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Nov 22, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Bhabani Nayak |Pratap Antony |Mondeep Borah |MA Krishna
Democracy is not just voting; it’s sustained citizen participation to ensure justice and accountability- Amartya SenIn many Third World countries, democracy has an odd five-year cycle. Election seasons provide people a brief but tremendous sense of empowerment, but the years between often neglected and despairing. Third World politics, which value transactional relationships between governments and citizens over democracy, fuels this “five-yearly democracy”.
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Nov 17, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Nan Levinson |Malini Subramaniam |MA Krishna |Yoav Litvin
The CPIML unequivocally condemns the cowardly disruption by RSS goons of the screening of Had Anhad at the Udaipur Film Festival. This brazen attack on democratic spaces and progressive art reflects the growing attack on freedom of speech under the fascist regime, which seeks to stifle any voices critical of exploitation and injustice.
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Nov 17, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Nan Levinson |Malini Subramaniam |MA Krishna |Hiren Gohain
Shabnam Virmani’s Film Had Anhad Based on Kabir’s Songs Stopped Mid ScreeningOn the second day of 9th Udaipur Film Festival, due to pressure and terrorizing of RSS activists, the RNT medical college administration forcefully stopped the film screenings.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Nan Levinson |Malini Subramaniam |MA Krishna |Hiren Gohain
I thought I was done with free speech. For nearly two decades, I reported on it for the international magazine Index on Censorship. I wrote a book, Outspoken: Free Speech Stories, about controversies over it. I even sang “I Like to Be in America” at the top of my lungs at an around-the-clock banned-book event organized by the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression after the musical “West Side Story” was canceled at a local high school because of its demeaning stereotypes of Puerto Ricans.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Malini Subramaniam |MA Krishna |Carlos L Garrido |Hiren Gohain
Malini Subramaniam examines the challenges before journalists in speaking truth to power. A special focus from Free Speech Collective (FSC) as Jharkhand goes to the polls for its sixth Assembly elections since the formation of the state in 2000. The young and mineral-rich state of Jharkhand carved out of Bihar in 2000 will soon have its 6th Legislative Assembly elections in two phases on 13 and 20 November 2024, to elect the state’s 81 legislators. The results will be declared on November 23, 2024.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Bhabani Nayak |Pratap Antony |Mondeep Borah |MA Krishna
The advanced capitalist countries—including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, and several Western European nations—have failed to offer their citizens a genuine range of choices in terms of availability and accessibility of multiple political parties, different ideologies, alternative policies options, and visions for the future.
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Nov 3, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Pratap Antony |Mondeep Borah |MA Krishna |Bhabani Nayak
When light strikes an object the angle of the reflected ray formed at the intersection is the angle of incidence. The law of reflection states that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. The basic angle of incidence between government and citizens in a democracy should one of equality.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Mondeep Borah |Mohd Khan |MA Krishna |Bhabani Nayak
The theoretically odd experiment of democracy in India often demands a conceptual universe of its own in order to make sense of its proper functioning. The building blocks of this universe derive their meanings from the political practices that often bear unpredictable results, rendering the meaning making tools derived from the West or other non-Western countries unfit for their understanding.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | MA Krishna |Hiren Gohain |Nazia Nazar |Neha Tuheen
It’s an interesting situation, freedom of the press restricts him from watching a documentary. It is difficult to read and understand a mysterious law, a majority of MPs, the power goes into the hands of the Executive including the bureaucracy. A journalist will also realize how important is Article 19(1)(a) of our Constitution, and how draconian is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which was amended many a time. There is neither ‘information’ nor ‘technology’ or ‘law’.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | K M Seethi |Praba Mahajan |Suresh Khairnar |MA Krishna
The creative mind that was V.C. Harris has long since become a ‘text’—an enduring narrative fused into the cultural and intellectual history of Kerala. It is rare, in any age, to encounter an individual who transcends the limits of authorship, who becomes a living text, one that speaks, breathes, and evolves with time. But Harris, as those of us who had the privilege of knowing him can attest, was one of those rare few.
