‘Under the Banner of Stalin ‘, is a compilation of articles published by Magpie, edited by Basu Acharya and introduced by Grover Furr ,that vividly illustrates the true contribution of Stalin to Marxism-Leninism and in constructing Socialism in Russia. It attempts to project Stalin in balanced perspective weighing his pros and cons. It places issues like personality cult, suppression of[Read More…]
U.S. President Joe Biden has said Tuesday’s blast on Polish territory, which killed two civilians, was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile, Reuters has reported. The U.S. leader shared the information with his G7 and NATO partners, the news agency wrote on Wednesday, citing an anonymous NATO source. The incident in the village of Przewodow near the border with[Read More…]
“Ecomodernists offer no solutions to contemporary problems other than technical innovation and further integration into private markets which are structured systematically by centralized state power in favour of the wealthy… ” – Chris Smaje In 2017, the then Monsanto Chief Technology Officer Robb Fraley argued that his company made a mistake in not reaching out to the public about genetically modified organisms[Read More…]
By Prabir Purkayastha / Independent Media Institute In the hands of capital, “clean” natural gas is worse than “dirty” coal. But rich nations have devised an elaborate system to conceal facts and shift blame to poorer nations. COP27 has begun in Sharm el-Sheikh. Although the Ukraine war and the U.S. midterm elections have shifted our immediate focus away from the[Read More…]
On 17 November, 1913 the colonial British regime mobilized cannons and machine guns to fire on Bhil tribal freedom fighters gathered at the hill of Mangarh, located in present day Banswara district of South Rajasthan. Over 1500 of those gathered died. The legendary leader of the tribal community, Govind Guru ( or Govindgiri) was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.[Read More…]
It all speaks to scale: the attorney generals of 40 states within the US clubbing together to charge Google for misleading users. On this occasion, the conduct focused on making users assume they had turned off the location tracking function on their accounts even as the company continued harvesting data about them. The $391.5 billion settlement was spearheaded by Oregon[Read More…]
At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’. The reference was a relatively old one. It was attributed to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat[Read More…]
It passed more than the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War in 1914−1918. Proportionally, in the war, Serbia suffered mostly among all countries involved in the conflict as it lost ¼ of its population followed by 50% of industrial destruction. The first war crimes or even the genocide occurred on the territory of Serbia but on other[Read More…]
The much contested debate pertaining to the relationship between Literature and History dates back to the classical times. Beginning with Aristotle, there have been constant efforts to identify the links and natures of these two domains of knowledge. In the traditional scholarship, History was often regarded as an art of particulars, while on the contrast, Literature was identified with universals.[Read More…]
Elections to Himachal Pradesh Assembly may be viewed as a symbolic example of what Indian political system and its socio-democratic fibre seem to be heading for. Given the importance accorded by certain leading politicians to try propagate use of religious cards at various levels in several parts of country, one is tempted to deliberate on their relevance in Himachal Pradesh.[Read More…]
Knowing that no right minded Indian thinks the rate of inflation, the price of potatoes, cooking oil, petrol, diesel, rice, flour, eggs, indeed, any commodity you can name, the indices of joblessness, the monopolization of national wealth, the degradation of Institutions, the collapse of parliament, the weakening of democracy, the preponderance of hate crimes and vendetta vigilantism, the studied relegation[Read More…]
An alleged missile strike in Poland Tuesday has killed 2 people. The Polish military and prosecutors have arrived at the scene of the blast, Visegrad 24 reports. The incident has increased tension. The incident occurred amid a large-scale missile attack that Russia launched at Ukraine. The Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko called it the “most massive shelling of Ukraine’s energy[Read More…]
16 November is the United Nations International Day for Tolerance In the scheme of universal values “tolerance” appears to be the most misunderstood and abused in everyday life. The United Nations General Assembly first discussed over three decades ago to get educational institutions and the general public to see “tolerance” as a staple of society. Therefore, in 1995 UNESCO[Read More…]
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia: Wednesday 16/11 : Rich countries have delivered seven times more doses of COVID-19 vaccine per head than low-income countries[1], civil society groups have warned, as the G20 summit continues its session in Bali. The groups have called on the G20 governments to address the intellectual property barriers that have frustrated the sharing of vaccine and treatment technology.[Read More…]
The Zameen Prapt Sangharsh Commitee on November 15th staged a spirited day long dharna outside the district collectors office in Patiala, of around 600 persons from around 24 villages.Zonal leader Gurvinder Singh Bauda and Dharmveer Harigadh.With intensity at a highest pitch the dalit agricultural labourers it blocked the gates of the DC office. The ZPSC pledged to fight to the[Read More…]
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness about where the lion’s share of funding is coming from. When confronted with that, he paddles away the prospect of being compromised. With LIV Golf Adelaide, scheduled for April 21-23 next year, he has made an undeniable statement on[Read More…]
Since 1975, thousands of Sahrawi people have lived in five refugee camps in the Algerian Sahara. They named these camps after cities in Western Sahara: Ausserd, Boujdour, Dakhla, Laayoune, and Smara. In a straight line, Smara the camp is some 400 kilometers from Smara the city. But a sand berm, built in the 1980s by Morocco, makes the distance[Read More…]
Britons mourned the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II, and understandably so. The outpouring of affection for their long-serving monarch was more than commendable, it was touching. Yet count me among those mystified that so many Americans also professed to care. With all due respect to Queen Latifah, we decided way back in 1776 that we’d had our fill of royalty. Mere[Read More…]
How Do Human Beings Relate to Their History? A Book Review of Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India I am a big believer in the power of books to change the world. In my journey as a reader, I have come across a few of these sorts of books, one of them being[Read More…]
Way back in 1922 , the Bengali author of comic literature Sukumar Ray (father of the famous film maker Satyajit Ray), composed a poem entitled Act 21, lampooning the system of justice in India under British colonial rule. He of course had to invent another country to disguise the object of his satirical barb – by describing it as the [Read More…]
November 16 marks the 107th martyrdom day of a towering revolutionary of the Indian freedom struggle. Kartar Singh Sarabha was executed in 1915 in British India for waging a war against the Empire while he was only 18-and-a-half years old. He was a part of the Ghadar movement that was started to liberate India from foreign occupation through armed rebellion.[Read More…]
During the last two decades the experiences of over 7 million cotton growing farmers in India, the world’s highest producer of cotton, has changed drastically as a diversity of cotton varieties have been replaced to the extent of perhaps over 90 per cent by genetically engineered Bt cotton varieties like Bollgard I and Bollgard II. This change was widely promoted[Read More…]
Diversion of 130.75 sq km of heritage forest land in Greater Nicobar island for a Mega Infrastructure Project violates every conceivable environmental norm To Shri Bhupender Yadav Union Minister for Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MEFCC) Dear Shri Yadav, I refer to the Hindu news report (https://frontline.thehindu.com/environment/massive-infrastructure-project-proposed-by-central-government-threatens-great-nicobar-island/article65991977.ece) on an “in-principle” clearance accorded by the Forest Wing of your Ministry for[Read More…]
Iawahar Lal Nehru’s life and world always fascinated me. He speaks like a ‘teacher’ and one would be glued to him when we watch old videos of his press conferences or speeches. Yesterday BBC reposted Nehru’s first TV appearance recorded in June 1953 with leading editors in London when he had gone to participate in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.[Read More…]
The discussion on football in India was so evasive about real issues at the Tata literature festival last Sunday in the context of the world cup football beginning this Sunday in Qatar. The whole focus was on commercialisation of the game, not democratisation, it was all about how to exploit the game for money and profits. There is a great[Read More…]
If 1 out of 2 high school girls feel persistently sad or hopeless and one out of six students plan suicide in a year, isn’t it time for a society so affected to look inwards at what has gone wrong, so that at least, and as a first step, the causes of such a dismal state of affairs can be[Read More…]
Executions, stonings and amputations are possible punishments for crimes once more in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered Afghan judges to impose Sharia-law punishments for certain crimes, according to a tweet from Zabihullah Mujahid, Mr. Akhundzada’s spokesman. Mullah Akhundzada has ordered Afghan judges to fully implement sharia law and its punishments, which include mutilations, flogging and executions. The announcement was[Read More…]
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish militia group, which is banned in Turkey as a terrorist organization, said on Monday that it was not involved in the Sunday explosion in Istanbul. “We have nothing to do with this incident and it is well-known by the public that we would not target civilians directly or approve of actions directed at[Read More…]
It is the fall of 2022. Close to 33,000 delegates across the world are in Egypt. Not in Cairo, Giza, or Alexandria, but across the Gulf of Suez in Sharm El Sheikh. These delegates have failed to outnumber the 60,000 (reportedly, that is the number) incarcerated in their host’s prisons. If COP will ever be remembered, this one would be[Read More…]
“On a hike in East Africa 2 million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the[Read More…]
Thousands of workers from every corner of the country swarmed to raise their voices in unison at the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi, as part of Mazdoor Aakrosh Rally organized by Mazdoor Adhikar Sangharsh Abhiyan (MASA). We must salute the workers and organisations for braving all odds to do just what the doctor ordered, with the state of the economy[Read More…]
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued a new Living Amazon Report, 2022 at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The eye-opening report defines a horror story of human destruction of the world’s largest rainforest. There’s no other way to look at it. Commercialization of the Amazon Rainforest is rampant in a pattern of ignorance amidst reckless abandon with a level of[Read More…]
South-East Europe, and especially the Balkan Peninsula as the main part of it, have traditionally been the object of numerous geopolitical, geostrategic, and publicist analyses, as well as the subject of debates among the Balkan, European, and global experts in international relations. The new Iron Curtain or the Cold War 2.0 between western and eastern Europe was not the end[Read More…]
The Ukraine war has revitalized the silent competition between China and Russia in Central Asia. Despite the steady shift in China’s favor since the Soviet collapse, Russia’s entrenched influence and friendly ties between Beijing and Moscow will prevent open contention. At the recent Commonwealth for Independent States (CIS) summit held on October 14 in Astana, Kazakhstan, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon expressed previously[Read More…]
Kudos to Pink Floyd and their 1979 classic ‘ Comfortably Numb’ for inspiring me to write this critique. With the news that it looks like the Democrats will continue to control the Senate ( while most likely losing the House) shouts of joy rang throughout ‘ Blue America’ and ‘ Blue surrounded by Red America’. Justifiably so, whenever a fascist[Read More…]
The Gangsters were all waiting for me Their uninvited guest Their cigarettes were all lighted Their black ties were all straight I owed them without knowing And now had to pay them with my fate There was nowhere I was going Without their golden licence plate My life was theirs from the beginning There was no hand that I could[Read More…]
Young with the wisdom Of an elder Unfair. No childhood. That’s your life Not allowed ever To be angry Not allowed to raise Your hands Smile through it Take it well Extend your love Never act Poise Is a cage Poise Is torture But that’s what you want from me.
