Curator Ranjit Hoskote Resigns from German Arts Panel Due to Row Over 2019 Statement Critical of Israel https://thewire.in/the-arts/curator-ranjit-hoskote-resigns-from-documentas-finding-committee-over-anti-semitism-allegations Hoskote’s resignation is the latest in a string of escalating scandals that have followed an anti-BDS resolution passed by the German parliament in 2019, with artists and curators increasingly finding themselves targeted by weaponised accusations of anti-Semitism.

my signature on a petition circulated by the Indian Cultural Forum and dated August 26, 2019, protesting a discussion hosted by the Consulate General of Israel in Mumbai, on “Leaders’ Idea of Nations: Zionism and Hindutva.” The invitation for this event presented a portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founding figure of Zionism, alongside a portrait of V. D. Savarkar, a founding figure of Hindutva.

My reason for signing this petition was because the event clearly posited an equivalence between Herzl and Savarkar, and was intended to develop intellectual respectability for an alliance between Zionism and Hindutva. I found this highly ironic, since Savarkar was known to be an admirer of Hitler and openly expressed his admiration for Nazi ideology and methods, which he proposed as a model for a Hindu-majoritarian India to follow, especially with regard to the treatment of the religious minorities.

No member of the German commentariat who denounced me has asked herself or himself why the Israeli Consulate General thought it appropriate to equate Zionism with Hindutva in the first place.

 Adani Group advisor’s presence on Environment Ministry’s expert committee flags conflict of interest
Janardan Choudhary, an advisor to Adani Green Energy Limited, was also reportedly part of a meeting in October when a project by the company came up for evaluation https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/opposition-parties-slam-government-over-reported-appointment-of-adani-energy-advisor-on-environment-ministrys-committee/article67531668.ece Mr. Choudhary clarified to the Press Trust of India (PTI) that while he had attended the October 17 meeting, he had refrained from participating in the session focusing on AGEL’s Tarali project. The minutes of the meeting, perused by The Hindu, show that he participated in the meeting on October 17 “via video-conferencing” but was absent on October 18. The records, however, do not suggest that he recused himself from the meeting.

.. A senior official in the Ministry, familiar with the procedures around EAC proceedings, told The Hindu on condition of anonymity that having members affiliated to industry in the EAC committees was not out of the ordinary and an accepted practice. This was because their practical experience was “invaluable” in ascertaining the impact of projects. However, all members had to declare their affiliations and recuse themselves from matters that could conflict with their position. Such recusals were expected to be noted in the minutes of the meeting, and this has been an established practice in the past. “It was possibly an oversight but this would require an explanation,” the official noted.

Priyanka C of Shiv Sena said: “If an ethics committee can hold an elected member of parliament guilty for sharing email by calling it a national security and conflict of interest issue, how is a person working as an advisor to a private company, a company that has pending approvals in MoEFs EAC be allowed a seat on the EAC itself?

Modi Has “Killed the Constitution By a 1000 Cuts”, Whilst Many Were Asleep, Others Complicit https://youtu.be/sLRO4qs6Q-Q?t=80 The Wire

One of the foremost scholars of India’s constitution and its democracy says the first Modi government (2014-2019) is guilty of “killing the constitution by a thousand cuts” whilst the second Modi government has taken the process insidiously further in significant ways. Prof. Tarunabh Khaitan adds that many of India’s political parties and institutions have “sleep walked into (Modi’s) authoritarianism” whilst others “are complicit” in Modi’s undermining of democracy. He says many people “didn’t realize it was happening” whilst “huge swathes of constitutional machinery” were aware but let it happen.

Killing a Constitution with a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-State Fusion in India Law and Ethics of Human Rights https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3646238_code1023159.pdf 

Read more …

he has been exploring/ researching fundamental questions regarding knowledge creation and aesthetic sense development in the context of colonization of the non-Western world and the subsequent homogenization of knowledge and aesthetic sensibilities.

Living with non-literate indigenous communities has helped him to explore the very biological basis of cognition and aesthetic sense.

Working with children has enabled him to understand how children learn naturally, how aesthetic sense gets awakened autonomously, and how modern schooling alienates modern human beings.

His focus of the present work is to enable the so-called educated to reclaim their natural cognitive system using non-teaching pedagogy developed in the course of offering courses for design and architecture foundation students.

TEXT DISTORTS, DIGITAL DESTROYS, WORLD AWAKENS
http://jinankb.in
http://ekfoundation.in
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC80rT8Zj1EE8TrzD3UreYfQ
http://beingacademy.in
http://rethinkingfoundation.org
https://independent.academia.edu/JinanKodapully

The basic premise of the exploration is based on three things.

1. All living beings are learning and creating knowledge.
2. We are biologically equipped to create knowledge
3. The formation of the neural network depends on the experiences we have.
4. literates learn the WORD; illiterates learn the WORLD
5. Modern education totally disregards the importance of the sense in cognition

Illiterates create IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE of the real world which is
outside the realm of language and this knowledge can be explicated by
becoming attentive to what is implicitly known (METACOGNITION). This
also doesn't require language as the observation is happening while
the activity is being done. The best example is the way implicit
knowledge of grammar gets embedded by the age of 3/4.

Israelis in fear and denial as society slides towards fascism  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-israelis-fear-and-denial-society-slides-towards-fascism  Meron Rapoport in Tel Aviv, Israel  10 November 2023
Palestinian students, academics, doctors, and dissenting Jewish Israelis are among those caught up in an escalating wave of repression   There are times I seriously wonder what country I am living in. More importantly, I wonder what sort of country it could become the day after this terrible war ends.

