Now that the ASHA workers’ strike in Thiruvananthapuram has entered its third week and public support for the workers is growing, the Kerala government, instead of trying to solve the issue, is resorting to an age-old tactic: of turning this into a law-and-order issue. Provoked by the sizeable support the workers have garnered from civil society, the police have issued notices to fourteen public intellectuals and activists who participated in the mahasangamam meeting two days back, which was a massive success despite all the threats. They have been ordered to appear at the police station within 48 hours, and accused of disturbing order and obstructing traffic.
Continue reading This is NOT a law and order problem: The ASHA Workers’ Strike in Kerala– AltheaCategory Archives: Government
Open Letter to the Kerala CM : The Need for Grace and Empathy in the State’s Response to the ASHA Workers’ Strike: Rajesh Ramakrishnan
Dear Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan
It is distressing to read the news of the way in which the ASHA workers’ strike in Kerala is being handled. To say that ASHA workers are being misled by anarchist organisations, as one of your senior leaders did, is to deny their own agency as they agitate for their just demands. It is wilful forgetting of the long history of trade unionism and social activism in the state, which contributed to the famed Kerala model of development.
Continue reading Open Letter to the Kerala CM : The Need for Grace and Empathy in the State’s Response to the ASHA Workers’ Strike: Rajesh RamakrishnanStrikedenigrating, Ilamaram Kareem Style: The ASHA Workers’ Strike in Kerala
After branding the ongoing ASHA workers’ strike in Kerala, now in its third week, as ‘unnecessary’, the CPM, the leading constituent of the ruling LDF, is now proceeding to stage 2 of strike-denigrating, deploying its master-strike-denigrator — the ex-Minister and CITU leader Elamaram Kareem. This man is notorious for his anti-people stance in many earlier workers’ struggles, notably the epic struggle to end the terrible pollution of the Chaliyar river by Birla’s factory there. The full misogyny that defines the present-day CPM leadership in Kerala, as well as its reeking elitism, may be found in the ugly article that he wrote in the CPM’s organ, Deshabhimani a couple of days back. Despite the CPM’s claims about ‘women’s empowerment’, if one takes Kareem seriously, it now firmly believes that the public care work that the ASHAs do are only ‘service’ and that they are ‘not workers’.
Continue reading Strikedenigrating, Ilamaram Kareem Style: The ASHA Workers’ Strike in KeralaLetter to the Kerala CM from a Concerned Citizen about the ASHA Workers’ Strike: ARCHANA RAVI
Dear Chief Minister,
In the democracy of our dreams, you, I and Asha workers are equal. But in this world, a (yet to be identified) person shouted at Asha workers from the first floor of the health minister’s official residence and they had to return without meeting the minister. A huge reason why the health department was praised by the world was the labour of these women. The minister’s demeanour towards them makes me wonder if she has forgotten this.
Continue reading Letter to the Kerala CM from a Concerned Citizen about the ASHA Workers’ Strike: ARCHANA RAVIThe Fight is Not Just About Better Pay: Solidarity with the Striking ASHA Workers of Kerala : TTCU
The Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU) stands in solidarity with the ASHA workers of Kerala, whose strike has now entered its third week. As a women’s trade union we understand how difficult it is for women workers to step away from their responsibilities and take to the streets. It is never an easy decision, but one that becomes necessary when all other avenues to have their voices heard are exhausted.
Continue reading The Fight is Not Just About Better Pay: Solidarity with the Striking ASHA Workers of Kerala : TTCU
Care work is work: in solidarity with the striking ASHA workers in Kerala: Sustainable Kerala Menstruation Collective
ASHA workers, the backbone of community healthcare, are neither privileged nor part of the ruling class. They receive honorariums, not wages, for their essential services. This constitutes a clear instance of labor exploitation and informalisation, a practice ironically reminiscent of the current government’s own historical roots in worker strikes dating back to the 1920s. Today, Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi women are leading the charge in this strike, demanding recognition as workers entitled to dignified working conditions and a basic living wage.
