When World Camel Day follows World Yoga Day
It is World Camel Day on June 22. It is sheer accident that World Yoga Day, June 21, is not also World Camel Day – in December 2014, the United…
Rosamma Thomas
How patients were ripped-off by private hospitals during the Covid pandemic
SATHI, a Pune-based NGO, has brought out a compendium of 23 testimonies from patients or their kin, documenting price gouging by private hospitals in Maharashtra. The report, ‘Patients’ voices during…
Dairy farmers in the US Northeast left high and dry by corporate group
Here is another instance of a large corporate group bringing small farmers to ruin: Danone North America, owner of Horizon Organic, the North American counterpart of the French food…
Rajasthan HC serves notice to officials over illegal mining in Barmer
On December 1, 2021, a bench of the Rajasthan High Court comprising Chief Justice Akil Qureshi and justice Sudesh Bansal ordered that notices be sent to the state government over…
Online class: The students who could not survive them
Adria Jagaranga was a student of Class 7. About 14 years old, the boy was a keen student. During the lockdown, he moved from Bhubaneswar, where he went to school,…
On Independence Day, camel herders assert their place in India
It was not an Independence Day event that got any coverage in the mainstream media – camel herders in Pali district brought their camels too and some of the camels…
Does Gandhi Ashram need a Corporate Makeover?
Lawyers, former diplomats, journalists, scholars and host of eminent Gandhians have written an open letter appealing that the Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati not be disturbed. The government has proposed to…
Stranded, still: Workers address online press conference
Mohammad Arif is a singer of bhajans, and usually in high demand at functions. With the lockdown, functions were cancelled and bhajan singers were no longer needed. “I’ve taken a…
The dubious record of the UN Champion of the Earth
On June 30 2021 Channel 4 broke the news of a senior Exxon Mobil lobbyist captured on camera explaining how US senators were roped into efforts to block climate change legislation.…
Grant 50 additional work days: NREGA Sangharsh Morcha
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act currently offers 100 days of work to all rural households. Given the crisis in the economy and the slowdown of economic activity…
Don’t destroy bird habitat for Fintech Park: Citizens to Rajasthan govt
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot announced in the last budget that a Fintech Park would come up in state capital Jaipur, attracting investment of about Rs3,000 crore. Over four lakh…
Government must stop this drama, says Asha worker Kamlesh
Asha worker Kamlesh from Haryana explained how, in a time of crisis, the government machinery can prove a hurdle – when people were reeling under the fear of the coronavirus…
Not PM Cares, NDRF: That’s the fund with transparency
The PM Cares (Prime Minister Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations) Fund, set up in March 2020 ostensibly to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, is being…
Swedish doctors recommend against vaccination of young, healthy
Over 85 per cent of those who died of Covid-19 had some other underlying health condition and were very old. The risk from the virus to the young and healthy…
Don’t accept charity from Coca Cola, take over plant: Ecologist Faizi writes to Kerala CM
The Coca Cola bottling unit in Plachimada, Palakkad, lying unused since 2004, will soon be converted into a Covid care centre. Ecologist Dr S Faizi, who served as an expert…
Nationalize health infrastructure and services, says Socialist Party of India
Members of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyaan have joined the Socialist Party of India and other civil society organizations in calling for the nationalization of all health infrastructure and all medical…
Villagers help leopard clamber out of well
The people of Navalewadi village in Pune district awoke to the panic-stricken roars of a leopard on Tuesday morning. A healthy two-year-old female leopard had been splashing around in a…
Babulal Gandhi: Over 90 years old and still a hardy farmer
When Yogesh Gandhi set up his medical store in Phaltan about 100 km from Pune in Satara district of Maharashtra, he invited his uncle, natural farmer Babulal Gandhi, to make…
Activist KV Biju thrashed for campaigning against BJP in Kerala
KV Biju, national coordinator of the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, one of groups under the umbrella of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha that has been leading the farmer protests on the borders…
Vivek Gour Broome’s food forest
Vivek Gour Broome looks the personification of that nursery rhyme, “Old McDonald had a farm…” His farm west of Pune, beyond Hinjewadi in the village of Marunji, is an island…
CEOs and Poisoning
In 2016, when CEO Ata Safdar of Reckitt Benckiser, a UK-based firm, offered an apology to all those who had been affected by a toxic product that his firm sold…
Afrin Kale: How an engineer found her calling in farming
Afrin Kale is a farmer with a degree in civil engineering. A resident of Pune city, her five-acre farm is in Pimpalgaon Ghode village of Ambegaon Tehsil of Pune district,…
Don’t be addict selling family silver: Goa Foundation on draft mining law amendment
A draft proposing amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, was released on February 9, 2021 on the website of the Ministry of Mines seeking public…
US farmers, food justice advocates throw their weight behind India’s protesting farmers
Food justice advocates and many US farmers on Wednesday issued a statement expressing solidarity with the farmers on protest at the borders of India’s national capital for over two and…
Pensioners’ protest: Why are pension payments blocked in Jharkhand?