The humongous success of Bharat Jodo Yatra has brought forth many a dormant issues of Indian society and politics to the fore. While its title does hint to combat social divisions created along religious lines during last three decades, core issues of Indian society have come to fore. The problems of farmers, youth, rising prices, the worsening plight of Adivasis,[Read More…]
A day after the country became independent and Nehru was sworn-in as its first Prime Minister, he conveyed to the nation his undivided resolve in fighting communalism and separatism, with a reminder that “those who create mischief or trouble are our enemies, and they shall be dealt with severely”. The assassination of the Father of the Nation by Hindu fundamentalists[Read More…]
22,000 Anganwadi workers pledge to boycott AAP and BJP in Delhi civic polls and set to ban entry of ‘AAP’ and ‘BJP’ candidates in their neighbourhoods | The Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union (DSAWHU) held a press conference at Press Club of India, Delhi on November 11th. Fluttering its banner for upcoming MCD polls, the DSAWHU announced[Read More…]
Some recent political developments in India remind me of a legend associated with the founder of Sikhism. Guru Nanak, whose birth anniversary was celebrated on November 8, is credited for traveling widely, reforming the misguided and encouraging them to follow the path of truth and justice. One of those who came under his influence was Sajjan, the thug, who ran[Read More…]
Tomorrow, November 15, 2022, is predicted to be the day that the global population reaches eight billion. The projection is revealed in the UN’s World Population Prospects 2022 report, which also shows that India is on course to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023. The latest UN projections suggest that the world’s population could grow to[Read More…]
To get to where they are, imperial powers will deceive, dissimulate and distort. The US imperium, that most awesome of devilish powers, has tentacled itself across the globe, often unbeknownst to its own citizens. In a report released by the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center of Justice titled Secret War: How the US Uses Partnerships and Proxy[Read More…]
Washington’s vaunted “rules-based international order” has undergone a stress test following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and here’s the news so far: it hasn’t held up well. In fact, the disparate reactions to Vladimir Putin’s war have only highlighted stark global divisions, which reflect the unequal distribution of wealth and power. Such divisions have made it even harder for a multitude[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Senators Inhofe and Reed from the Senate Armed Services Committee Photo credit: AP If the powerful leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D) and Jim Inhofe (R), have their way, Congress will soon invoke wartime emergency powers to build up even greater stockpiles of Pentagon weapons.[Read More…]
Palestinians and their supporters are justified in celebrating the election victory of the leftist presidential candidate, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brazil’s runoff elections on October 30. But Lula’s victory is incomplete and could ultimately prove ineffectual if not followed by a concrete and centralized Palestinian strategy. Lula has proven, throughout the years, to be a genuine friend of[Read More…]
Increased consumption of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) was associated with more than 10% of all-cause premature, preventable deaths in Brazil in 2019. That is the finding of a new peer-reviewed study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The findings are significant not only for Brazil but also for high income countries such as the U S, Canada, the UK, and Australia, where UPFs[Read More…]
Do you think that love is waiting Do you think that someone’s there There are only the hounds retreating There is only a ghost going up the stairs Now all the cafès are empty Now all the waitresses have faded There’s no one to take your order There’s no rendezvous that’s fated You can pack your last suitcase You can[Read More…]
There are few writers who have displayed such consistency and continuity in their writings on justice and concerns of the unprivileged as Jeremy Seabrook. His writings on these and other issues of high social relevance are marked by deep sympathy for those who deserve and need this the most. Readers are frequently awed by the sheer brilliance of his deep[Read More…]
It’s a grotesque, ceremonial observance, marked by a degree of unpardonable acceptance. The First World War, which killed millions, extirpated classes in Europe, and destroyed monarchies, established a mawkish ritual that serves to continue, rather than prevent war. The more one grieves for the slaughtered and the brain frozen folly, the more one hopes for the next round of bloodletting,[Read More…]
On 17 October 2022, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), released its annual Global Multidimensional Poverty Index(GMPI) report ‘Unpacking deprivation bundles to reduce multidimensional poverty’. The GMPI 2022 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 111 countries in developing regions. These countries are home to 6.1 billion people, three-quarters of the world’s population. Of these[Read More…]
In 2019, Prime Minister Modi envisioned “to make India a USD 5-trillion economy and global powerhouse by 2024-25” (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/each-state-must-define-a-target-to-make-india-5-trillion-economy-pm-modi/articleshow/92288178.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst). More recently, he said. “BJP’s double-engine governments see India’s need for speed as ‘ambition’ and ‘scale’ as its ‘strength’, unlike their predecessors who treated the first as a ‘luxury”‘and the other as ‘risk’”,(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/95460746.cms#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16682908062088&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst) A USD 5-trillion sized economy by 2024-25 i.e.[Read More…]
In the discourse on climate change, as the inadequacy of incremental change is increasingly realized, we are now beginning to hear those much needed words more frequently—that much wider changes in economy and society are needed to check climate change effectively. What exactly does this mean? It is a widely accepted norm of present-day society that people keep aspiring for[Read More…]
The COP27 Climate Change Conference is underway in Egypt but failure born of neoliberal greed is already apparent. COP27 is ignoring the fundamental realities of Carbon Price, Carbon Debt, and the need for the social and environmental cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution to be fully borne by the polluters. This failure condemns the climate change-impacted global South to horrendous[Read More…]
Presentation at the People’s Public Health Conference, November 4, 2022 Introduction: This talk will define imperialism and apply it to Russia and the US, identify the material and political causes of the war, depict the health and economic costs of this war, and recommend urgent strategies to end it. Imperialism Imperialism operates when industrialized countries must find new markets to[Read More…]
The amended IT Rules, 2021 were notified in end-October this year by MeitY, the electronics and IT ministry of the Indian government. They were withdrawn in June this year after pushback during stakeholder consultations, but even its amended version has not made much of a difference to how it is received. The rules are a clear articulation of the desire[Read More…]
by Rajeev Yadav, Arundhati Dhuru and Sandeep Pandey Azamgarh is a lively district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Because of the entrepreneurial nature of people here Azamgarh is described as Kerala of U.P. People from here not only go to different parts of the country but also to abroad. Descendent of an indentured labourer family from here who migrated to Trinidad[Read More…]
A well-attended and qualitative discussion on “The Threat to Democracy” was organized by Janhastakshep on the 8th of November, 2022 in the Conference Hall at the Press Club of India. The main speakers who addressed the discussion included Justice Anjana Prakash, retired judge of Patna High Court, senior journalist Saba Naqvi, Sh N D Pancholi of Delhi PUCL and noted[Read More…]
While not entirely unexpected, the SC verdict on reservation for economically weaker sections has caused dismay and disappointment among those already enjoying reservation.It is not envy of the newly reserved class which will not encroach on their turf,but fear that it might push many in their position farther back in the race for advancement. Ravish Kumar of NDTV has rightly[Read More…]
Supreme Court’s split verdict on EWS that upholds the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act of January 2019 brought out by Modi government providing 10% economic reservation to the economically backward upper castes (Economically Weaker Sections-EWS) excluding the ‘backward classes’ among SC/ST/OBC is a violation of the very conceptualisation on caste-based reservation as conceived in the Constitution. Revealingly, while the Hindutva forces[Read More…]
This is a rejoinder to Dr Ram Puniyani’s article “Kashmir: Blatant Distortions of History, an obstacle to Peace” Please allow me to state right at the outset that I have the highest regard for Prof. Puniyani, not only as a scholar of history but as a person devoted to peace and amity. And deeply I share his abhorrence of the[Read More…]
Worldwide, eleven thousand (11,000) sharks will be killed within the next 60 minutes. That’s 180 sharks per minute; it’s a bloody affair. One hundred million (100,000,000) are killed per year, mostly for shark fin soup. In fact, the shark-fin trade is responsible for 75% of sharks killed each year even though more than 50 countries have some kind of shark[Read More…]
We live in a fast-moving, technology-dominated era. Happiness is fleeting, and everything is replaceable or disposable. It is understandable that people are drawn to a utopian vision. Many find refuge in the concept of a “return” to an idealized past—one in which humans were not so numerous, and animals abounded; when the Earth was still clean and pure, and when[Read More…]
On 8th November,22 ,a group of self-styled Hindu extremists attacked the on going in-house meet of the Rationalists at Lohia Academy in Bhubaneswar as well as in Berhampur town of Odisha with an alibi to protect the so-called tradition (religious). The attack is nefarious. This attack is not only in support of not-taking any food during the period of solar[Read More…]
The Global Report on Food Crisis has been drawing attention to the people affected by acute hunger annually for seven years, and this year its recently presented estimates stated that as many as 205 million spread over 45 countries are affected by acute food insecurity and need urgent assistance. To this were later added 17 million people from 8 other[Read More…]
Stand at attention All you dogs And make fire for me Do not take the white branches From under the sea Leave me the Winter’s song On my tired breast Make nice with the West wind As the children run me down Cackling To the River There is an angry march Coming Red battalions of Revenge Flooding All your neat[Read More…]
The midterm elections in the US witnessed razor-thin races as Senate and House control hangs in the balance. But that didn’t discourage President Biden from holding a press conference on Wednesday to stake claim that the “giant red wave” didn’t happen. Biden said: “Democrats had a strong night. And we lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic President’s[Read More…]
Paying homage to stalwart and martyr of Civil Liberties Movement, Japa Lakshma Reddy, a public meeting under the supervision of Civil Rights Association Joint Karimnagar District Committee, was held on Monday, 7th November, 2022, at Sneha Sahiti Library, Godavarikhani from 4:30 pm to 8:15 pm. Civil rights society and people’s association leaders obeyed two minutes of silence to Japa Lakshma[Read More…]
Real wage growth indices in G20 countries, 2008-13, (2008=100) Source: Estimates based on NBS: National Data; and ILO: Global Wage Database. *** *** Media across the world and India is controlled by the pro-west, capitalist forces and it is consistently anti-China in its headlines. ‘Great and big democracies’ almost shun the vast China’s media and its sources, while pouring venom[Read More…]
Figure 1Surface average atmospheric CO2 concentration (ppm). Since 1980, monthly data are from NOAA/GML (Dlugokencky and Tans, 2022) and are based on an average of direct atmospheric CO2 measurements from multiple stations in the marine boundary layer (Masarie and Tans, 1995). The 1958–1979 monthly data are from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, based on an average of direct atmospheric CO2 measurements from the Mauna[Read More…]
The abrogation of Article 370 was done with the claims that this step will restore peace and give security for the hapless Kashmiri Pundit community. Three years down the line after the killings of over eight Kashmiri Pundits it is clear that the move was wrong to the core. Even earlier; while imposing demonetization on the nation, one of the[Read More…]
On November 7th, I headlined “U.S. and Allies Vote For Nazism at U.N.”, and opened: Annually, each year, since 2005, the U.S. Government has been one of only from 1 to 3 Governments to vote in the U.N. General Assembly against an annual statement by the General Assembly against racism and other forms of bigotry — an annual Resolution condemning[Read More…]
by Vijay Prashad and Zoe Alexandra Juliana Cardoso is sitting in her office in front of a lavender, orange, and yellow mandala that was made for her. She has been a member of São Paulo’s city council since 2008. On October 2, 2022, as a candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Cardoso won a seat in Brazil’s lower house, the[Read More…]
[Denton-Borhaug will give a version of this talk virtually to Veterans for Peace Chapter 102 at a Reclaim Armistice Day meeting at the Milwaukee City Hall Rotunda this Veteran’s Day.] Dear Veterans, I’m a civilian who, like many Americans, has strong ties to the U.S. Armed Forces. I never considered enlisting, but my father, uncles, cousins, and nephews did. As[Read More…]
My title comes from a song sung by soldiers as they marched to hell in the trenches of World War I and the same song my sisters and I sang in the car as our parents drove us to our summer vacation in paradise at Edgewater Farm. I think of this as we march to WW III. The soldiers, who would be[Read More…]
The novel Night of the Golden Butterfly (2010) by eminent Marxist intellectual and author, Tariq Ali, is a narrative which paints a dystopian vision of what political authoritarianism looks like. The novel primarily explores the rise and nexus between religious fanaticism, dictatorship, majoritarianism and military-mullah-feudal nexus in Tariq Ali’s native country Pakistan, referred nostalgically to as “Fatherland” in the novel.[Read More…]
The World Food Organization and the World Food Program recently released a joint review of the world-level acute hunger situation for the period October 2022—January 2023. This review starts by mapping the countries and regions worst affected by acute hunger and just a glance at this is adequate to tell us that the hunger hot-spots are most heavily concentrated in[Read More…]
I’m not really a poet I’m anti-gravity I’m stale mashed potatoes and gravy I’m what’s left out After your last pay check I’m the last words your wife says Before she kicks you out I’m the bum you most want to avoid Nah, I ain’t no poet I’m the lamplight the city always Forgets to fix I’m smallpox I’m aphasia[Read More…]
November 9, 2022, was the 145th birth anniversary of Allama Muhammad Iqbal – a globally renowned South Asian Muslim poet, and philosopher. The contemporary period of renewed cultural atavisms has reduced him to an ideologically zealous proponent of Pan-Islamism, leading to a crude anti-Westernism that rejects the universal values of freedom and equality to justify internal hierarchies within the Muslim[Read More…]
When Justice Ranjan Gogoi took over as Chief Justice of India (CJI), there was much expectation that he would reign in the systematic undermining of the Constitution of India and the rule of law by the BJP government. Particularly so because he was one of the 4 judges who called an unprecedented press meet against nefarious practices by the then[Read More…]
The climate crisis question today has turned into the question of exploitation and justice – exploitation by a few, and justice for the entire humanity. The recently released Oxfam report – Carbon billionaires, The investment emissions of the world’s richest people (Nov. 22, 2022, https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621446/bn-carbon-billlionaires-071122-en.pdf?sequence=14) – says a lot about this reality of exploitation by a few rich, and of the[Read More…]
The common understanding is that climate change will happen in some a far away land in the distant future. Recent events belie this belief. South Asia experienced unprecedented heat waves in March-April this year, and Europe hit record-breaking temperatures of 40oC. A third of Pakistan was flooded in July-August, killing >1,500 people, putting half a million people in relief camps[Read More…]
The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s meetings with Ukrainian leaders, including President Vladimir Zelensky, in Kiev has created a lot of confusion and misperceptions. One one side, the White House maintains that the trip aimed “to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people.” The readout stated that Sullivan also affirmed “the continued provision of economic and humanitarian[Read More…]
The concerns expressed by a Supreme Court Bench on November 9 regarding the health of an elderly political prisoner Gautam Navlakha have been widely appreciated in the country. Justice Hrishikesh Roy found it disturbing that hardly any progress had been made since the charge-sheet against him was filed in October 2020 ( over two years ago). Justice K.M. Joseph stated,[Read More…]
Shimla has been my second home after Delhi since 1991, the year I joined the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) as Fellow. During this long period of my association with Himachal Pradesh, I have been fortunate to have visited a larger number of cities, towns and a few villages of Himachal Pradesh. I got an opportunity to interact with[Read More…]
After February 2008 when Kosovo Albanian-dominated parliament proclaimed Kosovo’s independence (without organizing a referendum) with obvious US diplomatic support (unilateral recognition) with the explanation that the Kosovo case is unique in the world (i.e., it will be not repeated) one can ask the question: Is the problem of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo really unique and surely unrepeatable in[Read More…]
