There are several widely held myths about human progress which have persisted widely for a long time and the wide persistence of these myths has itself become an obstacle in the path of progress. Perhaps the most common myth is of the inevitability of progress over a long period of time. It is taken for granted that if we compare[Read More…]
The 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose falls on on January 23, 2021. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a senior RSS cadre who identifies himself as Hindu Nationalist will be in Kolkata to inaugurate the celebrations given the nomenclature, ‘Parakram Diwas’ [Valour Day]. According to the RSS-BJP government January 23rd will continue to be commemorated as ‘Parakram Diwas’ in future[Read More…]
On January 25th we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic show trial of Chiang Ching,Wang Hognwen,Chang Chun Chiao and Yoa Wen Yuan or the’ gang of four ‘ in China. There could have been no better illustration of how after 1978 under Deng Xiaoping China turned into a Social fascist state .The verdict of the trial was the[Read More…]
A lot of problems have been caused by the fact that there has not been enough careful thinking on what constitutes human progress and it has been often just taken for granted that progress has been taking place over long periods of time, interrupted occasionally perhaps by some short-term disruptions. This leads to the curious anomaly of periods of aggravation[Read More…]
Truth as Interpretation There can be different versions of truth from what has been already accepted as truth. In 1951, renowned Japanese moviemaker Akira Kurosawa made one of the greatest movies in history, titled Rashomon. No other movie must have better investigated the philosophy of truth and justice than this movie. Rashomon establishes that it is possible for us to[Read More…]
One of the most inspiring aspects of the freedom movement in India was the combination of struggle and constructive work. While several great freedom fighters contributed to this idea, the most important contribution to this concept was made by Mahatma Gandhi. This has attracted worldwide attention and rightly so. Gandhiji understood very well that the freedom movement involves long-term commitment,[Read More…]
6th February 2021 marks the 16th anniversary of Comrade Saketh Rajan’s Martyrdom. The name Saketh Rajan needs no introduction in the revolutionary communist circles of India. It is important to remember Comrade Saketh Rajan and the path he took in order to liberate the people of this country from the clutches of Imperialism, Comprador Big Bourgeoisie and Big Landlords. Comrade[Read More…]
A futuristic vision was very much evident in India at different points of time starting with the Bhore committee report. At the international context, a futuristic orientation in health and wellbeing was discernible from an official and institutional framework related to proclamation of goals, firstly the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), followed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Around the same[Read More…]
My encounter with tribal cuisine has been rather fresh. Till very recently, not only was I unaware of the enviable variety of the tribal palate, its nutritional value and ecological ethos too were beyond my comprehension. It should be made clear in the offing that my tryst with tribal gastronomy is limited to my area of field study in Southwest[Read More…]
It was in 2007 that I first came across the name of Sunil Kumar while reading an undergraduate course on medieval India at Delhi University. His newly published book on The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286 (Permanent Black, 2007) had already become talk of the town by that time. In fact, he was among very few active scholars working[Read More…]
‘Follow your dreams and don’t be frightened of orthodoxy’ A woman who at eighty-eight brought out her autobiography based on the urgings of among others, Alice Walker, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Colour Purple , and Doris Lessing, the Nobel Laureate — only much later. Like Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, her biography is called The Brass Notebook. Does it talk anti-war or feminism or[Read More…]
This is one of a series of heaven-based stories, written as fantasy yet very relevant to our times. The first part of the series appeared in Countercurrents.org dated December 11, 2020 under the title ‘ Mahatma Gandhi Returns to Earth’. Gandhi had managed to get the clearance from heaven authorities for his one-day visit to Earth ,but after returning from[Read More…]
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders – Albert Camus What could be worse than death? The answer perhaps would be to know exactly when one is going to die. Locked up in a condemned cell, time crawls like a snail for someone who is on death row. Every waking hour of the day and night, the thought of[Read More…]
Dr. K.S.Chalam, Ex-In charge Chairman, U.P.S.C a Constitutional position (equivalent to Supreme Court Judge) during 2005-2011, is a well-known Political Economist, Educationist and a Scholar of Dravidian Studies. Prof K.S.Chalam is known throughout the country as the facilitator of Academic Staff College concept and was likewise recognised for his Studies on Higher Education, Political Economy of Development. At UPSC, he[Read More…]
The importance of a multi-disciplinary approach for understanding crucial issues is well-established both at academic and policy levels. Nevertheless we need to ask, despite the need for this being well-established, whether this is being neglected frequently in public discourse, and perhaps to a lesser extent, even at policy and academic levels? One reason for this unintentional neglect is that public[Read More…]
From time immemorial protests have been a very significant way to argue for one’s rights. In British India Mahatma Gandhi introduced the non-violent way of protesting publicly which is bhuk hartal or public gathering where people quietly protest by fasting and not drinking water. Shouting slogans is another way to show resistance and disagreement. Candle light vigil is also taken[Read More…]
In recent times India has been passing through the most difficult period of its post-independence history. The most sacred constitutional precept of social (including inter-faith) equality and harmony is badly threatened, while economic inequality and the grip of a few top billionaires on economy have been increasing like never before. Destruction of environment and bio-diversity are rampant, and the safeguards[Read More…]
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 monarch butterflies fluttering by the thousands and landing on a tree. All the ambient sounds were captured too – the birds, crickets. There was no music on the video, no[Read More…]
When President General Ayub Khan started allotting the lands of Golarchi tehsil in Sindh province to the retired employees of Punjab province as governmental gifts, he revolted against such a bigoted act of the then government. Shaheed Fazil Rahu’s deep affection and sympathy for Sindhi peasants against the invincible forces of their times have made him an immortal vision that[Read More…]
Religion is not rational, yet attempts are made all the time to prove it is. One example is the Templeton Study. The Templeton Foundation arranged for Christians to pray for 1800 heart patients and tracked the results. It conducted a double-blind study to see if patients who were prayed for, did better. In actual fact, the group, which knew that it[Read More…]
Following is a photo-essay on Dr. Kotnis about whom a detailed article by me was published on January9, 2021, and may be read as Part-2 or as a companion-piece. Great Chinese paintings depicting his life and work are published here for the readers of CC. They show how he is venerated by China to this day though he died in[Read More…]
An Overview of Systems of Government. H.L. Mencken said the typical American voter was a boob and the system was booboisie. In order to understand the submission “ Democracy is a Function of Capitalism” one has to delve deep into Social, economic, and political evolution of human race and subject it to critical analysis. Let us start with a few[Read More…]
Bhaskar Parichha, a senior journalist, explores the role of editors in swaying public opinion. In recent years the increasing influence of the media has changed the shape of Politics all over the globe. Consequently, it has raised provocative questions about journalism’s role in the political process. There are questions about media’s effect on the political system and the subsystems– the[Read More…]
As people entered the new year with hopes of peace, and relief from disease (covid-19), we recall an event of December 30, 1942. Given here is a copy of an elegy hung in a memorial meeting hall in China on that day. It was held to pay tributes to Dr. Kotnis who had died on 9th December 1942.The banner[Read More…]
In history there has been a long debate between violence and non-violence in the context of social movements. Some very great persons who brought very beneficial and durable change chose the path of non-violence and peace. Some very courageous and capable leaders and their followers, on the other hand, had no hesitation in using violent methods and they too achieved[Read More…]
Social movements have a very important role in society, a role that has to assume even more significance if our deeply troubled world has to find a way out of the survival crisis in which it is entangled very badly at the moment. Of course we are here talking of only sincere movements, and not of those movements which are[Read More…]
“If a larger country oppresses a smaller country, I’ll stand with the smaller country. If the smaller country has majoritarian religion that oppresses minority religions, I’ll stand with minority religions. If the minority religion has caste and one caste oppresses another caste, I’ll stand with the caste being oppressed. In the oppressed caste, if an employer oppresses his employee, I’ll[Read More…]
Religious revival and highly charged conflicts in a shrinking world make it difficult for people of competing faiths to live together. Fundamentalists of all creeds exhibit a striking commonality; an inability to think rationally. Menachem Begin bombed the King Edward Hotel in Jerusalem 1945, communal riots in Jabalpur, in India in 1961, religious riots in Beirut in 1983, Babri mosque[Read More…]
When my grandmother was in her late eighties, she was in a nursing home in which she had lived for around four years. When I was there to visit her, she asked me to kill her. She was serious in the request because her quality of life had significantly deteriorated and she knew that her state of being was going[Read More…]
In the 17th century AD, a wave of depression struck Europe. It seemed to affect especially men of genius-John Bunyan, Thomas Gray, John Donne, and Samuel Johnson in England, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Baudelaire in France, Leo Tolstoy in Russia, Max Weber in Germany and in America William James. One Dr George Cheyne lamented in 1733, “Frequency and wanton…self-murders…by this distemper” and[Read More…]
Spirituality has always been a very important part of human progress, but these days when we talk about spirituality we feel the need to prefix ‘sincere’, an indicator of how much hypocrisy has been practiced in the name of spirituality in recent times. Hence it is better to state at the outset that here we are discussing sincere spirituality only.[Read More…]
While there are so many factors which are important for true progress of humanity, some of these can be identified as the most crucial and essential. Firstly, there should be a widespread sincere belief in and commitment to equality and justice. There should be absolutely no room for any discrimination, any deprivation or any denial based on race, religion, color,[Read More…]
You always hear that ‘ Everyone has a little good in them’. Well, take Hitler. It is known that he really enjoyed little children and dogs. The truth is that they had to be German Shepherd dogs and the children couldn’t be Jewish. So much for that. The point is that yes, perhaps everyone does have a bit of good[Read More…]
Greetings to all on revolutionary Savitri Mai Phule Jayanti. Her life is a reminder to all of us to rededicate ourselves the cause of the people on the margin through radical changes particularly through education. That social taboos, gender prejudices are still prevalent even among those who are victims of the brahmanical hierarchical system. It is therefore essential for us[Read More…]
The British colonization didn’t only produce the feudal class but also provided them with immense political power in the subcontinent. In 1793, according to Permanent Resettlement Act the lands were declared as the personal property of feudal lords. The British authorities distributed lands among their obedient and loyal ones as gifts. In Sindh, whoever took their side rather than revolting[Read More…]
The disruption of education in Covid times has caused serious concern, and there are well-justified calls for urgent corrective action. Along with this, however, there is compelling reason to give much more thought to where exactly business-as-usual education systems are taking us and to what extent, if at all, these are capable of contributing to the creation of a better, [Read More…]
The spiritual sage Jiddu Krishnamurti who wished to transform mankind at the very root-Tribute on 125th birth anniversary year This year in May we celebrated the 125th birthday of Jiddu Krishnamurti who was arguably the greatest spiritual philosopher of the last few centuries. No spiritual philosopher arguably was less dogmatic, penetrated or delved more deeply in the spiritual realm..To some[Read More…]
Hail Immortal Comrade Lenin and the inextinguishable flame of Leninism on 150th birth centenary year On April 22nd we rejoiced the birth centenary of the figure who shaped the fate of history of man in the 20th century more than anyone,Vladmir Lenin. Lenin defined a new epoch in the history of mankind through discovering Imperialism, and pioneering the 1st ever[Read More…]
Tribute to legendary Comrades Baba Bhuja Singh on 50th martyrdom anniversary year and Nidhan Singh Gudhani Kalan on birth centenary year. Comrades who were crusaders for liberation against proto-fascsim and Sikh fundamentalism On July 28th earlier this year, the Communist revolutionary world dipped its blood in memory of one of it’s greatest martyrs,Baba Bhuja Singh on his 50th martyrdom anniversary.[Read More…]
The year 2020 will go down in modern history as the one ravaged from a pandemic, and riddled with deep political, racial, economic and social divisions. Most notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has humbled the entire world, from the richest and most advanced nations to the poorest and least developed, exposing our vulnerabilities like never before. We were tested in unimaginable[Read More…]
With the onset of the American empire’s decline, China is fast emerging as a global actor capable of steering the world towards a multipolar arrangement. The country has repeatedly affirmed its conviction in the creation of a polycentric system of sovereign states which work together, while each respects the national politico-economic order of the other – encapsulated in the motto[Read More…]
A landmark of one of the most remarkable activists of our land who at even at 100 illuminates spark of Liberation Comrade Sunder Navalkar turning 100 on September 16th this year. was truly a landmark in the Indian Communist revolutionary Movement. It was symbolic of a spirit burning like an inextinguishable light, traversing the most turbulent of Oceans or steepest[Read More…]
Here where I dwell in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has just occurred. The darkest day of the year in a dark year. A few days ago was also the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which is interesting to those who like the musical Hair and believe their fates lie in the[Read More…]
There are some human presences in life that you are unable to trace the beginning. It is like they have been with you always- like a tree whose silent, yet significant presence you notice with shock and remorse only when it is gone. For me, Sugathakumari teacher is one such presence in life. A small attempt I made to scan[Read More…]
Conglomeration of Portrait Paintings drawn by Mrs. Bageshri Parikh,- Row One-Rabindranath Tagore, Mona Lisa, Ramakrishna Paramhauns Row Two-Mother Teressa, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi,Indira Gandhi, Pandit Jasraj, Row Three-Sushma Sawaraj, Atal Biharai Bajpeyi, Sunil Gavaskar, Abdul K. Azad, Amitabh Bachan Introduction:-Above displayed Images are not Photographs but Portrait Paintings drawn in Rangoli! Rangoli & Kolams, an Art Forms which originated in[Read More…]
As a crusader of liberation of man and not a performer of miracles The real Jesus Christ and what is professed today by the Church or Christianity at large today is like Chalk and Cheese. Today we celebrate Christmas, but we forget to give the day true respect. The Christian community immortalizes Jesus Christ for performing miracles like turning wine[Read More…]
On Christmas Day 2019, at a Christmas Eve Mass, parishioners were offered a powerful, yet challenging message on how we as everyday Christians must understand and observe Christmas. The priest narrated how the image of the manger is not just that of a humble abode. It is an inclusive and ecumenical space because Jesus came for all the people[Read More…]
The genesis of the issue I was privy to the public outcry regarding the menace of stray dogs when I saw a flurry of newspaper articles published by a leading daily regarding how dog bites were becoming more frequent, especially during the lockdown and people were forced to live in terror. This event triggered a chain reaction from other dailies[Read More…]
Along with COVID 19 and its associated terminology, we are currently being educated in a new jargon regarding one of the oldest occupations, namely, teaching. We now are told of online learning, e-teaching, edtech, edutech, smartphones in the new role of teacher, and so on and so forth. India is a large country with a very young population, where almost[Read More…]
