Counterview

By A Representative   A severe toxic emergency has erupted in the Ambad area of Nashik, Maharashtra, as laboratory tests confirm that residential groundwater is contaminated with hexavalent chromium at levels more than 1,000 times the permissible safety limit. According to a recent press note by the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), the acute contamination is likely stemming from industrial discharge in the Ambad Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) area, turning local borewell water a bright yellow. 

By A Representative   The human rights group, Citizens for Democracy (CFD), has called for peaceful demonstrations demanding accountability from the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls, while urging the Delhi Police and the administration to ensure that protesters can exercise their democratic rights without intimidation.

By A Representative   West Bengal rights group Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) has approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), seeking urgent intervention into the alleged illegal detention and subsequent disappearance or transfer to Bangladesh of Abdul Rahim, a 37-year-old paddy trader from Kuilara Anantapur village under Bhatol Gram Panchayat in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal.

By Bharat Dogra  Sincere, thoughtful, and courageous work for humanity—for justice, equality, and a society free of exploitation—always brings great results, even if the impact takes time. This is among the most enduring lessons from the efforts of Shahid Bhagat Singh and his comrades during India's freedom movement (1924–31).

By Ravi Ranjan*  In my exploration of modern Hindi literature, Kunwar Narayan’s poem ‘Amir Khusro’ continually draws me into a profound meditation on history, memory, and the enigma of cultural identity. Narayan, a poet of deep philosophical inquiry, does not merely recreate a medieval historical figure; he constructs a complex dialogue between the individual and the age, between social roles conferred by authority and the identity achieved through creative consciousness.

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  A social, political, economic, cultural and spiritual crisis produces mass movements that accelerate progressive change, address the crisis and offer alternatives for the future. Passionate leaders with an emotional connection to the masses shape visions, grasp the crisis, guide the struggle and turn it into an opportunity for the progressive transformation of society. Such mass movements, with mass participation upholding the collective interests of individuals and societies across the world, produce new ideas and new leadership to sustain the politics of change that protects and promotes the interests of people and the planet.

By Suresh Deman*   Harsh Thakor's Counterview article on the fall of the "Gang of Four" revisits the arrest of Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen on 6 October 1976, barely four weeks after Mao's death. Thakor rightly sees it as a decisive shift in China's political direction, and he acknowledges that Mao's worries about bureaucratic privilege, bourgeois right and capitalist restoration arose from contradictions within socialist society itself (Thakor 2026). Yet his account stops short of the most fundamental theoretical problem the Cultural Revolution raised: if the Communist Party represents the working class but also controls the state, who supervises the Party?

By Kumar Krishnan*  Farmer organisations on Tuesday raised concerns over Bihar's proposed 11 satellite township projects and the Bihar City Development Act, 2026, alleging that large-scale conversion of agricultural land without adequate safeguards could affect farmers' land rights, livelihoods and social security. Addressing a press conference in Patna, Bharatiya Kisan Union national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait and farmer leader Dinesh Singh said farmers were not opposed to urban development but would resist any model in which development came at the cost of agricultural land and the economic security of farming families.

By A Representative   In an unusually sharp open letter addressed to serving members of the All India and Central Services, 98 former civil servants have warned that constitutional values in India are being openly breached and that democratic dialogue has virtually vanished, with any expression of dissent or difference of opinion being branded "anti-national." The letter, issued by the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) on 7 October 2026 and signed by retired officers of the IAS, IPS, IFS, IRS, IFoS and other services, tells civil servants in no uncertain terms that when orders from the political executive conflict with statutory provisions, their duty is to follow the law "in letter and spirit, even where it causes personal inconvenience." The CCG, which describes itself as a collective of former civil servants that came into being nine years ago to uphold the primacy of constitutional values in India's polity and society, says it feels compelled to...