Counterview

By Rajiv Shah   A comprehensive new report published in September 2026 reveals that climate change has remained a marginal concern in the Indian Parliament despite the country's growing vulnerability to extreme weather events. The study, titled India's Parliamentary Discourse on Environment since the Paris Agreement, analyzed legislative engagement over the first ten years following the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Counterview News   A new dataset released by the  German environmental and human rights organisation,  Urgewald, has  shown that Indian banks cut their coal financing by 19%, from $3.5 billion in 2022 to $2.8 billion in 2025, even as cautioning that the fall is unlikely to be lasting, because very few Indian banks have adopted coal restrictions. 

By A Representative   Thousands of people in the small Indian town of Kymore in Madhya Pradesh have developed cancer and serious lung diseases after a British company dumped more than a million tonnes of toxic asbestos waste there, an  investigation by  ITV News, a British free-to-air public broadcast television network, has claimed. The estimated clean-up cost stands at around £100 million, yet there are currently no plans to remove the waste because the company responsible, Turner and Newall, went bankrupt in 2001.

By Kumar Krishnan*  The moment we see silt in a river, our attention shifts from the river to the silt.The assumption seems straightforward: the riverbed has filled up, water can no longer move freely, and removing the sediment will deepen the channel and reduce flooding. But rivers do not follow such simple arithmetic.

By Bharat Dogra   As a teenager, I made a decision that seemed strange to many: I would spend my entire life as an independent writer and would not even look for a regular job. In college, I had started writing freelance, and fortunately, one of my articles was published as the lead article in India's top newspaper. Another was reprinted in the USA, bringing what appeared then to be a princely earning.

By Dr. P.K. Gupta   Hindu traditions worship the feminine as Shakti, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga and the universal mother. Yet this symbolic reverence for goddesses has not consistently produced equality for women within the family. The distance between the worship of divine femininity and the treatment of living women remains one of the great contradictions of Hindu society.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan  The retro hair, vintage clothes and analogue grain are not the real attraction. The real fascination is that AI can now manufacture something technology has always struggled to reproduce: the tactile, imperfect feeling of memory.

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  The core dispute over the Ken-Betwa project isn't merely about "how much water is there," but rather "in which year, at what location, and based on what dependable flow is the water classified as surplus?" To understand the objections raised by the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) in the context of the river's hydrology is to raise serious questions about the project's foundational premise. 

By Vikas Meshram*  About 22 kilometres from the Petlawad block headquarters in Jhabua district, the village of Kesarpura has a story to tell, one about the confidence of an entire community. A Halma was held here on 19 May 2026, and what followed convinced the village that the solution it had long sought from outside had been within it all along.

Counterview News   India's eCommerce app market is growing at a pace unmatched by any other major economy, but new data from AppsFlyer's State of eCommerce for Marketers in India – 2026 Edition  reveals a market navigating sharp seasonal swings, shifting platform dynamics, and emerging retention challenges. According to the report,  there is a 42% remarketing pullback and a declining Day 30 retention, signalling trouble beneath the surface.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan  Hansal Mehta’s Shahid , the National Award-winning film based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, has finally arrived on Prime Video after nearly 13 years. Its arrival isn’t just about an old movie landing on a new streaming service. It reopens a much bigger conversation about what happens to films that dare to tackle subjects such as dissent, state power, terrorism, and the rights of the accused.

By A Representative   The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) has expressed solidarity with thousands of women students who have taken part in a series of protests across Delhi University campuses following the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at Aastha Kunj Park near Kalkaji Mandir on September 21, demanding stronger institutional safeguards, improved policing and accountability from authorities.

By Nava Thakuria*  The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government has formed three high-level committees to address long-standing problems in the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT), a region in southeastern Bangladesh that borders India's Tripura and Mizoram states and Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladeshi intellectuals, civil society representatives and several Asian rights bodies have opposed the move, arguing that it could increase militarisation and human rights violations against the region's indigenous people.

By Dr. Arun Kumar Goswami*  Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence) is inextricably bound to satya (truth). Gandhi famously maintained that he lived by truth, that truth is God, and that non-violence serves as the vital instrument to uphold that truth. Derived from the Sanskrit root hims (to strike or injure), ahimsa translates to non-harming. Throughout his historic life, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi triumphantly applied this principle to every sphere of human existence, most notably to politics and the pursuit of freedom ( Swaraj ).

By Bharat Dogra  Chandra Singh Garhwali (1891–1979), a soldier of exceptional moral courage, is remembered on his death anniversary,  1 October,  for an act of conscience that saved countless innocent lives and became a beacon of hope for India's freedom movement.

