From Moscow to Washington, the Barbarism and Hypocrisy Don’t Justify Each Other

Russia’s war in Ukraine, like the USA’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, should be understood as barbaric mass slaughter. For all their mutual hostility, the Kremlin and the White House are willing to rely on similar precepts: Might makes right. International law is what you extol when you aren’t violating it. And at home, rev… Read More From Moscow to Washington, the Barbarism and Hypocrisy Don’t Justify Each Other

Dilip

Sergei Loznitsa, the Ukrainian film-maker who refuses to be cancelled

On 27 February, three days after Russian tanks rolled into his homeland, the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa resigned from the European Film Academy. Loznitsa, an ebulliently professorial figure who moved with his family to Berlin in 2001, was furious that the EFA had issued a statement of solidarity with  Ukraine that he saw as too “neutral,… Read More Sergei Loznitsa, the Ukrainian film-maker who refuses to be cancelled

Dilip

P.B. Mehta: Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder

Even as Ukraine faces extraordinary devastation, a new world disorder is becoming apparent. The United States has to do the balancing act of providing a strong response to Russia. But it is also hemmed in by the fact that it is dealing with an armed nuclear power and needs to avoid direct confrontation. Whether this balancing act… Read More P.B. Mehta: Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder

Dilip

Madhavan Palat: Nehru talked of panchayats as if they were bureaucracies, imagining them as elected civil servants rather than political leaders

Jawaharlal Nehru restlessly sought to provide Indian democracy with a firm and unshakeable base. The Constitution supplied the framework, Parliament and State legislatures stood as the superstructure, and adult suffrage ensured the possibility of universal participation. But this edifice lacked an institutional foundation in the villages. Should the top falter, the base would subside. That… Read More Madhavan Palat: Nehru talked of panchayats as if they were bureaucracies, imagining them as elected civil servants rather than political leaders

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Egyptian archaeologists discover five tombs at Saqqara

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities presented its recent discoveries on Saturday which include five tombs belonging to a pharaonic necropolis complex at Saqqara, just outside the capital Cairo. The tombs, which are believed to have housed senior officials from the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate period of ancient Egypt, date back to as long ago… Read More Egyptian archaeologists discover five tombs at Saqqara

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May the horror and shame unite us. A statement by the editors of the Russian journal ‘New Literary Observer’

NB: Let us salute Russia’s war resisters, who continue a glorious humanist tradition of international peace and solidarity. Let us never forget that the Russian Revolution that began on International Women’s Day in 1917 was a mass anti-war protest of workers and soldiers, which hastened the end of the bloodletting of the Great War of… Read More May the horror and shame unite us. A statement by the editors of the Russian journal ‘New Literary Observer’

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