Articles by AJ
We found 379 results.
ICE Arrests 90 More Students at Fake University It Created in Michigan
Niraj Warikoo | Detroit Free Press – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
27 Nov 2019 – A total of about 250 students have now been arrested since January on immigration violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies. Attorney: Fake Farmington University Sting by ICE Was Entrapment
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“We Refuse to be Burned”: 500 Years of Resistance, Colonization, and Coups in Bolivia
Maya Ajchura Chipana | The Red Nation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
18 Nov 2019 – I am writing this because I don’t see many Bolivian voices represented in the media. Here is my story.
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The Human and Financial Costs of the Explosive Remnants of War in Afghanistan
Suzanne Fiederlein and SaraJane Rzegocki | James Madison University – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
19 Sep 2019 – Costs of War – Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University – Afghanistan ranks as one of the most landmine- and unexploded ordnance-impacted countries in the world, even after thirty years of clearance operations supported extensively by the UN and a number of major donors.
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Global Peace and Human Security: India and Pakistan Itching for Showdown on Kashmir
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
7 Aug 2019 – History made India and Pakistan enemies and geography made them neighbors. The State of Jammu and Kashmir is at the heart of all political and strategic problems which characterize the nature of relationships between the two nuclear rivals. This week, Indian parliament using a legal stipulation of its own paperwork has changed the status of Kashmir without any consent or reference to the people of Kashmir.
→ read full articleAmerica and Pakistan in Search of Peace and Conflict Resolution
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
25 Jul 201 – President Trump and young looking Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan met this week at the White House. Trump is master to transform rhetoric into reality as he did to North Korean leader. Both were trying to overcome the historic indifference and prejudice to bridge the ever widening gaps between the reality and perceptions of relationship.
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Defining Constructive Resistance
Majken Jul Sørensen | Journal of Resistance Studies – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jul 2019
What does it mean when people start to build the society they desire independently of structures of power?
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Global Peace and Security: World Leaders Betray the Canons of Truth, Wisdom and Humanity
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jul 2019
6 Jul 2019 – Global politics is overwhelmingly becoming robotic. Global political leaders are fast becoming actors on stage – issuing abstract statements of outrage and phony sense of grief when thousands and millions of human lives are constantly bombarded by the weapons they manufacture and sell to crush the human soul and to support the war economies.
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Romantic Peregrinations Searching Peace Activism
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jul 2019
‘Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh! ‘We Know Who’s Gonna Win!’ – In the 1960s it was most heartening for me to see a small ragged group of young Canadians standing outside the US embassy in Ottawa chanting this slogan, much hated by the American military. Brought up by idealistic parents, I had emigrated to Canada to enter what I thought was ‘the modern world,’ away from feudalistic practices, caste oppression, and gross insensitivity towards women. However, I was shocked to see on TV every evening American war planes bombing the life out of helpless Vietnamese peasants 30,000 feet below.
→ read full articleAmerican Militarism Destroying the Future of Humanity
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 May 2019
22 May 2019 – The wars of 9/11 continue, with no end in sight. Now, the Pentagon is investing heavily in technologies that will intensify them. By embracing the latest tools that the tech industry has to offer, the US military is creating a more automated form of warfare – one that will greatly increase its capacity to wage war everywhere forever. America or its allies in the Arab Middle East face no formidable enemy except themselves against their own naïve designs of military superiority.
→ read full articleGlobal Peace and Security: Why Wars on Humanity?
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Apr 2019
9 Apr 2019 – Remember that civilizations and humanity are not developed by the political-military-industrial complexes led economies, or IMF operative bankers, ruling elite, speculatory stock markets, legal judgments, kings and queens, morally and spiritually decadent generations and crime riddled authoritarian rulers, but are the tangible progressive outcomes of the proactive intellectual and moral visions of the societal thinkers, poets, philosophers, knowledge, truth, compassion and continuous movement by man to support the humanity and its natural strive for new thinking, change and progress.
→ read full articleGlobal Humanity Looks to Unity of Minds in Crisis: Massacres of Muslim Worshipers in Christchurch, New Zealand
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Mar 2019
Killing of the innocent people undoubtedly is a crime against humanity. The global political consciousness is obsessed with terms like “terrorism”, “Islamophobia” and “extremism”, not knowing its reality and how and why it is happening across the globe. The 21st century global humanity is conscientious how some political propagandists besiege the people with false flags and imagery to incite hatred, violence and human destruction in societies having systematic liberal democracies.
→ read full articleGlobal Wars and Peace: Insanity against Humanity – What Next?
Mahboob A Khawaja, PhD. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
The UNO, The Geneva Conventions, The Hague Conventions, The Declaration of Human Rights, The Human Rights Commission and so many other paper-based laws and conventions often are a distraction from the prevalent reality of raging global conflicts needing urgent and forceful action for peace and human security.
