Kate Lyons If anything is emblematic of the demise of Twitter, it is the rise and stall of the account of Oprah Winfrey. Oprah joined the platform in 2009, tweeting for the first time live from her wildly popular TV show: “HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.” It was “a breakthrough… Read More The demise of Twitter: how a ‘utopian vision’ for social media became a ‘toxic mess’
NB: The elephant in the drawing room: the criminalisation of the state, all over the world. DS Why do highly trained police officers embrace a life of crime?… The killing of councillor Marielle Franco has inspired a generation of journalists to probe the city’s dangerous underworld… “There is no separating crime, police and politics.” Tom… Read More Rio’s reporters risk death to reveal criminal ties between police, politicians and mafia
ERAM AGHA ON THE EVENING of 22 March, there was unusual activity at the Election Commission of India’s headquarters, on Delhi’s Ashoka Road. At about 5 pm, various representatives of opposition parties had started trickling onto the premises. A team of television reporters was already in place. Various leaders of the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance… Read More Cheques and Imbalances: The taming of the Election Commission of India
Protests against the war in Gaza across US universities are a sign of a triple crisis: Of liberal democracy, of the university, and paradoxically, of anti-war protests as well The widespread protests against the war in Gaza across dozens of US university campuses, and the unprecedented crackdowns are a sign of a triple crisis: Of… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Student anger in the US, 3 crises — democracy, university, protest
GAZA casualties, live statistics NB: Last November, the Harvard Law Review refused to carry an already accepted piece on genocide in Gaza by a Palestinian scholar; without any explanation. The editor, HLR President Apsara Iyer, wrote to the author of the piece, that the decision was ‘not based on your identity or viewpoint.’ Perhaps it was… Read More The Palestine Exception to Academic Freedom Must Go
GAZA casualties, live statistics “I think it tells (us) things about this banality of, you can say, the evil… and how we are selling weapons as (if they were) vacuum cleaners,” said Teroyshin. “On the one hand, they tried to make it look perfect with this (gallery-like space) for the exhibition, and on the other… Read More Selling weapons ‘like vacuum cleaners’: Photographer’s look at the bizarre world of global arms fairs. No blood, no bodies
Communal polarisation is all that the BJP has in its arsenal to deter the voters from voting on the basis of caste, community, and the reputation of the local candidate Bharat Bhushan Suddenly in the run-up to the second round of voting, the Congress with hardly any prospect of forming the next government is being… Read More BJP’s distorted and polarising narratives will continue
NB: The brutality of religious tyrants is reminiscent of the medieval Catholic Inquisition. This is disgrace and affront to justice and to humanity. The world is witness to an assault on young people, from Gaza to American campuses, to Iran. Nationalism divides us and makes us blind to the need for human solidarity. Wake up… Read More Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death for protesting
More than 20 people were arrested Wednesday during a pro-Palestinian protest on UT Austin campus, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. The protest, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Austin, was the latest in a wave of demonstrations sweeping college campuses across the U.S. DPS said state troopers were on campus at the request of… Read More American students protest genocide: Police arrest protesters at UT Austin / Columbia, NYU, Yale on the boil over Israel’s war on Gaza / Columbia Law School Faculty Condemn Administration for mass arrests
Hoodwinked: The UK and others cut funding to UNRWA but Israel gave no evidence of terror links between that relief organisation and Hamas. An independent report has just exonerated the United Nations relief agency, which is the main channel of humanitarian support to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East. In fact, the report… Read More UK and others cut funding to UNRWA but Israel gave NO EVIDENCE of terror links
After the truth-shower 