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By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  Reminiscing the outrageous murder of Right to Information (RTI) activist Ranjan Kumar Das a year ago without doubt signaled new wave of authoritarian onslaught on democratic movements in Odisha. It suggested how the Odisha government failed to protect the lives of RTI activists. Ranjan was murdered near his village Beruan in the Kendrapara district of Odisha on 31st January 2020. Indeed, like his friends, family, fellow RTI activists and acquittances, I am yet to recover from this shocking news.

Known for his incisive thinking, a senior IAS officer, who retired recently, has shared on social media top writer-journalist Khushwant Singh's article "Why I am an Indian", published as an editorial in the "Illustrated Weekly of India", a former Times of India publication. The bureaucrat insists, "It makes sense, and I believe is a must-read for all civil servants, perhaps all Indians in the present political situation." The article was published on February 15, 1970. Read on... ***

Vidya Bhushan Rawat talked* with   octogenarian tribal rights leader Stan Swamy , currently in jail for his alleged role in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence: *** None would ever have imagined that an octogenarian Stan Swamy would face such a harsh treatment for his committed work for the adivasis of Jharkhand. When the governments of the world over honour activists who work in tiring circumstances and devote their time to areas far away from their places then we must realise that it is not for money or fame but for pure commitment and convictions. Father Stan Swamy was born in Trichy and as a Tamilian Christian. He had enormous opportunities for him but he dedicated over 30 years of his life to the service of adivasis in Jharkhand. He worked with Indian Social Institute in Bengaluru but he always felt the fragrance of the natural lives of Jharkhand. He decided to fully dedicate his life for the rights of adivasis in Jharkhand. People like me were just reading his articles on displacem

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  In 1991, when I was 12 years old and in 8th class in my village high school, the Government of India led by the Congress Party launched new economic reform programmes. I vividly remember reading local newspapers, which carried news on the reduction of agricultural subsidies on seeds, fertilisers, electricity and irrigation. It also started dismantling the universal approach to food security and public distribution system in India.

By Moin Qazi* There is a tempest in India’s farmlands even as their tillers wage an extraordinary crusade for alleviating age-old distresses. Away from the bustle of the raging storm in the Delhi-National Capital Region is a small semi-literate group of women farmers in a remote hinterland who are assiduously managing a farmer producer company (FPC) to help alleviate the woes of other women growers in Satara. The Mann Deshi Farmer Producer Company (MDFPC) plans to organise 12,000 small and marginal growers (70 per cent of whom are women) to secure better prices for their agricultural produce. The MDFPC was founded by Chetna Gala Sinha, the well-known social entrepreneur who is shepherding a rural revolution in western Maharashtra. The epicenter of this movement is Mhaswad, a large village that nestles in Satara district, on the placid banks of the Manganga River, some 300 km south-east of Mumbai. A 45-year-old woman farmer Vanita Pise is the co-founder of the MDFPC. However, she does n

By Dr Simi Mehta, Ritika Gupta* The inevitability of the birth of alternative development framework is inherent within the metabolism of the capital system. It is important to examine how the alternative development paradigm unfolds as a new epistemology out of resistance movements and other radical transformative initiatives like globalization and socio-economic system and institutions; which create and co-create unequal distribution of power and perpetuate discrimination and domination by humans over others as well as over nature. Prof Sunil Ray articulated his views on alternative development paradigm in a webinar jointly organized by Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi and Centre for Development Communication and Studies (CDECS), Jaipur on November 12, 2020. The Keynesian package that was first provided to withstand the onslaught of the Great Depression of the 1930s cannot be applied for every economic crises. Since it has been repeatedly been resorted to, the

Writing on the one of the world’s topmost novelists, Albert Camus, author of “'The Plague'”,  Mugambi Jouet  calls him “a thinker for our age of pandemic and polarization.” Titled “Reading Camus in Time of Plague and Polarization”, published in the Boston Review, a political literary forum, Jouet's review says, “The French Algerian writer steadfastly defended democracy and humanity against dogmatic ideologies of all stripes. We need to read and reread him today.” Read on... ***  This year has not only seen revived interest in Albert Camus’s novel 'The Plague' (1947), it also marks a key anniversary: Camus’s death at the age of forty-six in a sudden car crash sixty years ago. The occasion has led to commemorations in France but it has been understandably overshadowed in the United States by COVID-19, the fateful presidential election, and beyond. Yet Camus is a thinker for our age of pandemic and polarization. He sought to transcend the divides of his own epoch by w

By Harsh Thakor*   I simply do not have an adjective in the dictionary to sum up the intensity of the farmers resistance in Delhi. History continues to be re-written like an inextinguishable light. It is reminiscent of a protracted war launched by an army against unflinching odds, confronting the enemy in the very belly. Each and every day it is further consolidating. With the methodology and skill of an architect or surgeon and relentlessness of a boulder resisting a thunderstorm the farmers organisations have braved it out on the outskirts of the capital. 