→ read full articleTyranny against Humanity: Human Rights and Global Politics
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Dec 2018
27 Nov 2018 – The tyranny of human rights violations – planned and alleged goes unabated across the globe. Late American historian Howard Zinn must have sensed the human cries against the Nature and called “Tyranny is tyranny.”
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Specially Organised Retreat for TRANSCEND and Galtung-Institut Members in Nilgiris Hills, South India
Prof. Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2018
If you are going to the IPRA Conference in India in November 2018, here is an opportunity to include a stay at a Bed&Breakfast Retreat in the green and peaceful Nilgiris Hills of South India. Vithal Rajan, a TRANSCEND and Galtung-Institut member and an old friend of Johan Galtung, will help organise your stay on concessional terms, and guide your visits to nearby historic and cultural places, and wildlife reserves in Tamilnadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and Karnataka states of India.
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Mankind Must Know: The UN and Global Leaders are a Menace to Peace and Problem-Solving
Mahboob A Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Sep 2018
Mankind is constantly victimized by the willful deceit of triumphalism of the few who use extreme rhetoric of peace and harmony but deliver nothing except self-serving fantasies and neglect of prevalent truth.
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Drifting Away from Peace
Sajjad Hussain | Foreign Policy In Focus – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Aug 2018
According to a new study, peaceful countries are getting more peaceful while the violent are getting more violent.
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What a Green and Peaceful Future Could Look Like
Paula Tejón Carbajal | Greenpeace – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jul 2018
19 Jul 2018 – We’re experiencing a deep systemic disconnection: an ecological, social and spiritual cultural divide. There’s a discernible disconnect between the infinite growth imperative and the finite resources of planet Earth; between private ownership and the best societal use of property; between GDP and well-being. “We cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them.” — Albert Einstein
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The Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century
Augusto Lopez-Claros, Arthur Lyon Dahl, and Maja P.C.E. Groff | Global Challenges Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2018
May 2018 – This proposal builds upon structures for international cooperation existing at least since the creation of the UN. We propose revisions to the UN Charter that provide the legal basis for a new system of global governance, supplemented by other reforms not requiring Charter amendment.
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Migration Crisis Is One of Mismanagement: The Figures
Nikolaj Nielsen and Damiano Bacci | EUobserver - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2018
The article gives the basic data on people trying to enter the EU over the last few years and the very marked decrease in the number of those who come over the Mediterranean. The peak point was the latter half of 2015 when about 1,2 million sought asylum in Europe having fled, it should be remembered, predominantly from countries ravaged by Western NATO/EU members’ military interventions.
→ read full articleSpecially Organised Retreat for TRANSCEND and Galtung-Institut Members in Nilgiris Hills, South India
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jun 2018
Vithal Rajan, a TRANSCEND and Galtung-Institut member and an old friend of Johan Galtung, will help organise your stay on concessional terms, and guide your visits to nearby historic and cultural places, and wildlife reserves in Tamilnadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and Karnataka states of India.
→ read full articleWorld Affairs and Insanity as Entertainment: Are We at the End of Human Morality?
Mahboob A Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jun 2018
To enhance global peace and to undo the continuing bogus war on terrorism, there is an urgent need for teamwork by all concerned across the globe. The teamwork if undertaken with unbiased mind and without pre-conceived notions could usher sustainable change and a new beginning between those who claim to be at peace and somewhat superior than the ordinary folks and those who are fighting reactionary wars of freedom against insanity and catastrophic devastation of the human habitats.
→ read full articleThe UNO at Crossroads While Warriors Are Destroying Humanity
Mahboob A Khawaja, PhD. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 May 2018
Is There a UNO to Protect the Beleaguered Humanity? Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen are destroyed by design. Some of these places were the hub of ancient cultures and human civilizations and will never be rebuilt by the warmongers and raging sectarian bloodbath. It reminds us all of the man-made sadistic events leading to the First and the 2nd World Wars. As a conscientious global community, what have we learned from history?
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Why Gina Haspel, the Queen of Torture, Was Able to Rise to the Top of the CIA
Lisa Hajjar – The Nation,
26 Mar 2018
16 Mar 2018 – While Pompeo is a torture enthusiast like Trump—Haspel is the real deal. A career CIA agent, she played a leading role in the agency’s program of torture, kidnapping, and forced disappearance during the Bush administration.
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March 16, the Blackest Day in Kashmir History
Mohamad Ashraf Khwaja | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
The 16th of March is the blackest day for all Kashmiris. On this day in 1846, an inhuman sale of Kashmir and Kashmiris was made with a person (Gulab Singh) whom Lord Hardinge called ‘the greatest rascal of Asia’ by a nation (Britain) to which Napoleon called ‘the country of shopkeepers’. Ironically, this sordid sale of the transaction was erroneously termed as ‘The treaty of Amritsar’.
