2020

by Dr V Raman Kutty
August 2, 2020
A son remembers a life in Indian communism
Indian communists have a unique distinction that they normally don’t like to acknowledge: among the world’s communist parties, they have had one of the longest experiences of engaging legitimately with an electoral democratic process. I don’t deny that erstwhile communist parties of Western Europe, such as the French and the Italian, had sizeable support among the electorate. However, most of them went into (…)

[This year marks the 100th year of the Non-cooperation movement, a landmark moment in India’s Freedom Struggle. The below extended review essay allows us to travel back and reflect on the aspects of history of the non-cooperation movement and after] __5__
MAKING SENSE OF HISTORY: SOCIETY, CULTURE AND POLITICS Mushirul Hasan Manohar Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi, 2003
I
Mushirul Hasan has since the late 1970s been an articulate scholar especially of the Muslim-related (…)

by Manish Sharma, Akhilesh Mishra
When society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live — forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence — (…)

by Govind Bhattacharjee *
Abstract: Despite its many flaws, capitalism has survived many challenges, showing a remarkable resilience for adaptation. But the current pandemic has thrown it into a crisis that calls for resetting its very premises. The pandemic that has mutilated economies, lives and livelihood across the globe and shows no sign of abetting as yet has also taught us that our needs are actually rather limited and that we do not need elaborate production machinery to produce (…)

The nomination of Kamala Harris, the first Asian American woman of colour as the Democratic Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate is historic. It marks a moment of celebration for immigrant communities and the black community in particular across all sections. Increasing pressures on Joe Biden to choose a woman of colour after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020 reveal the upsurge of minority politics. Not only have black voters played a significant role in Harris’s (…)

Racism, like communalism, Brahmanism (casteism) and the gender, is not an attribute of biology but an ideology that is constructed, reconstructed, nurtured and perpetuated in the day-to-day life and intellectual discourses

Why did socialist societies reverse, inspite of being economically far more just? Why did some of their leaders become dictators? Why does money and power corrupt the best of persons? Why do comrades willing to give their lives for revolution, become, at times, the worst autocrats within the organisation, with even a little power? In short why does human nature change for the negative with power (money), and how can we acquire positive values needed, not only to bring and sustain an (…)

Deprivation, Unemployment, poverty migrants across the world are stranded in different places after the evacuation and unlock measures with strict protocols we come across that there are also several migrants who have not reached their destination due to insecurity of jobs and utter fear of poverty and loss of livelihood due to the pandemic. The lockdown to accommodate the proliferation of COVID-19 has led to an astounding humanitarian catastrophe which the state has grappled to manoeuvre. (…)

MUSINGS
September 16, 2020
In Mumbai, Sushant Singh Rajput’s death is turning into a full-fledged political war between the BJP and the Opposition. Its also being ‘used’ by starlets and socialites to get into the political arena and grab all possible mileage. An ambitious lot are to be seen all over on the small screen, coming with their politically-tilted theories. Pathetic! And here, in the national capital, the investigation in the North East Delhi pogrom is turning out to be more (…)

PRESS STATEMENT released on 16th September 2020 Press Club of India, New Delhi,
We have gathered here today to express our collective anguish at the sheer brazenness with which the Delhi police has turned the investigation into the February violence in Delhi into an inquisition of the anti-CAA protests. Just two days ago, Umar Khalid was taken into custody and booked under UAPA and several other criminal sections, thereby adding to the list of anti-CAA protestors languishing behind bars. (…)