The rationalist in me knows that coincidences are inevitable, mundane, meaningless. But I can’t deny there is something strange and magical in them, too Paul Broks The term “coincidence” covers a wide range of phenomena, from the cosmic (in a total solar eclipse, the disc of the moon and the disc of the sun, by… Read More Are coincidences real ?
First posted December 10, 2015 April 24, 2015, marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide: how many of us remember? The Ghosts of Ararat After all, who today talks about the murderous dispersal of the Armenians? Adolf Hitler, 1939 Hitler is believed to have said this whilst commenting on the genocide of Armenian residents of the… Read More Suman Keshari: The Ghosts of Ararat
Authors of the revised Class 11 political science textbook have also deleted the fact that Jammu and Kashmir had acceded to India on the basis of a promise that the State would remain autonomous. MAITRI PORECHA He was a freedom fighter and India’s first Education Minister, but any mention of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has… Read More Maulana Azad, freedom fighter and India’s first Education Minister removed from NCERT textbook
Relatives were still recovering the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a coup two years ago. An eyewitness, who hid in a tunnel during the attack, described a scene of horror… Read More The horrific aftermath of Myanmar junta airstrike that killed 133
Jesudas and his son Edwin are skilled craftsmen, known in the Carnatic music universe of Chennai and elsewhere for the mridangams they give life to, though they still face occasional communal biases Ashna Butani The sounds of Carnatic music on the radio fill a cramped room painted blue in a small lane of Mylapore. Photos… Read More The mridangam makers of Mylapore
“What is history for? … It makes us brave!” ADAM TOOZE I’ll never forget this response by my distinguished colleague Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith to one of the “theory and practice” questions with which we used to torture Cambridge undergraduates back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Riley-Smith’s answer resonated with me, precisely for its profound, almost archaic… Read More The courage of Vladimir Kara-Murza
Eco-anxiety stems from a sense of hopelessness and the realisation that there are limits to how much agency we have as individuals to affect global change. But we are not hopeless, far from it. The future is still unwritten; we cannot know what it holds, but we will make it first in our minds, in our… Read More Does climate breakdown mean we’re doomed? No: if we’re brave, big change can happen fast
William Shakespeare (aka William Sexpeare in Waste Bengal) had got most things right, especially when it came to portraying the seven deadly sins, as per their revised version in India’s Amritkaal. Whether it was “honour killing” in Othello or “love jihad” (by Romeo, naturally, trying to entice a Capulet to become a Montague) in Romeo… Read More Avay Shukla: ‘A rose by any other name..’ really?
Michael Harriot When Tennessee lawmakers expelled two Black legislators from the state’s Republican-dominated house of representatives, pundits described the decision as “stunning” and “historic”. Joe Biden called it “shocking, undemocratic and without precedent”. The New York Times characterized it as “an extraordinary act of political retribution”. Sorry, have you met America? This tragic comedy always has the… Read More Removing Black lawmakers is voter suppression – and the US has done it for centuries
Recycling energy takes cycles and lots of energy P. Sainath The koilawallahs, or coal carriers of Godda district try earning a living by picking up coal from the waste dumps near the Rajmahal mining project at Lalmatiya and pushing huge loads of it – ranging from 100 to 250 kilograms – to Godda town 40 kilometres away… https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/albums/the-koilawallahs-of-godda/
