Author: Priya Saha

Ram Raj was drinking tea at his home in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on a chilly November evening last year when a stray cow attacked him. Over the next few minutes, his young grandchildren screamed and watched in horror as the animal mauled him. The 55-year-old farmer died of severe injuries on the way to hospital. “It was a painful death and my mother-in-law has stopped having proper meals ever since,” his daughter-in-law, Anita Kumari, said. Such attacks have become common in India’s most populous state, where a ban on cow slaughter has led to a huge…

— Counter Punch/Artur Voznenko THE US/NATO/Ukraine/Russia controversy is not entirely new. We already saw the potential of serious trouble in 2014 when the United States and European states interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine and covertly/overtly colluded in the coup d’état against the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, because he was not playing the game assigned to him by the west. Of course, our media hailed the putsch as a ‘colour revolution’ with all the trappings of democracy. The 2021–2022 crisis is a logical continuation of the expansionist policies that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has pursued…

Published January 25, 2022 by Sian BayleyHarperCollins has released its first ethnicity pay gap report alongside its annual one for gender pay, announcing it will now use diverse, balanced shortlists for senior… HarperCollins has released its first ethnicity pay gap report alongside its annual one for gender pay, announcing it will now use diverse, balanced shortlists for senior roles. In total 77% of staff volunteered to share their ethnicity. Director of people John Athanasiou (pictured) said this was a “pretty healthy response” for the first year of the report, but stressed the publisher wants to improve the figures next year. Data showed…

Like the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, it is time a Hindu Holocaust memorial be made too in memory of those Hindus who have been killed and raped in the past for just being a Hindu A look at the history of human civilisation shows it has been replete with violence stemming from ethnic hatred, linguistic differences, and religious wars and conversions through brutal tortures. Of the three, religion and war have gone hand in hand in human history for the longest time. Religious armies go to wars after prayers with the firm belief that God is by their side; and in…

A Christian Indian politician has called on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do more to protect Christians and other religious minorities from extremist groups. Margaret Alva, formerly a member of the Indian Parliament and successively Governor of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Goa, complained that religious minorities were at risk of becoming “second-class citizens”.   Margaret Alva says atrocities against India’s minorites are mounting  Ms Alva also argued that the silence of Prime Minister Modi was taken as “tacit approval and encouragement” by extremist elements within Indian society. The Indian constitution, she added, which guarantees freedom of religion, must…

Last June, the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, then known as the Office of Ethnic Communities, disbursed a $200,000 Digital Inclusion Fund to 12 communities across New Zealand to bridge the digital divide, the gap between those who benefit from modern ICT and those who do not. The fund aims to ensure African, Asian, Continental European, Latin-American and Middle Eastern-identifying peoples can fully participate in Aotearoa New Zealand’s society by increasing their confidence using digital technologies. A ministry spokesperson said that during the Covid lockdowns, “it became more obvious that ethnic communities faced challenges accessing, using, and benefiting from digital technology…

His detention comes after sustained gunfire rang out from military camps in the West African country throughout Sunday, with soldiers demanding more support for their fight against Islamist militants. The government had denied that the army had seized power.Kabore’s exact whereabouts or situation were unknown on Monday morning, with conflicting reports circulating among security and diplomatic sources.Several armoured vehicles of the presidential fleet, riddled with bullets, could be seen near the president’s residence. One was spattered with blood. Residents of the president’s neighbourhood reported heavy gunfire overnight.Government sources could not immediately be reached on Monday.Frustration has risen in Burkina Faso…

While lobbyists appointed by BNP-Jamaat nexus and several influential individuals are making frantic bids in getting Bangladesh banned from the United Nations Peace Keeping Force (UNPKF), the same nexus has been sending dossiers to selected members of Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and few advisors in the Biden administration with the nefarious goal of portraying Bangladesh as the “next jihadist breeding ground” and a “threat to the regional and international security”. Although pro-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami are mainly responsible for the rise of radical Islam and jihadism in Bangladesh, now this nexus…

The striking feature of the Taliban talks in Oslo, the capital of Norway, must be that they have sparked a fresh debate on the ever so critical facet of recognition of the hardliner regime. Eloquent protestations on the rights of girls and women have led the country nowhere. This is for the first time since the Taliban assumed power last August that its representatives have held official meetings in Europe, and in a place far removed from Doha and not merely in terms of distance. The meeting is being attended by Western officials and Afghan civil society representatives, and against…

OSLO, Norway — The Taliban and western diplomats have begun their first official talks in Europe since they took over control of Afghanistan in August. The closed-door meetings were taking place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above the Norwegian capital. Taliban representatives will be certain to press their demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the United States and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation. “We are requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse,” said Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam on Sunday night. “Because…

Who is Taslima Nasreen: The Bangladeshi author has been receiving backlash for her tweets criticising the practice of surrogacy. She called out surrogacy for being exploitative and invasive of a woman’s body. A feminist, secular humanist and activist, Taslima Nasreen is known to be vocal about issues like gender and religious oppression of people. Taslima Nasreen has received backlash for her ‘different opinions’ on the practice of surrogacy. The author considers it as an exploitation of poor women as she slams the rich women for their reluctance to be surrogate mothers themselves and using poor women to inhabit their traits…

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Some conservatives are taking aim at policies that allow doctors to consider race as a risk factor when allocating scarce COVID-19 treatments, saying the protocols discriminate against white people.The wave of infections brought on by the omicron variant and a shortage of treatments have focused attention on the policies.Medical experts said the opposition is misleading. Health officials have long said there is a strong case for considering race as one of many risk factors in treatment decisions. And there is no evidence race alone is being used to decide who gets medicine.The issue came to the…