Category Archives: Bad ideas

Bad ideas, Right watch

Why should we stand for the national anthem?

42 Comments

A-homeless-young-boy-waves-the-Indian-flag

With increasing reports of people being arrested for not standing for the national anthem,  it’s a good idea to remember why they stopped the practice of playing the thing in cinema halls in the first place – nationalism cannot be coercively produced in people’s breasts through such inane, superficial and empty gestures.

And the converse – just because you dont stand up for the national anthem, it doesn’t make you anti-Indian. You may just have another idea of India,  or you may show your concern for “India” by some more concrete gesture, or through your politics.

As Anmol Karnik asks:

If we play the national anthem before a television show begins at home, would people stand up? I doubt it. Most people who do it, do it because it’s not socially acceptable to sit down when everyone else is standing. It’s being part of the herd, so there’s probably some part of unity embedded in it, but unity in a forceful and degrading manner.

Just as a matter of interest, this is what the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 says:

Whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Jana Gana Mana or causes disturbances to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

There is thus, no legal obligation whatsoever to actually stand while Jana Gana Mana plays.  Continue reading Why should we stand for the national anthem? →

Bad ideas, Government, Identities, Right watch

Scribbling in Dark Times

3 Comments

 

“In the dark times 
Will there also be singing? 
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”

-Bertolt Brecht

 I.

There are moments in one’s life when one really feels perplexed.

You find yourself in a situation which you had never envisaged before.

Most of your predictions about the unfolding situation have gone awry or have not proved upto the mark.

One wants to remain calm, to contemplate things around you, take a break, but I know that for people gathered here – activists, writers committed to a cause, political workers – there is no such luxury. As rightly put by Jose Maria Sison, Filipino poet and revolutionary in one of his short poems

“The Tree Wants to be Calm

But the wind will not stop”

Continue reading Scribbling in Dark Times →

Bad ideas, Right watch

Arrested for sitting during the national anthem: Solidarity Statement with Salman

9 Comments

News Report in The Hindu

A youth from Peroorkada (Kerala) was arrested on Wednesday by the police on charges of showing disrespect to the national flag and the national anthem.

The police said Salman, 25, and his six friends, including two women, had showed disrespect to the national anthem while it was being played inside a movie theatre in the city on August 18. A few others who saw the group remaining seated and allegedly “making catcalls” when the anthem was being played lodged a complaint with the police.

This incident comes just days after a student was arrested in Karwar, Karnataka for similar charges. The Kumta police had arrested Jabeer Khan, a student for allegedly forwarding a message, that according to the complainant, mocked the National Anthem and India.

Statement by concerned citizens on the arrest of Salman and demanding his immediate release

On August 20th night 12 pm Salman a student and social activist from Trivandrum was picked up by the police from his home in Peroorkada. The immediate accusation against him was that he had insulted the national anthem while it was being played in a theatre, where he had gone to watch a movie. Later his comments on Facebook where he questions nationalism as a philosophical and political concept were also pointed out as a reason for his arrest. It is also being reported that there was a deliberate attempt to frame him by some right-wing hindutva groups and that they are the ones who are behind his arrest.

There is a lack of clarity regarding his arrest and the way it was conducted, late in the midnight hours of August 20th. It is clear, though, that none of the customary norms were followed during his arrest. Even after it was said that Salman was taken to the Thampanoor station, the police themselves later denied this. For a whole night and the next day even Salman’s parents had no access to him. In fact, Salman was taken from prison to prison like it is usually done with so called ‘notorious terrorists’ and the police refused to give out any information about him both to his parents and to the lawyers who had contacted them. It was onlyon August 21st evening that it was made known that there was an FIR recorded against him and that a case was registered under IPC act 124 A and 66 A charging him of sedition and of sending offensive messages through communicative service. Though there were many other students with him it is surprising that it was only Salman who was picked out and arrested.  Continue reading Arrested for sitting during the national anthem: Solidarity Statement with Salman →

Bad ideas, Debates, Genders, Government, Identities, Left watch, Politics

Don’t let the Magic Fade: Thoughts on Kudumbashree’s Sixteenth Anniversary

Leave a comment

I do not write on Kafila as frequently as I used to because I don’t want to be writing stories of impending doom all the time. These are times in which we appear doomed, but it does not help to get obsessed with it; in fact, the obsession may actually hasten the downfall.

