31 October , 2015

31 Years After The 1984 Massacre Of Sikhs The Perpetrators Are Yet To Be Traced
By Shamsul Islam

India State is still searching for the criminals behind 1984 massacre of Sikhs even after elapsing more than three decades. In the case of 1984 massacre it is generally believed that the Congress cadres were behind this genocide. This may be true but there were other forces too which actively participated in this massacre and whose role has never been investigated. We are republishing a document circulated by a prominent ideologue and luminary of RSS, Nana Deshmukh on November 8, 1984 which may help in unmasking the whole lot of criminals involved in the massacre of innocent Sikhs who had nothing to do with the killing of Indira Gandhi

Obama Orders Special Forces Troops Into Syria
By Bill Van Auken

The announcement by the Obama White House that up to 50 US Special Forces troops are being deployed on the ground in Syria represents a qualitative escalation of Washington’s illegal intervention in the war-ravaged country

REDD+ And Carbon Trading Will Not Resolve The Climate Crisis
By GRAIN, Attac Gabon

The great majority of the preparatory proposal documents for REDD (commonly called R-PP) being worked out in Africa single out agriculture as the principal driver of deforestation, being careful not to point out that it is industrial agriculture with its focus on productivity and intensive use of chemical products which is the cause, to the detriment of small farms which have for decades always known how to respect the climate and protect the environment

Thousands Attend Hebron Funerals After Israel Returns 5 Bodies
By Ma'an News Agency

Thousands of Palestinian mourners on Saturday filled the streets of Hebron for the joint funeral of five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces after alleged and actual attacks in the occupied West Bank city this month. The bodies of Dania Irsheid al-Husseini, 17, Bayan Ayman al-Essili, 16, Tariq Ziyad al-Natsha,16, Hussam Ismail al-Jabari,17, and Bashar Nidal al-Jabari,15, were handed over by Israel Friday night

The Zionist Lies And The Third Intifada
By Dr Salim Nazzal

Netanyahu's lies about Palestine role in the Holocaust comes in a time Palestine witnessing a Third Intifada against the occupiers

Palestine: Silent Compromises
By Justin Podur

What started this round of violence? Israel's armed settler movement is attempting to change the way that Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque is run. In fact, they want the mosque torn down, like the Babri Mosque was torn down in India in 1992. The Israeli government, which the settler movement has largely taken over, has a strategy that probably involves ultimately dividing the mosque site and banning Palestinians from it, as has been done in Hebron. As with the second intifada in 2000, Israel put pressure on the al-Aqsa site until Palestinians resisted. When Palestinians resisted, Israel escalated with lethal force, and now continues to escalate with no end in sight

Time To Stop Worshipping Economic Growth
By Brent Blackwelder

Our global economy is treating the planet as if it were a business in a liquidation sale. Even environmental organizations—devoted to environmental protection— have been slow to acknowledge the major causes of environmental degradation, such as perverse economic incentives encouraging raw resource extraction and non-renewable energy use. We need environmental leaders to speak out for a new, just, and true-cost economy; and to challenge the mindless embracing of economic growth—even ruthless and futureless growth. Environmental leaders should be driving the push toward refocusing economic thinking on the changes that we will have to make if we are going to move to a healthier economy that exists within the nine planetary boundaries. Only if humanity stays within these nine boundaries can it continue to develop and thrive for generations to come

Syria’s ‘Monument Citizens’ Taking Risks Saving The Future Of Our Past
By Franklin Lamb

Increasing numbers of Syria’s women and men, considered by this observer as this war-torn country’s ‘Monument Citizens’ have recently expanded the scope and range of cultural heritage site protection and preservation on behalf of humanity. In addition to documenting heritage site damage through 3-D photography at the scene, many reconstruction projects are also underway. A few have been nearly restored including in Lattakia al Mahalbeh Castle, in Old Homs, and nearby Crac des Chavaliers, the 11th Century Crusader Castle, al Khawabi Castle , Tartous, Al Omari Mosque, Bosra, Tell Mozan, Al Hassakeh and the Citadels of Salah ad-Din, Masyaf, and the Damascus Citadel to mention a few

Tony Blair’s “Apology” Makes No Sense
By Taj Hashmi

This Sunday (Oct. 25), former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Fareed Zakaria on CNN that the 2003 Iraq invasion was an “honest mistake”; and there were “elements of truth” in the assertion that the invasion was principally responsible for the rise of the Islamic State. By imputing the decision to invade Iraq to “weak intelligence”, he (sort of) felt sorry for the unnecessary deaths of allied and Iraqi soldiers. In view of his wishy-washy and deceptive statement, one has no reason to call it an apology. Not at all!

Why I Think Indian Women Should Not Fast On Karvachauth!
By Nikita Azad

Karvachauth sends me chills. It horrifies me. The idea of fasting an entire day, for somebody who is supposedly my master, and I, his slave, torments me, even in dreams. The belief that my fasting would add certain years to my pati-parmeshwar's life, makes me feel hysterical. When I look at my facebook account, or any site in general, I find pictures, glossy images of women wearing really heavy sarees, clad in jewellery, holding a sieve and looking at her husband, blushing. All the glamour and blushing literally brings my mind to a standstill. Not for its magnificence, but for its acceptance. This Karvachauth, I want every Indian women to realise that, Karvachauth is not about love, it is about subjugation

‘Fifteen Years Of Hunger Strike’ And ‘57 Years Of Bloody AFSPA’
By Lalit Shukla

On 2nd November 2000, Irom Chanu Sharmila was in Malom preparing for a peace rally when she came to know the news of 10 innocent people being gunned down by Assam Rifles personnel. She was deeply shocked after this massacre of innocent people. On 5th November, she started indefinite hunger strike to repeal AFSPA. Her hunger strike is still on after 15 years!

A Reality Check On Farmer Suicides
By Moin Qazi

For every Indian farmer who takes his own life, a family is hounded by the debt he leaves behind, typically resulting in children dropping out of school to become farmhands, and surviving family members themselves frequently committing suicide out of hopelessness and despair. The Indian government's response to the crisis—largely in the form of limited debt relief and compensation programs—has failed to address the magnitude and scope of the problem or its underlying causes

We Can't Eat Money : The Plausible Outcome Of
Building A Colossal Capital City For Andhra Pradesh
By Narayan Rao

A farmer who sold his land declares innocently, my one acre land which was 10 lakhs previously is worth a crore. We can't eat money, and its an unkillable truth. The proposed and acquired area for building the capital city for the state of Andhra Pradesh, southern India, namely, Amaravati, happens to be the rice-bowl of the state itself with the most fertile and productive land on the premises of river Krishna

Odisha Govermnent’s Attempt To Conduct Gram Sabhas In Niyamgiri
Is Illegal And Contempt Of Supreme Court Order
By National Alliance of People’s Movements

It seems the government is planning to reconvene Gram Sabhas in Niyamgiri more particularly in all the 12 villages which voted against the proposed mining in Niyamgiri in earlier convened Gram Sabhas, during July 18 – August 19, 2013 as held under direction from Supreme Court of India and under judicial supervision. It may be recalled that all the 12 villages had said unanimously said “No to Mining”

The Dagger: Dominating Interests’ Class War In East Bengal, 1946 And After
By Farooque Chowdhury

Part IV: Denial & Silence

The Reforms I Need: Public School Teachers And Those Who “Know Better”
By Romi Mahajan

I got a call from one of my children’s teacher last year. She was very vocal with me about my marketing practice and about my lack of deftness with new varieties of digital advertising and social media. She went further indicating that I needed to spend more time in the office, suggesting in unambiguous terms that I was lazy and incompetent to boot. She topped it off with a cherry- that I was poor in dealing with clients and universally unrespected in the community

30 October , 2015

Now Even The Word Beef Is "Banned" In India!
By Countercurrents.org

A beef frenzy is gripping India. It seems beef is the biggest issue these days! Poverty, malnutrition of children, farmer's suicide, caste, class are all relegated to the back seat after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power. Three people were killed over this frenzy recenlty. Now even the word, beef is creating jitters in the ruling establishment. In the latest of these episodes a film has been banned from screening in a film festival because the synopsis of the film contained the word "beef". A film made by students of School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai was banned from screening Jeevika Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival

Collective Failure And/Or A Series of Resounding Silences
Prompted Me To Return The National Film Award
By Rakesh Sharma

Why I returned my National Film Award: An open letter to the President of India

New Zealand’s Zionist Diplomacy In The Security Council
By Dr Vacy Vlazna

The reprehensible draft 'resolution' circulated by New Zealand (NZ), the present chair of the UN Security Council, is so blatantly biased against the Palestinian people that it proffers, in this instance, the correct diplomatic protocol to mind it's own business….. particularly as NZ is an on-the-record, apologist and morally blind supporter of Israel. This dishonourable 'resolution' comes at a crucial time when Palestinian children and youth are being extrajudicially executed in the street for their courageous efforts to uphold their rights while NZ fails them and, in doing so, shames the decency of the people of New Zealand

Okinawa: Living Under The Metal Osprey
By Buddy Bell

My goal in travelling to Okinawa is to tell other people in the U.S. about that reality, of bases maintained on forcefully expropriated land. With enough of a persistent uproar, coming from the Okinawa side and from the U.S. side, we will make it ever more difficult for the U.S. to maintain its overseas bases, rather than to simply close them

The Billion-Dollar World Bank Experiment In Afghanistan
By Mateo Pimentel

In recent years, the World Bank funded a billion-dollarexperiment in Afghanistan. Policy Research Working Paper 6129 details the bank’s findings and the efforts behind the hefty price tag. One of the experiment’s most important aspectswastheso-called National Solidarity Programme (NSP)—“the largest single development program in Afghanistan.”Notwithstanding its ambitious scale and certain rigor, the experiment’s true purpose is painfully evident:The World Bank wanted to investigate the wartime utility of NSP-esque development programs in the war-torn corners of the world.More explicitly, the bank wanted to test whether development programs effectively supplement US counter insurgency efforts in the wake of war

A Few Thoughts On The Protest Against Yakub Shaikh’s Murder
By Sushmita

We are living in depressed times. We are depressed as a generation, we are restless, we have nightmares, we are certainly not at peace. I can not remember a time in recent past where I slept like a baby. However, today I seem to be finding the cure of my depression, my neurosis..It is action and more action, direct action, believing in the power of collective action and facilitating that power for it to become a kernel

The Wondrous World Of Pluralism
By Pratap Antony

Pluralism is what makes the world so interesting. And India is pluralistic in so many ways, in the number of regions with different geographical features, in the origin of the people of the different states and regions of India who speak several different languages, eat different foods, follow different rituals, have different and varied regional cultures, wear different clothes, practice different religions and customs, and pursue different art forms, folk traditions, architecture, art, music and dance. India is an exemplar of diversity, plurality and secularism. Let us celebrate harmonious and peaceful co-existence!

My Name Is Ajmal, Am I Supposed To Be A Bomb?
By Ajmal Khan A.T

What is your name?,
Ajmal,
Ohh Ajmal Kasab??.
No,
I smile.

Deadly Attack Against Employees Of The Afghanistan
Independent Human Rights Commission
By Right Livelihood Award Foundation

Right Livelihood Award Foundation condemns deadly attack against employees of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Jalalabad

Thirty Years Of HIV Epidemic In India: From Despair To Hope
By Shobha Shukla

It is almost 30 years since the first case of HIV infection was detected in India in Chennai in 1986. In a recent webinar organized by Citizen News Service (CNS), Dr R R Gangakhedkar, Director-in-charge, National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (Indian Council of Medical Research), presented a vivid picture of India’s tumultuous journey in its fight against this dreaded disease

The Dagger: Dominating Interests’ Class War In East Bengal, 1946 And After
By Farooque Chowdhury

Part III: Terror & Torture

29 October , 2015

Paris Climate Talks A Failure Even Before It Starts
By Countercurrents.org

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 to be held in Paris, from November 30 to December 11 is already a failure even before it starts. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs were submitted by 155 nations by the October 1 dealine. Analysis of the INDCs reveal that the pledges made by the nations can limit temperature increase only to 3 degrees Celsius. It is a climb down from they 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference which sent the the long-term goal of limiting the maximum global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Climate scientists are almost unanimous in their assessment that a temperature rise beyond 2C, the internationally agreed safety limit, may push the climate beyond tipping points and into dangerous instability

An Open Letter To The Guardian On Climate Change
By Bill Henderson

The following e-mail with the subject line 'Keep it in the ground was bang on, decarbonization is denial' was sent to Guardian Weekly letters, Keep it in the ground@The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger and James Randerson on Oct 26, 2015. There has been no reply

A Third Intifada May Be In The Offing : Richard Falk
Richard Falk Interviewed By Semin Gumusel Guner

A Third Intifada is certainly possible, and maybe we are witnessing these days its first phase. The political will is certainly present because there’s a great deal of frustration and despair among the Palestinians, especially among young people who increasingly feel that resistance is their only and last hope. On the other hand, if the Palestinians are remain passive, they’ll soon confront a situation in which Israel will likely declare the conflict over and incorporate the whole West Bank or most of the West Bank and proclaim the establishment of a greater Israel

Confronting The Obvious Truth: Palestinian Authority vs. The People
By Ramzy Baroud

After reiterating his support for the two-state solution which is now but a fading mirage, Erekat told Al-Jazeera, “We are fully supporting our people and their cry for freedom.” I think not, Mr. Erekat. Twenty years is long enough to show that those who have taken part in their people’s oppression, cannot possibly be the advocates of their people’s freedom

This Is A Heartfelt Plea

Full Text of the film-makers’ joint letter to president of India announcing the return of National Awards

Returning An Award
By Anand Patwardhan

It is with a heavy heart I am returning my very first National award for “Bombay Our City”. Back in 1985 even as we won this award the homes of people I had filmed were demolished. I did not go to receive the award. Instead Vimal Dinkar Hedau whose home in Bandra had just been demolished went to Delhi to receive this award and distributed leaflets about the cause of the homeless. The prize money went to the slumdwellers movement. Today I am returning the medal

Is War Beautiful?
By David Swanson

"War Is Beautiful" is the ironic title of a beautiful new book of photographs. The subtitle is "The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict."

