2022

As India approaches 75 years of its independence, one of the biggest blessings our nation can celebrate with legitimate pride is that it has been possible to protect the integrity and unity of the nation. This is stated not in terms of any feelings of narrow nationalism; instead, this is stated in terms of a very rational, careful assessment of how important peace and stability are for the well-being of people. Of course in this eventful journey we have made some mistakes, we could not (…)

by S S Sangwan
The virus of inequality has not only survived but amplified itself even during the Covid period, says the Oxfam Report released on 16 January 2022 by the Consortium of 21 International Charitable Organisations. The report was presented ahead of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda to highlight the issue. Its data shows that from March 2020 to November 2021, the virus of inequality has grown beyond the limit and it has been aptly titled ‘Inequality kills’. Globally, the (…)

by Atul Sarma Shyam Sunder*
The Modi government at last climbed down to repeal the three farm laws on November 29, 2021 that provoked more than a year-long farmers’ protest starting from August 9, 2020. The protest allegedly took a toll of 600 human lives and public and famers’ loss of ₹ 5000 crore as estimated by a study conducted by two economists associated with the Panjabi University at Patiala. The study also found that contrary to the claim that big farmers are the protesters at (…)

The Editors Guild of India
PRESS STATEMENT
February 6th , 2022
The Editors Guild of India strongly condemns the arrest of Fahad Shah, the editor of the Kashmir Walla, on February 4, 2022, on the specious ground of “glorifying terrorist activities, spreading fake news & inciting general public for creating [law and order] situation,” as per a police statement post his arrest.
Shah had been questioned four days earlier for his reporting on a deadly police raid in Pulwama in late (…)

(February 10, 2022)
o o
Then there are times
when the will to abandon course
overwhelms
the thin stream of reason,
thwarted without let by ever new
sophistries of cul-de sac.
What energies the custodians
of unreason pack.
Yet, what is new about this lament?
I reach back
To that first dour of Urban Naxals
Of ancient Greece—
A mentor of the name of Socrates—
and, askance at the tenacity of argument,
lash body and mind
to further assays of rational intent.
I see that (…)

01/02/2022
Ladies and gentlemen,
Before I begin my speech, please join me in taking twenty seconds of silence to pause and honor the sacrifices of women of Afghanistan and all atrocities they have gone through in their resistance against the repression of the Taliban.
Greeting Ladies and gentlemen,
I am here to represent the women’s protest movement in Afghanistan. As we speak, my country Afghanistan is going through its most severe stage of economic collapse, getting the country (…)

by Nathan VanderKlippe
The Globe and Mail
Canadian truckers and their horn-blaring supporters have become darlings of conservative activists around the world, inspiring copycat actions in Europe and worries of the same in the U.S.
Nothing attracts attention like success, and for those watching outside Canada, the 11-day long protest in Ottawa has become a must-watch spectacle, and a template for action.
On far-right and extremist social-media groups in the United States, the Canadian (…)

* Need to Reaffirm Pluralism | Suranjita Ray
* Capital, Governments, Multilateral Agencies, and NGOs | Pradip Baksi
* Interrogating ‘Normalcy’ in the Kashmir Valley | Arup Kumar Sen
* NDA Open Agenda against Federal Structure in Civil Services | K.S.Chalam
* Reading? Subhas Bose Is Dead, Isn’t He? | T J S George

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, February 5, 2022
The Budget for 2022-23 has just been presented by the Modi government, there is a divergence of opinion on the takeaways, depending on which side you stand in society. The government is projecting an economic growth of 11.1 per cent for the next year while continuing its neo-liberal economic strategy favouring privatisation, disinvestment, and the sops for big business instead of pumping resources for social spending. Difficult to believe (…)

2nd February 2022
Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister presented the Union Budget 2022-23 using a tablet for the second time, though hard copies of it were circulated among the members. She gave publicity to the ‘Azadi ki Amrit Mahotsav’, and proclaimed that we have entered the ‘Amrit kaal’, the 25 years leading up to India@100, though India, of today, is faced with a barrage of issues, starting from unemployment, hunger, declining incomes of all categories of citizens except (…)