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

Neoliberalism wrecked our chance to fix the climate crisis – and leftwing statements of faith have changed nothing

Why didn’t we nip climate change in the bud? Nathaniel Rich poses that question in an important article for the New York Times Magazine in 2018 (later published as a book). He notes that, for a brief period in the late 1980s, a consensus developed on the necessity for action. Back then, no one considered the science controversial… Read More Neoliberalism wrecked our chance to fix the climate crisis – and leftwing statements of faith have changed nothing

Dilip

Anna Iasmi Vallianatou: The Poland-Belarus border crisis is what happens when humans are treated as weapons

Another humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding on the European Union’s doorstep. Poland has responded by deploying 20,000 border police, firing water cannon and teargas at asylum seekers, reinforcing its border fencing and blocking access for journalists and aid organisations. This need to react is understandable: Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s use of refugees and migrants as pawns for… Read More Anna Iasmi Vallianatou: The Poland-Belarus border crisis is what happens when humans are treated as weapons

Dilip

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk charged again with ‘insulting Turkishness’ / Complaint filed against Indian comedian Vir Das for his allegedly anti-India show

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk is being investigated by the Turkish state for “insulting” the founder of modern Turkey and ridiculing the Turkish flag in his new novel Nights of Plague. Pamuk, who denies the accusations, published the book in Turkey in March. Set on a fictional Ottoman island during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the early 1900s,… Read More Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk charged again with ‘insulting Turkishness’ / Complaint filed against Indian comedian Vir Das for his allegedly anti-India show

Dilip

Salman Khurshid: Standing against those who divide

My recent book, Sunrise over Ayodhya: Nationhood in Our Times, is over 300 pages long. Throughout the book, I have sought to support and endorse the Ayodhya judgment, despite many of my legal colleagues having doubted its legal correctness, acknowledged and praised the philosophy of Hinduism, underscored the humanist dimensions of Sanatan Dharma. The thrust… Read More Salman Khurshid: Standing against those who divide

Dilip

Bharat Bhushan: Frontier of warfare? Wrong to securitise civil society discourse

NB: A timely comment on a sinister speech. The NSA is telling us that civil society itself is a war zone. This is not surprising, as the militarisation of civil society is precisely the goal as well as modus operandi of totalitarian politics. This is nothing new. It was evident in the Nazi and Fascist… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Frontier of warfare? Wrong to securitise civil society discourse

Dilip

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves. Albert Camus    La crise… Read More Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

Dilip

Honest Government Advertisement: Net Zero by 2050

NB: If anything signifies the total takeover of democracy by capitalist robber barons and corporate (including communist) totalitarianism, it is the refusal to take necessary measures to halt global warming. A new internationalist, movement is required to save a sustainable ecological balance on earth. Labels such as Left/Right/Liberal etc., have no meaning any more. The… Read More Honest Government Advertisement: Net Zero by 2050

Dilip

Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Carrying blood-red ribbons to represent the crucial red lines already crossed by Cop26 negotiations, hundreds of representatives of global civil society walked out of the convention centre in Glasgow on the final morning of the summit in protest. The audience at the People’s Plenary in the conference blue zone heard speakers condemn the legitimacy and ambition of… Read More Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Dilip

Professor Hubert Dreyfus: Dostoyevsky on how to Save the Sacred from Science / Leszek Kolakowski: The Revenge of the Sacred in secular culture

In The Brothers Karamazov one of the monks tells Alyosha that “the science of this world has … analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old.” The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoyevsky’s answer to… Read More Professor Hubert Dreyfus: Dostoyevsky on how to Save the Sacred from Science / Leszek Kolakowski: The Revenge of the Sacred in secular culture

Dilip