2020

by Naren Singh Rao
Bhagat Singh is one of the most unique and rarest of revolutionaries who significantly stand out amongst all revolutionists- his predecessors, contemporaries and successors. He did not just go to the gallows as a nationalist revolutionary. Rather, while striving to achieve political transformation, he ardently aspired to bring about deep social revolution by annihilating the retrograde and reactionary societal-cultural practices, ideologies and institutions. Hence, his (…)

The Karelia Supreme Court in Russia has overturned two acquittals and increased the sentence against world-renowned historian of the Soviet Terror, Yuri Dmitriev, to 13 years in a strict regime penal colony. This is an effective death sentence for the 64-year-old historian, and one that was passed behind closed doors in the absence of his lawyer and with Dmitriev himself prevented from being present and from properly hearing the proceedings.
[The below statement first appeared on (…)

[September 30, 2020]
Joint Press Statement
On 29th September 2020 India has once again failed Dalit Women and Girls in upholding their rights and safety; we have lost another young life to the savage brutal gangrape and murder. This brutal incident occurred on 14th September in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh and once again exposes the harsh realities of caste based sexual assault faced by Dalit women and girls in this country. Victim was dragged with the dupatta around her neck into the field (…)

September 30, 2020
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been with us since 1988, ever since the largely ethnic Armenian population of this province of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic demanded a union with Armenia. The ensuing war ended in 1994 with Nagorno-Karabakh and some neighboring Azerbaijani territories under Armenian control and nearly a million people as refugees. Ever since then, as Azerbaijan has tried to retrieve the lost territories and the occasional negotiations proving (…)

The chaos in the Rajya Sabha and the controversy in the country created by the passing of three farmers’ bills could have been avoided, if the government were simply inclusive. This ongoing tension between the government on the one hand and the Opposition, farmers, non-BJP states on the other is purely due to the governance deficit under the present Narendra Modi regime. The present government does not believe in consultation with the stakeholders, hardly listens to the Opposition and (…)

IMPRESSIONS By re-writing history, can Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh delete history? What has happened has happened. By omitting facts from textbooks, we will not make them non-facts; we will only make tomorrow’s students uninformed. Throughout history and across cultures, those in power have tried to restructure history to suit themselves. Facts were buried in the process, but they remained facts for impartial students to dig up and study.
Politicians, being narrowly (…)

Recently visits of the US health secretary, Alex Azar and the U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and environment, keith Krach to Taiwan inspired further anger and wrath from China.China in retaliation against Taiwan sent 12 J-16 fighters, two J-10 fighters, two J-11 fighters, two H-6 bombers and one Y-S anti-submarine aircrafts which crossed the Taiwan midline, some crossing Taiwan’s air defence identification zone and south-west coast. Taiwan has recently complained of (…)

by P. S Jayaramu
From the upbeat relationship between India and China, thanks to the informal summit meetings between Prime Minister Modi and the Chinese President Xi JinPing in Wuhan in 2018, Mamallapuram in 2019 and Ahmedabad in march this year to the brutal killing of 20 Indian soldiers by the Chinese in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on 15-16th June and their continuing build up on the north bank of Pangong lake, bilateral relations between relations between India and China have (…)

The present world order is experiencing changes in various areas such as foreign policy international relations and a new trade order.The present pandemic has made it necessary for govts.to question the efficacy of regional organization and the functioning of the U.N. and its specialized agencies in dealing with emergent issues. The crisis that confronts all nations because of covid-19 poses serious consequences in the near future. Due to economic slow-down, new geo-political alliances have (…)

by Akhilendra Pratap Singh Recently, senior journalist Santosh Bhartiya interviewed me on the contradictions of left movement. Responding to his question, I said that for me left movement in India is a democratic movement which stands for democratisation of state and society. I also said that call it irony of history or tragedy that the three major streams of democratic movement could not evolve mutual political understanding for a broad political coalition. Coming together on a common (…)