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Japan Plans to Kill Hundreds of Whales AGAIN – Urge the EU to Refuse Trade Deal until This Ends!
Aleksandra Pajda | One Green Planet – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Feb 2018
8 Feb 2018 – Shinzo Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister, has made his opinions about Japan’s whale hunts very clear. Abe stated that the country “will pursue all possibilities in order to resume commercial whaling” and he wants Japan to use whale meat, fat, and baleen “just like other marine resources.” His stance on the cruel practice is blatant, and he does not even try to conceal the real nature of the hunts under the typical guise of scientific research.
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(Français) La responsabilité de protéger le monde… des États-Unis
Ajamu Baraka | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
L’une des armes de propagande les plus ingénieuses jamais mises au point est que les puissantes nations occidentales dirigées par les États-Unis ont la responsabilité morale d’utiliser la force militaire pour protéger les droits des peuples opprimés par leurs gouvernements. Cette «responsabilité de protéger» (R2P) a toujours eu un statut juridique douteux, mais sa justification morale exigeait aussi un désengagement psychologique et historique de la réalité sanglante des 500 ans d’histoire du colonialisme américain et européen, de l’esclavage, du génocide et de la torture qui ont créé l’ «Occident ».
→ read full articleThe Responsibility to Protect the World … from the United States
Ajamu Baraka - CounterPunch,
22 Jan 2018
12 Jan 2018 – One of the most ingenious propaganda weapons ever developed is that the powerful nations of the West—led by the United States—have a moral responsibility to use military force to protect the rights of people being repressed by their governments. This “responsibility to protect” (R2P) always had a dubious legal standing, but its moral justification also required a psychological and historical disengagement from the bloody reality of the 500-hundred-year history of U.S. and European colonialism, slavery, genocide and torture that created the “West.”
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Martin Luther King’s Revolutionary Dream Deferred
Maj. Danny Sjursen – Truthdig,
15 Jan 2018
13 Jan 2018 – My King is the provocative King, the critic of bigotry but also of capitalism and the Vietnam War. The King, in truth, who has been willfully concealed from view. Read, study, unearth the real King, the radical King, and take up the torch of his fight—a dream deferred—against the three evils still alive and well in the United States: racism, materialism and militarism. The owners of this country are counting on your apathy. Prove them wrong.
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God’s Oppressed Children
Pankaj Mishra | New York Review of Books – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
Many Indian houses still have a simple pit toilet, which consists of a large hole in the floor. The feces are collected at night by manual scavengers who carry away human shit and whose tools are nothing but a small broom and a tin plate. Most are women. One out of six Indians is a Dalit, untouchable, but for years I neither witnessed nor imagined the life of one, although almost every week small columns in the newspapers reported the murder, rape, and torture of them.
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Democratic Rotation in Office: Political Transcendence and Transformation of Ethno-regional Identities within the 21st Century Nation State
David Tiomajou – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
Prof. Tagou brings to the democratic debate bold, interesting and eye-opening proposals: Africa should proudly and positively mold its own model of democracy rooted in its socio-cultural and ethnic pluralistic context. He proposes a model based on Johan Galtung’s concepts of transcendence and transformation of conflicts: Rotative Democracy as mechanism for the election of the President of the Republic.
→ read full articleNo Sign of Radicalisation in Rohingya, Says Bangladesh Foreign Secretary
Shubhajit Roy – The Indian Express,
9 Oct 2017
7 Oct 2017 – Stressing that he has not seen any sign of radicalisation among Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque Friday [6 Oct] said that he would not comment on India’s move to deport them. Haque’s position runs contrary to New Delhi’s stance that Rohingya refugees in India pose a national security threat amid fears of radicalisation.
→ read full articleHuman Trafficking in Nepal: A Scenario, Challenges and Way Out
Shree Prasad Devkota and Indra Raj Bhattarai – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
Human trafficking is not only a serious concern and challenge for Nepal, it has become a global challenge particularly for developing and least developed countries. There is a long history of Nepali girls and women trafficked for sexual purpose, exploitation and abuses to India and other parts of the world.
→ read full article(Castellano) Se sabrá que Venezuela se ha convertido en una dictadura el día en que los medios dejarán de hablar de ella
Viktor Dedaj | Tlaxcala – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
En Venezuela (como en otros lugares), la diferencia entre una dictadura de derecha y una dictadura de izquierda es la siguiente: bajo una dictadura de derecha, los opositores «desaparecen». Bajo una dictadura de izquierda, los opositores pasan todas las noches a la tele y en todos los medios internacionales para denunciar la dictadura.
