Counterview

By Vikas Meshram  The picture for the US presidential election is becoming clearer now. After President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama immediately endorsed Kamala Harris. Barack Obama made this announcement through a video. In it, Barack Obama said that he and Michelle are proud to support Kamala Harris.

By NS Venkataraman* In what appears to be an unprecedented situation in Europe  during  the last several years, mob violence and riots have now taken place in Leeds, UK, with violent mob burning buses and damaging public property.  What is particularly shocking is that these riots have taken place on a flimsy issue and it was organised  at a very short notice  by the rioters. 

By Harsh Thakor*  In February this year, we celebrated the 70th birthday of former Caribbean pace bowler Michael Holding, who simply composed poetry on cricket field, taking grace to heights of divinity. ‘Whispering Death’ was the perfect name attributed to Holding, with batsmen literally left clueless whether the ball had passed the bat. His deliveries would skid through like a bullet in spite of the minimum of effort.

By Dr Maya Valecha*  Recently, there has been propaganda for magnifying the risk of cervical cancer. The problem seemed so insignificant or unknown till some time back that one health journalist in a prominent newspaper gave the picture of cervical bones in the article of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine two years back. Cervical cancer is the cancer of the lowest part of uterus from where the menstrual blood comes out, and when the baby comes out of womb, that small aperture becomes 10 cm wide.

By Palla Trinadharao  The Ministry of Finance, Government of India (GoI), which released the Economic Survey Report (ESR) 2023–24 in July,  also deals with climate change and energy transition while underling the need to look at the problem through the lens of India. This details the country's aggressive targets and difficulties in converting to a low-carbon economy in order to combat climate change.  The ESR highlights notable advancements in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

By Monica Tewari, Garbhit Naik, Mansee Bal Bhargava*  Forest landscapes are complex in nature with the interconnectedness of flora and fauna with soil, water, air, and many more aspects including the social-cultural appropriation. A degraded forest landscape makes it even more complex as a wicked problem because of the dominance of the anthropocene which alters, slows and even ends the regenerative capacity of the forest.

By Aseem Mishra*  As per the Housing for All Plan of Action (HFAPoA) of Bhuj, prepared under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) in 2018, out of a total of 13,978 households residing in slums, 83 percent (approximately 11,631) houses were owned and were sited on public land.  PMAY gives Rs 3.5 lakh of government assistance to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) with an annual household income of Rs 3 lakh. Here, the condition is that the piece of land should be in the applicant's name. In the case of Bhuj, 83 percent of households lack land entitlement as they live on public land. 

By Deepmala Patel*  Avantha Power and Infrastructure had promised to provide employment to the people living in the area when the Jhabua power plant was commissioned. Although it is currently owned by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), this power plant which promised development in the area is wreaking havoc. The toxic ash coming out of the Jhabua power plant has been illegally dumped in the fields of tribal farmers of Gorakhpur, Barela, Umarpani and Bineki of Ghansor development block of Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh for more than two years. Despite all the complaints, the dangerous ash is destroying the farmers’ fields and their crops.

By Nimisha Agarwal*  On July 26, 2005, Mumbai experienced an unprecedented rainfall of 944 mm in 24 hours, resulting in catastrophic flooding that claimed over 1,000 lives and caused extensive damage to infrastructure and property. This deluge, one of the worst in the city’s history, highlighted severe deficiencies in urban planning and flood management. 

By Sumit Kumar Ganguly*  On July 29, twelve years ago, the first election to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) was held. The GTA is the semi-autonomous body responsible for the governance of the hill areas of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts in West Bengal. The separate administrative setup was created under a State legislation in the wake of the Gorkhaland statehood movement by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) led by Bimal Gurung. Most people are unaware of the fact that the election to this body is not conducted by any independent constitutional authority like the Election Commission of India (ECI) or the State Election Commission (SEC).

By Rajiv Shah  Even as we visited the Great Salt Lake, the saltiest lake of the Western Hemisphere, as part of our effort to see different places around Salt Lake City, better known for hosting winter Olympics in 2002, I was surprised two read two articles first in New York Times and then the website of the National Public Radio (NPR), an American public broadcasting organization, both of whom quoted a study to say the lake is "drying" and is "becoming a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the climate to warm."  Stating that "due largely to water diversions by farmers and Utah’s booming population growth, the Great Salt Lake has shrunk by almost half in recent years", the NPR news story quotes one of the authors, a scientist, as saying, "Human-caused desiccation of Great Salt Lake is exposing huge areas of lake bed and releasing massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."  "The resea...

