Yearly Archives: 2020

Culture, Debates, Education

‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ : Team Umang Library

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Guest Post by Team Umang Library

Remembering Great Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan
on his hundredth death anniversary                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     (Watch the video on Youtube uploaded by Umang Library:
First Part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rehg3WtiBKc
Second Part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1I1NaWoajY

Srinivasa Ramanujan Facts: 40 Facts on Self-Taught Mathematical Genius

Photo Courtesy : https://factslegend.org/

It was the year 1913 when Srinivasa Ramanujan, then an ordinary clerk in Madras Port Trust, drafted letters to Prof G H Hardy, then a leading mathematician at Cambridge University, containing his mathematical theorems.

The rest as we know is history.

Continue reading ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ : Team Umang Library →

Education, Movements, Right watch

National Protest Day on April 25th against state attack on student activists: Young India against CAA-NRC-NPR

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Young India against CAA-NPR-NRC calls for  National Protest Day on 25th April, 2020.

Stop the attack on Student Activists During Pandemic!

Drop UAPA Charges!

Raise Your Voice!
Physical Distancing- YES!
Solidarity of Student-Youth- YES!

India Is Starving without Food, Ration and Money in Lockdown but the Govt is Busy in Framing Student Activists Falsely!

People of India are suffering massively due to the lockdown without proper plan by the govt. Millions of poor are starving. Workers and students are stranded in different cities without proper food, ration and money.

Doctors are without gear!
Workers are without food!
Health facility is collapsing! Continue reading National Protest Day on April 25th against state attack on student activists: Young India against CAA-NRC-NPR →

Culture, Government, Right watch, Scams

Migrant Workers, COVID- 19 and our Collective Indifference: Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha and Mursed Alam

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Guest post by ANINDYA SEKHAR PURAKAYASTHA and MURSED ALAM

Critical opinions described India as the ‘Republic of Hunger’or as the ‘Republic of Caste’ and now the post-Corona plight of countless migrant workers makes us want to describe it as the Republic of Indifference. Lakhs of migrant workers along with their family members are stuck at different corners of the country, unfed, mistreated and uncared. Recent images of migrant workers flocking to Bandra station in Maharashtra, with hopes of resumption of train services taking them home and the subsequent police action to disperse them was watched and commented by all of us. Most reactions were emotive and anguish ridden but that have little impact on the ground situation in which these migrants are forced to live during this lockdown. It is true that some NGOs and various philanthropic organizations and governmental aids have to a certain extent catered to their needs but their misery demands more than mere empathy or selective mercy. They need concrete action on the ground. It is astounding to see the Government of India announcing the lockdown on 25 March without having any concrete action plan for these countless migrant workers. This completely betrays the government`s indifference to their sufferings. As if we take them and their sufferings for granted. Earlier some migrants were packed off in over-crowded buses with no money and in Delhi migrant workers were stranded in a bus station in large numbers, rendering them more vulnerable to the infection threat. By all means the COVID 19 crisis has once again proved that they are the Rejects of India. They are mere numbers, and we club them under one official category of “Migrants”, they are not human beings, a mere category of the Reject, who are left out to fend for themselves. We, armchair intellectuals and the moneyed class securely ensconced in our comfort zone, guaranteed of our salaries and jobs, passed off social media comments. The self-appointed radical fringe among us called for the closure of all other activities like educational studies as migrants are suffering but all these predictable reactions boiled down to nothing when it comes to forcing the government to come down to the street and adopt concrete steps to mitigate the traumas of these suffering faces who are away from homes and family.

Continue reading Migrant Workers, COVID- 19 and our Collective Indifference: Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha and Mursed Alam →

Education, Government

Letter from JNUSU to Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal, MHRD, regarding academic issues

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Letter to MHRD from Jawharlal Nehru University Students’ Union

Subject: Regarding issues of evaluation, academic backlog, and scholarships in JNU in view of the lockdown

Respected Sir,

The situation that humanity as a whole is faced with at this current juncture is as you know, unprecedented. Following the forced shut down of schools and educational institutions due to the outbreak of COVID-19, formal academic engagement across the world has ground to a halt. The UNESCO in this regard went on to state in a press release on the 26th of March that over 1.5 billion children and youth in 165 countries were affected by school and university closures[1]. While the situation that citizens in general and students in particular are faced with collectively is certainly unprecedented, one must however take into account its differentiated impacts, and how without a uniform and substantive policy framework in place this could lead to increasing dropouts, furthering of gendered gaps in the educational outcomes, and the further entrenchment of marginalisation of historically deprived sections of the society from spaces of learning.

