South Asia Citizens Web

Yesterday (17th September), we witnessed the shameful spectacle of the prime minister of a nation celebrating his birthday by dedicating a dam to the nation, even as thousands of people were protesting that their houses and lands are being submerged by this dam without the rehabilitation due to them. Are we living in a democracy, or what farcically passes off as one?

Perhaps the best way to move forward is not to leave the task of identifying the ’fakes’ to the fraternity itself and think of something like anti superstition law at the national level, a law for which Dr Narendra Dabholkar fought for more than eighteen years and was assassinated by right-wing fundamentalists for his tireless efforts in this direction only.

Gauri Lankesh was the editor of a weekly tabloid published in Kannada, the main language of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. She was murdered on the fifth of September at the gate of her house in Bangalore, shot in the head and chest at close range. Her killers got away on motorcycles. This gangland-style assassination of a journalist would have made a stir in any case, but coming as it did after a series of political murders, it resonated across India and beyond its borders

In a paper aptly titled ’Indian income inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?’, they conclude that income inequality in India is at the highest level since 1922, when the country’s income tax law was conceived, and that the top 1% earners corner 22% of income. These research findings should send a powerful warning signal to power elites

Use of humor and irony to undermine white supremacy dates back to the days of the Third Reich