2022

The Barefoot College, which has emerged as one of the most creative institutions in the field of rural development, discussed and admired at world level as a symbol of the often hidden but great abilities of ordinary people, particularly women and weaker sections, is completing 50 years of its eventful journey this year. Its experiences are important in the context of its own very creative achievements of course but even more so in the context of the support this provides to the idea of (…)

The iconic image of Kamathipura as a red- light district in Mumbai/India has a colonial genealogy. Census figures for 1864, 1871, 1901 and 1921 showed larger numbers of prostitutes living in parts of Bombay other than Kamathipura, notably in neighbourhoods populated by working-class Indians, such as Phunuswaree and Girgaon. However, none of these areas were defined as red-light zones. “Kamathipura was the area where European prostitutes first resided, and then were allocated. On the strength (…)

by Bhabani Shankar Nayak *
Public institutions have evolved in post-colonial India in response to crisis created by colonial plunders. Public institutions led by the state and government were shaped by anticolonial struggles in India. In spite of all its limitations, these institutions were designed to ensure and expand democratic and citizenship rights of all Indians irrespective of their caste, class, gender, religion and region. From planning commission to local development and revenue (…)

When my child was born, I named him Naveen – new – a gift of peace to the world. When he wanted to study at Kharkiv, I agreed, thinking he would return with a medical degree; little did I know of geopolitics; the decision of Putin to bomb a land, besiege an entire people, who at first taped their windows with glass, then huddled in subways, aghast; sans food, water, even medicines for the old; I had thought we had sold primitive warfare for the global highway, but all we got was aerial (…)

It was long thirty years back I attained the white-clad widowhood. I didn’t know what it meant for me.
An air of sympathy initially spontaneous, later on laboured, a feeling of being unwelcome in happy family gatherings, a growing suspicion of treating me inauspicious in rites and rituals – all weaved an uneasy cloak around my persona.
Gradually I was told to shun all wishes, desires in mundane world, instead to seek bliss of life beyond through spiritual meditation.
I tried to tread (…)

by Dr. Shrikant Paranjpe*
The Russian intervention in Ukraine can by understood in the context of two concepts, one that deals with the issue of legitimacy of intervention and the other with concerns about national security. The issue of legitimacy traces its source to the process of change that took place in Eastern Europe in 1989. The East European revolution that saw the disintegration and creation of new nation states rested on the foundation of ethnic nationalism based right to (…)

by Rita Katz *
Not since ISIS have we seen such a flurry of recruitment activity.
“Hi can you please forward a message since two of us are trying to get a carshare from germany to ukraine going,” reads a Feb. 26 message forwarded to a popular neo-Nazi Web channel.
“We are 3 french, leaving Strasbourg tomorrow morning with our car,” another message answered. “There is place for 2 german fighters.”
These are the types of conversations that have flooded Western neo-Nazi and (…)

by Sam Kriss
The Committee to Abolish Outer Space
Manifesto of the Committee to Abolish Outer Space
There’s nothing there already.
We have been lied to, subjected to a cruel and chilly lie, one so vast and total it’s no longer fully perceivable but has turned into the unseen substrate of everyday life. It’s a political lie. They told us that outer space is beautiful.
They showed us nebulae, big pink and blue clouds draped in braids of purple stars, always resolving themselves at (…)

* Caste-patriarchy-politics nexus in an illegal adoption case in Kerala | Kalyani Menon Sen & others
* Tribute to Professor Aijaz Ahmad | Prabhat Patnaik
* Who wants war? | SG Vombatkere
* A Pedagogic Experiment with Rural Children | Avijit Pathak
* On Pakistan’s ‘Aurat March’ 2022 | Nadra Huma Quraishi