Ideology is the most devilish variation of the lie: Hannah Arendt, Approaches to the “German Problem”; in Essays in Understanding, 1994 NB: The American establishment, its allies and a vast section of its media use the word evil with Nelsonian vision. As someone who has observed evil with both eyes and no national, religious, or… Read More Evil, with one eye
By Deepanshu Mohan There is a solar flare of deep inter-state conflict, conquest, and siege erupting all over the globe. Russia and Ukraine have been embroiled in a long drawn, painful war for over a year and a half. After a 10-month blockade, Azerbaijan launched an attack on Sept. 19, claiming the enclave in a day and causing nearly the entire… Read More On Justice and Sovereignty: The Limits of International Justice Architecture in a World Marred by Conflict and Conquest
To be considered a political being you must at the very least be considered a human being. Who gets to count as human? “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,”… Read More The double standard with Israel and Palestine leaves us in moral darkness
The driving out of peoples was ‘a thoroughly bad and vicious solution, for which the world will pay a heavy penalty for a hundred years to come’: Lord Curzon, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, commenting on the exchanges between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Cited in R. M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans… Read More The Agony of Palestine
Bernard Haykel There are two immediate reasons why these attacks took place. First, Hamas has been vying with the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the leadership of the Palestinian cause and the success of these attacks is one way to achieve this. The PA is the official government of the Palestinians that signed the Oslo Peace… Read More Why Hamas attacked now – and how it weakens both Israel and hopes for peace
At the time I was reimagining this scene, I spent much of my day on Twitter. It was early 2021, and everyone there was chronically angry. People communicated by jeering, trading insults, hectoring, flinging accusations… It was like being in an abusive relationship with everyone in the world. Sandra Newman A few years ago, I… Read More Orwellian nightmares: What I learned about today’s rage culture from rewriting 1984
By Dilip Simeon NB: This is an extended reminiscence of a conversation about Ranajit Guha and the Naxalite movement. The conversation was arranged at the request of the Bangla journal Anustup; and took place between me and a History honours student at the University of Delhi. (I am obliged to Anustup for having prompted this… Read More A Political Man: Memories of Ranajit Guha
Walter Marsh On 9 September 1953, a small page-two item in the Adelaide News announced: “Mr Rupert Murdoch, son of the late Sir Keith Murdoch, is to join the staff of News Ltd.” Seventy years later almost to the day, the news of his resignation as chairman of the global media empire that company became arrived to… Read More The Murdoch story is the endless pursuit of control, power and profit. Rupert’s resignation is unlikely to change that
Former students of Vasant Valley School – one of the leading schools in the national capital – have written to its owner, the India Today group, asking it to refrain from what they say is communally polarising programming under the garb of news reportage in the television channels it runs The India Today group has multiple TV… Read More Vasant Valley Alums question India Today Group for Communally Polarising TV News
NB: The USA and UK are stuck in a hypocritical marsh when speaking of violent interventions in foreign countries. Iran and Chile come to mind, not to mention Vietnam, Argentina and Bangladesh. The brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the behest of Western ally Mohammad bin Salman, did not not prevent their arms… Read More If India ordered a murder in Canada, there must be consequences: The Economist
After the truth-shower 