Counterview

By Umashree Akham*  Why is it easier to feel sorry for a Dalit man than to sit with one who is simply, unapologetically angry? Ten years after Una, that question still cuts. Sorrow is easy to sit with—it asks nothing of us. Anger is not.

By Vikas Meshram*  What unfolded since June–July in the dense forest belt of Baihar and Birsa talukas in Balaghat district, eastern Madhya Pradesh, is not merely a story of an infectious disease outbreak. It is a stark illustration of how India’s health system continues to struggle to reach the “last mile” at the grassroots—and of the persistent neglect faced by Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs).

By Martin Macwan*  Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was facing a severe financial crunch and used to buy old books from a scrap shop. Once, the scrap vendor demanded an exorbitant price. Babasaheb realized the price hike was due to his suit and trousers, so he canceled the purchase. After reaching England, he wrote a letter to a friend: "Go to that particular shop and buy the book. Seeing me in a suit and trousers that day, the vendor had asked for more money."

By Rohit Pathak*  " Dalits enable the purity of the upper caste society, and become impure in the process." This short quote from Sharan Kumar Limbale 's Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature says a great deal about the marginalised other—a term closely associated with Dalit identity . A subaltern group of minorities whose primary task involves cooking, cleaning, serving and existing for a dominant group, they function within the binaries of pure/impure, dominant/subordinate, and upper-caste/lower-caste.

By A Representative   Ahmedabad-based NGO Samerth Charitable Trust has reported significant progress in water security, livelihood enhancement, disability inclusion and community-led development across Gujarat eand Chhattisgarh during 2025-26, marking what the organisation describes as “33 Years at the Edge of Possibility.” 

By Sudhansu R. Das   Hyderabad was once a city that effortlessly blended natural beauty, cultural depth and urban charm. Its lakes shimmered like mirrors to the sky, its ancient rock formations stood like timeless sculptures, and its forests and hills wrapped the city in a pleasant climate. Villages around the city produced fresh food; artisans kept handicraft traditions alive; flora and fauna thrived. Good roads, heritage sites and mouthwatering local dishes completed the picture of a city that felt—quite genuinely—like a paradise on earth. Today, that paradise is under strain.

By Ravi Ranjan*    Poverty is conventionally quantified through income thresholds, living standard metrics, and consumption statistics, yet creative literature reveals dimensions of deprivation that statistics cannot encapsulate. It reflects not merely a deficiency of goods, but how individuals experience time, endure physical toil, inhabit their bodies, defer gratification, and find meaning within severe material limits. In his critical exploration of Hari Bhatnagar’s short story "Sevri Rotis and Burnt Potatoes," Ravi Ranjan proposes an "aesthetics of poverty" that avoids romanticization or decorative celebration. Drawing upon Karl Marx’s materialist critique of labor and production alongside Raymond Williams’s cultural materialism, Ranjan demonstrates how cultural practices, bodily states, and domestic routines are inextricably tied to material social structures. Bhatnagar constructs poverty not as an isolated economic event, but as an pervasive organi...

Counterview News  The latest update to Equality Now's flagship Words & Deeds report reveals that women's and girls' rights globally are facing a "strategic and coordinated rollback," with hard-won legal protections being weakened or deliberately undermined, though the report stresses this backlash is neither inevitable nor irreversible .

By Tersina Maria Toppo*  A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.