2021

[Listen to BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent - the report from Jonathan Head on Feb 6, 2021]
BBC Radio, Feb 6, 2021
TEXT OF TRANSCRIPT: THE LADY AND THE GENERAL
BBC Correspondent Jonathan Head reports from Yangon, Myanmar:
Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader was once idolised as the champion of freedom, but who, in defending the generals against charges of genocide, was then denounced as a fallen angel.
Myanmar is a fearfully complicated country with a history that is traumatic even by (…)

by Mikael Gravers *
2 February 2021
Early in the morning on 1 February 2021, the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) arrested President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, along with other high-ranking National League for Democracy (NLD) members. As the military staged the coup, armoured cars and soldiers guarded radio and television stations and the parliament. The Tatamadaw closed the NLD office in Mandalay and searched for activists known to oppose military rule, such as the (…)

Marx’s reading of the Asian societies, particularly his concept of the “Asiatic mode of production”, has led to controversies in the political and academic communities at different points of time. A scholar, Kimio Shiozawa, argued: “Marx’s view of Asian society and his theory of the Asiatic mode of production developed gradually over time, and his early views are not the same as those of his later years”. (Kimio Shiozawa, Marx’s View of Asian Society and His “Asiatic Mode of Production”, The (…)

by Ranjit Devraj
[NEW DELHI] Perched high up in the Western Ghats, adjacent to Kerala’s famed Periyar wildlife sanctuary, is a 126-year-old dam that has dangerously outlived the 50 years of life intended for it by colonial British engineers.
N.K. Premachandran, a member of parliament from Kerala, describes the 53.6 metre-high Mullaperiyar dam on the Periyar river as “a ticking timebomb waiting to explode, not only because of its antiquity but also because it is located on an acknowledged (…)

[TEXT OF STATEMENT RELEASED BY WOMEN AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND STATE REPRESSION (WSS) ON FEBRUARY 2, 2021 - contact E-mail: againstsexualviolence[at]gmail.com]
WSS strongly condemns the arrest and custodial sexual violence perpetrated by the Haryana Police in Kundli Industrial Area against 24-year-old Dalit worker Nodeep Kaur
Demand the immediate release of Nodeep Kaur and Shiv Kumar and cessation of targeting of workers and peasants by the Haryana Police!
On January 12th 2021, the (…)

The Editors Guild of India
PRESS STATEMENT
February 10, 2021
Editors Guild of India statement on ED raids at the office of NewsClick.in, and residences of its senior journalists and officials
The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned about the raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), at the office of the independent news website NewsClick.in, the residences of its editor-in-chief and promoter, the editor, as well as some of its senior management officials.
In the recent (…)

The prompt and timely statement issued by the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) on February 9 against the targeting of online news and opinion portal Newsclick (as well as the targeting of other independent and critical media voices) by the union government deserves wider support and backing by other media organizations, journalists, citizens, and all those who value free press and democracy.
The statement issued by the DUJ says, “We view these raids as a serious attack on the online media (…)

On 30th January I drove to Gandhi Smriti to pay my respects to Bapu – a man who led the freedom struggle and laid down his life for us. I was denied entry as it was being ‘visited by VVIPs’. So I drove on to the Press Club of India where there was a large gathering to protest against six journalists being charged with sedition; including Caravan editors, Paresh Nath, Anant Nath, and journalists, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod Jose, Zafar Agha and Mrinal Pande. Also Shashi Tharoor well known (…)

by Ram Puniyani
As per Indian Constitution India is a secular democratic Country. Lately Hindu nationalism has started impacting the nature of state and citizenship in a very strong way. As Indian Nationalism developed during freedom movement, Hindu nationalism and Muslim Nationalism came as opposites of Indian Nationalism. The origin of Hindu nationalism and also Muslim Nationalism can be traced to colonial period. During colonial period, when the rising freedom movement was articulating (…)

When people of my hoary age
Fight for life at the embattled border,
Undeterred by the bitter of the chill,
Or by the strangulations wrought by order
Of authority deaf to human sound,
Smirking reptilian at their plight,
Is it meet that I look for a pillow
To go into a tired, restful night?
Let me rather draw example from those
Who spoke of life in their dying breath,
And snatched warm human camraderie
And denied justice from the jaws of death.
Let death come when it will
While (…)