-The Hindu Thanks to manufactured debates on TV, there is no time for irony and nuance nor are we able to distinguish between a charlatan and an academician Now that the Supreme Court has provided some sort of relief against harassment to Professor Ashis Nandy, it has become incumbent upon all liberal voices to ponder over the processes and arguments that combined to ensure that an eminent scholar had to slink out...

-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...

-ANI Srinagar : A day after the fatwa (decree) issued by Grand Mufti of Jammu and Kashmir, Bashiruddin Ahmad, against the girl-band, the associated with the rock-band have decided to call it quits. Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad on Sunday had issued a decree terming singing as ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘obscene’. The band named ‘Pragaash’ (morning light) comprises Huma, the lead vocalist and guitarist, Aneeka who plays base and Farah, who is the drummer. However, Jammu and...

-The Hindu Contrary to what Nandy’s defenders would have us believe, his corruption remark reinforces negative stereotypes about Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes The controversy around Ashis Nandy’s casual remarks at the Jaipur Literature Festival did not address a number of important questions of public concern. The frenzied ‘Save Nandy’ campaign that followed has actually foreclosed any productive discussion. His supporters have been trying to explain and contextualise Professor Nandy’s flippant remarks...

-The Hindu With every passing controversy, we’re learning to redefine our rights, says Baradwaj Rangan This is the story of two YouTube videos. The first one came up bare hours before I sat down to write this, and it featured an actor, a producer, a director announcing to a media gathering that he was now homeless in every sense. His new production, the one that had sucked up his life’s savings, still...