Archive for March, 2023

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 1

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 1

  This is the first chapter of a 18 chapter book by J. Jankovsky-Novak alias Jay Janson to be serialised in the next few days in CC Impossibility of a Prostate Disarmed and Captive Nazi Germany Rearming Itself While Under British and French Armed Enforcement of Prohibitions of Versailles Treaty Law The Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A doubtful American Invention

A doubtful American Invention

“I don’t understand why India looks up to the Oscars… Audience is my Oscar.” – Mira Nair, quoted in The Telegraph, Kolkata, December 1, 2012 On April 23, 1992, a man died. A tall man once blessed with broad shoulders, a headful of dark, well-set hair, and sharply chiseled features; a man who touched several art forms, enriching whatever he[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Why Ukraine Is Increasingly a Nuclear Headache for World Powers

Why Ukraine Is Increasingly a Nuclear Headache for World Powers

Concern over Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons has been a constant feature of the Ukraine war. But Moscow has several ways to complicate Washington’s global nuclear outlook. On March 20, 2023, the British government confirmed it would supply Ukrainian forces with tank shells made with depleted uranium, which can “penetrate tanks and armor more easily due to its density and other physical properties.”[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Why EU Strategic Autonomy Apart from the U.S. Is Currently Impossible

Why EU Strategic Autonomy Apart from the U.S. Is Currently Impossible

Among the wreckage the riots that have convulsed Paris may leave in their wake include President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform; Macron’s ability to effectively govern for the next four years; and, quite possibly, the Fifth Republic itself. As The New York Times reported in March, protesters have been heard chanting, “Paris Rise Up…We decapitated Louis XVI. We will do it again, Macron.” But[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Selective Outrage in Palestine: The Problem is Not Just Smotrich but Zionism

Selective Outrage in Palestine: The Problem is Not Just Smotrich but Zionism

By his own admission, Israel’s new Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a “fascist homophobe”. This declaration, which he made on January 16, should be enough to accentuate the violent nature of the new political concoction created by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last December. Though Smotrich is not the only politician in Netanyahu’s cabinet with a track record of violence,[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Israeli Protests: Racist Western Mainstream Media Ignore The Palestinians

Israeli Protests: Racist Western Mainstream Media Ignore The Palestinians

The Western Mainstream media (MSM) are extensively covering the massive Israeli protests against threats to judicial independence by the new extreme right wing Netanyahu government. However the pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel and hence pro-Apartheid  Western MSM maintain the obscene myth of asserted Israeli democracy and overwhelmingly ignore the gross abuse of the human rights of 16 million Exiled, Occupied and Israeli[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Boys of my Town at Ram Navami Day

The Boys of my Town at Ram Navami Day

When I sit to write the first line of this piece, the air around my house is filled with the war cries of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and ‘Hindu Rashtra Ki Jai’. The lanes and by-lanes are jammed with trucks on which the boys in orange T-shirts are dancing and chanting the slogans with the unique beats[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Will the court act against hate speeches ?

Will the court act against hate speeches ?

Hate speech is ‘happening’ because the state is ‘impotent’, says Justice Joseph. Is it so simple ? Will the court introspect how the hate mongers today are using the judiciary and law for their own purposes. Is the state ‘impotent’ or has become a theocratic state with a secular constitution. Since independence, we have had numerous so-called communal riots. Is[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Convulsive Journey Of The Naga Peace Process: A Pursuit Towards Mutual Coexistence And Autonomy

The Convulsive Journey Of The Naga Peace Process: A Pursuit Towards Mutual Coexistence And Autonomy

The Naga insurgency finds it initial roots in issues associated with the identity and ethnicity of Nagas. Over time, the issue began to be perceived as having political overtones and is considered one of the most contested political issues which remain unresolved. The demand for an independent and sovereign Nagaland began even well before India’s independence during British Rule. In[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Sound of the New War Drum Goes Tik-Tok

The Sound of the New War Drum Goes Tik-Tok

by Wei Yu, Nuvpreet Kalra and Melissa Garriga Last Thursday, a Congressional hearing took place where the TikTok CEO was grilled for five hours on the grounds of “security concerns.” This was days after the FBI and DOJ launched an investigation on the Chinese-owned American company. Isn’t it ironic that while the US government is putting TikTok under the magnifying[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
To Hell and Back – America’s Remarkable Unwillingness to Support Its Veterans

To Hell and Back – America’s Remarkable Unwillingness to Support Its Veterans

Here’s something we seldom focus on when it comes to war, American-style, even during the just-passed 20th anniversary of our disastrous invasion of Iraq: many more soldiers survive armed conflict than die from it. This has been especially so during this country’s twenty-first-century War on Terror, which is still playing out in all too many lands globally. And here’s something to add to that reality: even though[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Time Ticking: US Ambassador to India Promised Human Rights Focus

Time Ticking: US Ambassador to India Promised Human Rights Focus

As Indian democracy declines, will Eric Garcetti, the new US ambassador to India, uphold his commitment? Quizzing US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on 6 April 2022, Representative Ilhan Omar asked: “Why has the Biden administration been so reluctant to criticize Modi’s government on human rights?” Representative Omar’s question came a little[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Perils of Complacency – Recent Indian experience of democracy

Perils of Complacency – Recent Indian experience of democracy

Rahul Gandhi has become the rallying point of the democratic opposition parties not so much because of shared conviction of the enormity of the alleged links between PM and Adani,as because of the shockingly shoddy and brutally despotic way in which Rahul Gandhi has been deprived of his legitimate place in the house of the people and the right to[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
In difficult times for education, smooth flow of pre-matric scholarships is important

In difficult times for education, smooth flow of pre-matric scholarships is important

Ensuring school education for all children is an important policy objective in India. Our progress in this was disturbed in recent times by the pandemic which increased the number of drop-outs for some time while the adverse impact on learning attainments was even more durable. Poverty is without doubt one of the major factors which hinders the completion of school[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
USS Ronald Reagan leads the Ronald Reagan Strike group during a photo exercise for Valiant Shield 2018. [Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erwin Miciano]

Targeting China, US Navy to purchase 100 new ships

Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Tuesday, the US Navy’s operations chief said the United States Navy is currently building 56 new warships and has contracted the building of 76 more, as part of a massive military buildup in preparation for conflict with China. “We have 56 ships under construction and another 76 that are under contract,”[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Fifty Years of the 1973 Yom Kippur War

Fifty Years of the 1973 Yom Kippur War

Who is guilty of the war? In October 2023 it will be fifty years since the Yom Kippur war occurred. This war is known as the Fourth Arab-Israeli War or by Arabs as the October War. It was the last great direct clash between Arab nations and Israel.[1] The results of the war, as well, influenced the process of radicalization[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
History archives in Bikaner and Mumbai

History archives in Bikaner and Mumbai

A visit to the Maharashtra government archives in the historic Elphinstone college building Mumbai on March 29 was depressing. The archives are fine with their valuable records dating back to the East India company and Shivaji era but reaching there is messy. Old chairs, tables and other furtniture are dumped in the passage and adjoining areas. What a contrast to[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
In memory of 35th death anniversary of Jaimal Singh Padda

In memory of 35th death anniversary of Jaimal Singh Padda

On March 17th we commemorated the 35th martyrdom anniversary of Jaimal Singh Padda, who laid his life down in combating Sikh religious fundamentalism, and fell to bullets of Khalistani terrorists, in 1988.Jaimal Singh Padda was a poet of revolutionary thought who was born in Lakhan Ke Padda village of Kapurthala. He was killed by terrorists on 17 March 1988. A[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Whither democracy after Rahul Gandhi’s unseating?

Whither democracy after Rahul Gandhi’s unseating?

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi MP from Wayanad lost his membership of Parliament after the verdict of a court in Surat.  The Lok Sabha Secretariat hurriedly issued a notification declaring that the Rahul Gandhi is no longer a Member of Parliament. Such swift action is rare, but not surprising. It’s hard to guess what the higher courts will dispense as justice.[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
An Ordinary German Pogrom

An Ordinary German Pogrom

Source: the author and craiyon.com This is a story of an ordinary pogrom in an ordinary German village – called Guntersblum. A recent German-language book looks at the early stages of the Holocaust illuminating what happened in the early years of Nazism – before, for example, Auschwitz was established. The story is quite similar to, for example, Forecasting the Holocaust;[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
The Sudden Death of Giant Panda Lele Highlights Systemic Failures at Memphis Zoo

The Sudden Death of Giant Panda Lele Highlights Systemic Failures at Memphis Zoo

by Florence Foo, Si Cheng, and Taciana Santiago The Memphis Zoo has the blood of giant panda LeLe on its hands. Zoo officials disregarded multiple pleas from our organization, Panda Voices, and our partner organization, In Defense of Animals, to look into the health condition of the 24-year-old male giant panda based on a video taken by a zoo camera[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Fresh investigation needed on the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts

Fresh investigation needed on the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts

PUCL demands action against the police team which fabricated cases against innocents and conducted slipshod investigation in the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts, which killed 74 people. Fresh investigation should be ordered to ensure justice to the kin of the 74 killed and 150 injured. Compensation must be given to the five acquitted for the loss of 15 years of their[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
 Adani Stock Scam An Opportunity To Curtail Hindurashtra Conspiracy 

 Adani Stock Scam An Opportunity To Curtail Hindurashtra Conspiracy 

Taking the cue from Rahul Gandhi’s charge in parliament during his fiery speech over the Adani stock scam on Feb 7, 2023, that ‘Modi Is Adani’, and seeing how it has rattled Modi and BJP, DMK MP Kalanidhi Veeraswamy is not the only one who is now openly accusing Modi of extensive corruption using the office of the PM. Other[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Urgency of Stepping Up Backward Class Schemes as only 6% of Allocated Funds Spent in First Nine Months of Financial Year

Urgency of Stepping Up Backward Class Schemes as only 6% of Allocated Funds Spent in First Nine Months of Financial Year

Backward classes are supposed to be increasingly a politically influential segment of Indian society. So it should come as a surprise that only 6% of allocated funds for all backward class schemes in the financial year 2022-23 were actually spent in the first nine months of this financial year ie up to 31 December 2022 by the Department for Social[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
At least 40 immigrants dead in fire at US-Mexico border

At least 40 immigrants dead in fire at US-Mexico border

At least 40 refugees were killed in a fire that broke out Monday night in a crowded detention center in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez. The deadly blaze, which left 28 more hospitalized in serious condition, erupted during a protest by refugees from Central and South America, who had learned they were to be deported from Ciudad Juarez[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Contemporary Anti-Semitism – A Jewish View from Germany

Contemporary Anti-Semitism – A Jewish View from Germany

Source: author and craiyon.com Perhaps more than many other countries, Germany is inextricably linked to anti-Semitism. And, yet it still struggles with anti-Semitism. This is not only demonstrated by historical facts but also in today’s anti-Semitism in Germany. A recent book on anti-Semitism published by Germany’s Reclam-Press puts the spotlight onto this. Like Penguin, Germany’s Reclam has made literature accessible[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
In memory of 40th Anniversary of Military Dictatorship in Argentina

In memory of 40th Anniversary of Military Dictatorship in Argentina

March 24 marked 47 years since the US-backed military coup overthrew the left-wing government of President Isabel Martínez de Perón in Argentina (July 1974-March 1976), and triggered off the bloodiest dictatorship in the history of the country. During the seven years and nine months of military dictatorship (March 1976-December 1983), Argentine security forces, along with right-wing death squads, executed anyone[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Poor work conditions, non-compliance with Constitutional provisions seriously impact adolescent girls in workforce

Poor work conditions, non-compliance with Constitutional provisions seriously impact adolescent girls in workforce

 “We the People of India” – the Preamble to our Constitution begins with the promise that it represents the entire country. The ground reality, however, represents a stark contrast. The very people the laws in the Constitution stand for are facing discrimination and violations of rights. The adolescent girls in the workforce are one such section. An interaction with young[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Take action against K Surendran for insulting Women

Take action against K Surendran for insulting Women

National Federation of Indian Women write a letter to PM Modi against BJP State President K Surendran for insulting CPIM women in Kerala   Shri.  NARENDRA MODI Hon’ble Prime Minister Union of India Respected Prime Minister, Sub: IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION & ACTION AGAINST K. SURENDRAN, Kerala State President of BJP. We, the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) are writing this to bring[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan

Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan

Being the scapegoat of tribal lore cast out with the heavy weight of sins remains a popular political motif.  Supposedly noble soldiers, by way of example, are punished for not adhering to the rules of war.  In breaching the codes of killing and the protocols of acceptable murder, they are banished from a realm supposedly wrapped in law.  In doing[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
DOJ Called Upon to Investigate Environmental Activists Abuses

DOJ Called Upon to Investigate Environmental Activists Abuses

Outside of the Department of Justice during a late afternoon demonstration, protesters from a broad range of ideologies and coalitions called for solidarity with the ‘Stop Cop City’ movement in Atlanta. The demonstrators are trying to provoke the Department of Justice (DOJ) into acting to fully investigate and prevent further abuses against environmental activists by the Georgia police and legal[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The World’s Coffee Shops Have Emerged as Plant Milk’s Front Line

The World’s Coffee Shops Have Emerged as Plant Milk’s Front Line

Milk made from plants is entering the public consciousness (and stomachs) in coffee shops across the globe. While plant-based milk has been around for centuries, the market is undergoing a modern-day surge. The industry has soared to a market value of $20 billion. Consumers in all age brackets are contributing, but the rise is in large part fueled by eco-minded and racially diverse young people,[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Lara Sheehi’s ordeal, like Steven Salaita’s, is not quite over

Lara Sheehi’s ordeal, like Steven Salaita’s, is not quite over

University administrators have yet to engage ethically with Zionism as they do with other socially reprehensible ideologies  Caption: Left: Dr. Lara Sheehi; Right: Dr. Steven Salaita I am so happy for Dr. Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at George Washington University (GWU); her immediate nightmare has come to an end. After being put through the Zionist wringer over[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
“Facing Clear Evidence of Peril” in a Country of Lies

“Facing Clear Evidence of Peril” in a Country of Lies

“In my seventy-plus years from 1946 to now, the chorus of fear-mongering bullshit has never ceased – only grown louder. The joke is on us. Ha Ha Ha.” – Oliver Stone, Chasing the Light Perhaps silence is the best response to the endless cavalcade of official lies that is United States history. The Internet and digital technology have allowed those lies[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
 The case of Kashmir: A Gandhian Resolution

 The case of Kashmir: A Gandhian Resolution

One of the most geographically, politically and now militarily contested territory that has raised innumerable human rights questions in the recent and distant past continues to be Kashmir. Kashmir today is devoid of Swaraj, of the real essence of Kashmiriyat. Granville Austin underpins the legitimacy of a constitution in any given territory, and particularly India, in the consent of the[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Non-Availability of Badly Needed Funds for Dalit Students Increases Their Difficulties

Non-Availability of Badly Needed Funds for Dalit Students Increases Their Difficulties

Only 0.1% of funds allocated for pre-matric scholarship for scheduled caste students disbursed during first 9 months of financial year The government has been trying to reform the system of disbursement of scholarships to scheduled caste and extremely backward class students. Reform is supposed to lead to improvement. However in the present context the supposed ‘reform’ has muddled up things[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
A  bureaucrat-turned- minister  in  a  mess

A  bureaucrat-turned- minister  in  a  mess

Our  high  profile  minister  of  external  affairs,  S.  Jaishankar,  who  is  vociferous  both  at  home  and  abroad,  appears  to  have  landed  up  in  a  mess.  Some  of  his  recent  remarks  regarding  both  current  and  past  events  have  stirred  up  a  controversy.  Not  only  Opposition  parties,  some  members  from  his  own  former   bureaucratic  fraternity  have  also  expressed  reservations  about  his  frequent  [Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Workers’ 24-Hour Mega Transport Strike Halts Germany

Hundreds Of Thousands Of Workers’ 24-Hour Mega Transport Strike Halts Germany

A mega transport strike, unseen over decades, halted Germany. With the largest strike over decades, Airports, train stations and bus stations across Germany were at a standstill on Monday. The strike is the result of demands for wage hikes issued by several major trade unions. As Europe’s biggest economy reels from inflation, Germany has been brought to a standstill by[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Oldest Interfaith Organization in America Calls for Children to Have More Rights Than Guns

Oldest Interfaith Organization in America Calls for Children to Have More Rights Than Guns

March 27, 2023 – The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest interfaith peace organization in the United States, established in 1915, is horrified at the senseless loss of seven lives – three children and four adults, including the 28-year-old shooter – today in Nashville, Tennessee. It is sinful that guns receive more protection in our country and are considered more sacred[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
What’s the Best Way Out from the War in Ukraine?

