In this video, we explore how “WhatsApp University” influences unwavering loyalty among some citizens towards political leaders, despite personal hardships or evident issues like inflation and misinformation. A poignant discussion on the pervasive impact of misinformation spread through WhatsApp. The video highlights the complex interplay of media, personal belief systems, and political loyalty, encouraging a… Read More The WhatsApp Mafia | Dhruv Rathee
Archie Moore’s meticulous genealogy, kith and kin, is a memorial to Indigenous lives lost – but it’s also about global common humanity Australia’s entry at Venice Biennale is a family tree going back 65,000 years For the past two months, in the quiet, darkened room of the Australia pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Bigambul-Kamilaroi artist Archie… Read More ‘Very totemic and very Aboriginal’: A family tree going back 65,000 years
We are living through an incipient technological revolution. AI, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, commercial space travel, and other innovations are rapidly transforming everything from the workplace to the financial architecture of the global economy. While many of these technologies hold vast potential to benefit the social good, the multinational corporations and financial oligarchy that drive innovation and… Read More Chris Hedges on Technocapitalism: Bitcoin, Mars, and Dystopia
Loji Beach, nestled in a bay in West Java, is especially prone to plastic pile-ups. Ocean currents sweep the waste into the bay where it gets trapped in and ends up on the sand. “There’s no real community living here. There’s not a proper road to the beach, so there’s no local people cleaning it… Read More The world dumps 2,000 truckloads of plastic into the ocean each day. Here’s where a lot of it ends up
By Kyle Chayka “The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark,” James Salter wrote in his 1975 novel, “Light Years.” An encounter with a single “slender” line of writing, as he put it, can send a reader spinning off on a new trajectory; her life becomes divided into a before and… Read More The Internet’s New Favorite Philosopher
Bharat Bhushan The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is known for micro-managing elections based on gathering political intelligence right up to the booth level. That is the image. The reality is that its Moradabad Lok Sabha candidate died a day after polling in his constituency. That Kunwar Sarvesh Singh had cancer was an open secret. But he managed… Read More An election snapshot: No wave, voter apathy and a dead candidate
NB: The author of this thoughtful article is to be congratulated for doing his research. He ends thus “To address the problem, India needs to do something infinitely more difficult than killing Maoists: Giving Adivasis some justice.” The sabotage of justice in India has been unfolding as a recurrent nightmare for decades, and it concerns… Read More 29 Maoists killed in Bastar – What must India do to prevent their replacement?
NB: Notwithstanding the good intentions of Boehm’s speech, the truth remains that Israel is committing genocide, the world is witness to genocide; and the world watches ‘the West’ sacrifice, yet again, its universal principles to imperial self-interest. As another philosopher, Frederic Lorden puts it, ‘The whole world watches Gaza die, and the whole world watches… Read More Universalism in dark times
What concerns me is a more glaring omission: how would a Tibetan, a Dai, a Uighur, or Mongol respond to the assertion that the Chinese discourse on race was never characterized by a “gruesome efficiency”? Or is Tibet to be reduced to an instance in which perceptions of sociocultural difference outweigh those of race? Reviewed… Read More Frank Dikötter: The Discourse of Race in Modern China
Yusra Khan A microblogging site is no town square, but the influence of X (formerly Twitter) cannot be understated when it comes to deciphering the health of public discourse. Indian pro-government media personalities often hold more sway in this regard than algorithmic bot activity when it comes to harassment and targeted bullying in the online… Read More Free Speech Or Fear Tactics? The Unchecked Rise Of Right-Wing Online Abuse
After the truth-shower 