‘Collective’ is an exposé of killer corruption & how journalism and the people fought back

First posted November 21, 2020 By Gary Kramer Alexander Nanau’s extraordinary documentary “Collective” unfolds in the aftermath of a 2015 tragedy in the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv that gives this film its title. While 27 people died in the fire, more than 100 were injured and sent to area hospitals. However, an additional 37 of the 100-plus victims died as a… Read More ‘Collective’ is an exposé of killer corruption & how journalism and the people fought back

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‘Reporters Shield’ Launched on World Press Freedom Day

To confront the growing threat of vexatious lawsuits intended to harass and silence independent media worldwide, Reporters Shield launches today as a new membership program defending investigative journalism against such lawsuits, known as “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPPs.  Corrupt and criminal figures file SLAPPs to threaten, intimidate, and financially burden journalists. Fighting them entails paying… Read More ‘Reporters Shield’ Launched on World Press Freedom Day

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Adani family secretly invested in own shares, documents suggest / Adani’s reject allegations

Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi and Simon Goodley in London A billionaire Indian family with close ties to the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, secretly invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the Indian stock market, buying its own shares, newly disclosed documents suggest. According to offshore financial records seen by the Guardian, associates of the Adani family may have… Read More Adani family secretly invested in own shares, documents suggest / Adani’s reject allegations

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Mafiacraft, or how to do things with silence. Toward an ethnography of crime

Mafiacraft An Ethnography of Deadly Silence Deborah Puccio-Den’s Mafiacraft is a kind of ethnography that is much needed in our part of the world. Here’s the abstract of an earlier article. It has recently been expanded into a book-length study: How to construct an ethnography about such a phenomenon as “the mafia,” shrouded in silence? What methods… Read More Mafiacraft, or how to do things with silence. Toward an ethnography of crime

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Climate nihilism in the USA

By SABRINA HAAKE Anyone who watched the first Republican presidential debate last week watched the candidates — minus Donald Trump, of course —punt on climate. Ron DeSantis, who angrily deflected the issue, has called climate change “left-wing stuff,” while Vivek Ramaswamy exuberantly declared that “climate change is a hoax.” Nikki Haley, whose debate performance was otherwise borderline-reasonable, thinks the U.S.… Read More Climate nihilism in the USA

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The Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Fool: Madhavan Palat’s lecture on Dostoevsky

First posted March 26, 2014 The Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Fool The Indian Council for Historical Research Foundation Day At the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library / 27 March 2014 at 5.30 pm Dostoevsky was a remarkably modern thinker who may seem to have laboured hard to obscure the fact. He grappled with the… Read More The Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Fool: Madhavan Palat’s lecture on Dostoevsky

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‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962’ – by Yang Jisheng

First posted September 23, 2016 Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 – by Yang Jisheng Reviewed by Jonathan Mirsky ‘I call this book Tombstone. It is a tombstone for my father who died of starvation in 1959, for the thirty-six million Chinese who also starved to death, for the system that brought about their death, and perhaps for… Read More ‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962’ – by Yang Jisheng

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