This article investigates the phenomenon popularly termed Vote Chori (“vote theft”) in contemporary India, revealing a systemic pattern of voter roll manipulation that challenges the credibility of the world’s largest electoral democracy. Drawing upon verified evidence from Rahul Gandhi’s disclosures, Ajit Anjum’s field investigations, voter testimonies such as that of Punam Kumari, and journalistic reporting from The Wire, the study identifies recurring techniques of disenfranchisement—including bulk deletions, forged Form-7 entries, and centralized, software-enabled tampering. Evidence from Karnataka, Bihar, and Maharashtra demonstrates how digital governance infrastructures, designed for efficiency, have become instruments of exclusion and partisan control. The Karnataka Special Investigation Team’s findings of call-centre operations and monetary inducements (₹80 per deletion) corroborate the allegations of industrial-scale roll manipulation. The Election Commission of India’s opacity and resistance to external audits reveal deeper institutional complicity and democratic erosion. By situating these developments within theoretical frameworks of algorithmic governance and bureaucratic authoritarianism, the paper argues that India’s electoral crisis marks not a failure of democracy per se, but its mutation into a technocratic apparatus of managed consent. The conclusion calls for independent digital audits, legislative oversight, and citizen-led verification systems as urgent correctives to restore electoral legitimacy.
Category Archives: Activities
Our current activities concentrate on the case of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), India. While exploring and investigating this particular case, we have found that India’s crony ruling party, gangsters, banksters as well as religious gurus and institutions are involved in the same. Therefore, to break such collusion, we have decided to deploy an “all out attack” on the existing paradigm of neoliberal market economy as well as market fundamentalism. ***DISCLAIMER: We have collected all the data from available sources on the internet as given on the official portals of media houses, websites and institutions and organizations. We are not first-hand reporters and hence, we are not liable for any inadvertent error or value-loaded statements made on those portals. All propositions have to be viewed as descriptive assertions on the given point of concern.***
RTI Under Siege: The Deadly Costs of Transparency in BJP-Run India
The Right to Information Act (RTI), once hailed as a revolutionary tool empowering citizens to hold power accountable, now stands at a critical crossroads. Two decades after its enactment, the law that once illuminated corruption, exposed scams, and strengthened democracy has been systematically hollowed out through political interference, bureaucratic evasion, and legislative dilution. From the 2019 amendments weakening Information Commissions to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act’s Section 443 shielding the government under the guise of privacy, transparency has been recast as a threat. India today suffers from data opacity, manipulation, and denial—where evidence is replaced by erasure and secrecy becomes governance. Institutions once devoted to public integrity—the NSSO, CAG, and Indian Statistical Institute—face interference, delayed data releases, and censorship of inconvenient truths. Activists who dared to ask questions have been attacked or killed, while citizens encounter silence and obstruction. The RTI’s decline mirrors a deeper democratic crisis: the transformation of a people’s right to know into the state’s right to conceal. Yet amid suppression, citizens continue to resist—filing mass RTIs, exposing institutional failures, and demanding reform. The fight to save RTI is no longer just about access to information; it is a struggle to reclaim the soul of Indian democracy itself.
(W)holistic Resistance and the Courage to Stand Alone: OBMA’s Call for Justice and Dissent in India
This statement reflects OBMA’s introspection and reaffirmation of purpose amid ongoing struggles for justice, accountability, and ecological integrity in India’s increasingly oligarchic and censored environment. Drawing inspiration from Gandhi’s satyagraha, Tagore’s “Ekla Chalo Re,” and the resilience of figures like Umar Khalid, it underscores the moral necessity of walking alone when truth demands it. Acknowledging internal hesitations, systemic suppression, and self-censorship, OBMA calls for renewed ethical persistence, strategic communication, and collective courage — bearing one’s own cross with conscience, foresight, and faith in transformative action.
Defending Dissent, Protecting Ladakh: OBMA Stands with Climate Activist Sonam Wangchuk
The Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA) stands in unwavering solidarity with Sonam Wangchuk and the Ladakh Movement, recognizing their struggle as a fight for environmental justice, climate action, cultural autonomy, and democratic dissent. Highlighting Ladakh’s vulnerability as the “Third Pole” of the world, the statement critiques the abrogation of Article 370 and the selective, contradictory application of Article 371, exposing the central government’s sidelining of local governance and ecological concerns. OBMA condemns Wangchuk’s arbitrary NSA detention and the violent suppression of peaceful protests, emphasizing that the movement’s constitutional demands for statehood, Sixth Schedule inclusion, and ecological protection are lawful, ethical, and globally aligned. The statement affirms that safeguarding communities, ecological integrity, and the right to dissent are duties of conscience, wisdom, and citizenship.
Schrödinger’s Dilemma and Ajay Piramal: The Mystery Behind “Oxford Talks” — Where Prestige Meets PR
Ajay Piramal’s 2025 appearance at the Oxford India Forum, widely promoted as an “Oxford Talk,” illustrates the modern commodification of academic prestige. While held at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, the event was business-led, not university-sanctioned, blurring the line between genuine scholarly engagement and curated corporate spectacle. Piramal’s speech echoed government slogans on India’s so-called development, emphasizing optimism and digital progress while ignoring structural inequalities, institutional failures, and empirical critiques. This case exemplifies how elite actors leverage the symbolic authority of Oxford to perform legitimacy, transforming proximity to knowledge into a marketable status symbol rather than a pursuit of wisdom and truth.
Why Cannot DHFL FD and NCD Holders Approach the International Forum, OHCHR?
