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

Book review: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev – Putinism and the oil-boom years

The war in eastern Ukraine, rumbling into life once more after the collapse of an unsteady ceasefire, has created a widening breach between Russia and the west, with relations now worse than they have been in decades. In Russia, the hardening of the domestic consensus behind Putin has been helped along by the media’s increasingly strident nationalism, and by a… Read More Book review: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev – Putinism and the oil-boom years

Dilip

Bharat Bhushan: How farm protests may change political equations and hurt BJP in key states

The number and size of protest meetings or Mahapanchayats across villages of North India against the government’s obduracy on farm laws recalls the crisis faced by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2011. Six years into power, and with just about three years to go till the next general elections, its credibility was so eroded by… Read More Bharat Bhushan: How farm protests may change political equations and hurt BJP in key states

Dilip

Defend Iranian Labour Leader Parvin Mohammadi

Parvin Mohammadi needs support from labor activists and feminist activists around the world. During all these years of struggle, she has never separated the labor struggle from women’s struggles for their rights. On December 21, 2020, the Iranian government sentenced Parvin Mohammadi, in absentia, to a year in prison on charges of “sedition.” She has refused… Read More Defend Iranian Labour Leader Parvin Mohammadi

Dilip

The extraordinary power struggle between Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny was in defiant mood last Tuesday, as he waited for his inevitable sentence. He made a heart gesture for his wife, Yulia, who was sitting at the back of Moscow’s city courtroom. Navalny smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t be sad! Everything is going to be all right,” he yelled at her. She… Read More The extraordinary power struggle between Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny

Dilip

Martand Kaushik, Ahan Penkar: Reporting is not a crime. So why has India’s government charged our magazine?

On 26 January, India celebrated the anniversary of its constitution, which 74 years ago promised citizens a secular, democratic state and justice, equality and liberty for all. But as the traditional Republic Day parade took place in New Delhi’s centre, across the city those very values were being violated in the most egregious manner. Hundreds… Read More Martand Kaushik, Ahan Penkar: Reporting is not a crime. So why has India’s government charged our magazine?

Dilip

A moment of moral and political nihilism: Theologian Adam Kotsko on our current crisis

Rather than rail against the overheated apocalyptic rhetoric of others, Kotsko undertook his own cool-eyed, analytical version, saying, “I will follow my prophetic and apostolic forebears in diagnosing the root cause of that corruption and decadence as a failure to recognize the truth, which has resulted in a thoroughgoing moral and political nihilism.”..    Neoliberalism… Read More A moment of moral and political nihilism: Theologian Adam Kotsko on our current crisis

Dilip

Bangladesh: All the Prime Minister’s Men | Al Jazeera Investigations

NB: The veracity of this report is contested, because this may be part of a campaign promoted by opponents of Sheikh Hasina. There are indeed well-respected persons who seem to have assisted this expose. Readers can make their own assessment. DS An explosive investigation reveals how a criminal gang is colluding with the security forces… Read More Bangladesh: All the Prime Minister’s Men | Al Jazeera Investigations

Dilip

Peter Yeung: The country rejecting throwaway culture

Nearly two-thirds of Europeans would rather repair their products than buy new ones   The French capital hosts a dozen of these so-called “repair cafes” – free, monthly initiatives that allow local residents to fix household objects and electronics with the help and advice of enthusiastic volunteers. Pioneered by journalist Martine Postma in Amsterdam in 2009,… Read More Peter Yeung: The country rejecting throwaway culture

Dilip

Avay Shukla – ARE THE FARMERS MAKING DELHI IRRELEVANT ?

The irony of this is lost on a government drowning in its testesterone: with every nail studded barricade installed at Tikri, Ghazipur or Singhu, Delhi is making itself progressively redundant to the ongoing course of events, and perhaps even to the future shape of things in India. A subterranean tsunami is slowly building in the… Read More Avay Shukla – ARE THE FARMERS MAKING DELHI IRRELEVANT ?

Dilip

Book review – Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics

While Mary Wollstonecraft earned her place at the table for pioneering women in Judy Chicago’s art installation The Dinner Party (1974–9), she would not be everyone’s ideal guest. She has a reputation as an acerbic killjoy. She deemed novels to be the ‘spawn of idleness’. She did not embrace women in sisterhood but censured them for their… Read More Book review – Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics

Dilip