Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
SIT ON MODI – A SPECIOUS REPORT
Vinod Mubayi
In the deeply distressing as well as depressingly criminal history of communal riots in independent India over the last 50 years, the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 stands out for the sheer scale of its brutalities and the prolonged period of sustained hostilities against the minority Muslim community who constituted less than ten percent of the state’s population. Read more…
JUSTICE OR FORGIVE AND FORGET?
Asghar Ali Engineer
In view of what is going on in Gujarat where victims have been denied justice for more than 10 years, a debate has started that one should forgive and forget and march forward and engage oneself in economic development which is taking place there. How long the victims will keep on wailing over what happened in 2002, however disastrous it might have been. Sometime ago Maulana Vastanvi who runs several madrasas and other high level secular educational institutions also expressed similar views and advised Muslims to join the developmental stream in Gujarat and benefit from it. We might forgive but can we forget? Read more…
THE 2012 QUEBEC STUDENT MOVEMENT – 100 DAYS LATER
William Ging Wee Dere (Montreal)
Montreal, QC: Quebec students are boycotting classes to demand more accessibility to higher education to roll back a 75% increase in university tuition. The current strike of 250,000 Quebec students, which began February 13, 2012, has lasted over 100 days and shows no sign of abating. Read more…
THIRTY-FIRST MARCH IN MONTREAL GATHERS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!
Roger Rashi
It is well past midnight of May 25 and I have been marching non-stop for the past 4 hours. There are literally tens of thousands of people marching throughout Montreal tonight ! Read more…
POLITICS THROUGH FOOD HABITS
Ram Puniyani
In the middle of April 2012 Osmania University (OU) witnessed an unusual violence on the issue of eating beef. A section of dalit students’ were demanding that University Hostels should have beef on the menu. They also organized a beef festival in which a large number of students ate beef biryani (a dish of rice with beef). The festivity was not to last long as the ABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad), the student wing of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh), created rampage, a student was knifed, a bus was torched and ruckus was created in the university. The Vice Chancellor of OU knelt to the aggressive cow protectors and said that beef will not be introduced in the menu. Read more…
NEPAL: MAJOR PARTIES AGREE ON 11-STATE FEDERAL MODEL
The three major political parties of Nepal, United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN-Maoist], Nepali Congress (NC) and United MarxistLeninist (UML) together with the Madhesi Front, reached a breakthrough on the new constitution as they agreed on 11-province federal structure along with mixed governance system. Read more…
BLACKLISTED ISRAEL MILITARY INDUSTRIES MOVES DELHI HIGH COURT
The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the defense ministry and the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) on a plea by the Israel Military Industries (IMI), Israel’s state-run defense equipment supplier, seeking to set aside OFB’s decision cancelling its contract to set up a plant to manufacture an advanced propellant for artillery ammunition at Nalanda in Bihar. Read more…
RED SALUTES TO THE DEPARTED COMRADE T P CHANDRASHEKHARAN OF KERALA
T P Chandrashekharan was a popular leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party, a breakaway from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. There is strong evidence that CPM was directly or indirectly involved in this political murder; if so, it is a new low for CPM. Read more…
RESIST THE CLIMATE OF INTIMIDATION OF ACADEMIA
“We Condemn The Attempt Of Bodies Like Deoband To Encroach On Our Academic Space” – Press Statement April 27, 2012: http://www.sacw.net/article2662.html)
It is a matter of deep distress that a threat from Darul Uloom Deoband has forced Prabha Parmar, a research scholar at the Chaudhary Charan Singh University to change the topic of her post-doctoral research: Use of magic and realism in the major novels of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Seth. Taking strong exception to the UGC’s decision to award a post-doctoral fellowship to the scholar on a topic that included Rushdie’s writings, Darul Uloom Deoband demanded “immediate remedial steps to correct the high impropriety.” Terming the award an act of ‘glorification’ of Salman Rushdie, the seminary asked for the writer to be blacklisted and for the award to be cancelled with immediate effect. Read more…
PAKISTANI PROTEST BAND LAAL USES MUSIC AND SATIRE TO TAKE MARX TO THE MASSES
A story of how Mumbai citizens welcomed this revolutionary music group from Pakistan. Read more…
INDIA’S BROKEN PROMISE: How a Would-Be Great Power Hobbles Itself
Basharat Peer
This article analyzes the constraints in India’s drive to become a great power. Read more…
JUDICIARY DRAWS FLAK FOR BATHANI TOLA ACQUITTAL
Mohammad Ali
The acquittal of 23 activists of Ranvir Sena, the upper caste militia allegedly involved in the gruesome murder of 23 Dalits at Bathani Tola in Bihar, by the Patna High Court this past week puts a question mark on the commitment of the judicial system as well as the State Government for delivering justice to the underprivileged Dalits and minorities, argued activists at a convention on “Bathani Tola Acquittal: Political Complicity and Issue of Justice in Feudal and Communal Massacres” here. Read more…
PROTEST HARASSMENT OF MADHURI KRISHNASWAMI
May 27, 2012
Respected Friend,
I am attaching a few newspaper reports on the action taken by the Madhya Pradesh Government against Ms Madhuri Krishnaswami, of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan [JADS]. Madhuri is my niece and I have known her since her birth. Her father, the late Air Vice Marshall Srinivas Krishnaswami, served the country with great distinction. Madhuri is a Gandhian, and giving up all comforts and career chances, she has worked tirelessly for several decades in the interests of the tribal and dalit communities of Madhya Pradesh. The government has time and again trumped up charges against her. Once when she was charged with murder, it so happened that at that very time she was on leave with her father in Bangalore, and seen by several high-ranking officers there. Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and their contractor cronies, who are looting forest wealth and oppressing tribals and dalits, want her out of the way. Read more…
THE AUSTERITY OF THE AFFLUENT
P. SAINATH
A rural Indian spending Rs. 22.50 a day would not be considered poor by a Planning Commission whose Deputy Chairman’s foreign trips between May and October last year cost a daily average of Rs. 2.02 lakh (app. Rs. 200,000). Read more…
MAY DAY: FROM THE HAYMARKET MASSACRE TO THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT
Lawrence M Wittner (Professor Emeritus History, State University of New York/Albany)
Many people might be surprised to learn that the May Day celebrations that occurred around the world this week were born more than a century ago out of a struggle by American workers for the eight-hour day. Read more…
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