Dilip Simeon's blog

Ice  from an Alpine glacier has revealed a remarkable timeline of Britain’s lead mining industry – complete with economic booms and busts relating to major events during the  medieval  period, from the assassination of  Thomas Becket  to the signing of the Magna Carta.  A study of a 72 metre long core bored from a glacier in the Swiss-Italian Alps shows how air pollution from lead in the 12th century was as bad then as it was during the industrial revolution.  Climate change scientists, historians and archaeologists from the universities of Nottingham, Harvard and Maine used ultra-high precision laser technology to analyse the 800-year-old ice, which they found “exactly maps the comings and goings of England’s kings”. The research shows how traces of lead pollution from mines in the UK, in particular the Peak District, directly mirror historical “parchment roll” records of lead production in the region between 1170 and 1216. They said “c...

Rajiv Bajaj, the outspoken managing director of two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto, on Tuesday slammed the Narendra Modi government for enforcing an “arbitrary lockdown” to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.“The lockdown is a solution that is looking for a problem,” Bajaj told CNBC TV18 news channel while accusing the government of deepening the country’s economic crisis and perpetuating the misery of its citizens by endangering their livelihood. “This crisis started with a virus; it is being propagated by the government,” the straight-talking industrialist added. Bajaj has been a severe critic of the Modi government and its policies and had famously attacked the demonetisation exercise of 2016 which failed to meet its professed objective of shaking down black money from the deepest recesses of the economy.  “All I want is the government to work logically and sensibly. I don’t need a relief package. We don’t have a demand problem… we have a governance problem,” said Baja...

Ai has been critical of China's handling of the outbreak, which was first identified in the city of Wuhan and has since spread to  more than  210 countries and territories, infecting over 2.5 million people. In a recent opinion piece for The Art Newspaper, he  argued  that the ruling Communist Party's containment tactics have proven the "effectiveness of authoritarian rules," while other countries' inability to control the pandemic has exposed the "disadvantages and malpractices of free and democratic societies." Such comments are consistent with his wider assessment of the Chinese state's far-reaching powers. Many issues raised by the pandemic, from censorship to surveillance, are subjects Ai has spent years exploring. In recent weeks, much has been made of China's  alleged  efforts to conceal the initial outbreak of the virus - an allegation Beijing strongly denies. According to Ai, China's selective handing of information early ...

That Majed stayed as Ahmed Ali in Kolkata for two decades suggests that Indian intelligence agencies probably knew about him and that he may have been under their protection. A good indication of their complicity is the fact that Majed’s presence in Kolkata was not politicised. This is in contrast to the BJP’s high-pitched campaign against Mamata Banerjee in 2014 of harbouring Islamic terrorists Did India just gift a hanging to  Bangladesh  in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? On Sunday April 12, at one minute past midnight former  Bangladesh  Army Captain Abdul Majed was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail. He was one of the twelve  Bangladesh  Army officers convicted in the assassination of the founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. They killed more than 20 members of Mujib’s family - only his two daughters,  Sheikh Hasina  and Sheikh Rehana, being out of the country, fortuitously escaped the bloodbath. Five of...

Forget kombucha and trendy vitamin supplements – they are nothing more than magic potions for the modern age “Spanish Influenza – what it is and how it should be treated,” read the reassuringly factual headline to an advert for Vick’s VapoRub back in 1918. The text beneath included nuggets of wisdom such as “stay quiet” and “take a laxative”. Oh, and to apply their ointment liberally, of course.  The 1918 flu pandemic was the most lethal in recorded history, infecting up to 500 million people (a quarter of the world’s population at the time) and killing tens of millions worldwide. But with crisis comes opportunity, and the - sometimes literal - snake oil salesmen were out in force. Vick’s VapoRub had stiff competition from a panoply of crackpot remedies, including Miller’s Antiseptic Snake Oil, Dr Bell’s Pine Tar Honey, Schenck’s Mandrake Pills, Dr Jones’s Liniment, Hill’s Cascara Quinine Bromide, and A. Wulfing & Co’s famous mint lozenges. Their adverts made regular appeara...

Governments and human rights groups across the world have registered an incredibly worrying surge in  domestic violence , as people have been forced to lock themselves up at home with whomever is in their household. The  Middle East  is no exception. But here, many rights groups say abuse can be compounded by the financial and political crises that were already ravaging the region before the virus arrived, piling additional pressure on people. Many of the  coronavirus  lockdowns are even more severe than in the UK, not even permitting exercise outside and so any respite at all. In  Tunisia  – where the government has intermittently banned people from even going to supermarkets – authorities say cases of domestic violence have increased fivefold. In  Jordan , which has rolled out similarly strict regulations, a video of a distraught woman describing her abuse under quarantine has been shared widely online. In  Lebanon , where again exerc...

Two extraordinary ‘petitions’ have emerged out of China in recent weeks: Ren Zhiqiang’s essay  My reading of February 23  and Xu Zhangrun’s essay  Viral Alarm:   When Fury overcomes Fear . Both were written by former members of the Establishment.. “ Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword”,  wrote Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. Many centuries before these words became immortal, the idea of aggrieved subjects penning their petitions directly to the Son of Heaven was well established practice since the earliest times of Chinese Imperial rule. Known as  xinfang , it was the means to draw the Emperor’s attention to the wrong-doings of his officials and to seek justice, but occasionally it also became a means to question and topple the Son of Heaven. Two extraordinary ‘petitions’ have emerged out of China in recent weeks: Ren Zhiqiang’s essay  My reading of February 23  and Xu Zhangrun’s essay  Viral Alarm: ...