Om Gaur is in the middle of the most heart-wrenching story of his career as a journalist. Earlier this month, Gaur — the national editor at Dainik Bhaskar, one of the world’s biggest-selling newspapers — got a tip that dead bodies had been spotted floating in the Ganges River in Bihar, a state in eastern India. Given how… Read More Diksha Madhok: Indian journalism and the Corona Pandemic
ना भूलना तुम ना भूलना तुम,2021 की पहली अप्रैल की सुबह, या उसके पहले की कोई सुबह, वसंत ऋतु की मंद ख़ुशबुएँ, जब, एक नहीं, करोड़ों आंखें एक साथ खुलीं थीं। और सबने अशुभ का कोई मंज़र देखा था! मन में कुछ खौफ़ सा लगा था। ना भूलना तुम, कि तुम्हारी खिड़की की चौखट… Read More ना भूलना तुम : By Dr Raju Sharma, ex IAS
DISASTERS TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY. When we are shocked by wonder or horror, our fingers shoot over our mouths as if to stop breath from falling out. When we say, Oh my god, you won the lottery, or an Oscar, or the neighborhood watch found your cat, or someone you admire is accused of something terrible,… Read More TISHANI DOSHI: Out of Breath
Dear Prime Minister, We, a group of former civil servants from the All India and Central Services, with a deep commitment to the Constitution of India and with no political affiliations, have written to you as well as other constitutional authorities on a number of occasions in the past, whenever we felt that executive actions violated… Read More Former Civil Servants Write to the PM: ‘Take Effective Action Now’ / The BJP Can Be Defeated but the RSS Project Remains
Hundreds of corpses have been found floating in the river or buried in the sand of its banks. Those who live close to where they have washed up, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, fear they are Covid-19 victims. India has been overwhelmed by a devastating second wave of the pandemic in recent weeks.… Read More Geeta Pandey: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
Today, for the first time in my life, I feel I have run out of words. This last fortnight has been so full of deaths and bereavements, of news of children dying before their old parents, or of friends who one had grown up with falling to the virus, that I have lost my faith… Read More Ira Pande: Forget, we won’t // Gurbachan Jagat: The emperor’s new clothes
On May 8 the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court while hearing a PIL wondered why India, a pioneer in vaccine production before the current pandemic and a big exporter of vaccines, had to rely on just two private domestic manufacturers–Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech–to produce Covid-19 vaccines. It has also baffled… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Who destroyed India's vaccine self-sufficiency? // Top Virologist Shahid Jameel Quits Covid Panel After Criticising Government
NB: Thank you Parulben for reminding us of the humanity and decency of the Indian people. No matter how much abuse and how many threats are hurled at you, remember that you speak and write for all suffering people. We are with you. Charan-sparsh. DS दया धर्म का मूल है पाप मूल अभिमान, तुलसी दया… Read More Gujarati Poet Parul Khakkar Blames 'Naked King' for Corpses Floating in the Ganga
NB: This thoughtful essay appeared a year ago. I planned to post it then, but it seems much more appropriate to be read now. It reads like a prophesy. DS The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese philosophical doctrine evolved during the Zhou dynasty in the first millennium BCE, to confer on an… Read More Ravi Bhoothalingam: Coronavirus and the Mandate of Heaven (March 13, 2020)
We stand in solidarity with Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR) and deplore efforts to silence an important alternative and inclusive Hindu voice in the diaspora. We are alarmed by the news that Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), specifically co-founders Sunita Viswanath and Raju Rajagopal, have been sued by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). They, along… Read More Statement of Solidarity with Hindus for Human Rights, USA, by Academics and Scholars
After the truth-shower 