Take back those words Mitali Saran You know how evolution is all about single cells dividing and dividing again, into ever more complex and wondrous life forms? After 2014, Indian mainstream media totally bucked that trend. With honourable exceptions, it simplified itself into two blobs: propaganda, and amplifiers of propaganda. Teleprompter Uncle, and Radio Rwanda.… Read More De-blobbing Blobland
A serious outbreak of viral laughter threatens public docility Mitali Saran When I think of the BJP-RSS worldview, the word that always springs to mind is joyless. I mean, this is the personality type whose whole political schtick is to nurse a grudge for a hundred years. It can’t stop with the dreary rules and the… Read More Contagion
Bharat Bhushan With little in the Gen-Z campaign that the Modi government could turn against it, a State-ordered take down of content seemed the only option to limit reputational damage How women protesters became targets after the Jantar Mantar protest Bharat Bhushan A highly curated image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the supreme leader of… Read More Why Gen‑Z’s satire will outpace State control
The retreat into satirical attacks on Trump and his supporters fuels the solidification of fascism When satire is the end point, it is deleterious. It masks what is coming. It must be, as Niebuhr pointed out, the entry point. It must push us, as Gramsci understood, into hard analysis and the organization of mass movements… Read More The Joke Is on Us
NB: Who commits contempt of court and of justice? Who despises despiaring fellow citizens and democratic activists? Those who say contemptible things from the highest seats of justice, or those who react to them? DS Hours after Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) surpassed BJP in terms of followers on Instagram, its X account was withheld in… Read More Cockroach Janta Party’s X account withheld after it surpasses BJP on Instagram with 13 million followers / Ravish Kumar: Cockroach Party क्या है
A stiff drink is recommended It is a well-established fact that the universe has a sense of humour. It is less well-established, but increasingly obvious, that the humour is of the kind best enjoyed from a great distance, like, let’s say the moon. Three weeks into the Iran war, reality has passed through the looking… Read More Gold and Geopolitics – March, 19-21: God is a comedian
The ‘indispensble nation‘ marches on, toward a sinkhole of crashed empires, killing and maiming along the way ++++++++++++++++++++ Self-shafting America Homeland Empire Unsolicited thoughts from an elder citizen Natalia Ginzburg: Our Monstrous Ideas Biblical Archaeology and the Judeo-Christian legends / The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho Zionism Breaks Hundreds of prominent Jews and Israelis urge world powers to… Read More America’s Abyss of Uselessness
By Mohan Murti As Indians schooled in the Queen’s English but raised in the Republic’s reality, we’ve turned the language of Shakespeare into something gloriously, unapologetically our own. We bend it, twist it, stretch it—and occasionally, reinvent it altogether. The result is Indian English, a tongue so inventive that it confuses the Brit, bewilders the… Read More Divided by a Common Language: The Indian Edition
John Crace What do Liz Truss and JD Vance have against elderly people? Specifically, those who are kind, decent and compassionate. Take Radon Liz. In September 2022 she made a fleeting visit to Balmoral to be sworn in as prime minister by the queen. The last picture that was taken of Queen Elizabeth was of… Read More Pope Francis’s last sacrifice in a lifetime of sacrifice: granting an audience to JD Vance
The last decade in India has been marred by the institutionalisation of arbitrary power. Raghu Kesavan Kunal Kamra is an unlikely hero. He stands slightly hunched over, mic loosely held in one hand, the other occasionally pressed into service to express disbelief but often stuffed into a trouser pocket. His most recent special, Naya Bharat, reprises the… Read More How the attacks on Kunal Kamra undermine the freedoms of all Indians
After the truth-shower 