communism

Russian dolls are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. Unpackaging Russia itself has been an issue for western commentators. It was after all Winston Churchill who defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of [...]

Amazon series Man in the High Castle is based upon a book by the same name. Deviating quite substantially from the original book by Phillip K Dick written in 1962, it nevertheless keeps the basics of the plot. This is a world in which the Axis powers have won the war, with Germany having developed [...]

Former screen idol turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot was fined 20,000 euros by a court on France’s Indian Ocean island of La Reunion over a 2019 diatribe where she described its inhabitants as “savages”. “The natives have kept their savage genes,” the animal rights campaigner wrote in an open letter attacking the islanders for [...]

The recent protests over American police brutality against blacks have reached around the world. This has also resulted in the toppling of statues with historical figures associated with slavery and racism, notably Confederate monuments in America. [...]

Jeremy Corbyn has become notorious for demanding that India’s prime minister be banned from Britain, for his role the violence that engulfed Modi’s home state of Gujarat in 2002 when he was its chief minister. The violence began on the morning of 27 February 2002, in which 59 people died in a fire inside the Sabarmati [...]

The recent acquittal of Asia Bibi after a decade on death row was initially a cause of celebration, indeed relief. Accused under the draconian and much abused Blasphemy Law of Pakistan, [...]

In India's case we have William Dalrymple, a complete social misfit in his own native land, so he decided to transplant himself in the same manner which bubonic plague once ravaged Europe by hitching a free ride on fleas infesting rats. Dalrymple has suddenly become the spokesperson on what he calls Hindu 'extremism' when he [...]

 The furore created by US presidential candidate, the populist and conservative Republican Donald Trump, who stated that Muslim immigration to America should be stopped, needs to be seen in a wider context. It has come hot on the heels of a refugee crisis as millions try and flee war torn Syria, caught between an embattled [...]

“The anti-Hindu Left retains a strong place in journalism and academia, which became entrenched during the long period of the Congress rule. We must remember that India’s Left holds positions far to the left of mainstream liberal political parties in the West, and uses the rhetoric of the communist era. The Left is upset that [...]

In a recent column, Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury denounced the International Yoga Day as a shallow lifestyle gimmick and an attempt to Hinduise India’s diverse society at the cost of attending to serious problems like poverty. Though he concedes that yoga might be beneficial to the individual’s health and [...]