International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Lessons from the Nepal earthquake: Prepare and survive

Praful Bidwai — 2015-05-12T07:34:43Z

“A major earthquake has struck western Nepal, two weeks after a devastating quake killed more than 7,000 people.
The latest earthquake hit near the town of Namche Bazar, near Mount Everest.
The US Geological Survey said it had a magnitude of 7.4. An earthquake on April 26, centred in east Nepal, had a magnitude of 7.8.
The latest tremor was felt as far away as the capital of India, Delhi, as well as Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.” [BBC News 12 May 2015.] This news makes the article below even more timely.

- IV484 - May 2015 / Pakistan, Japan, Solidarity after disasters , Nepal

Of rape, censorship and national honour

Praful Bidwai — 2015-03-25T07:29:55Z

If the Indian government wanted to become the laughing stock of the world, it couldn't have done so more instantly and effectively than by banning the BBC documentary “India's Daughter” on Delhi's December 2012 gang-rape. Not only was the film watched by millions the world over; it became a cause celebre for feminists, defenders of free expression and even progressive Hollywood actors.

- IV482 - March 2015 / Women, India

Four years after Fukushima, India is flogging a nuclear dead horse

Praful Bidwai — 2015-03-21T13:47:44Z

It's a telling comment on the state of the Indian media that most of it blacked out the fourth anniversary of the still-continuing Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, which fell on March 11. The same media reported breathlessly on the Indian government's plans to triple domestic nuclear power-generation capacity by 2020-21, and on the “breakthrough” achieved on the nuclear liability issue during Barack Obama's recent visit to India.

- IV482 - March 2015 / Japan, India, Nuclear power

Mufti seriously risks losing the plot in Kashmir

Praful Bidwai — 2015-01-24T21:21:29Z

The Bharatiya Janata Party's national leadership has officially confirmed that it's in talks with the People's Democratic Party to form a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir. This proposal is endorsed by a surprisingly large number of self-avowed well-wishers of the Kashmiri people, as well as cynical “realists” who believe that such a coalition of extremes, between India's unitarian-nationalists and the Kashmir Valley's “soft-separatists”, is J&K's best chance of having a stable government which paves the way for its greater integration into India. The parties' respective core-bases, Jammu and the Valley, they argue, “complement” each other. Arithmetically too, the two â€” with respectively 25 and 28 seats â€” would command a solid majority in the 87-seat Assembly.

- IV480 - January 2015 / India, Kashmir, National question

Satyarthi's Nobel is a cheer - and a warning for India

Praful Bidwai — 2014-10-22T08:37:39Z

The award of the Nobel Peace prize to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai has been widely welcomed in India. This is doubtless positive for the cause of children's rights. But it's also a comment on how the world looks at the social reality of an India that struts about as an "emerging power" but tolerates large-scale abuse and merciless exploitation of children. Satyarthi got the prize partly for the same reason why Slumdog Millionaire was a hit in the West.

- IV477 - October 2014 / India

The truth behind India's nuclear renaissance

Alok Deshpande , Praful Bidwai — 2011-03-19T06:33:28Z

Jaitapur's French-built nuclear plant is a disaster in waiting, jeopardising biodiversity and local livelihoods. The global “nuclear renaissance” touted a decade ago has not materialised. The US's nuclear industry remains starved of new reactor orders since 1973, and western Europe's first reactor after Chernobyl (1986) is in serious trouble in Finland – 42 months behind schedule, 90% over budget, and in bitter litigation.

- IV434 - March 2011 / Ecology and the Environment, India, Nuclear power

A great movement is born

Praful Bidwai — 2003-02-03T00:00:00Z

The first Asian Social Forum (ASF) - just-concluded - saw a unique confluence of grassroots social movements, people's organizations and radical NGOs which interrogate globalization and counter pose equality, human rights and justice to the shop-worn agendas of trans-national big business.

- IV347 - February 2003 / Asia, Social Forum