→ read full article(Français) On saura que le Venezuela est devenu une dictature le jour où les médias arrêteront d’en parler
Viktor Dedaj – Le Grand Soir,
14 Aug 2017
31 juillet 2017 – Au Venezuela (comme ailleurs), la différence entre une dictature de droite et une dictature de gauche est la suivante : sous une dictature de droite, les opposants “disparaissent”. Sous une dictature de gauche, les opposants passent tous les soirs à la télé et dans tous les médias internationaux pour dénoncer la dictature.
→ read full articleYemen Records 400,000 Cholera Cases
Roshni Majumdar – Inter Press Service-IPS,
31 Jul 2017
27 Jul 2017 – The directors of the UN Children’s Fund, World Food Programme and World Health Organization released a joint statement today shedding light on a deadly cholera epidemic engulfing war-torn Yemen. More than 400,000 cases of cholera are suspected, and nearly 1,900 people have died from associated cases in the last three months alone.
→ read full articleWar Is a Racket
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in currencies and the losses in lives. A racket is best described as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about.
→ read full articleAvoiding Apocalypse on the Korean Peninsula
Rajan Menon | TomDispatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
Why Diplomacy Is Not Naïve Appeasement in the Korean Crisis – The Korean peninsula, all 85,270 square miles of it, is about the size of Idaho. It contains more soldiers (2.8 million, not counting reserves) and armaments (nearly 6,000 tanks, 31,000 artillery pieces, and 1,134 combat aircraft) than any other place on the planet. Clearly, the North’s leaders reject the proposition that American approval is required for them to build nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles.
→ read full articleIndia’s Brexit Moment
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
22 May 2017 – Sashi Tharoor has done a pretty thorough job of debunking the pretentions put forward by journalist-historians, like Niall Ferguson, that the Raj conferred several benefits on India and other colonies. However, what is yet to be written about is the destructive stranglehold imperial memories continue to have on the guardians of Whitehall and of the South Block in Delhi. As Macauley predicted we share a language, a set of laws, a form of governance, and a passion for cricket.
→ read full article(Castellano) Johan Galtung: “La UE va a sobrevivir, pero tiene que ser más modesta”
Ana Carbajosa – El País,
1 May 2017
Son diligentes en su trabajo y han logrado éxitos enormes, pero hay una cierta arrogancia. Para empezar, han logrado 40 años de paz, y no solo entendida como ausencia de violencia, sino también paz positiva, es decir cooperación. El problema es que todo viene de arriba y los viejos miembros se han sentido anulados, sentían que Bruselas no contaba con su opinión.
→ read full articleCrime and Punishment in Syria
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2017
Why then are the Western powers, led by America, so certain that Assad is the culprit? Criminal investigation experts inform us that all criminals have a distinctive modus operandi, a criminal signature, by which their agency is recognized. Just as Nikki Haley held up a photo of children dying of gas attack to initial America’s direct military engagement in Syria, way back in 2003 Secretary of State Colin Powell held up a tube of anthrax in the Security Council meeting to assert Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction.
→ read full articleThe Exclusion and Structural Discrimination of Roma in Europe
Szilvia Rezmuves, Isak Skenderi & Violeta Vajda – teleSUR,
10 Apr 2017
8 Apr 2017 – We have recently seen an explosion of books, articles and reference papers finally naming the oppression of Roma as an externally constructed phenomenon, based on exclusion and structural discrimination. For International Roma Day, three writers reflect on how Roma slave labour helped build Europe’s prosperity and its legacy.
→ read full articleThe Politics of Water Insecurity
Majed Akhter – Al Jazeera,
27 Mar 2017
This 22 March 2017, World Water Day, we focus attention on global issues of water access. The statistics are not comforting. The poorest ninth of us – about 800 million people – do not have reliable access to clean drinking water. To achieve universal water security, we need to let politics and culture drive water planning as much as economy does.
→ read full articleIndia, Brazil, Germany and Japan Open to Forgo Veto for Now if Granted UNSC Membership
Ajay Ghosh – The Universal News Network,
20 Mar 2017
In a joint statement delivered by India’s Representative to the UN on March 8, the G4 nations emphasized that an overwhelming majority of the UN member states supports the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent membership in a reformed UN Security Council.
→ read full articlePeaceful Protest as True Nationalism
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
By 1917, a hundred years ago, millions of men had already been killed in war-torn Europe, and hundreds of French villages and towns destroyed. When the war ended in November 1918, the Allies were almost on the point of surrendering but Germany succumbed first. Field-Marshall Foch called the Treaty of Versailles an ‘armistice,’ and so it proved, for another global war came within twenty years claiming several million more lives.
→ read full articleEU Should Invest in Development, Not Security in Africa
Nassim Majidi and Herve Nicolle – Al Jazeera,
13 Feb 2017
So what is the alternative? It must espouse a transnational approach and lead transformative interventions with a clear development agenda that replaces its current security agenda.
