2021

Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Stop Sale of India
August 24, 2021
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
The Central Government has officially announced the sale of India.
The National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) released by the Finance Minister yesterday, details the loot of our national assets and infrastructure. This is an outright plunder of people’s wealth.
Selling family silver to meet daily expenditure makes (…)

Why We Should Study Mahasweta Devi, Sukirtharani and Bama’s Writings in the English Hons. Syllabus in Delhi University
On August 24, 2021, ‘Draupadi’, the short story by Mahasweta Devi, two poems by Sukirtharani and selections from Bama’s Sangati were deleted from the syllabus for students of English Literature by Delhi University. Mahasweta Devi has been part of the syllabus for a while now, while Sukirtharani and Bama have been added later in a continuous exploration and expansion of the (…)

Friends of the Earth International.
"Statement demanding a postponement of COP-26
(Several other large Climate Justice networks have issued similar demands).
7 September 2021
"Friends of the Earth International joins calls for the postponement of the Glasgow COP26 climate negotiations in less than eight weeks. The UK government has not created the conditions necessary to host a safe, accessible and equitable COP, and the conference should not be held at the risk of human life and (…)

* Letter to the readers, Mainstream, September 4, 2021
* A Plea for Liberal Education | Avijit Pathak
* J.P. Naik and The Art of The Educational Revolution | Murzban Jal
* Pandemic, Knowledge and Society | Banhi Baran Ghosh
* Socialism and the Human Individual In Marx’s Work | Paresh Chattopadhyay

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, September 4, 2021
In the past seven years, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government of India and the various arms of the Hindutva right have been busy marking governmental institutions and society with their own ideological and social trademark. A reshaping of the social environment has been underway for some time. The process underway is directed at our minds at our social heritage and historical backdrop –-from built heritage, monuments, to social (…)

by Avijit Pathak
To begin with, let me make it clear. What I am going to write is not something bookish—yet another soulless academic exercise. Instead, my words emanate from the authenticity of my experience: the entire process of self-churning that I pass through as a learner, a teacher or a wanderer. Yes, I know that education, as social anthropologists are fond of saying, is a process of transmission of the entire social heritage— its traditions, symbols and knowledges— from one (…)

by Murzban Jal
In the era where one form of elites is opposed to another, where liberalism is not only opposed to conservatism, but where the former claims to confront conservatism and authoritarianism and then claims to solve all problems of the world from wars and hunger to the Taliban, it is necessary to recall what revolution and the art of revolution means. And since revolutions do not spring from the air, but occur in the manner that Lenin had pointed out in his What is to be Done?, (…)

by Banhi Baran Ghosh*
Abstract
Last one year, plunged into disarray and bewilderment, has caused great upheavals and rampages in the society. One way of confronting this is to embark upon how we do acquire a kind of knowledge that would guide us through this untrammeled rush of so many odds to the lasting abode. This article makes an attempt to articulate the rationality of a kind of knowledge that would, in all probability, embolden the society in pious courses to develop a persuasive (…)

In the normal course of things, people feel jealous of Mukesh Ambani for the phenomenal wealth he commands. I feel sorry for him. What is the use of wealth if it restricts your freedoms? He has more money than I have, but less freedom. I can have fun driving around in my car, continuously wondering about the old gear civilisation and today’s automatic culture. Ambani has a fleet of cars, but enjoying them is something else. You can enjoy a car, but you cannot enjoy an armoured vehicle, (…)

In summarizing the devastating impact of the two World Wars, Hannah Arendt wrote in 1950: “Never has our future been more unpredictable...”. She also explained her reading of the post-war world: “Under the most diverse conditions and disparate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena — homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth”. (Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Preface to the first edition, 1951)
During the seven (…)