Is Urdu Dying? A Fact Check
Of the prevalent languages of the subcontinent, Urdu is leading in articles available on Wikipedia. This study Nullifies the concept that it is dying. In 1977, a well-known journalist and…
Life/Philosophy
Do People Change?
Because there is so much personal anguish, unhappiness, and human mental and physical suffering in the world, many people often wonder how they might personally change to find happiness, contentment,…
International Youth Day: Empowering the Next Generation for a Brighter Tomorrow
Every year, on August 12th, the world comes together to celebrate International Youth Day, a day dedicated to recognizing and promoting the importance of young people in society. Thus developing…
North American Longing to Cultures and Sub-Cultures
Culture is defined in being behavior peculiar to humans, together with the material objects used as an integral part of this behavior. Culture includes languages, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions,…
Birth Centenary of Mukesh and Shailendra—The Sincere Singer and The Philosopher Poet
by Bharat Dogra and Madhu Dogra This year (2023) is the birth anniversary of two stalwarts of Hindi cinema who made a very enduring contribution even though they died at…
Gaddar, The Revolutionary Balladeer Is No More
There are very few in public life who get the love, affection and respect of huge number of people such as Gummadi Vittal Rao who was popularly known as Gaddar…
Mumbai’s excellent public transport system being messed by the government
The Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was nearly knocked down on the road by motor cyclists while he was on a morning walk in Patna recently. Fortunately, he sensed the…
120 Years of Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk: Education and Progress in “Of the Meaning of Progress”
Aristotle famously starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “all men by nature desire to know.”[1] For Dubois, if there are a people in the U.S. who have immaculately embodied this statement, it…
Achyut Yagnik will be remembered as much for his own writings and activism as for helping others
Achyut Yagnik breathed his last on August 4, Friday. He was one of the most versatile among that rather select number of people who are able to combine a lifetime…
Dr. Ambedkar’s Message to the Working Class to get a share in the Political Power
Dr. Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar was not only a great jurist, eminent sociologist and economist, but he was also the saviour of the downtrodden as well as the working class.…
Chinar Man of Kashmir
To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, to live as a people, we must have trees.” - Theodore Roosevelt In the times, when trees are being cut…
Friendship Day in the Digital Age: Nurturing Bonds Across Screens and Miles
Come the 1st Sunday of August, we have a friendship day. Friendship is a beautiful and cherished bond that knows no boundaries. It is a relationship that brings joy, support,…
Fostering Local Prosperity: Maximizing Economic Impact through Tourism Spending
Tourism plays a vital role in fostering economic development and prosperity for destinations worldwide. However, it is essential to consider how tourist spending impacts local communities and whether it circulates…
Will Sentience Improve LLMs, Autonomous Vehicles?
There is a new paper, Universal and Transferable Adversarial Attacks on Aligned Language Models, where the authors wrote, "In this paper, we propose a simple and effective attack method that…
A Friendship Treaty for a Prosperous and Peaceful World
Reflections on the occasion of World Friendship Day 2023 …
Neurobiology: AI Safety, The Mind and Mental Illness
There is a recent paper in Nature, Antipsychotic drug efficacy correlates with the modulation of D1 rather than D2 receptor-expressing striatal projection neurons, where the a part of the abstract…
Food for Thought: Caste, Communalism, and Culinary Majoritarian Identity Politics
As I scrolled through my social media feed in the morning, a provocative statement by Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, caught my attention. She remarked that when travelling abroad,…
Behind the Curtains: Continued Servitude of Domestic Workers
For two years, Usha Thopna’s day started at 5 am. After waking up, she would cook and clean for her new employers in Bangalore - Mr. and Mrs. Vatsa. Barely…
Amplifying Hardships: The Impact of Poverty on the Lives of the Disabled
The government has taken significant steps to support and protect the rights of persons with disabilities through the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWD Act) 2016, implemented on 19…
Rethinking the Decision: Why Your Child or Young Teen Shouldn’t Have a Smartphone?
