Singapore Snafu: Unwanted disclosures in public

Bharat Bhushan Despite a formal confirmation to The Washington Post by Canada’s Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison that Union Home Minister Amit Shah was the “top Indian official” involved in the plot to kill Canadian citizens, there has been no official reaction from India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The MEA’s silence is curious. Such undercover assignments are normally… Read More Singapore Snafu: Unwanted disclosures in public

Dilip

‘This is what it means to be from Gaza’: Poet captures people’s stories of life, love and loss

By Francisca Marques and Elizabeth Wells Mosab Abu Toha’s voice is smooth and melodic when he recites his poetry from his new home in New York. But when the Palestinian poet describes the people and the moments that inspired his writing, it turns raw with emotion. “We are breathing on the outside, but inside, we are… Read More ‘This is what it means to be from Gaza’: Poet captures people’s stories of life, love and loss

Dilip

The Coming Second Copernican Revolution

“Today is not your first arrival here.” — Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091-1157 CE Astrobiology is rewiring our understanding of the intimate connection between life and planets as they appear in the universe. By Adam Frank Across 15,000 generations, human beings have looked out at the sentinel stars and felt the pressing weight of myriad existential questions: Are… Read More The Coming Second Copernican Revolution

Dilip

The Strangeness of Zero

In some ways, zero is just like any other number on a number line. But a new study suggests that the mind may treat the symbol for absence differently. Yasemin Saplakoglu Around 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others,… Read More The Strangeness of Zero

Dilip

Settler Colonial Contagion: A Long Simmering Plague / Gaza Catastrophe — Checking Israeli and Western Elites

NB: Israeli depravity has equaled Belsen, Maidanek and Auschwitz. Do Israelis not know what ‘the most moral army in the world’ is doing in Gaza? How can you make your young soldiers run over fleeing Palestinians with tanks and think it a good thing to do? Is not this akin to what the Waffen SS… Read More Settler Colonial Contagion: A Long Simmering Plague / Gaza Catastrophe — Checking Israeli and Western Elites

Dilip

Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe

Anti-immigration parties are pushing policies that are hostile or indifferent towards science. David Matthews A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. The parties, whose focus is typically immigration, care little about research, say policy experts. In the Netherlands — where the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the… Read More Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe

Dilip

Eruption of Truth: An Interview with Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010)

NB: An important thinker, Fr Pannikar combined compassion with thoughtfulness; and sought dialogue as a means of addressing the worlds problems. I empathise with him, and am sorry to note (for my part) the absence of divine compassion for the innocents of Gaza; not to mention the millions of innocents who suffered and died in… Read More Eruption of Truth: An Interview with Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010)

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