By Rajiv Shah  At that time I was working in the Communist Party of India (CPI)-supported People’s Publishing House (PPH) as assistant editor, doing the job of book editing. The year was 1977. A year earlier I was picked up by Mohit Sen, a CPI Central Committee member, from National Herald, where I was working as trainee proof reader, getting a stipend of Rs 250. In the Congress-owned Herald, I was supposed to be learning the “trade of proof reading”, though I would publish articles in the paper. One of my articles – to my utter surprise – was also published as the main article on the editorial page in Patriot, a prestigious left-of-centre daily run by one of the top-notch journalists of those times, Edatata Narayanan, and well known freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali. None in the proof reading department, not even the chief proof reader, could ever think of writing in any newspaper. I knew Mohit from my college days, when he spotted me as a CPI (Marxist)-backed Students Federation of...

By Bharat Dogra*  Aruna Roy’s book published by HarperCollins under the title ‘The Personal is Political –An Activist’s Memoir’ has attracted a lot of attention within a short time, and for good reason. A part of the reason relates to what Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze say in their comment on the book, “Aruna Roy reflects on a life of deep engagement, weaving the personal and the political. A great inspiration.”

By Shamsul Islam*  The directive of the RSS-BJP government issued on dated July 9, 2024, stated that the government had “reviewed” instructions issued in 1966, 1970, and 1980, “and it has been decided to remove the mention of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from the impugned OMs (Official Memorandums) dated 30.11.1966, 25.07.1970 and 28.10.1980”. 

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ*  India will and should never forget that infamous night of 25/26 June 1975, when, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared all over the country. During that dark chapter of the country’s history which lasted for a twenty-one-month period till 21 March 1977, civil liberties were suspended, freedom of speech and expression was totally muzzled, political opponents of the Government and those who protested the emergency were imprisoned and human rights violations by those in power, were the order of the day! The most obvious response for the people of India was to say (in the words of the world’s people, in the aftermath of the horrors of the Nazi regime) “never again!” and to ensure that those dark days would never visit the country, at any time in future. Sadly, the reality today, is worse than the ‘emergency!’

By Harsh Thakor*  Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers attained cricketing immortality, transcending boundaries no cricketer ever scaled in terms of all round cricketing skill, and art. Sobers could turn the complexion of match in all departments 360 degrees. For sheer aestheticism possibly no one surpassed Sobers in the world of sport.

By Vijay Prashad*  At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, the focus was on Ukraine. In the Washington Declaration, the NATO leaders wrote , “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” Ukraine formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, but soon found that despite widespread NATO support, several member states (such as Hungary) were uneasy with escalating a conflict with Russia. 

By Kavitha Kuruganti*  After nearly 20 long years of hearings in a batch of petitions questioning India’s regulatory regime with regard to GMOs, the Supreme Court of India delivered a split verdict from a 2-judge Bench. The Bench refused to conclude whether Delhi University’s GM mustard is herbicide tolerant or not. The Coalition for a GM-Free India responded by asking the Government of India to begin implementing the common observations and conclusions of both the Hon’ble Judges on the Bench, even as other matters go to a larger Bench to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India. 

By Mitra Ranjan*  The Right to Education (RTE) Forum’s National Convenor Gautam Badyopadhyay has said that the Union budget ignores the school education sector. “Far from delivering 6% GDP for education that the government has repeatedly promised, this year’s budget brings neither significant focus nor new money for the education India’s 431 million citizens under 18”, he underlined.

Counterview Desk  Condemning four hours of "illegal detention and house search" of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) National Council and Chhattisgarh Unit Office Bearer Kaladas Dehariya, even as demanding dropping of "fabricated and false" proceedings under the anti-terror law UAPA immediately, PUCL  has said that the security agency NIA's conduct was "shocking", as during the operation, the "neighbours' houses were locked."

By Raj Shekhar*  The Right to Food Campaign has expressed its deep disappointment that in the budget announcement for 2024-25 rather than enhancing spending in the critical area of food security, the budget has either remained stagnant or has declined. 

By PK Sreemathi, Mariam Dhawale* The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) has expressed its disappointment with the 2024-25 budget placed before the parliament today. The NDA government’s first full post-poll budget shows that it is in complete denial of the social reality faced by women today. 

