Supposedly irrefutable evidence of division is said to lie in the Muslims over the last 1,000 years having victimised the Hindus, treating them as enslaved. Romila Thapar explains why historians question this theory The following is the text of the C.D. Deshmukh Lecture delivered by Romila Thapar on January 14, 2023, at the India International… Read More What History Really Tells Us About Hindu-Muslim Relations
Senior advocate and retired Delhi High Court judge S. Muralidhar said that the courts have failed to uphold constitutional values in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Senior advocate and retired Delhi high court judge S. Muralidhar has delivered a sharp indictment of the judiciary’s handling of communal disputes, warning that the courts have… Read More ‘Unforgivable Institutional Amnesia’: Retired HC Judge Slams Judiciary’s Handling of Communal Disputes
Iris Leal It is, of course, not the first instance in history in which a regime builds a community of crime, as historian Adam Raz has described, and expands it to the entire nation: war crimes, annihilation of life-support systems, killing 20,000 children Smoke rises as a residential building collapses after an Israeli air strike,… Read More Israel’s War in Gaza Is Nothing but a War of Annihilation
For Iris Murdoch, morality is not about duties and rules but stopping our ego fantasies and attending to others with love Cathy Mason Being in love is one of the most profound experiences we can have, one that can powerfully move us and irrevocably change the way we see ourselves, one another, and even the… Read More Why love matters most
John Yang In recent weeks, Indonesia has been rocked by massive anti-government demonstrations. The protests are led by students, workers and women’s rights groups angered by the yawning gap between Indonesia’s elites and shrinking middle class, and turned violent after a delivery driver was killed amid a police crackdown. John Yang speaks with The Economist’s… Read More Violence sweeps across Indonesia amid protests over worsening economy
Young protesters clash with police after breaking barricades outside the Federal Parliament in Kathmandu, on September 8, 2025. Demonstrators rallied against corruption and the government’s social media shutdown, while security forces responded with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. Photos: Skanda Gautam/THT Nepal has lifted a ban on social media platforms following mass protests against systemic… Read More Revolutionary upsurge in Nepal; as govt lifts social media ban. 19 killed in protests against corruption. All political parties under attack
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On the last day of August, 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a scholarly body with more than 500 members, passed a resolution with 86% support of those who voted, concluding that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. These scholars study genocide professionally, researching it, theorizing… Read More Genocide Scholars: Israel is Committing a Genocide in Gaza, and we Should Know
NB: This is a simple and brilliant interview given by Camus nearly seven decades ago but with many lessons for us today, wherever we may live. It is time to think of human life in generational terms, rather than of divisive identities and factional politics. DS Published in Albert Camus, Resistance Rebellion & Death (1960)… Read More Albert Camus: The Wager of Our Generation
Nuno P. Monteiro and Fritz Bartel, eds., Before and after the fall: world politics and the end of the Cold War, Cambridge, 2021 Reviewed by Lorenzo Cladi In this volume, Nuno Monteiro and Fritz Bartel bring together a vast array of scholars. They all get to grips with the issue of continuity and change with… Read More Before and after the fall: World politics & the end of the Cold War
NB: In 1953, eight years after the end of the Second World War and the partition of Germany, there took place an uprising of workers against abysmal working conditions and low wages in the Communist-ruled German Democratic Republic. The uprising was brutally crushed, and soon afterwards the famous left-wing playright and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956),… Read More The Solution: Bertolt Brecht
After the truth-shower 