What’s the Best Way Out from the War in Ukraine?

In view of the recent geopolitical upheavals, and particularly the war in Ukraine, it does not make sense (and does not promise much success) to build a new global security architecture based on the logic of a bipolar confrontation for several reasons… Firstly, a principal prerequisite for success of a confrontational “conflict strategy”—a far-reaching identity of interests with politically aligned[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
How Indigenous Land Management Practices Are a Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Agriculture

How Indigenous Land Management Practices Are a Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Agriculture

 As a rapidly warming world strains at the shortcomings in industrial farming, key lessons can be taken from Indigenous practices. Several Hollywood action films center around an impending apocalypse in the form of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth—a glaring metaphor for the real-world implications of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis. As this crisis unfolds before our very[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
A mural of former Venezuela President Hugo Chavez (1954-2013). The U.S. government and the Venezuelan oligarchy first tried to overthrow Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution in 2002. Nearly twenty years later, they are still at it. (Photo: Univision)

In memory of Hugo Chavez on 10th death Anniversary

A few weeks s ago on March 5th, we commemorated the 10th death anniversary of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Without doubt one of the most progressive or impactful leaders in shaping the destiny of a Latin American nation ,who confronted and gave a mortal blow to American imperialism at it’s strongest point, and paved the path towards liberation. Few Third[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Xi’s ‘Chilling’ Remarks: A Multipolar World Offers Challenges and Opportunities to the Middle East and Africa

Xi’s ‘Chilling’ Remarks: A Multipolar World Offers Challenges and Opportunities to the Middle East and Africa

The final exchange, caught on camera between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian host and counterpart, Vladimir Putin, sums up the current geopolitical conflict, still in its nascent stages, between the United States and its Western allies on the one hand, and Russia, China and their allies, on the other. Xi was leaving the Kremlin following a three-day[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Ukraine War – US-China Relations And the Doomsday Clock

Ukraine War – US-China Relations And the Doomsday Clock

The “Doomsday” clock has been advanced further due to the ongoing Ukraine war, which in reality, is a war between Russia and the US-led West and their collaborators elsewhere. Ukraine has now been promised advanced warplanes by some of the NATO countries. If it escalates further the Russian threat of using strategic nuclear weapons might not be ruled out altogether.[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Anti-Rahul Defamation Card Has Its Limitations!  

Anti-Rahul Defamation Card Has Its Limitations!  

It is difficult to assume that there is any person in the whole world who has not faced abuse and/or some kind of defamation innumerable times. If each person chose to file case on this issue, even asked for compensation as well as punishment for allegedly guilty person, it wouldn’t be surprising if imprisonment landed majority behind bars. Perhaps, lesser[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Questions We Should Ask to Understand Real Impact of Poverty Reduction and Welfare Schemes

Questions We Should Ask to Understand Real Impact of Poverty Reduction and Welfare Schemes

There are several widely publicized schemes of the government to reduce poverty and increase welfare of people, but in order to understand their real impact many relevant questions need to be asked. In the case of rural employment guarantee or NREGA we need to know to what extent the demands for employment works are actually being met, and to what[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Punjab: Democracy Under Siege?

Punjab: Democracy Under Siege?

 How rulers are playing again with their favourite ghost of Khalistan We were getting distress signals from writings of friends in Punjab and those outside Punjab but are well connected with events there. Internet suspension for days, police raids and arrests, even taking journalists to ‘custody’, imposition of Section-144, and even NIA and paramilitaries all were there apparently in search[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Declaration excessive dividends by the Board of HZL may not be in compliance with Section 123 of the Companies Act

Declaration excessive dividends by the Board of HZL may not be in compliance with Section 123 of the Companies Act

To Dr Manoj Govil Secretary (Corporate Affairs) Govt of India Dear Dr Govil, Please refer to my letter dated 5-3-2023 on prima facie violation by the Board of Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) of the requirements of the Companies Act and the need for taking appropriate action by your Ministry (https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/resolution-of-hzls-board-of-directors-on-acquisition-of-thl-zinc-ltd-mauritius-role-of-independent-directors/?swcfpc=1). I understand that the HZL Board has also declared dividends[Read More…]

by 28/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Men, masculinities, and gender equality

Men, masculinities, and gender equality

Both men and women are still imprisoned by patriarchy in the vast majority of our globe. Together, we inhabit a world of social logic where prejudice, injustice, and exploitation taint the relationships of concern, love, and respect between people, groups, and communities. From the streets to the workplace, patriarchy permeates even the most private areas of the house. All around[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
EU Warns After Russia Plans To Place Tactical Nuclear Weapon In Belarus

EU Warns After Russia Plans To Place Tactical Nuclear Weapon In Belarus

Nuclear stakes are rising around Ukraine. In response to UK’s plan to supply depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, Putin has announced deploying of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Moreover, the U.S. has already deployed nuclear weapons in NATO countries around Russia, Media reports said: The EU will respond with further sanctions if Belarus presses ahead with hosting Russian nuclear weapons[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells

A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells

Should they be taking them?  Ukraine is desperate for any bit of warring materiel its armed forces can lay their hands on, but depleted uranium shells would surely not be a model example of use.  And yet, the UK, in an act of killing with kindness, is happy to fork them out to aid the cause against the Russians, despite[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Media and the March to War 

Media and the March to War 

During this past week on the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and the ensuing war one fundamental question on many people’s minds is how it all started. For those who were either too young to remember, or those who were not paying attention at the time or who were not yet born the answer is pivotal in[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Basic Issue is not of Taking Sides in Superpower Rivalry, it is of Durable Peace to Save Earth’s Life

The Basic Issue is not of Taking Sides in Superpower Rivalry, it is of Durable Peace to Save Earth’s Life

After the cold war shadow of several decades, the best hopes of ending superpower rivalry appeared around the early 1990s. The assurances given to Gorbachev by top western leaders appeared (deceptively, as it later turned out) to lead in this direction. China, it appeared, could not just live with the increasingly globalized world but prosper in it. United Nations agencies[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Pentagon by gregwest98 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 / Flickr

The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell

On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were — or at least should have been — stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it. The new Pentagon budget would come in at $842 billion. That’s the highest level requested since World[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
“…I want poetry to be detonated like a bomb!” -Nathalie Quintane

“…I want poetry to be detonated like a bomb!” -Nathalie Quintane

 Nathalie Quintane is among the most known experimental poets of France. To quote her from what she writes about herself in the French government’s publications website, this is what she writes- “My name is still Nathalie Quintane. I have not changed my date of birth. I still live in the same place. I am few in number but I am determined.” Nathalie[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Bundelkhand Must Choose its Priorities Carefully

Bundelkhand Must Choose its Priorities Carefully

Bundelkhand region, spread over 14 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, is best known for the valiant struggles against colonial rule by Jhansi Ki Rani Lakshmibai and her several equally brave companions like Jhalkaribai. Later this was an area of several efforts by revolutionary freedom fighters like Chandrashekhar Azad. The intenseness of anti-colonial struggles here may partly explain the[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Citizenship: Beyond the Forked Vision

Citizenship: Beyond the Forked Vision

by Samik Roy Chowdhury and Gorky Chakraborty The divisive reception received by the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) has allowed for polarised debates on several concepts central to our political life. In this context it is only fair to ask: How do we understand the state of citizenship in India today? Most debates that developed around this amendment have primarily been[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Caste-wise census is necessary for balanced development

Caste-wise census is necessary for balanced development

by Achchhe Lal Prajapati and MD Tabrez Alam Abstract A caste-wise census has become a topic of discussion in India today. The ruling party and the opposition are giving their respective arguments. Some justify it, and some are saying wrong. Meanwhile, the state of Bihar has also started the caste-wise census. India has the world’s most extensive caste-based affirmative action[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Tribal woman murdered after rape in Rohtas and strong protest demanding punishment of culprits

Tribal woman murdered after rape in Rohtas and strong protest demanding punishment of culprits

A  tribal woman was murdered after rape in Nagatoli village of Rohtas by forest department officials and later murdered. A huge contingent of tribal women and men thronged  in the procession organized on the call of Kaimur Mukti Morcha demanding the arrest of the person responsible for the murders on Friday, March 24. The administration has banged every nail in[Read More…]

by 27/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today

Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today

For most of human history justice and peace have been the biggest concerns, the most important issues determining welfare and safety of our world. Those who understood this, and they were always a thoughtful and honest minority, therefore decided to work for justice and peace. The most thoughtful among them also understood the close linkages between peace and justice and[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Labor in market, and the mainstream economics

Labor in market, and the mainstream economics

Market and labor in market are crucial questions both to capital and labor. The questions have been discussed and answered by economists, from the mainstream, and also from the camp of labor. “Markets”, writes Michael D. Yates in his Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle (Monthly Review Press, New York, USA, 2022), “act as a veil, hiding the[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A woman sheds tears at a commemoration event for the victims of NATO's aggression in Sombor, Serbia, on March 24, 2023. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)

Serbia Shall Never Forget NATO Aggression, Vows Serb President

Serbians could only forget the aggression unleashed by the U.S.-led NATO in 1999 if their country ceases to exist, President Aleksandar Vucic warned on Friday. He was marking the 24th anniversary of the military bloc’s bombing campaign of the then Yugoslavia. Media reports said: Vucic added that the U.S. and its allies have yet to answer for their attacks, which[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
 Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy

 Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy

The fifteenth Kerala General Assembly has passed the Public Health Bill without discussion following opposition uproar, which will fuel further marketization of the health sector and strong regulations and enforcement by the state government. The Bill reached the Legislative Assembly with notes from five Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) expressing disagreement with the Select Committee’s recommendations that warned about the possibility of serious human rights violations and[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution

The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution

Land, along with water, is essential for habitat, living, and survival of human and non-human species. It is not merely a source of food and livelihood for the food-producers, but also the socio-cultural basis of their lives. Colonization for resources In the 17th and 18th Centuries, industrializing European states captured territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. They realised the[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) addresses a crowd in Stuttgart.

The Contemporary Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg

In August 1893, when the chair called on her to speak at a session of the Zurich Congress of the Second International, Rosa Luxemburg made her way without hesitation through the crowd of delegates and activists packed into the hall.She was one of the few women present, still in the flush of youth, slight of build, and with a hip[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Does Court Judgement on Rahul Gandhi Breach Human Rights (Freedom of Expression)

Does Court Judgement on Rahul Gandhi Breach Human Rights (Freedom of Expression)

Sorry! This is a serious issue. This writer feels sorry, if not peeved by the infantile Euphoria that seems to damage India’s image to the world due this issue. It looks as though “bearded “ Rahul is booted out and not “bearded” Modi! Since both give their allegiance to Mahatma Gandhi, who was not “bearded”, smacks a bit peevish. Additionally[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
From Oslo to Sharm el-Sheik

From Oslo to Sharm el-Sheik

A long arduous and thorny road to nowhere. This mad journey was started back in 1974, during the Arab summit in Rabat, Morocco, where the Arab league took it upon itself to elect the Palestine Liberation Organisation as our sole representative. It was a fait accompli. The Palestinian nation was not consulted. On the 15th November, 1988 our fate was[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Is Washington now Khan’s Buddy?

Is Washington now Khan’s Buddy?

We all know that 95 percent of elite Pakistani politics is mentally challenged fairytales and gossip replete with murmurings that can be cooked up for a good story to sell to the public. The intrigues and power plays of Pakistan’s rulers seem to just drag the country further and further to the abyss. After virtually a year now of the[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Journalist Seymour Hersh

Nord Stream sabotage was to undercut Germany, says Seymour Hersh

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines because he was unhappy with the level of support provided by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed. Hersh first accused Washington of destroying the key European energy route in an article released in February, and made[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
It Will Be Hard And Cost A Lot Of Blood For Ukraine To Kick Out Russians, Says Top U.S. General

It Will Be Hard And Cost A Lot Of Blood For Ukraine To Kick Out Russians, Says Top U.S. General

The Russia-Ukraine war is unlikely to end on the battlefield and will instead come to a conclusion at a negotiating table, predicts a top U.S. general. A Business Insider report — Top U.S. general says it will be really hard and cost a lot of ‘blood and treasure’ for Ukraine to ‘kick out every single Russian’ invader, March 21, 2023, https://www.businessinsider.com/costs-ukraine-blood-treasure-kick-russia-invaders-out-us-general-2023-3[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Saudi – Iran rapprochement: A chance for peace

Saudi – Iran rapprochement: A chance for peace

The disintegration of the Soviet Union left the Middle East bereft of any alternatives to US leadership. Washington, a prisoner of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny – the mythical doctrine used by the US to expand and extend its dominion, never proved itself up to the leadership role. The US foreign policy was and remains nothing but a true manifestation[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Day 30 of the NREGA Protest: Students and Activists Detained by the Delhi Police

Day 30 of the NREGA Protest: Students and Activists Detained by the Delhi Police

The Delhi police has made it quite clear that no public discussion about NREGA will be allowed beyond jantar-mantar. Students and activists were detained by the Delhi Police in the middle of a public discussion on NREGA at the Arts Faculty, Delhi University, for which permission was withdrawn on the day of the event. The event, organised by a student[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
An Irrational Verdict?

An Irrational Verdict?

