2020

Gathered in La Paz for Arce’s inauguration, left-wing leaders from eleven Latin American and European countries used the historic occasion to issue a declaration warning of the growing threat internationally of extreme-right violence and the harnessing of the pandemic for anti-democratic ends.

Statement by President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and President of the Russian Federation
November 10, 2020
We, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, state the following:
1. A complete ceasefire and termination of all hostilities in the area of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is declared starting 12:00 am (…)

by Jon Henley, Europe correspondent, and Kasia Strek in Warsaw
6 Nov 2020
Mass demonstrations have exposed underlying anger at political and religious interference in people’s everyday lives
For 14 nights they have marched, enraged by a near-total ban on abortion that has stirred a generation to stage the largest mass demonstrations that Poland has seen since Solidarność toppled the communist regime in the 1980s.
Until soaring coronavirus numbers and a looming national lockdown made (…)

by Theo Neethling
September 23, 2020
Recent media reports claim that a covert Kenyan paramilitary team is responsible for the unconstitutional killing of terror suspects in nighttime raids. The reports are based on interviews with US and Kenyan diplomatic and intelligence officials.
The team was trained, armed and supported by US and British intelligence officers.
It has been reported that since 2004, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programme has been operational in Kenya without (…)

Table of Contents, Mainstream, Nov 7, 2020 Letter to the Readers, Mainstream - Nov 7, 2020 US Elections 2020: Decline of America as a Leader of Democracy | Vijay Kumar US Elections 2020: Is the show finally over for Donald Trump? | Judith Butler Who Can Resist The Magic Of Oratory | TJS George Contours of ‘Freedom of Expression’ | Chittarvu Raghu New Farm Laws: For Farmers or Corporates? | K N Ninan Tapan Bandyopadhyay and Marxian temper | Sankar Ray How Neo-liberalism Works in India? | Arup (…)

The 2020 US Presidential race produced a huge drama and drew exceptionally large participation by the electorate, after a photo finish. Joe Biden has now been declared the winner of this very close electoral battle by all major media networks across the US. He will now become the 46th president of the USA. President Donald Trump continues to raise the red herring of electoral fraud and denigrate the integrity of the American electoral system and thereby eroding trust in the democratic (…)

The counting of votes for U.S. Presidential election has gone down to the wire and it is heading for a nail-biting finish. Once again, Poll Punditry has gone awfully wrong. Whoever wins, the American democracy and its liberal model is going to be big looser. Even if Joe Biden succeeds in winning the race for White House, as presently appears, he will emerge as a bruised leader. On the other hand, the victory of Trump will be an unmitigated disaster for US democracy.
The deadlock in (…)

by Judith Butler *
We know that Trump will try to do anything to stay in power, to avoid that ultimate catastrophe in life – becoming a ‘loser’
5 November 2020
There was never any question that Donald Trump would fail to make a gracious and swift exit. The only question for many of us was just how destructive he would become in the course of his downfall. I know “downfall” is usually reserved for kings and tyrants, but we are operating in that theatre, except here the king is at once (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Donald Trump damaged American democracy as much as Boris Johnson damaged the British. But the intrinsic strength of the American and British systems will make their recovery easy. Unfortunately that cannot be said about India. The damage inflicted by Narendra Modi’s use of power to promote Hindutva partisanship on the one hand and his own persona on the other will not lend itself to easy repair. Not only has he been at it for six years with two more to go; he has been (…)

by Chittarvu Raghu *
The French Constitution discourages religious involvement in government affairs and policies of the State. The government is barred from involving in religious affairs. 1905 French law separates churches and the State. The form of secularism emphasises respect for freedom of thought and freedom of religion. An individual is at liberty to express his thought on a religion without any reasonable restriction.
This concept of secularism propelled several violent acts (…)