By Umesh Babu*  The Union budget of the year 2024-25 is Rs. 48,20,512 crore out of which only Rs. 1,65,493 crore (3.43%) against the due Rs 7,95,384 crore is allocated for Scheduled Caste and only Rs. 1,32,214 crore (2.74 %) for Scheduled Tribes against the due amount of Rs. 3,95,281 crore as per Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) of 1975 and 1979. The Union budget grossly failed to allocate the budget as per the policy and it shows that the Union government is totally against the due empowerment of SCs and STs.

By Bezwada Wilson*  The Union Budget for the year 2024-2025, placed by the Finance Minister in Parliament has completely deceived the Safai Karmachari community. There is no mention of persons engaged in manual scavenging in the entire Budget. Even the scheme meant for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers (SRMS) has been outrageously scrapped. 

By Kiran Vissa, Kavitha Kuruganti*   Calling out the continuously-lowered budgetary allocations for agriculture sector in the country by the Union government, and terming it as clearly anti-farmer, the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) network stated that the government has not obviously reformed its ways from the drubbing it received from rural voters in the recent general elections.  It also said that the lessons that the government ought to have picked up from the historic farmers’ movement and the commitments made to Samyukt Kisan Morcha are also being ignored. 

By Shankar Sharma*  National media houses have carried multiple headlines on the latest budgetary proposals for the energy sector.  They should indicate multiple concerns to the overall welfare of our people in the near term as well as in the long term: Union Budget 2024 | Govt to come out with document on energy transition pathway: Sitharaman Renewable power companies gain from pumped storage projects Push for research and development of new technology for nuclear energy in Budget 2024 Budget 2024: Nuclear energy to drive India’s Viksit Bharat's new power mix On an objective consideration of various statements in the budget speech, those of us who have been keen observers of the electricity/ energy sector, have to come to an unfortunate conclusion that the overall welfare of our country was not at the focus of those advisors, who might have persuaded you to  make budgetary provision for additional super critical thermal power plants, high voltage transmission lines, Pump...

By Nava Thakuria*   After nearly two hundred people, mainly students, were killed by the government armed forces allegedly in liaison with the ruling party affiliates in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed the opposition political leaders for the violence that erupted across the nation. She argued that the government in Dhaka was compelled to impose a strict curfew with an aim to maintain the law and order situation and it will be lifted as the situation improves.

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak   On July 23, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget (2024-25) which highlights the priorities of Hindutva politics of economic growth sans human development. The Modi-led BJP government, along with its finance minister, continues to pursue failed and rejected neoliberal economic policies, including the reduction of corporate taxes, in an attempt to spur economic growth. 

By Gautam Mody*  Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the country on July 22 that the Union Budget for the ongoing financial year 2024-25 would lay the economic foundations for the next 5 years and the direction for the next 25, until we got to his goal of ‘Viksit Bharat’. Today’s Union Budget 2024-25 (BS) presented to parliament was so underwhelming that Modi felt the need to make a thirty-minute national broadcast, to explain to us what it was all about.

By Mujahid Nafees*  The budget of  Rs 48,20,512.08 crore for the year 2024-25 presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman  suggests an increase of about 1% compared to last year, yet the allocation for the Ministry of Minority Affairs is only Rs 3,183.24 crore, which is approximately 0.0660% of the total budget. In the year 2021-22, the budget of the Ministry of Minority Affairs was Rs 4810.77 crore, followed by Rs 5020.50 crore proposed for 2022-23, and Rs 3097.6 crore proposed for 2023-24.

By Rosamma Thomas*  Pala town in Kottayam district of Kerala is about 25 km from the district headquarters. St Thomas College in Pala is currently hosting a three-day workshop on knowledge systems, and gathered together are philosophers, sociologists, medical practitioners in homeopathy and Ayurveda, one of them from Nepal, and a few guests from Europe. The discussions on the first day focused on knowledge systems, power structures, and epistemic diversity. French researcher Jacquiline Descarpentries, who represents a unique cooperative of researchers, some of whom have no formal institutional affiliation, laid the ground, addressing the audience over the Internet.

By Gova Rathod*  The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Gujarat, organised an event in Ahmedabad entitled “Remembering Fr. Stan Swamy in Today’s Challenging Reality” in the memory of Fr. Stan Swamy on his third death anniversary.  The event included a discussion of the new criminal laws enforced since July 1, 2024.