Education has always been considered as one of the most important weapons for improving the living standards of society and help the nation progress. Though it is seen as a great equalizer, inequality in education leads to the reinforcement of social and economic inequalities, thus, widening the gap and not progressing the society as a whole. As the Oxfam International report[Read More…]
My life is not in vain, my friend, when I sing for you. My song is not in vain, my friend, when you hum along with it. Writing on ecopoetry two decades back, the English writer and scholar Andrew Jonathan Bate said: What are poets for? They are not exactly philosophers, though they often try to explain the world[Read More…]
She works hard for her money, as the song relates. She’s the cleaning lady, the one who gets on her knees and scrubs your toilet of all the things that none of us would ever wish to look at, let alone touch. She mops and dusts and vacuums your house for $60 to $90 bucks, then hurries off to her[Read More…]
Goods and services have been globalized; maybe its time that human lives get globalized as well From fighting with wooden sticks to carrying guns in school, humans evolved. Centuries of technological advancement has made the world more connected and integrated than ever. As the age of IoT dawns upon us, humans can expect numerous unimaginable experiences moving forward. With the[Read More…]
Scientist Seetaramayya Kolachala, Father of Tribology (Chemmotology) (Born 1899 July 15 – Died 1977 September 29) India’s Ambassador Inder Gujral, later Prime minister, spoke at his funeral in Moscow 1977: “We are bidding goodbye to a great scientist, a great son of India and son of mankind.” Seetaramayya was a scientist who influenced the motor vehicles and machines[Read More…]
Education is the foremost tool that can be used to empower entire communities towards progress. Consider any issue that plagues a community, and education would be a key resolution mechanism. It is therefore of highest importance that right education is dispensed to all members of a community from an early age. This equips them with the necessary skills to take[Read More…]
My interview with the celebrated filmmaker centers on his recently released film “Rupsa Nodir Banke” (Quiet flows the River Rupsa). 2017 Ekushey Padak (the second highest civilian award given to a citizen of Bangladesh) winner Tanvir Mokammel needs no glowing introduction. He is a well-known filmmaker, director and published author of our time. He won Bangladesh National Film Awards a total ten[Read More…]
Two weeks before Christmas and the darn stove broke. She had the ham butt in the fridge and was really looking forward for her first big dinner in the new place. Having just, six months earlier, relocated to Florida from Flat Broke Mississippi, she wanted to at least spend the holiday somewhat contented. A nice, down home roasted ham with[Read More…]
What should be the priority of a development-focused country? Some would say to bring more FDI, some would argue to enable more businesses, and some would say to develop the rural infrastructure. But are we thinking from the grass-root level? India, being a developing country, is rapidly taking steps to reach to its next milestone of being a developed nation.[Read More…]
The pandemic and the extended lockdown in India has hit the poor disproportionately hard. They have a higher risk of infection, significant loss of income and livelihoods, and immense learning losses for their children as the schools were closed for 7+ months. During this period, government schools have been struggling with identifying new ways of working and trying to enable[Read More…]
I had hoped that I will exit this world without getting into the clutches of the medical profession. I also had a good reason to be hopeful. In my almost 57 years of life I had not spent a single day or night in a hospital as a patient. I often use to boast about it. Unlike my four siblings,[Read More…]
In India we have the biggest programs on nutrition and we have also have some of the highest rates of malnutrition. Despite the expanding nutrition programs (checked for the time being by Covid related factors ), malnutrition levels remain high, as revealed also in the latest surveys. This curious and sad phenomenon has been examined by several learned experts, but[Read More…]
Bleak was something he could easily relate to, especially now. He didn’t know which bothered him more, the bitter Detroit December cold, or his jobless situation. When he was going strong, along with the economy, being a massage therapist was great. He made really good bucks and the hours were fine. Working in the mornings and again at night gave[Read More…]
Raj Kapoor arguably is the most defining character in the history of Bollywood who took the Indian film industry to another spectrum. It was Raj who enabled the film world to reach the broad masses and identify with them. He donned the Charlie Chaplinesque form, classically transplanting or grafting it to Indian conditions. As a director and actor he revealed[Read More…]
We are all aware of the dire consequences of subjecting young kids to intense academic pressure from an early age. In India, we have coaching institutes like FIITJEE and Resonance offering programs for 6th standard kids to prepare them for “NTSE, IJSO, PRMO and other Olympiads”. The duration of these programs is around 175 hours – hours that could’ve been spent playing[Read More…]
The invisible hand As everyone knows, Adam Smith invented the theory that individual self-interest is, and ought to be, the main motivating force of human economic activity, and that this, in effect, serves the wider social interest. He put forward a detailed description of this concept in an immense book, “The Wealth of Nations” (1776). Adam Smith (1723-1790) had been[Read More…]
Education is a very powerful transformative force, provided we first transform education itself. India has always been a patriarchal, feudalistic society, and even now, it is. There are certain societal and cultural norms, so deeply rooted in our culture, that a shift in mindset for the better is extremely slow, and sometimes, even close to impossible. Even today, in the[Read More…]
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity” – Albert Einstein Coding is a short reference to the use of programming languages to provide lengthy sets of instructions for a computer to perform specific tasks. The continuous lines of text written behind the fancy looking websites and apps are what constitute as code for the application.[Read More…]
In less than a few weeks since the celebrated Argentine filmmaker Fernando Ezequiel Solanas—a legendary figure in Latin American cinema—died of coronavirus in Paris, another internationally admired filmmaker, Kim Ki-Duk, fell prey to the rage of the pandemic in Latvia. The South Korean ‘new wave’ fame Kim was reported to have arrived in the Baltic state a few weeks ago[Read More…]
Wish to thank you all for your condolence messages on the passing away of our maai : Mrs Ramrati Devi whose inspiring journey to protect her land is inspiring. It has been an honor to work with her and share some of the most interesting moments with her. She was my mother though not biological. My biological mother passed away[Read More…]
ORIENTATION When I first considered myself a socialist revolutionary in 1970, I was hounded by free marketers’ challenge: “name me one country where socialism works”. These market fundamentalists would then hold up the most strident expectations for socialism: Everyone is exactly equal with no classes. There is an abundance of goods which are conveniently circulated. Political rule is not dictatorial.[Read More…]
This year the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) day is different in a way that never before the UHC message was so loud and clear. From first case of coronavirus eleven months ago to nearly 70 million cases worldwide, the pandemic has made us realize how essential is health security for each one of us – and – unless we ensure[Read More…]
“Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” –Robert Frost It is always interesting to come across someone who has taken the path less travelled by, in my case this interesting experience comes from one of the founders of the Annapurna[Read More…]
We live in disconcerting times. The wealth of USA’s 643 billionaires has soared by 29% since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. On 13 August, 2020, the top twelve US billionaires had surpassed a combined wealth of $1 trillion. This year, the world’s 500 richest people have grown their fortunes by $871 billion, a 15% increase. All this while, the[Read More…]
A slow learner is one who is neither an average child nor mentally retarded, and they are somewhere in between the two. There are several terms used to address slow learners- dull normal, borderline, below-average, sub-average or partially mentally-subnormal. Often it is misunderstood that these children are ‘mentally weak’ or ‘dumb’. But, in reality, only the learning rate of these[Read More…]
Introduction–While this story is written more as a fantasy on what happens when Mahatma Gandhi decides to come back to earth, it is at the same time related to serious contemporary problems and issues. Among the many distinguished residents of heaven, Mahatma Gandhi was regarded as among the most peaceful and patient ones. Yet even he had of late shown[Read More…]
(Optimistically dedicated to Steven Pinker) In a world suffering from a global pandemic, it would be both easy and understandable to be morosely pessimistic. Yet, even here, midst frantic calls of doom, there are some good reasons for optimism. After a mere 10 months, the world has been able to produce at least three vaccines capable of effectively combating Covid-19.[Read More…]
A Poet and Editor Who Was the Voice of the Marginalized Poet and editor Manglesh Dabral passed away at the age of 72 at AIIMS Delhi due to Covid related complications. In Hindi literature Manglesh Dabral is widely known as a poet of great sensitivity who gave voice to the main marginalized sections of society. He is also known for[Read More…]
“Education should be so revolutionized as to answer the wants of the poorest villager, instead of answering those of an imperial exploiter.” Mahatma Gandhi With Article 21A being introduced in the Constitution, elementary education became a fundamental right to all the children from the age of six to fourteen years. With the Right to Education Act 2009, it became the[Read More…]
Spanning some 60 years of employment, this writer has some conclusions. Of course, these are from my own personal experiences. Yet, having spoken with a myriad of working stiffs over the years, perhaps this analysis is valid. During those 60 years of work, I think only twice , for a mere two weeks and then 5 months, did I work[Read More…]
On 6th December, 1956 a great son of India Dr. B.R. Ambedkar breathed his last breath leaving behind billions of his followers in tears. His followers pay tributes to this visionary social scientist by Celebrating 6th December as Mahaparinirvan Day. In contemporary world, the thoughts and vision of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar are still alive in the minds and hearts of[Read More…]
Something remarkable even by the usually dismal standards of the stenographic media blue-tick brigade has been happening in the past few days. Leading journalists in the corporate media have suddenly felt the urgent need not only to criticise the late, much-respected foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, but to pile in against him, using the most outrageous smears imaginable. He is suddenly[Read More…]
The pestilence of COVID-19 has not only revealed the failures of capitalism but also exuberated over all institutions of capitalism. The culture of crisis and conflicts are organic to capitalism. Capitalist systems are antithetical to the idea of peace, prosperity and stability. The Coronavirus infused lockdown is a time to reflect on emanating crisis and conflicts across the world. Some[Read More…]
“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 Court who currently serves on the Supreme Court of Fiji. Justice Lokur, who served in the SC from 2012-18, is the first Indian SC judge to serve another nation’s SC.[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sandeep Pandey, Venkatesh Narayanan and Kushagra Kumar Dr. Lubna Sarwath is a fighter. In a survey conducted by the leading South Indian daily Deccan Chronicle the residents of Hyderabad have highlighted conservation of environment as a priority issue on which they would like their Mayor to focus on and Lubna has dedicated her life to the cause of[Read More…]
He was born and raised in a little town just outside of Licata, Sicily. By the time he was 18, the young man was accepted into university in Tunisia, a far more scholastically advanced place than the Sicily of the early 1900s. Upon graduating, he decided to do what many young Italians chose to do, and he emigrated to the[Read More…]
Tribute to one of the greatest thinkers and characters in shaping the last millennium Today the world celebrates the bicentenary or two hundredth birthday of Freidrich Engels, one of the most outstanding figures or thinkers of the millenium.Without doubt but for Engels Marxism would not have come of being or taken shape..Had it not been for Engels support Marx would[Read More…]
Maradona, Number 10, is our love. People stand with Maradona. People are in solidarity with Maradona. People mourn. Our Maradona stands with the oppressed, the exploited. Maradona was with that spirit called Rebellion. Rebellion is the spirit of the oppressed, of the exploited. Rebellion is the spirit against the oppressors, the exploiters, the imperialists, the empire. It’s the human spirit.[Read More…]
The senior official rose from his seat to welcome the visiting consultant from New York. This consultant had just submitted a report on stepping up GNP growth. After exchanging a few pleasantries the official came to the point . –We sent the consultancy fee cheque of 30000 dollars promptly. Did you receive this ? –Yes, Yes, no problem about that,[Read More…]
When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece — John Ruskin We’ve all heard of endangered species and forests —now imagine crafts are at risk of going extinct. A rising number of indigenous crafts are now in danger of becoming endangered on account of their time-consuming nature and fewer craftspeople possessing these specialized skills. Times are changing and not[Read More…]
A portrait size painting of Diego Maradona was on display at certain ruins in war torn Syria where people were mourning the death of the legend. In the entire Latin American world, people are pouring their respect to Maradona who died in Buenos Aires, the Argentine Capital where his dead body is kept at the presidential palace as people continue[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Swati Sapna & Upasna Gaba The World Health Organization (WHO) defines generic medicine as “a pharmaceutical product, usually intended to be interchangeable with an innovator product that is manufactured without a license from the innovator company and marketed after the expiry date of the patent or other exclusive rights.”(1) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that[Read More…]
ORIENTATION Why do political science and neoclassical economics go in one ear and out the other? A human being who has a fully integrated social body understands that economics is about a social system of circulation of goods and services. In other words, provisioning for the population. Politics is the collective process of evaluating and deciding a) where have we[Read More…]
I have never tried to write something solely based on my own feelings till now. Neither did I ever felt like writing one; nor am I a public figure with huge number of followers. But, last evening when I heard of the demise of Mr. Tarun Gogoi I[Read More…]
Co-Written by Disha Malik, Shubhangi Kandwal & Upasna Gaba In December 2019, several cases of pneumonia were reported with unknown aetiology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Since then the disease has spread in other parts of China and the world causing a global pandemic. (Hagert & Williams,2020). The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 led to an obligation to quarantine and increased[Read More…]
Co-Written by Tehzeeb Anis & Mohammad Akram Mental health is one of the most important aspect in the life of an individual. It includes cognitive, behavioural and emotional well-being. Mental health is all about how an individual think, feel and behave. The World Health Organization (WHO) had also focus on the importance of mental health and given a comprehensive definition.[Read More…]
In his 1845 book “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, Friedrich Engels wrote: “When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a[Read More…]
The lifelong struggle of ‘CreA’ Ramakrishnan, who passed away in Chennai mid-November, to create an authentic Tamil dictionary was a truly remarkable one. And just before he tragically died due to complications related to Covid-19, he did manage to do bring out the revised third edition of his landmark Tamil dictionary, working on it even while undergoing treatment. Ramakrishnan founded[Read More…]
Why does not the nation move? First educate the nation. Even for social reforms, the first duty is to educate the people. – Swami Vivekananda Education helps develop the human personality and sense of dignity while acting as a tool for effective participation in society by enabling the understanding of the key facets of its being. Education has an intrinsic[Read More…]
Aysha Baqir, an expat in Singapore, grew up in Pakistan. Her time in college sparked a passion for economic development. In 1998 she founded a pioneering not for profit economic development organization, Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, with a mission to alleviate poverty by providing business and marketing training to girls and women in low-income communities. Her novel Beyond the Fields was published in[Read More…]
India has always been a favorite destination for tourists. This country, with its ancient civilization, culture and heritage, is a paradise of diversity. This country is diverse in all aspects, such as ethnicity, religion, language, culture, climate, and lifestyles. All the fragments of human civilization are hidden within the shell of India. In Rajasthan I have been fortunate to visit[Read More…]
