Tous les articles et traductions

CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, who is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (Centre for International Studies and Research) in Paris, has had a 25-year-long association with India. He offers courses in the modern history of India and the polity of South Asia (…)

Every subject has its history, including the Social eterminants of Health. It is a subject that investigates differences in human health that occur because of social life, from income and class to family life and neighbourhood. Social determinants can have very large effects on longevity, just (…)

As I write this piece, the finance minister has dispatched the Union Budget 2011. The press is busy reflecting the views of business and industry lobbies, as they quibble over duty exemptions, insist on financial stimulus and other incentives, and cry for big-ticket reform—foreign direct (…)

The promise of the Forest Rights Act remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. It seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India’s common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating (…)

As long as there is a dominating status quo, marginalisation and violation of human rights, the Left has a role to play globally and in India, says John Samuel. But the new wave of left politics must go beyond party politics — to the building of a more ethically driven leadership, a non-violent (…)

The Gaddafi regime in Libya seems to believe that if a government crackdown is murderous enough, demonstrations will stop.
In Egypt, the relatively short-lived military crackdown by the hated security agencies and pro-regime thugs actually strengthened the opposition, reminding the millions in (…)

Even as the new CRZ notification grants fishing communities the right to redevelop the land on which they live, it lays open coastal lands for other forms of development which will adversely impact their livelihoods, says Kalpana Sharma. Read more

Facebook is not a game. It is a means of communication that transcends borders, but does not supplant national or international legality concerning civil liberties and rights of association and expression. Choosing such means to spread one’s message, is and will be useful and effective, if the (…)

Namibia, Namaqualand and the Namib Desert are all named after the first people who lived in that area, the Nama. Where are the Nama today? The reality is that they have largely become forgotten bit players in a complex world.
The indigenous people of various nations, descended from traditional (…)

Creating a new kind of economy is crucial if we want to tackle climate change and avoid the mounting social problems associated with the rise of economic inequality. The Great Transition provides the first comprehensive blueprint for building an economy based on stability, sustainability and (…)

In the days following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians have begun to outline the characteristics of their ideal country. The “New Egypt” will be clean, it will lack discrimination, it will be corruption-free. The initiative is the beginning of a push for specific demands that (…)

If there was ever a better time to read ‘Egypt: The Moment of Change’, a book edited by Rabab El Mahdi and Philip Marfleet which was launched in front of a packed audience at SOAS in 2009, then it is now. Made up of chapters by eight Egyptian and British academics, it catalogues the explosive (…)

Swami Aseemanand’s confessions on the involvement of Hindutva outfits in terror attacks leave investigating agencies red-faced. Whatever the final verdict on the reported confessions made recently by Swami Aseemanand, leader of Abhinav Bharat, a Hindutva extremist organisation, the fact is that (…)

Many Indian laws do not reflect modern and enlightened concepts of justice and require major revision. The judiciary needs to reconsider laws, which conflict with fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The legislatures should fashion enlightened statutes for the 21st century. India (…)

If the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system.
I remember the images well, even though I was too young to understand their political significance. But they were visceral, those photos in the New York Times from Tehran in the (…)

The idea of democratisation planted in Egyptian minds is beyond containment, yet Mubarak continues to resist.
The realist terminology of the ’domino effect’ does not capture the agency that Arabs are today assuming to unseat Arab hegemons, from Cairo to Sana’a.
This agency is unshackling (…)

A chilling story of justice denied…
Binayak Sen graduated from one of India’s elite institutions, the Christian Medical College, Vellore, and chose to practice medicine amongst the tribals of Chattisgarh. Years of dedicated work led him to believe that sustainable health care cannot be (…)

The jholawala is the latest lobbyist in town. He or she has top policymakers on speed-dial, is now feted by the media and sought out by companies eager to promote ‘India Inclusive’. It’s a remarkable, even heady, transformation. For long derided as irrelevant trouble-making activists largely (…)

The problem: Washington’s foreign-policy planners seem to be out of ideas, literally brain-dead, just as the world is visibly in flux. In their reactions, even in their rhetoric, there is remarkably little new under the sun, though from Tunisia to India, China to Brazil, our world is changing (…)

Few South Africans realise the power of Co-operatives in the global economy. Canada, Norway, Italy, India, China and Brazil each have a significant amount of their GDP generated by Co-operative organisations. One in four citizens in the USA and Germany are members of Co-ops. Even though our (…)