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Counter Currents
Memories are like those fireflies that sparkle your vision on a deep hot summer night. They entice you with their sudden appearance and just as sudden departure. So it is with this baby boomer’s mind, transversed back so many decades until… 50 years appear as if it was today. This brings tears...
Israeli media and Zionist apologists everywhere are busy whitewashing Israel’s globally-tattered image using the rare indictment of an Israeli terrorist, Amiram Ben Uliel, who was recently convicted for murdering the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old toddler in the town of...
The pandemic is helping to understand a few facts of the current state of geo-politics. One of these facts is China’s voice – voice with all its meanings. China has called for international cooperation against COVID-19, popularly named coronavirus, to tide over darkest hours. China has said:...
Co-Written by Akhter Hussain Bhat & Dr. Mohammad Akram The novel COVID-19 has caused widespread concern, fear, anxiety and stress among millions of people worldwide. The virus has affected more than 5 million people causing more than 3.3 lakh deaths while many are battling for recovery...
The spread of COVID-19 infused crisis has huge impact on all aspects of life and economy across India. It is particularly posing a serious challenge to the social and economic development of rural poor, migrants and farmers. The local businesses and communities are significantly affected by the...
Forecasts and news did not prepare us for the actuality of it all till it actually happened. We had taken all necessary precautions but what happened on the evening of the 20th of May 2020 rattled and disturbed a lot. Cyclone Amphan was moving slowly over the Bay of Bengal and was expected to...
On the 5th of May, a group of Christians namely *Ramu, *Manu and 7 others, including women, were mercilessly beaten up by a group of religious fanatics at a village in the Bastar District of the Indian State of Chhattisgarh. Why? Because they refused to forsake Christianity. Narrating this...
We have been in a state of lockdown for two months. It has been a very harsh time for lakhs of our citizens, who have lost work, possessions, and been left hungry and homeless. Dalits, adivasis and the working Bahujan poor are the worst affected, with women amongst all communities having to...
On Memorial Day, after mourning our loved ones, taken away from us by our ruling criminally insane murderous investors in Weapons of Mass Destruction on Wall Street, let us at least indict these pathetic racist colonial powered accumulators of capital in our hearts and minds and look to the day...
A Joint Statement by the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, Asian Human Rights Commission, International Federation for Human Rights and Odhikar on the occasion of International Week of the Disappeared 2020 Dhaka/Manila/Hong Kong/Paris, 25 May 2020: To commemorate International...
In April 1976, when the Emergency was in place in India, the New York Times in a glorifying article titled ‘Fading Hope in India’ eulogised the dissenting opinion of H.R. Khanna in the now famous ADM Jabalpur v Shivakant Shukla case (1976). The Times wrote thus; “If India ever finds a...
Co- Written by Kamala Tamirisa, Ritu Thamman and Martha Gulati Health care professionals need more support. Based on a survey of 553 health care professionals in mid-April, 2020. The death by suicide of Dr. Lorna Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian...
COVID-19 Pandemic: Surpassing Islamic Republic Of Iran, India Now 10th – Out Of 188 Countries – Worst-Affected Globally! The number of n-Coronavirus cases in India has raced past the cases in Islamic Republic of Iran. It may be recalled that Iran was the worst hit country in the middle-east;...
1. “Girasole,” Italians say, accent on soul, “g” as in gyro, the last syllable, lay–a medieval song. In my uncle’s garden there were many (heads taller than I, taller even than the tomato plants he trained to staves heading towards trellises of overhead vines from which he squeezed–sweet!–...
The coronavirus pandemic is seen as a ‘useful crisis’ in which to transform the economy. Yet the university system has not received any such ‘stimulus’ of fresh ways of thinking about education. While exams do play a role, they are being fetishized as the return of ‘normalcy’ even as many...
Lately when India is undergoing the massive crisis of the Corona epidemic and the offshoots of its mishandling, we have also seen the pandemic being used to demonise a particular community in India. These hate mongers, operating through powerful medium of TV, and widespread social media which...
