Bullshit jobs, fear of energy restrictions and Anthropocene insecurity… reflections on valuing time for oneself, progressive sufficiency policies for all and more-than-human intelligence. Sarah Waring Imagine a world in which Franz Kafka was free to write at leisure. Would the insurance officer’s existential angst have been eased by not having to fit his stories in… Read More Alleviating existential angst
Christina Wilkins reviews Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment (2018), authored by Christopher Bollas “We have changed.” (127) This simple sentence, uttered towards the end of the book, encapsulates everything psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas is trying to say in Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment. Through an examination of the major changes of… Read More Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment
A good philosopher must find his obsession, and it will drive him for the rest of his life: Thomas Nagel Johnny Lyons If asked by someone who is unfamiliar with philosophy what they might read to begin to grasp the subject, I would recommend Thomas Nagel’s What Does It All Mean? If pressed as to why this… Read More Problems, problems
NB: The sadistic Iranian theocrats do not know that the Hippocratic oath enjoins doctors to treat every person who needs medical treatment, regardless of who they might be. The Ayatollahs preside over a replica of hell on earth. DS GOLNAZ ESFANDIARI In late November, three Iranian doctors traveled to the country’s western Kurdistan region, the… Read More Iranian Doctors Who Treated Wounded Protesters ‘Arrested, Tortured’
Norms recently drafted the University Grants Commission (UGC) to invite foreign universities to open campuses in India have received a variegated response so far. Deepanshu Mohan According to the norms – titled ‘University Grants Commission (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023’ – announced by the statutory body’s chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar, foreign… Read More Foreign Universities Regulations Reflect Modi Government’s Indifference To Higher Education
Hannah Ellis-Petersen BBC offices in India have been raided by tax department officials, just weeks after the release of a documentary critical of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, which was later blocked by the government. According to those working at the broadcaster, more than a dozen officials from the country’s income tax department turned up at… Read More BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout
Anisha Dutta India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian. The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called… Read More GoI reluctant to declassify ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers
Madeleine de Trenqualye Naomi Klein published her first book on the climate crisis, This Changes Everything, almost a decade ago. She was one of the organisers and authors of Canada’s Leap manifesto, a blueprint for a rapid and justice-based transition off fossil fuels. In 2021, she joined the University of British Columbia as professor of… Read More ‘It’s inequality that kills’: Naomi Klein on the future of climate justice
Oxfam India’s latest report revealed that 84 percent of the country suffered a decline in wealth in 2022, even as the number of billionaires grew from 102 to 142. The report notes reduced state investment in public education and healthcare, along with an increased reliance on indirect rather than corporate taxes to raise revenue. In their 2013 book, JEAN DRÈZE and AMARTYA SEN analyze… Read More INDIAN INEQUALITY
Tens of thousands gather for rally and workers in several sectors strike over rightwing government’s proposals Israel’s new hard-right government has begun introducing sweeping legislation aimed at overhauling the judicial system, prompting the largest public demonstrations against the proposed measures to date. In a heated meeting in which several opposition politicians had to be forcibly… Read More Protests and strikes in Israel as plans for judicial overhaul move forward
After the truth-shower 