WARM AND CARING PERSON

Romir Chatterjee

 

Daya’s life will always be a testament to the unending quest for social justice.  His approach gave real meaning to the term ‘scientific socialism’: an approach to building a new world based on a verifiable understanding of events, as distinct from dogma.  He applied this approach to all that he did, and to his own role as a committed communist. Read more…

“YOU JUST DO IT.”

Dolores Chew

 

It’s hard to write this, because it means accepting the fact that Daya is no longer around.  Though for the last many years Daya no longer lived in Montreal, he was a constant presence for me.  Through email enquiries about INSAF Bulletin, or CERAS, suggestions about CERAS statements — he was there.  While Daya was an intensely political person, and many of us remember him as such, for me, the personal is very closely intertwined with the political. Read more…

TRULY FELT THAT I HAD KNOWN HIM ALL MY LIFE

Raza Mir

 

Gaye dinon ka suraagh lekar kidhar se aaya, kidhar gaya vo

Ajeeb maanoos ajnabi thha, mujhe to hairaan kar gaya vo Read more…

WHAT I LEARNED MOST FROM MY MENTOR WAS NOT HIS POLITICS BUT HIS VALUESS

Stephen Orlov

It has taken me some time to find words that adequately express my sense of loss over the passing of such a dear friend and mentor, Daya Varma.  Read more…

DAYA WAS ENGAGED NOT JUST IN POLITICS IN THE ABSTRACT

Sekhar Ramakrishnan

I knew Daya for nearly 40 years. Roped into IPANA by Nagu and Vinod in mid-1976, there was a lot of interaction, travel back and forth, phone calls, then emails (perhaps not) during IPANA days. Much less in the last 30 years, but we remained in touch. I felt very close to him, not just because he influenced my political thinking back in 1976 but much more because it seemed our views evolved very similarly. I like to think that we came to similar conclusions on many topics (relevance of semi-feudal/semi-colonial characterization, importance of communalism to us versus to the voting public, Obama as an exceptional public figure) because we were both objective and non dogmatic. But perhaps it was because of the ways to think about society and politics that I, like many others, learned from him. Or perhaps it was partly illusory, from his ability to stress what we had in common and work slowly to change me (or be changed) through friendly exchange, building on the shared analysis.  Read more…

DAYA-HAPPY, VALUABLE AND IRREPLACEABLE

Felicitas Santiago

 

I read the numerous pouring of condolence and reminiscence of the ways Daya had affected and impressed people whose lives he had affected…  The Indian diaspora has lost a bright light in the political, intellectual, social and extended-familial atmosphere in these parts of our present world. Read more…

HE WAS SUCH A CONVIVIAL AND COMMITTED PERSON

Anil Srivastava

 

I often talk in my head with Daya, ever since I met him in Montreal, and his book and another book he gave me on history of medicine, are on my desk my constant companion to help me get a leg up in an area I know so little about. I was taken aback to hear about his passing away and that I will not get to talk to him. Read more…

HIS PASSING AWAY IS A GREAT LOSS FOR ALL OF YOU

Navsharan Singh

 

His passing away is a great loss for all of you – his family but he had an extended family and I consider myself a part of it.  I feel very privileged to have received his affection and spent many, many rich moments with him in Canada and in Delhi.  Read more…

DAYA WAS AN EXCEPTIONAL MAN

Birendra Prasada

 

Daya was an exceptional man. Not withstanding his very substantial academic achievements, his contributions to the cause of social justice and seeding and mentoring of several organizations and institutions will have left a lasting impression. Even though he left Montreal many years ago, his vision flourishes in Teesri Duniya, Kabir Centre and several other organizations.  Read more…

DAYA TOUCHED SO MANY LIVES IN SO MANY WAYS

Rita Manchanda

 

I came to know Daya much later after Tapan had worked a mystique around him of the Bhopal days of someone with rare commitment a soul mate of sorts in politics, in idealism, in living life to the full ….. For him he was the repository of the last resort of all knowledge – medical, scientific and Tapan would constantly refer to him and .the wonderful days spent together. He was Tapan’s elder brother.  Read more…

YOUR LOSS IS IMMEASURABLE

Kiran Omar

 

We were all so very sad to hear of dear Daya’s passing. May he rest in eternal peace and Grace.  Arif and I have lovely memories of him visiting Norko whenever he was in town, even on visits from NFLD he would stop by, have a cup of tea with us then then proceed toy our house. Always smiling gently and brushing off questions about his health. Read more…

“GUFTUGU BAND NA HO”

Iqbal Niazi

 

I opened my Yahoo account this evening to read the April issue of Insaf and was shocked and numbed to know that Daya Ram had passed away more than 20 days ago. I do not find words to express the sorrow for the loss of a friend of more than 60 years – a friend like Daya.- one of  those very  few to whom I could  share my deepest feelings freely. Read more…

DAYA DID INFLUENCE ME MUCH MORE THAN HE PROBABLY EVER KNEW

Stephan Corriveau

 

It is with a great deal of emotion that Carole and I have learned this morning the passing of Daya. Read more…

PROF VARMA’S LIFE WAS EXTRAORDINARY

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

 

I write…in great shock when I received the news of sad demise of Prof Daya Varma. Though I had not met him yet, as a person working with people on secularism and social justice, I knew him. Of course, I have also been writing on these issues for the past 16 years. Read more…

OTHER TRIBUTES

Read more…

SELECT INTERVIEW OF DAYA

The following interview was conducted by Rana Bose in 2004 for the publication Montreal Serai:

 

(Dr. Daya Varma, Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine at Montreal’s McGill University, was recently interviewed by Serai’s editors. Dr. Varma, who hails originally from India, has been a stalwart for several decades in Montreal as an anti-war militant, from the time of the Vietnam War and an inspiring activist and supporter for progressive movements worldwide in the post-colonial period. Dr. Varma has always looked beyond the pedestrian thought processes in radical frameworks and his responses to Serai’s questions only reinforce that. Ed.) Read more…

Medicine, Healthcare and the Raj: The Unacknowledged Legacy

New book by Daya Varma

The book is a significant intervention in the debates and existing scholarship on colonialism and medicine. Equally critical of the postmodern perspectives and of those who claim modern medicine as ‘gift’ from the western world, virtually identifying modern medicine with ‘western’ medicine, Daya Varma sifts the irrational from the rational critiques of imperialism. He makes a strong defense of modern medicine, preventive care, hygiene and public health as core of a viable strategy for accessible medicine. Read more…

AAP DERAILS THE MODIi-SHAH RATH

Editors

 

For the first time in almost a year, the victory of the AAP over the Modi-Shah cabal, whose pictures were defacing every billboard and bus stop in the nation’s capital in January 2015, has given some small measure of hope that the defeat of the nightmare known as Hindutva is actually possible.  The outcome of the Delhi election in terms of its wider national significance can be summed up by a line from the Urdu poet Faiz: “roshan kahin bahar ke imkan hue to hain” (the possibilities of the emergence of spring have brightened). Read more…

THE JUGGERNAUT HASN’T ONLY BEEN HALTED, IT HAS CRASHED

Praful Bidwai

 

There isn’t just one big story in the Delhi election; there are two. The first is the staggering victory of the Aam Aadmi Party, which polled 54.3 percent of the vote, even higher than the Janata Party’s 52.6 percent in the landmark post-Emergency “wave” of 1977. No party outside Sikkim has ever matched AAP’s Delhi seat-score of 95.7 percent. Read more…

INDIA DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS UNDER CURRENT POLITICAL DISPENSATION

Ram Puniyani

 

I begin this lecture paying tribute to my very dear friend, Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, with whom I had the rare privilege of working with for close to two decades. Dr. Engineer was a unique scholar-activist, totally committed to the dream and vision of a humane society that honours the values of diversity and where human rights for all are the defining point. Read more…

NUCLEAR ENERGY DEBATE – MUCH HYPED MODI-OBAMA BREAKTHROUGH A MISNOMER

Vinod Mubayi

 

Dedicated anti-nuclear activists oppose nuclear power everywhere so their critique of the Indian nuclear program is expected.  However, it is possible to have a somewhat different perspective on the Indian nuclear program as well as offer a critique of the hyped Obama-Modi “breakthrough” that is supposed to lead to a number of Westinghouse and GE designed reactors being constructed and operated in India in the near future. Read more…

INDIA

Daya Varma

 

I joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) a few years after the expulsion of P.C. Joshi; Joshi was readmitted but never thereafter in influential position. The Telangana peasant struggle had come to an end. The January 27, 1950 article titled  “Mighty advance of the national liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries” in the official journal of the Comintern “For a Lasting Peace and People’s Democracy”, was  under debate; although this article pointed to the anti-imperialist role of the Indian ruling class led by Nehru, there was sufficient ambiguity, which sharpened the  debate in favor of the official line  adopted in the 1948  Calcutta Congress; the essence of this line was  “Telangana’s path is our path” and “Yeh azadi jhooti hai (this independence is fake)”. Read more…

TRIBUTE: GOODBYE COMRADE! ALVIDA MEHDI CHACHA!

Noor Zaheer

 

What can one write about an uncle who pampered one with hot chocolate and insisted on presenting a book on Marxism with it? What can one say about him who gets you the first proper job, the one that you love doing, and performs a detailed autopsy of all that you write, one who does not fear giving away his contacts and is convinced that Marsiakhwani is a one-man theatre, whose eyes glistened with knowledge through thick spectacles and a warm smile played on his lips as he conjured up a new jibe at politicians, society, religion and even himself? One who wrote to think, thought to analyse and analysed to remain a comrade. Read more…

THE LAST OF HIS GENERATION: S.M. MEHDI

Bilal Hashmi

 

Radical Urdu playwright S.M. Mehdi, who has passed away aged 92, was the last of his generation—urbane man of letters, public intellectual, skillful raconteur, unrepentant Marxist. A veteran of the Indian People’s Theatre Association, he was among the guiding lights of experimental and purposive theatre in the country. Read more…

HRDA-INDIA: STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF TEESTA SETALVAD AND JAVED ANAND

Henri Tiphagne

Honorary National Working Secretary

Human Rights Defenders Alert – India

 

The Human Rights Defenders Alerts – India [HRDA], is shocked to hear about the denial of anticipatory bail to renowned human rights activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand by the Gujarat High Court on February 12, 2015. Read more…

SOLIDARITY WITH TEESTA SETALVAD – Demonstration in Mumbai

A large number of activists gathered outside Dadar Railway Station in Mumbai on Sunday (15-2-2015) evening for a public demonstration of solidarity with Teesta Setalvad & Javed Anand who are being hounded by Gujarat police with false cases. Famous film maker Anand Patwardhan, renowned writer-activist Dr. Ram Puniyani, AIDWA Maharashtra Secretary  Sonya Gill, CITU leader Dr.Vivek Monteiro, Dolphy D’souza, Subodh More, Vandana Shah, Sumedh Jadhav and several eminent citizens of Mumbai participated in the meeting organized by Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) Maharashtra committee.  DYFI state president conducted Adv.Bhagavan Bhagwan Bhojne, Secretary Preethy Sekhar and State committee member Moin Ansar also spoke. Read more…

WHY I STAND BY HER: SUPPORT FOR TEESTA IS SUPPORT FOR ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF A POGROM

Indira Jaising

 

Victims of crime are known to get so tired of legal processes that they drop out from fatigue. Often, they are bought over by the accused. This is likelier when the accused is a powerful person, with the ability to mobilise finances and wield political clout. Read more…

DR. AMARTYA SEN’S LETTER TO BOARD MEMBERS OF NALANDA UNIVERSITY

(Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen recently resigned from the governing board of Nalanda University – Eds.) Read more…

AMIT SHAH CASE – COMPLETE MOCKERY OF JUSTICE SYSTEM

Mainstream, VOL LIII No 9, February 21, 2015

 

Once again the Indian Investigating agencies and Judiciary have failed the people of India by letting out a powerful political leader despite having enough evidence of involvement in a henious crime. Amit Shah has been acquitted by the Special CBI Court, Bombay, in the Sohrabuddin murder case even before the trial for the case could start. Read more…

GOVIND PANSARE AND WIFE SHOT

Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Govind Pansare (82), who was critically wounded by gunshots in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, was airlifted to Mumbai for advanced treatment. Unfortunately, Pansare who was shot in the lungs, did not survive. Read more…

SILENCING DISSENT

The Hindu, February 23, 2015

 

Maharashtra’s prominent educational, social and cultural institutions have been insidiously infiltrated by forces of the Right that brook no pluralistic dissent. Read more…

NO COMPROMISE ON DEMAND FOR REPEAL OF LAND ORDINANCE

Land Ordinance is Anti Farmer, Government Engaging in Propaganda

Land Ordinance to Impact Food Security Adversely Read more…

BANGLADESH: POLARIZATION, POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND UNDECLARED CIVIL WAR

ACHR Press Release February 18, 2015

 

NEW DELHI: Asian Centre for Human Rights in its report, “Bangladesh: Polarisation, Political Violence & an Undeclared Civil War” (http://www.achrweb.org/reports/bangla/Bangladesh2015-01.pdf), released today stated that about 90 people have been killed and more than a thousand were injured in the ongoing violent anti-government protests by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led 20-party alliance demanding resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Government and holding of mid-term elections under a neutral caretaker government since 5 January 2015. Read more…

WRITER AVIJIT ROY HACKED TO DEATH

Dhaka Tribune 26 February 2015

 

His wife blogger Bonna also sustains severe injuries in the attack

 

Blogger and writer Avijit Roy has been killed and his wife, blogger Rafida Ahmed Bonna, severely injured when unidentified miscreants hacked them at TSC of Dhaka University on Thursday night. Read more…

SYRIZA: THE GREEK SPRING

Costas Douzinas

 

The 2015 Greek elections mark the beginning of the end of a cycle that started in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are now witnessing the end of the “end of history” metanarrative. Read more…

Dedicated to Syed Mohammad Mehdi, a first generation  Communist and a founding member of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA)

RSS FLEXES ITS MUSCLES AS INDIA LURCHES BACKWARD

Editors

 

About twenty years ago, at a meeting in Montreal, the late Eqbal Ahmad (1933-1999) described the political situation in South Asia as the Pakistanization of India and Indianization of Pakistan. We are not sure if both predictions of this eminent political scientist have proven to be correct but most certainly India is no more what Jawaharlal Nehru has envisaged in his “Tryst with Destiny” speech on the midnight of August 14; it is becoming closer to what was theorized by Eqbal Ahmad. Read more…

AN OPEN LETTER TO WORLD LEADERS

Malala Yousafzai and Friends

 

There are moments in history that become turning points. In our view, 2015 will be such a moment. It is the most important year for global decision-making since the start of the new millennium.

 

We believe it’s just possible that we could end 2015 with a new global compact — an agreed pathway to a better, safer future for people and planet that will inspire all the citizens of the world. We can choose the path of sustainable development. Or we might not — and regret it for generations to come. Which side of history will you be on? Read more…

WHY THE PDP SHOULD NOT ALLY WITH THE BJP IN JAMMU AND KASHMIR

Praful Bidwai

 

It has been called Jammu and Kashmir’s “Black Swan” moment, a “historic” opportunity to heal divisions in the deeply polarised state, and a test of sagacity and even statesmanship for Narendra Modi and the People’s Democratic Party’s Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. Read more…

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR KASHMIRIS IF BJP IS PART OF THE GOVERNMENT?

