By Prof. Hemantkumar Shah*  Iran today sits at a dangerous crossroads, and the question many are whispering, both inside and outside the country, is disarmingly simple: Is Allah the enemy of democracy? Yet the real target of that question is not God but the people who govern in His name. Iran’s political history since the 1979 Islamic Revolution offers haunting clues as to why this question even arises.

By Biljana Vankovska   The New Year did not begin with hope or joy, except for the arms dealers. More precisely, for the military-industrial-media-academic-NGO complex that feeds on permanent war. Orders are flowing, profits are booming, and blood has once again become a growth sector. For any normal society, pirates belong in adventure films, not in the civilian power corridor. Yet Venezuela, more precisely, its legally elected president Nicolás Maduro, became the first trophy of the New Year.

By Manuel Bertoldi   10 points for debate and political orientation of the popular forces of Our America... One . The recent military aggression by the United States and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro constitute the most serious and explicit attack that US imperialism has carried out in the entire history of the Venezuelan nation. At the same time, they represent the most profound imperial offensive against the sovereign projects of our region so far in the 21st century and a breach of international law established since 1945 after World War II.

By Carmen Navas Reyes   The relationship between Cuba and Venezuela transcends traditional diplomacy; it is a phenomenon of direct confrontation against imperialism and a model of cooperation between peoples that has transformed the geopolitics of the Caribbean and South America. This alliance is not a recent or improvised development; it has deep roots, and its destruction has become a primary strategic objective for the United States.

By Prof. Hemantkumar Shah*  India ’s ongoing pursuit of free trade agreements is being celebrated by the Union government as a marker of economic maturity and global ambition . Yet for millions of small and marginal farmers , these deals are fast becoming instruments of economic insecurity and creeping dispossession. This warning was voiced sharply at the Kisan Swaraj Sammelan held near Palanpur , where farmers and activists from a dozen states gathered to reflect on policies reshaping Indian agriculture . The core anxiety expressed was simple: free trade agreements are being negotiated quietly and aggressively, and their burden is falling disproportionately on India’s poorest cultivators.

By Palla Trinadha Rao   When the separate State of Telangana was formed in 2014, progressive sections of society believed that one of the region’s most enduring injustices—the alienation of tribal land—would finally be addressed. There was widespread expectation that a State born out of a powerful movement against historical neglect would correct the wrongs committed during the era of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

By Atanu Roy   India’s federal system has always carried within it the potential for friction between the Union government and the states, but seldom has that tension burst into public view with the theatre witnessed in Kolkata on January 8. What should have been a routine—if politically sensitive—raid by the Enforcement Directorate on a private consultancy linked to the Trinamool Congress spiralled into an extraordinary street-level confrontation with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee physically entering the scene.

By A Representative   Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has sounded a pointed warning to the Union government over Sri Lanka’s fast-moving constitutional proposals, arguing that the latest reforms being pushed in Colombo pose “grave risks” to the already fragile political rights of Sri Lankan Tamils. 

By Llanisca Lugo González  In these early days of January, we have witnessed what we hoped never to see, though it comes as no surprise: the kidnapping of a legitimate sitting president through a criminal act of aggression by the United States.