Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: AMERICAN “EXCEPTIONALISM” AND TRUMP’S FASCISM
Vinod Mubayi
Many US Presidents, including President Obama, have celebrated America as an “exceptional” country and voiced many paeans to its exceptionalism. They meant this in a wholly positive sense of course, although it is difficult not to regard the United States at its founding as exceptional in a very different sense: its hypocrisy. The US founding fathers managed to integrate the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence and the Rights of Man with its complete negation in the practice of a formal system of slavery in many of the colonies along with the ongoing execution of a brutal genocide of the native American population. Now that we have Donald Trump as president, who promised to be a dictator on Day 1 of his second term, an exceptional American form of fascist government appears to be emerging.
Read more…ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION IN HERITAGE MUMBAI
Vidyadhar Date
[Eight of world’s ten most polluted major cities are in India. The distorted model of urban development that has prevailed in India over the last few decades due to the corrupt nexus between the builder lobby, politicians, and the bureaucracy is especially pronounced in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India’s financial capital, where environmental issues are frequently trumped by the power of money.
Read more…THE SITUATION OF THE ROHINGYA IN SRI LANKA
Arianne Brideau
Since the escalation of the conflict by a military takeover in February 2021, more than 1.3 million refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar are hosted in other countries around the world. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group that has lived in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, for centuries. Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist, and the Rohingya have faced persecution due to their religious and ethnic identity.
Read more…INDIA’S BULLDOZER RAJ: OVER 1,50,000 HOMES RAZED, 7,38,000 LEFT HOMELESS IN TWO YEARS
Anuj Behal
On June 19, in a massive eviction drive in Lucknow’s Akbarnagar, the State government demolished around 1,800 structures, including 1,169 houses and 101 commercial establishments. The BJP government plans to develop this area into the Kukrail Riverfront, transforming it into an ecotourism hub. Many residents have lived there for decades, with some claiming that they had been living there even before the development authority was formed.
Read more…ANALYZING PAKISTAN’S GOVERNMENT SPENDING
Danish Khan
How budgets constrain inclusive development in South Asia
Read more…INDIA BUDGET 2025-26: INCOME TAX CHANGES WON’T SOLVE ECONOMIC CRISIS
Subodh Varma
The government is trying to hide behind IT handouts to a section of the middle class, ignoring low incomes of workers and farmers.
Read more…THE GOOD DOCTOR HAD HIS PROBLEMS: WHAT WE CANNOT IGNORE ABOUT MANMOHAN SINGH
Hartosh Singh Bal
The death of Manmohan Singh in December 2024 prompted a reassessment of a man who had faced heavy criticism from his political opponents towards the end of his second term as prime minister. Much of this can be put down to the usual tendency people have of not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but some of it also seems genuine and heartfelt. Certainly, the events that Singh set in motion, first as finance minister and then as prime minister, marked some of the most consequential changes the Indian polity has seen since Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure.
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