I may be wrong,but I believe that the ominous and dangerous verdicts of both the Judicial Magistrate of Surat and the Honourable Speaker are marred by an elementary fallacy we all learnt during the penultimate years of higher secondary education. Let us put the most offensive construction on Rahul Gandhi’s remark.Then it will turn out like this: ALL THIEVES ARE[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Trump Rot at the EPA

Trump Rot at the EPA

A new report by the EPA’s internal watchdog has exposed Trump administration appointees that meddled in the agency’s science to weaken “the toxicity assessment of PFASs.” If not for the Biden administration, which discovered this egregious complicity by political appointees and the chemical industry to weaken standards of toxicity, Americans would be unnecessarily exposed to dangerous chemicals beyond the abhorrent[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), front, and the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG-52) underway in the the South China Sea on 18 April 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

AUKUS, the Australian Labor Party, and Growing Dissent

It was a sight to behold and took the wind out of the bellicose sails of the AUKUS cheer squad.  Here, at the National Press Club in the Australian capital, was a Labor luminary, former Prime Minister of Australia and statesman, keen to weigh in with characteristic sharpness and dripping venom.  Paul Keating’s target: the militaristic lunacy that has characterised[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Palestinians Don’t Exist?

Palestinians Don’t Exist?

“Palestinians don’t exist.” (https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/03/paris-israels-smotrich-says-palestinian-people-dont-exist-calls-them-fictitious)  This was the recent statement by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that made shocked headlines around the world. And, of course, he meant it as an affirmation of Jewish nationalism, the right of Israeli Jews to dispose of all Palestinians from the Jordan to the Sea. Sounds kind of like the Nazis, no? But in a[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
The Long Arm of Washington Extends Into Africa’s Sahel

The Long Arm of Washington Extends Into Africa’s Sahel

On March 16, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced—during his visit to Niger—that the United States government will provide $150 million in aid to the Sahel region of Africa. This money, Blinken said, “will help provide life-saving support to refugees, asylum seekers, and others impacted by conflict and food insecurity in the region.” The next day, UNICEF issued a press[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Radio Fatherland!!

Radio Fatherland!!

The Nazis loved to prime the pump with their rituals to keep the ‘ natives’ hyped up. They had their mass rallies with hundreds  of thousands attending. They had those brown storm trooper and black SS uniforms… the more the merrier. The Russians had ‘ Mother Russia’, so the Germans, being a male dominated autocracy, used the easy to say[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
In this Sunday, June 14, 2020 photo, seven-month-old Issa Ibrahim Nasser is brought to a clinic in Deir Al-Hassi, At seven months old, Issa weighs only three kilos. Like him, hundreds of children suffer from acute severe malnutrition because of poverty and grinding conflict. Yemen. (AP Photo/Issa Al-Rajhi)

Bellies of the Rich Swell Further on the Back of Hunger  

It’s a zero-sum situation. The rich are robbing the poor to swell their coffers – and their bellies. In April 2022, Oxfam reported a terrifying prospect of more than a quarter of a billion people falling into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone. In its January 2021 report ‘The Inequality Virus’, it also stated that the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Big Picture And The Small – Part II

The Big Picture And The Small – Part II

Before resuming continuation of section 2 of Part 1, I have to deal with the latest news about Rahul Gandhi.It transpires that the charge of defamation apparently pertains to his remarks on how all thieves uncannily have the title ‘Modi’. Much depends on whether he made the remark at a press conference or on some public platform or in private[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
2500 people urge Chief Minister of Karnataka to protect farmers, pastoralists and Dalits from Supreme injustice

2500 people urge Chief Minister of Karnataka to protect farmers, pastoralists and Dalits from Supreme injustice

About 2500 people from across the 17 villages impacted by the development of Dr. K Shivaram Karanth Layout, as well as from across various parts of India have signed a representation to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Karnataka, Sri. Basavaraj Bommai, urging him to immediately issue an ordinance to protect the fundamental rights of farmers, pastoralists, dalits, backward classes and[Read More…]

by 25/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Our Global Water Crisis

Our Global Water Crisis

A Few Facts https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-report-drinking-water https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/accelerating-change-on-united-nations-world-water-day-2023/?swcfpc=1 In its home-page on World Water Day, 2021, the United Nations pointed out the following facts: Today, 1 in 3 people live without safe drinking water. By 2050, up to 5.7 billion people could be living in areas where water is scarce for at least one month a year. Climate-resilient water supply and sanitation could[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
3.5 Million March Across France Opposing Macron’s Pension Reform

3.5 Million March Across France Opposing Macron’s Pension Reform

Over three million demonstrators took to the streets across the country in what some security sources described as an “insurrection” against the government in Paris. French authorities struggled on Thursday to suppress the protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform. According to the French Interior Ministry, over one million people participated in demonstrations against the pension reform bill across France,[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Election Commission of India  must question the presence political nominees on BEL’s and ECIL’s Boards 

Election Commission of India  must question the presence political nominees on BEL’s and ECIL’s Boards 

Failure of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to question appointment of political nominees on the Board of Bharat Electoronics Ltd (BEL) involved in the supply of EVMs   To Shri Rajiv Kumar Chief Election Commissioner   Shri A C Pandey Election Commissioner   Shri A Goel Election Commissioner Dear S/Shri Rajiv Kumar/ Pandey and Goel, Please refer to my[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Ihan Omar Introduces Legislation to Combat Islamophobia

Ihan Omar Introduces Legislation to Combat Islamophobia

Representative Ihan Omar (D-MN) on March 23 hosted a press conference this morning on Capitol Hill to introduce a resolution combating Islamophobia across the country and around the world. Also lending their support for the amendment were Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL); Robert McCaw, Director of Government Affairs at The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Human Rights First Executive Vice President[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Narendra Modi’s Cricket Coup

Narendra Modi’s Cricket Coup

What a coup.  Nakedly amoral but utterly self-serving in its saccharine minted glory.  India’s showman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who otherwise appears to have clerkish, desk-bound qualities, had what he wanted: an accommodating, possibly clueless guest in the form of the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; a common interest in India’s national sport cricket, and a show illuminating him as[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Big Picture And The Small

The Big Picture And The Small

(1) Attack,they say,is the best means of defence.And here we take up two arenas where at the moment this adage is most conspicuously in a frenzy of operation.Though poles apart they show the same entities and ideas locked in mortal conflict. First the sentencing of Rahul Gandhi to two years of imprisonment on the charge of ‘having defamed the country’.[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Prophesies, Then and Now – My Life at World’s End

Prophesies, Then and Now – My Life at World’s End

Indulge me for a moment. This is how “The Prophecy” in my 1962 high school yearbook began. It was written by some of my classmates in the year we graduated from Friends Seminary in New York City. “Being an historian, I am jotting down these notes out of habit, but what I saw and experienced two days ago I am sure[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
How the Cuban Government and Its People Collaborated on the Family Code

How the Cuban Government and Its People Collaborated on the Family Code

On September 25, 2022, Cuba passed one of the world’s most progressive codes on families. All in one go, the small island nation legalized same-sex marriage, defined and upheld the rights of children, the disabled, caregivers, and the elderly, and redefined “family” along ties of affinity rather than blood. This opens the concept of “family” to include nontraditional forms of familial relations,[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Stop Criminalizing Journalism and Human Rights Activism: Release Irfan Mehraj and Parvez Khurram

Stop Criminalizing Journalism and Human Rights Activism: Release Irfan Mehraj and Parvez Khurram

PUDR strongly condemns the arrest of Irfan Mehraj, a Srinagar-based freelance journalist and researcher under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on 20 March 2023 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the so-called ‘NGO Terror funding Case’ of October 2020. Irfan’s arrest is deeply condemnable as it shows the unrelenting executive crackdown on the valley’s scribes in the[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Politics of Bhagat Singh’s trial

Politics of Bhagat Singh’s trial

Biographical details of Bhagat Singh’s life have been the main concern of the very valuable work of many scholars and activists who want to portray him as a fearless revolutionary of the highest order. Only in a scholarly work such as that by S Irfan Habib (not the historian Prof Irfan Habib), To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme[Read More…]

by 24/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
The Tragedy of Footpaths: Impressions of a Pedestrian in Bangalore

The Tragedy of Footpaths: Impressions of a Pedestrian in Bangalore

Imagine you are driving your car and you notice garbage in the middle of the road, the heap is so big that you have to navigate around it, but that might be risky as the road is full of drivers like you who are in equal hurry. You eventually decide to wait and once the rush and the risk is[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Photo by gideon_wright

Altruism exists in nature, Reciprocal altruism in humans

      For some obscure and hard-to-understand reason, man feels superior to everything else on Earth. The irony of it all is that we humans forget that we have evolved from nature. Nature is the source of all our food, air and water; we are thus dependent on nature for our survival. We are co-dependent on everything around us! We[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Journalist Seymour Hersh

U.S. Trying To Cover Up Its Role In Nord Stream Sabotage, Says Seymour Hersh

Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, has claimed the U.S. intentionally provided false stories to the media to cover up Washington’s involvement in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream  pipelines. In a post on his Substack blog on Wednesday, the veteran reporter claims the CIA was tasked with preparing a cover story – in collaboration with Berin’s BND intelligence service – to[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Open Letter To Rahul Gandhi, Indian National Congress Party

Open Letter To Rahul Gandhi, Indian National Congress Party

Respected Sir, Through the Bharat Jodo Yatra – Kanyakumari to Kashmir – you have made meaningful contacts with the vast multitudes of people of India. Only rare politicians have had the urge and energy to undertake this pilgrimage. You have rightly not allowed your time to be wasted in reciprocating to the name calling indulged in by the right wing[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Future Scenarios in Ukraine

Future Scenarios in Ukraine

[The Russian invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022. With the aim of over-viewing what happened from the beginning of the war, to reflect on the role of NATO, and to consider possible future scenarios, Marcello Musto conducted a roundtable interview with three internationally well-known scholars from the Marxist tradition: Étienne Balibar, Anniversary Chair of Contemporary European Philosophy at Kingston[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
West Sends Depleted Uranium Weapons to Ukraine: MEP to Warmongers – “You Make Me Sick!” 

West Sends Depleted Uranium Weapons to Ukraine: MEP to Warmongers – “You Make Me Sick!” 

Those who have been following events in Ukraine will know of the bloodshed and destruction taking place in that country, especially if they go beyond mainstream media reports. This is not to excuse Russia’s brutal military actions, but it was a wholly avoidable conflict that was largely engineered in Washington by a clique of neoconservatives who have been responsible for igniting situations[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Sri Lanka’s unconvincing response to Universal Periodic Review’s forthright findings

Sri Lanka’s unconvincing response to Universal Periodic Review’s forthright findings

Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process with involves a review of human rights record of all UN member states. It is a process conducted under the articles of Human Rights Council which provides the opportunity to each state to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situation in their countries and to fulfill their[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Kisan Mahapanchayat stages massive rally in Delhi

Kisan Mahapanchayat stages massive rally in Delhi

A massive Kisan Mahapanchayat was organized at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, March 20, on the call of the United Kisan Morcha (SKM). Thousands of farmers from all over the country thronged to the venue. A manifestation of the unity and resilient spirit of the farmer’s movement. In this mahapanchayat organized by Samyukta Kisan Morcha, farmers, tribal farmers, women farmers, farm labourers[Read More…]

by 23/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The betrayers of Julian Assange

The betrayers of Julian Assange

This is an abridged version of a speech John Pilger gave in Sydney on March 10 to mark the launch in Australia of Davide Dormino’s sculpture of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden: “Figures of Courage.” I have known Julian Assange since I first interviewed him in London in 2010. I immediately liked his dry, dark sense of humour,[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Truth About Our Failure to Curb Carbon Emissions

The Truth About Our Failure to Curb Carbon Emissions

We all know what needs to be done: reduce carbon emissions. But so far, we members of global humanity just haven’t been able to turn the tide. The latest IPCC report documents that carbon emissions are still increasing, despite all the promises and efforts of the past few decades. The report tells us there’s only a narrow (and rapidly shrinking) pathway to[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
They’re liars, Mexico’s President on U.S.

They’re liars, Mexico’s President on U.S.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has termed the U.S. as liars. Media reports said: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly called as AMLO, bristled over his government being accused by the U.S. State Department of human rights abuses, dismissing his country’s neighbors to the north as liars. Speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday in Oaxaca, Mexico, Lopez Obrador responded angrily to[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
 Grameena Pedala Sangham, Telangana State conference, is an important mile-stone

 Grameena Pedala Sangham, Telangana State conference, is an important mile-stone

Forest and police officials in Telangana seek to evict poor peasnts, adivasis in perticular, fromlands theycultivatedfordecades, notwithsatnding the Forest Rights Act 2005 that assured them of their rights. Led by GPS, peopleareresistingand defending their land rights and right to livelihood Grameena Pedala Sangham (GPS) (Organization of the Rural Poor, TS) is holding its sixth conference on 24th and 25th March,[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Imperial Visits: US Emissaries in the Pacific

Imperial Visits: US Emissaries in the Pacific

For some time, Washington has been losing its spunk in the Pacific.  When it comes to the Pacific Islands, a number have not fallen – at least entirely – for the rhetoric that Beijing is there to take, consume, and dominate all.  Nor have such countries been entirely blind to their own sharpened interests.  This largely aqueous region, which promises[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Enough is enough. Restore parliament

Enough is enough. Restore parliament

The BJP’s protests against Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Cambridge are drawing yawns from the general public by now. News-curious folk who have heard snippets of Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Cambridge fail to understand why Parliament is stalled over a speech that does not even remotely endanger or disgrace the country. The curious ones took it upon them to watch the[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Disgrace at the New York Times

Disgrace at the New York Times

The New York Times, that paper in which one can reliably find the agenda of the liberal wing of the US ruling class, is sounding increasingly absurd lately. There was the editorial page piece claiming the masks had been proven to useless in preventing the spread of viral infections (NYT 2/21/23). That generated so much pushback that they had to[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
‘Israel is (Not) Back to Africa’: How African Countries are Challenging Israeli Plot on the Continent

‘Israel is (Not) Back to Africa’: How African Countries are Challenging Israeli Plot on the Continent

The scene of Israeli Ambassador, Sharon Bar-Li, along with other Israeli delegates, being escorted out of the opening ceremony of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on February 18, was historic. The very moment that was meant to crown twenty years of Israeli diplomacy on the African continent, in a few seconds, turned to represent Israel’s failure in[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Pentagon by gregwest98 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 / Flickr

A Highway to Peace or a Highway to Hell? The Vast Power of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold War competition led to a world dominated by[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Accelerating Change on United Nations World Water Day 2023 

Accelerating Change on United Nations World Water Day 2023 

At a time when India has been given the presidency of G-20, efforts are on to accelerate change on several fronts including the water crises which is listed as Sustainable Goal Number 6—Clean Water and Sanitation.  Series of Conferences on various topics and in different states of the country have been planned, some already held and many more yet to come culminating[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Defence Daredevilry

Defence Daredevilry

Comments are no part of COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG repertory.But I am risking a chance on the ground that Ramakrishnan’s eye-opening article on India’s shift to a defence-dependant economy needs greater attention from sober citizens with genuine concern for the future of our society and nation. The big shift to a defence-related economy is definitely going to trigger tectonic shift in the psychology[Read More…]

by 22/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Selling One’s Soul – The betrayal of Christ and Constitution

Selling One’s Soul – The betrayal of Christ and Constitution

 For the past couple of days, electronic and print mainstream media in the country, have been highlighting the public ‘promise’ made by the Archbishop of Tellicherry.  During a  protest rally of some Catholic rubber farmers  he offered to help the BJP open an account in Kerala in the next election, provided the price of rubber is increased to Rs 300[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Climate Crisis Has Caused Increasingly Irreversible Losses, Says UN Report

Climate Crisis Has Caused Increasingly Irreversible Losses, Says UN Report

“Urgent” actions are needed to counter human-caused climate change, says a new report released Monday by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report said: Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems. Temperatures have already increased by more than 1.1 C since pre-industrial times, putting human[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
 Yarrow Mamout Masjid Dedicated at Georgetown University

 Yarrow Mamout Masjid Dedicated at Georgetown University

Georgetown University’s first mosque (masjid) was dedicated on March 18 in honor of Yarrow Mamout, one of the area’s earliest residents. Yarrow was an enslaved West African of the Fulani people who arrived in Annapolis in 1752 at age sixteen and was a slave for forty-four years of the Beall family, first in Annapolis and later in Georgetown. A devout[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Source: author & www.craiyon.com

Adolf Hitler, Carl Orff & Sophie Scholl

Eighty years ago, on 22 February 1943, Professor Kurt Huber was murdered by the Nazis. His “crime” was that he wrote a leaflet calling for democracy. This is the story of the resistance fighter Kurt Huber, the Nazi-careerist and composer Carl Orff, and White Rose member Sophie Scholl. It is also a story about resistance to Nazi rule and the[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Algeria’s Gas vs. Rightwing Ideology: Will Italy Change Its Position on Jerusalem?

