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…

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN 2013: PART – II

Irfan Engineer

 

In the previous article, we examined the trends in riots and the all India statistics of communal riots provided by the Union Govt. We also described some of the communal riots in Maharashtra and Rajasthan. In this article, we now propose to describe some riots in J&K, UP, MP, Bihar and Assam. Read more…

INDIA-US CONFRONTATION – A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Vinod Mubayi

 

The angry confrontation between the Indian and US governments over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York for allegedly making a false visa application to bring her maid from India to the US has attracted an immense amount of publicity and comment from governmental representatives, journalists, op-ed columnists, domestic worker groups and individuals in both countries. The U.S. Attorney in New York, himself, incidentally, of Indian origin, issued an angry statement to the press defending his decision to arrest and prosecute Devyani Khobragade while India’s National Security Advisor described the treatment meted out to her as “barbaric” and “despicable.”  Read more…

SUPREME COURT GETS ONE DECISION COMPLETELY WRONG

Vinod Mubayi

 

In the last couple of decades the higher courts in India have played a positive role in taking decisions affecting the lives of millions when the executive or legislative branches had failed to act. The Supreme Court, in particular, through its activist role in public interest litigation, such as for example the judgment on reducing air pollution in Delhi, has often succeeded in passing laws that have helped to improve people’s lives.  But every once in a while, the courts slip up and issue rulings that verge on absurdity. Read more…

WILL COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL BE TABLED IN PARLIAMENT?

Irfan Engineer

 

With the defeat of Congress in the 4 states, the results of which were declared on 8th December 2013, one does not know the fate of the Prevention of Communal Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2013 that was to be introduced in the last winter session of the Parliament under UPA II. Some may say the UPA II government is now a lame duck govt. and would not introduce such legislation. On the other hand the UPA has a duty to redeem its electoral promise and should introduce the legislation to gain support of democratic and secular forces. Read more…

NEPAL’S STUNNING RESULT

(Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly, Dec. 7, 2013; supplied by Liberation News Service)

 

In what has been a surprising result, the elections for the second Constituent Assembly (CA) of Nepal, held in November 2013, have relegated the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to the third position, well behind the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist – UML). The NC and the UML, which together dominated Nepal’s polity in the 1990s, have garnered close to a two-thirds majority in the second CA in both the first-past-the-post seats as well as the proportionally represented votes that are still being counted as we write this. The Maoists and the Madhesi parties, which had done exceedingly well in the 2008 elections, have been reduced to much smaller numbers. Read more…

MULAYAM SINGH YADAV AND NARENDRA MODI ON PARTITION OF INDIA

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Some familiarity with the recent history of India should be one of the requirements for becoming the Prime Minister of India. While two aspirants, Modi and Yadav, have commented on what they perceive concerns the Indian people their knowledge of history leaves much to be desired. Read more…

MUSLIM LEGISLATORS DISPROPROTIONATELY LOW

In the recently concluded provincial elections only 8 out of a total of 589 winners were Muslims. In the outgoing assemblies, there were 20. Five of these 8 won on Congress ticket and one won as independent. Read more…

UP TOPS COMMUNAL LIST, GUJARAT IN TOP FIVE

Deeptiman Tiwary

 

 

NEW DELHI: Having witnessed gruesome riots in Muzaffarnagar in August-September that claimed 62 lives, Uttar Pradesh, not surprisingly, has topped the list of states with most incidents of communal violence and deaths this year. Read more…

BALI TRADE AGREEMENT A VICTORY FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Randy Fabi

 

The World Trade Organization reached its first ever trade reform deal on Saturday to the roar of approval from nearly 160 ministers who had gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali to decide on the make-or-break agreement that could add $1 trillion to the global economy. Read more…

POSTHUMOUS ROYAL PARDON TO GENIUS ALAN TURING

(Based on PTI report)

 

Alan Turin hailed as the ‘father of modern computing’  convicted in 1952 for homosexuality, termed a crime in Britain of that time  was granted Royal pardon on December 23, 2013. Read more…

I AM MALALA – BOOK REVIEW

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

How can one read this marvelous book and remain unmoved? It is a good-humored tale of grit, courage, and determination. A 14-year old girl, passionate about education being every child’s right, is shot in the head and nearly killed but miraculously recovers. She makes it to the world’s highest forum where she gets a standing ovation from all including the United Nations Secretary General, and sets her life’s mission to fight the forces of demented Islamism. Read more…

NELSON MANDELA – FROZEN ICON

Sam Noumoff

 

Much has been written, and is still being written, about the iconic figure of Nelson Mandela. He has been portrayed as the quintessential symbol of a new non racist Africa, having endured the hardships of struggle, incarceration, and ultimate freedom. His most enduring achievement was his destruction of the pernicious system of apartheid in which class and race were organically fused. He constructed a tri-partite nominally anti-imperialist alliance, between the African National Congress, the Communist Party of South Africa, for which he was a member of the Central Committee, and the COSATU trade union federation. A central characteristic of this alliance was its composition – the Black masses and the White elite. The liberation programme was enshrined in 1955 by The Freedom Charter which called for the nationalization of industry and land distribution for the peasantry. Mandela continued to work as a trained lawyer and organizer, disguising himself as a chauffeur, until 1962 when he was captured by the police, betrayed by a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency agent who had infiltrated the ANC; with his trial for treason sandwiched between 1961 and sabotage in 1963. He remained in prison on Robben Island for the next twenty-seven years. The cold war raged pitting the western capitalist countries, including Israel, supporting the South African racist regime, against the USSR and the ANC. South Africa was seen as a critical geo-strategic location, located on the tip of the southern sea lanes as well as a source of its critical resources. Read more…

CPM SHOULD LEARN FROM LATE PC JOSHI AND NOT FROM MULAYAM SINGH YADAV

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The Communist Party of India (CPM) is the life-line of the communist movement in India. There are other communist parties too, like CPI, but there is no apparent political and ideological reason for their existence; they reflect the decay and not the rejuvenation of the communist movement. The only radically different trend and, indeed, the greatest vulgarization of Marxism is represented by the Maoist movement, which is neither Maoist nor a movement but seems to get undue attention on the part of the media because of its violent nature. Read more…

NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN: A Positive Step for Peace

Vinod Mubayi
Haan! Talkhi-e-ayyam abhi aur badhegi
Haan! Ahl-e-sitam mashq-e-sitam karte rahenge

 

Manzoor ye talkhi, ye sitam hum ko gawaara

 

Dam hai to mudava-e-alam karte rahenge

 

(The poisons of the age will grow further/Tyrants will continue their tyranny/I acknowledge this poison and the tyranny/As long as I live I will try to keep on remedying them) – excerpt from Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s “Lauh-e-Qalam” (Tablet and Pen) Read more…

MULAYAM SINGH YADAV’S ANTI-PAKISTAN, ANTI-CHINA SECULARISM

Daya Varma

 

At a grand rally on October 29, at Azamagarh in Samajwadi Party (SP)-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of SP flayed Narendra Modi for his divisive politics and Gujarat pogrom. But he did more. Read more…

TEJPAL AND MODI

Jawed Naqvi

 

LET’S not get distracted. Tehelka’s editor Tarun Tejpal used his position of power to force himself on a junior colleague who was his daughter’s age.

