Counterview

By Rajiv Shah   A few days back, I happened to attend an interesting conversation among a group of young Indian Americans in Los Angeles. The theme proposed a deceptively simple proposition: can caste travel with people who leave India? The answer, the discussion made clear, is that it can—and that for a younger generation of the Indian diaspora, caste is not a subject safely confined to family histories, Indian villages, or the pages of social reform literature.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Untouchability and caste discrimination remain deeply embedded in India’s social fabric—whether Rahul Gandhi speaks about them or not, and regardless of what the BJP –RSS establishment wants the world to believe about the “greatness” of Hindu or Indian culture. The Varna system continues to be the darkest stain on that cultural narrative, persisting even as Indians migrate abroad and become “green card holders.” Caste has travelled with them—to Europe, America, Canada, Africa, and across Asia.

By Vivek Sakpal*  On August 8, 2026, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, also the president of India's oldest political party (Indian National Congress), a Dalit (rarely mentioned) leader who has spent five decades in public life, addressed a rally at Ramlila Maidan in Haldwani, Uttarakhand. Two days later, members of the Shri Ram Sena reportedly performed a "shuddhikaran" havan at the very ground on which he had stood and spoken. 

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  There is no single reason for the decay of India's government education system. Behind it lies a combination of insufficient budget allocation, lack of basic infrastructure, and an absence of accountability. Teaching positions in schools lie vacant, and those who are employed often lack the training and competence required for modern times. The education system prioritizes rote learning and exam scores over skill development or practical knowledge. The new generation taking to the streets against the deterioration of government education is demanding not just facilities, but accountability.

By Ram Puniyani*  The multiple protests at Jantar Mantar have shaken our body politic to no end. While the Cockroach Janta Party precipitated the series of protests, the underlying resistance to government suppression has been deeply painful for society. Although the protests appeared to be centred on paper leaks, serious lapses in the social and political system provided the foundation for the protests to assume the form they did. The reported orders for pellet guns and firearms brought an element of total revulsion. The issue became so serious that the ruling government’s major leaders, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, did not dare to attend Parliament’s session. Instead, they hid behind the make-believe façade of the Opposition supposedly preventing discussion in the House.

By Harasankar Adhikari*  Religion has long shaped human civilization, influencing ethics, social norms, and personal identity. Albert Einstein once observed that "science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind," capturing the enduring tension between faith and reason. In India, where spiritual traditions run deep, religion remains a powerful social force. Yet the question before us is not whether religion matters, but whether it has become an instrument of political division—and whether Indian democracy can navigate this challenge without compromising its foundational pluralism.

By Vijay Prashad  In Minaçu, in the northern part of the Brazilian state of Goiás, the landscape bears the scars of an earlier mineral rush. For decades, the town depended on the Cana Brava asbestos mine, whose prosperity was inseparable from lethal illnesses and a long history of environmental damage. Now Minaçu has been recruited into another promised future. At the Pela Ema mine, Serra Verde extracts rare-earth elements required for electric motors, wind turbines, advanced electronics, and weapons systems. The mineral has changed, but the danger is that the old structure of dependency will remain intact.

By Benyasiri Eimviriyapong   The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) for a ‘leisure trip’ in Thailand before returning to its campaign of destruction against the people of West Asia demands immediate interrogation and opposition. For us Thai people, and those in sites of American plunder across the globe, this a rattling of the US’ cold war colonial chains on its most loyal lap dog, while conducting a war of aggression in Iran and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In allowing the USS Lincoln to dock, the Thai ruling elites are once again facilitating a system of imperial violence that extends far beyond Southeast Asian borders, a system which in our case, is predicated on sexual violence and femicide.

By Md. Abu Saim*  The signing of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan on 7 August 2026 in Mecca marks a significant moment in contemporary geopolitics. Long anticipated across much of the Muslim world, the pact establishes that an armed attack on any one of the three signatories will be treated as an attack on all, while emphasizing that the arrangement is strictly defensive and directed only at external aggression.