Adieu, AB
AB is no more. The nation is in his debt, and there's nothing we can do about it. There are murmured demands for some sort of a national tribute or recognition. If you ask me, a man, who has won over hearts, has no use for medals.
No merit in quotas
Anyone who has played “alley cricket” will know that it has its own rules: e.g. two “chiefs” get to select players in tandem, and (s)he who sends the ball over the wall must fetch it. Another such rule is that the owner of the bat will have an automatic place on the team. This last provision is an everyday example of a “quota system” where able performers are replaced by those wielding power over the selection process.
An Unwanted People
The International Community seems to be unable, if not unwilling, to adequately respond to the recent escalation in Rohingya persecution. Long before this crackdown, apartheid conditions prevailed for the Muslim minority.
THE MIDDLE PATH / ViralSlide: Does 'Virality' Matter?
Take a look at the news-stories that really stirred our civic discourse in 2016: Rampal, central bank heist, teacher's humiliation by lawmaker or Tonu's murder. Think back another year: remember the #RichKids incident where a drunken teen (a former MP's nephew)
THE MIDDLE PATH / Bring Back Our Girls
Sabira has been adequately framed as a 'model' and something of a 'wildcard' - who didn't care much about social norms. Her final video, featuring her in a slightly incoherent, vulnerable state, has been branded by online media sites and uploaded endlessly for public display. Not a single voice suggested that her privacy be respected.
THE MIDDLE PATH / The land of scared ideas
Sixty or seventy years back, higher education for the people of Bengal was a rare commodity. Racial and socioeconomic barriers held
The War on Abstract Notions
Wars on abstract concepts (e.g. terror, freethinking) are dangerous because they can be aimed at virtually anyone and can be invoked to launch every missile and curtail every freedom.
Selective memory dictates
Would the news stories be the same if the apparatus were based in Muslim countries and owned by Muslims? Would we not hear more of the ravages perpetrated by western colonialism and invasions? Would Facebook profile picture campaigns then be about Paris or Beirut?