But these days, we also hear stories which may be told either way. For example, I can tell the story of the mining going on at Mookunnimala in Trivandrum as yet another episode in the continuing story of the destruction of our natural environment and its impending collapse. But I can also tell it another way, foregrounding the resistance that has shaped up there despite the formation of a deadly nexus of Kerala’s political parties, bureaucracy, predatory capitalists and other criminals against local people. Or, I can tell the story of the ‘development’ of the government school at Attakkulangara in the heart of Trivandrum city as another incident that proves the unrelenting march of ‘urban development’ which is nothing but shorthand for the steady takeover of prime urban space by corrupt officials and venal politicians. But it is also a David-and-Goliath tale of how a few dedicated members of the school’s old students’ association, and nature-lovers and environmental activists who go by the name Tree Walk  managed to draw the attention of others, alert authorities, and arrest the steady pace of these forces. Continue reading Don’t let the Magic Fade: Thoughts on Kudumbashree’s Sixteenth Anniversary →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Government, Images, Violence/Conflict

Happy Independence Day India, Blessings from Kashmir: Onaiza Drabu

22 Comments

Guest post by ONAIZA DRABU

??????????????????????????????????????Dear India,

As you celebrate yet another year of the glorious independence; the independence that was the beginning of an era of doom for most of us here, I must inform you that I was unable to get my morning bread. Sixty Eight is a big number and I’m sure the proceedings will be aplenty and that and you have plenty of ‘ache din’. Somehow, I have my doubts but then again, I’m sure our definitions of good differ greatly. However it may be, I have one tiny request.  Please let me eat my breakfast in peace.

It is still two days to go for the Independence Day Parade in Srinagar and I am one of the privileged few who live within a two-kilometer radius of the Bakshi Stadium, the place where the annual flag hoisting ceremony is held. Excess army is deployed all around and as in all such times, our local baker wasn’t allowed to open shop this morning.

As a child, I read your textbooks in school. I read about how Pinky and Shyam would go to their school for the flag hoisting on Independence Day and of course I’d wonder where this would happen. Independence day meant a crackdown or a curfew for all us kids here. Independence day meant that the morose army guy I hated to look at would stand at my gate, staring straight ahead with a blank, yet frightening constancy. Independence day meant my dedicated doctor of a mother had to walk to work for sometimes, they’d not even allow ambulances to ply.

The independence you celebrate to commemorate freedom has forever been associated with barbed wires on streets that restricted access to locations. It is ironical how roadblocks, surprise checks and general inconvenience is what I have forever associated with this independence. General inconvenience here also includes times where each one of the dozen, army-men on every street eyes you with contempt and suspicion. I snigger if you tell me we celebrate freedom on this day. To the many things that are already restricted here this day adds more. Continue reading Happy Independence Day India, Blessings from Kashmir: Onaiza Drabu →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Rape and Rakhi – Patriarchal-Communal Narratives: Kavita Krishnan

27 Comments

Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN

Even as the communal cauldron in UP is kept on the boil, there is news that the RSS has launched a campaign to tie Rakhis to lakhs of Hindu men, asking them to pledge to protect their sisters from Muslim men and “love jehad.” The VHP has been running a helpline urging Hindus to approach them “if your daughter is being harassed by Muslim boys.” And a khap panchayat in Muzaffarnagar has imposed a ban on mobile phones and jeans for girls, claiming that these result in ‘eve-teasing’.

