15 July, 2003
A
Global Left Turn?
By Andreas Hernandez
As the imperialist forces were waging a war to
colonize Iraq a silent revolution was occuring on the other side. Signs
of a new global order have begun to unfold. This tremendous organizing
on a global scale, directly challenges a uni-polar world
Thirst Below
Sea Level
By M Suchitra
Despite being enriched by two monsoons and four
rivers, Kerala's Kuttanad region has become `a desert of backwaters'
after many developmental trials
Quetta
And Surplus Jihadis
By Dr Farrukh Saleem
Ronald Reagan had taught Pakistani generals the
fine art of jihad. The Afghan war over, the jihadi surplus was released
away from Pakistan in the direction of Kashmir. Other destinations included
Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, the Philippines and parts of the Middle
East
Ayodhya: A
Future Bound By The Past
By Sumanta Banerjee
Fearful of an adverse judicial verdict, L K Advani,
Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others of their ilk are now keen
on an out-of-court settlement of the Ayodhya dispute which will put
an end to the court cases against them
13 July, 2003
Pipe
Dreams Of Iraqi Oil
By Faisal Islam and Oliver Morgan
The oil has started to flow at last from Iraq.
Millions of barrels must flow soon to pay for reconstruction contracts
'Disappearances'
In Kashmir
By A G Noorani
The disappearance of large numbers of persons in
Kashmir, what the UN Declaration on the subject terms as 'enforced disappearance',
is a matter of national shame
12 July, 2003
Anatomy
Of A Quack-Mire
By Jim Lobe
The 'Q' word--for quagmire--not to mention the
'V' word, for Vietnam--is back in mainstream discourse as each day appears
to bring the killing of at least one more U.S. or British soldier
The Holy War Israel
Wants
By Jonathan Cook
The inhabitants of Nazareth, Israel's only Arab
city, often talk of the "invisible occupation": although they
rarely see police -- let alone soldiers -- on their streets, they are
held in a vise-like grip of Israeli control just as much as their ethnic
kin in neighbouring Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus are
Hating Romila
Thapar
By Subhash Gatade
Why the Hindutva brigade has set its sights on
Indias most distinguished historian
Best
Bakery Was 37th Riot Acquittal
By Leena Misra
There have already been 36 riot cases where trials
have been conducted and the accused were acquitted since the witnesses
either did not turn up or they turned hostile, and the Best Bakery case
was the 37 th
11 July, 2003
Bush
in Africa
By Mark Weisbrot
President Bush's five-day, five-country tour of
Africa has had political observers wondering: is this just another photo-op
Harry Potter
And The Childish Adult
By A.S. Byatt
Booker Prize winning novelist A.S.Byatt dismisses
the latest instalment of the Harry Potter adventures as below par "ersatz
magic" which lacked the skill of the great children's writers and
catered for readers with stunted imaginations
A Story From The
Heart Of Israel's Secret Prison
By Mohammad Daraghmeh
A Palestine business man who was incarcerated in
a secret Israel prison speaks about the 38 days of his continuous torture
Crisis Of Archaeology
By Irfan Habib
If the unprecedented court order to excavate the
Babri Masjid site for historical evidence whether there existed a temple
previously, did not do worse at Ayodhya, part of the credit goes to
the numerous archaeologists, who maintained a constant vigil at the
excavations.
10 July, 2003
Bush's
War Against Evil
By James Carroll
President George Bush is out to ''rid the world
of evil.''After trying out his programme , first in Afghanistan, then
in Iraq, has the United States, become an instrument of evil?
Global
Poverty and Progressive Politics
by Thabo Mbeki
If Progressive Politics is to Have Any Meaning,
it Must Start From the Reality That You Can't Overcome Global Poverty
Through Reliance on the Market
A Wall In Their
Heart
By Meron Rappaport
A report on the Apartheid wall
09 July, 2003
Media:
The Lying Machine
By Satya Sagar
We have to tame the lying machine to win back our
sense of reality
Our
water, Their Profits
By Jonathan Leavitt
Twenty years from now, there will be a war somewhere
in this world, but that war will not be an "oil war" but a
"water war"
Muslim
Women On The Move
By Asghar Ali Engineer
Muslim women are on the move. They are questioning
the traditional interpretations of the Quran in respect of womens
rights and demand equal rights for men and women
The
Rat In The Grain- The Looting Of Iraqi Agriculture
By Jeffrey St. Clair
The situation in the fields of Iraq continues to
rapidly deteriorate. The banks, which provide credit and cash, have
been looted, irrigation systems destroyed, road travel restricted, markets
closed, warehouses and grain silos pillaged
08 July, 2003
The
Phoney War
By Andrew Grice and Ben Russell
Tony Blair finds himself in a tough spot after
an inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee concluded that "the
jury is still out" on the accuracy of the Government's dossier
on Iraq's weapons, issued last September
Murdered At
The Museum
By Libby Brooks
Richard Wild was shot dead outside Baghdad museum
on saturdya morning. He is the 17th journalist to be killed in Iraq
since the conflict began, and the first to die since US forces entered
the capital in April
Fear, Pain,
and Shame in Aceh
By Lesley McCulloch
In the police stations of Aceh, in Indonesia's
far northwest corner, fear is the daily diet of the detainees. Not fear
of the outcome of a due legal process, but fear of torture by Indonesian
police to force a false confession
Democracy
In Jordan?
