NB: Those of us who see the events of the late 1940’s in black and white terms ought to study the complexity of historical events as well as of the views of the actors in those events. Some may be surprised to read B. R. Ambedkar’s views on the transfer of population on a communal… Read More Jogendranath Mandal hoped for Dalit-Muslim unity in Pakistan. He’s remembered as a ‘villain’
People’s Archive of Rural India Ulopi Biswas was declared a ‘foreigner’ despite the family’s Indian citizenship and her own papers that prove her nationality. She was declared a D-voter, and went through a trial at Bongaigaon Foreign Tribunal in 2017-2022 to prove her citizenship. Kulsum Nissa and Sufia Khatun, who are out on bail from… Read More Facing history and ourselves
By ALFRED MCCOY Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate. So it was with the British, French and Soviet empires; so it now is with imperial America. Great Britain confronted serious colonial crises in India, Iran… Read More Facing three global crises, the American empire may be nearing final collapse
First posted August 09, 2019 Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. Is religion a force for peace or war? Or to borrow a phrase from the title of Christopher Hitchen’s recent book, God Is Not Great, does religion really poison everything, including the possibility of living in a… Read More Brian Victoria: Holy War – Toward a Holistic Understanding
Amy Hawkins At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common. But in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valour in cyberspace. Last month a patriotic blogger… Read More China Nobel Laureate for literature becomes a target in nationalist slander campaign
The French political philosopher was both mouthpiece and model for the best defense of liberalism. Paul T. Wilford, Ethan Cutler March 01, 2024 NB: The final paragraph of this review contains these lines: ‘As Mark Lilla notes in his preface to Aron’s lecture, the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine may be a wake-up call: “Sometimes it… Read More Raymond Aron’s Liberal Virtues
Bharat Bhushan There is strong suspicion in Nepal that the revivalist demand for abandoning secularism and restoring Nepal as a Hindu Rashtra is being encouraged by the Hindutva forces in India. Nepal’s politics has once again taken an unexpected turn with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, breaking his alliance with the Nepali Congress. Prachanda’s Communist… Read More Not China, Nepali Congress forced Prachanda’s hand
The West has set itself on a path of collective suicide — both moral and economic. NB: The ideological dissolution of Western imperialism began with the League of Nations illegal mandate system at the end of the Great War of 1914-1918. This system enabled the colonial occupation of Palestine and other territories of the defeated… Read More Michael Brenner: The West’s Reckoning?
NHRC office-bearers are handpicked to ensure that the charter of human rights remains merely on paper. Although meant to protect the citizens, the rights body has instead resorted to covering the government’s violations. M.G. Devasahayam Democracy, the highest form of human rights, is at peril in India today. The 2023 V-Dem Institute at the University… Read More The National Human Rights Commission is a Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing
By AMANDA MARCOTTE Despite the best efforts of the Beltway press to present him as a spry young man next to 81-year-old Joe Biden, it’s getting harder by the day to ignore that 77-year-old Donald Trump is decompensating rapidly. He wasn’t all that healthy or coherent to begin with but, lately, watching him speak has the… Read More Trump is degenerating before our eyes — MAGA voters don’t notice or don’t care
After the truth-shower 