→ read full articleWhy Do People Revolt?
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
India experienced two unprecedented and totally unexpected, mostly leaderless mass uprisings of the middleclass in the recent past. The latest, the so-called ‘jallikattu’ protest of the students of Tamil Nadu has just ended. The previous one was nominally led by Anna Hazare, a Gandhian ex-serviceman, and roused the people of Delhi and its environs against rampant and open corruption in government circles.
→ read full articleHelping Refugees Also Means Stopping the Wars Which Make Them
Max Ajl - teleSUR,
30 Jan 2017
Trump, it seems, will not ban all Muslims. He’ll only ban Muslims whose countries and homes we are bombing.
→ read full articleLove and Economics
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2017
A common definition of money is that it is a store of value. But human beings value many things, principles, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, which are incommensurable. Some of the most basic human actions fall into this category – a mother’s love, a teacher’s guiding hand, a friend’s support, or even one’s own sense of beauty or duty.
→ read full articleIndia Fails the Leprosy Test
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2017
The World Health Organization reported that in 2015 India accounted for 212,000, or 60%, of all the new cases of leprosy worldwide. As the WHO has pointed out, medicines and treatments are available to eradicate this ancient dreadful disease, but political will has been lacking for a very long time.
→ read full articleJallikattu and Humanity’s Petty Ethics
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2017
North Indians have been amazed at the 75-million strong Tamil reaction to the ban on ‘jallikattu,’ a harvest event in which village young men try to snatch the purse of money tied to the horns of a trained bull… In such an elite atmosphere it was easy and natural in Delhi circles to believe that dark-skinned poor Tamil farmers would be cruel to their bulls during jallikattu.
→ read full articleIn Memoriam
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2017
Dr. Hanumantha Rao’s unique gift was his discovery of the ‘Four Waters’ system for providing sustainable agricultural livelihoods to the majority of Indian and third world small and marginal farmers subsisting on dry rain-fed lands. His idea has the simplicity of genius.
→ read full articleNeed for a Moral Confession of Political Parties in Nepal
Shree Prasad Devkota and Pradip Raj Giri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
7 Jan 2017 – We often worry about degrading political practices in Nepal. Unemployment, politicization of every institution, increased criminal activities and corruption has created a frustrated generation. Youths are migrating abroad and remittance has become life line of our economy.
→ read full articleThe Political Shakespeare
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2017
26 Dec 2016 – These last three years have been dedicated to the Bard. Dramatic political change was in the air when Shakespeare lived and wrote. The great humanist sensed these changes and mirrored them in his plays for us to make of them what we will.
→ read full articleThe High Road of India and the Low Road of China
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2016
Can the differences between the developmental histories of the two Asian giants have been caused on the one hand by the Indian bourgeoisie being continually empowered, while on the other Mao Zedong attempted to empower the Chinese masses for two short decades?
→ read full articleThe Modern Destruction of Ancient Aleppo
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Dec 2016
17 Dec 2016 – If the English poet, John William Burgon, called Petra ‘half as old as time,’ Aleppo is a lot older. One of the world’s earliest cities, it ended the bronze age by discovering iron ore. A centre of Christianity almost two-thousand years ago, Aleppo sent evangelists as far afield as the western shores of India.
→ read full articleHow the Fight for Water Unites Palestine and Dakota
Nadya Raja Tannous – teleSUR,
28 Nov 2016
From our demand for just rights, the pursuit of sovereignty, and a long history of resistance, we walk a joint path to liberation.
→ read full articleIndia: Terrorism, Elections, Corruption
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2016
When the British left India in 1947 the country was clean of any corruption. The bitter truth is that it was allowed to infect the system starting to rot from the top, first under Nehru, who was too romantic to notice the machinations of his satraps. His daughter made corruption a part of political policy. All political parties and leaders have happily followed suit since buying the votes of poor people is far easier than delivering development.
→ read full articleRupture, Loss and Living: Minority Women Speak About Post-Conflict Life
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2016
This reviewer discovered another message as he closed the book. Though he had shared the same time-space as the authors, he had not been aware of the delicacy with which women could unravel the tragic aspects of the human condition through the living narratives of other women, which could only be read through eyes blurred with tears.
→ read full articleNo Trumps to Diplomacy
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2016
After the death of Julius Caesar, the conqueror, Augustus, the first Emperor, concentrated all power in his hands ending Rome’s democratic traditions. Tiberius corrupted the system further. Caligula took Rome deeper into cruelty and destruction. Nero’s buffoonery signaled the long cynical decline of all social values till Rome ceased to be the centre of the Western world. A curious parallel exists today in the history of the American empire.
