Ramzan, a month marked by kindness, velvety and hymns at holy Islamic Mosques is mired by bombings, institutionalized genocism and hues of generational hatred this year in Palestine.
On May 7, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a concerning conformation of far-right majoritarianism and to resist losing political clout after 12 years, stirred nationalism and escalated scathing blows to humanitarian laws in Palestine. The critical Israeli garrisoning of the Palestinian Arab streets along the Gaza and West Bank continues. The coerced eviction of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, Israel’s commemoration of establishing control over the Old City after the Six-Day War of 1967 or the ‘Jerusalem Day’ and Palestinian Arab’s gatherings for prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site of Islam, these three…
A Conversation with Aatish Taseer.
Photo: Dawn
Dear Mr Taseer,
From contemporary Benaras to New York City, you’ve taken a very close look at culture, influenced it and presented it to the world in a way which is both evocative and original. Personal in nature and very strong in character, your writing is loved by millions of people around the world. You’ve written on politics, fashion and culture, made films and challenged yourself professionally in unprecedented ways. Your work has impacted political and cultural institutions and stared at people in power fearlessly.
Thank you, Thank you so much for doing…
The coronavirus pandemic has convalesced into tumultuous political disruptions around the world. With growing distrust in institutions and political leaders, where do we go from here?
Mass surveillance, populism, a worldwide pandemic and authoritarian notions of governance have given rise to a political suzerainty too tortuous to overlook. The fact that sovereign states were swerved by institutionalised propagandas and electoral buccaneering is unfathomable. The human race is at a critical point of an unprecedented health emergency, yet the politicians and the policymakers are on a mafia-style odyssey to usurp unwitnessed political potential. Any miscalculation from here will disrupt humanitarian insistence on unity and impact human rights at its very core. Even as the world economy is confected with “the First Global Depression of our lifetime”, parliaments…
Political conservatism and a broken policing system has resulted in a rescission of citizens’ rights and impacted democracy for the worst in 21st century.
Photo : Rolling Stones | In picture – N.W.A., 1992
August 9, 1988. The most impactful hip-hop group from Los Angeles, United States, that went on to inspire the music for generations to come, N.W.A or ‘Niggaz Wit Attitudez’ released the controversial soundtrack from the album “Straight Outta Compton”, “Fuck Tha Police”. The political hip hop soundtrack reverberated the streets of Compton and the African-American minority communities resuscitated the discomfort they had for generations against police…
The valley of Kashmir is vying for freedom and human rights as Hindu Nationalism & populist fundamentalism deranges the ‘state’ of Jammu and Kashmir in the world’s largest democracy.
August 5th, 2020, will mark few of the murkiest instances of political mendacity and fasten the project of populism in India. In a deeply religious country, revered for religious tolerance and held together by an exhilarating constitution, the secular state is mired by religious fundamentalism as the Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister, Narendra Modi lays the foundation for a long contested temple of Lord Rama in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. This comes at a time when the nation is usurped by the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s Home Minister and Modi’s strongman, Amit Shah has tested positive for the virus. Clearly, the…
A disingenuous portrayal of India’s most intense issues are condoned unambiguously by mafia style politics vis-á-vis a lascivious centralisation of authority in India.
Photo : Reuters | Communal pogrom erupted in Delhi in February.
The Reserve bank of India, the Indian Supreme Court, notions of cooperative federalism, three-tier governance, institutions and organisations for scientific and socio-political research have been mired by consistent harassment backed by a choked bureaucracy and policing system. The constitution of India has reached its verge and the republic can only do so much. The Ministry of Home Affairs, The Ministry of Finance, The Ministry of Information & Technology, The Ministry of External Affairs and National Human Rights Commission have lacerated the motivation of the world’s largest democracy. The recent…
Recent instances of defections in Indian state assemblies abjure constitutional mechanisms and impact libertarian democracy.
Photo: Indian Express | Karnataka Vidhan Sabha | In 2019, a political slugfest mired by a massive defection of 17 members of legislative assembly caused a fall of H.D. Kumaraswamy’s government.
With the onset of elections, the political charisma of national and regional parties narrows down the public opinion to one candidate for each electoral constituency. The votes are polled, exit calculations are debated on television with hype and Election Commission of India announces the strongman for the next five years. Read this one more time, probably write it on paper and toss that in a garbage-can near you!
That…
Recent constitutional fulminations across the world have ravaged populist political notions and challenged strongmen leaders.
Photo : The Atlantic
The tenuous political romance between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to resolve the electoral kerfuffle that has been looming over Israel for the last few months; The authoritarian connivance between The Republic of China and Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam to subvert democracy and dissent in the Special Administrative Region; The unparalleled and rambunctious ‘Great Indian Citizenship’ project in India which is nevertheless, a flagrant disregard for her complex constitution; Consistent derangement of Muslim minorities and even the House of Lords by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have one thing in common – the…
Fake news, hypernationalism and Maverick political leaders have institutionalised authoritarianism in the world we live in today.
Photo : Vox Media
Kashmir, Xinjiang, Jaffna, São Polo, Minneapolis, Hong Kong, Moscow & Caracas; once exuberant and passionate cities of the world have now dissipated to political revanchism and ignominious abstrusity. A world connected ‘online’ more than ever before has begun to witness populism on its smartphone screens and the cascading impact that it has on Human Rights, Humanitarian Equality and the mere ability of a voter to think. …
Shivankan Mathur
22. The blog is about Politics and World Leaders. Open to conversations on Human rights and political developments that impact it.