 

He contests the charge of rape but he did confess in a letter of apology to an error of judgement in seeking ‘liaison’ with the woman in question. Read more…

SWAMI AGNIVESH ON SCIENTISTS VISITING TIRUPATI

Press Statement by Swami Agnivesh President World Council of Arya Samaj Scientists visiting Tirupati Read more…

CBI DIRECTOR COMPARES RAPE WITH GAMBLING

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ranjit Sinha is reported (The Hindu, October 13, 2013) to have made the following statement: Read more…

THE TRUTH OF SOMNATH TEMPLE-HOW WAS IT BUILT: NEHRU HAD NO ROLE

Ram Punyani

 

The claim that the Somnath reconstruction was done as per the decision of the Nehru cabinet. is a total lie. Since the public memory is too short anything propagated repeatedly starts sounding like being true, Contrary to what is being propagated a little peep into the recent history will show us that Indian Government had nothing to do with the reconstruction of Somnath temple. Read more…

MODI’S-ABUSING HISTORY FOR POLITICAL MILEAGE

Ram Puniyani

 

The politics of Modi’s parent organization RSS is based on distortion of history, medieval history in particular. To begin with the projection of kings through the prism of religion, to demonize Muslim kings based on distortions and falsehoods of History, and then in turn spreading hatred against Muslims of today has been the foundation on which RSS built it up. Taking the same method to further lower levels currently Narendra Modi is trampling, distorting the facts of history to project his ideology. In the last week, October 2013, he addressed two meetings and gave one interview which showed the levels to which he can fall to score the political mileage. Read more…

NARENDRA MODI NEEDS AN ELEMENTARY COURSE IN HISTORY

(Daya Varma. Based on a news item in the Hindu of November 11, 2013)

 

While inaugurating a hospital on November 10, Modi said that the founding patriarch of his Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), Syama Prasad Mukherjee was a “proud son of Gujarat”. Modi credited him for setting up the “India house in London” and added that Mukherjee “was considered the Guru of Indian revolutionaries” and “died in 1930”. Read more…

NEPAL ELECTIONS

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

The results of the Nepali elections have demonstrated that the Nepali Maoists who gained a significant plurality in the 2008 elections and emerged as the largest party in Parliament with their leader Prachanda becoming Prime Minister, are now in a significant decline. Read more…

PAKISTAN-INDIA PEACE: NO ALTERNATIVE TO DIALOGUE

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

As soon as Nawaz Sharif was elected to power in the first democratic transition in Pakistan history last May, he evinced a desire for better relations with India.  The media in India, which, with a few honorable exceptions, has lately become a loud right-wing echo-chamber, regarded this as some kind of a dastardly trick.  More attention instead has been focused on the BJP leaders’ bellicose calls to give a “fitting response” to Pakistan, or on the words of Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, to cut-off the heads of ten Pakistani soldiers for each decapitated Indian jawan. Read more…

JUDICIARY AND POLITICS: JUDGMENT AGAINST LALU YADAV

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

INSAF Bulletin has argued in the past that the political problems of India cannot be fixed by the judiciary.  The independence of the judiciary is undoubtedly important in a democracy. But the judiciary is not expected to replace or dominate the parliament, which alone should have the power to make laws. If it does so, it becomes like the civilian equivalent of military rule. Read more…

NARENDRA MODI’S RANT AT HIS DELHI RALLY

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

September 29 was a special day in Delhi. Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had done its utmost to organize the first show case rally to launch Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate and had expected over 500,000 people to attend. However, according to Indian papers, the size of the crowd was closer to 100,000, far short of BJP’s expectations. Read more…

COULD MODI BE GROUNDED BEFORE TAKE OFF?

Saeed Naqvi

 

Recently, the Indian Express published two news items on the same page. Read more…

ATROCITIES THAT NO LONGER SHOCK THE HINDU

Kalpana Kannabiran

 

 

While the Delhi rape incident saw mass protests for justice, crimes against Dalits hardly evoke such outrage, which is why the killers (of Dalits) in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre have got away. Read more…

AAM AADAMI PARTY (AAP): URBAN MIDDLE CLASS ASSERTION

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Dr. Manmohan Singh did not patent the term “Aam Admi (common man)’. So this attractive phrase got usurped by the burgeoning middle class of India and NRIs (nonresident Indians). The choice of a broom as its symbol and a cap as insignia makes AAP an impressive new entrant on the political scene of India. Read more…

WHAT AILS NATIONAL INTEGRATION COUNCIL?

Ram Puniyani

 

The meeting of National Integration Council (NIC) on 23rd September (2013) was a damp squib. Held in the aftermath of Muzaffarnagar violence and in the times when the next Parliamentary elections are on the horizon, one expected some concrete proposals and actions which Government could have discussed and brought in as a voluntary code for all to follow. The major point which was highlighted was the role of social media in exaggerating the violence. The underlying cause of the role of media was not much highlighted. Read more…

MODI’S GUJARAT ‘LESS DEVELOPED’ STATE

Ram Puniyani

 

Raghuram Rajan report on overall performance of all 28 states in the country suggests that Gujarat lags behind six Congress ruled states including Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala. Read more…

INDIA: MUZAFFARNAGAR – A CASE OF ’INSTITUTIONALISED RIOT SYSTEMS’

Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

 

(Presented at a seminar organized by Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) on “Reportage of Sensitive Issues like Muzzaffarnagar Riots, Caste Conflicts and Sexual Assaults against Women”.) Read more…

THE CHILLING FAMILIARITY OF MUZAFFARNAGAR

Farah Naqvi

 

Riot follows riot with sickening regularity but there is only a deathly silence on a draft bill to fix accountability for communal violence and guarantee justice and compensation to victims. Read more…

FORMAL VERSUS SUBSTANTIVE JUSTICE: Home Minister Shinde’s letter

Ram Puniyani

 

In his letter to all the Chief Ministers, the Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde wrote (30 September, 2013),  that Government has been receiving complaints of harassment of innocent Muslim youth by Law enforcement agencies. He asked the state authorities to ensure that no innocent Muslim youth should be arrested or wrongfully detained in the name of terror. The letter also suggests that if such wrongful act has been done it should be duly compensated. Read more…

LOVE JIHAD: FROM ILLUSORY SLOGAN TO POTENT WEAPON

Ram Puniyani

The country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffarnagar violence (October 2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated, engineered earlier on various issues like Cow slaughter, Babri demolition, ‘sexual assault on ‘our women’, amongst others. The primary weapon used to communalize this region was the community honor. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ was made the central part of propaganda. While other factors like role of Sangh Parivar components in uploading the (fabricated) video clip, in mobilizing the Hindus in the name of Bahu-Beti Bachao, have been discussed, one needs also to look at the way this ‘saving our daughters’, or Love Jihad, from the Muslims, had operated in the area. Read more…

THE DEATH OF A HERO AND THE BIRTH OF A REVOLUTION

Sam Noumoff

 

In the early days of October news was released of the death of General Vo Nguyen Giap, at the age of 102. Second in reverence only to Ho Chi Min, General Giap came to symbolize the success of what has come to be more recently defined as asymmetrical warfare. At the outset of the modern Viet Nam independence struggle the Viet Minh numbered in the hundreds and increased from small scale guerilla units to more conventional large scale battle formations defeating in turn the French colonial occupation forces and the mighty United States and its neo-colonial puppets. Read more…

NEWS BRIEFS AND COMMENTS

UNITED GOVERNMENT EFFORTS GREATLY MINIMIZE CYCLONE EFFECT

 

Timely warning, evacuation of nearly one million people and deployment of rescue teams by the provincial and central governments reduced death toll from cyclone Phailin to 23. The cyclone mainly hit coastal Andhra Pradesh and Odisha (former Orissa). Read more…

