Geography Archives: India

THE current pandemic has brought to the fore, and with exceptional clarity, the fundamental contradiction underlying contemporary globalisation, namely, the contradiction between the interests of finance and those of the people. Indeed this contradiction, which characterizes the era of globalisation as a whole, has now come to a head.

This overlooked region of India is a beacon to the world for taking on the coronavirus, with the leftist government setting the bar for testing, tracing and treatment standards.

‘I believe that they have done no wrong because there is widespread hunger [amidst the lockdown] and people are helpless.’

In a show of solidarity, some of India’s opposition leaders have declared the much-delayed relief package (titled Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana) announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26 to mitigate the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the poor as a welcome “first step”.

In a pandemic, a rational person would much rather live in a society governed by the norms of socialism than of capitalism, a society where people rally together to overcome a virus; than to live in a society where fear pervades and where stigmatization becomes the antidote to collective action.

How long the COVID-19 crisis will last, and what its immediate economic costs will be, is anyone’s guess. But even if the pandemic’s economic impact is contained, it may have already set the stage for a debt meltdown long in the making, starting in many of the Asian emerging and developing economies on the front lines of the outbreak.

One thing about U.S. President Donald Trump is that he can be brutally frank. Trump recently picked up the phone and called British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to convey his displeasure over the latter’s decision to allow Huawei to operate in the UK despite Washington’s repeated urgings.

On February 16, 2015, Govind and Uma Pansare went for a morning walk near their home in Pune (Maharashtra, India). Two men on a motorcycle stopped near them and asked for directions, but the Pansares could not help them; one of the men laughed, removed a gun, and shot the two. Uma survived the attack but Govind died in a hospital on February 20, 2015.

Under the shadow of the Charter of the United Nations (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), countries are obliged to guarantee the right to health. The 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’.

With her head bandaged and her arm in a sling, university student Aishe Ghosh went before the cameras to say that the students of the university she attends in New Delhi would move “not an inch back.”

Millions of Indians hit the streets today in support of the general strike and as part of nationwide coalition-building efforts to resist the policies of the right-wing Modi government.

This dossier is dedicated to offering an assessment of the moment we find ourselves in today. Part 1 provides a quick overview of planetary affairs; and Part 2 there are more detailed reports from our offices on their respective regions: South Africa, India, as well as the Caribbean and Latin America.

On December 13, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights released a powerful statement that criticized India’s new citizenship law. This “fundamentally discriminatory” Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 would expedite citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from India’s neighboring countries. But in the list of those minorities, it names only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians.

Global climate strike led by Greta Thunberg and youth around the world has trigged climate justice debates in the mainstream. In India, from the past few weeks, we have witnessed climate protests in major metropolitan cities demanding governments to act on the current climate crisis to ensure a livable future for the coming generations.

Though the voices of rural women in India are some of the least heard, they are not mere passive victims. Many rural women strongly condemn their marginalization and pauperization—highlighting the flawed and biased developmental polices of the state, which they hold largely responsible for their hardships.

Tariq Ali on the situation in Kashmir.

The main conflict here – since the 1940s – has been between India and Pakistan. Disagreements are deeply rooted in the political culture of each country. The rise of the far right in India has only inflamed the conflict further.

Before India’s Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill in the Indian Parliament, his government sent tens of thousands of Indian troops into Kashmir. There is no official number, but it is often said that there are nearly 600,000 Indian troops in the state. That a population of 12 million people needs this kind of armed action suggests that they are an occupied people.

Property rights of people are protected under neo-fascism, except those racially, communally, sexually, or politically targeted whose properties are often confiscated.

Not just that, a dozen more incidents of mob violence have also been reported in which people were attacked, thrashed, injured, abused and humiliated by mobs for alleged crimes or no crimes in some cases.