https://theleaflet.in/what-a-genuine-leftist-response-to-the-hindutva-challenge-should-look-like/ A review of 'Nationalist Dangers, Secular Failings: A Compass for an Indian Left’ by Achin Vanaik, Aakar Books (2021) pp. 205

Unlike the chicanery of former United States president, politician and academic Woodrow Wilson and imperialist–liberals of the early twentieth century, Lenin’s vision of revolutionary, anti-colonial nationalism was based on the following premises: the need to distinguish between the interests of oppressed classes and the notion of ‘national interest’; the need to distinguish between oppressed, dependent and subject nations and the oppressing, exploiting and sovereign nations; the need for Communist parties to aid revolutionary movements among dependent and ‘underprivileged nations’ such as, for instance, the American blacks and the colonies; the need to subordinate the interest of the proletarian struggle in a country to the interests of the proletarian struggle internationally; the need for the proletarian movement to retain its independent organisation whilst fighting with the bourgeoisie the battle of anti-imperialism; last but not the least, Lenin strongly emphasised and warned about the lurking danger of “big nation chauvinism”.

Vanaik also ruminates on the relevance of capitalism and nationalism today. He argues that the “trans-nationalisation of social relations and the consolidation and juridical sharpening of territorialised sovereignty went together.”

On the question of organisation of the vanguard, which in the Leninist tradition is called ‘democratic centralism’, Vanaik argues that it is not about the vertical centralisation of power. It is, following Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist Ernest Mandel, “a centralisation of experience, centralisation of knowledge and centralisation of conclusions drawn out of actual militancy”. And these are the most crucial elements “to generate the necessary wider consciousness to challenge the most formidable vanguard formation of the bourgeoisie— the bourgeois state.”

A republic in crisis: Holding a mirror up to power https://theleaflet.in/a-republic-in-crisis-holding-a-mirror-up-to-power/ 

A review of ‘The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis’ by Prakala Prabhakar, Speaking Tiger Books (2023)
Joe Athialy·June 12, 2023

One of the criticism of UPA government is its complicity in turning the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) more draconian in 2008 and 2012, allowing the Modi government to unleash it on people who were perceived to be political threats to their grand narrative of sab changa si (everything is fine; known in bhakt-speak as Amrit Kaal), and making it even more draconian in 2019.

In the Prime Minister’s Independence-Day speeches from 2014 to 2022, and the speeches of the RSS chief; in the unemployment and inequality statistics that the government supresses; in the partisan role of investigative agencies and the income tax department; in the new BJP’s ‘tiraskar’ or clear rejection of India’s Muslims as citizens and voters; in the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic—in these and many more developments, Parakala Prabhakar finds unmistakable evidence of religious majoritarianism, a creeping authoritarianism and serious economic mismanagement. And he shows us why silence and complacency are no longer an option for any citizen invested in the future of our Republic.

https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/05/18/star-reporter-with-no-income-what-pawan-jaiswals-death-tells-us-about-the-state-of-rural-reporters ‘Star reporter with no income’: What Pawan Jaiswal’s death tells us about the state of rural reporters yTanishka Sodhi18 May, 2022
Journalism doesn’t pay their bills, they have little or no institutional support and rely on commissions from ‘finding ads’ for papers.

The death of a journalist is barely a blip in the news cycle. Over 600 journalists have died of Covid in the last two years, and thousands more die every year of other causes.

But journalists like Pawan form the backbone of journalism, gathering news for big studios and publications in metropolitan cities. They receive little credit or money, their roles reduced to terms like “stringers” – an army of underpaid, and even unpaid, news gatherers who are vital to the news business.

Blackmailer and extortionist: The sordid side of being a stringer in India  https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/02/14/blackmailer-and-extortionist-the-sordid-side-of-being-a-stringer-in-india
Often poorly paid or forced to get ad revenue for their media houses, some stringers resort to unethical, even criminal, ways to make money.
By Manish Chandra Mishra 14 Feb, 2020 It’s a sordid story often repeated. Neeraj Soni was formerly the bureau chief of a daily based in Madhya Pradesh. He claimed the newspaper’s management would routinely set his editorial team targets to bring in advertising revenue. In turn, Soni said, he would ask his stringers to get “incriminating stories” about local businessmen or government servants, then “blackmail” them into buying ads in the newspaper in return for not running the stories. If the money exceeded the target, it would be distributed among the stringers since the company had no budget to pay them.

 Stringers are expected to pay deposits for the mic ID, and this amount varies between cities and channels. A reputed TV channel can charge up to Rs 1 lakh in big cities, and marginally less in smaller towns. A block-level stringer has to pay around Rs 10,000 for a mic ID, the amount goes up to Rs 25,000 for a district-level stringer.

While TV channels mark this deposit as “security money”, it is non-refundable.

