Struggles for democracy and human rights in South Asia: Taking forward Asma Jahangir’s legacy

Ironically, the late Asma Jahangir’s last public appearance and speech were at a demonstration led by Pashteen in Islamabad, February 2018, against the extrajudicial killing of a Pashtun youth in a ‘police encounter’ in Karachi in January 2018. The protest marked the launch of the PTM. Jahangir passed away just days later at her home in Lahore. Since then,… Read More Struggles for democracy and human rights in South Asia: Taking forward Asma Jahangir’s legacy

19th November 2022 Dilip

The Legacy of Liu Xiaobo

NB: This fearless intellectual, who defied the mighty Chinese Communist Party even as he fought for the freedom of the human mind, died in hospital on July 13, 2017, denied the right even to proper treatment. Beneath the image is an extract from Simon Ley’s review of Liu Xiaobo’s book, No Enemies, No Hatred. It… Read More The Legacy of Liu Xiaobo

15th November 2022 Dilip

‘I will become what I want to become’

NB: November 14, 2022, will be Jawaharlal Nehru’s 133rd birthday. It is celebrated as Children’s Day. DS Jamuna Solanke In the Nathjogi nomadic community, no girl had ever passed Class 10. With fierce determination, Jamuna Solanke, from a hamlet in Maharashtra’s Buldana district, has broken that barrier. This is her story On the day my… Read More ‘I will become what I want to become’

13th November 2022 Dilip

The Captive Mind revisited

First posted January 24, 2017 Jerzy Krzyżanowski The Captive Mind (1953) has been compared to the two most revealing and penetrating works on the same subject previously published – Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980. Read an interview with him in 2003, the year before he… Read More The Captive Mind revisited

11th November 2022 Dilip

Lt Col Eric Simeon. October 29, 1918 – May 15, 2007

First posted October 29, 2022 Today is my father’s 104th birthday. Beneath the photograph (taken in the early 1960’s) are posts commemorating his centenary in 2018, (which contains a short account of his life) ; and a remembrance of Sainik School Kunjpura, of which he was the Founder Principal Lt Col Eric Simeon’s hundredth birthday:… Read More Lt Col Eric Simeon. October 29, 1918 – May 15, 2007

29th October 202223rd February 2024 Dilip

Stanley Rosen (1929-2014). A great philosopher

First posted on June 12, 2014, upon learning of his passing NB: Stanley Rosen passed away on May 4, 2014, in Philadelphia, USA. (Read an obituary here). I never met him, but only managed to convey my regards via a couple of messages. I was introduced to his writing about a decade ago, and was profoundly moved and… Read More Stanley Rosen (1929-2014). A great philosopher

14th October 202214th October 2022 Dilip

Jean-Paul Sartre: Tribute to Albert Camus (February 1960)

He and I had quarreled. A quarrel doesn’t matter – even if those who quarrel never see each other again – just another way of living together without losing sight of one another in the narrow little world that is allotted us. It didn’t. keep me from thinking of him, from feeling that his eyes… Read More Jean-Paul Sartre: Tribute to Albert Camus (February 1960)

12th October 2022 Dilip

When the Queen came calling in 1961

KUNAL DUTT NB: Like Kishanji, resident of Varanasi (quoted below) I too was a small boy, just less than eleven years of age, when Queen Elizabeth arrived in Delhi in January 1961. Us schoolchildren (from what is now called the Army Public School), were taken to Sardar Patel road, to welcome her. We stood on… Read More When the Queen came calling in 1961

9th September 202210th September 2022 Dilip

Basudev Chatterji

Nayanjot Lahiri I first met Basudev (lovingly called ‘Robi’) Chatterji in 1978 when I was an undergraduate student and he a lecturer at St. Stephen’s college. Over the years, he appeared in various avataras in my life – as a mentor, as a friend, later as a colleague. Apart from university corridors, I met him… Read More Basudev Chatterji

6th September 2022 Dilip

Mikhail Gorbachev obituary

Jonathan Steele NB: Mikhail Gorbachev was a historic figure, for his courage in steering the USSR toward democracy and the peaceful resolution of conflicts within and without its borders. It is another matter that the political forces at work in a decrepit state structure were too divisive and corrupt for him to forestall disintegration. Foremost… Read More Mikhail Gorbachev obituary

31st August 2022 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: memorial