CounterCurrents: #HumansOfDemonetisedIndia - Let Their Voice Be Heard, Israel Blocks Gaza Women From Breast Cancer Treatment, Life On Earth Is Dying

Dear Friend,

With each passing day it is becoming more and more clear that India is going through the most momentous time in history. Satya Sagar has written a wonderful, must read article. It's a scathing attack on demonetisation, its possible fall out and a thorough expose of Modi's character structure. It's one of the best to have come out so far after demonetisation. 

Your's truly have done a reportage of the exodus of migrant workers from Kerala after the demonetisation. 

Our #HumansOfDemonetisedIndia campaign continues with the story of  Ittiyavirah, a petty trader of spices. His small business has been devastated by demonetisation. He is distraught and tears flowed through his cheeks. It's an embarassing situation to see an old man cry.  In our conversation he mentioned suicide several times. So many people in India are going through similar situation. Can you help us to get their stories be heard? Please go out and talk to your grocery shop owner, a farmer, a pentioner, a worker.... ask them what they feel about this demonising demonetisation. Take a photograph and send it to editor@countercurrents.org. This is the most crucial time in the history of India. Everyone has to step up to save India.  

Also more stories from around the world. 

If you don't mind, and if you think the content of this news letter is 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
www.countercurrents.org





Demonetisation: The Sultan Of Sophistry
by Satya Sagar 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/demonetisation-the-sultan-of-sophistry/

A month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation policy, the gloomy weather in the national capital describes quite well the mood of the people here. Sullen but not angry, worried but not yet panicked, uneasy about the future but focused for the present on solving daily problems. And yet somewhere deep down there is a growing feeling that we are witnessing the twilight of the Indian Republic – at least as we have known it for over six decades- a sovereign, federal, democratic nation, which with all its flaws, stumbles along intact. Few fully understand the real implications of 86% of the Indian currency disappearing overnight but there is foreboding it is a sign of many more drastic events to come.





Demonetisation Creates An Exodus Of Migrant Workers From Kerala
by Binu Mathew 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/demonetisation-creates-an-exodus-of-migrant-workers-from-kerala/

The workers who are still have jobs and staying are not coming for their Sunday haunt, not even to eat their favourite rasgullas. But there is one thing that is doing good business in Perumbavoor. Coloured metal trunks! They will pack their lives, livelihoods and memories in a trunk and go back home. To an uncertain future.





#HumansOfDemonetisedIndia: Ittiyavirah, The Petty Trader

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/humansofdemonetisedindia-ittiyavirah-the-petty-trader/

My name is Ittiyavirah. I am a petty trader of spices. When the note ban was announced all the money I had with me from that day’s trading became useless. Bank is not giving me money. After standing long hours in queue they give 4000 rupees. Farmers who come to sell me one or two kilo grams of their produce need urgent money. How will I pay them? I turn them away. You ask me why I’m sitting here? What else can I do? I buy my groceries on credit from my neighborhood store. How long will he give me credit? I haven’t paid my rent. I never broke a month’s due. It’s a question of dignity. I’ve lived through Indira Gandhi’s emergency. It’s worse than emergency. They could have put a bomb on our head and killed us all. Why should we all live through this suffering? What’s the way forward for people like us? Suicide?





In Stripping Away Our Hope, Maybe Trump Has Done Us A Favor
by David Korten 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/in-stripping-away-our-hope-maybe-trump-has-done-us-a-favor/

Prince Ea, rapper and spoken-word artist and social justice advocate, has a soliloquy on YouTube with a surprising title: WHY IM HAPPY TRUMP WON. How could he think that, as he has passionately called for recognizing the dignity in all people? He’s happy, he says, because he sees this election result as a wake-up call. It forces us to recognize the sickness of our society and “that we cannot legislate our way out of human problems, nor can we truly change the world by changing the rulers.”






Life On Earth Is Dying
by Robert J Burrowes 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/life-on-earth-is-dying/

On the day that you read this article, 200 species of life on Earth (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles) will cease to exist. Tomorrow, another 200 species will vanish forever.





Why Turkey Is Seeking Close Cooperation With Russia In Syria?
by Nauman Sadiq 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/why-turkey-is-seeking-close-cooperation-with-russia-in-syria/

The sudden thaw in Turkey’s relations with Russia and latent hostility towards America is partly due to the fact that Erdogan holds the US-based preacher, Fethullah Gulen, responsible for the July coup plot and suspects that the latter had received tacit support from certain quarters in the US; but more importantly Turkey also feels betrayed by the duplicitous American policy in Syria and Iraq, and that’s why it is now seeking closer cooperation with Russia in the region.





Israel Blocks Gaza Women From Breast Cancer Treatment
by Sarah Algherbawi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/israel-blocks-gaza-women-from-breast-cancer-treatment/

Khuloud Abu Qamar spoke quietly but her words still shocked. “Israel is killing me slowly,” she said. “And it is killing my children, too.” After undergoing surgery for breast cancer last year, Abu Qamar requires further treatment which she has not been able to receive in Gaza. She has asked Israel for permission to travel. Her applications have so far been rejected. Aged 40, she has six children, the youngest of whom is still a baby.





Dear Media: We’ve Been Living In A Post-Truth Society For A Long Time
by Alan MacLeod 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/dear-media-weve-been-living-in-a-post-truth-society-for-a-long-time/

In the wake of the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory, both of which the majority of the establishment media clearly did not want to occur, there has been a great deal of talk that we have entered an age of “post-truth politics.” So much so that the Oxford English Dictionary crowned “post-truth” its word of the year.