First posted June 30, 2015 The Old Astronomer to His Pupil Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of howWe are working to completion, working on from then to… Read More The Old Astronomer to His Pupil / Stunning New Footage Of Earth
Greg Conti It has quickly become a commonplace that American elite higher education is in a more perilous position than it has been in recent memory. Long-standing conservative discontent has crystallized as a result of recent events; multiple proposals targeting universities’ pocketbooks have been floated by lawmakers in the past weeks. Republican officials have made… Read More The Rise of the Sectarian University (in the USA)
NB: Jit Singh Uberoi was beloved of many of us who were not students of sociology. My personal link with him was not slight: he was on the interview committee which appointed me to a teaching position in Ramjas College, in August 1974. Thereafter we met and interacted in academic seminars as well as on… Read More Remembering Professor J.P.S. Uberoi: Scholar, Mentor, and Teacher (1934-2024) / Antim Ardas for Professor Jit Pal Singh Uberoi
In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates always pursues truth with others. Dialectics therefore is a communal inquiry that aspires to be collaborative, with various participants contributing to a better understanding of the truth. It requires people to reflect on their own point of view and then proceed to understand the viewpoint of others which hopefully leads to… Read More From the Multiversity Cave: Plato and Periagoge
NB: The rebellion against reason, the cults of nostalgia or particularity are not new, these ways of thought have been with us a long time; and are a consequence of the divorce of reason from goodness, virtue, beauty and justice. Romanticism is a consequence of the elevation of scientific reason to a status above the… Read More The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms
Bharat Bhushan The protestors in the Parliamentary attack of December 13, 2023 were clearly naive, and their method patently criminal. But even while policing failures are examined threadbare, their political message should not be lost. Ignoring caste and regional affiliations, they just wanted to send a message to the entire political class about youth unemployment. They appear… Read More No jobs and a bleak future: Has the political class failed India’s youth?
These professors had to finish their doctoral research, write papers, present in conferences, and yet miraculously also had time for that extra reading that a student requested, or for lunch at D-School Canteen to give a serious answer to a question. Abinash Dash Choudhury Education as the practice of freedom—as opposed to education as the… Read More An Ode to the ‘Ad-Hoc’ Teachers of Ramjas English Department
‘Selfie-points’ in universities: What purpose do they serve? Bharat Bhushan The selfie is no longer dismissed by behavioural analysts as symptomatic of self-obsession or narcissism. Experts believe that selfies are also a way to connect and communicate with others. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for example, was a serious serial selfie-taker with world leaders during his… Read More University Grants Commission aiding the cult of personality
NB: So much for Ivy League education. Some life is more precious than other life. Some people have the right to defend themselves; while others, especially if backed by Uncle Sam, must not even protest whilst being slaughtered. After all, they’re just ‘human animals’. Your racist prejudice shines through the ivy. The statement of the… Read More The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza
NB: This a damn shame, even worse is that it has been going on for decades; and despite promises by the police and various administrations to educate the public and punish the offenders, nothing changes. Calling people chinki‘s and prostitutes because of the way they look is racist and misogynist. Those politicians who go on… Read More ‘What’s your rate’. Northeast women still have it bad in Delhi. Nothing has changed in 9 years
