Building Productive Workers’ Army in Venezuela A conversation with Sergio Requena of the Productive Workers’ Army . Born in 1974 in Puerto Ordaz, in the industrial heartland of Venezuela, Sergio Requena is a worker at CVG Carbonorca (state-owned plant producing anodes, a component needed to process aluminum). He is a key player in the formation…
Young Women in Chile Spur Widespread Revolt In January 2018, the hemispheric #MeToo revolt blew up in Chile. Outrage over sexual abuse by Catholic priests and university professors catalysed mass demonstrations against Pope Francis, corrupt college administrations and the government’s wholesale neo-liberal privatisation of education. Primarily initiated by women students, young, feminist men jumped in…
British Raj siphoned out $45 trillion from India: Utsa Patnaik When renowned economist Utsa Patnaik began to sift through old tracts of British economic history in order to understand the nature of fiscal relations between London and colonial India, the fate of the Kohinoor wasn’t much in the news; Shashi Tharoor hadn’t yet spoken in…
Assembly Verdict: BJP is Biggest Loser The final results have not yet been declared but counting is fairly advanced and one thing is clear: BJP has suffered a major setback in all the three states it was ruling – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In Telangana, its vote has declined and its seats have gone…
Survey: 35 Lakh Jobs Lost in 4.5 Years In the four-and-a-half years since the BJP-led NDA government took over, at least 35 lakh jobs have been lost among traders and in the MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector, says a survey by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation (AIMO). Released on December 15, 2018,…
The Yellow Vest Movement Strengthens in France It is hard to count demonstrators spread out across thousands of mobilisations, but it seems that over half a million people were involved in “Act Four” of the Yellow Vest mobilisation in France on Saturday 8 December. In Bordeaux, a huge joint demonstration between university students and Yellow…
Why Extinction Rebellion Protesters Are Breaking the Law “A 4°C future is incompatible with an organised global community,” climate and energy professor Kevin Anderson once told Grist. Even if we cut emissions by 3.5 percent a year after 2020, we’ll hit 4 degrees Celsius warming by the end of this century. Just let that sink…
The Poetics Of Statues Men construct huge structures, make endowments, inscribe their names on monuments, create memorials, demonstrate their authority with seals imprinted with their images, consecrate statues and there by long for permanence. One such urge of the erstwhile kings, conquerors and military generals is reflected in the statues they themselves got erected or…
A Shocking And Disappointing Judgement The judgement of the Supreme Court dismissing our petition seeking an independent court monitored investigation into the Rafale deal is as shocking as it is disappointing. We had gone to court after making a detailed complaint to the CBI pointing out the following: The Prime Minister signed an agreement…
On International Human Rights Day Not often does good news come on International Human Rights Day—December 10. It is mostly a somber occasion, a day to reflect on the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and a day to bemoan the gap between those values and our reality. Little of the high-minded…
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!