→ read full articleIndependent Work: Choice, Necessity, and the Gig Economy
James Manyika, Susan Lund, Jacques Bughin, Kelsey Robinson, Jan Mischke, and Deepa Mahajan | McKinsey – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
October 2016 – The McKinsey Global Institute examines all the ways people are earning income, as well as the challenges independent work presents.
→ read full articleComputer Program Beats Doctors at Spotting Brain Cancer
Ajay Ghosh – The Universal News Network,
26 Sep 2016
21 Sep 2016 – A computer program developed by a team of researchers led by an Indian American scientist has outperformed physicians in diagnosing brain cancer. The program was nearly twice as accurate as two neuroradiologists.
→ read full article‘They Called Me Osama’ – A Documentary to Teach People about Sikh Religion
Ajay Ghosh – The Universal News Network,
27 Jun 2016
22 Jun 2016 – This new documentary film seeks to educate people about the Sikh religion and the experiences of Sikhs in America including bullying in schools, racism, and hate violence. It was made with funding from the University of Connecticut and aims at preventing abuses of Sikhs and informing about the centuries old Sikh religion.
→ read full articleNo Recognition of ‘One Humanity’ at the World Humanitarian Forum
Rajesh Makwana | Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
In light of the overwhelming moral imperative to share planetary resources more equitably and protect the lives of those facing humanitarian emergencies, the World Humanitarian Summit is yet another reminder of the huge gulf between government priorities and the desperate reality of the world situation.
→ read full articleReign of Terror: Hunting Down Gays in Nigeria
Philip Obaji Jr. – The Daily Beast,
18 Apr 2016
A look at the dirty war Nigeria is waging against its LGBT people and anyone associated with them.
→ read full articleExplore the Panama Papers Key Figures
Rigoberto Carvajal, Mar Cabra, Álvaro Ortiz and Fernando Blat - The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists-ICIJ,
4 Apr 2016
3 Apr 2016 – The 2.6 terabyte trove of data at the core of this investigation contains nearly 40 years of records, and includes information about more than 210,000 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions. Read more about the data and our methodology.
→ read full articleThe Global Refugee Crisis: Humanity’s Last Call for a Culture of Sharing and Cooperation
Rajesh Makwana, Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
The real crisis is not the influx of refugees to Europe per se but a toxic combination of destabilising foreign policy agendas, economic austerity and the rise of right-wing nationalism, which is likely to push the world further into social and political chaos in the months ahead.
→ read full articleScrapping Trident and Transitioning to a Nuclear-Free World
Rajesh Makwana, Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
As the illicit trade in nuclear weapons escalates alongside the risk of geopolitical conflict, it’s high time governments decisively prioritised nuclear disarmament – and that means scrapping Trident, the UK’s inordinately expensive nuclear deterrent, which would also facilitate the redistribution of scarce public resources to fund essential services.
→ read full articleA New Era of Global Protest Begins
Rajesh Makwana, Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2016
14 Jan 2016 – Research by Dr. David Bailey provides empirical evidence that we have entered a prolonged period of dissent characterised by an escalation in the magnitude and diversity of public protest. The catalyst was the financial crisis of 2008, which continues to have a detrimental impact for the vast majority of citizens – even while the combined wealth of the richest 1% continues to soar.
→ read full articleWhat Cuba Can Teach Us about Food and Climate Change
Raj Patel – New Republic,
4 Jan 2016
After the Cold War, Cuba faced many of the agricultural challenges that the rest of the world is now anticipating.
→ read full article(Français) Dictionnaire utilisé par les médias pour décrire la situation en Palestine
Majed Bamya, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2015
Dans la plupart des médias occidentaux, certains termes semblent s’appliquer uniquement à ce conflit : “regain de violence sur l’esplanade des mosquées”, “Israël entame un nouveau cycle de négociations”, “le processus de paix au Proche-Orient”… Loin d’être anodins, ces termes recouvrent un sens caché au service d’une rhétorique trompeuse.
→ read full article#GlobalGoals? The Truth about Poverty and How to Address It
Rajesh Makwana, Share The World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
Without a collective worldwide awakening to the injustice of widespread poverty amidst excessive wealth inequalities, it may remain impossible to overcome vested interests and the political inertia of governments. The responsibility for change falls squarely on the shoulders of us all.
→ read full articleNo, ‘Je Suis Charleston’?: The De-Politicization of Black Oppression
Ajamu Baraka – Black Agenda Report,
6 Jul 2015
Where was the worldwide revulsion at the racist terror attack in Charleston? Obama sang ‘Amazing Grace’ and lulled into a stupefying silence black voices that should have demanded answers. The old trope of gun control – along with a new twist, removing the Confederate flag – became the new focus.
→ read full articleThe Plight and Persecution of the Rohingyas in Myanmar [Burma]
Asif Haroon Raja - Global Research,
22 Jun 2015
The radical Buddhists of Arakan State have been brutally murdering Rohingya Muslims ever since 2003, including women and children, and are doing all this barbarity with the backing and support of the Myanmar regime, political and religious leadership and the law enforcement agencies.
