2022

The decision by Bhagwant Singh Mann to take his oath of office and secrecy as Punjab’s new Chief Minister at the ancestral village of Bhagat Singh was probably the first instance since India’s independence when the famed revolutionary got the kind of national attention that was long overdue.
Without a shadow of doubt, Bhagat Singh occupies a special place in the pantheon of British era revolutionaries who were not enthused by Mahatma Gandhi. Innumerable young revolutionaries suffered (…)

Abstract
This article is an inquiry into the lived experience of nine women in prostitution, their feelings of alienation from their bodies as well as feelings of empowerment and control. The focus is on the strategies used by women prostitutes to distance themselves from their bodies while selling sex and how they reconnect with their bodies.
Keywords: prostitutes; estrangement; beautification.
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Introduction
Though all women are reduced to their sexualized bodies, the (…)

by Dipak Dholakia and Rajesh Ramakrishnan *
All well-meaning intellectuals and activists swear by the idea of ‘Community control over natural resources’ as a countervailing argument against ‘Corporate control over natural resources’ made possible after economic liberalisation in the early 1990s. There have been attempts to integrate and present Jal, Jangal and Zamin as natural resources but activists do not seem to have made much headway on the ground, and on the contrary, the government (…)

by P. S. Jayaramu
(18th March 2022)
Prime minister Narendra Modi and the Gandhi family are very much in the news these days. Modi for bringing the BJP back to power in four states and the Gandhi family for bringing down the Congress Party to a level where it faces an existential crisis. There are a few options before the Party—to reinvent itself or split if it comes to that. Before getting down to a discussion of them, it is appropriate to highlight some of the recent developments in the (…)

The full Bench judgment of the Karnataka High Court upholding the order of Karnataka Government prohibiting the wearing of hijab in college represents grave blow to the liberal value of the Constitution, particularly emanating from its Preamble. The hijab judgment is untenable on numerous counts.
The judgment posed a wrong question as to whether wearing hijab was an essential practice of Islam, and, after referring selectively to the works of Islamic scholars, answered the question that (…)

When reality is described, a self-sufficient philosophy [die selbständige Philosophie] loses its medium of existence. —Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology.
I have expressed the opinion that any unclarity in ideology brings great harm. I think that ideological unclarity is especially harmful for us now, when idealism of all varieties and shades, under the impact of reaction and the pretext of revising theoretical values, is holding veritable orgies in our literature, and (…)

by Prof Gull Mohammad Wani
The world is with deep concern watching the conflict in Ukraine and its impact on the global and regional orders. The connect Central Asia policy of the Indian state has assumed more significance in present circumstances. Modi Government hosted first virtual India-Central Asia Summit on January 27, 2022 (CAR leaders had earlier similar virtual summit with Xi Jinping of China). Significantly the summit meetings shall now be held in an institutionalized (…)

Invasion by Russian troops in Ukraine has led to a serious situation in Europe. For the first time since Second World War (WW II), Europe stands on the verge of a wider war, even a nuclear one, threatening the whole world. US and Russia are the most powerful nuclear powers. They are coming to a head, thanks to the US policies and more recently to the military adventurism of Russia. Language of nuclear threat is highly irresponsible. One must never forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Both the (…)

by Robert Horvath *
March 21, 2022
Many commentators have already debunked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s absurd claim to be waging war to “de-nazify” Ukraine.
Some have pointed out the far right received only 2% of the vote in Ukraine’s 2019 parliamentary elections, far less than in most of Europe. Others have drawn attention to Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the efforts of the Ukrainian state to protect minorities like Crimean Tatars and LGBTQ+ people, who (…)

Streets of Russia Look different With colourful flowers On the sides of street Flowers with reddish colour It creates life in dead souls They feel pain for others They feel intensely about the neighbhours Pain is the beginning of thinking This thinking supported writings On farmers Producing wheat Workers in Defence industries They feel bad Their products used for the war They get reminded of their mothers They want peace They want food No war These slogans brought the (…)