MUZAFFARNAGAR 2013 – A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

The deliberately fomented riots in Muzaffarnagar leading to scores of deaths, mainly minorities, are simply the opening salvo of killer Modi’s election campaign, which is sure to become a fusillade in the run up to next year’s parliamentary election. It is a tried and tested strategy that paid off big for Modi and the BJP in the elections in Gujarat following the 2002 pogrom of Muslims. Earlier it was used by L.K. Advani in the rath yatra campaign that ended with the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. The recent arrest of UP BJP MLAs, one of them for circulating a fake and doctored video of a  killing in Pakistan to polarize and incite local Hindus against UP Muslims, demonstrates, if any demonstration is needed, of the bag of dirty tricks that the BJP has in hand to inflame communal sentiments.  The sad fact is that communal feelings have so seeped into the core of civil society that average people can be affected by these despicable tactics. Read more…

CRIME AND COMPLIMENT: THE CROWNING OF NARENDRA MODI

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

With big fanfare and a bit of drama by L.K. Advani, Narendra Modi has been crowned as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. The person who decided all this is the Chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bhagwat, who supervises the entire herd of the Hindutva family including the BJP. Read more…

WOMAN AID VOLUNTEER ATTACKED

Selva Ganpathy

 

The Association for India’s Development (AID) condemns the cowardly attack on Linkan Subuddhi, an AID Noida volunteer, who was responding to a call for help from a minor girl being forced to marry. Read more…

DALIT GIRL STUDENT GANG RAPED IN HARYANA

Gurmeet Singh

 

Rubbing salt into their wound, the Station House Officer of a police station in Haryana’s Sirsi district refused to register a complaint of rape made by relatives of a 19-year-old Dalit girl, who was gang-raped on Saturday allegedly by three boys from the dominant caste, all known to her.

None of the accused has been arrested yet. Read more…

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN PESHAWAR AND NAIROBI CONDEMNED

Delhi, 23 September, 2013: The All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations, today condemned the terrorist attacks in Peshawar and Nairobi. Read more…

MINI-COUP BY EX-GENERAL V.K. SINGH

Daya Varma

 

About a year ago, India’s former Army Chief, General V.K. Singh contested the timing of his retirement on the ground of disparity in his recorded age in service documents and his High School certificate.  He knew about this discrepancy all the time but chose to raise the issue on the verge of retirement. Future developments show that the timing was chosen by the General so he could join BJP with applause; this, indeed, he got when he shared the dais with Narendra Modi at a public meeting in Haryana. Read more…

INDIAN ARMY AND DEMOCRACY

Irfan Engineer

 

Indians, as indeed citizens of all countries, venerate their armies as an apolitical, professional, virtuous and disciplined force; and army men as fountainhead of virtues like patriotism and honesty, even if there are a few dishonorable exceptions to this rule within the force. Read more…

VINOD RAINA: A PERSONAL TRIBUTE

Feroz Mehdi

 

It is very difficult for me to believe that Vinod Raina is no more with us. Rarely I have come across a person with so much energy and drive. Four years ago he knew that he has cancer. In those four years I met him on different occasions in Montreal, Paris, Delhi, Dhaka and Tunis. I never saw him tired or shying away from a task. Never did he complain about his condition. In fact he shared the fact that he has cancer with a very small number of people. Read more…

VINOD RAINA: ARCHITECT OF RIGHT TO EDUCATION

Akshaya Mukul

 

In the winter of 2008, with barely a few months left of UPA-1, even officials of the HRD ministry had given up hope that Right To Education would see the light of day. The only person who would shrug off all cynicism with a wave of his hand was the mild-mannered Vinod Raina, the eternal optimist, who spent hours chiseling away at provisions of the historic legislation. Raina passed away on Thursday. Read more…

CANCER CLAIMS EDUCATIONIST-ACTIVIST VINOD RAINA

(The Hindu, Special Correspondent, September 13, 2013)

 

 

Educationist Vinod Raina, who died of cancer here on Thursday, was one of the key architects of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. He was member of the expert group on ‘Monitoring of Child Rights in Education’ set up by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and a sitting member of the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE), the highest decision-making body on education. Read more…

CAN NARENDRA MODI BE STOPPED?

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

The possibility that Narendra Modi will lead the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) and its appendages in the National Democratic Alliance to victory in the 2014 parliamentary elections is real and needs to be steadfastly opposed by all democratic and progressive sections of the people of India. Read more…

MODI PHENOMENON: AN ATTACK ON INDIAN DEMOCRACY

Ram Puniyani

 

 

Currently (August 2013) Narendra Modi is trying to dominate the media, print social and TV through his carefully constructed propaganda machinery and his potential of being nominated as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate by RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh)-BJP. Modi has openly used the words like puppies dying under the car wheel, while referring to the victims of Gujarat carnage of 2002. He has also asserted that he is a ‘Hindu nationalist’. While most of the older allies of NDA (National Democratic Alliance), are deserting NDA, RSS-BJP hope that he will be able to win the 2014 elections due to his image of a non- corrupt, efficient administrator who has taken Gujarat to the heights of development. In social media and other platforms the polarized section of Hindus and the section of middle class are very appreciative of Modi and are creating a delusion of his becoming the next prime minister. Read more…

ASSASSINATION OF AN ACTIVIST: Who Killed Dr Narendra Dabholkar?

Ram Punyani

 

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  Albert Einstein  (1879-1955)

 

Words have an uncanny ability of impinging on the receiver with clinical detachment. It is up to the receiver to unpack them or try to derive meaning out of them. It is still difficult to get over the sense of grief and shock one experienced when one received the news of the assassination of renowned rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar on the streets of Pune on August 20. Read more…

RESIST ANTI-SCIENTIFIC TEMPER FORCES

Gauhar Raza

 

We the scientist, rationalists, educators and intellectuals of the country learnt with shock and anger the brutal and inhuman murder of Dr Narendra Dabholkar. This murder is part of the series of attacks that have been perpetrated by anti scientific temper forces in the country. The attacks on artists, intellectuals and rationalists, all over the country, have increased exponentially. Read more…

WHY DO ‘THEY’ LOVE NARENDRA MODI ?

Shankar Gopalakrishnan

 

On August 14th, Narendra Modi declared that his Independence Day speech would attract as much attention as that of the Prime Minister. He appears to have been right. The fact that this is hardly unexpected should not obscure the deeper puzzle that it hides. It is a rare occurrence for a state level leader to suddenly get so much prominence in the media, and that too for such a long period. Why, then, have powerful forces in our society – including most of the media – chosen to endorse Modi? Why the sudden promotion of this particular leader at this particular time? What is it that he and his regime are offering? Read more…

INDO-PAK RELATIONS: TIME FOR THE PRIME MINISTERS TO MEET AND PRESS FOR PEACE

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Many of the saner political observers on both sides of the Pakistan-India border have noted with dismay the steady downturn in the relations between the neighbors since the beginning of this year. There was the reported killing of five Indian soldiers on the LOC (Line of Control) in J&K in January, including the gruesome beheading of Lance Naik Hemraj.  This was followed by bellicose propaganda in the Indian media and among right-wing politicians against the Pakistan Army to cut off ten heads of Pakistani soldiers for every Indian one. Ever since then, there are almost weekly, if not daily, reports of cross-border shelling and small-arms fire causing the deaths of not only soldiers but also civilians in both countries. Read more…

LASHKAR FUELING HOSTILITIES BETWEEN INDIA and PAKISTAN

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

A moratorium on cross-border firing, which largely held from 2003 to 2012, stands broken. About two dozen lives have been lost since the beginning of this year. Why? The breakdown did not come from Nawaz Sharif who, risking his popularity within his party, has been arguing forcefully for peace with India. Read more…

KANDHAMAL CARNAGE: AFTERMATH

Ram Puniyani

 

This August 25, 2013, it will be five years, since the biggest anti-Christian, violence, biggest communal violence in the Adivisi area, will complete five years. What has been the plight of the victims of the violence after this ghastly tragedy? What is the state of justice to the victim? Read more…

COUNCIL OF INDIAN MUSLIMS (UK) OPPOSES NARENDRA MODI’S VISIT

14 August 2013

 

Open letter to: Foreign Secretary William Hague, Home Secretary Theresa May,  Conservative Party Chairmen Grant Shapps and Andrew Feldman. Labour Party Leader  ED Milliband.

