be added the environmental stance of Australia’s Scott Morrison and his ministers, one resolutely opposed to the empirical world. We are now at the phoney stage of an electoral[Read More…]
Problems of the bottom half of the population in the USA are much more serious than is commonly realized In the midst of increasing distress of common people, some leading opposition leaders in some important developing countries like India are increasingly drawing attention to accentuating economic inequalities as the most crucial reason for the distress of people. In this context[Read More…]
Commentators on the current Ukraine crisis have sometimes compared it to the Cuban missile crisis. This is a good comparison―and not only because they both involve a dangerous U.S.-Russian confrontation capable of leading to a nuclear war. During the 1962 Cuban crisis, the situation was remarkably similar to that in today’s Eastern Europe, although the great power roles were reversed.[Read More…]
Knee deep in the land of the ignorant. Oh boy, talk about ignorance. Where do I begin. Let me start with the great US foreign policy from 2014 until the present. In 2014, the Obama administration, through the right wing Victoria Nugent, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs ( married to Robert Kagan, one of the founders[Read More…]
Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. UN Failed to apply R2P and protect the Massacre of 147,000 Tamils It is very sad that United Nations an international institution particularly was initiated to protect the civilians during the conflicts and other matters affecting the civilians failed from in its duty by ignoring the genocide in Sri Lanka. Several UN agencies, along[Read More…]
Today at 5:00 p.m., the US National Cathedral’s bell will ring 900 times, to mark 900,000 American dead from COVID-19. It has been just 55 days—less than two months—since the bells of the cathedral rang to commemorate 800,000 deaths. And, at the present daily death rate of 2,700, it will take just 37 more days for the United States to[Read More…]
Pappu Singh is bedridden in his one-room dilapidated house. His nephew Pirghas (Right) and son Pavan (next to Pirghas) stand behind him along with some of their neighbours. The pandemic wreaked havoc on Pappu Singh and Sheela Devi’s family, residents of Nagla Vidhichand village situated on the Agra-Gwalior highway in the southern part of Agra district. While none of their[Read More…]
In her Union Budget 2022 speech on February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the issuance of sovereign green bonds during the upcoming fiscal year. “As a part of the government’s overall market borrowings in 2022-23, sovereign green bonds will be issued for mobilizing resources for green infrastructure. The proceeds will be deployed in public sector projects which help in[Read More…]
New Delhi, February 7, 2022: The National Federation of Indian women (NFIW) unequivocally condemns the exclusion of young Muslim girls from universities and schools in Karnataka, on the flimsy grounds that their attire is not appropriate. The administration caved in to the demand by a group of saffron scarved boys to ban women wearing hijab from entering the premises of[Read More…]
In her last budget speech in 2021, the Finance Minister declared the government’s disinvestment plans for the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). Already, amendments to the LIC Act have been made to set in motion the LIC IPO. This has triggered panic waves across the large sections of ordinary policy holders who are anxious about their life’s savings. It[Read More…]
The recent arrest of Fahad Shah, editor of Kashmir Walla, under S 13 of UAPA and S 124 A and 505 of IPC for ‘uploading anti-national content’ raises a debate about the fate of journalism in times of conflict. Shah was arrested as he had uploaded Inayat Ahmad Mir’s family’s protest over the police’s claim that Mir was a “hybrid[Read More…]
In the March 2022 UNHRC Sessions Human Rights Commissioner Her Excellency Michael Bachelet is expected to present her oral Report on progress made by Sri Lanka in respect of various UNHRC Resolutions passed since 2015 This Session is particularly crucial for the victimized Tamils who have pinned their hopes only on UNHRC and the United Nations to deliver justice[Read More…]
Fast increase in liquor consumption is a matter of increasing concern.The WHO Status Report on Alcohol points out that while per capita consumption of alcohol at present is highest in developed countries like the USA and European countries, the trend of increasing world consumption is mainly driven by increase in alcohol consumption in China and India and this in[Read More…]
It all seems worn, part of an aspic approach to foreign policy. But US President Joe Biden is keen to ensure that old, and lingering mistakes, retain their flavour. Towards Cuba, it is now 60 years since President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Proclamation 3447 imposed an embargo on all trade with the island state. The proclamation was packed with Cold[Read More…]
