Skip to main content

Posts

'Systemic failure': PUCL report exposes lapses behind deadly Gujarat forest clash

By Jag Jivan*    A violent confrontation between Adivasi residents and a joint team of Forest Department, Revenue, and Police officials in Padaliya village, Banaskantha district, on 13 December 2025, was not a mere law and order breakdown but a direct consequence of the state's systemic failure to implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA), according to a damning fact-finding report released by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Gujarat.
Recent posts

Gujarat government urged to introduce heat-stress safety rules for construction workers

By A Representative   A representation submitted to Gujarat Labour, Skill Development and Employment Minister Kunvarji Bavaliya has urged the state government to introduce legally enforceable safety standards to protect construction workers from extreme heat and heatwaves, and to launch a financial assistance scheme for labourers affected by climate-related health risks.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey*  ​In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

US war on Iran: 'Intellectual hollowness' of Govt of India's economic and political strategy

By Bodapati Srujana  Two days after the United States and Israel launched attacks that killed Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and hundreds of others—including more than 160 children in a strike on a girls’ school—a United States submarine torpedoed and sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean as it was returning from participating in the multinational naval exercise MILAN hosted by India.

In this Madhya Pradesh village, development hinges on water

By Bharat Dogra*  Most discussions on development in Sapon village start and end—generally on a dismal note—with water. If agricultural production cannot increase, it is because of the scarcity of water. If animal husbandry and dairying cannot progress, it is because so little water is available for quenching the thirst of farm animals. If the mobilization of villagers, particularly women, is needed for various development tasks, this becomes difficult because of the excessive time they must spend fetching and managing the family’s daily water supply.

Jiddu Krishnamurti's final testament: Living and dying without fear

  By Harsh Thakor*  On February 17, the world marked the 40th death anniversary of Jiddu Krishnamurti. His passing chronicled the conclusion of a life unwaveringly devoted to exploring the mysteries of human existence. To understand the significance of his death, it is imperative to evaluate not only the physical reality of his deteriorating health but also the distinctive qualities that characterized his approach to life and death.

Eliot's 'The Waste Land' revisited: Kumar Ambuj's twenty-first century elegy

By Dr. Ravi Ranjan*  Kumar Ambuj's poem " Ritubhang " emerges as a profound meditation on the fractured relationship between humanity and the natural world, standing as a vital counterpart to T.S. Eliot's modernist masterpiece " The Waste Land ." Where Eliot diagnosed the spiritual desolation of the early twentieth century through images of drought and barrenness, Ambuj confronts the ecological and technological crisis of the twenty-first century Anthropocene , forging a new poetic language capable of articulating what happens when seasons themselves become untrustworthy and nature transforms from a living presence into an uncertain algorithm .  The poem's central innovation lies in its refusal to treat environmental degradation as merely an external phenomenon; instead, Ambuj insists that the disruption of seasons is simultaneously a disruption of human consciousness, a fracturing so profound that the ancient non-duality between self and world now mani...

'No debate, no transparency': Rights groups reject Maharashtra anti-conversion Bill

By A Representative   A coalition of over 35 civil society organisations, women's rights groups, and constitutional rights advocates convened at a press conference in Mumbai to voice strong opposition to the Maharashtra Cabinet's proposed "Dharma Swatantrya Adhinivam, 2026," warning that the legislation threatens fundamental rights and targets interfaith relationships under the guise of preventing forced conversions.

Amid concerns over hate speech, citizens’ acts of solidarity offer hope

By Ram Puniyani*  Communal hate is among the most divisive tools deployed in society. The intensity of violence often appears proportional to the spread and amplification of hate. Such hostility leads to deep polarization, creating conditions where ghettoisation and related social divisions gradually become normalized. Over the past few decades, this phenomenon has grown at an alarming pace. 

The AI divide: How technology is leaving India’s public schools behind

By Vikas Gupta   In India, the divide between private and public education is stark and deepening. Public education has been in slow decline for decades, sustained largely by the sheer scale of enrolment among poor and low-income families who have few viable alternatives.