Two bizarre weeks in a Boston courtroom and the threat to intellectual life in America… It is a feature of our intractable times that political conflict nearly always takes the shape of a conflict over the nature of reality. By Charlie Tyson It was the first day of a federal trial, in Boston, for a… Read More Can Academic Freedom Survive the Surveillance State?
Welcome to The Backdrop, a selection of fine narrative journalism from The Caravan to put the news in context. The Independence Day Sale is now live. Last week, a special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai acquitted Pragya Singh Thakur, a former member of parliament from the Bhartiya Janata Party, and six others in the… Read More The Caravan archive: Malegaon Acquittals, NIA’s Decline, and Sangh Parivar Terror Links
St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was to be held on Saturday, after protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, reported The Free Press Journal. The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The lecture, titled “Migration for… Read More Mumbai: St Xavier’s College cancels Stan Swamy lecture after ABVP protests
Number of arrests was highest recorded in relation to single operation in past decade, according to police NB: Some advice to the brave protestors: fill the jails. Get the police to arrest thousands more of you. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered with the help of the USA and UK, with its self-proclaimed… Read More Police arrest 474 people at protest over Palestine Action ban in London. Mass civil disobedience is the only way forward
‘Because this isn’t just about Trump. It’s about a transnational, state-backed criminal enterprise that trafficked girls, laundered billions, and rewired democracy for the benefit of the rich, the ruthless, and the politically untouchable. We are all victims of this machine. The girls whose names we know, and the ones we never will. The families silenced.… Read More Trump. Epstein. Maxwell. Intelligence. Immunity. A multinational enterprise of leverage and silence
Franz Kafka “It’s a remarkable apparatus,” said the Officer to the Explorer and gazed with a certain look of admiration at the device, with which he was, of course, thoroughly familiar. It appeared that the Traveller had responded to the invitation of the Commandant only out of politeness, when he had been asked to attend… Read More In the Penal Colony (1919)
NB: The Western rulers are complicit in mass murder. They are also unashamed racists – some lives are more worthy of dignity than others. We all know this and they know it too – they hurl their impunity in our faces. Had there been any justice in the world they would have been tried for… Read More Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. It couldn’t have done it without the west’s help
Ron Wyden has some ideas for Pam Bondi to pursue—if, that is, she’s genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of the Epstein scandal. Greg Sargent A few days ago, as the Jeffrey Epstein scandal gripped Washington, Senator Ron Wyden offered a striking revelation in an interview with The New York Times. The Oregon Democrat said that his… Read More Trump’s Epstein Fiasco Takes Darker Turn as Dem Senator Drops New Bomb
Imagine, the same government that repeatedly demands citizens present papers and preserve records to prove their citizenship and right to vote claims to have no papers when citizens ask for them. http://www.reporters-collective.in Here is another instalment on the Election Commission of India’s special intensive revision scandal. Last week, we received a reply from the Ministry… Read More Law Ministry Denied Giving Papers on Special Intensive Revision
Amidst the ongoing crackdown on suspected foreign nationals from Bangladesh, hundreds of Bengali and Assamese migrants have been detained and kept in what the Gurugram police call “holding centres”. Alishan Jafri and Shruti Sharma Gurugram: On July 19, Hafizur Sheikh (41) had finished his shift as a cleaner outside a liquor store in Gurugram when he was stopped… Read More In Gurugram’s ‘Holding Centres’, Men Say They Are Detained Just for Speaking Bengali
After the truth-shower 