Woven into the above events is an old, familiar theme – that of patriarchal restrictions packaged as ‘protection’. In the wake of the anti-rape movement that followed December 16 2012, the streets of Delhi and many other parts of India had resounded with the voices of women declaring ‘Don’t take away our freedoms in the name of ‘protection’ – protect our right to fearless, fullest freedom instead’. Those women had raised their voice demanding freedom from sexual violence – and also freedom from rape culture that advices women to dress decently to avoid rape; and freedom from the khap panchayats, freedom even from the restrictions imposed by one’s own fathers and brothers.

Continue reading Rape and Rakhi – Patriarchal-Communal Narratives: Kavita Krishnan →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Language, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Delhi Protests Gaza Bombing: 9 August 2014

4 Comments

Let it not be said that nobody cried when the news came. Let it not be remembered by the children that India “stood with” Israel through the Gaza bombings of August 2014 (God, let it not continue beyond August 2014). Let no-one assume that all 1.3 billion of us continued – as the bombs fell on fields and courtyards and washing hung up to dry in Gaza – that we in India defined our ethical positions purely within the unholy triad of family, community, nation. Let there be a tiny record of protest. A tiny record of a tiny protest, given the monstrosity of the crime. But we are in the business of remembering, since they are profiting from our forgetting. They profit from our forgetting language, since we can’t name what is going on in Gaza as war. They profit from our not being able to remember our mythologies, because this is a war in which one side is David and the other Goliath, but Goliath is winning, because the world has been told he is David. In a nation without language, without myths, without memory, without ethics, jealously holding a tattered banner, with a single word on it – ‘development’ – some Indians protested.

Global Day of Rage against Gaza, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi August 2014:

WP_20140809_001

Continue reading Delhi Protests Gaza Bombing: 9 August 2014 →

Bad ideas

The Aryan Connection: Satya Sagar

4 Comments

SATYA SAGAR on Countercurrents

Over two centuries after the myth of the ‘noble, superior’ Aryan Race was first postulated, the political, historical processes it set forth in motion are still with us in a variety of ways. Though thoroughly discredited by modern scholarship as well as the horrific experiences of the Second World War, the Aryan Connection is still very much alive and killing in countries like India, Sri Lanka and in a perverse, inverted way in Zionist Israel.

Read Satya Sagar on The Aryan Connection here.

Bad ideas

Gaza Calls! Day of Rage August 9th, Jantar Mantar, Delhi

11 Comments

703_n736880310_353679_6664

The Apartheid Wall with which Israel has annexed almost half of the already Occupied West Bank

The Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (InCACBI) calls on all Indians to join the Day of Rage on August 9, called by the International BDS Movement.

Join us at Jantar Mantar between 4 – 8 PM. 

InCACBI and the Palestine Solidarity Committee in India join the world in condemning Israel’s war on Gaza.

We also condemn the Indian government’s continuing military, trade, educational and cultural ties with Israel.

The war Israel is currently waging against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza is a continuation of its occupation and blockade of Gaza over many years; its violation of international laws; its apartheid policies and day-to-day violence against people in Gaza. It has become a truism that Gaza has for long been “an open air prison” for its men, women and children, making it impossible for them to live normal lives, leave alone move forward on the road to self determination.

The international community has responded to the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza with millions of people on the streets to demand that Israel stop its one-sided war.  In Berlin and other places, including Israel, Jewish people have joined protests. Palestinian protesters across France have defied a ban on demonstrations. The African National Congress has called on the Israeli ambassador to leave immediately. Latin American countries Brazil, Chile, Ecuador Peru and El Salvador have recalled ambassadors from Tel Aviv. Bolivian president Evo Morales has called Israel a “terrorist state” and revoked their visa exemption agreement. 21,000 noted individuals in London have demanded an immediate arms embargo on Israel. A major shift in international public opinion against Israel is taking place.

In India, citizens have protested against Israel’s actions, as well as the Indian government’s timid response to the ongoing carnage in Gaza. While citizens in Mumbai and other cities have called for a boycott of Israeli products, the Indian government is strengthening its relations with Israel, ignoring our call to stop military ties with Israel—one way in which India subsidises the occupation and violence in Gaza.

