63 karma · joined February 23, 2023
Has rankings, plus a reasonably good discovery engine. More sales on the platform will influence the former and could influence the latter, leading to even more sales.
Buying direct puts more money into the author's pocket per sale but has zero ability to influence other sales.
There is no easy answer.
Against whom? The Afghans? The Mughals? The Sikh Empire? The British? Republic of India?
> people have just one demand. secession.
This is never going to happen: 'The Partition and the violence of 1947 in Kashmir forced the Constituent Assembly to revise its approach and it resolved in favour of a strong Centre. The possibility of the secession of States from the Union weighed on the minds of the drafters of the Constitution and ensured that the Indian Union is “indestructible”. In the Constituent Assembly, B.R Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, observed that the word ‘Union’ was advisedly used in order to negative the right of secession of States by emphasising, after all, that “India shall be a Union of States”. Ambedkar justified the usage of ‘Union of States’ saying that the Drafting Committee wanted to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, it was not the result of an agreement and that therefore, no State has the right to secede from it. “The federation is a Union because it is indestructible,” Ambedkar said.'[1]
[1] The ‘Union government’ has a unifying effect (https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-union-government-...)
Has an AAP government.
> In February, the internet was blocked in 11 cities in Rajasthan state to prevent cheating during exams.
Has a Congress government.
> While local governments ruled by opposition parties in India also frequently block the internet, the Manipur example highlights a wider pattern in an India governed over the past decade by Modi’s BJP.
Why don't you provide a statistical, party-wise breakdown so that people can know? Right now, the article seems to be all about "Modi’s BJP."
The answer to my question is: the "article" is part of a series where the Hindu nationalist is portrayed as the villain who is involved in communal violence; all other communities are, obviously, peaceful; violence is always initiated by one side.
> a shutdown was imposed in Haryana state, ostensibly to control riots
Everyone in India knows what happened in Nuh. There are pictures and video on social media.
> The unrest in Manipur began on April 27. Kuki activists called for a general strike against the land policies of the state’s chief minister that day, and the demonstration turned violent.
> Tensions had been brewing for months between the Kukis, a Christian hill tribe, and Meiteis, the politically and economically dominant valley dwellers who mostly practice Hinduism. Kukis have long accused Meiteis of coveting land in the hills reserved under the Indian constitution for tribal peoples, and those fears sharpened this spring when the state’s top court backed a Meitei demand that it also be granted official tribal status.
So, the moment a court decided that the Meitei demand should be considered, thus giving them a share of the reservation/affirmative action pie, violence erupted?
> Tensions had been brewing for months between the Kukis, a Christian hill tribe, and Meiteis, the politically and economically dominant valley dwellers who mostly practice Hinduism.
The article has so much Christian imagery. Could they not find a single temple that they could photograph? Or an affected Meitei who has photos of some Hindu gods on the walls of his house? After all, 1/3 of the people who have died are Meiteis.[1]
Depends on the place. The British changed the names of many places because they could not pronounce them. A lot of those places will eventually go back to their old names.
> a woman named Droupadi Murmu is the (mostly ceremonial) president.
Presidents have just about enough power to be a major irritant to the three arms of government, if they so wish. They can sit on bills passed by parliament indefinitely (pocket veto). They are first in the order of precedence[1] which is a check on the vanity of politicians in the executive.
> the government, led by Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, ended License Raj, reduced tariffs, and deregulated many aspects of the economy.
This would have been impossible without the political backstopping provided by Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. The man managed to run a minority government to full term. I don't think the feat has been repeated at the center or state level since then.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_precedence_in_India
Definitions are contextual. Your definition of influence is local, mine is global. That does not make your definition factual and mine non-factual/"new."
All the biased reporting about India comes from outlets like the NYT/WP/FT/Economist/BBC etc which is then picked up by local media from both sides. So, when I refer to influential Western media outlets, those are the ones.
(I am surprised as to why you would expect someone from India to follow Fox or Daily Mail or whatever your local RW outlet is. Can you name a single "influential" RW media outlet from India?)
Let me clarify.
When I speak of influence, I am not speaking about the influence tabloids have on people and their voting patterns. Instead, I am referring to "newspaper of record" type influence; news sources that will be used by academics and historians of the future to write the history of this era.
To expand on this a bit, the problem with right-wing media is that it is not taken seriously and a lot of it has to do with a lack of serious reporting. I find it very funny when right-wing media of one country refers to left-wing media of another country in their articles and programs because they are either unaware of local right-wing sources or simply do not trust them.
Only what I read in the Western press. But given what I know about their reporting about India, it is hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when they attack right-wing governments running other countries.
The Indian version is called the Model Code of Conduct and it is enforced by the Election Commission of India.[1] The ECI even takes control of the bureaucratic and law and order machinery in the period leading up to the elections.
> So what's the issue here?
Typical left wing complaints about anything and everything in countries where they don't see a chance of returning to power by electoral means. If the people are not voting for them, it is obviously because the ruling party and their supporters are fascists. There can be no other reason.
