2021

May 25, 2021
Human Rights Violation Cases Are Increasing Under Hasina Regime
Bam Ganatantrik Jote (Left Democratic) front comprising Bangladesh Samajtontri Dal, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Samajtontri Dal Marxvadi, United Communist League of Bangladesh, Samajtontri Andolan and Ganatantric Biplabi Dal in a joint statement demanded that the criminal case against the leading Bengali morninger Prothom Alo senior reporter Rozina Islam be withdrawn unconditionally. The forty-two (…)

[The below article was written before the May 20, 2021 ceasefire between Israel and Gaza came into effect]
by Hillel Schenker *
May 18, 2021
Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas hope to benefit from the latest round of violence between the Israelis and Palestinians while civilians on both sides suffer.
In March, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was unable to achieve a parliamentary majority in the Knesset after a fourth Israeli election in two years. As a result, he needed a national crisis (…)

by Andrew Plowman *
Abstract
This article examines the re-emergence of the military memoir in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) since the deployment of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the FRG, to Afghanistan as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in 2001. The resurgence of a literary form associated in the 1950s with the apologetics of officers of the Wehrmacht, Hitler’s army, and the construction of a usable Second World War past is striking. The (…)

by R G Gidadhubli
The news of the arrest of young Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich on 23rd May was highlighted by the global media since he was caught in the Ryanair flight from Greece to Baltic State Lithuania by forcibly diverting the plane to Belarus on the orders of the President of Belarus Lukashenko. As per reports the Belarusian security agents allegedly used a bomb hoax to force the commercial airliner Ryanair carrying Pratasevich to catch and arrest him. Security people (…)

by Radha Kanta Barik
(This is a study of an island of twenty two villages of Cuttack District where endemic poverty and hunger were there before migration happened. Rural society has got transformed into a reasonable prosperous society because of migration to different places. We have applied the method of participant observation for finding the truth.)
Introduction
The government of Odisha has treated the migrant workers in a somewhat reasonable way. (Barik 2020) The government knows (…)

by Vijay Kumar *
The suo motu cognizance taken by the Supreme Court and it’ detailed order on 30th April seeking numerous relevant information on multiple issues concerning deadly second wave of covid-19 and already ongoing judicial scrutiny have triggered criticism by Advocates and intellectuals deemed close to the regime. In particular, Subhash C. Kashyap, former secretary-general of Lok Sabha and constitutional expert, in his Article “Why the Judiciary must step back” (17th May, (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Some intellectuals and academics have been urging the leaders of the farmers’ movement to heed the message that intensification of protest would aggravate pandemic and in view of this they should call off their agitation. These people symbolising the middle class liberal cultural sensibility and concern are right. Of course fears outright could not be dismissed that some farmers would succumb to the corona virus. But once they withdraw the movement thousands of them (…)

On May 21 India, and humanity, lost three distinguished persons who had made great contributions in their own chosen fields. Dinesh Mohan contributed greatly to biomedical engineering and transport planning. Rajkumar Keswani was a famous journalist. And we hardly need to introduce Bahuguna as one of the most distinguished environmentalists of our times.
Very different areas of work, you may say, and you are right. But it so happens that all of them were united by a common quest also of (…)

by Sujit Chakraborty
This is the real-life story of how one single newspaper report had saved Mother Teresa when she was fighting for life in a Calcutta hospital in 1989, down with Plasmodium falciparum. It is an intriguing story of medical games, first by a team of doctors who could do nothing to bring her back from the jaws of almost sure death, and then a second round of end-game by a top doctor in replacing that team by his own team headed by his wife
A deep, sinking feeling gripped (…)

MUSINGS - 26 May, 2021
For several minutes at a stretch, I have been seeing photographs of the dead teenaged vegetable vendor, Faisal Hussain. He was killed last week in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. Mind you, he wasn’t killed by gangsters but by cops in the Uttar Pradesh police force. Why? Because he was seen selling vegetables near his home in these Corona-ridden times. He could have been reprimanded but he was beaten to death by men in khaki. Call it State terrorism or custodial (…)