Nagpur has been a traditional and fertile hub for voluntary organizations, reformist individuals and social workers. It has been home to a number of dedicated activists whose social chromosomes have inspired them to undertake humanitarian work for their fellow brethren of society at large. The result is a confluence of so many rivulets of social activism which have merged into[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr Swati Sapna & Upasna Gaba The concept of watching television has transitioned significantly since the last decade. Traditional television scheduling made viewers stick to the timings of television programming, subjected them to commercials, and made them wait for their favourite shows or films for days or weeks (1). In this digital era, the methods and speed of[Read More…]
Very often it is our disabling attitudes that make life difficult for people with disabilities, rather than their own physical impairments. More than the disability itself, it is its psychological effects that take a bigger toll on the person, says wheelchair bound Tanzila Khan, a disability rights activist who founded GirlyThings.pk. Tanzila shared her anguish in lead up to the[Read More…]
*Sushanti Marandi was born blind in a remote village of Dumka ( Jharkhand). To make things even more difficult, her father died when she was still a small child. Now her mother had to go on daily wage work to meet subsistence needs and the blind child grew up alone in a small lonesome house in the most difficult situation[Read More…]
On the 131st birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru people paid him rich tribute but a number of notorious IT cell members of the Rumour spreading society did their dirty work which they have been engaged in through their character assassination of Nehru. Obviously, the attempt to degrade Nehru has not succeeded and he has become[Read More…]
How can one let go of a person who has lived just five and a half decades? The only reason why Sheena’s family-her mother Gracy, her sister Neena, her niece Bhoomi and nephew Kannan, her brothers , her partner Santosh along with scores of friends across Kerala did so was the intensity and cruelty of the terminal illness that devoured[Read More…]
Experiencing Cancer is one of the most disturbing and distressing feelings that leaves a significant impact on the human psyche with threats to psychological, physical and psychological aspects of human life. Many people across the world are fighting the deadly disease, which is affecting the people irrespective of their age, sex, or ethnicity. According to the National Institute of Cancer[Read More…]
Greek philosopher Plato had once said that the upbringing of a child should start before his birth. Although he primarily focused on prenatal gymnastics, a specific component of it pointed towards parenting education. Children feel comfortable when parents exhibit confidence, which gives them a feeling of being in safe hands. Anxiety and insecurity brings discomfort in the relationship, which[Read More…]
“Difficulties in your life do not come to destroy you but to help you release the hidden potential and power”. This quote by the late Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist and the 11th President of India, is the dictum for nurse Divya Sojan, who during the 11 years of her nursing career, has battled with tuberculosis (TB) thrice. Here[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Swati Sapna & Upasna Gaba Organ donation is when a person allows an organ of theirs to be removed, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive or after the death of the donor with the approval of the near relative (Tamuli et al., 2019). Transplantations are the next that follow organ donations that include kidney, heart,[Read More…]
Education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to make fruitful changes in our society. India is a democratic country bearing enriched legitimacy in educational traditions. The people of this country have always been blessed with the educational ideals and thoughts of its great sons like Chanakya, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Maulana[Read More…]
Co-Written by Hasina Khan and Rishika Jain The atrocities faced by the Muslim community adversely affects their mental well-being “It doesn’t matter if we have a stable job or not, if we’re economically independent; the fear of getting arrested purely due to our religion never stops.” Khadijha from Mushidabad “My past experiences with a mental health practitioner were unproductive and[Read More…]
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. During the Asmita Yatra after the flogging of the four youth at Una in 2016, Jayesh had emerged as a charismatic leader of Dalits on protest in Gujarat, vowing to[Read More…]
Finance is one field where we have witnessed significant innovations in recent decades, and this has transformed our society in many ways. Earlier, we could hardly visualise social change in rural India as it was mired in caste conflicts and was impervious to the winds of change. Before the 1980s, outsiders rarely visited villages. Those who did were the occasional[Read More…]
Can the world be changed in any fundamental way or not? Will the methods one uses to change it end up doing more harm than good? Should one mind one’s own business or make the problems of the world one’s own too? These were some of the questions at the core of a debate I had over four decades ago[Read More…]
In the vastness and unending dimensions of the gigantic universe, consisting of zillions of galaxies interspersed with myriad number of interstitial bodies like stars, asteroids, and some devastating blackholes accompanied by abyssal silence, we are bestowed with a unique planet called Earth and more precisely “the Mother Earth” comparatively minuscule in size and remotely positioned. What is more intriguing and[Read More…]
After certain number of years of academic jargoning, learning and unlearning existing pedagogies, meandering through honky-dory lanes of rigorous materials prescribed in concerned “syllabi”, gnawing about a future of being in “academics”, I try to make sense of the exact amount of satisfaction I have felt till this point of my life’s journey. Entering “academia” was more of a part[Read More…]
What is character? Character indicates totality of feature of an individual’s personality, courage, commitment and outlooks from righteousness to humility. The material or physical representations or moral frameworks are not character. Class, gender, race, sexual orientations, religious practice and moral values do not represent character. Character is a commitment to one’s own self, to one’s own family, friends, society, state[Read More…]
Without doubt Jan Myrdal was one of the great revolutionary intellectuals of our time and his writings and works will make a permanent stamp on the democratic and Communist movement worldwide. Myrdal was a master at interacting and relating with the common people, thus giving a very accurate reflection. His style of writing was lucid Above all it could make[Read More…]
“Don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, always respect girls, be nice to everyone, treat others with respect, behave with others as if they are your brothers and sisters!” These were the things which our parents and teachers told us, when we first started going to school. Now we tell these things to our younger siblings, to treat everyone with good behavior. But[Read More…]
One in four cancer patient is a tobacco consumer in India. And if you honestly say that you have not seen any smoker suffer from cancer, as is likely, you may still be right because you have seen the other three. You may even agree with Mr. Shyam Charan Gupta, a beedi baron, one of the BJP MPs, and the[Read More…]
Image via Wikipedia (Rome) Decades ago I, a young reporter, interviewed the legendary Ahmed Ben Bella (1916-2012), the man who ignited the Algerian War of Liberation against French colonial rule in 1954 and was chairman and animator of the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale). In the interview Ben Bella repeatedly described himself as a revolutionary, not a theoretician, a man[Read More…]
A ghost goes through Europe: The ghost of communism This year it is 200 years since Friedrich Engels was born in the German town of Wuppertal in the Rhine district. I have visited the Wuppertal on that occasion and here are a few political reflections. Engels is one of the most significant personalities of the 19th Century, who has influenced[Read More…]
He’s regarded as ‘The Father of the Nation’ and the man who brought down the mightiest global empire without firing a single bullet, yet Gandhi’s ideals and vision go beyond India’s borders and the last century to offer us inspiration and hope. Keith Lyons applauds the Mahatma from New Zealand. I’ve seen Gandhi everywhere. Not just on my recent trips to India,[Read More…]
36 years after the anti-Sikh pogroms, murders– immediate and subsequent– remain unsolved, unacknowledged, unreported. This November marks 36 years since the anti-Sikh pogroms in India. Hearing the voices of survivors debunks the propaganda that this violence was spontaneous; or that it was instigated, condoned, and beneficial to only one political party; or that the violence was contained swiftly—survivor stories exemplify[Read More…]
Comrade Haider Anwar Khan Juno’s life is full of struggles. Now, he lives in his work and memories of his comrades and friends. Haider Anwar Khan Juno (b. December 29, 1944) breathed to his last on October 29, 2020 in a Dhaka hospital. He was 76. Comrade Juno was suffering from pneumonia and following complications. He left behind wife, daughter,[Read More…]
Jordanian ruler Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein gloated in 1924 when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the visionary who carved modern Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, abolished the Caliphate. “The Turks have committed suicide. They had in the Caliphate one of the greatest political forces, and have thrown it away… I feel like sending a telegram thanking Mustapha Kemal.[Read More…]
I kept watching the funerals of people killed by the brutal coronavirus in the global pandemic of Covid-19 on TV channels and read about them in newspapers. Those dead bodies who are described as Hindu are being quickly burnt without anybody around. The usual presence of the Brahmin priest to recite slokas are nowhere to be seen. Only the rich[Read More…]
“It has often been said that the only thing that could unite mankind was a threat from space.” I read this in Arthur C Clarke’s novel, 2061, Odyssey Three. The threat in Clarke’s science fiction was a second star — which mankind renamed Lucifer but was actually Jupiter set ablaze by superior space engineering by an intelligent species far more[Read More…]
ORIENTATION In my last article I showed how the word “totalitarian” was used as a loaded vice word to attack the Soviet Union after World War II and to red-bait communists around the world. The use of the word totalitarian began in the 1930s, but even before then in the 1920’s, the word “dictator” began to surface in order to[Read More…]
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are[Read More…]
Suresh (Name changed) from West Bengal working as cleaner in a Hotel in Srinagar told me an ordeal of his life. “Cleaning is my job as I have opted for it and neither I regret doing it nor I feel disenchanted, but what hurts me when these so called elite knuckleheads (referring to room occupants) humiliate me on one pretext[Read More…]
The principles and ideological commitments in politics, culture, religion and social practices breed culture of puritanism both in its progressive and regressive forms. The transformation of society to lead an exemplary life is the core in the politics of puritanism as a movement of divinity. Both right wing reactionaries and left-wing radicals use puritanism like applied theology to the concerns[Read More…]
Co-Written by Parul Malik, Arathi P Rao, Urvashi Priyadarshini & Sudhamshi Beeram The WHO Health Promotion Glossary describes health literacy (HL) as the empowerment of the individuals to gain and apply health related knowledge effectively. It involves more than just ‘acquiring’ information about diseases and health conditions. It is influenced by socioeconomic, environmental, and demographic factors, as well as by[Read More…]
Last night before dinner as I was deep-frying a batch of my favorite jalebi for dessert, Saroo Brierley’s face came to mind. Afterwards I found the 2016 movie Lion from my CD collection and watched it in bits and pieces. It tells a riveting story of how a hopelessly lost 5-year-old Saroo ends up from the slums of Khandwa, a[Read More…]
Today the International Communist Movement faces a major task of averting the crisis within the International Communist Movement of re-organizing the Communist International. It is plagued by many trends like Trotskyism, Post-modernism, Revisionism, ‘Avakianisim’ as well as ‘Gonzalo thought.’ In 1984, without subjecting factors prevailing, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was formed. Without any sufficient development of Communist parties or Movement[Read More…]
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the root of the verb protest is “to make a solemn declaration” or as a noun it refers to a pledge. Throughout The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Mohandas Gandhi notes the oaths he carried with him at various lengths. In Part One: Chapter VIII, he resolves to never steal again after he began[Read More…]
Written by Betty Biju Varghese & Tanya Sadiza Do you often sit and marvel at videos of professional chefs making beautiful, mouth-watering dishes? Do you get this instant motivation to get up from that sofa and make a dish from scratch? Have you started cooking or mastering your culinary techniques during this pandemic? If you answered “yes” to any of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Parul Malik, Prabhu Dutta Shaw and Dr. Arathi P Rao Sanitizing agents or biocides play an essential role in cleaning and disinfecting and are widely used for environmental and personal disinfection in both- the healthcare and the non-healthcare settings. They are also extensively used to disinfect the areas associated with food production and livestock, such as equipment,[Read More…]
Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye je Peed paraayi jaane re Par-dukhkhe upkaar kare toye Man abhimaan na aane re (Vaishnava) One who is a Vaishnav (Devotee of Vishnu) Knows the pain of others Does good to others without letting pride enter his mind. — Vaishnava-janatho-(With-English-Translation) It is a 600 years old devotional poem by Gujrati poet-saint Narsinh Mehta and we know[Read More…]
Raja Ram Mohan Roy (22 May 1772- 27 Sept., 1833), known as the “Maker of Modern India” and “Father of the Bengal Renaissance”, advocated the study of English, Science, Western Medicine and Technology. For this objective he established the Hindu College in Kolkata in 1817. His progressive views were bitterly opposed by the orthodox Hindus. However, after some years his[Read More…]
In our student days a large part of the year was consumed by three long spells of holidays. The year started after the Christmas vacations which were long, but not as long as the summer vacations in May-June. The Puja vacations were the shortest but in many ways the most exciting. Durga or Kali Puja in the small towns of[Read More…]
Time impacts everyone but there are very few who influence time and change the course of history. In the galaxy of 19th century Muslim Reformers, Sir Syed Ahmad khan holds a distinguished place. He was the man of great faculty and vision. Sir Syed was the owner of a multi-sided personality. He was a dignified intellectual, an eminent philosopher, a great[Read More…]
Our republic is being crucified by minions of evil portraying themselves as patriots. Yes, to all those like this writer who see through this Military Industrial Empire, regardless of which party runs it: The nails have been driven deeper than ever before! The far right push that began this Proto Fascist surge was baptized during the 1970s, culminated by[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Arathi P Rao, Dr. Sudhamshi Beeram, Dr. Parul Malik and Dr. Urvashi Priyadarshini The fight against the threats of COVID -19 pandemic has profoundly impacted almost all sectors of mankind. The field of education is a deeply affected strata, with closures of educational institutions and emergency distance-learning plans turning the teachers’ routines and student interactions totally upside down.[Read More…]
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (17 October 1817- 27 March 1898) holds significant importance in Indian history- as an educationist, historiographer, journalist, social reformer, and the founder of Mohammadan Anglo Oriental (MAO) College, which became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. But this does not end here. He was, in real sense a catalyst for reconstruction of his community, an advocate of[Read More…]
Radhika a chirpy teenager, enters puberty. As she was dealing with the physical changes she was hit by a tsunami of blood in her pants; life was never the same thereafter. There was a one-hour lecture on the do’s and don’ts and the rules and rituals to be followed, half of which were totally meaningless and could not be justified,[Read More…]
October 15, 2020, was Thomas Sankara’s 33rd death anniversary. On this day, he was murdered by imperialist forces at the tender age of 37. A Pan-Africanist, internationalist and Marxist, he was committed to the total liberation of the oppressed masses from the clutches of imperialism. Instead of bourgeoisie nationalism, Sankara believed in radical nationalism: a combination of anti-imperialist courage and unabashed[Read More…]
Teresa Rehman is a journalist with a difference. She is woman who feels and conquers with her pen. She does not hanker for anything more than being the spokesperson for voices in the remote areas of North-eastern India. In that spirit, she started her own magazine: The Thumb Print, and also wrote a couple of books which have found their way[Read More…]
“Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world, which operates on the basis of necessity. The laws of necessity are as unexceptional as the laws of gravitation. The human faculty of compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural. To forget oneself, however briefly, to identify with a stranger[Read More…]
October 15 is marked as Global handwashing day. Development agencies like UNICEF and WHO have been advocating it for many years now, and they starter marking this day, but were unable to reach masses, but with this Corona Virus, which taught all of us importance of handwashing and use of sanitizer. Use of sanitizer is new practice which people have[Read More…]