Continue reading Care work is work: in solidarity with the striking ASHA workers in Kerala: Sustainable Kerala Menstruation CollectiveSupport the ASHA Workers’ Strike in Kerala: An Appeal to Women’s Organisations, Trade Unions, and Malayalis around the World : Althea
The ASHA workers’ strike in Kerala is entering its third week. We are appalled by the CPM-led government’s apathy and the disgusting ignorance of the CPM’s own history of trade unionism displayed by their spokespersons in the media. Maybe the forgetfulness of history is deliberate, because the CPM can no longer continue to nurture even minimally the ‘party of the poor’ image that it built in the middle decades of the twentieth century. While the ASHA workers were on strike in front of the State Secretariat and an ASHA Workers’ mass meet called by the striking association drew a very large number of such workers to the capital city, the government was busy holding an investors’ meet. Such a government cannot be expected to be attentive to the needs and rights of the workers, perhaps.
Continue reading Support the ASHA Workers’ Strike in Kerala: An Appeal to Women’s Organisations, Trade Unions, and Malayalis around the World : AltheaShould Faith be Used to Brush Away Filth?
Did Hindutva supremacists make devotees bathe in polluted sewage water during the Mahakumbh?
Faith and filth have an uncanny existence together
The latest in series happens to be the report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) underlining how they have found high faecal bacteria levels in Prayagraj river water, which fails bathing standards and the summoning of the Uttar Pradesh PCB (UPPCB) authorities by National Green Tribunal (NGT) over non-compliance of directives regarding ‘serious water quality violation in Ganga, Yamuna at Prayagraj’
The fact is that NGT has repeated itself when it said that high levels of faecal and total coliform were found at various locations at the Maha Kumbh, during a hearing on allegations that untreated sewage has been discharged into Rivers Ganga and Yamuna in Prayagraj.
Will the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s rejection of this report on the floor of the House and underlining that the water at the Sangam was fit for ‘drinking’ serve any purpose when NGT grills the UPPCB authorities over non-compliance of their directives issued earlier over the quality of water?
Any sane person would know the answer.
May be in a bid to appear uncompromising or cover his own nervousness over the developments, Adityanath tried to question the veracity of this report – in an indirect way – by condemning people who spread misinformation against “Sanatan Dharma, Maa Ganga, and India” and warning them that they were attacking the “faith of those 56 crore people who had taken a bath there.”
( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/should-faith-be-used-brush-away-filth)
Anti-Colonial Constitutionalism and the Defence of India’s Democracy
Democracy Dialogues Series 37
Organised by New Socialist Initiative
Theme : Anti-Colonial Constitutionalism and the Defence of India’s Democracy
Speaker : Prof Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University, ex Member of Parliament
Continue reading Anti-Colonial Constitutionalism and the Defence of India’s DemocracyWHO CAN HATE THE ‘OTHER’ MORE!
CLASH OF TITANS ! REALLY ?
Aisha, a 7 year old girl living in Khajuri Khas Colony of Delhi, is yearning for a day when like her elder sister Asma, she would also be admitted to a nearby government school.(1)
This possibility is growing dimmer by the day, as the school has refused her admission and asked for Indian documents like Aadhar – which refugees do not possess.
Aisha is the younger daughter of Ahmad, a Rohingya refugee who has finally reached Delhi and has duly received his UNHCR card – which refers to the document issued by the UN refugee agency.
Thanks to the circular issued by Delhi government ( Dec 24) led by AAP asking schools to ensure strict guidelines during admissions perhaps Aisha will have to remain satisfied with the same private school which lacks facilities.With a drive underway to ensure that children of “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” are not allowed enrolment, Aisha knows very well that her fate is sealed. (2)
It is difficult for her father to explain that while Asma got admission on the UNHCR card but why the rules have been suddenly changed ? ( Read the full article here : https://countercurrents.org/2025/02/clash-of-titans-really-who-can-hate-the-other-more/)
Tridents for Men and Daggers for Women
Why are “legally permissible weapons” being distributed in Delhi on election eve, and why is there criminal silence about it?