These narratives are built and spread using their control of media. Their friends in the Global Left help amplify the message.
Capitalists do not recognize the boundaries of nation-states and the process of extracting the last pound of flesh through the activities of their enterprise eventually leads to mass unemployment in their country of origin while at the same time strengthening the economies of potential rivals.
One of them is the tale of the demon Mahishasura and how Goddess Durga decapitated him.[1][2]
The Mahishasura Mardini Stotram is a hymn written in her praise.[3]
Happy Navaratri to all.
[1] Durga Slays the Buffalo Demon at Mamallapuram (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/x...)
[2] Durga (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga)
[3] Aigiri Nandini by Uthara Unnikrishnan (Mahishasura Mardini Stotram with Lyrics & Meaning) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6W281Bav1k)
Is there some new perspective to the conflict that people are unaware of?
> bombings of civilians
Is going on daily in multiple African wars. Where are all the threads about those? And accompanying Nazi references.
- The war in Syria continues, as does the one in Ukraine.
- Ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijanis is ongoing.
- There is conflict on the Af-Pak border with the Pakistan government demanding that millions of Afghan refugees go back to Afghanistan (which has been hit by multiple earthquakes over the last couple of weeks with 1,000+ dead).
I guess people are interested in what they are interested.
[1] I Took an IQ Test to Find Out What it Actually Measures (https://youtu.be/FkKPsLxgpuY?t=911)
And the US, which did very similar things when it funded Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Yes. Every power employs divide-and-rule as a policy to control their opponents. When their opponents fight each other, a lot of their resources would be too tied up to fight Israel.
The sooner the West realises that jihadis are not their allies and cannot be controlled, the better.
This is not a Palestinian issue. If it were, Israel would be bombing the West Bank as well.
Gazans voluntarily elected Hamas.[1] Hamas then refused to leave after getting involved in violent conflict with their political opponents, Fatah. Were Gazans ignorant of the ideology of the creature called Hamas when they handed them power?
People should stop equating jihadis with civilians. Keep doing this and the suspicion about Muslim civilians having jihadi tendencies gains wider acceptance.
This is Hamas vs Israel, not Palestine vs Israel.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_of_the_Gaza_Strip
HN readers are surely familiar with "security fatigue" by way of continuous security popups on their operating systems and repeated password expiry shenanigans.[1]
This flow of bullshit intelligence is so constant and numerous that most administrators simply ignore a lot of it.
[1] ‘Security Fatigue’ Can Cause Computer Users to Feel Hopeless and Act Recklessly, New Study Suggests https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2016/10/security-fatig...
What Mohammed did or said is not relevant here. That Hamas chose to use those specific words in their charter to convey their genocidal intent is. They could have quoted Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao for all I care. Or made up something of their own.
Jihadists and jihadi organizations always rely on Islamic history, writing and tradition because that makes it easier to rile up Muslims on issues that are otherwise irrelevant to them. Otherwise, why the f--- would you chant "from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free" or taunt Jews with "Khaybar" in a supposed rally in support for Palestine?[1][2] Or, use genocidal language in your charter?
Sam Harris, as quoted in the article above, is right: "People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen." So, when Hamas quotes Mohammed (regardless of the authenticity of the quote), it should be "taken" at "face value."
[1] LILLEY UNLEASHED: Canadian citizens need to denounce Hamas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGXaZ9Uryis)
This is from the Hamas Charter: “The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”[1]
Let HN readers decide for themselves if Hamas=bad is a fact or merely an idea.
[1] What Would Hamas Do If It Could Do Whatever It Wanted? (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/wh...)
* An interview that covers similar territory: The man behind Vande Bharat Express (https://www.rediff.com/money/interview/the-man-behind-vande-...)
* Typical Indian bullshit where jealous/unhappy bureaucrats tried to derail the project by triggering corruption cases against the team: 11 ICF officials exonerated in Train-18 case after 2 years (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/11-icf-offi...)
It is just like the BBC to assume that most of its readers are idiots who will swallow anything they say hook, line and sinker. You can shape public opinion about events and people without active lies by deciding the "facts" that will be revealed and the ones that won't: lies of omission vs lies of commission.
> The key point is that we don't say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.
In a similar vein, I would like to present the fact that the BBC is known as the "Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation" in many circles.
Here's a recent article on the NewsClick Chinese Propaganda arrests[1] that is full of half-truths where the BBC uses various adjectives (its "own voice") for people involved in the events that only shows the side it has already decided upon.
[1] NewsClick: India police arrest journalists over China funding claims (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-66909370)
Some one deleted their reply to you listing densities of paper and water. Here are some figures from Wikipedia
- The density of paper ranges from 250 kg/m3 (16 lb/cu ft) for tissue paper to 1500 kg/m3 (94 lb/cu ft) for some specialty paper. Printing paper is about 800 kg/m3 (50 lb/cu ft).