As you yourself have acknowledged in the past, the Jawaharlal Nehru University is one of the premier institutes of higher education in this country. As such, the University is home to over 8,500 students hailing from all over India and indeed from across the world. It is in this regard that as the duly elected representatives of the student community in JNU, we have found recent news reports regarding the formalisation of academic engagement, classes, and examinations via online means such as e-mail, WhatsApp, etc to be extremely distressing due to a number of reasons which we shall attempt to elaborate on to some degree below. Continue reading Letter from JNUSU to Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal, MHRD, regarding academic issues →

Capitalism, Debates, Refugee crisis, Right watch, Theory

Fascism, the Revolt of the ‘Little Man’ and Life After Capitalism – Manifesto of Hope III

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A representational image of a Hindutva demonstration, courtesy Sabrang.

[This the third instalment of a series on ‘Life After Capitalism – A Manifesto of Hope’. Earlier parts can be accessed Part I here and Part II here. Part IV can be accessed here.]

Yesterday was V. I. Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary and just the other day I read a report of a survey that claimed that 75 percent of Russians think the Soviet era was the best time in the country’s history. A great tribute to Lenin on this occasion, one would imagine, whatever may have been the reasons for socialism’s collapse. If you could put this response in Russia to nostalgia for a time gone by, it comes as an even bigger surprise that a recent poll in the United States of America, conducted by an outfit called YouGov and funded by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (a clearly anti-communist outfit) found that 70 percent of the millennials (between the age of 23 and 38 years in 2019) favoured socialism. Earlier in February 2019, Jochen Bittner, political editor of the German weekly Die Zeit wrote in the New York Times on ‘Why Socialism is Coming Back in Germany?’

Continue reading Fascism, the Revolt of the ‘Little Man’ and Life After Capitalism – Manifesto of Hope III →

Capitalism, Debates, Everyday Life, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The Virus, the Muslim and the Migrant: Part I – Comvid 14

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PART I OF A THREE PART POST

The term Comvid 14 is gratefully borrowed from Tony Joseph who defined it in a Facebook post as Communalvirus (Comvid 2014), the incubation period for which could be as long as six to seven years. Over fifty percent of infected people remain asymptomatic carriers, the rest going into paroxysms of hate and violence, many also gravitating towards TV newsrooms, according to him.

Suffocating mythologies produced by Hindu supremacism blanket India today.

So first of all, a loud, ringing zindabad to all the courageous journalists, citizen reporters and social media activists whose determined work relentlessly exposes fake news, and counters genocidal journalism in India.

Suchitra Vijayan explains the term “journalism as genocide”:

Rwandan cultural anthropologist Charles Mironko analyzed confessions of a hundred genocide perpetrators. His work confirms the thesis that hate messages in the media had a direct effect on the dehumanization of the population that was subject to persistent slander. Several months of this behavior, in the absence of credible reporting, conditioned the population to hate, and kill.

It is all the dogged fact-checking and on-the-ground reporting that continues to let in the light, through the crack, the crack in everything –  as Leonard Cohen sang; the words that Gautam Navlakha referred to just before he surrendered to the National Investigating Agency, on the orders of the Supreme Court.

This is India today – the violent Hindu Rashtra of Savarkar and Golwalkar’s dreams, under the direct control of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.  And this Hindu Rashtra is built on predatory capitalism – a toxic cocktail, far deadlier than the biological virus that now haunts us.

