2024

Narendra Modi is famous for shifting goalposts. This may be construed as the sign of an astute and shrewd politician. But it is not the reality. During the last fortnight, in the midst of high-pitched electoral battle, Modi has frequently shifted the goalpost from arousing communal passion to vilifying the Muslims to enticing SC, ST by promising their sarkar.
His monkey flight from one agenda to another simply reinforces the fact that Modi is running short of ideas, has lost touch with the (…)

29th April, 2024
The first phase of Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka for 14 of the 28 seats got over on 26th April. Though I largely believe that the voters keep their cards close to their chest, the campaign and voting trends by leaders of the principal contending parties indicate certain trends.
Let me first address the campaign trends. Narendra Modi who is the chief campaigner for the BJP ( local leaders like the former BJP CMs like B. S. Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai have taken (…)

Defeat the BJP, rely on the strength of workers, poor peasants, and all the oppressed social , ethnic, regional groups of people
Chapter 1
The BJP is a fascist party. Or, even by any amount of minute analysis, a fascist type party. But exactly what does that mean and why does that matter? To understand that we should begin by simply noting major changes in the political, economic and social spheres that have already happened, and remember that Narendra Modi as part of his election (…)

PRESS RELEASE
26th April 2024
100+ environmental and human rights organisations and 400+ individuals issue a letter to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change demanding the rollback of the Green Credit Rules 2023 and the methodology introduced under the Notification dated 22nd February 2024, which in effect provides incentive for forest diversion activities through green credit earnings, at huge cost to the environment, forest and climate and to the rights of forest (…)

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
Reviewed by Jo Freeman
__0__
The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice by Elizabeth Flock
Harper 2024. 293 pp. ISBN: 9780063048805 ISBN 10: 0063048809
__0__
Women Who Fight Back
The author’s quest to find women who fought back began when she was raped by a tour guide in Rome after he slipped her a sedative. She did not report the incident because she did not think anyone would believe her. But it consumed her thoughts for decades, (…)

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
__0__
The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India
by Alpa Shah
HarperCollins Publishers India 2024, xxii + 561pp. Rs.699 P-ISBN 978-93-5489-986-7 (Paperback)
__0__
This is a book by a scholar of conscience – one who is deeply affected by the perverse use of state power to incarcerate sixteen persons accused of conspiring against the state in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case (henceforth BK case, and (…)

[May 1, 2024]
PRESS STATEMENT
The Society of Communal Harmony condemns and deprecates any attempts whether by word or deed at tearing the social fabric and social peace in India. The need of the times is to establish Peace and Harmony Committees in every City, Town, Mohalla, Basti and Hamlet in our country. Such committees, comprising a diversity of leading citizens would promote good neighbourliness, seek to verify and quell any unfounded rumours, maintain calm and also endeavour to (…)

It was in September 2002, after presiding over the pogrom of Muslims of Gujarat under the watchful eyes of its newly elevated chief minister Narendra Modi that he coined the term ‘paanch pachees’ to identify Muslims, the target of mob lynchings in February-March, 2002.
It is worthwhile to recall the context in which our current Prime Minister Modiji made that shocking public statement targeting poor Muslims, sitting for months on a pile of dirt and muck for months after some semblance of (…)

* The Dominant Politics has been the ‘Politics of Management’: Dipankar Bhattacharya Interview | Papri Sri Raman
* Interview with Dipankar Bhattacharya, Gen Sec CPIML | Papri Sri Raman
* The Disastrous Split and the Challenges Ahead | Ajayakumar Kodoth
* The devolution of education into an examination obsession | Adama Srinivas Reddy
* Recognizing the “De” in Degrowth | Alexander Dunlap

The 2024 elections have begun, and there were very disturbing photos shared by a prominent social activist on social media of huge election-time hoardings in Gujarat with images of the Ram temple & photos of the incumbent Prime Minister Modi. These have been reported to the Election Commission but no action seems to have been taken over such over the misuse of religion during the election campaign in India, . Inaction by the Election Commission will only confirm that the institutions of (…)