First posted December 05, 2017 Pratap Bhanu Mehta The 25th anniversary of that fateful day in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was demolished brings a sense of foreboding. The psychological and historical significance of that day is complex. But when all is said and done, it has to be admitted that the worst of our… Read More Events of December 6, 1992 assaulted both secularism and Hinduism
Richard Wolin As a political thinker, the German philosopher Carl Schmitt was enamored of symbols and myths. His biographer has shown that during the 1930s Schmitt was convinced that providing National Socialism with a rational justification was self-contradictory and self-defeating. The alternative that was conceived by Schmitt, a conservative who was an eminent member of… Read More The Cult of Carl Schmitt
The arrest of an alleged serial killer who targeted Indigenous women in central Canada has prompted fresh anger and despair that the country has once again failed in its promises to protect vulnerable women and girls. Police in Winnipeg announced late on Thursday they had charged Jeremy Skibicki, 35, with the murder of Morgan Beatrice Harris, 39, and… Read More Canada reels from killings of Indigenous women
Stunning scenes of dissent and defiance played out across China over the past week, marking the country’s largest protests in decades – and an unprecedented challenge to leader Xi Jinping. Deep public anger after nearly three years of snap lockdowns, border closures and financial hardship brought thousands out onto the streets to demand an end… Read More How a deadly fire ignited dissent over China’s zero-Covid policy
Wilfred Chan Rose Tang was stunned when she saw videos last week of crowds in China chanting in Mandarin, “Give me liberty or give me death.” It was a phrase the Brooklyn resident had last heard more than three decades ago, when she was one of the student leaders at the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.… Read More ‘Freedom in China is precious’: Tiananmen Square protest veteran salutes new generation
By Laura He Internet users in China will soon be held liable for liking posts deemed illegal or harmful, sparking fears that the world’s second largest economy plans to control social media like never before. China’s internet watchdog is stepping up its regulation of cyberspace as authorities intensify their crackdown on online dissent amid growing public anger against the country’s… Read More China to punish internet users for ‘liking’ posts in crackdown after zero-Covid protests
NB: The Chinese Communist Party considers protesting citizens to be ‘hostile forces’! The only hostile force in China today is your totalitarian tyranny comrades, and it looks like the Chinse people have had enough of it. And as some of their posters are asking: by foreign forces do you mean Marx and Engels? By the… Read More China protests: authorities call for crackdown on ‘hostile forces’
Bharat Bhushan Union Home Minister Amit Shah pressed the “refresh” button on the Gujarat communal riots of 2002 in his campaign speeches in the state. In several public meetings – at Deesa (Banaskantha district), Mahuda (Kheda), Vagra (Bharuch) and Naroda (Ahmedabad) – Shah claimed that those responsible for the riots in 2002 had been “taught… Read More What ‘teaching a lesson’ in Gujarat means
Shabnam von Hein More female journalists are behind bars in Iran than ever before. Among them are Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, both of whom have been accused of “conspiring against national security.” For a long time, Niloofar Hamedi was a sports reporter. She loves soccer, her colleagues write on social media, posting photos of… Read More Iran launches smear campaign against jailed journalists
CNN’s Beijing bureau Protests are erupting across China, including at universities and in Shanghai where hundreds chanted “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!”, in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country’s stringent and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy. A deadly fire at an apartment block in the country’s far western region of Xinjiang that… Read More Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy
After the truth-shower 