By Toujan Faisal and Ian Urbina
For the first time since 1997, Jordanians went
to the polls last month to vote for parliament, and by most accounts
the elections went smoothly. But Jordan is still a long way off from
embracing true democratic reform
The Return To
Muthanga -An Affidavit
By C.K Janu and M. Geethanandan
An affidavit released by the tribal leaders on
the violent incidents at Muthanga in February in which a tribal and
a police man lost lives, and which was followed by violent reprisal
of the tribal community by the government of Kerala
07 July, 2003
Will
the Hudna last?
By Uri Avnery
After "Intifada" (shaking off) and "Shahid"
(martyr), another Arabic term has entered the world's vocabulary: "Hudna"
(truce)
Treat Them As Human
Beings
By Gideon Levy
As long as mothers are giving birth and infants
cannot get to hospital on time and return home in a humane way, as long
as a groom cannot get to his wedding - there will be no quiet in Isreal
and Palestine
Segregation Wall
Completely Isolates
Palestinian Villages
The residents of Nazlat Abu Nar, Nazlat Isa, and
Baqa al-Sharqiya in the northern West Bank, say they have become completely
cut off and isolated from the rest of the West Bank because of the segregation
wall
What Will
They Do To Kashmir Now?
By K Balagopal
India and Pakistan think that the dispute is between
them and ignore the people of Kashmir. And now they have the assistance
of the world's primary rogue state
06 July, 2003
Iraq
Human Toll - The Untold Story
By Ed Vulliamy
As news reporters tracked troops on the road to
Baghdad, much of the suffering and loss of ordinary Iraqi civilians
was left untold. Until now. In one of the finest articles to have come
out of occupied Iraq , The Observer foreign correspondent Ed Vulliamy
goes in search of their stories
Iranian Student
Movement:What's in the Cards?
By Mozghan Bahar
In Iran, the national day of protest in solidarity
with students struggle for democracy is approaching fast (July 9, 2004).
What is in the cards?
What's
Happening In America?
By Eliot Weinberger
America doesn't feel like America any more. The
climate of militarism and fear, similar to that of any totalitarian
state, permeates everything
Trembling
With Fear, We Lied In Court
By Abhishek Kapoor & Ayesha Khan
Barely one week after the court set free all 21
accused in the Best Bakery massacre in the Gujarat riots, Sehrunissa
Sheikh, one of the main witnesses and wife of the bakery owner, has
come out and told The Sunday Express that she lied in court trembling
with fear for her life
The Social
Engineering Of Gujarat
By Hemant Babu
The ongoing violence and its broadening social
and geographical base in Gujarat is a consequence of the political recasting
of social identities
05 July, 2003
Affidavits
From Eyewitnesses To Rachel Corrie Killing
Affidavits given by Nicholas James Porter Durie
,Joseph Carr,
William George Hewitt,Gregory S. Schnabel,Thomas Edward Dale,Richard,
J.A. Purssell on the gruesome murder of the pece activist Rachel Corrie
in Palestine
Israel Defies
Peace Plan with Land Grab On West Bank
By Chris McGreal
In flagrant breach of commitments under the US-led
road map to peace, the Israeli government has confiscated hundreds of
acres of Palestinian land on the West Bank this week
Iraqis Wait
For US Troops To Leave
By Jonathan Steele
"I'm an Arab and I will not accept disrespect.
Tell them please. The American people must know that Iraqis no longer
trust America"
Broken Men,
The Pre-Untouchables
By B.R. Ambedkar
Excerps from f B.R. Ambedkars 1948 work "The
Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? "
Untouchability,
The Dead Cow And The Brahmin
By B.R. Ambedkar
Excerps from f B.R. Ambedkars 1948 work "The
Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? "
Contempt
For Budhists As The Root Of Untouchability
By B.R. Ambedkar
Excerps from f B.R. Ambedkars 1948 work "The
Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? "
04 July, 2003
Imperial
History Repeats Itself
By Randeep Ramesh
Once again, Indians are being asked to fight Iraqis
for empire's sake
Don't Send Indian
Troops To Iraq
Any decision to agree to the American request to
send Indian soldiers to serve on the so-called stabilisation force in
occupied Iraq will be illegal and unacceptable
Blah, blah,
blood
By Rajmohan Gandhi
VHP plan to use the Shivaji-Afzal Khan picture
as a weapon; an inspiring example of what Hindus should be doing, and
also to provoke Muslim violence which would serve as a pretext for a
pogrom of the post-Godhra kind
The
Song Of The Sufi
By Sagarika Ghose
Track II diplomacy is far too mushy: Lets
get real
Indira's
Ire
By Indira Jaisingh And Malini Ghose
Indira Jaising about the shortcomings of the Domestic
Violence Bill
03 July, 2003
Reaping
The Whirlwind
In an astonishing announcement on global warming
and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled
that the world's weather is going haywire.