The U.S. Ought To Un-Swivel Its China Pivot
By Buddy Bell

Seventy years after occupying Japan in 1945, it is time for the United States to vacate its overseas bases and engage in purely peaceful diplomatic, labor, and trade relations with other countries for the mutual benefit of all people

 

Watch Video: Tyson Caught on Hidden Camera Ripping Heads Off Live Animals
By TysonTorturesAnimals.com

A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation into Tyson Foods—a major chicken supplier to McDonald’s, KFC, Chick-fil-A, and more— has exposed horrific cruelty to animals, including birds being punched, thrown, beaten and having their heads ripped off while they are still alive

New Qatari Labour Law: Too Little, Too Late
By James M. Dorsey

Never missing an opportunity to shoot itself in the foot, 2022 World Cup-host Qatar has adopted a new law that is more likely to convince critics that it aims to put a friendly face on its controversial kafala or sponsorship system rather than radically reform a legal framework that trade unions and human rights activists have dubbed modern slavery

Benghazi Smokescreen; Hiding Western War Crimes In Libya
By Thomas C. Mountain

The recent Benghazi smokescreen produced by the US Congress may have tried to hide the war crimes committed by the USA and its western vassals in Libya but reality on the ground has blown all the smoke away bringing to light who the west really empowered once again, the Islamic State a.k.a. Da’esh

Judiciary, Politics And MSG-2
By Gladson Dungdung

‘Adivasis live in the forest. The government has declared all of them as terrorists. You have committed a blunder mistake by coming to the Adivasis’ territory. They are neither human beings nor animals. They are devils, devils!” “I have come here to transform these devils into human beings. I have devoted my entire life for the cause.” These dialogues of Hindi feature film MSG-2, starred and directed by Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Saccha Sauda (DSS), had triggered a wave of anger among the Adivasis of India. The interpretation of the word 'Adivasi' by Delhi High Court raises even more eye brows

The Dagger: Dominating Interests’ Class War
In East Bengal, 1946 And After (Part II: The jab)
By Farooque Chowdhury

The people, as a whole, found them betrayed and persecuted. The Hindus were the immediate target. But, ultimately, it was the people irrespective of cast and creed who were targeted to rob of awareness and organization, sense of solidarity and fraternity. Awareness and organization of people are their resources they build up slowly. These are much needed resources for people in all societies. The resources were robbed by the masters in command of the situation as part of the class war it was conducting

Humanity Burnt Alive On A National Highway!
By Muhammad Muzaffar

Finally! I am free. I could hardly breathe but somehow I breathed my last. I was withering in pain, all unbearable since October 09, the day they petrol bombed my joyful tomorrow. Like a drone dropping peace-bringing (so called) bombs on a hopeful Afghani boy playing in his courtyard. A sharp-edged razor as thought it was, tearing my heart from inside and crushing my back. The images of cow saviors who burnt us alive are still alive. Still refusing to fade away like the dreadful darkness of a torture centre

J & K Symbiosis!
By Mohammad Ashraf

Jammu and Kashmir has a symbiotic relationship dictated by very long association notwithstanding the fact that the same has been a forced one!

Indo-Pak Relations: Does ‘Means’ Lead To The ‘End’ or Is It The Other Way Around?
By Imran Khan

Both the countries are nuclear powers and the ever increasing rivalry can have serious consequences for the common people of entire region. Not only is Kashmir a nuclear flash point between India and Pakistan but it is also the source of arms race between the two countries

28 October , 2015

Ten Film Makers Return National Awards Over Growing Intolerance In The Country
By Countercurrents.org

Although the students of The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) have called off their strike and returned to their classes, the FTII row is not dying down. In a new form of protest ten film makers including Anand Patwardhan and Dibakar Banerjee returned their National Awards today. They said that they are returning their awards in protest of the governments unwillingness to resolve the FTII crisis amicably and also to protest the ‘growing intolerance’ in the country

FTII Students End Phase I Of Their Strike To Take The Protest Nationwide
By Countercurrents.org

After 139 day long strike the students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has ended the first phase of their protest. The students has vowed to continue the protest and make it a nationwide campaign. The students will resume their academic activities from now onwards

They Say Cut Back, #OccupyUGC Says Fight Back!
By Nikita Azad

A huge number of students sitting outside UGC office, protesting against UGC's decision to scrap away non-NET fellowship were brutally lathicharged and detained yesterday, by a dictatorial force of Delhi Police, and CRPF. It is high time that all progressive, democratic individuals and organizations come together to join hands with the Occupy UGC movement, and save education from becoming a privilege for a specific section. In an atmosphere where a man is murdered on a mere doubt of his having consumed beef, we certainly need fellowship to carry out researches in social psychology!

Pentagon Preparing For New Ground Combat Operations In Iraq And Syria
By Thomas Gaist

The Pentagon is preparing a new escalation of US military operations in Iraq and Syria, including “direct action on the ground,” according to testimony Tuesday by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. “We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL [an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS], or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We expect to intensify our air campaign, including with additional US and coalition aircraft, to target ISIL with a higher and heavier rate of strikes,” Carter added

Tensions Soar Internationally Following US Deployment In South China Sea
By James Cogan

Yesterday’s US deployment of the destroyer USS Lassen and surveillance aircraft into the 12-nautical mile zone surrounding the Chinese-controlled Subi and Mischief reefs in the South China Sea has qualitatively escalated tensions across Asia

Poisoned Food, Poisoned Agriculture: Getting Off The Chemical Treadmill
By Colin Todhunter

A peer-reviewed study published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that organic crops and crop-based foods are between 18 to 69 percent higher in a number of key antioxidants such as polyphenolics than conventionally-grown crops. Numerous studies have linked antioxidants to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. The research was the biggest of its kind ever undertaken. The findings contradict those of a 2009 UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned study which found there were no substantial differences or significant nutritional benefits from organic food

Mr Arun Jaitley, "You Are Transient. The Idea Of India Has Not Been Extinguished"
By Mani Shankar Aiyar

You will not succeed. For India's civilization is stronger than your political obfuscation. It is precisely the triumphalism that has made you Finance Minister that breeds the arrogance and moral purblindness that stands nakedly revealed within 500 days of your dalliance with political power. You are transient. The Idea of India has not been extinguished. These writers are the torch-bearers of all that has kept the flame alight these thousands and thousands of years

 

The Idea Of Hindu Rastra Is Drawn From The Scholarship Of
Colonial Historians: Romila Thapar
By Indian Writers Forum

Romila Thapar, at the launch of the two websites of the Indian Writers' Forum Trust, speaks on the recent attempts at the rewriting of history to suit the purposes of a Hindu India. The proponents of this theory claim that history must not only be rewritten, but corrected – a more dangerous proposition than rewriting. The irony of the fact remains that those who oppose the secular history as Western must fall back on colonial scholarship of Indian history done by – to borrow the vocabulary of the Hindu Right – Westerners. “It is colonial scholarship which is at the foundation of this new so-called indigenous history”, says Thapar

Burma’s Rohingya Bear Witness, In India
By Erika Berg

The 196 works of narrative art in the powerful new book, "Forced to Flee: Visual Stories by Refugee Youth from Burma", bear witness to the memories, struggles and dreams of young people forced to flee violent conflict and persecution in the ethnically diverse nation of Burma, also known as Myanmar. Among Burma’s 135-plus ethnic groups are the Rohingya; the largest concentration of Rohingya, about 800,000,live in northern Rakhine State. A Muslim ethnic minority who speak an Indo-Aryan language and practice Islam, many Rohingya descend from families who have lived in Burma for generations. Viewed by the government as “illegal Bengali” from neighboring Bangladesh, Rohingya are denied citizenship. Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Act rendered them officially stateless

India Planned Covert Military Attack On Pakistani Nuclear Reactor
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Indian Express reported on Monday (Oct 26) that the United States warned Pakistan in 1984 about an Indian military attack on the Pakistani nuclear reactor at Kahuta. The paper said that the US warning came in US President Ronald Reagan’s letter to General Zia-ul Haq, President of Pakistan

Challenge To Values Of Pluralism
By Walter Fernandes

If you are a Muslim you are automatically anti-national or terrorist till you prove your innocence. That seems to be the line of thinking of the present leaders of India. For example, the Union Minister for Culture proclaimed that the late President Dr. Abdul Kalam was a nationalist despite being a Muslim. Hundreds of Muslims have served the country in different capacities and many have died for its people. But that does not matter. The Minister tried to wriggle out of it by claiming that it was a slip of the tongue

The Dagger: Dominating Interests’ Class War In East Bengal,
1946 And After - (Part I: A snaking line)
By Farooque Chowdhury

Cyril Radcliffe, an obedient servant to the British imperial interests, wrote to his stepson: “Nobody in India will love me for the award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me. I do not want them to find me.” (Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, Penguin, New Delhi, 2004) Radcliffe, one of the personifications of imperial conspiracy, wrote the letter on August 14, 1947. It was actually a confession about an imperialist act: under an umbrella of law, a jab by a dagger to inflict a fatal injury to a people’s struggle for freedom, part of a class war the dominating interests was conducting against the people

27 October , 2015

#OccupyUGC Protestors Brutally Lathicharged And Detained In Delhi
By Delhi Solidarity Group

In the police brutality 15 students badly injured and taken to the hospital. 50 students picked up by the police and beaten even inside the police van. Male Police beat up women students. Police charged at the protesters. Women were beaten up badly by male Police officers individually inside the bus after detention. Women were beaten in the middle of the road. The detained students have been taken to Kamla Market Police Station

Academics And Scholars Protest Against Assault On
Academic And Constitutional Freedom
Press Release

In a country with some 4693 communities and over 415 living languages, each community is bound to have its own customs, including dietary choices. Individuals may also follow practices different from the ones followed by the majority of their community. Any attempt to impose a uniform belief or practice, on either individuals or communities, is antithetical to the freedom enshrined in the Constitution. It is the state’s responsibility to ensure this freedom. Further, as scholars, we are extremely worried about the implications of these recent developments for our ability to study and write about different life ways, and to critically analyse society, including social phenomena like religion

Netanyahu: Have You No Shame?
By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Israel’s Prime Minister attributing the Holocaust to Palestinian influence over Hitler is a “Blood Libel” level lie

Taking Selfies In Iraq And Afghanistan
By William J. Astore

Call it Imperial Tourist Syndrome, a bizarre American affliction that creates its own self-sustaining dynamic. To a local, it might look something like this: U.S. forces come to your country, shoot some stuff up (liberation!), take some selfies, and then, if you're lucky, leave (at least for a while). If you're unlucky, they overstay their “welcome,” surge around a bit and generate chaos until, sooner or later (in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, much, much later), they exit, not always gracefully (witness Saigon 1975 or Iraq 2011)

War: Your Death Is Their Profit
By Parul Verma

But who is sipping the holy grail of profit from the death of each? Who is making billions whith each civilian being shot dead, in the war of the profits?

With Zahid Rasool India’s Plurality And Diversity Also Died
By Yasir Altaf Zargar

Earlier it was Mohammad Akhlaque of Dadri, U.P. who was beaten to death by a mob, allegedly over rumours that he had eaten beef, then Noman was beaten in Himachal Pradesh over the rumours that he had been carrying cow from one place to another, lastly it ended with Zahid of Kashmir, who was attacked by goons with a petrol bomb. It was not just a Hindutva mob killing Muslims; but an anti-national mob attacking India’s plurality, diversity and inclusiveness

"Madderakka": A Love Story That Transcends Personal Fate
By Hedi Harrington

"Madderakka" by M.C. Raj is a love story that transcends personal fate. Beginning in an internet chat room, a symbolic romance blooms between a young Sami philosopher and a Dalit/Adijan anthropologist. Among local and international intrigue, they manage to build a life together that culminates in a mission that their beautiful daughter, Madderakka, fulfils.

Unrealistic Optimism For Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
By Nava Thakuria

As Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) approaches for its next national elections, which emerges as the most important polls since the southeast Asian country was put under military dictatorship in 1962, speculations now rises high over the probable future role of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the quasi-democratic nation. For the international community, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 70, raises hope for a convincing political role in poverty-stricken country, but the ground reality still remains grim for the charismatic Burmese opposition leader

26 October , 2015

Vaibhav And Divya's Murder: A Culmination Of Caste Discrimination
And Violence Against Dalits
By Dr. Umakant

A Preliminary Fact Finding Report on Dalit Family Set Afire At Sunped, Haryana, India - We arrived at Jitendra’s house in Sunped village by 10.30 A.M. on October 25, 2015. In the middle area of the house about 10 male and 6 female members were sitting. Jitendra, discharged from hospital, was lying on a cot. About 10-15 Policemen of Haryana Police were sitting outside the house. A pall of sadness, gloom and helplessness was quite visible. But beneath these signs of despair, a steely desire to keep the struggle on for dignity, self respect and justice was coming forth during discussions over next two hours that we had with them

US Signals Military Escalation In Iraq And Syria
By Barry Grey

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity regarding a possible political settlement in Syria, the Obama administration is signaling its intention to escalate US military action in both Syria and Iraq. On Friday, the same day as an inconclusive meeting in Vienna between US Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the civil war in Syria, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told reporters there would be more US combat actions like the one the previous day that had resulted in the first US troop death in Iraq since 2011

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Special Ops “Successes” 
By Nick Turse

America's Elite Forces Deploy to a Record-Shattering 147 Countries in 2015 

Bush Lapdog Blair Can’t Even Apologize Correctly For Destabilizing The Middle East
By Juan Cole

Former British PM Tony Blair reiterated on Sunday some of his previous half-hearted “apologies” for illegally launching a war of aggression on Iraq in 2003. Blair’s “apologies” always take the form of the little boy who, when instructed to apologize for calling a lady fat, says, “Lady, I’m sorry you’re fat.” Blair has never apologized for increasing Iraqi mortality or death rates, leaving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. Blair never apologizes for breaking international law by launching a war of aggression. Blair is about to receive some negative reviews in an official commission report on the inception of the Iraq War, and a lot of people think he made these remarks now to forestall being lynched by the public and the media

Tony Blair Is Sorry, A Little
By David Swanson

While George W. Bush is apparently proud of everything he's ever done, Tony Blair came dangerously close to facing reality this weekend when he admitted there were "elements of truth" in the view that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the principle cause of the rise of ISIS (among other catastrophic results of that invasion). At the same time, Blair lied that the war was an honest mistake based on bad "intelligence," and claimed there was no clearly superior alternative anyway

Tony Blair Accepts His Mistake In Iraq War, But Puts Blame On Bad "Intelligence"
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

At last former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has accepted that it was responsibility of those who removed regime in 2003 in Iraq which led to emergence of Islamic State in the region and the situation prevailing in 2015. He although laid the onus of burden on the intelligence that led to the invasion in Iraq

Marxism And Ecology: Common Fonts Of A Great Transition
By John Bellamy Foster

Socialist thought is re-emerging at the forefront of the movement for global ecological and social change. In the face of the planetary emergency, theorists have unearthed a powerful ecological critique of capitalism at the foundations of Marx’s materialist conception of history. This has led to a more comprehensive conception of socialism rooted in Marx’s analysis of the rift in “the universal metabolism of nature” and his vision of sustainable human development. This work resonates with other approaches for understanding and advancing a Great Transition. Such a social and ecological transformation will require a two-step strategy. First, we must mount struggles for radical reforms in the present that challenge the destructive logic of capital. Second, we must build the broad movement to carry out the long revolutionary transition essential for humanity’s continued development and survival

"Revolution" or "Phase Transition"?
By Michel Bauwens

At the P2P Foundation, we don’t use the moniker ‘revolution’ with much frequency, preferring the concept of phase transition. In this article, we would like to elucidate the relation between the two concepts

War Of The Words: Invasion Of The Mind Snatchers
By Mickey Z.