Canada’s capital Ottawa on Saturday was bracing for a surge of demonstrators to join a week-long protest against public health measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that has blockaded much of the downtown core, unnerved residents and been described by officials as an “occupation” and a “siege.” Ottawa Police Services Board held an emergency meeting on Saturday afternoon, but failed[Read More…]
The initial remarks in Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Parliament the motion of thanks to the President’s speech have provoked a storm of abuse from BJP ranks within and outside the house.The matter needs some scrutiny. Gandhi said the Constitution does not mention the nation. Quite so. But I believe no constitution in the world actually mentions the nation.It is usually[Read More…]
Eight farmers have taken their own lives. The death certificate is crystal clear. It’s suicide not murder. The potatoes they have to sell in zero profit are in shopping trolley with a tip – top price tag. The wife of paanwala Ramu stands by roadside every night She tucks in some ragged clothes inside her bra to makes her breasts[Read More…]
Amnesty International’s 2022 report exposing and condemning Israeli apartheid has provoked false allegations of lying and anti-Semitism from the mendacious and genocidally racist Zionists and their US Alliance supporters. In actuality, denial of Israeli apartheid is a lie, and the Zionists and their supporters are manifestly mendacious, and both anti-Arab anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish anti-Semitic by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish, Arab,[Read More…]
This month’s publication of Amnesty International UK’s report on Israel and the occupied territories represents the latest declaration of Israel as an apartheid state by an established NGO. It can be read in the context of other such declarations made both in Israel and abroad. The question of where the country lies on a continuum from ‘democracy’ to ‘apartheid state’[Read More…]
Amnesty International’s declaration of Israel as an apartheid state was a resounding announcement that resonated worldwide. The importance of this announcement is that it came from an organization with a respected reputation globally. Amnesty international has human rights lawyers who study every word before publishing the report. It is an organization known with a reliable reference, and its information is[Read More…]
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development Full Text of the Joint statement, 4 February 2022. At the invitation of President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin visited China on 4 February 2022. The Heads of State held talks in Beijing and took part in the opening ceremony of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games. The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, hereinafter referred to as the sides,[Read More…]
REPEAL Anti-Conversion Laws! They undermine India’s Constitution, Secular Heritage and Human Rights We, the citizens of secular and democratic India, are shocked to witness the , moves of the state governments ruled by the BJP and other political parties, targeting Christians, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and Hindu women using Anti-Conversion Laws in India. Hindutva elements in various parties, and specially[Read More…]
by Prof Raashid Nehal & Zain Mohammad Sulaiman What do we understand about digital ethnography? Digital or Virtual Ethnography is using online digital resources and data for reporting and documentation often used by media professionals. Media professionals access different dimensions of online data done on different digital platforms such as making videos for YouTube or sharing photos on Internet services[Read More…]
A legacy of the freedom movement of India which remains extremely important not just for India but for all of South Asia relates to the enduring great importance of inter-faith harmony which is extremely important for peace, stability and prosperity of this region. A very important achievement of the freedom movement was that some of the greatest leaders, each of[Read More…]
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said on Thursday that the US appears to be on the path to “some form of civil war.” Dalio based his analysis on historical cases — arguing that the combination of financial burdens, such as large deficits, high taxes and inflation, and large wealth and value gaps in a nation “leads to some sort of fighting[Read More…]
Summary of conditions prevailing in UP. Today the reign of Adityanath Yogi is reminiscent of a ruthless emperor retaining the throne, even at the cost of trampling on the people. Hindu Communal fascism is simmering at a boiling point. This despite the fact that people in Uttar Pradesh, mainly agrarian and mostly backward state, have suffered a lot from criminal[Read More…]
