Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: THE OBSCENE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF KASHMIR NOW MORPHING INTO A SETTLER COLONIAL STATE
Vinod Mubayi
One has read and heard about it, seen videos and pictures of it, and listened to people describing it. But nothing quite prepares one for the deeply jarring experience of seeing it up close in person. Especially to an older viewer who has been absent for over half a century from the area where a good part of his early years was spent. All military occupations are brutal assertions of political authority. Each checkpoint whether in the city or countryside is a symbol of raw power; the occupier humiliating the occupied. The rolls of barbed wire, the masked soldiers cradling their Uzis, stopping vehicles and ordering their occupants to dismount reminded the viewer driving the 40-50 km from Srinagar to Sopore of nothing so much as a drive across the West Bank fifteen years ago from the Jordanian border to Ramallah and Jerusalem. Despite differences in history and context, what India is doing in Kashmir is little different from what Israel does in Palestine.
Read more…RSS IN CANADA: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is an India-based organization that sits at the core of a large network of groups seeking to remake India into a country run by and for Hindus first at the expense of the country’s dizzying slew of minority groups. It has domestic and international organs that seize political power, perpetuate its supremacist ideologies, and actively participate in communal violence. This outlook is commonly known as “Hindutva.”
Read more…BUDGET SQUEEZES THE POOR TO GIVE THE 1%
Mritiunjoy Mohanty and Sushil Khanna
Budgets in India are a time when governments lay out their report on the state of the economy and pronounce policy platitudes in terms of the greater good they think will justify the taxes they impose on its citizens. But beneath the platitudes of the policy slogans and couplets Finance Ministers regale parliament with, lie the contours of a struggle where different classes and groups struggle to extract their pound of flesh.
Read more…PARESH CHATTOPADHYAY (1927–2023): SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE
Bernard D’Mello
The eminent Marxian socialist scholar and critic of Lenin’s Marxism, Paresh Chattopadhyay (PC) passed away on January 14, 2023, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was emeritus professor of political economy in the department of sociology at the University of Quebec, Montreal. With a mastery of Marx in the original and an admirable presentation of Marx’s thought, PC made his readers think and reflect over what he wrote.
Read more…HIRE AND FIRE AT WILL: WHAT DO GLOBAL TECH LAY-OFFS MEAN FOR INDIA?
T.K. Rajalakshmi
Will 2017’s nightmare year for India’s IT industry return in 2023?
It was a New Year gift that the employees of Big Tech did not see coming. By the end of January, the CEOs of many technology companies had announced massive workforce cuts in the US and they have triggered a crisis that industry insiders say is likely to continue until the end of 2023.
Read more…AN ‘UNREAL CITY’ WITH REAL PROBLEMS: DHAKA’S DREADFUL URBAN PLANNING
Anika Saba and Shamiul Hossain
At a time when Dhaka city is slowly being stripped bare of its precious greenery, as mindless landfilling goes unabated with a huge number of trees already felled for building homes, the government entities who are supposed to fight for saving breathing spaces have been caught napping, failing to allay worries of environmentalists. Besides, newspaper reports on ‘modernising’ a historical park – Suhrawardy Udyan – by uprooting hundreds of old trees have only fuelled speculation that the authorities hardly care for the city environment.
Read more…ISLAMABAD: AURAT AZADI JALSA DEMANDS ECONOMIC, LAND REFORMS
Ikram Junaidi
A large number of activists, including members of trade unions, gathered at F-9 Park on Sunday to take part in ‘Aurat Azadi Jalsa’ organised by the Women Democratic Front (WDF) and Aurat Azadi March to commemorate the 113th International Working Women Day.
Read more…WHAT INDIAN MEDIA DIDN’T TELL US ABOUT FAIZ FESTIVAL IN LAHORE
Shiv Inder Singh
The Indian media widely publicised the Faiz Festival 2023 held in Lahore, Pakistan, between 17 and February 19, after the famous Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar, who attended the event, said in response to a question that the accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack are roaming freely in Pakistan. India’s media published this remark with sensational headlines such as ‘Javed Akhtar Tells Pakistan Off Clearly’, and ‘Javed Akhtar Entered Pakistan and Thrashed it’. However, the headlines and stories never mentioned that Akhtar’s audience, primarily Pakistanis, also clapped at this remark.
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