NB: Hari Sen was a close friend, a highly regarded colleague at Ramjas College History department – where he taught for nearly three decades – and a wonderful person. He was a committed teacher, devoted to his students and played a big role in making our department well-respected across the university. He had a mischievous… Read More R.I.P. Hari Sen (1955-2024). Beloved teacher and outstanding human being
In the early 1930s, the Indian-born physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-95), who was then studying at the University of Cambridge in the UK, proposed that not all stars become white dwarves at the end of their lifecycle. Instead, the brilliant young scientist argued, when stars were of a certain mass, they would form something denser than… Read More The Indian astronomer whose innovative work on black holes was mocked at Cambridge
To be radical requires a theory of how this world, for all its problems, contains and is fostering the beginning of another, very different world. Jedediah Britton-Purdy All sorts of people had come to the Welsh countryside to spend the day talking about the history of labor radicalism: miners, organizers, researchers, politicians. But the star… Read More Raymond Williams’s Resources for Hope
First posted June 02, 2017 NB: Comrade Satyapal Dang (1920-2013), a stalwart communist, was one of the tallest figures of modern India. At the height of the Khalistani movement he and his wife comrade Vimla stood fast in the CPI’s trade union office in Ekta Bhavan, Amritsar, despite the threats to their lives. They upheld secular values and… Read More Comrade Satyapal Dang: Lessons of Punjab have relevance for Kashmir
God is too big for just one religion: Laxminarayan Ramdas The funeral and final rites of Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM (Retd.), were performed with full Navy honours at the Swarg Vatika in Trimulgherry, here on Saturday. He is survived by his wife, Lalita Ramdas, his three daughters and their spouses, and three… Read More War hero Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas given funeral with Naval honours
NB: My deepest condolences to Mrs Lalita Ramdas and Admiral Ramdas’ three daughters and his extended family. He was a great, humane, and courageous soul. Peace loving and democratic people all over the world are indebted to him. May he rest in peace. Dilip The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) expresses its deepest… Read More CNDP Statement on Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas (1933-2024). Rest in Peace
By Gregory Freidin Great musicians, it is said, do not choose their calling—music chooses them. Reading and rereading Joseph Frank’s writings after his passing, it seems that the spirit of modernity itself chose him to be its voice among literary critics—in the age when brute force remaking the world was matched and animated by a… Read More A Critic, His Life, His Age: A Tribute to Joseph Frank (1918-2013)
There are some who are in darkness / And the others are in lightAnd you see the ones in brightness / Those in darkness drop from sight.(Bertold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera) People in the West seem naïve to us because they don’t suffer like we do, they have a remedy for every little pimple. We’re… Read More Svetlana Alexievich: Secondhand Time
By Sam Husseini / Substack I doubt it’s a coincidence that Malcolm — born 99 years ago this year and assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965 — was a model for the martyred Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer. Indeed, at a talk in 2012, Alareer would recall his introduction to Malcolm: “I was teaching a course, and there was an amazing… Read More The Prophecies of Malcolm X: Zionism Is a New Kind of Colonialism
NB: Allahabad was my father’s birthplace and hometown; and that of his two sisters. It was the place where they went to school and college. My father’s closest friendships dated back to his childhood and youth in Allahabad. My grandparent’s home was located on 9, Kamala Nehru Road (once City Road); and I have fond… Read More Allahabad that is Prayagraj: The Politics of Erasure
After the truth-shower 