At the height of the Roman empire, all roads led to, and from, Rome. In Britannia alone – a province conquered in 43 AD and held for 400 years – the Roman legions built about 8,000 miles of roads. The historian Plutarch records that these roads ran ‘perfectly straight through the countryside’. Remnants of them […]
Marx missed the full picture when he described religion as an opiate of the masses. so did George Carlin when he claimed that God was a fiction. For today Neo-Capitalism and right-wing fundamentalism have assigned God a new role and turned Him into an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good): far from being an opiate He
THE DISNEYFICATION OF RELIGION Read More »
“There’s a new Sheriff in town,” was what the newly minted TD Vance, Vice President of the USA, informed Europe in his typical hillbilly way on his first visit there. He was, presumably, referring to Trump and not to the federal marshal, Musk, who appears to be riding shotgun for the former as the American
A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN Read More »
The West and Russia are two cyclops who have never been able to see eye to eye. Over centuries, they have grown into giants with ambitions beyond their borders and power beyond their dreams. For the rest of the world, they are a nightmare. The present conflict in and over Ukraine is more than a
Last week I discovered my mother’s notebooks. My mother died on 15 January. Sorting through her things just recently I discovered a bunch of notepads and diaries. The notebooks, frayed at the edges and brown with age, contain hand-written personal jottings and musings. But mostly they contain long quotes from a range of authors and
Unlike our Prime Minister or Mr. Narayan Murthy, I do not labour for 18 hours a day; in fact, I don’t labour at all- having toiled for 35 years I have now left it to others to clear out the mess I’ve created during that period. But this doesn’t mean I don’t put in many
ARE BANKERS DRIVING YOU BONKERS? Read More »
Himachal’s beautiful and priceless rivers are facing a new threat in their ongoing battle against “development”. First it was the roads hacked out in their valleys, dumping tens of millions of tonnes of earth and debris into their waters, constricting their flows and devastating aquatic life. Then came the hydel projects, extinguishing whatever little aquatic
THE NEW THREAT FOR HIMACHAL’S RIVERS Read More »
I’m not sure how many people outside India know of Subhas Chandra Bose, a major leader of this country’s independence movement who, after escaping from The British Raj at the onset of WWII, set up the Provisional Government of Free India as well as the India National Army (INA) in the shadow of Japan. He
Subhas Chandra Bose: A tragic destiny Read More »
Lahore dozes in the summer. In spring, it comes alive with LitFests. The Faiz Festival occupied last weekend; the Lahore LitFest the next. In between, there has been the Horse & Cattle Show in the Fortress Stadium. Once the showcase for Punjab’s agricultural livestock and agro-produce, it has been revived as a showpiece by the
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