Hooray ! Dalits have progressed !

(Click on image to enlarge)

Update: Though this post is labelled under 'Humour', let it not distract the very serious issue at hand.

Siddharta Varadrajan remarks in The Hindu:

Based on the data leaked so far, it is evident there are entry barriers Muslims — who account for 17 per cent of India's population — are unable to cross in virtually all walks of life. From the administration and the police to the judiciary and the private sector, the invisible hands of prejudice, economic and educational inequality seem to have frozen the `quota' for Muslims at three to five per cent. Thanks to a hysterical campaign run by the Bharatiya Janata Party and some media houses, the Sachar committee was denied data on the presence of Muslims in the armed forces. But even there it is apparent that the three per cent formula applies.

This gross under-presence of Muslims in virtually every sector is presaged by substantial inequalities in education. Muslim enrolment and retention rates at the primary and secondary levels are lower than the national average and this further magnifies existing inequalities at the college level as well as in the labour market. For virtually every socio-economic marker of well being, the Muslim is well below the national norm — not to speak of the level commensurate with her or his share of the national population — and the evidence suggests these inequalities are not decreasing over time.

This bleak statistical picture is rendered drearier still by new trends visible in many cities. Muslims, for example, find it extremely difficult to rent and buy property outside of "Muslim areas" in some metros.

Thanks to Krish for the link to Siddharta Varadrajan's article.

Image Source: The Tribune

Can Dialectics Break Bricks?

Part I


Part II



The videos may help sharpen your understanding of dialectics.

Link via Postmodern Anarchist

"Birdwatchers thrilled at first ever sighting of a girlfriend"

John O'Farrel, one of the finest political satirists on the Left, and author of the "Global Village Idiot" has set up Newsbiscuit to encourage British humour on the internet. Those who remember his column in The Guardian can look forward to the same biting sarcasm, not always consistent but more often than not, biting.

"My plan is to get young talented humourists all over the world to send their stuff to me. Then I can rubbish their material, destroy their self-confidence and hopefully postpone any serious competition in all media for another decade or so.

Whether NewsBiscuit will last and grow I have no idea. We all remember the dotcom crash when all those over-ambitious ventures collapsed within a year or so. I'm told the internet's much quicker than that these days."

Here is a post that I liked:

Hundreds of excited twitchers converged on a remote Welsh Estuary yesterday where a fellow birdwatcher was spotted with a girlfriend. Ornithologists think this may be the first ever sighting of a birdwatcher’s girlfriend on the British mainland.

‘Isn’t she a beauty!’ said Ray Meader, 57. ‘I’ve seen drawings and photos before but I’ve never seen one for real.’ The girlfriend was clearly visible on the far shoreline; holding the hand of a young male birdwatcher, having a drink and, to the gasps of watching twitchers, giving him a kiss.

But hopes that the pair might breed in Britain were sadly dashed. After a couple of hours of being photographed and stared at by middle aged men in anoraks the girlfriend suddenly fled leaving the young male birdwatcher looking confused and disorientated for a few minutes.

Later he spotted a guillemot and perked up again.

On a less (unless it is equally) humourous note, the New Statesman has an unabashed apology for Tony Blair. And there is also Anthony Giddens- the theorist of the third way along with Manuel Castells- trying to convince why Blair really is the man of the Left.

And if that is not convincing, read this bit on Blair's latest move as reported by Newsbiscuit.

Ahem.

Link to Newsbiscuit via Retro Boy

Why Vote for the BJP

Source: The Tribune

Tags: India, BJP, Politics, Cartoons

Food for Philosophers

Woody Allen discovers a hidden treasure, “Friedrich Nietzsche’s Diet Book”- a work of rare genius even if of questionable authenticity.

An excerpt:

No philosopher came close to solving the problem of guilt and weight until Descartes divided mind and body in two, so that the body could gorge itself while the mind thought, Who cares, it’s not me. The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup?

It was Leibniz who first said that fat consisted of monads. Leibniz dieted and exercised but never did get rid of his monads—at least, not the ones that adhered to his thighs. Spinoza, on the other hand, dined sparingly because he believed that God existed in everything and it’s intimidating to wolf down a knish if you think you’re ladling mustard onto the First Cause of All Things.

Link via Arts and Letters Daily

Tags: Humor

Why Capitalism is the best possible system

Source

Link via Left I on the news.

Tags: Capitalism, Satire