Flooding has devastated Pakistan – and Britain’s imperial legacy has made it worse

Shozab Raza Devastating flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 1,100 people this summer, injuring and displacing thousands more. Among Pakistan’s political elite, some have claimed that the floods are simply a natural disaster, while others blame climate breakdown. But both groups have failed to address another crucial factor: empire. Pakistan gained its independence from the British empire… Read More Flooding has devastated Pakistan – and Britain’s imperial legacy has made it worse

Dilip

UK Government’s ‘Orwellian’ unit to be disbanded after openDemocracy revelations

The Cabinet Office has announced it will radically overhaul an ‘Orwellian’ government unit that has been accused of blocking the release of information. The news comes as a victory almost two years after openDemocracy first revealed that the ‘Clearing House’ was vetting Freedom of Information requests from journalists. At the time, Cabinet Office minister Michael… Read More UK Government’s ‘Orwellian’ unit to be disbanded after openDemocracy revelations

Dilip

Germany’s €9 train tickets scheme ‘saved 1.8m tons of CO2 emissions’

Kate Connolly  Germany’s three-month experiment with €9 tickets for a month’s unlimited travel on regional train networks, trams and buses saved about 1.8m tons of CO2 emissions, it has been claimed. Since its introduction on 1 June to cut fuel consumption and relieve a cost of living crisis, about 52m tickets have been sold, a fifth… Read More Germany’s €9 train tickets scheme ‘saved 1.8m tons of CO2 emissions’

Dilip

Mikhail Gorbachev obituary

Jonathan Steele NB: Mikhail Gorbachev was a historic figure, for his courage in steering the USSR toward democracy and the peaceful resolution of conflicts within and without its borders. It is another matter that the political forces at work in a decrepit state structure were too divisive and corrupt for him to forestall disintegration. Foremost… Read More Mikhail Gorbachev obituary

Dilip

Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office

Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut Polls and election results over the last week reminded Americans that politics seldom moves in a straight line. As in physics, action produces reaction. Overreach invites backlash. For a long while former President Trump and his cronies seemed to be immune from this rule of political life and from the consequences of even the… Read More Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office

Dilip

Evil

I know he had unusual eyesWhose powers no orders could determineNot to mistake the men he sawAs others did, for gods or vermin (Thomas Gunn, on a German soldier who risked his life to save Jews from deportation to the camps. Cited by Terry Eagleton, in Ideology, Verso, 1991, 2007; p xxii). What persuades men… Read More Evil

Dilip

The edge of oblivion

First posted September 6, 2013 The edge of oblivion  – by Dilip Simeon(The Tribune Sept 6, 2013) The primitive mind is, in the fullest meaning of the word, imperishable: Sigmund Freud, 1915 The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence: Martin Luther King, 1958 Do the tense thoughts of… Read More The edge of oblivion

Dilip

Avay Shukla on the Bilkis Bano case: How much further can we sink as a Nation?

Nothing reveals better the depths to which we have sunk as a nation and a polity than the remission granted to the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, and the events surrounding this depraved decision. One can’t help but notice that the muted reaction to the release of these rapists/ murderers is in sharp… Read More Avay Shukla on the Bilkis Bano case: How much further can we sink as a Nation?

Dilip

Simon Leys: The View from the Bridge. His lectures on Learning, Reading, Writing and Going Abroad and Staying Home (1996)

First posted August 4, 2018 In 1996, Professor Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys) presented the ABC Boyer Lectures. Subsequently published under the title The View from the Bridge the lectures were serialised in four parts in China Heritage Quarterly with the permission of the author. The first lecture was called Learning (some introductory paragraphs are given below; but the link will… Read More Simon Leys: The View from the Bridge. His lectures on Learning, Reading, Writing and Going Abroad and Staying Home (1996)

Dilip