Ram Puniyani

 

The recent (December 2015) verdict of Kashmir elections has been fractured, so to say. While PDP has emerged as the largest single party, the BJP is a close second with substantial percentage of votes. Interestingly BJP has secured most seats and major vote share from the Hindu majority Jammu region of Kashmir. Now the dilemma for the other parties, National Conference, Congress is in which direction to go as for Government formation is concerned. Read more…

PAKISTAN: NOT BY ANGER ALONE

I A Rehman

 

 

Pakistan is on trial. It is being tested for its capacity to overcome the threat from religious extremists/terrorists without losing sight of justice and its ideal of peace in the land.

 

The Peshawar carnage has awakened the government and political parties to their foremost duty — protecting the life and liberty of citizens. This may not be the time to question them for their failure to see the terrorists’ threat earlier. At the moment, the people must concentrate on ensuring that the response to the terrorists is sound, just and effective. A national consensus on denying any quarter to terrorists is welcome but what matters more is the kind of action plan this unity produces. Sadly enough, the signs so far are not wholly reassuring. Read more…

CHARLIE HEBDO MASSACRE, FALSE STANDARD BEARERS OF “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION” AND ISLAMOPHOBIA

Javed Anand

 

“To those fuelling Islamophobia, here’s a tweet from Dyab Abou Jahjah from Belgium: ‘I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and I died defending his right to do so.'”

 

To the mourning parents, siblings, children, spouses, lovers, family and friends of those who were gunned down in the horrific massacre in Paris, what can I say? Except that I am with you in your grief even as I cannot even pretend to imagine the depth of your pain and suffering. And that I am sorry and deeply ashamed that your near and dear ones were done to death in the name of a god and a prophet that I am supposed to have in common with the mass murderers. Read more…

GANDHI, WORKERS AND AFFLUENT SECTIONS

V.K. Tripathi

 

Gandhi, the person who stood firmly against oppression and fanaticism, is still alive in the hearts of millions of poor masses. However, large sections of Indian affluent classes have developed so much hate for him that they are lavishing praise on his assassin. They view the leader of the organization which spread this venom as the fortune maker of India. Read more…

WHY NARENDRA MODI STOLE CHRISTMAS?

Countercurrents.org, January 14, 2015

 

On 2 December 2014 , Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that in future 25 December would be celebrated as Good Governance Day because it was the birthday of Hindu nationalists Madan Mohan Malaviya and Atal Behari Vajpayee (1). Subsequently a circular was sent out to schools ordering them to cancel the public holiday on the 25 th and require children to come to school on Christmas Day for a variety of activities. Read more…

WHEN ACCOUNTABILITY IS NOT INSTITUTIONAL

Arun Kumar

 

Higher education in India suffers from a lack of a democratic leadership that understands its true nature. For those heading academic institutions, accountability is personal and not institutional or societal. The erosion of autonomy and accountability in centres of education is the biggest challenge an aspirational and rising India faces.

 

The Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has resigned because he was sought to be marginalised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). The faculty and alumni of IIT have come out in his support but the issue festers. Unfortunately, this has little to do with the real problem facing IITs — a lack of adequate faculty and little cutting-edge research. Read more…

FILM CENSOR BOARD STACKED WITH BJP FAVORITES

(The News Minute| January 19, 2015)

 

The Central Government on Monday appointed a new chairperson for the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). While producer Pahlaj Nihalani was appointed as the censor board chief, nine other members were appointed with immediate effect following the change of guard at the CFBC led by Leela Samson.  (Leela Samson was the chair of CFBC who resigned in protest along with 12 other members two weeks ago, citing the BJP government’s interference in the workings of the CFBC. – Eds.) Read more…

SHADES OF TERROR

Suhas Chakma

 

It has been about a month since India witnessed the largest terror killings in 2014 in which a total of 81 innocent Adivasis were massacred in Kokrajhar and Sonitpur districts of Assam on December 23, 2013, by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) headed by Songbijit Ingti Kathar. It took place just one week after another equally heart-wrenching massacre of 145 people, including 132 schoolchildren by the Tehrik-i-Taliban (Pakistan) terrorists who attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16. Read more…

DELHI HIGH COURT REJECTS HOME MINISTRY’S ACTION AGAINST GREENPEACE

Bhagwan Kesbhat

 

The Delhi High Court noticed that the action of* Home Ministry* to block Greenpeace’s foreign funds is arbitrary, illegal & unconstitutional. Court also observed that NGOs are entitled to have their viewpoint and merely because their views are not in consonance with the Government’s views it does not mean the NGO is acting to the detriment of the national interest. Read more…

SRI LANKA’S LONGTIME PRESIDENT OUSTED IN ELECTION DEFEAT

Scott Neuman

 

Sri Lanka’s incoming President Maithripala Sirisena waves to supporters as he leaves the election secretariat in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Friday. Sirisena defeated long-time President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Read more…

AMIT SHAH AND CLOSED ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND

Siddharth Varadarajan

 

The most astonishing aspect of the CBI court’s decision to release Amit Shah from all charges connected to the 2005-06 murders of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kauser Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati is not that the judge chose to see the BJP president’s prosecution as politically motivated. Rather, it is that the Central Bureau of Investigation doesn’t seem particularly worried about the judgment’s implications for its own reputation and for the very future of the fake encounter case. Read more…

SCIENCE MEET DIDN’T HEAR: 40 YEARS AGO, IISC DEBUNKED FLYING CLAIMS

T.A. Johnson

 

At the Indian Science Congress on Sunday, at a special session called “Vedic Science through Sanskrit”, a former pilot, Captain Anand J Bodas, claimed that aircraft technology existed in India thousands of years before the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903. To substantiate his claim that aeronautical engineering in India dates back to Vedic times, Bodas referred to a book, Vyamanika Shastra, that claims to document ancient sage Maharishi Bharadwaja’s musings on aviation technology. Read more…

PSEUDO-SCIENCE MUST NOT FIGURE IN INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS

Vikrant Dadawala

 

A scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in California has launched an online petition demanding that a lecture on ‘Ancient Indian Aviation Technology’ to be delivered at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai in January be cancelled as it brings into question the “integrity of the scientific process”. Read more…

RESURGENCE OF GODSE WORSHIP

Ram Puniyani

 

Times are a changing; and changing fast. During last many decades most Hindu nationalists have kept the appreciation of their hero, Nathuram Godse under wraps. The programs appreciating his politics did use to make small news here and there some time; but as such it was a muted act not much publicized and generally kept as a low key affair. During last few years Pradeep Dalvi’s play in Marathi, Mee Nathuram Boltoy (I, Nathuram speaking), attacking Gandhi and upholding Godse, drew packed houses in various places in Maharashtra. Many people had also protested against staging of this play off and on. Read more…

OBITUARY: SYED MOHAMMAD MEHDI (1922-2015)

Notes From Maamujan’s Diary

Jawed Naqvi

 

There can be many ways to announce the end of an era. Saeed Mirza made Naseem, for example, a delicately poignant film that turned the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya into a metaphor for the unravelling of the Nehruvian promise. Saeed staged a cinematic coup of sorts, in fact, by getting the leftist poet Kaifi Azmi to agree to essay the waning of the Indian dream. He excelled in his role as the doting grandfather of Naseem, a curious, fun-loving Muslim schoolgirl, like so many of her age from the pre-1990s Mumbai. Read more…

TARAN ON HER GRANDFATHER, S.M. MEHDI

So Baba, my grandfather, decided he could not do without his beloved wife (Zahra Begum-1927-2014). Just ten weeks after Nanna, he passed away at home, in his sleep. He was 94, which irrationally does not stop me from wishing I’d had more time with him. Read more…

BABA: MOHD MEHDI

What can I say about you?

A father figure to me Read more…

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR MEHDI SAHAB at Ghalib Academy, New Delhi

Vinod Mubayi

 

The memorial service on January 14, 2015 was both a poignant and a deeply moving evening. Read more…

OBITUARY: RAJNI KOTHARI (1928-2015)

Shiv Visvanathan

How does one talk of a man who defined a subject, determined its directions, was its dominating presence without a shade of pomposity or status. Rajni Kothari was clear about some of the subjects of his studies, irreverently and pragmatically certain that the Indian elite was knowledge-proof, that the only changes it would accept were pressures from below or by mimicking its colonial masters. Here was a man far ahead of his times, a futurist in perspective. Read more…

OBITUARY: TAPAN RAYCHAUDHURI (1926–2014)

A B

 

Narendra Krishna Sinha, the legendary historian of yester years and the author of the celebrated Economic History of Bengal, introduced a number of brilliant students to historical research. Tapan Raychaudhuri, who died in Oxford on 27 November at the age of eighty-eight, belonged to that galaxy of historians. After a brief period of teaching at the University of Calcutta, he went to Oxford. While in Europe, he studied the original records of Dutch trade in India and produced the book, Jan Company in Coromandal, which shot him into fame. Coming back to India, he taught for some time as the Professor of Economic History at Delhi School of Economics. Then he again went to Oxford and took up a teaching post there. Gradually he rose to become a professor at this world famous institution. He also edited, along with Irfan Habib, the first volume of the Cambridge Economic History of India. His other works on history are Europe Reconsidered and Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities. Read more…

OBITUARY: PERIN CHANDRA (1919-2015)

Chandita Mukherjee

 

Perin Chandra passed away peacefully on 7th January, 2015 after 96 years of an active and eventful life as a communist and peace activist, loved and admired by all. Read more…

INSAANIYAT DUR AST (Humanity far off)

Vinod Mubayi

 

[The famous Farsi saying Dilli dur ast or Hanooz Dilli dur ast (Delhi is far off) often ascribed to the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin represented that the voyager or seeker had still far to go before he could reach his goal].

 

When the news of the horrifying massacre of small children at a school in Peshawar surfaced those contemplating Pakistan may be forgiven if they thought of it as a place where “insaaniyat dur ast” (humanity is far off) is the norm. There was an especially macabre quality to this gruesome incident where children were forced to recite the shahada before being shot by the brainwashed robotic salafis of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP). Read more…

IT WASN’T THE FINAL ATROCITY

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

The gut-wrenching massacre in Peshawar’s Army Public School has left Pakistan aghast and sickened. All political leaders have called for unity against terrorism. But this is no watershed event that can bridge the deep divides within. In another few days this episode of 134 dead children will become one like any other. Read more…

AFTER PESHAWAR: SEIZE THE PEACE OPPORTUNITY

Praful Bidwai

 

When Narendra Modi called Nawaz Sharif on December 16 to say that the Peshawar carnage “was not only an attack against Pakistan but an assault against all of humanity”, he raised the hope that he would empathetically engage Pakistan during its hour of crisis. That hope was soon weakened by the kneejerk official response to the granting of bail to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The bail was granted by a court. The Pakistan government has decided to appeal against it and detained Lakhvi. In India too, dozens of people charged with or convicted of serious offences have been granted bail, including Maya Kodnani, Amit Shah, LN Mishra’s killers, and so on. Read more…

IMPOSSIBLE LESSONS

Ravi Sinha

 

Far away from Peshawar five men and a woman sat in a physician’s waiting room in Lucknow. The television screen that ordinarily shows some Bollywood film or a cricket match had a news channel on. It was day after the slaughter of children. The assistant who maintains the waiting list of patients and collects the doctor’s fee said something very predictable, even if heart-felt, expressing his horror and revulsion. The matter would have passed as unremarkably as most things do most of the times, except for what an elderly gentleman waiting to see the doctor had to say in response. Read more…

PARIVAR’S RE-CONVERSION OFFENSIVE: NASTY THREAT TO CITIZENSHIP

Praful Bidwai

 

The Sangh Parivar has made a habit out of raking up divisive issues which most people thought were settled at the time of Indian Independence or shortly thereafter. For instance, India adopted Parliamentary democracy in preference to the presidential system after much debate. But the unitarian, pro-centralisation Bharatiya Janata Party has always been partial to the presidential form despite its unsuitability for a huge and diverse country like India. Read more…

MY VISIT TO KABAADI BASTI AGRA: THE FAÇADE OF RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

V.K. Tripathi

 

On December 20, 2014, I visited the Kabadi Basti, behind Vednagar colony, Agra where 60 Bengali speaking Muslim rag pickers were reported to have converted to Hinduism 12 days earlier. The TV channels and newspapers gave it an extensive coverage. There was debate in Parliament too. I wanted to see the truth of the ordeal these poor countrymen went through. Read more…

UNTOUCHABILITY THRIVES IN INDIA: FIGHTING THE CASTE MENACE

Praful Bidwai

 

It’s fashionable in some circles to claim that discrimination based on caste has steadily decreased in India, as it’s bound to, thanks to modernisation, urbanisation and industrialisation. The character of caste is itself changing from a system of social hierarchy based on birth and ritual purity, to a political phenomenon.  As India evolves into a “merit-based” society, the argument goes, there can be no place for untouchability vis-à-vis Dalits (Scheduled Castes) in it.

 

This argument is bogus. India has failed to industrialise significantly. And the modernisation process is slow, uneven and combines many pre-modern elements of culture and society, including caste, and sometimes reinforces caste-based deprivation and discrimination. We know this from daily experience and official reports. Hierarchy-obsessed India is nowhere near becoming “merit-based”. Read more…

HOW IS GHAR VAPASI DIFFERENT FROM FORCIBLE CONVERSIONS?

Ram Puniyani

 

Propaganda around conversions has been one of the major political tools during last few decades. It was Niyogi Commission report which investigated the conversions in Adivasi areas in 1950s, then the Meenaxipuram conversions of Dalits into Islam, the and then the gruesome murder of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains on the charges that he was doing the conversion; are few amongst the big spectrum related to the phenomenon of conversions. As such the regular propaganda by communal forces that Muslim Kings converted people into Islam by sword has been made the part of ‘social common sense’ by now. On regular basis around Christmas time one saw the anti Christian violence in Adivasi areas a decade ago, and in that context rather than focusing on the violence against religious minorities, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called for a National debate on Conversions. Read more…

HRCP SLAMS KILLING OF CHILDREN IN TALIBAN ATTACK

December 16, 2014

 

Lahore, December 16: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called the killing of more than 120 children in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar a national tragedy which it said must open the eyes of anyone still harbouring any doubts that Taliban and Pakistan could coexist. Read more…

TALIBAN SCHOOL ATTACK HIGHLIGHTS VULNERABILITY OF CIVILIANS

Amnesty International

 

The vast majority of those killed in the attack were school children.

 

“Of prime importance now is that the Pakistani authorities take effective steps to protect civilians and minimize the risk of this type of sickening tragedy being repeated.” Amnesty International’s David Griffiths Read more…

PAKISTAN’S SICKENING MASSACRE ISN’T ABOUT RELIGION – IT’S ABOUT INTIMIDATION

Bina Shah

 

To survive as a country Pakistan needs to map out a road to peace, with the army, politicians and the people rallying under a unifying cause Read more…

A SPECIAL KIND OF EVIL

The Indian Express – December 17, 2014

 

It defies comprehension, the special kind of evil that fired the minds of the men who brought death to Peshawar on Monday, an evil that made them target children gathering for their morning classes and extinguish so many young lives. In days to come, all of Pakistan will mourn. Indians will share their sorrow, as parents, as siblings, and as people who have learned that the living carry with them wounds inflicted by terror. Read more…

CRIME OF NEGLIGENT SURGERIES: “KILLING WOMEN TO CURB POPULATION”

J Amalorparvanathan

 

India is yet to treat women, especially those who are poor, with care and compassion.

