… there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn… Read More Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture war
Aidan McQuade Theresa May, both as home secretary and prime minister, pushed for the UK to become a global leader in the international struggle against contemporary forms of slavery. Her vision was always a blurred one, in which she somehow reconciled championing the 2015 Modern Slavery Act alongside prosecuting victims of human trafficking for the… Read More Anti-strike bill: a step toward forced labour in the UK?
Group of legislators, activists and community workers are accused of holding unofficial pre-election primaries that authorities say constitutes subversion One of the most significant national security trials in the Chinese government’s crackdown on Hong Kong will begin on Monday, two years after many of the city’s most prominent government critics were first brought into custody. The case… Read More Hong Kong 47: trial of dozens in pro-democracy movement set to begin under national security laws
NB: All I can say is thank you Kumar. You restore our faith in humanity. You may be an atheist, but if there is a god, you have blessed us all by your act of grace. God bless you, and Siddique too who had gone to Uttar Pradesh to do his duty. DS By Puja… Read More Meet Kumar Sauvir, the journalist who stood up for Siddique Kappan
Vidya Krishnan “Narendra Modi is directly responsible” for what happened in Gujarat in 2002. Those four words do more to acknowledge the grief inflicted on India’s Muslims, who have been at the receiving end of twenty years of gaslighting, than anything the government has done or said. In a documentary, the BBC—based on thoroughly reported… Read More What the BBC’s “Modi Question” reveals about India
NB: The Iranian theocracy has banned happiness, in Gods name. I wonder what they understand of the promised paradise. DS An Iranian court has handed jail sentences of more than 10 years each to a young couple who danced in front of one of Tehran’s main landmarks in a video seen as a symbol of… Read More Iranian couple filmed dancing in Tehran are jailed for 10 years
It was early evening, and people had gathered at a local pandal in Moe Dar Lay village, in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region, to prepare for a Buddhist novice ordination ceremony the following day. Just as they began to cook, fighter jets appeared in the sky. Then the sound of explosions boomed through the air. “The jets… Read More Myanmar junta increases airstrikes on civilians
Denise A. Herd As the video goes public of Black police officers in Memphis beating Tyre Nichols to death, it is a stark reminder of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. That set up the largest protests in U.S. history and a national reckoning with racism. But beyond any protests, every police killing – indeed,… Read More Pain of police killings ripples outward to traumatize Black people and communities across US
Muhammad Bezinjo Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar, the hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is in a siege-like situation amid unrest caused by a crackdown against protesting citizens. The city faced a blackout of mobile and internet communications for almost a week. While the mobile networks have been restored, the internet has been shut down… Read More Pakistan’s Port City Gwadar in Chaos
NB: There are millions of decent peace loving American citizens. But there have been more mass shootings this year, even before January is complete, than in any comparable period; and now this. This kind of behavior makes one realise that the impulse toward cruelty has overtaken American state and civil society. I can only hope… Read More Beaten to death for a traffic violation: the irredeemable brutalisation of America
After the truth-shower 