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

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

Jesus the man

First posted December 22, 2013 Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth  By Reza Aslan Reviewed by Dilip Simeon (Biblio, November-December 2013) This is a fascinating account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I suspect it will also be disturbing for believers. The argument rests on the distinction between the historical Jesus and… Read More Jesus the man

Dilip

An Open Letter to the world on the Bangladesh crisis of 1971

First posted Tuesday, April 09, 2013 Letter from Members of the CPI (ML) Explanatory Note 1./ This is an open letter I wrote in December 1971, as a Naxalite cadre (among many) who experienced the political crisis accompanying the disintegration of Pakistan in 1970-71. It was anonymous, and I was the sole author. So the phrases ‘letter from… Read More An Open Letter to the world on the Bangladesh crisis of 1971

Dilip

Commodification: the essence of our time

First posted April 11, 2012 By Colin Leys and Barbara Harriss-White The dominant process underlying the transformation of life in all societies, since at least the mid-nineteenth century, is the conversion of things and activities into commodities, or commodification. In advanced capitalist countries this process is now outstripping our political and social capacity to adjust… Read More Commodification: the essence of our time

Dilip