The aim of consumerism, which the rulers of these [socialist] economies had promoted, when they aspired to surpass the United States in the standard of life, conceived in terms of capitalist West, forced them to abandon their socialist objective. The consumerist standards of the Western world could be achieved only by providing very high incomes to a few in highly[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the reasons why we urgently need immediate and drastic climate action The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/action.pdf Use of fossil fuels must stop! The IPCC Report The 4,000-page report by the International Panel on Climate Change[Read More…]
A note on ‘Indian Muslims’ by Ms Humra Quraishi Farid, the earth questioned the sky, Where are the mighty captains gone ? In their grave they rot, was the reply And rebuked for tasks Not done Baba Farid Shakarganj ( 1173- 1265) A video of a photographer jumping on the dead body of a hapless ‘encroacher’ from Assam has gone[Read More…]
Review of Amartya Sen’s Memoir “HOME IN THE WORLD”,Penguin Random House,2021 Amartya Sen is rightly regarded as the iconic liberal democrat of our time,combining as he does a deep-seated commitment to fundamental civil rights with an unwavering passion for social justice,advocated with serene rationality unfailingly courteous to people holding different views.The only condition he lays down is that such views[Read More…]
Finding soil’s soul and shadow is difficult, but not impossible. Science and farmer experience make it possible. The finding, found through science and labor, helps soil smile, and sustain life and economy. Building Soils for Better Crops discusses soil, solves that “riddle” that kills soil’s life, and finds that “magic” that brings on earth blooming crops in a sustainable manner.[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 many aspects of[Read More…]
Review of ‘ From ‘Nazneen to Naina’ “To get a name is one of the few things that cannot be bought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted.” – British writer Samuel Johnson ( 1709-1784) – poet, playwright, essayist, biographer, critic, editor The idea to be fascinated by individuals –[Read More…]
Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers By Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-64259-124-8 Paperback Like many of you, I use an iPhone. It is a technological wonder and allows me to do things unimaginable even a few years ago; it has more computer power than NASA had[Read More…]
Review of “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State” by Samuel Stein. Verso, 2019. Real Estate is the world’s largest asset class. The numbers are staggering- globally, real estate in aggregate is worth approximately $230 trillion. Of this, residential real estate is the majority player, worth approximately $180 trillion. This far exceeds the value of all stocks and is[Read More…]
Respected journalist Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces is imperative reading for its detonating exposé of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan and the systematic cover-ups at varying levels of the Australian Defence Force operations. Willacy’s window on war crimes is narrow, focusing on three SAS members of Squadron 3; Soldier A, Soldier B and Soldier C who murdered in chilling bloodlust innocent Afghan farmers in 2012. It[Read More…]
From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world was officially launched on Tuesday, September 21 at the Press Club of the Union Territory. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on her film career so far, and what she has faced[Read More…]
Marx had famously said that the history of all existing societies is the history of class struggle. In this context, if one looks into the history of Himachal Pradesh then one can hardly disregard the fact that classes of several sorts had their struggles in the spatial dimensions of what is now known as Himachal. The homogeneity of society which[Read More…]
From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world, will be officially released at Chandigarh Press Club on Tuesday, September 21. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on the film career of the famous Bollywood diva, and what she has faced[Read More…]
A Review of Andrey Mir’s “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers.” While there are several books analyzing the impact of social media on society, Andrey Mir’s book “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization” distinguishes itself by focusing on the impact of social media on traditional media. The defining analysis of traditional[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses religious ethics and cosmology. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2021/09/Who-is-my-Neighbor-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf One often hears the question: “Is there a conflict between science and religion?” In my opinion, there are two aspects to religion – ethics[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 historical development[Read More…]
In a society built on inequities based on class, caste, gender, race – existence of constitutional legislations for benefit of oppressed does not by itself ensure their welfare. It requires a conscious collective action by the oppressed against exploitation. It requires a change in mindset from ‘fearful’ to ‘fearless minds’. The book by Vivek Pandit titled ‘Fearless Minds’ tries to[Read More…]
Tripta Lahiri’s book “ Maid in India” on what it means to be a domestic help in an average middle or upper class Indian households is a surprisingly accurate one. It does not paint a binary black and white picture – maids good and noble and employers all evil and cruel. It presents a balanced picture of the benevolent and[Read More…]
Except for Palestine – The Limits of Progressive Politics. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. The New Press, New York. 2021. “Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within it, the authors Hill and Plitnick present the larger picture that the self proclaimed progressive “universal” values of the United States are argued for in many troubled spots of the[Read More…]
Vancouver-based broadcaster Gurpreet Singh has tried to expose the growing polarization of Indian society and cinema through the story of one of the most popular movie stars. From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world is based on her film career so far, and[Read More…]
India was ready for change with liberalisation and globalization. As the then Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had said in his historic budget speech, the country needed a comprehensive fiscal adjustment, but the poor would also have to be saved from it. On July 25, 1991, an editorial article in ‘The Hindu’ had called it ‘sparing the poor’. At[Read More…]
In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power. ALfred W. McCoy. Haymarket Books, Chicago. 2017 Reading “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a bit of an up and down ride. The best part of the book for personal interest concerning the author is the Introduction. The author, Alfred McCoy, discusses[Read More…]
K.M. Seethi, Enduring Dilemma: Flashpoints in Kashmir and India-Pakistan Relations (KW Publishers Pvt Ltd New Delhi 2021) As India and Pakistan are set to celebrate the 75th Year of independence, the trauma of partition and the unsettled issues of the past continue to haunt the people of the subcontinent in diverse ways. The region of South Asia is not only[Read More…]
by Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen Many necessary everyday items that are produced as commodities are tied to a range of activities that are invisible during their purchase, consumption and use: the origin of raw materials used in household appliances, medical devices or transport; water and energy infrastructures; the working conditions under which materials are extracted or textiles and food[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a collection of the articles and book announcements which I have written during the last two years. Almost all of these have been published in Countercurrents or in TMS Weekly Digest or both. I am extremely grateful to Editor Binu Mathew and to Editor Antonio C.S. Rosa[Read More…]
