Sunday, April 18, 2021

CC News Letter 17 April - Fight against Covid-19: Incompetence or deliberate negligence

 

Dear Friend,

The second wave of Corona-virus has stuck hard in India particularly states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar-Pradesh and Delhi have seen alarming rise in the cases and the governments have been caught by surprise. Was the Corona wave surprising or we allowed this to happen. Let us go to the latest figures. As per reports 14.5 millions cases of Covid 19 registered in India, in which 12.7 million recovered. 15, 69, 743 cases are still active and total death till date is 1,76000. In the last 24 hours 2,17,353 new cases have come in and death during this period is 1,185 as on April 16th evening and the numbers are now increasing exhorbitantly

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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org


Fight against Covid-19: Incompetence or deliberate negligence
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat


The second wave of Corona-virus has stuck hard in India particularly states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar-Pradesh and Delhi have seen alarming rise in the cases and the governments have been caught by surprise. Was the Corona wave surprising or we allowed this to happen. Let us go to the latest figures. As per reports 14.5 millions cases of Covid 19 registered in India, in which 12.7 million recovered. 15, 69, 743 cases are still active and total death till date is 1,76000. In the last 24 hours 2,17,353 new cases have come in and death during this period is 1,185 as on April 16th evening and the numbers are now
increasing exhorbitantly



Thrissur Pooram – 2021
by K P Sasi


Thrissur pooram is on the move. This festival attracts millions of people. People flock themselves in the heart of Thrissur without leaving an inch of space for another person. Forget one meter distance from each other as per COVID regulations.



Raul Castro steps down, next generation of anti-imperialist leaders take responsibility
by Countercurrents Collective


Raul Castro, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, has announced that he is stepping down and handing leadership to a younger generation “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” Fidel Castro and Raul Castro have led the Communist Party of Cuba party since 1961.



Empire’s Afghan War: A lost war, a profitable war
by Farooque Chowdhury


Imperialism has limits and weak joints, which the system and the system’s theoreticians can’t rectify. The weak joints appear from its economic interests, and get manifested in political moves appearing checkmate and in standstills, scraps between factions, and within political arrangement and within ruling machine. The Empire’s Afghan War was not beyond this reality of imperialism’s limit; and is a manifestation of the crisis of imperialism.



U.S. Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard
Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies


We must hope that, in the coming months, the U.N. will find a way to bring the warring parties in Afghanistan together and craft a ceasefire and a workable peace process based on power sharing. After so many decades of war and intense suffering, much of it perpetrated by the
United States and its allies, the Afghan people desperately need—and deserve—an end to this war.



India should welcome the end of US occupation of Afghanistan
by M K Bhadrakumar


To be sure, the “forever war” in Afghanistan is ending on a sombre note. The US has barely managed to avoid a humiliating defeat. The final legacy will be that there are limits to American power. India will do well to bear this mind as it consorts with the Quad.  In the final analysis, India’s Afghan policy failed due to the ruling elite’s obsessive enmity toward Pakistan. The international community recognises that Pakistan has legitimate interests in Afghanistan and accepts that it has a crucial role to play in the peace process. Thus, India got marginalised due to its zero-sum mindset. There is no one to blame but itself. 



The Myth of Peace in the Middle East: Deconstructing the
Naturalization Narrative
by Mohamed El Metmari


This critical essay deconstructs the political narrative surrounding the naturalization agreements that have occurred between some Arab countries and Israel formally known as the Abrahamic Accords or Jared Kushner’s plan for peace in the Middle East. It offers unique perspectives and analysis of these accords and their true geopolitical intentions. Primarily, it argues how the peace promised by these newly established ties remains just a myth as it explores the true objectives behind them. Interestingly enough, it also highlights the true goals behind the U.S’ mediations in these Accords.



The Dirty Campaign Underlying Ecuador’s “Free and Fair” Election
Written by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores


Ecuador’s April 11 election that led to a 5-point victory by conservative banker Guillermo Lasso over progressive candidate Andrés Arauz was not what it appeared to be. On the surface, it was a surprisingly clean and professional election, as our CODEPINK official observer delegation witnessed. But a fraud-free process for casting and counting ballots does not mean that the election was free and fair. Behind the scenes was a monumentally unequal playing field and dirty campaign designed to quash an Arauz win.



Ultimate Success
by Tom Murphy


Is the 10,000-year-old human civilization in its infancy, or nearer its end than its beginning?



Does Historiography Transcend Anachronism?
by K M Seethi


Can historians avoid anachronism in their narratives of the past? This has been a major question in the debates of/in historiography, and noted
historian Prof. Rajan Gurukkal addressed this question in the context of the project of ‘reinventing nation’ in historical writings in a fortnightly “Scholars of Eminence Web-Lectures” (SEW-L) organised by the Inter University Centre for Social Science Research and Extension (IUCSSRE), Mahatma Gandhi University.



Centre’s ordinance: A big blow to cinema
by Dr Madabhushi Sridhar


After imposing executive controls over the Over The Top (OTT) streaming media, the Centre has inflicted yet another blow on cinema medium… Either the producer must silently suffer or move to High Court and wait years for ‘justice’. This is a new kind of censorship of effective medium, a burden on producer and a blow to cinema.




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