Tag: Orwellian reminders

‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics

A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday. In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security… Read More ‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics

Dilip

Bharat Bhushan: Government as hacker / Proof of Pegasus use on phones, Cyber experts tell SC panel

Investigative journalists Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times (NYT) have revealed that the cyber-weapon Pegasus was part of a $2 billion defence package the Narendra Modi government purchased from Israel in 2017. A government minister has sought to dismiss it as a motivated conspiracy by calling the highly respected NYT, “supari” media, a… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Government as hacker / Proof of Pegasus use on phones, Cyber experts tell SC panel

Dilip

Andrew Roth: Rights group’s closure is part of rapid dismantling of Russian civil society

In a terrible year for human rights in Russia, beginning with the imprisonment of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the closure of International Memorial stands out for its ruthlessness. Founded in the late 1980s by Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet-era dissidents, the group took the new freedoms offered under Mikhail Gorbachev and used them to reveal raw… Read More Andrew Roth: Rights group’s closure is part of rapid dismantling of Russian civil society

Dilip

रूस ने गुलाग इतिहासकार की सजा और बढ़ाई / Gulag historian, activist Yuri Dmitriyev sentenced to 15 years

रूस के गुलाग शिविरों पर शोध करने वाले इतिहासकार यूरी दमित्रियेव की जेल की सजा को 13 साल से बढ़ा कर 15 साल कर दिया गया है. उनके समर्थकों का कहना है कि उन्हें उनके काम की वजह से सजा दी जा रही है. 65 साल के यूरी दमित्रियेवके समर्थकों का कहना है कि उन्हें इसलिए निशाना बनाया… Read More रूस ने गुलाग इतिहासकार की सजा और बढ़ाई / Gulag historian, activist Yuri Dmitriyev sentenced to 15 years

Dilip

Edward Snowden – Everything Going Great: Bad Faith, Worse News and Julian Assange

Gospel, a word from Old English, is a compound that means “good news.” And it’s gospel that’s been in short-supply as we head into the Christmas season. Whenever this fact gets me down, I remember that finding evil, malfeasance, and even suffering in the headlines is just a sign that the press is doing its… Read More Edward Snowden – Everything Going Great: Bad Faith, Worse News and Julian Assange

Dilip

CHRIS HEDGES – The execution of Julian Assange: He exposed the crimes of empire; and that can't be tolerated

Assange committed empire’s greatest sin. He exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat. Conservative or Labour. Trump or Biden. It does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same Satanic songbook… The execution of… Read More CHRIS HEDGES – The execution of Julian Assange: He exposed the crimes of empire; and that can't be tolerated

Dilip

Memorial and the liberating power of history. By Timothy Snyder

NB: Attempts to rewrite history with the use of political power are taking place in India as well. Ironically, the infamous habit has been connected to communist regimes, but is quite clearly popular with anti-communist ones as well. As George Orwell remarked in his dystopian novel 1984: “He who controls the past controls the future;… Read More Memorial and the liberating power of history. By Timothy Snyder

Dilip

Adam Ramsay – Culture wars: identity politics and the fight against surveillance capitalism

Neoliberalism was the form of capitalism that came after colonialism, driving markets back into the public sectors of the former colonial powers, allowing capital to monetise and extract wealth from their soft underbellies. Surveillance capitalism, led by the data giants, is taking its place. As academic and writer Shoshana Zuboff has argued, under surveillance capitalism,… Read More Adam Ramsay – Culture wars: identity politics and the fight against surveillance capitalism

Dilip

Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes: The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing

Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget. Here’s our visual guide. Why is meaningful action to avert the climate crisis proving so difficult? It is, at least in part, because of ads. The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a… Read More Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes: The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing

Dilip