France: Striking Workers Continue the Fight Against Neoliberalism
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France: Striking Workers Continue the Fight Against Neoliberalism

Alan MacLeod   January 21, 2020: Nationwide protests against the government of Emanuel Macron entered their seventh continuous week today in France, as between 187,000 (a government estimate) and 250,000 people (the unions’ count) took to the streets to oppose Macron’s plans to radically alter the country’s pension plan, seen by many as the crown…

A Brutal Attack on Justice and Civil Liberties in Imran Khan’s Pakistan
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A Brutal Attack on Justice and Civil Liberties in Imran Khan’s Pakistan

Ayesha Khan   When Imran Khan became Prime Minister of Pakistan he vowed to eradicate inequality. As an opposition leader he campaigned on the slogan, Do nahin, aik Pakistan (Not two but one Pakistan) and his party, Tehreek Insaaf, which translates as “The Party of Justice,” promised justice for all. Yet the very idea of…

No Roadmap in Budget to Increase Farmers’ Income
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No Roadmap in Budget to Increase Farmers’ Income

Kabir Agarwal   While the broad consensus among economists was that the government needed to focus on putting money in the hands of those who are at the bottom of the pyramid, the 2020–21 budget has stayed away from making any such commitments.   The focus, in particular, had to be on providing a fillip…

Smokescreen of Numbers 
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Smokescreen of Numbers 

Jayati Ghosh   It’s finally time to call the bluff: the Union budget has become a completely meaningless—even misleading—exercise. Those of us who take either the pronouncements or the numbers mentioned on expected revenues and projected spending in the budget documents seriously are being made fools of. So we should stop wasting our time poring…

The Ghosts of Auschwitz: Inside Hitler’s Killing Machine
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The Ghosts of Auschwitz: Inside Hitler’s Killing Machine

Priyanjali Malik   Seventy years ago this week, Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz–Birkenau complex where they found about 7,000 desperately ill and emaciated prisoners and 600 corpses. They also found 370,000 men’s suits, 837,000 items of women’s clothing and 7.7 tonnes of human hair.   And thus the efficient killing machine of the Third Reich…

The Time Has Come to Bring Ambedkar and Gandhi Together

The Time Has Come to Bring Ambedkar and Gandhi Together

Ramachandra Guha   In an interview that he gave last year, the Kannada writer (and activist), Devanur Mahadeva, urged democrats not to view Ambedkar and Gandhi as rivals and adversaries. In the journey towards true equality, he said, they should rather be seen as colleagues and co-workers. Thus, as Mahadeva remarked:   “Ambedkar had to…

100 Years of Mooknayak, Ambedkar’s First Newspaper

100 Years of Mooknayak, Ambedkar’s First Newspaper

Prabodhan Pol   In India, despite the presence of peculiar social institutions like caste, the role of the newspapers in social reforms movement was not just limited to articulation of specific concerns of individual reformers. But they also laid the foundations of a mass churning that aspired for democratic values.   On January 31, 1920,…

Statement Before the US House of Representatives, Washington D.C.
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Statement Before the US House of Representatives, Washington D.C.

Sandeep Pandey   Personal Experience   In 27 years of working as an activist, I’ve experienced unprecedented curbs on the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, to assemble peaceably and to move about anywhere within India over the past 6 months. I was put under house arrest in Lucknow, the capital of the north Indian…