Only through the lens of history can we understand why China fought so hard for a place in the Olympics on its own terms: to heal the scars of both exploitative Western colonialism and civil war. Much has been made of the “diplomatic boycott” by the United States and its allies of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. But what much of the[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young In January 2022, the East-Germany city of Leipzig started to host an exhibition about the siblings of one of Germany’s greatest anti-war activists, working class speaker, theoretician of mass strike, and a struggling working class: Rosa Luxemburg. Yet, unlike her well-known political activist side, this new exhibition focuses on the much less known years of Luxemburg’s so-called “Polish life”. Almost to this[Read More…]
Two weeks before the last U.S. and NATO soldiers left Afghanistan on Aug, 30, 2021, President Biden imposed a freeze on Afghan central bank reserves held in U.S. and European banks. The freeze deprived Afghanistan of $9.5 billion of its own state money, broadening sanctions already levied against the Taliban. The World Bank suspended loans for a variety of development[Read More…]
In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where common goals are shared. A[Read More…]
Matt Lee — the AP’s senior member of the State Department Correspondent’s Association and now virtually the lone member who demands that the State Department not lie to the press as had happened constantly about “Saddam’s WMD” in 2002 and has happened many times since then — challenged on February 3rd the State Department spokesperson Ned Price’s much-publicized press-conference allegation[Read More…]
Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher wrote in Critique of Practical Reason, imperative of a moral human conduct requires to “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means”. The on-going war syndrome between America, NATO[Read More…]
We need to be practical when it comes to politics, to work for policies that we can enact today, inadequate though they may be to answer calls for social justice and ecological sustainability. We also need to maintain a relentlessly radical analysis, to highlight the failures of systems and structures of power, aware that policies we might enact today won’t[Read More…]
Israel is greatly concerned about the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) effort that seeks: 1) to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians; and 2) to pressure Israel to comply with international law. Israel claims that this campaign is a threat to its legitimacy. Unsurprisingly, Israel doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is its own repeated flouting of[Read More…]
Are digital education programs in India accessible for persons with disabilities? How do students with disabilities access online classes? Is there currently any guideline or policy of the government which educational institutes need to follow? New Delhi, February 5, 2022: As per Census data of 2011 there are a total of 2.68 crore persons with disabilities who call India their[Read More…]
The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch considers the Union Budget of 2022-2023 as a cruel betrayal of needs of the tribal communities of India. It is not an Amrit kaal but a Vish Kaal for tribal communities, because none of the urgent issues such as hunger, joblessness, loss of livelihood which haunt tribal communities have been even remotely addressed in this[Read More…]
The New York Times recently reported that India had purchased the Pegasus software from an Israeli company, NSO, as part of the multi-billion-dollar armaments deal that included sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear. The report also said that the purchase was finalized during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel and cleared by the then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu[Read More…]
Neoconservatism (advocacy of control over the entire planet by America’s Government — i.e., of a universal American empire or “hegemony”) was first stated in 1877, by the British empire’s colonialist Cecil Rhodes (founder of Rhodesia and of South Africa as British colonies) when he wrote the first draft of his will that ultimately produced the Rhodes Trust organization that selects[Read More…]
Every republic day we have the gala program where on one hand the military parade with its highlights is displayed and on the other floats from different states are displayed. The central Government chooses these floats. This year (2022) they rejected the displays from West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Kerala in particular, on the ground that only 12 such displays are[Read More…]
The apex court delivered a judgement on 20th January 2022 authored by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice A.S. Bopanna about extending reservation to OBCs in all-India quota (AIQ) of seats in admission to under-graduate and post-graduate medical and dental courses. The landmark judgement is perceived as a tool to demolish false narratives regarding reservation, especially the merit of marginalised students,[Read More…]
In a hugely consequential advisory, the US Treasury Department quietly signalled on Wednesday that it was “tweaking” the sanctions against the Haqqani Network. The international banks can transfer money to Taliban, including Haqqani Network without fear of breaching sanctions. Washington simply issued clarifications dilating on the relaxation of sanctions announced in September and December for humanitarian work in Afghanistan. The banks[Read More…]