By Prem Singh*  In Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s classic epic Padmavat , a poor Brahmin encounters a caged parrot for sale in the market of Singhaldweep. Asking if the bird is a learned pundit, the Brahmin receives a poignant reply: “O divinity, I certainly had virtues when my soul was free. But what virtue would I have when I am captive? I am brought here for sale, locked in a cage. A pundit is one who does not allow himself to be bought in the market.”  This metaphor of the caged, commodified mind perfectly encapsulates the searing critique of Kishan Patnaik (1923–2004). Long before the buzzwords of globalization became mainstream, the political thinker and founder of the Hindi monthly Samayik Varta diagnosed a profound crisis in the Indian mind. His central, deeply uncomfortable thesis remains as urgent today as it was when he first articulated it: the Indian intelligentsia is not the savior of society, but its “purchased slave.” Patnaik, a mentee of the socialist stalwart ...

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The world is confronting a convergence of crises on a scale not seen since the Second World War. Wars and resource conflicts, rapid technological change, climate breakdown, the rise of authoritarian and reactionary movements, extreme inequality, gender, racial, caste and class discrimination, democratic erosion, economic instability, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, health emergencies, cost-of-living pressures, and declining trust in international institutions such as the UN and WTO are reinforcing one another. Together, they create the conditions for global disorder.

By Vijay Prashad   When Benjamin Netanyahu rose to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, the rows of empty seats spoke before he did. Diplomats walked out, while others stayed away from the outset. News reports citing an Israeli tally put the number of delegations absent or departing at 77. This was not a recorded UN vote, nor did all 77 stage a coordinated walkout. Yet the image of an Israeli prime minister speaking to a depleted chamber captured a real political fact: the destruction of Gaza and the consolidation of occupation have made Israel increasingly isolated across much of the world.

By A Representative   The Ambedkar Association of North America (AANA) and a coalition of Dalit and Ambedkarite organisations from North America and Europe have condemned IIT Bombay’s handling of the death of Sahil Wakode, a second-year BTech student from the Scheduled Caste community who died on 18 September 2026, hours after he was removed from an examination. His family has alleged caste-based harassment, and an FIR under the SC/ST Act names an IIT Bombay faculty member. 

By Rosamma Thomas*  The Justice K Hema Committee report that probed the sexual exploitation of women in the Kerala film industry was released to the public two years ago – it states that a criminal mafia comprising actors, directors and producers dominates the film sector in Kerala. On September 14, 2026, filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan started a hunger strike in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, demanding a probe into the findings of the Hema Committee Report. 

By Sudhir Katiyar*  The Supreme Court's refusal to intervene in the ban imposed by multiple state governments on visits to government schools by outsiders—a response to the CJP's School Thik Karo campaign—suggests that the campaign has raised concerns within the Indian establishment. This reaction is understandable, as education serves purposes beyond acquiring basic numeracy and literacy skills.  It can be a liberating force, freeing minds from superstition and irrationality toward scientific temper. However, improving infrastructure in government schools is only a first step. Physical upgrades do not automatically improve schooling quality or reduce dropout rates, as illustrated by Delhi's experience during the AAP government.

By Vikas Meshram*  It is an old Indian political tradition for opposition parties to question the impartiality of the Election Commission of India (ECI) following an electoral defeat. Lately, however, the Commission’s own actions have given genuine cause for concern, threatening not just its credibility but the very standing of the country’s democracy. Conducting transparent elections and safeguarding every citizen’s right to vote are the fundamental duties of this constitutional body. Yet, the glaring inconsistencies in the controversial "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR) campaign have raised profound questions about whether the ECI is fulfilling its mandate.

By R.K. Singh*  Do you want India to remain a democracy? If the answer is yes, then you must understand what Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), and his bosses are doing in the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.  Simply put: They are violating the law. Here is a detailed breakdown of the illegalities being committed and why we must act now to save our democracy.

By A Representative   The Lok Swashasan Andolan, a Madhya Pradesh-level campaign of Adivasi, forest dweller organizations, and other democratic forums, has strongly condemned a letter dated August 6, 2026, issued by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force (HOFF) of Madhya Pradesh.  The letter, sent by the Working Plan and Forest Land Records Cell to regional forest officials, directs them to receive and process Community Forest Resource (CFR) claims under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. The campaign group alleges that this directive is a blatant attempt to bypass the legal process and undermines the authority of Gram Sabhas. In a formal submission to the Chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), the organization has demanded immediate action against the PCCF for "instigating forest officials to violate the law." A copy of the complaint has also been sent to the Director of the FRA division, Ministry ...

By Syed Khalique Ahmed*  Can a Muslim woman become a mufti —a qualified Islamic scholar authorized to issue fatwas (legal opinions) and guide the community in matters of Sharia ? Can she shape Islamic jurisprudence , or lead educational assemblies attended by both men and women? 

