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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JUAN COLE: The US would be on firmer ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried / Aditya Chakrabortty: Western values? They enthroned the monster who is shelling Ukrainians today

The bombing campaign targeting Baghdad, a civilian city of 6 million, constituted indiscriminate fire, which is a war crime. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a direct result of events kicked off by the US invasion. Millions were wounded. Four million lost their homes, with a million and a half exiled abroad… Brown University’s Costs of… Read More JUAN COLE: The US would be on firmer ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried / Aditya Chakrabortty: Western values? They enthroned the monster who is shelling Ukrainians today

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José Vergara’s “All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature”

 … like Ulysses, I drive myself forward,…  but move, as before, backward  – Joseph Brodsky, “I am like Ulysses” IT TOOK ODYSSEUS 20 years to return to Ithaca, and James Joyce’s Ulysses had to wait 67 years before reaching the Russian reader. In both instances, a war contributed to the delay. In the novel’s case, it was the… Read More José Vergara’s “All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature”

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Douglas McCauley: As the ocean industrial revolution gains pace the need for protection is urgent /Jeff Sparrow: Is battling back-to-back disasters distracting us from fighting the climate crisis?

The ocean is often seen as the last wild frontier: a vast and empty blue wilderness where waves, whales and albatrosses rule. This is no longer true. Unnoticed by many, a new industrial revolution is unfolding in our seas. The last several decades have seen exponential growth in new marine industries. This includes expansion of offshore oil… Read More Douglas McCauley: As the ocean industrial revolution gains pace the need for protection is urgent /Jeff Sparrow: Is battling back-to-back disasters distracting us from fighting the climate crisis?

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Julien Benda: Our age is the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds

With a hitherto unknown consciousness (prodigiously fanned by authors) every nation now hugs itself and sets itself up against all other nations as superior in language, art, literature, philosophy, civilization, “culture.” Patriotism today is the assertion of one form of mind against other forms of mind…. it may be said that to-day capitalism, anti-semitism and… Read More Julien Benda: Our age is the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds

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