Author – Badri Narayan Publisher – Penguin Random House India, March 2021 ‘There is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destiny of a country depends upon its intellectual class’ – Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar In this recent book Professor Badri Narayan (Social Historian and Cultural Anthropologist) maps out the political grammar of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its parent[Read More…]
Reviewer’s Note: I had the pleasure to review a proof of Stan Cox’s forthcoming book. I recommend it strongly and offer high praise, though caviled by a few nits. Please read on. Recent events have awakened even some typically passive people to the enormity of the synthetic disaster that is anthropogenic climate change. Though who “agreed with the Science” and[Read More…]
The world is on fire like never before: “Wildfires Have Erupted Across the Globe Scorching Places That Rarely Burned Before” (CNN headlines July 22, 2021) but not only is fire raging, Biblical floods are destroying entire communities, e.g. 9,000 homes swept away in central China (BBC News) as towns were nearly decimated in Germany, “Europe’s Deadly Floods Leave Scientists Stunned”[Read More…]
Human history as cultural history At present, history is taught as though power struggles were its most important aspect. Furthermore, the present teaching of history is an indoctrination in nationalism. 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[Read More…]
Lawrence in Arabia – War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Scott Anderson. Anchor Books, Random House LLC, New York, 2013. Every very seldom often a book comes along that greatly exceeds expectations. Lawrence in Arabia is one of those books. Scott Anderson’s writing is highly entertaining and highly informative at the same time. It[Read More…]
“Cruelty Or Humanity” by Stuart Rees is an important book that should be in every institutional and public library. Despite the Mainstream hiding or softening horrific crimes, we are all aware of global cruelties, from deadly Developing World poverty to equally deadly war atrocities. We utterly abhor cruel people of personal acquaintance, and my reading of this powerful book instructs[Read More…]
Matthew Ehret, with contributions from Cynthia Chung, has written a much-needed book about the early history of the United States of America. The title of the book is The Clash of Two Americas, the Unfinished Symphony. It is volume 1 of a planned series. This essay is based on the book. The “Clash of Two America” is a compendium of[Read More…]
What is degrowth? Degrowth is an ambiguous label used by different currents that have emerged or have been reconsidered as such since the 1960s when the contemporary environmentalist movement got underway. The bulk of these movements identify as Greens although it includes eco-anarchists (e.g. Trainer 2010; Australian Simplicity Institute) and others. The ambiguity of what degrowth stands for is a problem both for its[Read More…]
After the Apocalypse – America’s Role in a World Transformed. Andrew Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York. 2021. The contemporary apocalypse as seen by Andrew Bacevich in his latest book, “After the Apocalypse”, consists of four different horsemen: first mentioned are the severe climate effects of global warming; Trump “toxic and divisive” presidency is mentioned next; followed[Read More…]
Economic history is not a truly scintillating read. However, to understand how our society is arranged economically as it is today, “Goliath” provides an interesting background into the people, policies, and the political rhetoric (propaganda) that shaped the power struggle between monopoly power and democracy. Without forcefully stating it, that is the theme of the book: monopoly power as it[Read More…]
A common line of argument from the contemporary American left is that “socialism has never been tried.” It’s understandable that Western socialists would make this argument to members of the US proletariat, who have been deeply affected by years of red scare propaganda. This argument however, ignores the millions who have struggled and died in an effort to move beyond[Read More…]
‘Runaway climate change (1) is not just a technical term in climatology, but a profound reflection of the catastrophic crisis we have reached. In recent years, India is experiencing a series of extreme weather events and finally the Ministry of Earth Sciences has released its first Climate Assessment report. Although hundreds of books and scientific articles published daily on the[Read More…]
Recent incidence in IIT Kharagpur of the verbal assault mounted by the professor on the marginalised students with proclamation of impunity from penal Action of State directs us to innumerable paradoxes in 21st Century India.It also implies that not all is well in the country who seeks to achieve the goal of Superpower in International Arena but still lacks[Read More…]
[Prefatory Note: This is an edited text of Remarks on 30 June 2021 at the opening on the Book Launch of Timothy Brennan’s PLACES OF MIND: A LIFE OF EDWARD SAID (2021), an event under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre of Palestinian Studies, moderated by its director, Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool. Also participating in the discussion of Professor Brennan’s book[Read More…]
Set in an unnamed southern town amid lush plantations of pepper, bananas, coffee, rice, and narrated in soliloquy Annie Zaidi’s 184- page novel, Prelude to a Riot is a brilliant, bold, honest, critical commentary on contemporary India. “Abu doesn’t want to work the land. He says it’s pointless because we cannot take the land with us when we leave”. Abu,[Read More…]
Richard P. Mitchell’s book “The Society of Muslim Brothers” is one of first and most authentic book on the formation, Ideology and objectives of Muslim Brotherhood. Being a study conducted during most crucial period of Egypt, the time of Egypt revolution of 1952 and based on observance of true incidences and interviews of prominent personalities of Egypt (Brothers and non[Read More…]
“Anyone with a sense of history would have realized that the hubristic attempt to make the world into a frontier- and culture- free single market would end in tears”; this is how Robert Skidelsky, one of the leading economists of today, observes the present economic turmoil. The predictability of mathematical modeling of neoclassical economics began to be widely questioned with[Read More…]
War: How Conflict Shaped Us. Margaret MacMillan. Random House, New York. 2020. I almost did not finish reading “War: How Conflict Shaped Us”. It is not worth reading, but I worked through it anyway. Which is unfortunate as Margaret MacMillan can be an excellent writer of history. The two volumes of hers that I have read – “Paris 1919” and[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the reasons why the institution of war continues to threaten human civilization and the biosphere, and the steps that might be taken to rid the world of war. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Why-War-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf[Read More…]
Kate Elizabeth Russell dedicates her exemplary work, My Dark Vanessa to “the real life Dolores Hazes and Vanessa Wyes whose stories have not yet been heard, believed, or understood”. As I begin to read this, I already get a whiff of what I am in for. The existing scholarship around the realm of English Literature has already turned the predatory[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the urgent changes that are needed to save our planet and our collective future. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/A-Critical-Decade-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Humanity has reached a critical decade A new report, published on 14 March, 2021[Read More…]
Worldwide chemical emissions are six times global warming emissions. This hidden dilemma is fully exposed in a superbly researched new book by science writer Julian Cribb: Earth Detox, How and Why We Must Clean Up Our Planet, Cambridge University Press, scheduled for release August 2021. The planet has become a toxic soup of tested, untested, and inadequately tested chemicals that[Read More…]
Dr. Krishna Upadhyaya, a fellow traveller in the struggles for emancipation of bonded labourers in Nepal, in his latest Novel ‘The Ghosts in the Hills’ ventures to deep dive into the important but less narrated phase of Nepal’s recent history, the Maoist uprising. It falls within the genre of historical novels. It is not a factual narrative of the Maoist[Read More…]