A 2014 poll found 26 percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth. Oct. 30 marks 77 years since a 23-year-old Orson Welles helped set off a nationwide panic over a fictional Martian invasion. The Sunday evening radio show began with this announcement: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells." But hey, who pays attention to such details?

Delhi Government Plans To Unleash GM Mosquitoes To Fight Dengue
By Dr. Susmita Priyadarshini

According to media report China has set up the world's largest mosquito factory in northern Guanzhou province that tackles dengue fever by releasing one million sterilised mosquitoes every week in a bid to lessen their population with insects that don't carry the disease. Now Delhi Government is considering a Chinese proposal to mate genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes with dengue causing female members of the same species to root out the threat of this vector borne disease

25 October , 2015

'I Hang My Head In Shame'
Open Letter By Admiral.L.Ramdas (Retd)

There seems to be a systematic and well orchestrated attempt to impose a majoritarian single point agenda of creating a Hindu Rashtra in India – led by the RSS and their network of groups, which is disturbing to say the least. This in turn has resulted in a dangerous pattern of mob behaviour including intimidating and lynching people merely on the basis of rumours – in total disregard for the established rule of law. In many cases those responsible for implementing the law, have themselves displayed blatant partisan tendencies and behaviour. Most shocking of all is the fact there has been no unambiguous condemnation of such actions and behaviour by those at the helm of affairs in the country. Today, as a veteran in my eighties, I am forced to hang my head in shame as I witness a series of incidents and assaults on our fellow citizens, especially minorities and dalits

#ProfileForPeace: A Unique Campaign To Promote
Love And Peace Between India And Pakistan
By Countercurrents.org

While hate spewing politicians are trying to drum up venomous hatred between people of India and Pakistan, an online campaign is trying to bring some sanity to the situation and promote love and peace between people of two nations. #ProfileForPeace campaign initiated by 36-year-old Bandra, Mumbai -based Ram Subramanian has captured the imagination of ordinary netizens of two countries and gone viral. Thousands of Indians and Pakistanis and diaspora citizens from around the world are changing their profile pictures to one with a little love note scribble that says where they are from, that they don't hate each other, and are only being divided by hate politics

California Wildfires Are Abrupt Climate Change, Ecological Collapse
By Dr. Glen Barry

California’s recent drought and wildfire outbreak is an exemplar of what surpassing a bioregion’s carrying capacity and resultant ecological collapse looks like. For decades naturally evolved ecosystems which make California habitable have been treated as resources to be devoured for industrial development. California’s fragmented and no longer connected natural ecosystems have been further destabilized by abrupt climate change and are no longer able to stably provide human habitat

Consuming Our World
By Romi Mahajan

In “ECOSOCIALISM,” Michael Lowy has written an important book that serves as, as the subtitle suggests, “a radical alternative to capitalist catastrophe.” A brief but powerful work, ECOSOCIALISM takes the reader through the literature on the connectedness between ecology and environmental stewardship and justice and forms of economic organization, of which socialism emerges as the most sensible, humane, and ecologically sustainable and ethical. In fact, Lowy’s argues that Socialism of a real sort presupposes deep ecology and that the latter is only possible under enlightened socialism

Spread The Word: TPP Is Toxic Political Poison That Politicians Should Avoid
By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers

At its root, the TPP is about modern colonialism. It is the way that Western governments and their transnational corporations, including Wall Street banks, can dominate the economies of developing nations. And it's not too late to stop it

The Passing of Bhaskar Save: What The ‘Green Revolution’ Did for India
By Colin Todhunter

Masanobu Fukuoka, the legendary Japanese organic farmer once described Bhaskar Hiraji Save's farm as “the best in the world, even better than my own!” In 2010, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements honoured Save with the ‘One World Award for Lifetime Achievement’. Based on the results and practices on his 14-acre farm in Gujarat, Save was an inspiration for generations of farmers. By using traditional methods, he demonstrated on his farm that yield is superior to any farm using chemicals in terms of overall quantity, nutritional quality, taste, biological diversity, ecological sustainability, water conservation, energy efficiency and economic profitability. Bhaskar Save died on 24 October 2015 at age 93. In 2006 he published an open letter to the Indian Minister of Agriculture, the Chair of the National Commission on Farmers and other top officials to bring attention to the mounting suicide rate and debt among farmers. Below is a slightly edited version of his open letter, which reveals in some detail where India has gone wrong

Meet The Indian Women Trying To Take Down “Caste Apartheid”
By Rucha Chitnis

Asha Kowtal and the Dalit Women's Self-Respect March traveled across Northern India to document the ongoing violence against women who were once branded as "untouchable." Now, they're raising new leaders, and finding allies in Black Lives Matter

It's Not About Beef Any Longer, It's About My Life
By Gaurav Jain

It's not just about Beef any longer. The way people are being mob-lynched on mere suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows, It has encroached upon our fundamental right to life and personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of India under Article 21. Supreme Court has played a major role in expanding the scope of this article through its interpretation in various landmark judgements over the years. Right to food and freedom to choose what you want to eat - including Beef - is very well covered under it

24 October , 2015

Killing Palestinian Children Inevitable Outcome Of Israeli Policies
By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Since 1 October, Israeli forces have killed more than 50 Palestinians, including at least 10 children, across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. According to initial data from Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), more than 100 Palestinian children have sustained injuries in that period — and the number keeps climbing

Hebron Activist Who Died Of Tear Gas Showed Israel’s Crimes To The World
By Ryan Rodrick Beiler

Hebron resident and anti-occupation activist Hashem al-Azzeh died Wednesday after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces. According to Palestinian media reports, al-Azzeh, who suffered from a heart condition, began feeling chest pains while in his home in the Israeli-controlled Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank city

US, Russia Hold Tense Talks On Syria
By Bill Van Auken

Talks held Friday in Vienna between US, Russian, Turkish and Saudi foreign ministers on the Syrian crisis were dominated by the opposed positions of Washington and Moscow on the US demand for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The discussions came after more than three weeks of Russian air strikes in Syria, which have apparently begun to shift the tide of battle on the ground. Syrian government forces have made advances on several fronts, including in the western province of Latakia and around Syria’s second city, Aleppo

To Find A Happy Day: Story Of A Refugee's Journey From Iraq To Europe
By Cathy Breen

My thoughts go to the recent perilous journey of a close Iraqi friend (I will call him Mohammed) and his son (whom I will call Omar). Already the survivor of an assassination attempt, this trusted translator, driver, guide and confidant received a death threat on his gate in early August. He fled under cover of the night, taking Omar with him. On that same day, 15 men were kidnapped in his village. He left a wife and six other children

Learn Your Lessons Well: An Afghan Teenager Makes Up His Mind
By Kathy Kelly

Many of Esmatullah’s neighbors might understand if he wanted to retaliate and seek vengeance against the Taliban. Others would understand if he wished the same revenge on the United States. But he instead aligns himself with young men and women insisting that “Blood doesn’t wipe away blood.” They want to help child laborers escape military recruitment and ease the afflictions people suffer because of wars

Argentinian Study Finds Sanitary Cotton Products Contaminated With Glyphosate
By Robert Barsocchini

Eighty Five percent of sanitary cotton products tested in a new Argentinian study were contaminated with glyphosate, which was recently ruled a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization and is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, used worldwide

Three Murders And A Lynching
By Ram Puniyani

The so called fringe elements now are occupying the center stage, and so the ‘qualitative change’ in the situation. The flood of awards being returned is due to the situation created by deeper communalization of society. This is manifested in growing intolerance, attack on plurality and is leading to the insecurity of minorities, which has qualitatively transcended the earlier limits. The question is how to uphold the values of Indian Constitution in the current times?

Stop Attacking Dalits In Uttarakhand, Ensure Equality
In Temples And Public Spaces
By National Alliance of People’s Movements

On 10th October, 2015, a Jan Adhikar Rally organised by National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), RSD and Jan Haq Manch was stopped in 9 villages and dalits who supported the rally were asked to pay a fine of Rs. 50,000 by the Panchayat in the village Lakhsyar. Savarnas of 9 villages had promised Dalits that they will be allowed in temples and would not be discriminated against. But when a young Dalit woman, Babli accompanied by Dinesh from Kanauta and Tarachand from Singota tried to enter Mahasu temple in Lakhsyar, they were pushed away. When Babli spoke about the panchayat decision, Maali Digpal Singh Tomar attacked her with a sharp weapon and Maali Shurvir Singh attacked her with kicks and punches. Similarly, Dinesh and Tarachand were attacked. Dalits present on the site admitted the injured in Vikasnagar Government Hospital

Translating Global Goals Into Local Actions To Fight NCDs
By Shobha Shukla

A few days before José Luis Castro, Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) took over the dual responsibility of the Chair of the steering committee of the NCD Alliance, he spoke at a webinar hosted by CNS (Citizen News Service) in the lead up to the World Heart Day. A few days later, he inspired us once again by his thoughtful remarks delivered to the NCD Alliance, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, while assuming his new charge. Here are some valuable excerpts from Jose's expert remarks

23 October , 2015

While Punjab Boil Over, What's The Solution?
By Daljit Ami

Discussion around the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib. How to break the imbroglio?

Religious Upheaval Dented Akalis’ Credibility In Punjab
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

The ruling Akalis are now facing some sort of social and political opposition from the Sikhs in Punjab. The piled up anger of Sikhs against the power-drunk Akali leaders, particularly the Badal family, has poured out on the streets and roads of Punjab resulting in a several day long road blockades causing a total disruption of normal life . And the rulers are finding hard to check the eruption of mass hysteria which forced the Akali leaders to shut themselves indoors under official security umbrella

Vaibhav And Divya: We Say Sorry On Behalf Of This Country
Statement Issued By A Civil Society Delegation That Visited Sunped

We, the people who believe in peace, harmony and non violence , condemn the incident of Sunped, Ballabhgarh where a dalit family got attacked and it resulted in loss of two innocent lives of their children Vaibhav and Divya and injuries to family. We also say sorry to all of you, for the fact that despite being in 21st century we still have inequality, caste discrimination, intolerance and violence; and with all these factors, all our development in outer world becomes null , as we are too undeveloped from our inside

V K Singh, Respect The Dignity Of Indian Citizens
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Sad is that a dalit family is burnt in a Haryana village but Union Minister Mr. V K Singh says that government is not responsible for the stone throwing on a dog. The comment on the dalit killing and use of defining the incident in poor language also insults those who come from dalit community. Everyone must know that Indian constitution had abolished untouchability by article 17. It means not only in action, behavior but also in communication this social evil was abolished but our political elites is perhaps unaware of these values, that is the reason that such bad remarks are passed

Violence And Hatred In Indian Society
By Mahima Sukheja

Of late, India has seen rising number of incidents marking intolerance towards a particular group; gender, caste, or a perspective. This intolerance doesn’t get limited to a war of words; but extends itself to taking liberty of taking away precious lives. In the past as well, there have been challenges to freedom of speech, expression and liberty; however, now there is a difference since communalism now tend to openly incorporate violence; being anti-democracy

Germany To Deport Refugees In Military Cargo Planes
By Martin Kreikenbaum and Andre Damon

As growing numbers of refugees seek asylum from the wars raging in Syria and Iraq, governments throughout Europe are moving to seal their borders, slash social assistance for migrants, and carry out mass deportations. This week, the Bild newspaper reported that the German government plans to use military aircraft to deport tens of thousands of refugees whose requests for asylum have been denied. According to the newspaper, the government is planning to use C-160 military transport planes to deport nearly 200,000 people who have been declared by the German state to be “economic migrants” and ineligible for asylum

What If They Gave A War And Everyone Came?
By Peter Van Buren

What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq in 2003? How would things be different in the Middle East today? Was Iraq, in the words of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the "worst foreign policy blunder" in American history? Let's take a big-picture tour of the Middle East and try to answer those questions. But first, a request: after each paragraph that follows, could you make sure to add the question “What could possibly go wrong?”

Guns And Mass Shootings
By Hugh Curran

Just as guns continue to proliferate, so do extremists among pro-gun supporters who will publicize deliberately poor studies to make their case. Such disinformation is meant to disparage any correlation between the widespread availability of guns and gun violence. Even a quick glance at articles available on the internet finds a disheartening amount of misinformation whose purpose is to confuse the public with discredited studies

Justin Trudeau Ends The Harper Conservative Regime
By Jim Miles

Justin Trudeau will have a honeymoon period for a while; hopefully he will demonstrate through actions what his words have indicated should occur

History Made, Politics Changed Forever From Personal To Community Perspective
By Meera Gill

Our Global village, a non-profit organization is one of many organizations that are working in Canada and across the globe to protect the basic human rights, both socially as well as politically. Next project of this organization is to hold a city wide peace walk to send a strong message against racial and religious discriminating acts taking place in India against it’s minorities

Serbia Under The EU’s Ultimatum On Kosovo’s Independence
By Prof. Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

Serbia entered a final stage of the European Union’s (the EU) informal ultimatum to recognize Kosovo’s independence for the exchange of starting the ultimate negotiations (the opening chapters) for becoming a full Member State of the EU

Data, Lies And Politics: Elusive Development Goals To Exclude Majority
By Shalu Nigam

The politics on data processing thus results in eradicate poor rather than eliminating poverty. Such superfluous discussions on developing and meeting indicators or targets exterminate the hungry rather than addressing hunger. In such discussion and debates around the data, the significant issue is lost in meaningless politics of denial of issues. Rather than focusing on putting food on people’s plates or to ensure that all must at least get two meals a day the pointless arguments about drawing poverty lines is leading to nowhere

22 October , 2015

2030 Agenda: Development For Whom?
By Shobha Shukla

The world is agog with excitement at the recent adoption by the 70th UN General Assembly, of the new framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. A closer look at the agenda tells a different story

Chaos In Jerusalem Is A Warning Of Things To Come
By Jonathan Cook

The current unrest may recede, but more waves of protest of ever greater intensity are surely not far behind. Jafar Farah, a Palestinian leader in Israel, has warned of it heading slowly from a national conflict into a civil war, one defined by the kind of debased one-state solution Israel is imposing. The chaotic violence of the past weeks looks like a warning from the future – a future Israel is hurtling towards

Obama Has Washed His Hands of Palestine And Is Walking Away From It
By Alan Hart

It’s true that quite early in his presidency Obama called for a halt to illegal Israeli settlement activity but Prime Minister Netanyahu effectively told him to go to hell. The evidence that supports my headline for this article was in one of Obama’s responses to the current upsurge of violence and killing in Israel/Palestine. To his repeated assertion that two states was “the only solution” he added that it (a peaceful resolution of the conflict) “is up to the parties.”

