Geography Archives: Asia

This tribute to one of India’s finest radical economists first appeared in Analytical Monthly Review, May 2014.  AMR, published from Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Nirmal Kumar Chandra (1936-2014), referred to by his dear friend, Ashok Mitra, in The Telegraph (April 4, 2014) as “The Compleat Economist”, was in […]

Gülden Özcan and Bora Erdağı: In some of the interviews you gave, you talked about your own everyday life experiences that led you to discover that Marx’s total critique of capitalism is an unfinished project.  In this discovery, you emphasized elsewhere that your class background and political struggle you were involved in have played an […]

What a trip!  I had last visited my American home country three years earlier; some things hadn’t changed much, some things had.  As ever, piled high, were many contrasts and contradictions. My first goal was my class reunion (the 65th!!!), partly in the Harvard Yard, sober and dignified even when filled with thousands of new […]

Chaman Lal.  Understanding Bhagat Singh.  Delhi: Aakar, 2013.  pp. 245. Left Traditions in South Asia Bhagat Singh is to South Asia what Che Guevara is to Latin America — a popular iconic figure who continues to inspire generations of youth in the subcontinent in their struggles against imperialism and the trajectory of national politics after […]

“Get out!  Get out of here and never come back!” shrieked an enraged Barbie, as she hurled a tiny bedroom slipper in my direction.  The dainty missile careened off an itty-bitty bust of Ken, then shattered the frame that held a photo of Barbie’s best friend, Midge.  “Take your Gay Pride and shove it!” Barbie’s […]

In a recent Washington Post article entitled “Latin Americans Are Embracing Globalization and Their Former Colonial Masters,” written by a political science professor from the University of Colorado, the author begins with the following sentence: “Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano recently renounced his 1971 classic, Open Veins of Latin America, one of a few books admitted […]

“Numbers sanctify”.  The context is very different, but I couldn’t keep my mind off that quote from Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux.  After all, the alleged mastermind of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat will soon be sworn in as India’s prime minister, at the head of a government in which his party, the BJP, will […]

Suniti Kumar Ghosh died on May 11, at the age of 96.  It is not a passing to be mourned but a life, rich and meaningful, to be celebrated. On the face of it, his life had two major phases: the first was one of direct political activity; the second was of research and writing. […]

Dear President Obama, A part of me wants to say “Welcome to Malaysia” as we Malaysians are generally a hospitable people, and many of us were thrilled when you became the 44th President of the United States.  Your ability to communicate, your oratory skills — you are truly an admirable individual! But one of the […]

“Maoists target teachers, ambulance” — that was the top headline all across the front page of a national daily, but one has got accustomed to mendacity, couched in righteous indignation.  As is usually the case, the news report filed by the local correspondent from the state capital of Chhattisgarh was more sensible, not at all […]

Tansy E. Hoskins.  Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion.  Pluto Press, 2014.  254 pages. To say that Tansy E. Hoskins‘ Stitched Up deconstructs the garment industry would be a misrepresentation.  What the British activist and journalist does is more like a controlled demolition, using facts and footnotes to strip away the apparel trade’s decorative […]

Nirmal Chandra was, for half a century, among the very closest friends of Monthly Review. A comrade of Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, Nirmal continued to guide their successors in the economics and politics of South Asia. He played a central role in the creation and survival of the sister edition of Monthly Review in India, the Analytical Monthly Review. His contribution to the entire Monthly Review project was offered freely and immediately at the first request, and was invaluable. The loving memorial by the venerable Ashok Mitra, reproduced below, first appeared in The Telegraph on April 4, 2014.

  On March 12 this year, the Public Safety Committee of the Philadelphia City Council held a public hearing to review the practice of detaining undocumented immigrants in what are known as “ICE Holds.”  An ICE Hold, or civil immigration detainer, is a request from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to local police […]

Suzy Kim.  Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press.  Cloth, 45.00, pp 307. With Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950, Suzy Kim has filled a major gap in the history of North Korea.  In the West, it has become customary to fixate on the top leadership in historical […]

Moscow, March 2014 1. The current global stage is dominated by the attempt of historical centers of imperialism (the US, Western and Central Europe, Japan — hereafter called “the Triad”) to maintain their exclusive control over the planet through a combination of: so-called neo-liberal economic globalization policies allowing financial transnational capital of the Triad to […]

Chaman Lal retired as professor of Hindi translation from the Centre of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is now associated with the Centre for Comparative Literature as Professor-Coordinator at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda.  His most recent book is Understanding Bhagat Singh (Aakar Books, Delhi, 2013). BD: March 23 marks the […]

Thomas Piketty.  Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.  $39.95. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty has caused a stir, which it deserves.  Capital 21, as we will abbreviate the title, grapples with a prominent current issue: outrageously unequal incomes and wealth.  It is a data-rich, […]

The race of globalization is leaving the majority of the world’s population far behind.  According to UNICEF, the richest 20% of the population gets 83% of global income, while the poorest quintile has just 1%.1  This trend is getting worse.  A new UNDP report called “Humanity Divided” estimates that 75% of the world’s population lives […]

All the leaders and many of the active members of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) — arbitrarily held responsible for the violent 18 July 2012 incident in the Manesar works of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in the province of Haryana — 148 of them, repeatedly denied bail, are in jail since August of that […]

After three and a half seasons, HBO’s Treme concluded in December, and last week the entire series became available as a box set.  The show started with low ratings that got lower as time went on, never won many awards, and divided critics.  But as time passes and more audiences discover the show, it may […]