It’s easy to say, but it’s been six very hard decades that began with disconcerting lightness and the belief that the United States government’s blockade of Cuba would not last long—a couple of years, maybe. On February 2, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy called his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and gave him an urgent task: “I need a lot of [Cuban][Read More…]
Which human rights matter enough to put politics above sports? For decades, the United States and its European allies have gotten to decide the answer at their convenience. On February 4, the 2022 Winter Olympics are set to open in Beijing. With this, the Chinese capital will become the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games.[Read More…]
Despite its pedigree as a fundamental element in civilization’s greatest stories, nostalgia has come to be associated with treacly sentimentality, defeatism, and spurious spiritual inclinations. Homer, Vergil, Dante, the Biblical writers, and their ilk would demur, of course, but they have been dead for a few years, so progress’s mantra urges us to get on with it. This is now.[Read More…]
On all counts 4 February 2019 was a memorable day for the world! On that day, Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyib, met in Abu Dhabi, and together signed the historic and pathbreaking document entitled ‘Human fraternity for world peace and living together’. The document is one of the most comprehensive ones written in recent times.[Read More…]
I have written five-six articles on the unprecedented farmers movement organised under the aegis of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) against the three agricultural laws. Therefore, to avoid repetition, this short comment. The peasant movement was kept apolitical in the sense that the leaders of any political party were not allowed to use the platform of the movement. However, the[Read More…]
In recent weeks several groups which have been active on food safety issues have expressed concens about the serious health hazards involved in the increased possibility of introduction of imported or domestic GM foods in India. These concerns have been also related to the process of creating a regulatory framework by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).[Read More…]
Already in its eighth year, an anti-racism campaign started by Canada-based Spice Radio got a major boost when world renowned humanitarian Ravi Singh joined it on Wednesday, February 2. The Khalsa Aid founder from England, known for his philanthropy in countries hit by conflicts and natural disasters, raised his hand in the air while holding out a sign reading, “Sarbat[Read More…]
“There is a sense of open, almost joyful viciousness in all this pro-war, anti-Russian sentiment on opinion pages and television broadcasts. It is certainly racist and demeaning in tone. Such is the first step in convincing the public that the “transgressor” is equivalent to a retrovirus.” John Stanton, Dissident Voice, 2015 Vietnam 2.0 is in the making in Ukraine. The[Read More…]
2021 was another banner year for the military-industrial complex, as Congress signed off on a near-record $778 billion in spending for the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy. That was $25 billion more than the Pentagon had even asked for. It can’t be emphasized enough just how many taxpayer dollars are now being showered on the Pentagon. That department’s astronomical[Read More…]
The unceasing bench thumping in the parliament at the treasury benches on the budget day, gave an impression as if the budget was packed with a pile of path breaking initiatives. But the facts speak otherwise. There is nothing much to commend in the budget. Once again, like the government’s previous budgets, the present budget has little to show by[Read More…]
Public institutions have evolved in post-colonial India in response to crisis created by colonial plunders. Public institutions led by the state and government were shaped by anticolonial struggles in India. In spite of all its limitations, these institutions were designed to ensure and expand democratic and citizenship rights of all Indians irrespective of their caste, class, gender, religion and region.[Read More…]
The United States announced Wednesday it is deploying another 3,000 troops to two East European NATO member states, further escalating the prospect of an all-out war on the continent. The nearly 2,000 paratroopers being sent to Poland will join a 4,000-man NATO force already there, while those dispatched to Romania will more than double the size of military personnel currently[Read More…]
Arsenic concentration in groundwater of Uttar Pradesh shown by red, green, and blue circles. The places marked in green are bad, and those in red are dangerous. For arsenic in drinking water, the permissible and acceptable limits are 0.01 mg/l and 0.05 mg/l, respectively. It is difficult to remove it from water. Thus 0.01mg/l level is regarded as “lower[Read More…]
