A Modest Tax on Billionaires Can Ensure Basic Economic Rights to All The basic income scheme that is in the air these days, which amounts to handing over a certain sum of money to every household to ensure that it reaches a threshold cash income, is an extremely flawed scheme. Instead of enjoining upon the…
Setting the Record Straight on Gandhi and Race Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a racist? This question is being asked afresh in light of the removal of a Gandhi statue in Ghana. The petition that led to the statue being taken down quoted several statements made by Gandhi. Notably, however, they all date from his early…
Pulwama: A Wake Up Call for Peace in the Region The suicidal terrorist, Adil Ahmad Dar, rammed his explosive laden car into two trucks of a CRPF convoy on 14 February 2019. The blast led to the brutal murder of 44 jawans, a big national tragedy, most heinous and condemnable. In terms of scale and…
An Open Letter to the People of the United States Originally published in Granma English If I know anything, it is people, because like yourselves, I am a man of the people. I was born and raised in a poor neighborhood of Caracas. I was forged in the heat of popular and union struggles…
New Wings for Socialism Seventeen years ago, in 1990, I began an essay with a poem of Bertolt Brecht. It was a poem about a man in Europe in the Middle Ages who put on “things that looked like wings,” climbed to the roof of a church, and tried to fly. He crashed, and the…
Namvar Singh Defined the Contours of Hindu Literary Culture The most brilliant mind of our literary world is no more. The death of Hindi literary critic Namvar Singh truly marks the end of an era. What was this era? It was defined by the excitement of creation and an eagerness to sincerely engage with it….
Mapping the American War on Terror In September 2001, the Bush administration launched the “Global War on Terror.” Though “global” has long since been dropped from the name, as it turns out, they weren’t kidding. When I first set out to map all the places in the world where the United States is still…
War Mongering Must Give Way to Trust, Peace and Friendship I went to participate in a candle light homage paying event at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s statue organised by about 200 Dalit students on Hazratganj main crossing in Lucknow on 16 February 2019 evening, two days after the dastardly terrorist act in Pulwana, Jammu and Kashmir,…
George Fernandes: A Man of Many Contradictions George Mathew Fernandes was one of the firebrand Socialist leaders of his time. He was a priest for a short period, a trade unionist, agriculturist, political activist, human rights activist, parliamentarian and journalist, all rolled into one. He led the famous railway strike involving 1.5 million workers in…
Budget 2019: Pension Scheme for Unorganised Workers Is Yet Another Illusion The NDA government in its last budget before the election has announced an ambitious pension scheme for unorganised sector workers. Given its tendency for hyperbole, the scheme is already being touted as the largest pension scheme in the world with 100 million potential…
दिल्लीत सुरु असलेल्या शेतकरी आंदोलनाच्या पार्श्वभूमीवर या लहान पुस्तिकेचे प्रकाशन लोकायत मार्फत करण्यात आले आहे. शेतकरी आंदोलन आणि त्यातल्या मागण्या या केवळ शेतकऱ्यांपुरत्याच नसून विविध अंगांनी सर्व सामान्य जनतेच्या हिताच्या आहेत, याबाबत मांडणी करणारी ही पुस्तिका!