- Water: 1000 kg/m3
So they are not that far apart when you consider that the average bookshelf is often bigger than the average aquarium.
My concern would be traffic and weight. Public buildings are designed with thicker/wider and more numerous structural elements compared to residential buildings.
I believe the residential standard for concrete structures in India (where I am) specifies a minimum live load bearing capacity of 2kN/m2 (approx 200 kg/m2). This is much higher for schools/colleges/libraries/auditoriums etc.
The problem is, desperate people will borrow from anyone under any terms. If it is not this, then it would be some local "moneylender" with muscle.
Edit: Some recent cases.
[1] Scared of humiliation over bank attachment notice, college student dies by suicide (https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/thiruvananthapuram/...)
[2] Pregnant woman crushed to death under tractor wheels by recovery agents, RBI bars Mahindra Finance from loan recovery through 3rd party agents (https://zeenews.india.com/personal-finance/pregnant-woman-cr...)
This is typical of Western media reporting on Hindus and India. There can never be a single positive story about them without referring to snake charmers, sati, child marriage, toilets, hunger, poverty, caste, violence against minorities etc etc.
The ignorance about who Dalits actually are is par for the course. Dalits are not part of the traditional jati/varna classification. To use a now-English term for their status in society, they were complete "outcastes." This ignorance is more appalling because the reporter has a South Indian name. Looks like another thoroughly deracinated Indian.
It does not matter. Even if they gave up on the occupied territories, the problem cannot be solved because the solution, according to the involved theologies, is a genocide of one of the parties involved.
> west should blockade Israel
This will never happen. Jewish over-representation in Western power structures makes this a non-starter.
> there is clearly nationalistic and ethnical element in the way West applies the law and projects its power
They have always done this. The dual-standard adopted by the West on a multitude of issues is well known. Racial and cultural affinity is a big component of such decisions.
Just look at media coverage. There are multiple wars going on in Africa, and there was an earthquake in Afghanistan 24 hours back. But all coverage is primarily about Ukraine or Israel-Palestine.
For Jews, Israel is the promised land.
For Muslims, the entire universe belongs to those who follow Allah.
Therefore it is a zero sum game.
The problem with "secular" thinking about these issues is that secular people have no innate understanding of religious fanaticism and do not understand the supremacist worldview of Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps that is one reason behind their constant need for building secular narratives of history ignoring repeating patterns.
Technically, it is. This happens when people who do not understand a particular society or its conflict hierarchy start writing the laws for that society.
From Wikipedia:
> Modern India's caste system is based on the artificial modern superimposition of an old four-fold theoretical classification called the Varna on the natural social groupings called the Jāti. Varna conceptualised a society as consisting of four types of varnas, or categories: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, according to the nature of the work of its members. Varna was not an inherited category and the occupation determined the varna. However, a person's Jati is determined at birth and makes them take up that Jati's occupation; members could and did change their occupation based on personal strengths as well as economic, social and political factors. A 2016 study based on the DNA analysis of unrelated Indians determined that endogamous Jatis originated during the Gupta Empire.
> From 1901 onwards, for the purposes of the Decennial Census, the British colonial authorities arbitrarily and incorrectly forced all Jātis into the four Varna categories as described in ancient texts. Herbert Hope Risley, the Census Commissioner, noted that "The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Indian system."
Draconian versions of such anti-discrimination laws exist in India. They are weaponized to settle personal scores to such an extent that the Supreme Court of India has had to step in on multiple occasions.[1][2]
This is a legitimate fear of those protesting against such laws in the US.
If you cannot handle caste discrimination cases without enacting a religion-specific law, that is a defect of existing laws that the relevant authority should fix.
[1] "Civil dispute can’t be converted to a case under SC/ST Act: SC (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/civil-dispute-cant...)
[2] "Insulting, abusing SC/ST person not an offence under SC/ST Act unless victim abused on account of caste: Supreme Court" (https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/insulting-abusin...)
The West does not understand caste. Their only comparison is slavery which is completely irrelevant. The closest thing to caste in the West is class.
This is the British social classification experiment all over again where they came to India, invented criminal tribes and martial races, and took the fluid jati/varna system and froze everything as part of law instead of letting society deal with its problems at its own pace. The result is there for every one to see. Three hundred years later, politicians in India want a caste census to maintain their caste-based vote banks, and caste groups that used to rule entire kingdoms demand to be classified as backward castes because it helps them compete with other caste groups who are benefiting from reservations/affirmative action.
If the US legally recognizes caste, in 50 years time, you will see Indian politicians campaigning for votes on caste lines in California.
It is an open, yet officially unstated, policy of the Indian government since the 1950s that the USSR/Russia must never be put in a position wherein it fully tilts towards China.
India, China and Russia are the three powers on the Asian continent. A 2v1 situation would be catastrophic for India. Sensible people in power in the West may not agree with the India, but they understand this. Arm chair generals on social media and those writing for Western media outlets do not.