Anyone who thinks that the anti-hijab campaign is about discipline and dress code needs to have his or her head examined. And anyone who thinks it’s about the emancipation of Muslim women needs to have a frontal lobotomy without any further loss of time. For it’s clear as crystal that this is just the latest… Read More Avay Shukla: Give them back their hijab and education
NB: This public letter to the highest authorities in the land is of great significance. It’s contents reveal all that is to be said about the current situation in India, and leave me with only two things to say: one: more than judges, IAS officers and police officials, it is an active citizenry which is… Read More Your silence emboldens hate voices: Faculty, students of IIMs to PM
British universities have accepted almost £90m in funding from major oil companies since 2017, openDemocracy can reveal. Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London have been criticised for taking the most, with one MP branding the relationship between oil giants and universities “scandalous.” Imperial College London has accepted more than £54m, including £39m from Shell –… Read More British universities slammed for taking £90m from oil companies in four years
The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education. And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national… Read More BRIAN KAREM – Dumbass nation: Our biggest national security problem is America's "vast and militant ignorance" / ExxonMobil's campaign to fund climate science denial
When we judge scholarship only as politics, something crucial is lost A new consensus unites college administrators with many of their faculty members, especially in the humanities: Scholarship today must be socially engaged. This demand, and the morally charged language that comes with it, might seem to meet the urgency of our political moment.… Read More Justin Sider: In Defense of Disinterested Knowledge
NB: Saleem was a dear personal friend and colleague at Ramjas College, in the University of Delhi. Both of us were also alumni of St Stephens College, albeit separated by a couple of years. He was a gentleman to his core and a brilliant historian. On the rare occasions he spoke in Staff Council meetings,… Read More Goodbye Saleem / सबके मेंटर थे सलीम किदवई
The withdrawal of Dr Hari Singh Gour University in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, from an international seminar on “Cultural and Linguistic Hurdles in the Achievement of Scientific Temper” due to bullying by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the local police must not be treated lightly. The university had approved the topic, the collaboration and the speakers,… Read More Apoorvanand; Gauhar Raza: The bully that is destroying India’s academic culture
“By academic freedom, I understand the right to search for truth and publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also implies a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognised to be true.” – Albert Einstein Sign the petition: http://chng.it/7b2b6CDY Dr Gilbert Sebastian, an Assistant Professor at the… Read More Petition re Suspension of academic in Kerala because he talked about fascism and Sangh Parivar
Central to our work at the Center for Philosophy for Children at the University of Washington is the conviction that we ought to challenge beliefs about children’s limited capacities, and to expand our understanding of the nature of philosophy and who is capable of engaging in it. As one seven-year-old put it: ‘In philosophy, we’re… Read More Jana Mohr Lone: ‘Mommy, why do the days just keep coming?’ – Philosophy with children
Human Rights Watch – Scenes from Sayed ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul, Afghanistan, where as many as 85 people including many schoolgirls were killed in an attack this weekend, should break anyone’s heart. They certainly broke mine. In 2017 a filmmaker and I spent a week at the school, filming a video to accompany a report on barriers to girls’ education. The… Read More Killing Schoolgirls in Afghanistan: Fundamentalist Attackers Target Girls Leaving Kabul High School
After the truth-shower 