This article critically examines India’s nationwide rollout of E20 petrol—a fuel blend of 80% petrol and 20% ethanol—framed as a green transition but marked by structural contradictions and political capture. While the policy promises reduced fossil fuel dependence and enhanced energy security, its hasty and opaque implementation has exposed ecological, economic, and democratic fault lines. Large-scale ethanol production, dependent on sugarcane and food grains, risks intensifying food-versus-fuel conflicts, groundwater depletion, monoculture expansion, and contested lifecycle emissions, undermining its environmental rationale. At the same time, the accelerated timeline has disproportionately benefited politically connected firms, notably those linked to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s family, fuelling charges of dynastic capitalism and greenwashed cronyism. Consumers face reduced mileage, vehicle compatibility issues, and higher costs, while farmers encounter persistent inequities despite promised gains. Unlike Brazil’s gradual, infrastructure-supported ethanol transition, India’s compressed shift neglects readiness, transparency, and public consultation. By prioritizing centralized agro-industrial biofuels over decentralized renewables such as solar microgrids and electric mobility, E20 risks locking India into short-term, carbon-intensive fixes while delaying structural decarbonization. The study argues that the E20 rollout exemplifies the mirage of green developmentalism—where sustainability discourse legitimizes elite enrichment and policy capture, displacing burdens onto citizens, farmers, and ecosystems.
The Pharmakon of Coca Cola Capitalism: Paradigm of Thirst
This paper synthesizes a sustained conversation into a coherent, comprehensive, and rigorous research paper that maps the concept of Coca-Cola capitalism to concrete historical and contemporary case studies in India. The analysis traces the genealogy of the term, situates it within scholarship on globalization and cultural imperialism, and offers a detailed historical narrative on Coca-Cola’s presence in India: its arrival (1950), exit (1977) amid FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act) disputes, the growth of “indigenous” soft-drink alternatives, and Coca-Cola’s re-entry after economic liberalization (1993). The paper then examines the contemporary re-territorialization of the Coca-Cola model under Indian oligarchic capital—focusing on Reliance Consumer Products (Isha Ambani’s corporate sphere) and its acquisition and relaunch of legacy brands such as Campa and minority stakes in heritage regional companies (e.g., Sosyo). Ecological footprints of cold-drink production (water use, agricultural inputs, packaging waste, energy and emissions, and local social-ecological conflicts) are analyzed, alongside health hazards of carbonated soft drinks, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular risks. A critical examination of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, such as the Piramal Foundation’s Sarvajal RO water ATMs in the context of the Digwal case-study, highlights hypocritical dimensions in water governance amid industrial extraction. The paper argues that Reliance’s strategy constitutes a domesticated variant of Coca-Cola capitalism—what the paper terms Ambani-Cola capitalism—which mechanically reproduces branding, distribution, and extraction logics while reorienting profit streams to domestic oligopoly. Drawing on Zizekian ideology critique, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the Derridean interpretation of pharmakon, the analysis reveals the ideological surplus in commodified consumption. Policy implications and recommendations for environmental governance, community rights, competition policy, and corporate accountability are offered.
Joyful Festivals, Not Noise and Smoke in Kolkata and West Bengal (AN ONLINE MASS PETITION)
Kolkata, once the “City of Joy,” now faces climate fragility from rising seas, cyclones, and severe pollution. Festivals throughout the year amplify this crisis with high-decibel firecrackers, DJ systems, dazzling lights, and toxic idol immersions, worsening air, noise, and water quality. Despite strong laws and repeated court orders, lax enforcement and state subsidies for festival committees deepen unsustainable practices. The toll is stark—over 18,000 premature deaths annually from air pollution, alongside cardiovascular, respiratory, and mental health harms. This Fridays For Future (FFF) India petition calls for urgent enforcement of pollution laws, ending arbitrary state funding, ensuring just transition for firecracker workers, and promoting sustainable, culturally rooted celebrations that protect citizens, animals, and ecosystems.
Occupation Before Finality: How Piramal’s Takeover of DHFL Allegedly Subverted Due Process with BJP’s Institutional Enablement
The DHFL insolvency reveals how India’s ill-conceived IBC framework enabled “occupation before finality,” letting Ajay Piramal allegedly seize control despite pending appeals—turning depositors into guinea pigs in a neoliberal lab. Cobrapost exposed DHFL’s links to Dawood Ibrahim and Iqbal Mirchi networks, funnelling BJP donations as terror-financing in the name of political donations, while Piramal’s own Electoral Bonds, PM CARES, and Flashnet ties deepened the crony nexus with the BJP. What emerged was not resolution but reportedly an oligarchic lawfare, where judicial pliancy, executive patronage, and opaque financing converged into a paradigm of selective justice and political capture.
Ajay Piramal Exposed: DHFL, Crony Capitalism & Piramal Pharma Boycott (DIGITAL POSTERS)
The DHFL scam exposes alleged crony capitalism by Ajay Piramal, including undervalued acquisitions, insider trading, environmental violations, and SLAPPs against victims. Close ties to the BJP raise accountability concerns, while ordinary investors face massive losses. Citizens are mobilizing to demand justice and protect public health and financial security.
