Opinion
Appeal
The legacy of IPA, founded by Nikhil Chakravartty, the doyen of journalism in India, to keep the flag of independent media flying high, is facing the threat of extinction due to the effect of the Covid pandemic. Only an emergency funding can avert such an eventuality. We appeal to all those who believe in the freedom of expression to contribute to this noble cause.Pandemic Diminishes Modi’s Stature At Home And Abroad
By Sushil Kutty The Allahabad High Court says Uttar Pradesh citizens afflicted with Covid-19 have been left to ‘Ram Bharose’, meaning to the whims and fancies of the Almighty, especially those in the small towns and villages of Yogi Adityanath’s slipping out-of-hand bastion. The high court wasn’t happy that...
Pandemic India’s Peculiar Medical And Political Binary
By Revathi Siva Kumar April was the cruellest month. But then again, was it? May seemed crueller for the junta. In spring, the mad second COVID-19 wave tore into our lungs and lives and raged with about 4 lakh cases and 4,000 deaths a day. Some cheering voice say...
Stories Of India’s Long Walks
By Papri Sri Raman Ruskin Bond’s short poem Lost All My Money brings home the point in a new book, India’s Long Walk Home. The point being, we are all the ‘Nowhere People’ with nothing. It reminds us of Rekha Bhardwaj’s song, O Re Bidesiya in the Hotstar film...
Communists Score Major Victory In Chilean Elections
By Ben Chacko Chilean communists were among the big winners in elections to the country’s constitutional convention, taking 28 seats as the left scored a major victory in Sunday’s election. Their success came as the centre-left Apruebo list won 24 of the 155 seats in the convention, with the...
Patent-Free Vaccine Is Not Enough To Fight Coronavirus
By Nantoo Banerjee If the primary purpose of the World Trade Organization is “to open trade for the benefit of all,” it may be time for WTO to revisit its agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) to do away with patents on Covid vaccines as well...
The Contours Of A New Mahagathbandhan
By Amulya Ganguli Mamata Banerjee’s victory in the West Bengal assembly elections has set the stage for a renewed attempt to form a grand alliance (mahagathbandhan) of opposition parties at the national level to take on the BJP. Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut has already spoken of such a front...
Covid Vaccine: Patents Versus The People
By Prabhat Patnaik On October 2, 2020, even before any vaccines against Covid-19 had been approved, India and South Africa had proposed to the WTO that a temporary patent waiver should be granted on all such innovations. In the following months, 100 countries had supported this demand. And on...
Workforce Social Security Becoming A Casualty, More Complex
By Gyan Pathak While the second wave of COVID-19 has severely been impacting business and industries, the social security for workforce in the country is becoming more complex. Neither the employers nor the government seem to have the ability and capacity to protect job losses. In this scenario social...
Women Voters In Bengal Were In Frontline In Fight Against The BJP
By Sankar Ray When the brother of Suvendu Adhikary, the newly-chosen leader of opposition (BJP) in the 17th West Bengal Legislative Assembly was chased by women with broom sticks, lathis and non-fire arms on the second phase of polling, central forces, polling personnel and people around were taken aback...
Can India Catch Up With Global Economic Revival?
By Mriganka M Bhowmick India is overwhelmed now. The second wave of pandemic has shattered its expectation to resume a normal life in 2021. The loss of lives, the crumbling health infrastructures along with the massive COVID spread in rural India and nascent stage of vaccination are adding up...
Right Forces Determined To Throw Out Corbyn
By Arun Srivastava Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer would not have imagined that he would eventually become the victim of the trickery which he has spun to defame and smear the image of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. The party leaders, including former prime minister Tony Blair, who had extended...
Behind The Scenes: Options Available To Mamata
By Harihar Swarup Mamata Banerjee’s political victory in the West Bengal elections is remarkably impressive. Here was a chief minister (CM) who successfully defied two-term anti-incumbency — and while there have been other CMs who have successfully returned to power for a third time (Narendra Modi is a prime...
There Is No Sign Of The Promised Light Ahead
By Krishna Jha The options are not many. The dark bottomless abyss stares at us. There could be either Covid 19 or starvation. Perhaps it could be both. Resembles the torture chamber of World War II when six crore, inclusive of children and seniors, perished under the wheels of...
Hindu Fascism Forced To Retreat In West Bengal
By Sankar Ray Proving exit poll-wallahs and corporate-backed psephologists, most of whom predicted that the saffron animal was breathing down the neck of Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, shamefully wrong, the intrepid 65-year old rose like a one-woman army to have slapped the message...
Big Brother China Bullying Small Neighbours
By Barun Das Gupta China is more and more adopting a big-brotherly attitude toward its small neighbours, giving rise to both fear and resentment in them. On May 10, the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, told a virtual meeting of the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) that “Obviously...
Kerala’s Initiative To Curb Fleecing Of Covid Patients
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fleecing of patients is a dastardly deed even in normal times. But then, we are not living in normal times. The entire world is at war with a rampaging virus which is snuffing out precious lives through its macabre death dance. The war can only...
India Pays Dearly For Modi’s Image Building
By B Arjun India is in the midst of the world’s worst outbreak of Covid-19 cases. It is a dystopian nightmare. The new cases and death toll are continuously rising. The medical response is hampered by shortages of oxygen, drugs, and hospital beds. According to experts, “The significant inefficiency,...
Bihar Storm Over Pappu Yadav’s Arrest
By Rahil Nora Chopra The arrest of Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) founder and former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav in a 32-year-old case has sparked a huge political storm in Bihar and exposed cracks in the Nitish Kumar led NDA in Bihar. Leaders of two NDA constituents in...