Allow me to announce my candidacy ahead of the current front man for this empire. Don is three years older than me and light years behind me intellectually and spiritually. His massive popularity gives weight to the adage ( mine actually) that ‘ Bullshit and super riches trump ( no pun intended) truth and justice’. He has the money, the[Read More…]
On November 9th yesterday, we commemorated the 38th death anniversary of Chandra Pulla Reddy, one of the most dedicated Communist revolutionaries of India. Confronting the darkest waters he combated revisionism with the tenacity of a boulder and shimmered light of Mao thought. No doubt he made serious errors of left and right variety but strived to practice mass line to[Read More…]
“They are claiming that our house is on Jindal’s land, but we have been living on this land for the past 20 years. This is our jal (water), jangal (forest) and zameen (land),” –Charana Samal, Dhinkia Villager Stop Unbridled Corporate loot and State Repression on People of Dhinkia ! Push Back Jindal Steel Works like POSCO! Resist Corporate-State nexus and[Read More…]
I attended an international conference on urban transport mobility in Kochi last week from November 4 to 6. After listening to ministers, bureaucrats and others at this conference as well as earlier meetings, one gets the clear impression that we are in for serious problems of road congestion and pollution. Things are going to become worse despite all tall talk[Read More…]
The Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra and fraternal organisations conducted a series of programmes in different parts of Uttar Pradesh, commemorating the 105th anniversary of The Russian Revolution. In the qualitative sense most positive, in resurrecting the message of the Russian Revolution towards liberation of the toiling workers. Tribute to the painstaking mass work conducted by the Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra in recent[Read More…]
When bell hooks speaks about the radical potential of sisterhood, she is informed by her experience as a Black woman in a white-dominated feminist space. When Virginia Woolf asks for a room of one’s own, she not only points to the condition of women within Victorian morality in general, she also reiterates her own lived experience as a woman[Read More…]
The on-going high profile international get together of presidents and prime ministers, top leaders, policy-makers and experts at the climate change conference of COP27 at the Red Sea Resort at Sharm-al-Shaikh near Cairo in Egypt is turning out to be a big headache for General Abdul Fattah El-Sisi, president and dictator of Egypt, and all his miscellaneous generals and ministers[Read More…]
A tiny number of persons produce the same level of carbon emissions as of entire France’s population, says a new climate report – Carbon billionaires The investment emissions of the world’s richest people (Nov. 22, 2022, https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621446/bn-carbon-billlionaires-071122-en.pdf?sequence=14) The study, published by Oxfam, an international NGO, found that the investments of 125 of the world’s richest individuals have a carbon footprint equivalent[Read More…]
As election day (November 12) approaches, people of Himachal Pradesh are more inclined to recall the more impressive achievements of the long era of Congress rule. In 2017-18 among Human Development indicators Himachal was at 7th place and in Gender Development indicators Himachal was at number 2 place ( compared to rank number 16 of neighboring state Haryana) among 36[Read More…]
Maybe, at this age nearing a century (86+), my days on this earth are soon coming to end. Some comments on the Indian Left should be made. I do not want to comment much on the main body of Sumanta’s article, except that for us poor and weak Third World peoples and states it is advantageous to live in a[Read More…]
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell is not particularly perceived by the EU’s political elite or mainstream media as a rightwing ideologue or warmonger. But seen through a different, non-western prism, it is hard not to mistake him for one. Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle”[Read More…]
Germany has sixteen states run by state minister-presidents. One state is currently governed by Germany’s most progressive political party, the Die Linke, carrying forward the intellectual heritage of Rosa Luxemburg, who over one hundred years ago said, We face a choice between socialism and barbarity. The barbarity came too soon in the form of her murder; next it came in[Read More…]
The 3:2 majority judgement of the Supreme Court on 7 November 2022 giving the go-ahead for the 103rd Constitutional Amendment envisaging 10 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) within the General Category raises an array of questions: Is it in keeping with the notion of “JUSTICE, social, economic and political” as envisaged in the Constitution of India?[Read More…]
This morning was spoilt for me by my disgust at yet another shoddy attempt to besmirch Nehru’s reputation by somehow linking him to the disappearance of Netajee Subhash, great national leader and patriot of India.The disappearance is itself a conjecture till date as the remains in a Japanese temple(Yashukuni shrine) are yet to be conclusively proved as those of Netajee[Read More…]
Mia Mottley, PM of Barbodos, speaking at the ongoing ongoing COP27 UN climate summit, attacked the rich nations for their historical criminal past for present climate crisis and demanded 1 trillion US$ compensation to low income countries to tackle natural disasters. Madam Prime minister from a tiny Carribean nation is known for her bold speeches in world forums in advocating[Read More…]
Caption: Image shown during the Zoom broadcast of the Palestinian National Conference — Fourteen Million, 5 Nov 2022, while a recorded statement by Palestinian prisoners in support of the Conference was being aired. At the heart of the idea of rebuilding the PLO is to honor the sacrifices of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs. A paradigm shift in and outside occupied Palestine from the[Read More…]
On November 4th , a group of Anganwadi workers on Friday inaugurated a campaign to boycott the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Delhi civic body polls on the issue of the termination of more than 800 of their counterparts. A most significant step embarked by the working class to expose not only the[Read More…]
Analysis of earnings reports and estimates carried out by S&P Global Commodity Insights for the Financial Times finds: Aggregate net income for publicly listed oil and gas companies operating in the U.S. exceeded $200 billion for the second and third quarters of the year. Citing the analysis, the media outlet reported over the weekend: U.S. oil producers have cashed in[Read More…]
Patriarchy cursed me, I laughed and move on They said you are a female, your birth is a burden I survived and thrived, flourished and bloomed Confronted their stereotypes and challenged their misleading notions I vowed that I will not accept their false binaries or phony divisions I will keep demanding equal rights and opportunities to be a human That[Read More…]
Shri Rajiv Kumar Chief Election Commissioner Shri A C Pandey Election Commissioner Dear S/Shri Rajiv Kumar and Pandey, I wonder whether the Election Commission of India (ECI) has come across two successive statutory notifications, one issued on 29-9-2022 (“State Bank of India (SBI), in the XXII Phase of sale, has been authorised to issue and encash Electoral Bonds through its[Read More…]
In early December 2021, Japan’s Self-Defense Force joined the U.S. armed forces for Resolute Dragon 2021, which the U.S. Marines called the “largest bilateral training exercise of the year.” Major General Jay Bargeron of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division said at the start of the exercise that the United States is “ready to fight and win if called upon.” Resolute Dragon 2022 followed[Read More…]
The tenure of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is defined by the deforestation of the Amazon, the return of 33 million Brazilians to hunger, and the terrible governance of the country during the pandemic. But it also marked a radical turning point on a subject that receives little public attention in general: foreign policy. It’s not just that the Bolsonaro[Read More…]
From my vantage point out here in the boonies, it’s easy to see that most of my fellow Canadians and citizens of at least the developed world are in society-wide implicatory denial on climate. (The climate science facts are not denied or re-interpreted, but instead “the psychological, political or moral implications that conventionally follow” from these facts are denied or[Read More…]
The cowardly, unprincipled, Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australian Labor Government, not content with betraying the poor and Palestinians, has betrayed Humanity and the Biosphere by refusing to support the latest UNGA vote on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Nuclear weapons existentially threaten Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere, but Australia is deeply complicit in US, UK and[Read More…]
Daily reports highlight what is being done to the Palestinians, riveting narratives of the repressions and violence committed against them. More attention is required to ascertain what can be done for them, preparation of a strategic plan that leads to their liberation. Chilling to think the Palestinians may be doomed, but active and passive resistance, international protests, UN Declarations, boycotts, divestments, silent sanctions, myriad[Read More…]
by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo On Monday, October 31, Palestinians in the town of Al-Eizariya, east of Occupied East Jerusalem, observed a general strike. The strike was declared to be part of the community’s mourning of 49-year-old Barakat Moussa Odeh, who was killed by Israeli forces in Jericho a day earlier. This is not an isolated case. General strikes[Read More…]
by Bharat Dogra and Madhu Dogra A true mark of greatness is that the message conveyed by a person by work as well words, conduct as well as character, brings solace to people and reduces distress of people in contemporary times, but at the same time is also found to be of enduring importance to people when they cope with[Read More…]
The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, says a new UN report. The report by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) indicates: The world is now deep into the climate crisis. Earth has warmed more than 1.1 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century, with roughly half of that increase occurring in the past 30 years, the report said.[Read More…]
When I was growing up, there was a parody of an old-fashioned public announcement tacked to the wall of our kitchen that I vividly remember. It had step-by-step instructions for what to do “in case of a nuclear bomb attack.” Step 6 was “bend over and place your head firmly between your legs”; step 7, “kiss your ass goodbye.” That[Read More…]
November 3, 2022, was a special day indeed! On that day, Pope Francis began a four-days historic visit to the Kingdom of Bahrain, where he was given an exceptionally warm welcome! From the time he arrived in Bahrain, he set the tone of his entire visit, by asking the Government of Bahrain to guarantee human[Read More…]
The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. The leading U.S. daily quoted unnamed people familiar with the discussions as saying that the request by U.S. officials[Read More…]
A book announcement I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/11/We-are-Demanding-Too-Much-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The explosive rise of human population When the global population of humans is plotted as a function of time over a period of twelve thousand years, and the uses of fossil fuels[Read More…]
Annually, each year, since 2005, the U.S. Government has been one of only from 1 to 3 Governments to vote in the U.N. General Assembly against an annual statement by the General Assembly against racism and other forms of bigotry — an annual Resolution condemning it, and expressing a commitment to doing everything possible to reduce bigoted acts. For the[Read More…]
It must be excruciatingly difficult having to decide whether to put some of one’s hundreds-of-billions of dollars, along with potential future profit, at risk to affirm one’s previous public declaration of support for the freedom of speech principle. That is the dilemma that Musk has before him. Musk finds Twitter threatened with an advertiser boycott. As I previously alluded to,[Read More…]
Soon, the US government may be making waves regarding another extradition request for a figure connected with that oft exaggerated notion of national security. While the high profile and insidious effort to extradite Julian Assange from the United Kingdom continues, the case of former US pilot, Marine Corps major and flight instructor Daniel Edmund Duggan has crossed the radar of[Read More…]
Regardless of the outcome of the latest Israeli elections, Arab parties will not reap meaningful political benefits, even if they collectively achieve their highest representation ever. The reason is not about the parties themselves, but in Israel’s skewed political system which is predicated on racism and marginalization of non-Jews. Israel was established on a problematic premise of being a homeland[Read More…]
The international crisis over the status of the Crimean Peninsula was in February-March 2014 when the peninsula became returned to the state’s territory of Russia from Ukraine. The Western Russophobic narrative immediately accused Russia of illegitimate annexation of the peninsula as well as of the occupation of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. However, the same narrative is not telling[Read More…]
Since mid-October there has been widespread concern regarding hurried introduction of GM (genetically modified) food crops in India due to the approval of a GM/HT (herbicide tolerant) mustard crop by a regulating agency. Hence there was a feeling of great relief on November 3 when the Supreme Court of India asked the government to maintain the status quo and not[Read More…]
The Modi government announced to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of rabi crops including wheat by Rs 110, barley by Rs 100, gram by Rs 105. The recent announcement by the Modi government to increase the (MSP) of agricultural grains needs to be analysed in a larger context. The comparative study of increase in the MSP during the one[Read More…]
We are writing as diasporic Indian organizations and allies to express our solidarity with The Wire. We strongly condemn the witch hunt to which they are being subjected by the state. This is a grossly disproportionate and politically motivated response to the filing of cases of cheating, forgery, fraud, defamation, and criminal conspiracy against them by Amit Malviya, who heads[Read More…]
The coastal fishing community is on a struggle path against the disastrous International seaport which is being built at Vizhinjam by Adani ports. The port has resulted in coastal erosion leading to the disappearance of coasts and the destruction of houses in the fishing villages. The dredging in the port will result in the loss of local fishing habitats leading[Read More…]
Baban Thoke is an activist of Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India (RWPI), who has been active in the Mankhurd-Govandi region of Mumbai for last many years. He was the candidate of RWPI in the 2019 Loksabha and Vidhansabha elections. Baban has operated as a commited democrat, who was a major participant in the movements related to CAA-NRC-NPR, student and youth[Read More…]
The ban on the Sedition Act will remain in place for the time being. The Supreme Court has accepted the central government’s request to postpone the hearing in this case. The central government has said that it will do something about this issue in the winter session of Parliament. That means there may be some changes. In such a situation,[Read More…]
by Azhar Imran and Zerrish Khan During the days after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from office, there was jubilation by the Pakistani liberal-left. But they figured out quickly that they had to go into overdrive to produce and police a narrative of what happened. But bizarrely, that narrative wasn’t being constructed for Pakistanis, but for some mysterious[Read More…]
The enemies of the most honest and most popular political leader in Pakistan’s history tried to assassinate him. Since they suffered major defeats in election after election, could not succeed in their repeated efforts to have him declared ineligible for election, they realized that they could not beat Khan electorally. So they tried to kill him. He and many[Read More…]
It is generally believed that the sanitary behaviour of Keralites when compared to other states in India is better. This may be partly true. The better sanitary behaviour is a naturally and culturally evolved artefact which has its foundation in the ecology of the region and especially the abundant availability of water. But this cultural artefact is being challenged and[Read More…]
Pakistan has suffered its worst ever floods this year, resulting in over 1700 deaths, nearly 13,000 seriously injured persons and damage estimated at around $40 billon. UNICEF stated in a report that as a result of these floods, nearly 10 million children needed urgent assistance. As millions of persons were rendered homeless by floods, urgent reconstruction efforts are needed. Winter[Read More…]
Shyam Benegal ranks amongst the most defining architects of the art movement in Hindi cinema. Few directors transcended such layers in manifesting feudal or social oppression or displayed mastery at such a scale in exploring characters. Even when projecting social reality his plots were ever buoyant. Social reality was concurrent theme in movies of Benegal,who was a creature of the[Read More…]
Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience and Freedom, Sangita Iyer, Hay House, New Delhi, 2022. ISBN: 978-1-4019-6884-7. 304 pages This book talks about the ill-treatment meted out to Asian elephants in the state of Kerala, during religious processions. Well, almost. Gods in Shackles is a book that tries to interrogate the notions of loneliness suffered[Read More…]
To Shri Shaktikanta Das Governor RBI Dear Shri Das, As a statutory regulator for both banking and non-banking financial companies, the RBI is required to remain independent and maintain an arms length distance from their management. I have come across a disturbing news report recently (https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/rbi-encouraged-us-to-go-for-hdfc-hdfc-bank-merger-says-deepak-parekh-9452931.html) that the RBI had encouraged HDFC and HDFC Bank to go for a merger, in anticipation of[Read More…]
Dateline: November 7-18, 2022, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Dignitaries from every country will be meeting to discuss climate change at COP27. Based upon early confirmations, 90 heads of state will attend, lending an aura of importance. “Climate change is the crisis of our lifetime. If we are not able to reverse the present trend that is leading to a catastrophe in[Read More…]