Just as the pandemic is inflected in its effects differently in different global contexts, the three features of the crisis in India – the virus, the Muslim and the migrant – relate in a way that is specific to ‘here’. The virus has enabled and strengthened predatory capitalism here as it has globally, but it has also reproduced itself through Hindu supremacism, generating two monstrous mutations – Comvid 14 and Coronacapitalism.

And we who will fight and resist both? What of us, how are we to combine, come together, connect to other stories the virus tells us, find our way to other lanes down which it leads us? How will we find and inhabit  those fissures and chinks in which green things can grow, and solidarities, and compassion and hope?

But first, the two monstrous mutations – one in this part, the second in the next. Continue reading The Virus, the Muslim and the Migrant: Part I – Comvid 14 →

Capitalism, Government, Right watch

मज़दूरों के नाम खुला पत्र: #MigrantLivesMatter

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मज़दूरों के नाम खुला पत्र

प्रवासी माइग्रेंट शार्मिक सहयोग (माइग्रेंट वरकर्स सॉलिडैरिटी) :

सरकारों और पूंजीपतियों द्वारा कोरोना महामारी के दौरान लॉक डाउन में फंसे मजदूरों के साथ किए जा रहे अमानवीय, ज़बरजस्ती और दमनात्मक व्यवहार के ख़िलाफ़!

साथियों,

केंद्र सरकार द्वारा 19 अप्रैल को एक मानक संचालन प्रोटोकॉल (एसओपी) आदेश जारी करके राज्यों और केंद्र शासित प्रदेशों में फंसे श्रमिकों के आने जाने को लेकर उठाया गया कदम, श्रमिकों के अधिकारों पर कुठाराघात है।  आइए, हम सब मिलकर पूंजीपतियों और सरकरो के खिलाफ जो कोविड -19 महामारी के बहाने मज़दूरों का और ज्यादा शोषण करना चाहते हैं, का मिलकर प्रतिवाद करे ।

सरकार द्वारा जारी यह आदेश किस बारे में है? 19 अप्रैल को गृह मंत्रालय द्वारा जारी इस सर्कुलर के मुताबिक़ फैक्ट्रियों में उत्पादन जारी रखने के लिए, जो श्रमिक जहां है उसको उस राज्य में कहीं भी ले जाया जा सकता है। लेकिन मजदूरों को अपने घर वापस जाने की इजाजत नहीं है। इस आदेश का सीधा मतलब है कि हम मज़दूरों के पास सरकार के आदेशों का पालन करने के अलावा कोई चारा नहीं है। लेकिन पिछले अनुभव बताते हैं कि स्थानीय प्रशासन और पुलिस की मिलीभगत से मज़दूरों को जबरदस्ती काम करने के लिए मजबूर किया जाएगा। पहले से ही इस तरह की खबरें सामने आनी शुरू हो गई हैं। ऐसे में, क्या यह कहना गलत नहीं होगा कि भारत में कोरोना महामारी से निपटने के बहाने बंधुआ मजदूरी लागू करने की कोशिश की जा रही है? Continue reading मज़दूरों के नाम खुला पत्र: #MigrantLivesMatter →

Capitalism, Politics, Right watch

Coercive Measures of Governments and Capitalists against Stranded Migrant Labour – Open letter to workers: Migrant Lives Matter campaign

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Migrant Workers Solidarity is a network for the rights of India’s migrant workers, presently engaged in providing relief and related updates to workers stranded in COVID-19 lockdown.

Comrades and Friends,

The steps taken by the Central Government on the movement of stranded labour within the states and union territories by issuing a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) is a death knell for the rights of workers. Let us unite against those taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to trap us workers more than ever before.