An Intellectual Intifada In The Offing
By Ramzy Baroud

As Palestinians are once more rebelling against the Israeli occupation, we ought to also confront past misconceptions and mistakes. We live in an age where a generation of well-educated and articulate Palestinians are extensively present in hundreds of top universities, media companies, including in theater, film and every other educational and cultural facet around the Middle East and the world. Palestine, itself, is rife with numerous journalists and eloquent women and men, who can do the Palestinian account much justice

Why Is Benjamin Netanyahu Trying To Whitewash Hitler?
By Ali Abunimah

Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly asserted that Adolf Hitler had no intention of exterminating Europe’s Jews until a Palestinian persuaded him to do it. The Israeli prime minister’s attempt to whitewash Hitler and lay the blame for the Holocaust at the door of Palestinians signals a major escalation of his incitement against and demonization of the people living under his country’s military and settler-colonial rule. It also involves a good deal of Holocaust denial

US Announces New Sale of Warships, Munitions To Saudis
By Robert Barsocchini

As Saudi Arabia, backed and coordinated by the United States, continues a war of aggression against Yemen, the US has decided to sell Saudi dictator Salman bin Abdulaziz four more warships as well as munitions and other equipment valued at $11.25 billion

U.S. Wants More "Usable" Nuclear Weapons In Europe
By David Swanson

The United States keeps nuclear weapons in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which bans the transfer of nuclear weapons from a nuclear weapon state to a non-nuclear weapon state. Now, the U.S. wants to upgrade its nukes in Europe, to make them "precision" and "guided," and therefore more likely to be used, even as tensions build between the United States and Russia

Slave Catchers in Pasadena: The Brutal Beating of Donovan Gardner
By Li Onesto

On Thursday, October 15, the brutal beating of 25-year-old Donovan Gardner by San Bernardino sheriffs in Pasadena, California, was caught on video from a TV news helicopter. The video shows two officers brutally beating Donovan on the ground—punching him repeatedly and kneeing him, even though, as you can see in the video, Gardner is lying face down on his stomach

Animal Rights versus The Human Rights!
By Mohammad Ashraf

Recently, there have been a number of incidents involving deprivation of the life of some citizens in the most horrific way of lynching and burning by mobs on the pretext of these people having killed an animal or eaten the flesh of that animal. In view of the fact that the individuals and the mobs which indulged in these acts had the covert and overt support of the State, all these acts come under the Article 21 thereby confirming the failure of the State to protect the life and liberty of its citizens. It automatically becomes a violation of the international law as India is a signatory to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

Beef Agenda: Another Tool To Persecute Muslims And Christians
By Shamsul Islam

As a RSS senior cadre Haryana Chief Minister, ML Khattar who said "Muslims can live in India but they would have to give up eating beef" must be familiar with the name of Swami Vivekananda. This is what Swami said about eating of beef by 'Hindus' in ancient India. “You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.”

The Growing Fangs of RSS
By Aayush Anand

RSS has grown and so has its influence but its ideologies have remained archaic. Alas, it did not grow to become a utilitarian tree but a fatal wound which is turning into cancer. Its time the bluff is called and people realize the unwarranted hold RSS has in governance decision and the dark path the country will be led onto if not heeded urgently. India needs tolerance to prosper, not a 'Hindutva' identity that is sure to split up the society

Pepsi Ad: Sucking Up The Last Drop Of Political Consciousness Out Of Youth
By Nikita Azad

Through this advertisement, Pepsi has revealed the character of all giant international corporations, i.e. to commodify every human asset. It has exposed the big corporate-governments nexus which liquidated all trade barriers during liberalization in 1990-91. Although we were so much impressed by Pepsi at that time but now we know the actual meaning of 'Yeh hai right choice, baby!', being that of sucking up the last drop of political consciousness out of youth

India: A Civilisational Regression
By Ghulam Mohammad Khan

Indian civilization has now regressed to the nadir in the process of civilisational regression. The harsh ‘disciplinary mechanism’ , a Foucauldian phrase, internalized by the right-wing political administration is like rearing a bomb, which will explode one day and decimate the very diversity for which India is known for centuries now

Yakub Shaikh Murder: Cover Up Suspected
Fact Finding Report

The Fact Finding Team demands the following:- A fresh and impartial investigation into the murder of Yakub Shaikh and the immediate arrest of all the accomplices to the crime, including the managers of Toyota Shinrai Company; A judicial probe into the conspiracy behind the killing of Yakub Shaikh, the true sequence of events leading to the murder as well as motive behind shielding of the actual culprits; Compensation to the family of Yakub Shaikh as per the provisions of Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923

Politicians Are Mirror Images Of Ourselves: That's Why We Elect Them
By Pratap Antony

Overcome our indifference and our small minded insularity, learned helplessness and Amor fati, and participate; think positively, and go ahead and do things that we can do within our own expertise or experience to improve, increase awareness and educate. We can, by this, be true to ourselves and share this projection of our true image

21 October , 2015

Pakistan Develops Low-Yield Smart Nuclear Weapons
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Foreign secretary of Pakistan, Aizaz Chaudhry, has confirmed that his country has made low-yield nuclear weapons to deal with India's so-called cold-start doctrine that envisages limited war against Pakistan. There have been persistent reports that Pakistan was developing smart nuclear weapons. However, it is the first time that a senior Pakistani official has given an explanation of the country's decision to make tactical nuclear weapons, renaming it as the country's proactive strategy

Israel: Racist Mob Lynches Migrant As Violence Intensifies
By Jean Shaoul

An angry Jewish mob lynched an unarmed Eritrean migrant worker in the southern city of Beer Sheba after an Israeli security guard repeatedly shot him on Sunday. The crowd cursed and kicked him, chanting, “Death to Arabs!” “Arabs out!” and “Am Israel Hai!” (“The people of Israel still live”)

Syria And Afghanistan: The Limits Of Bombing
By Justin Podur

Today, the U.S., Israel, the Saudi Kingdom, Turkey, and a few other countries are similarly pouring ever more investment into groups of fighters (some of the same groups as fought in Afghanistan, including al-Qaida) trying to change a regime in Syria. There is every reason to believe that if regime change succeeds, the winners will be al-Qaida and the Islamic State group

They Profit, We Die: Chemical-Intensive Agriculture
And the Poisoning of Soils, Human Health And The Environment
By Colin Todhunter

The problems are not confined to Europe and the US; they are global. Spiralling cancer rates in Argentina linked to the use of glyphosate spring to mind. In Punjab, India, pesticides have turned the state into a 'cancer epicentre'. Moreover, Indian soils are being depleted as a result of the application of ‘green revolution’ ideology and chemical inputs. India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility. As small holders the world over are being driven from their land and the chemical-industrial farming model takes over, the problems continue to mount

Germany Against Itself
By Linh Dinh

In Germany the dissident crowd are often not just against the state, but their country and, perhaps only subconsciously, even their heritage. Many openly advocate for the dissolution of Germany. Even if this is only youthful, nihilistic posturing, its pervasiveness is telling

El Salvador: In Power, Former Guerrillas To Hold First Congress
By Federico Fuentes

Thirty-five years after its founding, El Salvador's historic Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is set to hold its first national congress at the end of October. The congress has been called to help re-arm the activists of the left-wing party that began life in 1980 as a front of revolutionary groups engaged in a guerilla war. Today, 13 years after peace accords ended the armed conflict, it is in government

Modi And His Mess: Basic Rights And Freedom In India At Stake
By Shamim Zakaria

The recent incidents apparently put bright light on dark patches that the country is presently going through. India which fought relentless battles for upholding the virtue of secularism and unity in diversity, the values are certainly losing it hue under the black shadow of saffron fringe. With hopes of ‘make in India’ and dream of being an entrant in global powerhouse Prime Minister Modi may keep making rounds of the globe. However, when his partymen are cognizant about the language of communalism, polarisation and bloodshed, the dream will be far from reality

Cow Is A Political Animal
By Parul Verma

Recent outbreak of swine flu cases in india was due to the mutated strain but the on-going communal tension around the nation is more than just any mutated strain,for the religious manipulation is dominating its strain. Indians are being haunted by the basic questions around this new political animal of the nation (THE COW)

Pepsi Mocks Striking Students With Its New Ad
By Nakul Singh Sawhney

Students are striking all over India against growing communalism, curbing of academic freedom and free speech. But in your ad, you decided to not mock the authorities that have violated every principle of democracy and human decency while dealing with young striking students. You instead chose to mock the striking students

20 October , 2015

Two Young Dalit Children Burnt Alive In Haryana
By Countercurrents.org

Two young children from a Dalit family were burnt alive and their parents suffered injuries after their home in a Haryana village about 40 km from the Indian national capital New Delhi, was set afire allegedly by some persons from upper caste community deep in the night on Monday while the family were sleeping. Vaibhav, who was two-and-a-half years old, and his sister, 11-month-old Divya, died on the spot after the attackers allegedly poured petrol and set the house ablaze

Lynch And Burn: Hindutva’s Slaughter Methods
By Megha Bahl & Sharmila Purkayastha

Several incidents which have occurred on the heels of the Dadri lynching of September 30th demonstrate how the Hindutva agenda relies on mob violence. At the same time, the political success of the hate campaign has derived legitimacy from the Prime Minister’s studied silence and been backed by comments such as those by the Union Minister, Mahesh Sharma, who described the Dadri incident as an “accident” or that by Chief Minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar, who stated, as recently as 15th October, that Muslims can reside in India provided they agree to give up eating beef

Mighty Pen or Mightier Inkpot?
By Parvin Sultana

The might of the pen is pitted against the inkpot of mischief makers. Vandalizing book launches and press conferences is a direct violation of freedom of expression upholding which is the government’s responsibility. The space for debate, discussion and deliberation is shrinking. Disagreement leads to violent consequences. Let a book be countered by another book, not an inkpot which is a coward’s way out

Europe Secretly Starts Imposing TTIP Despite The Public's Overwhelming Opposition
By Eric Zuesse

The terms of Obama's proposed TPP ‘trade' treaty with Asian countries won't be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least four years. The terms of Obama's proposed TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) with 52 nations won't be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least five years. Obama's proposed TTIP treaty with European countries has been so successfully hidden, that even the number of years it will be kept from the public isn't yet known. Hello, international fascism — all in secret, until too late for the public to do anything. But in Europe, things are being rushed, just in case secrecy breaks and the treaty fails to pass. The European Union is already secretly imposing provisions from the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty, even before anyone has signed it, and even before it has been formally approved in any nation

Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
By Paul Craig Roberts

As readers know, I have emphasized that the declared neoconservative intention of achieving global hegemony has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon as Russia and China are most definitely not going to submit, as every European country, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, and Japan have submitted, to being Washington’s vassals. The president of Russia and the president of China have made this completely clear. If the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the Western political systems permit the continuation of the crazed, totally unrealistic, neoconservative agenda, the planet will die

Is Putin Iran’s “Senior Partner” In Syria?
By Franklin Lamb

The Syrian people are the ones who in the past, present and future pay the price and hope that the carnage will end soon and that perhaps Russia and Iran can achieve the peace settlement that the USA and its allies could not

Past Decade In Syria In 5 Minutes
By David Swanson

The accepted story in the United States of what's happened in Syria is just that, a story told to make narrative sense of something completely un-understood

Are We An Experiment That Did Not Work?
By David Anderson

An increasingly damaged planet is crying out for sweeping and permanent change in the way we view our relationship to it. Our survival cannot take place without reinvention in all of the areas of our religious, social, economic and political thought. We are being called to experience a metamorphosis, a change in the way we think. If we resist, as Deepak Chopra is telling us: “We may be a human experiment that did not work.”