Algeria’s Gas vs. Rightwing Ideology: Will Italy Change Its Position on Jerusalem?

by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Tel Aviv for Rome on March 9, he was flown to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv by a helicopter because anti-government protesters blocked all the roads around it. Netanyahu’s visit was not met with much enthusiasm in Italy, either. A sit-in was organized by pro-Palestine activists[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
The UK Carrier Strike Group 2021, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, departing the UK [Credit: Royal Navy/Flickr]

From Balloons to AUKUS: The War Drive Against China

When will this hate-filled nonsense stop?  Surveillance balloons treated like evocations of Satan and his card-carrying followers; other innumerable unidentified phenomena that, nonetheless, remain attributable in origin, despite their designation; and then the issue of spying cranes.  In the meantime, there has been much finger pointing on the culprit of COVID-19 and the global pandemic.  Behold the China Threat, the[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Paul Keating’s criticism of Australia’s AUKUS deal is damming but not “astonishing”, – in fact, timely!

Paul Keating’s criticism of Australia’s AUKUS deal is damming but not “astonishing”, – in fact, timely!

On March 14, 2023 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood side by side with the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the US President Joe Biden at a Naval base in San Diego, USA and signed off the next phase of AUKUS deal, where Australia will purchase three nuclear powered submarines.  which would be based in Australia. According to the[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Powell holds up a vial he said could contain anthrax as he presents evidence of Iraq's alleged weapons programs to the UN Security Council.

In memory of 20th anniversary of the Iraq War

Invasion of Iraq and Crisis of American capitalism The War of Iraq by the United States is an event that will be inscribed in black letters forever. Hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world revolted to the bloodbath of a merciless military power shattering a small and defenceless country. The invasion of Iraq was an imperialist[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
CBI investigation against Harsh Mandar’s  NGO is nothing but travesty of justice

CBI investigation against Harsh Mandar’s  NGO is nothing but travesty of justice

To Shri Rajiv Gauba Cabinet Secretary Government of India Dear Shri Gauba, I have come across a disturbing news report last evening (https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/centre-recommends-cbi-inquiry-against-activist-harsh-manders-ngo-aman-biradari-3877494#pfrom=home-ndtv_indiatrending) that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has recommended a CBI inquiry against Aman Biradari, an NGO established by writer and human rights activist, Harsh Mander, for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. To my mind,[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Concept of Gram Swaraj (‘Village Self-Reliance’) and Its Increasing Relevance for Our Times

Concept of Gram Swaraj (‘Village Self-Reliance’) and Its Increasing Relevance for Our Times

The freedom movement of India to get independence from nearly two centuries of colonialism was one of the most inspiring phases of the history of India. People were motivated to take up very inspirational work and were willing to suffer unending hardships including imprisonment and torture with courageous songs and slogans. This inspirational spirit must be retained even now as[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Indian Democracy & Chaos in Parliament!  

Indian Democracy & Chaos in Parliament!  

Irrespective of whoever says what about Indian democracy in any part of the world, including India, to what degree should their comments be viewed as dangerous, damaging and/or from any angle threatening for Indian sovereignty, including its democracy? First of all, it is amazing that credibility, worth and strength of Indian democracy is considered weak enough to weaken just by[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Veterans Condemn Eviction of Aruna Rodrigues from her Residence

Veterans Condemn Eviction of Aruna Rodrigues from her Residence

  To   Shri Rajnath Singh Raksha Mantri 19 March 2023 DHQ PO New Delhi 110011 By Email to: <rmo@mod.nic.in>; EVICTION OF MS. ARUNA RODRIGUES, DAUGHTER OF LATE BRIG EA RODRIGUES, FROM HER RESIDENCE IN MHOW CANTONMENT Dear Shri Rajnath Singh, With great concern, we the undersigned Veterans are constrained to bring to your notice, the entirely illegal and distasteful[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
America’s Wars

America’s Wars

Over 300 wars! As documented in the Wikipedia timeline of U.S. wars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations and in the Wikipedia list of wars involving the United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States the United States of America has been more or less continuously at war ever since the American Revolutionary war of 1775-1783, which established the United States as a nation. Often several wars took place simultaneously.[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Criminals at Large: The Iraq War Twenty Years On

Criminals at Large: The Iraq War Twenty Years On

The arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for Russian President Vladimir Putin came at an opportune moment.  It was, if nothing else, a feeble distraction over the misdeeds and crimes of other leaders current and former.  Russia, not being an ICC member country, does not acknowledge that court’s jurisdiction.  Nor, for that matter, does the United States, despite the[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Massive White House Protest Against Endless Wars

Massive White House Protest Against Endless Wars

WASHINGTON (03-20) – Anti-war protesters demonstrated across the country yesterday on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing war. Across from the White House in Lafayette Square protesters heard speakers condemning America’s “eternal wars” and called for a reduction in the Pentagon budget, an end to the war in Ukraine through negotiations and cautioning against a[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
From ‘Progress’ to an Economics of Happiness

From ‘Progress’ to an Economics of Happiness

If there’s one thing I’d love world leaders to think about in connection with the UN’s International Day of Happiness, it’s that their measure of progress actually goes up with unhappiness and unrest. GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, which is still used as the principal indicator for development and progress, simply measures the exchange of money in society: more money[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
On Missing Dr. Strangelove Or How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Forgot the Bomb

On Missing Dr. Strangelove Or How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Forgot the Bomb

Bosley Crowther, chief film critic for the New York Times, didn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Strangelove at the time of its release in January 1964. Stanley Kubrick’s dark antiwar satire was “beyond any question the most shattering sick joke I’ve ever come across,” he wrote. But if the film had its hilarious moments, Crowther found its overall effect distinctly unnerving. What exactly[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Arrest Warrant Against Putin and International Justice

The Arrest Warrant Against Putin and International Justice

A prosecutor has broad discretion in the exercise of her or his function. This is recognized in both common law countries in the principle of prosecutorial discretion and in civil law countries as the principle of opportunity. Indeed, even the European Court of Human Rights has acknowledged the principle of prosecutorial discretion in the case of Da Silva v the[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Illiberal Democracy and Anti-modernization waves in south-Asia

Illiberal Democracy and Anti-modernization waves in south-Asia

Background Democracy, a form of people’s rule, requires great responsibility and commitment from the citizen and state. Democracy is an inclusive practice cemented on modern liberal ideals that brings peace & progress in society. The danger it carries equally great hope and aspirations and failing which revert back to conservative false promises. Unfortunately most of democratic political systems in the[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled South Asia
To prevent a civil war that is about to happen in Pakistan

To prevent a civil war that is about to happen in Pakistan

This idea is based on the distinguished journalist Irfan Hashmi’s suggestion to prevent the imminent civil war and loss of millions of lives in Pakistan, including lives of those in power now who are violating the country’s laws and subjecting Pakistan’s people to unprecedented cruelty. What is the fault of the country’s 80% population? They are supporting Imran Khan. Why[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Self-Reliant Farmers Improve their Economics and Also Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Self-Reliant Farmers Improve their Economics and Also Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Writer’s Note—The writer would like to dedicate this article to the memory of Sh. PV Satheesh, who breathed his last today on March 19,  whose great contributions to ecological protection as well as justice in the context of farming will never be forgotten. His work with dalit women farmers has been a source of inspiration for so many good efforts.[Read More…]

by 20/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Where Do We Go From Here

Where Do We Go From Here

I am profoundly shocked and dumb-founded at Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju’s reported remarks about certain retired Supreme Court judges having joined a gang of anti-nationals and started among other things to criticise the highest court in the land.(Indian Express,19th March)They are also warned of possible consequences. This comes close enough to the scene that Rahul Gandhi had conjured in[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Modi Government’s crusade against the opposition

Modi Government’s crusade against the opposition

On March 11 the leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti and daughter of the Telangana State Chief Minister, K Kavitha was questioned for nine hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Delhi liquor policy case. Manish Sisodia, the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, and a prominent leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was arrested in late February by[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
India’s shift to a Defence-oriented economy, with increasing role for the private sector 

India’s shift to a Defence-oriented economy, with increasing role for the private sector 

‘Aatmanirbhar and indigenous’ in Defence : Camouflage for Adani’s deep penetration?   The Defence sector is increasingly a happy hunting ground for  private sector, including foreign capital. Adani too made a big entry with ‘flying’colors. This article in two parts focuses on India’s Defence Budget. Part-1 (‘Defence Budget, a burden on the people, must be pruned’)  published on 23rd  Feb 2023 [Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Spent Matters: The AUKUS Nuclear Waste Problem

Spent Matters: The AUKUS Nuclear Waste Problem

When Australia – vassal be thy name – assumed responsibilities for not only throwing money at both US and British shipbuilders, lending up territory and naval facilities for war like a gambling drunk, and essentially asking its officials to commit seppuku for the Imperium, another task was given.  While the ditzy and dunderheaded wonders in Canberra would be acquiring submarines[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Iraq Invasion 20th Anniversary: 5 Million Dead In Iraqi Holocaust

Iraq Invasion 20th Anniversary: 5 Million Dead In Iraqi Holocaust

The 20th anniversary of the war criminal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq in 2003 will fall on about 20 March 2023. On this occasion mendacious and racist Western media will at best remember the Iraq War as a US policy mistake. However decent people will remember the carnage. From 1990 onwards Iraqi deaths from US-imposed violence and deprivation[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Significance of the Paris Commune 152 Years After

The Significance of the Paris Commune 152 Years After

I would like to thank the International Manifesto Group for hosting this event, and for inviting me to say a few words about the relevance of that heroic experiment in socialist democracy which took place 152 years ago. My discussion of the Paris Commune’s relevance, and of the relevance of Marx and Engels’s reflections on it, will revolve around three[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
In memory of Anton Semyonovich Makarenko who championed democratic education

In memory of Anton Semyonovich Makarenko who championed democratic education

  135 years ago, on March 13th 1888, world famous Soviet teacher and writer, Anton Semyonovich Makarenko (1888 – 1939) was born in the family of a painter, who studied at the Poltava Teachers’ Institute and received a pedagogical education. During the First World War, he did not recruit into the army due to poor eyesight. But his brother Vitaly[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Genetically Modified Animals Bring New Risks and Uncertainties

Genetically Modified Animals Bring New Risks and Uncertainties

As though the havoc created by GM crops was not adequate, several experimental efforts relating to genetically modified or engineered animals are bringing a wide range of new risks and uncertainties. These include health hazards relating to transfer of diseases from genetically engineered animals to normal animals as well as to human beings. In addition there are the additional risks[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
When will the suicide of Dalit, tribal students stop?

When will the suicide of Dalit, tribal students stop?

Referring to the recent incident of the alleged suicide of Darshan Solanki, a Dalit student in their first year of B.Tech at IIT Bombay, the 50th Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said suicide incidents among marginalized students are on the rise and research has proved it. It is seen that most of such students belong to Dalit and tribal[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Social media and people’s life: A way of good governance

Social media and people’s life: A way of good governance

by MD Tabrez Alam & Sushant Mishra ABSTRACT Social networking has become an indispensible part of our everyday lives. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have changed how we communicate, share information, and connect with others. At the same time, platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, and Quora have been introduced to serve professional and academic interests. Social media is a source[Read More…]

by 19/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
In USA Black Farmers are Down From 14% to 1.4%, They Need Help

In USA Black Farmers are Down From 14% to 1.4%, They Need Help

About a hundred years back there were about a million black, or African-American, farmers in the USA, today they have decreased to just around 45,000. This is one of the steepest declines suffered by any ethnic group anywhere in farming. Yet this has not received the attention that was deserved, and as a result remedial actions too have been neglected.[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Demystifying   the  halo  around   `Naatu  Naatu’     and  RRR

Demystifying the halo around `Naatu Naatu’ and RRR

The  bagging  of  the  coveted  golden  statuette  by  the  musical  score  `Naatu  Naatu’  at  the  Oscars  Academy  Awards  ceremony,  has  quite  predictably  set  our  people  dancing  in  ecstasy,  and  united  both  the    ruling  and  the  Opposition  politicians  in  flaunting  the  award  as  a  symbol  of  India’s  superior  status  in  the  global  cultural  arena.  As  Anurag  Thakur,  the  Information  and  Broadcasting [Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Amazon Rainforest Destabilizes the World

Amazon Rainforest Destabilizes the World

A new 40-year study discovered the eye-opening fact that what happens in the Amazon Rainforest impacts the entire Earth system. This puts an exclamation point on the fact that the Amazon Rainforest, the planet’s most crucial source of life support, is in deep trouble mainly because of massive deforestation. The Amazon River Basin is the world’s largest rainforest, larger than[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Iraq and 15 Lessons We Never Learned

Iraq and 15 Lessons We Never Learned

The peace movement did a great many things right in the first decade of this millennium, some of which we’ve forgotten. It also fell short in many ways. I want to highlight the lessons I think we’ve most failed to learn and suggest how we might benefit from them today. We formed uncomfortably large coalitions. We brought together war abolitionists[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Paulo Freire: Education, Schooling and Social Change

Paulo Freire: Education, Schooling and Social Change

by Jyoti Raina and Mansi The work of Brazilian philosopher-educator Paulo Freire continues to have great relevance in the world today. Born to a middle-class family in Recife, in the state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil, South American philosopher Paulo Reglus Neves Freire’s (1921-1997) life experience shaped his vision of education. In his younger days he faced hunger, poverty and[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
A Donbas Diary: Looking Back at the Early Stages of the Conflict in Ukraine