What is the circular about? This circular issued by the MHA on April 19 is making it legitimate that workers can be moved around within the state we are in for the production of the maaliks to continue. We are being told we can’t return to our own states. This circular means that we workers do not have any choice except for abiding by the orders of the government. Experience shows that we will be coerced to work with the maaliks getting the support of the local administration and police. And that coercion has already begun! Would it be wrong to say that the measures being taken against the Covid-19 pandemic is the beginning of slave labour in India? Continue reading Coercive Measures of Governments and Capitalists against Stranded Migrant Labour – Open letter to workers: Migrant Lives Matter campaign →

Government, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement by concerned citizens against state crackdown for anti CAA protests

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Statement by concerned citizens against witch-hunting of students and activists for anti CAA protests

The country right now is reeling through a grave crisis as a result of the novel Corona Virus and nearly a month long lock-down. We are all being asked to stay home and stay safe in order to break the chain of the deadly virus. We are shocked to know that in this midst of such a grave situation, the Delhi Police has arrested two students of Jamia Millia Islamia and several activists from localities of North-East Delhi who had participated in peaceful protests against the CAA. Even as we write this, more students and activists are being called for questioning and interrogation by the police on a daily basis.

In a twisted fairy tale that the Delhi Police is trying to weave, these activists are now being implicated in cases related to the communal violence in Delhi that took place in February. A riot in which the minorities suffered the maximum damage, both in terms of lives and livelihoods, has now become a pretext for the Delhi Police to further witch-hunt activists, most of whom also come from the minority community. Continue reading Statement by concerned citizens against state crackdown for anti CAA protests →

Culture, Debates, Education, Genders, Language

NLU Jodhpur alumni and students protest homophobic teaching materials

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Current VI semester undergraduate students of the University pursuing the ‘Sociology – III Law and Society’ course, at the National Law University Jodhpur were sent outright homophobic content purportedly as essential reading (details of the readings are in the letter below). The material presented outdated notions of homosexuality. When the faculty member was challenged via email by a student, she said she had shared it to encourage debate and present one side of the prevailing views on homosexuality. However, the material was sent without providing any such context. The faculty committed that she would be sending updated material presenting sociological developments on the subject in the coming few days. However, instead of doing so, she delegated her responsibility to the student who had written to her, a move that can only be interpreted as reprisal.

The interim student body wrote to the Vice Chancellor on the issue. 150 alumni members also wrote to the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and General Council of NLU-J asking for disciplinary action against the faculty member, an external resource person to teach the subject, and review of the course curriculum.

This is the letter

Dear Dr. Saxena and Members of the General Council,

We, the undersigned alumni of National Law University, Jodhpur, much to our consternation, have learnt that current VI semester undergraduate students of the University pursuing the ‘Sociology – III Law and Society’ course were sent outright homophobic content purportedly as essential reading by Dr. Asha Bhandari, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Member, Academic Council, on April 11, 2020. On a perusal of the content, it is evident that the material sent by Dr. Bhandari is unscientific, uncritical, based on outdated notions of homosexuality, perpetuates dangerous stereotypes, and legitimizes prejudice against the LGBTIQ community. As you would all agree, this is unacceptable in any institute of learning, much less in one that prides itself on being a premier national law school.

Continue reading NLU Jodhpur alumni and students protest homophobic teaching materials →

Capitalism, Debates, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Agony of COVID-19 and the Lockdown – Who is Afraid of ‘Class’? Maya John

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Guest post by MAYA JOHN

This essay is the second part of a two-part series on Society in the Time of Covid 19. The first part appeared in Kafila on 5 April and can be read here.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas…Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845)

The Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed by history; but concretely things have worked out differently; they are more original, more peculiar, more variated than anyone could have expected. – V.I. Lenin, Letters on Tactics (1918)

रहिमन विपदा हू भली, जो थोरे दिन होय /  हित अनहित या जगत में, जान परत सब कोय

Crisis of a few days is better/ For it reveals who is friend and who is foe. – Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, ‘Rahim’      (1556 – 1627)

Looking at what transpires each day of this epidemic coupled with lock-down, people appear to be plucked out of heterogeneous circumstances and placed in the homogenous time of “Corona”, putting all things in abeyance. The battered housewife whose alcoholic husband grows restless with every day; mourning relatives who’ve lost a loved one and struggle to make it to the last rites; the live-in ‘maids’ whose workday begins at the crack of dawn; the municipal worker who continues to de-clog our sewer lines to prevent the chance of reverse flow in our commodes; the young, newly-wed construction worker who’s anxious about his wife in the village; the tired nurse who fears she’s contracted the wretched infection; among many other circumstances of life are part of this moment, the epidemic-cum-lock-down. The coupling of epidemic and lock-down has created confusion for some people in terms of which of the two is deadlier. For many this is an unprecedented, exceptional time. But for others this moment is not new but rather a repetition of the similar course of life, with the addition of just another fear. Many are puzzled by how, among all the life-threatening contagious diseases and illnesses in circulation, “Corona” gained prominence.