Let’s face it, every other parent has encountered the challenging dilemma of what to do when their young child or teen insists on having a smartphone. Whether it's to connect…
Remembering Usaa, the writer-activist who lost his way
Usaa (Uppumavuluri Sambashiva rao, (1951 Feb 2019 -2020 July 25), well-known writer- activist was remembered by some of his admirers in a small meeting at Hyderabad to mark his death…
LLMs: A Model of Free Will in Schizophrenia
There is a recent article on Big Think, What does schizophrenia feel like?, stating that, "What characterizes schizophrenia is experiencing hallucinations: perceptions that appear real but are created by the…
Towards Safer and Sustainable Cooking: Addressing Health Risks, Eco-Friendly Initiatives, and Government Interventions
Cooking oil plays a vital role in Indian cuisine, enhancing the flavour and texture of dishes. From palm to olive oil, a wide variety of edible oils are commonly used in…
Can Brain Science Characterize Artificial Intelligence?
There is a new article in Nature, ChatGPT broke the Turing test — the race is on for new ways to assess AI, where the author wrote, "The most famous test…
The legacy of pioneer film maker V Shantaram
Ashok Rane, film critic and a jury member at several prominent international film festivals, was felicitated last evening by Prabhat Chitra Mandal, the film society now in its 54th year.…
The Right to Dissent in the Socio-legal Context: Reimagining Citizenship, Strengthening Democracy
`Let’s agree to disagree’ may sum up the gist of the word `dissent’ in simple terms. Dissent, generally, implies disagreement, criticism, questioning, or protest against the coercive decision or unjust…
Understand the Issue first, Agree/Disagree later?
In recent times, there have often been instances when mid-way in writing a post on social media, I "discard" it. There have been times when I wanted to understand an…
The Ideal of Education
by Ekitha Gangavath, Ayush Bajpai, Amit Singh and Sandeep Pandey Unfortunately, this theme gets people’s attention only when some students commit suicides. As public memory is short things relapse to…
Understanding History and Future in Terms of Four Crucial Relationships
There are several important perspectives for understanding history and learning from it for future. One of the more useful of these ways may be to seek an understanding in terms…
Comrade DV Rao: ‘Resist Caste Atrocities Militantly’
Pictures of Keelavenmani massacre, on Christmas night, 1968, and its memorial. 42 agri labor, most of them dalits- women and children- were burnt to death in the hut they had…
Making a Difference Together: Social Media Giving Day is Here
Come, July 15th, we have a day called Social Media Giving Day. In today's digital age, it's so obvious to see social media becoming an integral part of our lives,…
JEPP Path of Justice, Peace, Environment Protection is Key to Safe Future
What are the most important lessons of history regarding true progress which really brings welfare and happiness? What can we learn from this to resolve the most serious survival crisis…
The Potential Impact of Wireless Technology on Wildlife
Electromagnetic radiation from Wi-Fi and cell towers may pose a “credible risk” to birds, mammals, insects, and even plants There is growing evidence that our addiction to cell phones could…
Learning From History, If We Dare
The New Gilded Age, wars along the Russian border, a global pandemic, battles for women’s rights, even the Titanic: history does rhyme with the present. Yet as former New York Times…
The Rise of AI Journalism in India: Embracing the Future or Facing a Threat?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize various industries, and the media landscape is no exception. Recently, India witnessed a pathbreaking development as it introduced its first AI news anchor. This…
Can A Better Understanding of Mental Health Crisis Help the Cause of Peace
There was much discussion of a mental health crisis possibly existing in some of the richest western countries even before the pandemic, particularly in the context of the younger part…
YOLO: A Capitalist Trap?
Saving money has traditionally been seen as an expression of responsible conduct. Saving money was seen as being wise and mature. Budget diaries were an essential material in a household’s…
Declining Culture of Reading Books
Book reading culture has seen an abrupt and huge slump over the years. The question arises what actually has sounded a death knell to it? The obvious and factual answer…
Celebrate the life of L R Balley
When the news of the passing of Shri L R Balley came to me from several friends in Birmingham, I was still not prepared to believe it. The reason was…
Difference between Good Work and Revolutionary Good Work
Tens of millions of people are engaged every day in helping others and contributing to family, community and society in various ways. They are the ones who keep alive the…
The Challenge to Live Fr. Stan Swamy’s Legacy Today!