A Donbas Diary: Looking Back at the Early Stages of the Conflict in Ukraine

It is evening in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, one of NATO’s easternmost members. I am waiting at the edge of Izvor Park in the city center to meet with a young friend who has fled Ukraine. In the backdrop of the park is the Palace of the Parliament, the brutalist architectural crown jewel of the Ceaușescu era, and the[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The U.S. and UK’s Submarine Deal Crosses Nuclear Red Lines with Australia

The U.S. and UK’s Submarine Deal Crosses Nuclear Red Lines with Australia

The recent Australia, U.S., and UK $368 billion deal on buying nuclear submarines has been termed by Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister, as the “worst deal in all history.” It commits Australia to buy conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines that will be delivered in the early 2040s. These will be based on new nuclear reactor designs yet to be developed by the[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
In memory of Writer Han Suyin

In memory of Writer Han Suyin

 Last November we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the death of Han Suyin who left us on November 2nd, in 2012.  Apart from the gratuitous obituaries in official newspapers her death was received with scant attention: passing away in obscurity, like so many revolutionary women. On her birth centenary, no noticeable commemoration meeting was staged. Han Suyin carves a permanent[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Chaos in Pakistan: Imran Khan Takes on America and its Comprador Elites

Chaos in Pakistan: Imran Khan Takes on America and its Comprador Elites

  “There is great chaos under heaven; [hence] the situation is excellent.” -Mao Zadong With staunch US support, Pakistan’s unelected “imported government” is trying to arrest former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the most popular politician in the country, to prevent him from running in elections. But protesters are protecting him. If 2022 was the year of popular uprisings in Pakistan,[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled South Asia
1990 Yugoslav Election And The Destruction Of The Country

1990 Yugoslav Election And The Destruction Of The Country

Thirty-Three Years Since the First Post-WWII “Democratic and Multiparty” Elections in All Six Yugoslav Republics in 1990 and the Background of the Destruction of the Country   Preface It will pass 33 years since the first post-WWII “democratic and multiparty” elections in all six Yugoslav republics in 1990. Next year, however, not only that this country did not exist anymore[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
IMSD deplores the demonisation of sexual minorities by Kerala’s rightwing Muslims

IMSD deplores the demonisation of sexual minorities by Kerala’s rightwing Muslims

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the concerted effort by the Muslim rightwing in Kerala — including leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and some Muslim-run websites — to ridicule, vilify, denigrate and demonise Muslims who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a tragic irony that while the minority Muslim community[Read More…]

by 18/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Linking Climate Action to Decolonization and Degrowth

Linking Climate Action to Decolonization and Degrowth

  Billion-dollar disaster was the term used to describe the climate breakdown that rocked our world last year. Floods in Pakistan droughts in China and Europe and tropical cyclones in other parts of Asia and America. India in the month of October last year experienced extreme weather events on 30 out of 31 days according to India’s Atlas on the[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change, Counter Solutions
Reason Bewitched

Reason Bewitched

There are philosophers who can argue you into a corner where meaning itself becomes meaningless and reason an endless self-deception,to their own vast self-satisfaction.In this country current turn of events has brought us to a situation where you find reason itself being put to tasks that cancel one another out. Rahul Gandhi on his return has been the target of[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Is the Government deliberately or otherwise helping the promoters of the Vedanta Group?

Is the Government deliberately or otherwise helping the promoters of the Vedanta Group?

To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Sitharaman, I refer to my last letter dated 26-2-2023 addressed to you on the subject (https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/has-the-government-unwittingly-or-otherwise-reduced-hzls-value-as-a-prelude-to-proposed-sale-of-its-29-54-equity-sale/) I understand that the Board of Hindustan Zinc Ltd. (HZL) will be meeting shortly to take a decision on releasing the final dividend for 2022-23. In that connection, I wish to raise the following concerns: Considering that[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
How War, Weapons and Sabotage Are Becoming the Biggest Source of Environmental Ruin

How War, Weapons and Sabotage Are Becoming the Biggest Source of Environmental Ruin

If the biggest single source of world-level ecological ruin is to be identified, this is most likely to be related to wars, preparations for wars, conflicts, weapons and sabotage. Of course the most direct cost of war and weapons in the form of loss of human life is extremely sad, but at the same time the severity of the much[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Don’t Try to Find a Home in Washington, D.C. Or Pretty Much Anywhere Else If You’re a Renter

Don’t Try to Find a Home in Washington, D.C. Or Pretty Much Anywhere Else If You’re a Renter

In 1937, the American folklorist Alan Lomax invited Louisiana folksinger Huddie Ledbetter (better known as Lead Belly) to record some of his songs for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Lead Belly and his wife Martha searched in vain for a place to spend a few nights nearby. But they were Black and no hotel would give them shelter, nor would any[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
De-politicize the BCCI

De-politicize the BCCI

Several years ago, the Australian great, Ian Chappell, warned that the presence of too many political figures in the BCCI impedes its professional functioning. Politicians don’t necessarily make good sports administrators. Cricket administrators must earn their place in the system by virtue of good cricketing experience and understanding of the intricacies of the game and not for status and power.[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Bhagwat’s New Formulations on Caste: ‘Old Wine in New bottle’

Bhagwat’s New Formulations on Caste: ‘Old Wine in New bottle’

“I (god) am in all beings. Whatever be the name or color, all have the same ability, same respect. All are my own. No one is superior or inferior…based on scriptures, what the Pandits say is a lie. By getting entangled in this imagination of superior and inferior castes, we have lost our way. This delusion has to be done[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
BKU (EKTA-UGRAHAN) stage massive protest against G-20 in Amritsar

BKU (EKTA-UGRAHAN) stage massive protest against G-20 in Amritsar

On the call of the Bharti Kisan Union (EKTA-UGRAHAN)on March 15th   thousands of farmers, farm labour, hundreds of women, youth, and students thronged into Amritsar  .They protested  and held Demonstration, against the G-20 conference being held, demanding that Agriculture, Industry, Education, health, electricity and water etc fields of the country and of Punjab, remain  free of the tyranny  of the[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Draft notification on Insecticides unsatisfactory

Draft notification on Insecticides unsatisfactory

To Joint Secretary (Plant Protection), Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt of India, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi-110 001. E Mail: jspp-dac@gov.in. Sub: Comments/ Suggestion on the Draft Insecticides (Prohibition) Order, 2023 Ref. : 1. Gazette Notification, No.:S.O 701(E), dated 2nd February, 2023 Gazette Notification, No.:S.O 1512(E) dated 18th May 2020 Gazette[Read More…]

by 17/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
‘He Did It’: Seymour Hersh Slams Biden As Nord Stream Bomber

‘He Did It’: Seymour Hersh Slams Biden As Nord Stream Bomber

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh made waves again Tuesday night as he excoriated the Biden administration and lambasted mainstream media coverage of the Nord Stream bombing, the Russiagate story, and the Democrat Party’s love of war at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Media reports said: In a wide-ranging discussion, journalist Seymour Hersh doubled down on his explosive[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Trashing Asylum: The UK’s Illegal Migration Bill

Trashing Asylum: The UK’s Illegal Migration Bill

He was standing before a lectern at Downing Street.  The words on the support looked eerily similar to those used by the politicians of another country.  According to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Stop the Boats was the way to go.  It harked back to the same approach used by Australia’s Tony Abbott, who won the 2013 election on precisely[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
85 Ways Zionist Australian Labor Government Betrays Palestinian Human Rights & Humanity

85 Ways Zionist Australian Labor Government Betrays Palestinian Human Rights & Humanity

The new Australian Labor Government was elected in May 2022 with the help of Greens preferences in the Australian compulsory and preferential  voting system. However despite pro-Palestinian moves by the Labor Party membership, the US- and Zionist-beholden Labor Government has grossly betrayed Palestinian human rights, Australian voters, Australia, and indeed Humanity in 85 ways that make Labor  utterly unfit to[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
The Clerics in Tehran Want to Wipeout the Iranian Cultural Heritage

The Clerics in Tehran Want to Wipeout the Iranian Cultural Heritage

The clerical leadership in Iran has tried hard to prevent its demise, as is popularly demanded in recent months by Iranians inside and outside Iran. To continue their Islamic rule, the clerics have tried hard to preserve the Islamic Hejab, which has been widely demanded during the past six months by Iranian women to be abolished. Now, the beginning of[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The quantity of energy contained in the fossil fuels used to produce feed grains for cattle is ten times the amount of energy contained in the marketable beef that’s produced by those cattle.

Climate Policy’s on Shaky Ground in the Farm Bill

Members of Congress have begun drafting the 2023 “Farm Bill,” and they’ll be wrangling over it through most of the year. This legislation, passed into law anew every fifth year or so since the 1930s, has had far-reaching influence on food and farming in the United States. Each version of the bill is given its own name; the previous one,[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Detailed 3d rendering closeup of the flag of Pakistan.  Flag has a detailed realistic fabric texture.

Pakistan: Firing in Flood

They want to Arrest Imran Khan and Destabilize the Country Is Pakistani politics is a game of deception, betrayal and dishonesty to the national interest? Pakistan’s trajectory of current affairs unfolds a self-destructive political endemic and cynicism to grab power by any means – fair or foul – the current political governance of 10 parties have no legitimacy whatsoever to[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
U.S. soldiers breaking into a home in Baquba, Iraq, in 2008   Photo: Reuters

The Not-So-Winding Road from Iraq to Ukraine

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies March 19th marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq. This seminal event in the short history of the 21st century not only continues to plague Iraqi society to this day, but it also looms large over the current crisis in Ukraine, making it impossible for most of[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Is a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Imminent?

Is a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Imminent?

Is China really on the verge of invading the island of Taiwan, as so many top American officials seem to believe? If the answer is “yes” and the U.S. intervenes on Taiwan’s side — as President Biden has sworn it would — we could find ourselves in a major-power conflict, possibly even a nuclear one, in the not-too-distant future. Even if confined[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
A Film A Day Won’t Keep the Doctor Away

A Film A Day Won’t Keep the Doctor Away

Attending a documentary film pitching forum in 2014, I found myself being criticised not only for the film I had made, but for the level of privilege I was assumed to have, my shoes being in the shots, the type of home I lived in and everything that had nothing to do with my subject or craft. Given the nature[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Condemn cancellation of the event “Media Blackout and State Repression in Kashmir”

Condemn cancellation of the event “Media Blackout and State Repression in Kashmir”

Condemn the undemocratic action of state and Delhi Police to cancel the CASR’s program titled “Media Blackout and State Repression in Kashmir”. Campaign Against State Repression strongly condemns Delhi Police’s action of pressurizing the management of Gandhi Peace Foundation in form of notice by IP Estate Police Station and cancelling the event titled “Media Blackout and State Repression in Kashmir”[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Will the Government Heed This Book That Makes A Strong Case for Justice to Victimized Maruti Workers

Will the Government Heed This Book That Makes A Strong Case for Justice to Victimized Maruti Workers

Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar have just written a book that simply has to be read by anyone interested in the welfare of industrial workers in India. This is also a must reading for all Japanese people involved with human rights to get a glimpse of the havoc their companies cause in the lives of innocent workers and poor people[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Warring Peace: The AUKUS Submarine Announcement

The Warring Peace: The AUKUS Submarine Announcement

History is filled with failed planners and plans, threats thought of that did not eventuate, and threats unthought of that found their way into the books.  The AUKUS agreement is an attempt to inflate a threat by developing a number of fictional capabilities in an effort to combat an inflated adversary. The checklist of imminent failure for this security pact[Read More…]

by 14/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Blood Does Not Wash Away Blood

Blood Does Not Wash Away Blood

Those who have an insatiable appetite for war seldom heed the wreckage they have left behind. The extraordinary March 10, 2023 announcement that China’s top diplomat, Mr. Wang Yi, helped broker a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran suggests that major powers can benefit from believing that, as Albert Camus once put it, “words are more powerful than munitions.” This[Read More…]

by 14/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Massacres Worse than Jalianwala Bagh–Resistance and Repression among Bhil Tribals in India, 1912-22

Massacres Worse than Jalianwala Bagh–Resistance and Repression among Bhil Tribals in India, 1912-22

There is increasing evidence that resistance to colonial and feudal exploitation by Bheel tribal communities increased significantly during the decade 1912-22, leading to extreme forms of repression by the British forces supported by princely kingdoms, culminating in at least two, perhaps more, massacres whose death toll is most likely to have been in excess of the Jalianwala Bagh massacre. Around[Read More…]

by 14/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Never Again: Three years into pandemic, 190+ world leaders call to end vaccine inequality

Never Again: Three years into pandemic, 190+ world leaders call to end vaccine inequality

Ban Ki-Moon, Helen Clark, Joyce Banda, Joseph Stiglitz, Winnie Byanyima join scores of leaders in open letter three years into the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequity of vaccine rollout led to one preventable COVID-19 death every 24 seconds in first year of vaccination alone. Governments must embed equity and human rights in pandemic preparedness and response after COVID-19 left “a scar on[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
A Brief analysis of India’s NDC : Its Climate Action Pledges, at Paris CoP-21 (NDC) and Glasgow CoP-26

A Brief analysis of India’s NDC : Its Climate Action Pledges, at Paris CoP-21 (NDC) and Glasgow CoP-26

  “World’s leading climate scientists issued an ear-splitting wake-up call to the world, that climate change is running faster than we are – and we are running out of time. We see the consequences all around us – more extreme weather, rising sea levels, diminishing Arctic sea ice. The scientists paint the most vivid picture we have ever had between[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
People take part in an anti-governmental demonstration in Prague on March 11, 2023. Photograph:(AFP)

Thousands Of Czechs Protest Price Rises And Military Aid To Ukraine

In an anti-government demonstration on Saturday, thousands of Czechs joined protest march in Prague. Protesters decried falling living standards and rising prices, and their government’s continued military support of Ukraine. Media reports said: Organized by the right-wing Law, Respect, Expertise party (PRO), the rally saw demonstrators wave Czech flags and placards demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s government.[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Nord Stream Sabotage: German Newspaper Debunks Other Media Stories

Nord Stream Sabotage: German Newspaper Debunks Other Media Stories

A German newspaper has debunked the Nord Stream sabotage stories by other Anglo-U.S. media. German center-right newspaper Bild has insisted that the mainstream media story that the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed by a team of six operating from the Andromeda, a 15-meter chartered yacht, is becoming increasingly dubious. Earlier this week, The New York Times and Die Zeit claimed[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Disastrous Harvest: Silicon Valley Bank and the Anti-Regulation Bank Lobby

Disastrous Harvest: Silicon Valley Bank and the Anti-Regulation Bank Lobby

Before the financial collapse come the aggressive anti-regulation lobbyists.  These are often of the same ilk: loathing anything resembling oversight, restriction, reporting and monitoring.  They are incarnations of the frontier, symbolically toting guns and slaying the natives, seeking wealth beyond paper jottings, compliance and bureaucratic tedium. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), for a period of time the preferred[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Punjab on the Brink: Rising Tides of Khalistani Terrorism and Gangsterism threatening the State’s Stability?   

