Even while the buzz is that the Indian economy is on the road to recovery, Agence France Presse (AFP) reports that many middle class Indian families are selling gold to stay afloat. Mumbai jewellers told AFP that a majority were women selling off their personal jewellery – gold bangles, rings, necklaces and earrings. One of them said,… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Will economic stress and hunger lead to political change?
HUNDREDS of migrant labourers left Kashmir on Monday morning, as two more killings on Sunday took the number of civilian deaths in attacks in the Valley this month to 11. While scores of them were huddled into secure accommodations by the J&K Police immediately after Sunday’s attack, the third on migrant workers in Kashmir in less than… Read More A labourer is anyway a burden on Earth, now he has to face bullets too: Voices of migrant workers in Kashmir
Historians of Nazi Germany have always been troubled with one central question: how could one of the most advanced, sophisticated countries of Europe descend into the depths of barbarism in such a short span of time, culminating in the murder of millions of people? Some historians, called the intentionalists, emphasized the importance of Hitler’s master plan… Read More Asim Ali – Collective surrender The story of New India is not being written by Narendra Modi alone
Dear friends, The Taliban tried to kill me when I fought for girls’ education. And now, it’s been one month since the Taliban in Afghanistan banned millions of girls from school. The situation is dire and our Afghan sisters need our help. So I’m personally asking you to join me, alongside Afghan women’s rights advocates Zarqa Yaftali… Read More Call from Malala Yousafzai
Many of the early twentieth-century champions of eugenics were social democrats and feminists. All shared a belief that science and technocracy could re-engineer society for the better. Attempts to institutionalize eugenics coincided with the emergence of welfare states and infrastructure to monitor the ‘feebleminded’. What Malthus called the population question looms large in the intellectual history… Read More Bryan Fanning: People like us
As simple unexpected acts of kindness go, this one will take some beating. I was on a train from London to Plymouth last Friday afternoon, on my way to a reunion of some university friends, among them people I’d not clapped eyes on for more than 30 years. Oddly, I found myself getting nervous about… Read More Adrian Chiles: A stranger on a train – and a small, stunning act of kindness
Last Friday’s jobs report from the US Department of Labor elicited a barrage of gloomy headlines. The New York Times emphasized “weak” jobs growth and fretted that “hiring challenges that have bedeviled employers all year won’t be quickly resolved,” and “rising wages could add to concerns about inflation.” For CNN, it was “another disappointment”. For… Read More Robert Reich: Is America experiencing an unofficial general strike?
Ajaz Ashraf interviews Sanjay Tickoo; president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti. The KPSS was established by him in 1995 to fight, non-violently, for the rights of his community members residing in the Kashmir Valley. When the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits began in 1990 because of the rise of militancy in the Valley, Tickoo, then around 23 years… Read More When a Hindu is killed in Kashmir, all Kashmiri Muslims must condemn it, just as all Hindus must condemn lynching of Muslims anywhere in India – Sanjay Tickoo
NB: A very thought-provoking essay. “The real cell of society in the United States is the individual…. the family, has disintegrated.’ (In the American system) “everything has a dual nature, and the glamour of high commodification abounds. Human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power, and law can all become the target of commodification (which) corrupts… Read More N.S. Lyons: The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning
World leaders must do more to prevent the destruction of nature, business leaders have warned before a summit in China that aims to draw up a draft UN agreement for biodiversity. In an open letter, the chief executives of Unilever, H&M and nine other companies have called on governments to take meaningful action on mass extinctions of wildlife… Read More Halt destruction of nature or risk ‘dead planet’, leading businesses warn
After the truth-shower 