 

The several guidelines in the National Population Policy and even Supreme Court directives are only meant to be flouted with unfailing regularity.The result is Chhattisgarh; not one but many Chhattisgarhs – year afteryear. After every tragedy, some doctors will be suspended and nothing more will happen, and in due course of time we will even forget Chhattisgarh completely. Read more…

RIGHT TO WATER

Sitaram Shelar

 

In a historic judgment by the Mumbai High Court, the Right to water has been equated with the Right to life, enshrined in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Read more…

FROM SIKKIM-ISATION TO MODI-FICATION

Anand Swaroop Verma

 

India’s neighbours are often skeptical about it. The merger of Sikkim in India way back in 1975 introduced a new term in political vocabulary of this subcontinent- ‘Sikkim-isation’. Read more…

PEOPLE’S SAARC DECLARATION

“PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS UNITING SOUTH ASIA FOR DEEPENING DEMOCRACY, SOCIAL JUSTICE & PEACE”

 

We, the participants of People’s SAARC Convergence met in Kathmandu on 22-24 November 2014 to reaffirm our solemn commitments to justice, peace, security, human rights, and democracy in the region for equality for all and to eliminate all forms of discrimination. Read more…

AMU (Aligarh Muslim University), RAJA MAHENDRA PRATAP AND ATTEMPTS OF POLARIZATION

Ram Puniyani

 

Those resorting to communal politics have not only perfected their techniques of polarizing the communities along religious lines, but have been constantly resorting to new methods for dividing the society. On the backdrop of Muzzafar nagar, where ‘Love Jihad’ propaganda was used to enhance the divisive agenda, now in Aligarh an icon of matchless virtues, Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh is being employed for the similar purposes. Read more…

POETICS OF A NATION: REMEMBERING NEHRU

Shiv Visvanathan

 

Jawaharlal Nehru cannot be seen merely as an object of history, a fragment of policy. He was a dream, a hope, a claim to innocence, an aesthetic, which gave to modernity a touch of elegance. Read more…

A SUMMARY OF U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS SINCE FIDEL CASTRO SEIZED POWER IN A 1959 REVOLUTION

The United States and Cuba plan to restore diplomatic relations and end more than five decades of fierce animosity that at one point took the world to the edge of nuclear conflict.

 

Here is a summary of U.S.-Cuba relations since Fidel Castro seized power in a 1959 revolution Read more…

LEFT PARTIES UNITE TO OPPOSE CORPORATE-HINDUTVA FORCES

(Press release; November 1,  2014)

 

A meeting of six left parties – Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, All India Forward Bloc, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation and Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) was held today at New Delhi. They have issued the following statement: Read more…

THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BHOPAL DISASTER

Editors

 

On the fateful night of December 2-3, 1984, nearly forty metric tons of highly poisonous methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas spewed from the Union Carbide Pesticide Plant at Bhopal. By the morning of December 3, Bhopal was a City of Death. Read more…

HOW THE SANGH PARIVAR SYSTEMATICALLY ATTACKS THE VERY IDEA OF INDIA

Anand Patwardhan

 

The Editors’ Guild has honoured me by asking me to deliver the Rajendra Mathur Memorial lecture this year. But as you know, I am a filmmaker rather than a speaker, and would like to intersperse my talk with a few clips from my films. Read more…

WHY THE RIGHT TO DISSENT IS INDISPENSABLE: Romila Thapar Speaks Out

Praful Bidwai

 

When Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani famously said of the media during the  Emergency that “when asked to bend, they crawled”, he received widespread praise from the intelligentsia and even from people opposed to the BJP’s ideology—because he spoke the truth about the loss of independence and professional integrity on the part of the Fourth Estate and other institutions. Read more…

TARGETING NEHRUVIAN LEGACY

Ram Puniyani

 

The debates about India’s partition, Gandhi murder and policies of Nehru have been a matter of ceaseless debates. Each political tendency has their own interpretation of these events, which in a way are landmarks of sorts in modern Indian History. As such the phenomenon of Partition of India and assassination of Gandhi are interwoven in the sense that Godse held Gandhi responsible for appeasement of Muslims. Godse constructed his story around warped understandings of the events of the time to create the ground for murder of the Mahatma. These views are shared by many Hindu nationalists, who are in and around RSS-BJP. Read more…

POLITICAL MOBILISATION OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA – CHANGING PATTERN

Irfan Engineer

 

Muslim votes in post partition India have traditionally been mobilised by the politicians on three tropes – security, religio-cultural identities and fair share of Muslims. The recent victory of two All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLAs in Maharashtra Assembly elections held in October 2014 shows that Muslim votes could be mobilized on a fourth trope in the times when Hindu Nationalists are aggressively asserting themselves – that of counter assertion aiming at communal unity to take on the Hindu Nationalists. These tropes have been pursued through three different strategies – 1) withdrawal from electoral politics, 2) joining political parties not dominated by Muslims and 3) forming Muslim dominated parties. Read more…

HAVE INDIAN INTELLECTUALS BEEN CO-OPTED?

Jawed Naqvi

 

Increasingly of late, Prof Romila Thapar is required to assume the nearly impossible role of Emperor Akbar, who, according to the official plaque at his tomb near Agra, had “created a nation out of a mob”. To her credit (and sorrow), the ageless historian stands firm among a handful of public intellectuals left in India who have refused to be pulverised by the rise of right-wing Hindutva mobs. Read more…

THE MODI DEVELOPMENT MODEL WILL DRIVE INDIA OVER THE CLIFF

Anand Patwardhan

 

In 2006 and 2008, Muslims in the Maharashtrian town of Malegaon were accused of bombing their own graveyard and mosque. After seven years of blaming Pakistan and arresting and torturing Muslim suspects, in May 2013 the National Investigation Agency, India’s leading anti-terror agency filed charges against four Hindu radicals, all former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers.(From The Times of India, January 8, 2011) Read more…

LEADING INDIAN JOURNALIST P. SANAITH SAYS INDIA FOLLOWS THE U.S. MODEL AT ITS PERIL

Sonali Kolhatkar

 

(A person with a mask of now-Prime Minister Narendra Modi tied to his head takes part in an April 2014 rally in Varanasi, India, in support of Modi’s candidacy. Photo by Shutterstock not reproduced)

 

Palagummi Sainath, or P. Sainath, as he prefers to be called, is India’s most decorated journalist. In addition to the World Media Summit award that he just won, he is the recipient of many prizes, including the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for his work covering India’s poor and rural areas. What sets Sainath apart from most Indian journalists is that he has steadfastly covered the country’s most dispossessed communities and has refused to participate in a rapidly Westernized media landscape that puts profits over integrity. Read more…

DOCTORING HISTORY FOR POLITICAL GOALS: ORIGIN OF CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA

Ram Puniyani

 

Caste hierarchy is the major obstacle to the goal of social justice and it continues to be a major obstacle to social progress even today. There are many a theories, which have tried to understand its origin. The latest in the series is the attempt of RSS to show its genesis due to invasion of Muslim kings. Three books written by RSS ideologues argue that Islamic atrocities during medieval period resulted in emergence of untouchables and low castes.  The books are “Hindu Charmakar Jati”, “Hindu Khatik Jati” and “Hindu Valmiki Jati”. Read more…

BLAME POVERTY AND BIAS: 53% OF ALL PRISONERS IN INDIA ARE DALITS, MUSLIMS AND TRIBALS

The latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Prison Statistics India for the year 2013 has thrown up a shocking statistic, reflective of how casteism and bias are still an integral part of the Indian psyche. Read more…

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL CONSULTATION ON WORKERS’ MOVEMENT AND COMMUNALISM

A national consultation on workers’ movement and communalism was organized by Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai on 18th October, 2014 in Mumbai. The primarily aim for organizing this consultation was to take stock of the communal politics that is so largely prevalent and its impact on the trade union movement. Read more…

STOP THE CAMP METHOD OF STERILIZATION

Mumbai (Noveber 4, 2014)

 

Stop the “camp method” of sterilisation, a coalition of pro-health networks and women’s groups have said, as more details emerge from Chhattisgarh where 11 women died, allegedly due to medical negligence. Read more…

VOICES FROM JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY: Students in Action

Koumi Dutta & Swastik Basu

 

On 10th September, the students of Jadavpur University (JU) began with their sit-in demonstration. On 20th September, the streets of Kolkata witnessed a rally like no other, a rally that brought together one lakh students from all over the state, who joined hands to raise their voices against the State aided atrocities and cadre hooliganism that has become rampant in the colleges of West Bengal. Read more…

MACHIL FAKE ENCOUNTER CASE

A Saga of Shameful Brutality Unveiled and Officially Confirmed

 

Machil fake encounter: 5 Armymen sentenced to life imprisonment

Rajat Pandit,TNN | Nov 14, 2014, 04.21 AM IST

 

New Delhi: The Army has sentenced two officers and three soldiers to life imprisonment for gunning down three unemployed Kashmiri youths and then trying to pass them off as “Pakistani militants” in a stage-managed encounter in Machil sector along the Line of Control in April 2010. Read more…

THE SOCIETY FOR SECULAR PAKISTAN

Press Release

 

The Society for Secular Pakistan (SfSP) strongly condemns the killings of Shazad Masih and his pregnant wife Shama by the crowd incited by the clerics of three mosques of the villages in Kasur. Read more…

WHY DOES MALALA YUSUFZAI’S NOBEL BOTHER SO MANY ON THE LEFT?

 

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

Western agendas and interests can sometimes be intelligently leveraged for furthering what is important for peoples everywhere.

 

Arundhati Roy’s charm and lucidity have iconized her in the world of left-wing politics.  But, asked by Laura Flanders what she made of the 2014 Nobel Prize, she appeared to be swallowing a live frog: “Well, look, it is a difficult thing to talk about because Malala is a brave girl and I think she has even recently started speaking out against the US invasions and bombings…but she’s only a kid you know and she cannot be faulted for what she did….the great game is going on…they pick out people [for the Nobel Prize].” For one who has championed peoples causes everywhere so wonderfully well these shallow, patronizing remarks were disappointing. Read more…

MODI MEETS OBAMA

Sukla Sen

 

The Indian media not too unexpectedly, drummed up a lot of hype around incumbent Indian Prime Minister Modi’s trip to the US (September 26-30). Read more…

DISCOVERING IRAN. WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

 

Marcel Proust said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”  During the past two decades, I visited Iran on numerous occasions staying 10-14 days at a time.  This time around, I stayed for 2 months and heeding Proust, I carried with me a fresh pair of eyes.    I discarded both my Western lenses as well as my Iranian lenses and observed with objective eyes.  It was a formidable journey that left me breathless. Read more…

AMIYA-DA – MASTAR MOSHAI – TOGORE

Rana Bose

 

My father Amiya Kumar Bose was born on the 25th of December, 1900. He would have been 114 years old this year. An eminent Cardiologist and scientist of India, he died on the 14th of November 1975, a few months after the onset of the Emergency. I had just re-started my Engineering degree in the US, after a lapse of five years. My sister, Raka, who was working as a Microbiologist in the US and I, rushed back when we heard that he had had a severe cerebral hemorrhage. The planes were all delayed and we were missing all the connections. At Heathrow, David Frost the well-known TV commentator (who had a show on Al Jazeera until recently, till he passed on) was being taken to the plane by car and he heard that the gates had been closed and we were going to miss our flight, and somehow he invited us to accompany him and we got on the flight. By the time we arrived in Calcutta, Amiya Bose was gone. So from the airport we went straight to our home and carried his body to the crematorium in Keoratala. Read more…

OBITUARY: SAM NOUMOFF (1935-2014)

James Putzel

 

For many generations of students who studied politics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, Sam Noumoff was an iconic figure. He taught courses in political theory and comparative politics that you would be hard pressed to find on the curricula of universities in the developed or, indeed the developing, world today. Aside from offering a radical perspective on the comparative politics of East Asia, over the years Sam introduced thousands of students to Marxist political theory and even offered a course, on which I was briefly his teaching assistant, called Comparative Revolution. Read more…

OBITUARY: BIPAN CHANDRA (1928-2014)

Mritiunjoy Mohanty

 

Prof Bipan Chandra, the pre-eminent historian of modern India and a leading public intellectual, passed away on Saturday, 30th August 2014. He had been ailing for a while. Read more…

OBITUARY: GEETA DAS (1936-2014)

(ML Update)

 

Veteran revolutionary women’s leader of the party Comrade Geeta Das breathed her last on 24 October at her daughter’s house in Santoshpur, West Bengal. Comrade Geeta Das, popularly known among her comrades as ‘Geetadi’ was 78 years old and was suffering from several age related ailments. Geetadi hailed from Kotalipara in Faridpore district of East Bengal, presently Bangladesh. She studied till class VIII in the face of tremendous poverty and completed the Matric degree after marriage. Her unswerving courage and dedication towards studies was evident from her completion of basic teachers’ training with the distinction of being first class first even as she was raising her child and living in a hostel. She joined the Calcutta Corporation School as a teacher and retired from her job in 1996. Read more…

OBITUARY: SHAH CHAND

(ML Update, 4-10 November)

 

Comrade Shah Chand Mukhiya, beloved popular leader from Jehanabad-Arwal, loved and respected as the “Nelson Mandela of Bihar”, passed away on 2 November. A wave of grief enveloped the whole area with the news of his demise. His funeral procession was taken out from his village Bhadasi on 3 November, and a sea of people turned out for one last sight of their beloved leader. Long queues of men and women lined both sides of the road from Bhadasi to Karbala, and more joined in as the procession proceeded. The mourners included Party General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya, Com. Kunal, Com. Ramjatan Sharma, Dhirendra Jha, Amar, Meena Tiwari, Saroj Choube, Anwar Hussain, Rajaram Singh, Raldu Singh, Wasi Ahmad, Suhail, and other leaders. Earlier, Com. Dipankar met Com. Shah Chand’s wife Com. Jameela Khatoon and sons, and consoled them with the assurance that every single Party worker stands with them. Read more…

EDITORIAL – SIX MONTHS LATER

Vinod Mubayi

 

Six months into his term Modi’s electoral magic, which dipped slightly in the September by-elections in U.P. and Bihar, seems to have recovered.  In Maharashtra, BJP doubled its erstwhile tally of seats to emerge as the largest single party though it fell short of a majority. In Haryana on the other hand, BJP had a ten-fold increase in seats (from 4 to 47) and emerged as the majority party.  While Modi can claim credit for this result, another factor, the decimation of the Congress Party in both states, should not be overlooked. Read more…

MODI’S IDEA OF INDIA

Pankaj Mishra

 

India, V.S. Naipaul declared in 1976, is “a wounded civilization,” whose obvious political and economic dysfunction conceals a deeper intellectual crisis. As evidence, he pointed out some strange symptoms he noticed among upper-caste middle-class Hindus since his first visit to his ancestral country in 1962. These well-born Indians betrayed a craze for “phoren” consumer goods and approval from the West, as well as a self-important paranoia about the “foreign hand.” “Without the foreign chit,” Mr. Naipaul concluded, “Indians can have no confirmation of their own reality.” Read more…

DOORDARSHAN AS RSS’S PUBLICITY AGENT: DANGEROUS HINDUTVA PORTENTS

Praful Bidwai

 

Hindutva crossed another red line in Indian politics on October 3 when the state-owned Doordarshan news channel made a live broadcast, for the first time ever, of the Vijayadashami (Dussehra) address of a Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh chief.  Read more…

A PROPOSAL FOR JOINING HANDS TO SAVE SECULARISM

Gautam Chaudhuri

 

Upsurge of religious communalism/fundamentalism is nothing new in this sub-continent, each time taking its toll. Secularism in true sense has never got its root deep and been sincerely practiced by the authority in our country too. Inheritance of the communal contamination of our freedom movement and the partition of the country has paved the hardcore communal forces the privilege to get their ideological influence spread over the society, even within our civil administration, the police, the army, the judiciary and everything—with also deliberate infiltration of trained cadres—and causing mayhem time and again as witnessed in demolition of Babri Masjid, post-Godhra genocide in Gujarat, blasts in Samjhauta express, in Malegaon, at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad—to mention a few. Murder of ATS chief Hemant Karkare on 26/11/2008 during the militant attack in Mumbai also point to a deep seated conspiracy against the nation in connivance with Israeli militant groups like Mossad. All these make it a compulsion for the true secular individuals and groups of the country to build a strong secular popular front to combat the menace of communalism in this country, nay, the sub-continent. Read more…

“HER”

A POEM

Khawla Zainab Read more…

BJP’s MORONIC THESIS ON RAPES

A while ago, the Chief of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) proclaimed that there are no rapes in Bharat; they take place in India. Read more…

ISLAM FOR PEACE, OR VIOLENCE?