By Jitendra Parmar*  As many as 17 faith leaders, together for an interfaith dialogue on child marriage in New Delhi, unanimously have agreed that no faith allows or endorses child marriage. The faith leaders advocated that all religious places should display information on child marriage.

By Bharat Dogra*   Aasmeen is a domestic worker who lives in Haiderpur hut colony in Delhi. Her day starts at 5 am when she still has a lot of sleep left in her eyes but must somehow raise herself from her bed. After all she has to leave for work at 9.

By Sudhansu R Das  Over the years badminton has become the second most popular game in the world after soccer.  Today, nearly 220 million people across the world play badminton.  The game has become very popular in urban India after India won medals in various international badminton tournaments.  One will come across a badminton court in every one kilometer radius of Hyderabad.  

By Harsh Thakor* On July 18th the cricket world celebrated the 75th birthday of Dennis Lillee.The very sight of him running in to the bowling mark was one of cricket’s most captivating sights. Dennis Lillee pumped adrenalin or never say die spirit to an unparalleled height in his era and was an epitome of perfection in the art of fast bowling. 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  Homelessness is on the rise in both urban and rural areas of Odisha, exacerbating the struggles of its inhabitants. Currently, 11.07 percent of the population in the state lives in poverty, reflecting widespread economic hardship. Hunger and malnutrition continue to be pressing concerns, with many families unable to access sufficient food, safe drinking water and nutrients. 

By Kirity Roy*   Despite the fact that India and Bangladesh are friendly countries, the Indo-Bangladesh border is one of the most vulnerable and violent borders in the world, registering severe bloodshed on a daily basis. On an average a person is  killed or  involuntarily disappears every two days along the border.

By Vikas Meshram*  Data indicating a reduction in India's groundwater levels by 450 cubic kilometres is alarming. This decline over the past two decades could lead to severe water shortages for agriculture and livelihood in the future. A study conducted by the Vikram Sarabhai Chair of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar states that this reduction in groundwater is 37 times -- the total water storage capacity of the Indira Sagar Dam, India's largest reservoir. 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The messiah of Hindutva politics, Narendra Modi, assumed office as the Prime Minister of India on May 26, 2014. He pledged to transform the Indian economy and deliver a developed nation with prosperous citizens. However, despite Modi's continued tenure as the Prime Minister, his ambitious electoral promises seem increasingly elusive. 

By Anandi Pandey, Sandeep Pandey*  Probably even the British, who introduced railways in India, would not have done what the Bhartiya Janata Party government is doing. The number of Sleeper and General class coaches in various trains are surreptitiously and ominously disappearing accompanied by a simultaneous increase in Air Conditioned coaches. In the characteristic style of BJP government there was no discussion or debate on this move by the Indian Railways either in the Parliament or outside of it. 

By Bharat Dogra*  All over the world several villages, particularly remote villages or villages facing some persistent problems or scarcity, are getting abandoned. Once population falls below a certain level, depopulation itself becomes a cause of further depopulation and it takes only a short time then to get more or less abandoned, involving a huge waste of all the farms and orchards, homes and gardens, wells and ponds, schools and other community buildings that could have been used in much better and productive ways.  At the same time some efforts to revive abandoned or near abandoned villages provide a source of hope. A poignant and  moving portrayal of an (almost) abandoned village in Tamil Nadu in a recent report raises questions and regrets regarding why more cannot done be at the right time to prevent the decline of a village ( or a cluster of villages) towards increasing difficulties, depopulation and eventual abandonment. This report by C. Palanivel Rajan has ...

By Harsh Thakor*  Despite being a banned and designated as terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since 2009, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is said to have successfully implemented a one-day bandh across Kolhan division in Jharkhand on July 10th, with repurcussions in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh. The bandh was called to protest against alleged police brutality in the Kolhan-Saranda region.

By Mike Ghouse*  If you can shed the bias towards others, you'll love the connections with every human that God or his systems have created. This gives a sense of freedom and brings meaning and joy to life. Embracing and respecting how people dress, eat, and practice their beliefs becomes an enriching experience.

By A Representative  The high profile Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES) of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmdabad (IIM-A) has revealed that About 54% of the firms are still reporting ‘somewhat less than normal’ or lower sales, even as pointing out that overall, the profit margins expectations have remained subdued.  

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  Historically, markets were established by working people to serve their everyday needs and desires. These markets were grounded in the local communities they served, reflecting the economic and social realities of the time. People would come together in these markets to trade goods and services, fostering a sense of community and mutual dependence.