NB: I have argued in a recent article that the rule of law in India (and indeed in all of South Asia) has been replaced by the rule of ideology. Those who celebrate lawlessness in the name of nationalism should bear in mind that this is the first step towards social and political disintegration. But… Read More Mahua Moitra on the killing of Atiq Ahmed: This is mobocracy
Here are some of the senior administrators I did not see joining us on the picket lines set up by striking teachers and staff at Rutgers University. Brian Strom, the chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, whose salary is $925,932 a year. Steven Libutti, the vice chancellor for Cancer Programs for Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences,… Read More Chris Hedges: American universities are appendages of the corporate state
Once crime was as solitary as a cry of protest; now it is as universal as science. Yesterday it was put on trial; today it determines the law. Albert Camus; The Rebel (1956) Bharat Bhushan Support for harsh penal policies is often the result of two interconnected phenomena. One, viewing criminals as those outside of… Read More Death by ‘encounter’: Yogi Adityanath’s penal populism
Xu Zhiyong’s dream is for China to become a democratic country that is “beautiful, free, fair and happy.” It is a simple wish, yet in the eyes of the authorities, his vision is dangerous and subversive. The 50-year-old human rights lawyer and champion of social equality was sentenced to 14 years in jail earlier this month, along with fellow… Read More How one man went from China’s Communist party golden child to enemy of the state
First posted February 20, 2019 NB: It has been a long-standing feature of communal politics to make innocent people pay for the crimes of a few. This noxious habit is now being pushed and encouraged by the political fronts of the RSS, which in effect means the Government of India. These people claim to hold a… Read More Ramachandra Guha: Why attack young Kashmiris for a crime committed by someone else? / This Student Helped Evacuate Hundreds Of Kashmiris After Pulwama
First posted February 21, 2019 NB: The CRPF officers and jawans deserve our thanks for defending the truth in their hour of grief; and exposing the fraud being perpetrated on the country by the fake news brigade. The measures they have taken to combat communal propaganda is in marked contrast to the thuggish behaviour of the… Read More Our Men Didn’t Die So Someone Could Spread Communal Hatred: CRPF
First posted December 10, 2015 April 24, 2015, marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide: how many of us remember? The Ghosts of Ararat After all, who today talks about the murderous dispersal of the Armenians? Adolf Hitler, 1939 Hitler is believed to have said this whilst commenting on the genocide of Armenian residents of the… Read More Suman Keshari: The Ghosts of Ararat
Relatives were still recovering the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a coup two years ago. An eyewitness, who hid in a tunnel during the attack, described a scene of horror… Read More The horrific aftermath of Myanmar junta airstrike that killed 133
“What is history for? … It makes us brave!” ADAM TOOZE I’ll never forget this response by my distinguished colleague Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith to one of the “theory and practice” questions with which we used to torture Cambridge undergraduates back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Riley-Smith’s answer resonated with me, precisely for its profound, almost archaic… Read More The courage of Vladimir Kara-Murza
American Civil Liberties Union Today, more than 76 percent of incarcerated workers surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics say that they are required to work or face additional punishment such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation. They have no right to choose what type of… Read More Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers
After the truth-shower 