The imminent war in one of the eastern European countries has seen the comeback of the cold war situation between Russia and the United States for the last few weeks. Both countries show no flexibility in their stand on Ukraine, which has been in the grip of severe cold, surrounded by arms and ammunition, and mostly, the uncertain future. In[Read More…]
Vladimir Putin has again made it clear: It’s a different time. The post-Cold War days are over. The Empire’s imperialist arbitrary acts are going to be increasingly difficult to carry on. Putin penned an article for Xinhua, the state-run media of China. It appears ahead of his Beijing visit to join the Winter Olympic, an event of solidarity and friendship,[Read More…]
To The Chief Minister Gujarat State Respected Sir, We, a group of citizens from different parts of Gujarat, would draw your attention to the inflammatory hate messaging on the social media and public calls for violence against the Muslim community, following the unfortunate, condemnable murder of Kishan Bharwad in Dhandhuka by certain criminal elements. The police have acted with[Read More…]
To Shri Rajnath Singh Union Defence Minister Dear Shri Rajnath Singh, I understand that the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Ministry of Finance has processed disinvestment of 26% of the equity of the BEML, a CPSE under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence. From what I could gather from news reports, two private companies are[Read More…]
They are workers but without any formal “employment”. They do work but have no jobs. They might sport Zomato or Swiggy t-shirts and caps. But they are not their workers. Nor are these firms their employers. Some might own their cabs but pay a hefty commission to taxi aggregators like Ola and Uber solely because passengers hire them through these[Read More…]
by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo It should matter little to the Chinese that American diplomats and a handful of their western allies will not be attending the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. What truly matters is that the Russians are coming. The above is not an arbitrary statement. It is supported with facts. According to a survey conducted by[Read More…]
Four years ago, Boulder, Colorado, sued ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy—owner of the only oil refinery in the state—for climate change-related damages and adaptation expenses. Boulder and its co-plaintiffs, Boulder County and San Miguel County, home to Telluride, estimated the damage caused by extreme weather events would cost them more than $100 million by 2050. As it turns out, they overestimated the time span—and underestimated[Read More…]
A scheme is underway to withhold or to reduce payments made by the Palestinian Authority to the families of Palestinian prisoners. According to Israeli media, the Biden Administration has requested that the PA entirely overhauls its support system of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian leadership had already expressed willingness to engage the US in a ‘discussion’. According to Israel’s Channel 12,[Read More…]
On January 27, 2022, the Hebrew-language news site Walla published part of the text from a telegram sent by Amir Weissbrod—who is part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry—to Israeli embassies around the world. The telegram warned the Israeli diplomats that in the upcoming 49th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is expected to begin on February 28, a report[Read More…]
I was buying some medicines at the local chemist shop a few months back. An elderly lady hobbled down the street to the shop and stood beside me. She opened her purse and took out a small piece of wrinkled paper. She stretched her equally wrinkled hand and showed the paper to the chemist. The chemist nodded and gave her[Read More…]
Netaji Sbhashchandra Bose’s birth anniversary was marked by various events this year (January 23). His portrait was unveiled by the President in Rashtrapati Bhavan. It was declared that his anniversary will be celebrated as Parakram Divas (Bravery day). Railway Minister announced the renaming of Howrah-Kalka Mail as Netaji Express. Mamta Bannerjee in contrast stated that his anniversary will be[Read More…]
Seizure of drugs worth Rs 21,000 crore from a private port is a serious question that demands a very deep probe into all connected affairs. A Gujarat Special Court has raised a very substantive question. Indeed, it was a welcome measure that on September 25, the special court for Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in Gujarat has directed the Directorate[Read More…]
Today is 02.02.22, day before yesterday the farmers observed ‘betrayal day’ at the call of Farmers Unions. After a protest sit-in for continuous 381 days around the capital Delhi defying extreme weather conditions, vicinity to urban pollutions, staying far away from homes and rural surroundings encaged in dingy hutments, paucity of water and sanitation, mosquitoes and pests, and dedicating lives[Read More…]
