By Dave Kindy’ On Christmas Eve 1944, heavy snow blanketed the Hürtgen Forest in Germany, near the Belgian border. Inside a tiny cabin deep in the woods, 12-year-old Fritz Vincken and his mother, Elisabeth, listened to warplanes and artillery shells as the Battle of the Bulge neared its climax. As they tried to make the most… Read More U.S. and German soldiers shared Christmas Eve dinner at height of WWII
Deniz Polat Ankara University On New Year’s Day, Sezen Aksu, Turkey’s most famous composer/lyricist/singer artist, released a new version of an old song, “Living is a Wonderful Thing” on YouTube. The release antagonized pro-government religious groups in Turkey, and a huge debate erupted in the country. The reason for the controversy is the following lyrics: “With… Read More Turkey’s Endless Test with Artistic Freedom: The Case of Sezen Aksu
NB: Men and women of conscience, such as the author of this meditation on the dangerous course that his own country is taking; belong to what Israel itself names the righteous among the nations. They will no doubt be denounced as ‘anti-national’; but we need people like this all over the globe. Let us heed… Read More Israel’s political and constitutional crisis
Max Porter As I lie down under a 2,000-year-old small-leaved lime coppice, I contemplate what is truly sacred This is me trying to have a sacred encounter with the 2,000-year-old small-leaved lime coppice at Westonbirt Arboretum. Because of my terrible hunched posture I’m always looking for an opportunity to lie down and alleviate the pain in my… Read More In an ancient forest, I look for peace, but instead I find Happy the puppy
Recollections that well up the eyes NB: This little remembrance was part of my presentation to a conference held between December 15 and 16 in Presidency University, Kolkata, to celebrate Professor Ranajit Guha’s attainment of the status of a centurion. I take no credit for it beyond that of asking my old friend and comrade… Read More Achintya Barua remembers Ranajit Guha
[This article by Mahatma Gandhi was published towards the end of March 1930. It was part of a series of Gandhi’s articles and was a prelude to his arrest in the first week of May 1930] There is no halfway house between active loyalty and active disloyalty. There is much truth in the late Justice… Read More Duty of disloyalty. M. K. Gandhi (1930)
First posted January 19, 2019 Rabindra Ray, who taught sociology at the Delhi School of Economics till his retirement a few years ago, died on January 15, 2019. For 52 years I called him Lalloo (with two l’s). His death has led to an outpouring of memories from his friends and students. This is one… Read More Remembering Rabindra
Women are sexually assaulted on a daily basis. Rape Crisis has reported that one in four women is raped or sexually assaulted as an adult; in March 2022, 70,330 rape cases were reported to the police. According to the charity, 618,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year. The criminal justice system consistently fails to protect… Read More The Sun will protect Jeremy Clarkson. Who will protect women who suffer violence every day?
By Ankur Paliwal In a pristine forest in central India, the multibillion-dollar mining giant Adani has razed trees – and homes – to dig more coal. How does this kind of destruction get the go-ahead? In a lined notebook, Bhole Nath Singh Armo, a lean 28-year-old man wearing a blue shirt and matching baseball cap, drew a… Read More ‘It was a set-up, we were fooled’: the coal mine that ate an Indian village
The PR firm advising the UN on climate change campaigns has been accused by US lawmakers of helping BP “greenwash” its fossil fuel investments, openDemocracy can reveal. Internal BP documents released to the US House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee and published last week show Brunswick created a strategy in 2017 or 2018 to help “reframe… Read More Secret files reveal how UN climate advisers ‘greenwashed’ for BP
After the truth-shower 