The Two Finger Test: Engendering Women
By Nikita Azad

The two-finger test is just an example of how democracy has failed immensely in providing justice to women, the gender; it is through the re-establishment of democracy only that gender oppression can be halted at the time of birth by engendering both the sexes to be each other's equals

Dr R.M.Pal: Human Rights of The Most Marginalised
Was His Uncompromising Passion
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

The demise of Dr R M Pal at this crucial moment is a great blow to all the right thinking secular forces as we would often go to him and seek his advice on many issues confronting us. He was the man who always believed in the idea of a secular inclusive India and spoke regularly against the Hindutva’s communalism. Though he is no longer with us, his writings will always inspire us to work for a secular democratic India. We promise to carry on his legacy for our better future

19 October , 2015

US Military Chief Pledges Increased Support As
Israel Steps Up Attacks On Palestinians
By Jean Shaoul

General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, flew to Tel Aviv Sunday to discuss a 10-year military aid package worth some $3.7 billion a year. The pledge of increased American military support came in the midst of an increasingly brutal Israeli crackdown on Palestinians within both the occupied territories and Israel itself

Libya: From Africa's Wealthiest Democracy Under Gaddafi,
To Terrorist Haven After US Intervention
By Garikai Chengu

Tuesday marks the four-year anniversary of the US-backed assassination of Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the decline into chaos of one of Africa’s greatest nations. In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; by the time he was assassinated, he had transformed Libya into Africa's richest nation. Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in 2011, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa. Today, Libya is a failed state

Putting Out The Syrian Fire: Can Diplomacy Do What War Couldn't? 
By Jo Comerford and Mattea Kramer

As Russian missiles rain down alongside American ones, as ever more groups, nations, and areas are embroiled in the Syrian conflict, as yet more innocent blood is spilled, it's obviously time for international negotiations to finally begin. Diplomacy doesn't promise a speedy end to the almost unfathomable suffering in the region, but it does offer a potential path to a different history, a path away from ceaseless violence and toward the imperfect rule of law

Hindutva Fascists And Barbaric Zionists Are Natural Partners!
By Anand Singh

A famous Israeli historian has termed the strategy of killing innocents in the name of anti-terrorism by Israel, as ‘Incremental Genocide’. Hindutva fascists are desperate to learn this skill of incremental genocide from their ideological kins, so that they can practice it in India too. Modi’s upcoming trip to Israel needs to be understood from this perspective

Cuba: End The Blockade Immediately
By Chandra Muzaffar

A Resolution on “ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” will once again be presented to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 27 October 2015. There is a special significance about bringing the Resolution, overwhelmingly endorsed by the UNGA for 23 consecutive years, to the attention of the world body this time. It is happening after the US restored diplomatic relations with Cuba on 17 December 2014

The War Politics Behind Nobel Prize
By Gouthama Siddarthan

The Nobel committee is at it again, proving for the umpteenth time that it has been a playground for the international political game of chess

India: The Shrinking Space Of Freedom To Criticise
By Mohd Intekhab Alam Khan

Intolerance to competing ideologies and systematic cramping of public space is on the rise in the country. The civil society must act swiftly and sternly to uphold the values for which India stands; otherwise the country will be pushed towards more intolerance and religious bigotry, which will result in further compression of the free public sphere

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
By Tanvi Ahuja

The Indian criminal justice system is a handover from our colonial rulers. Though it has evolved over time to claim itself as restorative and rehabilitative, it is retributive in practice. Societal attitudes towards ‘criminals’ are not kind and behind the closed doors of our jails lies a murky picture begging for attention and intervention

Onion-Eaters Of Kerala
By B.F.Firos

K Surendran of BJP, one of the many ‘leaders’ whose only ticket to political glory is his almost-daily nocturnal appearances on TV primetime news, fell into a hot soup after a photo of him apparently munching parotta and beef in a restaurant went viral, making him the butt of massive trolling and online ridicule. He immediately went on defensive mode, saying that it was onion curry, not beef

Modi - Naidu Must Answer, Whose And At What Cost AP Capital City Being Built?
By NAPM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chandrababu Naidu, the CM of Andhra Pradesh are to inaugurate the capital city on 22nd of October, spending Rs. 300 crores. At whose cost and what cost, this endeavor is pushed and still being imposed, is a big question. The capital is a game of the capitalists, including real estate developers who are in nexus with the politicians. It being at the cost of the best of agriculture and horticulture which would bring in severe destruction of livelihood and contribute to food insecurity

18 October , 2015

Beef Ban Frenzy Claims Third Life: Now In Kashmir
By Countercurrents.org

The Hindtuva fundamentalist led beef ban campaign in India has consumed another life. 18-year-old trucker Zahid Rasool Bhat S/o Ghulam Rasool Bhat of Batengoo in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district, who had sustained 70 per cent burn injuries in petrol bomb attack by a violent mob in Udhampur district on October 9, succumbed to injuries in Safdarjang hospital in New Delhi today. Zahid along with another Kashmiri trucker and a policeman were injured when a violent mob had hurled petrol bomb towards their truck and assaulted them on October 9 evening after rumours had spread that three cows were slaughtered. The tests, however, have revealed that the cows had died of food poisoning and had no injuries

Sikhs Protest World Over Against Desecration Of
Holy Book And Police Brutality In Punjab
By Countercurrents.org

Sikhs protested world over against the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib ‘bir’ at Kotkapura and police brutality in which two people were killed in police firing. Protests were held in Canada, UAE, Afghanistan and many other places around the world

Neoliberalism, Hindutva Supremacism And Challenges
Before Revolutionary Movement
By Subhash Gatade

Who is going to take up the gauntlet on behalf of the masses. Who would be the new Davids who would confront the Goliaths of our times ? Would it be some ensemble of social movements or a motley combination of anti-system political formations or a reinvigorated and a reenergised revolutionary left in alliance with various people's movements ?

Assam Beware of Saffron Fanatics!
By Shamim Zakaria

Being on ground it’s WE the people of Assam who can defeat these religious fanatics and bigotry politics. Home to a diverse language, communities and ethnicities it’s being Assamese that binds us to the feeling of oneness. There would certainly be attempts to taint the peaceful setup of Assam. But, the inhabitants of the state have to be aware of any such polarising acts by saffron brigade or any other bigots

Bush-Blair Planned Iraq Invasion One Year Before The War
While They were Publicly Propagating Diplomatic Solution
By Countercurrents.org

Bush and Blair, the two world imperial leaders, planned the Iraq war one year before the war was launched although they were publicly telling that they were for a political solution of the Iraq-problem. Recently released Hillary-e-mails exposed the document

Why Peace Activists Should Stop Cheering For Russian Bombs In Syria
By David Swanson

Murder is not moderate. You cannot find "moderate" murderers and engage them to kill extremist murderers. You cannot bomb the extremist murderers without producing more murderers than you kill. What's needed now, as in 2012 when the United States brushed it aside, is a peace process. First a cease fire. Then an arms embargo. And a halt to training and providing fighters and funding by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, and all other parties. Then major aid and restitution, and a negotiated settlement in which, in fact, Russia should be included as it is located in that region of the world, and the United States should not as it has no legitimate business being there

The Imaginary Cuban Troops In Syria
By Matt Peppe

Fair-and-balanced Fox News reported on Wednesday that "Cuban military operatives reportedly have been spotted in Syria, where sources believe they are advising President Bashar al-Assad's soldiers and may be preparing to man Russian-made tanks to aid Damascus in fighting rebel forces backed by the U.S." Fox's claim of an imaginary enemy alliance relies on two sources: the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies and an anonymous U.S. official

US Rejects Kunduz Hospital Bombing Investigation,
Instead Smashes Into Hospital In Tank, Destroying Evidence
By Robert Barsocchini

On October 14th, an “international panel” announced that it was “ready to investigate the deadly US [hospital] bombing”, but would need “assurances from Barack Obama and the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, that their governments [would] comply.” The US rejected the initiative for the investigation, and instead, on October 15th, sent soldiers to smash upthe bombed hospital with a tank, “destroy[ing] evidence” for the war crimes investigation

Climate Disaster Hammers Ethiopia
By Thomas C. Mountain

This year the rains failed in southern Ethiopia and some 25% of a country of 90 million people are facing acute food shortages in the coming months. This climate disaster, brought on mainly by western industries damage to the environment, has left the Ethiopian government quietly begging the international community for a preliminary food aid package worth $500 million, desperately needed to start feeding over 7 million people

Inequality: A Political Agenda
By Omar Rashid Chowdhury

Inequality, one of the contradictions characterizing class struggle in the prvalent system, is a key structural anomaly of the system. The anomaly demands to be identified as an agenda, and that too as a political one. The agenda of inequality and increasing inequality in the present global socio-economic-politicl system is subtly shunned away by the mainstream and often ignored or missed by the stream opposing the mainstream

The Indian Unconscious
By Ravi Sinha

The Indian left is yet to acknowledge the existence and the political weight of the Indian Unconscious. Obviously, it is far from devising technologies for rewiring it. This is not the place to work out the details of depth political strategies that the left must forge. But the first step would be to acknowledge the problem. It is not simply a matter of new terms and nomenclature. The point is that there has been an elephant in the political room and the left has refused to take notice. This elephant cannot be described by limbs such as false consciousness, hegemony or ideology. That would at best be a superficial description

Global Peace And Security: Mankind Is Traumatized By The Middle East Conflicts
By Mahboob A Khawaja

The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions

Academic Freedom Is Being Killed In Madras University
Press Release

Prof. Ramu Manivannan, a preeminent scholar, academician and human rights activist, has been removed from his position of Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration of Madras University and even the department has been closed down for months. Ten students have been suspended from August of this year

17 October , 2015

Dadri Repeated!Another Man Lynched To Death
In The Presence Of Police Allegedly For Smuggling Cow
By Countercurrents.org

Close on the heels of the gory lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, another man was lynched to death by a mob in the presence of police in Sarahan, in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, India allegedly for smuggling cow

Fanatic Fringe Is Modi's Mainstream
By Samar

The problem with the fringe becoming mainstream does not augur well for the future of the republic, and not just for the future of its beleaguered minorities. Once the fringe entrenches itself in power, it turns against everyone, even those instrumental in bringing it there. Experiences from recent history bear witness to this. Pakistan has learnt the lesson that no amount of pretensions can turn a faction of Taliban into a good faction without high cost. India, too, will arrive there if the governments, both at the union and provincial levels, fail to crack down on the fringe decisively. Being sad is okay but one cannot fight crime with that; it requires prosecution and punishment for those responsible. Sadly, with ministers accused of inciting riots and delivering hate speeches, the current regime does not seem to be particularly interested in the punishment of such crimes

The “Beef” War!
By Mohammad Ashraf

The recent controversy about the beef ban connected with cow slaughter is alleged to have been started by certain elements with ulterior motives. It is said to have a well-defined pattern as the controversy with some gory incidents including the one at Dadri appear to be part of a long term strategy of turning India into Hindutva State. It is the beginning of the end to the so called“Secular” character of India. A columnist friend calls it the “Unmaking of India”

Modi Is No More A Holy Cow
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

The writing on the wall is clear. The countrymen have to make some hard choices. Whether it may like to sacrifice their core values of the very idea that makes them an Indian? Whether they may like to sell the core Indian values for few crumbs of material gain and move ahead in the path of development. Or whether they want pluralism and inclusive growth, even if it means having to live with the current growth rate, till the country regains its inner strength

Writers Need To Do More Than To Protest
By Vidyadhar Date

And while some of the liberals have woken up to the danger of fascism, they are quite happy with capitalism which is actually its close ally. The thinker Max Horkheimer’s statement may seem rather harsh but he has a point when he says you have no right to attack fascism if you don’t want to criticize capitalism. The Shiv Sena is now again in focus but people forget that it is essentially a creation of the business and industrial class. This issue is usually buried under the carpet in even serious discussions on communalism

Polya's 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest
And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism
By Dr Gideon Polya

Polya's 3 Laws of Economics mirror the 3 Laws of Therrnodynamics and are (1) Price minus COP (Cost of Production) equals profit; (2) Deception about COP strives to a maximum; and (3) No work, price or profit on a dead planet. These fundamental laws help expose the failure of neoliberal capitalism in relation to wealth inequality, massive tax evasion by multinational corporations, and horrendous avoidable deaths from poverty and pollution culminating in general ecocide, speciescide, climate genocide, omnicide and terracide

Israel/Palestine: A Reality Check
By Alan Hart

There is one thing above all others that must happen if there is ever to be a peaceful resolution of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel on the basis of justice for the Palestinians and security for all. What is the one thing? Governments and their diplomats and all who report and comment in the mainstream media must stop giving credibility to the view that a two-state solution is possible

‘Global War On Terror’ : World War III On The Horizon?
By Sourav Banerjee

Since the Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 30th began airstrikes against ISIS and its affiliates in Syria at the request of the Syrian government, the world is thrown into a dark abyss of serious political turmoil. With at one side hubristic US and its allies including major powers like UK, France, Turkey, Canada and on the other Russia, Syria, Iran and now China along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah forces vying for a bigger pie in the strategic region, World War III is evidently not far from a reality, as we have the US government gratuitously threatening two nuclear powers

TPP: Trading People For Profit
By Mark Moreno Pascual

The recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will expand corporate profits at the expense of people’s rights

Usual US Criminal Insanity! Presidential Heroes Of
Mostly Children Genocide in Vietnam? John Kerry's Ass 
By Jay Janson

During the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate, yesterday millions of simple-minded Americans listened to the now time worn touting of various candidates as heroes, for having “fought for their country in Vietnam.” Here is what former US Navy Swift Boat Commander John Kerry testified about the American war in Vietnam before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971

Declassified: 1950s US Instructional Film On How To Carry Out
Terrorism With Biological And Chemical Weapons Agents
By Robert Barsocchini

A US government informational film from the 1950s, made for the armed forces, was just declassified. It provides instructions on how the US could carry out offensive terrorism using biological and chemical agents, which the US then did in numerous cases, including on its own population and soldiers, for terror, genocide, and experimentation purposes

The Drone Demon: Leaked Slides Expose An Imperial Secret War
By Farooque Chowdhury

Drones, the seemingly dramatic flying machines, appear damaging to image world powers try to build up as the machines are exposing imperial behavior – kill blindly, stay above all sorts of ethics, law and practice. Just exposed papers are telling all these as these shows the inner world of drone-war

Protest Dharana organized Before Governor’s House
Against Odisha Government Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill
By Bhumi Adhikar Andolan

A protest dharana was organized on 14th Oct 2015 before the Governor’s House under the banner of Bhumi Adhikar Andolan-a forum of different sangathans fighting for land rights in Odisha. The protest dharana was organized against the recently passed “Odisha Govt. Land Grabbing (prohibition) Act 2015. Around 2000 people across the state from different organizations fighting for land rights in the State participated in the dharna

13 October , 2015

'Capitalism Is Mother Earth's Cancer': World People's Summit Issues 12 Demands
By Deirdre Fulton

Decrying capitalism as a "threat to life," an estimated 7,000 environmentalists, farmers, and Indigenous activists from 40 countries convened in the Bolivian town of Tiquipaya for this weekend's World People's Conference on Climate Change, aiming to elevate the demands of social movements and developing countries in the lead-up to upcoming United Nations-led climate talks. "Capitalism is Mother Earth's cancer," Bolivian President Evo Morales told the crowd, which also heard over the course of the three-day conference from United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon as well as other Latin American leaders

A Soil Pilgrimage
By Vandana Shiva

In taking care of the soil, we reclaim our humanity. Our future is inseparable from the future of the earth. It is no accident that the word human has its roots in humus — soil in Latin. And Adam, the first human in Abrahamanic traditions, is derived from Adamus, soil in Hebrew. Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” We must never forget that ahimsa must be the basis of our relationship with the earth and each other

US Airdrops Arms In Syria As Russia Escalates Bombing Campaign
By Bill Van Auken

Just days after terminating its disastrously failed program to arm and train US-backed “rebels” in Syria, the Pentagon announced Monday that US Air Force C-17 cargo planes escorted by fighter jets airdropped some 50 tons of arms, ammunition and grenades to anti-government forces. “This successful airdrop provided ammunition to Syrian Arab groups whose leaders were appropriately vetted by the United States,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said in a statement

“We Are The Masters,” Says Israeli Mayor, As 3 More Palestinians Are Killed
By Charlotte Silver

On Monday, Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian youths, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed since heightened violence erupted on 1 October across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and inside present-day Israel to 27

#Enough! We Can Respond To The Tears Of Kunduz Refugee, Abdul Fatah
By Dr Hakim

On the 7th of October 2015, the anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 14 years ago, Ali and the Afghan Peace Volunteers decided instead to meet with members of five Afghan families who had fled the war in Kunduz. Together, they listened to and extended small gifts to these families. Abdul Fatah told his refugee story. “My tears fall every day & I can’t bring myself to eat. I eat this little bread & the bread seems to eat me up. My heart is there and in Kunduz and here…”

Warning To World As Most Powerful State, In Midst Of Major Power Grab,
Exalts “Genocidal Madman” Columbus
By Robert Barsocchini

The USA today provides another illustration of why one state should never dominate global affairs: states, like individuals, largely lack self-awareness. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out that the US is “perhaps the only nation” that was “born in genocide”. “Moreover”, he said, the US celebrates genocide as “a noble crusade,” and US “literature, …films, …drama, …folklore all exalt it.”