What is even more worrying is that much of this is not coming from the top, from a government filled with the extreme right. These 'thought police' purges are being done by the university or hospital authorities themselves.

You can place this current reign of terror in a context of fear and revenge, an understandable if much-exaggerated feeling following the atrocious Hamas attacks after which no Israeli Jew feels safe in their home. ..But will this internal regime of silencing and intimidation evaporate when the war ends? Or are we standing on the doorstep of full-blown repression against Palestinians and Israeli dissidents? ..Is Israel on the cusp of fascism? Unfortunately, I cannot give a comforting answer.

Meta to limit some Facebook comments on Israeli, Palestinian posts https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/meta-limit-some-facebook-comments-israeli-palestinian-posts-2023-10-18/ By Katie Paul and Sheila Dang October 18, 2023  Meta said it will change the default setting for people who can comment on new and public Facebook posts created by users "in the region" to only their friends and followers...The social media company added it will disable the ability to see the first one or two comments on posts while scrolling the Facebook feed...Earlier this week, some users who posted in support for Palestine or Gaza citizens accused Meta of suppressing their content. Meta designates Hamas as a "dangerous organization" and bans content praising the group...

Mondoweiss, a news website that covers Palestinian human rights, said on social media platform X on Oct. 10 that Instagram had twice suspended the profile of its video correspondent. Other Instagram users reported their posts and stories about Palestine were not receiving views.

Meta said it fixed a bug on Instagram that caused re-posted content to not appear correctly in a user's story, which disappears after 24 hours.

MHA extends UAPA ban against eight Meitei extremist organisations https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mha-extends-ban-on-10-meitei-extremist-organisations-under-uapa-for-another-five-year/article67528452.ece November 13, 2023
The government declared the eight outfits an unlawful association for a period of ten years affective November 13. the Central government is of the opinion that the outfits have been engaging in activities prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India; employing and engaging in armed means to achieve their objectives, attacking and killing the security forces, police and civilians in Manipur; indulging in acts of intimidation, extortion and looting of civilian population for collection of funds; making contacts with sources abroad for influencing public opinion and for securing their assistance by way of arms and training for the purpose of achieving their secessionist objective and maintaining camps in neighbouring countries for the purpose of sanctuaries, training and clandestine procurement of arms and ammunition. 

 Polluting Industries Say the Cost of Cleaner Air Is Too High  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/business/economy/smog-rules-economics.html  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to announce new regulations governing soot — the particles that trucks, farms, factories, wildfires, power plants and dusty roads generate.   public health advocates argue that the averted deaths, illnesses and lost productivity that air pollution caused far outweigh the cost. The E.P.A. pegs the potential benefits at as much as $55 billion by 2032 if it drops the limit to nine micrograms per cubic meter, from the current 12 micrograms. That is far more than the $500 million it estimates the proposal would cost in 2032.

So how are communities weighing the potential trade-offs? On a state level, it depends to a large degree on politics: Seventeen Democratic attorneys general wrote a joint comment letter in support of stricter rules, while 17 Republican attorneys general wrote one in favor of the status quo.

But it also depends on the mix of industries prevalent in a local area.

Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it https://theconversation.com/is-capitalism-dead-yanis-varoufakis-thinks-it-is-and-he-knows-who-killed-it-213992    November 8, 202 Varoufakis argues that we no longer live in a capitalist society; capitalism has morphed into a “technologically advanced form of feudalism”. ..

In the early 19th century,” he writes, many feudal relations remained intact, but capitalist relations had begun to dominate. Today, capitalist relations remain intact, but techno-feudalist relations have begun to overtake them. “vassal capitalists” are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” – the Big Tech companies – who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and it has displaced “capitalism’s two pillars: markets and profits”. ..Access to the “digital fief” comes at the cost of exorbitant rents. Varoufakis notes that many third-party developers on the Apple store, for example, pay 30% “on all their revenues”, while Amazon charges its sellers “35% of revenues”. This, he argues, is like a medieval feudal lord sending round the sheriff to collect a large chunk of his serfs’ produce because he owns the estate and everything within it....This is not extracting profit through the production or provision of goods and services, as these platforms are not a “service” in the sense in which the term is used in economics. They are extracting rents in the form of the huge cuts they take from the capitalists on their platforms..

Every time we use our cloud-linked devices – smartphones, laptops, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri – we replenish the capital of the Big Tech cloudalists. This in turn increases their capacity to generate more wealth. How? We train their algorithms, which train us, to train them, and so on, in a feedback loop whose goal is to shape our desires and behaviour. They are “selling things to us while selling our attention to others”...For Varoufakis, we are not just living through a tech revolution, but a tech-driven economic revolution. He challenges us to come to terms with just what has happened to our economies – and our societies – in the era of Big Tech and Big Finance...

Towards the end of Technofeudalism, Varoufakis canvasses some proposals, drawn from his earlier book Another Now (2020), for how to address these issues. These include ending the cloudalists faux “free service” model and replacing it with a universal micro-payment model, instituting a Bill of Digital Rights, and using digital technology to “democratise companies” (with decisions being taken collectively by “employee-shareholders”).

Varoufakis also proposes to “democratise money”. This plan would involve central banks issuing digital wallets, a universal basic income, reconfiguring “the central bank’s ledger” in the direction of a “common payment and savings system”, and abolishing the current capacity of private banks to “create money”.