Connexions Resource Centre
Focus on Central Asia

Recent & Selected Articles

  1. This is a small sampling of articles related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as Asia, children, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.
  1. A Reading List for the Delhi Police (October 20, 2023)
    When they raided the Tricontinental Research Services' office in early October, investigators took, among other things, 12 dossiers featured here. Vijay Prashad recommends they study them all.
  2. Uproar in India: And You Thought It Was Only About Farmers? (December 14, 2020)
    Surely the 'mainstream' media (a strange term for platforms whose content excludes over 70 per cent of the population) cannot be unaware of these implications of the new farm laws for Indian democracy. But the pursuit of profit drives them far more than any notion of public interest or democratic principles. Shed any delusions about the conflicts of interests (in plural) involved. These media are also corporations. The Big Boss of the largest Indian corporation is also the richest and biggest media owner in the country.
  3. Patterns of Occupied Palestine and Kashmir: Part 4 of Uncountable (March 9, 2020)
  4. The Real Modi: Do the Killings of Muslims Represent India's Kristallnacht? (March 3, 2020)
    On 23 February 2020 in Delhi, Hindu nationalist mobs roamed the streets burning and looting mosques together with Muslim homes, shops and businesses. They killed or burned alive Muslims who could not escape and the victims were largely unprotected by the police.
  5. 'Cotton has now become a headache' (October 7, 2019)
    Kunari's account reflects a dependence brought about by cotton cultivation that is taking root across the ecologically sensitive highland tracts of Odisha's Rayagada district, with deep implications for its rich store of biodiversity, farmers' distress and food security (See Sowing the seeds of climate crisis in Odisha).
  6. Women's Oppression and Liberation (March 1, 2019)
    On the role of Marxism in the feminist movement in India.
  7. Manifesto of Indian Farmers (November 30, 2018)
    Adopted by an assembly representing the farmers of India, the manifesto outlines Indian farmers convictions, principals, concerns, rights and calls on the parliament of India to hold a Special Session to address the agrarian crisis by passing and enacting the two Kisan Mukti Bills and address additional demands.
  8. The deadly flood in Kerala may be only a gentle warning (August 21, 2018)
    Arundhati Roy comments on the disasterous flooding in the Indian state of Kerala. While acknowleding various forces lead to the disaster, Roy also places blame on government mismanagement and ignoring the needs of the state's most disadvanted people.
  9. India's Freedom Struggle Influenced by Marxism (July 1, 2018)
    In India Marxism has influenced revolutionary figures to varying degrees. As inequality rises a renewed interest in Marx that engages local philosophies could invigorate a proletarian movement.
  10. Liberation of Dalits: Key to Indian Workers Revolution (April 20, 2018)
    Ants Among Elephants is both a family memoir and a political history.
  11. What's left of Pakistan's left? (June 23, 2017)
    Menon recounts her discovery of the emerging political Left in Pakistan and reflects on its future. Awami Workers Party featured.
  12. The Cashless Economy of Chikalthana (November 18, 2016)
    An article about the cash crisis in the Indian village Chikalthana.
  13. Journalism, Pro-GMO Triumphalism and Neoliberal Dogma In India (April 22, 2016)
  14. 'Dalit movement has to see itself as part of a class-wide movement' (March 3, 2016)
    Following the death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar from Hyderabad Central University, several thousand students in India came together in protest. The incident also sparked spontaneous, nationwide mobilisation of Dalits, many of whom were already engaged in local struggles. Around the same time a strong criticism of the mainstream Left emerged that pointed to its perceived indifference to Dalit causes and, more broadly, caste-based discrimination in India. Here in the U.S., we see Black Lives Matter — a campaign against violence targeting black people in the U.S. — that has become a prominent movement in the last few years, drawing enormous attention and support. All the same, some activists within the movement are said to be questioning the exclusive emphasis on racial identity. Are there any parallels?
  15. India's Indigenous Peoples organise to protect forests, waters and commons (November 7, 2015)
    India's neoliberal government is attempting the mass seizure of indigenous lands, commons and forests in order to hand them over for corporate exploitation with mines, dams and plantations. But tribal communities are rising up to resist the takeover, which is not only morally reprehensible but violates India's own laws and international human rights obligations.
  16. The tragedy of being a girl in India (February 1, 2015)
    India is the "most dangerous country in the world in which to be a girl". This is stated in a controversial United Nations finding based on a range of distressing social statistics rooted in gender and caste prejudice, much of which can be traced back to 18th century colonialism and the destructive 'divide and rule' methodology employed by the British.
  17. Rural India - a living journal, a breathing archive (2015)
    Project on rural India consisting of an archive which depicts its diverse and complex countryside.
  18. India, Where Corporate Socialism is a Growth Industry (July 14, 2014)
    It was business as usual in 2013-14. Business with a capital B. This year’s budget document says we gave away another $88.6 billion to the corporate needy and the under-nourished rich in that year.
  19. India - Now Nuclear and Environmental Dissent is a Crime (July 4, 2014)
    In modern India any form of dissent from the neoliberal corporate model of development is being criminalised. Opponents of nuclear power, coal mines, GMOs, giant dams, are all under attack as enemies of the state and a threat to economic growth.
  20. Filthy, deadly mayhem in India (April 12, 2014)
    Along with the choking fumes and piles of putrid waste, sound systems and a constant bombardment of honking horns from cars, lorries and screaming buses assault residents and the unprepared in towns and cities throughout India.
  21. India's Rice Warrior Battles to Build Living Seed Bank as Climate Chaos Looms (March 18, 2014)
    Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties
  22. War and Women's Rights (February 12, 2014)