“We are committed to turning out the non-Hindu sinners from Delhi.”
– A VHP leader addressing a gathering in Delhi.
“..Consume less food, purchase a cheaper mobile phone, anything, only promise to have five tridents in a home”.
– Another VHP leader addressing a meeting in Delhi.
Provocative speeches and distribution of what is being peddled as ‘legally permissible weapons’ , very much in the heart of the national capital ; detailed plans to hold similar events all over the city, on the eve of elections – all this has not stirred the deep slumber in which the law and order machinery found itself in.
Thanks to the inaction, now the campaign to arm a section of radical Hindus has reportedly spread to the womenfolk as well. Plans are afoot to distribute 20,000 daggers to women from the majority community under what is being billed as ‘Shastra Deeksha Samaroh’. In fact, media was agog with footage of daggers being distributed to Hindu women in the second week of January itself.
No doubt, it would be height of innocence to presume that the silence of the officers/ personnel entrusted with maintaining law and order in the city – which is directly under the purview of the Ministry of Home – is inadvertent. ( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/tridents-men-and-daggers-women)
Democracy and the Logic of Capitalism: The recent Indian Experience – Professor Jayati Ghosh
Democracy Dialogues Lecture 34 :
Speaker:
Professor Jayati Ghosh
Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Time and Date:
Sunday, 17 th November 2024l, at 6 PM (IST)
Topic : ‘Democracy and the logic of capitalism: The recent Indian experience
Abstract :
Many analyses of the recent erosion of democracy in India have dwelt on political and social forces. I will examine the role of economic forces unleashed by a particular form of capitalist development, and how they may have contributed to this process in recent decades.
About the Speaker
Professor Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a member of the Club of Rome’s Transformational Economics Commission and Co-Chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, Formerly a Professor with the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Delhi, has also worked as a Consultant with the Planning Commission of India. Recipient of many awards including UNDP Award for Excellence in Analysis 2005, she has authored- co edited around twenty books on Economics.
Here is a list of a few of her recent books :
-Women, Gender and Work (Volume 2): Social choices and inequalities, (volume coedited with Mark Lansky, Dominique Meda and Uma Rani, 2016, Geneva: International Labour Office.
-Interpreting the World to Change It: Essays for Prabhat Patnaik (volume co-edited with C. P. Chandrasekhar), New Delhi: Tulika books, 2017.
– Demonetisation Decoded (with Prabhat Patnaik and C. P. Chandrasekhar) New Delhi: Routledge Taylor and Francis India, 2017.
– Indian Banking: Current challenges and alternatives for the future, AIBOC, Chennai, 2018.
– Informal Women Workers in the Global South: Policies and Practices for the Formalisation of Women’s Employment in Developing Economies, (edited volume) Routledge, 2020
– The making of a catastrophe: The Covid-19 pandemic and the Indian economy, New Delhi: Aleph Book Publishing, Forthcoming 2021.
– Development: A collection of articles from the International Labour Review, ILO Centenary Volumes, Geneva: ILO, forthcoming 2021 (co-edited with Uma Rani)
God-Willed Justice ?
Is the judiciary being internally hijacked to usher in Hindu Rashtra?
There are a very few legal scholars or advocates who have perceptively looked at the dynamics of India’s judiciary and cautioned us about the dangers that can come our way through those routes only.
Dr Mohan Gopal, is an exception.
This noted scholar who has been very clear about the worldview and strategies of the Hindutva Supremacist forces to achieve the goal of establishing Hindu Rashtra, explains their strategy of executing it “not by overthrowing the Constitution but by interpretation by the SC as a Hindu Document”
Speaking in a programme organised by Live Law, Gopal had explained its dynamic as a two-step process:
One, appointing judges who are ready to look beyond the Constitution.
Two, how with an increase in the number of theocratic judges who find the source of law in religion rather than the Constitution, it will be easy to declare India as a Hindu theocracy under the same Constitution.
( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/god-willed-justice)
Goodbye Welfare State ? Welcome ‘Labharthis’
Ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls, announcement of schemes like the Ladki-Bahin scheme reduce citizens to being ‘subjects’ rather than persons with basic constitutional rights.
Image Courtesy: PTI
Times have definitely changed.
There was a time earlier when a postcard sent by an ordinary citizen had spurred the judiciary into action, not any more.
One does not know whether the legal notice sent by a conscientious journalist to the Maharashtra government will similarly have any impact or not.
The focus of this legal notice is on the recent scheme launched by the Maharashtra government, called Ladki Bahin, under which women will be given Rs 1,500 per month. Launched on the eve of the elections to the state, the notice raises issues of the scheme’s timing, the claim that Rs 1,500 given to women would be sufficient; how such doles create a dependency culture and how it effectively punctures the whole idea of a welfare state. (Read the full article here :https://www.newsclick.in/goodbye-welfare-state-welcome-labharthis)—————————-
Here is a Hindi version of this write-up :https://janchowk.com/pahlapanna/citizens-as-beneficiary-the-achievement-of-the-amrit-kaal-of-the-republic/
The New Janus of Sri Lanka: Revolution at the Gate? Maya John
Guest post by MAYA JOHN
[Maya John has been part of the Left Movement for the past two decades and this piece is in response to ongoing dialogues with Sri Lankan comrades.]
The recent presidential election has installed Anura Kumara Dissanayake (“AKD”) from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance as the new president of Sri Lanka. This victory is seen as a result of rising popular hostility towards mainstream parties and rogue dynasts. Consequently, we find that AKD garnered an overwhelming share of the votes from those same electoral constituencies which had earlier voted in bulk for the corrupt Rajapaksas. Prior to this presidential election, the frustrated Sri Lankan masses, plagued by growing economic and political crises, generated the powerful people’s movement – the janatha aragalaya – that ushered in a huge legitimacy crisis for the ruling elites.
Continue reading The New Janus of Sri Lanka: Revolution at the Gate? Maya JohnYour Honour, the Rot Runs Really Deep !
The Karnataka HC episode is a wake-up call for the judiciary, as the battle to save it from interference by the executive could have long-term consequences for democracy.
High Court of Karnataka. Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
Justice Srishananda of the Karnataka High Court is in the news for wrong reasons.
What has caused tremendous unease is the way he openly referred to a Muslim-majority area in Bengaluru as “Pakistan” during a hearing and even made a misogynistic comment involving a woman lawyer.
The open display of prejudice toward a community and gender — by someone who is supposed to uphold the Constitution — infuriated a wide cross-section of people. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Chandrachud also lost no time in condemning these highly irresponsible remarks and asked the Karnataka HC to submit a report in this connection.
..The SC’s quick intervention in the Karnataka case is definitely a welcome development.
The question arises whether establishing such clear guidelines would really prove a dampener to such utterances in courts in future? Would it really put a stop on judges who have had no qualms in declaring that ”based on religion, India should have been declared Hindu nation after independence.’ or declaring ‘Modi a model and a Hero’. ( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/your-honour-rot-runs-really-deep)
Labour Rights Violations Revealed by the Hema Committee Report: A Public Discussion — Althea Women’s Collective
This is the recording of a public discussion of a set of proposals to be submitted to the Kerala Labour and Skills Department, addressing the issues raised by the Hema Committee Report which probed the conditions of women workers in Malayalam cinema. The committee was set up in the wake of the kidnapping and sexual assault of a female actor which was allegedly orchestrated by an influential male actor as an act of revenge. Outraged by the attack on their colleague, some women actors in Malayalam cinema came together to form the Women in Cinema Collective. It was their pressure that resulted in the formation of the committee. The committee took up this truly challenging assignment and completed it in December 2019, but the Kerala government delayed releasing it till last month. Only a redacted version was released which led to an uproar about the way the government seemed determined to protect the accused men, rumoured to be the most powerful actors and others in the industry. The uproar led to resignations of powerful peddlers of misogyny and upper-caste violence in the Malayalam cinema industry — notably, Ranjith, Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachithra Academy and the en masse resignation of the executive committee of AMMA, the gatekeeping organisation set up and controlled by dominant elements in the industry. The report’s release encouraged many less-prominent female artists to complain against powerful actors. The resignation of Mukesh, actor and CPM MLA has been demanded strongly by feminists, but the CPM has refused to order him to step down.