It is only down to the doggedness of the campaign to commemorate The Peterloo Massacre that this shorthand for violent state suppression has become so widely recognised. I’ve lived most of my life in Manchester and yet was in my late teens before I ever heard the term and can say from experience that I’m far from being the only[Read More…]
Diego Armando Maradona turns 60 on October 30. “God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn’t even need to exist.” – Charles Baudelaire. It is with these words that the renowned filmmaker Emir Kusturica’s ninety-minute documentary on the one and only Maradona begins. Kusturica’s film, structured like a ‘musical’, does more than what a hundred newspaper[Read More…]
Knowledge society, information society and industrial society are all interlinked concepts with a particular ideology which places undue faith on science, technology and development. The origin of the terms especially knowledge society is attributed to various scholars culminating in the description of ‘post-industrial societies’ which depend on material production as a key to growth and human welfare. These conceptual developments[Read More…]
The Friday Sermon On Friday, October 2, 2020, the Muslim Jumma (Friday Congregation) prayer day, French President Emmanuel Macron said this in a speech in the Western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country”. He further added that Islam[Read More…]
The Indian Prime Minister recently paid tribute to a Sikh martyr who laid down his life in defence of his faith. On the 300th birth anniversary of Bhai Taru Singh, Narendra Modi took to twitter to recall the sacrifice he made in 1745. Singh was arrested and tortured at the behest of a tyrant Mughal governor, Zakaria Khan. He was[Read More…]
‘You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on.’” Helen Keller, An Open Letter to German Students ‘Fahrenheit 451’ It was the name of a movie which had appeared in mid-sixties. ( 1966) The only English movie directed by[Read More…]
People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) salutes the life and activism of Professor S. Seshaiah who succumbed to Covid 19 on October 10, 2020 at Anantapur, Telangana. Professor Seshaiah began his active participation in politics from his student days in the 1970s and he was the State Joint Secretary of the Radical Students Union of Prakasam district of the then[Read More…]
Amidst the names of politicians crowded the columns of power corridors in history but in contemporary political and cultural firmaments of India, nobody can match Sheikh Matlub Ali of Odisha. He was born on 16th of December 1942 in a village called Dharoshyam Sundarpur, Sukleswar (Mahanga) in Cuttack district and studied in the famous Ravenshaw College, Odisha. His life was a[Read More…]
T Peter, General Secretary of the National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), passed away on 8 October 2020 from COVID-19 related complications in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He was 62 years old. Peter fought for more than three decades, as a full time activist and union organizer, to empower India’s fishing communities. He played a critical role in advancing their struggles from the margins[Read More…]
Ramvilas Paswan, a senior minister in the Modi cabinet passed away due to a heart illness on Thursday. Members across the political spectrum bid a farewell to this leader who hails from Bihar. However, what was striking to me as a journalist was the manner in which various media outlets ran the story of Paswan’s passing away. Not to my[Read More…]
On 9 October, 1967, Che Guevara – one of the greatest revolutionaries ever known – was murdered in Bolivia under the orders of Washington. This death was foreseeable. In 1966, Che Guevara had left Cuba to wage an anti-imperialist struggle in the South American nation of Bolivia. The plan was to establish a mother column led by Che in Bolivia,[Read More…]
Years ago there used to be a pleasant face on Doordarshan by the name of Appan Menon. He very ably and effectively anchored a popular programme called The World This Week. It was a visual diary that kept track of events and individuals at home and abroad. Menon did not have the flamboyance of his colleague, Pranoy Roy, but his[Read More…]
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s sudden demise last night has definitely created a big vacuum particularly if we speak Bihar politics. Paswan was a very seasoned leader, a powerful orator and a leader with the masses who broke many records while entering in Parliament. His record win from Hazipur and other constituencies in Bihar showed his grip over the masses.[Read More…]
The India Tourism byline is – Incredible India. I agree. I encountered it. Here is what happened. In 2015, two dear friends of mine and I decided to go to Corbett National Park & Tiger Reserve – being one of my favorite places on earth. I am a lifelong wildlife enthusiast and photographer and ensure that I spend at least[Read More…]
During this pandemic period, virtuality has taken over many facets of our life and especially education although it could be a temporary phase. But the academic world may be realizing the immense potential as well as drawbacks of the virtual medium in the ‘give and take’ process of education. It is a near certainty that the hardest hit is pre-primary[Read More…]
(Context – UNFINISHED CASE STUDY- SUSHANT SINGH RAJPUT’S ‘HALLUCINATIONS & KAFKA’S SPELL) FRANZ KAFKA, METAMORPHOSIS, CRONUS (GOYA) MYTH, SIGMUND FREUD, SUSHANT SINGH Sushant Rajput’s demise at his Bandra House on 14th June 2020 has stirred up Indian TV Media, Facebook, Twitter Accounts, Social Media and has generated upheaval of sympathy, barrage of hatred against his Fiancée Rhea Chakravarti and[Read More…]
Covid 19 has taken another toll and this time a very important Ambedkarite activist in Telangana. It is extremely shocking to hear the sudden demise of dear friend Charles Wesley Meesa yesterday due to Covid 19. One of the very few Ambedkarite who could speak for hours on Economic policies and land reforms, Chalrse was based in Hyderabad and was[Read More…]
According to WHO, “Universal Health Care (UHC) means that all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. It includes the full spectrum of essential, quality health services, from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. UHC does not mean free coverage for all possible health interventions, regardless of the cost, as no[Read More…]
Would you mind rolling your eyeballs on people starving, dying in extreme conditions, in need of the things you can so easily afford to give them? I know, you won’t bother to do so, because you are born like that. Nothing shakes you, makes you think otherwise. You and your like ones are all that matter on this good planet.[Read More…]
This is an article on Andhra’s Great Reformers and Writers, who were remembered recently on their birth anniversaries, Part-1 focusing on Chilakamarti. Lakshmi Narasimham,Chilakamarti (26 September 1867- 17 June 1946) was a great writer and social reformer who defied and lampooned brahminical orthodoxy in his writings, set up in 1909 a school for dalits, hosted them, his wife cooked and[Read More…]
People wear masks and use handwash to keep the virus away as a result of fear of infection. One may also find this new behaviour as a formality among many persons and as a result of legalities. And this is happening in a society which is least concerned about sanitary practices. In this new sanitary culture, the prominent internalised attitude[Read More…]
By Dr Chandrima Chatterjee and Dr Parul Malik The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had wide ranging consequences for everyone in the world. Not only has the health infrastructure come under close scrutiny and COVID has claimed the lives of many people, but the effect has stretched into the lives of people, who were not even infected by this virus.[Read More…]
As we celebrate another birth anniversary of the father of the nation, it is worth recognising that the thinkers, writers, and activists are valuable for a society. Gandhi represented all of these, leaving a mark on the humanity that even his enemies find hard to deny. Some argue that it was the matter of time and Independence would have come[Read More…]
Human civilisation has always believed that there is something primal about the need for privacy, for secrecy, for personal space. This has, in the world of some judicial authorities, taken to mean “the right to be let alone”— that is, the right to privacy. They believe “privacy is the beginning of all freedom”. Every one of us seems to ensure[Read More…]
The world celebrated International Day of Older Persons on 1st of October. Sri Lanka also celebrates its Children’s Day on the same day. What a beautiful coincidence, even though perhaps purely by chance (and not by design). Indeed, this celebration of the young and old age alike is a symbolic representation of the lifecycle approach and intergenerational engagement that is[Read More…]
Scene One: Seated on the cool, polished steps leading to the main entrance of Kairali Theatre in Trivandrum, a small man with a melodious voice was singing with his eyes closed – to the visible appreciation of a group of young men and women come from different parts of Kerala for the ongoing international film festival. The singer was dressed[Read More…]
“No one should be alone in their old age,” Santiago, the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea reflects in despair. Fisherman Santiago’s sorrows speak volumes about how loneliness is terrible, yet Hemingway sends the message that there are umpteen ways of coping with the sorrows of loneliness. The lesson in the novel is that no one[Read More…]
In previous article (Crisis Management Part (II)), (Read Part I) I have started discussing the concept “Interest Free Loan” which will be an important alternative Banking Principle to be discussed and implemented in a country whose GDP is -23.9% due to lockdown and the downfall of its economy was in discussion from couple of years. Interest Free Loan is the[Read More…]
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. -Marie Curie The COVID-19 pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions and has convulsed societies like never earlier. Even as the world remains gripped in the fright of an invisible threat, Mother[Read More…]
It is high time to move beyond mere tokenism when we commemorate Mahatma Gandhi, and begin truly embodying Gandhian values in all aspects of our lives. This rallying call was given by Medha Patkar, who is among the most respected development justice activists today. She was among the keynote speakers of the ongoing Valedictory Week to mark 150 years of[Read More…]
Nidhi Mishra takes us on a nostalgic journey through the syncretic elements of Lucknawi culture “I know you are from Lucknow, but must our daughter lose marks in your mother tongue for some whimsical assertion of your Lucknawi roots?!” my (Kannadiga) husband asked incredulously. He was even more stunned to see the hesitation I had in giving the obvious answer categorically. I had[Read More…]
Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism, grown on yeast of populism, critical race theory, and struggle for equality. Had been a university professor for 29 years, I remember students’ quest for satisfying clarity: no grey area – this is white or black; no uncertainty – this is right or wrong. Here comes a probable reason for visible success[Read More…]
The world has witnessed an incredible amount of progress in the last five decades that has transformed lives and made people richer and many nations prosperous. The pace of the change has[Read More…]
A Theater of Dark Fantasy Hearing a hushed commotion outside my room, 203 of the first-line Covid Care Centre at Makkiyad, I opened the door. A young woman with her husband and two small children, looking deeply hurt, confused and restless, was looking around the corridor. I asked if I could be of help. She was about to burst into[Read More…]
The mind is a winding river, its churning waters both cluttering and cleansing many shores and various ports of call. The broad outlines of the 1958 strike by the steel workers of Jamshedpur are still there in my memory; I was all of ten years of age at the time. The strike was a spontaneous uprising under the banner of[Read More…]
by Badre Alam Khan and Wasim Ahasan While paying homage to Bhagat Singh on his 113th birth anniversary, Prime Minister Nrendera Modi in his Mann ki Baat (telecasted on 27th September 2020) has said that we should not forget the revolutionary legacy of Bhagat Singh and his comrades who gave their precious lives for achieving Freedom from mighty British Empire.[Read More…]
Sep 28 marks important days in the lives of two revered icons of revolutionary action in India – Bhagat Singh and Shankar Guha Niyogi. Both exemplified a sense of identification with the issues of the masses and sought to join the struggle while on the frontlines. Niyogi worked shoulder-to-shoulder with mine workers in Chhattisgarh. Both paid with their lives for[Read More…]
Before the fast, during the lockdown, I had been eating alot of home-made bread and not walking much let alone running. After the lockdown I walked and ran a bit more but my kidney was not working properly, the urine was scanty. So I read about the health benefits of fasting and decided to try it. It started out as[Read More…]
I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen. – John Keats Venus, visible in the night sky above Salgotarjan, Hungary, in March, is typically the brightest object in the night sky other than the moon. Credit…Peter Komka/EPA, via Shutterstock The brightest star on a night sky that is visible from Earth[Read More…]
Recently Rajya Sabha passed two of the three contentious Farm Reform Bills 2020 that led to various debates on farmer’s rights. Hundreds of farmers came to the streets to protest against those bills which are believed to be a huge disadvantage for the farmers. With the removal of taxes and Minimum Support Price (MSP), mandis under Agricultural Produce Market Committee[Read More…]
by Dr. Urvashi Priyadarshini, Dr. Arathi P Rao and Dr. K. Rajasekharan Nayar The concept of being “healthy” is commonly associated with physical health, and mental health normally occupies a secondary role although it is contained in the WHO definition of health. It was and is considered a taboo and, people with mental health problems feel uncomfortable discussing their issues[Read More…]
He was very much one of those cricketers who made the pulse race, a figure for the advocates of a faster variant of the game. Nothing of the solid blocker in the man, though he could, if needed, linger at the crease. Australia’s Dean Jones sported equipment perfect for the shorter format of the game: lightning quick between the wickets,[Read More…]
In Kenya during Al-Shabaab standoff Exposing Lies of the Empire (PT. Badak Merah Semesta, 2015) first introduced me to André Vltchek’s remarkable journalism, weaving together unforgettable narratives of Western imperialism and capitalistic fundamentalism. He’s widely considered one of the world’s most gifted thinkers, and even though I did not personally know him, I always looked forward to reading his articles.[Read More…]
Who cares about comrade’s life and death in rural areas? Who cares to document their lives, sacrifices, struggles and contributions in shaping society in the age of decadent capitalism? The mainstream media ignores and ensures that their names become invisible in public memory. As their memories guide people to love and collectively fight for each other’s rights and liberties. Memories[Read More…]
Haider Anwar Khan Juno, one of the most prominent communists and cultural organizers of Bangladesh, is now in life support in a Dhaka hospital. Juno, 75, was suffering from pneumonia when he countered a heart attack. He has also been suffering from several other health complications including kidney disease. Haider Juno is the younger brother of communist leader Haider Akbar[Read More…]
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” – Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down, 1998 For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve[Read More…]
The revolutionary ideals of Shaheed Bhagat Singh have become more than relevant in today’s time. It is beyond the imaginations of many how a man who just lived 23 years of his life had so much of idealism. In his prime time, he spent his life in jails under difficult circumstances. Yet, Bhagat Singh was a voracious reader. His family[Read More…]
Andre, your last moments in Karaköy, İstanbul are yet unknown. But, we know you with your actions and stand – anti-imperialist. Andre Vltchek, (1962 – September 22, 2020), a fighter, was always on the move. He was moving from South Africa to Indonesia, East Timor to Bosnia, Congo to Mexico, Sri Lanka to Peru, Syria to Hong Kong, and many such[Read More…]
Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries. – Alan Alda Has living in America been a “serendipitous outcome” for me? Here, I am not thinking out loud but trying to find an answer to this pertinent question asked by my former Higher Secondary School English teacher Ms. Moitri Roy. One[Read More…]
André, my good friend and comrade is no more. We worked on several investigative projects together. André’s professional rigor, sharpness of understanding, vision and ability to connecting the dots is exemplary. We shared some unforgettable moments, when we followed a refugee trail from Bodrum, Turkey, to the Greek Island of Kos in the Aegean Sea – onwards to Athens. I’m[Read More…]
In 1888, the year before he went insane, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote the following in Twilight of the Idols: We have got rid of the real world: what world is left? The apparent world perhaps? … But no! Along with the real world we’ve done away with the apparent world as well. So, if you feel you also may be going insane in[Read More…]
Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus [1707 – 1778], known as the “father of modern taxonomy,” is the individual who can be credited with giving our species the name Homo sapiens. The “sapiens” in that species name indicates that we: are highly intelligent primates that have become the dominant species on Earth. Actually, however, “sapiens” is “a Latin word meaning wise;” and[Read More…]