We ask you, as Indians of conscience, to

1. Demand that the Indian government respond to our call for a military embargo on Israel;

2. Boycott all direct and indirect collaborations with the Israeli state, and demand that the Indian government, Indian industry, media, educational and cultural institutions do the same;

3.  Build afresh our old association with Palestine, beginning with more education and cultural exchanges; and

4.  Share information with fellow Indians on the siege and destruction of Gaza.

End the Blockade/Siege on Gaza!

Tear down the Apartheid Walls in West Bank & Gaza!

End the Israeli collective punishment on the Palestinian people!

End the illegal Israeli Occupation of all of Palestine!

Right to Return to their homes and homeland for all Palestinians!

End all U.S. aid to Israel!

End India’s military ties with Israel!

Free Palestine!

The Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (InCACBI)

www.incacbi.in

The Palestine Solidarity Committee in India

https://www.facebook.com/PalSolComIndia

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Need to re-enact Juvenile Justice Act – Myths and Realities: Kishore

5 Comments

This is a guest post by KISHORE

In a significant move, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has decided to repeal and re-enact Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000. Along with its claims to streamline adoption and foster care procedures, it also proposes that juveniles above 16 years of age involved in heinous crimes should be tried as adults under the Indian Penal Code.

This is not first time that such an amendment has been advocated. One senior leader of ruling party had already gone to the Supreme Court last year with a petition for lowering the age under the law. However his petition was refused and the Supreme Court opined that there was no need for amendment as the present law (JJ act 2000) holds constitutional validity. Now this leader’s party is in power and they do not need to go to the judiciary for changes as they themselves can do it in Parliament. It is also believed that the government is not even waiting for the report of the expert committee appointed by the Law Commission of India to examine the issue. The proposal however, has always been contested by the premier child rights body NCPCR, which said there cannot be any “compromise” on the age of a child as defined by the UN and in other international conventions. We wonder if the governments’ desperation to change the law is based on popular “sentiments” and not on “facts”. Continue reading Need to re-enact Juvenile Justice Act – Myths and Realities: Kishore →

Bad ideas

Running Orders: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

5 Comments

1282231687-the-secrets-behind-the-palestinian-flag-_414349

What happens before the Israeli military bombs your house? For many Gaza Strip residents, it’s a phone call. Sawsan Kawarea, a resident of Khan Younis, said she was in the house Tuesday when the phone rang. She answered, and on the other side was “David,” who claimed he was with the Israeli military.

“He asked for me by name. He said: ‘You have women and children in the house. Get out. You have five minutes before the rockets come,’ ” Kawarea said in an interview.

LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA writes a poem in response. (Received via Magid Shihade)

They call us now.
Before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?”
They call us now to say
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.
Bad ideas, Feminism

Seen on a Bathroom Mirror

7 Comments

Received via KALYANI MENON-SEN

Beauty-Reflection-Warning-250x187

Bad ideas, Culture, Feminism, Genders, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Women Have Been Branded Liars!

8 Comments

Guest Post by ANUBHA SINGH and SURABHI SHUKLA

The recent Supreme Court judgment in the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar & Anr. (Criminal Appeal No. 1277 of 2014) has once again brought to light the concern shared by the larger society about the ‘misuse’ of Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter “IPC”) and the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. This concern has been raised many times in the past (and present) and the judiciary has gone to the length of labeling this ‘misuse’, especially that of Section 498-A, IPC,  ‘legal terrorism’ (in Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of India JT 2005 (6) SC 266.)

However, what has changed this time is that through this judgment the Supreme Court has endorsed and legitimized the common stereotype that women exaggerate and fabricate stories of violence to seek vengeance against their husbands and matrimonial families. Continue reading Women Have Been Branded Liars! →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Language, Right watch

The Sheepification of Bakistan: Mina Malik-Hussain

5 Comments

We are reproducing this piece by Mina Malik-Hussain, which appeared in The Nation (Pakistan) as it deals with an important issue which concerns the changes that are taking place within subcontinental Islam. The piece underlines the great cultural battle underway within Islam which, in the final analysis is about being Muslim in many different ways. Mina Malik-Hussain is a feminist based in Lahore.