The Althea Women’s Collective is a feminist group based in Thiruvananthapuram. This discussion is based on the proposals they intend to add to a petition to be submitted to the Kerala State Labour and Skills Department.
Who Can Stop Bulldozer (in)justice ?
Where are Indians, who like the conscience keepers of Israeli society or the legendary Rachel Corrie, are ready to swim against the tide?
‘Our Problem is Civil Obedience…’
These words of the legendary American historian, playwright, philosopher and socialist intellectual, Howard Zinn (1922-2010), are still repeated the world over whenever people living in a country have no qualms in gulping whatever the rulers do or say.
Not much is known about the brief history of this speech which was delivered in the Baltimore campus during the heyday of the anti-war movement in the US, (1971). That was the period when a mass movement had emerged opposing the US government’s participation in the Vietnam war, where Zinn was invited to address students in one of the universities. ……………..
Zinn left for Baltimore, where he delivered the said speech, which received a thunderous applause from students and teachers, and when he presented himself before the courts the next day, as expected, he was sent to jail for a few weeks.
Time and again, as the phenomenon of, what is popularly known as “bulldozer justice, raises its head in India, which is now called the ‘biggest country that regularly holds elections’, this poser by Zinn in his Baltimore speech sounds more and more appropriate.
( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/who-can-stop-bulldozer-injustice)
This is what a (minor) Revolution feels like: Thoughts on the Collapse of AMMA in Kerala
So, the AMMA vanishes.
Letting out one last enormous lie (sigh) that it was taking ‘moral responsibility’ for the allegations of sexual violence and harassment against the shameless men that it protected , the monster passed, with all the executive members resigning together. A new executive committee will be elected two months later by the general body, they said.
Continue reading This is what a (minor) Revolution feels like: Thoughts on the Collapse of AMMA in KeralaSTATEMENT BY INDIAN CITIZENS AGAINST BRUTAL STATE VIOLENCE AND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE IN BANGLADESH
[Even as the massive Long March in Dhaka’s Shahbagh is going on, reportedly with lakhs and lakhs of people demanding Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, rumours of her having already resigned are coming in. The statement is of course in support of Bangladesh’s struggle for democracy and against the brutal repression unleashed by her Awami League regime.]
We, the undersigned citizens of India, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists, express our deep concern over the recent developments in Bangladesh. As fellow South Asians, we share a common destiny and the destruction of democracy in any part of it is obviously a matter of concern for all of us. The current government that has unleashed massive violence on its own citizens has brazenly hijacked the elections three consecutive times in the last ten years.
The world has been watching in horror the violent crackdown on protesting students and youth in Bangladesh since mid-July. On 15th July, a peaceful protest by students of Dhaka University demanding reform in the quota system was violently attacked by a group of goons said to be from the student wing of the ruling party. The crackdown followed statements by the Awami League general secretary and an important minister that the Chhatra League would teach a lesson to the students, whom the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina had earlier labelled ‘razakars’ – a term used for the collaborators with the Pakistan army during the 1971 Liberation Struggle. Expectedly, the Bangladesh Police, rather than acting against the attackers, started a full-scale crackdown on protesters all across the country from the next day. On 16th July, the police killed Abu Saeed, a student of Begum Rokeya University, as he stood with open arms, without any weapon, in front of the approaching police forces who aimed their guns at the protesters. The murder of Abu Saeed, who posed no threat to the approaching police forces, manifests how the intention behind the crackdown on protesters was not to maintain law and order but to forcefully silence voices of dissent arising from all across Bangladesh.
Continue reading STATEMENT BY INDIAN CITIZENS AGAINST BRUTAL STATE VIOLENCE AND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE IN BANGLADESH
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 