पत्रकार को धमकाया,अब नौकरी गई!स्मृति ईरानी का खौफ़ देखिए   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9qvz1YtGek 

Reactions
Ramesh Soni 2014 से पहले पत्रकार से सत्ता डरती थी.. अब पत्रकार को भी सत्ता से डर लगने लगा है.
Myopedia stringer, part-time or freelance journalist, videographer, or photographer typically assigned by a news organization to cover areas that are considered less newsworthy or that are deemed peripheral to the news organization's coverage area.

sagar bhosale हमे तो ऐसे सांसद पे गर्व होना चाहिए एक पत्रकार के सवाल का जवाब देने के बजाय कितने प्यार से पत्रकार को धमका रही है.... ले लो अच्छे दिन...

s.bikram mangat No, Mr Abhisar Sharma...we as awakened human beings have another option too, and that is "Saying wrong to wrong and right to right!"

Smriti Irani ko gussa kyun aya: The story behind the minister’s outburst, and the aftermath https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/06/10/smriti-irani-ko-gussa-kyun-aya-the-story-behind-the-ministers-outburst-and-the-aftermath Pratyush Deep& Avdhesh Kumar10 Jun, 2023
Irani was annoyed at being asked for a byte in Amethi yesterday.

“This is when Yadav said, ‘Aap Salon pe bole thi, abhi aap Amethi ke Jagdishpur Vidhan Sabha skhetra me hai toh yha bhi do sabd bol dijiye’,” the journalist said. (You had spoken in Salon and now that you are in Amethi's Jagdishpur Vidhan Sabha constituency, say a few words here too.)

The video showed Irani getting irked, while the journalist was off-screen.

“Salon constituency comes under my Lok Sabha constituency…Don't insult it,” the minister said.

When pressed further for a quote, she said, “I am urging you with love. If you further insult the people, I will call the owner of your paper and tell them no journalist has the right to insult the people.”

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYVLmHdBjPI Name: Palagummi Sainath
Title: Journalist & Founding Editor
Organisation: The People’s Archive of Rural India

Brief profile:
Working journalist. In 2015, he completed 35 years in the profession.
Former Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu
Author of Everybody Loves A Good Drought (Penguin, 1996)

Palagummi Sainath, in this interview conducted on 31 July 2015 at ENFF, Sao Paulo, Brazil, talked to Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui Jade, about his childhood, his university years, and his journalistic investigations into peasant suicide and social issues in India.

THE POLITICS OF HOPE: PEOPLE’S RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE IN CATASTROPHIC TIMES India: People’s Resilience and Resistance

Jayati GHOSH (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs1IO5_bKSY
Anuradha CHENOY (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_idNvmwx4 
Palagummi SAINATH (People’s Archive of Rural India, India)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKk1N1NKUqw 

Centre for Cultural Research and Development, Lingnan University, Global University for Sustainability

Decade without Census data: Governing blind in Amrit Kaal  https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/decade-without-census-data-governing-blind-in-amrit-kaal-1226721.html  M G Devasahayam, Jun 11 2023

In the absence of data, the government makes tall claims about its achievements based on the inputs into its programmes, rather than on the basis of outcomes. Those who question it are dubbed ‘anti-nationals’. Now, there’s even the threat of the government setting up its own ‘fact-checking units’ and to punish those publishing ‘fake news’, when the fact of the matter is that the government itself does not have reliable data on any aspect.

A story was reported on June 2 with the headline, ‘Bengal couple accused of being ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ freed from Bengaluru jail after 10 months.’

The couple were Palash and Shukla Adhikari, who were accused of being foreigners. They spent an extra month in jail after getting bail because they could not produce local sureties.https://thewire.in/south-asia/akhand-bharat-south-asia-politics 

Another story, somewhat related, was reported the same day with the headline, ‘Political leaders in Nepal object to ‘Akhand Bharat’ mural in new Parliament’. The story explained that ‘Akhand Bharat’ was a concept espoused by Hindutva nationalists envisaging that neighbouring countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka would become a part of India. Lumbini – the birthplace of the Buddha – is in Nepal but features on the map in the new parliament.

Both of these are again in a way related to something else.

I am writing a book whose title is The Case for Akhand Bharat, which is an attempt to figure out two things.

First, if Indians, especially Hindus of the Bharatiya Janata Party type, really want to unite South Asia, why are they not trying it except in paintings and murals?

Second, what would it take to actually bring about an ‘Akhand Bharat’?

The answer to the first question is easy. The BJP and Hindus who back it do not want a united South Asia. What they want is an empire with subjects. A party ruling India with no Muslim minister or MP or MLA is not going to be attractive to the woman in Chittagong or enthuse the child in Peshawar. What the BJP wants is land, it does not want the people. Look at Kashmir to understand.

It is a reality that the thinking of the Indian elite, as presented to the world in the new parliament, is juvenile and unreal. But it is also a fact that needs to be acknowledged and engaged with.

‘Akhand Bharat’ will not come about through crayons and murals.

by Aakar Patel

06/06/2023

इंजन की दलाली करने वाला कैसे बना रेल मिनिस्टर। Ashwini Vaishnaw का काला चिट्ठा जान दंग रह जाएंगे आप।
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA7vmMo6ah8