Javed Anand

 

Until recently, often in private and sometimes publicly, the complaint was voiced that moderate Muslims do not speak out or not loudly enough against Muslim extremism, militant Islam. Now, curiously, the ongoing savagery of the Islamic State has prompted the high priests of “New Atheism” (for whom “moderate Muslim” is an oxymoron) to turn their guns against liberals in general. Read more…

THE BACKWARD MUSLIMS

Irfan Engineer

 

Two years ago, I was invited to speak at a two day convention of Backward Muslims  organized by “Tehrik-e-Pasmanda Muslim Samaj” in Patna. Translated, the name would mean movement of backward Muslim communities. Read more…

INTERMARRIAGE IS NOT JIHAD, IT IS INDIA

Saif Ali Khan

 

When Kareena [a Hindu by birth] and I [a muslim by birth} married, there were similar death threats, with people on the Net saying ridiculous things about “love jihad”. We follow whatever religion or spiritual practice we believe in. Read more…

MALALA YOUSUFZAI: THE PRIDE OF PAKISTAN, BUT SHE CAN’T GO HOME

Kamila Shamsie

 

Take that, Islamic extremists, anti-Muslim bigots, Pashtun-bashers and misogynists! Malala Yousufzai has become the youngest person to win any Nobel prize and, fittingly, did not appear before the media to respond for several hours because it was a school day, and the girl’s got priorities. Read more…

SENDING PAKISTAN TO MARS

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

When spacecraft Mangalyaan successfully entered the Martian orbit in late September after a 10-month journey, India erupted in joy. Costing more than an F-16 but less than a Rafale, Mangalyaan’s meticulous planning and execution established India as a space-faring country. Although Indians had falsely celebrated their five nuclear tests of 1998 — which were based upon well-known physics of the 1940s — the Mars mission is a true accomplishment. Read more…

HOW TV PROMOTED TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

IF today, with remote in hand, you randomly flip through channels on your TV, or browse through nearly two dozen online newspapers, you will see video clips or photos of Pakistan Air Force jets pounding targets in North Waziristan, artillery firing into the mountains, or, perhaps, some other celebration of Operation Zarb-i-Azb. But hang on! You rub your eyes. Our jets bombing Islamic fighters within the territory of this Islamic republic? Read more…

SATYARTHI’S NOBEL IS A CHEER – AND A WARNING FOR INDIA

Praful Bidwai

 

The award of the Nobel Peace prize to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai has been widely welcomed in India. This is doubtless positive for the cause of children’s rights. But it’s also a comment on how the world looks at the social reality of an India that struts about as an “emerging power” but tolerates large-scale abuse and merciless exploitation of children. Read more…

‘RIP VAN WINKLE’ AND RAMAN SINGH GOVERNMENT

Subhash Gatade

 

Can an elected Panchayat deprive a section of its own people belonging to a minority community its constitutionally granted right to practice its religion – e.g. organize prayers or engage in religious propaganda and have sermons? Read more…

MULTI-CULTURAL HERITAGE: GODHARA MUSLIMS CELEBRATE DANDIYA WITH HINDU FRIENDS

Godhara. India is unique—the city associated with the infamous 2002 anti-Muslim riots, resonated this Navratri with Dandiya-Garba festivities organized by a leading Muslim personality.  The incident revealed also, that this was no chance occurrence; Muslims of Godhara and Gujarat have been at the forefront of Dandiya-Garba events since centuries. Read more…

FOR A PLACE ON THE WORLD STAGE

Arun Kumar

 

India seems to be happy to get from the big economic powers things such as surplus capital, technology, trains, cleanliness, education and so on. This also spells its weakness 67 years after Independence. We rejoice at getting the basics from others while giving in return our best minds and yoga. Read more…

LETTER ON THE FUTURE OF NREGA

Shri Narendra Modi 13 October 2014

Prime Minister of India Read more…

OF DIRT AND CLEANLINESS – SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN

Nityanand Jayaraman

 

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) is powerful in its simplicity, and problematic for the same reason. The absence of complexity in the presentation of the campaign, and the inherent contradictions between Modi’s consumerist growth agenda and SwachhBharat’s objectives fuels my skepticism and raises many questions: Which parts of India will be cleaned, which not and why not? What will we do with the wastes we remove?  Where will we put it? Read more…

THE BANGLADESH WE ALL LONG FOR

Uday Sankar Das

 

The scars inflicted on September 29, 2012 in Ramu will take a long time to heal.

 

It has been two years now since a number of Buddhist monasteries and houses of Buddhists were razed to the ground in Ramu, Ukhia, Teknaf, and Cox’s Bazar on a night of mayhem on September 29, 2012. This carnage no doubt tarnished the image of Bangladesh both at home and abroad. The events, painful as they were and still are, still rekindled hopes about the kind of country we fought for and long for. Read more…

INDIA: TWO LAWS ON CENSORSHIP

Pankaj Butalia

 

Two individuals stand at opposite ends of the film-censorship spectrum in India: One a Bollywood filmmaker, Vishal Bhardwaj, who made Haider, and the other a young documentary filmmaker, Shubhradeep Chakravorty, who made En Dino Muzaffarnagar, a documentary on last year’s riots. Bhardwaj, who agreed to 41 cuts, was able to state in his film that the Indian army was responsible for the disappearance of Kashmiri men in 1995, blew up homes at will, tortured people in the most brutal way and let loose a counter-terrorism force that played havoc with Kashmiri society. He was also able to incorporate in his film another holy cow of a censorious society: incest. Read more…

IS MODI TRYING TO TURN INDIA INTO ONE GIANT ‘LAWLESS’ SEZ?

Nirjhari Sinha

 

When Modi became the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001, one of his primary focus was to build as many Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as he could to make his industrialist friends happy. According to Gujarat Government, there are presently 55 SEZs in Gujarat covering an area of approximately 27,125 hectares. Some of the SEZs have been given away to his close friends, Ambani, Adani and Tata. For eg, Adani got the Dholera and Mundra SEZ, Reliance got the Reliance SEZ, while Tata got the Tata SEZ. Read more…

HAS PM MODI BOWED TO US PRESSURE ON PATENT LAWS?

Rema Nagarajan,

 

A paragraph buried in the US-India joint statement, which talks of establishing an annual high-level Intellectual Property (IP) working group as part of the Trade Policy Forum, has made health activists across the world apprehensive that the Modi government might be bending to US pressure to change its patent laws. Several health policy experts and activists have issued statements urging India not to give in to US pressure and pointing out that India’s IPR policy was compliant with the WTO’s trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement as it used health safeguards available in the agreement to protect the interests of Indian patients as well as millions of people in other developing countries Read more…

PRICES OF LIFE-SAVING DRUGS INCREASED BY THE MODI GOVERNMENT

“Bimaron ke acchhe din aa gaye hain?”

 

Daya Varma

 

The outgoing United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government had initiated a “Right to Health” scheme and kept the price of drugs at controlled prices. Despite this scheme the prices were still high given the resources of the Indian population. Read more…

JOIN INTERNATIONAL FRONT AGAINST RELIGIOUS-RIGHT AND FOR SECULARISM

Petition by Maryam Namazie (London, UK)

 

Our era is marked by the rise of the religious-Right – not because of a “religious revival” but rather due to the rise of far-Right political movements and states using religion for political supremacy. This rise is a direct consequence of neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism and the social policies of communalism and cultural relativism. Universalism, secularism and citizenship rights have been abandoned and segregation of societies and “communities” based on ethnicity, religion and culture have become the norm. Read more…

AWAMI WORKERS PARTY FIRST CONGRESS

Awami Workers Party held its first congress on September  27-28, 2014 at   Islamabad, Pakistan. Read more…

THE WRITERS FORUM CONDEMNED THE POLICE SUPPRESSION ON FORWARD PRESS

The writers’s forum and other organisations came in support of the ‘ Bahujan- Shraman’ issue of Forward Press and condemned the police action against it. Janwadi Lekhak Sangh issued a press release today (written below) while forum for  freedom of expression marked a protest March in Bhagalpur Bihar. The Convenor of forum, Om Sudha  asked the Home Ministry to immediate withdraw the FIR , lodged against ‘ Forward Press.’ Read more…

SURREY-WHALLEY MLA BRUCE RALSTON TO RECEIVE DR. AMBEDKAR SOCIAL JUSTICE AWARD

Surrey (BC) – The veteran MLA from Surrey-Whalley, Bruce Ralston, will be presented the Dr. Ambedkar Social Justice Award 2014 at an October 14 ceremony, President of Chetna Association of Canada Surinder Ranga announced. Read more…

COLUMBUS DAY AND THE SANITIZATION OF HISTORY

Owen McCormack

 

The strife that has engulfed Christopher Columbus’ legacy in recent years has put the concept of an Indigenous People’s Day at the forefront of discussion. Read more…

OBITUARY: BALRAJ PURI (1928-2014)

Manoranjan Mohanty

 

For more than half a century, Balraj Puri was a journalist, political thinker, federalist, human rights activist, socialist democrat and much more. He spoke for Jammu and Kashmir and of Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of the world and was widely respected in the state. A tribute by a friend of many decades. Read more…

OVER 600 NRIS PROTEST MODI AT SPIRITED RALLY IN NEW YORK

Over 600 people participated in a spirited rally in New York on Sunday, September 28 opposing, Modi and Hindutva, while Modi was being feted inside the Madison Square Garden (MSG) arena by a section of India’s diaspora. Read more…

ANTI-DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES CONTINUE

EDITORIAL

 

Indian State has a long history of repressing the democratic rights of the people inherited from the practices of the British Raj and strengthened in successive years by passing anti-democratic laws. Read more…

MASS ARREST IN TELANGANA AND ANDHRA PRADESH: BLACK DAYS OF EMERGENCY ARE HERE AGAIN?

Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization

 

The AP and Telangana State governments have coercively prevented the one day convention of the FORUM FOR ALTERNATIVE POLITICS in Hyderabad on 21 Sep 2014 from being held. This is a most condemnable, undemocratic and unconstitutional acts of the two governments. Read more…

SPREADING FEAR THROUGH STEREOTYPES: THE POLITICS OF ‘LOVE JIHAD’

Praful Bidwai

 

How does Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lofty slogan Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikaas (inclusion and development for all) square up with India’s social-political reality as vulnerable groups such as the religious minorities experience it? The honest answer is that these groups had the most to fear from a Bharatiya Janata Party election victory, and some of their fears are coming true. The BJP’s leaders, Mr Modi included, have done very little to allay them although it’s their duty to do so. Read more…

TOOLS FOR DIVISIVE POLITICS: HATE SPEECH AND PATRIARCHY

Ram Puniyani

 

After the last general elections where Narendra Modi and his party won a majority overwhelmingly, the BJP has not been doing so well in subsequent by-elections. The Lalu-Nitish experiment is one model, but whether it will be replicated in different parts of the country is a million-vote question. Read more…

KASHMIR FLOODS: ACCHHE DIN SLOGAN TURNS BITTER FOR J&K RESIDENTS

Editors

 

Modi’s slogan acchhe din aane wale hain (better days are about to come) that helped him and his party win the election has no doubt turned bitter for the flood-ravaged residents of Jammu and Kashmir. Almost 300 are reported to have died and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and are living in flimsy makeshift shelters without adequate supply of food or water. Read more…

COMMUNITIES IMPACTED BY FLOODS IN PAKISTAN – 2014

Roots for Equity, Pakistan NGO (Abridged)

 

The recent floods sweeping through Pakistan have affected thousands of communities in Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Thankfully, though the floods are not as devastating as of 2010, they have still created havoc in many communities costing nearly 300 lives to date. Read more…

THE MARS MISSION: LAURELS FOR INDIA

Com Space Research Organiation (ISRO) launched its Mars mission on November 5, 2013 by the Congress-led UPA government. It has now successfully entered into Mars orbit, a great achievement in space science. Below are two comments. Read more…

THE TRUTH THAT WILL NOT DIE: Tribute to Shubhradeep Chakravorty

Anand Patwardhan

 

“En Dino Muzaffarnagar by Shubhradeep Chakravorty and Meera Chaudhary is going to be recorded in history as the first documentary film banned under Prime Minister Modi. Gagging order came on 30th June. Today we applied in Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) for redressal of our grievances. We will not go down without a fight.” Read more…

RSS REWRITES HISTORY: DALITS ‘CREATED’ BY INVADERS

DK Singh

 

In its renewed impetus to woo Dalits, various other castes and sub-castes, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has embarked on an ambitious exercise to re-write history. Read more…

INQUILAB ZINDABAD, LAL SALAAM ECHOES IN KOLKATA

 

 

Unprecedented is too mild an epithet to describe the Saturday rally by Kolkata students. The number is most conservatively [by the police] 80,000 and by watchers 1,10,000 and more because no one can count the real number as the end of the rally could not even come out of Nandan complex when the starting was getting fully drenched at the end point in Mayo Road where it was blocked. Read more…

LOVE COMMANDOS COUNTER LOVE JIHAD, UNITE 30,000 COUPLES

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-love-commandos-unite-to-counter-concept-of-love-jihad-brings-30000-couples-together-2020329

 

At a time when the country is being exposed to an oxymoronic term ‘ love jihad, countering such a concept is an organization with an equally paradoxical name called ‘Love Commandos’. Read more…

AISA SWEEPS JNU STUDENT UNION ELECTIONS ONCE AGAIN

Doubles Votes To Emerge As Significant Third Force in DUSU Elections Read more…

NATIONAL CONVENTION OF WORKERS

A National Convention of Workers was held on 15TH September 2014 at New Delhi, under the banner of joint platform of all the Central Trade Unions of the country. The Convention was held in protest against the policies of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization and the all-out attack on trade union/working class rights by the Modi government and the Rajasthan government. Read more…

DECLARATION OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF WORKERS

(September 15, 2014,  New Delhi)

 

This National Convention of Workers being held under the banner of joint platform of all the Central Trade Unions of the country along with independent national federations/organizations from all the sectors and service establishments expresses deep concern at the unilateral move to amend the labour laws by a number of state governments and by the Central Govt. Most of the amendments sought to be done will have serious negative impact on the working conditions including trade union rights of the workers and the employees. Read more…

THE CAUSE OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN WESTERN UP

Sadiq Naqvi

 

Tanweer Fazal, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, explains the reasons for communal disharmony in Western UP. Read more…

HUNDRED DAYS OF MODI POINTS TO EMERGENT DISASTER

Economy, Religious Extremism and Human Rights Areas of Biggest Concern

 

The Ghadar Alliance, a US-based educational/watchdog coalition created by concerned citizens in the wake of the BJP victory, today released a comprehensive ‘100-day report’ evaluating the performance of the Modi government’s first 100 days in office. The report, titled “Fast Track to Troubling Times,” (modifacts.org) is being released as Modi prepares for his first visit to the US as India’s Prime Minister. Modi’s US tour begins on September 26th. Read more…

MY NAME IS KHAN AND I AM A HINDU

Ishita Mishra

 

 

Agra: If there is one place in India that just doesn’t get the idea of ‘Love jihad’, it is Khera Sadhan in Agra. And that’s because of its peculiar history. During the rule of Aurangzeb (1658-1707), villagers there were asked to either convert to Islam or leave their homes. Faced with such a threat, almost all of them had changed their religion at that time. After Independence, a group of local leaders exhorted the townsfolk to go back to Hinduism. Some did, others didn’t. But religion since then hasn’t mattered to the people here. Read more…

GREEN CLEARANCE TEST FOR NDA

Sunita Narain

 

Environmentalists are rightly alarmed that the NDA government is busy dismantling the environmental regulatory system in the country. Over the past two months, the media has reported that clearances for projects, from mining to roads, have been fast-tracked. While the website of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has not been updated in August, in the two months till July end, forest clearance was granted to over 92 projects, which will divert some 1,600 hectares of forest. More recently, it was reported that the National Board for Wildlife has processed many projects located near or in sanctuaries and national parks. Read more…

LEFT BEHIND – WHERE ARE THE COMRADES WHEN ONE NEEDS THEM?