The poetry of earth is never dead -John Keats This is Sanjiv Bhatla’s maiden collection of poems. He has several authoritative and scholarly works on religious and spiritual subjects also to his credit. His poems are equally brilliant and bear out the finer sensibilities in him. His anthology was originally published by Orient Longman (now Orient Black Swan).It has now[Read More…]
In her 2020 text Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism, Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and Intersectionality are incompatible. In finding that in academia the interactions between these two traditions have been “grounded more in caricature than in close reading,” Bohrer sets out to expose and[Read More…]
An acclaimed columnist wrote recently in one of his social media posts , “ I love to buy books written by our children . It gives me unique inner satisfaction .May Allah protect our children.” One such young boy is Aazib Manzoor who has come out with around three hundred page debut novel titled “The Sentiment in my Stone”. One[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses the duty of scientists and engineers to try to prevent the catastrophes that currently threaten human society and the biosphere. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/The-Social-Responsibility-Of-Scientists-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Three major threats to human society Science and technology have[Read More…]
In the time of aggressive neo-liberal Hindutva led by the RSS-BJP in the leadership of the Hindutva poster boy Modi poses serious political threats to the regional identity and caste based political parties and constitutional democracy. In current time, the Shudra and Ati-Shudras political parties like SP, BSP, RJD and others have failed to make any socio-cultural and political agenda[Read More…]
Moumita Alam’s debut poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is a powerful poetic assertion of dissent. Dissent against what? Against state sponsored violence against Kashmiris, violence against anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protesters at Shaheen Bagh, violence against migrant labourers, daily labourers during Covid 19 pandemic. She also voices her dissent against structural violence of casteism, fascism, violence against women[Read More…]
In the course of facing the ongoing challenge of the pandemic, a sad reality that has manifested itself time and again is that profit-driven health systems are unable to respond effectively to such crisis situations. There are several disturbing anecdotes of how the profit driven systems and the individuals running them behaved in a selfish and callous way towards[Read More…]
Without doubt Comrade Kobad Ghandy in book ‘Fractured Freedom” has taught us a lot about the weaknesses inherent in the Communist Movement ,giving all of us a great insight into it. Most pertinently it taps on issue of the individual subconscious. Kobad Ghandy proves the spiritual essence of a revolutionary. In it’s own right the work is a classic and[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses the things that I have experienced during my 67 years of work in the peace movement. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/67-years-in-the-peace-movement-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Holger Terp’s invitation Seven years ago, Holger Terp, the founder and web editor of[Read More…]
The Crash of Flight 3804 – A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil. Charlotte Dennett. Chelsea Green Publishing. London/White River Junction, VT. 2020. Titles can be deceptive – “The Crash of Flight 3804” meant nothing for all my readings of history and geopolitics. It was not about the crash that killed[Read More…]
Unfinished History-A truly great Masterpiece highlighting how even after fifty years of Naxalbari and Seven decades after Independence Neo-fascism has penetrated India at an unprecedented magnitude I recommend everyone to read this classic book titled “India-50 after Naxalbari” by Bernard D’Mellow that most analytically assesses metamorphosis in India in post-naxalbari era of Naxalbari, Maoist movement and emergence of fascism in[Read More…]
“Revolutionary Dreaming Tramp” (On the occasion of Charlie’s Birthday- 16th April 1889) “I consider myself a citizen of the world, an internationalist… I just happen to have been born in London, England. It could have been Burma or China or Timbuktu, I’d still be the way I am. I’d keep my first citizenship because, being an accident of birth,[Read More…]
Why I am not a Hindu woman: a personal story by Wandana Sonalkar, New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2021, pp 169. Wandana Sonalkar is a self-proclaimed atheist and in this autobiographical account titled ‘Why I am not a Hindu Woman’, Sonalkar critically reflects on her position on why she has chosen to renounce her religion. This work adds to the[Read More…]
“My book has no thesis, and any conclusions to be found in it were reached only during the writing, perhaps the most meaningful being that Hitler was far more complex and contradictory than I had imagined. ‘The greatest saints,’ observes one of Graham Greene’s characters, ‘Have been men with a more than normal capacity for evil, and the most vicious[Read More…]
Mein Kampf (1925; 1926) is a rambling political manifesto, disguised as autobiography. This book offers an insight into the long roots and broad appeal of extreme ideas – and, given the persistence of nationalism, racism, religious extremism, and conspiracy theories – should be required reading for every citizen of a contemporary democracy. *** Mein Kampf is a political manifesto disguised as[Read More…]
Impacts of unjust systems manifest in many ways, but few are as poignant as independent , proud farmers being displaced from their farmland and forced to migrate to a distant and unknown place to seek work in uncertain conditions. We in India are all too familiar with this on-going , overwhelming reality of our times, our country and this is[Read More…]
Every time I had visited hill stations such as Ooty and Kodaikanal, I have greatly admired the breathtaking beauty of nature, though my admiration has found equal attention to the men’s world, who come in their cars and bikes, with cigarettes and beer tins in their hands, chatter and laugh heartily with their friends.The Indian society has no qualms with[Read More…]
Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy. Daud Abdullah. Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC), 2020. Hamas has been a strongly maligned actor within the western mainstream media. The concise and well written “Engaging the World” by Daud Abdullah presents a clear picture of Hamas’ attempts to act as an international state actor while at the same time continuing its[Read More…]
Covid pandemic will remain an important chapter in India’s history. This is not only for the public health challenge it caused but it also brought out the deeply hidden flaws, biases, prejudices of the state and society. It was a mirror reflection of the state and society we are living in. The book by Harsh Mander titled “Locking down the[Read More…]
The Lion and the Eagle – The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972. Kathleen Burk. Bloomsbury, London/New York, 2018. The 200 year historical span of Kathleen Burk’s “The Lion and the Eagle” shows the changes in the interactions between the newly formed United States and its imperial drive and the ongoing imperial drive of the British. In general,[Read More…]
Eighty years after his death, Rabindranath Tagore continues to be written about. Any biographical or critical account of Tagore’s life and works — whether it is in Bengali, English or any other language — is noticeable and is received with reverence and respect. Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’, demonstrates the continuing universal appeal of the poet’s signature composition.[Read More…]
‘The Office of the President is an emergency light. It comes on automatically when there is a crisis and goes off automatically when the crisis passes,’ observed former President Ramaswamy Venkataraman in his book ‘My Presidential Years’. Whether present-day Presidents are any longer backup lights is difficult to say. Yet, diaries of past presidents sometimes give explicit account of the[Read More…]