Horrid Carcass of Indonesia – 50 Years After the Coup
By Andre Vltchek

Oh Indonesia, you are a true daughter of turbo-capitalism, of the lowest religious aspirations, of senseless obedience, notorious lack of education and knowledge, and unimaginable brutality and lack of compassion! Right now, the Indonesian people have no country. It was taken away from them by Western imperialists, by their own corrupt and treasonous “elites” and by the military. Only after they realize what has been done, they will be able to struggle and build their new motherland

Is "Islamic Terrorism" A Myth?
Ludwig Watzal Interviews Elias Davidsson

An interview withElias Davidsson. His latest book "The Betrayal of India", critically examining the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, is expected to be published in 2016

Silencing Women In Campuses
By Nikita Azad

In such times as these, when voices of women are silenced and the space where such voices were heard are snatched from them, such as democratic educational campuses, it is very important that women start resisting such attempts and put forward a fight for acquiring all the spaces of society, in texts prescribed by the authorities as well as in campuses

12 October , 2015

Banning Ghulam Ali Will Fan Cultural Fascism In India
Protest Letter By Cultural Personalities

South Asia is a nuclear flash point with both India and Pakistan possessing nuclear weapons. This tension can be diffused to great extend through people to people friendship and cultural exchanges. Music is borderless. People in India & Pakistani listen to ghazals beyond the borders. Ustad Ghulam Ali is a cultural icon revered both in India and Pakistan. As music lovers, we are aware that music can diffuse conflicts. By preventing Ghulam Ali from singing in India, the fascist forces are trying to spread hatred between the people of two countries. We condemn the design of these forces and we stand for peace and harmony between the people of India and Pakistan

US Is The Largest Historical Polluter:
Capitan America Unmasks US Climate “Action”
By Farooque Chowdhury

Capitalist economy is the main culprit behind the climate crisis. The system's interests stand against countering the 2C. And, the US, today's principal imperialist power, plays its role, appropriate to its position. “The US”, finds the Capitan America, “is largest historical polluter; 2nd largest emitter annually; has very high per capita CO2.”

New Report On Secretive EU Trade Deals Highlights
Corrupt Agenda For Mass Privatisation
By Colin Todhunter

Public services in the EU are under threat from transatlantic trade agreements that could endanger citizens’ rights to basic services like water, health, and energy for the sake of corporate profits, according to a new report released today by an international group of NGOs and trade unions

Anti-Islam, Anti-Muslim Rallies 'Fizzle' In USA
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

"Sorry, Islamophobes: Your Anti-Muslim rallies ended up inspiring acts of love and service" This headline of the Huffington Post best describes the fizzle of the nationwide anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rallies organized by what Carol Kuruvilla calls a loosely affiliated group of armed protesters

Russia Supplants U.S. In Global War Against Jihadists
By Eric Zuesse

A meeting between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman (son of King Salman) ended on early Monday, October 12th. Agence France-Presse headlined “Vladimir Putin Meets Saudi Prince on 'Political Solution' in Syria,” and reported that, whereas the son of the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi King says that his father still insists on removing the Shiite secularist leader Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria and on ending Syria's alliance with Shiite Iran, Prince Salman said that the Saudi King is “in favour of a political solution in Syria.”

Patriarchy, Black Listing, And The Language Of Birth -
Interview With Mary Lou Singleton
By Mickey Z.

Mary Lou and I recently discussed patriarchy, equal rights, gender, violence, de-platforming, erasure, and more. Our conversation went a little something like this…

Shackling Our Own Freedoms
By Pratap Antony

If we see something. We must say something. The thoughtful people amongst us must reject Amor fati, Learned helplessness & Willful blindness from our beings. We must conquer fear and turn our thoughts to ‘Willful action’, ‘Learned helpfulness and ‘Love of freedom of choice’ and express our right to compassion, humanity and individual dignity and our right to freedom to live in a plural community in peace, love and understanding

Mumbai Slum-Dwellers Hold Awareness Rally
Against Cut-off-Date! Against Demolition!
By Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan

A 300 strong rally rocked Andheri today as slum-residents poured in to demand the safety of their homes from reckless demolition by the government. Recently, homes of the people living in Malvani, Mandala and Mankhurd slums were brutally demolished citing various reasons and vague excuses. Thousands of people including senior citizens and children were rendered homeless overnight. Still unsatisfied, the government is now planning demolition drives in Sidhartha Nagar, Chaar Bangla (Andheri West) where there is massive unrest among the people

11 October , 2015

No, This Land And Country Is Not Ours Anymore:
An Open Letter From An Indian Student
By Aslah Vadakara

The world has to know. India is no more a democracy. This country's prime minister is on a world tour praising India. You need to stand up and ask. Whether what your brother said was the truth

 

 

Israel Kills Toddler And Pregnant Mother In Gaza
By Ali Abunimah

This video shows Yahya Hassan embracing and bidding farewell to his baby daughter Rahaf in Gaza on Sunday. “Wake up, my daughter,” the inconsolable father says, and asks relatives to “leave her with me.” The toddler died along with her pregnant mother Nour Rasmi Hassan in an Israeli air strike

A Decisive Shift In The Power Balance Has Occurred
By Paul Craig Roberts

The world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occured on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces

Amnesty International Once Again Refuses To Oppose War
By David Swanson

This doesn't mean Amnesty International is pro-war. This doesn't mean Amnesty International does more harm than good. An arms embargo is exactly what's needed. It does mean that Amnesty International falls far short of the role of good global citizen and maintains a radically different relationship to war than many of its supporters imagine

The ‘US Way of War’ From Columbus to Kunduz
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

The confluence of Columbus Day Weekend and the Kunduz hospital bombing has us thinking about the deep levels of cultural violence in the United States and what can be done to change it. How does the US move from a country dominated by war culture to one dominated by a humanitarian culture? And, how do we do it in time to avoid war with China and Russia, which both advanced closer this week

India-EU FTA: Time For A Fundamental Rethink?
By Kavaljit Singh

This FTA would have profound implications on local employment and manufacturing in India. The cheaper import of agricultural and manufactured goods due to lowering of import tariffs will negatively affect several labour intensive sectors. Unlike Europe, 93 percent of India’s workforce is employed by unorganised sector with abysmally low wages and no social security

10 October , 2015

US To Give Arms, Air Support To Islamist Militias In Syria
By Bill Van Auken

The Obama administration Friday announced an “operational pause” of the disastrously failed Pentagon program for arming and training “vetted rebels” in Turkey and sending them back across the border into Syria. Instead, Pentagon and White House officials indicated, the focus will now shift to cementing ties with leaders of existing “rebel” militias, consisting overwhelmingly of Sunni Islamist forces with connections to Al Qaeda. US backing to these groups will apparently include both arms and ammunition as well as close air support from warplanes deployed by the US and its so-called coalition

Columbus Lives
By David Swanson

Columbus was a murderer, a robber, an enslaver, and a torturer, whose crimes led to possibly the most massive conglomeration of crimes and horrific accidents on record. But Columbus was a product of his time, a time that has not exactly ended. If Columbus spoke today's English he'd say he was "just following orders." Those orders, stemming from the Catholic "doctrine of discovery," find parallels through Western history right down to today's "responsibility to protect," decreed by the high priests of the United Nations

Iraq Leans Toward Russia, U.S. Still Fights To Win Long-Term
By Eric Zuesse

On October 7th, Reuters headlined, “Iraq Leans Toward Russia in War on Islamic State,” and reported, from Baghdad, that, “Iraq … wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the United States in the war against the militant group, the head of parliament's defense and security committee said on Wednesday.”

Afghanistan And Iraq: Lessons For The Imperial
By Ralph Nader

Guess who is winning? An estimated thirty-thousand Taliban soldiers with no air force, navy, or heavy weapons have been holding down ten times more Afghan army and police and over 100,000 U.S. soldiers with the world’s most modern weaponry – for eight years. ISIS forces from Syria have taken over large areas of northern and western Iraq, including its second largest city, Mosul, and the battered city of Fallujah. ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria are estimated to number no more than 35,000. Like the Taliban, ISIS fighters, who vary in their military training, primarily have light weaponry. That is when they are not taking control of the fleeing, much larger, Iraqi army’s armored vehicles and ammunition from the United States

Why A US Congressional Special Investigative Committee (CSIC)
Must Be Created To Investigate The MSF Hospital Bombing
By Franklin Lamb

The bombing of the DoctorsWithoutBorders/Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) hospital at Kunduz is a punishable war crime and the Pentagon stands indicted and must be held accountable depending on the findings of fact. Massive international customary law and a host of treaties and conventions in force, including the Geneva Conventions specifically protect medical facilities and their medical staffs and patients make this plain

Book Review: "The Educator And The Oligarch:
A Teacher Challenges The Gates Foundation"
By Raghav Kaushik

The book notes that the Gates Foundation is careful to distance itself from crude applications of its principles. For example, it recommends using value-added models as only one of multiple measures of effective teaching. However, such a defense is facile. As noted earlier, much of the funding in the “school reform” movement is by the Gates Foundation itself, making it hard to excuse the gap between principle and practice. Even setting aside the funding aspect, a set of principles can only be judged by how it is actually put into practice, not by some putative non-existent ideal implementation

09 October , 2015

Dalit Women Stripped: It Is The Republic Of India That Stands Naked
By Samar

It is the Republic of India and not a Dalit family that stands naked in front of Dankaur Police Station in Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, located not more than 50 kilometres from the national capital. There are “conflicting” reports, as well as pictures and videos, which have gone viral on social media about what exactly transpired

NATO Vows Biggest Buildup Against Russia Since Cold War
By Bill Van Auken

NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels Thursday gave their final approval to the expansion of the Enhanced NATO Response Force to 40,000 troops as part of a major escalation of the US-led alliance’s military buildup against Russia. The NATO ministers, including US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, seized upon Moscow’s airstrikes in Syria against Islamist militias seeking the overthrow of the government of President Bashar al-Assad as the pretext for more aggressive deployments of military forces on Russia’s border

Nobel Peace Prize For Peace
By David Swanson

The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday morning to "the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011." I think the 2015 award could have been much worse. It could also have been much better. It could have gone to work opposing armaments and international warmongering

Israel Tore Fadi Alloun’s Family Apart; Then It Killed Him
By Budour Youssef Hassan

Fadi’s experience with Israel’s apartheid system began when he was less than two years old. His mother, who carried a Jordanian passport, travelled to Amman at that time to visit her sick father, taking Fadi’s younger brother with her. The Israeli authorities banned her from returning to Jerusalem, tearing the family apart. Even after his death, the Israeli authorities have not yet granted his mother and brother a permit to pay Fadi a final farewell

Stop Millions Of Western Immigrants!
By Andre Vltchek

Tens of millions of European and North American immigrants, legal and illegal, have been flooding both the cities and countryside in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa. Western migrantsare charging like bulls and the ground is shaking under their feet; they are fleeing Europe and North America in hordes. Deep down they cannot stand their own lifestyle, their own societies, but you would hardly hear them pronounce it. They are too proud and too arrogant! But, after recognizinginnumerable areas of the world as suitable for their personal needs - as safe, attractive and cheap – they simply pack and go!

Setting Things Straight For The Steady State
By Brian Czech

The next time you hear the win-win spin that “there is no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment” or the equivalent in your regional culture, don’t just throw up your hands in resignation to the rhetoric. Think instead about a future beyond growth. That’s where there’s no conflict with protecting the environment, national security, and international stability

In UN Of Appearances Latin Americans Don't Call For Nuremberg Prosecution ,
In 2009 Gaddafi Did
By Jay Janson

Though Argentina Bolivia Cuba Ecuador Venezuela and Nicaragua condemned US wars and murderous exploitation during this year's UN Gen. Debate, they as other delegates, lamented the current deplorable condition of today's world of death and destruction, of poverty and starvation calling for everyone to work to rectify the situation. No delegate even once called for justice through prosecution. Gaddafi UN speech quoted

Worshipping Cow: Killing Humanity
By Ram Puniyani

Just over a decade ago (2002) in Dulina village of Jhajjar in Haryana a mob of over a thousand people lynched five dalits who were skinning a dead cow to sell the hide. A few months ago in Malegaon Mahahrashtra police arrested three Muslims on the charge of storing beef. On the back of this come the news from Bisara that a Muslim was killed and his son injured seriously on the charges of storing-eating beef

Interrogating Patriarchy: Mechanisms Underlying
Violence Against Women In South Asia
By Cynthia Stephen

Resistance of oppression is one of the most common objectives of all movements for justice. Feminism has, over the decades, provided much intellectual input to this endeavor. While acknowledging its key role in helping women and societies to understand the injustice done to women, it is also important to ask whether all the boxes have been ticked in the attempt to uncover and unpack the roles and responsibilities of societal structures and practices in upholding male power

08 October , 2015

Climate Change “Tipping Points” And The Fate Of The Earth 
By Michael T. Klare

Not so long ago, it was science fiction. Now, it's hard science -- and that should frighten us all. The latest reports from the prestigious and sober Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make increasingly hair-raising reading, suggesting that the planet is approaching possible moments of irreversible damage in a fashion and at a speed that had not been anticipated

The Only Surprise Is That Not More Israeli Jews Are Being Attacked
By Alan Hart

The incidents which have marked the escalation of violence in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and have included the killing of a few Israeli Jews should not be viewed and considered in isolation. They have a context and it can be summarised as follows

Listen To Syrians: The Media Jackals And The People’s Narrative
By Ramzy Baroud

Imagine the Syrian war from the point of view of ordinary Syrians from a variety of backgrounds. They are most likely to offer a different perspective and to hold entirely different expectations than most other parties involved.