by Pritam Singh and Niemeyer Almeida Filho In contrast to the isolationist foreign policy of the Bolsonaro regime, Lula stands out as one of the few global politicians to command respect from nations as diverse as the US, Russia, China and Germany. He may even play a crucial mediating role in resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His respect both in the[Read More…]
Be it the protagonist in ‘Gandhi’ or Darwan Singh, the instructor in ‘Learning to Drive’ or Itzhak Stern, the Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor in ‘Schindler’s List’, Ben Kingsley is a different persona to have in his extraordinary way when it comes to Cinema. It’s not different from earlier when he appeared as Salvador Dali, the most renowned mercurial Surrealist artist the[Read More…]
CEC’s reported statement that Morbi bridge collapse was a factor for delaying announcement of the dates of Gujarat elections To Smt Droupadi Murmu President of India Rashtrapati Bhawan Respected Rashtrapati Ji, I refer to a statement reported to have been made by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on November 3, 2022 that “Morbi bridge collapse, a factor in delay in[Read More…]
If very high and increasing mental health problems are reported from any society, then the most obvious response is to increase the availability of mental health services. However, if despite this, the trend of high incidence of such problems persists, then isn’t it time to inquire at a wider level regarding what problems of society are causing this and then[Read More…]
The country is lumbering towards an abyss,what with the reckless government caught in the toils of its own rash policies,and brazening it out with more and more incredible lies. Society still foundering in the terrible wilderness of divisive and hate-filled campaigns,and the opposition still unable to unite in their intoxication with imagined electoral triumphs. Not unexpectedly Rahul Gandhi’s bold initiative[Read More…]
New Delhi. 04 Nov 2022. Leading up to the COP27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Indian climate activists and academics associated with Climate Justice Network urge the Government of India to develop socially-just approaches to climate action and climate adaptation. This is crucial to protect the lives and livelihoods of the communities that are bearing the brunt of the climate[Read More…]
The illuminating article in Countercurrents (November 1, 2022) by Mr. Sumanta Banerjee, “Leftist response to the war in Ukraine”, deserves discussion as it focuses on (1) the most burning issue of the moment – the Ukraine War, (2) the Indian Left’s position on the issue, and (3) a few observations on Stalin and Mao. Mr. Banerjee begins with a question:[Read More…]
Engulfing over 10 districts of Punjab, organisations related to CPI (ML) New Democracy, raised protest rallies commemorating 38th anniversary of massacre of the Sikh Community in aftermath of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s killing yesterday from 4.30-5.30. Spirit of resistance reached it’s crescendo like a spark igniting, resurrecting memories of the 1984 blood path whose very path the RSS is trodding[Read More…]
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo on Cuba for the 30th year in a row. Only the U.S. and Israel voted against the measure on Thursday, while Ukraine and Brazil abstained. Cuba celebrated a new victory in its struggle against the U.S. blockade, by achieving overwhelming support in[Read More…]
The global climate meeting called COP27 (the 27th Conference of Parties) will be held in the remote Egyptian desert resort of Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt from November 6-18. Given the extremely repressive nature of the Egyptian government, this gathering will likely be different from others, where there have been large, raucous protests led by civil society groups. So as tens of[Read More…]
They are falling like ninepins, and the Tories have now given the weary people of Britain yet another prime minister. And what a catch: stupendously wealthy, youthful – the youngest in two centuries – and a lawbreaker. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Boris Johnson, he was fined for breaches during the partygate scandal, despite telling the[Read More…]
To Shri Bhupender Yadav Union Labour Minister Dear Shri Yadav, Following several news reports on the problems faced by Indian migrant workers in Qatar, I addressed the External Affairs Minister, Dr S Jaishankar on 29-3-2021 for taking up the matter with the concerned authorities in Qatar. A copy of my letter is available in your Ministry. I extract below a relevant portion of[Read More…]
Some recent statements that have appeared in media indicate that there is a lot of pressure for very hurried introduction of genetically modified mustard crop after its approval by a regulating agency GEAC. Even the fact that on such an important matter the final government decision should be awaited has not been considered by GM lobbyists and pressure groups. In[Read More…]
The following statement is issued by the South Asian People’s Action on Climate Change (SAPACC), a rainbow coalition of individuals and organizations from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka who are deeply concerned about the climate crisis. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) have caused an observed average global warming of 1.1oC above pre-industrial temperatures. That global warming is due to anthropogenic carbon[Read More…]
The bridge collapse at Morbi in Gujarat killed over 140 people and many missing but no head has been rolled. According to reports there were 33 children aged between one to ten years. The 143 years old and 230 meters long suspension bridge was made during the British period. It was also claimed that the bridge was in an extremely[Read More…]
Two districts of Gujarat have begun to grant citizenship to minorities(Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians) from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. More than hundreds drowned in Morbi, Gujarat in the moribund madness we call celebration. We are at the pedestal in the Global Hunger Index. Everyday capitalism is devouring our air, water, and land. And the big giant 56[Read More…]
Glaciers across the globe – including the last ones in Africa – will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report. A third of glaciers located in UN World Heritage sites will melt within three decades, a UNESCO report found. Mount Kilimanjaro’s last glaciers will vanish as will glaciers in the Alps and[Read More…]
Every year, the intensifying climate crisis brings more pain and suffering to hundreds of millions of people across the globe. The only way we can exit this climate crisis, and avoid an accelerating disaster, is by launching an urgent system-wide transformation of our economies and societies. But still, as the 2022 edition of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) “Emissions Gap Report” shows,[Read More…]
While the levels of schadenfreude will be going through the roof given the unfolding farce in British politics, the resignation of Liz Truss as UK Prime Minister was troubling in one vital respect. True, her juvenile salad understanding of economics, which involved spending billions on tax cuts and energy subsidies, was lamentable. To cope with the beast of aggressive inflation,[Read More…]
Today on November 3rd, we commemorate the 40th death anniversary of E.H.Carr who made an outstanding contribution as a liberal historian and gave a new dimension to method of historical research. Carr was an epitome of historical accuracy, being more illustrative than any historian on Soviet Russia. Even though a liberal democrat he applied the Marxist historical materialist method. Carr[Read More…]
Stretching into love again After a hiatus of years Lips need old lips To see past new tears Our hands hung In Time’s hammock Patiently waiting For a rose Moon To lift moist memory From its quiet Garden Though lovers’ love is past And youth’s blind passion Now splashes in the hurrying verse Of loving recollection Your warm words have[Read More…]
When Shushma Datt started Rim Jhim (drizzle) radio, she was partly influenced by the rainy weather of Metro Vancouver to pick the name for her station. When she looks back almost four decades later, it does not feel the same. Once known as wet coast or Raincouver, the lower mainland is now constantly grappling with drought-like conditions and heat waves from summer[Read More…]
Well, if you have any sense of the climate of this American culture, you will realize just how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen. As a baby boomer I can look around me and gauge just how ‘ Dumbed down’ the populace is. I am not such a fool that I do not acknowledge that my generation experienced[Read More…]
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our times. It has to be checked as a matter of highest priority. Despite this adequate attention has not been given to how human life must change to realize this objective. We know that fossil fuels must be phased out and replaced by renewable energy. But is renewable energy capable of[Read More…]
A lot of dilemmas, lies, and misconceptions are present in Western geopolitical narratives taken without any critical approach by domestic Serbian pro-Western supporters (usually financed by Western agencies and Governments) about the war in NATO/EU-sponsored Ukraine, and Serbian position in newly geopolitical circumstances. This article aims to present the focal Western lie about Serbia trying to give some reasonable arguments[Read More…]
After India became Independent, the party which led the freedom movement, Indian National Congress, kept winning elections hands down for couple of times. The major opposition was from Communist Party and Socialist party/parties. Even after the birth of Bhartiaya Jansangh, previous avatar of RSS progeny BJP, was nowhere close to making any impact for a long time. The major electoral[Read More…]
The PUCL strongly condemns the raids on the residences and office of senior editors of the news portal, The Wire, in New Delhi and Mumbai on 31st October and 1st November, 2022 and manhandling of the lawyer, Mr. Shadan Farasat and other staff members of the Wire. The raids followed a First Information Report (FIR) registered in New Delhi on[Read More…]
Caption: On Al Mayadeen pan-Arabist satellite news channel being interviewed about the march in Brussels (Left to right): Mohammed Khatib, Europe coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Jaldia Abubakra, a member of the Follow-Up Committee of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil); Khaled Barakat, one of the founders of Al Masar I had the privilege to be[Read More…]
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine staged a memorable rally in Gaza on October 25th, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem. It is a testimony of the determination of the organisation to battle Israel against all odds. A member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP in the Gaza Strip, Saleh[Read More…]
inssan abhee tak zindaa hae, zindaa hone per sharminda hae! Human beings are still alive; They are ashamed to be alive! [Renowned cultural-political-human rights activist of Pakistan, Shahid Nadeem’s Urdu couplet on the silence of the civil society on attacks on minorities in Pakistan. He received forty lashes for writing and singing these lines by the Zia regime in Pakistan][Read More…]
Of late, opinions regarding the practice of Islamic women wearing hijab have run riot. However, the peak of controversies has been the non-western countries of India and Iran. It has been over forty days since the mysterious death of the Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in custody of the morality police in Tehran on September 16, 2022 has sparked widespread[Read More…]
U.S. troops are now on the ground in Ukraine, where they are monitoring NATO arms deliveries to the country, an anonymous Pentagon official told several U.S. media outlets on Monday. It is unclear how many personnel are involved, or where they are located. While Americans have fought and died in Ukraine of their own accord, Monday’s announcement marks the first[Read More…]
Oddly enough, I’ve read obituaries with fascination from the time I was quite young. And yet, in all these years, I’ve never really reflected on that fact. I don’t know whether it was out of some indirect fascination with death and the end of it all or curiosity about the wholeness (or half-ness or brokenness) of an individual life in[Read More…]
The world’s richest man has bought one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is currently worth about $210 billion, and in November 2021 he was worth nearly $300 billion—an unheard-of figure for any individual in human history. Not only does his wealth bode ill for democracy, considering the financial influence that he has over politics, but[Read More…]
How do you bury responsibility for a decision inspired by a pilfered idea? Blame someone else, especially if that person came up with the idea to begin with. This tried method of distraction was used with invidious gusto by US President John F. Kennedy, who recast his role in reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile[Read More…]
While conservation and protection of environment should get very high priority in development planning, avoidable problems have been created whenever conservation has been pushed into a narrow path where it gets alienated from the concerns and needs of local people and communities. One aspect of this narrow approach, promoted by elites who frequently dominate conservation groups, relates to strong opposition[Read More…]
Despite scores of scientific study findings warning climate crisis and its consequences at global scale, the world capitalist system is still pressing on with its business of climate destruction. Deniers’ propaganda is also unabated. A huge amount of money, a part of capital, is engaged with in the business of climate-profit at the cost of deaths – death to our[Read More…]
Major contributors like Japan, Germany, France and multilateral banks need to engage with Asian governments to reform climate financial flows as an issue vital to the UN climate talks Asian countries have seen an annual 28% rise in climate finance to $20.5 billion in 2020 but this increase hides problems that are being mirrored across the world and are likely[Read More…]
There is nothing surprising about recent suggestion of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal regarding photographs of Hindu deities on Indian currency notes. This “suggestion” has come just ahead of assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. It has certainly succeeded in gaining substantial media coverage and political attention. Usage of this electoral-card –laced with religious appeal to apparently win Hindu[Read More…]
The Russian military closed the so-called “grain corridor” used to ship Ukrainian agriculture products through the Black Sea on Monday. The move was provoked by the actions of Ukraine, which used the route to launch attacks on Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said. “Any navigation through the security corridor designated under the Black Sea grain shipment initiative would be halted[Read More…]
Close to the 38th anniversary of the Sikh Genocide, two Indian movies have tried to expose the reality of the world’s so called largest secular democracy. Laal Singh Chaddha and Jogi depict the state sponsored massacre of the Sikhs in the first week of November 1984, following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Both are[Read More…]
With the U.S. midterm elections looming and Europe’s economic situation deteriorating, the threat of reduced international support for Ukraine could limit Kyiv’s options heading into the new year. Since February 24, 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces have successfully defended much of their country. But without American assistance, the Ukrainian military campaign would have likely floundered months ago. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of[Read More…]
While the war rages on in Ukraine, how is the Left facing the multi-dimensional complex challenges thrown up by the war and the ravages that it is heaping upon its people ? The writer Arundhati Roy, in a lighter vein has summed up the Left’s dilemma as “tortuous yoga asanas – some pretty drastic seeing and unseeing – depending on [Read More…]
Since the end of the Second World War in 1945, there has been no other year when the possibility of a Third World War has been discussed as much as in the year 2022, mostly in the context of the Ukraine War and USA-Russia relations, but to a much lesser extent also in the context of Taiwan and USA-China relations.[Read More…]
All the chicken heads Are hung against the wall And in invisible velvet rooms Choice chokes on power And the stupid dance Of commanded wraiths Processes its time Declares victors’ empty victory Only the machine is glorious Structure is Caesar While the plebeians play dice Under a Lotto Number Soaked in blood Dan Corjescu teaches at the University of Tübingen’s “Studium[Read More…]
After enduring lawfare , jail, and persecution, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was once again elected president in Brazil. Former president Lula da Silva has clinched victory over his right-wing rival Jair Bolsonaro in a tightly contested second round of Brazilian election on Sunday. The country’s election authority announced Lula’s victory with 50.90% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 49.10%. At 00:18 (local time) this[Read More…]
Herman Daly passed away on 28th October. He was an ecological economist who championed steady state economics. In 1996, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for “defining a path of ecological economics that integrates the key elements of ethics, quality of life, environment and community.” Daly’s death is a great loss to humanity and ecological economics. Countercurrents.org has published a[Read More…]
For a time, the confused and muddled approach from Australian football (soccer to some) did much of a side-step regarding the human rights imbroglio and Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup. There was ample cash and participation in one of the world’s biggest tournaments on the line. There was FIFA’s reluctance that footballing sides show any political streak; such[Read More…]
You are not a great poet The swan does not stir No flower bends No mouth opens for more breath The universe remains steadily in place All the clocks tick The crows cabal The evening doesn’t give a fig All masters are at ease You will not swim to any distant shore The red banner is not lifted And freedom[Read More…]
A rise in the number of homeless people has been reported from several countries. This is either being neglected, or at best is seen in terms of stepping up relief. However relief alone will not take us very far if the deeper, wider injustices of urban and housing policies is not corrected. In the USA there have been warnings against[Read More…]
On October 30th we commemorate the 17th death anniversary of late Shamsher Singh Sheri. Shamser Singh Sheri is arguably the most defining figure of the Communist Revolutionary of Naxalite movement in Punjab, torch-bearer of the Communist Revolutionary camp or mascot against revisionism. His name is still inscribed in letters of gold by revolutionary ranks. I hold Sheri in great esteem[Read More…]