by Chandreyee Goswami & Dhriti Sonowal As students of social sciences, we often harbour a sense of enlightenment in knowing that the subject matter we engage with has been historically instituted to identify the varieties of social realities that individuals might find them in. The legacy of social sciences has been its deep inspection and understanding of the social world which[Read More…]
The death of the US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bidder Ginsburg has created an abyss in the court for the liberal voice where justice Ginsburg was seen as the linchpin of the liberal block of the Supreme Court at a time when that block was shrinking. Especially late judge had vociferously advocated for women ‘rights, environmental issues and often came[Read More…]
Khuda soba ……theek chewhaz. How are you ? Where shall i write to you ? On the skin of Martyrs? Or the shadow of disappeared ? Or in the wail of mothers? Or in the shriek of sisters who used to be raped in orchards of kashmir ? And where shall i post it to ? As[Read More…]
In my “Putting the Decalogue Under a Microscope” and “A Serious Flaw of the Decalogue” I identified several problems with the Decalogue—more commonly known as the Ten Commandments. Those two papers do not, however, exhaust the problems with that list of commandments! At least one more problem exists: Underlying that list of what one should, and should not, do, is[Read More…]
Part-I Curtain on era of patronage of Arabic and Sanskrit learning The role of Lord William Bentinck (14 September 1774 – 17 June 1839) for restructuring the socio-cultural foundation of the Hindus “debased by three thousand years of despotism and priestcraft” [1] can rarely be exaggerated. His bold move to ban and abolish the cruel practice of suttee, which implied burning[Read More…]
I’ve come to realize that I don’t conform to ideas of any particular political party, religion, ideology and position in the way that others think the world or people should be or other positions should be. It is because I think and feel independently. Besides I was not indoctrinated by my parents or others. They let me be free. Yes,[Read More…]
…So said the famous playwright and political activist George Bernard Shaw. Alas, instead of being celebrated, older age is feared and looked down upon by many and ageism fuels this fear. Ageing is a natural process and begins the moment one is born. But ageism is not. The World Health Organisation defines ageism as “the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against[Read More…]
In my “Putting the Decalogue Under a Microscope” I distinguished between “normative” and “empirical” statements relative to human behaviors. The latter are factual statements that pertain to either a given individual, or humans in general; the former are assertions as to what behaviors individuals should, or should not, engage in. Thus, although both types of statements pertain to human behaviors,[Read More…]
When I was a boy I once heard my father wondering to my mother why “a day did not have more than twenty-four hours”. I know it is difficult to believe, but it is a fact that my father spent several decades of his life working fourteen to sixteen hours a day. When he ate, slept or relaxed, only he[Read More…]
Diya Barmecha from Mumbai, proving that young minds are capable of thinking equally, if not better than older ones. A stunning essay on the life of a security guard, drawing out the discrimination inherent in society. This day was like any other. What else can you expect from the life of a security guard of a common building? Right on time, the[Read More…]
15 year old Abhipsha Mohanty leads us to this fairytale land of clean skies, green farms, beautiful fragrance in the air and a peaceful life.But all of this for real in her village in Odisha, which she points out is the 6th cleanest village in India. Here is a wonderful message of cleanliness. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The soul of[Read More…]
(This is concluding and Part-3 of an article. ) English medium at primary school level is certainly harmful, more so to the rural and poorer masses. That is a key lesson in my life’s experiences, both as a student and as a teacher. It is being promoted by ruling classes, more aggressively in much of South India : English[Read More…]
The “Decalogue”—more commonly known as the Ten Commandments—is a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship. These are fundamental to both Judaism and Christianity. The text of the Ten Commandments appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: at Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–17. I, however, prefer to think of the Decalogue as a collection of normative statements, as opposed[Read More…]
Writing an essay on Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Philosopher Akeel Bilgrami noted that “Its generally foolhardy to write about Gandhi, not only because you are never certain you’ve got him right, but because you are almost sure to have him wrong”. This is a pessimistic proposition in the light of the huge corpus of literature that is been brought out by[Read More…]
It is an undeniable fact that today’s corporate India is intoxicated with the idea the digital. It is constantly on the fast-track to transform all into the digital, and as quickly as possible. In such an environment, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, popularly called as Raghuvansh Babu in friendly circles, sent his hand-written resignation addressed to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu[Read More…]
In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already on a razor’s edge — who were vulnerable and isolated before the advent of Covid-19 —[Read More…]
Swami Agnivesh has left us. And yet he is still with us. He was undoubtedly one of the most courageous fighters against religious fanaticism and religious bigotry of our time. He spoke out without hesitation against fanatical Hindus who distorted religious teachings to justify exclusive interpretations of the faith. Chauvinistic trends within the community that have been gaining currency in[Read More…]
–“Sir, I haven’t been feeling well for last few days! I need rest at least for a day.” –“Well, you know that all the leaves including casual and medical have already been disapproved due to the covid19 pandemic. Moreover, all of our employees are working from home. What is the need of availing any leave?” — “Sir, as I have[Read More…]
I was remembering yesterday about an event from when I was in my twenties. I was sitting on a hard wooden bench waiting for a train to take me to my parents’ hometown from Grand Central Station in NY City. I looked around myself and saw homeless women living there. The view took a while to sink into my being.[Read More…]
by Dr. Arathi P Rao, Dr Parul Malik, Dr. Anil K Bhat and Dr. Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar The concept of “Health Literacy” (HL) is gaining importance, more so in the COVID-19 era and is now being frequently applied in various studies. The levels of HL are being assessed for patients, their caregivers and the population in general (students, teachers etc.).[Read More…]
Very sad to have lost Swami Agnivesh. My respectful salute and Shraddhanjali to my human rights co-fighter and colleague. Deepest condolences to his friends and associates.Remember the innumerable occasions when we worked together or few where we differed. Remember my presence in the discussion and meeting on the hillocks bordering Haryana with Swami Agnivesh and Kailash Satyarthi the day when[Read More…]
On 13th September the Communist revolutionary contingent dips it’s blood in memory of late Comrade Zora Singh Jalajan,a member of the Communist Party Re-Organization Centre of India.(Marxist-Leninist ) on his 20th martyrdom anniversary. He lived for only 33 years, succumbing as a victim of cancer in the year 2000.However in his lifetime he lit the flame of Mao thought at[Read More…]
The Grameena Pedala Sangham (GPS- Organization of Rural Poor) deeply condoles the death of Swami Agnivesh (80) who is no more. He died on September 11 at Delhi. He was a great social worker and a democrat , who worked all his life- time for the cause of the oppressed, and was the Founder of Bandhua Mukti Morcha that worked[Read More…]
English medium at primary school level is certainly harmful, more so to the rural and poorer masses. That is a key lesson in my life’s experiences, both as a student and as a teacher. It may be useful only to the elite, including those of dalit bahujans, and to the vote bank politics of ruling classes. I am a[Read More…]
Before taking up the engagement with issues related to communal harmony and national integration, I was trying to associate with issues of labor movement. During that time I used to hear from friends the name of Swami Agnivesh in the context of movement against bonded labor. Later after the demolition of Babri Mosque, I decided to understand the issues of[Read More…]
The death of Swami Agnivesh is a great loss to civil society movements in India which he was an active member all through his life. Those of us who have been frequented with various protests at the Jantar Mantar knew him well how he would encourage youngsters and join their protests at any available time. Swami Aginvesh was basically a[Read More…]
Have you heard the quote _ “Health is Wealth”? Recall it and it’s very high time to implement it now. Aren’t we creatures wearing masks since ages? “Covering ourselves – our real face and showing the fabricated image to this world, at times we hide our emotions and reveal ourselves as being so cool humans on this planet”. Yes that[Read More…]
“The party is always right, even when it’s wrong” – Democratic Workers Party slogan ORIENTATION Everybody knows what cults are People who join cults are mentally unstable before they join and less educated than the general population. True or false? Cult members also define themselves as lonely. True or false? Most people who join cults are from the poor and[Read More…]
The 24th edition of the Kolkata international film festival, held in November 2018, showed a surprisingly large number of films from Australia, which has never been counted among the foremost film-making nations of the world; no less than two dozen in all. It is hard to tell whether the ‘focus’ had anything to do with an increasing interest in Down[Read More…]
There is nothing inherently noble or respectable about institutions. Institutions become what their political masters want them to be. All institutions all over the world and across all spectrum are vulnerable to political interference. This political interference can influence their overall direction and day-to-day functioning. Respect for government is at an all-time low. A Gallup poll shows that majority don’t[Read More…]
I am a teacher of maths, arithmetic to be precise, not a great teacher but an unconventional one: A school teacher without a school; without a place; without a job; without regular salary. A rare kind of a teacher who taught maths to more than one lakh students over 30 years. A teacher who ‘taught’ maths-teaching to qualified teachers, while[Read More…]
Many women and girls around the world have experienced contraception failure, missed taking oral contraceptive pills, or been forced to have sex against their will. For these women, emergency contraception is a safe and effective method that reduces the risk of pregnancy. Expanding the range of choices for girls and women to prevent unintended pregnancies, depending upon their specific realities[Read More…]
Losing your father is definitely heart wrecking when he has been the emotional support system all through the life. Besides unconditional love, Dad also provided stability, acceptance, and encouragement when it mattered most. It becomes more painful when one had been in direct daily conversation of a couple of hours with Dad for last 20 years. It is an Irish[Read More…]
When ‘mainstream’ politicians and media pundits talk about the structure of American society, they focus mainly on a vaguely defined group called ‘the middle class.’ The middle class is considered the mainstay of society, a bulwark of social stability and cohesion. Indeed, the middle class is the symbolic representative of the whole society. The ‘typical Americans’ of TV sitcoms are[Read More…]
In my personal calendar of gains and losses, September is a craven, cowardly month. It robbed me, born the same month, of my two closest relatives. I don’t expect everybody to be interested in this humble story of comings and goings, but, who knows, someone out there might read a useful metaphor here. Come late August/early September each year, and[Read More…]
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of weak health systems that were ill prepared to withstand the onslaught of the pandemic. As documented by the Pulse survey of the WHO, the pandemic has resulted in disruption of essential health services, including sexual and reproductive health services, in most countries. Weak and perpetually poorly resourced health systems have escalated the[Read More…]
I run a small bank for rural women in a drought-prone area of Maharashtra. It’s called the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank. It’s the first bank set up in the country by and for rural women. Most of our customers are micro business owners – women who work at weekly markets or run their enterprises from home. They are vegetable[Read More…]
Chakravarty Gautam is one of the founders of Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organizations in the United Kingdom (FABO UK). He was born in Gujarat and migrated to the UK in 1969. He established himself as a business person and also linked to various Ambedkarite groups working in the UK. He became one of the leading figures of the Ambedkarite[Read More…]
The photo was taken when he was around 75. He was very active and agile until he was down with cancer late in 2017. A few months before that, he was walking and talking with some students for 8 hours, on a hot summer in a forest on a project. After retirement and surgery also he was available to his[Read More…]
The Tatas have all along been opposed to the idea of having a university in Jamshedpur. In fact, Tisco did not want even a college in the city. Which brings us to the saga of Medioma Dhanjishah Madan (1913 – 1962). Dissidents give a character to a place, as much as devotees do. But since, as a rule, dissidents are[Read More…]
Professor Ali Akhtar Khan (78) of (AMU) passed away on (08/29/2020) after a brief illness. He was born to parents Ali Qadar Khan and Najmun Nisa, on January 01, 1942, in a landlord family of Naseerpur village, Azamgarh. He studied in Shibli school and then graduated from Shibli National College, Azamgarh. Later on, he completed his M.Ed. from Aligarh Muslim[Read More…]
Com.Vuppuluri Subba Rao (1924-1998), veteran working class leader of AP Com.Vuppuluri or VSR in short, veteran communist and working class leader of AP, and Founder of FITU, breathed his last on 8th September, 1998. Every year he is remembered by his followers and admirers in September, in meetings held by Trade Unions (TUs) he founded. Due to Covid-19, we are[Read More…]
Former President Mr Pranab Mukherjee death is the passing away of a leader who adhered to Parliamentary procedures and constitutional norms. Perhaps, Mr Mukherjee was among the last of that generation that believed consensus the only way to run the country though sometimes such consensus could help the status-quoists only. After his death, lots of tribute have poured in including[Read More…]
As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All. This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal. However, it is not the final goal. It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining community medicine with natural[Read More…]
It was the first of September, 1940, when the policemen working under Tahsildar Abdul Sattar of the Nizam of Hyderabad, opened fire in Jodeghat on the warriors being led by Komaram Bheem in a rebellion to gain self-determination over the land and resources of the Gondi people. While the fire killed many warriors and left many with fatal injuries, it[Read More…]
In India Engineering as a career has attracted alot of students in a big way & large number of aspirants who burn the midnight oil in order to crack the exam. These aspirant’s dream themselves as an engineer earning a decent package. Every year lakhs of students appear in the entrance examination for institution’s like “IIT” but only few of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Parul Malik and Dr. Arathi P Rao The year 2020, has not only been the year of the “pandemic”, but also the year of “infodemic”- a term that was coined in 2003 in relation to the SARS outbreak. This term “infodemic”, referring to an excessive amount of available information, which may be biased and harmful, is becoming[Read More…]
Social media becomes an essential tool for youth today. Undoubtedly it helps people in connecting with the people around the globe and also reduces the distance, but on the other hand, it created a detachment from the people who are around. Social media is mostly famous among youngsters; they spend most of their time on social platforms for different purposes.[Read More…]
A recent study done by a market research firm Rakuten Intelligence found that since the pandemic started there has been a sudden rise in online shopping. Ecommerce spending in the U.S. is up more than 30 percent since the beginning of March. Ecommerce is booming, and Silicon Valley’s’ richest such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are getting even[Read More…]
The online teaching due to the lockdown is a new experience for many students in the country. It has gone through many glitches due to lack of facilities, lack of expertise among teachers, and lack of exposure to the new medium devoid of collegiality, lack of interpersonal exchanges that people are used to in class room teaching. This has resulted[Read More…]
When you’re 20, full of piss and vinegar, you can open up to so much. That was the year, 1970, when dreams seemed so real. This writer had just returned from a brief summer in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This was but the second time I ever was away from my parents’ apartment, and for that matter, Brooklyn, NY, lauded as[Read More…]
Without doubt late Comrade Harbhajan Sohi or HBS was one of the finest theoreticians in the history of the Communist Movement and amongst the greatest leaders and protagonists of the massline.No Comrade contributed so much to shape the massline of Tarimela Nagi Reddy as Harbhajan Sohi or HBS.With the meticulous skill of an architect he shimmered its flame as a[Read More…]
