BY PRAFUL BIDWAI ‘India makes a power point’, triumphantly announced a Times of India headline when Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella was named the CEO of the software giant Microsoft, evoking its well-known ‘Power Point’ programme. ‘India on the move!’ exulted other major papers. This euphoria replicated the sentiment that another caption conveyed some years ago: ‘India, beauty superpower […]
BY AJAZ ASHRAF Once you complete reading Manoj Mitta’s breathtaking investigative book, The Fiction of Fact-Finding; Modi & Godhra, you are likely to wonder about the priorities of the Indian media, which never shies away from trumpeting its contributions to our vibrant democracy. It’s possible you’d ask why the charges of an elaborate cover-up that Mitta […]
BY VIJAY PRASHAD Geneva 2’s mood mirrored the sound of mortar and despair on the ground in Syria. Not much of substance came of the former, as the U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi tiredly indicated that diplomacy continued despite the lack of a breakthrough. He hoped that the United States and the Russians would pressure […]
BY JANET SURMAN Gross pay, to a certain extent, appeases workers because they perceive themselves to be earning more than they are, although they also generally believe they are being robbed on a regular basis, seeing a considerable amount clawed back from what they maintain they have rightfully earned. Some of what is transferred from […]
BY ROBERT FISK In Iran, there should be a Dead Poets Society. Or perhaps a Martyred Poets Society, with its newest member a certain Arab-Iranian from Ahwaz, in the far south-west of the country, on the Iraqi border. He has been hanged for “spreading corruption on earth”, one of hundreds put to death by the […]
BY HUSSAIN NADIM “The Empire, long divided, must unite: long united, must divide.” The classical quote from the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong captures the dynastic cycle: the fall of Han Dynasty, the partition of the empire into three kingdoms, and the eventual reunification of the empire under the Jin dynasty. If anything […]
BY JANET SURMAN We humans have always worked to support our life; worked to catch, grow and produce our food, to make our shelter, our clothes and our tools, in general to satisfy our needs. In groups tasks were shared and communities developed by dividing labour cooperatively according to expertise and free will. All worked […]
BY KALPANA SHARMA Thanks to the unfortunate and virtually relentless reports of sexual violence against women in different parts of the country, the question of women’s safety has found a place in pre-election debates. Every sexist or gender-insensitive remark made by a politician is noted and the individual is asked to explain what he meant. […]
BY JONATHAN COOK Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rarely been so politically embattled. His travails indicate the Israeli right’s inability to respond to a shifting political landscape, both in the region and globally. The context for his troubles was his commitment in 2009, under great pressure from a newly elected US president, Barack Obama, […]
BY AG NOORANI THE media is a powerful institution with a fragile base. It depends on public opinion for support against the state and any others who seek to stifle it. But it finds itself weak in the face of mob fury whipped up by vigilante groups. Every institution has come under attack lately in […]