Today’s presidential run-off in Brazil leaves voters a stark choice: continue the destructive nightmare of Bolsonaro’s presidency – or choose Lula to fight poverty and rebuild. Moisés Mendes, a Brazilian journalist, recently wrote that the dissemination of fake news by the Bolsonaro camp had reached a level such that voters will miss the ‘mamadeira de piroca’. The reference is to[Read More…]
The current time is unpredictable. Competitions and contradictions are reaching to boiling point. The metropolitan center in the world order is experiencing heightened tensions, and consequences, trickling down gradually, are pressing peoples in lands to unfathomable sufferings while the Empire is insisting on “rules-based” world order, an Empire-centric old order serving only the Empire and its retinue. But that time[Read More…]
(I have used an exclamation mark in the title of the article. But I have not used this punctuation sign anywhere thereafter. For the last three decades, the mainstream political and intellectual circles of the country have been working with the spirit of team-work in erecting a Corporate-India (nigam-bharat). Hence I have accorded it the befitting title of Team-India. It[Read More…]
Farmers under the banner of the Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan) lifted their dharna after 21 days from near the local residence of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann today, after the government assured them of fulfilling their demands. The farmers should be congratulated for demonstrating such resilience and BKU(Ugrahan) for organisational skill. The protest terminated after a meeting was held between the[Read More…]
Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled Prague’s central square, on Friday, to decry rampant inflation amid the Czech government’s support for anti-Russia sanctions and aid packages to Ukraine. Media reports said: The protesters called for direct gas talks with Moscow and the resignation of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his cabinet. Participants chanted “resign”, “resign” while waving Czechian national flags.[Read More…]
The possibility of the use of nuclear weapons, intentional or on the basis of misunderstandings which can result in a situation of high-tensions and escalating tensions continuing for a long time, has been repeatedly and increasingly held out in recent times. In this context various scenarios have been presented by several eminent experts almost all of which reveal a very[Read More…]
Kosovo (in fact, Kosovo-Metochia), a disputed territory claimed by Serbia and Kosovo Albanian separatists, which Serbs regard as central to their cultural identity (differently to the Albanians), is going to pose much more unexpected problems for the international community concerning its political status as it became obvious that Belgrade and Prishtina cannot find common language during 22 years of[Read More…]
A book announcement I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/10/Against-Nationalism-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf A dangerous anachronism Today, in an era of all-destroying nuclear weapons, instantaneous global communication and worldwide economic interdependence, nationalism has become a dangerous anachronism. History, as it is taught today, is centered[Read More…]
The recent statements of President Ranil Wickramasinghe and Foreign Minister Ali Sabry expose and confirm the financial, political, and economic bankruptcy of Sri Lanka even admitted by the leaders and architects of these bankruptcies who nurtured and fed them for their political and personal prosperity partly encouraged by the numbed and sterile opposition coupled with the complacency of ordinary citizens.[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Sitharaman, This refers to my last letter dated 16-9-2022, and the previous correspondence, as well as the recent report (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/lic-plans-changes-to-revive-battered-stock-report/articleshow/95146851.cms), on the persistent, contrived attempts by your Ministry to shift LIC’s focus from safeguarding millions of its small policyholders to enriching a few limited number of affluent, speculative stock market investors, to[Read More…]
Bhagat Singh – a symbol of aspiration of the chained people in this colonized sub-continent. That aspiration was of freedom, dignity, equity and equality. Bhagat Singh – a symbol of fearless life, undaunted life, a life to sacrifice on the altar of people’s struggle for mooktee, emancipation – emancipation from all forms of bondage. There were bondages of colonial rule,[Read More…]
A fresh approach to fixing climate change/global warming is outlined in a new book: Climate Restoration, which focuses on how the climate can be restored. Indeed, the book is full of fascinating details, meriting a closer look and critique (Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis, Climate Restoration, Rivertowns Books, 2022). But first: The words climate change and global warming have become[Read More…]
Will COP-27 help to improve the climate agenda in significant ways, or will it carry on as before? This is an important question for humanity, keeping in view the increasing evidence of the extremely serious nature of climate disruption related threats, which just keeps on piling. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that the existing response of[Read More…]
Sanctions can at best slow China from taking the global lead in chip manufacturing. At their worst, they will raise the chances of chip wars spilling into a physical or economic sphere. The United States has gambled big in its latest across-the-board sanctions on Chinese companies in the semiconductor industry, believing it can kneecap China and retain its global dominance. From the[Read More…]
On October 20, 2022, in Guinea, a protest organized by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) took place. The protesters demanded the ruling military government (the National Committee of Reconciliation and Development, or CNRD) release political detainees and sought to establish a framework for a return to civilian rule. They were met with violent security forces, and in[Read More…]
The midterms are coming and this is a good time to think about the power of elections. Not as an expression of our power, because the wants of ordinary people have no influence over national policy, but of the power that elections hold over us. You would think that able citizenship starts and stops with voting. There is a war[Read More…]
Late Hrishikesh Mukherjee more popularly known as ‘Hrishi Da’ just celebrated his birth centenary last month. Hrishi Da ranks amongst India’s most progressive and innovative film makers, exhibiting mastery in craft of making socially relevant themes. Mukherjee knitted plots together with great visualisation, and sensitivity, be it in comedy, pathos, anger or romance, weaving every ingredient in proper proportion. Melodrama[Read More…]
by Ashish Kumar Singh & Akash Singh Every morning the municipality vehicle comes with a speaker phone playing songs on the themes of waste management and segregation. Interesting is the fact that despite their two rounds each morning, often people tend to throw garbage and food waste on the street while ensuring that their houses remain clean. Is it a[Read More…]
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” goes the old-age adage. But the producer of apple is in distress. And government looks as a mere spectator. Govt’s surprising apathy and callous approach towards the horticulture industry in Kashmir has brought this industry on the verge of collapse. The beginning of the harvest season brings everyone on their toes to[Read More…]
Three years ago, a tent had adorned my courtyard where a crowd had gathered. Someone was fighting off sleep, struggling to pay attention. Someone was wondering about the next cup of tea. Everyone was sitting in the tent’s light, smiling and chatting with each other, while I sat quietly in a dark corner of the terrace – away from everyone.[Read More…]
Peoples’ Republic of China, which has emerged as the second largest economic power in the world is now at the center stage of world affairs. Its views, ideas, attitude towards relations with foreign countries, the way it solves problems – will influence the overall global developments today. It is the Communist Party of China that leads in[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Biden and Jayapal at a negotiating table in October 2021 – Photo credit: The White House Ukraine has been wracked by shocking destruction and deadly violence since Russia invaded the country in February. Estimates of the death toll range from a confirmed minimum of 27,577 people, including 6,374 civilians, to over 150,000.[Read More…]
Energy prices in France will grow by 15% early next year, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned as European governments continue to search for ways to curb high inflation. “There will be a 15% increase in electricity and gas prices in the first months of 2023,” Macron said during an interview on TV channel France 2 on Wednesday, adding that,[Read More…]
Incidents are told in simple, straight style, but significant in meaning; and metaphors are there in the Lived Stories. Madhu Bhaduri tells her days as an Indian diplomat in Vienna, Hanoi, Mexico City, Hamburg, Minsk, Lisbon. These are about geopolitics and war, economy and history, culture, persons and people, and about undaunted spirit of humanity. As First Secretary to the[Read More…]
Nazi is as neo-Nazi does, and 51 countries by abstention (49) and No vote (2) refused to support the UNGA’s 2021 Anti-Nazi Resolution for “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. All of these countries except Japan were European. Excepting Argentina and Israel, the members[Read More…]
Ours is an ever more unequal world, even if that subject is ever less attended to in this country. In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here?, Reverend Martin Luther King wrote tellingly, “The prescription for the cure rests with the accurate diagnosis of the disease. A people who began a national life inspired by a vision of a society of[Read More…]
Climate hazards threaten nearly 70% of population of a third of world cities, finds a new report by the CDP, a London-based non-profit which runs the world’s environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states and regions. The analysis in Protecting People and the Planet, (https://www.cdp.net/en/research/global-reports/protecting-people-and-the-planet) released on October 13, 2022, is based on responses of 998 cities from across the[Read More…]
Bogeyman politics tends to be flatly unimaginative. The image of the nuclear-mad Russian President, counting his diminishing options, has caught the imagination of press and propaganda outlets across the West. Will Mad Vlad go the distance and deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? Certainly, his rhetoric suggests the possibility. Vladimir Putin has promised to “make use of all weapon systems[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was meant to represent a finality of sorts, an event reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama’s premature declaration of the ‘End of History’ and the uncontested supremacy of western capitalism. In effect, it was a declaration that ‘we’ – the US, Israel and a few allies – have won, and ‘you’, isolated and[Read More…]
In this interview, Nnimmo Bassey, a Nigerian architect and award-winning environmentalist, author, and poet, talks about the history of exploitation of the African continent, the failure of the international community to recognize the climate debt owed to the Global South, and the United Nations Climate Change Conference that will take place in Egypt in November 2022. Bassey has written (such[Read More…]
Having taking over United Kingdom’s government as its youngest Prime Minister in 200 years, the first Brown and Hindu to do so, Rishi Sunak is certainly not gifted with a magical wand or any other power to resolve the chaotic problems faced by his country and its citizens. The importance given in Indian circles to his religious identity and colour[Read More…]
India has reasons to celebrate after the first man of Indian origin has become the British Prime Minister. Considering how the British Empire once ruled the giant South Asian nation, and Indians had to fight to liberate their homeland from foreign occupation, this means a lot. That the Indians faced racial hatred as immigrants in the UK for years is[Read More…]
A public interest litigation is currently before India’s Supreme Court which challenges the drive to commercialise the growing of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India. On 26 October 2022, however, the country’s apex regulatory body – the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee – sanctioned commercialisation of the crop. The central government has in the past stated commercialisation will not go ahead[Read More…]
Recent times have witnessed constant constant lobbying by very powerful corporate interest lobbies for the introduction of GM (genetically modified) crops and technology in India. These corporate interests have been promoting GM technology and GE (genetic engineering) technology in food and farming which has been exposed by eminent experts to be extremely harmful for food, health and farmers and useful[Read More…]
The eleven volume report has submitted recently by the official language Committee headed by Home Minister to President Droupadi Murmu. The report has recommended to replace English with Hindi as India’s official national language. Union home minister Amit Shah has supported this recommendation by urging people from different state to communicate with each other in Hindi instead of English. This[Read More…]
History is small fry to seasoned craftsmen like the RSS who can come up with dummies that look more authentic than the real. There is no better testimony to this statement than the mangled legacy of the greatest of all Mughals, Emperor Akbar, who is deservedly called Akbar the Great. A malicious campaign against the peerless monarch has been going[Read More…]
Over 5000 Farmers organised by the BKU Ekta(Ugrahan) relented to return to homes for Diwali and instead celebrated Diwali together at the protest site near the local residence of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. Farmers had been sitting here on an indefinite protest since October 9. The protest organised by BKU Ugrahan, the largest farmers’ union in Punjab has been going[Read More…]
Letter to State Chief Ministers Respected Chief Minister, I have addressed you through a series of letters on the need for the States to form a “Federal Front” to persuade the Centre to respect the idea of cooperative federalism and ensure that the States’ autonomy as provided in the Constitution is fully safeguarded. My last letter on the subject may[Read More…]
In December 2021, a Divisional Bench of Calcutta High Court reinstated the in-principle clearance of the Turga Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project (TPSHP) proposed over an area of 292 hectares in the Ajodhaya hills of West Bengal and the eastern most part of the Chhotanagpur plateau. The judgement comes after the West Bengal government appealed against the single bench Order of[Read More…]
When the history of the struggles of industrial workers against injustice in India is finally written, a detailed chapter will have to be devoted to the various injustices suffered by Maruti vehicle workers in Manesar (Haryana) following some unfortunate and regrettable violence in July 2012. More than a decade later this struggle is still continuing, as was visible in[Read More…]
The U.S. legislators group known as Congressional Progressive Caucus retracted a letter that was sent on Monday calling for U.S. President Biden to pursue a diplomatic end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying it was not properly vetted prior to its release. Thirty members of the roughly 100-member group of Democratic legislators signed it. Media reports said: “The letter was[Read More…]
In the recently held elections for the post of President of Indian National Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, a veteran Congress leader with vast experience in the political life was elected. He is third dalit to occupy this prestigious post. These elections have taken place in the party after nearly 24 years. It is interesting that in India barring the Communist parties,[Read More…]
On 22nd October farmers under the banner of Samuyukta Kisan Morcha as a part of the 11 day dharna against land takeover in Azamgarh for airport construction, held a peoples’ parliament in Hariram in Khiriya bag. Over a thousand persons participated. Organisations participating were Samyukta Kisan Morcha,Kisan Sangrami Parishad, ,Kisan Sangram Samiti,Jai Kisan Andolan,and Bhumia Bachao. Prominent speakers were Satyadev[Read More…]
Rishi Sunak has become the Prime Minister of UK and India’s ‘bhaktmandali’ is celebrating. Even the ‘liberals’ are celebrating it. Now for the record, people of Indian origins have become leaders in various countries such as Mauritius, Suriname, Fiji, Trinidad etc and we never felt ‘proud of them’. Most of these Indians were basically related to the families of ‘indentured[Read More…]
The Southern Ocean is 10% of the world’s oceans. Yet, it is arguably the most significant ecosystem of the planet for marine sea life as well as regulation of CO2 and ocean heat, serving as a buffer to climate change and thereby benefiting the entire globe. It is the final frontier of life support for Earth. A new scientific research[Read More…]
In fact, there is nothing unexpected or new regarding the decisions taken in the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held during October 16-22, 2022, as almost all the deliberations in it are in tune with the planning and preparations taken by CPC led by Xi Jinping since the 19th Congress in 2017. In essence, the Congress[Read More…]
Had DIPAM conducted due diligence on bidders’ background, it would have avoided causing embarrassment to the government in Pawan Hans disinvestment To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Sitharaman, Referring to disposal of scrap in different government departments, the Union Minister for Personnel, Shri Jitendra Singh had proudly announced on October, 25, 2022 that “Over Rs. 254[Read More…]
Ethics and Eric Schmidt are rare bedfellows. The former Google/Alphabet CEO/Chairman exudes a sense of predatory self-interest, always making the point that what he wants aligns with what is supposedly good for the United States. He has splashed money on numerous projects, including such artificial intelligence outfits as Rebellion Defense, all the time maintaining uncomfortably close ties to the government[Read More…]
As this century began, I was writing War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, my reflections on two decades as a war correspondent, 15 of them with the New York Times, in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia, and Kosovo. I worked in a small, sparsely furnished studio apartment on First Avenue in New York City. The room had a desk,[Read More…]
