Counterview

By A Representative   Top advocacy group Right to Food Campaign has condemned the arrests of physician Dr. Randall Sequeira and Dalit activist Laxman Naik in Odisha, describing the police action as part of a broader pattern of criminalising dissent against mining-induced displacement.

By Vikas  Meshram*  Banswara district, nestled at the southern tip of Rajasthan, is known for the colourful heritage of its tribal culture. One of its blocks, Sajjangarh, is today witness to a quiet revolution—one with no noise and no slogans. There is only a steady round of meetings, proposals written on paper, the bustle of Gram Sabhas, and the villagers' firm belief that the key to the lock of their problems lies in their own hands.

By Maya Tudor*  More than 25,000 police officers were deployed across New Delhi recently to prevent demonstrations led by India’s new youth-led political movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Government authorities had denied the CJP permission to protest on public-order grounds.

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  A self-declared democratic socialist and a member of both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, Mr. Zohran Kwame Mamdani was elected on November 5, 2025, and assumed office on January 1, 2026, as the 112th mayor of New York City, with much hope and fanfare. His victory was built on many decades of struggle by Black communists in Harlem, workers' struggles under the leadership of the Communist Party (CPUSA), and many civil rights activists who shaped the progressive and democratic political consciousness of the city. These struggles were central to the rise and victory of Mr. Mamdani as mayor of New York City.

By Bharat Dogra  Eminent scientists and others are increasingly warning that the basic life-nurturing conditions of the earth are very seriously threatened. In 2019, I humbly but sincerely initiated the Save the Earth Now Campaign and wrote five books on the subject in English and Hindi. The campaign statement emphasized that the task of protecting life-nurturing conditions must be carried forward within a framework of justice, peace and democracy. The immediate demand was that the decade 2020-30 be declared a decade for saving and protecting the earth and its life.

By Harsh Thakor*  An American professor of Medieval English literature, Grover Furr’s new book ,  The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Explained: The Soviet Struggle for an Anti-Nazi Alliance,  offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the diplomatic maneuvers leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The central thesis of the book is a direct rebuttal of the prevailing Western historical narrative regarding the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939. Furr, who is known for his revisionist works on Soviet history, argues that the Soviet Union unwaveringly sought a collective security agreement with Britain and France to contain Nazi Germany. According to Furr, the failure to form this anti-Hitler coalition was not the fault of the USSR, but rather the result of deliberate obstruction by Western powers who viewed communism as a greater threat than fascism.

By Rajiv Shah   A few days back, I was forwarded an email chain by a senior journalist. Despite my initial hesitation, as I read through it, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease. Rather than reading like a genuine theological or historical discussion, the correspondence struck me as an effort to cast the Christian faith in a deeply negative light. In fact, my reaction was echoed by one of the recipients in the thread, who expressed her frustration by noting the author had a "horribly poor understanding of Christianity," adding that she was asking the email sender not to send her any more "flashes of wisdom."

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ*  The struggle is on and will continue relentlessly until truth and justice triumph. Of that there is no doubt. It may well be a long-haul struggle, but few seem to bother about that; after all, India’s freedom struggle was a long, drawn-out affair too.

By Shamsul Islam*  On October 11, 2026, an attempt on the lives of Hindu worshippers at the Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora, Illinois, one of the largest Hindu temples in the United States, was foiled. The temple is about 40 miles west of downtown Chicago. According to prosecutors, the suspect's AR-style rifle, a lightweight, magazine-fed, semi-automatic firearm freely available in the US, jammed.