This article examines the legal and moral impasse faced by Fixed Deposit (FD) and Non-Convertible Debenture (NCD) holders of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd. (DHFL) in seeking justice through international mechanisms such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It argues that under Article 5(2)(b) of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Rule 96(b) of the OHCHR’s procedural framework, individuals may only appeal to the OHCHR once all domestic remedies have been exhausted. However, in the DHFL–Piramal case, where India’s Supreme Court upheld Ajay Piramal’s contentious resolution plan despite ongoing review petitions, this exhaustion clause becomes a site of moral contradiction. The article situates the DHFL takeover within a broader architecture of crony oligarchy, judicial abdication, and financial human rights violations, where legality becomes the instrument of dispossession or expropriation. Drawing upon the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), it reframes financial exploitation as a form of systemic human rights abuse. Ultimately, it concludes that while procedural routes to international justice remain closed, mass civil disobedience and collective non-compliance emerge as the only viable pathways toward moral and political redress.
From Itching Skin to Itching Palms: Calamities of Lacto Calamine of Piramal Pharma’s Pharmakon
This paper examines Lacto Calamine, a widely used topical cosmetic-lotion marketed by Piramal Pharma, through the lens of pharmacological efficacy, regulatory ambiguity, and ethical marketing. Drawing from publicly available data on its ingredients—primarily kaolin clay, zinc oxide, glycerin, and aloe vera—this study interrogates whether the formulation justifies its “pseudo-medical” truth-claims. It situates Lacto Calamine within India’s broader landscape of over-the-counter (OTC) cosmetic-medicinal hybrids that thrive on consumer faith rather than clinical validation. Methodologically, the paper employs both toxicological data analysis and self-reflexive ethnography, integrating critical theory and personal testimony to illuminate how pharmacological discourse and neoliberal consumerism intertwine. Ethical questions regarding celebrity endorsements, placebo reassurance, and gendered beauty expectations are explored. The study concludes that Lacto Calamine functions less as a pharmacologically commensurable product and more as a symbolic artefact of cosmetic capitalism, merging colonial legacies of fairness with neoliberal health consumerism.
Piramal’s Supradyn: Illusory Vitality and Expensive Urine
This communication critically examines Piramal Pharma’s over-the-counter multivitamin supplement Supradyn, highlighting concerns of pharmacological redundancy, cumulative risks, and misleading advertising. While promoted as a universal “energy booster,” Supradyn’s formulation—comprising multiple water- and fat-soluble vitamins, trace minerals, and herbal additives like ginseng—offers limited physiological benefit for healthy adults: water-soluble vitamins are largely excreted, fat-soluble vitamins and trace minerals may accumulate to toxic levels, and ginseng poses risks of insomnia, cardiovascular effects, drug interactions, and psychiatric destabilization. Evidence from Indian and global experts underscores that routine supplementation is unnecessary in non-deficient populations, and clinical trials consistently show minimal to no outcome benefit, contrary to perception-driven surveys like the EIGEN 2020 study. Piramal’s marketing strategies, which exploit fatigue, lifestyle anxieties, and survey-based claims, risk contravening the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, Food Safety regulations, and ethical standards of pharmaceutical communication, while fine-print disclaimers fail to ensure informed consumer consent. The analogy with financial exploitation through DHFL underscores how trust is commodified in both finance and health, extracting costs under the guise of benefit. In light of public health ethics, global regulatory frameworks, and consumer safety, the letter urges Piramal Pharma and relevant authorities to adopt transparent labeling, evidence-based advertising, and stricter oversight, emphasizing diet-first strategies and targeted supplementation for clinically confirmed deficiencies rather than universal promotion of multivitamins.
Sloan’s “Promise”: Heritage Brand or Hazard in a Bottle?
This representation critically examines Sloan’s Liniment/Balm (Piramal Pharma), exposing concerns about its irrational Fixed Dose Combination of counter-irritants (methyl salicylate, menthol, camphor, turpentine oil, eucalyptus oil, capsaicin), absent from global pharmacopeias (USP, Ph. Eur., WHO EML) and unsupported by clinical evidence in arthritis. Risks such as systemic salicylate poisoning, camphor neurotoxicity, turpentine irritation, and capsicum hypersensitivity are compounded by misleading claims of “lasting arthritis relief,” which distract from proper treatment and may delay evidence-based care. Regulatory loopholes in India (Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940; Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, 1954) enable this obsolete heritage brand to persist despite international withdrawal. Sloan’s thus embodies an ethical paradox: irritants sold as therapy, financial wounds masked as cure—mirroring the DHFL victims’ plight. The representation urges Piramal Pharma to halt deceptive claims, disclose safety data, and validate efficacy, while calling on CDSCO, WHO, FDA, and EMA to review authorization, issue advisories, and protect patients from irrational formulations.
Urgent Call to Reassess Piramal Pharma’s Tetmosol Soap
Tetmosol soap, marketed by Piramal Pharma Limited as a treatment for scabies and lice, contains the outdated active ingredient Monosulfiram (5% w/w). While effective for its intended use, Tetmosol’s widespread over-the-counter (OTC) availability in India and other developing regions, coupled with vague marketing claims, has led to rampant misuse for undiagnosed dermatological conditions. This misuse risks ineffective treatment, skin irritation, and delayed diagnoses, raising serious concerns about consumer safety and Piramal’s ethical responsibility. The article critically examines Tetmosol’s composition, safety, regulatory status, consumer misuse, and Piramal’s marketing practices, alongside broader enforcement challenges and Piramal’s product portfolio. It argues for a temporary suspension of Tetmosol’s sales until clearer labeling, robust consumer education, and stricter regulations are implemented to protect public health.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 