A discussion by Candice Louisa Daquin based on reading Candace Owens’ book Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation According to the author, Candace Owens: Hilaría Baldwin is NOT Spanish. Rachel Dolezal will NEVER be black. A biological man is NOT a woman. A biological female will never be a man. These people are just ‘playing pretend’ and as[Read More…]
A Review article on the recently launched book edited by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and Karthik Raja Karuppusamy “The Shudras–Vision For New Path” number one bestseller on Amazon India’s farmers have sustained the largest protests in modern Indian history since Mahatma Gandhi and the independence movement. While Gandhi’s Khadi dhoti appeared in media worldwide, the farmers received relatively scant attention until[Read More…]
Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial. Somdeep Sen. Cornell University Press, New York. 2020. A book that has a very narrowly defined title often fails to look at the larger context, either regional or global. In “Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial” Somdeep Sen succeeds surprisingly well in placing the struggles of[Read More…]
It is now 19 years when Gujarat 2002 riots happened. The public memory of the nation has forgotten the event. Until has come a book Under Cover My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva by Ashish Khetan to bring back the memories of the calamity which had overtaken the Muslims of Gujarat. In fact to be exact it was like reading the riot[Read More…]
Written by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud On February 4, representatives from the Palestinian Movement, Hamas, visited Moscow to inform the Russian government of the latest development on the unity talks between the Islamic Movement and its Palestinian counterparts, especially Fatah. This was not the first time that Hamas’s officials traveled to Moscow on similar missions. In fact, Moscow continues[Read More…]
Title: Beyond Dharma – Dissent in the Ancient Sciences of Sex and Politics Author: Wendy Doniger Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 When one of the world’s most acclaimed and charming scholars of Hinduism presents a trailblazing interpretation of ancient Indian texts and their historic influence on subversive resistance, the book ought to be of more than ordinary interest. Eminent Indologist Wendy[Read More…]
I have been teaching in MA Development program of Azim Premji University since 2010. I am also involved with conducting short trainings for people working in the development sector from the village to the state level for last 20 years. It is mainly in that context that I am commenting on Bharat Dogra’s three books published in 2019 : Book[Read More…]
Written by Sharad Yadav and Omprakash Mahato During the Emergency (1975–77), all socialist leaders came together on one platform and formed the Janata Party government in 1977. In its manifesto, the Janata Party promised to undertake measures for social and educational upliftment of people belonging to backward castes and communities. The social upliftment of backward castes once again became the[Read More…]
Most recent works on the United States accept that it is an empire, perhaps not in the traditional landholding sense, but in the extent of its power and control of others. In “American Empire – Global History,” A. G. Hopkins accepts the idea of empire with several qualifications and with a precise focus on certain aspects of that empire. His[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 lives and[Read More…]
Originally written and published in 2012 in the Telugu language, Nirjana Vaaradhi, is a memoir by Kondapalli Koteswaramma. Sowmya V.B. translated this book in English, and ‘The Sharp Knife of Memory’ was published and released in 2015 by Zubaan books, to reach a much wider circle of readers, beyond the boundaries of the two Telugu speaking states of India. Koteswaramma[Read More…]
A Review: JFK vs. Allen Dulles by Greg Poulgrain Before I digress slightly, let me state from the outset that the book by Greg Poulgrain that I am about to review is extraordinary by any measure. The story he tells is one you will read nowhere else, especially in the way he links the assassination of President Kennedy to former CIA Director[Read More…]
A socialist, a believer in equal opportunities, a defender of civil liberties, a deeply involved citizen of India and a humanist, the late Justice Rajindar Sachar (1923–2018) was a celebrated jurist. One who believed in standing for the last man in the line and was armed with a moral remit that never wavered, his life was momentous. Few jurists in[Read More…]
During the late 60s, when the US war on Viet Nam was going strong and people were questioning capitalism, I drove from Eugene to Berkeley where my sister was living. I ran into folks who invited me to a discussion about starting a commune. There, everyone talked about dropping out of consumer society and buying land to get away from[Read More…]
India has witnessed a sea change in its social structure and political culture since Independence. Despite the progressive developmental model that the country has followed, we are witness to fissiparous tendencies that is on the path of dividing the Indian masses based on religion, ethnicity and caste ladder. Unquestionably, there is a need to develop a fresh approach to dismantling[Read More…]
Aakar Patel starts his timely and well-researched book Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here with a sentence “Majoritarianism is primitive and easy to do”. He surmises that establishment of Hindu Rashtra, which has only one meaning, that a Kshatriya king should rule the Hindu Rashtra under the supervision of a Brahmin head priest. Such a Hindu[Read More…]
A Review of The Plot to Kill King by William Pepper Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For almost fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government deception to hide the truth. And[Read More…]
An aspect of freedom movement of India which deserves to be better known in India, particularly among youth, is that various streams of freedom movement in India often supported and complemented each other. This is particularly true of the two most important streams, one identified mainly with Mahatma Gandhi and the other predominantly with Shahid Bhagat Singh. In a very[Read More…]
Rakhi Dalal reviews translated short stories of Nabendu Ghosh, which not only bring to life history as cited in his Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Lifetime Achievement award but also highlights his ‘love for humanity‘ Title: Mistress of Melodies: Stories of Courtesans and Prostituted Women Author: Nabendu Ghosh Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 Mistress of Melodies: Stories of Courtesans and Prostituted Women is acollection of six[Read More…]
Man over Machine: A Path towards Peace is the kind of book you might want to preserve and return to, every once in a while. Author Bharat Dogra has worked for long years as a freelance journalist – never taking on a full-time journalism job in order to be completely free, and writing a prodigious number of articles, many of[Read More…]
Jharkhand Me Mere Samkaaleen by Vir Bhrat Talwar, 2019, 2020, Delhi, Anugya Books, pp 213, Rs. 250/- On the surface, this book is in the form of a memoir about five persons who played an important role in the cultural, literary and political trends in the Jharkhand movement in the period 1970-2010. But they do not remain mere personal memoirs;[Read More…]
A Review of by Gaither Stewart’s Short Story Collection, “Signs of the Times” Gaither Stewart is an expatriate American writer who lives in Rome and knows Europe well. Mr. Stewart’s agile intellect and life-tuned, refined aesthetic sensibilities will most interest those who refuse to be confined in a single identity, preferring rather to cross at will between the[Read More…]
Ceasefire in our suicidal war against nature Here are some quotations from a December 2, 2020 article by Justin Rowlatt entitled “Humans waging suicidal war on nature – UN chief Antonio Guterres”: “Humanity is waging what he describes as a suicidal war on the natural world. “Nature always strikes back, and is doing so with gathering force and fury, he[Read More…]