Every year before we think of celebrating EID in Kashmir, anything devastating happens that dashes out the hopes of everybody and all are put to mourn the deaths & destruction of our fellow Kashmiris Burhan wani, Shujaat Bukhari, abrogation of Article 370 & 35A, domicile act and now...
What does it mean to be a dissident? At its simplest, it means to critically engage with and seek to change the material and the ideological structures of the society in which you find yourself, whether local, national, regional, or global. It means the ability to say “no” to those in power,...
A lot had already been written about the high morbidity conscious Kerala society and especially what was being called in the early eighties as the ‘Kerala Paradox’. This essentially is a conceptual complex which meant that the morbidity rate was very high in Kerala compared to the low mortality...
Introduction COVID-19 pandemic, its emergence, global spread and the crisis therefrom are inseparably linked up with the character of neoliberal accumulation today. As is widely recognised, its origins are rooted in profit-driven corporate capital’s unbridled plunder of nature and consequent...
As a student of political science we have been familiar with Samuel Johnson’s amazing words on patriotism, an essential ingredient of nationalism. He wrote: ‘Patriotism is last refuge of scoundrel.’ History has been witness to the truthfulness of this dictum multiple times globally. Back at home...
Dr Goparaju Vijayam or popularly known as Dr Vijayam, passed away, in the morning today at his home at the Atheist Center in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. The loss is tremendous as far as the humanist movement in India is concern as Vijayam Garu was one of the pioneers. He was also the Executive...
In spite of India’s perceptible economic and social development, the caste system still obstructs and isolates the section of its population, the Scheduled Caste (SC) also called as Dalits and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The Dalits, who form around 16.6 per cent of Indian population[1], undergo...
20th March 2020, the Nirbhaya accused were hanged in the wee hours, at 5 o’ clock, and we all woke up inhaling the sense of closure. Deep down it wasn’t so oblivious that the death sentence would actually never serve as a future deterrent. But, nevertheless the perpetrators left no stone...
Earth at 10°C above pre-industrial is unimaginable. It’s a deadly horrifying thought, but as shall be explained herein, it should not be dismissed out of hand. The following story might be labeled as reckless, and it might be criticized as a fearmongering piece of journalism and probably will be...
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slashed its growth forecast for this financial year and warned of inflation uncertainties as India’s economy suffers due to the Covid-19, pandemic. While the country’s GDP growth is set to “remain in the negative territory with some pick up in second half” of...
“In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.” -Bertolt Brecht These historic lines are prophetically relevant today as we witness the forward march of right wing and reactionary forces in India and UK. These forces are destroying the...
HERE I AM The Polish word, jestem—‘I am’, ‘here I am’, ‘present’—seems to define the life of the writer and cult figure for a generation, Andrzej Kusniewicz. On an overcast, pollution-infested Warsaw afternoon over thirty years ago in his crowded study in a surprisingly bourgeois apartment in a...
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Covid-19 Pandemic has brought the world under a precarious situation as the millions of people have been rendered jobless. Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy....
Stories about the thirties, in our childhood, were not that old. Every elder in the family had a story to tell about one or the other martyr of July 31, 1931, buried just three hundred yards from our house. They remembered stories of the movement against the Maharaja like textbook lessons. ...
A daughter still waits for her father to wed her off. A wife searches for her husband. And a mother still pines for her son and waits for him to be a pallbearer when she dies. Shahnaz Bashir The continuous conflictive conditions in Kashmir and its illegal occupation by the Indian military have...
How many people cried? How many people died? Sunderbans submerged Nearly five thousand starved Will they die of Corona Hunger or Amphan? And the animals? Biodiversity Day — what happened to them? Lakeside Gardens No water No electricity No internet Poles broken Cars shattered Distress, distress...
Mutiu Olawuyi in conversation with Mitali Chakravarty He is a maker of dreams for writers – a man who believes in dreams that are woven in words and multimedia across the world. He connects writing with multimedia, not just by writing and YouTube screenings but also by putting upcoming writers...