By Guillermo R. Barreto  This month, like every year, the United Nations General Assembly takes place. Heads of State take the floor to send messages to the world. These messages are broadcast on TV, transcribed, and recorded in official documents and the press. We have heard denunciations of violations of international law, calls for peace and coexistence, and also cynical remarks from leaders of genocidal entities. A month of speeches that surely generates revenue for the media and benefits the local economy of New York City. A month that also entails significant expenses for the delegations of the 193 nations that are part of the Organization, in addition to the numerous delegations from nongovernmental organizations present at or around the event.

By Bharat Dogra  Kabaddi is an interesting sport that is growing in popularity in an increasing number of countries beyond its main area of origin in South Asia and neighboring countries such as Iran. The International Kabaddi Federation already has 31 member countries on its rolls and is making efforts to extend this number to as many as 80 countries.

By A Representative   Demonstrations were held in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Brighton on 26 September in solidarity with individuals detained in India under what organisers described as a politically motivated conspiracy case, according to a statement issued by the Joint Committee to Stop Repression in India (JCSRI).

By Jatin Sheth*  Ahmedabad’s selection as host city for the 2030 Commonwealth Games should have been a moment of civic pride. Instead, it exposes the uncomfortable truth that the city, in its present state, is nowhere near ready to shoulder an international event of this scale. The gap between the celebratory rhetoric and the lived reality of Ahmedabad’s civic infrastructure is so wide that only a sustained, time‑bound overhaul can bridge it—and even that will require political will of a kind we have not seen in years. The most basic functions of urban governance have been compromised. Roads cave in with frightening regularity—two hundred collapses this year alone, each one a reminder of the absence of engineering supervision and the dominance of politically connected contractors. Resurfacing is done as if it were a ritual, not a technical process, and the result is predictable: waterlogging, accidents, and financial losses for ordinary citizens. The city’s engineers, a...

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  Rivers are the lifeblood of the Earth. They provide us with food and water, which is why rivers have traditionally been revered and worshipped as mothers. It is impossible to imagine the development of human civilization without rivers. They have sustained humanity and played a vital role in its progress, meeting countless everyday needs. Traditionally, human societies recognized and respected this intimate relationship with rivers. Today, however, rivers are under severe pressure because of an ever-growing culture of greed and profit. The expanding influence of market-driven development is also a major factor in their destruction.

By Sandeep Pandey, Gunjan Singh  A movement had been going on in Ladakh to demand inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, full statehood, two Lok Sabha constituencies and a separate Public Service Commission for Ladakh. Sonam Wangchuk was on his fifth fast in Leh. Suddenly, on 24 September 2025, the youth decided to become more aggressive, having lost patience with Sonam’s peaceful satyagraha when a few persons on fast were hospitalised and there was a delay in the government’s response to the agitation. 

By Shahrukh Bin Parvaiz  The latest resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly calling for the restoration of full statehood raises an important political question that goes beyond the issue of statehood itself: what place do Article 370, Article 35A and the National Conference's long-standing demand for greater autonomy occupy in its present political programme?

By A Representative   A collective of former senior civil servants has launched a scathing attack on the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI), demanding the resignation and prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and the complete scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   India's 2047 ambition cannot be measured only in trillions of dollars. The harder test is whether the country can create productive jobs, repair its public education system, build accountable institutions, make cities liveable and ensure that economic growth translates into a better life for ordinary citizens.

By Bharat Dogra   Scientific and technological progress does not occur exclusively in expensive laboratories; it also flourishes among the farmers, workers, and artisans of remote villages. Given the right conditions, rural communities can solve their own agricultural challenges with inexpensive, context-specific solutions. A prime example is the Mangal Turbine, invented by Mangal Singh, a farmer-scientist from the Bundelkhand region of India. 

By Ravi Ranjan*  Kunwar Narayan (1927–2017) occupies a unique place in modern Hindi literature as a poet of profound philosophical insight, intellectual rigor, and human compassion. His poem Madhyam (Medium) stands as a remarkable reflection on language, silence, creativity, and the possibility of cultural renewal in an age overwhelmed by noise, fragmentation, and mechanization. Through a subtle interplay of poetic imagery and philosophical reflection, the poem explores how human beings can transform social and psychological chaos into meaningful cultural experience.

By Harsh Thakor*  John Lowe, the English jockey whose name on a race card made him a heartthrob of crowds, died on September 21 in a hospital in Perth, Western Australia, after suffering a stroke. He was 75. Lowe had moved to Australia two years earlier with his wife, Gale, to be close to his daughter, Verity, and grandsons, Isaac and Gabriel, after retiring from riding out at Roger Varian's Newmarket stable. He had a fall while gardening at home on September 17, was rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed with a stroke, and passed away four days later with Gale at his side. British jockeys wore black armbands in his memory on September 22.

