Mau did not operate on latitude, longitude, angles, or mathematical calculations of any kind. He walked, and sailed, under an arching web of stars moving slowly east to west from their rising to their setting points, and knew them so well—more than 100 of them by name, and their associated stars by colour, light and… Read More Pius Mau Piailug, master navigator (1932-2010)
Leaving this world in an age of lies and cruelty, my last message is simple: don’t give up on truth Carlos Hernández Photo: Alberto Di Lolli Dear reader, for the first time since I became a journalist, I have to tell you I wish you weren’t reading what I’ve written. Because if you’re reading this,… Read More If you are reading this it is because I’m dead: here’s what I want to tell you about how to live
Gandhiji has been killed by his own people for whose redemption he lived. This second crucifixion in the history of the world has been enacted on a Friday – the same day Jesus was done to death one thousand nine hundred and fifteen years ago Father forgive us These lines in white on a black… Read More Gandhi-Sarhadi Gandhi Sandesh Karwan: January 30, Gandhi Shahadat Diwas, to February 6, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Birth Anniversary
This is no book; who touches this touches a man: Walt Whitman Zweig and his second wife, Charlotte Elisabeth Altmann, committed suicide on February 22, 1942; the day after he submitted the manuscript of this book to the publisher. His farewell message read: I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect… Read More Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday
Netra News obituary for the first female prime minister of Bangladesh She became only the second woman ever elected prime minister in a Muslim-majority country, leading a party that liked to cast itself as the centre-right antidote to the Awami League’s secular nationalism. By the time her Bangladesh Nationalist Party returned to power in 2001,… Read More Begum Khaleda Zia, the walking contradiction
Some music for Christmas Christmas with André Rieu – Live in Maastricht (2019) WW1: Christmas Truce of 1914 – Vision of Humanity The Soldiers’ Christmas Truce 1914 / Armistice Day, November 11, 1918: In Pictures The Little Drummer Boy (originally known as Carol of the Drum) is a popular Christmas song written by the American classical music composer and teacher Katherine… Read More The Little Drummer Boy / Christmas with André Rieu – Live in Maastricht (2019)
As I look back on their lives, I can now see, more clearly than when I was young, how my parents affirmed, in practice rather than in theory, the spirit of fraternity and non-discrimination Ramachandra Guha’s tribute to his parents. May their souls rest in peace This column stays away from mentioning my family, but… Read More Quiet luminescence
This photograph was taken around 2000, in my parents retirement home in Pune Mother with our dear family friend Gurdip Singh, on his farm in Kulwedhi, near Kunjpura around 1973 These happy photos of my parents were taken in the Doon School, around 1972 God made a wonderful mother / A mother who never grows… Read More Georgina Pinto Lobo (Jean Simeon): August 8, 1924 – December 2, 2004
María Ramírez Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936 – by Jeremy Treglown Reviewed by Jeremy Adelman On August 19, 1936, militiamen loyal to General Francisco Franco murdered Spain’s famous poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. Afterward, one of the killers, the Falangist Juan Trecastro, burst into a local bar and said, “We’ve just… Read More Spain: Emerging from the Labyrinth / I grew up in Spain amid a collective amnesia about Franco. It is time we faced up to our dark past
In a new memoir, journalist Lara Marlowe recalls the life she shared with her former husband Lara Marlowe When the British journalist Robert Fisk died of a stroke at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin on October 30th, 2020, we had been divorced for 11 years and separated much longer. In the year since Robert’s death,… Read More Life with Robert Fisk: I realised I would not be at peace until I wrote this book
After the truth-shower 