Punjab on the Brink: Rising Tides of Khalistani Terrorism and Gangsterism threatening the State’s Stability?  

For several decades, the separatist groups in Punjab have been pursuing the establishment of an independent Sikh-majority state known as ‘Khalistan’, a Sikh theocratic homeland. These groups have resorted to violent and terrorist activities, such as bombings, assassinations, and armed attacks against Indian Security Forces in the past. Among the prominent groups are Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Bhindranwale Tiger Force[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Rising Majoritarian Politics: Dilemma of Indian Muslims

Rising Majoritarian Politics: Dilemma of Indian Muslims

As atrocities against Muslim minorities increase and the news comes in that various Muslim leaders and intellectuals are knocking the doors of RSS for a dialogue, what do we make of it? A brief peep into the past may help us understand the current dilemmas of Muslim community. The partition of India left the Indian Muslims in a precarious position.[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Activists Protest Smotrich’s Visit to Washington

Activists Protest Smotrich’s Visit to Washington

Several hundred concerned human rights, pro-Palestinian activists and Zionists demonstrated outside of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Washington on the evening of March 12 to protest the presence of Israel’s pro-settlement, far-right nationalist, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose recent comments called for the annihilation of the small Palestinian village of Huwara. The village located near Nablus on the occupied[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Empty Tables: How It Feels to Be Hungry

Empty Tables: How It Feels to Be Hungry

My long-dead father used to say, “Every human being deserves to taste a piece of cake.” Though at the time his words meant little to me, as I grew older I realized both what they meant, symbolically speaking, and the grim reality they disguised so charmingly. That saying of his arose from a basic reality of our lives then —[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
“Lots of Propaganda”: Busting the “Vast Hinduphobia” Conspiracy Theory

“Lots of Propaganda”: Busting the “Vast Hinduphobia” Conspiracy Theory

 Is it true that “every” American Hindu politician faces “bigoted attacks”? “Outside forces have done things,” complained (now former) Michigan State Representative Padma Kuppa in a July 2022 interview with the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) about her experience running for office. “A man by the name of Pieter Friedrich published an advertisement with lots of propaganda about where my money[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Sisodia vs Hammer: Judicial & Political! 

Sisodia vs Hammer: Judicial & Political! 

It is yet to be proved whether charges levied against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia are true. But prior to be proven guilty, he and another former minister, Satyender Jain have been placed behind bars. Jain has been in prison for around 10 months over allegations of money laundering, Sisodia was arrested on February 26 for alleged irregularities[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Seven Reforms A Must for India’s Democracy

Seven Reforms A Must for India’s Democracy

There is increasing need for at least seven important reforms in India’s democracy. First and foremost, there is urgent need for the government to be more protective towards minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, who have been feeling less secure in recent times. The government has a constitutional duty to ensure that there is no discrimination on the basis of faith[Read More…]

by 13/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Making India Whole Again

Making India Whole Again

”Bharat Jodo” meant uniting in love a country torn by hatred and malice.The word ‘whole’ had once been associated with health,and so the divisions and distrust are also threats to the health of the country. Definitely a most desirable end and spiritually uplifting objective. But the divisions are too complicated and stubborn to be overcome by a noble intention though[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
In memory of Brazilian leader Sandra Lima

In memory of Brazilian leader Sandra Lima

On March 6th, we commemorated the 67 th birthday of Sandra Lima. Sandra Lima‘s life was a manifestation of the spirit or creative energy of women to emancipate themselves from the clutches of merciless exploitation. She displayed revolutionary resilience of single-mindedness and creativity at a height almost unparalleled amongst Brazilian women activists of her time. Her life story was one[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Some thoughts on the ongoing debate around the tragic demise of Darshan Solanki

Some thoughts on the ongoing debate around the tragic demise of Darshan Solanki

The recent death of the first year dalit undergraduate student, Darshan Solanki, has once again raised the question of the caste discrimination and related biases on the IITB campus. The institutions and support system that the Institute has built over the years in order to deal with the mental stress and the caste related discrimination have rightly come under the[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Iran-Saudi Rapprochement: Signs of Waning Influence of USA in the Region

Iran-Saudi Rapprochement: Signs of Waning Influence of USA in the Region

The Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement has wide reactions. An NBC report — What does the Iran-Saudi Arabia truce mean for Washington’s standing on the global stage? (March 11, 2023, NBCNews.com) — said: As some world leaders hailed the restoration of ties between long-standing enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia, there were growing fears in Washington that the deal could help spell the end[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Silent in Ukraine: Weapons Perpetuate, Do Not End Wars 

Silent in Ukraine: Weapons Perpetuate, Do Not End Wars 

As is the case of long wars, the warring parties and their affiliated media in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have painted each other using uncompromising language, making it nearly impossible to offer an unbiased view of the ongoing tragedy that has killed, wounded and expelled millions. While it is understandable that wars of such horror and near complete disregard of the[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Re-organising the Bahujan Movement

Re-organising the Bahujan Movement

[Sunil Kashyap, a staff writer at The Caravan, spoke with Dr Indu Chowdhary, an assistant professor in Banaras Hindu University’s English Department, founder of Bahujan Shakti Mission, regarding Bahujan Movement. Excerpts:] Sunil Kashyap: What is the Bahujan Shakti Mission? What kind of work is it doing? Indu Choudhary: The name is self-explanatory. Kanshi Ram taught us the word ‘Bahujan.’ Scheduled Castes, Scheduled[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
Grassroots Science Efforts Should Encourage Innovativeness of Farmers and Farmer Scientists

Grassroots Science Efforts Should Encourage Innovativeness of Farmers and Farmer Scientists

It has been confirmed time and again that traditional knowledge of farmers and farmer communities has a lot to contribute much but despite this the authorities of various countries have often tried to impose technologies without trying to work with farmers in a spirit of learning together with each other. This has curbed creativity and the access of invaluable information[Read More…]

by 12/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Iran And Saudi Arabia To Restore Ties, China Mediates

Iran And Saudi Arabia To Restore Ties, China Mediates

In a significant development, Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore ties. China has mediated in the deal. The two countries will also resume the security cooperation agreement signed in 2001. China’s role in mediating the agreement is a major diplomatic win for the rising power. The news came Friday night attracting worldwide attention, and is seen as a[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Solar Mitigation Battleground

Solar Mitigation Battleground

A battle over how to protect the planet from overheating is heating up. Academics are coming out of the woodwork, forming coalitions, issuing declarations. A subdued debate over the merits versus demerits of solar geoengineering (SRM) has been ongoing for years. Now battle lines are forming. The SRM controversy is coming to a head, in part, because of a small[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
The Ghost of Hugo Grotius: The UN High Seas Treaty

The Ghost of Hugo Grotius: The UN High Seas Treaty

Ever so rarely, the human species can reach accord and agreement on some topic seemingly contentious and divergent.  Such occasions tend to be rarer than hen’s teeth, but the UN High Seas Treaty was one of them.  It took over two decades of agonising, stuttering negotiations to draft an agreement and went someway to suggest that the “common heritage of[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Half a million tons of methane rise from the sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline. Photo: Swedish Coast Guard

There’s an International Media War for the Truth About Who Sabotaged the Nord Stream Pipeline

News reports emerging from Germany and the United States claim that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022. German daily newspaper Die Zeit, public broadcasters ARD and SWR, and the ARD political magazine Kontraste reported in March 2023 that investigators were able to reconstruct how the pipelines[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Frankfurt City Council Undermines Human Rights by Canceling a Concert by Roger Waters

Frankfurt City Council Undermines Human Rights by Canceling a Concert by Roger Waters

by Vijay Prashad and Katie Halper After a highly acclaimed run in North America, Roger Waters will take his “This Is Not a Drill” tour across Europe. The long journey includes shows in Germany, with the final concert in the country originally planned to take place in Frankfurt on May 28. On February 24, however, Frankfurt’s city council and the Hessian state government announced the[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
What’s in a Word? Shaheed, Martyr or Terrorist?

What’s in a Word? Shaheed, Martyr or Terrorist?

The Oversight Board has opened public comment on Meta’s approach to moderating the Arabic word “shaheed” (martyr), but what we need is an accurate and global definition of “terror” A funeral for four Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in Jenin on Sept. 28. Credit: Abbas Momani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Meta’s Oversight Board has just accepted a request for a policy advisory[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Drone Aerial Bombing on the People of the  Country is an Act of Genocide!

Drone Aerial Bombing on the People of the  Country is an Act of Genocide!

Stop the Air War being waged by the Indian  Army against Tribal villages on the borders of Chhattisgarh and Telangana  CDRO Fact Finding Team At 11 AM on 11 January 2023, the air strikes continued. This attack was carried out in the villages of Madkanguda, Mettuguda, Bottethong, Sakleer, Madinaguda, Kannemerka, Pottemangam, Bottalanka, Rasappalli, Errapadu in Kishtaram and Pamed areas of[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Vaagdhara’s Vision of Swaraj A Source of Hope in Nearly a Thousand Villages

Vaagdhara’s Vision of Swaraj A Source of Hope in Nearly a Thousand Villages

Vaagdhara is one of the few voluntary organizations in the country which has centered its work around the vision of swaraj—or self-rule based on increasing self-reliance of rural communities. It has worked with this vision for nearly two decades in the tri-junction area of three states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, with most concentration in South Rajasthan (particularly Banswara district). This[Read More…]

by 11/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
President Joe Biden speaks about his 2024 budget proposal at the Finishing Trades Institute, Thursday, March 9, 2023, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Biden’s $1 trillion budget for world war

The White House unveiled its budget request for the 2024 fiscal year Thursday, with the largest ever proposed spending on the military. It is a $1 trillion budget for world war. The Biden administration wants the resources to fight Russia in Ukraine, intensify its buildup towards war with China in the Far East and sustain US military aggression in the[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Adieu Paresh Chattopadhyay

Adieu Paresh Chattopadhyay

The evergreen Marxian socialist scholar and critic of Marxism, Paresh Chattopadhyay (PC) left us on January 14, 2023, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, at age of 96.He was emeritus professor of political economy in the department of sociology at the University of Quebec, Montreal. With in depth mastery of Marxism, PC made his readers think and reflect over what he wrote,[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Tale of two workers or workers’ tale

Tale of two workers or workers’ tale

What are workers? Are they human beings? Do they have only a bundle of muscles but, no brains? How do they feel and how do they think? Do they think at all? What do they face in their life – in factories, in foundries and other shops, in assembly lines, in unions? Workers’ answers to the questions above differ from[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Silent mountains of Uttarakhand

Silent mountains of Uttarakhand

Living in the mountains is not easy as opposed to the hype that is shown to us these days through social media platforms. It is a hard life particularly for adolescent girls who have to face immense hardships. The villages, tucked away in gigantic mountains, follow patriarchal traditions that not only discriminate but oppress girls – the gendered caste-class divide[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
ECI’s Model Code of Conduct- Exempted for the influential, enforced for the disadvantaged

ECI’s Model Code of Conduct- Exempted for the influential, enforced for the disadvantaged

To Shri Rajiv Kumar Chief Election Commissioner   Shri A C Pandey Election Commissioner   Shri A Goel Election Commissioner   Dear S/Shri Rajiv Kumar/ Pandey and Goel, I write this letter to highlight the Commission’s double standards in applying the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), one for the influential and another for the disadvantaged. The migrant Chenchus of Visakhapatnam: The[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Christian persecution and human rights

Christian persecution and human rights

In  the last three years, India ranks as tenth most dangerous for Christians across the world Christians have traditionally adopted a posture of social leadership to the wider community in multiple ways. Education, medical care, social services, rural development, services to the hungry and poor, vocational training, community development, and a host of other development models were introduced by the[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Background To The Struggle Of Iran’s Women

Background To The Struggle Of Iran’s Women

Women’s Day A few days ago, on Woman’s Day, an article called our attention to the plight of Iranian women, who are fighting for their freedom and civil rights against the oppressive religions government of Iran. Here is the link: https://truthout.org/articles/this-international-womens-day-iranian-feminists-are-at-the-front-lines/ Iran, Past and Present Here is a link to my book, “Iran, Past and Present”. https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/12/Iran-Past-and-Present-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf My father went[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Modi Question Calls for Press Truth Above all Else

The Modi Question Calls for Press Truth Above all Else

WASHINGTON – The National Press Club’s Journalism Institute last evening hosted a condensed showing of the controversial BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question. The two-part documentary banned in India tells the story of the 2002 riot that saw Hindu extremists attack the Muslim section of Gujarat killing thousands of Muslim Indians. The riot took place in the aftermath of an[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The American War from Hell, 20 Years Later

The American War from Hell, 20 Years Later

Who remembers anymore that, in 2003, we were Vladimir Putin? Today, our cable and social-media news feeds are blanketed with denunciations of the president of the Russian Federation for his lawless and brutal invasion of Ukraine. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken met briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New Delhi on March 2nd, he told him in no uncertain terms,[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The SC ruling on ECI appointment: the skewed balance of power restored

The SC ruling on ECI appointment: the skewed balance of power restored

The recent judgement of the Supreme Court (SC) to appoint the members of the Election Commission of India (ECI) by a partisan cum judicial panel is lauded by many as historic and landmark. The judgement is certainly historic, it has filled the void for a law being in pending for a very long time, dating back to when the constitution[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
A Helping Hand for Rural Schools and Anganwadis to Meet Important Needs

A Helping Hand for Rural Schools and Anganwadis to Meet Important Needs

Report from Jhansi district National level information has frequently highlighted many unmet needs of schools and anganwadis in remote rural areas. While the government has several ambitious plans of improvements, the harsh reality is that budgetary allocations have been falling short of meeting even essential requirements, let alone make ambitious improvements. In such a situation, voluntary organizations can make an[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Half a million tons of methane rise from the sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline. Photo: Swedish Coast Guard

Reports On Nord Stream Sabotage Spread Confusion

Stories and claims on the blowing up of parts of the Nord Stream gas pipelines is creating a lot of confusion. Claims Of Ukrainian Link To Nord Stream Sabotage Hypothetical, Says Germany Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius has dodged a question about how the Nord Stream sabotage case could influence Western military aid for Kiev if it turns out that[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Nord Stream Blasts Were Beneficial For Europe, Claims Polish President

Nord Stream Blasts Were Beneficial For Europe, Claims Polish President

The gas pipeline Nord Stream blast has created diversified opinions and assessments. The sabotage of the Nord Stream delivering Russian gas to Europe was a good thing, Polish President Andrzej Duda told CNN on Wednesday. The destruction of the pipelines freed the continent from Russia’s “dominance” plans, the Polish leader claimed, adding that it ended the European nation’s dependence on[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
 Things to Learn from Daniel Ellsberg

 Things to Learn from Daniel Ellsberg

I don’t want any new monuments to individuals to replace any ripped down for racism or other offenses. Individuals are deeply flawed — every single one of them, and morality changes with the times. Whistleblowers are by definition less than divinely perfect, as their service is revealing the horrors of some institution they’ve been part of. But when you look[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
World Leaders Who could not Make Peace but Wars and Disdained Future