The sector must meet the environmental norms to ensure ‘our right to breathe in clean air,’ says CSE report New Delhi: With barely two years to go before the deadline hits India’s coal-fired power plants to meet the stringent new emission norms by 2022, which were set in December 2015 by the...
We urge civil society organisations and peoples movements in India to express unconditional solidarity and support to the Central Trade Unions in India as they observe the nationwide protest on May 22, 2020 against the draconian changes in labour laws being brought about by various State...
Co-Written by Asmita Verma, Surabhi Agarwal and Bobby Ramakant The Epidemics Act, 1897 gives the central and state governments authority to impose any regulations which may be necessary to contain the outbreak of a disease. Some state governments such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh...
How should ordinary citizens understand the nature of responsibility in the case of the recurring deaths of migrant workers that they are witnessing? So many have died on the road, absolutely needlessly, in the process of trying to escape death by hunger which the Indian Covid-19 lockdown was...
On the night of the 20th of May 2020, a group of religious fanatics broke into the homes of 2 Christian families who live in a village in Chhattisgarh. The group wielded lathis (wooden clubs) and bows and arrows. At roughly 9pm, the families woke up to a nightmare. A total of 10 people including...
The National Green Tribunal had asked all States to finish preparing People’s Biodiversity Registers by end of January 2020. This made various States make greater efforts to mobilise volunteers in local government in Taluk Panchayat. Collecting and documenting wild plants is a beautiful task and...
The soul shall rise from the deep depths of darkness. The darkness that has layers after layers, hence exists in many forms. The manyness of this darkness, its different shades, blurs the realities and forces the soul to leave the search for the truth and negotiate with the environment- dark...
I live in North Kolkata, West Bengal. I stand witness to the damaging consequences of Amphan, the strongest storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal. Till the afternoon of May 20th, there were heavy showers and sporadic gusts of wind in the northern part of Kolkata. The intensity of the wind...
Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there. Scientificamerican.com Editor’s Note (4/24/20): This article was originally published online on March 11. It has been updated for inclusion in the June 2020...
In Solidarity with the All India Protest organised by Central Trade Unions on 22nd May ’20 the New Socialist Alternative will be participating, demanding the immediate reversal of policy proposals by the Modi government attacking the laws and legislations concerning the welfare of the Working...
A particular scene in Paatal Lok, which is a series in Amazon Prime used a racist and a sexist remark on a Khasi woman calling her a “Nepali whore” (in Hindi). This was followed by uproar and petitions from Nepalies across India demanding to mute that particular line followed by an apology for...
The above is the title of news release by WHO. The two-day meeting of the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) was held in Geneva on May 18-19, discussed Covid-19 and how the world is coping with that. Even as the media in India is engaged 24×7 on Covid-19, this historic session was given poor...
There’s a meme that appears now and then on Facebook and other social media: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” That’s funny. What’s not is that the Trump administration and its...
Imagine the house you live in being raised to ground and you don’t even know whether the land that once held your house still belongs to you. The papers like most of your valuables might have perished in the debris of your once home. This is a possibility if you live in kashmir and an armed...
As a singular event, Covid-19 could be an opportunity for a total political and economic reconfiguration. Instead, Modi capitalizes on daily fatality statistics (short term chaos) and uses the fear of death as the basis of his strategies; best exemplified by his death discourses directed at the...
Super cyclone Amphan has wrecked havoc in the Indian state of West Bengal, especially the state capital Kolkata, and the southwestern part of the neighboring country Bangladesh after the Amphan made landfall in West Bengal. The death toll, yet to be counted finally, in both the countries is over...
The world’s progress in eliminating poverty is set to suffer a major setback due to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing more people to survive on less than $1.90 per day, the World Bank has said in a recent statement (Press release no.: 2020/193/EXC). “The pandemic and shutdown of advanced...
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