Mukul Kesavan

 

Where’s the Left when you need it? Time was when you didn’t have to be  a party member or a fellow traveller to admire its virtues. After  Indira Gandhi’s assassination, when Sikhs were being attacked and  killed in their thousands at the Congress’s prompting, Jyoti Basu’s  steely peace-keeping in Calcutta was the stuff of urban legend. This  was 1984; the Left Front government’s great experiment in land reform,  Operation Barga, was yet to run its course. The Communist Party of  India (Marxist) was a redistributionist, social democratic party,  committed to secularism: every parliamentary system ought to have one. Read more…

ON THE FRONTLINES OF THE WAR ON NAXALISM: Four Women Lawyers Offer Hope To Those Without Any

Jagdalpur, Parakram Rautela

 

The Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, tasked with documenting what might be happening to the innocents caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and in Chhattisgarh, ends up taking on the toughest legal cases. The ones that nobody else seems to want. Read more…

MAMATA BANERJEE SEEKS ESCAPE ROUTE AMIDST SARADHA CBI TSUNAMI\: READY TO CONSIDER ALLIANCE PROPOSAL WITH CPIM

Excalibur Stevens Biswas

 

Sardha scam CBI enquiry tsunami has greater impact on the number one self declared enemy of communism,specifically CPIM and what a turnaround,Mamata Banerjee indicated in a television interview that she is no more averse to an alliance with the CPI-M to counter the BJP in Bengal. Read more…

THE HATE “FOREIGNER” JIHAD OF HINDU NATIONALIST ORGANIZATIONS PART – I

There is an interesting pattern in which the Hindu Nationalist Organisations (HNOs) exploit a non-issue to stigmatize communities which were declared by them as “foreigners”. V D Savarkar wrote in his tract on Hindutva, “Nothing can weld peoples into a nation and nations into a state as the pressure of a common foe. Hatred separates as well as unites.” Savarkar located the common foe in Muslims and Christians whose holy lands were outside Sindhustan, or land running from Indus to Arabian Sea. Read more…

MODI’S 100 DAYS: INDIA TOWARDS DOLDRUMS?

Ajaya Kumar Singh (Countercurrents.org, August 31, 2014)

 

It is three months since Narendra Modi took over the leadership of India . Never before India ‘s debate on secularism is as intense and frightening as it is today. Minorities are on edge. Bharat Bhusan, a senior journalist writing for news daily, Business Standard captures the mood of the nation and state of affairs minoriites in India , “S omething has changed in our society after   Narendra Modi became the prime minister. Read more…

OBITUARY: BIPAN CHANDRA (1928-2014)

Special Correspondent

 

Eminent `Modern India’ historian Bipan Chandra died on Saturday morning after a prolonged illness. He was 86. Survived by two sons, he left behind an unfinished work on Bhagat Singh and an “army of students’’ of varied ideological persuasions mourning the end of their animated discussions. Read more…

WHAT WE NEED IS A COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (UNITED)

Editors

 

The triumph of the BJP in May 2014 elections and the absolute majority it has secured in the Lok Sabha, perhaps to be replicated soon in the Rajya Sabha, ensures its rule over India for the next five years.  The Congress has been reduced to a mere rump while most of the regional parties, barring Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK and West Bengal’s TMC, have been practically wiped out. The parliamentary Left, mainly CPM and CPI, have not fared any better. Read more…

MODI IS MARCHING: MOVE TOWARDS FASCISM?

Santosh Rana

 

When the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls was on, many political observers noted that the Indian big business houses had united in an unprecedented manner in order to enthrone Narenrda Modi as the Prime Minister. This class allegedly provided billions of rupees to Modi’s election fund, and the newspapers and other news media went on clamouring for Modi’s premiership in the most overt, if not obnoxious fashion. Read more…

CHANGING CONTOURS OF INDIA: ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND WAY FORWARD

Hozefa Ujjaini

 

On 13th August 2014, a meeting was organized by All India Secular Forum in association with Janvikas, Insaaf, Parwaaj and National Peace Group at Maratha Hall, Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Fifty-five  youths, social activists, Grass root worker and community people participated in the meeting. Read more…

DOES LOVE KNOW RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES?

Ram Puniyani

 

Communal politics, communal violence all over used women’s bodies as the site of contestation and community honor. This is the worst expression of patriarchal values inherent in the communal politics. Read more…

NEW LEFT PLATFORM [Ganamancha] FORMED IN WEST BENGAL

“Working People’s Movement for Democracy & Secularism”

DECLARATION (issued at Press Conference on 2/7/2014)

We the undersigned political parties and organisations have decided to come together to form a struggle platform: “Working People’s Movement for Democracy and Secularism”. Read more…

ARE WOMEN REALLY WORKING LESS IN INDIA?

CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh

 

Work, work, work It is not acknowledged simply because it is not paid for (Ritu Raj Konwar) Read more…

A BRIEF REPORT OF MINORITY WOMEN’S WORKSHOP IN AHMEDABAD

A minority women’s workshop was organized by CSSS, Mumbai in collaboration with Safar, Ahmedabad to train women activists working on the issues relating to Muslim women in Gujarat. The workshop was conducted on 13th and 14th August, 2014 and around 50 participants participated from different parts of the state. Read more…

COMMUNAL’ RAPES IN UP: POLICE RECORDS PUNCTURE BJP PROPAGANDA

IndiaTomorrow.net

 

New Delhi, 27 August 2014: For last two weeks, the ruling Hindu right Bharatiya Janata Party had been endangering the already volatile atmosphere of communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh – specifically the western part of India’s most populated state – by alleging and reiterating it at every platform that Muslims in the region are raping Hindu women with a sinister design. A painstaking investigation of NDTV news channel on Tuesday found BJP’s claim was a sheer false propaganda. Read more…

THE RAJASTHAN AMENDMENTS TO LABOR LAW WILL CREATE MANY MORE BHOPALS

National Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) statement, New Delhi,  July 31, 2014

 

The Rajasthan government’s decision to  amend the Factories Act has turned the clock back two centuries for what are acceptable conditions of work in a factory. Read more…

INDIAN MUSLIMS CONDEMN THE BRUTAL ATROCITIES BY ISIS AGAINST MINORITIES

 

 

Indian Muslims are shocked and pained by the brutality and atrocities being perpetrated by the ISIS (Islamic State of Syria and Iraq) against Christians, Shias, Kurds, Yazidis and other minorities in the regions now under their control. We strongly condemn such barbarism which is against the teachings of Islam. We express our heart-felt sympathies and solidarity with the survivors of those whose near and dear ones have been mercilessly butchered, and the tens of thousands of Iraq’s minorities who have been dispossessed, forced to flee their homes and are now living in extremely difficult circumstances. Read more…

CANCELLATION OF INDIA-PAKISTAN SECRETARY LEVEL TALKS

Call for Early Resumption and Increased Bilateral Initiatives for Peace

 

We the citizens of India and Pakistan are concerned and dismayed by the decision of the Government of India to call off the Foreign Secretary Level talks between India and Pakistan that were scheduled on 25th August 2014 at Islamabad in the background of Pakistan High Commissioner Mr. Abdul Basit’s meeting with ?a ?leader of Huriyat Conference. Read more…

PAKISTAN: STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY BY CIVIL SOCIETY

Civil Society vows to defend people’s right to a legitimately elected government

 

‘Nobody has the right to undermine the current system of democracy through political confrontation and violence’ Read more…

MY PLEA TO THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL: LIBERATE YOURSELVES BY LIBERATING PALESTINE

Desmond Tutu

 

(Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.)

 

The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine. Read more…

INTERVIEW: TARIQ ALI ON GAZA, BDS, ISIS AND IRAQ

On August 11, 2014, the British left organisation Counterfire sponsored a public forum on Palestine featuring Tariq Ali.

 

In this interview, Tariq Ali discusses the recent Israel-Palestine conflict, the BDS movment, the rise of ISIS, and Obama’s commitment to long-term US involvement in Iraq. Read more…

WARS AND IMPERIALISM

Editors

 

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of World War (WW) I, we are producing below an article by Mahmood Awan.

 

WW 1 highlighted inter-imperialist contradiction and conflict. In the early decades of the 20th century, Britain and France controlled most of the colonies in the world and their rich resources. Read more…

WORLD WAR I ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS PROBLEMATIC

Mahmood Awan

 

World War One (WWI) began on July 28, 1914. Now that a hundred years have passed, it is time to introspect both Punjab’s role to ‘save the civilization’ and the socio-political impact of the war recruitment on Punjabis. Read more…

MY ABORTED ASSAM TRIP

Vipin Tripathi

 

Friends,

 

I left Anand Vihar (Delhi) on August 14 at 6:50 AM by North east express to go to Kokrajhar. The train went alright up to Mughal Sarai. 1 hr. from there we reached Dildar Nagar, 2 hr. behind schedule. It was 9 PM. The train stayed there up to 3 AM. The station master told us, “There is heavy rain and flood in Patna, hence all the stations from there to Patna (120 km) are crowded with trains. It may take several hours after the passage in Patna is cleared.” I got apprehensive about rain in Korajhar and Baxa also. Hence at 4 AM I took Brahmaputra Mail back to Delhi and reached Delhi at 8:30 PM. I felt deeply sad to abandon the trip. Read more…

POLLS AND POLARISATION

Badri Narayan

 

Summary

 

Why the communal incidents in western UP may, in fact, be engineered.

 

Generally speaking, communal riots don’t just occur. They are engineered. Those engineering them are usually guided by political mobilisational and electoral interests. A study of the history of the forms of communal riots in post-Independence India seems to reveal that if the riots that erupted during Partition are ignored, communal riots are a phenomenon that occurs primarily in urban spaces. However, since the early 1990s, communal riots have started spreading to villages. And, while earlier there used to be large-scale communal riots after long intervals, a new strategy to reap electoral fruit appears to be developing where different religious groups are being mobilised by creating communal tension through small conflicts. This means communal consciousness is not momentary but always present, which seems to be more politically profitable. Read more…

NARENDRA MODI’S QUIET BEGINNING DIMS INDIA’S HOPES FOR SWIFT CHANGE

Ellen Barry

 

New Delhi — During the months leading up to the spring parliamentary elections, Indians looked at Narendra Modi and saw what they wanted to see.

 

Right-wing Hindus saw a cultural warrior. Working-class voters saw an incorruptible outsider who would impose discipline, from the “Delhi durbar,” the elite cliques dating to the Mughal courts, down to police constables. Industrialists counted on having an advocate at the top. And public intellectuals in New Delhi, among them centrists who had abandoned the Indian National Congress party, saw an economic reformer who would use his enormous mandate to introduce bold, potentially unpopular policies that would reawaken growth. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW

Kashmir: The Agony Of Conflict

Review By Bilal Shaheen (Liberation News Service, August 7, 2014)

26 July, 2014

Countercurrents.org

Book: The Half Mother

Author: Shahnaz Bashir

Publisher: Hachette India Read more…

JOINT DECLARATION BY INTERNATIONAL LAW EXPERTS ON ISRAEL’S GAZA OFFENSIVE

 

 

As international and criminal law scholars, human rights defenders, legal experts and individuals who firmly believe in the rule of law and in the necessity for its respect in times of peace and more so in times of war, we feel the intellectual and moral duty to denounce the grave violations, mystification and disrespect of the most basic principles of the laws of armed conflict and of the fundamental human rights of the entire Palestinian population committed during the ongoing Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. We also condemn the launch of rockets from the Gaza Strip, as every indiscriminate attack against civilians, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, is not only illegal under international law but also morally intolerable. However, as also implicitly noted by the UN Human Rights Council in its Resolution of the 23th July 2014, the two parties to the conflict cannot be considered equal, and their actions – once again – appear to be of incomparable magnitude. Read more…

GREAT DAY FOR GAZA WHEN 150,000 MARCHED IN LONDON

We said it would be the biggest ever UK demonstration for Gaza. And it was. Read more…

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Three Announcements Read more…

OBITUARY: UR ANANTHAMURTHY (1934-2014)

Ananthamurthy, rated as one of the best writers in the country who won acclaims from critics and fans alike, breathed his last this evening, 10 days after he was hospitalised with fever and infection, the doctor attending on him said.

 

Ananthamurthy is survived by his wife Esther, a son and a daughter. Read more…

OBITUARY: VIDYA MUNSHI 1919-2014

Rajashri Dasgupta

 

Vidya Munsi was at the forefront of activism for over 65 years, joining the Indian communists in UK when the communist party was still illegal in India, becoming West Bengal’s first working woman journalist, and advocating throughout the cause of women. Read more…

OBITUARY: SUKUMARI BHATTACHARJI (1922-2014)

Kolkata: Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Sukumari Bhattacharji died on Saturday. She was 92. She had pledged her body to the cause of medical research. Read more…

OBITUARY: SHUBHRADEEP CHAKRAVARTY (1972-2014)

TwoCircles.net Staff reporter

 

New Delhi: Noted documentary film maker and freelance journalist Shubhradeep Chakravorty passed away on Monday [26th August] morning in the national capital. He breathed his last at the All India Instituted of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where he [had been for the past week] …after suffering from brain hemorrhage. He is understood to [have been suffering from]  depression for the [banning of his latest documentary on Muzaffarnagar riots] and  intimidation he was facing [in this regard.] Read more…

OBITUARY: NABARUN DA! (1948-2014)

(ML Update, August 11, 2014)

 

Nabarun Bhattacharya is no more. The revolutionary poet, short story writer and novelist, passed away on 31st July evening in a Calcutta Hospital after his prolonged battle with cancer. Read more…

This issue of INSAF Bulletin is dedicated to the brave Palestinian children, women and men, displaced from their homeland and facing a Hitlerite assault from one of the most sophisticated military powers supported by all the imperialist countries of the world. INSAF Bulletin supports the right of Palestinians to defend themselves.

