Counterview

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  There was a time when farming was governed simply by the rhythm of the seasons—sowing, tilling, and harvesting. Today, Indian farmers are forced to navigate the labyrinth of complex legal volumes. The reason? The aggressive encroachment of multinational corporations into agriculture. Take, for instance, PepsiCo—a company reaping immense profits turning potatoes into chips—which legally locked down a proprietary potato variety for its supply chain. How are ordinary farmers supposed to survive this corporate maze?

By A Representative   A civil society organization, Loktantrik Rashtranirman Abhiyan , has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to return the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026 , to Parliament for reconsideration. In its memorandum, the group strongly condemned the bill, which has already been passed by both houses and now awaits presidential assent, describing it as “extremely harmful to the federal structure of our polity as envisioned in the Constitution of India .” 

By Kedar Anil Gadgil   A few minutes before midnight on 14 August 1947, as the calendar turned to the 15th, Jawaharlal Nehru rose to speak in the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi. He was addressing a state that did not yet exist, on behalf of a civilisation several thousand years older than the one being born at the stroke of the midnight hour. The speech ran to barely 1,100 words and took him about eight minutes to deliver. 

By Kumar Krishnan*  Naxalism is not a new word in India's political vocabulary. Nearly six decades ago, the term emerged from Naxalbari, in West Bengal's Darjeeling district, becoming associated with an armed political movement rooted in questions of land, class conflict, peasant discontent and Maoist ideology. The Naxalbari uprising shook Indian politics. 

​By Sunil Kumar*  ​The Prime Minister’s August 15, 2026 address from the ramparts of the Red Fort likely did not surprise anyone familiar with his style—supporters and detractors alike. Those who follow him know that nearly every address is engineered as an election pitch. The moment he sees a podium, the atmosphere shifts into a campaign rally.

By Harsh Thakor*  ‘Naxalbari from Battleground (1967–1978): An Anthology of Samar Sen’s Frontier’ is a landmark collection of articles chronicling and dissecting the Naxalbari movement. Edited by Sushovan Mukhopadhyaya, it is a collection of articles that stands as a precious historical document of a period that witnessed one of the most defining liberation movements in India. Published by Arun Kumar Dey through Radical Impression Publishing House in Kolkata, the book is a vivid illustration of why and how Naxalbari ushered in a new horizon and altered the course of Indian history.