Author of 'Mad About Cuba' https://xitter.gq/t.co/c5wmQmFke4 (@Penguin), 'Kannur', 'The Untold Vajpayee' & 'War Room'. Short story writer. poet. AI watcher. Global Southerner
New Delhi
Joined April 2010
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'Lula’s win is a solid bulwark against the far-right tide': Dr Thiago Pinto Barbosa @LulaOficial
openthemagazine.com/politics…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
A decade ago, #BarackObama’s US abstained on a #UN resolution calling for an end to the American embargo on #Cuba. Under #DonaldTrump, Washington is now lobbying hard to rally support against it.
How a decade transformed US-Cuba ties—from Obama’s thaw to Trump’s renewed pressure.
@Ullekh writes.
openthemagazine.com/world/a-…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
What lies behind the violence and destruction during France’s recent protests? Simon Kuper, Paris-based football writer, Financial Times columnist and author of Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century, offers an insider’s perspective on the unrest.
As students take to the streets over genuine grievances, others join in, venting their anger over the high cost of living. Kuper examines the protests that escalated into widespread violence, looting and destruction.
#SimonKuper #Paris #FranceProtests #France #OpenMagazine @Ullekh
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
.@IndianExpress editorial today:
“The affidavit that the Election Commission of India has filed before the Supreme Court is underwhelming, raises more questions than it answers.”
indianexpress.com/article/op…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
While considering the affidavit filed by EC in Supreme Court , there are other important aspects which warrant close scrutiny… Why is @ECISVEEP hiding details of the software used in ECINet, saying the info is exempt under the RTI Act? Does that mean that external software other than that from @TCS was used? When you factor in that one of the objections of two commissioners against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, as reported in @IndianExpress, was about the foreign trips of some EC officials without the commission’s clearance, shouldn’t ECI come clean on which country they travelled to? The media must also ask TCS and ECI: the nation wants to know!
#ElectionCommission
#SIR
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Cockroach Janata Party's Mehr Pasricha says its summer (June-July) protests rebuilt a “culture of dissent” in India after a long lull; rejects foreign-funding charges, accuses govt of taking “emergency-like measures” against protesters @Cockroachisback openthemagazine.com/politics…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
EC refusing to name the software used to flag “errors” in voter rolls during SIR, citing “trade secrets n IPR… “
Yet it also claims “no new software has been developed or procured.” So what exactly is the secret tool that flagged crores of voters?
In a democracy, tools deciding who stays on the electoral roll cannot be commercial secrets.
Other counties like Estonia or Switzerland do disclose the same. And Brazil opens its systems to scrutiny.
Our EC hides behind proprietary n confidential pretexts while crores are deleted or flagged. Opacity is not confidence building but it’s evasion or subversion!
#SIR #ElectionCommission
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Utterly ridiculous! What is the ECI hiding???
🚨EC cites “trade secrets and commercial confidence” to deny info about software used for SIR. It also says divulging information on who reviews flagged anomalies might “endanger” their lives. Reiterates that EROs remain the statutory authority to prepare rolls. @htTweets
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
#INTERVIEW | Noted Paris-based writer and columnist @KuperSimon says he doesn’t see the recent #FranceProtests as a manifestation of Islam.
He, however, forecasts that in the presidential elections due next year, #MarineLePen of the far-right National Rally will most likely come to power, thanks to current developments that, according to Kuper, have made the centrists and the Left less popular.
Read his full interview with @Ullekh here:
openthemagazine.com/world/th…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Solid interview with Meher Pasricha of the @CJP_for_India She’s got a fine hold on policy, understands the importance of advocacy in its best form & in an interview elsewhere had spoken about learning from mistakes. As she speaks to @Ullekh one can see that she’s a hands leader.
Do read.
Cockroach Janata Party's Mehr Pasricha says its summer (June-July) protests rebuilt a “culture of dissent” in India after a long lull; rejects foreign-funding charges, accuses govt of taking “emergency-like measures” against protesters @Cockroachisback openthemagazine.com/politics…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Up to 800,000 people in France🇫🇷 were on the streets for the uprising against the neoliberal government of Emmanuel Macron today, according to the CGT trade union; a rebellion against the oligarch class.
This is a revolt by the struggling working classes of France who have seen their living conditions decline and their wealth disappear, not because of immigrants, but the immense concentration of wealth by the shareholder class, at the expense of everyone else.
In 2024, 9.8 million people in metropolitan France live below the poverty line, with 16.3% being at risk of poverty in 2026. Households have seen a catastrophic loss of purchasing power, an IFE estimate shows a family of two adults and two children has lost €1,200 in purchasing power since 2024.
By 2024, the richest 1% in France controlled 27.7% of total national household wealth, and took in 11.8% of national income.
In education, the situation is shockingly dire. 15.4 million teaching hours have been lost in France across the last school year because absent staff were not replaced. The average secondary school class size is now above 30, a record high. 53% of schools are short of teachers. And the approximate salary for teachers? Just €2100.
A child born and schooled in a deprived neighbourhood in France has less chance of escaping their socioeconomic background than in most developed nations according to the OECD.
The media wants to divide people by blaming the protests on immigrants, pushing the narrative of ‘indigenous French vs immigrant protesters’ to completely avoid class struggle.
In reality this is the French working classes rising up in unity as their living standards and material conditions deteriorate, while Macron’s government continues to serve the oligarchy.