Autobiographies by bureaucrats every so often raise curiosity for the reason that they hide more than they reveal, even as the sequestered information and the behind the scene camaraderie in day to day governmental functioning is a lot sensational. In recent years, India’s top civil servants have been writing their memoirs. But they have only been penned only after being[Read More…]
A recently penned autobiography by eminent economist Devaki Jain, written based on a suggestion made by Doris Lessings in 1958, with a forward by Amartya Sen and reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha. This is an unusual memoir. Unusual because it isn’t archetypal, not old-fashioned nor even written in a sequential order. The autobiography is set apart into personal and professional years,[Read More…]
Famed anti-racist Jewish American journalist I.F. Stone opined “Governments lie” and those 2 words summarize the message of “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published: Deadly Deception Exposed!” This iconoclastic 766-page book contains a total of 78 essays contributed by 7 prominent Alternative writers who variously take a sledgehammer to the monolithic lies of Big Government that are uncritically forced on[Read More…]
This collection of short stories by Gaither Stewart takes readers on a journey of the human drama; those questions that take us into and out of ourselves; those reflections that question time, history, our interactions with them and energetic influences that run between us and them and our actions within the resulting context. This collection is being released in the[Read More…]
Tragic happenings of the 1980s continue to perturb the Sikhs. Most of them want to know what actually took place behind the smokescreen erected by the power of the day. In this context, the new arrival ‘The Khalistan Conspiracy’-A Former R&AW Officer Unravels the Path to 1984” (2020) authored by GBS Sidhu, who retired as Special Secretary of India’s Intelligence[Read More…]
On the first anniversary of a movement that seems to be a reaffirmation of democratic processes in a nation torn with angst, Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India Title: Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India: Writings on a Movement for Justice, Liberty and Equality Editor: Seema Mustafa Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 Shaheen Bagh is a compendium[Read More…]
When an international arms historian discovers the famous Indian firearms in a book with a focus on the legendary Jodhpur collection, it ought to be stimulating. Jodhpur was one of the most important military states in Rajasthan, playing a major role in the subcontinent’s history. During the reign of Maharaja Ajit Singh (1678-1724), large of numbers of guns were purchased[Read More…]
Cultural evolution In all terrestrial organisms, information is transmitted between generations by means of the genetic code; and genetic evolution takes place through natural selection acting on modifications of this code. In human cultural evolution, information is also transmitted between generations by means of language and writing. This second mode of evolution gave our species enormous adaptive advantages. While genetic[Read More…]
“The house at Number 45 Shyambazar Street had its date of construction engraved right at the top of its façade. From this, it could be learnt that the house was not built in this century. If not a hundred, it was close to eighty-five years old. Thanks to the moist winds from the holy Ganges in its close proximity and[Read More…]
Political religion has become a dominant feature of our democracy particularly in the last few years. Different proponents of Hindutva groups freely distort religion to further political ideologies. They disregard some of the fundamental teachings of Hinduism to achieve their objective of gaining political power by winning elections. They generate hate and demonization of other faiths. They routinely invent history[Read More…]
Mass extinctions due to human activities According to a recent United Nations report, more than a million species of plants and animals are currently threatened with extinction because of human activities. Rates of extinction today are as much as 1,000 times greater than the normal background rate. As the greenhouse gas emissions of human society push the earth towards catastrophic[Read More…]
The term tribe or tribal is not defined anywhere in the Indian Constitution. According to Article 342, Scheduled Tribes (ST) are ethnic communities that are notified by the President of India. India’s tribes are not part of the traditional Hindu caste structure. They are more similar to the “indigenous” or “native people” in other parts of the world. Tribal communities[Read More…]
Lastbench is an anthology written in the time of Trump and Covid-19, acting as a voice for those who are frustrated with the news cycle, wishing for something more visceral. It is unapologetically against Trump and considers his Presidency to be the terror that began the downfall. Whether true or not, this is the slant of this publication and it will[Read More…]
In lieu of writing reviews of their own books – with the exception of Walt Whitman, who did that with Leaves of Grass – writers often write introductions or prefaces. The purpose of such introductions is to give the prospective readers a sense of what to expect in the pages that follow, as if the author knew exactly what[Read More…]
The cover of the book says it all. The multi-colored umbrella in traditional applique on the cover of Bhaskar Parichha’s book ‘No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha’, in a way, beautifully portrays what is there inside. The book is a panoramic view of Odisha as it has evolved in the last two decades. It is a compendium of commentaries[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which I have tried to sketch human history, from earliest times until the present, against a cosmic backdrop. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/A-History-of-the-Earth-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The place of humans in nature According to modern cosmology,[Read More…]
“Gaan Chhadiba nahin, jami chaddiba nahin”[i] a prominent war cry, echoed in the sacred mountains, rivers, and streams of various districts at different space and times, captures the essence of people’s resistance to land dispossession in Odisha. Ranjana Padhi and Nigamananda Sadangi’s latest book ‘Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story’ stands as a distinct repository of diverse lived experience, everyday struggles[Read More…]
‘The spectacular victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP in 2014 and again in 2019 demands a nuanced exploration of the factors that led to it. Though the role of the middle class and the media in the making of what is called the ‘Modi Wave’ is often talked about, a clear-eyed and unbiased look at how they transformed[Read More…]
‘What lies ahead? Reimagining the world. Only that.’ With these above lines, Arundhati Roy ended her introduction and they reflect what Roy set out to do in the book ‘Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction’. In the nine essays in this book, most of which are previously published or given as lectures between 2018 and 2020, Roy explores the important events of[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book. It discusses the role of what might be called decision trees in science, in linguistics, in philosophy and literature, and in our daily lives. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-Road-Not-Taken-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Decision trees During each human[Read More…]
…the nine essays are a fitting tribute to the inventive beauty of Gandhiji and its wide-ranging applicability in present-day society… As India celebrated the sesquicentennial of MK Gandhi last year, Marg had come out with a special issue on the lesser-known aspects of Gandhi’s engagement with aesthetics. Gandhiji’s aesthetics was two-fold: one, it was a quest for exquisiteness and two; it was a[Read More…]
Book Review – Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong By David Orrel At the beginning of the year, Bloomberg.com predicted that 2008 would be a year of prosperity, based on forecasts by financial pundits. The growth rate for the year was forecast at 11 percent. No one had even a hint of the impending massive economic collapse. By the[Read More…]
