Pragya Akhilesh – The pandemic has exposed India’s dirty truth: a broken sanitation system

Newly-built “dry latrines” and “hanging toilets” in rural India are the result of the lockdowns of 2020-21 despite the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and a strict ban. Sanitary toilet usage has declined because of the COVID-19 scare as, currently, more than six lakh toilets in rural India have acute water… Read More Pragya Akhilesh – The pandemic has exposed India’s dirty truth: a broken sanitation system

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Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The ruthless politics of the Centre’s vaccine strategy

In the face of India’s catastrophic pandemic, the tongue goes silent and the pens fall dry. What can one say that is meaningful? There is seldom any consoling story to be told about grief or mass suffering. There are brave journalists bearing witness. But what does bearing witness do in a culture of official nationalism where… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The ruthless politics of the Centre’s vaccine strategy

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Dipankar Ghose: In the mining villages of Raniganj, broken roads, homes – and system / Vidya Krishnan: India's moral failure

The residents of the mining villages of Raniganj are all too familiar with this soot emanating from the Sonpur Bazaari mine. For decades, it has covered their broken roads, flown into their cracked homes, and seeped into their lungs and bodies. Run by the Eastern Coalfields and approved in 1995, this mine has been the… Read More Dipankar Ghose: In the mining villages of Raniganj, broken roads, homes – and system / Vidya Krishnan: India's moral failure

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Israel is committing the crime of apartheid: Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch has accused Israeli officials of committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution, claiming the government enforces an overarching policy to “maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians”. In a report released on Tuesday, the New York-based advocacy group became the first major international rights body to level such allegations. It said that… Read More Israel is committing the crime of apartheid: Human Rights Watch

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Albena Azmanova: Safe speech vs free speech: higher education’s false dilemma

In the ‘cancel culture’ era, universities should remember that the original purpose of free speech was to empower the weak, not to shelter them. Universities in the US and the UK have become a battleground in the war between safe speech and free speech. I believe that this is a false dilemma – and understanding… Read More Albena Azmanova: Safe speech vs free speech: higher education’s false dilemma

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This year's Oscars could have been a moment of pride for China. Then politics got in the way

NB: No, not politics, but nationalism, which Albert Einstein called ‘the measles of mankind‘. It is a tragedy that a talented person be abused in her own country because she refuses to kneel before this false god. This is not just a Chinese problem, its a lesson we all need to learn. DS  The Academy Awards this year could… Read More This year's Oscars could have been a moment of pride for China. Then politics got in the way

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Election Commission responsible for spreading Covid-19, should probably be booked for murder: Madras HC // Bharat Bhushan on the departing CJI: Good riddance

NB: It is unusual that we be required to thank judges for doing their duty; the reason is that over the recent past, we have become accustomed to the opposite. Spineless behavior has become the norm, broken only occasionally, as in the release order on Disha Ravi, or the Delhi HC’s order to the Delhi… Read More Election Commission responsible for spreading Covid-19, should probably be booked for murder: Madras HC // Bharat Bhushan on the departing CJI: Good riddance

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Mukul Kesavan – Kumbh vs Corona The logic of Hindu nationalism / Milind Murugkar: The political project of Hindutva is up against many contradictions

The government’s willingness to hold the Kumbh Mela in the middle of the worst health emergency in a hundred years and its unwillingness to curtail it despite a tsunami of second wave Covid infections raise an interesting question. Is Narendra Modi a rational actor on his own terms? Rational, here, doesn’t mean ‘secular’ or ‘progressive’.… Read More Mukul Kesavan – Kumbh vs Corona The logic of Hindu nationalism / Milind Murugkar: The political project of Hindutva is up against many contradictions

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