When we were small, there was a month and it used to be called Ramzan. It was Ramzan on television, it was Ramzan in the newspaper with the sehr-o-iftar timings and while nobody had a cell phone or Facebook to wish anyone, it would have been Ramzan Mubarik nonetheless. Sometimes if one was being quite linguistically adventurous it would be Ramazan, but nobody seemed to mind.
And then, insidiously, The Arabs crept up on us. It wasn’t like the return of Muhammad Bin Qasim, but somehow Ramzan became Ramadan. Nobody knew exactly how it happened, but almost overnight our crisp z’uad sound became a lisping Arab burr, and we—a nation of language speakers with no apparent consonant pronunciation difficulties—were flung into the downward spiral of an affectation obsession. Now it was cool to sound Arab, and soon enough it began to be increasingly desirable to look it. Cue Al Huda, cue our streets being lined with gangly palm trees that do nothing, either in terms of beauty or shade, cue the availability of the most bling Islamic cover-up gear you’ll see this side of Dubai.

Still, as a nation we were still fairly open-minded about this, so we fasted year after year and didn’t really pay attention to the semantics of it. We were busy trying to live our lives and be regular Pakistanis, but The Arabs kept making inroads onto our cultural minds. One year ‘khuda-hafiz’, that old and comfortable way of saying goodbye and Godspeed, became ‘Allah hafiz’ with the dubious reason of having to specify which deity to whose protection one was recommending you. Because here in multi-religious, multi-cultural and secular Pakistan there was actual leeway where one would wonder who exactly Khuda is, and perhaps not want to be entrusted to a pagan god. Some people resisted, and continue to resist Allah hafiz and keep saying khuda-hafiz with the logic and hope that whatever His name, He will still protect and love them. Also if it was good enough for one’s grandfather and great-grandfather, it was just fine for them too. Read the full article here

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Excavation, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Why its hard for me to accept the killing of Mohsin Sheikh in Pune: Sameer Khan

6 Comments

Guest Post by SAMEER KHAN

The nation was outraged with the news of the murder of Mohsin Shaikh in Pune following the riots after the suspected defaming face book post. Many people were horrified by the killings of the young techie. The news media and the social media used the word Pune in a very generic manner but the fact was much of Pune remained unaffected with the violence. The initial protest that started on the day of FB rumors took place mainly in selected places and appeared to have been clearly organized by some group that was closely coordinating its cadres by use of social media and other communication by circulating fake planted stories and directing the mobs to target specific places.

The place Mohsin Shaikh was murdered, and where the worst damage occurred was the Hadapsar area of Pune which is actually on the outer limits of Pune towards the Sholapur road.Hadapsar was a sleepy town couple of decades ago. It is Hadapsar that is the native place of the author of this article. My father was raised in Hadapsar and completed his primary education from the local Bunter School, one of the oldest surviving schools in the region

I was born and raised in South Mumbai and my world came crashing down when my father decided to move back to his native Hadapsar in mid 1980’s. I was in 7th grade and my transition from a south Mumbai boy to sleepy Hadapsar town was a very painful one. It took my very long to reconcile the fact that Hadapsar the sleepy semi rural town was now my new home. Continue reading Why its hard for me to accept the killing of Mohsin Sheikh in Pune: Sameer Khan →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Life in a ‘Sterilized’ Zone, Hebron, Palestine: Ravinder Kaur

Leave a comment

Guest Post and Photograps by RAVINDER KAUR

Map of Hebron, Courtesy ‘Breaking the Silence‘

On 12th June, 2014, the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron resulted a massive military search operation in the area. Since 30th June when their dead bodies were found north of Hebron, a Palestinian teenager has been abducted and killed in a revenge attack in East Jerusalem, and concerted air strikes have been launched on Gaza by the Israeli forces as punishment to Hamas who Israel holds responsible for the abduction and murder of the teenagers. In ten days of Israeli air strikes more than 216 have been killed in Gaza, and rocket firing by Hamas has claimed one life in Israel. A ground invasion began yesterday evening. Even as talks of a possible ceasefire, and resuming normal life, take shape, one might consider what ‘normality’ constitutes in a place like Hebron that has been at the center of the current conflict. It is in the normal, the routine that the spectacular violence takes shape.