Malwabar village Vidya Bhushan Rawat , a human rights defender, has interacted with the  tribal-turned-Dalit community found in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai, Musahars, living in village Malwabar, Deoria, Uttar Pradesh, on issues related with agriculture, land and how they deal with the entire issue. According to him, one would be able to understand the crisis  faced by the community in Malwabar village, which is a Musahar hamlet, even though it has changed a lot.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Shailendra, poet and lyricist of extraordinary ideas and a weaver of words, the man who immortalised himself with Raj Kapoor’s collective team of geniuses such as Mukesh, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and Shankar Jaikishan, passed away on December 14th, 1966. Ironically, December 14th is also Raj Kapoor’s birthday. Raj Kapoor always referred to Shailendra as Kaviraj and that title suits him so well as none in the Bombay cinema come close to Shailendra in terms of range of his poetry and its impact on the masses. Cinema in fact was completely dominated by Urdu speaking elite, and of course Shailendra himself was not unknown to it. It is said that Shailendra made “Teesari Kasam” with great zeal and hope but after the failure of the film he was crestfallen and suffered a lot as his health got impacted. Raj Kapoor got the same with the failure of “Mera Naam Jokar”, as he adjusted himself, changed his perception, and rebranded his RK banner. A filmmaker can do that but a poet c

Screenshot from the ebook Alarmed by the powerful farmers’ uprising in North India, as part of the Government of India’s (GoI’s) powerful propaganda blitzkrieg, the Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC), earlier known as DAVP, the nodal organisation of GoI for advertising and communication, has released a colourful 106-page e-book in order to justify controversial the three farm laws, which are the main point of contention.

Open letter on missing women in the 2020 CII-International Water Innovation Summit “For a Shared Water Future”, addressed to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti and other organizing partners with observations and suggestions from the students of TERI-School of Advanced Studies with a teacher and few others: *** We learn from https://www.ciihive.in/Login.aspx?EventId=WATERINNOV that, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation is organizing International Water Innovation Summit “For a Shared Water Future” on 15-16 December 2020 over virtual platform. The Summit is also supported by the Partner Country, Canada (?), Platinum Partners ION Exchange & CII-Triveni Institute, and Silver Partners GRUNDFOS & Spray Engineering Devices (SED) Limited. The Summit promises to highlight the crucial link and interdependence of all thro

A delightful story of humanity, shared last year by Major General SPS Narang (retd) in “The Citizen”, is taking rounds on the social media amidst efforts by the powers-that-be to tarnish the farmers’ agitation variously as conspiracy by opposition to a Khalistani plot. The story is about his brief encounter with Muslim nomads whom he met while travelling from Dehradun to Chandigarh. Retired from the Indian Army, Narang led them into Gurudwara Paonta Sahib.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* She was our Maai i.e. mother. Everyone in the villages, in our center or any visitor that came at our Prerna Kendra called her ‘Maai’. She would be there to greet us with her beautiful and energetic smile but that smile is now gone and we only have her memories with us. After a week’s struggle with life, Maai, probably around 80 years of age, passed away today at around 10 am leaving behind her one son, three daughters and their children and grandchildren. One can say that she lived a complete life and saw her great grandchildren. Maai lived a life of great struggle but she never deviated from her path which was to protect her land and remained dignified all through her life. She would listen to visitors coming and brought her son and grandchildren also to learn and share their ideas with people. When I came to village Malwabar during our foot march on June 10th, 2007, Maai was in the forefront of the yatra to welcome in the village. After that, we bonded with t

By Venkatesh Nayak*  Media reports of the proceedings of the all-party meeting held on 4th December, 2020 about the progress made regarding COVID-19 vaccine administration plans have kindled hope for millions of people across the country suffering from the adverse effects of the epidemic in myriad ways. The Hon. Prime Minister announced that healthcare workers, frontline workers and the elderly who are already suffering from co-morbidities will be vaccinated on a priority basis. He also pointed out that the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) comprised of technical experts, senior officials of concerned Central Ministries and Zonal representatives of States has been entrusted with the responsibility of leading the vaccine administration campaign. NEGVAC, he said will make collective decisions as per the requirements in consultation with the States. So NEGVAC is the primary decision making body on all matters relating to COVID-19 vaccine administration