24 May 2017
6-9 PM
Crisis of Capital and the Rise of the Right
Panel Discussion on Eight Years of Newsclick
Vijay Prashad (Professor, Trinity College),
Teesta Setalvad (Journalist and Author),
Rajat Nag (Economist and Former MDG, Asian Development Bank)
Chair: Prabir Purkayastha (Chief Editor, Newsclick)
Newsclick was founded in 2009, just after the 2008 global financial crisis. Over the past eight years, the crisis has continued unabated in different forms, both in the global North and South.
Unemployment is rising, and so is global inequality. Just eight people today own as much wealth as half the world’s population. At the same time, right wing forces have grown stronger across the world. Trump, Duterte, Modi and Erdogan are among the authoritarian figures who represent, in different ways, a mix of pro-corporate policies, and religious and racial identity politics. Political tumult and militarisation have been spreading rapidly over large sections of the global map.
Wars of aggression continue in West Asia. After the overthrow of Gaddafi, these wars have now spilled over to Africa as well. The enormous human costs of such wars are there for all to see.
With the continuing crisis of western economies, the centre of global growth has shifted to Asia. China, already the major motor of the global economy, is challenging the west's control over the oceans, and so global trade through the belt-road initiative.
In India, the rise of Hindutva forces poses a terrible threat to the secular fabric. Diversity is under attack, and so are the multiple ways of life of citizens, from what they eat, to how they pray and dress. Questioning authority is equated to being anti-national. Science and rationality are being eroded, as are creative freedoms.