'Maintaining
Imperial Order'
By Anna Pha
The prophets of the new American empire have become
so arrogant that they do not hide their objectives and the ways by which
they intend to enforce their domination. This article, the first of
three, brings you what their spokespersons have said
We
Still Need Feminism
By Natasha Walter
Feminism is pronounced dead every few years, even
though its basic goals have never been achieved. Despite the strong
awareness of discrimination,people tend to see their experience of inequality
as a private rather than collective experience, one that requires private
rather than collective solutions
11 Million Forgotten
Children
By Peggy Peck
While the world's daily news headlines track the
troubles in the Middle East and the latest emerging diseases -- SARS,
monkey pox and West Nile virus -- nearly 11 million children are dying
quietly, victims of the ancient villains: diarrhea, malaria and measles.
The Constitution
And Reservation
By P. B. Sawant
The Supreme Court of India in all its decisions
on reservation has interpreted the expression `backward classes' in
Article 16 (4) to mean the "socially and educationally" backward.
It also emphatically rejected "economic backwardness" as the
only or the primary criterion for reservation under article 16 (4) and
observed that economic backwardness has to be on account of social and
educational backwardness.
How
'liberation' has brought anarchy to Kabul,
and now history is repeated in Baghdad
By Robert Fisk
For Fallujah, read Kandahar.
For Baghdad, read Kabul
Circle
Of Mistrust
By Kuldip Nayar
The core issue is not Kashmir, it is mutual suspicion
The
India-Pakistan Odyssey
By Imtiaz Ahmad
Peace is not a one-way street. It has to be achieved
through joint efforts
A Devious Ayodhya
Solution Will Fail
By Praful Bidwai
There must be no humiliating, dishonourable, unjust
compromise, which erases the crime committed against Indian secularism
in December 1992
Clandestine
Survey Of Christians And
Muslims In Kerala
The Home department of the central government is
conducting a clandestine survey of Christians and Muslims to collect
information on their churches,mosques and the related institutions like
schools or orphanages.
02 July, 2003
The
Dismantling Game
By Jonathan Cook
What is going on in the West Bank is only a game.
Settlers quietly re-establish the outposts after Israeli army dismantles
them
Picking Up The
Pieces In Gaza
By Peter Hansen
The loss of palestinina homes to the maws of Israeli
military bulldozers or powerful explosive charges is now so commonplace
that it fails to make the grade as news
Uribe's Onslaught
By Justin Podur
Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, Unleashed
a country-wide assault on all fronts in June on its citizens
Blacks, Science
And National Pride
By Kancha Ilaiah
Positive capitalist ethics evolves in a civil societal
environment where the basic consciousness of spiritual democracy expands.
Indian capitalism functions in an environment of spiritual fascism
Muslims Recant,
and Hindus Are Acquitted in Riot Trial
By David Rhode
The faith of India's 140 million Muslims in the
country's commitment to equal justice is again being tested in Gujarat
01 July, 2003
The
Internet Under Surveilance
By Vinton G. Cerf
Publication of second annual report on cyberspace
: "The Internet under Surveillance - Obstacles to the free flow
of information online" This report is about attitudes to the Internet
by the powerful in 60 countries, between spring 2001 and spring 2003.
The preface is by Vinton G. Cerf, who is often called the "father"
of the Internet.
The Homecoming
By Sa'id Ghazali in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip
The Israeli military have begun a limited pull
out from Gaza strip. But the damage from seven military incursions in
33 months had left a wide swath on each side of the highway which Israel
said was done to remove cover for militants firing rockets
The
Doctrine Of Humanitarian War
By Karel Glastra van Loon and Jan Marijnissen
"The American war logic that lies at the foundations
of earlier interventions leads unavoidably to new wars."
The Aryan Connection
By Satya Sagar
The Aryan Connection is only myth.
But it is horrific to think about the misery that this myth has unleashed
on the world
Women's
Liberty Under Attack In Northwest Pakistan
By Juliette Terzieff
A religious alliance in Pakistan's Northwest provinces
is ushering in strict new laws that threaten the rights of women and
remind many of the Taliban
India: Gujarat
Massacre Cases Sabotaged
Human Rights Watch
The new report published by Human Rights Watch
" Compounding Injustice: The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres
in Gujarat", examines the record of state authorities in holding
perpetrators accountable and providing humanitarian relief to victims
of state-supported massacres of Muslims in February and March 2002