Here are three questions I would propose to the people who read this article: Other than being a Red Diaper Baby, what is the process by which people came to socialism and how did they handle the disapproval of their families and long-term friends? How does having a framework for capitalism make it easier to understand what’s going on? In[Read More…]
Cats came into Preeti’s life long before camels, around the time cows found a way out of her heart but into her life. She had seen cows ever since she could remember…while riding horse driven tongas in Haridwar in 1970s, creating traffic jams in Delhi, Haridwar, Kolkata, Dehradun, Lucknow and wherever she happened to visit in India. From long before[Read More…]
India, the largest parliamentary democracy in the world, celebrated its 73rd Independence Day on Saturday, August 15. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as per the protocol, addressed the 1.3 billion people of the country from the Red Fort in Delhi. In his speech, he promised to bring universal health cards, provide internet access, through optical fibre lines, to all villages across[Read More…]
How did factory schools develop? Why did factory school develop? What does factory schools do? What is the relevance of factory schools today? The answers to these questions come from the history of factory schools, which reveals its immense impact not only on our educational system but also on our society, culture, economy, politics and individual lives. The historical perspectives[Read More…]
The best introduction to Kathleen Burkinshaw is that she a humanitarian. She wrote a novel that has been taken up by The United Nations as a part of its peacekeeping effort. She has been actively participating in efforts to ban nuclear weapons, including presenting with Nobel Laureates. Kathleen Burkinshaw, the author of The Last Cherry Blossom, a book that is in[Read More…]
Close to the 25th martyrdom day of a prominent human rights activist of India, one of the municipalities in Greater Vancouver has made a proclamation to recognize the circumstances that led to his murder. Jaswant Singh Khalra was investigating the extra judicial killings of Sikh political activists in Punjab, when he was kidnapped by the police on September 6, 1995,[Read More…]
This is with reference to the article,“Can Brahmins Bring Revolution: An Assessment Through The Prism Of Tarimela Nagi Reddy” by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd — CC, August 18, 2020. I am not a writer. Not a leader or political activist. I am above my sixties, an ordinary citizen who earnestly wants that my country and society should be more democratic and[Read More…]
DIFFERENTIATE. Why ‘Differentiate’? Because differentiation creates Brand Brand inspires Loyalty Loyalty enables Influence Success is directly proportionate to influence. Five things to keep in mind: 1. Always be thankful. It is true that we succeed by our own efforts but it is good to remember that some of them were made standing on someone else’s shoulders. And they helped us when they didn’t need us[Read More…]
In the world of ideology free zone of politics, the question ‘of morality and immorality in popular and mainstream political traditions’ is becoming irrelevant. The incompetent governments, helpless states, visionless leadership, directionless politics, weak judiciaries and compliant media organisations are the net output of amoral and illiberal politics. The moral critique of political system does not yield any electoral dividends[Read More…]
Just a little pinprick There’ll be no more, ah But you may feel a little sick Can you stand up? I do believe it’s working, good That’ll keep you going through the show Come on it’s time to go There is no pain you are receding A distant ship, smoke on the horizon You are only coming through in waves[Read More…]
This is important for developing immunity to Covid and other infections and build resistance. Researchers are now pointing out the manifold benefits of rewilding of Nature for human health and well-being. This means we need to expose ourselves to more bio diversity, be in touch with a wide variety of plant life, not just manicured, artificial lawns. According to Jacob[Read More…]
In the days of my early manhood, a south Calcutta theatre called Menoka used to show Malayalam or Tamil films on Sunday mornings. Since the early years of the 20th century, Tamils have been in residence in south Calcutta, usually as office-workers, thereby giving to this area a second name – Chhota Madras (Madras in miniature). Malayalees are more recent[Read More…]
There are so many diverse memories to a mind that has traveled through the decades like an endless wind. Being a ‘baby boomer’ who just cannot accept the utter surreal bad aftertaste of our current comic book empire, one desires to retreat into the distant past. This past of course had its own times of despair, but for a youth[Read More…]
Veteran journalist and author Jaspal Singh Sidhu has argued that the Punjab crisis of the 19070s and 1980s is the result of “the unfinished agenda of Partition”. Explaining his argument, Sidhu says that the Sikh community in India supported the Congress at the time of Partition, believing the “pledges” of the grand old party. The promises were made that[Read More…]
In the early years of 1990s, India saw a political turmoil as V P Singh government unleashed Mandal Commission report and a social and political unity among the Dalit backward community started building up at different levels. The protests against Mandal commission reports in the cities of North India were actually not against the OBCs but against the Dalits. The[Read More…]
Melghat is a forest tract nestled in the Satpura range in eastern Maharashtra. It is inhabited by indigenous people like the Korkus, Gond and Bhilalas, who are bravely defending their verdant world against the ravages of modern commerce. Melghat has been in the news for several years for its lethal malnourishment, which had been claiming lives of hundreds of children[Read More…]
Kancha Ilaiah Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd wrote an article titled “Can Brahmins Bring Revolution: An Assessment Through The Prism Of Tarimela Nagi Reddy”. (countercurrents.org, August 18, 2020). https://countercurrents.org/2020/08/can-brahmins-bring-revolution-an-assessment-through-the-prism-of-tarimela-nagi-reddy/ It is not based on facts, and is prejudiced by his theories. He is free to have his theories, but truth should not be a casualty in the process. As a mediaperson[Read More…]
On August 19th the Indian Communist revolutionary camp commemorates the 20th death anniversary of legendary Comrade Darshan Singh Dusang who was one of the greatest torchbearers of the Indian Communist Movement. Few comrades shimmered the spark of Naxalbari with as much unflinching determination as Comrade Darshan Dusang. In the gravest circumstances, he never looked dead and buried and resurrected Mao’s[Read More…]
“About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be defined as the general neurosis of our times.” -Carl Jung I thought I knew what depression looked like. It looked like locked rooms and phone calls which were never answered back. An incapacity to socialize,[Read More…]
“Usaa, The Greatest Revolutionary Barber After Upali, Died of COVID-19”, is the title of an obituary by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, (countercurrents.org, August 4,2020, “a long-time associate of Usaa Barber, Political Theorist and Author”. It begins thus : “Usaa Barber (Uppumavuluri Sambashivarao) (1951-2020)- a well-known social reformer, anti-caste ideologue and anti-brahminism fighter succumbed to COVID-19 on 25th July 2020.” Then it[Read More…]
Wherever on this distressed and yet magnificent Earth you live, this is for you. Right here, right now: Let’s be open and honest before one another. Please. Look at the world without illusions, without hiding, without trying to escape. Don’t be crippled by confusion or disgust. Don’t allow yourself to lose your natural born goodness and become infected with internal[Read More…]
Rahat Quraishi was so enamoured of painting that he was able to turn it into a profession. He was also solicitous about Urdu poetry. “Poetry and painting are like twin-sisters,” he says in his biographical short film A Glimpse of Jashn-e-Rahat, “and I believe we all carry different people inside us.” Born to Rafatullah Qureshi, a cloth mill worker, in[Read More…]
The application of scientific knowledge has been embraced by industry as a means of enriching owners for over two hundred years. Science is knowledge of the natural and social world gained through observation and experimentation based on evidence. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century had a profound impact on workers’ diseases. Rapid technological progress and industrial growth led to crowded,[Read More…]
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) is one of the greatest French thinkers. A polemical and witty essayist, a metaphysician of subjectivity, a political activist, a revolutionary political theorist, a humanistic novelist, a didactic playwright, his genius lies in his powers of philosophical synthesis and the genre breaching breadth of his imagination. The last philosopher to be discussed at some length, Jean-Paul Sartre,[Read More…]
Did the caveman laugh? Did he have a toothache? The cheering thing for him would have been, he would not have to visit a dentist. Or, is that a cheering thought for me? And he would continue in pain while his tooth rotted and fell! And mine gets pulled out or repaired by a dentist peering into my numb anaesthetised[Read More…]
Hell is not God’s idea, I believe. I also believe that John Abraham and God had an erratic relationship with each other. But then, why the hell didn’t John invest in full the coins that God had entrusted him so dearly ? I first met John when I was a fresh graduate and a culture -vulture apprentice at Kochi. One[Read More…]
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) deeply mourns the passing away of Ilina Sen on August 9 in Kolkata. Ilina, 69, was a feminist activist, teacher, researcher and writer passionately involved with the women’s movement in India. Be it through activist work or classroom pedagogy, conferences or rallies, Ilina’s deep engagement with women’s struggles in Madhya Pradesh and[Read More…]
“Life is everywhere, life is in ourselves, not outside.” (Dostoevsky, just after his death sentence was commuted) Vision from the metal cubicle circling over the shores of southeastern Sicily seems to encompass the entire Mediterranean world, the spatial unity of which world atlases confirm: Sicily, now just beneath us and to the West, Africa fixed to the South, Greece and[Read More…]
This morning when I opened Facebook, my newsfeed was swarmed with people sharing the same monosyllabic status update. They were writing Binod, a male given name popular in Asia, and people in the comment section were leaving Binod in the comments. When I switched to Twitter, Binod was trending at number 3. My curiosity was picking up speed. To my[Read More…]
Why do good people have to suffer? This is a question mankind has been facing for thousands of years. Our Hindu religion has the answer, ‘because of sins committed in the previous birth’. Obviously people like us can not accept this. While the news of Ilina’s death last night brought a host of memories and sadness in me, this question[Read More…]
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults worldwide. Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is a global phenomenon and occurs throughout the lifespan. Studies from India consistently document the highest suicide rates in the world, and the majority of completed suicides had been[Read More…]
Currently, the impression that things can be made to happen even without the participation of the working class is being sought to be furthered by employers and managements. What to speak of marginalization, it is the evaporization of the worker from public consciousness that is being attempted. Just visualize the surrealistic pilgrim’s progress that we have covered in the[Read More…]
Nepotism as a culture is being seasoned in forms of cronyism, favouritism, as it knocks backs calibre and worth and leaves behind a collegium apparatus. We discern nepotism in Bollywood as it is exhibited in the spotlight for one and all to catch sight of. But the existent and the historical process of nepotism that has engendered exceptional levels of[Read More…]
Usaa Barber (Uppumavuluri Sambashivarao) (1951-2020)- a well-known social reformer, anti-caste ideologue and anti-brahminism fighter succumbed to COVID-19 on 25th July 2020. He died because of the Indian medical system that could not reach to a stage where it could meet the challenge posed by the new coronavirus. After Savitribai Phule and her son Dr.Yashwantharao died of Bubonic Plague in 1898,[Read More…]
I completed my primary education from a school that no more exists: Heroes Memorial Inter College. Situated in the capital of India’s most populous state, it was made in the memory of heroes and whoever fits in your definition of one. With about the strength of 400 students—that started to leave the school at a surprisingly exponential rate—the man who[Read More…]
Once upon a time, universities were the places, where intellectuals, teachers and students as a community of learners used to reflect on everyday realities, learn the skills to use it in their professional life, discover the knowledge, to understand themselves and dissect the complexities of society. They also used to practise their utopian dreams in pursuit of knowledge for the[Read More…]
It was only a matter of time that the fire started by Covid-19 would consume all traditional aspects of higher education teaching-learning and reach the doorstep of faculty training forcing it to don the e-avatar. On 1st July 2020 UGC issued directions to all the Human Resource Development Centres (HRDCs) – the institutions responsible for professional development of higher education[Read More…]
A son remembers a life in Indian communism Indian communists have a unique distinction that they normally don’t like to acknowledge: among the world’s communist parties, they have had one of the longest experiences of engaging legitimately with an electoral democratic process. I don’t deny that erstwhile communist parties of Western Europe, such as the French and the Italian, had[Read More…]
About ten years ago, a friend who hadn’t seen me in over two decades, offered me some tips as to what jewelry to wear to lunch when I meet one of my former editors of a Dhaka daily. He came to Maryland on business and to spend time with his family. I was a little nervous about the lunch meeting.[Read More…]
Not everyone with a family is destined to enjoy all the fruits that the family has to offer. Let us take the case of Kamlabai Raghunath Gokhale, or simply Kamlabai, who was a Marathi actress in the early decades of the twentieth century and the first woman to act in films in India. Reena Mohan, who trained in editing at[Read More…]
First the words; Eulogy: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, especially a tribute to someone who has just died. Elegy: An elegy is a sad poem, usually written to praise and express sorrow for someone who is dead. But eulogies, Wikipedia assures me, can also be delivered at retirement functions and other such events when a person[Read More…]
The news of Chinmoy Banerjee’s death has greatly saddened the South Asian community in BC. 80-year-old scholar and activist of Indian heritage, Chin Daa, as we affectionately called him, was not keeping well for the past several days. He passed away on the morning of July 29, leaving behind a powerful legacy of tireless activism. He previously taught English at[Read More…]
On Friday, July 31, 2020, over a billion and a half Muslims around the world, will be slaughtering millions of goats, camels, and cattle to carry out Abraham’s tradition of sacrificing the symbolic lamb. Is there an alternative to the ritual of slaying animals on Eid Al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice? The answer is yes! Rituals are the pathways to[Read More…]
The companions of Prophet Hazrat Muhammed Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam(Peace and blessings be upon him) asked, “What is this sacrifice(Qurbani)?” He answered that it is the Sunnah of your father Hazrat Ibrahim Alaihissalam(Peace be upon him).” This historic Qurbani incident took place about five and a quarter thousand years ago in “Mina” near “Khana-e-Ka’aba” located in Mecca, a desert region of[Read More…]
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition”, said Jacques Barzun. Rightly, did he point this out that ‘teaching’ is no more respected as a profession neither ‘teachers’ are accorded their due share of acknowledgement for the work that they do. This is not to say that teaching has always been a respectful[Read More…]
Remember Gandhi. Practice nonviolence. Adhere to nonviolence. Refrain from attacking people as the means to achieve an interpersonal goal. You seek to change policies and systems that make policies, and attitudes and behaviors implementing policies of injustice and oppression. In opposing pernicious systems and the policies of pernicious systems you bring about change through clarified strategy, organized, and often[Read More…]
About 85 years ago, Spanish fascists murdered Federico Garcia Lorca (1898 – 1936), the most important Spanish dramatist of the twentieth century who said “Spain is the only country in the world where death is a national spectacle.” Some 35 years ago, a young woman named Roop Kanwar was burnt alive by her in-laws and village elders on her dead[Read More…]
Kashmir has had many a period of glory before the advent of Islam. It has a long chain of dynasties, Suraj Bansi, Pandava, Maurya, Kushan, Gonandya, white Huns, Karokata, Utapala, and Loharas. Some of the regimes had not only their periods of glory in this beautiful land, but their borders extended deep in South of India and touched the[Read More…]
July 28 is the day comrade Nagi Reddy died in 1976, while he was under-ground. He and his comrade-in-arms DV Rao ( 1917 June-July 12, 1984) are remembered in July every year through various programmes at different places across AP and Telangana. Thousands of people and activists, led by UCCRI-ML which they founded in 1975, are carrying forward their goals [Read More…]