OPPOSE BJP GOVT.’s SHAMEFUL DEFENSE OF ISRAEL

Editors

 

Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza is now reaching genocidal proportions with over 1500 Palestinians killed and many thousands gravely injured, three-quarters of them admitted to be civilians, even by the Israeli authorities, and many of them small children, women, and the elderly. Read more…

INDIA – ISRAEL FACT SHEET

(Source Wikipedia)

 

India did not subscribe to the Partitioning of Palestine plan of 1947 and voted against Israel’s admission in the United Nations in 1949. Read more…

WAGING WAR IS NOT A RIGHT

Rahul Varma and Majdi Bou-Matar

 

We, as artists committed to social justice, respect for human life and world-peace, and in a resolute opposition to war, violence and destruction – oppose the war in Gaza and invite dialogue for achieving a just peace for all. Read more…

DISTINGUISHED ISRAELI HISTORIAN EXPOSES LIES of REGIME on GAZA

The distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, now teaching at the University of Exeter, U.K., has revealed in a recent interview with Harrison Samphir on July 19, 2014 published in the e-paper Truthout that Israel’s aims in Gaza have “not changed since 2008. Ever since the Palestinians have democratically elected a government in the Gaza Strip, they were subjected in the Strip to a policy of siege, strangulation and ghettoization. Read more…

AN OPEN LETTER FOR THE PEOPLE IN GAZA (The Lancet)

(The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 23 July 2014; doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61044-8Cite or Link Using DOI; Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.)

 

Lancet is one of the most prestigious medical journal and the oldest. The First issue of The Lancet  wast published in 1823 Read more…

PAIN IN GAZA

 

 

It is hard not to cry watching the unfolding horror in Gaza, children with heads blown off, pregnant woman with body torn by a shell, babies with missing limbs, targeting of playing children, targeting hospitals, targeting ambulances, and even a handicap center killing two handicap children.  Israeli forces then ratcheted up their attacks committing large scale massacres in places like Shujaia and Beit Hanoun. 80% of the victims are elderly, women and Children (over 110 children so far). Though mainstream western media self-sensors to comply with the Zionist lobby, the truth is coming out and the videos and pictures are horrific. Our friends in Gaza issue desperate calls to us. Israel cannot absolve itself by saying we asked people to evacuate (110,000 are homeless already). Forcing people out of their homes is a crime against humanity let alone bombing those who remain. But CNN and other western media run by Zionists interview colonizer leaders like Netanyahu who is a habitual liar and do not interview representatives of the victims or the resistance. Read more…

Dr. MADS WITH A PATIENT IN GAZA

Below is a letter from Dr. Mads Gilbert, a physician working in Gaza.

 

Dearest friends –

 

Last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying – all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent. Read more…

THOUSANDS RALLY IN TEL AVIV AGAINST ISRAEL WAR ON GAZA

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv to condemn the

incessant military strikes against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza

Strip, which have killed more than 1,000 people and wounded many more since

July 8. Read more…

SANSAD RESOLUTION CONDEMNS CANADIAN GOVERNMENT FOR SUPPORTING ISRAELI MASSACRE OF PALESTINIANS

Resolution presented to SANSAD (South Asia Network for Secularism and Democracy) AGM 2014

 

Whereas, Israel is an occupying power in Palestine with responsibility in international law to protect civilians, Read more…

PROTESTS AGAINST ISRAELI MASSACRE OF PALESTINIANS

While Israeli attack in Gaza has received direct or indirect approval of most western governments  with Canadian government being most vocal, people the world over have been enraged. Massive anti-Israeli demonstrations were held in London, Sydney Australia, Montreal, New York and numerous other cities. Protests were also held in Third world countries such as   Turkey, Seoul, China, Indonesia, etc. Read more…

ITUC CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN GAZA

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing 176 million workers around the globe, issued a call for an immediate ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. Read more…

STATEMENT OF NTUI (NEW TRADE UNION INITIATIVE, INDIA) ON GAZA

The murderous attack of Israel on Gaza that began on 3 July is like all Israel’s attacks on Palestine without justification and lacking in proportion. Read more…

MESSAGE FROM 8th MARCH COMMITTEE OF WOMEN OF DIVERSE ORIGINS IN SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA:

(Spoken at demo in Montreal, Canada, Wednesday 16 July 2014; (supplied by Dolores Chew)

 

We are here this evening to express our solidarity and love with you, our sisters, the women of Gaza and their families and communities.  We are appalled at the attacks they are suffering, a genocide of the Palestinian people, and we demand that it stops. Read more…

INDIAN BUDGET 2014: MORE OF THE SAME: EXTENDING UPA’S NEOLIBERAL POLICIES

Mritiunjoy Mohanty

 

The economy is in a deep hole but one would not get that sense from reading the budget or the accompanying Economic Survey. Indeed quite the opposite. The Government seems to suggest that the growth deceleration that economy has witnessed over the last three years has bottomed out and that 2014/15 should see a resumption of the upward growth curve. It is estimated that in 2014/15 GDP growth will be in the range of 5.4-5.9% as opposed to less than 5% in the preceding two years.  The current account deficit has seen a sharp improvement from 4.7% in 2012/13 to 1.7% in 2013/14 and finally inflation has decelerated as well.  The Finance Minister has taken the slow and steady route and will introduce more reforms that will get the economy back to 7-8% growth in the medium term. Read more…

THE 2014 BUDGET A DISAPPOINTMENT FOR SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

V.V. Krishna

 

After a decade-long policy paralysis in science, technology and higher education research during UPA I and II, the Indian science community was waiting with optimism. To its disappointment, the budget did not commit any substantial funding that the field of Science and Technology (S&T) deserves. It also failed to give any signals to strengthen the research and innovation base of our ailing 700 universities and 30,000-plus colleges. Read more…

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER’S RECALCULATION OF HOW LONG INDIANS HAVE BEEN ‘SLAVES’ -1200 YEARS

Hasan Suroor

 

Good lawyers and good historians have one thing in common: both are quick to spot the crucial small print that ordinary folk miss the significance of. So, as politicians and the media were concentrating on the big picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden Lok Sabha speech, historians were struck by his reference to “1,200 years of slavery”, which, he said, had left Indians with a slavish mentality. Read more…

INDIA: HINDUTVA DRIVEN EDUCATION COMING SOON AT YOUR DOORSTEP

Ritu Sharma

 

Science lesson from Gujarat: Stem cells in Mahabharata, cars in Veda.

 

Gujarat’s new compulsory reading list for government primary and secondary students doesn’t just seek to educate students on “facts” about India’s culture, history and geography. It also has its own take on science, particularly landmark inventions. Read more…

SAFFRONISATION OF EDUCATION

G Sreedathan

 

Sangh sets up panel to push ‘saffronisation’ of education Commission to study the present education system and suggest corrective steps to make it Bharat-centric. Read more…

IDEA OF INDIA NATIONAL CONVENTION

July 4-5, 2014, New Delhi

Call to JOIN US

 

Central to our idea of India is the affirmation of its diversity. The India we are part of belongs equally to all persons who make it its own – no matter what their religious faith (or the lack of it), their gender, caste, class, language, physical abilities and sexual orientation. The bedrock of the Indian republic is the promise that all its citizens can find space in which to practise their beliefs and cultures, and live freely, confident they will be equally protected by the law of the land. Read more…

COMPLETE TEXT OF RANA AYYUB’S CENSORED ARTICLE ON AMIT SHAH

(Supplied by New Socialist Initiative, July 12, 2014

 

Note: This article by Rana Ayyub was published in Daily News & Analysis (DNA) titled “A New Low in Indian Politics” on 9th July. However, on 11th July DNA pulled the article down from its website. This is not the first time DNA has pulled down articles which are critical of Modi and his cohorts. On 29th April it published an article by Shehzad Poonawala titled “9 Myth Busters: Lest We Forget the Genocide of 2002″only to pull it down from it’s website within 12 hours of its publication. Read more…

INDIA: FEDERATION OF COMMUNITIES

Irfan Engineer

 

The Council of Ministers of the State of Maharashtra in its meeting on 25th June 2014 (Council Meeting No. 171) gave its approval for 16 per cent reservations for Maratha community (roughly 32% of the state’s population and in addition to the Kunbi Marathas, already included in the list of OBCs in Maharashtra) and 5 per cent reservation for 50 backward Muslim communities (roughly 10.6% of the state’s population, and in addition to Julahas, Momins, Ansaris, Rangrez, Telis, Nakkashis, Muslim Kakar, Pinjaris, Fakirs, etc. already included in the OBC list in Maharashtra) in jobs and education in the state. Read more…

DEBATING SECULARISM IN A COMMUNALIZED SOCIETY

Ram Puniyani

 

In the aftermath of the recent elections Congress, Communist parties, Samajvadi and Lalu’s RJD, which can be called secular in some sense, bit the dust.  In the review of defeat the major opposition party Congress, which has been in power for maximum number of years, one major opinion from its top leader A.K. Antony came forth to say that the secularism practiced by Congress was seen more as an appeasement of minorities (read Muslims) and so the large sections turned against it emasculating it to a mere 19% votes with 44 seats in Lok Sabha. In a free for all different opinions on secularism, and failure of Congress are coming forth. Read more…

SUBVERSION OF JUSTICE

Pratiksha Baxi

 

Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

 

On May 22, 2014, a lawyer from Tis Hazari molested and attacked a Naga1 woman student at the Delhi University metro station. The assailant lawyer was nabbed and handed over to the police. Read more…

FIGHTING TO DEFEND THE INCLUSIVE IDEA OF INDIA

In a display of rare unity, various civil, cultural and human rights activists, academicians, journalists and public intellectuals came together on one platform to defend what they termed “the inclusive, pluralistic and diverse idea of India” against the onslaught of the “majoritarian idea of India” during a two-day conclave held here, which concluded on Saturday. Read more…

BJP-LED GOVERNMENT IS ATTEMPTING TO STIFLE INDIA’S VIBRANT PLURALITY AND DIVERSITY

Pavan K Varma

 

It has been less than six weeks since Narendra Modi became prime minister, but I am almost certain that several times during this period the thought must have come to him that it was so much simpler to be in the opposition happily criticizing the UPA government. Read more…

THE WORLD BEFORE HER: TWO WOMEN, TWO WORLDS

Sudhish Kamath

 

Very rarely do we see the world through the eyes of the heroine in Indian cinema.

 

Most of it, if not all, has been the hero’s journey. The heroine is always playing a supporting role or a cheerleader. Read more…

HINDU NATIONALISM IN THE UNITED STATES: A REPORT ON NONPROFIT GROUPS

by J.M.

 

[Released via sacw.net – 1 July 2014]

 

Executive Summary

 

1. Over the last three decades, a movement toward Hinduizing India—advancing the status of Hindus toward political and social primacy in India— has continued to gain ground in South Asia and diasporic communities. The Sangh Parivar (the Sangh “family”), the network of groups at the forefront of this Hindu nationalist movement, has an estimated membership numbering in the millions, making the Sangh one of the largest voluntary associations in India. The major organizations in the Sangh include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Read more…

HINSACHAR VIRODHI NIRDHAR YATRA (Anti-violence march)

Irfan Engineer

 

In response to the increasing incidents of violence directed particularly towards marginalised groups, a yatrawas undertaken by the Rashtriya Ekta Manch on June 27 and 28, 2014. Rashtriya Ekta Manch’s constituent organizations include Maulana Azad Vichar Manch, Mahila Vikas Kendra, Satyashodhak Vidyarthi Sanghatana, RPI, Sambhaji Brigade, Maratha Mahasangh and others. All India Secular Forum also joined theyatra. Read more…

BANGLADESH — ATTACKS ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS

 

 

On 5 July 2014, a commission of inquiry, including eminent persons of Bangladesh — Co-Chair, advocate Sultana Kamal and members Ms. Khushi Kabir, Dr. Iftekharuzzaman, Dr. Shapan Adnan, Barrister Sara Hossain, and CHTC [Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission] Secretariat Coordinator Ms. Hana Shams Ahmed and Research Fellow and Journalist Ms. Illira Dewan — was attacked in the Rangamati Hill Tracts.  The commission was carrying out its 7th mission from 2-8 July. Read more…

NEWS FROM EQBAL AHMED CENTRE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION, PAKISTAN

We are pleased to announce the inclusion of John Charles Polanyi as a member of the EACPE advisory board. Read more…

NEW BOOK RELEASE

The Search for Lasting Peace: Critical Perspectives on Gender-Responsive Human Security Read more…

SLUMBERING INDIA – A FERTILE GROUND FOR THE RISE OF HINDUTVA FASCISM

Editors

 

BJP and Modi have been at the helm of political power in India with an absolute majority in Parliament for over a month now.  While Modi and his media-savvy cohorts talked incessantly of development and a new India in the run-up to the election, all indications are that it is the old India of RSS with its communal polarization and anti-Muslim rhetoric that is thriving. Read more…

BUILDING EFFECTIVE RESISTANCE TO MODITVA: BACK TO THE PEOPLE!

Praful Bidwai

 

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi chooses his team of senior advisers and top bureaucrats who will faithfully further his agenda, some well-meaning commentators are urging him to follow proper appointment procedures, adopt the dharma of inclusion, “reach out” to the 69 percent of the electorate who didn’t vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party, and in particular assure Muslims that he means well and that they should feel secure under him despite the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Read more…

CAN THE LEFT RECOVER FROM ITS ELECTION DEBACLE?

Praful Bidwai

 

Almost as incredible as the Left parties’ electoral rout, which halved  their Lok Sabha seats to their lowest-ever total (12, even counting two Left-backed independents), is their failure to come to terms with its magnitude, quality and causes. Read more…

INDIA’S NEWEST MEDIA BARON EMBRACES CENSORSHIP

Pankaj Mishra

 

Bold initiatives characterize India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who famously lives in a 27-story building in Mumbai, a city where most people languish in slums. Last month, his company, Reliance Industries Ltd., sought to prevent circulation of a new book which claims that Reliance successfully pressured the previous Indian government to double the price of natural gas. Amazon received a cease and desist notice, as did even an individual who had merely forwarded an e-mail invitation to the book’s launch. And Thursday, Ambani moved to buy a whole swath of the Indian media: Bloomberg News reports that Reliance, which has already invested $11 billion in a high-speed cellular network, will now spend $678 million for majority stakes in two major media companies, Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. and TV18 Broadcast Ltd. Read more…

NEHRU’S LEGACY IN THE PRESENT JUNCTURE: ASSESSING ECONOMIC SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

Arun Kumar

 

Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, passed away fifty years back in 1964. It is time that an objective assessment is made of his contributions to the nation at that critical juncture of its existence. The newly independent nation was grossly underdeveloped due to the colonial rule. Colonization led to India falling considerably behind the advanced nations in every sense due to drain of wealth and lack of investment in the economy. Read more…

UPHOLD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT!

CONDEMN `FOREIGN FUNDED’ DESTRUCTIVE DEVELOPMENT PROMOTED BY IB!

