On this 6th July Pravesh Shula, a BJP worker, urinated on an Adivasi boy. Shukla is a close associate of Kedarnath Shukla, the MLA of the area. When Pravesh was peeing; his friend Deep Narayan Sahu was videotaping the whole incident. The person on whom Shukla; out of fear kept quiet, but as the video of the incident surfaced, MP[Read More…]
Last week, video emerged showing what was — at least, what one hopes was — the tail end of a wild night experienced by a seasoned political activist in India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh. Who knows exactly what Pravesh Shukla spent his time doing earlier that day. Perhaps, as a party worker for the BJP, he’d been out in[Read More…]
As the world’s so-called largest democracy heads for a general election in May, 2024, overseas Indians need to mobilize to rid their home country of a Hindu supremacist leader. Narendra Modi first got elected as the Prime Minister of India in May, 2014. He has completed almost ten years in power. A diehard member of the RSS, a right wing[Read More…]
One of the worst developments of 2022 was the electoral victory of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Gujarat state of India. The December 8 assembly polls gave a clear verdict in favour of the BJP, which won 156 out of 182 seats, forming government for seventh term in a row. Like it or not, the[Read More…]
RSS-BJP rulers of India have suddenly developed immense love for the Indian national flag. According to press reports under “Har Ghar Tiranga” [Tricolour at every home] campaign Centre facilitated hoisting of the Tricolour at 24 crore homes across the country from August 13 to 15 as part of the celebration of the 75th year of India’s independence. Even PM Modi[Read More…]
The Muslim religious practice of Bakrid – being observed in July this year – is in commemoration of an event in past history that is shared by both Islam and Christianity. Members of both the communities assert their devotion to a preacher known as Abraham among Jews and Ibrahim among Muslims. Note the similarities in the phonetic pronunciations. According to [Read More…]
The OverSeas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or; OF-BJP, is fairly big in the United Kingdom, and more so in the United States of America. It surprisingly even has a huge number of followers in the United Arab Emirates. You can visit them at their official online information portal at http://ofbjp.bjp.org/ and read up all about their plans and[Read More…]
It was late July this year when some Sikh kids came out with their parents in Surrey, to register their protest against the unjust farm laws passed by the world’s so-called largest democracy without due consultations. Implemented by the ruling right wing Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi, these laws threaten the livelihood of the peasantry, which has taken[Read More…]
The block pramukh elections in the three-tier panchayati raj (rural decentralization) system of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, took place on July 10 Saturday. The block pramukh is elected at the second tier. Many members are elected at the block level directly by people and these in turn elect the block pramukh. Hence direct voting by people is not involved[Read More…]
For the past six years, we have been told that India has got a strong government with a strong leader. The measurements of the Prime Minister’s chest became the centre of a political strategy that emphasised, what some saw as, his political strength and to resolve issues with an iron-fist approach. The onslaught of the pandemic and its consistent mismanagement[Read More…]
The BJP has recently suffered serious reverses in state assembly elections in W.Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and what may even more worrying for its leadership, even in critical segments of the rural decentralization or panchayati elections in its strongholds of Uttar Pradesh. This is further confirmation, if such confirmation was needed, that several recent decisions of the government have[Read More…]
Soon after the reverses the BJP suffered in State Assembly elections in W.Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it has suffered humiliation in some of its strongest households in Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura in a phase of the rural decentralization( panchayati) elections in the electoral heartland of Uttar Pradesh. Ayodhya has been the biggest centre of narrow religion-centered political mobilization of[Read More…]
During his speech in the Indian Parliament’s Lok Sabha, or Lower House, on Feb 9, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi spoke about ‘Foreign Destructive Ideology’ plaguing the country, and the need to protect ourselves from it. This seems to be in reference to the expression of support for the farmers protesting around Delhi for the last two and a half[Read More…]
The Sangh was founded in 1925 with the declared aim of opposing the ‘yavan-snakes’ (i.e the Muslims) who ‘were spreading riots in the country.’ It declared with equal determination that it was not concerned with the independence movement. The Sangh kept its word and opposed the freedom struggle with determination. When independence appeared a possibility, Golwarkar dreamt of India as[Read More…]
Along with broader movement against the authoritarian project of RSS and BJP, emphasis must be laid on politicisation of society and balance of social forces must be changed Recently, senior journalist Santosh Bhartiya interviewed me on the contradictions of left movement. Responding to his question, I said that for me left movement in India is a democratic movement which stands[Read More…]
It would be interesting to recall in the context of the current India China relations that Liu Shaoqi’s book How to be a Good Communist was translated into Gujarati in the 1940s by Chandrakant Parikh, a full time CPI worker, in Mumbai. How much history has changed. Gujarat has come to this sad pass politically today. But it had a[Read More…]
When BJP national president Amit Shah descended on northern Kerala recently as part of his ‘save Kerala mission’, he brought along with him a gaggle of journalists to gauge the menace of “Red-Jihadi terror” in the state. The embedded journalists looked around with rubbernecking curiosity for mass graves of RSS men killed by CPM cadres. They, however, could not[Read More…]
My take on the situation in our country today is that the BJP must decide what it is – bird or beast. It must decide what its core ideology is. I am happy to do a Core Ideology Workshop for them and the RSS if they want. The problem is that they seem to be confused in this respect and[Read More…]
As was expected PM Narendra Modi shifted HRD minister Smriti Zubin Irani to less consequential position, the textile ministry, in the recent reshuffle of the council of minister. To have a particular minister in a particular position is the well established convention and the prerogative of PM in a parliamentary democratic system, on this ground the shifting is natural but[Read More…]
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
Criminal Justice And Freedom of Speech 
75,000 Climate Protesters Marched In New York With Demand To End Fossil Fuels 
On the Dark Side of the Moon.. 
Avoiding the War on Terror would have saved over 10 million lives at home and abroad 
The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
Climate Emergency Update, September 2023 
My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom 
How Can We Understand the Passage of Time? 
Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
Ukrainian president holds crisis talks in Washington amid failure of “spring offensive” 
Zelensky Faces Difficult Time In Washington D.C. 
Stumbling Towards Old Age And Looking for Someone to Lean On 
Tolstoy’s Dilemma 
Ukraine Peace Activists Protest During Zelensky White House Visit 
“Our world is becoming unhinged”: Antonio Guterres 
How Chances of Direct War between the USA and Russia Are Increasing G20 Biofuel Alliance threatens Food security 
Thousands Of Auto Workers Strike In Three U.S. Plants, Face Financial Hardship 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