Continue reading Agony of COVID-19 and the Lockdown – Who is Afraid of ‘Class’? Maya John →

Culture, Debates, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Brutalising Labourers, Jailing Dissidents

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A medical emergency is no pretext to impose a political emergency.

A medical emergency

How many policemen in civil clothes are required to deliver a mere summons to an editor of a web journal 700-k away in an age of email and WhatsApp? The recent action of the Uttar Pradesh police, where it sent a posse of 7-8 policemen, in civil clothes, in a black SUV with no number plates, to Siddharth Varadarajan’s residence in Delhi to deliver a summons has prompted this question.

Definitely the police did not bother to ponder over how Varadarajan, editor of The Wire, will present himself to the authorities during a lockdown which has brought trains, flights and even private transport to a standstill.

The manner in which the issue has unfolded has caused an international uproar with 3,500 jurists, scholars, actors, artists and writers condemning Uttar Pradesh Police’s actions against The Wire, and saying that a “medical emergency should not serve as the pretext for the imposition of a de facto political emergency.”

How Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government will respond remains to be seen, but the story in The Wire on the Tablighi Jamaat, which also noted that “Indian believers” responded late to the viral epidemic obviously provoked the powers-that-be into action. The episode has brought into sharp focus the priorities of the government during the epidemic, which it is supposedly fighting a “war” against.

( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/Brutalising-Labourers-Jailing-dissidents)

Culture, Education, Government, Identities, Language, Politics, Refugee crisis, Religion, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The Supreme Minister Knows: A Bedtime Story by Bebe Yaga

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DlfcNcAWgw

Debates, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Politics

करोना से ग़लत सबक़ लेना घातक हो सकता है : राजेन्द्र चौधरी

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Guest post by RAJINDER CHAUDHARY

पिछले दिनों हम ने ‘करोना के कुछ ज़रूरी सबक़’ पर चर्चा की थी. पर बड़ी संभावना यह है कि करोना के आधे अधूरे या गलत सबक निकाले जाएँ.  इस के लिए भी हमें तैयार रहना चाहिए.

बिलकुल गलत सबकों पर आने से पहले, कुछ संभावित आधे अधूरे सबकों की चर्चा कर लें. निश्चित तौर पर करोना के बाद की दुनिया में वैश्वीकरण ढलान पर होगा; अब आर्थिक वैश्वीकरण बढ़ने के स्थान पर घटेगा. विशेष तौर पर दवाइयों और स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं से जुड़ी वस्तुओं के मामले में राष्ट्र आत्मनिर्भर होने की कोशिश करेंगे; करनी भी चाहिए पर यह अधूरा निष्कर्ष होगा. केवल स्वास्थ्य सम्बन्धी मामलों में ही नहीं, बल्कि जहाँ तक संभव हो हर मामले में आत्मनिर्भर होने की कोशिश होनी चाहिए. इस से भी आगे बढ़ कर यह आत्मनिर्भरता केवल राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर न हो कर स्थानीय स्तर पर भी होनी चाहिए.

Continue reading करोना से ग़लत सबक़ लेना घातक हो सकता है : राजेन्द्र चौधरी →

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Jai Bhim, Lal Salam! Anand Teltumbde writes to the people of India

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Open letter from Anand Teltumbde, reproduced from The Wire.

I am aware that this may be completely drowned in the motivated cacophony of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh combine and the subservient media, but I still think it may be worth talking to you as I do not know whether I would get another opportunity.

Since August 2018, when the police raided my house in the faculty housing complex of the Goa Institute of Management, my world has turned completely topsy-turvy.