Beefolution
By Saswat Pattanayak

Are the wealthy liberal celebrities who are conveniently challenging Hindutva fanatics to “come murder me for eating beef” aware of the reality that those who actually get murdered for eating beef in India are in no socio-economic position to invite the wrath of the Hindutva fanatics? That, while such invitations are rendered trivial the moment they are forwarded to righteous Savarna, actually have grave consequences for the lives of the oppressed in the Indian society? Are the new beefolutionaries willing to unmask their own class position which is solely responsible over the decades to nurture the dietary politics in Hindu India?

Celebrating May Day, KMU Style
By Kim Scipes

May Day in the Philippines is always a joyous day for the KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno Labor Center). A national holiday, May Day[1] is celebrated with a number of marches of tens of thousands of Filipino workers and their supporters, assembling at different sites across the National Capital Region, and marching toward a common rally sitein Manila where a pro-labor program of speakers and cultural presentations always takes place, commemorating International Workers’ Day

Identity News, Color Blues And Ethnic Dues
By Jim Hickey

To those who don't insist on obfuscation or denial this much must be clear. We are all cousins, unless we have an even closer kinship. The differences among us are tiny, relative to our genetic code, our biological template

Protect India’s Secular Legacy
By Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan

It is disturbing to note that discussions of the heinous incident have been largely restricted to whether it was beef or not. Would it be justified for them to murder even if it was? We would like to stress that the state cannot interfere or dictate people’s food habits. The struggle for land rights cannot be divorced from secular values and this heinous attack can only be challenged by coming together to protect India’s secular legacy

Srinagar “International” Airport!
By Mohammad Ashraf

Thrust on getting high-end foreign tourism to Kashmir without international air connectivity is a hypocritical exercise!

07 October , 2015

Climate Change Is Coming To A Place Near You
By Rasmus E. Benestad

We have both information and knowledge that can be used as guidance in decision-making and climate change adaptation. However, we need to rethink our questions and look for cases where climate science can provide reliable information that have a direct relevance, even if we cannot get a complete answer. At least, we should look for ways to improve the information basis for decision making by looking at the type of information and data that has been used in the past. One way to do that is through a dialogue and co-production of knowledge

Why Resistance Is Not Only Fertile, It's Essential
By Mark Boyle

In this extract from Mark Boyle's latest book, Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, he explains with beauty and great feeling why we have to stand up for Nature and defend the well-being of the Earth, our home, with ferocity

#GlobalGoals? The Truth About Poverty And How To Address It
By Rajesh Makwana

It's high time UN agencies and the mainstream media acknowledge the true scale of global poverty and engage in a long overdue public debate on how ambitious and transformative the international development agenda really is

Dialogues For Justice, Public Interest And The Common Good
By Shobha Shukla

A day after 193 member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) together with grassroots activists, faith-based groups and NGOs organized a side event at the margins of the UN summit to discuss pressing issues affecting the marginalized and frontline communities in the context of the post-2015 development agenda

Cows Are Protected; Humans Are Not: A New Reality In Digital India!
By George Abraham

The ongoing saffronization of secular institutions, and the silence of those who are in power when minorities are attacked may only lead to more political instability and social disharmony at home. Speaking on a seminar on communal amity, Vice-President of India, Hamid Ansari said the following: ‘article 21 of the Constitution provides for right to life and it was the responsibility of not only the government but people as well to ensure that every Indian is secure. “We have our own religious books, but as a citizen, the constitution is one religious book. It says the right to life is a basic right of every citizen” he said

The Most Criminal Treaty In History Is Finally Presented For Signing
By Eric Zuesse

As of 5 October 2015, a super-secret 12-nation treaty called TPP is set to be signed by the 12 nations, and the terms of this massive international contract will be kept secret until the contract has been in force for four years, at which time the contents might (but won't necessarily) be revealed. This will be a large new international government that has been negotiated for years by international corporations, and which is now to be rubber-stamped by corrupt politicians on their behalf. Whereas those international corporations know the contract's terms, the people who elected and are ruled by those politicians don't, and (for four years, at least) they won't

Bangladesh Beyond The Threshold Of Disorder
By Taj Hashmi

While Bangladesh is fast moving toward an untracked territory – possibly to the kingdom of disorder and insecurity after the unresolved killing of two foreign nationals – politicians are busy playing a no-holds-barred blame game against each other. The latest vitriol against BNP chief and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is a highlight of the game. Awami League’s Mahbubul Alam Hanif publicly asserted Mrs Zia might have a link with the recent killing of an Italian citizen in the capital

Open Letter To The Vice-Chancellor Of Victoria University
By Dr Vacy Vlazna

I wish to pay my respects to the Victoria University academics who protested the mendacious talk last week by Israeli soldiers, Raphael Wein and Naftali Gross, who had taken part in the 2014 monstrous Israeli war crime, Operation Protective Edge against Palestinian families sealed in by land, sea and air. It is outrageous that Victoria University condoned what its decent academics censured as “an exercise in propaganda and apologetics for military violence . This meeting gives a platform to [Israeli Defence Force] soldiers for them to celebrate the very conflict that led to such massive Palestinian loss of life” and the mass homelessness, trauma, maiming, unemployment and the grief and suffering that in now daily life in Gaza

Flagless Germany
By Linh Dinh

“Generally, the only Germans who display flags are far-right ones. During big soccer matches involving the national team, it’s also OK to display flags.” Nationalism has become a dirty word for many Germans. Along the Karl-Heine-Kanal, I spotted a sticker that said in English, “FIGHT NATIONALISM AND NAZIS,” then beneath that, “BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY.”

The Pornography Of Hatred
By William John Cox

The United States Voters' Rights Amendment (usvra.us) is a comprehensive voters' Bill of Rights with multiple sections to remedy all of the ills of the current electoral process at once. Enactment of the Amendment would transform the United States government into finally becoming a truly representative democracy. Ratification would be a major step towards ensuring equality of opportunity and freedom and, ultimately, the reduction and elimination of racial, social, and religious hatred and bigotry. Millennials, the inspiring generation of young people now coming of age in America have the most to lose, which is why they must lead the march, but we all have a responsibility to pave the way

Let People Lead The Development Agenda
By Moin Qazi

Through my four decade association with the development sector in the country I found that one of the key deficiencies in the development model is the absence of participation of the people whose development is being sought to be achieved .They are the primary stakeholders in the project and unless they are unloved in the entire process right from planning to the final execution we will not be able build their ownership

06 October , 2015

Bombing Of Afghan Hospital Is A War Crime
By Kathy Kelly

U.S./NATO forces carried out the airstrike at about 2AM on October 3rd. Doctors Without Borders had already notified the U.S., NATO and Afghan forces of their geographical coordinates to clarify that their compound, the size of a football field, was a hospital. When the first bombs hit, medical staff immediately phoned NATO headquarters to report the strike on its facility, and yet strikes continued, at 15 minute intervals, until 3:15 a.m., killing 22 people. 12 of the dead were medical staff; ten were patients, and three of the patients were children. At least 37 more people were injured. One survivor said that the first section of the hospital to be hit was the Intensive Care Unit

Geographical Coordinates Provided To US Forces
Used To Pin Point Attack On Afghan Hospital
By Thomas Riggins

The U.N. and international community is rightly outraged since the U.S. was given the precise location of the hospital and its international protected status was well known. This information was provided to prevent any attack. Since the attack was carried out with unrelenting accuracy over a thirty minute period one suspects the information was used to pin point the target

US-Dominated Pacific Trade Pact Agreed
By Mike Head

After five days of marathon talks between trade ministers in Atlanta, the US administration of President Barack Obama finally succeeded at 5 a.m. on Monday, American eastern time, in securing agreement from 11 other Asia-Pacific governments for the adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It is an unprecedented trade and investment bloc

Parenting On The Brink: Wrestling With Fears Too Big To Name 
By Frida Berrigan

And then another thought comes to mind, the sort of thought that haunts the parents of this moment: When I'm 85, it will be 2059, and what will that look like? When my grandkids are my age now, it could be almost a new century. And what will our planet look like then? And I feel that little chill that must be increasingly commonplace among other parents of 2015

Israel Lights The Touchpaper At Al-Aqsa Again
By Jonathan Cook

Now the West Bank and Jerusalem are on fire again, as Palestinian youths clash with the same oppressors. Reports suggest soldiers killed one Palestinian youth and injured more than 100 others on Sunday alone. Talk of a third intifada grows louder by the day

Illegal Trade Contributes To Placing Cacti Among World’s
Most Threatened Species – IUCN Red List
By Marianne de Nazareth

Many gardeners across the world are fond of cactii, and several have rock gardens taking pride of place in their gardens. Infact because of this craze for the rare specimens of cacti, there are several species that are threatened, with being lost to us forever, and how many of us know that?

Mumbai's Malvani Shack Dwellers Evicted, Houses Demolished:
Still No Hope For Justice
By Ghar Bachao Ghar Bano Andolan

Informal settlement in Malvani no.8, Malad was demolished on 4th and 6th June this year in the name of protecting mangroves. In this forcible eviction more than 600 houses were demolished. The demolition was carried out by the Mangroves Cell of the Maharashtra Forest Department. Evicted slum dwellers had moved to the Bombay High Court in the hope of ‘justice’ but the Forest Department’s misleading submissions before the Court compelled the slum dwellers to withdraw case and now trying luck with all the documents in their possession with the concerned collector. On 1st October, the slum dwellers finally withdrew their case

05 October , 2015

Dadri Lynching: A Political Crime Borne Out Of Criminal Conspiracy
And A Terrifying Lack Of Remorse
Fact Finding Report

Even while it is the work of a criminal conspiracy; the context of the crime is purely political in the ‘beef ban’ politicking of the BJP. Many BJP ministers, MPs and others have tried to deflect attention away from the enormity of the crime, by calling it as an ‘accident’ (Mahesh Sharma, Union Minister and BJP MP from NOIDA), or writing that ‘lynching on mere suspicion is bad’ (Tarun Vijay, spokesperson BJP), indicating that if the suspicion turn out to be true it would have been OK

Washington Divided Over Syrian Debacle
By Patrick Martin

With more and more countries entering the battlefield in Syria, the US ruling elite is increasingly divided over how to continue its efforts to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad and continue its drive to assert hegemony over the Middle East. The bitterness of the recriminations between the Obama administration and its congressional Republican critics, within both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and within the military-intelligence apparatus itself, is the hallmark of a mounting debacle for American imperialism

Saudi Arabia Heading UNHRC Panel: A Cruel Joke!
By Sourav Banerjee

Saudi Arabia has already executed over 100 people this year mostly by beheading, more than ISIS during the same period, and is reaching new heights of justice depravity with a recently released judgement to behead and then crucify the 21-year-old son of a prominent regime critic, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was convicted at the age of 17 for participating in an ‘illegal’ anti-government demonstration and a range of other offencesincluding “explaining how to give first aid to protestors” and “inviting others to join him at the protest” in the wake of the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprising.Ali’s execution would be illegal under international law and a tight slap on the face of democracy and human rights

'Munnar Green Blood Revolution' Splinters And The Hunger Striking Women Faint
By Countercurrents.org

The Munnar Green Blood Revolution led by the women workers of Tata led Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company (P) Ltd (KDHP) has taken a dangerous turn. 7 women workers who were on hunger strike since saturday fainted and taken to hospital. There were no ambulances. People who fainted were carried in auto rickshaws and police jeeps

Misrepresentation Of The Colombian Conflict
By Matt Peppe

A week and a half ago news emerged from Havana that the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian government had reached a framework for a final peace agreement to be signed within six months. This was hailed as a breakthrough in the half-century-old conflict and an opportunity to bring peace to the people of Colombia. But by adopting the government's narrative, mainstream media have failed to recognize the primary cause of the violence and the inevitability that it will continue in the future.

Brazil: ‘We Need To Fight The Coup Plotters And Shift
The Government’s Economic Program,’ MST Leader Says
By Federico Fuentes & Alexandre Conceição

South America’s largest country, Brazil, has been rocked in recent months by a political crisis in part fuelled by a mass protest movement calling for the dismissal of centre-left president Dilma Rousseff. The protests come as the country officially moves into recession, with Brazil’s economy expected to contract this year by 2%

Denmark: Poverty And Inequality Are On The Rise, A Few Simple Questions
By Farooque Chowdhury

Denmark, one of the advanced capitalist countries, is facing increased poverty and inequality. At the same time, the country is also facing homeless problem. “The number of homeless people in Denmark has increased by 23% since 2009”, said West, an online newspaper produced from Italy and Belgium

Tawkin With Irish On The Scranton Thin Line
By Chuck Orloski

Since the Masters of the Universe and planetary 1% have purchased and made complete lackeys into demi-gods, spooks, and wisemen, I suppose it's OK (not blasphemous?) for me to make Irish, the tool maker, into a shaman, the creator of soup kitchen psalms

Somebody Who Never Went To College Helps Children Of
Brick Kiln Workers Enter College
By Dr Sandeep Pandey

There may be many examples like Super 30 of Patna where children of daily wage earners are being trained to make it to elite higher educational institutions of India. These centres are mostly run by very qualified people. But in Kanpur Mahesh Pandey, who completed his Intermediate education and dropped out of a polytechnic in Ballia, Bachelor of 40 years of age, is helping children of brick kiln workers complete their school education and enter institutions of higher learning

No Hope Of Justice For Indian Farmers
By Moin Qazi

India’s economy may be soaring, but agriculture remains its Achilles’ heel, the source of livelihood for hundreds of millions of people but a fraction of the nation’s total economy and a symbol of its abiding difficulties. In what some see as an ominous trend, food production, once India’s great pride, has failed to keep pace with the nation’s population growth in the last decade. The cries of Indian farmers can hardly be neglected by the leaders of a country where two-thirds of people still live in the countryside

04 October , 2015

Are We “Proud Enough” Of Kshama Sawant?
By Romi Mahajan

The people of Indian origin (PIO) who most other PIOs cite as sources of pride are either business people, mainstream political actors, or sports stars. A few authors and engineers can be thrown in but in small doses only. Are we “proud enough” of Kshama Sawant? She is an avowed Socialist and is a vocal and intelligent member of the Seattle City Council. She is an articulate advocate for the people who Capitalism has left behind

Ruminations Of An Afghan Girl Burning To Death In A Hospital Bed
By David Swanson

I know that I'm not supposed to be bitter, and yet that somehow makes it harder not to be. When my father and sister and two cousins were blown into little pieces last year, it was the action of some distant office worker pushing a switch on a remote-controlled airplane. And I'm supposed to believe that they meant well. And this is supposed to make it better. But somehow it makes it worse

At UN Syria Fails To Call For Nuremberg Prosecution Of
US And Allies Funding/Organizing Terrorist Invasion
By Jay Janson