Postcolonial Sri Lanka has become worse than it was during the colonial period. The sad history of February 4th – the day of independence to the Sinhalese has turned out to be a BLACK DAY to the Tamils. The Citizenship Act of 1948 – 49 and the state sponsored settlements of Sinhala people in the areas where Tamils were dominant[Read More…]
The Right to Food Campaign is dismayed to see that, at this time of deep crisis the Union Budget 2022-23 has actually reduced the government spending on the social sector by a huge extent. The negative impact of the economic crisis that began even before the pandemic led to disruption has fallen disproportionately on those at the bottom of the[Read More…]
Speaking at a press conference with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the written response by the US to Russia’s key demands from December indicated that “the fundamental concerns of Russia have been ignored.” The main demands from the December 17 document, which the Kremlin made public, were the non-extension of NATO, including[Read More…]
For the moment at least, the Ukraine crisis has pushed the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan off the front pages. Nevertheless, on a near daily basis we read of what are presented as increasingly ominous incursions of Chinese aircraft into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Seldom, however, do we see a map showing the area claimed by[Read More…]
With the rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the intellectual defense of cultural nationalism has taken on a new significance. One of its sophisticated iterations consists of the following arguments: “Has the nation been created by the Constitution, or the nation adopted, enacted and gave itself the Constitution? In other words, is the emotional charge of nationalism a[Read More…]
India is a land of big statues. It has many big statues. The world’s biggest statue ‘Statue of Unity’ is located on banks of river Narmada in Gujarat. This statue is that of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Its height is 590 feet. Statue of Shivaji Maharaj is being constructed in the Arabian sea. Its height would be 696 feet. The Statue[Read More…]
Still in the land of the ignorant. Ok, where was I? Oh yes, one of the greatest disconnects was the infamous 9/11, 2001. It would take this writer volumes to cover probably the most dastardly American event since the murder of JFK, which opened the door to a Coup de tat that still remains nearly 60 years later. I am[Read More…]
The most recent topic explored by the thinkers and activists who make up the Great Transition Network was “Technology and the Future”. As writer after writer posted their thoughts, it was heartening to see that almost all recognize that technology cannot provide real solutions to the many crises we face. I was also happy that Professor William Robinson, author of[Read More…]
February is black history month and with conservatives challenging Critical Race Theory, there’s one thing when studying history, we have to always remember and it is the victors that write the history. It is the duty, therefore, of every socialist to tell it like it was, and is, at every opportunity. In the battle of ideas that we wage against the ruling class, we must not concede them one inch[Read More…]
Some time ago Jeremy Grantham (83), a renowned value investor who runs the $65 billion asset fund GMO, called the stock market a “super bubble.” (Source: Erik Schatzker, Jeremy Grantham Has an Even Scarier Prediction Than His Crash Call, Bloomberg, January 26, 2022) Nowadays, a lot of the air has come out of hot stocks of the covid era, losing[Read More…]
Imagine that you were experiencing all of this (and by this, I mean our lives right now) as if it were a novel, à la Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. The famed author of Robinson Crusoe — Defoe claimed it had been written by the fictional Crusoe himself — was five years old in 1665. That was when a year-long visitation of the[Read More…]
I do not find Vijay Parshad’s idea of the place of the individual in socialism very convincing.Though I salute the strength and courage of his conviction in the world-wide fight against imperialism it does not seem he has spared much thought for this crucial question.This hesitancy and silence marked all previous revolutionary leaders with possible exception in Che Guevara.All of[Read More…]
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States of “whipping up tensions” and seeking to provoke a Russian invasion of Ukraine, in a debate at the United Nations Security Council over the mounting crisis in Eastern Europe. “The discussion about a threat of war is provocative in and of itself,” he said. Turning to US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, he continued,[Read More…]