FRANCE🇫🇷 PROTESTS DEBATE
Prof. Paul Craig Roberts: ‘We are watching people who have been neglected for decades by their own government. Their needs have never been important.
The government put everything in front, and not just the French government, all of the Western European governments, the British and the American. Globalism, not the interest of the people.
Social programs for the immigrant invaders, not for truck drivers.
We've seen the people become convinced that the governments in Europe do not represent them, and the frustration, the lack of jobs for the young university graduates, the declining living standards, ethnic Europeans can't afford children.
And yet they pay for the upkeep of immigrant invaders. It's a feeling of alienation, and it's, I think, separating the European ethnic peoples from their governments.’
Afshin Rattansi: ‘France went into Libya, which aided the refugee crisis in Western Europe, but it's not that new. I mean, in '61, the French police were mass murdering Algerians on the streets of Paris, drowning them in the Seine.
And most of these people, anyway, are French-born and third-generation French. It has to be said.
And the refugee crisis, every time one of these Western European countries goes to war, presumably they should be calculating the increase in the number of refugees, just as during the Reagan administration, they should have realised death squads in El Salvador would cause immigration into the US.’
Watch the full interview 👇
Yes. But look at how trigger happy some younger people are getting debating fictitious topics 😂
Finally, India Today admits that they were part of a hit job against @newsclickin , making false claims of Chinese funding , which led to the jailing of editor Prabir Purkayastha and the shutting down of operations of one of India's best independent news websites, which platformed all workers' protests ignored by the mainstream media. Amid this, one of the intolerant sanghi anchors continues go shout and interrupt.
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
The report explicitly acknowledges that hatred toward Jews is NOT on the rise, and that only anti-Israel sentiments are increasing. And yet they STILL published a review claiming “antisemitism” is a major problem in British schools, because "antisemitism" means "opposing Israel".
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Demanding peace bonds from young protesters is a desperate attempt by an insecure government to intimidate dissent and silence the voices of a generation it ought to hear, not fear…
Jai Hind
#BREAKING Delhi High Court dismisses Neha Bora’s plea challenging SEM Court notice asking her to execute bond of Rs. 10,000 with a surety in order to maintain peace during the period of inquiry.
Cockroach Janata Party's Mehr Pasricha says its summer (June-July) protests rebuilt a “culture of dissent” in India after a long lull; rejects foreign-funding charges, accuses govt of taking “emergency-like measures” against protesters @Cockroachisback openthemagazine.com/politics…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
Bolivia's former President Evo Morales, who was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 2019 and has been the target of multiple assassination attempts, condemns the systematic persecution of anti-imperialist leaders by US-backed right-wing regimes in Latin America.
He warns:
There is a "regional plan of persecution aimed at eliminating leftist leaders, criminalizing social movements, and outlawing popular forces. Just like in the 1970s, when the United States coordinated military forces to persecute the left in the name of the fight against communism, today they use the pretext of narcoterrorism to orchestrate judicial and political persecution.
"The pretexts change, but the objective remains the same: to persecute those who fight for sovereignty, in order to impose governments that are subservient to the [US] empire".
Expresamos nuestra solidaridad y absoluto respaldo a la compañera Luisa González, excandidata presidencial de Ecuador, detenida injustamente esta madrugada.
Luisa, Raúl Castro y muchos otros compañeros son víctimas de un plan regional de persecución para eliminar a referentes de izquierda, criminalizar a los movimientos sociales y proscribir a las fuerzas populares. Así como en los años 70, cuando Estados Unidos articuló a las fuerzas militares para perseguir a la izquierda en nombre de la lucha contra el comunismo, hoy utilizan el pretexto del narcoterrorismo para coordinar la persecución judicial y política.
Cambian los pretextos pero mantienen el objetivo: perseguir a quienes luchan por la soberanía para imponer gobiernos sometidos al imperio
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
#INTERVIEW | "After decades of suffering from austerity policies, ultimately caused by the loss of empire for European countries, the masses are rising up to protect their hard-won social democratic benefits in terms of government public services," @profwolff tells @Ullekh.
openthemagazine.com/politics…
#FranceProtests #italyprotests #EuropeProtests
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
NEW | Just 18 days after an intervention by the Supreme Court, the government moved to cap trade margins on 137 cancer drugs. The first such move was taken in 2019. Will the government explain the delay and fix accountability for it? @ameershahul ✍️
frontline.thehindu.com/the-n…
Ullekh NP/ഉല്ലേഖ് എൻപി retweeted
I am a politician and an MP. I speak to the media irrespective of who owns the media group. I speak to NDTV just as I speak to reporters from many other groups with whom I have no political convergence. I spoke to BreakThrough News once. Wish I had spoken more!
My name was dragged into an NDTV panel discussion by someone I had never heard of, citing a Fox News report and alleging an anti-national conspiracy! The host didn’t even have the courtesy to tell him, “Whom John Brittas speaks to is his business. Let’s not go there.”
Bringing my name into that discussion is defamatory and unwarranted. It only proves the inherent bias of a section of Indian media against people on the Left.
It’s time NDTV hosts showed some spine and kept in mind the consequences of their silence. I am contemplating legal action over this .
@ndtv @rahulkanwal @ShivAroor @GargiRawat
@PadmajaJoshi