Never in my worst dreams could I imagine the things that began happening to me. Although, I was aware that the police used to visit the organisers of my lectures – mostly universities – and scare them with enquiries about me, I thought they might be mistaking me for my brother who left the family years ago. Continue reading Jai Bhim, Lal Salam! Anand Teltumbde writes to the people of India →

Law, Politics, Right watch

Jai Bhim, Lal Salaam! Gautam Navlakha to the people of India

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Open letter from Gautam Navlakha 

As I prepare to Ieave to surrender before the NIA headquarters in Delhi I am glad that Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Indira Banerjee gave me another week of freedom when they passed the order on April 8, 2020. A week of freedom means a lot in my condition, even in the age of lockdown. Their order resolved the predicament I encountered in complying with the March 16th order of the apex court, which obliged me to surrender by April 6th before the NIA, Mumbai. The lockdown that followed prevented me from travelling. Also there was no direction from NIA (Mumbai) regarding what I should do under the circumstances. I know now that I have to surrender myself to the NIA Head quarters in Delhi.
Government, Law, Politics, Right watch

MPs, MLAs and activists condemn Dr Anand Teltumbde’s arrest on Ambedkar Jayanti

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Dr. ANAND TELTUMBDE’S ARREST ON AMBEDKAR JAYANTI: A NATIONAL SHAME

Jai Bhim!

Coinciding with the upcoming Ambedkar Jayanti, Dr. Anand Teltumbde , one of India’s foremost public intellectuals and the strongest legatee of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s tradition of struggling for a truly democratic India, will be complying with the Supreme Court’s order to surrender to the jail authorities. He will be surrendering on the 14th April 2020, between 12 noon – 2 pm at the Sessions Court in Mumbai. This is both tragic and shameful for all Dalits, Adivasis, OBC, and minorities on many counts for all of India.

It marks a day

– on which this country will celebrate the 129th birth anniversary of one of its greatest minds and hearts, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and on which the mighty nationalist machinery seeks to crush the spirit that kept the flame of democracy alive in our midst; Continue reading MPs, MLAs and activists condemn Dr Anand Teltumbde’s arrest on Ambedkar Jayanti →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Government

E-commerce platforms: Corona Warriors or Disaster Capitalists?

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This is a Guest Post by ANITA GURUMURTHY and NANDINI CHAMY

 

In 2007, in her book, ‘Shock Doctrine’, Naomi Klein argued that history is a chronicle of “shocks” – the shocks of wars, natural disasters, and economic crises, but more importantly, of their aftermath characterised by disaster capitalism, calculated, free-market “solutions” to crises that exploit and exacerbate existing inequalities. This is why Big-Tech-to-the-rescue in times of the virus does not strike the right chord. It started with the lockdown order issued by the central government on March 24 with the exemption for essential services and supplies getting extended to delivery of foods, pharma products and medical equipment through e-commerce channels. The upper classes had to be assured that their means of shopping would not be affected. Notably, the order issued no such explicit exemption on the movement of foodgrains through Food Corporation of India channels, integral to the Public Distribution System. The lockdown order was a candid admission that e-commerce companies have now become infrastructural utilities indispensable to India’s aspirational middle class.

Continue reading E-commerce platforms: Corona Warriors or Disaster Capitalists? →

Culture, Debates, Government, Politics, Right watch

Mainstream Myths Versus Scientific Collaboration

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The rediscovery of scientific collaboration across borders is a welcome development.

Fake News on COVID

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

– Marie Curie.

Does the 5G network have any link to the novel corona-virus outbreak?”

Well, any sane person on this part of Earth would readily laugh at this outrageous claim. But this claim has “gone mainstream” leading even to bomb attacks on phone masts. So one has to sit up and analyse.

No doubt, when “psychological states peak and people’s anxiety levels are high,” as one expert puts it, one can easily become prey to such conspiracy theories. And as right-wing or conservative ideas have growing legitimacy in society, things can get even worse. Remember how for a long time Iran’s theocracy was in denial about the Corona-virus threat?

