2023

by M A Sofi *
The irony of an army with a ‘country attached to it’
An oft-repeated cliché in the Indian media involving the larger-than-life role of the Pakistan army in politics and dictating the country’s internal and external affairs that would raise eyebrows across the border would read “Pakistan is an army that has a country attached to it”. Recent developments over there seem to add a degree of validity to that cliché. Without intending to play the Devil’s Advocate, it’s important (…)

June 13, 2023
The political class in Germany is stunned by the findings of a YouGov poll[[https://www.euractiv.com/section/all/news/germany-far-right-overtakes-scholzs-spd-in-new-poll] published on Friday that 20 percent of German voters would give their vote to the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany), making it the second-strongest party behind the centre-right CDU (28%) and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD (19%). There is no mistaking that it is a political earthquake.
Given (…)

by Danielle P. Ochoa *
11 June 2023
People’s moral reasoning involved making sense of who the agents and victims are and their perceived intentions.
The Philippine Government’s war on drugs has been described as “large-scale extrajudicial violence”, with more than 12,000 people reportedly being killed since its introduction in 2016
The true numbers are estimated to be up to three times that and continue to grow today.
Despite this, many Filipinos have expressed support for the (…)

The Editor’s Guild of India
PRESS STATEMENT
June 13, 2023
The Editors Guild of India notes with concern recent incidents of intimidation and harassment of journalists by political leaders while doing their job. This trigger happy approach to browbeat and harass reporters and news camera persons undermine the freedom of the press.
On June 9, Union Minister Smriti Irani, while on a visit to her constituency Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, threatened and intimidated a journalist. The video of (…)

We would like to express our concern over the deteriorating social situation in the state, especially in the context of the developments in the last few weeks. It is not conducive to the present welfare or to the future progress of Uttarakhand, that person be displaced or livelihoods be disrupted in the state.

We, the organizers of the International Summit for Peace in Ukraine, call on leaders in all countries to act in support of an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

BOOK REVIEW
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Marginlands:
Indian Landscapes on the Brink
by Arati Kumar Rao
Picador India
Pages: 240
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9395624434
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9395624435 __0__
Man’s unending penchant for ’development’ is triggering a disaster of epic proportions all across India – and probably in much of the so-called developing world. This is why gigantic projects have deepened the very problems they were supposed to resolve, why urban landscapes have turned a veritable foe for (…)

BOOK REVIEW:
by Sudeshna Sengupta
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From the Realm of Necessity to the Realm of Freedom by Jaya Mehta and Vineet Tiwari
Aakar Books January 1, 2022
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9350027674 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9350027677
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The foreword rightly warns the reader that a wordy introduction will fall short of describing the rich content of the book. The book is indeed a rare one. It comes at a time when the country is grappling with intense agrarian crisis on the one hand and countrywide (…)

The United States of America has been the loudest in calling itself a Democracy ever since it was born. With the death of Daniel Ellsberg on 16 June, an epoch that championed transparency globally has truly come to an end. Perhaps, progressive ideology worldwide no longer has an icon to look up to. Ellsberg died at the ripe old age of 92, in his home in California; he had been suffering from pancreatic cancer and had in March said, he would be working for world peace.
Ellsberg is best (…)

* Our Times, Our Challenges, and Our Options | Ravi Kiran Jain
* Reading Gramsci Ethnographically | Arup Kumar Sen
* Turkey: what to expect from Erdoğan & his ultranationalist alliance | Balki Begumhan Bayhan
* International Call to Defend Democracy & Against the Soft Coup in Colombia