An Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi, note, prepared by Dr Simi Mehta and Ritika Gupta, on environmentalist Leo Saldanha’s insistence at a webinar on the need for governments to be in a state of ‘ever-readiness’ to deal with pandemics: *** Unabashed assaults by human beings on the natural ecological system have caused the virus to spread in the first place. While finding a definite cure to contain the virus, any complacency towards the environment would make the human lives more unsustainable on planet earth, said Dr Simi Mehta while hosting an IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk on the State of Environment, #PlanetTalks on Vulnerabilities of Indian Governance in handling the climate crisis amid COVID-19 and recession organized by Center for Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development at IMPRI on September 25, 2020. Reminiscing the loss of many notable personalities such as singer S B Subramanyam due to COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Leo Saldanha stated that lives have become

In his paper, "Philosophy’s systemic racism", Avram Alpert, lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program, controversially argues that it’s not just that Hegel and Rousseau were racists; racism was in fact baked into the very structure of their dialectical philosophy. Alpert has authored "Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki" (2019) and "A Partial Enlightenment: What Modern Literature". His book "Buddhism Can Teach Us About Living Well without Perfection" is expected to be published soon. The paper has been published by Aeon as an essay. Reproduced below is Alpert's paper:    ***  It is by now well known that some of the greatest modern philosophers held racist views. John Locke (1632-1704), David Hume (1711-76), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), G W F Hegel (1770-1831) and many others believed that Black and Indigenous peoples the world over were savage, inferior and in need of correction by European enlightenment. No serious p

Counterview Desk India’s top land rights network, Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), even as taking strong exception to President Ramnath Kovind giving his accent to the three bills passed in Parliament, has regretted that he didn’t care to pay need to the “irregularities” brought to notice by members of Parliament as also the manner in which the deputy chairman conducting the business in the Rajya Sabha allowed the bills to be passed without voting.

BJP MP from Hathras Rajvir Diler By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* In Gujarat, a young Dalit activist lawyer Devji Maheshwari, belonging to the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMSCEF) was killed in Surat, allegedly by a goon who was warning him against his Facebook posts not to speak up against Brahmanism. Facts have come to light suggesting there are other issues also which led to the murder, mostly related to land disputes, many a time ignored by activists.

By NS Venkataraman* In the pre-Independent days and for a few decades after independence, ministers, leading men in public life used to acknowledge letters from the public, particularly those with valid criticism or suggestions. This practice, unfortunately, now seems to have gone away.

By Our Representative Several civil society organizations, while felicitating the Shaheen Bagh movement and Bilkis Dadi – whom they called “a global symbol of peaceful resistance” – have demanded that the Delhi Police should immediately stop “maliciously targeting” all equal citizenship protestors, most of whom were women, for the Delhi riots of February 2020.

Gujarati Sahitya Parishad building in Ahmedabad  By Rajiv Shah I was surprised over what they say in the US, a “tempest in a teapot”: Counterview published an article by Dankesh Oza, a Gujarat government official who took voluntary retirement about a decade ago, stating that two “oldies” (both octogenarians) were fighting Gujarat Sahitya Parishad polls, which has over 3,000 life-time members as voters. He appeared to support a relatively younger, though retired, person who was a key government official “looking after” Gujarati literature.  The three are in fray for the post of Parishad presidentship. With members spread all over Gujarat, nay India and the world (especially US), the polling takes place via postal ballot sent via speedpost, the results would be out some time in late October. As I am no expert in Gujarati literature, my decision on what to publish Oza’s piece in Counterview depended on the campaign for and against each of the three candidates on social media, particularl

Prakash N Shah: Writer-activist By Natubhai Parmar* Some of those who once served the Gujarat government in senior positions have suddenly become very active. They are seeking to influence the Gujarati literary atmosphere by taking an unusually keen interest in the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad elections, which are currently taking place via postal ballots.

By Our Representative If you are a doting as well as a discerning parent with a baby or toddler this is for you! A new study, ‘What’s in the Diaper: Presence of Phthalates in Baby Diapers’ released by Delhi-based advocacy organisation, Toxics Link, has sought to raise concern over toxic phthalates which it says have been found in disposable baby nappies that are available in the Indian market.

By Our Representative At a time when online education remains a dream for school students in rural areas due to lack of digital resources, a migrant returnee of Uparpita village of Khariar block in Nuapada district has stepped up to teach low performing children in his village during the school closure, an effort that is lauded by parents and communities in his locality.