 

We, the following organizations and individuals are deeply shocked at the dubious methods used by the Intelligence Bureau of the Home Ministry of India, to discredit many important social activists in this country who have committed their lives in social action for years.  For a long time,  these activists have consistently questioned the destructive path of development India is following and have demanded a model of sustainable and equitable development which does not harm the environment, local communities, culture and the future generations. Read more…

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR: NAWAZ SHARIF’S VISIT TO INDIA

Ram Puniyani

 

India Pakistan relations have always been mired with in various controversies, which have been preventing the friendly relations with our neighbor, who in ‘popular perception’ is seen as an enemy. It is due to this that while all the members of SAARC countries have been invited, the one to draw maximum popular attention has been the coming of Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan. In a deft move India’s the then Prime Minister designate sent an invite to all the heads of SAARC countries for his swearing in ceremony, (16 May 2014)which was held with great pomp and show. Read more…

ACHCHHE DIN! (Good times)

Ram Puniyani

 

This month saw the major transition in the central Government. For the first time in Independent India, the Government of BJP, which is the progeny of RSS, got a simple majority in the Lok Sabha. Modi sarkar, while overtly played the development rhetoric, also subtly kept polarizing the electorate along religious and caste lines. With this Government coming to power, the Hindutva elements have become more aggressive, and many other are gripped by a sort of fear. Read more…

MURDER OF TECHIE IN PUNE: HATE CRIMES AND COMMUNAL POLARIZATION

Ram Puniyani

 

The Modi Sarkar has been installed in power from last three weeks or so (May 16, 2014). While there is lots of hope from this government by sections of society, there are other types of fears which have started getting actualized and the consequences of that are being felt with great amount of horror. Read more…

PROTEST IN MUMBAI AGAINST KILLING OF MUSLIM YOUTH IN PUNE

A REPORT (June 6, 2014)

 

A protest was organized by DYFI-SFI-AIDWA (Democratic Youth Federation of India-Students’ Federation of India- All India Democratic Women’s Association), AISF (All India Secular Forum), Communalism Combat, Minorities Federation, Jan Sanskriti Manch and NAPM (National Alliance for People’s Movement) at Azad Maidan on June 5, 2014 against the gruesome killing of the innocent, visibly Muslim 28 year old IT professional, Shaikh Mohsin Sadiq, by a group of people allegedly belonging to the radical Hindu outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena. Read more…

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF BHAGANA SURVIVORS – DELHI AND HISAR

It was a day when the 16th LOKSABHA  started it’s session with a condolence meeting to adjourn the house in the memory of  one of it’s members and  minister.

 

On the other side , incidents of atrocities on homeless Dalit families from Bhagana and other protesters marked the day with eviction, batons and insulting women at the Parliament street in New Delhi. Read more…

GOING FORWARD FROM THE 2014 GENERAL ELECTIONS

New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)

 

20 June 2014, New Delhi: The general election result of the 16th Lok Sabha has come as a surprise to many of us. This result is an enormous defeat for the centrist, regional and the parliamentary left parties. The result is unexpected because for two [it’s actually three] decades no single party has had the capacity to win an absolute majority in the parliament. The overwhelming victory of the BJP by securing 282 out of 543 seats marks a significant and critical shift in our country’s parliamentary politics. Read more…

INDIA IS POOREST IN SOUTH ASIA AFTER AFGHANISTAN

(http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/india-is-poorest-in-south-asia-after-afghanistan-oxford-varsity-study/article6120424.ece?homepage)

 

 

New Delhi, June 16:  India is home to over 340 million destitute people and is the second poorest country in South Asia after strife-torn Afghanistan, says a poverty estimation study by Oxford University. Read more…

TEN OUTRAGEOUS COMMENTS INDIAN OFFICIALS HAVE MADE ABOUT RAPE

India has a horrific rape and violence against women problem, which came to international attention after a medical student was raped, tortured and murdered on a bus in 2012. Just recently two girls were found hanging from a tree after being raped in Uttar Pradesh. And today brings news of police officers themselves being accused of gang raping a woman who came to a police station in Uttar Pradesh to inquire about her husband’s release. Read more…

STOP ATTACKS ON RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN SRI LANKA

(SANSAD News-release June 20, 2014)

 

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) deplores the attack by Buddhist mobs on minority Muslims in the southern Sri Lankan towns of Aluthgama and Beruwela on June 15 that have left 3 dead, 78 seriously injured, dozens of homes and shops burnt down, and several mosques damaged. Read more…

RESPECT THE FAIR TRIAL RIGHTS OF TEESTA, JAVED AND OTHERS SAYS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Amnesty International (June 16, 2014)

 

There is concern among Human Rights Activists about what will happen after the 19th of June, 2014. Padamshri Teesta Setalwad, Javed Anand, Tanvir Jafri, Salimbhai Sandhi and Firoz Gulzar Pathan face allegations including cheating, forgery, and criminal breach of trust in a case filed in January 2014 relating to the raising of funds for a riot memorial museum in Gulberg Society, Ahmedabad. Read more…

REPORT OF SADBHAVANA PADYATRA IN PUNE ON 15TH JUNE, 2014

Irfan Engineer

 

A sadbhavana padyatra or march from Gadital to Gandhi chowk took place in Pune on 15th June to show solidarity with Mohsin Shaikh who was lynched to death by miscreants of Hindu Rashtra Sena earlier this month. The march got a strong response with around 1000 people being present for the march. Read more…

AN ENCHANTING SHAAM-E-GHAZAL WITH DR. RADHIKA CHOPRA

(Zafar Iqbal, President, GOPIO, Washington-Metro DC?)

 

 

Hamri attariya pe aao sanvariya, dekha dekhi balam hoee jaae, Dr. Radhika Chopra started the program by singing the famous Dadra in Bhairvi style paying tribute   to ghazal and thumri queen, Beguma Akhtar on her 100th birth anniversary. Read more…

IT WAS BETTER TO LIVE IN IRAQ UNDER SADDAM

(12 June 2014, the (UK) Independent; Supplied by Professor Sam Noumoff)

 

The country has begun to slip into anarchy, but it wasn’t always like this. It used to be a much happier and safer place to live. Read more…

OBITUARY: GABRIEL KOLKO (1933-2014)

William Yardley (June 11, 2014, The New York Times)

 

“The New Deal illusion survives because it is a very useful to today’s Democratic Party,” Kolko wrote in 2012. “It needs myths, but if one knows the truth about it then we have the basis for understanding the essentially conservative nature of today’s Democratic Party.” (Gabriel Kolko) Read more…

OBITUARY: CIVIL RIGHTS CHAMPION YURI KOCHIYAMA (1921-2014)

David K. Yoo (Asian American Studies Center – UCLA)

 

We received word of the passing of Yuri Kochiyama who touched and inspired the lives of thousands of people through her decades-long activism and incredible dedication to social justice. Read more…

MODI IS ALREADY IN, WHAT IS TO FOLLOW?

Editors

 

Modi and BJP won big, being the first party to gain an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha since 1984, when Congress swept the polls after Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. While many commentators opposed to BJP and Modi, including INSAF Bulletin, have indicated that massive victory of BJP in terms of seats was based on only 31% of the national vote, this fact is characteristic of Indian elections that are based on the first-past-the-post system. Read more…

CERAS FORUM ON ELECTIONS IN INDIA

Dolores Chew

 

On Sunday 25th May, CERAS, the Montreal-based forum on South Asia, held a very well-attended discussion forum “India Has Voted” on the recent elections in India.  The participants were of different ages and from a variety of backgrounds, including veterans of diasporic support work for several decades, and those who have worked in solidarity with CERAS over many years.  Some participants   attended a CERAS event for the first time. Everyone it seemed came because of concern, curiosity and a greatly-felt need to discuss and understand the recent elections. Read more…

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY

Akeel Bilgrami

 

What Narendra Modi proposes as change and novelty is entirely continuous with policies that Manmohan Singh’s government have put into place. Read more…

MODI’S 30% MINISTERS HAVE CRIMINAL RECORDS

IndiaTimes <http://www.indiatimes.com/source/IndiaTimes>  May 28, 2014New Delhi:

 

Thirty percent of ministers in the Narendra Modi government have declared criminal cases against themselves and 18 percent have declared “serious criminal cases”, according to an analysis of their election affidavits. Read more…

BJP BEGINS UNMASKING ITS REAL FACE BY INITIATING “SAFFRONISATION” OF TEXT BOOKS

By Muslim Mirror Special Correspondent,

 

New Delhi:  As expected, the new BJP government at the Center has started unmasking its real face by initiating “Saffronisation”   programme of text books in the garb of protecting the ancient heritage. Read more…

PAKISTAN INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (PIPFPD), INDIA

Press Release May 25, 2014

 

Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) welcomes the decision of the Indian and Pakistani governments that Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Prime Minister, will attend the swearing in ceremony of Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister designate, on May 26, 2014. Read more…

CONTOURS OF SECULARISM

Irfan Engineer

 

Triumphant and victorious in the 16th general elections for the Lok Sabha, the Hindu nationalists are attributing their victory as rejection of secularism by the Indian electorate. Modi in one of his election campaign speeches came up with a new definition of secularism – “India First”. Read more…

MANY WAVES AND A MEDIA TSUNAMI

P. Sainath

 

There was a wave. More than one. A wave of revulsion against the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. A wave of anger too, against the highest sustained price rise over a five-year period in decades. A wave of despair over swiftly eroding livelihoods. A wave the Modi-led BJP was  best placed to surf on, and did, pulling off a very big win. Read more…

STEERING A SINKING SHIP FURTHER SOUTH: A FAILED LEFT LEADERSHIP

Prasenjit Bose (May 23, 2014)

 

The debacle faced by the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the 2014 general elections, especially in its erstwhile stronghold of West Bengal, has stunned supporters and opponents alike, and caused stirrings within the ranks of the Left activists. Out of the 98 seats it contested this time, the CPI(M) has won only 9 seats and secured a meager 3.2% of the national vote – lowest since the formation of the party in 1964. Read more…

AN OPEN LETTER TO COMRADE GANAPATHI, GENERAL SECRETARY, CPI(MAOIST)

Sumanta Banerjee

 

Let me begin by reminding  you of a resolution which your party – CPI(Maoist) – adopted at  your 9th  Congress in March, 2007. Entitled `Resolution Against Hindu Fascism,’  it  said: “The CPI(Maoist) pledges to fight resolutely against each and every instance of the trampling on the democratic rights of the oppressed minorities and others by the Hindu fascists. It pledges to do  its best to defend the sections of the population targeted by the Hindu fascists. Our party is willing to unite in a broad front with all the genuine democratic forces which would be willing to fight back the Hindu fascist offensive.” Read more…

IS PAST A FOREIGN COUNTRY?: THINKING ABOUT ADAM AJMERIS IN SAFFRON TIMES

Subhash Gatade

 

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

 

Sixteen year old Shahwan, from Ahmedabad, who is still waiting for his Class X results, was extremely happy that day, when India’s electorate gave its verdict. He hugged his Ammi and went out in his Mohalla along-with his brother Almas, yelling ‘we have won’, ‘we have won’. And not only Shahwan and his family members but one could witness similar joy in the houses of Mohammad Salim Hanif Sheikh, Abdul Qayyum Mansuri alias Mufti Baba and several others.

 

Interestingly Shahwan’s tremendous joy with tears flowing down the eyes of his Ammi Naseem (40) had nothing to do with the fact that Mr Narendra Damodardas Modi, had delivered a ‘historic victory’ to the BJP. Read more…

THE MODI GENERATION: A (RARE) DISCORDANT VOICE IN THE MEDIA

Mihir S Sharma

 

There are moments in a country’s history, not many, when it pivots. On May 16, 2014, India moved rightward with far greater force and momentum than pretty much anyone had expected. By any standards, at any time, this would have been a spectacular victory. Not since 1984 has a party claimed a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. But it is doubly spectacular, and doubly important: because of the nature of the contest, and because of the man who won. Read more…

INDIA RIGHT-WING TELL BANGLADESHIS TO HAVE ‘BAGS PACKED’

Siddharth Varadarajan

 

Singling out Hindu observances as one of the markers for deciding who can be an Indian is surely a red line Modi should not have crossed. Read more…

BHATTACHARYA OF CPI(ML) ON SUPPORTING AAP IN VARANASI

Azaz Ashraf

 

In an interview, the CPI(ML) general secretary admits that the Left movement is passing through a challenging phase of transition.

 

Rarely does one party support another in an electoral contest when they are to each other what chalk is to cheese. Yet, this is precisely what the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, or CPI(ML), has done, asking its cadre to work openly for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaderArvind Kejriwal in Varanasi, where he is locked in an epic battle with Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Read more…

LETTER: INDIAN LEFT OBLIVIOUS TO THE DANGER OF FASCISM

Thanks for posting INSAF bulletin to our mail.  I read some of the responses of some of our friends.  It appears to us from our experience that Indian “left” and “democratic” organizations and parties are not serious about the danger of fascist rule coming at the center in India. Read more…

CHINA 2013

Samir Amin

 

The debates concerning the present and future of China—an “emerging” power—always leave me unconvinced. Some argue that China has chosen, once and for all, the “capitalist road” and intends even to accelerate its integration into contemporary capitalist globalization. They are quite pleased with this and hope only that this “return to normality” (capitalism being the “end of history”) is accompanied by development towards Western- style democracy (multiple parties, elections, human rights). They believe—or need to believe—in the possibility that China shall by this means “catch up” in terms of per capita income to the opulent societies of the West, even if gradually, which I do not believe is possible. The Chinese right shares this point of view. Others deplore this in the name of the values of a “betrayed socialism.” Some associate themselves with the dominant expressions of the practice of China bashing1 in the West. Still others—those in power in Beijing—describe the chosen path as “Chinese-style socialism,” without being more precise. However, one can discern its characteristics by reading official texts closely, particularly the Five-Year Plans, which are precise and taken quite seriously. Read more…

OBITUARY: NIRMAL CHANDRA (1936-2014)

Sushil Khanna and Mritiunjoy Mohanty

 

Nirmal Kumar Chandra, former professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta) passed away on 19 March 2014 after a brief illness. A heterodox economist and socialist thinker, he was first and foremost a legendary teacher who inspired his students to take the “road less well travelled”. A prolific contributor to the pages of the EPW he also belonged to a generation of heterodox scholars who encouraged students and researchers to publish in Indian journals rather than those in the west which were hegemonised by liberal and then neo-liberal academia. Read more…

OBITUARY: DR. MUKUL SINHA (1951-2014)

(Trade Union Centre of India [TUCI] Statement)

 

It is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you of the sad death of Com. Mulul Sinha this evening at around 5 pm due to complications arising out of lung cancer from which he had been suffering since the past few months. Read more…

OBITUARY: VETERAN COMMUNIST LEADER SUNITI KUMAR GHOSH (1920-2014)

Satyam, Arvind Institute of Marxist Studies, Lucknow

 

Veteran Communist Revolutionary Leader, Theoretician and Historian Comrade Suniti Kumar Ghosh died  night in Kolkata. He was 94. Read more…

OBITUARY: THOMAS KOCHERRY (1940-2014): A Powerful Voice for Fishworkers

Aparna Sundar

 

A priest whose commitment to justice was a way of living his faith and working hard for the betterment of fi shworkers, Thomas Kocherry was a fi rebrand among social workers on Kerala’s coast for over three decades. His talent lay in translating ideas into a language that could inspire and mobilise, and move people to action. Rightly known for his courage and compassion, Tom, as he was popularly known, left behind a void that is not easy to fill. Read more…

OBITUARY: PAUL ROBESON JR. (1928-2014)

Emma G. Fitzsimmons

 

Paul Robeson Jr., who worked to preserve the legacy of his father, the (LEGENDRY)  actor, singer and civil rights advocate, since his death almost four decades ago, died on Saturday in Jersey City. He was 86. Read more…

INSAF BULLETIN SALUTES THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD ON MAY 1 DAY

WFTU DECLARATION FOR MAY DAY 2014 Read more…

SECULAR AND DEMOCRATIC FORCES MUST UNITE TO SAVE INDIA

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

With just a few weeks to go before the final round of voting takes place and the election results are declared, it is imperative that the secular and progressive forces unite to defeat BJP and prevent the dark night of a Modi-led regime from spreading over India. Read more…