Continue reading Life in a ‘Sterilized’ Zone, Hebron, Palestine: Ravinder Kaur →

Bad ideas

The End of The Light

2 Comments

This correspondence has been received from Haitham Saqqa  

I have stopped feeling whether it is day or night. Time has no meaning. I have stolen moments to sleep in order to relax my psychologically and physically body which is overwhelmed with the abundance of news. But I wake up soon because there is an airstrike.

We have neglected the house because we are all huddled in one room. And I see every moment the fear in the eyes of my sisters especially Dema the youngest. She does not leave the bosom of my mother, and I can’t talk to her about the end of this onslaught of dirt which we all hope for because at this moment the F16 attacks and I will be a liar. I’ve lost my dear friend and his brothers who were at his cafeteria on the beach. An F16 assassinated them. We used to go for football training together. They are still looking for my friends body.

I am unable to think of what is good. Everything in my mind is about the end. I cannot think about the future at this moment. All that I can think about it how to exploit the moments that I presently live in. I can’t look towards the future and nothing is clear or guaranteed. My dream is focused on what I can do in the moment, because I simply can’t dream the weekend or even the end of this day.   I wait only the end…

[Haitham Saqqa works with Medical Aid for Palestine. He lives in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip].  

Bad ideas

Israel’s Template for the Globe’s Future:Satya Sagar

14 Comments

 Guest Post by Satya Sagar

For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable, racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news indeed.

Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future.

 Watching the unbelievable destruction wrought by the Israelis in Gaza a simple question very high on many minds must be “How in hell does this artificially concocted child of European guilt and American ambition get away with all this again and again and again?”’

The answer is that instead of being a strange historical aberration Israel may well be a model state that global elites want to establish to control the world in the days to come. Continue reading Israel’s Template for the Globe’s Future:Satya Sagar →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Government, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Delhi Police Prevents Peaceful Protest in Front of Israeli Embassy – Students, Others, Injured and Detained

16 Comments

A Tale of Two Protests, On Two Days.

Protests against the situation in Gaza have been held in Delhi yesterday, (Sunday, 13th July, and today, 14th July, in the morning). Yesterday, on Sunday morning, there was a peaceful protest in front of the Israeli Embassy – this came out of a call for protest by individuals. Yesterday, about a hundred odd people, including many young people, had gathered. I was present at this gathering. Some people made statements condemning the Israeli state’s aggression against the Palestinian people. The Delhi Police was present, but did not try to disrupt or disturb the protest. The protest happened right in front of the Israeli Embassy gates on Aurungzeb Road.

Protestor in front of the Israeli Embassy in Delhi on Sunday, 13th July 2014
Protestor in front of the Israeli Embassy in Delhi on Sunday, 13th July 2014
Protestors with Signs against Israeli State's Aggression on Gaza, in front of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, 13th July, 2014
Protestors with Signs against Israeli State’s Aggression on Gaza, in front of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, 13th July, 2014

Continue reading Delhi Police Prevents Peaceful Protest in Front of Israeli Embassy – Students, Others, Injured and Detained →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Language, Mirror Worlds, Sports

How Goldman Sachs Got it Wrong on Football, The World Cup and Economics: Tushar Dhara

3 Comments

Guest Post by TUSHAR DHARA

In May this year the investment banking powerhouse Goldman Sachs released a report that predicted Brazil would win the FIFA world cup. The prediction relied on statistical modelling and used tools like “Regression Analysis”, “Poisson Distribution”, “Stochastic model” and “Monte Carlo Simulation”. In other words, the methodology is incomprehensible to anyone except those with an advanced degree in Statistics or Econometrics. In hindsight, the prediction looks silly, given the 7-1 score line in the semi-final match between Germany and Brazil. However, the report is a perfect example of the failures of modern economics, particularly the financial voodoo economics pushed by the likes of Goldman Sachs.