Years from now when the East resumes world leadership after five centuries of savage European racist domination and the UN is free of colonial powers control, people will look back in astonishment to UN debates in which nations bombed and invaded by the US and NATO were unable call for justice under the Nuremberg Principles of international law. Syria allowing the US to get away genocide in 2015 one example

Russian Moves In Syria Highlight General US Hypocrisy
By Robert Barsocchini

One has to wonder whether Moscow planners intend, as one of the effects of their current anti-terrorist (using US parlance) operations in Syria, to highlight US hypocrisy. Intentional or not, this aspect of the Russian campaign has been stunning

Southeast Asia “Forgets” About Western Terror
By Andre Vltchek

The Vietnamese people, especially the young ones, know very little about the horrific acts committed by the West in their neighboring countries. At most they know about the crimes committed by France and the US in their own country – in Vietnam, nothing or almost nothing about the victims of the West-sponsored monsters like Marcos and Suharto. Nothing about Cambodia – nothing about who was really responsible for those 2 millions of lost lives. The “Secret Wars” remain secret

Freedom For Omid Kokabee
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

The Islamic Republic of Iran pretends that it's adheres to superior moral values than, for example, the United States of America, especially what the incarceration of alleged Islamic terrorist at Guantanamo Bay prison is concerned, who have been incarcerated since 2001 without trail. To live up to the Islamic value system, the government of Iran should release Omid Kokabee immediately

BJP’s Latest Antibiotic Tablet For Kerala
By B.F. Firos

If there is one place which has kept the Hindu right at a safe distance for such an annoyingly long time period, it is Kerala. The RSS and its political face BJP has not yet been able to make any ripples in the placid social waters of the state, though its power-hungry leaders have been salivating at the prospect of penetrating into this constituency for the past so many years. Attempts are being done to turn the tides of this renaissance. Standing at the vanguard of this regressive bid is Vellappally Nateshan, the general secretary of SNDP Yogam – a socio-cultural movement founded by the 20th century social reformer Sree Narayana Guru – which endeavored to emancipate the Ezhava community from the abyss of the oppressive Hindu caste hierarchy

Some Suggestions For The Revival Of The Indian Left
By Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

The Left still has a very strong place in the hearts of the Indian people, who long for government which is truly secular, pro-poor and most importantly wants to work hard for the development of the country. The victory of the AAP should serve as an inspiration to the Left in this regard and with the right steps hopefully they will once again retain their rightful place as an influential and major political force in India

03 October , 2015

Syria-Battle Lines Create Tough Questions In Geopolitics: Lessons Not To Be Missed
By Farooque Chowdhury 

The entire Middle East is in a volatile situation as coming days may find wider confrontation, and a few more actors are in the wings. New battle lines are being drawn almost everyday in the Kurdistan-Iraq-Syria-Turkey (KIST) region. Whatever news is coming from the region bears elements of uncertainty and increased tension with far-reaching implications in geopolitics. Many of the major geopolitical-players in the region are finding it difficult to estimate the total account

US, Allies Blast Russia For Attacking Al Qaeda In Syria
By Bill Van Auken

In a joint statement Friday, Washington and its allies in the war for regime change in Syria issued a condemnation of Russia’s recent airstrikes in that country, demanding that Moscow confine any military action to attacks on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets. “These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalization,” the statement warned.In reality, the forces on the ground that the US and its allies are defending and which they are demanding that Russia stop bombing are dominated by the Al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate

Confronting ‘Looting To Order’ And ‘Cultural Racketeering’ In Syria
By Franklin Lamb

Damascus: One of the many gut-wrenching dimensions of the soon to be five-year Syrian crisis is that whenever one surveys the conflict on the ground and concludes that the maelstrom can’t possibly get any worse, it plummets deeper into the abyss. The condition of people in Syria has never been worse in modern times

Hillary Offers Syria A Libyan-Iraqi-Style Paradise
By David Swanson

The criminal acts of overthrowing the governments of Iraq and Libya resulted in millions of people being killed, injured, traumatized, and turned into refugees, and the creation of not only worse governments but deadly chaos in those nations and spilling out into the rest of the region. This cannot be a model for what to do to Syria

Obama's Presidential ‘Legacy' Heads To Failure
By Eric Zuesse

Europe is being overrun by refugees from American bombing campaigns in Libya and Syria, which created a failed state in Libya, and which threaten to do the same in Syria. Europe is thus being forced to separate itself from endorsing the U.S. bombing campaign that focuses against the Syrian government forces of the secular Shiite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, instead of against his fundamentalist Sunni Islamic opponents, the jihadist groups (all of which are Sunni), such as ISIS, and Al Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra)

Poets' Talk: Pope Francis, Masilo, Marc Beaudin, et. al.
By Gary Corseri and Charles Orloski

A talk between two poets depicting a composite view of where we are at this moment--politically, spiritually, artistically--in the whirling Zeitgeist!

Pope Francis vs The Cardinals
By David Anderson

The visit of Pope Francis to the United States was a very powerful one, but with two serious flaws; the Sainthood of Californian Junípero Serra, reopening wounds of Colonialism (insensitivity to American Indigenous Peoples) and as now being reported; the meeting with the Kentuckian anti-gay marriage county clerk Kim Davis. These flaws were all the more tragic as they obscured his great achievement, the 'Laudato Si' Encyclical laying out a moral case for addressing climate change

Who’s Trying To Silence Cindy Sheehan?
By Mickey Z.

I last interviewed Cindy in 2010 and was planning to do so again soon. When I recently learned she was being targeted by a new disinformation campaign, I knew the time was right

The Color Of Human Flesh!
By Prof. Shah Alam Khan

How many of you know the color of human flesh? It is lilac colored. Believe me it is and I know because I am a surgeon and I see raw human flesh every day! So you think it’s useless to know the color of human flesh? No, not in today’s India

Beneath The Surface: Racism In India
By Dr. Alana Golmei

With retired parents and younger siblings still studying, she had been the breadwinner of the family, a huge responsibility to carry along with the burden and torture of being discriminated against. She talked about the many other women from Northeast Indiain similar situations, who work and earn for their families but are still underestimated in a lot of spaces in their lives and are deemed inferior

The Changing Face Of ‘Publicity’ – ‘Digital Diplomacy’
By Priyanka Dass Saharia

The ‘Digital Drive’ driving the dream of a ‘Digital India’ clearly isn’t only hinging on economic or political motives, as many would tell but also cultural ones, the larger purpose of striking chords with the local communities and diasporas by extending the hand of the land to enhance the sense of ‘belongingness’. Thus, it calls for a deeper and sensitive understanding of the dynamics of digital diplomacy as a social phenomenon, which uses ‘publicity’ as a method for change management and a re-evaluation of the conventional understandings of ‘public’, ‘public sphere’ and the process of ‘publicity’

02 October , 2015

90 Year Old Dalit Denied Temple Entry And Burnt Alive
By Countercurrents.org

Close on the heels of the lynching of a man to death following a rumour that he and his family ate beef, a 90-year-old Dalit man was brutally attacked with an axe and set on fire for trying to enter a temple at Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh, India. The elderly man died on the spot

Ambedkar’s Children And Conversion In The Time Of Ghar Wapsi
By B.Prabakaran

Gujarat government has retracted four lakh books on Ambedkar, titled, Rashtriya Mahapursh Bharat Ratna Ambedkar - the standard titular of Hindu groups for Ambedkar, which was expected to be given out to the school students across the state. The reason for dropping the former decision was, as reported by the print media, including (in the appendix part) twenty two vows of Ambedkar, which he openly affirmed in front of his counterparts from different parts of India on the day of his conversion to Buddhism in 1956. In order to stay away from the ire of the ruling party, no paper has published the news item in Tamil, as if it is extraneous to the public interest, except Theekkathir- the communist party paper

Threat Of Wider War Mounts As Russia Continues Airstrikes In Syria
By Barry Grey

A second day of Russian airstrikes in Syria against Islamist anti-government forces heightened the danger of Washington’s four-and-a-half-year war for regime-change triggering a clash between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers. With Moscow’s move, aimed at frustrating the US-led drive to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s sole Arab ally in the Middle East and host to its only naval port outside the former Soviet Union, three of the world’s most powerful militaries are now carrying out uncoordinated combat missions within the country’s restricted borders: the US, France and Russia. Britain is preparing to enter the fray in the coming weeks

Netanyahu's Real Message Was To Israel's Jews:
"Talk Peace But Prepare For Doomsday"
By Alan Hart

My speculation is that when Netanyahu allows his mind to engage with reality he is aware that a day may be coming when, in order to protect their own best interests, the governments of the major powers, including the one in Washington D.C., will say to Israel something like: "Enough is enough. If you do not end your defiance of international law and become serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept, you will be totally isolated and sanctioned."

Low Oil Prices – Why Worry?
By Gail Tverberg

Most people believe that low oil prices are good for the United States, since the discretionary income of consumers will rise. There is the added benefit that Peak Oil must be far off in the distance, since “Peak Oilers” talked about high oil prices. Thus, low oil prices are viewed as an all around benefit. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Peak Oil story we have been told is wrong. The collapse in oil production comes from oil prices that are too low, not too high

Capitalist Ethics And Myths
By Jon Kofas

Does the value system and Western-centered ethics that exists under the political economy of free enterprise best serve all of humanity, or merely a very tiny percentage of it? If indeed all of humanity is best served under the system, why do we have the following deteriorating conditions throughout the world?

Leading Cause of Climate Change Is Animal Agriculture
By Robert Barsocchini

There is some kind of “cowspiracy” going on… Animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change, but no one seems to want to address it

On Immoral Women, Sex And Caste - A Conversation
By Vaikhari Aryat

A note on dalit patriarchy, homogeneity, privileges and morality

#PinjraTod: Break The Cages
By Nikita Azad

The air of Delhi is smelling a fresh campaign named PinjraTod, launched by female students of Delhi, studying in different colleges in the city. PinjraTod as the name suggests is a mass campaign unravelled against discriminatory practices that continue to prevail in the colleges of Delhi against female students, especially in hostels

So Far, Not So Good: An Open Letter To Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir
By Adil Manzoor

Do you know sir I was one of those who voted for the first time. The experience was thrilling but inside I was crying knowing that I was playing with my own blood

01 October , 2015

The Lynching Of Mohammad Akhlaq And The Undoing Of The Idea Of India
By Suhail Qasim Mir

The lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq and brutally beating up his son, Danish by a mob in Dadri, UP for allegedly consuming and storing beef marks the travesty of the democratic and non-violent credentials of India. The culture of tolerance and secularism, which India is boastful about, is fast eroding. When endeavours are being made all over the world to embark new journeys towards peace and reconciliation, India seems to be moving back into history. Imposing ideals from a mythic past, which are objectionable to a large section of the population, seems to be the course that India has chosen

Assault On Syncretic Traditions Of India
By Ram Puniyani

How do we restore the complex cultural, religious, literary pluralism of India is something which the social movements need to ponder over in times to come

Obama Lied About Syria
By Eric Zuesse

U.S. President Obama's central case against Syria's Bashar al-Assad (and his central argument against Assad's supporter Russia on that matter) is that Assad was behind the sarin gas attack in Ghouta Syria on 21 August 2013 — but it's all a well-proven lie, as will be shown here

The Gas Wars
By Kenneth Eade

The “gas wars” are also the current impetus behind the anti-terrorist rhetoric in fighting ISIS in Syria. Dubbed the “Islamic Pipeline,” a planned 3480 mile long Iran-Iraq-Syria natural gas pipeline going toward Europe from the Middle East, has the full support of the current Assad government. This pipeline project is competing with U.S. and European dreams to build a similar pipeline, originally contemplated to run from Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Syria to Turkey, to to supply European customers through Austria

Seven Points Not On The Arab Media Agenda - What Is There To Celebrate?
By Ramzy Baroud

It has been recently announced that Arab ‘media experts’ plan to ‘celebrate’ Arab Media Day on April 21, 2016. The theme for the first day, of what is meant to be an annual tradition, is: “The Role of the (Arab) Media in Combatting Terrorism”. The mockery is surely multi-faceted. One is the clearly politicized choice of the theme of the proposed event. The term ‘terrorism’ is a political one, and is rarely applied to violence committed by Arab regimes: it only applies to their detractors

Flaming Middle East Finds End Of Single Pole
By Farooque Chowdhury

Ever flaming Middle East is turning a tough spot for the world imperialism. The region with widening conflict zones is now a formal confirmation of the end of single-polar world. Imperialism now can’t dictate rules of games on its own there in the increasingly volatile area. Political developments in New York and Moscow on the last day of September carry the message

Refugees Don’t Cause Fascism, Timmermann – You Do
By Dan Glazebrook

Sustainable solutions are available, and always have been; namely 1) stop destabilising Africa and the Middle East: which means, precisely, stop arming sectarian insurgencies (Syria, Libya and Somalia), stop sabotaging diplomatic solutions by insisting on one side’s surrender as a precondition to talks (‘Assad must go’) and stop forcing vulnerable economies to adopt regressive neoliberal policies which impoverish small producers (‘structural adjustment programmes’ and ‘free trade areas’); and 2) implement the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, and give refuge to all those fleeing persecution and war

Iran And Appeasement At UN General Debate Also No Call For
Justice via Nuremberg Prosecution of US
By Jay Janson

Article is in regard to the address of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran before the UN General Assembly during its 2015 General Debate, the general atmosphere of appeasement during the debate, and an unwillingness, even by delegates of nations bombed and invaded by US or NATO, to uphold the UN Charter that contains the Nuremberg Principles of international law. Part of a series of articles on the UN General Debate

Pope Francis In Philadelphia
By Linh Dinh

Lapsed Catholics take only what they like from the church, but political and business leaders can simply ignore the Vatican. They haven't gotten where they are by paying attention to popes. With Francis, though, they can even use his teachings about humility, forebearance, tolerance and charity to make us better endure the coming years of suffering and austerity as orchestrated by them, our true rulers. As Simone Weil points out, Catholicism is the religion par excellence for slaves

Trumpocrisy 
By Nomi Prins

The Donald's Finances and the Art of Ignoring Conflicts and Contradictions 

Migration As A Means of Livelihood or An Escape Route: An Empirical Analysis
By Roli Misra

The out migration from the state of Assam is continuing because the returns from the agriculture are low. The government policy which is supposed to maintain and preserve their identity of this religious minority is non effective in the state of Assam

Anarchy In Kashmir!
By Mohammad Ashraf

Total anarchy in every sphere of life seems to have taken hold of entire Kashmir. There is absolute free for all without even a semblance of accountability!