2021

by Nava Kishor Das
Odisha’s veteran Sarvodaya leader Rabi Dash breathed his last in Cuttack on Tuesday, 11 May 2021, after a prolonged health related complications. He is survived by his three daughters who are also variously engaged in social service activities, such as the movement for ‘right to information’.
The Naxalite turned Sarvodaya leader Rabi Dash of Odisha was a unique personality. As a social activist he had devoted his life to mitigate the sufferings of farmers, labourers, (…)

I knocked on the door
Have you written down my name?
I realise that was a big mistake
Never walk blindly behind anyone
I lost the power to think independently
I can see the ship capsizing
and I want to live another day
I knocked on the door
Have you written down my name?
How long is the list now?
(Overheard a andhbhakt mediaperson speaking)
18 May 2021
Translated from the original in Hindi by the author
[Suhas Borker is Editor, Citizens First TV (CFTV) and Convener, Working (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Geraldine Forbes—Lost Letters and Feminist History—The Political Friendship of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2020.
review by Deepti Mehrotra *
Early in 1920, 47-year-old Sarala Devi Chaudhurani and 50-year-old Mohandas K. Gandhi pledged to write each other at least one letter per day. The intensity of their correspondence, and friendship, lasted barely one year. During this time a few hundred letters passed between them, for (…)

Letter from James Baldwin in New York Review of Books
November 19, 1970
Dear Sister:
One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And (…)

* Covid-19 and the Showman - How they lost the plot in India | Jawhar Sircar
* Initiate talks for a National Government | Anil Nauriya

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, May 15, 2021
The credibility of the Modi-led BJP government at the Centre and those of BJP ruled states of UP and Bihar has taken a hit over their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The government’s failure to prepare for the second wave of Covid-19 has amplified a social catastrophe but public officials remain in denial and have repeatedly threatened citizens and medical personnel who have complained or shared photos. In the past week we have witnessed (…)

by Jawhar Sircar
I had the unique opportunity to observe from within the functioning of the Narendra Modi administration for over two years, as head of the national public broadcaster. I resigned before my term, when I could take it no more. I witnessed at close quarters the collapse of the apparatus of governance, which invariably invites catastrophes of the type we are suffering now.
At a conceptual level, the problem arose when the square peg of an American Presidential system that (…)

I would like to highlight a few considerations from a political and Constitutional angle. Perhaps these would strike a chord also with Democratic Socialists of various persuasions.
1. There needs to be National Mourning until the current public health crisis lasts. This would emphasise in a formal way to all in the Indian state and outside it the gravity of the crisis before the country. At the moment various sections of the state go into denial at the earliest opportunity or excuse. (…)

6.5.2021
In early 2020, the Coronavirus took all countries by surprise, causing the first Covid storm (Covid-1). Even countries with a sound public health infrastructure struggled to manage the crisis arising from system overload. It was well understood world-over that the three rules of masking-distancing-hygiene were vital primary measures. Lockdowns were announced, and understood as only a means to check Covid spread and to “buy time” to gear-up and expand public health infrastructure, (…)

Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Joint Letter by Major Opposition Parties to the Prime Minister
Dear Mr Prime Minister,
The Covid-19 pandemic in our country has assumed unprecedented dimensions of a human catastrophe.
We have repeatedly in the past drawn your attention, independently and jointly, to the various measures that are absolutely imperative for the Central government to undertake and implement. Unfortunately, your government has either ignored or refused all these suggestions. (…)