From 30th May – 4th June, 2026 in Chandigarh ~Applications are open~ Apply here. Last date to apply is 17th May, 2026. Context We live in an era of rapid technological progress. Building on the advancements in electronics and computing, just the last two decades have been marked by the emergence of buzz words like digital… Read More Summer School on Technology, Environment, and Society
John Boersma Tyranny and Revolution: Rousseau to Heidegger By Waller R. Newell; 2022 Waller Newell: Interview: The Characteristics of Tyranny Today’s political discourse is rife with the prognosis that liberalism is in trouble, evidenced by the rise of anti-liberal and post-liberal thought, each of which maintains that a politics based on material self-interest is incapable… Read More Tyranny and Revolution: Rousseau to Heidegger
For decades, many Chinese viewed the United States with a mix of admiration, envy and resentment. President Trump’s volatile second term shattered that image. Li Yuan When President Trump visited China in late 2017, Xi Jinping welcomed him with a grand display of Chinese history and culture: a four-hour private tour of the Forbidden City culminating in… Read More China Increasingly Views Trump’s America as an Empire in Decline
Nothing can stop Germany’s moral panic over antisemitism It would be hard to surpass the absurd spectacle of a Jewish philosopher being blocked from speaking at a German Holocaust memorial because he intended to say that the lessons of “never again” should be applied universally. And yet such perverse distortions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’ have… Read More Bad memories
Source: Adam Tooze, Chartbook Source: Krishn Kaushik and Chris Kay in Mumbai and William Sandlund in Hong Kong from FT +++++++++++++++
Albert Camus has long been misunderstood, but a new translation of his complete notebooks offers a corrective By Matthew Lamb The Complete Notebooks by Albert Camus. Translated by Ryan Bloom Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/biographical/ EACH NEW TRANSLATION of a work from a major author should spark a reevaluation of that author’s critical reception and public reputation. Since his death in 1960, a… Read More Fame! A Misunderstanding
The lesson to be learnt, however, is that when parties offload their institutional memory and political judgement to an outsourced consultant, they can come to grief Bharat Bhushan The resounding defeats of parties advised by political consultants in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu may not spell their end, but their role will now be more… Read More West Bengal, Tamil Nadu show limits of political consulting
Carolina Landsmann Apropos talk about a plea bargain for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in exchange for his retirement from political life, which President Isaac Herzog is working on; apropos the Supreme Court’s attempts to buy time to postpone the “constitutional crisis” (that is, the “storming of the Bastille,” aka the court, by “the people,” which,… Read More Netanyahu Will Go, but the State Will Die With Him
NB: A thought provoking essay to which some caveats could be placed. To begin with, Hindutva is not synonymous with Hindu Nationalism, the latter being more widespread and accomodative than Hindutva. The fascination with violence that characterised early militant nationalist groups was something which held sway in Maharashtra and Punjab as well; and the tendency… Read More Bengal was the First Breeding Ground of Hindu Nationalism
The commercial framing of the project by the Narendra Modi government cannot be allowed to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on strategic matters Bharat Bhushan During his visit to Great Nicobar island, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has drawn national attention to the proposed Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project — a deep-sea transhipment port and allied infrastructure valued at around Rs… Read More Democracy demands a public debate on Great Nicobar’s environmental and strategic costs
After the truth-shower 