 

We, the British Indian Muslims, are writing this open letter to you, sirs and Madam, in utter disgust at the invitation by Labour and Conservative MPs to one of the most controversial and polarizing Indian politician, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, to visit UK. Read more…

TALKING PEACE IN THE TIMES OF WAR MONGERING

New Delhi, August 14, 2013: The seminar organized by the Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD-India) at India International Centre, on the eve of the independence days of Pakistan and India, reminded both countries that a permanent transformation to the India-Pakistan conflict can only come through dialogue processes between the two South Asian democracies and not through military methods and war. Read more…

BANGLADESH: STOP STIFLING THE WHISTLEBLOWER, ADILUR RAHMAN KHAN

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is informed that, at 10:20 p.m., on 10 August, officers from the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police have taken into custody, Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan, one of the most respected human rights defenders in Bangladesh, from his residence in Dhaka. Adilur is the Secretary of Odhikar, a prominent human rights organisation in the country, known for its critical assessments of human rights in performance and practice, by the Government of Bangladesh. Adilur has also served as the Deputy Attorney General of Bangladesh and is a Senior Lawyer practicing at the Supreme Court. Read more…

WHO ARE THE “TERRORISTS” AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Tapan Bose

 

(I was asked to prepare a note for members of PIPFPD on terrorist activities by different groups in India and Pakistan, its impact on the people of both countries and the relations between India and Pakistan. I do not claim any expertise in this area. However, I have attempted to analyze why the use of “terror tactics” has proliferated in this region, particularly among the Muslim groups, what are their objectives and locate this in the context global imperialism. I hope my efforts will be of some use to my fellow members – Tapan Bose) Read more…

FROM THE GRANARY TO THE PLATE

Jean Drèze

 

Despite its many flaws, the food security bill is an opportunity to end the leakages from the PDS and prevent wastage of public resources. Read more…

PUNYANAGARI (The Virtuous City)

Anand Patwardhan

 

Pune, Aug 22. Last night a FTII and Yugpath student organized screening of “Jai Bhim Comrade” began with a tribute to anti-superstition campaigner Narendra Dabholkar, who had just the previous day been gunned down by fanatics in the same city. It was our 4th screening of the film at the FTII and as before, the large NFAI auditorium was overflowing. The screening and discussions went off without a hitch. Not a single audience question led me to suspect that Hindutva elements were in attendance. In fact I am always happy to get questions from opposite sides of the political spectrum as I believe that such debates and discussions benefit everyone and are precisely the function of the kind of cinema I believe in. Read more…

THE DALITS ARE COMING (A Poem)

Siddalingaiah

 

The dalits are coming, step aside-

hand over the reins, let them rule. Read more…

ISRAEL RISKS LOSS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN EU RESEARCH GRANTS

Bernat Armangue

 

Jerusalem — Europe’s tough new stance against Jewish settlements could cost Israel hundreds of millions of dollars in EU )European Union) research grants, putting a hefty price tag on its refusal to stop building on lands Palestinians want for a state. Read more…

This issue of INSAF Bulletin is dedicated to school children who died of poisoned foods! 

WORLD’S LARGEST MID- DAY- FREE-FOOD-FOR-SCHOOL CHILDREN IN TROUBLE: A FEAST FOR CRITICS

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

More than twenty school children succumbed to death in the village of Gandawan in Bihar after consuming food contaminated by poisonous chemicals.  This unfortunate incident naturally caught the attention of national and international media. Speculations about the cause ran wild as was the case following the Bhopal disaster of 1984. This disaster has brought into question the desirability of the program of providing free meals to schoolchildren in India. Read more…

NATURAL RESOURCES ARE NATIONAL RESOURCES

Vinod Mubayi  and Daya Varma

 

In a just and rational, but ideal, world, natural resources anywhere in the world would be the common property of all the people of the world.  The oil discovered under the desert sands of Saudi Arabia was created by geological phenomena millions of years ago. Ideally, it should not be the property of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz or the crown prince any more than the people of India or China or other countries. Geophysical changes over eons produced hydrocarbons at one place and diamond at another. None are the product of the labor of any one as they were created long before homo sapiens came into being.  But the real world must be conceived not in such idealistic conjectures but the reality of nation states that are just one or two centuries old. Read more…

HINDU NATIONALISM VERSUS INDIAN NATIONALISM

Ram Puniyani

 

The debate around Hindu Nationalism and Indian Nationalism is not a new one. During colonial period, when the rising freedom movement was articulating the concept and values of Indian nationalism, the section of Hindus, keeping aloof from freedom movement asserted the concept of Hindu Nationalism. The debate has resurfaced again due to the one who is trying to project himself as the Prime-Ministerial candidate of BJP-NDA (Bhartiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance), Narendra Modi. In an interview recently (July 2013) said very ‘simply’ that he was born a Hindu, he is a nationalist, so he is a Hindu Nationalist! His Party President Rajnath Singh also buttressed the point and took it further to say that Muslims are Muslim nationalists, Christians are Christian Nationalists. So one has a variety of nationalisms to choose from! Read more…

WHAT ABOUT 1984?: POGROMS AND POLITICAL VIRTUE

Mukul Kesavan

 

The stock response of the Bharatiya Janata Party to the argument that Godhra makes Narendra Modi politically untouchable is “What about 1984?” There are several inadequate comebacks to that question and the best of them is that no one should use one pogrom to justify another. Read more…

PAKISTAN: WHY WE CAN’T RID SOCIETY OF WEAPONS

Naeem Sadiq

 

With each blast, massacre and killing, Pakistan as a state, fails one more time. How many citizens will be slaughtered or blown apart by militants before our delusion gives way to reality? Pakistan stubbornly continues to live in a state of denial, refusing to acknowledge that it is being brutally attacked by a bloodthirsty enemy from within and without. Read more…

CHANGING INDIA

Kancha Ilaiah

 

(The article below expresses the sentiment of and analysis by  a Dalit intellectual. Ed.) Read more…

INDIAN MUSLIM YOUTH: GROPING FOR EQUITY AND SECURITY

Ram Puniyani

 

In a most communities youth have a serious struggle on hand to look beyond the present for the future, especially their careers, longing for dignity and a decent existence. While this applies to all the youth, the struggle of youth from marginalized and discriminated against communities are much more. It is on this terrain that, Chetan Bhagat, the popular writer turned columnist, decided to advise Muslim youth about their future path, choices. His advice came in the form of an article, a letter from a Muslim youth, in a leading daily. The article was so insensitive to the plight of Muslims; it amounted to blaming them for their own plight; and so subtly advised them to opt for leaders like Narendra Modi. This was not a direct advice, Modi’s name was not spelt but the hint was obvious. Read more…

FACE TO FACE: MUKUL SINHA

Sadiq Naqvi

 

Mukul Sinha is an eminent lawyer and civil liberties advocate based in Ahmedabad. He has doggedly pursued the search for justice since the State-sponsored Gujarat genocide of 2002, case after case, in multiple testimonies to the commissions, investigations, inquiries and documentations, inside and outside the courts, and in the public and political arena. Despite all odds, and despite threats from powerful quarters and an atmosphere of sectarian terror prevailing in Gujarat since 2002, he has rigorously, meticulously and with extraordinary courage, evidence and resilience, pursued the process of justice, including the facts behind the many fake encounters. Here, he describes in detail the conspiracy behind the cold-blooded killings. Read more…