World Leaders Who could not Make Peace but Wars and Disdained Future

 “The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience, good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”              Robert[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
20 Years and Nothing Has Changed

20 Years and Nothing Has Changed

It was the morning of March 19th, 2003 and this writer was up early. I was eating a bowl of Cheerios as I turned on the boob tube. I can remember vividly the evening before when I was able to watch a Canadian Cable News channel. The news anchor was explaining how all the many groups throughout the entire planet[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
APGENCO placing coal import order on the Adani Group raises serious concerns

APGENCO placing coal import order on the Adani Group raises serious concerns

To Shri Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy Chief Minister Andhra Pradesh   Dear Shri Jagan Mohan Reddy garu, I understand that Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO) has placed an order for 7.5 lakh tonnes of imported coal for the Damodaram Sanjeevaiah TPS (DSTPS) at  Krishnapatnam, by selecting the Adani Group as the successful bidder at a quoted price of[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Indian Federation of Trade Unions stage protest against fascism in Nawanshar in Punjab

Indian Federation of Trade Unions stage protest against fascism in Nawanshar in Punjab

Indian Federation of Trade Unions staged a rally in Nawarshara town in Punjab, challenging fascist dictates of the Narendra Modi led BJP imposed on the working class. Around 600 persons participated. Aparna adressed the gathering on how it was imperative for workers and labourers to unite to confront the enstranglement of the corporates .She summarised the brutal attacks on the[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Rejuvenation of Small Water Bodies the Key to Ending Water Scarcity in Bundelkhand

Rejuvenation of Small Water Bodies the Key to Ending Water Scarcity in Bundelkhand

Bundelkhand region, spread over 14 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in central India, has often been in news due to water scarcity, a problem that can easily worsen in times of climate change if adequate steps are not taken to check this. Recently there has been an increasing interest in the revival of Bundelkhand’s innumerable traditional water bodies[Read More…]

by 09/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
This artwork by children from Gaza was removed from a London hospital after complaints. Photograph: Twitter/Middle East Eye

Victory is Defeat: Palestinian Children’s Art Exposes Israel’s Cultural Genocide 

The following text tells the whole story of what pro-Palestinian communities around the world are fighting for, and what pro-Israelis are fighting against: “We are delighted to report that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has removed a display of artwork designed by children from Gaza.” That was the summary of a news report published on the homepage of the pro-Israel group,[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Dervla Murphy:The Evergreen Traveller

Dervla Murphy:The Evergreen Traveller

The life of Dervla Murphy both inspires us and leaves us awestruck. She was a multitude of people in one. She was a travel writer, an explorer, an environmentalist and a political activist. Born in November 1931, in the historic Irish town of Lismore in County Waterford. She was the only child of her parents. Her father was the County[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Rural health care in Cuba (Photo by Carol Foil, 2009).

The US Blockade and Its Effects on Cuban Medicine

The Cuban socialist healthcare system is internationally recognized as one of the best in the world.1 It is innovative, preventative, people-oriented, comprehensive, community-centered, internationalist, and, of course, de-commodified—treating healthcare as a human right, not a profitable commodity. However, in spite of its extraordinary successes, the United States’ sixty-year long blockade has tremendously detrimental effects on Cuban life in general, and their[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Guru Govind Lives on in the Songs and Campaign of Tribal Communities

Guru Govind Lives on in the Songs and Campaign of Tribal Communities

Recently when I visited several villages of Bhil tribal communities in Banswara district of Rajasthan, the greeting most often heard in villages was Jai Guru. The reference here is to Guru Govind, also known as Govindgiri, a social reformer and freedom fighter of 19th and 20th centuries who continues to live on in the songs, prayers, greetings and campaigns of[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
War over Taiwan: Australia’s Gang of Five

War over Taiwan: Australia’s Gang of Five

Diligently, obediently and with a degree of dangerous imbecility, a number of Australian media outlets are manufacturing a consensus for war with a country that has never been a natural, historical enemy, nor sought to be.  But as Australia remains the satellite of a Sino-suspicious US imperium, its officials and their dutiful advocates in the press seem obligated to pave[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
What Google Street View Can Say About the Quality of Life in Your Neighborhood

What Google Street View Can Say About the Quality of Life in Your Neighborhood

In a remarkable new study, the broad-brush patterns between how we use and mark public space and our collective well-being were investigated in 2022 by Quynh C. Yue and colleagues who analyzed 164 million Google Street View images from locations across the United States. The study extracted information on the built environment with a focus on the directionality of traffic, the incidence[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
What We Miss at Basanta Utsab

What We Miss at Basanta Utsab

Basanta Utsav is held each year in the month of March on the Full moon day of Falgun. Spring is welcomed through music and dances. It literally means the ‘celebration of spring’. The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, at Vishwabharati Shantiniketan, the University founded by him. Actually, Basanta Utsav[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Brenda Cox (L) and Santosh Gulati (R), both probably in their late teens

A Tale of Two Mothers: Dying with Dignity and What Makes That Possible

by Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox So many crises — from war to mass species die-offs to climate meltdown — afflict our world that we often don’t take time to draw insights from what generally passes for the small stuff, the things that happen all too close to home, including aging. Most of us don’t relish the prospect of[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Woman is born with Identity? Or Woman creates her own Identity?

Woman is born with Identity? Or Woman creates her own Identity?

We talk of equality of the sexes, gender stereotyping breakthrough but these terms get restricted only to discussion on right to work, right to body, freedom of movement, choices of clothing so on and so forth. Even the women’s role as decision taker in the kitchen and at home politics is mistaken as women empowerment in many household. The young[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
Woman creates life …. But still without RIGHTS??

Woman creates life …. But still without RIGHTS??

Once again, that time of the year. On Women’s Day, every company worth their salt offers deals and discounts. Business companies are preparing for the day with shopping, complimentary makeovers, and a throng of mehndi artists lining their gleaming hallways. As a clear case of preaching to the choir, several events are planned to discuss women’s rights at opulent five-star[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
Dalit labourers in Manguwal protest for a place to dispose trash

Dalit labourers in Manguwal protest for a place to dispose trash

In village Manguwal in Sangrur a contingent of dalit agricultural labourers embarked on a protest, under the leadership of the Zameen prapt sangarsh commitee.  The issue was on the denial of place to throw away trash For over 60 years the dalit labourers of Manguwal have relentlessly battled for rights promised to them for procuring panchayat land. However the capitalist[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Mahoba Farmers Gain Confidence and Strength With A Combination of Natural Farming and Water Conservation

Mahoba Farmers Gain Confidence and Strength With A Combination of Natural Farming and Water Conservation

On the farming map of Uttar Pradesh Mahoba is generally considered a relatively backward district of Bundelkhand region, but thanks to a recent initiative called BIWAL a model combining water conservation and natural farming has given a new-found strength to many farmers and rural communities. Arunoday and Srijan voluntary organization have collaborated to take this model to several villages, with[Read More…]

by 08/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Russia Declares Soros-Funded Transparency International Undesirable

Russia Declares Soros-Funded Transparency International Undesirable

The Russian government on Monday has branded Soros-funded Transparency International (TI) as “undesirable,” effectively banning it from operating in the country. The TI once blocked calls to help NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. An AP report said: The Russian prosecutor’s office charged that while “formally acting as an organization fighting corruption around the world, it interferes in the internal[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Assange, Snowden, Secrecy And Democracy

Assange, Snowden, Secrecy And Democracy

   “The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.” John Adams, (1735-1826) The Nuremberg Principles According to the Nuremberg Principles, the citizens of a country have a responsibility for the crimes that their governments commit. But to prevent these crimes, the[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Public Statement by Indian people’s movements, trade unions and other civil society groups on G20

Public Statement by Indian people’s movements, trade unions and other civil society groups on G20

India’s presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) comes at a critical juncture; even as the  pandemic wanes, geopolitical tensions between the US and China could spiral into a possible military confrontation. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now entering into its second year with little signs of resolution. Economists have been warning of an imminent recession in 2023 as[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Sorry to bother you but people are dying!

Sorry to bother you but people are dying!

Dear President Biden, My name is Olivia DiNucci and I am the anti-war activist who interrupted your dinner in DC the other night. You, the most powerful man in the world, were sitting right in front of me. Normal people like me don’t often have access to people like you and I couldn’t resist addressing you knowing we are in[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Bicycle and Women’s Liberation

Bicycle and Women’s Liberation

Bicycling and Feminism One hundred years ago, Alice Hawkins, a suffragette, cycled around Leicester (UK) promoting the women’s rights movement, causing outrage by being one of the first ladies to wear pantaloons in the city. During the fight to win the vote the bicycle became not only a tool but also a symbol for the emancipation of women. The American[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
Zionists & Pro-Zionist, US Lackey Australian Government Threaten Australian Academic Free Speech

Zionists & Pro-Zionist, US Lackey Australian Government Threaten Australian Academic Free Speech

Academic free speech is under great threat in Australia (and elsewhere) from authoritarian university managers of corporatized universities, state and federal  governments, secret government, foreign governments (notably the US and Apartheid Israel and their lobbyists), mendacious oligopoly Mainstream  media, and lack of a Bill of Rights guaranteeing free speech. Back in 2001 I gave a paper entitled  “Current Academic Censorship[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
5 Surprising Things That Could Be Preventing Your Backyard From Serving as a Wildlife Sanctuary

5 Surprising Things That Could Be Preventing Your Backyard From Serving as a Wildlife Sanctuary

by Doug Tallamy, Daniel Klem, and Jim Cubie, J.D.  Prevent your backyard from being an “ecological trap” by taking these key actions to protect wildlife. Imagine a wildlife refuge that does not protect its wildlife. How could this be possible? It is not only possible, but it is also likely unless we take action to prevent it. Unfortunately, many advocates of[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Ethiopian Orthodox Christians Call for Biden’s Help 

Ethiopian Orthodox Christians Call for Biden’s Help 

WASHINGTON – A large and colorfully dressed crowd of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians peacefully demonstrated on March 5 at the White House led by religious leaders calling upon President Biden, the US and the world to intervene on their behalf in an ongoing systematic campaign of oppression and intimidation against their religion by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party. Abiy is[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Women must Arise Now and #EmbraceEquity

Women must Arise Now and #EmbraceEquity

On 13 February, a mother and her daughter were burnt alive during an encroachment clearing drive in Dehat village of Kanpur; the incident that killed a 44-year-old mother and her 21-year-old daughter had triggered massive tension between police and the villagers. A few days earlier, on 7 February, in Karnataka’s Koppal district, a Dalit woman was beaten with slippers and abused[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Patriarchy
Journey of Anandpuri’s Tribal Communities from Migrant Labor to Self-Reliance

Journey of Anandpuri’s Tribal Communities from Migrant Labor to Self-Reliance

Anandpuri block in Banswara district (Rajasthan) is known for high concentration of tribal communities, particularly Bhil communities. Their traditional livelihood and farming patterns based on biodiversity and self-reliance were well-suited to local conditions, but these suffered under exploitative systems of colonial times. Freedom from colonial rule brought some relief, but the dominant development thinking still neglected special needs, conditions and[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Vedanta Group’s proposal that HZL should acquire their Mauritius-based zinc company- Further concerns

Vedanta Group’s proposal that HZL should acquire their Mauritius-based zinc company- Further concerns

To Shri Alok Tandon Union Mines Secretary Dear Shri Tandon, You are aware of my correspondence with the Cabinet Secretary and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on a disclosure filed by the Vedanta Group in the national stock exchanges on 19-1-2023 on a proposal allegedly approved by the Board of Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) to acquire the group’s zinc subsidiary[Read More…]

by 07/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Front Row Seat In The Theater Of The Absurd

Front Row Seat In The Theater Of The Absurd

Sometimes, okay, not sometimes, a lot of the time, we feel we’re in the front row seat at an irrational, incongruous, illogical tragicomedy which rivals tabloid televisions’ moronic, futile and pointless reality shows, like the discussions on news channels. This reality show that we have a front row seat at is about life in our world today, it is called[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Modi needs to improve his understanding of public transport

Modi needs to improve his understanding of public transport

We can expect little improvement in our urban transport system considering what could be termed as inadequate understanding of the issue shown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his post budget webinar last week. He emphasised Metro rail network as a key driver not realising the extremely poor record in most ciies. Even the moderate Marathi daily Maharashtra Times in[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
“Mother’s Day”

“Mother’s Day”

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023 If we could see a Mother’s Day All around the world, Where mothers lived a day of joy, Where mothers felt their worth,   Then what exactly would we see So moms could realize That their lives are important and Their own perspectives wise?   The women in Sudan would not[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Possibility Of Nuclear War Between The U.S. And Russia, Warns Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers Leaker

Possibility Of Nuclear War Between The U.S. And Russia, Warns Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers Leaker

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the ‘Pentagon Papers’ that revealed the U.S.’s covert attempts to ramp up conflict in Vietnam since the 1940s, has warned of the possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. In a parting message to other activists, he made the warning. In the message Daniel Ellsberg has announced that he has terminal pancreatic cancer. “On[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Fish Killing Mania: Australia’s War Against the Common Carp

Fish Killing Mania: Australia’s War Against the Common Carp

The scene is unforgettable and unforgivable: an elected official, the deputy prime minister of Australia, cutting loose about a fish species introduced into the country by his ancestors, and demanding their annihilation.  During the near-lunatic display by Barnaby Joyce, even his own colleagues betrayed embarrassment and alarm at the full-throated shrieks of “carp, carp”.  With crazed eyes and crimson face,[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Women Over Profit? Activists Say No!

Women Over Profit? Activists Say No!

