Counterview

Counterview News   A new analysis by climate justice advocate Soumya Dutta , published by the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), has raised urgent concerns over the growing disparity in India’s climate finance landscape . The report warns that private capital is overwhelmingly flowing toward commercially profitable mitigation projects, while the adaptation needs of the country’s most vulnerable populations remain critically underfunded.

Counterview News   Just 11% of organisations in South Asia describe themselves as fully or very prepared for water-related supply-chain risks , according to a new report from ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants). The finding, released in the week before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), exposes a significant preparedness gap as extreme weather intensifies pressure on production, transport, and access to critical resources across the region.

By A Representative   A prominent power and climate policy analyst has urged the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka to comprehensively reassess the rapid proliferation of large pumped storage projects in the ecologically fragile Western and Eastern Ghats. In a detailed representation, addressed to the three Chief Ministers with copies to the Prime Minister and the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, analyst Shankar Sharma warned that the current trajectory of energy storage development risks irreversible ecological and social damage.

By Sanjay Parate   The brutal murder of a police inspector in Khategaon, Madhya Pradesh , allegedly at the hands of the illicit liquor trade , is not an isolated crime. With reported cross-border links running deep into Gujarat, the incident exposes a comfortable inter-state sanctuary for organized crime. Commit an atrocity in one state, find refuge in another; in both realms, the political patron presides. Immunity is guaranteed, provided the requisite dividend flows upward.

By Harsh Thakor*  A memorial meeting was held on November 7 at the seminar hall of the Mahabodhi Society in Kolkata to mark the anniversary of the October Revolution and to remember Prashant Bose, also known as Kishan Da, a Politburo member of the banned CPI (Maoist). Despite poor attendance, the organisers sought to project the meeting as a grim reminder to the authorities that Maoism continues to live despite unprecedented crackdown in the recent past.

By Bharat Dogra   Following the recent mid-term elections in the USA, some commentators have emphasized the Iran War and others the growing socio-economic problems of people. There is increasing evidence that internal and external factors need to be considered together. 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  There is constant, uninterrupted propaganda aimed at writing off communists and their radical democratic and socialist politics. Its purpose is to smooth the path for right-wing forces as they uphold capitalism and maintain imperialist hegemony over people and resources across the world. Yet the defeats of right-wing poster boys—Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, and Donald Trump in the US midterm elections—the defeat of Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić, and the weakening of Narendra Modi’s popularity send a clear message: right-wing forces can offer neither an alternative nor a genuine defence of people’s interests. Right-wing politics, policies, and propaganda are projects of capitalism.

By Harsh Thakor*  John Berger was a British art critic, novelist, essayist, screenwriter and Marxist cultural thinker whose work reshaped how generations understood the relationship between art, power and society. For more than sixty years, he was one of the most prominent left-wing voices in English-language art criticism, insisting that art is the creation of actual people in given social contexts and not a timeless, universal abstraction. Berger died on January 2, 2017, at the age of 90; as we mark his birth centenary, born in London on November 5, 1926, his legacy remains unusually vital.

  ​By Rajiv Shah  ​Returning from the United States on October 30—less than a week before the outcome of one of the world’s most closely watched elections—it seemed clear to me that the Indian diaspora had little love left for President Donald Trump . What I observed on the ground felt like a total reversal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s 2019 pitch to NRIs in Houston: " Abki baar, Trump sarkar ."