-The Indian Express Is corruption among the lower castes an equaliser? Is it a zero-sum game? First we, the upper castes, were the looters, now it is your turn, the lower castes, to loot — and it's okay. After all, according to Ashis Nandy, there is hope for the republic if there is still some scope to loot, and especially if it is by the lower castes. And according to Tarun...

-Counterpunch.org     “The rearing and guiding of a civilization must depend upon its intellectual class.”     BR Ambedkar, Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah, 1943, Delhi. I. Arrest. States are clumsy with their enormous power. When it suits the modern state, it uses it immense apparatus to constraint those who make claims upon it or who say things that denigrate this or that section of society. A college professor in West Bengal draws a cartoon of...

-Outlook The sorts of corruption that matter are a purview of privileged     “An intellectual man can be a good man but he may easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity, or it may easily be a gang of crooks or a body of advocates of narrow clique from which it draws its support.”     —B.R....

-First Post The Jaipur literary festival is almost notorious for creating storms in a teacup. To its credit though, if offers a different flavor of literary tea every year. Last year, it was a variant of the Rushdie phenomenon, where a group of aspiring litterateurs read out passages from the Satanic Verses and then succumbed to political correctness. This year, the controversy came in a session chaired by Urvashi Butalia, publisher Zubaan, where...

-The Telegraph Jaipur, Jan. 27: An FIR against social scientist Ashis Nandy for alleged defamatory remarks on Dalits and tribals has brought to the fore a growing trend of “thought terrorism” that treats nuanced opinion as heresy liable to be crushed with a heavy hand. The remarks by Nandy, a widely respected sociologist known for his nuanced positions and reluctance to play to the gallery just to be part of “acceptable voices”,...