→ read full articleThe Fog of Empire
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
Surprising win for Cameron with greater mandate
Right-wing ideology dominates discourse in Britain
How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Aided the CIA’s Torture Program
Lisa Hajjar – The Nation,
18 May 2015
The American Psychological Association’s collusion was crucial because other physicians were increasingly reluctant to participate in the interrogations. To date, psychologists who are critical of the APA’s record on offshore national security interrogations—including report authors Soldz and Reisner—continue to be described as “dissidents” in the organization. This revealing report may provide long overdue redress of this ignominious record of human experimentation and ethical malfeasance.
→ read full articleWhy I Teach Evolution to Muslim Students
Rana Dajani, Nature – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
Encouraging students to challenge ideas is crucial to fostering a generation of Muslim scientists who are free thinkers. “As educators, our objective is to help students to become independent thinkers.”
→ read full articleWho Is Responsible for Indian Farmer Suicides?
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2015
The present spate of farmer suicides in India unquestionably fall in the ‘anomie’ category, linked to moral confusion caused by economic ruin, failed aspirations and crushing disappointment. Many have gambled with their lives and fortunes, and put themselves and their families under tremendous risk by thoughtless borrowing to get out of their families age-old poverty trap.
→ read full articleNot Fit to Print: When Good Design Goes Bad
Anna Flagg and Moiz Syed, AJ+ On the News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2015
A Lesson from The New York Times on How to Mislead with Numbers – What follows is a breakdown of some ways that design can be misused to tell a biased story. This New York Times article reminds us that design is just as much an editorial tool.
→ read full articleFrom Basic Income to Social Dividends: Sharing the Value of Common Resources
Rajesh Makwana, Sharing the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
18 Mar2015 – It’s time to broaden the debate on how to fund a universal basic income by including options for sharing resource rents, which is a model that can be applied internationally to reform unjust economic systems, reduce extreme poverty and protect the global commons.
→ read full articleQuit Bamming Us, Obama!
Dr. Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
On India’s Republic Day, Jan 26 2015, Barack Obama will be in Delhi. What is his agenda? As America’s salesman-in-chief he needs to get rid of inventories of defence material, nuclear technology, and other build-ups hurting profit. He will return from India half satisfied with what he achieves, but he has never aimed, nor has been permitted to aim, for much more.
→ read full articleThe CIA Didn’t Just Torture, It Experimented on Human Beings
Lisa Hajjar – The Nation,
22 Dec 2014
Reframing the CIA’s interrogation techniques as a violation of scientific and medical ethics may be the best way to achieve accountability. At the helm of this human experimentation project were two psychologists hired by the CIA, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.
→ read full article20 Deals in 24 Hours: Russia-India Relations Given $100 Billion-Worth Boost
Rajeev Sharma – Russia Today,
15 Dec 2014
12 Dec 2014 – The economic burden of Western sanctions has pushed Russia to the east in search of business opportunities. Judging by the outcome of President Putin’s visit to India – 20 high-profile deals struck – Moscow’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is getting a warm welcome.
→ read full articleJust Torture?
Shunzo Majima, Journal of Military Ethics – Centre for Digital Philosophy,
1 Dec 2014
The purpose of this paper is to develop and analyse a possible theory of “just torture”, by reference to the framework of just war theory, which proposes moral criticism of war, in order that we can critically consider the morality or otherwise of torture, including that undertaken for interrogation purposes.
→ read full articleA Noble Surprise
Vithal Rajan, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Oct 2014
Despite the twinning of Pakistan and India by the Nobel Committee, peace between the two countries will remain as illusory as their hope that Obama, America’s first black president, will be more peaceful than the other warlords who have shown their patriotism by bombing hapless people around the world.
→ read full articleFrom Mars Mission to Navigation Satellites to N-Capable Missiles: India Scores Big Scientifically
Rajeev Sharma – Russia Today,
20 Oct 2014
After last month’s success of its maiden Mars Orbiter Mission, India has just notched up two more back-to-back scientific feats on October 16 and 17 [2014], both of which will beef up Indian military might in a big way.
→ read full articleThe Love Jihad Nightmare
Vithal Rajan, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Oct 2014
Islamophobia is creating anger among Muslims in many nations, anomie in minority pockets, and breeding irrational hatred in a few.
→ read full articleThe Scots Back Off
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
If the Scots had not backed off they might have helped the English to break away from their imperial past and start living in the present as Europeans. Unfortunately [they] kept the English psychologically locked into a dysfunctional past, losing them a key role in the shaping of new Europe, and making them nothing but a subservient de facto colony of the USA.
→ read full articleHow Did The British Get An Empire?
