Times of India blogs / by Amulya Gopalakrishnan
A year after the 9/11 attacks, American writer and editor Michael Kinsley made an honest admission. He had stopped himself from writing or publishing some things, regardless of their merit, he said. Ordinary scepticism, any opinion slightly out-of-step, had been silenced in the “patriotic gush and mush” of the times.
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The Print / by Ashutosh Bharadwaj
War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, State and Maoists was seized from activist Vernon Gonsalves’ home during a raid last year in Elgar Parishad case.
Soon after becoming the chief minister in May 2011, Mamata Banerjee initiated peace talks with the Maoists who had been holding out in Junglemahal, an area stretching over Bankura, Birbhum, Purluia and parts of West Midnapur districts. The talks failedwithin months. The namesake of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece, War and Peace, which surfaced in the Bombay High Court recently, is a collection of essays and grassroots voices penned by eminent writers, activists, academics and lawyers as they discuss the Maoist issue in the aftermath of the talks.
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Sabrangindia / by Sabrangindia
On August 18, the report titled “Corporate Loot and People’s Resistance in Niyamgiri” was released at the CDRO Convention on UAPA and other Draconian Law held in Jalandhar, Punjab. The report is an outcome of a joint fact-finding visit by a 16-member team from April 26-28, 2019 from All India Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization (CDRO) and Ganatantrik Adhikar Suraksha Sangathan, Odisha (GASS) to villages of the Niyamgiri area in both Raygada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha. The team investigated into the death of the contract employee Dani Batra by the OISF on March 18 at the gate of Vedanta Aluminum Limited and also visited villages of the Dongria Kondhs to understand the major concerns of the people opposing mining of bauxite in their area and violation of their rights.
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Statement by Mumbai Rises to Save Democracy
August 7, Solidarity Program in Mumbai
DNA/ by DNA
DNA Samwad this week tried to understand if there’s indeed an environment of fear & intolerance as claimed by some well-known personalities in a letter to the PM. The panelists comprising political leaders & social media experts from both sides of the ideological spectrum debated on the subject
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Sabrangindia.in / by Deborah Grey
A common characteristic of right wing supremacists in India appears to be their extremely limited and rather vapid imagination. This is best illustrated in a booklet published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The booklet is an out and out smear campaign against some of India’s most respected intellectuals and human rights activists. However this sinister agenda is driven by a rather banal set of stories.
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en | 16 min | 2019
Newsclick / By Newsclick
On 18th of July the Rajya Sabha unanimously passed the NIA Bill. The bill proposes three major amendments to the NIA Bill of 2008, giving the agency enormous powers. Gautam Navlakha discusses with Newsclick the BJP’s national security push and the implications of the amendment.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
Eminent theatre director from Karnataka S Raghunandana on Wednesday declined the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for 2018, a day after it was announced, in protest against incidents of “mob lynching in the name of God and religion” and the frequent attempts to stifle dissenting views of public intellectuals and activists.
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en | 10 min | 2019
By Citizens for Justice and Peace / Teesta Setalvad
Teesta Setalvad expresses solidarity with Indira Jaising and Anand Grover and contextualizes the CBI raids in Mumbai and New Delhi within the larger context of a systematic drive against human rights defenders and activists.
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The Wire / by Rohit Kumar
What, indeed, does one do in these dark times which threaten democracy?
I have never had a problem with insomnia, but over the last month or so, sleep – “sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, and chief nourisher in life’s feast” – seems to have forsaken me. I find myself anxious and awake till the wee hours of the morning, thinking about the violence that is spreading across India.
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