Rich tributes paid to Mahatma Gandhi on his 74th death anniversary (January 30, 2022) are hardly suggestive of similar importance accorded to Gandhism. Undeniably, Gandhi is still remembered “ritualistically”, but little importance is accorded to Gandhism, particularly democratic values promoted by Mahatma in India as well as other democratic countries. Not surprisingly, key power holders are being literally lashed at[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Sitharaman, I write this in continuation of my earlier letter dated 24-1-2022 (https://countercurrents.org/2022/01/cpse-disinvestment-valuation-approach-flawed/) expressing my concern at the flawed valuation methodology adopted by the Department of Investment and Asset Management (DIPAM) for valuing the CPSEs for disinvestment. It appears that your Ministry has not cared to revisit the methodology, as evident from the fact[Read More…]
Ministry of Information and broadcasting suspended the licence of Malayalam television channel MediaOne TV and the channel stopped its broadcast for a few hours yesterday. However, Kerala High Court stepped in and deferred the order of the Ministry for two days. The ministry had removed its name from list of permitted channels in India. The ministry denied permission for the[Read More…]
Washington, DC (February 01, 2022) – More than 60 civil society organizations from 11 countries and nearly a dozen prominent individuals have released a statement in support of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), terming the baseless and false allegations leveled by the Indian Government against the organization as Islamophobic. “[W]e have seen a barrage of attacks on the event[Read More…]
Pegasus, ‘ultimate spyware’ from Israel, is back in news cycle Pegasus, CAATSA, Nagaland — prime facie, they’ve nothing in common. At least, reading the Indian press, one gets that impression. But it is always important to connect the dots to understand where the trail is leading to. The Biden-Harris Administration is sensing that Modi Govt, a perceived ally, is not[Read More…]
Of the total 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh (UP), 63 districts have fluoride above the permissible limit and 25 districts are affected by high arsenic, as per May, 2019 data of the UP’s Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, marked in the map above. (Courtesy: Gaon Connection.com) UP is the largest Indian State, with a population of over[Read More…]
The problem of stray cattle is so severe in Uttar Pradesh that the new Chief Secretary in his first press conference asked the District Magistrates to run a special drive from 1 to 10 January, 2022, to catch all stray cattle. Realising that ten days period was not enough for this purpose he extended it by a week. A farmers’[Read More…]
At least 40 immigrants dead in fire at US-Mexico border 
Contemporary Anti-Semitism – A Jewish View from Germany 
In memory of 40th Anniversary of Military Dictatorship in Argentina 
Poor work conditions, non-compliance with Constitutional provisions seriously impact adolescent girls in workforce 
Take action against K Surendran for insulting Women 
Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan 
DOJ Called Upon to Investigate Environmental Activists Abuses 
The World’s Coffee Shops Have Emerged as Plant Milk’s Front Line 
Lara Sheehi’s ordeal, like Steven Salaita’s, is not quite over 
“Facing Clear Evidence of Peril” in a Country of Lies 
The case of Kashmir: A Gandhian Resolution 
Non-Availability of Badly Needed Funds for Dalit Students Increases Their Difficulties 
A bureaucrat-turned- minister in a mess 
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Workers’ 24-Hour Mega Transport Strike Halts Germany 
Oldest Interfaith Organization in America Calls for Children to Have More Rights Than Guns 
What’s the Best Way Out from the War in Ukraine? 
How Indigenous Land Management Practices Are a Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Agriculture 
In memory of Hugo Chavez on 10th death Anniversary 
Xi’s ‘Chilling’ Remarks: A Multipolar World Offers Challenges and Opportunities to the Middle East and Africa 
Ukraine War – US-China Relations And the Doomsday Clock 
Anti-Rahul Defamation Card Has Its Limitations! 
Questions We Should Ask to Understand Real Impact of Poverty Reduction and Welfare Schemes 
Punjab: Democracy Under Siege? 
Declaration excessive dividends by the Board of HZL may not be in compliance with Section 123 of the Companies Act 
Men, masculinities, and gender equality 
EU Warns After Russia Plans To Place Tactical Nuclear Weapon In Belarus 
A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells 
Media and the March to War 
The Basic Issue is not of Taking Sides in Superpower Rivalry, it is of Durable Peace to Save Earth’s Life 
The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell 
“…I want poetry to be detonated like a bomb!” -Nathalie Quintane 
Bundelkhand Must Choose its Priorities Carefully 
Citizenship: Beyond the Forked Vision 
Caste-wise census is necessary for balanced development 
Tribal woman murdered after rape in Rohtas and strong protest demanding punishment of culprits 
Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today 
Labor in market, and the mainstream economics 
Serbia Shall Never Forget NATO Aggression, Vows Serb President 
Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy 
The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution 
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…]