Sometimes this happens also in personal life—someone who insists he is helping you keeps pushing you in the direction of harm and even ruin. Something similar seems to have unfortunately been the fate of Ukraine in recent times—those who kept insisting about helping Ukraine have actually kept pushing it towards ruin. It was certainly possible for Ukraine to have a[Read More…]
The recent statement of our finance minister regarding the dollar and the rupee gives some indication of the same. In this statement given in New York, she said that the value of the rupee has not decreased, the position of the dollar has strengthened. Depreciation of rupee or appreciation of dollar means the same thing. It is true that the[Read More…]
Saw Aaditya Thackeray, the young, embattled Shiv Sena leader at a public event last week. He was cheerful, showed no sign of stress. Seems to have taken the recent political setback in his stride. Things are clearly looking up for Shiv Sena and the Congress. He inaugurated a play area for physically and mentally challenged children in Joggers Park in[Read More…]
There is not much that I can do for Laura except to extend myself in a loving way to her. I learned of her through a mutual friend and decided that I wanted to do something supportive of her since she has suffered a great deal. Therein I want to soften her suffering and try to be a little bit[Read More…]
We are currently seeing rising food prices due to a combination of an engineered food crisis for geopolitical reasons, financial speculation by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks and profiteering by global grain trade conglomerates like Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, ADM and Bunge. In addition, agri firms like Bayer, Syngenta (ChemChina) and Corteva cynically regard current circumstances as an opportunity[Read More…]
Glory to God in the Lowest – Journeys to An Unholy Land. Donald E. Wagner. Olive Branch Press (Interlink Publishing group, Inc.). Northampton, Massachusetts. 2022. In “Glory to God in the Lowest” Donald Wagner set out three themes for his memoirs: his transition from political apathy and social conservatism to activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements; a theological[Read More…]
Victims of occupational diseases suffer all too frequently from neglect, resulting in extremely distressing conditions for them. Hence a recent campaign involving activists, judiciary and some state governments, particularly Rajasthan government, has appeared like a rare ray of hope. This campaign shows how significant benefits can reach workers suffering from silicosis, one of the most serious and common occupational diseases,[Read More…]
A multifaceted response from Europe has so far prevented its energy woes from creating widespread social and economic destabilization. But with winter approaching, the crisis is far from over and risks are getting worse. While European energy prices have eased slightly in recent months, stress continues to build across a continent that has long been dependent on access to cheap Russian[Read More…]
The U.S. is Obsessed With Destroying Russia “To The Last Dead Ukrainian Soldier” FOREWORD The war in Ukraine continues to move ever closer to a nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia as loggerhead tensions continue to mount between these two super powers with the U.S. resolutely declaring it will ultimately defeat Russia, while Russia resolutely declares it will[Read More…]
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This war has been horrendous, though it does not compare with the terrible destruction wrought by the U.S. bombardment of Iraq (“shock and awe”) in 2003. In the Gomel region of Belarus that borders Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian diplomats met on February 28 to begin negotiations toward a ceasefire. These talks fell apart. Then, in early March, the two[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd In a dramatic break with the Biden administration on the eve of the midterm elections, 30 House Democrats sent a letter to President Biden urging him to engage in direct talks with Russian President Vladmir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. In addition to bilateral talks, signatories to the letter, initiated by Progressive[Read More…]
On 17th October in Sidkuk Haridwar the workers of Raja Biscuit Company lodged an intense protest for having been denied wages for a period of 5 months .First they marched towards the labour office; giving a notice to the commisoner.Then they approached the district office, submitting a memorandum to the labour rights commissioner. For 15 years the workers toiled for[Read More…]
Russia’s defense chief warned Sunday: Ukraine was preparing a provocation involving a radioactive device. An AP report said: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the allegations in phone calls with his counterparts from the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey. Shoigu voiced concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb,’” a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste. It[Read More…]
What’s the U.S. military doing in Africa? It’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, straight-jacketed in secrecy, and hogtied by red tape. Or at least it would be if it were up to the Pentagon. Ten years ago, I embarked on a quest to answer that question at TomDispatch, chronicling a growing American military presence on that continent, a build-up of[Read More…]
Zero Waste Solution, Wareham, MA PHOTO: DAVID RATCLIFFE “I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears as soon as there is an excess of things.” – Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays. Let me tell you a story about a haunted house and all the thoughts it evoked in me. Do we believe we can save ourselves by saving things? Or[Read More…]
A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives of Some Great Film Directors”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/10/Lives-of-Some-Great-Film-Directors-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need[Read More…]
A webinar will be held on Thursday 27th October 2022 at 12.00 PM (GMT) on the theme HUMANITY’S FUTURE. The webinar will examine critically the dangerous situation we are in today, as the human family confronts the possible danger of a full-scale global war with serious nuclear implications. The war in Ukraine and other flashpoints have brought us to this[Read More…]
Do you remember 10 March 2022? What happened that day? The results of the elections to the five state assemblies were declared wherein the BJP won in four of the five states, with the fifth, Punjab going to AAP. What happened then? Almost immediately, the Prime Minister flew to Gujarat which was the next state slated for elections, though still[Read More…]
In the human and nature conflict debate, conservationists argue for expansion of wilderness and wildlife and those advocating tribal rights advocate for increasing access of tribal rights over land, water and forests. Forest department is often in conflict with local communities who are often seen as encroachers, while for the tribal communities’ forests are a part of their life, culture[Read More…]
(1) The so-called ‘Western powers’ in a rash bid to turn the Ukraine offensive into a nightmare for Russia and shell-shock the comity of nations that desperately yearn for peace has prodded Ukraine to launch more and more provocative attacks on Russia. Naturally it has entrapped Russia into more and more ruthless reprisals,which might well escalate to a nuclear strike.Whereas[Read More…]
India today, is enveloped in darkness! As the nation embroils itself from one issue to another, the burden is felt by the ordinary citizen, as never before and in more ways than one. Fascism throttles the country; at this juncture, one cannot help, but reminded of that immortal epigram composed by Bertolt Brecht in 1939. Brecht, a playwright and poet,[Read More…]
Deepawali, the most awaited festival of lights in India, is celebrated by people in many ways but most prominently as a wish and worship for prosperity to them and their near and dear ones. While economic well-being should be wished to all people of the world, certainly our greatest concern should clearly be for the poorest sections. It is very[Read More…]
Allotment of Barra coal block in Raigarh District, Chhattisgarh without local Gram Sabhas’ consent violates PESA and FRA E A S Sarma Former Secretary to Government of India To Shri Amitasbh Jain Chief Secretary Chhattisgarh State Govt Dear Shri Jain, I understand that the Union Ministry of Coal has allotted the Barra coal block in Kharsia Taluk in Raigad District[Read More…]
It’s that time of year again, with the annual UN climate meeting (the conference of the Parties) or COP, just a couple of weeks away. This year’s meeting, COP27, will take place from 6-18 November 2022 at the luxury resort of in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. This year, like so many before has once again shown in crystal clear terms why we[Read More…]
To Dr Suman Bery Vice-Chairman Niti Ayog Dear Dr Bery, In the public healthcare set up in the country, the hospitals run by the State governments at the district level play a pivotal role, providing a vast social security cover for the people, spanning the length and the breadth of the country. The medical and the para-medical[Read More…]
It was telling. Of the mainstream Australian press gallery, only David Crowe of the Sydney Morning Herald turned up to listen to Jennifer Robinson, lawyer extraordinaire who has spent years representing Julian Assange. Since 2019, that representation has taken an even more urgent note: to prevent the WikiLeaks founder from being extradited to the United States, where he faces 18[Read More…]
Courageous and forthright Indigenous Australian Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe is presently subject to hysterical bipartisan political lynching for her failure and the failure of others to report to her Leader her friendship with a fellow First Nations person who formerly led a motorbike club and has no criminal convictions. However there is massive failure to report gigantic government crimes in[Read More…]
The statehood of Ukraine like Ukrainian ethnolinguistic identity is one of the most problematic research topics. Ukraine herself has, in addition, extremely artificial state borders from very historical and political points of view. Even the name of the country and nation is very unusual and even unnatural as the Slavonic term “Ukraine” means in English “borderland” while “Ukrainians” are simply[Read More…]
In what has turned out to be one of the deadliest years for residents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2015, over 100 Palestinians and four Israel servicemen and police officers have been killed thus far this year. The Israeli army has been conducting operations with incursions into the West Bank on a nearly daily basis in what[Read More…]
High levels of workplace violence are becoming a cause for serious concern in many countries. According to the European Working Conditions Survey, 6 million workers in the European Union are exposed in one year to workplace violence. If verbal violence is included, then the number exposed to violence is likely to exceed 30 million. France, Denmark and Belgium are among[Read More…]
To Shri G C Murmu C&AG Dear Shri Murmu, I have just come across a news report (https://indianexpress.com/article/india/after-ec-now-cag-works-to-red-flag-freebies-state-largesse-8225594/) that your office would be “exploring how to devise parameters that will ‘red-flag’ the burden of subsidies, off-budget borrowings, discounts and write-offs which may pose challenges to the economy of States“. While the office of the C&AG has an obligation to audit[Read More…]
New Delhi: A report by Delhi-based think tank Lokniti-CSDS and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung finds that 46 % of Hindus and Muslims who follow various media sources perceive news coverage of PM Modi as biased. They also believe that the Modi government is portrayed too favorably in the Indian news media. Only about one in five news consumers responded that[Read More…]
Time the ruling dispensation decides whether it is committed to rule of law and protection of rights of victims and survivors of heinous crimes or their perpetrators ? Truth has an uncanny ability of popping up suddenly when you are least aware of it. PM Modi and his closest confidant Amit Shah must be realising it of late. Thanks to[Read More…]
21st October marked the 38th death anniversary of Satyanarayan Singh (SNS). He was one of the pioneering leaders of the revolutionary party CPI (M-L), which was formed demarcating from the neo-revisionist CPI (M) after the historic Naxalbari uprising. SNS was Central Committee and Politbureau member of that party. Faced with grave losses and damages in CPI (ML) under the leadership[Read More…]
Imagine the impact of a United States white-glove clean power system with costs benefits to individual homeowners in a Virtual Power Plant network (VPP) extending coast-to-coast with every household, en mass, involved in electrical power generation for the entire nation. It’s coming. It’s a future where everybody benefits as greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2 dissipate as homeowner electric bills[Read More…]
Occupational diseases constitute a much more serious risk to the health and welfare of workers than is normally realized. The International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization got together jointly to estimate the number of deaths caused by occupational diseases and injuries at world level for 2016. The two international agencies found that as many as 1.90 million ([Read More…]
Right to Food Campaign flags the alarming situation of hunger in the country and the lack of adequate response by the government The Right to Food Campaign held a press conference in Delhi on October 21, 2022 highlighting the situation of hunger in India, the inadequate policy response of the government, the Global Hunger Index report, the status of compliance[Read More…]
It has been three years since Sayed Abdul Rahman Geelani known as SAR among his friends, at the age of 50, suddenly and much too soon, left us, on 24 October 2019. The shock of his untimely demise is a void very hard to fill. He played the role as a teacher, an educator and a tireless defender of human[Read More…]
It turns out that the Home Ministry actually gave permission for remission of sentence of 11 rape and murder convicts in the case of Bilkis Bano in Gujarat. It flies in the face of the argument that the convicts had completed 14 years of sentence, even though it is not settled in law that in every case of life term[Read More…]
Russian officials in Kherson, the port city at the mouth of the Dnieper River, announced plans Tuesday to evacuate civilians ahead of an expected Ukrainian offensive to recapture the city. Officials from Kherson, which Russia seized during its offensive earlier in the year, said the evacuations were “to avoid casualties among the civilian population.” Parts of the city are just[Read More…]
Last few decades have seen the rise of communal politics in India. Similar politics has been dominating Pakistan from a much longer time. This politics draws heavily from history; rather it uses History as the major tool for spreading hate against the ‘other’ community. The target community in Pakistan is Hindus and in India it is Muslims. In these narratives[Read More…]
“When are you going to govern? The only thing you have governed for the past year is your own survival.” Jess Phillips, Labour MP, October 20, 2022 British politics has revealed hidden depths, each one being sought as each prime minister succumbs. The announcement by Liz Truss that she would be resigning came after a mere 45 days in office. [Read More…]
The Japanese yen hit its weakest exchange rate against the U.S. dollar since 1990 on Thursday, dropping to 150 yen to the greenback. The Nikkei 225 stock index was also down, losing nearly 1% during morning trading to 27,006.96 points. The Topix index shed 0.51% to 1,895.41. A Yen previously slid in June, when it hit 132 against the dollar,[Read More…]
The Scream by Edvard Munch ‘History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ‘Make the Economy Scream’ were President Nixon’s instructions to the Central Intelligence Agency, September 1970, as the first Socialist President of Chile, Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity Party swept to power amid Cold War headwinds.[i] According to then US[Read More…]
WASHINGTON (10-20) – With the Capitol as a backdrop today, activists held a “Jan 6 Justice: Our Freedom, Our Vote!” rally in support of democracy and in holding Trump and his MAGA Republican followers responsible for engaging in the violent criminal conspiracy they initiated to overturn an election they lost. Their willingness to engage in violence to see that they[Read More…]
The suffering of US women under the iron heel of abortion is intensifying, especially for women of color. This makes it imperative to closely examine possible paths forward. As a teenager during the 1960s I witnessed two political paths that remain imprinted on my mind. LBJ and 14 (b) Even before classes began in 1963, I had organized the first[Read More…]
There has been growing concern in recent years regarding the extent to which workers and employees are stressed in their work and have strong feelings of alienation. In this context the findings of one of the most extensive surveys on this subject are significant. These can be seen in Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report 2022. This is based[Read More…]
What can be said about speculations and questions being raised about democratic nature of Mallikarjun Kharge’s election as President of Congress Party? He won 7,897 votes against 1,072 secured by his rival Shashi Tharoor out of 8,969 votes. Of 9,385 votes 416 were declared invalid because of errors such as incorrect marking. Prior to results being officially declared, Kharge’s victory[Read More…]
On October 12-13th in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, an unwarranted attack was launched on the farmers land, led by the SDM, Teshildar,.Provincial armed Constabulary and the police, without declaring any notice in Jamua Hariram village .The purpose was to obtain land for the installation of a new International airport. The action was part and parcel of an overall strategy to[Read More…]
A recent poll finds: Many US citizens are not hopeful about the state of democracy in their land, the country that teaches “democracy” around the world. A new poll, results released on Wednesday, by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found: Many in the US are skeptical of the voting system in the US. They are also disheartened about[Read More…]
By 1995 it had become clear that the (Western) international community’s experiment with multilateralism was under serious threat and, in fact, it failed in many cases like Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus, etc. Nevertheless, continuing problems in different parts of the globe have meant that the OUN has had to remain committed to alleviating some of the worst atrocities. Nonetheless, before the[Read More…]
