Counterview

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Parallel narratives serve no one except those who weaponise them for self-promotion. If we are serious about bringing people together, we must stand for the rights of all and condemn wrongdoing even when it inconveniences our own social positions. Consider the case of a Rapido driver in Lucknow who was banned by the company after an altercation with four railway employees who had hired his taxi late at night. According to the driver, the passengers were making derogatory remarks about his community, prompting him to intervene and force them out of the vehicle.

By Bharat Dogra   In the sun-baked potato fields of Gujarat, a quiet revolution was taking root. Nine smallholder farmers, tilling land their families had worked for generations, found themselves staring down a multinational giant. PepsiCo India Holdings had come for them — not for their land, not for their water, but for their seeds.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   When a government asks citizens to donate in the middle of an emergency, it makes an implicit promise: the money will be there when people need it most. The latest PM CARES accounts raise an uncomfortable question: What happens when billions are collected in the name of emergencies, but much of that money remains untouched?

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  William Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It —specifically Jaques’ melancholic monologue in Act II, Scene VII, which conceptualises the seven stages of human life —defines the realities of the world with these famous lines: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.”

By Vijay Prashad   In August, right-wing billionaire Abelardo de la Espriella took office as Colombia’s president and vowed to move an agenda of the far right even though he won by less than a percentage point over the left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda. It is characteristic of the far right of a special type to adopt any mandate and pretend that they have the authority to transform their society into their toxic swamp. Of the twenty states generally thought of as being part of Latin America, eleven now have governments of the far right: Argentina (Javier Milei since 2023), Bolivia (Rodrigo Paz since 2025), Chile (José Antonio Kast since 2026), Colombia (de la Espriella since 2026), Costa Rica (Laura Fernández since 2026), Ecuador (Daniel Noboa since 2023), El Salvador (Nayib Bukele since 2019), Honduras (Nasry Asfura since 2026), Panama (José Raúl Mulino since 2024), Paraguay (Santiago Peña since 2023), and Peru (Keiko Fujimori since 2026).

By Dayan Jayatilleka   The month he turned 50, my father, Mervyn de Silva, and my mother, Lakshmi, were in Havana watching Fidel Castro take over the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement at its 6th Summit. After my father died, I discovered in his briefcase the embossed invitation on stiff parchment. He had treasured it for two decades. I still do.