INTRODUCTION My warmest salutes to Alpa Shah for writing her book ‘Night March’ of the Guerrillas. I hardly have an adjective to express my admiration for such a scholastic and creative work which is a vivid firsthand experience of her most penetrative travels in Jharkhand. Above all she was a very witness to the crusaders of liberation, living like one[Read More…]
Caste plays a role at every stage of an Indian’s economic life: in school, university, the labor market, and into old age. The influence of caste extends beyond private economic activity into the public sphere, where caste politics determines access to public resources. Sure, there has been a convergence in education, occupations, income, and access to public resources across caste[Read More…]
Title: India Dissents — 3,000 Years of Difference, Doubt and Argument Editor: Ashok Vajpeyi Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2020 Every man loves liberty and freedom. Do not interfere with another’s freedom. – Gautam Buddha They say inside the heart of a black hole there is a point of singularity. A point of singularity is where no laws of nature exist, like[Read More…]
Political scientists Alan Chong and Quang Min Pham bring with their edited volume, Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020), originality as well as dimensions and perspectives to the discussion about the Belt and Road that are highly relevant but often either unrecognized or underemphasized. The book is about much more than the material aspects of China’s Belt[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the question of how oligarchs maintain their grasp on an excessive share of wealth and power when, as Shelley pointed out, the have-nots are many, while the power-holders are few. http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ye-are-Many-They-are-Few-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The Peterloo Massacre Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number![Read More…]
India has roughly five crore incapacitated people. Persons with Disabilities (PwD) could in fact be as high as 5 – 6% of the total population. Almost half of them are uneducated and a significant number of that populace lives in rural areas. Differently-abled people deserve to progress in all facets of life- whether it is physical, economic, or social. They[Read More…]
Review of “PolyTicks, DeMocKrazy & Mumbo Jumbo: Babus, Mantras, & Netas (Un) Making Our Nation” By Avay Shukla|Forward by Shashi Tharoor. Pippa Rann books & media The public sphere in India- and India’s entire body politic- is virused. Though in the short-term, it suffers from a particularly virulent and persistent strain of neo-liberal Hindutva, the longer-term effects on the surviving[Read More…]
Review of “Dispatches from the Race War” by Tim Wise. City Lights Publishers, forthcoming December 2020 In a few short weeks- achingly painful weeks- the US will hold what is likely the most important Presidential election in its short and violent history. The choices before the populace are telling; the choice we are to make- and its clear which one[Read More…]
Title: Beyond the Fields Author: Aysha Baqir Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International, 2019 Recently, an instagram handle questioned women: “No Men for One day — What if there were no men for 24 hours?” Majority of the women replied that they would go for a walk alone. And this is the year 2020. We are living in a so called modern[Read More…]
Review of Bit Tyrants by Rob Larson. Haymarket Books. Big Tech is in the news daily. In fact, Big Tech makes the news, is the news, and owns the news. To live in the 3rd decade of the 21st century is to be subsumed by the all-encompassing reality that is Tech, whether as a consumer, customer, employee, beneficiary, victim, or[Read More…]
Review of ‘Religious Nationalism – Social Perceptions and Violence : Sectarianism on Political Chessboard‘ by Ram Puniyani, Media House 2020 “Blatant dictatorship – in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule – has disappeared across much of the world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare. Most countries hold regular elections. Democracies still die, but by[Read More…]
Hatemonger – Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean Guerrero. William Morrow/HarperCollins, New York, 2020. While browsing the History/Politics section of a local bookstore the number of works devoted to the many aspects of Donald Trump was quite amazing, but considering his impact on current events domestically and globally probably not truly surprising. Unable to decide which[Read More…]
Book Review The Future We Choose: Surviving the climate crisis Authors: Christiania Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac Published: February 2020 Never before have I come across a book that literally screams out to the reader to be the change that you wish to see. And that also with practical imperatives. This is an essential read for all those who wish to[Read More…]
By the end of September 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic registered 34 million infection cases with one million deaths globally. Notwithstanding Donald Trump’s ultra-nationalistic “America Frist” policy, the USA had, for weeks on end, taken the lead when it came to total deaths with 210,000 deaths and by the end of September it had a total of seven million Coronavirus cases.[Read More…]
Review of “Azadi” by Arundhati Roy In approximately 5 weeks the United States will hold the most important Presidential election in its short and violent history. Bookmakers and Psephologists alike think of it as a 50-50 proposition. The incumbent Donald Trump has been hinting that the election, whatever the result, will be tainted, rigged and that, as such, he would[Read More…]
Title: Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire Editor: Debotri Dhar Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2020 Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire edited by Debotri Dhar is a timely and illuminating book. It asks the right questions, sets up the debate on issues which need to be debated in order to bring the many[Read More…]
Chris Moffat, India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and The Promise of Bhagat Singh, 2019, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Pages 282 Chris Moffat has been a British researcher doing research on Bhagat Singh since years and spent quite a lot of time in Delhi and Punjab on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. This book is result of his rigorously academic,[Read More…]
Despite its publication and release in 2012, both the book entitled, Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and criticism of Religion in India, and the theme it attempts to capture stand understated today. Johannes Quack, ethnologist of Religion Studies from Frankfurt, began work on the book as his Master’s thesis project in 2009, which was released in the market as a published[Read More…]
A state-owned initiative in India is called a public sector undertaking or a public sector enterprise. These establishments are owned by the union government or one of the many state governments or both. The company stock needs to be majority-owned by the government to be a PSU. Public sector enterprises in India have now and always been the whipping boys[Read More…]
Noam Chomsky. 2004. Hegemony or Survival. Australia. Penguin Books. 301 pages, ISBN: 978-0I4I-03734-9. A$9.95rrp “Either you are with us or against us” Noam Chomsky has written one of the boldest pieces in the form of Hegemony or Survival. It aims to dissect the grand strategy of Imperialism of United States since the beginning of 20th Century. The very word hegemony[Read More…]
There can be, and have been, countless books on Kashmir and Kashmiris. Given its geopolitical importance in the Indian subcontinent and the constant needling by Pakistan, Kashmir has been a boiling point in the relationship between the two disagreeing neighbors. It has now been a year since the Indian government changed the status of Kashmir by making amendments to Articles[Read More…]
Black Wave – Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unravelled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East. Kim Ghattas. Henry Holt & Company, NewYork, 2020. Among the many books analyzing the Middle East, Kim Ghattas’ Black Wave is outstanding – that not necessarily being a good thing. It is very good as it presents what the[Read More…]
