May 2024

New York jury convicts former President Donald Trump on all 34 counts

Late Thursday afternoon, a jury in New York City found former President Donald J. Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to a six-figure payment he…

‘BK 16’: Victims of Digital Invasion of the State

Hindutva fascism grew and rose to power by abusing the facilities of formal democracy, spreading hatred under the guise of freedom of speech. The Bhima Koregaon case and the arrests…

Modi is a Gadha

Yesterday I was interviewed by the well known journalist Neelu Vyas on Modi's drama of sitting and praying in Vivekanand Rock in Kanyakumari, Tamilnadu. Neelu had interviewed me earlier too…

Fifty degrees in Delhi and the Man from Darbhanga

He found some fame, a few lines in newsprint, only after he passed away. He was labeled the "first victim" of this year's fierce heat wave in Delhi. "Delhi heat…

Military Expert Spells Out Palestinian-Israeli Fight in The Gaza Battlefields

Maj-Gen Wasef Erekat from Ramallah talks about the military details and tactics used by the Palestinian fighters to confront the Israeli army in Gaza. The killing of Israeli soldiers and…

The Modi-Shah Obsession: Controlling Information and Narrative

By now, it is evident that both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are deeply invested in managing information and controlling the narrative on a daily basis. This has become an…

Lessons from History for Ensuring the Safety of Future Generations

Imagine a forest based community about 20,000 years back. Here an elderly lady is teaching younger community members some essentials of life. Neither she nor her pupils know any alphabets…

Israel’s Onslaught of Revenge

As Amal Nassar lay in pain on a bed at the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in northern Gaza, the echoes of explosions and artillery fire could be…

Outside Agitators: How the Power Elite Talk About Dissent

The justifications used to defend police actions against Columbia University students advocating for Palestine evoke a disheartening sense of déjà vu. Instead of reflecting progress, they remind us that old…

Remembering May 1945

On May 9, 1945, the Second World War ended with the defeat of Germany. It heralded the end of fascism. Nearly eighty years after that day, we are witnessing now …

If The Wars Go On

I suppose my title could have been couched in the singular form, as Hermann Hesse, the Nobel Prize winning German/Swiss author, did with his collection of anti-war essays about World…

Soaking Sunak Calls the Sodding Election

It was a pitiful sight. Soaked and literally washed-out, the feeble thin British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, made an announcement that caught many in his party by surprise. On July…

Towards Understanding North American Human Ecology and Urban Dynamics

Theoretical Insight A primal characteristic found in the theory of Human Ecology is that society itself has and is defined by a pathology. Such a view of society at the…

What Happened to Our Ape Ancestors?

Millions of years ago, in the Miocene Epoch (23 to 5.3 million years ago), about 100 species of apes roamed Europe, Asia, and Africa. Just a few million years later,…

The New MAGA MAGAZINE!

Baby boomers like this writer remember how great MAD Magazine was in the 60s and 70s. Funny funny funny! The satire was tremendous. Well, children, we have a new satirical…

Modi’s Crimes Against Indian Muslims

The Indian subcontinent is an area of tremendous diversity, with numerous religions, castes, languages, and ethnic groups. Therefore, the only correct policy for us is the policy of suleh-e-kul (giving…

A California University Reveals Its Ties to Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

At long last, on May 20, 2024, the University of California at Santa Barbara, in response to a 2021 California Public Records Act request, finally released copies of its 2016-2021 military…

Raw pain in Rafah

Rizq Dababesh had left Gaza City and moved southwards to Rafah following an Israeli assurance. Rafah was a safe area, according to that pledge. The massacre of displaced people in…

Modi dispensation is betraying marginalised segments of Indian society, observes Harish S Wankhede

Harish S. Wankhede is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Political Studies (CPS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He was visiting scholar at the Centre for South Asia, Stanford…

NHRC Deferred for Third Time: A Major Setback for India

The Sub Committee of Accreditation of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) decided to defer the accreditation of India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC-India) for the second…

Netanyahu’s Security Advisor Says War on Gaza to Last 7 More Months

The Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi says he expects the war on Gaza to last for seven more months. “We are expecting another seven months of fighting in the…

The Untold ICC Story: How the Global South Helped Palestine Challenge Western Institutions

Even the most optimistic of political analysts did not expect that the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor would be uttering these words: “I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin…

Refugee Camp Bombing: All Eyes On Rafah Bleed Tears of Blood

The old world is dead, and the new world will be stillborn. This is, indeed, a time of monsters. My modification of Gramsci’s quote is caused by deep sorrow and…

All Eyes on Rafah: Social Media Trends and Short Lives of Public Memories

‘All eyes on Rafah’. In the last 48 hours, my social media has been flooded with the reshares of this one particular phrase. From friends to popular social media personalities,…

Some thoughts on Character Building

The whole mayhem that is going on around us since last some years or say 2014, the one thing that critically grabs my attention is our ‘changing ‘norms for simple…

A Professor on “Authorities” Who Order Police to Crush Student Protests

The Washington Post’s journalists recently exposed what many already suspected or knew. Donors from society’s richest 1 percent pressured university administrators and political leaders to use police and other means to crush…

Two Extremely Rich Countries—Norway and Japan—Continue Horrible Cruelty to Whales

When a whale is sighted, a gun is used to fire a harpoon with tipped grenade at it. As the weapon enters the body of the whale, the grenade explodes…

Modern (Mis)interpretations of Clean Slates

Why were Clean Slates so important to Bronze Age societies? From the third millennium in Mesopotamia, people were aware that debt pressures, if left to accumulate unchecked, would distort normal…

