Tag: India
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Why Are People Going Hungry in India Despite a Massive Grain Surplus?
The Indian intelligentsia has an incredible propensity to swallow the self-serving arguments of metropolitan capitalism that are typically supposed to constitute ‘economic wisdom’, and nowhere is this more evident than in the case of India’s food economy. There are a plethora of center-page articles in newspapers these days suggesting that Indian kisans (farmers) should move … Keep reading »
Long March to Peasant Unity in India
The unprecedented unity among peasant organizations is not a sudden development. It has been built over several struggles, which have expanded the base of the peasant movement and snowballed into the massive protests against the new farm laws. The talks between farmers’ organizations and the Union government over the controversial pieces of legislation governing agricultural … Keep reading »
India Can Already Afford a Welfare State: It Just Needs to Tax Its Wealthiest Citizens
Inheritance and wealth taxes alone, levied only on the top 1 per cent of the population, would be $196-billion and finance a welfare state in India. Keep reading »
Millions of India’s Farmers Are in a Fight for Their Economic Lives
India’s Hindu fundamentalist government has pushed through a deregulatory agenda for years. Now it has taken on farmers who have nothing left to lose and who are refusing to back down. Keep reading »
In Defence of Democracy and the Farmers’ Movement in India
The widespread farmers agitations against the pro-business and anti-farmer legislations passed undemocratically by the Indian Parliament in September 2020, has been met with a predictable insensitive and muted response from the government. At the meeting called by the Union Minister of Agriculture on 1 December 2020, ostensibly to break the deadlock arising out of these … Keep reading »
Privatized Medicine in India Is Accelerating COVID-19 Death Toll
Spiraling healthcare expenses in India have been pushing more than 55 million Indians into a state of abject poverty every year. COVID-19 has only worsened the trend for even more families – like Aghan Singh’s. To ensure that his sick mother received the best treatment, Singh, a self-employed motor mechanic in the small town of … Keep reading »
India’s Kerala Is Combating COVID-19 Through Participatory Governance
The effective handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the left-ruled Indian state of Kerala has garnered widespread attention across the world. For a small state, successful control over the pandemic has to do with its people-centrist policies and participatory governance, in tandem with a collaborative public sector. Keep reading »
India’s Democracy Is Facing an Existential Threat
India’s Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu made a curious comment on 28 December. “Express dissent in a democratic way,” he said. Before he became the Vice President – a largely symbolic role – Naidu was the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the far-right political organization that now governs India. Naidu made his comment … Keep reading »
The People of India Are Taking It to the Streets
Challenging Modi’s Bigoted and Dishonest Government Every day and in every part of India, hundreds of thousands of people – mainly young people – gather on the streets to express their anger at the government. Their protests, like those of the protests in Chile, emerged out of one particular grievance but then have cascaded outward. They … Keep reading »
Indian Government Going to War Against Its Own People
On December 13, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights released a powerful statement that criticized India’s new citizenship law. This “fundamentally discriminatory” Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 would expedite citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from India’s neighboring countries. But in the list of those minorities, it names only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians. It does … Keep reading »
Kashmir, Solidarity and the Canadian State
In his essay, “India’s Kashmir Crackdown Poses Risk of War,” John Riddell argues that India unilaterally revoked the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, flooding the region with troops, imposing a curfew, and shutting down all communications, and imposing direct rule by New Delhi, India’s Hindu nationalist government, under the leadership of Narendra … Keep reading »
Solidarity and Unity in Opposing Global Militarization
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society, shares the shock and anger of Kashmiris and democratic forces in India and across the world over the authoritarian decision of the Bharatiya Janta Party-led (BJP) Indian government to effectively nullify overnight the relative autonomy of the state of Jammu … Keep reading »