The National Alliance of Peoples’ movement (NAPM), an organization of dozens of grassroots movements and civil society groups all over India, has expressed full solidarity with noted Gandhian Himanshu Kumar of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram demanding restoration of peace and just governance in Chhattisgarh. Himanshu Kumar has gone on an indefinite hunger strike at Dantewada in Chhattisgarh from Saturday December 26 amidst reports of government’s preparation to launch an all out...

There are two reasons why the Indian Supreme Court is considered the world’s most powerful. First, Supreme Court judges self-appoint, with no inter-institutional checks and balances. Second, dismissing a judge is so difficult that it has not been done so far. Many of the recent criticisms of the apex court’s perceived opacity have focused on these procedures for appointment and dismissal. The proposed Judges Standards and Accountability Bill is one...

BEFORE ANY debate starts, we must remind ourselves that India has a tendency of corruption. India, though a democracy, has a history of reported corruption cases. While the Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, has demanded that PM Manmohan Singh amend the RTI Act to ‘protect’ the judiciary from ‘intrusive’ queries, what needs to be kept in mind is that the proposed amendments will totally defeat the purpose of an...

Brazil and India are now among the top five government supporters of research into third-world diseases, according to a study issued last week, which found that middle-income nations are taking on more of the burden of ills afflicting their poorest citizens. The study, by the George Institute for International Health, based in Australia, found that nearly $3 billion was spent last year on new drugs or products for such diseases. Brazil...

When a problem is big and tends to profit a powerful group, there’s a time-honoured temptation to sweep it under the rug by assuming it’s natural and inevitable. This was true of slavery until the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, and of colonialism until the contagion of independence movements in the 20th century. Now these same forces are at work in attitudes toward the global and national realities of...