Brazen call for financial embargo against Muslims, by BJP MP Parvesh Verma, demonstrates new churn in communalism in India. He was speaking at a protest march conducted by VHP and other right-wing organizations against the murder of Manish Kumar, who was killed by three men with ‘Muslim names’ in Sundar Nagri locality earlier this month. According to police reports Manish[Read More…]
The United Nations is expected to vote this week on sanctions against a powerful gang leader in Haiti who has blocked supplies of food, fuel and drinking water as the impoverished Caribbean country struggles with a cholera outbreak. The U.S. and Canada have sent “security equipment”, including tactical and armored vehicles, to Haiti to help the country tackle a political, economic and security crisis,[Read More…]
This headline in the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, only tells part of the story: “The Lions’ Den, Other Palestinian Groups are Endless Headache for Israel, PA.” It is true that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are equally worried about the prospect of a widespread armed revolt in the Occupied West Bank, and that the newly formed[Read More…]
In the present world order, when the countries worldwide are facing climate crisis as well as other forms of vulnerabilities including rising misogyny, increased emphasis on nationalism, populism and hate, unique challenges are emerging that need to be addressed. Persistent social, economic and political inequalities have further sharpened during COVID-19 crisis while the countries have rolled back policies that could[Read More…]
Jean Luc Goddard who left us at age of 91 on 13th September, ranks amongst the greatest film makers ever .Godard, was a filmmaker, critic, essayist, polemicist, philosopher, scientist, a preacher, educator, journalist, and artist rolled into one. The motion-picture medium was elevated to a new dimension by him, penetrating barriers untranscended in terms of creativity. Its hard to think[Read More…]
Accidents are a leading cause of human distress. However most discussion has been concentrated on road accidents while occupational accidents which affect mostly the working class have received comparatively much lesser attention. This should not lead to neglect of the very heavy price that workers have to pay in terms of serious injuries or even loss of life caused[Read More…]
Doctors for Assange, a group of more than 300 medical experts from around the world, issued an open letter on Monday to British Home Secretary Suella Braveman and US Attorney General Merrick Garland, insisting that they immediately halt the state persecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and free him unconditionally. The doctors’ organisation, which has campaigned in defence of Assange[Read More…]
French workers took part in a nationwide strike Tuesday to demand higher wages to keep pace with the soaring cost of living. The strikes, principally in schools and transport, are an extension of the industrial action that has disrupted France’s major refineries, causing severe fuel shortages. Half Of All Trains Cancelled Transport Minister Clement Beaune said today there were severe[Read More…]
Sports stars are often adored like dumb show animals, suitably pretty, happily disposed to the cause they are paid for. For the FIFA Men’s World Cup being held in Qatar next month, football can count on the face of former English star David Beckham as its prized animal. This month, the principle-free player signed a 10-year contract worth £150 million[Read More…]
Somalia’s Horrific Famine Due To US/NATO Overthrow of a Fine Conservative Islamic Courts Gov. and 16 Years of War In Somalia, already during the 1980s, the US backed a brutal dictatorship without regard to famine on a massive scale resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 Somalis, mostly children. In 1992 US Marines and Rangers killed many Somalis before[Read More…]
On 15th October in Sangrur, the Association for Democratic Rights, Punjab staged a seminar on democratic Rights. It was attended by around 200 persons, but had qualitative significance. Main speakers were Charanjeet Patwari,Swaranjeet Singh,Himanshu Kumar and Vishwakant.Farmers,agricultural labourers ,workers and intellectuals attended the programme, Himanshu Kumar from Chattisgarh, dwelled on how state repression was intensifying in political, economic and social[Read More…]
Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) Strongly condemns the Supreme Court’s order to suspend the Acquittal of Saibaba and Others in Gadchiroli case pertaining to alleged ‘Maoist link’. “Our system is scared of those (people) who raise their voice against its injustice. It (system) is scared of the people’s voice. Students and activists, who expose failures of governments, are viewed as[Read More…]
The Defense Committee for the Release of Saibaba felt that the Bombay High Court Judgment finally did Justice to Saibaba and others who have been incarcerated for the last almost seven years. The reversal of Judgment in great hurry is a reflection on the Justice system in India. The observation of the court that he has a powerful mind is[Read More…]
At least 603 people have been killed by flooding in Nigeria, and all but three of the 36 states in the West African nation have been impacted. The floods have been caused by unusually strong rainfall. Citing the Nigerian humanitarian affairs ministry, media reports said on Sunday: The Nigerian national government also announced that more than 1.3 million people have been[Read More…]
SC Staying Acquittal of Prof. Saibaba and 5 others: A dangerous precedent which dilutes procedural safeguards and Compromises the right to personal liberty PUCL expresses its serious concern over the hurried manner by which the SC permitted the Government of Maharashtra to move an urgent appeal on Saturday 16th October, 2022 against the acquittal/discharge of Prof. Saibaba and 5 others[Read More…]
Dr. Ambedkar is considered as a symbol of resistance of Dalits against caste system and who stood for annihilation of caste. On 14th October 1956, he along with 6 lakhs of his followers converted to Buddhism at Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur. As chairperson of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution, his contributions to emergence of a liberal democracy and[Read More…]
To Shri Rajiv Kumar Chief Election Commissioner Shri A C Pandey Election Commissioner Dear S/Shri Rajiv Kumar and Pandey, I have come across a disturbing news report (https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/gujarat-firms-sign-mou-with-election-commission-to-name-shame-workers-who-dont-vote-8214689/) that “for the first time, over 1,000 corporate houses in Gujarat have signed agreements with the Election Commission (EC), undertaking to monitor ‘electoral participation of their workforce’ and publish the names of[Read More…]
Since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, unrest in Iranian cities has continued. So far, more than 100 people have been killed in the riots, and many political activists, journalists, and college students have been arrested. On October 3, after over two weeks of silence, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, appeared at a police graduation ceremony and blamed[Read More…]
Thousands of people in U.S. cities have been left without access to clean water. Communities say institutional racism is to blame. The United Nations General Assembly recognized “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights” on July 28, 2010. Yet, 12 years later,[Read More…]
The Facts Search for Meanings People and nations once colonized by the European Empires remain colonized in thoughts, behavior and practices for ever. Pakistan is no exception in contemporary global affairs. Its systems of political governance, public institutions, legal systems and delivery of services if any to public are a replica of the British colonial systems. The concept of national[Read More…]
In November 2021, a French military convoy was making its way to Mali while passing through Burkina Faso and Niger. It did not get very far. It was stopped in Téra, Niger, and before that at several points in Burkina Faso (in Bobo-Dioulasso and Kaya as well as in Ouagadougou, the country’s capital). Two civilians were killed as a result of clashes[Read More…]
The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent. A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with[Read More…]
When we talk about any museum, the first thing that comes to our mind is something that is, perhaps, old, past, historical, etc. But besides this, there are a few other prime things to which we won’t relate, and even can’t imagine that something important and meaningful like “research” and “education” can be associated with museums either. Museums’ jobs are[Read More…]
Revolutionary Rural Labour Union (Punjab) or Krantikari Pendu Mazdoor Union vowed to advance on the path of revolution, intensify the struggle, and further advance the land dispute in the second provincial assembly. In a most organized and determined manner it organised it’s provincial meeting on October 14-15th,, giving a boost to collective spirit. In recent times it has in a[Read More…]
On October 15, the Indian Women’s Cricket team won the 8th Asia cup in great style, turning the final match into a one-sided game which they won by 8 wickets in 8 overs. The Indian women played exceedingly well throughout the tournament, putting in an exceptional all-round performance. There was no dominance of one or two players, all team-mates contributed[Read More…]
A mysterious uptick in atmospheric methane (CH4) was first detected 15 years ago. Of major concern, CH4 is a potent greenhouse gas that’s ~80 times greater than CO2. It’s like a turbo-charged booster heating up the planet. It is a climate change event that keeps scientist up at night, sleepless bouts of tossing, turning, sitting up, screaming on occasion. “In[Read More…]
Victory Colony, 1950 by Bhaswati Ghosh is a harrowing tale of partition that brought death and displacement for millions of people. The novel is set in Kolkata. Though the novel is about partition, it’s more about the human lives that bear the brunt of the whimsy of the rulers. The novelist portrayed the wounds that her forefathers or my forefathers[Read More…]
The peace movement is extremely important for our increasingly troubled and violent world, particularly at a time when the world leadership is strangely getting less and less cautious about the world being led into the most dangerous situations. Those who contribute sincerely and honestly to the peace movement, standing for truth in difficult conditions, are among the most noble persons[Read More…]
UNHRC in its 51st session passed a Resolution against Sri Lanka with 20 countries supporting and 7 countries opposing while other 20 countries abstained from voting. This striking Resolution has vindicated and enhanced UNHRC’s reputation and its deep commitment to uphold human rights, accountability and justice to the victims of human right violations and genocidal crimes. It is to be noted[Read More…]
The key messages of Bharat Jodo Yatra are – “peace and nonviolence”, “against division and hatred” and the issue of “jobs and price rise”. These messages, strangely reminded me of Martin Luther King Jr and the March on Washington on 28 August 1963. The key slogans of that March were -“jobs and freedom”, “civil and economic rights” and an “end[Read More…]
Almost a lakh of farmers thronged in an indefinite action led by the Bharatiya Kisan Union(Ugrahan)for almost a week from October 9th-15th , near the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s local residence, at Sangrur. Similar to last year’s agitation at the Singhu and Tikri borders, they came prepared , parking their loaded tractors on the roadside, cooking food and establishing a[Read More…]
I had hailed the Bharat Jodo Yatra as soon as it set out as a potential game-changer.It could catapult Rahul Gandhi out of his accustomed comfort zone,enable him to have direct contact with the masses,and make over his image as an inept political amateur.Most of which it has begun to accomplish according to media reports.It has brought back cheer and[Read More…]
Article 21 which is Part III of the Indian Constitution secures both Right to life as well as the Right to personal liberty stating “no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law”. These Rights, described by the Supreme Court as the heart of fundamental rights,are available to citizens and[Read More…]
Massive protests marched through the streets of Paris on Sunday to voice discontent over the rising cost of living. It comes as France’s largest trade union continues a refinery strike that has closed gas stations across the country. Organizers of the march claim that 140,000 people joined the march, French broadcaster BFMTV reported. According to Paris police, only 30,000 attended[Read More…]
A statement has been issued by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty – a global campaign to end inequalities and poverty on the International day for Eradication of Poverty Nearly three years have passed since COVID-19 first surfaced, upending communities and taking the lives of more than 6.5 million people. In the rich corners of the world, life has[Read More…]
Over the past decade, the Sri Lankan government has borrowed vast sums of money from foreign lenders to fund public services. Sri Lanka had to fall back on its foreign exchange reserves to pay off government debt, shrinking its reserves from $6.9 billion in 2018 to $2.2 billion this year. This impacted imports of fuel and other essentials, which sent[Read More…]
The Italian film festival which has opened in various cities of India from October 12, 2022, has brought with it a slew of interesting works by Italian directors which include Mario Martone, Michaelangelo Frammartino, Guieseppe Bonito and others. This is part of an effort to bring about a cultural communion between the two countries and to showcase new works in[Read More…]
If the world is indeed entering a new Cold War, it bears little resemblance to the final years of that global conflict with its frequent summits between smiling leaders and its arms agreements aimed at de-escalating nuclear tensions. Instead, the world today seems more like the perilous first decade of that old Cold War, marked by bloody regional conflicts, threats[Read More…]
The recent election win of neo-fascist Meloni in Italy has renewed the interest in the history and ideology of neo-fascism. The original ideology of Italian fascism dates back to Fasci Italiani di Combattimento – the Italian Fasces of Combat or Italian Fascist Fighting Platoons, and death squads. Melina’s new bundles of fighting brothers are no longer called Fasci Italiano di[Read More…]
“The Tory Party is like a knight dying in his armour.” Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday, Oct 16, 2022 Liz Truss is proving to be the architect of her own spectacular demise. She laid the mines in a fit of drunken ecstasy and decided to skip across them with an almost childish arrogance that has stunned her own party members. [Read More…]
It’s been a long time since the atomic bombings of August 1945, when people around the planet first realized that world civilization stood on the brink of doom. This apocalyptic ending to the Second World War revealed to all that, with the advent of nuclear weapons, violent conflict among nations had finally reached the stage where it could terminate life[Read More…]
Our country, which aspires to be a global leader, is currently suffering from hunger in such a way that even in the 2022 Global Hunger Index, it ranks worse than neighboring countries Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. In the report released on the ranking of 121 countries, India is at 107th position, while neighboring Pakistan is at 99th position.[Read More…]
Caption: The logo on my t-shirt on the left says, “Anti-Zionist Vibes Only”; on the right, the Arabic on top of the map of Palestine says, “Inch by Inch” In preparing for a trip to Dubai with my brothers earlier this month, I was full of apprehension. As Palestinians, we are furious about the now-open complicity of the government of Dubai[Read More…]
The 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference committed to ideally less than a plus 1.5 degree Centigrade (+1.5C) temperature rise, and to no more than a catastrophic +2C. The 2021 Glasgow Climate Change Conference committed to “net zero emissions by 2050”. However there is no decrease in our record greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, gas, oil, and coal use, or cattle, cement,[Read More…]
World Food Program says that now needs are sky-high and resources are rock bottom Possibilities of not just increase of hunger but even of starvation deaths have been voiced by several international agencies during the greater part of this year. This is particularly true for the Horn of Africa region where the situation has been reported to be the most[Read More…]
Reversing the deadlly contributions of American society to the destruction of the Palestinian people is more than a moral imperative; it is the principle means for guaranteeing survival of the Palestine community. The Short Letter Dear President Barack Obama, You entered office with a call “for a new start to relations between the Muslim world and the West based on[Read More…]
This book “Naxalbari and the Chinese Press –A Select anthology”, compiled by Aloke Mukherjee is a classic set of articles published by the Chinese Press ,illuminating the Naxalbari Uprising. A most notable contribution in illustrating the solidarity of the Chinese Communist party with Naxalbari and the inter-relation. It delves on how a spark turned into a Prairie Fire which swept[Read More…]
On the 12th of June this year, on orders of the Uttar Pradesh state authorities, a bulldozer rolled into a house in an Allahabad neighborhood alleging that the 20-year-old structure was an illegal construction. Up until the 11th of June, that structure was housed by Student leader Afreen Fatima, her father Javed Ahmad, her mother, and her younger sister. It[Read More…]
I confess, for reasons I can’t fully explain, that when bad things are happening to animals I tend to look away in pain. When bad things are happening to people I try to face those things squarely and do what I can, but there’s something about wildlife—perhaps the way its become implicated in our strange human game without having the slightest[Read More…]
On October 11 over 100 leading peace organizations of the USA released a joint statement calling upon President Biden to “end the US role in escalating the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia over Ukraine.” This statement has stated very clearly, “It is greatly irresponsible for a President to participate in brinkmanship between two nations that possess 90% of the world’s[Read More…]
Anganwadi (childcare) workers and helpers in Delhi from October 10th-12th courageously continued to stage their protest by undertaking a hunger strike against the sacking of nearly 1,000 fellow workers who participated in a 39-day strike that ended on March 14. Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union members staged a two-day hunger protest outside the Women and Child Development Office[Read More…]
