Dilip Simeon's blog

The Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power:  Shoshana Zuboff Reviewed by John Naughton W e’re living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of printing in circa 1439. And the problem with living through a revolution is that it’s impossible to take the long view of what’s happening. Hindsight is the only exact science in this business, and in that long run we’re all dead. Printing shaped and transformed societies over the next four centuries, but nobody in Mainz (Gutenberg’s home town) in, say, 1495 could have known that his technology would (among other things): fuel the Reformation and  undermine the authority of the mighty Catholic church ; enable the rise of what we now recognise as modern science; create unheard-of professions and industries;  change the shape of our brains ; and  even recalibrate  our conceptions of childhood. And yet printing did all this and more. ...

Remembering Rabindra Rabindra Ray, who taught sociology at the Delhi School of Economics till his retirement a few years ago, died on January 15, 2019. For 52 years I called him Lalloo (with two l’s). His death has led to an outpouring of memories from his friends and students. This is one such –it’s not an obituary.  I would never be able to encompass his rich life in words. I first saw Lalloo being led by his goatee from his room into the veranda of Allnutt North block at St Stephen’s College by a senior. We were neighbours, two rooms separated us. He was not exactly a fresher, having spent a year in a pre-med course in Hindu College before migrating to SSC to study English. As part of the Xavier’s Patna contingent, he had a stream of Bihari visitors shouting out Lalloo! I soon became an honorary Bihari. His circle was wide-ranging. He was a stellar actor for the Shakespeare Society; a bridge player, and a junkie, hence an attraction for the ‘hippie’ crowd. And I know of at...

This was a defeat on a scale without precedent in the era of universal suffrage... For at least three decades, “Europe” served as the all-purpose bogeyman of British politics. Cheered on by a Europe loathing press, itself fuelled by an endless flow of straight banana-type lies, many of  them concocted by a Telegraph correspondent in Brussels by the name of Boris Johnson , politicians of all stripes found it convenient to blame Brussels for any and all ills. How easy it was for British politicians to say they’d love to act on this or that issue, but their hands were tied by those villains in the EU. Every summit was a “showdown” pitting plucky Britain against the wicked continentals. Both of the main political parties played this game. Recall Gordon Brown’s reluctance to be photographed signing the Lisbon treaty. ( In the end he signed the treaty in a small room, alone  – an early metaphor for the Brexit to come.) Given how long, and how bitterly, the fight against Europe ...

Before the arrival of photography, the Western imagination of China was based on paintings, written travelogues and dispatches from a seemingly far-off land.  From the 1850s, however, a band of pioneering Western photographers sought to capture the country's landscapes, cities and people, captivating audiences back home and sparking a homegrown photography movement in the process. Among them were the Italian Felice Beato, who arrived in China in the 1850s to document Anglo-French exploits in the Second Opium War, and Scottish photographer John Thompson, whose journey up the Min River offered people in the West a rare look into the country's remote interior. These are just some of the figures whose work features in a 15,000-strong photo collection amassed by New York antiquarian and collector Stephan Loewentheil. His 19th-century images span street scenes, tradespeople, rural life and architecture, showing -- in unprecedented detail -- everything from blind beggars to ...

Dated: 14.01.2019 To: His Excellency the President, Union of India, Rashtripati Bhawan, New Delhi – 110004 Reference: Our last communication dated 24.11.2018. Subject : Initiation of slaughtering of 808 Non-Migrant Kashmiri Pandit families began with the issuance of communication no. PS/Adv(S)/2019/250-51 dated 09.01.2019 by Advisor(s) to the  Hon’ble Governor. Esteemed Sir, With reference to the communication referred above we had already submitted a detailed Communication / Memorandum dated 24.11.2018 to your Excellency’s office, by fax (011-23011689/ 011-23011949 at around 5:30 P.M.) on 25.11.2018, wherein the Grievance about “ Political Slaughter of 808 Non Migrant Kashmiri Pandits / Kashmiri Hindu Families who chose not to leave Kashmir Valley in 1990 by State Government” was made in bold letters.  That a communication is enclosed with this representation which stands issued on 09.01.2019 by Advisor(S) to the Hon’ble Governor forwarded to 1) Principal Secret...

‘Solitary tears are not wasted.’ René Char – ‘I dreamt about autocorrect last night.’ Darcie Wilder – ‘The personal is impersonal.’ Mark Fisher  – ‘Swipe left and move on.’ Motivational speaker  – ‘I’m easy but too busy for you.’ T-shirt – ‘Why don’t you just meet me in the middle? I am losing my mind just a little.’ Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey – ‘As the spirit wanes, the form appears.’ Charles Bukowski – ‘I don’t care, I love it.’ Icona Pop – ‘Percent of riders on Shanghai subway staring at their phones: 100%.’ Kevin Kelly – ‘When you get ignored long enough you check peoples ‘last seen’ status to make sure they aren’t dead.’ Addie Wagenknecht – ‘I don’t feel like writing what I have just written, nor do I feel like erasing it.’ Kierkegaard – ‘The very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.’ Dalai Lama. Try and dream, if you can, of a mourning app. The mobile has come dangerously close to our psychic bone, to the point where the two can no longer be separated. If only my...

Many families in  India  still mourn the birth of a girl. But when Leena was born, people celebrated. Sagar Gram, her village in central India, is unique that way. Girls outnumber boys. When a woman marries, it is the groom’s family that pays the dowry. Women are Sagar Gram’s breadwinners. When they are deemed old enough, perhaps at the age of 11, most are expected to start doing sex work. India officially abolished caste discrimination almost 70 years ago.  But millennia of tradition is not easily erased. For most Indians, caste still has a defining influence on who they marry and what they eat. It also traps millions in abusive work. The exploited and trafficked children of Sagar Gram, and dozens of other villages across India’s hinterland, are one of its most disturbing manifestations. “It is caste and gender slavery,” says Ashif Shaikh of Jan Sahas, an advocacy group that works with members of India’s lowest castes, communities that used to be called “untouch...