Dear Authors and Readers of Countercurrents,
I sent out an appeal a few days ago about raising funds for our esteemed author and comment writer K. Sheshu Babu who is suffering from cancer. We have raised about one lakh rupees so far. That is just enough for one chemotherapy, which is very expensive in his case. He needs more support. Kindly support Sheshu Babu with whatever little you can contribute. He's a precious human being. I've added his SWIFT CODE so that people from outside India too can contribute. It is given at the end of this appeal.
Here's a touching note by Shobha Aggarwal & P.S. Sahni to Sheshu Babu
Dear Sheshu Babu,
Read about your valiant, inspirational struggle and the resistance you are offering to the colonic tumour which has chanced to visit you – as it does to millions of inhabitants of planet earth; that you continue to write and enlighten Indian public at large reminds us of Ivan Illich who like you wrote important pieces as he struggled with his tumour
in the neck. When pain became unbearable he was advised to take opiates but still continued with his writing.
The fact that you are battling the ailment for so long without as much as sharing it with the larger Countercurrents’ family of authors and readers till July 2021 is a testimony to your sensitivity and selflessness. We are humbled.
One of us – P. S. Sahni – like you would offer comments to articles for a two decade period (1965 to 1985) in English language papers based in Delhi. Sending a comment to an article is much more difficult and painstaking since you have to imbibe the article and then raise any questions/comment on the issue at hand. Doing it day in and day out in a large number of papers, magazines and journals – as you have been doing we know – is a full time job with the added disadvantage of not getting paid. To that extent it is a thankless job. To be visually challenged and getting articles read/heard through a word to speech machine is itself a
monumental job.
When the two of us started writing for CC in 2014, we would expectantly wait for a comment from you and you invariably obliged; it injected some confidence in us. One of us, P.S. Sahni writing about his life threatening heart attack and ICU admission wrote in CC: “I would browse through articles in CC and Sheshu Babu’s comments on umpteen articles. This reading brought sanity to my heart which would otherwise at times go berserk into ectopic beats.”
We wonder whether you have ever counted the number of your comments which have got published? For being an avid comment writer you deserve a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Public spiritedness is ingrained in you. In any developed democracy people like you deserve to be offered a public office.
As you continue offering resistance to your ailment – presently through chemo therapy – you may have queries in your mind. Please do not hesitate to send us an email as and when and as often you want.
Permit us
to make a small contribution in your fight. Shobha Aggarwal would be soon making an electronic transfer on behalf of both of us totaling Rs. 50,000/- (Rs. Fifty thousand only) in your account – which we would share equally.
In solidarity,
Shobha Aggarwal & P.S. Sahni
Here are his bank details
Account Holder Name : Mr K SESHU BABU
Account Number : 013210100076152
Account type: Savings
IFSC Code : UBIN0801321
SWIFT Code : UBININBBOSH
Bank: Union Bank Of India
If you have any doubts, kindly mail him directly: xexu5363@gmail.com
Here is the original appeal.
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
Dear Friend,
NSO Group, a private Israeli firm that sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, insists that its Pegasus spyware is used only to “investigate terrorism and crime.” Leaked data, however, reveals that the company’s hacking tool “has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale.” The Wire revealed that more than 1000 phones in India were snooped upon by the Pegasus spyware sold by the Israeli company, NSO Group. This included Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, poll strategist Prashant Kishor and the Centre’s new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Scores of journalists, human rights activists, politicians, business persons and even government functionaries were targeted.
Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/
If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your
friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
Politicians, Journalists, HR Activists And Others Spied Upon Using Pegasus Spyware
by Countercurrents Collective
NSO Group, a private Israeli firm that sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, insists that its Pegasus spyware is used only to “investigate terrorism and crime.” Leaked data, however, reveals that the company’s hacking tool “has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale.” The Wire revealed that more than 1000 phones in India were snooped upon by the Pegasus spyware sold by the Israeli company, NSO Group. This included Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, poll strategist
Prashant Kishor and the Centre’s new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Scores of journalists, human rights activists, politicians, business persons and even government functionaries were targeted.
Migration Is Not the Crisis: What Washington Could Really Do in Central America
by Aviva Chomsky
There’s plenty the United States could do to develop more constructive policies towards Central America and its inhabitants. That, however, would require thinking far more deeply about the “root causes” of the present catastrophe than Biden, Harris, and crew seem willing to do. In truth, the policies of this country bear an overwhelming responsibility for creating the very structural conditions that cause the stream of migrants that both Democrats and Republicans have decried, turning the act of simple survival into an eternal “crisis” for those very migrants and their
families. A change in course is long overdue.
Dangerous Games in Syria
by Slavisha Batko Milacic
The media has once again proved its status as the “seventh force”! All of a sudden, the remnants of the seemingly defeated ISIS and the crushed al-Qaeda have changed their names. The radical Jabhat al-Nusra suddenly turned into an authoritarian, albeit quite suitable partner for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, sat for a February 2021 interview with the correspondent of the “independent” and popular TV program Frontline as a completely secular man clad in a suit and talking about Islamic values.
Scenario for US & NATO Invasion of Crimea and Origins of American Hatred of Russia
by John Stanton
The United States has a very predictable prelude to any war that it
seeks to conduct. The first to fight is the US Treasury, Wall Street, and the economic and financial instruments of US national power. Russia is currently under US sanctions for annexing Crimea and, perhaps, for just existing. A long roster of countries–China, Venezuela, and Iran, for example–and individuals are on the US Treasury sanctions roster, so many that the US might just as well sanction the entire world except for NATO members (maybe that is coming).
Way to Go Captain Ron!!!
by Philip A Farruggio
So, the polls say that Captain Ron is the leading contender for the GOP presidential top slot for 2024. The MAGA crowd really loves Captain Ron, and why not?
Transitional period ahead in US-China relations
by M K Bhadrakumar
Merkel is a highly experienced stateswoman with a superb mastery of the use of parentheses in her
articulation of policies and strategies. She agreed with Biden that relationship with China is among the many priorities in foreign policy today; that “wherever human rights are not guaranteed, we will make our voices heard and make clear that we don’t agree with this” but Germany is “also for territorial integrity of all countries of the world.”
Modi, Mohan Bhagwat And The Secular Morality
by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd
After Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanchalak of the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), addressed the ‘positivity unlimited’ theme about Covid calamity of India on 15 May, 2021, even secular writers in the national media started a chorus of Modi devil, Mohan Bhagwat angel song. ‘Bhagat snubbed modi’, ‘Bhagat advised him to accept collective responsibility’, ‘The RSS is for course correction’ and so on were their themes. In the social media also this theme made rounds.
Fruit Orchards Face Increasing Threat From Indiscriminate Introduction of Exotic Species
by Bharat Dogra
In many fruit orchards exotic species are being introduced arbitrarily with a view to improving yields and income. However in the hurry to achieve these objectives it is often forgotten that exotic species can also lead to the introduction of new pests and predators as well as leading to extensive damage to native species.
