The Master Wordsmith

He says his characters sometimes surprise him, exert influence, like  the created binding the creator. Unassuming and gentle Amitav Ghosh on Thursday spoke about how history fascinated him, how relating everything to Vedas could distort their  original spirit and how the state was incapable of ensuring freedom of  expression. The prolific author was in the…

Follow-up report of recommendations: India by Special Rapporteur on EJE

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns “FOLLOW-UP OF RECOMMENDATIONS: INDIA” The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur and the UN (CSCHR) presents a summary of the salient features of the follow-up report of the Special Rapporteur (SR) on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, which…

YouTube launches eyewitness video ‘newswire’

YouTube announced plans on Thursday for a “newswire” of eyewitness videos and a separate project on videos related to social justice and human rights. In partnership with the social news group Storyful, the YouTube Newswire will be “a curated feed of the most newsworthy eyewitness videos of the day, which have been verified by Storyful’s…

A free press

D’Ocracy D.E.M., beloved husband of T.Ruth, loving father of L.I.Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope, Justice, expired on June 26”, read an obituary in The Times of India’s Bombay edition. It was late (very late) June, 1975. A few nights before, late on 25 June, a few minutes before midnight, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed imposed a…

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

The social web has been abuzz with indignant people responding to two sexist statements made by people in power, against the perceived role of women in our societies. Tim Hunt, the celebrated Nobel prize winner, in a speech he gave in Seoul, suggested that female scientists in the lab are a distraction because they either…