Times are bad in India: Manipur has been burning for two months now. Millions of citizens all over are denied their fundamental rights. Corruption and crony capitalism are rampant. Opposition…
Sanjoy Ghose: My Unmet Mentor
Never in my life of 22 years I had heard of Sanjoy Ghose. In 2011, while pursuing master's degree through distance learning, I actively searched for job opportunities in the…
How the Personal Becomes Political
Looking into the long reflecting pool of the past, I find myself wondering what it was that made me an activist against injustice. I was born in New York City’s…
Hemant Gokhale: Judge who saw the transition from East Pakistan to Bangladesh
Mr Hemant Gokhale, who retired as a judge of the Supreme court in 2014, is among the more unusual members of the Indian judiciary. He has been an activist since…
Canadian Sikhs Mourn The Killing Of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
The brazen murder of the President of Surrey-Delta Gurdwara on Sunday, June 18 has left many of us devastated. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a tireless community activist and a hardworking…
The AI Robot’s C-word
With the equally rapid developments of both artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, perhaps one day, we might see a self-confident robot like the one seen in the 2004 Hollywood movie,…
Government looking at beauty and heritage the wrong way
Walking on the road between the Mahalaxmi race course and the railway station on the other side I suddenly noticed a nice change. The enclosures that blocked the view of…
Menarche: Entering the Strange Land of Adulthood
It was April and we were all getting ready for parents-teacher meeting in my daughter’s school, when I noticed her inner wear were smeared with red stains. She would turn…
Why Are Archaeologists Unable to Find Evidence for a Ruling Class of the Indus Civilization?
What we can learn from an ancient egalitarian civilization in the Indus Valley. Little more than a century ago, British and Indian archaeologists began excavating the remains of what they…
Daniel Ellsberg: The Establishment’s Whistleblower
In 1972 Stanley K. Sheinbaum, chairman of the Pentagon Papers Fund, wrote with a hot pertinence that remains striking (at this time Julian Assange is facing grave prospects of being…
What went wrong with the Communist Movement in India: Answers to a Layperson’s Questions
A lot of ordinary people in India – both women and men have a lot of respect for the communists and communist movement. It is based on their direct knowledge…
Remembering Imtiaz Ahmad who Epitomized Social Justice, Secularism and Composite Culture
Prof. Imtiaz Amhad (1940-2023) who was formerly Prof. at JNU (Centre for Political Studies) is no longer with us. Prof. Ahmad was 83 years old when he died at the…
In memory of Writer Henri Barbusse on 150th birth anniversary
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist of the 20th century. Barbusse was upheld as a model of the fight of intellectuals against war and fascism. This year on 17th May,…
Why would a linguist speak of the rivers, mountains and forests?
Small tributaries carry water from the basin to a river just like the way minor linguistic varieties contribute to the major regional languages. In both the cases, the varieties and…
Daniel Ellsberg Of The Pentagon Papers Keeps Alive Anti-War Activism
Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. military analyst who revealed a years-long U.S. campaign to hide the true scale of U.S.’s the Vietnam War, has died Friday at this home in…
Ambedkar as Labour Leader
B.R. Ambedkar realised that the labour class could not be meaningfully uplifted unless the oppressed classes were emancipated. B R Ambedkar was not only the most important Dalit icon and a…
Inscrutability of Necrophilia and Criminal laws in India
Necrophilia is a Greek term and it is derived from the word ‘philios’, which means to make love or attraction towards the human corpse (dead body). It is a man’s…
In memory of contribution of Soviet Military Commander Sidor Kovpak
On June 7, 1887 in the village of Kotelva (now Poltava region), Sidor Kovpak,a famous Soviet military commander, statesman and public figure of USSR was born. During the Great Patriotic…
On Understanding Generative AI as a Corporate-Fascist Weapon
Background The euphoria around many ‘frontier technologies’ such as Digitization, Internet of Things (IoT), Block-Chain, 5G, 3D Printing, Robotics, Gene Editing, Nanotechnology and the like that captured mainstream news headlines…
Ranajit Guha: A duality of literature and history
It is not easy to write about Ranajit Guha. His longevity has gifted him a vast range of experience in life. Before one reaches any conclusion about him, one must…
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