Part 1: On September 5, 2023, a group of citizens convened online to discuss the issue of Aadhaar imposition and overreach in the context of seeding Aadhaar numbers with NPR records. This discussion was a continuation of similar sessions in which experts and activists like Usha Ramanathan and Harsh Mander had also participated. Economist, author, and professor Jean Dreze, and[Read More…]
India has been turned into a full-scale surveillance state with the masses under the watchful eye of the government, vulnerable and oblivious to being tracked, profiled, recorded, and registered at every point of their day and entire lifetimes. Invasive technologies like facial recognition are being cavalierly used in public spaces and universities, political and institutional opposition is being stymied through[Read More…]
The issue of unemployment has become a regular talking-point for the political opposition in India and one of the many grounds on which it alleges that the ruling BJP has failed the country, especially its youth. However, the issue of dignified and fair conditions of employment is rarely brought up. It seems that the people of the country should not[Read More…]
The news cycle this week has been taken up with the rapidly escalating violence in Haryana’s Gurugram, Mewat, and Nuh. This is occurring against the backdrop of months of violence in the state of Manipur, where the hill-dwelling Christian Kuki tribals are facing an onslaught by the dominant Hindu Meitei community of the plains. Ever since the BJP assumed power[Read More…]
There is talk again of the government coming out with its ‘Digital India Bill’ which is meant to replace the IT Act, 2000. The ‘Digital India Bill’ is an unofficial name for the legislation meant to uphold the rights and interests of the ‘Digital Nagriks’ of an imagined ‘Digital India’. The government is somewhat correct in its position that new[Read More…]
Earlier this month, the lower house of the Brazilian legislature adopted a controversial “fake news bill” (Bill 2639) which resulted in opposition from major tech firms like Google. The debate surrounding the Bill has once again foregrounded the issue of online content moderation by governments around the world. Brazil’s Bill 2639 has emerged from a context of increasing violence perceived[Read More…]
The Indian government has proposed changes the regulations around Aadhaar to allow private entities to conduct Aadhaar-based verification with its permission. On April 20, 2023, the government amended the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020. The purposes for Aadhaar authentication listed in sub-rule (1) of Rule 3 have been expanded to include a new clause:[Read More…]
“Whatever the majority wants should happen. That’s democracy, right?” said a friend to me the other day when we were sitting around in a group and the discussion took a few political detours into the question of beef eating and cow slaughter. It brought to my mind Dr B.R. Ambdedkar’s criticism of the “Divine Right of the Majority to rule[Read More…]
As J.M. Coetzee has written, taking ‘offence’ at something is usually a reaction of powerful and oppressive groups in the face of any challenge to their power or the possibility of losing it. Throughout the ages and across the world, the censorship of views, speech, depictions, expression, etc. has been rationalized in the name of ‘morality’, ‘decency’, ‘blasphemy’, and whatnot. In[Read More…]
The Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi airports have recently begun the ‘DigiYatra’ service. It is a facial recognition technology (FRT)-based passenger boarding system verified by Aadhar details. Recent news also says that the Western Railways’ use of its FRT-based surveillance system has reduced crime on its routes and stations. Earlier this week, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that Mumbai[Read More…]
The amended IT Rules, 2021 were notified in end-October this year by MeitY, the electronics and IT ministry of the Indian government. They were withdrawn in June this year after pushback during stakeholder consultations, but even its amended version has not made much of a difference to how it is received. The rules are a clear articulation of the desire[Read More…]
The horrifically brutal and inhuman act of torture and rape perpetrated by Thakur men on a young Dalit woman in Haathras, Uttar Pradesh, tears at the soul and claws the conscience. It provokes violent thoughts and words and makes it impossible to not imagine a proportional response of the same barbaric extent as the ultimate self-defensive justice. This feeling is[Read More…]
Dalit and Bahujan lives, safety, and dignity continue to expendable in Uttar Pradesh (U.P). It is the ideological and geopolitical heartland of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ model of the political nation-state, and the suppression and relentless alienation of Dalits and Muslims is central to its machinations. U.P was the state with the highest recorded atrocities against Dalits according to NCRB data[Read More…]
On 1 June, 2020, Devika, a Dalit child of fourteen from Kerala committed suicide by burning herself alive for want of a functioning television set on which to continue her studies. And now she is a name, a picture, and a tragic spectacle, like so many that appear and vanish on the mobile phones, flatscreens, and laptops of the upper[Read More…]
Caste is an institutional ‘lockdown’ that has existed, developed, and fortified itself in an organic relationship with the material conditions of history. In his pioneering journal Mooknayak, Dr. Ambedkar used a potent metaphor to describe the caste system— a multistoried building with no staircase connecting the floors, in which people live and die in the same floor they were born[Read More…]
Stumbling Towards Old Age And Looking for Someone to Lean On 
Tolstoy’s Dilemma 
Ukraine Peace Activists Protest During Zelensky White House Visit 
“Our world is becoming unhinged”: Antonio Guterres 
How Chances of Direct War between the USA and Russia Are Increasing 
G20 Biofuel Alliance threatens Food security 
Thousands Of Auto Workers Strike In Three U.S. Plants, Face Financial Hardship 
Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission, NACC: Mainstream Media Lying 
In The Name of Decolonization 
Is This the End of French Neo-Colonialism in Africa? 
Tel Aviv’s Losing Brands: Israeli ‘Coup’ and the Death of False Democracy 
Tackling Global Emergencies – UN International Day of Peace 
The Futility of Feudalistic Democracy 
Bayer over-riding Bhartiya Krishi 
Pulwama Bombing 14th February 2019: Unanswered Questions 
Himalayan Apple Growers Worried Over Increasing Threat from Imports 
After protests in flood-hit Derna, Libyan officials order journalists to leave 
International Day of Peace: Fostering Harmony and Unity in a World of Diversity 
More Butterflies, Fewer Billionaires — Unrigging the Global Economy 
Veganic Farming: How My Tiny Plot Produced 5,000 Pounds of Food Without Using Manure 
Fighting the Diaspora: India’s Campaign Against Khalistan 
CAIR Files Lawsuit to End Islamophobic No Fly List 
N.D.Mahanor, The Poet Who Taught Us to See Culture in Agriculture 
Dark and light streaks in India-China relations 
Why the Central Government Should Rush Special Aid Package for Himachal Pradesh 
Special Session: Another Image-Boosting Move? 
Eddelu ( Wake up) Karnataka: The Great Citizen’s Wall Against BJP 
Urgency of Improving Dam Safety Re-Emphasized in Libya and Ukraine 
Climate Crisis Threatens Largest U.S. Cities 
Little Amal Entertains and Informs on Refugee Children’s Strife 
Google Trial Must Fuel the Global Movement Against Digital Capitalism 
Linking Aadhaar With NPR Records: Is it Based on Informed Consent? 
In the debates before 2024 Elections in India, Agenda for Justice, Peace, Democracy and Environment Most Needed 
US imperialist hypocrisy and the Libyan flood 
Some Remarks on Russia in Global Politics Today 
A climate of Insanity 
Brief for Murder: Pinochet’s Apologists Five Decades On ‘Epidemic’ or Revolution: The Other Side of the West Africa Upheaval 
White Nationalism and Donald Trump 
How Arab Leaders Betrayed Islam and Defied the Logic of Political Change, Peace and Security? 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