All this week during the annual fall meeting of the IMF and World Bank, climate activists have been attempting to stop “business as usual” at the two institutions. On Thursday, activists demonstrated in a “Drown them out!” across the street from the World Bank headquarters while a press conference was being held by the G-20 finance ministers to announce their[Read More…]
by Harleen Sandhu and Sandeep Pandey After Mahsa Amini, 22 years old woman, was held by morality police in Iran for violating the Islamic Hijab code and she died within a few hours in police custody, Iran, mostly young women, has erupted in revolt. They are not afraid of giving up their lives like Sarina Esmaeilzadeh and Nika Shakarami, both[Read More…]
We in India have evry reason for concern as despite contradictory reports our economy already seems to be under severe stress,and the fortunes of this war are likely to have incalculable impact on world economy and trade.It is most necessary to have a fair idea of the way this war is going.True we made windfalls gains like cheap Russian crude[Read More…]
by Marcy Winograd and Medea Benjamin In a moment of candor, President Biden told Democratic Party contributors the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. Referring to Russian President Putin’s veiled threats to use short-range nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the President[Read More…]
‘Why the country needs to back fracking and become energy independent – Charles McAllister With the right policy support from Government, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the East Midlands could become the UK’s energy powerhouse for decades.’ https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/why-the-country-needs-to-back-fracking-and-become-energy-independent-charles-mcallister-3871101 Charles McAllister is the director of policy, government and public affairs at United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG). Response from, Heather Stroud.[Read More…]
On the morning of October 12, 2022 veteran communist revolutionary leader from Punjab, Tara Singh Chalaki passed away at his home in Mohali. For a considerable period he was ailing, suffering from bad health. His death is a grave loss to the communist revolutionary camp of India to which he from his early days he played a monumental role in[Read More…]
Relying on the Cabinet’s decision and words of the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, pronounced on 29 December 2019, immediately after taking oath as the Chief Minister for the second time, to withdraw all the cases related to the “Pathalgadi” movement, became nightmare for the Pathalgadi warrior Paval Tuti. Khunti police arrested him once again and sent him to[Read More…]
The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.4% last month after gaining 0.1% in August, the U.S. Labor Department said in its report. In the 12 months through September, the CPI increased 8.2% after rising 8.3% in August. The White House noted that inflation over the last three months has averaged 2%, at an annualized rate. That is down from[Read More…]
by Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox The Burden of Massive EV Batteries Will Be Borne by People and Ecosystems Much of the excitement over the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law this summer, focused on the boost it should give to the sales of electric vehicles. Sadly, though, manufacturing and driving tens of millions of individual electric passenger cars[Read More…]
Ernest Hemingway learned in Cuba that the best way to get through a hurricane is to have your ears tuned to a battery-powered radio and keep your hands busy with a bottle of rum and a hammer to nail down doors and windows. The American writer appropriated the typical jargon of Cuban meteorologists and fishermen who speak of “the sea”[Read More…]
Discoveries in the fields of human origins, paleoanthropology, cognitive science, and behavioral biology have accelerated in the past few decades. We occasionally bump into news reports that new findings have revolutionary implications for how humanity lives today—but the information for the most part is still packed obscurely in the worlds of science and academia. Some experts have tried to make[Read More…]
In July, 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon. The news released fury and anguish in me that was beyond words. I visualized innocent, helpless babies swimming in their blood as bombs blasted away their lives. I struggled to grasp the needless, wanton destruction of lives, homes, futures, and dreams. Why? Why had the decision been made to do this? Who made it? [Read More…]
There has to be a heaven, if only by process of elimination. You see, if there is a hell then there has to be the antidote, heaven. To this writer, who has spent his adult life studying many facets of what many call metaphysics, this trip we are all on is nothing more than a dream. Perhaps we can substitute[Read More…]
A large section of the Hindu Right and the Hindu-not-so-right are ready to quarter, slice and cook film maker Leena Manimakalai on a hot oven for using a poster of her documentary film Kaali as a smoking and smiling Goddess stating that this is a violation of Hindutva that tends to vilify the Hindu image of Kali in public space.[Read More…]
The post-Cold War era is “definitively over,” the Biden administration declared in a new national security strategy, describing its intention to compete ferociously against China and Russia — while also collaborating with them on global threats like climate change. The long-awaited U.S. National Security Strategy, delayed by the invasion of Ukraine, serves as a reference point for Biden administration officials[Read More…]
Seven-year-old Amreen from the Char area in Barpeta, Assam, misses her best friend Amu who has migrated to Chandan Basti in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh with her family. Amu doesn’t go to school and stays at home taking care of her household while everyone else in her family engages in door-to-door waste collection. Although she doesn’t engage in child labor outside[Read More…]
At a time of increasing economic inequalities and ecological ruin, the search for alternative development paradigms has increased and an important aspect of these efforts has been to learn more about indigenous and tribal cultures and world-views as a source of guidance. While these efforts can be seen more in a few countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, there have been[Read More…]
[Dedicated to the fiery, undying spirit of the phenomenal modernist author Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882-March 28, 1941)] ‘They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor somber like their own species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings, fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be content with life.’ –The Death of the Moth[Read More…]
WASHINGTON (10-12) – This being October, the International Money Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will hold their annual meetings here in Washington deciding on monetary policy and how the institutions will fund the fossil fuel industries at the peril of the planet. Activists are also calling the groups’ attention as to how funding has ignored our fragile biodiversity so[Read More…]
Hurricane Ian lashed at western Cuba on September 27, 2022. I waited desperately for a phone call from my friends in Puerto Esperanza, a small fishing village on the northern coast of Pinar del Río. Over a crackling phone line, my friends told me that the hurricane had ripped off the roofs of their houses and had cut their electricity supply. But[Read More…]
Demographic angst is a terrifying thing, especially to leaders concerned about poor returns from horizontal folk dancing. Viktor Orbán of Hungary is particularly apprehensive that precious Hungarian blood is not being propagated, facing dilution, if not disappearance, from hordes of swarthy immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. In Italy, the country’s imminent first female prime minister is much of[Read More…]
Children of my Gaza refugee camp were rarely afraid of monsters but of Israeli soldiers. This is all that we talked about before going to bed. Unlike imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed, Israeli soldiers are real, and they could show up any minute – at the door, on the roof or, as was often the case,[Read More…]
On October 1st in Chandauli in Sadpur in Uttar Pradesh, Mehntakash Mukti Morcha staged a conference .with the theme “Intensifying the struggles for liberating the toiling people”. The conference dealt with how the nation was en gripped by the tentacles of the neo-fascist BJP government, giving articulate accent to the poor peasantry, landless dalit labour and Adivasis.It projected how morally[Read More…]
When Rahul Gandhi walked side-by-side with Late Gauri Lankesh’s mother, Indira and her sister, in BJP-ruled Karnataka during the Bharath Jodo Yatra, he demonstrated his will to take on the fundamentalists who killed Gauri Lankesh and several others in what was a dim period in Indian history. Rahul Gandhi’s tweet said: “Gauri stood for Truth. Gauri stood for Courage. Gauri[Read More…]
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a very senior person in the Congress Party. The meeting was arranged with his office and he met me –on time, in a small conference room. With him were two associates. He was gracious and polite and heard me out. I made a few points, he listened attentively, asked some[Read More…]
Heatwaves will become so extreme in certain regions of the world within decades that human life there will be unsustainable, the United Nations and the Red Cross said in a report on Monday. Heatwaves are predicted to “exceed human physiological and social limits” in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and southwest Asia, with extreme events triggering “large-scale[Read More…]
Nikolai Alexandrovich Semashko was an outstanding scientist and was major architect in Soviet health care, the first People’s Commissar of Health of the RSFSR, Academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and the RSFSR Academy of Sciences, Honoured Scientist of the RSFSR, Professor. Semashko’s entire life was a concrete example of selfless service to the service of humanity, with[Read More…]
Continuity of Ukraine-crisis may be viewed as harsh illustration of what display of extremism by leadership at certain levels can lead to. At the outset, refusal of Russian President Vladimir Putin to step back from continuing war-strikes against Ukraine stands out. It also marks failure of diplomatic strength of key powers as well as international organizations supposed to be keenly[Read More…]
Socialist thinker Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, whose death anniversary is today, often used to say that the life force of true democracy lies in the reversal of governments. He did not make any effort till his last breath for this reversal, which was considered ‘impossible’ in those days of Congress domination. His uneasiness towards these efforts was such that even[Read More…]
Indian pharma company’s contaminated cough syrups have caused death of children in Gambia- Action against the drug regulators called for To Shri Rajesh Bhushan Union Health Secretary Dear Shri Bhushan, The news about an Indian pharma company’s cough syrup products causing the death of 66 children in Gambia has brought discredit to the country’s pharma industry and discredit to pharma[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies On March 11, 2022, President Biden reassured the American public and the world that the United States and its NATO allies were not at war with Russia. “We will not fight a war with Russia in Ukraine,” said Biden. “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must[Read More…]
Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine — “This is not a bluff,” he insisted on September 21st — the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it’s entirely possible, as ever more powerful U.S. weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats,[Read More…]
The Teck Mining Co. open-pit Elk River Valley coal mines, located in southern British Columbia along the Alberta border. Drawn from a photograph by Garth Lenz. Teck Resources were fined $60 million for polluting the rivers in March 2021. Two high-profile events will coincide next month. One of them—the US midterm elections, which will conclude November 8—could provide the strongest indicator yet of[Read More…]
An inflationary tsunami is passing through the world economy, creating economic disorder—in some cases acute political crisis—in every country it touches. This is gathering momentum as the U.S., which is leading other Global North economies, attempts to control inflation by rapidly raising interest rates—forcing the Global North economies into recession. The Global South economies have been thereby struck by a quadruple whammy[Read More…]
Glass windows have existed since as long ago as 290 CE, if only in a limited supply of small sheets. It seems fair to say that window glass has enriched human aesthetic, cultural, physiological, and psychological well-being for at least 16 centuries. Even one small pane is enough to admit a bit of the sun’s light and warmth into an[Read More…]
The recent closure (mostly from October 1 onwards) of several industrial units in the National Capital Region (NCR) has led to the unemployment of a very large number of workers in several leading centers of industrial activity like Panipat, Faridabad and Gurugram. This is hardly the first time that pollution control curbs have led to the unemployment of workers on[Read More…]
Dr. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar renounced Hinduism and embraced Buddhism on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur (Deekshabhoomi) along with five lakh followers. On the same day first he himself had received the initiation of Buddhism from the Buddhist monks and after that, he himself gave the initiation of Buddhism to the people present. As part of the initiation of Buddhism, he[Read More…]
The unfortunate and avoidable demise of jailed Kashmiri leader Altaf Ahmad Shah is really shocking, sad and speaks volumes about the continued insensitivity of the Indian Govt towards political prisoners. Despite an SC order to get him shifted from RML to AIIMS for renal cancer treatment, the Govt delayed this and killed the possibility of any effective treatment that could[Read More…]
Jailed under-trial leader Altaf Ahmad Shah (66) is dead. His death does not come as a surprise. By the time Mr Shah was diagnosed with advanced renal cancer on 30th September at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RMLA) and shifted to AIIMS on 5th evening, it was already too late. The doctors at AIIMS could not begin treatment because Mr. Shah[Read More…]
Exceptionally heavy continuous rain has been experienced in several parts of India in early October, at a time when the season of monsoon rain is normally considered to be over. Such abnormal weather is not rare in times of climate change, and we need to be very careful in several contexts to minimize harm. In particular we need to be[Read More…]
It has always been easy to critique Rahul Gandhi. By virtue of being the scion of the political dynasty that has given India three Prime Ministers, he has owed his prominence in Indian politics to the accident of birth rather than personal merit. His uneven, often ineffectual performance over the course of eighteen or so years in politics has not[Read More…]
On the latest slimed path Julian Assange has been made to trod, a few things have presented themselves. The rusty sword of Damocles may be suspended above him (he, we are informed, has contracted COVID-19), but there are those, in the meantime, willing to defend him with decent conviction against his dispatch to the United States, where he is certain[Read More…]
Fossil fuel stakeholders have been seeking new revenue in the petrochemical industry in general, and plastics in particular. As the private transportation sector shifts focus to batteries, biofuels, and green hydrogen, fossil fuel stakeholders have been seeking new avenues of revenue in the petrochemical industry in general, and in plastics in particular. That’s bad news for a world already swimming—literally—in plastic[Read More…]
If Lula wins reelection, he must not only rebuild the social investments that Bolsonaro destroyed, but also restore trust in a nation damaged by fascism’s sophisticated propaganda machine. Brazil’s first round of elections, held on October 2, yielded a major victory for the man who held the presidency from 2003 to 2010, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Winning 48 percent of[Read More…]
Displaying relentless courage Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners at an Israeli jail in the occupied West Bank are refusing their meals since Thursday in a show of solidarity with 30 fellow inmates who are waging a hunger strike. One of the most telling protests opposing the bloodthirsty fascist state of Israel. igniting spark of resistance. Some 900 Palestinians are undertaking a[Read More…]
by Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern Awaiting discharge from a hospital in Cairo, Adel Al Manthari, a Yemeni civilian, faces months of physical therapy and mounting medical bills following three surgeries since 2018, when a U.S. weaponized drone killed four of his cousins and left him mangled, burnt and barely alive, bedridden to this day. On October 7th, President Biden[Read More…]
As with all things military, the Army has created an anachronism for correcting its negative impact on the environment and climate titled, the Army Climate Strategy (ACS), setting “targets” to address their massive negative contribution to climate change. The Army is the first service branch in the DOD to release such a climate strategy to meet both short term and[Read More…]
A massive protest of people marched through the center of the Paris on Saturday demanding that France radically change its stance on NATO and the EU. The march was organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes (The Patriots) party led by Florian Philippot, the former deputy head of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. Dubbed “the national meeting of resistance,” the march attracted[Read More…]
Kumar Shiralkar, activist, served the adivasis and other oppressed people for decades with great devotion and selflessness.. He in turn was so much loved by the adivasis that after his passing way on October 2 they buried his body. Kumar was born in a Brahmin family but he had completely given up his caste and class affiliation, totally identified with[Read More…]
Rajendra Pal Gautaum, a social welfare minister in the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) cabinet, was forced to resign by the BJP leaders on 10.10.2022. His fault was that he dared to organise a huge gathering at Ambedakr Bhawan, Karol Bagh, New Delhi, India on 5 October, 222 and motivated Dalits to take oath and embrace Buddhism. It is alarming that AAP Chief[Read More…]
“Udburu” village located in the Murhu police station area under Khunti district of Jharkhand was known as hub of the “Pathalgadi” Movement. One of the most prominent leaders of the movement, Yus