India is no exception to such false claims. All sorts of home remedies are being offered as a definite cure to the disease. We saw Gomutra parties where cow urine was drunk, supposedly as protection from this highly-contagious disease which has taken more than 100,000 lives and infected more than 1.7 million. No doubt it is an arduous task for progressives to counter all the rubbish being peddled around the pandemic and prepare people to take proper care while pressurising the powers-that-be to make public health a priority.

Such struggles can be better fought if individual scientists or groups of scientists join hands to sensitise and educate people.

The recent launch of a pan-institutional CovidGyan website (https://covid-gyan.in/) which is a brainchild of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) is a welcome step in this direction. Other key members of this initiative include Vigyan Prasar, IndiaBioscience, and the Bangalore Life Science Cluster (BLiSC, which comprises InStem and C-CAMP, in addition to NCBS-TIFR).

( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/Mainstream-Myths-Versus-Scientific-Collaboration)

Government, Law, Right watch

Condemn the Supreme Court’s denial of relief from arrest for Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha: Campaign Against State Repression

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Statement by Committee Against State Repression (CASR)

On March 16th 2020, the Supreme Court of India rejected the anticipatory bail plea of civil rights activists, Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, asking them to surrender by April 6th 2020. The review petition heard on April 8th 2020 cited the COVID-19 pandemic as reason to extend the period of reprieve from arrest by another seven weeks. Today, the petition has been rejected giving Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha one week to surrender before the Bombay High Court stating, “we make it clear that there shall not be any further extension of time.” This order disregards the COVID-19 pandemic and displays a lack of concern over the health of persons over 65 years of age and the over-crowding of prisons at a time of a global health crisis. The order shows how inconsiderate the courts are to the realities of the people of this country. Rejection of the bail plea and issuance of an order to surrender amidst a pandemic reiterates the nature of Indian judiciary as subservient to the interests of the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist State. Both civil rights activists are charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for their alleged involvement in the ‘violence’ at Bhima Koregaon, Maharashtra on January 1, 2018. Notably, neither were present at Bhima Koregaon on that date nor had any connection to the Bhima Koregaon Shaurya Din Prerna Abhiyan organised by the Elgaar Parishad. Continue reading Condemn the Supreme Court’s denial of relief from arrest for Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha: Campaign Against State Repression →

Capitalism, Debates, Decolonizing Theory, Ecology/Environment, Technology

Life After Capitalism and the New ‘al Shatir-Copernicus’ Revolution – Manifesto of Hope II

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[This is the second of a four-part series. Other parts can be accessed Part I here, Part III here and Part IV here]

In the previous instalment of this series in Parapolitics, I had discussed the situation arising out of the Covid 19 pandemic in terms of the possible implications of the global lockdown and ‘quarantine of consumption’, for post-capitalist futures. In this part, I will discuss (a) the conditions that make such futures not just imaginable but possible and (b) indicate certain directions that such futures are already taking – for the paths that we tread now are the ones that lead to the future.

Sorrento Abandoned Mill near Naples, Italy Source: Mentnafunangann/Wikimedia Commons

Theory/ Concept/ Discourse

Since all talk of post-capitalist futures only sounds outlandishly utopian and out of sync with what we see around us with the ‘naked eye’ as it were, it is necessary to first clear our field of vision a little. And, let us be very clear here that this ‘clearing of the field of vision’ is not, in the first instance, about practices on the ground but about the field of knowledge – and theory in general. And before any hard-boiled hysterical-materialist tries to tell us that all this is idealism and that the ‘real’ stuff is materiality and things only happen in practice, I want to make three general points here. First, for the more theologically oriented: it was Lenin who said repeatedly that ‘without revolutionary theory, there cannot be any revolutionary movement.’ (What is to be Done?) Not only that, he also insisted (after Kautsky) that left to its own, the working class movement could only produce ‘trade union consciousness’ and that ‘socialist theory’ had to be imported from outside (basically bourgeois intellectuals) into the working class movement. This understanding was to lead to all kinds of problems including vanguardism but we will let that be for now.

Continue reading Life After Capitalism and the New ‘al Shatir-Copernicus’ Revolution – Manifesto of Hope II →