Prof John Weeks, widely admired development economist passed away on 26th of June 2020 at the age of 79. His death is a blow to many friends, comrades, colleagues, students and fellow progressive economists. He was born in Austin, educated in Texas and Michigan, lived and worked most of his professional life in the School of Oriental and African Studies[Read More…]
Watching a horse drawn wagon carrying the body of John Lewis cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama one final time is a stunning testament to the power of non-violence in 1965 and 2020. The body of Congressman John Lewis will lie in state in Montgomery and the U.S.capital as an honored American hero, a brave man, a moral[Read More…]
We live in a time where various technologies are advancing at an exponential rate. This accelerated progress is influencing all aspects of our lives, and inevitably, has a profound impact on the job market. Surveys conducted among employers show that, although knowledge is important, a greater emphasis is being put on skills – specifically “soft” skills, more than ever before.[Read More…]
The vast lands of Arafat, the circumambulation around Kaaba, the humongous swarms of humanity at Rami Jamrat, the long, very long queues outside the washrooms at the tent city Mina! The list of memorable moments from our last year’s Hajj is endless. No one in his wildest of the nightmares had dreamed Hajj 2020, would be so contrastingly different. Can’t[Read More…]
Samir Amin was one of the great anti-imperialist Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century. I have elsewhere called him a ‘global organic intellectual’ because he drew his conclusions from a wealth of primary data little considered by mainstream academe; namely, the sincere theoretical/political reflections of ‘third-world’ radical intellectuals, with whom he engaged in constant discussions, on seven continents, for over five decades[Read More…]
It was early January when I traveled to Vijayawada to participate in the World Atheist Conference and while returning, I thought to travel to Hyderabad too to meet friends. My dear friend Sujatha Surepally told me that I could stay at the office of Desidasa, the magazine, Usaa Sambasiva Rao garu had started and which she has been the editor.[Read More…]
One of the most widely-known and deeply-admired of all Indian nuns who gave up the habit after receiving the call of liberation theology, is a daughter of Kerala who goes by the name of Dayabai. When she left home at Pullattu Veedu in Poovarani, near Pala in Kottayam district, to become a missionary nun, she used to be called Mercy[Read More…]
In China there was a philosophical school called Agriculturism between 770 BCE and 221 BCE. The main philosopher, who represented this school with a sophisticated exposition of that philosophy, was Xu Xing (372-289 BCE). His main philosophy was that people’s propensity is based on farming than to any other thing. By the third and the fourth century BCE the Chinese[Read More…]
I fell in love with the word GAMI so adopted it as my Pen name Mehmood Gami, the 19th century Sufi poet of Kashmir, born at Dooru Shahabad in 1765 A.D and passed away in 1855 A.D. Shahabad, then called Ver Pargana (Verinag), is one of the ancient villages of valley Kashmir. When Mughal Emperor Jahangir along with his wife[Read More…]
The triumph of capitalist chimeras based on false propaganda and its criminal follies at the millennium, raises several questions on the rise of celebrity culture of fame and fortune. The celebrity cultures use popular culture and establish its grip over public imagination on different issues in the society, politics, economy, culture and religion. The celebrity culture shapes people’s ideas, interests,[Read More…]
Orientation From the macro to the micro When it comes to stereotypes of the masses of revolutionary people, the masses have built barricades that look like forts which they hide behind, armed with guns. But if we trace the behavior of masses back far enough to pre-revolutionary situations, masses become groups. In order to understand how masses of people become[Read More…]
FILE – In this Feb. 15, 2011, file photo, President Barack Obama presents a 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July[Read More…]
As soon as a child is born, the second question asked is, “gora hai ya kala” as obviously the first being, “ladka hai ya ladki”. We live in a society where being born as a male is already a privilege in itself let alone your complexion, as it doesn’t really matter, but God forbid if you’re a girl, that too[Read More…]
In 2006, I had an opportunity to visit Zanzibar, a fabled island in the Indian Ocean with which India has had commercial and cultural relations for hundreds of years. Zanzibar is a part of Tanzania where thousands of Indian Africans have lived since long. A few months before I landed in Zanzibar, an important book launch had taken place,[Read More…]
They may be differently abled, but they do not lack in ability. Yes, I am talking about the more than one billion people in the world who live with some form of disability. They could be persons with impaired functions of the senses, mobility, cognition or with psychosocial difficulties. Out of these, an estimated 690 million live in the Asia[Read More…]
Auto rickshaws are a dominated transportation of Kolkata. According to a record of 2018, about a half lakh registered auto rickshaw (and a few thousand unregistered) used to ferry a few lakh passengers daily in different routes of the city before the lockdown. From unlock 1.0, government has been allowed to play auto rickshaw with some strict rules. i.e. regular[Read More…]
Covid-19 did the impossible: it changed the concept of time as a finite resource. Type A individuals, like me, were faced with the realisation that we had time on our hands. Therefore, we just had to make it as productive as possible. It sounded like good news. Gone were the dreadful Mondays that spoiled all our Sundays, and along with[Read More…]
This morning when I pulled opened the curtains to my dining room window overlooking the neighborhood park, I spotted one of my neighbors (let me call her Lillete) is power walking in the park. She looked radiant and chic in her joggers outfit. She appeared much energized. Looking back a few months ago, I remembered last year’s Halloween night (October[Read More…]
Nepal Prime Minister, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli as initiated a debate that what is known as Ayodhya in India is not original and the original Ayodhya of Sri Ram is on the west of Birganj in Nepal. According to him, it is a misunderstanding that Sita married an Indian Sri Ram. But Sri Ram is not Indian and he was[Read More…]
When life hasn’t got a swing anymore, people may give in to obsessive oniomanic compulsions, in as much as they are going out of their way to construct a flamboyant life style and change their identity from “don’t- need” to “must-have” consumers, so as to satisfy their gripping buying desire. Erike Pevernagie Man is a creature of instincts, desires, feelings,[Read More…]
Do you feel you’re passing through hard times? We may be facing a new health, financial, or relational problems, but more frequently, our hard times arise from our mind. Mental hard time is mostly a wounded ego. In such times, all we need is a shift in our thinking, the way we see and that life. Here are five tips[Read More…]
Can you interview an online site? You can’t. So, I did the next best thing. I interviewed Binu Mathew, the man behind the award-winning million readers a month or three million-page views a month online journal, Countercurrents. Mathew claims this is not a big thing except that his journal is based on ideology and openness. He calls it a “people’s journal”[Read More…]
“Every major change in the education structure needs to be understood as being intimately connected to a shift in power.” Stuart Hall Ages ago, Hall rightly thought of education as a pursuit of politics ‘by other means’. Today when the Indian government has decided to eliminate certain chapters from school books, we need to see how this step is not[Read More…]
The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones: J. Joubert Book buying like other things is a passion. Academicians and students love to buy books. Students and academicians have natural propensity towards book buying. Everyone of us has a natural and unconditional passion for books. Whether we[Read More…]
Prominent communist revolutionary (CR) leader of India, DV Rao (Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao 1917 June 1-1984 July 12), was known for his unique role in leading the historic Telangana People’s Armed Struggle (1940-51). Every year in July he, and his inseparable comrade-in-arms T. Nagi Reddy (TN 1917-1976), who also died in the same month, are remembered by thousands of people through[Read More…]
Egyptian actor Omar Sharif poses for a photograph in 2009. Photo: Reuters. He passed away on July 10, 2015 Egyptian born debonair actor Omar Sharif’s passing on July 10th marks the end of an era. After hearing the sad news, I immediately sent a text to my best friend Maryam (a diehard fan of Omar Sharif). She immediately texted me[Read More…]
‘Adda’ is a popular culture of Bengalis. Now it has been spread over. It has social, psychological importance in the daily life of almost all ages of the population. But it has no economic productivity. The word, ‘adda’ has been incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004. It has been defined as ‘a conversation among members, who were[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sritama Chaudhuri & Dr. Suraj Beri Meghna (name changed) looks anxiously at her phone. She has been one of those ardent “woke millennials”, who would campaign for every right cause on internet. She did the same when lockdown rules where declared for the first time. Hand-wash, sanitizer in bag, mask on face, 6 ft distancing…everything check. Her meticulous[Read More…]
Cell phones are so convenient that they’re an inconvenience. Haruki Murakami Technology, as we know, has transformed our life. It has made things easy for us. It has lessened the humdrum of our day to day life through its entertaining tools and gadgets. Because of technological and communication revolution modern man has become a kind of post-human (a person or[Read More…]
The World changed in March of 2020. We’ll be able to to tell coming generations of this season we’re living through. We will speak of the pain and the harm. And we will talk of the wisdom and honour that this time has delivered to us and also reflecting on the good that we may find as we stay inside,shelter-in-place[Read More…]
The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this. — Mark Twain An advertisement for Fair and Lovely, a skin whitening product showing results of before and after use Pico Iyer who writes about cultures converging refers to India as his “stepmother land.” In next to the last chapter of his[Read More…]
For the past some days, whatsapp is abuzz with a news of a Buzarg ( senior citizen) from Pakistan who has won a court case after 13 years’ long legal battle in a Pakistani court. The poor man is seen standing in a photo alongside a BBC Urdu News logo & a 5000 rupee Pakistani currency note, conspicuously displayed in[Read More…]
Democratic anarchy is a new form of democracy based on the equal rights of people to evaluate others. It will solve social problems and make the best life possible. This article presents how to achieve it, as well as the obstacles facing it. People are aware of their weaknesses in nature. When they succeed in overcoming their weakness they feel[Read More…]
Soon after independence, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India saw on Delhi roads thousands of skull-capped bearded men in white robes, worryingly he asked the Director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) to investigate who these people were, and whether there was any threat to the nation from them. After thorough investigation, the IB Director conveyed to him that there is[Read More…]
Cedric J. Robinson’s passing this summer at the age of seventy-five went virtually unnoticed. Professor emeritus of political science and black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and arguably one of the most original political theorists of his generation, no major U.S. newspaper determined that Robinson’s passing merited even a single paragraph. Although he deliberately avoided the pitfalls[Read More…]
In 1922, Sir John Maffrey, head of the British Empire’s North West Frontier Province, put this nonchalant query to his superiors about civilian deaths during bombings: “What are the rules for this kind of cricket?” The equally callous response was: “International law does not apply against savage tribes who do not conform to codes of ‘civilized’ warfare. It is the[Read More…]
This pandemic has put a question mark on our plans, sureties, certainties and securities. I distinctly remember hurriedly booking my tickets and packing for the next day to rush home (I was certain just for a week or 10 days) as the panic over Covid-19 started to increase, it was 19th March, 2020. After I reached home leaving most of[Read More…]
They say a parent or a carer is the hardest job you will love. It is absolutely the most important and challenging leadership role. All grown up children, whether it be daughters or sons are truly anxious today. We cannot blame them. When we were of their age, we were either starting University or doing part time jobs and was[Read More…]
In the midst of isolation crisis, when all educational institutions have been stirred to online teaching and up-scaled teachers’ digital skills through school-based training interventions, few states like Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh had placed a restriction on online classes for primary school-going children. Online learning, no doubt is by far the most compelling alternative in the times of Covid-19[Read More…]
Recently, the news about the sad demise of renowned Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput at his residence in Bandra apartment in Mumbai on June 14 staggered the whole country and the Bollywood fraternity en masse. Prima facie report revealed the anoxic strangulation by hanging himself to death. Following the news, there were many speculations that would have forced him to[Read More…]
One of the most fascinating writers about morality is Lawrence Kohlberg. I have read lots of his writings. He initially divided up morality into six stages. Some people are stuck on the lower levels or mid levels of his scale. What can be very interesting Is to look at yourself and others who you fairly well know and find out[Read More…]
As social, economic and political Darwinism dominates the intellectual debates and discourses to naturalise and normalise capitalist exploitation and inequalities, survival of the fittest is becoming the new normal. The best human qualities based on love, peace, sympathies, empathies and coexistence are becoming the signs of human weakness in the rat race success and survival. In this process, human beings[Read More…]
We have witnessed multiple debates on social media over the suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput in the last few days. The Bollywood ‘fraternity’ reacted instantly after his demise. No wonder- their views are categorically distinct from one another. A group of celebrity suddenly poured their sympathy for Sushant by concerning mental health. Few other celebrities are pointing towards[Read More…]
With the demise of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh, suddenly whole India has started talking about mental health. There are several poems, stories, and messages which are circulated on social media regarding mental health. I am asking to all fellow citizens that do we need news on famous suicide to talk about mental health? Can’t we talk about mental health in[Read More…]
As we trudge along amidst a global pandemic, surrounded by stories of doom, despair, and death, it is no easy feat to stay upbeat. Big words are floating in the virtual world, Everybody has something to say. A much public piece of sad news has shaken us, Particularly since the times are so grey. There are self-determined labels,[Read More…]
Amjad Farid Sabri (23 December 1970 – 22 June 2016) Today is the 4th anniversary of the shooting death of Amjad Farid Sabri. He was a majestic and highly revered Pakistani Sufi singer and famous qawwal. Sabri came from a storied family of musicians, a “proponent of the Sufi Muslim tradition.” His musical family is recognized as the “legendary Sabri brothers,”[Read More…]
To hell with tyranny! Thou shalt not muzzle me!! I was born to be free!!! Now, here’s the thing… I am not a lizard. I am not a fish. I am a great ape. Since our creation every human being was born to not be completely free and independent. Anyone who raised an infant without regulations and prevention would not have that[Read More…]
Are people with mental health issues ready to open up and are people ready to listen without judgements? Sitting at lunch, swiping through social media and suddenly receiving the grave news of Sushant Singh Rajput dying of suicide, left me in utter shock. I remember discarding the news as fake and checking at least 10 websites before letting it sink[Read More…]
To unpack the personality of Professor Mohi-ud-Din Hajini, the multifarious man, is intractable for a mediocre like me. What to call the man who was larger-than- life and was made of sterner stuff? He was many in one. A genuine Philosopher, a genius Islamic scholar, a real revivalist, an honest translator, an appealing educationist, a great teacher, a staunch[Read More…]
Child psychologists generally believe that parenting style adopted is primarily responsible for the behavior of children. It also affects the performance of the child in everything worth mentioning throughout his life. There has been an intense debate going on regarding the adoption of parenting styles for children’s all-round development. There are diverse opinions about any specific style to be followed[Read More…]
Father’s Day is a great tradition to celebrate and honor the father. However, it is also a stressful day for many people. I feel the joy and the pain of both groups, here are some thoughts about each group. First of all, my heart goes out to those who did not have a good relationship between father and children.[Read More…]
