To be a Dongria Kondh is to live in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa state, India - they do not live anywhere else. Yet Vedanta Resources is determined to mine their sacred mountain's rich seam of bauxite (aluminium ore). The Dongria farm the hill slopes, grow crops in among the... » read this article

13 March 2010 India’s best known and most celebrated visual artist, Maqbool Fida (M.F.) Husain, last month accepted an offer of Qatari citizenship—a poignant protest against the Indian state’s and political elite’s complicity in his harassment and victimization by Hindu fundamentalists and supremacists. Now aged 94, Husain has been a... » read this article

The list of universal truths should be expanded to include the fact of Afghanistan’s invincibility. Afghanistan has maintained its reputation as the ‘graveyard of the empires’. The question is, before the US invasion of Afghanistan, did the US Military command really think they can invade, occupy and control Afghanistan? The... » read this article

In the rural, tribal lands of Eastern India, protesters are going head-to-head with world steel giant Arcelor Mittal. "We may give away our lives, but we will not part with an inch of our ancestral land," the villagers cry. "The forest, rivers and land are ours. We don't want factories,... » read this article

February 22, 2010, Axis of Logic -As recently as in August 2007, USAF lost track of six Advanced Cruise Missiles armed with 150-kiloton nuclear warheads for 36 hours. These missiles were loaded onto wing launch pod of a B-52 H Bomber at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, were improperly... » read this article

With the American declaration of an exit from Afghanistan, Beijing and Islamabad are upbeat. This leaves India in the lurch as it is ill prepared to face the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists and the Chinese Communists argues Bharat Verma. The creeping invasion by authoritarian regimes will engulf Asia by 2020 as... » read this article

The US must address Pakistan’s security concerns to leave behind a stable AfPak region January 16, Axis of Logic - Despite some ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ related to US withdrawal expressed by some US officials following President Obama’s speech laying out his new policy on Afghanistan, there is absolutely no doubt... » read this article

Gladson Dungdung, a Human Rights Activist and Writer from Jharkhand, examines the origins of India’s modern class struggle and the hypocrisy surrounding its architect, Jawaharlal Nerhu. The India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nerhu, who is also known as the architect of modern India, once said, “Dams are the temples of... » read this article

Editor's Note: “Poison on the Platter”, is an eye-opening film, made by Mahesh Bhatt and Ajay Kanchan, illustrating how all of our lives are going to be (adversely) affected by genetically modified foods. It is no longer a farmer’s issue alone. It's a matter of the consumers’ right to food safety. For... » read this article

Snigdhendu Bhattacharya writes for the Hindustan Times: Farmers in West Midnapore district of West Bengal may not have to repay their crop loans. The Maoists have announced a waiver. This is the first time the rebel group has announced such a decision. “Several peasants who took crop loans over the... » read this article

December 7, 2009 Interview Azhar Masood Islamabad—A beaming Lt Gen (Retd) Hamid Gul proudly sitting in his drawing room with a well decorated artifact of a small piece of Berlin Wall, was well prepared to give an interview Pakistan Observer on Indian Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor’s latest... » read this article

When the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets President Obama during his visit to the US this week, the two leaders will discuss the framework for strategic dialogue between the two countries. Singh seeks to solidify a relationship, transformed under the Bush administration from distant friendship to that of a... » read this article

Mallojula Koteshwar Rao, AKA Kishenji, 53, grew up in the interiors of Andhra Pradesh reading Gandhi and Tagore. It was after understanding the history of the world, he says, that he disappeared into the jungles for a revolution. During search operations in 1982, the police broke down his home in... » read this article

To justify enforcing a corporate land grab, the state needs an enemy – and it has chosen the Maoists. The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa. The hills watched over... » read this article

As I was leaving the little state of Kerala recently I had to pass through a brief passport check by two Indian soldiers at the airport's entrance doors. Glancing at my California address in the document, the Indian Army soldier smiled at me with a mocking twinkle in his eyes.... » read this article

For the past 63 years - the life span of most countries of this region, South Asia has remained in a state of tension. The eight SAARC countries* that make up this geopolitically sensitive region, where a major chunk of the humanity lives, do not enjoy the kind of friendly... » read this article

The dust from the GHQ attack had barely settled down and once more we’re faced with not one but three synchronised attacks on security establishments in the city of Lahore.   With the recent pattern of targetting security forces, it is evident that the terrorists are working on a specific... » read this article

Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister,Government of India, South Block, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, India-110 011. We are deeply concerned by the Indian government’s plans for launching an unprecedented military offensive by army and paramilitary forces in the adivasi (indigeneous people)-populated regions of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and West... » read this article

October 10, 2009; an unforgettable day in the history of terrorism, would always make the world realize that Pakistan is facing the worst consequences of terrorism. The terrorist attacks on the GHQ in Rawalpindi are the worst example of terrorism. Though the security forces of Pakistan very successfully proved their... » read this article

Of Nearsighted Progress, Feral Howls, Consensus, Chaos, and a New Cold War in Kashmir While we're still arguing about whether there's life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By "democracy" I don't mean democracy... » read this article