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: MODI REGIME OFFICIAL LOFTS TRIAL BALLOON AIMED AT TRASHING THE CONSTITUTION
Vinod Mubayi
Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Council of Economic Advisers, appear to have lofted a trial balloon to “embrace a new Constitution.” In an article in the Mint of August 15, Debroy stated bluntly “We the People have to give ourselves a new Constitution.” As part of this effort, he asserted “We should go back to the drawing board” and more ominously asked “what these words in the Preamble mean: socialist, secular, democratic, justice, liberty and equality.” One can understand that a devotee of markets like Debroy may want to remove the word “socialism” from the Constitution; one can also comprehend that the word “secular” is anathema to a Modi regime official; but is the regime also proposing to jettison democracy, liberty, justice and equality? Is that a kind of Freudian slip on Debroy’s part or does it, intentionally or not, reflect something more sinister?
Read more…MANIPUR’S SILENT SUFFERING AND THE BROKEN PROMISES OF ‘PEACE’
Kishalay Bhattacharjee
First came the scream of the dying
in a bad dream, then the radio report,
and a newspaper: six shot dead, twenty-five
houses razed, sixteen beheaded with hands tied
behind their backs inside a church.
As the day crumbled, and the victors
and their victims grew in number,
I hardened inside my thickening hide,
until I lost my tenuous humanity.
— Robin S. Ngangom from My Invented Land.
Read more…FASCISM AND BIG BUSINESS
Prabhat Patnaik
Fascistic elements exist in every modern society, but usually as fringe, marginal or minor elements. They move centre-stage only when they get the support of monopoly capital which provides them with ample money and media coverage; and this happens when there is a capitalist crisis that substantially increases unemployment and puts a question mark on the hegemony enjoyed by monopoly capital until then.
Read more…BALOCHISTAN’S DEADLY CONFLUENCE OF SEPARATIST INSURGENCY AND ISLAMIST MILITANCY
Salman Rafi Sheikh
On 12 July, in the Zhob and Sui districts of Balochistan, the Pakistan Army lost 12 soldiers in two attacks claimed by Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan – said to be an outgrowth of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban.
Read more…ON ‘THE KASHMIR FILES: UNREPORTED’, ‘GADAR 2’ AND ‘OMG 2’: THE ANATOMY OF HATE NARRATIVES AND A REASON FOR HOPE
Anuj Kumar
Art binds people to each other but sometimes when prejudice starts informing the craft, cinema becomes a tool to shape hostile propaganda against a community. Some are blunt, others are sharp. In the last couple of weeks, we watched two varieties in the form of The Kashmir Files: Unreported and the much-anticipated sequel to Sunny Deol’s Gadar.
Read more…MOULDING THE PAST: WRITING HISTORY FOR CHILDREN IN THE TIMES OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
Parni Ray
On a hot Monday morning in April, a dozen of us were sitting in a classroom at Kolkata’s Institute of Development Studies, watching the pata artist and illustrator Siraj Chitrakar sketch on a blackboard. We were there to attend a workshop for the second instalment of the Itihase Hatekhari—First History Lessons—book series. Chitrakar was sharing an idea for a page layout. First published in 2022, the series consists of short, illustrated and easy-to-read history books for middle-school students.
Read more…EXTREME MISOGYNY
Mahir Ali
THE latest chapter in the Taliban’s crusade against women was unveiled this week, when at least 60 potential scholars expecting to be accommodated at a university in Dubai were turned away from Kabul airport. It followed a series of similar gestures that have stretched from stripping the right of girls to secondary or higher education, to bans on women working for aid agencies and a ban on hair and beauty parlours.
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