INDIA: NSSO RELEASE KEY INDICATORS OF EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the key indicators of Employment and Unemployment in India,  from the data collected in its 68th round survey conducted during the period July 2011 – June 2012. The NSS surveys on employment and unemployment are conducted quinquennially starting from 27th round (October 1972 – September 1973) and the last quinquennial survey was conducted in NSS 66th round (July 2009- June 2010) for which, the results have already been released. Read more…

NOTES FROM CHINA

William Dere

 

I want to give  some of my impressions of my month long travel through China. Read more…

OBAID SIDDIQI 1932- 2013: CATALYST OF A CULTURE OF CREATIVITY

K. Vijay Raghavan (July 26, 2013)

 

Obaid Siddiqi, once a young star of molecular biology and later a pioneer in neurogenetics was an extraordinary intellectual and scientist. In building the Molecular Biology Unit (now the Department of Biological Sciences) and then the National Centre for Biological Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, he showed how catalyzing a culture of creativity is vital to long-term institutional success. With his death following a road accident the world of science has lost one of its most thoughtful and questioning leaders. However, his science and the schools he as built will stay and through their quality demonstrate the stay of his deep influence. Read more…

ACCLAIMED SCIENTIST OBAID SIDDIQI NO MORE

(The Hindu, July 26, 2013)

 

Celebrated biologist Obaid Siddiqi, a scientist nonpareil whose pioneering work shed light on how taste and smell are detected and coded in brain, died on Friday. Read more…

PROFESSOR OBAID SIDDIQI PASSES AWAY

Obaid Siddiqi FRS, National Research Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) passed away on 26 July 2013. He is survived by his wife Asiya, sons Imran and Kalim, and daughters Yumna and Diba. Read more…

OBAID SIDDIQI: SOME REMINISCENCES

Iqbal Niazi

 

(Iqbal Niazi is a distinguished biologist and much older than Obaid. I requested him to write something about Obaid; although he is not in good health, he struggled to write the note produced below. Daya Varma) Read more…

OBAID SIDDIQI

Vinod Mubayi

 

I knew Obaid quite well when he was at TIFR in Bombay and I was there too. I also used to meet his wife Asiya  from time to time. His intellectual accomplishments in molecular biology are well known and is the subject of the obits we are carrying. Read more…

OBAID SIDDIQI: THE INTELLECTUAL SYMBOL OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA

Daya Varma

 

I have known Obaid Siddiqi since 1950. After a lapse of many years I met him when he was in Pennsylvania in 1960’s and again few times when he visited his son Kaleem and daughter Yumna in Montreal in 2000s. Read more…

SHARMILA REGE: 1964-2013

Divya Trivedi

 

 

Sharmila Rege, the scholar whose work on the interplay of patriarchy and caste oppression broke new ground for both sociology and women’s studies in India, died in Pune on Saturday aged 48. She had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. Read more…

THIS ISSUE IS DEDICATED TO THE VICTIMS OF UTTARAKHAND FLOODS

2014 ELECTIONS: CONGRESS OR BJP?

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The parliamentary elections in India are due in 2014. As usually happens at such junctures, impending elections lead to unforeseen events. It seems that Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party have given up their Prime Ministerial ambitions, at least for the time being.  If Mulayam Singh’s son Akhilesh, the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) continues with his anti-Dalit and anti-Muslim policies, which seem to suit his temperament best, he is likely to sink himself and his father further politically, an eventuality hardly to be lamented. Read more…

MODI, ADVANI AND SANGH’S AGENDA

Ram Puniyani

 

The nomination of Narendra Modi as the chief of campaign committee of BJP for 2014 elections (June 2013) has created more than the proverbial storm in the tea cup. Incidentally it is the first time ever that such a nomination has created non-stop 24×7 news and controversy. It has a lot to do with the propaganda machinery, which Modi has created around him. Read more…

PUPPETS ON A STRING

(The Hindu Editorial, June 12, 2013)

 

The mutinous Lal Krishna Advani has retreated, leaving Narendra Modi’s supporters to rejoice and glory in their victory. Yet for all its popular appeal, the legend of the victor and the vanquished, one a disciple of the other, will not get past the serious analyst — for the simple reason that the plot and its ending were written and executed by a strategist technically outside the work area of the Bharatiya Janata Party but nonetheless accustomed to exercising control from behind the veil. Read more…

WHITHER JUSTICE: FABRICATED CASES AND STATE

Ram Puniyani

 

Rihai Manch, a forum for getting justice to the falsely implicated youth in the cases of acts of terror organized  (June 2013) a protest Dharna (sit in) to demand the arrest of police and IB officials responsible for the death of Maulana Khalid Mujahid, to implement the R.D. Nimesh Commission report and to release the innocent Muslim youth implicated in acts of terror. This campaign is getting broader support from more human rights groups and affected community. This is the major effort by a civic society group to democratically protest against the insensitive and biased state machinery, to pressurize it to come to the path of justice. Read more…

TWO CONVENTIONS ADDRESS ISSUES OF MUSLIM COMMUNITY

Irfan Engineer

 

In May and June 2013, I attended two conventions organized by organizations in which Muslims lead and whose raison d’etre was to address issues of Muslims. I am deliberately avoiding calling them Muslim organizations as Hindus too are associated with both these organizations. One was convention organized by Maulana Azad Vichar Manch on 29th and 30th May 2013, while the other was convention organized by Tanzim-E-Insaaf on 15th and 16th June, 2013. There are some similarities in the issues the two organisations wants to address and major differences as well in the strategies they want to adopt. Let me first briefly recall the conventions as I witnessed them. Read more…

INDIA: “GHAR WAPSI” [A RETURN HOME] AND THE NOT-SO-VEILED THREAT OF THE SANGH

John Dayal

 

Most of Indian Muslims and Christians are converts. Fascist Hindu organizations are taking steps to force them back into Hinduism. Read more…

THOUSANDS OF LANDLESS DALITS AND ADVASIS DEMAND LAND FOR LIVELIHOOD AND DIGNITY!!

Ashok Bharti

 

The Bhoomi Adhikar Yatra leaders had no media machinery, no laptop carrying middle or elite class activists supporting them. Leaders of this Yatra could neither read or write English – the main language of discourse, communication or propagation of thoughts of Indian Civil Society. But the Yatra evoked good response and thousands of the Dalits and Adivasis and other landless people reached Bhopal demanding five acre land for all the landless people in Madhya Pradesh. Read more…

MAOIST ATTACK ON A PASSENGER TRAIN IN JAMUI: WHY HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS ARE SILENT?

Biswajit Roy

 

Human rights groups are still silent even 48 hours after the Maoist attack on a passenger train at Jamui in Bihar that killed three persons—two passengers and a railway policeman— and injured six including the guard and driver of the train. Read more…

MAOISTS CONTINUE TO MIRROR STATE VIOLENCE

Biswajit Roy

 

The CPI (Maoist) has justified the killing of Karma citing ‘revenge on behalf of the more than 1000 innocent tribals who were killed during the Salwa Judum and thousands who lost their homes’. According to the party release, Patel deserved his death due to his role in para-military deployment. Sukla too was in their hit list for pursuing the anti-people policies. Maoists regretted the killings of ‘innocent lower-rung Congress workers’ and offered sympathies to their families [1] Read more…

SRI LANKA: SPOILS OF VICTORY: Sinhala extremism finds new targets in Sri Lanka

Samanth Subramanian

 

Like the massacre of unsuspecting citizens in the Balkans on ethnic basis, the Buddhist chauvinists in Sri Lanka are waging a war against Tamil civilians ever since the defeat of LTTE in 2009. Read more…

PAKISTAN: WHY THEY KILLED ARIF SHAHID

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

On the evening of May 13, an assassin stepped out of a car that had just driven to the doorstep of Sardar Arif Shahid’s residence in Rawalpindi. Why? Read more…

THE SUPER RICH

Sreenivas v.p

 

There is no surprise. In  democracy , this is very easy. If a person wants to sell false ideologies or acquire huge amount of wealth, democracy will pave the way. Read more…

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY BILL DEBATED IN INDIAN PARLIAMENT

Tariqa Tandon

 

 

India’s reports on hunger and malnutrition are abysmal. For a rapidly developing country, showing much promise for the future, it still remains a country with one of the highest rates of malnutrition and hunger. Read more…

THE LEFT FOR PEOPLE’S RIGHT CAMPAIGN IN U.P.

