2023

Happiness has many interpretations. The first is the vulgar materialist approach to it, where we seek happiness for ourselves in luxuries, consumer products, personal gratifications of various types, etc. - most of these with a selfish self-interest, very often at the cost of others. When this does not give the desired results we seek it in spiritualism, promoted by most religions and gurus, where we are called upon to suppress all desires and worldly interests as the source of happiness. (…)

POOR BBC. THE Left never liked the BBC. Its offences include the cold war reporting, Vietnam, North Korea, China, reporting of so many events. The Afghans would tune in to BBC to learn about how many Soviet battalions had retreated and how soon the Americans would arrive. The Iranians would track the sanctions list. The Left has also raised concerns regarding homophobia and transphobia within the company. In 2006, a University of Leeds study found that the BBC is ‘institutionally homophobic’ (…)

by K Raveendran
(India Press Agency, January 31, 2023) Even the British succumbed to the moral pressure of Satyagraha, but that is not the case with the present day Indian rulers, who have responded to a fast by a Magsaysay award winner to attract the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the need to protect the environmentally sensitive Ladakh region with insensitivity and intolerance.
Instead of appreciating the cause he was seeking to propound, the government put him under (…)

by Dipanjan Chakraborty *
The poor miss out when teaching goes online, leaving millions without proper education.
Millions of children in India may never return to school following the severe disruptions of rolling COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
Online teaching — meant to replace in-classroom instruction — mostly failed for a variety of reasons. Poor internet coverage and the prohibitive cost of decent bandwidth for many families was a major factor. Despite increasing takeup of (…)

Tributes to respected Shanti Bhushan-ji, a tall lawyer, great teacher, and humble leader! Instrumental in dethroning Indira Gandhi, gathering of forces for the post-Emergency Janata Party, and bringing AAP and Kejriwal to the political forefront. I remember his surprise appearance for me in the Operation Bluestar Report - bail matter in the District Court of Tis Hazari, when I was unconditionally set free. A senior advocate appearing in the district court was very rare. He was my first (…)

A Future of White
If a past is grey and circumstances seem black,
A future of white can well be distilled,
If the being fills with light (Haiku, adapted, 2007)
Proof of Rock
Let us go then all of us,
As morning light glows in the eastern sky,
Cleaning blood from psychiatric stables,
Winnowing in biblical fables,
Baptist’s prophecy,
Jordan anointed Superstar ministry. (In honorarium, 2007)
Quitipin Quirk
It is not in the realms of previous psychotic speeds that (…)

* From the Commander of Knowledge
Olive green judgements. Brass button reflections. Thinking tied around cross belts. To see or not to see, that is the question. Seeing ‘the sea of trouble’** and suffer its ‘slings and arrows’, is banned. ‘Not seeing’ guards the viewers against the ‘heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks’. The runway of thinking is already mapped. It bleeds off fruitless thoughts in the national interest. The university’s proctors parade free-thinking with a (…)

by Tu Phuong Nguyen *
February 2, 2023
At the end of 2022, there were reports of long queues of employees in Ho Chi Minh City who had been waiting since dawn at several local offices to claim lump sum payments from their social insurance premiums. Many Vietnamese workers view their social insurance premiums as a kind of savings mechanism, and are inclined to seek early access to social insurance funds when their income is lost or reduced or when extra household spending needs arise.
A (…)

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Press release
Comment by UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Marta Hurtado on Russia
26 January 2023
The court order to close down Russia’s oldest human rights organization, the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), is yet another blow to human rights and civic space in the country. MHG was founded in 1976 and reported on human rights violations in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and later the Russian Federation. Its closure was (…)

New Delhi, January 28, 2023
Press Release
Communist Party of India Central Office Ajoy Bhavan, 15 Com. Indrajit Gupta Marg, New Delhi 110002
The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India issued the following statement today (January 28, 2023) demanding a thorough probe into Adani deals:
The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India has been repeatedly pointing out that the pro-corporate and pro-big business policies adopted by the RSS-BJP combine government led (…)