At this crucial juncture, when all the nations of the world are facing, perhaps, the severest challenge to combat the deadly novelCoronavirus, a new look into the 6th International Yoga Day, being observed on 21st June 2020, is demanded. The world has witnessed a death toll of 4,42,770 and has afflicted more than 81,92,261 in just seventy days. While United[Read More…]
He was the apple of the eye for whom ever met him. It was only after we lost him that every one realised what that usage meant “apple of the eye”. To his mother, K was the baby boy who never ever grew up though he was 6 feet tall and had a striding gait. To his sister, he was[Read More…]
Bishnu Prasad Rava is known as a Cultural Icon, one of the triumvirates of Assam along with Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and Phani Sharma, whose death and birth anniversary is celebrated across the state in glittering events. His thousands of bust and life-size statues can be seen in school and college yards, inside university campuses, and office premises. Auditoriums and parks[Read More…]
To what standpoint have you raised the happiness of man? Has there ever been an age which has counted so many victims to humanity as the present? Has there ever been an age in which immorality and egotism have been greater or more dominant than in this one? The tree is known by its fruits. Mad men! With your imaginary[Read More…]
Being un-employed is nothing less than a social stigma in contemporary times. This you can realise only if you are someone who is un-employed or has experienced the same. The modern society has been constructed in such a manner that there exists no existence for the un-employed youth. The community recognizes you only if you[Read More…]
Remembering the science and activism of Richard Levins in the time of corona The resurgence of infectious disease is but one manifestation of a more general crisis: the eco-social distress syndrome—the pervasive multilevel crisis of dysfunctional relations within our species and between it and the rest of nature…It is both a generic crisis of the human species and a specific[Read More…]
Health is one of the basic human rights of a human being. But this has always been undermined by the governments everywhere in the world, even though the UN has proclaimed–Health is a right. Some of the States have incorporated it in their constitution but it stands as a customary one. Majority of the countries don’t guarantee that none of[Read More…]
I met my dear friend Maryam in the spring of 1980. We studied at the same US University in Rhode Island. She was a couple of years older than me as she was doing her Masters in Sociology and Community Development. The very first conversation I had with her was on a Friday afternoon as all the foreign students were[Read More…]
We’re all mindful about the tragedy which has taken place recently, yes I’m talking about Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide, I thought even I should talk about the importance of mental well-being here. The news has stunned all of us since at some place or the other we were associated with him even despite the fact that it was through web-based[Read More…]
A civilization reveals itself as fruitful by its ability to incite others to imitate it: when it no longer dazzles them it is reduced to a mere collection of odds and ends and vestiges of former worldly greatness. The successive attempts of Napoleon and Hitler to create a world empire failed, as the United States of North[Read More…]
” I am what time, circumstance, history have made of me, certainly; but I am also much more than that, So are we all” – James Baldwin. With the sad news, which broke on a Sunday afternoon, the pictures of Sushant Singh Rajput were trending all across the media outlets and social media platforms. People from different walks of life[Read More…]
Freedom, one of the most mischievous concepts, covers much and many: individual, society, country, class, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence, teacher, student, education-boss, artist, author, singer, worker, capitalist, economic, political, ecological, cultural, ideological, conscience, thought, expression, association, press, plunder, exploit, appropriate, expropriate, dominate, protest, resist, revolt, overthrow domination. In cases, opposing positions arise. The positions clash regularly, and invariably. With varied[Read More…]
“I’m a trained engineer, so I’m conditioned to come up with a right answer to a difficult question, but when it comes to art, there is no definite answer because it’s so subjective.” Talented young actor Sushant Singh Rajput is now no more with us. The boy from Patna who left a career in Engineering to pursue acting, will[Read More…]
“…history is potent enough to deliver, on time, in the medium to long run, most of the possible scenarios, and to eventually bury the bad guy.” Nassim Nicolas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness This essay assumes a personal and historical tone during time of global unrest. It is my response to the murder of George Floyd and seeks to re-imagine what could[Read More…]
With the outbreak of COVID-19, educational institutions had to change their mode of teaching. Though virtual teaching is not something new, but doing it on a daily basis has made it a new normal. Educational institutions started an online mode of teaching to recommence the studies. Now when teachers and students get ready in the morning, it is to gear[Read More…]
The Staunch FighterFor The Communist Revolutionary Cause The UCCRI(ML) condoles the passing away of Comrade Gananath Patro, a prominent Communist Revolutionary leader hailing from the State of Odisha. He breathed his last at 4.50 pm on Saturday 6th June 2020 at his home in Rourkela, Odisha. With advancing age and suffering from various ailments he was bedridden for the last[Read More…]
For the last eighteen years Countercurrents.org has emerged as truly as the voice of the diverse set of activists working on human rights, freedom of expression, climate change, nationality questions, caste and race questions, gender discourse. It has emerged as the voice of the oppressed and all those denied rights. It emerged as a true alternative media. The force behind[Read More…]
Winter is the cruelest season of all the season. Cruel like a tyrant or an oppressor. It kills what is green, deforms what is beautiful and dethrones the pleasurable seasons. No mercy it shows to the old, kids, women and men-all are tortured by its harshness, barbarianism and its ruthlessness. Tyranny knows no gender,[Read More…]
In Gary Pomerantz’s recent book on Bob Cousy, ” The Last Pass”, he relates a story about the Boston Celtics All Star as to race relations. This was from 1950, when most of our nation was even more segregated than we (still) are now. Cousy was a rookie that year and roomed with the team’s only black player, Chuck Cooper.[Read More…]
“I am a millennial. We invented social media. So I should be really good at this” – when Emma from the popular web series starts narrating her tale, it sets my mind on fire. Infact millennials are the early adopters of social media and have embraced these platforms widely as a main form of communication. It was during my bachelors that Whatsapp started[Read More…]
Co-Written by Bikash Sarma & Shruti Sharma Rousseau in Solitude. National Endowment for the Humanities. neh.gov. Catherine Malabou’s recent reflections on the ‘psychic space’ under the lockdown makes one wonder about the socio-spatio-temporal nature of the very quarantined state as well as of quarantining oneself within it. The quarantine – that we have been dwelling in now for sometime –[Read More…]
Identitarian politics has always been a topic overladen with mixed and inchoate views. Some perceive it as a positive phenomenon and others comprehend it as atavistic and socially detrimental. Its positivity lies in the fact that it can embolden a particular marginalized community to initiate minority politics or indigenist politics like the one occurring in Latin America which possesses transformative[Read More…]
“I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.” (Joan Didion) From their initial pairing in 1927, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made up one of the 20th century’s most beloved comedy duos. Upon[Read More…]
Co-Written by Hemraj P Jangir & Mamta Yadav It has been more than four months but the whole world is still grappling with the pandemic. Every day we are getting distressing news and images on social media. The COVID-19 has brought many changes in our daily lives. These changes have not only been of staying at home, dining at[Read More…]
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.-Mikail Bakunin Michael Alexandrovitch Bakunin was born on 30th May, 1814, in the Russian province of Tvar. He was the eldest son of a retired diplomat, who was a member of the ancient Russian nobility. Young Michael passed his[Read More…]
Death! It has always been around. Ever since we began understanding the world a bit, we knew death was a phenomenon; something, which happened only to others, mostly to the old. Of course, occasionally it happened to a few young also, in tragic accidents or illnesses, or in wars. Sadly, very often to the poor though, who had neither food[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jitamanyu Sahoo & Syed Mujtaba Hussain The current pandemic situation across the globe has accentuated the pre-existing trend of mental health issues to the global forefront. What is more alarming is most of the world is under complete or partial lockdown and people living or developing mental health issues are unable to access the basic treatment. The emergence[Read More…]
Co-Written by Akhter Hussain Bhat & Noorain Batool Khan The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a worldwide threat and a major healthcare concern. Since its outbreak in China, the virus has so far affected more than 5.72 million people with over 3.56 lakh deaths globally causing widespread concern, fear, anxiety and stress. Owing to the severe infectious nature of[Read More…]
On May 12, 2020 the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi in his address to the nation announced the ‘Aatmnirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan’— ‘Self-reliant India Mission’. He mentioned this pandemic can be changed into an opportunity to develop the nation and help the world. Addressing to the nation he said that today there is a ‘will and way’ both, to become[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Government’s announcement to switch over from physical class room to virtual class room during the Covid 19 Pandemic lockdown period seems to be a digital revolutionary step. It seems that govt is in no mood of compromise on the issue of education. Students should not suffer due to the outbreak of covid 19[Read More…]
Keith Lyons writes of Tendol Gyalzur, a COVID 19 victim, a refugee and an orphan who found new lives for many other orphans with love and an ability to connect. This story is about how one person found joy and happiness, not in accumulating material possessions or going viral on social media, but in finding her purpose through doing service, and[Read More…]
Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the history of[Read More…]
A valiant freedom fighter and an indomitable spirit during the liberation war and afterwards, Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury is a known figure in the sub-continent. With a larger than life persona he does not need a grand introduction. On Sunday night, the last thing that I had read before going to bed is that Zafrullah Chowdhury has tested positive for Covid-19.[Read More…]
I never met the great basketball player, Bob Cousy, the man known as “the Houdini of the Hardwood,” yet he somehow influenced my life in ways I never knew, or to be more accurate, in ways I didn’t reflect upon except in superficial ways. He was the guy who brought professional basketball into the modern era with his bag of[Read More…]
When you kill a person you kill more than just another body. You kill a brain, a soul, a congealed set of experiences, emotions, and connections. You kill loves, wants, thoughts, desires, ideas. You kill futures and pasts. You kill loves ones’ hopes and calm. You kill sleep. You kill joys and laughs. You kill all the books read, all[Read More…]
Just after the end of World War 2, American writer and political radical Dwight Macdonald wrote the essay Responsibility of the Intellectuals in 1945, in which he strongly criticised the war. He was depressed of war efforts and its horror, the bombings and destruction of cities. He asked the question: ‘To what extent the German or Japanese people were responsible[Read More…]
Recently, I came across an article in The Indian Express by writer, teacher and social activist Apoorvanand. It was rejoinder to some article. Initially, it appeared to me to suggest that there is no need to imitate Lenin’s model of revolution in India. But when I went through the whole piece, I was astonished and highly disappointed. He not only[Read More…]
Last Bloom, April 2017 Early 1998, I visited Bhopal for some work. Bhopal has a lot of plant nurseries and supplies them to many places in India. I also decided to buy some plants. I knew little about exotic plants then. A friend of mine helped me select some nice plants and one of them was a small sapling of[Read More…]
Words Jihad and Jihadi have been in abundant use for the negative purposes from last two decades in particular. They have been closleyl linked to the word terrorism and violence, done by section of Muslims here and there. This global use of word is particularly a post 9/11 phenomenon. Just to recapitulate after the WTC was hit by two aeroplanes;[Read More…]
It is circa 2020 and we are in the middle of a declared pandemic and a nation-wide lockdown. In the current extraordinary circumstances, university students have been simply asked to concentrate on their studies, and now, be ready to appear for open book examinations in several leading universities. Of course, it is presumed that the poorest of the poor students[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic is seen as a ‘useful crisis’ in which to transform the economy. Yet the university system has not received any such ‘stimulus’ of fresh ways of thinking about education. While exams do play a role, they are being fetishized as the return of ‘normalcy’ even as many students have been left to themselves in the face of[Read More…]
What does it mean to be a dissident? At its simplest, it means to critically engage with and seek to change the material and the ideological structures of the society in which you find yourself, whether local, national, regional, or global. It means the ability to say “no” to those in power, even if the immediate opportunities for real change[Read More…]
A lot had already been written about the high morbidity conscious Kerala society and especially what was being called in the early eighties as the ‘Kerala Paradox’. This essentially is a conceptual complex which meant that the morbidity rate was very high in Kerala compared to the low mortality and it also meant that the state could achieve better health[Read More…]
Dr Goparaju Vijayam or popularly known as Dr Vijayam, passed away, in the morning today at his home at the Atheist Center in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. The loss is tremendous as far as the humanist movement in India is concern as Vijayam Garu was one of the pioneers. He was also the Executive Director of Atheist Center founded eighty years[Read More…]
The soul shall rise from the deep depths of darkness. The darkness that has layers after layers, hence exists in many forms. The manyness of this darkness, its different shades, blurs the realities and forces the soul to leave the search for the truth and negotiate with the environment- dark indeed. The force of darkness is so mighty that[Read More…]
Taiwan Tension: U.S. carrier group enters South China Sea 
What’s Right vs The Right on 26th January 
Villagers Will Bring Stray Cattle To Yogi Adityanath’s Residence On 26 January 
Review: “The Unraveling of America” by Wade Davis – Covid, Omissions, Truth Spectrum & UDHR Article 25 
PUCL and 100 Organisations demand the repeal of the UAPA 
The Great Reset Initiative or The Great Neoliberal Capitalist Lie 
While Repeal of Three Controversial Farm Laws is a Must, A Wider Vision is Also Needed Urgently 
The Sangh Parivar Should Prevail Upon The Government to Change Its Stand on the Three Controversial Farm Laws 
The Captive Media in the USA 
‘Un-Trumping’ America 
Pulling together to tide over the pandemic: Lessons from Bengaluru 
Kashmir: Romance And Rigours Of Snow 
Freedom 
Widespread Opposition of Arrest Warrant Against Eminent Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta 
Common Myths About Human Progress 
Post-Trump World: Is Democracy Dying in America As Well? 
Brainwashed To Violence 
Revisiting The Back-Stabbing Of Netaji By Hindutva Gang On His 125th Birth Anniversary 
400 + Days of Unjust Arrest: Free Akhil Gogoi 
Complex Life Threatened 
American trust in the mainstream media hits an all-time low 
40th Anniversary of Gang Of Four Trial In China 
How Aakar Patel Under-Read The Character Of Hindu Rashtra? A Review Article 
What is Progress? 
Immortal Wins: India Defeats Fortress Australia 
Why politicization is not the bad thing it is made out to be, and the case for politicizing public grievances 
The Farm Laws will be back-breaking for the agricultural labourers too 
Karnataka High Court Directs Revenue Secretary To Demonstrate Compliance In ESG Lakes PIL 
The fatal consequences of high atmospheric methane levels 
To Working Stiff Trump Supporters 
After earth, is human body a dumping ground to microplastics? 
Do You Remember Cuba’s Dedication to Angola? 
The Future of War, American-Style 
Hello Mumbai! Are you adhering to all Covid guidelines? 
Reclaiming ‘Truth’ from ‘Lies’ and ‘Bullshit’ in the ‘Post Truth’ Society 
The Kisan Andolan and Union Government: Understanding the Impasse 
The Most Obvious and Important Role of Humanity is Now the Most Neglected and Violated 
COVID-19 Vaccine hesitancy: Understanding the challenges 
Farmers’ Protests Reflect Existential Crisis of Indian Agriculture As Trump Departs, America Is Anti-Supremacist At Home But Pro-Supremacist For Israel 
For nearly two decades now Countercurrents has provided millions of readers around the world with deep insights and analysis of news, events, trends that are usually ignored by mainstream media. A key quality of this unique information platform has been its eclectic and open minded choice of themes, ranging from caste, gender and communalism to issues related to ecology, rapidly[Read More…]
