YOGENDRA YADAV This week the country saw a new Rahul Gandhi. Unlike his solo and strident attack on the Rafale scam before the 2019 Lok sabha election, his interrogation of PM Narendra Modi’s complicity in the Adani affair was at once sharper and calmer. This was not a piece of classical oratory. But he took… Read More You saw a new Rahul Gandhi in Parliament. I saw the change in Kashmir
RAJU RAMACHANDRAN The recent controversy over the appointment of advocate L Victoria Gowri as an additional judge of the Madras High Court has raised the question as to whether people with political allegiances should be made judges. Disclosure: The author led the team of lawyers who challenged Gowri’s appointment before the Supreme Court. The challenge was not… Read More Here are SC, HC judges with political pasts. Gowri’s unconstitutional views were the problem
‘Blank Paper movement’ decrying government policies rekindles dissent after Xi Jinping’s decade of iron-fisted crackdowns. Support the Chinese peoples struggle for democracy! A 25-year-old woman who had been interrogated by police after protesting in south China tells the Guardian that even though she is frightened by police, the protests have radicalised her as she has… Read More ‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear
Raksha Kumar Adani Watch is a unique news organisation. Its only goal is keeping tabs on an Indian conglomerate from outside the country. There are three reasons for this. The first one is the crisis in business journalism. “Business journalism in India is not investigative. It is mostly reliant on information leaks,” says Seshu from… Read More Indian business journalism in crisis
It was the first time that the Iranian authorities have admitted to holding tens of thousands of political prisoners. Some 500 persons were shot dead by government security forces in the course of last fall’s demonstrations, and most of those detained were simply protesting peacefully, which should not have been the basis for an arrest… Read More Iran’s Khamenei admits to holding “Tens of Thousands” of Prisoners of Conscience
More than four months after the death of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman who died in custody after being arrested for incorrectly wearing her hijab, the Iranian authorities’ attempts to crush nationwide protests have seen more than 500 people killed by security forces, including 70 children. Four protesters have so far been executed by the state, with… Read More ‘They used our hijabs to gag us’: Iran protesters tell of rapes, beatings and torture by police
Opposition parties on Sunday stepped up their attack on the Modi government over the Adani issue, with the Congress alleging that its “silence smacks of collusion”. Ahead of the party’s planned nationwide protests on Monday, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said they will pose three questions a day to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over… Read More Opposition raises pitch on Adani issue; Congress to launch nationwide protests on Monday
Aidan McQuade Theresa May, both as home secretary and prime minister, pushed for the UK to become a global leader in the international struggle against contemporary forms of slavery. Her vision was always a blurred one, in which she somehow reconciled championing the 2015 Modern Slavery Act alongside prosecuting victims of human trafficking for the… Read More Anti-strike bill: a step toward forced labour in the UK?
by Yorgos Mitralias The international media may say hardly a word, but that does not mean that these days France is not being shaken by the biggest social eruption of the last several decades! In particular, on Tuesday January 31st the demonstrations against Macron’s pension reform were the most massive in the country for 30 years (a total of… Read More France: towards a social explosion of historic proportions!
Group of legislators, activists and community workers are accused of holding unofficial pre-election primaries that authorities say constitutes subversion One of the most significant national security trials in the Chinese government’s crackdown on Hong Kong will begin on Monday, two years after many of the city’s most prominent government critics were first brought into custody. The case… Read More Hong Kong 47: trial of dozens in pro-democracy movement set to begin under national security laws
After the truth-shower 