How the Rich Plan to Rule a Burning Planet
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How the Rich Plan to Rule a Burning Planet

James Plested   The climate crisis isn’t a future we must fight to avoid. It’s an already unfolding reality. It’s the intensification of extreme weather—cyclones, storms and floods, droughts and deadly heat waves. It’s burning forests in Australia, the Amazon, Indonesia, Siberia, Canada and California. It’s melting ice caps, receding glaciers and rising seas. It’s…

The Climate Decade: A Global Crisis Unveiled, a Global Movement Unleashed
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The Climate Decade: A Global Crisis Unveiled, a Global Movement Unleashed

Erika Spanger-Siegfried   We’ve all just lived through a most consequential ten years.   Some decades, like the 1860s for the Civil War and the 1960s for the Civil Rights Movement, are seismic and stand out in history for generations. The 2010s weren’t like that (though politically it’s been one long mixed-martial arts cage fight)…

Closer Than Ever: It Is 100 Seconds to Midnight
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Closer Than Ever: It Is 100 Seconds to Midnight

John Mecklin   Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to…

Women at Kolkata’s Park Circus Prove the Indian Republic Has Come of Age
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Women at Kolkata’s Park Circus Prove the Indian Republic Has Come of Age

Kavita Panjabi   A republic truly comes of age when its women too claim it. The 71st Republic Day of India marked a proud year for this nation when its republic truly came of age.   When millions of women begin to insist that the state is a matter of res publica, a public affair,…

Flag This Extraordinary Moment—A Symbol of Power Has Become a Totem Of Resistance
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Flag This Extraordinary Moment—A Symbol of Power Has Become a Totem Of Resistance

Chitra Padmanabhan   In The Black Jacobins, a classic work on the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803)—the only successful slave revolt in history, which erupted in the wake of the French Revolution—C.L.R. James describes a fascinating moment in the confrontation between Napoleon’s army and the slaves of the colony:   “The soldiers still thought of themselves as…

154 European Union Lawmakers Draft Stunning Anti-CAA Resolution
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154 European Union Lawmakers Draft Stunning Anti-CAA Resolution

Mala Jay   India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) could trigger the “largest statelessness crisis in the world and cause widespread human suffering”, a powerful group of 154 European Parliament members have warned.   In a scathing denouncement of CAA, the lawmakers have drafted a formal five-page resolution to be tabled during the plenary session of…

Modi-Shah Duo Bring About a Fine Unintended Consequence
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Modi-Shah Duo Bring About a Fine Unintended Consequence

Badri Raina   It is said that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. But did you ever imagine that the way to heaven may, conversely, be paved with not-so-good intentions?   However the government of the day may protest that there has been no nefarious intent behind the discriminatory provisions of the…

Budget 2020: Impose Wealth Tax and Inheritance Tax on the Rich to Finance Increase in Social Sector Expenditures 
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Budget 2020: Impose Wealth Tax and Inheritance Tax on the Rich to Finance Increase in Social Sector Expenditures 

    The budget for 2020 is due. We have argued in articles published in Janata that imposition of a progressive wealth tax ranging from 2% on India’s dollar millionaires to 5% on India’s dollar billionaires would yield at least Rs 8 lakh crore in additional income for the government. Additionally, imposition of a modest…