2021

On August 31, the United States will officially close its role in Afghanistan, which is by far the most unfortunate country in the world today. This day will also mark the Final Betrayal of the Afghan nation by the world at large, a process in which the United States has been playing the lead role. The country today has been deserted by all except a handful, such as, Iran and India. In totality, this is the saddest moment in recent history.
The stark reality at this moment is that (…)

Recent death of Father Stan Swamy in judicial custody amply testifies that we are living in a State of Exception: “...modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system”. (Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, The University of Chicago Press, 2005) (…)

by Arun Srivastava
A series of remembrances have since been held in honour of Father Stan Swamy, Jesuit priest and defender of the rights of Jharkhand’s tribal communities, with Church leaders, social activists and academics shedding their tears to console his death in the custody of the NIA.
Swamy was made to languish in the jail custody nearly for a year. NIA used the dirty designs to thwart his trail. Denial of trial is indeed a sad commentary on the functioning of judiciary which (…)

by Pradip Baksi *
“The history of mankind is like palaeontology. Owing to a certain judicial blindness, even the best minds fail to see, on principle, what lies in front of their noses. Later, when the time has come, we are surprised that there are traces everywhere of what we failed to see”.—Мarx to Engels, 25 March1868 (MECW 42: 557).
“... and here, as everywhere, it is important to tear off the veil of mystery from science”. “Taylor’s theorem, MacLaurin’s theorem and Lagrangian (…)

by Bogdan Costea and Peter Watt
June 29, 2021
One summer night in August, 1935, a young Soviet miner named Alexei Stakhanov managed to extract 102 tonnes of coal in a single shift. This was nothing short of extraordinary (according to Soviet planning, the official average for a single shift was seven tonnes).
Stakhanov shattered this norm by a staggering 1,400%. But the sheer quantity involved was not the whole story. It was Stakhanov’s achievement as an individual that became the most (…)

by Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 2021 (IPS) - Undoubtedly, the world needs to reform existing food systems to better serve humanity and sustainable development. But the United Nations World Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) must be consistent with UN-led multilateralism.
For the first time ever, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a partnership of some of the world’s most powerful corporations, is partnering the UN in launching the Summit, now scheduled for September, with its (…)

India is not alone in experiencing the paradox of more areas becoming exposed to floods even as the expenditure on flood protection goes on increasing. Many countries have experienced this . Clearly we need a review of basic thinking related to flood protection.
There are some floods which are very highly destructive and/or prolonged. Clearly we need to check such floods. Some of the most destructive floods in recent years have been those caused by embankment breaches and sudden release of (…)

by K. Kalita and R. Barman *
It has long been evident that there is a close relationship of human society and its activities with the modern concept of ecology-ecosystem in an area, region or a country or the globe as a whole. In the beginning, the term ecology or its equivalent one, such as oekologie coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1886, ethology and hexicology used respectively by I.G.S Hilaire and S.G. Mivart before Haeckel had their only strong based in biological sciences. Today the term (…)

by Kunal Kumar Yadav *
Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in history. For the first time a pandemic has affected the humanity on such a large scale. It has affected the social, political and economic aspects of the human life in equally devastating manner. The pandemic has brought an unprecedented political problem in front of the mankind. Political is basically the articulation of the public events in a democratic manner. The pandemic has affected the Political in a (…)

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Peace, Poverty and Betrayal: A New History of British India
by Roderick Matthews
HarperCollins India
20 June 2021
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 440 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354227325 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354227325
Peace, Poverty and Betrayal: A New History of British India by Roderick Matthews https://www.amazon.in/dp/9354227325/
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If freelance writer Roderick Matthews is to be believed, Indians complain too much about British (mis)rule of the sprawling (…)