Anthi Devi of Chungru Panchayat in Barwadih, Latehar district, Jharkhand, cannot control the tremors in her body. She is evidently suffering from symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but she too is…
Why Rs2 lakh is too little compensation for the dead in Uttarakhand
Soon after the disaster in Uttarakhand on February 7, 2020, when a deluge washed away two hydropower plants and left at least 100 dead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that…
How alert shopkeeper brought missing child back home
On February 3, 2021, Nitin Negi, who runs an electronics goods repair shop in Uttam Nagar, New Delhi, found a toddler outside his shop, no trace of his parents. The…
Everything false is not fake: What’s the difference?
As fake news becomes a propaganda tool, there is also great outrage about everything that is not true. I want to share a recent experience on a Whatsapp group meant…
David Weiller: Meditating on the world’s rainforests
On January 1, 2021 Frenchman David Weiller found a unique way to greet people a happy new year – on his YouTube channel, he posted a six-and-a-half minute video of…
Recalling Gandhi: Resisting without violence
Man over Machine: A Path towards Peace is the kind of book you might want to preserve and return to, every once in a while. Author Bharat Dogra has worked…
Amnesty International: Modi gets stinker from three UN Special Rapporteurs
UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of…
Protesters ask GE to pull plug on coal; firm set to provide turbine for Godda
The proposed 1,600 MW Godda Power Plant in Jharkhand, to be set up by the Adani Group with the aim of supplying power to Bangladesh, is to get its turbines…
ICICI Pru Life: Sponging off India’s poor?
Narayan Govind Sagar, a 74-year-old farmer in Sangli district of Maharashtra, holds a Below Poverty Line ration card. He has four acres of land, but ground is rocky and…
Democratic values, like Humpty Dumpty, could have a great fall: Former SC judge
“Democratic values, like Humpty Dumpty, could have a great fall. And no one will be able to put them together again,” said Justice Madan Lokur, retired judge of the Supreme…
Walking for peace: Pandemic halts Gandhi-inspired world march
On Gandhi Jayanti 2019, a group of 50 people, 35 of them Adivasis from different parts of India, set out on what they called a ‘World Peace March’ –…
Health experts warn PM Modi against rushing COVID-19 vaccine
A group of public health experts in India including Dr Narendra Gupta, based in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan and Dr Gopal Dabade in Karnataka have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider…
Women huddle over strategy to prevent sexual violence
Historian Uma Chakravarti said there was cause for hope, as more young women were getting together and organizing, and the state apparatus appears to be reacting in some panic when…
Swadeshi Andolan writes to Prez, PM; seek probe into FM’s role in Vodafone tax matter
In a recent blog post, former Union finance secretary SC Garg said he sought voluntary retirement from the IAS prematurely as he did not get along with Finance Minister Nirmala…
Insider struggles for document as outsiders can buy land in J&K
The new Jammu and Kashmir Development Act is being celebrated as a special achievement of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted, “OUSIDERS CAN NOW…
Tribute to Jayesh Solanki, face of Una protests
In the afternoon of October 28, poet, theatre artist and Dalit rights champion Jayesh Solanki died by suicide at his home in Bhuvaldi, about 50 km from Gujarat capital Ahmedabad.…
New Hampshire report raises concerns on evolving 5G technology
On November 1, the Commission to Study the Environment and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology in the US state of New Hampshire submitted its report to the governor of…
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