Seeger always took his communism seriously and he wrote about capitalistic contradictions, but carefully employing a language that was truly accessible to the workers, to the “bottom” uneducated and semi-literate section of society who he remained connected with, all his life.

Aam Aadmi Party is the New Right - a nationalist party aimed at dislodging Congress and weakening the Left - using a milder, a more acceptable version of BJP politics…

Illusions in the Google Land

 Cyclone Phailin is not over yet, and Orissa is not all about Bhubaneswar. If lessons be learnt from 1999, there's an enormous amount of work to be done, beginning with the administration ending its premature jubilation. Even as this cyclone did not prove to be as catastrophic as the '99 one, we must not undermine the challenges that are ahead of us. Evacuation is not enough, rehabilitation is the key. Farmers, fishers and the poor in the vulnerable coastal belts devoid of ecological balances, wrought upon them through corporate greed - are the sections of population that will be the worst sufferers. 500,000 hectares of crops have been damaged and the already impoverished state of Orissa has been relegated further down. 

I am sharing with you all my journey as a reporter during the 1999 "super cyclone" when the team of Asian Age covered it extensively. Some of it are pure nostalgia, but many are pointers to what may lie ahead.

The truth is royal family is not an embarrassment. It is a criminal institution. It is not a laughing matter. It is a despicable agency. It’s members are not saints. They are hooligans. It’s legacy is not of a cultural pride. It is one of racist supremacism. Royal positions are not ceremonious figureheads. They are active displays of colonial machismo.

The good liberals never cease to amaze. They want the wars abroad, but they don’t want the wars at home. They want other children to die, just not theirs. They want to be able to buy the guns themselves, just not allow the rest.

Last election, it was a black woman of tremendous strength and courage who was victimized by racist attacks in the Congress – Cynthia McKinney – who decided to quit the Democrats and contested on the Green Party ticket to pose a serious threat to Barack Obama.

Hurricane Sandy is all about politics. It is more about politics than Hurricane Katrina was. This is the week of reelection for the Democratic Czar and his liberal cronies who have constantly manipulated the media headlines to suppress the truths about their wrongdoings…

This year as the elections unfold, majority of Americans will continue to be fooled by the democratic virtues once again. And Malcolm X will brim with relevance with his words warning the democratically bemused.

Majority of the masses continue to remain hungry for change; and it has nothing to do with the White House.

Merely the celebrity status of a pacifist leader cannot transform a country that has been kept deliberately bereft of the knowledge of its peoples’ history.

The continued acceptance of thematic underpinnings of Academy honors that are reflecting a sustained adherence to Euro-American global, colonial, and racial hegemony is the issue that needs addressing.

Occupation movement this time around offers no immediate solution – nor does it harbor much hopes either. If the collective demand is to have Obama administration dissociate itself and the United States from Wall Street money, the collective intelligence says it is probably not possible.

In the most grotesque of historical misrepresentations, Gandhi and King have today been reduced by their false worshippers at highest of world powers, to becoming exactly the opposite of what they stood for: as poster boys for global capitalism, of the military-industrial complex, the new permanent features of the status quo, dazed and dumbed down on the revised Mt. Rushmore.

In fundamentally challenging Ayodhya verdict, Indians also had the opportunity to declare that the people want communal peace and harmony and this can be achieved if they kept their beliefs at homes and not bring them to the roads. Just as they defecate at home and not make a public ceremony out of it.

Nobel Peace Prize, in reality is an apologist for, and celebration of continued Eurocentric imperialism. Obama is the latest one to have been “humbled”. Amidst his militarist interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, through his announcements for larger US troops for invasions and bigger budget to feed the military-industrial complex, the Nobel committees have yet again perpetuated a reactionary definition of peace. In their world of successes and achievements, they have merely crowned their King.

What Letterman has done is sheer abuse of his economic power and gender privilege. His unabashed claim that any disclosure of the details would embarrass his women employees he had sex with, evidences blatant sexism. Its a great irony of our times that women continue to not only put up with sexual advances at workplaces, but also are expected to maintain silence in fear of their career prospects. And here is a liberal intellectual who advances this regressive theory in an effort to “protect” his victims.

Is it because Michael Jackson was vocal, nondiplomatic and accurate in his depiction of the racial divides in the American entertainment industry which irked President Obama? Or was it because Obama has simply no faith in the American judiciary system which despite having caused enough damages to Michael during his life, despite subjecting him to inhumane police brutality, clearly declared him innocent of each and every allegations brought forth against him.