Dilip Simeon's blog

Mumbai:  Veteran communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare, who succumbed to bullet injuries late on Friday, was known for his advocacy for workers' rights  and for his book  'Shivaji Kon Hota ?' (Who was Shivaji?). Days after being shot at, Pansare dies in Mumbai where he was flown for treatment Pansare was born on November 26, 1933, at Kolhar village in the Srirampur taluka in Ahmednagar district into a farmers’ family, who lost their farmland to moneylenders. While his mother worked as a farm hand and his father did small jobs, the family lived in poverty. Patil was attracted to social movements since childhood and also headed the socialist Rashtra Seva Dal shakha in his village. During his school days, Pansare came in contact with communists and has also campaigned for the then CPI leader PB Patil in assembly elections. After completing his primary education in his village and secondary education at Rahuri in Ahmednagar, he moved to Kolhapur f...

NB - After this latest outrage by the obscurantist hooligans it is clear that the fascist elements on India are determined to silence all critical voices, and impose their own world view on all of us by force and terror. There is circumstantial evidence that the men who carried out this latest assassination of an elderly and respected figure in Maharashtrian society belong to the same group that murdered the well-loved rationalist Narendra Dabholkar last year, as he had indeed been threatened by reminders of the fate of Dabholkar. In turn, the latter had been told to ' remember Gandhi '.  Pansare's death caused by silent support of govt: Maharashtra activists slam BJP Remembering CPI stalwart Govind Pansare Those who doubt that the steady criminalisation of the Indian polity has gathered velocity in the past few months, may note that the people who take pride in assassinating old men have no hesitation in letting us know what they are capable of. How far the senior ...

Panelists: Noor Zaheer (Author) Syed Mubin Zehra (Columnist/Analyst) Smita Mishra  Syed Naqvi (Sr. Journalist) Shahira Naim (Sr Journalist) Kamil Qasmi (President, Darul Qaza) Venue: Author's Corner, Hall No. 10-11 Sunday February 22, 2015 at 05:30 pm World book fair Pragati Maidan, New Delhi Book Description: Facing the indignity of having to sleep with a stranger just to return to a husband who has pronounced Triple Talaq in a fit of anger; running from pillar to post to end a marriage by begging for Khula, Denied by Allah is a book that mirrors stories of women for whom even God does not seem to have mercy. These are women who have opened the windows of their bleak, painful lives in these pages; some surviving Mut'ah (pleasure), a temporary marriage, eq­uivalent to prostitution. This book discusses medieval laws irrelevant in the 21st century, sexist biases that pass for conventions, life impacting decisions made only by men which have denied women basic respe...

The US Geological Survey has published a global ecosystems map which it says is the most detailed in the world. The map is an interactive mosaic of 3.5 billion cells, detailing more than 40,000 unique ecological areas based on four different factors that determine the make-up of an ecosystem – bioclimate, landforms, rock type and land cover. Cartography nuts can use the browser to click on any spot of the map to be given a description of the ecosystem in that exact location as well as scroll through a selection of places the USGS has picked out for special mention (see examples below). The Association of American Geographers, which developed the new map with the USGS, explains it was created to allow scientists, land managers, conservationists, developers, and the public “to improve regional, national, and global resource management, planning, and decision making”.  You can view the map  here , and read a blog post about the research behind it  here .

Before he entered politics, Yanis Varoufakis, the iconoclastic Greek finance minister at the centre of the latest eurozone standoff, wrote this searing account of European capitalism and and how the left can learn from Marx’s mistakes "Marx created a narrative populated by workers, capitalists, officials and scientists who were history’s dramatis personae. They struggled to harness reason and science in the context of empowering humanity while, contrary to their intentions, unleashing demonic forces that usurped and subverted their own freedom and humanity. This dialectical perspective, where everything is pregnant with its opposite, and the eager eye with which Marx discerned the potential for change in what seemed to be the most unchanging of social structures, helped me to grasp the great contradictions of the capitalist era. It dissolved the paradox of an age that generated the most remarkable wealth and, in the same breath, the most conspicuous poverty..." ...

distressingly, however, we are also seeing increasing social consanguinity between politicians and judges. Gone are the days when judges kept aloof from politicians. The case of Teesta Setalvad is a chilling example of what can still happen to even highly acclaimed and well connected persons in this country if they take on those in authority, and especially if the person you have taken on becomes the most powerful person in the country. It is also a sad commentary on how a supposedly independent judiciary does sometimes appear to get influenced by executive authority. For the last 13 years Teesta has fought a valiant and sometimes lonely battle to bring the perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat carnage to justice. In this battle, she produced considerable evidence to demonstrate the role of Narendra Modi in abetting the carnage, and kept raising her courageous voice against him. In retaliation, the Gujarat police registered several cases against her and repeatedly tried to arre...

Among a few obsessions India and China share is a paranoid distrust of activists of various hues and of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In China, activists and almost entirely home-grown NGOs - whether concerned with the environment, human rights including labour rights, land-grab, those suffering from AIDS/HIV or Hepatitis B and so on - are closely monitored, controlled or silenced through house arrests or other forms of illegal detentions. India, which preens itself as the world's largest democracy, is increasingly resembling China in this respect: Witness the harassment of Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, the curbs put on Greenpeace, the action against hundreds of anti-nuclear activists in Koodankulam and the jailing of Maruti Suzuki workers, Dr Binayak Sen and members of the Kabir Kala Manch, to cite but very few examples from recent weeks and months. One oft-repeated canard against such activists and NGOs is that they serve the agenda of hostile Wes...