Dilip Simeon's blog

NB : It is the RSS that is responsible for this brutal onslaught on poor people's lives. I appreciate Tavleen Singh's concern for justice for Pehlu Khan and other victims of cow-vigilantes (something rare among supporters of the Modi regime), but her wish for justice - which I share - is likely to remain unfulfilled. We have seen what has just happened in the Samjhauta verdict, not to mention 1984 . The list of travesties of justice is endless, and began with Gandhiji's assassination .  We inhabit a culture of genocidal complicity; and criminals - especially those motivated by communal hatred - enjoy impunity.  The 'idea of India' is much discussed nowadays. I'd prefer a discussion on what our high-minded elite thinks of the idea of murder   The issue is beyond parties. The decline of judicial institutions represents the perversion of civil conscience. Communal ideology has a cross-partisan effect. The whole idea is to abolish the distinction between le...

Recent research has estimated that by 2030, the planet will be generating  at least 5bn  tonnes  of poo each year, with the vast majority being deposited by livestock. With  80% of farms  in the Netherlands already producing more cow dung than they can legally use as fertiliser, and China resorting to  drastic measures  to try to reduce the amount of manure being discharged into rivers, scientists say this is a major environment and health challenge. “It’s a huge problem,” says Joe Brown, professor of environmental engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. “Animal waste is going up because as populations and wealth increase, there’s a bigger demand for protein. But while we’ve seen lots of initiatives to safely manage human waste, nobody is talking about this.” Despite extensive Environmental Agency regulations, the UK’s dairy, poultry and pig farms were responsible for  424 incidents  of serious pollution related to waste disposal...

Since start of war in Yemen, UK government has committed £770 million in aid – compared to £4.7 billion worth of arms licensed to Saudi Arabia. Since the Stockholm agreement on 13 December, it is estimated that eight children have been killed or injured in Yemen every day Five opposition parties published a letter on Monday condemning the  UK ’s continued arms trade with the “murderous regime” of  Saudi Arabia  and calling the government complicit in  Yemen ’s devastation. The letter,  published in full by  The Independent , is signed by leaders of the  Labour  Party, SNP,  Liberal Democrats , Plaid Cymru and the Green Party’s lone MP. Peace as a punctuation mark in eternal war ‘ We can’t afford to give up’: the Yemenis keeping hope alive The  UN  special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is expected in London this week to discuss  the redeployment of forces  and the opening up...

Two Saudi sisters who say they were beaten and treated like slaves by their brothers and father have been granted asylum in an undisclosed country. The women, aged 18 and 20, ran away from their family last September while on holiday in Sri Lanka and have been  stranded in Hong Kong  since an abandoned attempt to reach Australia, where they hoped to secure asylum. The sisters, who are known by the pseudonyms Reem and Rawan, have asked for the country which granted them asylum to remain confidential. “I was so happy,” the younger sister told Reuters in  Hong Kong , describing how she felt when she was told she had been given asylum. “I screamed, ‘It’s real, it’s happening’ ... It was just relief and unforgettable.” The women arrived in Hong Kong in September after planning their escape over several years and secretly hoarding around $5,000. They were blocked from continuing their journey to Australia by Saudi consular agents at Hong Kong international airport an...

LAST week, Khalid Hameed, head of the English department at Bahawalpur’s Govern­ment Sadiq Egerton College, was  stabbed to death  by his student who accused him of promoting un-Islamic activities (a mixed welcome gathering). After the shocking incident, opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif said that the fatal consequences of the difference of opinion should lead to a moment of national reflection. But you cannot reflect if you don’t know how to reason. Reasoning is a form of internal debate. It is a discursive practice that requires acknowledging and accommodating dissenting views. And this practice, of recognising, respecting and perhaps reconciling differing opinions, is something that Pakistanis have forgotten how to do. Mashal's death is a result of the regression of our student politics They are no longer taught to think critically, they are no longer allowed to speak freely, and their political representatives no long engage in debate, so how can we expect better...

Police have detained at least seven people, including a  Nikah Khwan  (marriage officiator), suspected of involvement in the alleged abductions, forced conversions from Hindusim to Islam, and underage marriages of two minor sisters reported in Ghotki. On Saturday, the  government took notice  of the incident after two separate videos started doing rounds on social media. The father and brother of the girls in videos circulating on social media said that the two sisters were abducted and forced into changing their religion from Hinduism to Islam. However, a separate video of the girls went viral, in which they said that they accepted Islam of their own free will. In the video, a cleric can be seen next to the girls and two men who they were married to. The cleric said the girls were inspired by Islam and alleges that their family is spreading "false propaganda" and is threatening their lives. The truth about forced conversions in Thar Faiza Mirza: Memoir of a ...

... think about the giant swath of humanity that now uses the internet, and consider one of the most basic facets of how 4 billion of us live our lives. This is a 21st-century story, but it will ring bells with people old enough to remember the cold war: how people understand their own experience and events in the wider world is increasingly decided by the version of the internet they use. On one side sits the system used in China, which produces  vast amounts of personal data  and blurs into a huge apparatus of state surveillance and censorship. This model is centred on two online behemoths, whose dominance partly comes down to the fact that Chinese consumerism is all about paying via your smartphone, rather than an old-fashioned plastic card. There’s the e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, and Tencent, which owns WeChat, the platform used by  more than 1 billion people  every day. It  does so many things  – payments, social networking, messaging, travel...