Shimla Diary is a literary-cultural chronicle and a documentation of its times and society, with a keen focus on the world of Hindi journalism. Well-known poet and journalist Pramod Kaunswal, who has seen Hindi journalism in Shimla, Chandigarh and Punjab at close quarters, pens his impressions of the book. This is not just a book review but a brief and[Read More…]
Don Fitz’s new book Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution was going to press at Monthly Review in early spring, as the pandemic was ramping up, so he had just barely enough time to slip in a postscript teasingly titled, “How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19.” The postscript puts an exclamation mark on the medical history of Cuba[Read More…]
Few years back, at a book release function, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat remarked , “I have not read the book but the author.” I have been reading the author Mushtaque Barq , the author , columnist, short story writer, poet , translator and what not. He has now joined the group of novelists and come up with a novel titled[Read More…]
There couldn’t be a better audience than the youngsters for a book on the environment. If the youth are the harbingers of change, it is they who will have to care more about the earth and the environment. This new book on India’s environmental history is a commendable work simply for the reason that it is written for children. ‘Unearthed:[Read More…]
Book Review Oral History of Indian Freedom Movement By Dr Licy Bharucha; Pp240; Rs 300; Published by National Museum of Indian Freedom Movement The Congress has won political freedom, but it has yet to win economic freedom, social and moral freedom. These freedoms are harder than the political, if only because they are constructive, less exciting and not spectacular. -Mahatma[Read More…]
Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies – Critical and Lyrical Essays. Edward Curtin. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. In the introduction to “Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies – Critical and Lyrical Essays” Edward Curtin writes, “…We live in the era of massive fraud where the transnational wealthy elites, led by the American war and propaganda machine, continue[Read More…]
A review of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical and Lyrical Essays, by Edward Curtin. (Atlanta, GA, Clarity Press, Inc. 349 pp. 2020.) “There’s something happening here What it is ain’t exactly clear.” –Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth.” Happily receiving my review copy of Edward Curtin’s new book, the first thing I noticed, naturally enough,[Read More…]
Biochemist, writer, humanitarian activist, and artist, Gideon Polya has had a selection of his essays gathered into a compendium titled US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (Korsgaard Publishing, 2020). The compendium is important because it brings to the forefront, for anyone who cares an iota for peace and social justice, the horrible crimes of the “mendacious and politically dominant[Read More…]
America commemorates the 19th anniversary of 9/11. The BBC broadcasted live from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, that President Donald Trump and the First Lady Melania attended. The mainstream U. S. media just showed clips of the bells, which ring after every name of the victims from the plane cash in Shanksville was read. Didn’t they report because Trump attended the[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book entitled “Some Aspects of Quantum Theory”. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Some-Aspects-of-Quantum-Theory-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf What readers may expect to find in the book I hope that this book will be of interest to students and researchers in mathematics,[Read More…]
On the Trail of Buddha—A Journey to the East is ‘a unique sojourn in the search of the spiritual, philosophical, and cultural linkages that bind India to the East Asian civilizations. From the wandering monks of Asia to the temples and monasteries they visited; from the statues and frescoes in grottoes to those in the museums; from the diverse ethnicities[Read More…]
Self-deprecating humour is a survival strategy of human beings, and coping mechanism of the society during the dark times. That is true to the letter as well as to the spirit when it comes to Avay Shukla’s book ‘PolyTicks, DeMocKrazy & MumboJumbo’. It is an insider masterpiece of political satire on Indian society and politics from 2014 to 2020. The[Read More…]
Like the wandering and rascally Odysseus upon whom he models his life, Oliver Stone is “double-minded” in the most profound and illuminating ways. The title of his fantastic new memoir is a case in point. “One of the first basic lessons in filming,” he writes, “is chasing the light. Without it, you have nothing – no exposure that can be[Read More…]
On August 6, 1945, at 8.15 am, an atom bomb was dropped at Hiroshima to end World War II. Archana Mohan takes us on a journey through a novel which gives the story of before and after the bombing & currently lauded and promoted by the United Nations for peacekeeping. Title: The Last Cherry Blossom Author: Kathleen Burkinshaw When a book opens with[Read More…]
Understanding the War Industry. Christian Sorensen. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. For reader’s wondering about the state of the U.S. economy this work by Christian Sorensen provides a small encyclopedic compendium of information relating the war industry to the overall U.S. economy and U.S. foreign and domestic policies in many spheres. He states his main ideas clearly and plainly and[Read More…]
Title: Dara Shukoh: The Man who would be King Author: Avik Chanda Publisher: Harper Collins, 2019 Scanning the list of books already written on Dara Shukoh, I wondered why the author had chosen to write yet another book about Dara Shukoh, but that was before I came across Avik Chanda’s impressive work. A magnificent tome, it is richly palimpsestic and[Read More…]
What do we expect from an author who is a story teller, an international development strategist and a gender policy specialist? A lot to be sure. A Master’s degree holder in Public Administration from Harvard University, an equal grade in International Relations from the University of Warwick, a policymaker Health, Nutrition and Gender portfolios with the Government of India[Read More…]
Cruelty or Humanity by Em.Prof. Stuart Rees, is essential reading in our present tumult and bedlam of human cruelty. Rees is a stalwart man of peace; he is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and of the prestigious Sydney Peace Foundation and Cruelty or Humanity is his unflinching Summa Pax propelled[Read More…]
In a haunting memoir, Piera Sonnino has narrated her devastating experience as a twenty-two-year Italian Jewish woman. She lost her parents and three brothers in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. She is the only holocaust survivor in her family. Her memoir, ‘This has happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz’ provides a moving account of unspeakable evils of Nazism. The[Read More…]
A common concept today about the children portrayed in Victorian literature is that they are innocent in spite of their sufferings and brutalization by the society. One can refer to an apotheosis of childhood innocence through characters like Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Little Nell in Old Curiosity Shop, and Pip in Great Expectations, or Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. During the Victorian era morality and didacticism[Read More…]
How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs. Elizabeth F. Thomson. Atlantic Monthly Press, NewYork, 2020. Having just read The War That Ended Peace [https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-war-that-ended-peace-book-review/] the title How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs appeared as an intriguing and fortuitous follow up. Its subtitle describes its more narrow focus: The Syrian-Arab Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of[Read More…]