    A discussion of the history, current status, and future of women's rights in Afghanistan.
  23. India - buried under stinking rubbish heaps (December 17, 2013)
    Under the 'Incredible India' brand lurk millions of fast-growing piles of decomposing waste. As they await removal, polluting waters and stinking under the tropical sun, India is rapidy becoming the world's biggest rubbish dump.
  24. Bangladesh's exploitation economy (June 6, 2013)
    Before the collapse of Rana Plaza, which killed over a thousand people, most of them textile workers, there was the fire that killed a hundred at the Tazreen factory. A major cause is western companies' greed for profits.
  25. Corporate India Versus Indigenous People (April 5, 2013)
    The state has more or less abandoned rural people (70% of the population) and turned the countryside over to corporate India. Mineral extraction, dam building, infrastructure projects, water appropriation and industrial farming make up their burgeoning business portfolios.
  26. India: Growing Inequality and Destructive Development (February 22, 2013)
    Under the careful guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund the Indian government has for the last twenty years or so, embraced market liberalization and the global market; garlanded corporations with all manner of subsidies and damned the poor to greater poverty, destitution, suffering and, suicide in the case of farmers.
  27. Police State India (December 21, 2012)
    Describing security-mania in India.
  28. Against Fundamentalism and Imperialism - Review (November 1, 2012)
    A view of the inside forces in Pakistan.
  29. The Struggle in Balochistan (November 1, 2012)
    The complicated situation that is modern Pakistan.
  30. Why is India so bad for women? (July 23, 2012)
    Of all the G20 nations, India has been labelled the worst place to be a woman. How is this possible in a country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy?
  31. Kazakhstan's 99 per cent (July 1, 2012)
    Kazakhstan could be among the world’s top 10 oil producers by 2020, but the Kazakhs who get the oil out of the ground don't benefit much from it. In May 2011 thousands of oil workers in western Kazakhstan began the biggest strikes since the country emerged from the breakup of the USSR.
  32. India's Autoworkers Behaving Like the Old UAW (October 14, 2011)
    While it's true that international banks and corporations have their slimy tentacles in everything from foreign governments to foreign armies, the world's workers have two weapons of their own. One is the crippling, paralyzing effect of no-go dockworkers. The other is the logistical potential of the Internet.
  33. Mexico's Crisis in Context (September 1, 2010)
    In this article I offer an historical context for understanding Mexico’s current economic, political, and human crisis triggered by 28 years of neoliberal economic policies. Neoliberal governments have privatized most sectors of the economy and reduced the Mexican state’s role to one of being a repressive apparatus. NAFTA and related neoliberal policies have left the economy without a dynamic internal market for local products and with a socio-economic inequality that is one of the most extreme in the world.
  34. The Sun Behind The Clouds Gives A Voice To Tibetan Dissidents (April 7, 2010)
    Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam's The Sun Behind the Clouds is the latest offering in a long line of documentaries about Tibet. The distinctiveness of this edition derives from its willingness to portray the internal debates of the Tibetan movement and in the movie's attempts to give voice to Tibetans living in Tibet. These features moved the film from a typical propaganda piece about the oppression faced under the brutal grip of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to a serious examination of resistance strategies in Tibet and in its influential Diaspora.
  35. Protesters in Eastern India Battle Against Mining Giant Arcelor Mittal (March 2, 2010)
    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, steel or iron. Arcelor Mittal Go Back."
  36. Women Chiefs Change Indian Villages (December 22, 2009)
    Women chiefs are bringing change to India's villages.
  37. Indian Waste-pickers Demand 'Climate Justice' at Global Warming Summit (December 14, 2009)
    As governments struggle to develop an international plan for combating climate change, a new report from a leading Indian environment group has found that informal recycling makes a huge but unappreciated contribution towards the reduction of greenhouse gases.
  38. Farmers vs Coca-Cola in Water Wars (October 1, 2009)
    As India faces its worst drought in four decades, a dispute over water resources between farmers in the Kala Dera area of western Rajasthan state and a Coca-Cola bottling plant located there has sharpened.
  39. Volunteer Translators Wanted - English to Arabic (September 4, 2009)
    Connexions, an independent non-profit research organization and information clearinghouse based in Toronto, Canada, seeks volunteer translators to translate articles, and terms in our subject index, from English to Arabic.
  40. Volunteer Translators Wanted - English to Farsi (September 4, 2009)
    Connexions, an independent non-profit research organization and information clearinghouse based in Toronto, Canada, seeks volunteer translators to translate articles, and terms in our subject index, from English to Farsi, and from English to other languages.
  41. India's UID And The Fantasy Of Dataveillance (August 24, 2009)
    The perils of establishing nationwide identity systems have always been a hot topic of debate in countries that attach great value to privacy and human rights of its citizens. In India, there is not even a whimper of protest from politicians and civil society groups.
  42. How the World Depression Hits Orissa (July 13, 2009)
    The recession in the West is having a profound impact on the deep rural interior of Orissa.
  43. The Construction of Communalism in India (September 1, 2003)
    Sara Abraham interviews Dipak Malik, Director of the Gandhian Institute of Varanasi, about the anti-communal-violence work in which he has been involved from his base in Varanasi, in the Hindu heartland of the country.
  44. For Dissent Against Hindu Extremism (July 28, 2002)
    The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and other Hindu extremist organisations, collectively known as the Sangh Parivar (Hindu fundamentalist family of organisations), are utilising religion to foment communal violence toward organising ultra right, non-secular and undemocratic nationalism in India.