Meditation and Capitalism

The working masses have been practicing meditation for centuries to survive the ever-alienating ordeals of various forms of patriarchy, feudalism, and capitalism. Meditation has become a coping mechanism to confront…

Nuclear Pakistan’s Comprador Cowardice

Pakistan's prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, declared the 28th of May as a public holiday. Indeed, the House of Sharif, the family in control of one of the two dynastic political parties…

The International Criminal Court Takes on Israel and the US Congressional Mafia

Senator Lindsay Graham was bursting with contempt for the International Criminal Court (ICC) when he grilled Secretary of State Blinken at a May 21 Congressional hearing. Wagging his finger, he…

NATO prepares direct intervention into Russia-Ukraine war

As Ukraine’s NATO-backed regime faces a debacle in its war with Russia, the NATO powers are accelerating preparations for a massive military escalation in Ukraine. This was the outcome of…

Calling Israeli airstrikes “limited” and “targeted,” White House fully endorses Rafah massacre

In a series of press briefings on Tuesday, the Biden administration fully endorsed the Israeli airstrikes on women and children in the Rafah refugee camps in southern Gaza that killed…

Weak but sensible voices should be listened to in the path of democracy

I have been living in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, for the past one month. In my general conversations with many people living in Shimla from different parts of…

Repress U., Class of 2024 – How to Build a Homeland Security Campus in Seven More Steps

The academic year that just ended left America’s college campuses in quite a state: with snipers on the rooftops and checkpoints at the gates; quads overrun by riot squads, state troopers, and federal agents; and even the…

A Certain French Stubbornness: Violence in New Caledonia

France’s Emmanuel Macron can, at times, show himself at odds with the grime and gristle of grounded politics. Able to pack in various snatches of philosophical reflection in a speech,…

On Climate Change, Centrism Means a Slow Death

The GOP wants to accelerate climate change, while Democratic centrists are content with slowly embracing it. As hurricane season approaches, shouldn’t we be choosing life? The Miami Herald recently reported on the…

How Prehistoric Humans Discovered Fire Making

Of all the pivotal technologies discovered by humans, fire making was the one that gifted our species with power beyond all others. An ancient Greek myth tells the story of Prometheus,…

An Anti-War Statement by Veterans for Peace that is Inspiring for Peace Activists

Members of Veterans for Peace have recently released a Memorial Day statement which will be remembered for a long time as a strong indictment of war by those who have…

Meditation as a Political Act

After spreading the venom of deceptive Hindutva politics during his election campaign meetings, the master propagandist, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, plans to meditate for forty-eight hours at the Vivekananda Rock…

Crashing Dreams, Stolen Youth: Education and Employment in a Decade of Modi Rule

by Bhim Kumar and Mohd. Bilal In his monthly sermon-like programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on 27th February 2022, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, praised the Tanzanian social media…

Where is the so-called “Muslim” Vote?

It is indeed ironical that the Muslim vote is accorded so much importance during elections in India. Numerically, do they really carry any importance? Politically, do they really matter? Of…

Israel massacres dozens in strikes on Rafah refugee camp

The Israeli regime’s deliberate massacre of at least 45 displaced people in a tent camp in Rafah marks yet another act of barbarism in its genocide against the Palestinians. Dozens…

A Lone Dayak Community’s Last Stand Against Palm Oil

The Dayak peoples of Borneo have been fiercely resisting the encroachment of palm oil plantations on their ancestral lands for many decades. This article by Dayak Ethnographer Dr Setia Budhi…

Narendra Modi, Authoritarianism and ‘God Complex’

Democracy is a system of society won after long and intense struggles. The preceding society had mostly Kingdoms. A typical kingdom was an alliance between the Feudal lord-King and clergy.…

Custodial Torture Claims the Life of Juvenile: A Mother’s Quest for Justice

As the world welcomed the New Year in 2023, Ms. Priya Palani endured an unimaginable tragedy the loss of her eldest son, Gokul Sri, under mysterious and brutal circumstances. Ms.…

Israel’s Tents Massacre in Rafah Is a Heinous War Crime

Sunday night, Israeli forces pounded a tent camp housing displaced people in a designated safe zone in north Rafah, killing at least 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children,…

Much of the World Awakens to a Decades Long Genocide

Several times over the past two decades, I have written about the malevolence of Israel (and by that I mean Zionist Israel, which is predominantly Jewish, although there are likeliest…

Massive landslide in Papua New Guinea draws attention to the increasing worldwide harm from landslides

The recent massive landslide in a once-bustling village of Enga province of Papua New Guinea has been one of the worst tragedies of its kind. While UN officials have estimated…

Popular Unity to Free America

Last week, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown told the NYT that US/NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine is 'inevitable'.This is despite the fact that…

Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle

World heat is worse than ever. The entire planet is sweating. Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of…

Five Reasons Medha Patkar Should Not Get a Jail Sentence

A large number of people in India and abroad are very concerned regarding recent news reports relating to the conviction of prominent social activist Medha Patkar in a very old…

Worst Case Scenarios

Conscious citizens are plagued by their vision of the immediate future as it looms through latest credible predictions of poll results.It Is either NDA regaining power with a slim majority …

Gaza And The Israeli Killer Instinct

The Israeli war on Gaza is moving full-blast ahead despite international pressure to have it stopped. The Israeli government is neither listening to the International Court of Justice nor to…

The tryst of Indian democracy: Will the established trends of electoral verdicts prevail or a new phenomenon emerges on June 4th, 2024 in the general election results

Jawaharlal Nehru's speech on the occasion of India's independence, delivered on August 14, 1947, is famously known as the "Tryst with Destiny" speech. It begins with the iconic lines: "Long…