Atiq Khan

 

 

Pledging support to the people’s right campaign launched by convener of All-India People’s Front (AIPF) Akhilendra Pratap Singh, the Left parties and the Rashtriya Ulama Council (RUC) on Wednesday resolved to expedite the people’s campaign and agitation “for establishing the rule of law in Uttar Pradesh”. A meeting will be held soon for finalising the strategy. Read more…

COVA APPEAL FOR DONATIONS FOR VICTIMS OF UTTARAKHAND FLASH FLOODS

The Flash Floods in Uttarkhand have caused unprecedented destruction and damage in about 40,000 sq. kilometre area affecting thousands of pilgrims and  thousands  of local residents, with apprehension of deaths of over 5000 people. Thanks to the untiring and heroic efforts of members of the armed forces and some local agencies and groups, over a lakh pilgrims and local residents have been rescued to safety. However, hundreds of villages and towns have been totally devastated and the locals have lost everything and are starving. Read more…

CHINA AND SOCIALISM: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Initiated by William Dere, Response by  Sam Noumoff

 

China is approaching the US as the world’s biggest economy. While many on the left have already passed a verdict that China is capitalist, the political economy of China is more complex. Here is reflection by two  scholars well versed with the internal situation in China and Marxism. William Dere is a Chinese Canadian and a Marxist.  Sam Noumoff was  Professor of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Read more…

OBITUARY: SATPAL DANG (1920-2013)

AB Bardhan

 

I first met him in December 1941, at the Patna All India Students Federation (AISF) Conference – he a delegate from Punjab and I from the then Madhya Pradesh. There was something attractive about his fair, handsome, lean but wiry demeanour, with a very intelligent look, which drew attention towards him. Read more…

OBITUARY: VINA MAZUMDAR (1927-2013)

Urvashi Butalia

 

With her passing, Indian feminism has lost one of its earliest icons. Read more…

OBITUARY: INDRANATH MAJUMDAR (1933-2013)- A TRIBUTE

Anirban Biswas

 

In the late sixties of the last century a book-selling concern started its business in Kolkata. The concern was unique in the sense that it dealt in rare books, books unavailable elsewhere could be found there. The founder, Indranath Majumadar, was a person with little formal education but his enterprise drew a large number of scholars, teachers and students to him, and they came to beleaguer him with orders. Then he, along with this business, started publishing quality books. Read more…

OBITUARY: DAVID J. JHIRAD (1939-2013)

Vinod Mubayi

 

David Jhirad, a close friend for many years and a colleague of the editors of INSAF Bulletin, and a progressive hailing from India who contributed to the goals of energy and the environment, as well as to rational and scientific analysis of the use and development of resources, passed away in Washington, DC in June 2013. Read more…

OBITUARY: PIERRE MAUROY (1928-2013)

Julia Pascal

 

Pierre Mauroy, who has died aged 84, was France’s first socialist prime  minister under the Fifth Republic. When François Mitterrand was elected president in May 1981, he put Mauroy at the head of a government intent on radical social reform. Though his tenure lasted just three years, he remained a significant figure in the French Socialist party (PS) for the rest of his life. Read more…

IN MEMORY OF ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER (1939-2013)

This issue of INSAF Bulletin is Dedicated to Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer (1939-2013), the Contributing Editor of this Bulletin.

 

In the articles that follow, there will be repetition; however, they reflect the sentiments of the authors and no attempt has been to edit these articles. Tributes to Dr. Engineer have also appeared in several newspapers and periodicals such as Outlook India, Tehelka magazine, Deccan Herald, Dawoodi Bohra Forum and so on. The articles below are personal notes.

ALVIDAH ASGHARBHAI!

Vinod Mubayi

 

Asghar Ali Engineer was a very unique individual in many ways.  His breadth of interests was extremely wide as was his knowledge.  In trying to recover from mourning his death, I have tried to reflect on our 43 years of deep and abiding friendship and association that began in 1969 and lasted until a few days before he passed away when I spoke to him last in the fervent hope that he would recover. Read more…

UNITING THE NATION: ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER’S STRUGGLE FOR PRESERVATION OF PLURAL ETHOS

Ram Puniyani

 

The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different communities along religious lines. The regret is that it is only few social workers and scholars who took this issue in all its seriousness and Asghar Ali Engineer can be counted amongst those few. He also spent major part of his social efforts to fight against the ideology and machinations which led to communal violence and the victimization of minorities, time and over again, year after year. Read more…

LEGACY OF DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

Irfan Engineer

 

A storm has destroyed everything in my life. I am not even beginning to come to terms with the loss in my life. Death, like storm, is in God’s hand and you are so helpless. Never knew that death would snatch my very loving father Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer from us. I was not prepared yet for this colossal loss! But let me remember what he has bequeathed to me. My sister Seema rightly told a reporter that our father wanted us to inherit his legacy equally – legacy of his teachings. In the lull after the storm I am trying to reflect on his legacy to gather some pieces of my inheritance. Read more…

THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

Jyoti Punwani

 

Scholarly, courageous and secular, Asghar Ali Engineer spent his life combating regressive beliefs and practices while presenting a modern, humanistic interpretation of Islam. Read more…

REMEMBERING ASGHARBHAI

Anand Patwardhan

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA6bX6JV9vk

ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER (1939-2013)

Zahir Janmohamed

 

I first met Asghar Ali Engineer in January 2002 in Mumbai. I was a fellow with the America India Foundation and a few weeks later I would be posted to work with an NGO in Ahmedabad. Read more…

SAD DEMISE OF DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

COVA -Team

 

We are shocked to read news of sad demise of Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer. He completed  his journey of life successfully  and left us all  today morning at 9.15 a.m.  after a long illness. Read more…

Dr. ENGINEER AND CERAS IN MONTREAL

Daya Varma and Shree Mulay

 

South Asia Research and Resource Center (CERAS) is a Montreal-based organization concerned with social, political and developmental issues in  South Asia; Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer was invited by CERAS on numerous occasions. Only on one occassion, in the wake of controversies around  Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” his visit was sponsored by a McGill University student organization. Read more…

MY DAY WITH DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

Pritam K. Rohila

 

Spectacled and dressed in an Indian kurta-pajama-waistcoat outfit, I found Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, on January 22, 2004, standing outside the Arrival Hall of the Portland International Airport. After arriving there, around 8:00 p.m., by the United Airlines flight from Washington D.C., he was waiting to be picked up by me. Read more…

MEMORIAL MEETINGS : REMEMBERING DR. ENGINEER

A Memorial meeting was held on May 27 in Mumbai. Other memorial meetings are planned at New York on July 13 at Brecht Forum (451 West St. New York: info: 212 242 4201) as well as at  Montreal (date to be announced)  and Hyderabad on June 5 at  Salarjung Museum at  4.30 pm.

PAKISTAN ELECTIONS

Editors

 

Pakistan election outcome serves as a window to the clash between democratic and anti-democratic forces in South Asia. Whereas the regional importance of political forces in Pakistan reflect the diversity of South Asia, Pakistan elections expose the hollowness of many commentators who were debating whether or not Pakistan is “a failed state”. Overall Pakistan elections are a window to a bright future for South Asia. Below we reproduce a few articles.