Selected Websites and Organizations

  1. This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with education and children in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as Asia, and Central Asia.


Books, Films and Periodicals

  1. This is a small sampling of books related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as Asia, children, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.

  1. Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India
    Author: Gidla, Sujatha
    A story of the caste system in India told through the autobiography of an untouchable woman.
  2. Arundhati Roy on Obama's Wars, India and Why Democracy Is "The Biggest Scam in the World"
    Author: Roy, Arundhati
    Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on President Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India and Kashmir and much more. Roy also talks about her journey deep into the forests of central India to report on the Maoist insurgency.
  3. Asking The Earth
    The Spread of Unsustainable Development
    Author: Pereira, Winin ; Seabrook, Jeremy
    Periera and Seabrock, using examples from India, argue that Western colonialism destroyed sustainable development in the Third World.
  4. The Cost of Living
    Author: Roy, Arundhati
    Roy takes on two of the great illusions of India's progress: the massive dam projects that have displaced millions, and the development of India's nuclear weapons. Roy peels away the mask of democracy and prosperity to show the true costs hidden beneath.
  5. Coughing up coal
    Author: Stirk, Sarah
    India is rivaling China -- in its plans to consume coal. India is aggressively expanding construction of coal fired power plants to meet growing energy needs. Emissions from coal power plants were linked to 80,000 - 150,000 premature deaths in India between 2011 and 2012 alone and to a wide range of diseases from cancers, to respiratory and cardiovascular disorders. Singrauli -- an industrial hub in north central India -- embodies the tragic human toll that a largely unregulated coal industry can extract.
  6. Do or Die: The people versus development in the Narmada Valley
    New Internationalist July 2001 - #336
    A look at the case the Supreme Court of India against The People regarding the Narmada Dam.
  7. Everybody Loves a Good Drought
    Stories from India's Poorest Districts
    Author: Sainath, P.
    P. Sainath devoted 2½ years to visiting and recording the realities - delving into the fundamentals, the why of the realities - in India's 10 poorest districts.
  8. Indo-China
    Underdevelopment and Revolution
    Author: Harris, Nigel
  9. Invisible Force: Women Workers in Pakistan
    Author: Gazdar, Aisha (Director)
    Millions of women workers in Pakistan remain unaccounted for in official figures. Even those who are in the formal workforce face problems like lower wages for the same work as men and sexual harrasment.
  10. Press for Conversion #47
    March 2002
    This issue begins with a series of articles examining the historical context of the conflict between India and Pakistan.
  11. The Shadow of the Great Game
    The Untold Story of India's Partition
    Author: Sarila, Narendra Singh
    Singh analyzes Britain's true intentions in the partition of India in 1947: a plan to detach Pakistan from India, create a militarily strategic foothold aimed at the Soviet Union, and maintain control over the oil fields of the Middle East.
  12. Untouchable!
    Voices of a Liberation Movement
    Author: Joshi, Barbara (ed.)
    Over 100 million Indians today are Dalits ("Untouchables"). This volume comprises a unique collection of writings by Dalit authors - political activists, social scientists, journalists, and others. They demonstrate that Untouchability is an everyday social reality in India, and that Dalits are not passively accepting their fate: a large and diverse movement of resistance is taking shape.


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The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists. Submit your events for free here.

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Publicity and Media Relations - A short introduction to media relations strategies.

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Socialism gateway - A gateway to resources about socialism, socialist history, and socialist ideas.

Marxism gateway - A gateway to resources about Marxism.