THE CULT OF CRONYISM

Siddharth Varadarajan

 

Who does Narendra Modi represent and what does his rise in Indian politics signify? Given the burden he carries of the 2002 anti-Muslim massacres, it is tempting to see the Gujarat chief minister’s arrival on the national stage as a watershed moment in the escalation of communal politics. Certainly the cult-like following he has amongst the sangh parivar faithful and a wider section of the Hindu middle class is due to the image he has of a leader who knows how to “show Muslims their place”. For these supporters, his refusal to do something so simple – and tokenistic — as express regret for the killings that happened under his watch is seen not as a handicap but as further proof of his strength. Read more…

REBUTTAL TO SHEKHAR GUPTA: The eulogy of secularism

Abul Kalam Azad

 

“Secularism is dead!”, declares Shekhar Gupta, in the latest addition to the priceless collection of pretentiously liberal diatribes against what he calls “intellectually lazy, morally cynical and politically disastrous” groups, of which I am a proud member. Read more…

INDIA: BIG BUSINESS TAKING OVER WILL BE UNDOING OF DEMOCRACY

Harsh Kapoor

 

 

The run-up to the 2014 general elections in India has been an unprecedented demonstration of the massive infusion of money in electoral campaigning. A veritable carpet-bombing of India’s voters with the opposition BJP’s message is everywhere to be seen, from advertisements in newspapers, on TV, Youtube, Radio, Mobile Phones, CDs and the Internet, to billboards in all metropolitan cities and small towns and on transport vehicles, including inside the Delhi Metro trains. In effect, it has blocked out all other political parties as far as public advertising goes. This vast campaign has been on a scale never seen in history, estimated by some to be costing Rs 5000-6000 crores or more (from 800 to over 900 million dollars). Read more…

IDEA OF MODI IN POWER FILLS US WITH DREAD, INDIAN-ORIGIN ACADEMICS SAY IN OPEN LETTER

Kounteya Sinha

 

London: After artists like sculptor Anish Kapoor, film director Deepa Mehta and novelist Salman Rushdie, it is now the turn of some of the best Indian academics teaching in Britain’s top universities like the London School of Economics, Cambridge, Oxford, SOAS and King’s College to issue a letter opposing Narendra Modi as the next Indian Prime Minister. Read more…

HOW IS MODI BEING VIEWED?

Pranab Bardhan

 

Hear That Hollow In The Drumbeat? The Modi hype is relentless. But some of our institutions of democracy are still fragile for us to risk a firebrand leader. Read more…

MODI HIT HARD BY BIG MEDIA IN THE WEST

The Citizen Bureau

 

New Delhi: Over the past few months, as India went into the 2014 general elections with opinion polls showing BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the lead, there has been a spate of articles in the western media strongly critical of the Gujarat Chief Minister. Read more…

X-RAY OF A FASCIST

Amit Sengupta

 

Why we cannot afford to forget and why we cannot move on. What Modi means for India.

 

Those who have observed Narendra Modi have some revealing – and chilling – things to say about him. Read more…

VADODARA STILL HAS NOT FALLEN

V.K. Tripathi

 

I visited Vadodara for 3 days, April 17-19, 2014. Narendra Modi is contesting Loksabha election from here. Congress has fielded Madhusudan Mistry, its strategist and grassroots man, against him. Mistry’s candidature has galvanized non-political social groups to come in open against the Modi cult. Thirty  such groups have formed “Peoples’ Forum for Madhusudan Mistry”. One hundred fifty of their volunteers are campaigning in the area. Read more…

MUSHAWARAT CRITICISES ELECTION COMMISSION’S DOUBLE-STANDARDS AND INACTIVITY, ASKS SUPREME COURT TO INTERVENE

 

 

New Delhi, 21 April 2014: All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations, said here today that the Election Commission of India is playing partisan politics by removing the ban on Amit Shah while retaining the same in the case of Azam Khan. Read more…

INDIA NEEDS A THINKER, NOT A DESPOT ON ITS PEACOCK THRONE

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

 

There is a strange stillness in the air. Marine geographers have a word for it – the Doldrums. The word signifies a stupor, in which everyone and everything is listless, stagnant and immobilized. Coleridge describes the state of the Pacific Doldrums in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody Sun, at noon,Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.” Read more…

BJP’S MODI MILLSTONE, CONGRESS’S GANDHI BURDEN: Blundering on Priyanka

Praful Bidwai

 

Something unusual happened to the exhausted, jaded, effete Indian National Congress the other day. After years, somebody in the party had a bright new idea—of fielding Priyanka Gandhi as its Lok Sabha candidate against Narendra Modi in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

 

That would have instantly changed the entire complexion of the current election, electrified not just the Poorvanchal region (Eastern UP) and adjoining parts of Bihar, but the whole nation, and qualitatively changed the character of today’s political game. Read more…

IN THE BACKGROUND OF ELECTIONS – THE DEVELOPMENT DEBATE

Dr. Frazer Mascarenhas

 

The approaching elections have brought an interesting discussion to the public forum on what constitutes human development and how it is to be achieved. The Gujarat model has been highlighted for our consideration. That is very apt because it puts in stark contrast two current views. Is the growth of big business, the making of huge profits, the achievement of high production – what we seek? Or is it the quality of life for the majority in terms of affordable basic goods and services and the freedom to take forward the cultural aspirations of our plural social groups that make up India? Read more…

NEPAL: ALL FIVE HEADS OF CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY (CA) COMMITTEES ELECTED UNOPPOSED

United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leader and former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai has been elected as the head of the Constituent Assembly’s Committee for Constitutional, Political Dialogue and Consensus Building (CCPDC) on Friday. Read more…

RWANDA, TWENTY YEARS LATER

Samir Amin

 

Twenty years later, full light has not been thrown on the shooting down of the plane of the then president of Rwanda, Habyarimana.  The event was immediately followed by the genocide of the Tutsis by Hutu militias.  Two hypotheses remain to this day equally possible: 1) the plane was shot down by Hutu extremists, making a pretext of the event to initiate the planned cleansing as well as get rid of the president who opposed it; 2) the plane was shot down by Tutsis in order to provoke a massacre and obtain the pretext for their “liberation army” stationed in Uganda to “liberate” (or “invade”) Rwanda, even if they may have underestimated the size of the massacre of which they would be the victims. Read more…

WHY IS MODI THE FRONT RUNNER?

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Numerous polls carried out by well-known polling organizations indicate that BJP candidate Modi is the front-runner for the position of Prime Minister by a wide margin when compared to Rahul Gandhi of the Congress.  Some commentators have cast doubt on the validity of these poll results but they probably represent the majority views of the voters most likely to vote in the elections next month: the urban Hindu middle class voter whose views will strongly influence the outcome of the election. Read more…

CALL FOR DEFEATING AUTHORITARIAN FORCES LED BY NARENDRA MODI

Press statement by citizens for Democracy: (March 29, 2014) Read more…

TO STEER POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Praful Bidwai  (March 20, 2014)

 

All those who discounted the Aam Aadmi Party’s potential for stirring things up in national politics must revise their assessment after Arvind Kejriwal’s recent “inspection tour” of Gujarat. The issues he raised in the series of questions he posed to Narendra Modi ranged from corruption and sweetheart deals with Big Business, to power shortages, closure of industries and 800 farmers’ suicides. Read more…

INDIA’S LEFT FACES MAJOR CHALLENGES AS ELECTION APPROACH

Praful Bidwai (Feb 26, 2014)

 

India’s Left parties, among the world’s biggest parties belonging to the Communist tradition, face formidable challenges as they approach the 2014 national election. The election will play a major role in deciding if they can reverse the setbacks they recently suffered, or go into a steep decline, with a fall in membership, decreasing political influence, and growing organisational dissonance. Read more…

THIRD FRONT POLITICS: AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS PASSED

Sukumar Muralidharan (March 7, 2014)

 

It took just ten days for one of the principal props of the new experiment in “third force” (TF) politics to give way, threatening the stability of the entire edifice. Read more…

SYMPTOMS OF FASCISM

Ram Puniyani

 

Fascism in its naked form first emerged in Europe on the eve of World War II. Can it happen in India? Read more…

HINDUTVA AND MINORITIES

Irfan Engineer  (Secular Perspective March 16-31, 2014)

 

Rajnath Singh, the BJP president while addressing the Muslims on 25th February 2014 sought to bridge a trust deficit between his party and Muslims by saying that he was ready to apologize for any mistakes committed by the party in the past and urged the community to give his party at least one chance. Read more…

MODI: THE FEAR FACTOR

[The Letter by Vijay Prashad is in response to the article by Ramachandra Guha:, ‘The Fear of Fascism – India’s Democratic Institutions Are Too Strong to Let Fascists Win’

(http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140322/jsp/opinion/story_18095590.jsp#.UzZyI6iSz3E) Read more…

GUJARAT STORY: FICTION AND FACTS

Atul Sood and Kalaiyarasan A. (Frontline, March 19, 2014)

 

CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) reports and data on economic and social development from various sources make it evident that the much-touted “Gujarat model” of development is non-inclusive, socially divisive and highly ineffective in key areas. Read more…

THE GUJARAT MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT: WHAT WOULD IT DO TO THE INDIAN ECONOMY?

Rohini Hensman

 

The cornerstone of Modi’s and the BJP’s campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections is that the UPA has ruined the Indian economy and the BJP led by Modi will make it boom. These claims have been reinforced by corporate adulation for Modi in his ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summits [1] and surveys showing that almost 75% of top corporate CEOs want him to be the PM [2]. How valid are these claims? Read more…

MUSLIMS TARGETED AS ELECTIONS LOOM

Irfan Engineer

 

In the context of 16th LS elections so many debates and discussions are going on. The regular harassment of Muslims during the run-up to the elections has started. The following are some of the recent instances. Read more…

BANNED IN BANGALORE

Wendy Doniger (New York Times, March 6, 2014)

 

Chicago – Last month a retired Hindu schoolteacher named Dinanath Batra, who had brought a lawsuit against me and Penguin Books, India, succeeded in getting my book, “The Hindus: An Alternative History,” withdrawn from publication in India. The book, the court agreed, was a violation of  India´s blasphemy law, which makes it a crime to offend the sensibilities of a religious person. Read more…

DEFYING NaMo (Narendra Modi)

Zahid Qureshi and Swapna Pillai

 

The two (Qutubuddin Ansari and  Ashok Mochi) met at the unlikeliest of places – a CPI (M) seminar in Kannur, Kerala – where they joined in a duet of peace and brotherhood, singing and shaking hands.

 

One is the face of Gujarat riots, the other the defining image of its perpetrators. They met on Monday at the unlikeliest of places – a CPI (M) seminar in Kannur in Kerala and did something implausible – joining in a duet of peace and brotherhood. Read more…

XENEPHOBIA, OR NEO TRIBALISM

Sam Noumoff

 

We seem to be global witnesses to what I can only characterize as neo-tribalism. To a large extent, this is the result of social structures that emerged during the Industrial Revolution. Universalist claims were articulated in the name of religion: Christianity or Islam. Economic and political systems were coherently held together by capitalist empires and by a systemic unification resulting from the Bolshevik Revolution. Unfortunately, these structures that expressed universality became progressively fractured. Read more…

INDIA VOTES: CERAS FORUM

A forum on the upcoming parliamentary elections in India

Sunday 30th March (3-5pm)

(South Asian Women’s Community Centre)

1035 Rachel east, 3rd floor

 

All welcome (info: cerasmontreal@gmail.com)

ELECTIONS 2014: RISE OF AAM AADMI MEANS IT IS NO LONGER CONGRESS VS. BJP

Vinod Mubayi

 

A few months ago, when talk of the 2014 elections began to dictate discussion of Indian polity, it was the Congress-dominated UPA vs. the BJP-dominated NDA that were posed as the alternatives. The sudden entry of the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, borrowing the term “Aam AAdmi first used by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh,  has changed this discourse considerably. Read more…

AAP’S PAN INDIAN ELECTORAL AMBITION: BEGINNING OF THE END OF AAM AADMI DREAMS?

Biawajit Roy

 

The trailblazing success of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi polls and its proliferating impact in rest of the country have triggered a feel good factor for the party and like-minded people. With the general election round the corner, now they have a pan-Indian political ambition. Read more…

THE EMERGING LEFT IN THE “EMERGING” WORLD

Jayati Ghosh

 

It is a great honor and privilege for me to be invited to deliver this lecture in the Ralph Miliband series on the future of the Left.  Ralph Miliband was not just an outstanding social scientist and innovative Marxist thinker, but also a beacon to progressive people across the world. Read more…

THE DISAPPEARING LEFT IN THE “EMERGING” INDIA

Daya Varma

 

The  article “The Emerging Left in the Emerging World” by Jayati Ghosh presents a frank and penetrating analysis of the present and the future of the left. However, Ghosh is an eminent Indian political economist and one could have expected her to deal in somewhat greater detail with the condition of “the emerging left” in India. Perhaps her reluctance to do so is because she belongs to the left fraternity and does not wish to confront what is most dear or of most concern to her. Read more…

CPM DETECTS IDENTITY BETWEEN AAP AND COMMUNIST PROGRAM

Daya Varma

 

In a further blow to the history of the Indian communist movement, Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the  Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] found identity between the programs of the recently formed AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) and the Communist Party. Read more…

LETTER: AAM AADAMI PARTY (AAP) CAPTURES PEOPLE’S IMAGINATION

Dear  Editors

 

I have just returned from a short family visit to India. I have come back with a remarkable sense that for the first time, after a long while, there is an “Indian Spring” in the making. All my friends and contacts who were turning into old cynical hacks saying their usual refrain of nothing-ever-changes-in-politics-of-India, seem rejuvenated.  They are joining in AAP bandwagon. Read more…

MODI’S CASTE AND HINDUTVA POLITICAL STRATEGIES

Ram Puniyani

 

As Narendra Modi was close to being nominated the Prime Ministerial candidate, another Modi, Sushil Modi, flaunted Modi’s backward caste origins. Recently (Jan 2014) in a public rally in Delhi, Narendra Modi himself brandished his caste while speaking at a public rally. Read more…

INDIAN SCIENTISTS INVENT INSULIN PILLS FOR DIABETICS

Kounteya Sinha

 

LONDON: In a big breakthrough, Indian scientists have done what medical science has been trying to achieve since 1930 – an insulin pill for diabetics. Read more…

CONGRESS TROUNCED IN PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS: WHAT’S NEXT?

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

The defeat of Congress in the four provincial (Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh) elections was more spectacular than even the exit-polls had predicted. In Delhi (70 seats),  Congress, which had ruled the state for 15 years, won only 8 seats against 31 won by BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) and 1 by its ally Akali Party, and 28 won by the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In Rajasthan (199 seats) the ruling Congress won only 21 seats against BJP’s 162. In Madhya Pradesh (230 seats), Congress won just 58 seats against 165 by BJP.  The contest was closer in Chhattisgarh (90 seats) where Congress won 39 seats against 49 won by BJP. Mizoram was the sole saving grace for Congress; it retained its rule winning 33 of 40 seats. Read more…

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN 2013 (PART – I)

Irfan Engineer

 

Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and the Director of IB Syed Asif Ibrahim in the recent conference of DGPs of all states highlighted that some mechanism should be worked out for early warnings of communal riots, and riots should be prevented before it occurs. Sadly, police have been ignoring early warnings, such as even writing on walls, and doing too little too late. Read more…

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