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

Global warming risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250 million years

Global heating is causing such a drastic change to the world’s oceans that it risks a mass extinction event of marine species that rivals anything that’s happened in the Earth’s history over tens of millions of years, new research has warned. Accelerating climate change is causing a “profound” impact upon ocean ecosystems that is “driving… Read More Global warming risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250 million years

Dilip

Female suicide bomber kills three Chinese teachers at Karachi university / KU attack ‘final wake-up call’ on crisis in Balochistan

KARACHI, April 26 (Reuters) – A suspected female suicide bomber killed three Chinese teachers in Karachi on Tuesday, police and officials said, drawing strong condemnation from Beijing, in the first major attack this year against nationals of long-time ally China working in Pakistan. The three were among passengers on a minibus returning to Karachi university… Read More Female suicide bomber kills three Chinese teachers at Karachi university / KU attack ‘final wake-up call’ on crisis in Balochistan

Dilip

Your Silence in the Face of Enormous Societal Threat Is Deafening: Former Civil Servants to Modi

More than 100 former civil servants have said that the recent instances of “hate violence against [India’s] minority communities, particularly Muslims” represent the “subordination of the fundamental principles of our constitution and of the rule of law to the forces of majoritarianism”, accusing the state of being “fully complicit” in this process. In a letter to… Read More Your Silence in the Face of Enormous Societal Threat Is Deafening: Former Civil Servants to Modi

Dilip

Elon Musk is the king of trolls in an age of troll politics / What better owner for Twitter than master of the ill-advised tweet?

Even while hammering out the final details of his £35bn ($44bn) purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk took some time out this weekend to tweet. He likes tweeting, does the world’s richest man, usually from what he calls his “porcelain throne” (that detail disclosed on Twitter, naturally enough). This one was a photo of Bill Gates, zeroing… Read More Elon Musk is the king of trolls in an age of troll politics / What better owner for Twitter than master of the ill-advised tweet?

Dilip

Govt Agency Confirms Centre's Auctions Allowed Millers To Corner Pulses Meant For The Poor

The Union government’s auctions to provide pulses to the poor and armed forces, worth more than Rs 4,600 crore, were rigged to benefit a few big millers, findings from the National Productivity Council, headed by commerce minister Piyush Goyal, have revealed. The council presented its preliminary findings on October 11, 2021, to a committee overseeing… Read More Govt Agency Confirms Centre's Auctions Allowed Millers To Corner Pulses Meant For The Poor

Dilip

Hedges: Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience

Should I be banned because I admire Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s masterpieces Journey to the End of the Night, Death on the Installment Plan, and Castle to Castle, despite his virulent anti-Semitism…? Should I be banned for liking Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which is rabidly misogynistic? Should I be banned for loving William Butler Yeats, who, like Ezra Pound… was a fascist collaborator? Should… Read More Hedges: Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience

Dilip

Narayani Gupta: The problem with cherry-picking facts from history

NB: A timely reminder of the vulnerability of historiography to ideology. There are some among us who wish to ‘rectify’ history; whose resentment at the past can never be satiated, neither by revising textbooks nor by bulldozing the homes of the poor. Their emotional affliction is best described by Friedrich Nietzsche: The will cannot will… Read More Narayani Gupta: The problem with cherry-picking facts from history

Dilip

Vases, Tea Sets, Cigars, His Own Watercolours: High Society in the Third Reich

A brilliant study of corruption by power, more specifically of the willingness of the German elites to chummy up to the psychotic vileness of the Third Reich. This is an account of clubs, diplomatic receptions and parties, but one shot through with a scholarly analysis of the nature of sociability, elitism and luxury in a… Read More Vases, Tea Sets, Cigars, His Own Watercolours: High Society in the Third Reich

Dilip