Dilip Simeon's blog

Britain is at risk of being prosecuted for war crimes because of growing evidence that missiles sold to Saudi Arabia have been used against civilian targets in Yemen’s brutal civil war, Foreign Office lawyers and diplomats have warned. Advisers to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, have stepped up legal warnings that the sale of specialist missiles to the Saudis, deployed throughout nine months of almost daily bombing raids in west Yemen against Houthi rebels, may breach international humanitarian law. Since March this year, bombing raids and a blockade of ports imposed by the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Gulf states have crippled much of Yemen. Although the political aim is to dislodge Houthi Shia rebels and restore the exiled President, Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed, with schools, hospitals and non-military infrastructure hit. Fuel and food shortages, according to the United Nations, have brought near famine to many parts of the ...

Patriotism invoked as a closure, rather than a starting point, is the worst form of chicanery.. we are experiencing an insidious closure of language itself NB - Professor Mehta deserves thanks for this defence of Aamir Khan and for highlighting the atmosphere of hostility that is being deliberately cultivated in civil society. We are tolerant! You better believe it or else!! We are losing the capacity to communicate - as he says this is 'an insidious closure of language itself'.' The fact that we can still protest implies that there is something worth defending in India’s democratic institutions. It is a misleading argument for Modi enthusiasts to say "you are being permitted to speak, so what is there to complain about?"  To say democracy is in danger is NOT the same thing as saying that we have become a dictatorship. Rather, it is to take note of the disturbing trends towards authoritarianism.  The critics of these trends quite clearly believe i...

This year’s Guardian and Observer charity appeal is for refugees. The unprecedented flight of men, women and children from the war in Syria has captured the world’s attention, while around the globe there are 20 million people seeking sanctuary from war and oppression, in search of a life worth living. Most have fled to countries which are themselves poor and unstable. More than one million of the most vulnerable urgently need resettling. This is the crisis of our times, and how we respond to it is a test of our values, our spirit, our ingenuity, our generosity. Naomi Klein with Katharine Viner, Talk, 29 April 2015 "Its not about carbon. Its about capitalism" Finding the best political answers is complex. But it is vital we do not close our hearts, or lose sight of the essential human response, or ignore the needs of some of the world’s most desperate people.  The Guardian has reported the refugee crisis consistently over many months, from Syria and the camps in neig...

Is there a level of political violence that a state must reach before it becomes national news? If not, what explains the country’s stony silence to the savagery in West Bengal? The state has been plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss of political violence, while the ruling deity of the cult moves around the country with tolerance, peace and democracy on her lips. It is nearing that point from where there may be no return. And yet all it elicits is unconcern. What happened to Dhiren Let, a former four-time MLA of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in Mayureshwar in Bibhum district on Saturday should have been on the front page of all the national dailies. It, however, found place in only  The Telegraph . The only way to describe the sadism is in Dhiren Let’s own  words : "I joined active politics in 1962 and have been a CPM member since 1968. I have seen a lot but nothing can match today’s experience. I was pleading – not for my life but for...

Bharat Bhushan- Deconstructing the Dear Leader - Modi's love for hoopla ime Minister Narendra Modi has come back to India somewhat rejuvenated, his love for the grandiose nurtured by the attention, admiration and adulation bestowed on him by British Indians and the British Prime Minister himself, at London's Wembley Stadium.  After the bruising by the Bihar voters it is not difficult to fathom why the Indian PM needed his UK counterpart to claim "achhe din ayenge, zaroor ayenge (good days will come for sure)" and the cheering of the 60,000 crowd to whom he beamed back "Thank you Wembley". After eighteen months of holding office, Modi's image has begun to show signs of wear. There is no point denying that the Bihar vote, and the Delhi vote earlier, was against Modi's leadership.  He has been unable to sustain his universal appeal across class, caste and community divides, which he enjoyed in the May 2014 Lok Sabha election. It may be too ea...

The New York Times didn't mince words when  it took on Donald Trump's  recent comments about Muslims and other minority groups. "America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by  Donald Trump’s racist lies ," the Times' editorial board said in a piece published Tuesday, adding later that "if it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often." The editorial tore to shreds several of Trump's most egregious claims,  including that  an "Arab community" in New Jersey was seen cheering the September 11th attacks.  Trump has also warned  that Syrian refugees might be ISIS in disguise. And in a moment reminiscent of Nazi Germany,  he suggested last week  that the U.S. should keep a database of Muslim-Americans. The Times also lined up Trump's comments  with those of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) and Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.). Like Trump, Wallace and McCarthy were known fo...

One-third of men in India, where spousal rape is legal, admit to having forced a sexual act on their wives. It was a daily terror, a nightmarish ritual that tormented her each night. That's how a 27-year-old Indian woman describes the repeated rapes by her husband.  “I used to get jitters before going into my room. I would dread the thought of what was awaiting me,” she told journalist Priyali Sur for a  May article published by the nonprofit Women's Media Center . “What happened in our bedroom was not what normally happens between a husband and wife; I felt like he had bought me. I was treated like a sex slave, like a sex toy. He would insert things inside me, slap me, and bite me. He was like an animal. Even during my menstruation, he wouldn’t spare me.” On Feb. 14 last year, her husband’s birthday, the woman said he beat her multiple times before raping her with a flashlight, forcefully inserting the object into her vagina. “I started bleeding but instead of taking...