2021

by Andrew Lichterman
July 6, 2021
Twenty-five years ago this month, the International Court of Justice issued its Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons. In a closely divided ruling, the Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would "generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." In the same divided ruling, however, the Court found (…)

July 11, 2021
Like the proverbial whack-a-mole, the Olympic sex test keeps coming back — with disastrous effects for women athletes across the globe — no matter how many times athletes and human rights’ advocates think they have abolished it.
The test was introduced in the 1930s to weed out “abnormal women athletes” from the Olympics. The first test was a physical examination.
During the 1960s, when women began to object to the test’s “nude parades,” which set a limit of 10 nanomoles (…)

by R.G.Gidadhubli*
Ukraine and USA have carried out ‘Annual Sea Breeze Military Exercises’ from 4th to 10th July 2021 in the Kherson Region of Ukraine on the coast of Black Sea near Odessa, which assumes significance due to its timing, magnitude and intent of this military exercises. At the same time it raises few debatable issues apart from worsening relations between Russia and Ukraine.
Firstly, for both USA and Ukraine 4th July is important since it is America’s Independence Day (…)

Sixty years after Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth his image is used to market privatised space travel to the ultra-rich, Thomas Ellis reports.
20 May 2021
Last month space enthusiasts around the world celebrated sixty years of human spaceflight. On the twelfth of April 1961, a twenty-seven-year-old Soviet Air Force officer named Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his spacecraft Vostok 1. Across the Russian Federation, (…)

The Editors Guild of India
PRESS STATEMENT
July 12th, 2021
Editors Guild of India is deeply disturbed by the continuing trend of heavy-handedness by the state authorities in Uttar Pradesh with respect to journalists and media. The latest incident is that of an assault on a journalist by the Chief Development Officer (CDO), in the district of Unnao, UP, on July 10, 2021, when the former was covering polling for Block Pramukh elections. In a video that has gone viral on social media, (…)

The Indian History Congress
Recently, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat came out with a notice stating that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports (EWCY&S) has “taken up for examination and consideration the subject ‘Reforms in the Content and Design of School Text Books’ with focus on removing references to un-historical facts and distortions about national heroes; ensuring equal or proportionate references to all periods of Indian history and (…)

All India Forward Bloc - Central Committeee Netaji Bhawan T 2235/2, Ashok Nagar, Faiz Road, Karol Bagh New Delhi - 110005 www.forwardbloc.org
PRESS RELEASE
14th July 2021, New Delhi
US, HANDS OFF FROM CUBA
Over the past six decades the Cuba has been hit by the economic sanctions imposed by the US administration. The US attempts of putting “Maximum Pressure” on Cuban government and instigate the people for counter revolution are being thwart by the revolutionary people of Cuba again (…)

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, July 10, 2021
The week gone by saw a sudden news that a court in France had accepted a law suit filed by an NGO regarding possible corruption in the Rafale warplane sale deal between a French firm and the Indian government. This is good news for India’s opposition parties that have long demanded a parliamentary probe into this affair, it confirms some of their doubts. Given the current balance of forces in India’s Parliament it seems difficult to imagine (…)

* Union Cabinet Reshuffle and Its Impact on Bengal BJP | Barun Das Gupta
* How to take on the BJP in 2024 | Sanjay Jha
* Stan, now part of the Adivasi folklore of resistance->http:/et | John Dayal

IMPRESSIONS
July 4, 2021
From Shah Jahan to Narendra Modi is a long way. But we need to take note of it because it is a journey dictated by history and, like all such journeys, it opens a window to the making of the country. It brings out the contradictions that made India now a triumph of mankind, now a misadventure. In many ways, it is something of a wonder that Shah Jahan’s India and Narendra Modi’s India are one and the same. But are they?
Shah Jahan was no doubt a (…)