The RSS’ intellectual stagnation and myth-based narratives risk alienating it from India’s knowledge-driven society Bharat Bhushan One hundred years ago, on Vijayadashami Day, September 27, 1925, the men who gathered at the residence of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur could have hardly imagined how powerful the organisation they were founding would become. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a… Read More RSS’ success also has seeds of destruction
‘If Innovators Are Treated Like Criminals, How Will India Become Vishwaguru?’: Sonam Wangchuk’s Wife Fires Back At Govt Call of Citizens for Democracy: We are witnessing a dangerous drift in the name of ‘national security ‘ in the frontier province of Ladakh. The peace-loving people of Ladakh are being demonised as anti-national agitators under the… Read More Citizens for Democracy: Defend the Ladakhi people’s democratic rights / ‘If Innovators Are Treated Like Criminals, How Will India Become Vishwaguru?’: Sonam Wangchuk’s Wife Fires Back At Govt
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In a new study, scientists reconstructed streamflow records going back 1,300 years to show that the basin has faced its worst droughts over the period in just the last few decades. And those droughts are well outside the range of natural climate variability. Mehebub Sahana The Ganges, a lifeline for hundreds of millions across South Asia,… Read More The Ganga is drying faster than ever – here’s what it means for the region and the world
NB: Arvind Gupta combines humility, enthusiasm, energy, love and creative intellect in a character all his own. He’s the Pied Piper of India’s children, one who can quieten a noisy class of children in two minutes, by showing them the wondrous ways of nature. He never sought glory, and I suspect his numerous awards indicate… Read More The Science of Toys: by Padma Shri Arvind Gupta
The Modi government’s insecurity is evident in its attempt to decode decades of protest as potential subversion. Those who used to accuse public protestors of using a ‘tool-kit’ now clearly want to develop a tool-kit of their own — an alternative official playbook, to deal with all future protests. Meanwhile Niti Aayog declines to furnish information about… Read More Policing Dissent – Amit Shah’s plans risk criminalising protest
First posted October 27, 2011 ‘The essay is a marvellous account of the hundreds of ways in which the Ramayana has been told, complete with examples of this narrative diversity. I can’t imagine that the vice-chancellor, a member of that urbane cohort, the Class of ’75, wanted the essay removed because he agreed with the Akhil Bharatiya… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Delhi University and the purging of Ramanujan
By Tora Agarwala in East Khasi hills, Meghalaya Excited chatter and the clattering of steel plates drown out the din of the monsoon rains: it is lunchtime in Laitsohpliah government school in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya. The food has been cooked on-site and is free for everyone, part of India’s ambitious “midday meal”… Read More Fish mint, Himalayan chives and berry pickle: how wild ingredients are transforming school dinners in India
Senior advocate and retired Delhi High Court judge S. Muralidhar said that the courts have failed to uphold constitutional values in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Senior advocate and retired Delhi high court judge S. Muralidhar has delivered a sharp indictment of the judiciary’s handling of communal disputes, warning that the courts have… Read More ‘Unforgivable Institutional Amnesia’: Retired HC Judge Slams Judiciary’s Handling of Communal Disputes
NB: In other words, the BJP/RSS government is now selecting the electorate. As Bertold Brecht wrote in his poem The Solution, (1953) on the East German government’s despotic ways: Perhaps the government ought to dissolve the people and elect another? DS Exercises like the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls presage a state of affairs… Read More When the State Always Doubts Your Identity; or disenfranchising India’s citizens
After the truth-shower 