For Chris Hedges, a reporter for The New York Times who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years, war was like a drug. Under the spell of its elixir he was imprisoned in Sudan, expelled from Libya, ambushed in Central America and shot at in Kosovo; he has uncovered mass graves and witnessed atrocities that… Read More Book review: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
Many people got their first taste of South African dance music this year via six Angolans dancing in their backyard, dinner plates in hand. Their viral video, with casual but masterful moves set to Jerusalema by South African producer Master KG, created a global dance craze; the track ended up all over Radio 1 this… Read More Marcus Barnes – 'It speaks to an ancient history': why South Africa has the world's most exciting dance music
The global food system is on course to drive rapid and widespread ecological damage with almost 90% of land animals likely to lose some of their habitat by 2050, research has found. A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability shows that unless the food industry is rapidly transformed, changing what people eat and how it is… Read More Matthew Taylor: Global food industry on course to drive rapid habitat loss // Laura Spinney: Time for some home truths about deforestation
Kathmandu: In an unprecedented move, Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli recommended on Sunday the dissolution of the House of Representatives and that mid-term elections should be held on April 30 and May 10, 2021. Oli came to power in 2018 with two-thirds support in parliament, becoming the first prime minister in the last three the decade to receive such… Read More Kamal Dev Bhattarai: What Nepal Prime Minister Oli Hopes to Achieve by Dissolving Parliament
We live in strange and interesting times. There are now not just three different groups of people in this country but three different realities. That’s scary in and of itself, but what’s even scarier is that most people in power have no idea this is happening or how to react to it. What are the… Read More Not two, but three Americas: We can't agree on anything. By CENK UYGUR
NB: A friend sent me this piece a few days ago, and I’m grateful, for I hadn’t read it. It dates back to 2012. It’s a reminder of Kesavan’s brilliance and dexterity as a writer. Our times impose a somber tint to what we feel obliged to say, but every now and then we need… Read More Mukul Kesavan on connoisseurs of the unavailable
Martin Luther King Jr. understood that non-violence is never instinctual. It takes practice. After a year of boycotting the public bus system in Montgomery, King’s community was jubilant when the courts ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. But King knew the tremendous force it would take to withstand the inevitable acts of hatred and… Read More Jan Erkert: How to deal with trolls
NB: The Russian head of state speaks like a cheap street thug. The USSR may have faded away, but the KGB lives on. He and his chum in the White House have a lot in common: a mafia mentality. DS Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Thursday that opposition politician Alexey Navalny “is enjoying the support of… Read More Putin says if Russia wanted to kill opposition leader Navalny, it would have 'finished' the job
Why should their lordships get so infuriated by a couple of sallies targeting them – he spares no one, not even the prime minister or his pit bull anchor. Kamra belongs to a hoary tradition of court jesters – recollect Akbar and Birbal, Patch Sexton in the court of Henry VIII (who inspired Shakespeare’s fool… Read More Kunal Kamra and the Elasticity of Justice. By Avay Shukla
The members of the RSS who control the Union government have subjugated the press, allegedly tamed the judiciary and used bribery and coercion to undermine or overthrow state governments run by other parties. The new laws aimed at curbing NGOs are animated by the desire to reduce to insignificance all voluntary organisations that do not… Read More Ramachandra Guha: Gandhi said RSS was ‘communal with a totalitarian outlook’ – and that’s still true
