2024

In 2020, India ascended fourth in global chrome production, trailing behind South Africa, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Finland. Chrome is a crucial component in stainless steel manufacturing and plays a pivotal role in industrial development. Nevertheless, the exponential surge in chrome production in India, particularly in the Sukinda Valley of Jajpur, has spawned a complex web of social, economic, and environmental challenges.
As of 2020, India’s chrome production reached 3.929 thousand (…)

The Supreme Court in its judgement has backed the system of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) that is used in India for conducting elections and simply refused to consider the option of going back to ballot paper. The inherent argument is that technology has improved a number of things like precluding the possibility of bogus voting, eliminating human errors, reduction in time in counting of votes, etc. and if anything, technology should be (…)

The Indian government is weaponising ‘national interest’ measures to close down reporting it deems critical of the Modi government.
The idea of a squadron of government officials storming a newsroom to shut down news-gathering and seize laptops and phones of journalists would send shivers up the spine of anyone who values a free and open democracy.
However, the current Indian government routinely uses national interest as a smokescreen to raid news houses critical of it.
In 2023, the (…)

May 2, 2024
It is said that when frustratiion sets in, people get desparate and indulge in making illogical moves, talk about events twisting things out of context or indulge in telling blatant lies and repeatedly defend those lies..
We can see this happening in the case of our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since the time his own Govt’s intelligence sources started reporting to him that the picture emerging throughout the country in general as far as election 2024 prospects (…)

"I have a file on you." M. K. Narayanan’s routine threat to his adversaries as National Security Adviser (NSA) quoted in Sanjay Baru’s book ’The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh’
"One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then (…)

Students across the United States in campuses from Columbia to Emory to California are protesting in solidarity with Palestine. Protests expressing anguish about Israeli genocide are now spilling over to university campuses in Paris and other European universities as well. Police in the USA are brutally pounding protesting students and arresting them. Administration in Universities are calling state police, evacuating protesters from campuses and expelling dozens of students. But young (…)

I watched and listened to Naomi Klein’s speech at the People’s Seder and her call for American Jews’ exodus from Zionism in NYC[[https://naomiklein.org/we-need-an-exodus-from-zionism] and felt nostalgic and sad. When I first left Israel in 1969 to the USA and discovered Jews, including a reform Rabbi, who defined their Jewishness in fighting against the Vietnam War rather than by keeping kosher or supporting Israeli Occupation, I felt elated. Till then I saw the range of choice of Jewishness (…)

With Leon Trotsky there passed away the last of the great leaders of Bolshevism. It was his activity during the last fifteen years that kept alive some of the original content of the Bolshevik ideology — the great weapon for transforming backward Russia into its present state-capitalistic form.
As all men are wiser in practice than in theory, so also Trotsky by his accomplishments achieves far greater importance than through his rationalizations that accompanied them. Next to Lenin, he was (…)

February 16, 1995
Like all professions teaching has its rewards. Some of these come instantly as students absorb, create and, often enough, improve upon received knowledge. Others are those that arrive late; among them I count former students who became good scholars, f ine writers, committed social worker, or that rarity — honest and progressive politicians. But the greatest reward of all are those students, present or former, who take risks in the pursuit of a just and moral order — (…)

AIR POLLUTION
Despite repeated promises of a clean air, Delhites continue to suffer from air borne diseases with the city becoming unliveable. Citizens especially young children are finding it tougher and tougher to breathe the city air. The analysis by CSE found that in 2023, 151 days met the National Ambient air quality standards. Delhi recorded the worst December in 2023, in terms of air quality, in the last five years with its average air quality index (AQI) touching 348 in the same (…)