The bhajan had a very familiar tune but the words and the off-key singing made it difficult to recognise at first. Then it came like a flash — the tune was that of “Allah, yeh ada kaisi hai in haseenon mein, roothe pal men na mane mahinon men,” a song from the forgettable 1968 Dharmendra-Sharmila… Read More Shobhit Mahajan: The ties that bind religion, popular culture
NB: December 1971 is a time I remember vividly. I was in Kolkata and travelled to Purnea in North Bihar to meet my dear comrade Lalloo, (Rabindra Ray). We were then amongst the last remaining comrades from amongst our collegiate group who were still in what was known as ‘the underground’. That story has been… Read More Memories of 1971
(Middle East Monitor) – Israeli media have been pointing out that the Biden administration in Washington is not too bothered about the occupation state’s illegal settlement expansion. There is little reason to doubt the veracity of the claim. So far, US President Joe Biden has managed to maintain a fine balance between his agenda in favour of… Read More RAMONA WADI: Why does the US turn a blind eye to Israel’s expansion of Squatter-Settlements on Palestinian Land?
Assange committed empire’s greatest sin. He exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat. Conservative or Labour. Trump or Biden. It does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same Satanic songbook… The execution of… Read More CHRIS HEDGES – The execution of Julian Assange: He exposed the crimes of empire; and that can't be tolerated
NB: Attempts to rewrite history with the use of political power are taking place in India as well. Ironically, the infamous habit has been connected to communist regimes, but is quite clearly popular with anti-communist ones as well. As George Orwell remarked in his dystopian novel 1984: “He who controls the past controls the future;… Read More Memorial and the liberating power of history. By Timothy Snyder
Santo Tanti is an Adivasi – but you can’t pin him down to a specific tribe within that category. For perhaps a century and a half, Assam’s tea garden areas have seen Adivasis from Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh arrive here as migrant labourers. Many descendants of these… Read More Santo Tanti’s songs of sadness, work and hope
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1938 message to Congress warned that when private power becomes stronger than the democratic state itself, we have Fascism. There are many ways to witness the intensifying domination toward a corporate state. One way is to compare exposé books in the 1960s and the present. Within a span of five years, there were three… Read More Ralph Nader: Critical Exposés Everywhere as the Corporate State Worsens
Letter to the Readers, Mainstream 11 Dec 2021 Hail To The Glories Of Corruption Farmers’ victory helps democracy survive Remember Babri Mosque Demolition As Violation of Law Kashmir Youth – an Aspirational & Anxious Social category Uttar Pradesh: The Problem of Unemployment For Opposition Unity TMC Should Avoid Confrontation with Congress SAARC: Regionalism and the… Read More Mainstream, Dec 11, 2021
Where are you going to get the money? That question haunts congressional proposals to help the poor, the unhoused, and those struggling to pay the mortgage or rent or medical bills, among so many other critical domestic matters. And yet — big surprise! — there’s always plenty of money for the Pentagon. In fiscal year 2022, in… Read More WILLIAM J. ASTORE: Pentagon's funding grows to $778 billion after losing the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars
Neoliberalism was the form of capitalism that came after colonialism, driving markets back into the public sectors of the former colonial powers, allowing capital to monetise and extract wealth from their soft underbellies. Surveillance capitalism, led by the data giants, is taking its place. As academic and writer Shoshana Zuboff has argued, under surveillance capitalism,… Read More Adam Ramsay – Culture wars: identity politics and the fight against surveillance capitalism
After the truth-shower 