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
It makes perfect sense then that the sepoys, from the ‘untouchable’ or lower castes, discriminated against by a caste-ridden society, gravitated to a service that treated them honourably. They fought for their own honour, and created an empire for foreigners from kingdoms that gave them little respect or social opportunity.
→ read full articleHigh Time to Build a Movement of Solidarity to End UN Occupation of Haiti
Ajamu Nangwaya – Pambazuka News,
22 Sep 2014
On October 15, the UN occupation force in Haiti will be up for renewal by the Security Council. Urgent and swift efforts are now needed to demand an immediate withdrawal of the decade-old army of occupation that has turned Haiti into a UN colony.
→ read full articleSanctions for Russia and a Green Light for Israel to Continue War Crimes
Ajamu Baraka - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Aug 2014
A permanent solution will not come from the U.S. or the Israeli colonial state, and with over 80% of Israeli civil society in support of the military assault on Gaza no justice will come from that sector either. A just solution of the Palestine/Israel issue can only be facilitated by the international community (international meaning beyond the U.S. and Europe).
→ read full articleSleeping in Gaza
Najwan Darwish – Split This Rock,
21 Jul 2014
Fado, I’ll sleep like people do
when shells are falling
and the sky is torn like living flesh
I’ll dream, then, like people do
(Português) O Ressurgimento do Determinismo Biológico na Era Neoliberal
Pankaj Mehta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Mar 2014
A história está repleta de exemplos aterrorizantes sobre o abuso da genética (e da teoria da evolução) para justificar a dominação e a desigualdade: as justificativas evolutivas da escravidão e do colonialismo, as explicações científicas da violação e do patriarcado, e as explicações genéticas da superioridade inerente à elite governante.
→ read full articleThe UN Is Not Above the Law
Lauren Carasik @ajam – Al Jazeera America,
10 Mar 2014
The US should support accountability claim for the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
→ read full articleProtesters Resist an ‘Indian Fukushima’
Ranjit Devraj, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
According to PMANE leader [TRANSCEND member] S.P. Udayakumar, the Kudankulam project built with Russian technology is unsafe and threatens the delicate marine ecology of the Palk straits. “A Fukushima-type accident at this mega plant, which is due to generate 9,200 MW when complete, would be truly catastrophic.”
→ read full articleCrackdown in Cambodia
Mu Sochuajan – International New York Times,
13 Jan 2014
For almost three decades, Hun Sen — a Khmer Rouge defector who was put in power after Vietnam toppled Pol Pot’s regime in 1979 — has convinced foreign governments to pour aid into the country, while his Party has rigged elections, sold off our natural resources, imprisoned journalists, union leaders, opposition politicians and human rights activists. Some 250,000 people have been evicted because of land concessions that favor the rich and well-connected.
→ read full article(Português) Fórum Mundial dos Direitos Humanos Reúne Mais de 5 Mil em Brasília
Najla Passos – Carta Maior,
16 Dec 2013
Com a presença de 5.987 pessoas de diferentes segmentos sociais de diversos países, o Fórum Mundial dos Direitos Humanos foi aberto nesta terça (10 Dez), em Brasília, na data em que se comemora o Dia Internacional dos Direitos Humanos e os 65 anos da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos.
→ read full articleGenetically Modified Crop Could Migrate Dangerously
Ranjit Devraj, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2013
Food security activists who secured a moratorium on introducing GM brinjal (aubergine) into India fear that their efforts are being undermined by release of same in neighbouring Bangladesh. “India and Bangladesh share a long and porous border and it is easy for GM brinjal varieties to be brought over.”
→ read full articleThe Origins and Evolution of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
T Rajamoorthy - Global Research,
11 Nov 2013
THE free trade agreement being negotiated by the regional bloc known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has provoked widespread opposition in the countries involved in its negotiation. Today the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is rightly perceived and condemned as a US-led attempt to penetrate and dominate the economies of the region.
→ read full articleTime for the ICC to Act on Palestine
Raji Sourani & Shawan Jabarin – Al Jazeera,
21 Oct 2013
We urge the prosecutor to visit Palestine, to meet with the victims, and to experience the reality on the ground. Justice is not a commodity that can be traded in the name of political progress. The International Criminal Court must not become complicit in the on-going failures of the peace before justice process.
→ read full articleJohan Galtung: Pioneer of Peace Research – Edited by Dietrich Fischer
Dr. Vithal Rajan – Bangla Times,
7 Oct 2013
Professor Fischer is a long-standing friend and colleague of Johan Galtung, the widely acknowledged ‘father of peace research.’ In this new book, he brings together a collection of 16 key essays by Galtung; a voluminous Galtung bibliography, listing 165 books written between 1953 and 2012; and a detailed introduction to the life, beliefs, and writings of Galtung.
→ read full article