Counterview

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan  Hansal Mehta’s Shahid , the National Award-winning film based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, has finally arrived on Prime Video after nearly 13 years. Its arrival isn’t just about an old movie landing on a new streaming service. It reopens a much bigger conversation about what happens to films that dare to tackle subjects such as dissent, state power, terrorism, and the rights of the accused.

By A Representative   The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) has expressed solidarity with thousands of women students who have taken part in a series of protests across Delhi University campuses following the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at Aastha Kunj Park near Kalkaji Mandir on September 21, demanding stronger institutional safeguards, improved policing and accountability from authorities.

By Nava Thakuria*  The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government has formed three high-level committees to address long-standing problems in the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT), a region in southeastern Bangladesh that borders India's Tripura and Mizoram states and Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladeshi intellectuals, civil society representatives and several Asian rights bodies have opposed the move, arguing that it could increase militarisation and human rights violations against the region's indigenous people.

By Dr. Arun Kumar Goswami*  Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence) is inextricably bound to satya (truth). Gandhi famously maintained that he lived by truth, that truth is God, and that non-violence serves as the vital instrument to uphold that truth. Derived from the Sanskrit root hims (to strike or injure), ahimsa translates to non-harming. Throughout his historic life, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi triumphantly applied this principle to every sphere of human existence, most notably to politics and the pursuit of freedom ( Swaraj ).

By Bharat Dogra  Chandra Singh Garhwali (1891–1979), a soldier of exceptional moral courage, is remembered on his death anniversary,  1 October,  for an act of conscience that saved countless innocent lives and became a beacon of hope for India's freedom movement.

By Prem Singh*  In Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s classic epic Padmavat , a poor Brahmin encounters a caged parrot for sale in the market of Singhaldweep. Asking if the bird is a learned pundit, the Brahmin receives a poignant reply: “O divinity, I certainly had virtues when my soul was free. But what virtue would I have when I am captive? I am brought here for sale, locked in a cage. A pundit is one who does not allow himself to be bought in the market.”  This metaphor of the caged, commodified mind perfectly encapsulates the searing critique of Kishan Patnaik (1923–2004). Long before the buzzwords of globalization became mainstream, the political thinker and founder of the Hindi monthly Samayik Varta diagnosed a profound crisis in the Indian mind. His central, deeply uncomfortable thesis remains as urgent today as it was when he first articulated it: the Indian intelligentsia is not the savior of society, but its “purchased slave.” Patnaik, a mentee of the socialist stalwart ...

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The world is confronting a convergence of crises on a scale not seen since the Second World War. Wars and resource conflicts, rapid technological change, climate breakdown, the rise of authoritarian and reactionary movements, extreme inequality, gender, racial, caste and class discrimination, democratic erosion, economic instability, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, health emergencies, cost-of-living pressures, and declining trust in international institutions such as the UN and WTO are reinforcing one another. Together, they create the conditions for global disorder.

By Vijay Prashad   When Benjamin Netanyahu rose to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, the rows of empty seats spoke before he did. Diplomats walked out, while others stayed away from the outset. News reports citing an Israeli tally put the number of delegations absent or departing at 77. This was not a recorded UN vote, nor did all 77 stage a coordinated walkout. Yet the image of an Israeli prime minister speaking to a depleted chamber captured a real political fact: the destruction of Gaza and the consolidation of occupation have made Israel increasingly isolated across much of the world.

By A Representative   The Ambedkar Association of North America (AANA) and a coalition of Dalit and Ambedkarite organisations from North America and Europe have condemned IIT Bombay’s handling of the death of Sahil Wakode, a second-year BTech student from the Scheduled Caste community who died on 18 September 2026, hours after he was removed from an examination. His family has alleged caste-based harassment, and an FIR under the SC/ST Act names an IIT Bombay faculty member.