NB: Our rulers posture on the world stage as statesmen for peace; while at the same time their sole political agenda within India is to stoke up inter-religious hatred and discrimination. DS STATEMENT BY CITIZENS FOR PEACE DEHRADUN, 13 September 2024 We are deeply disturbed and troubled by the manner in which social and economic… Read More UTTARAKHAND SITUATION: STATEMENT BY CITIZENS FOR PEACE
Kara Fox, CNN As right-wing rioters attacked communities with racist violence across parts of the UK last month, 22-year-old climate activist Cressie Gethin sat in a prison cell. Her crime? Organizing a disruptive protest against new government-granted licenses to drill for oil — a planet-heating fossil fuel — in the North Sea. In late July,… Read More Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves
NB: This is an account by Gandhiji of his visit to Amritsar just after the announcement of the Hunter Commission of Inquiry into the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919. It relates his experiences of interaction with the people when he visited the Golden Temple in November 1919. Further developments in his negotiation with the administration… Read More Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Amritsar, 1919
As of February 2024, his plea before the top court has been adjourned 14 times in 11 months. Ishita Mishra Four years after the Delhi police said student activist Umar Khalid was a key conspirator in the February 2020 north-east Delhi riots, he is languishing inside a maximum security prison in Tihar Jail without trial… Read More Four years and counting, Umar Khalid languishes in jail without bail or trial
Kambaiz Rafi Until the collapse of Afghanistan’s US-backed government in August 2021, few knew clearly what the Taliban wanted once they had returned to power. Some western officials and observers hoped for a big change from the regime, which had governed the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in the 1990s. This time, they hoped, a more sophisticated and pragmatic vision might… Read More The Taliban’s harsh new vice and virtue laws are a throwback to the oppression of the 1990s
During the presidential debate, Kamala Harris was asked to explain what she would do about Israel’s war on Gaza, and she said, “Let’s understand how we got here. On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis.” This is false. As anyone with a basic working knowledge of the conflict knows, this war is… Read More From the Arsenal of Democracy to an Arsenal of Genocide / Six UNRWA workers among 18 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school
The last decade, defined by Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial tenure, has seen a concerted bid to make the rhetoric of Hindu supremacy normal. From the prime minister to the sangh parivar’s social media trolls, to frothing film stars, the right to be publicly hostile to minorities, particularly Muslims, has been energetically exercised. I notice that public… Read More Gets under the skin
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza Suhas Chakma For most of human history human rights did not exist. The struggle to secure them arguably began in 1215 with the Magna Carta in England, which promised protection from illegal imprisonment as a right. But it took another 733… Read More Human rights are disappearing before our eyes
Under Xi, the ruling Communist Party has vowed to eradicate “historical nihilism” — or any views that question or challenge its official version of history, including glorified images of sanctified national heroes.China passed a law in 2018 banning any insult or slander of national “heroes and martyrs,” including military personnel. The offense was added to… Read More An artist made scathing sculptures of Mao over a decade ago. Now, he’s detained for slandering China’s heroes, family says
Civil servants cannot pledge to defend our Constitution and secular democracy and at the same time owe allegiance to an organisation that stands for Hindu Rashtra Constitutional Conduct Group We, former civil servants and members of the Constitutional Conduct Group, write to express our profound concern about the implications for secular democracy of the recent… Read More A violation of the Constitution
After the truth-shower 