By Martin Macwan*  I landed in Delhi, the night the violence began on February 23, 2020. I could not sleep until early morning, glued to the TV watching the burning and the brickbats. The memories of 1992 communal violence were alive. That year, I had visited Surat with my friends Indukumar Jani, Madhusudan Mistry and deceased Vadilal Kamdar, the ex-mayor of Ahmedabad. We were the rare beings trying to alight from the train with utmost difficulty on Surat railway station as thousands were jostling to get in the train and run away from the city. Had not we as citizens loved the communal violence, it would not be reengineered every ten years. What can we do? All our constitutionally created institutions are silent. The only hope is enhancing education, off the school curriculum. Hence, this idea of working with the children to creatively deal with communal violence. After all, the children of today will be the youth of tomorrow. Hope you like this three and a half minute video by Navsarj

Prakash N Shah, Harikrushna Pathak, Harshad Trivedi By Dankesh Oza* The 115-year-old Gujarati Sahitya Parishad is in election mode. More than 3,000 life members of the Parishad are set to elect its 52nd president and 40 plus central working committee (CWC) members, which in turn will elect its executive and two vice presidents, six secretaries and a treasurer for the coming three years (from 2021 to 2023).

By Gauhar Raza* The Delhi Police, which operates directly under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, has been creating a narrative about the North-East Delhi violence (February 2020), which can very well qualify for a fictional novel, on the one hand, and on the other, an eye opener for all justice loving people of India to understand how state agencies under an authoritarian rule can manufacture facts to target all voices of dissent.

By Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai* The theme put forth by Ambassador Volkan Bozkir, the President of the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the UN, was, “The future we want, the United Nations we need; reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism”. 

By Rajiv Shah  A few days back, India’s home minister Amit Shah, currently “recuperating at his residence” (to quote a former Gujarat official, currently in Delhi) after contracted novel coronavirus, once again raised controversy by pitching for Hindi as the only language that “can do the work of uniting the country”, because it is the “most spoken language”. He did this a year after he made a similar statement on Hindi Diwas, which falls on September 16.  Usually I don’t care for what politicians say about Hindi, as I think they usually talk from a commonsensical perspective, without taking into account any facts before them. They are more concerned with consolidating their constituency – in the case of Amit Shah it happens to be the Hindu majority in what is often described as Hindi mainland. A somewhat similar effort was made, I recall, way back in 1960s, when an attempt was made by north Indian politicians to impose Hindi, even Sansktritise it, setting off a reaction in the south,

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* SP Balasubrahmanyam (June 4, 1946-September 25, 2020), popularly SPB, who has the world record of singing more than 40,000 songs in 16 different languages of India, represented the idea of India, which is currently under attack. The film industry in Mumbai has been in Hindustani, and not Hindi. Bollywood was built mostly by those whose mother tongue was neither Hindi nor the city’s original mother tongue, Marathi, or what is often called Bambaiya Hindi.

By Atul, Sandeep Pandey* Arun Ferreira is a civil rights activist and human rights lawyer. He has been behind bars since June 6, 2018, when he was arrested in connection to the Bhima Koregaon event held earlier that year. Like many other activists, he was slapped with Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, sedition and other anti-terror related offenses allegedly for inciting the ensuing violence that police claimed was calculated to disturb public peace.

Counterview Desk Stating that the three farm bills passed in Parliament are “against farmers and food security for all”, and urging the President of India not endorse them, the civil rights organization Right to Food Campaign has said that they seek to reduce the state’s role in procurement of foodgrains, even as opening up markets for corporate interests without any protective regulation.

Reproduced below is a detailed dossier, running into five parts, on RSS, which  its author claims is solely based on the saffron organization's archives. Unpublished, it is penned by former Delhi University professor Shamsul Islam , who says, he has written it for the “benefit of civil society, political parties, intellectuals, and all those who are concerned about the rise of the terrorist/fascist organizations":  ***  PART 1: RSS Modelled After Nazi & Fascist Parties The process of Hindutva takeover of the democratic-secular Indian polity got huge push with Narender Modi, a seasoned RSS ideologue becoming PM of India in 2014. His commitment to the cause of the Hindutva politics and hatred for the Indian democratic-secular polity has been unambiguous. While ruling the State Gujarat as the chief minister in 2013 he had declared himself to be a Hindu nationalist. i It was first time in the history of Independent India that any person occupying a constitutional office ide