Author: Dilip

I'm a scholar, writer and teacher; and my blog is designed for intellectual exploration. It carries no advertisements and requires no cash subscription

Ramachandra Guha’s book wins Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2023

Modern-day Brits have honoured historian Ramachandra Guha for a rather unusual book that is mainly about white Brits who were severely punished for going against the British establishment of their day to give their all for Indian independence. On Monday, Guha was in London to collect a £5,000 cheque for winning the highly regarded Elizabeth… Read More Ramachandra Guha’s book wins Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2023

Dilip

The Politico-Media Complex has turned ‘balance’ into an outrage machine

Consensus and respect are hard to monetise – but perhaps we can take back the power to redefine our world from the algorithms Peter Lewis Before our eyes, a political and media ecosystem algorithmically programmed to seek out and amplify conflict is gifting the no campaign something it has neither earned nor deserves: false equivalence.… Read More The Politico-Media Complex has turned ‘balance’ into an outrage machine

Dilip

Daniel Nemenyi: Submarine state – On secrets and leaks

First posted May 27, 2016 RP 193 (Sept/Oct 2015) / Commentary Schneier, who was privy to Snowden’s troves before publication, lists four modes by which the peoples’ victory was secretly undermined by the NSA and GCHQ. First, their weakening of cryptographic algorithms. Second, their piggybacking of domestic surveillance applications through enforced secret back doors – for example,… Read More Daniel Nemenyi: Submarine state – On secrets and leaks

Dilip

Richard Evans: the film Denial ‘shows there is such a thing as truth’. By Harriet Swain

First posted December 05, 2017 by Harriet Swain The historian, a key player in the libel case involving Holocaust denier David Irving, talks about Trump, Goebbels and why he agrees with John Bercow NB: This is a  therapeutic article for those who are beginning to falter in their belief in truth, not the Absolute, but the… Read More Richard Evans: the film Denial ‘shows there is such a thing as truth’. By Harriet Swain

Dilip

A Hard Rain Falling: on the death of T. P. Chandrasekharan (EPW, June 2012)

First posted June 27, 2012 A Hard Rain Falling by Dilip Simeon He went to bed, turned on the BBC World News and switched it off again. Half-truths. Quarter-truths. What the world really knows about itself, it doesn’t dare say:  John le Carre, in Our Kind of Traitor A baleful feature of contemporary Indian politics is the subjugation… Read More A Hard Rain Falling: on the death of T. P. Chandrasekharan (EPW, June 2012)

Dilip

Vagueness: the linguistic virus in spoken language in the late 20th century

First posted October 26, 2011 Clark Whelton The decline and fall of American English, and stuff I recently watched a television program in which a woman described a baby squirrel that she had found in her yard. “And he was like, you know, ‘Helloooo, what are you looking at?’ and stuff, and I’m like, you… Read More Vagueness: the linguistic virus in spoken language in the late 20th century

Dilip