  WASHINGTON (03-04) – Women’s Rights activists descended upon the Philippine Embassy on March 4 during a march calling for major reforms for the country. The march was held after the first day of a political conference sponsored by the International Women’s Alliance, an anti-imperialist alliance of grassroots  women’s organizations, institutions and individuals who are calling for reforms. Carrying large[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Nikki Haley’s Diet-MAGA Problem

Nikki Haley’s Diet-MAGA Problem

In 2015, according to the talking points being floated by former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and her team, she alone heroically removed the Confederate flag that flew on the grounds of the state capitol and so healed racial wounds. She implied as much right after it happened, again at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and in[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Hamirpur Efforts Confirm Huge Potential of Natural Farming Waiting to be Tapped

Hamirpur Efforts Confirm Huge Potential of Natural Farming Waiting to be Tapped

Santosh is a dedicated farmer who along with his wife Chunni Devi worked very hard in recent months to convert a small patch of unproductive land into a lush green, multi-layer vegetable garden. This has ensured year-round supply of organically grown vegetables to his family as well as fetched several thousand rupees in cash sales. This couple has grown over[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Villainous Reign of Eric Adams

The Villainous Reign of Eric Adams

  For many centuries, the powerful have helped control their working poor by elevating some of the oppressed to wield the whip. The Romans had the Vigiles, poor men and often ex-slaves who patrolled the streets and fought fires; the Nazis had the Judenrat to carry out their orders in Jewish communities: southern US slave owners knew the advantages of[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
A Film on the grave dangers of GM Mustard

A Film on the grave dangers of GM Mustard

Kapil Shah, an advocate of organic farming explains the Scientific, Economic, Environmental and Social fallout, if GM Mustard is approved. Suma Josson is an activist and film maker

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
We also need to win to live here after 2024: Apoorvanand

We also need to win to live here after 2024: Apoorvanand

by Prof. Apoorvanand/ A K Shiburaj The idea of India faces an unprecedented challenge. Preventing irreversible damage to the Republic of India, as we have known it, is the most pressing political task of our times. The 2024 election is crucial for India. There are fears that even the Constitution of India will be abrogated if the Sangh Parivar comes back to power.[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Remembering Karpoori Thakur : His relevance in the present times

Remembering Karpoori Thakur : His relevance in the present times

For the last two years, various programs are being organized to commemorate the birth centenary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye (1 May 1922-8 January 1995). January also marks the birth centenary years of two other prominent socialist leaders, Madhu Dandavate (21 January 1924–12 November 2005) and Karpoori Thakur (24 January 1924–17 February 1988). Karpoori Thakur’s birth centenary celebrations began on[Read More…]

by 06/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Resolution of HZL’s Board of Directors on acquisition of THL Zinc Ltd, Mauritius- Role of Independent Directors

Resolution of HZL’s Board of Directors on acquisition of THL Zinc Ltd, Mauritius- Role of Independent Directors

To Dr Manoj Govil Secretary (Corporate Affairs) Govt of India Dear Dr Govil, The Vedanta Group, the majority shareholder of Hindustan Zinc Ltd. (HZL), informed the national stock exchanges on 19-1-2023 vide their communication No.HZL/2023-SECY/ dated January 19, 2023, as required by SEBI’s Listing Regulations, that HZL’s Board met on the same day and passed a resolution to acquire THL Zinc Ltd,[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Eduardo Galeano, revolutionary writer, continues to inspire us

Eduardo Galeano, revolutionary writer, continues to inspire us

Eduardo Galeano was best known for his 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America, which rocketed to the top of US bestseller lists after the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez presented a copy to President Barack Obama in 2009 It is one of the most inspiring and monumental works against imperial exploitation. We now have a slender but valuable translation into[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The U.S. Must Stop Threatening China!

The U.S. Must Stop Threatening China!

America’a aggressive military-industrial complex It appears that the military-industrial complex has complete control of the government of the United States, which recently voted to give the Pentagon roughly a trillion dollars of the tax-payers money. This was done by cutting back on social programs which would have helped poor working families. Recently Joan Roelofs published a book entitled “The Trillion[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Gun Violence Memorial Closes as Gun Violence Continues

Gun Violence Memorial Closes as Gun Violence Continues

WASHINGTON (03-04) – Today marked the closing ceremony at the National Building Museum where the shocking and profoundly sad Gun Violence National Memorial Project has been on display since April 2021. With its closing, future exhibitions are now being planned to take place around the country while those involved in its creation are lobbying for a permanent National Gun Violence[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
India’s Education Market: The Next Neo-Colonial Frontier

India’s Education Market: The Next Neo-Colonial Frontier

Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational.  It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Hindu Rashtra, Khalistan & Indian State – Questions Before Home Ministry

Hindu Rashtra, Khalistan & Indian State – Questions Before Home Ministry

The PIL Watch Group watches with concern the events unfolding in Punjab. Consequent to the opinion expressed publicly by the police officials, central intelligence agencies, public figures on the recent developments in Punjab pertaining to release of an accused from judicial custody ostensibly due to protest demonstration (at Ajnala police station, near Amritsar) organised by a newly formed outfit ‘Waris[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Stalin 70th death anniversary Memory  

Stalin 70th death anniversary Memory  

Today we commemorate the 70th death anniversary of Stalin, who died on March 5th, 1953. Some people suspect that he was poisoned by his enemies It is hard to find words that do justice to the irreparable loss it caused for the International Communist Movement as a whole, creating a sensation of the earth shaking. The International media left no[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Reaching Out to Marginal Farmers in Mau

Reaching Out to Marginal Farmers in Mau

Most farm development efforts focus more on bigger and more dominant farmers, and while they may also include smaller farmers, this gets lesser attention. It is rare to see a program focused mostly on the most marginalized farmers with the smallest holdings. An ongoing effort in Mau block of Chitrakut district should be welcomed therefore for its efforts to reach[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Official death toll in Turkish-Syrian earthquake exceeds 53,000

Official death toll in Turkish-Syrian earthquake exceeds 53,000

Officially the death toll in the two February 6 earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş, which created devastation in both Turkey and Syria, has reached to 53,000 people. There are 45,089 confirmed fatalities in Turkey and 8,476 in Syria. The actual death toll is thought to be much higher, including those who have not been pulled from the rubble, those who have[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Bhagat Singh: Life and legend

Bhagat Singh: Life and legend

It was, to quote King James Version, “[a] time to be born, and a time to die; [….] A time to love, and a time […] of war […]” It was a time to dream, a time to struggle – dream for liberation, struggle for liberation. The setting was this colonized subcontinent – undivided India, colonized by the British brutes.[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The U.S. And Its Allies Are Not Reliable Trade Partners, Says Russia’s FM

The U.S. And Its Allies Are Not Reliable Trade Partners, Says Russia’s FM

Russia no longer perceives the U.S. and its allies as reliable trade partners and will not allow itself to be dependent on them, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a conference in India on Friday. “We will not rely on any partner in the West anymore. We will not allow them to blow up the pipelines again,” he said in[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Sarita and Rambohar with their preserved seeds, standing in their garden

Why These Farmers in Manikpur Feel They Have Some Promising Solutions for Farm Crisis

About 30 farmers of Elha village ( in Manikpur block of Chitrakut district, Uttar Pradesh) have gathered for a group discussion in the courtyard of a farmer, along with activists of a voluntary organization ABSSS . One of the main subjects of discussion is—how far can the efforts of natural farming initiated about two years back progress? Two farmers Ram[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
The Ten Essential Powers of Great Literature

The Ten Essential Powers of Great Literature

What makes a work of literature great? Why, to name but a few, are Hamlet, The Iliad, The Divine Comedy, War and Peace, The Flowers of Evil, Don Quixote, Faust generally considered outstanding examples of world literature? What makes one work of literature superior to another? Why is some literature read for centuries, even millennia, while others languish in scholarly[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Arts/Literature
Manufactured Glory/Defeat: Assembly Elections’ Results! 

Manufactured Glory/Defeat: Assembly Elections’ Results! 

Given the importance accorded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to electoral results of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura as not simply its “success” but more as marking major defeat of Congress, one is tempted to analyse these from this angle itself. Of these, perhaps the most important is the trend displayed by Meghalaya polls. The importance given by BJP to this[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Strong Voices Raised to Check Injustice to NREGA Workers

Strong Voices Raised to Check Injustice to NREGA Workers

Is implementation of NREGA (national rural employment guarantee legislation) being changed to such an extent that instead of helping workers in difficult times the scheme under this law may even becomes a source of exploiting them? This and other disturbing questions were raised at a press conference organized in Delhi on March 3 by the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (a group[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Photo by gideon_wright

Can there be a long-term solution to Ecological Crisis?

In the backdrop of the 18th G20 Heads of State and Government summit to be held in New Delhi on 9th-10th September 2023, it becomes imperative to talk about India’s commitment to the environment conservation to preserve biodiversity, along with sustainable growth of the economy. As a part of an Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG) under G20, India[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The Heritage of the Twentieth Century Science for the Twenty First Century

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The Heritage of the Twentieth Century Science for the Twenty First Century

Popular Discourse of Science in the Twentieth Century The discourse of science in the twentieth century was dominated by understanding the atom, relativity, quantum mechanics, communication theory, space science and breaking the genetic code. Unfortunately some of the application of this science has been disastrous. It led to the atomic bomb, missiles and huge consumerism and waste of resources. It[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Photo credit: GlobelyNews

Why Biden Snubbed China’s Ukraine Peace Plan 

by Medea Benjamin, Marcy Winograd and Wei Yu There’s something irrational about President Biden’s knee-jerk dismissal of China’s 12-point peace proposal titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” “Not rational” is how Biden described the plan that calls for de-escalation toward a ceasefire, respect for national sovereignty, establishment of humanitarian corridors and resumption of peace talks.[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
An Open Call For Genocide In Palestine

An Open Call For Genocide In Palestine

Some might think that state genocide is a new phenomenon in Israeli occupied Palestine. I can assure you that this is the very essence of Zionism. The point was, and still is, to occupy the land, get rid of the people by any and every means, and change the topography and the demography of Palestine to favour Jewish supremacy. The[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
At the Brink of War in the Pacific? The Nightmare of Great Power Rivalry Over Taiwan

At the Brink of War in the Pacific? The Nightmare of Great Power Rivalry Over Taiwan

While the world has been distracted, even amused, by the diplomatic tussle around China’s recent high-altitude balloon flights across North America, there are signs that Beijing and Washington are preparing for something so much more serious: armed conflict over Taiwan. Reviewing recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region raises a tried-and-true historical lesson that bears repeating at this dangerous moment in[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Supreme Court Ruling on ECI’s Appointment: A Game Changer?

Supreme Court Ruling on ECI’s Appointment: A Game Changer?

In an important judgment yesterday, a five-judge bench of supreme court of India unanimously ruled that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) must be appointed by a selection committee consisting of Prime Minister, Chief justice of India and the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha. The court was hearing the matter under a Public Interest Litigation (PIL)[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Niwari’s Women Farmers Lead the Efforts for Sustainable Farming and Protection of Environment

Niwari’s Women Farmers Lead the Efforts for Sustainable Farming and Protection of Environment

Women farmers of Neemkhera village (Niwari district and block, Madhya Pradesh) gather near their ancient water tank built during the times of Chandel kings several centuries earlier. Most of them are very small farmers, owning one to three acres of land or even less, yet the work they have taken up is not small, it is big. This work is[Read More…]

by 03/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Convention of Contract labour Union call for Independent Force

Convention of Contract labour Union call for Independent Force

  “After the introduction of the New Economic Industrial Policy, public industries were privatized all over the country, the national wealth was looted by the big capital houses and the rights of the workers were attacked. Whichever party was in government, it curtailed the rights of the workers and worked to abolish the laws made in the interests of the[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
A Time of Unity for Peace Movements in Europe

A Time of Unity for Peace Movements in Europe

Europe is passing through critical times when a lot of caution as well determination is needed to avoid the possibility of large scale destruction. Hence this is a time for all those committed to a future of peace for Europe and for world to unite, setting aside all relatively less significant differences for the time being, to ensure that the[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Deafening Silence of Intellectuals in the Face of Growing Global Conflicts

The Deafening Silence of Intellectuals in the Face of Growing Global Conflicts

Intellectuals do not have a monopoly on culture, on values, or on truth, much less on the meanings attributed to any one of these “domains of the spirit,” as they used to be termed. But intellectuals should also not shrink from denouncing what they see as destructive of culture, values, and truth, notably when such destruction claims to be carried[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
We must stop the march towards World War III, now!

We must stop the march towards World War III, now!

In Europe, North America and a few other countries that feed themselves with information from the western media, it can have escaped no one’s attention that we are actually on the march towards World War III. The similarities with the 1930s are terrifying: Multiple fronts of military activity are opening up; one in Ukraine and two more on the way[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Doing Washington’s Bidding: Australia’s Treatment of Daniel Duggan

Doing Washington’s Bidding: Australia’s Treatment of Daniel Duggan

The increasingly shabby treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material it’s printed on. In January this year, Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court heard that Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus accepted a request from the US before Christmas[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
On False Hopes and Broken Promises: Behind the Scenes of the UN Statement on Palestine 

On False Hopes and Broken Promises: Behind the Scenes of the UN Statement on Palestine 

Rarely does the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations make an official remark expressing happiness over any UN proceeding concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Indeed, the Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour is “very happy that there was a very strong united message from the Security Council against the illegal, unilateral measure” undertaken by the Israeli government. The ‘measure’ is a[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Palestine
Omnipresent Caste

Omnipresent Caste

by Sanjana Sree Manusanipalli and Sandeep Pandey The city is supposed to be the place where anyone can be anything they want to be. They say in a city like Hyderabad, there are no feelings of caste, class or religion. Everyone is supposed to be equal. Sociologists have also believed that urbanisation could signal the end of the caste system.[Read More…]

by 02/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Annihilate Caste
90th Anniversary of Burning of Reichstag and its relevance today

90th Anniversary of Burning of Reichstag and its relevance today

On February 27th it was the 90th anniversary of the fall of the Reichstag, which paved the path to the complete monopoly of German fascism, giving bourgeois democracy a shattering blow. Ninety years ago, on January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), Adolf Hitler, as chancellor of the German[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Allotment of Kutrumali bauxite mine in Kalahandi/ Nayagarh districts in Odisha is prima facie illegal

Allotment of Kutrumali bauxite mine in Kalahandi/ Nayagarh districts in Odisha is prima facie illegal

To Smt Alka Tiwari Secretary National Commission for the Scheduled Tribes (NCST) Dear Smt Tiwari, This refers to a news report (https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/adani-arm-mundra-aluminium-named-preferred-bidder-for-odisha-bauxite-block-16061911.htm) that the Ministry of Mines has recently auctioned Kutrumali bauxite mine in Kalahandi/ Rayagarh districts in Odisha to the Adani Group. This mineral block is located in Thuamul Rampur of Kalahandi district and partly in Kashipur Tahasil of Rayagada[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
CAG Report No 20/16 on E-Auction of coal mines- public interest concerns

CAG Report No 20/16 on E-Auction of coal mines- public interest concerns

To Shri A L Meena Union Coal Secretary   Dear Shri Meena, I refer to the CAG Report No 20/2016 on E-Auctions conducted by your Ministry for allotment of coal blocks, following the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court holding earlier coal block allotments to be illegal. In particular, I invite your attention to the following observations of the  CAG:[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Why News of Population Decline and Economic Slowdown Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

Why News of Population Decline and Economic Slowdown Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

The Wall Street Journal called China’s slowdown “disappointing.” But for the environment, it is welcome news. On January 17, 2023, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that the country’s population fell in 2022 by 850,000 people from 2021, which was the first population decline witnessed by the country in six decades. This has mostly resulted from low birth rates stemming from the imposition[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Nuclear Armageddon Games in Ukraine

Nuclear Armageddon Games in Ukraine

In 1946, Albert Einstein shot off a telegram to several hundred American leaders and politicians warning that the “unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Einstein’s forecast remains prescient. Nuclear calamity still knocks. Even prior to Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, the threat of a nuclear[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Press Freedom in India – Foreign Correspondent’s Survey Spills the Bean

Press Freedom in India – Foreign Correspondent’s Survey Spills the Bean

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Delhi has done three surveys with a foreign journalist based in Delhi that has some startling revelation that reflects on the freedom of the press in India. The three surveys conducted from 2020 to 2022 were shared with the Ministry of External Affairs but there was no response from the ministry that further puts a[Read More…]

by 01/03/2023 Comments are Disabled India