There are two good reasons to read John Martinkus’ most recent book, The Road: Uprising in West Papua. First reason; as an act of defiant resistance to the censorship on the truth of the 50 years of Indonesia’s brutal occupation of West Papua endorsed by western governments mainly Australia, USA, the UN. Through his own experiences and those of his colleagues such[Read More…]
Title: The Other Side of the Divide – A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan Author: Sameer Arshad Khatlani Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2020 Journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani’s maiden book, The Other Side of the Divide – A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan, published end February 2020, seemed to, at the outset, suffer the fate that the India- Pakistan relationship[Read More…]
When a defense researcher and an aggressive reporter takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the gigantic chambers of Strategic Command to bring the myriad stories of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just about avoided nuclear war, it is bound to be an exceptional[Read More…]
I am a long-time Countercurrents correspondent and on 4 June 2020 published in Germany a large book entitled “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” that is substantially based on articles I have published in Countercurrents as well as in other progressive media over the last 2 decades. Despite thousands of Mainstream journalists around the world being informed over the[Read More…]
Human nature as a central theme of philosophy What is human nature? Are we humans good or evil? To what extent is the character of a person produced by heredity, and to what extent by environment? Is competition more central to our existence than cooperation, or is it the other way around? How can a happy, peaceful and stable society[Read More…]
On a recent hiking trip I took along Margaret MacMillan’s pre World War I history, “The War That Ended Peace – The Road to 1914” (Penguin Canada, 2013). It is a well written history that I have read before – and may have formally reviewed although that is not of consequence now. It is a book I highly recommend as[Read More…]
“My father was working in his garden, like he always did, though he appeared calmer. But every time I saw him, I would feel a quiet panic. I lacked the vocabulary, the courage and the cruelty I needed to tell him that I was not the son he expected me to be. And if I did, would he understand?” The[Read More…]
Book Review of A Dictionary Of Foreign Dreams by Slovakian Poet Pavol Janik by Sarita Jenamani Fall of Berlin Wall thirty years ago had marked the end of an era in the European history: the division between capitalist West and the satellite states of Russia, that is, the East Europe. The cold war and the iron curtain had pushed the entire East Europe into[Read More…]
Peace Plays is a splendid book: a lens with which to contemplate our modern world of foibles, follies, self-and-mass destruction. It’s a book to read, and re-read, and savor. It is whimsical and sobering; grating in a positive way; uplifting and transformative
I would like to announce that an updated and very much enlarged edition of mu book “Science and Society” will very soon be published by World Scientific (in November, 2016). The book can be purchased at a 20% discount at the following address by quoting the code number WSSPPS20. http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10227 This book has a very interesting history. In 1986,[Read More…]
Reading Inside the Middle East is quite an adventure. I learned that I probably am a fairly quixotic fanatic tilting at windmills; that I need to learn how to be a critical thinker “demanding that concepts and narratives be replaced with facts and reality;” that I “need to fine tune [my] critical thinking and analytical capacities; all that so I[Read More…]
Zionism is primarily a Christian Protestant enterprise that has little to do with Judaism. This explains why US Christians are the most ardent Zionists and the most powerful supporters of Israel. The largest opposition to Zionism came initially from the rabbinical elite, which viewed it as heretical and an aberration of the Jewish faith. Zionism represents a break with Jewish[Read More…]
Acres of Skin—Human experiments at Holmesburg Prison, A widely reviewed Book and a true story of abuse and exploitation in the name of medical science, is written by Allen M. Hornblum. It was published in 1998 by Rutledge New York and London. The title signifies the thousands of prison inmates (vulnerable trial subjects) whose skin was the playground for Dr.[Read More…]
The small press items that slip by but should not, offer a lot of wonderful materials this summer and perhaps for me in particular, perhaps, plucking the chords of memory. More important, they offer a glimpse of leftwing writers hard at work. Andy Piascik’s deft In Motion (New York: Sunshine Publishers, 298pp, $29.95) had me when a lead character’s sister[Read More…]
Veteran journalist Diana Johnstone has given the American people and the world a weak-up call about Hillary Clinton. The author, who has been living in Paris for over 40 years, has characterized Ms. Clinton aptly. She is not interested in the existential problems of the man in the street, instead, she is the voice of the criminal big shot elite,[Read More…]
It may seem strange to begin a review of a “spy story” by noting the stalwart morality of an apparently irredeemable and ruthless spy. But, Stewart’s creation of Misha Nikiforov, ex KGB and Russian successor to his influential and unforgettable Anatoly Nikitin of the novel, The Trojan Spy, and a spiritual brother of Oleg in the accompanying story in this[Read More…]
Climate Emergency Includes the Threat of ‘Nuclear Winter’ 
Assange in jeopardy: US extradition appeal hearing begins in London 
Sudanese PM Returns Home Under Tight Security, says PM’s Office 
Taliban Government gains traction 
Congress, Skulduggery and the Assange Case 
How U.S. Interference in Cuba Creates a False Picture of Its Society 
Despite Cutbacks, ExxonMobil Continues to Fund Climate Science Denial 
A destroyed Afghanistan has been an imperialist priority for 200 years 
Nuclear War is Being Planned! Henry George & Thorstein Veblen Warned War Is Capitalism’s End Game 
Canadian Imperialism 
Lakhbir Singh’s Murder Notwithstanding – A Wake-up Call for the Sikh Community 
An American Coup, A Recurring Nightmare? 
Telangana RTI Circular circumvents transparency mandate 
Israel outlaws six Palestinian human rights groups, branding them “terrorist organisations” 
Condemn The Solitary Confinement And Continuing Harassment Of Bhima Koregaon Prisoners 
Team India 
National Human Rights Commission – from a toothless tiger to a grovelling poodle 
A Historical Perspective of Iconoclasm 
Military Coup in Sudan Ignites Deadly Street Protests, Blow to Democratic Transition 
Biden’s Taiwan gaffe meant no harm 
Cancelling Cartoonists 
The Jadavpur Commune: Students takes on Covid challenge 
Christians on the ‘Hindutva Cross’ 
The Path to a Livable Future Or Will Rich Corporations Trash the Planet? 
Political Islam and Democracy Crisis in North Africa 
IMF Downgrades its Growth Forecast for Asia, says Covid Still ‘Ravaging’ the Region 
Why Is U.S. Military Spending Increasing to New, Outlandish Levels? 
Sinha’s Writing: An Alternative Vision of Socialism 
Ten Strong Reasons Why Ken-Betwa River Link Project Should Be Withdrawn Immediately 
As pandemic brings trade to a halt, Spiti valley farmers start local markets 
Covid woes of MP and UP’s bamboo basket making community 
Astride on a Winged Horse 
Press freedom groups call for charges against Assange to be dropped ahead of US appeal 
Now or Never: Will Glasgow’s COP26 Help Save the World From Disaster? 
The Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth 
Covid-19 vaccine distribution is a global disaster 
There is no escape for Israel from growing Palestinian power 
Yours is not to Reason Why 
A Local Rain-Check Before a Global Summit: What is India Busy with Pre-CoP26? Sacrilege or blasphemy: The dirty attempt to cover up the caste prejudices against Dalits 
This year there was international outrage when a frail 84-year-old Jesuit priest with Parkinson’s disease, Stan Swamy, died after being held in an Indian jail in inhumane conditions, on flimsy charges. When he was eventually moved to hospital, he tested positive for Covid and went on to suffer a cardiac arrest. He had devotedly served the poor and defended their[Read More…]