Sorry is Not Enough: Inside the 11th September Call Between OBMA and Piramal Finance
On 11 September 2025 (the DHFL Victims’ 9/11!!!), a phone conversation between Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay (OBMA) and Mr. Jitendra Wagh (Piramal Finance Ltd.) laid bare the unresolved moral and legal contradictions of the DHFL resolution. While Wagh reiterated corporate apologies and deferred responsibility to court rulings, Bandyopadhyay challenged the moral legitimacy of Ajay Piramal’s acquisitions—juxtaposing philanthropy, political donations, and lavish displays of wealth against the dispossession of DHFL victims. The dialogue exposed how legal frameworks and symbolic appropriations of Gandhi, Tagore, and the Gita serve to shield systemic financial abuse and crony capitalism under the BJP regime. By forcing Piramal Finance into reluctant acknowledgment, OBMA pierced corporate silence, reframing the DHFL struggle as a broader reckoning with India’s oligarchic order.
Non-Godi Media, This Is Your Wake-Up Call: The DHFL Scam
This video is a direct appeal to India’s non-Godi media to break their silence on the DHFL scam—a financial catastrophe that destroyed the savings of pensioners, defence families, employees, and small investors while powerful corporations, auditors, rating agencies, and regulators escaped accountability. It exposes how political donations, celebrity endorsements, fraudulent credit ratings, judicial opacity, and sweetheart deals under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code enabled the systematic looting of public wealth and its transfer to oligarchs like Ajay Piramal. By demanding fearless reporting, a Judicial Truth and Accountability Commission, real penalties for gatekeepers, anti-SLAPP protections, and restitution for victims, the video insists that silence from independent media is not neutrality but complicity in state-corporate betrayal.
Why Today’s India Cannot Deny Its Undeclared Emergency
This article examines the concept of an “undeclared emergency” in contemporary India under Narendra Modi’s regime, situating it against the backdrop of declared Emergency (1975–77). While declared Emergency was openly authoritarian and time-bound, today’s context is marked by a much more diffuse and insidious erosion of democratic institutions, legal safeguards, and civil liberties—achieved without formal proclamation. The article highlights continuities and ruptures across political, economic, and social dimensions: from the manipulation of electoral processes, enabling economic bankruptcies to enrich a select few, the subversion of the judiciary to the deployment of majoritarian nationalism and the criminalization of dissent. Unlike the past, the current phase relies on bureaucratic coercion, surveillance, and ideological consolidation to create a climate of permanent insecurity. The article argues that this “undeclared emergency” represents not merely a suspension of democracy but its reconstitution into a new authoritarian normal, where legality, legitimacy, and violence intertwine to foreclose dissent while maintaining the simulated facade of popular consent.
Open Press Release: An Urgent Appeal to India’s Non-Godi Media on Press Freedom, Censorship, and the DHFL Scam
The DHFL scam is not merely a financial fraud but a glaring testament to India’s descent into crony oligarchy, where state-corporate collusion, regulatory failure, and alleged judicial bias have enabled systemic looting of public wealth, leaving millions of ordinary citizens—senior citizens, employees, NRIs, and middle-class investors—silenced and dispossessed. Alongside IL&FS, PMC Bank, and Yes Bank, DHFL exemplifies a decade-long pattern of engineered bankruptcies that enrich tycoons like Adani, Ambani, and Piramal while gatekeepers—auditors, credit rating agencies, and celebrity endorsers—escape accountability. Victims face SLAPP suits, denied justice, and deliberate erasure from mainstream and even non-mainstream media narratives. We, the Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA), on behalf of the DHFL victims, urgently call upon India’s non-“Godi” media—the last remaining torchbearers of truth and justice—to expose this state-corporate nexus, hold all perpetrators accountable, amplify the voices of the long-silenced victims, and pressure authorities to deliver genuine financial justice before public trust and constitutional values are irreparably eroded.
Press Freedom In India: A Declining Trajectory
This paper traces the sharp decline of press freedom in India under the Modi government (2014–2025), situating it within a broader democratic backslide marked by surveillance, censorship, impunity, and institutional capture. Drawing on global indices such as RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, CPJ’s Impunity Index, and the Atlas of Impunity, it highlights how violence against journalists, draconian laws like the UAPA, ownership consolidation, internet shutdowns, and defamation SLAPPs have reshaped India’s media landscape. Through emblematic cases—from the murders of Gauri Lankesh and Shujaat Bukhari to the arrests of Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Prabir Purkayastha, as well as the harassment of comedians like Munawar Faruqui—the study shows how dissent is criminalized. The paper also examines digital censorship, such as the blocking of BBC’s Modi documentary, Poonam Agarwal’s YouTube ban, and Ajit Anjum’s harassment, alongside the NewsClick raids and Elon Musk’s lawsuit against India’s censorship regime. It argues that the erosion of press freedom mirrors larger systemic crises of impunity, corporate-state nexus, and authoritarian populism, threatening not only media independence but India’s democratic ethos itself.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 