YEAR 2019 is the 150th birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhiji remains the unparalleled mass leader of the Indian people. He successfully mobilised people from the whole of India’s vast diversity in the struggle for independence from British colonial rule.As my generation grew up in post-independent India, a question always arose that demanded an answer.  This unrivalled leader of the Indian people would often be living in the house of one of the biggest capitalists in India, Ghanshyam Das Birla.

UNEMPLOYMENT in the cities is rising acutely since demonetisation was implemented in the country by Narendra Modi on September 9, 2016. The voices of the unemployed could not be heard at that time since most of the people who had to lose their jobs were from the unorganised sector. The informal sector comprises 93 per cent of the city jobs, the figure two decades ago was nearly 75 per cent. This figure explains the humongous loss done to the job security in the cities. The informal sector workers were the hardest hit because of demonetisation.

THE publication of final NRC in Assam has drawn the attention of the whole country. Not only now but for last couple of years, with the publication of first draft, stories related to NRC are hitting the headlines in all forms of media. The question of ‘stateless’ people it may create has been keenly watched by the international media as well. Perhaps now it needs no repetition that till now the NRC was unique and specific to Assam only. In independent India, only Assam had prepared National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 1951.

HALIMA Khatun is a middle aged woman, who has been detained at the Kokrajhar Detention Centre in Assam for over 10 years. She has four children who live with her husband in Nagaon district. Except for her, the entire family has been declared as an “Indian” in the NRC process. Similar is the story of Arti Das who is also from Nagaon; she has been lodged in Kokrajhar Detention Centre for the last three years, while her husband is detained at the Tezpur Detention Centre. But their two children are ‘bonafide’ Indian citizens.

AMAZON Rain Forest has been burning at a record rate since August 2019. The raging forest fire has not only been continuing but also expanding.  The core of the fire ball is in Brazil, encompassing the area of Equator and Peru. Brazil has at last declared a state of emergency because of this devastating fire in the region.