By Ujjwal K Chowdhury*  My Sundarbans visit began with party flags, not a tiger.  For several hours, our car moved through Jhorkhali, where waterways seemed to wait just beyond each bend. On the stretch I crossed, BJP flags and offices dominated the roadside; BMS flags appeared in some marketplaces. That was just one traveller’s view from a moving car, not an election survey, but it stayed with me. It is a stark reminder that a place’s public colours can change much faster than the private worries of the people who live beneath them.

By Rajabhishek Dey*  Institutions need ideals to give their work meaning. But when institutional prestige becomes a substitute for accountability, the ideal can become an excuse for protecting the institution rather than serving the people within it.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan  India’s elections are contested on the basis of parties, candidates, leaders, local issues, and national narratives. While voters may have diverse reasons for choosing a candidate, the winning representative enters the legislature under the identity of the party on whose ticket the election was fought. A recent analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch highlights how frequently this political identity changes post-election. 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The integrity of the Election Commission of India (ECI) is a cornerstone of Indian democracy. Recent developments, however, have raised serious concerns about the ECI's independence and its ability to conduct free and fair elections. The actions of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, in particular, have prompted a critical debate about the institution's autonomy and its role in upholding democratic principles.

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  A new political controversy has emerged in India following a report about differences within the Election Commission of India between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the two other Election Commissioners. According to the report, the two Election Commissioners have raised questions about the addition, deletion and restoration of names on electoral rolls, changes to Form 6, and the management of voter data. They have also expressed concerns about the centralisation of voter data and election software.

By Anand Mazgoankar*  Mr. Gyanesh Kumar is being absolutely fair and rational in refusing to resign. One only hopes he doesn’t suddenly look into the mirror, develop pangs of conscience, wake up to morality or Constitutional propriety, and—God forbid—succumb to the mounting pressure.

By N.S. Venkataraman*  Trustee, Nandini Voice for the Deprived When the Election Commission of India launched the voter-verification exercise known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), it could reasonably be argued that the Commission was justified in undertaking this nationwide exercise. A comprehensive revision of electoral rolls is an important responsibility of the Election Commission, particularly when the objective is to ensure that genuine and eligible voters are able to exercise their franchise in a free and fair election.

Counterview News  In what has been interpreted as a landmark victory for grassroots environmental justice, the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) of the Miraj Sub-Division in Sangli district has ordered the temporary shutdown of the 10 MW Bhumi Green Energy Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration plant in Tung village . The administrative action is said to have followed sustained community protests and a damning joint fact-finding report by the Paryavaran Rakshan Samiti Sangli , the National Alliance for Climate and Ecological Justice (NACEJ), and the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA). 

By A Representative   A group of former civil servants, organised as the Constitutional Conduct Group, has issued an open letter to the Government of India expressing concern over the erosion of rights of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers in Odisha. The group, which describes itself as having no political affiliation, said Odisha has the fourth largest forest cover in India and the third largest Scheduled Tribe population, and alleged that large tracts of tribal-inhabited forests are being surrendered to mining and industrial projects, reducing both the forests and the communities dependent on them to distress.

By Dr. Palla Trinadha Rao*  For nearly a century, a quiet legal promise has stood between tribal communities in the hill tracts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the ordinary machinery of Indian civil law: disputes concerning their land would not simply be decided through legal institutions designed without regard to their particular vulnerability.

By Professor Suresh Deman*  Xi Jinping's Washington visit was a genuine spectacle. Trump personally greeted him at Joint Base Andrews, complete with a military review, a B-2 bomber flyover, F-22 fighters, bilateral talks and a state dinner — protocol so elevated that commentators reached back roughly six decades for a comparable precedent. But the real story isn't who "won" the ceremony. It's why the leader of a country Washington has spent years trying to contain was treated not as a supplicant but as a power whose cooperation and retaliation had to be negotiated.

By Kumar Krishnan*  As the 1996 India-Bangladesh Ganga Water Sharing Treaty approaches the end of its 30-year term in December 2026, Bihar’s concerns over the river are returning to the centre of the policy debate. At a one-day Bihar Policy Dialogue organised at the Babu Jagjivan Ram Research Institute in Patna, speakers argued that the State’s water crisis cannot be reduced either to the Farakka Barrage or to the question of international water sharing alone.

By Shankar Sharma*  ​India’s contemporary energy trajectory presents an alarming paradox: while global technological disruption offers clean, distributed, and cost-effective alternatives, our domestic planning apparatus remains tethered to resource-intensive orthodoxies. From the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats to the rapidly depleting aquifers of the northern plains, current power policies are exacerbating ecological devastation under the guise of developmental imperative.