By Devinder Sharma - January 02, 2010

There is something terribly wrong with growth economics. After all, 18 years after India ushered in economic liberalisation, the promise of high growth to reduce poverty and hunger, has not worked. In fact, it has gone the other way around: the more the economic growth, the higher is the resulting poverty.

By Moushami Basu - October 13, 2009

Radiation and health experts across the world charge that toxic materials and radioactivity released by the mining and processing operations are causing widespread infertility, birth defects and cancers. A 2008 health survey by the Indian chapter of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), found that "primary sterility was found to be more common in the people residing near uranium mining operations area."

The topic selected for this conference is “Water for all with special reference to Interlinking of Rivers in India”...I was thinking what I can share with the delegates of the conference who have come to discuss the very important issue of water management particularly conservation, development and management of water resources, and also our concern for providing water for irrigation and good quality potable water for all citizens of the country.

From No One Is Illegal - Vancouver

The major Israeli arms manufacturer "Raphael" produced a promo tailored especially for one of its most significant arms buyers, India, at the recently held Aero India 2009 in Bangalore...This [video] is an extremely blunt, not to say bludgeoning, expression of Israel's racist, sexist orientalism. Reflecting the perceptions of Israeli defense officials, it portrays India...as a feminized, sexualized, exoticized, undeveloped [country] dependent on Israel's/Raphael's masculinized high-tech-protection.

By MITU SENGUPTA - February 20/22, 2009

So far, most of the awards collected by [Slumdog Millionaire] have been accepted in the name of “the children,” suggesting that its own cast is promoting it not as an entertaining, cinematically spectacular work of fiction, which it is, but as a powerful tool of advocacy. Nothing could be more worrying, as Slumdog, despite all hype to the contrary, delivers a disempowering narrative about the poor that renders hollow its apparent message of social justice.

By P. SAINATH - February 12, 2009

The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at a staggering 182,936...The spate of farm suicides...accompanies India’s embrace of the brave new world of neoliberalism...The brave new world philosophy mandated countless millions of Third World farmers...to move from food crop cultivation to cash crop...For millions of subsistence farmers in India, this meant much higher cultivation costs, far greater loans, much higher debt, and being locked into the volatility of global commodity prices.

Pakistan has moved troops to their border with India. Many believe the dirty hands of the US are bent on making war with these puppets.

By Praful Bidwai - December 23, 2008

Following the late November terror attacks in Mumbai, India has passed two tough laws being seen by rights activists as potentially eroding the country's federal structure and limiting fundamental liberties...One law, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, seeks to establish a new police organisation to investigate acts of terrorism and other statutory offences...The other, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA) Act, radically changes procedures for trying those accused of terrorism, extends the periods of police custody and of detention without charges, denies bail to foreigners, and reverses the burden of proof in many instances.

By Arundhati Roy - December 15, 2008

We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11"...But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan, and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

By PETER LEE - December 17, 2008

The "Made in Pakistan" label is by now pretty firmly affixed to the Mumbai outrage...The most significant development in the story, however, has been the determined efforts by the United States, grudgingly supported by India and enthusiastically echoed by Pakistan, to divert any attention from the possibility that state actors e.g. the notorious Inter Services Intelligence directorate or ISI and its supporters in the government and inside Pakistan's elites, were implicated in the attack.

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - Counterpunch

By illegal, uncivilized and undiplomatic behavior, the US has stirred Muslim peoples from their long slumber as serfs of Western colonial powers. Some Muslims have had all that they can take, and their fury drives them to rouse a billion of their fellows to throw off the yoke of foreign hegemony...The arrogant incompetence of American governments brought this conflict to the American people and inflicted it upon the world.

By TARIQ ALI - November 27, 2008

The terrorist assault on Mumbai’s five-star hotels was well planned, but did not require a great deal of logistic intelligence: all the targets were soft. The aim was to create mayhem by shining the spotlight on India and its problems and in that the terrorists were successful. The identity of the black-hooded group remains a mystery.

October 16, 2008 - The Irish Times

TWELVE INDIAN provinces have worrying levels of hunger, with the situation "extremely alarming" in the central state of Madhya Pradesh...The 2008 Global Hunger Index report...warns that Madhya Pradesh's nutrition problems are comparable to those in Ethiopia and Chad. The report reveals that India has more than 200 million people suffering from hunger - a number greater than in any other country.

By Emily Wax - Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Few places in India absorb and imitate American culture as much as call centers, where ambitious young Indians with fake American accents and American noms de phone spend hours calling people in Indiana or Maine to help navigate software glitches, plan vacations or sell products. The subculture of call centers tends to foster a cult of America...But collection agents...are starting to see the flip side of that vision: a country hobbled by debt and filled with people scared of losing their jobs, their houses and their cars.

By Arundhati Roy & David Barsamian - October 12, 2008

INDIA HAS done a better job than the United States in recent years. The myth about the U.S. being a beacon of liberty has been more or less discredited amongst people who are even vaguely informed. India, on the other hand, has managed to pull off almost a miraculous public relations coup. It really is the flavor of the decade, I think. It's the sort of dream destination for world capital. All this done in the name of "India is not Afghanistan," "India is not Pakistan," "India is a secular democracy," and so on.