A GOOD DAY FOR DEMOCRACY

Feroz Mehdi

 

May 11, 2013 was an important day for Pakistan and a good day for democracy. My five years old daughter will remember this day when she grows up, not only because it is her birth day but also because it was a promising day for the people of her mother’s country of birth. General elections were held which saw the first transition between civilian governments in a country since 66 years of its existence. Read more…

PAKISTANI ELECTIONS 2013 – DEMOCRACY INCHES FORWARD

Kiran Omar

 

The recently concluded general elections in Pakistan were a landmark in several respects; they marked, the first time in the tumultuous 66 years of Pakistan’s existence, a civilian transfer of power from a democratically elected government completing its mandated five -year term. They marked a robust voter turnout, above 55% of the total registered voters, and a surge in first time and young voters. Most importantly, these elections will be long remembered for bringing to fore a third political force in the hitherto two-party paradigm. Read more…

DEMOCRACY, DICHOTOMIES, AND SHADES OF GREY

Beena Sarwar

 

The recent elections in Pakistan show that the country is finally on the right track notwithstanding the rigging, the violence and the brutal prevention of women from voting in some areas by representatives of all the political parties. The huge turnout of women and first time young voters risking their lives to exercise their right to choose is something to celebrate and strengthen, says the writer. Read more…

PAKISTAN: THE WORLD’S BRAVEST DEMOCRACY

Murtaza Haider

 

Pakistan may not be the world’s largest democracy, but is certainly the world’s bravest. Over 50 million voters braved heat, violence, and terrorism to cast their votes and wrote a new chapter in the history of democracy. Read more…

“IT IS MORE THAN JUST A ROTTEN TOOTH….!”

Fr. Cedric Prakash sj

 

As the poll results of the Karnataka Assembly elections trickled in on Wednesday, 8th May, the one person who was in the eye of the storm was Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Read more…

ON MODI’S SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Subhash Gatade

 

The system of untouchability has been a goldmine for the Hindus. This system affords 60 millions of untouchables to do the dirty work of scavenging and sweeping to the 240 million Hindus who are debarred by their religion to do such dirty work. But the work must be done for the Hindus and who else than the untouchables? —Dr B.R. Ambedkar

 

Can shit collection or cleaning of gutters—which has condemned lakhs of people to a life of indignity since ages—be considered a ‘Spiritual Experience’? Definitely not. Everybody would yell. Well, Mr Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has a different take on this, which he mentions in the book ‘Karmayog’ (publication year 2007). Read more…

WHY GARMENT FACTORIES TURN INTO KILLING FIELD?

Anu Muhammad

 

We have witnessed the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh , one beyond any wild calculation and more horrifying than we could even imagine. On April 24, 2013 another garment factory, Rana Plaza in Savar near the capital city of Bangladesh , Dhaka , suddenly turned into a mass grave. The death toll continues to climb and, rising quickly after a few hundred, has already passed 1000, many are still missing. I don’t think anybody has the capacity to capture the extent of grief, heartache, discontent, and anger this horror has created. Read more…

THE BANGLADESH TRAGEDY EXPOSES THE CRUEL FACE OF POVERTY

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

An editorial   titled “Blood Garments” in Economic & Political Weekly (Vol. 48,  May 25, 2013)  says: “The Bangladesh tragedy exposes the callousness of the garment business. The collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza in Bangladesh on 24 April that crushed over 1,127 people, mostly women garment workers, and injured more than 2,500, is now being called the worst industrial accident since the gas leak from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. But neither Rana Plaza nor Bhopal should be thought of as “accidents”. In both instances, the reason for the disaster was deliberate and callous neglect for which the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of those who built the structure, as in Rana Plaza, or those who owned and ran the plant, as in Bhopal.”  Read more…

MUSHAWARAT CONDEMNS THE CUSTODIAL MURDER OF KHALID MUJAHID

The Milli Gazette Online (Online:  May 19, 2013)

 

New Delhi, 19 May, 2013: All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations and eminent personalities, condemned here today the custodial murder of the terror-accused Khalid Mujahid who had been exonerated by the Nimesh Commission but Uttar Pradesh government was playing politics about the release of the falsely accused in the case of the U.P. courts blasts. Nimesh Commission, constituted by the previous BSP government, had presented its report to the state government on 31 August last year. But instead of tabling it in the state assembly with an action taken report, the SP government resorted to gimmicks to show its false concern. The Nimesh report, since leaked, clearly exonerated Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Qasmi and recommended action against named police officers who framed them and fabricated evidence to implicate them. Read more…

DEMOCRACY NEEDS THEIR SONG

Anand Patwardhan

 

They use poetry and song to fight for a just society but the state brands them Naxalites. Anand Patwardhan on the ongoing saga of the KabirKala Manch. Read more…

A HISTORY LESSON FOR MUSLIMS (IN UTTAR PRADESH)

Jamal Kidwai

 

The death of Khalid Mujahid in the custody of Uttar Pradesh police has once again reinforced the perception that the Akhilesh Yadav led-Samajwadi Party has failed to provide security to Muslims in UP. Read more…

“MUSLIMS ATACK” ANOTHER REVERED SHRINE IN DAMASCUS

Saeed Naqvi

 

Millions of Muslims will, in the next few days, observe the birth and death anniversaries of Fatima Zehra, Prophet Mohammad’s daughter. But during this period, the world famous shrine of her daughter, Saiyada Zainab, outside Damascus, holy to millions around the world, will be in grave danger. That remarkable chronicler of London’s “Independent”, Robert Fisk, ascribes the danger to “Salafist mortar fire”. Read more…

BALRAJ SAHNI CENTENARY

Harsh Thakor

 

On May 1ST 2013 we celebrate the centenary of the legendary  Indian actor Balraj Sahni. He was born in Rawalpindi, in Punjab  on May  1st 1913.It is so appropriate that he was born on the historic occasion of May Day as he himself devoted his life to the liberation of the working class. Read more…

PUCL (PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES) ON RECENT KILLING BY MAOISTS

May 26, 2013: PUCL Condemns Killings of Congress Party leaders, their PSOs and Ordinary Villagers by Maoists in Dharba Ghati of Sukma District, Chhattisgarh. Read more…

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY IN INDIA

Dear Friends,

 

We would like to invite you to attend the conference “Campaign Against the Death Penalty in India” to be held from 3pm to 9pm on 10 May 2013 at the Constitution Club of India, Rafi Marg, New Delhi. Read more…

STEPHEN HAWKING BOYCOTTS CONFERENCE IN ISRAEL

Guardian May 9, 2013

 

The celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking became embroiled in a deepening furore today over his decision to boycott a prestigious conference in Israel in protest over the state’s occupation of Palestine. Read more…

INTERVIEW: PHYLLIS BENNIS

Paul Jay, Senior Editor, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to this edition of The Bennis Report with Phyllis Bennis, who now joins us from Washington, D.C. Phyllis is a fellow and the director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. She’s the author of the books Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terrorism and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. Read more…

OBITUARY: JAGJIT SINGH LAYALPURI (1917-2013)

(From ML Update, May 29, 2013)

 

Jagjit Singh Layalpuri, 96, veteran communist and a lifelong crusader for left unity passed away in Ludhiana in Punjab on the night of 27 May at 11  p.m. He was a renowned communist and freedom fighter who dedicated his life  to the struggle for the people’s emancipation. He was among the few in  Punjab who initiated the formation of CPI(M) in Punjab from 1964 onwards. Read more…

OBITUARY: VETERAN COMMUNIST LEADER COM JS LYALLPURY (1917-2013)

(Editor–For a People’s Democracy;  May 28, 2013)

 

Veteran communist and all India general secretary of Marxist Communist Party of India (united) MCPI (U) Comrade Jagjit Singh Lyallpury passed away on May 27,2013 at 11:30 pm after brief illness. Read more…

MAY DAY – AN HISTORIC OCCASION TO CELEBRATE THE STRUGGLES AND SOLIDARITY OF THE WORKING CLASS

Editors

 

In the pre-capitalist era, May Day was a pagan ritual celebrating the advent of spring. But under modern capitalism, the origin of May Day is bound with the struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation, which began with the demand for a shorter workday – a demand of major political significance for the working class. On May 1, 1886, workers took to the streets in a general strike throughout the entire United States to force the ruling class to recognise the eight-hour working day. Over 350,000 workers across the country directly participated in the general strike, with hundreds of thousands of workers joining the marches as best they could. Read more…

WHY SOCIALISM?

