Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: WORLD’S OLDEST AND LARGEST “DEMOCRACIES”: ENABLING GENOCIDE, ADVANCING TO FASCISM
Vinod Mubayi
When the Soviet Union collapsed, one of the premier intellectuals of the neoliberal order, Francis Fukuyama, proclaimed the ‘end of history.’ By this he meant that, contrary to the claims of Marxian analysts, there existed no alternative any more to liberal democracy as the only future socio-political order and capitalism as the only economic system. However, this prediction of the future appears to have been short lived. The world’s oldest democracy, the U.S., and the world’s largest democracy, India, are fast descending into authoritarian regimes. The road to fascism, shown by the experience of Europe a century ago, is just a few short steps away.
Read more…HOW BRITAIN’S ‘KING OF COMPOST’ VISITED KARACHI FOR A ‘SOIL HEALTH’ EVENT THAT BECAME SO MUCH MORE
Nazish Saad
Everything comes from the soil, and so did this project.
Last month, what began as a small, personally funded single event on ‘soil health’ in Karachi mushroomed into Pakistan’s first ‘Soil Health Week’, involving multiple towns across Sindh, and even online.
Read more…THE WORLD ECONOMY’S CENTRE OF GRAVITY SHIFTS TO ASIA
Vijay Prashad
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
On the last day of October 2025, leaders from the 21 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will meet in the city of Gyeongju in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) for the organisation’s 33rd summit. Since its founding in 1989 in Canberra, Australia, APEC has promoted building a zone of ‘free and open trade’ – a concept outlined by the Bogor Goals, which came out of the summit in Indonesia in 1994.
Read more…HOW KERALA ERADICATED EXTREME POVERTY
S.R. Praveen
On November 1, the Kerala government is set to declare the State extreme poverty-free, the culmination of a four-year-long strenuous exercise. Four lakh enumerators fanned out across the State and identified the most marginalised. The local bodies then devised micro-plans to suit each family. The government claims that the programme uplifted 1,03,099 people from extreme poverty. S.R. Praveen interacts with some of the beneficiaries and also listens to dissenting voices.
Read more…BIHAR ELECTIONS: THE CLOSE CONNECTION OF CRIME AND POLITICS
Mohd. Imran Khan
Hundreds of candidates in the fray face criminal cases. Dreaded bahubalis fielded by key political parties.
Read more…THREE PAKISTANI WEDDINGS IN TIMES OF WAR
Zehra Khan
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being woken up at half past three in the morning by missiles striking your city, you’ll know that, in a state of grogginess, they sound, oddly, like urgent knocking on your bedroom door.
Read more…HOW INDIA DROPPED THE DIPLOMACY BALL
Mani Shankar Aiyar
Having met, worked with, and worked against Pakistani diplomats for most of my octogenarian life, the only reason I have found to favour Partition is that without it, I would probably not have made it to the Foreign Service! So able were my Pakistani peers.
Read more…TAJ MAHAL: MOTIVATED CONTROVERSIES BEING RAISED YET AGAIN
Ram Puniyani
Taj Mahal, regarded as one of the seven wonders of the World, is one of the major markers for India on the World map. It is a poem on marble; Guru Rabindranath Tagore described it as ‘drop of tear on the cheek of time’. Its beauty and fascination as a symbol of love is remarkable. It is a UNESCO heritage site and is maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. It is a marvel on marble and its replicas were given as the gift to the visiting heads of state.
Read more…“PUNITIVE ACTIONS AGAINST PRISONERS ARE SEEN AS A DEMONSTRATION OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL”
Anand Teltumbde
In The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, the scholar and activist Anand Teltumbde writes about his incarceration in Taloja Central Prison. He spent 31 months in prison, as an undertrial in what is broadly termed the Bhima Koregaon case, before being released on bail in November 2022. In this excerpt from the book, he reflects on the prison’s surveillance system, its bureaucracy and various systemic failures, including suspensions of phone facilities and rejections of applications from prisoners. “Being cut off from the outside world for four weeks during the pandemic—when the entire nation was gripped by anxiety—was a harrowing experience,” he writes. “We wanted to approach the court, but how could we do so without any means of communication?”
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