Anand K. Sahay To understand the direction in which the country is being propelled by the powers that be, we should consider the recent no-confidence motion debate in the Lok Sabha (August 8-10, 2023) not in isolation, but in the context of the happenings of the past fortnight or so, and a likely scenario for… Read More Ahead of the 2024 Elections, the BJP-RSS Is Setting the Ideological Stage
First posted August 11, 2012 Closing the Circle I look at the world and I notice it’s turningWhile my guitar gently weepsWith every mistake we must surely be learningStill my guitar gently weeps George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangladesh; August 1, 1971 Introduction I look at the world and I notice it’s… Read More Closing the Circle (Frontier, August 2012)
By Nadia Leigh-Hewitson, CNN From trees that have narrowly avoided destruction through arson, wartime bombing, and city-council-mandated felling, to trees that have shaded royalty, the Woodland Trust’s panel of tree experts has shortlisted 12 of the UK’s top trees in urban locations, and a thirteenth tree has been nominated by the public… https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/15/world/woodland-trust-tree-of-the-year-uk-c2e-spc-scn/index.html
http://www.reporters-collective.in Picture this: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during an election rally in the remote corner of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, speaks about his dream of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. A BJP-friendly NRI businessman sitting in the US with no background in farming or agriculture has a brain wave. He writes a letter with a… Read More NRI Businessman Seeded Idea of Corporatising Agriculture
A former Additional Superintendent of Police in the Manipur police department has levelled the most damaging charge against Chief Minister Biren Singh – that he is not fighting the illegal drug trade and illegal poppy cultivation but “He is part of it. He is part of the drug cartel. He is protecting them. He is… Read More Damaging Charge Against CM Biren Singh: Protecting Drug Lords
The connivance of the state and Union government in letting the violence spiral out of control and not adequately utilising the available instruments of the central government, especially the Army and the Assam Rifles, seems deliberate, irresponsible and extremely dangerous in terms of national security. LT GENERAL PRAKASH MENON The Assam Rifles is a central paramilitary force… Read More Vilification of Assam Rifles is a calculated move for revenge
Russia’s anti-war movement should learn from the ‘patriotic dissent’ used by women involved in the war Natasha Danilova / Jennifer Mathers The women in Russia’s military families are posing a subtle but significant challenge to Vladimir Putin’s handling of the war in Ukraine by engaging in a form of political activism best described as ‘patriotic… Read More Russia’s military wives and mothers are challenging Putin’s war on Ukraine
Julian Borger Seventy years ago, the fate of Iran hung in the balance, when a US-UK coup to oust the elected prime minister appeared to have failed. The CIA was ready to pull the plug on the operation, but a 28-year-old British intelligence officer, monitoring events from a clandestine base in Cyprus, insisted on persevering.… Read More ‘Written out the history books’: the British spy who planned the Iranian coup
First posted August 14, 2015 The following article, which appeared in 1970, is a detailed account of the Calcutta satyagraha. It was part of a book titled The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives 1935-1947; by C.H. Philips and M. D. Wainwright, (ed). Professor Dalton later published a full-length account of Gandhi’s political activism: Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent… Read More Gandhi During Partition: A Case Study in the Nature of Satyagraha
When the Taliban moved closer to Kabul in the early days of August 2021, a series of unusual advertisements flooded the shopping pages on Afghan social media. Musicians were putting their instruments and equipment – the tools of their trade – up for sale. Many were being offered for a fraction of what they were worth. Yet,… Read More The Taliban’s fear of art is killing Afghan culture
After the truth-shower 