When “The World Cup and Economics 2014” was released on May 27 it gained a lot of press publicity globally. The report predicted that Spain would reach the semi-final stage and lose to Argentina, which would lose to Brazil in the final. Goldman’s research division analyzed reams of data, including about 14,000 matches since 1960, national teams’ Elo rankings, average goals scored per team, home country and home continent advantage. To be sure, the report states that the predictions are just “probabilities” of teams advancing. Still the report states, “The most striking aspect of our model is how heavily it favours Brazil to win the World Cup”, and, “the extent of the Brazilian advantage in our model is nevertheless striking.” Continue reading How Goldman Sachs Got it Wrong on Football, The World Cup and Economics: Tushar Dhara →

Bad ideas, Culture, Left watch

नचैया,गवैया और पढ़वैया

3 Comments

‘कहीं रिहर्सल के लिए जगह दिला दो,’आफ़ताब ने कहा. हमारी मुलाकात लंबे अरसे बाद हो रही थी. मैं जानता था कि आफ़ताब इप्टा के साथ व्यस्त है. इधर कोई नाटक तैयार हो रहा है, यह खबर भी थी. लेकिन मालूम यह भी था कि इप्टा का अभ्यास पार्टी दफ़्तर  में चलता रहा है.कई महीने पहले अजय भवन की सबसे ऊपरी मंजिल पर नगीन तनवीर के साथ एक बातचीत में हिस्सा लेने भी गया था.इसलिए मैंने पूछा,‘अजय भवन तो है ही!’ ‘निकाल दिया,’ आफ़ताब ने मुस्कराते हुए कहा, ‘….. का कहना है कि पार्टी का दफ्तर राजनीति जैसे गंभीर काम के लिए है, नाच-गाने की प्रैक्टिस के लिए नहीं.’ ‘औरों ने क्या कहा?’मेरी जिज्ञासा अबोध बालक जैसी थी क्योंकि उत्तर मुझे भी पता था.बहुत शोर होता है, तरह-तरह के लड़के-लड़कियाँ आते हैं जो देखने में ही भरोसे लायक नहीं जान पड़ते.वे नाचते-गाते हैं, एक ही संवाद को बार-बार बोलते जाते हैं. इससे दसियों बरस से पार्टी दफतर में बने मार्क्सवाद के इत्मीनान के माहौल में खलल पड़ता है. दूसरे कॉमरेड ने थोड़ी तसल्ली देने को कहा कि अभी वहाँ पार्टी क्लास चल रहा है. हो सकता है, उसमें डिस्टर्बेंस के चलते ही मना किया हो. मालूम हुआ कि पार्टी क्लास के सामने इप्टा को वह नाटक पेश करना है जो अभी वह तैयार कर रही है.हफ़्तों तक जो विचारधारात्मक बौद्धिक श्रम वे करेंगे, उसके बाद उन्हें विश्राम देने के लिए और उनका मनोरंजन करने के लिए शायद इप्टा के नाटक का इंतजाम किया गया हो!

अक्सर राजनीतिक दल अपने सम्मेलनों के अंत में गीत-संगीत या नाटक का आयोजन चाहते हैं. उनकी समझ है कि मुख्य काम तो वे कर चुके ,अब आनंद या विनोद की बारी है. शुभा मुद्गल ने इसी प्रवृत्ति से खीजकर मुझसे कहा था कि जब तक उनके संगीत की राजनीति को ‘एक्टिविस्ट’नहीं समझेंगे,वे उनके बुलावे पर आना पसंद नहीं करेंगी. Continue reading नचैया,गवैया और पढ़वैया →