Albert Einstein

 

(Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year. The Editors [of Monthly Review])

 

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is. Read more…

APPROACHING SOCIALISM

C.T. Kurien

 

In the mid-1980s, when the socialist People’s Republic of China showed tendencies of turning to the capitalist path of development, a commentator from the West remarked that socialism appeared to be the quickest route from feudalism to capitalism. While that was some kind of a snide remark, the rest of that decade showed that there was reason to raise doubts about the nature and future of socialism, which for a few immediately preceding decades, had appeared to be a global alternative to capitalism. Read more…

HEALTH IS A RIGHT

World  Federation of Trade Unions (25 April 2013)

 

The rate of blood that the working class pays in capitalist countries is unacceptable. At a global level, the professional illnesses continue to be the main cause of death that has their origin in the workplace. According to estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO) out of 2.34 million workplace deaths, 321,000 are due to accidents and 2.2 million are caused by illnesses related to work. This means that every day 6,411 workers die as a consequence of their work. Read more…

THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM STILL MEETING ITS’ CHALLENGE

Immanuel Wallerstein

 

The World Social Forum (WSF) has just ended its now biennial meeting, held this time in Tunis. It was very largely ignored by the world’s mainstream press. It was attended by many skeptics who pronounced its irrelevance, something that has occurred at every meeting since the second WSF in 2002. It was torn by debates about the very structure of the WSF. It was filled with debates about the correct political strategy for the world left. And despite this, it was an enormous success. Read more…

THE NINTH CONGRESS OF CPI (ML)-LIBERATION

Daya Varma

 

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation held its 9th party Congress at Ranchi from April 2-6, 2013. Read more…

INDIAN TRADE UNIONS ARE GETTING BIGGER, COINCIDING WITH SLOWDOWN

Sreelatha Menon

 

This is also more than the total membership size of all trade unions in the previous survey conducted in 2008. Early data emerging from the ongoing survey of trade unions in India have revealed they are growing by leaps and bounds from what they were five years ago, contrary to popular belief they are losing their sheen and diminishing by size with the rapid contractualisation of labour. Read more…

CRUSHED LIVES, CRUSHED DREAMS

Omar Rashid Chowdhury

 

Bangladesh stands petrified as an unprecedented horror unfolds in Savar, near the capital city of Dhaka.  In the morning of the 24th of April, a nine-story building crashed down in Savar Bazaar.  Thousands of garments workers were in the building.  The death toll, as of this writing, was more than 175 [as of April 28, the death toll is estimated to reach 375], with over 1,000 injured, according to a Dhaka daily.  Thousands are still trapped under the pile of concrete rubble. Read more…

BANGLADESHIS BURN FACTORIES TO PROTEST UNSAFE CONDITIONS

Julfikar Ali Manik, Jim Yardley and Steven Greenhouse

 

DHAKA, Bangladesh

 

Thousands of garment workers rampaged through industrial areas of the capital of Bangladesh on Friday, smashing vehicles with bamboo poles and setting fire to at least two factories in violent protests ignited by a deadly building collapse this week that killed at least 324 workers [perhaps as many as 1,000]. Read more…

BANGLADESH FACTORY DISASTER: HOW CULPABLE ARE WESTERN COMPANIES?

Brian Montopoli

 

“How many more workers have to die, before these corporations are willing to take the steps necessary to put an end to this parade of horror?”

 

A Bangladeshi rescuer looking for survivors gestures from beneath a concrete slab of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, April 25, 2013. Read more…

APPEAL FROM JAIL: STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH US FOR JUSTICE

Maruti Suzuki Workers Union

 

We are workers of Maruti Suzuki, who are behind bars since July 18, 2012 as part of a conspiracy, and without any just investigation. 147 of us are inside Gurgaon Central Jail. Read more…

TRINAMOOL CONGRESS (TMC) TERROR IN WEST BENGAL

(ML Update, CPI (ML) Weekly, 16–22 APRIL 2013

 

The custodial killing of student activist Sudipto Gupta in West Bengal sparked off protests all over West Bengal and beyond. Since then, a veritable reign of terror of the ruling TMC has been unleashed in West Bengal. Offices of Left parties, including several CPI(M) offices and at least one CPI(ML) office, have been torched and vandalised in the State. And the attack by TMC cadres on Presidency University (presumably because of the fact that many Presidency students have been vocal and active against several acts of high-handedness by the TMC Government) has underscored that the TMC Government is at war with dissent and democracy. Read more…

SHADOWS OF TRIDENT: MODI AS PRIME MINISTERIAL CANDIDATE

Ram Puniyani

 

From last several months (April 2013) the Bihar Chief Minister Niteesh Kumar is becoming more vocal about his opposition to his electoral ally BJP projecting Narendra Modi as the Prime ministerial candidate. He went on to say that the PM candidate should be one who has a secular image, in obvious reference to Narendra Modi’s role in Gujarat carnage of 2002. Read more…

DEFEAT COMMUNAL FORCES IN THE FORTHCOMING GENERAL ELECTIONS

Irfan Engineer

 

UPA (United Progressive Alliance) – II, now in minority but supported from outside by SP , BSP and RJD is about a year away from facing general elections. In its final year the Central Government is experiencing various pulls and pressures from tough allies. The largest party in UPA-II – Congress is negotiating space for pushing economic reforms desperately needed by the elite class and the corporate sector to increase their surplus rapidly which is euphemistically called growth by economists and development by political class. Read more…

MAULANA ABDUL KALAM AZAD

Shorish Kashmiri,  Matbooat Chattan, Lahore

 

Congress president (Late) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad gave the following interview to journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. It was a time when the Cabinet Mission was holding its proceedings in Delhi and Simla. Azad made some startling predictions during the course of the interview, saying that religious conflict would tear apart Pakistan and its eastern half would carve out its own future. He even said that Pakistan’s incompetent rulers might pave the way for military rule. Read more…

MARGARET THATCHER DEAD: (The Iron Lady took too Long to Rust, ed.)

Morrissey blasts former PM as “barbaric” just hours after her death (April 8, 2013)

 

The musician has been a long-time critic of the former Prime Minister and aired his views in songs like Margaret On The Guillotine Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: UNTOUCHABLE GOD

Author:  Kancha Ilaiah

 

Reviewer:  Poornima Joshi

 

 

Kancha Ilaiah is not an easy scholar to digest, with his brutal polemic against the Brahminical dominance of the Indian caste order. His latest assault, appropriately titled Untouchable God, is a progression of the unique line of argument he has forwarded since he burst onto the Indian sociological scene with his seminal work Why I am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy. Read more…

OBITUARY: JUSTICE J.S. VERMA (1933-2013)

Farah Naqvi

 

To pay tribute to the man who left a legacy of justice is to promise to keep the fight ongoing. Read more…

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