Tag Archives: India

Woman Stoned in Nuclear Pakistan

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Santi Tafarella

Stoned to death. In the 21st century. And she was three months pregnant. And Pakistan has about 100 nuclear weapons. Think about that. What if fanatic, populist, fundamentalist Muslims of the sort that stoned this woman for “family honor” attain … Continue reading →

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Penguin Withdraws and Destroys Scholarly Work on Hinduism

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Santi Tafarella

A pretty disturbing incident of censorship is taking place right now in India. A retired school teacher has been campaigning for the banning of a book, and Penguin is relenting, pulping its remaining copies. You can read the whole sorry … Continue reading →

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Ravi Shankar Died in Southern California Today

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Santi Tafarella

He was 92. Here he is in 1968 at age 48:

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The New Hitler Youth of India

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Santi Tafarella

With India’s rise on the global stage, it would seem valuable to know the attitudes of its most elite educated teenagers, and Dilip D’Sousa at the Daily Beast reports that a not inconsiderable number of them harbor fascist sentiments: My … Continue reading →

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What do Harvard, MIT, Coursera, and Udacity Have in Common?

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Santi Tafarella

Answer: ambitions for offering massively open online courses. MOOCS. That’s what they’re calling them. This is really great news, and certainly puts on display the Internet’s power for good [New York Times]: Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a … Continue reading →

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The Islamic Bomb: Osama bin Laden is Just One Head Removed from a Nuclear Weapons Seeking Hydra

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

At Slate this week, Christopher Hitchens uses his gift for tart summing up to give the following obituary to Osama bin Laden: It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after … Continue reading →

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I Have a Conspiracy Theory about the Discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

What does it mean, exactly, for Osama bin Laden to have been discovered so close to Islamabad (just 80 miles away)? I have a conspiracy theory. I think it means that there were at least some elements within the Pakistani military … Continue reading →

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Something Good about America: Not Oil Wells, But Mind Wells

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

Notice in this 60 Minutes segment that Indian geniuses are not flocking to oil-rich Arab countries where a conformist religion like Islam dominates the culture. Instead, they come to Enlightenment-based secular California, to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is a mind well … Continue reading →

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Doubting the doctrine of hell: India disorients a Christian

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

One of Andrew Sullivan’s blog readers wrote this today: I’m a Christian . . . I think. I say, “I think” because a recent trip to India left me stumbling on the foundation of faith laid since my youth. I … Continue reading →

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Ravi Shankar turned 90 years old yesterday

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

George Harrison once called Ravi Shankar the godfather of world music. And here is Ravi Shankar in interview with George Harrison: And yes, he’s still playing. Here is Shankar in 2009:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  . And here’s Shankar on Dick Cavett’s show:

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The BRIC Hits the Fan

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Meet the BRIC consortium as described in Salon today: Just a concept a year ago, when the very idea of BRIC was concocted by the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, the BRIC consortium became a … Continue reading →

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Poem for Summer Vacations

Posted on June 27, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Passage O soul to India! Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail! Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? … Continue reading →

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George Harrison Mental Health Break

Posted on June 21, 2009 by Santi Tafarella
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Sheep in the Midst of Wolves?

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Apparently, many of the young Iranian protesters might be getting all ahimsa (non-violent) on the regime. Below is an image of someone holding up a quote from Gandhi. According to Andrew Sullivan’s blog, the translation is: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, … Continue reading →

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David Kilcullen Says WATCH PAKISTAN

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

The Washington Post interviewed David Kilcullen this weekend: Why is an Aussie anthropologist coaching American generals on how to win wars? David Kilcullen, an Australian army reservist and top adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus during the troop surge in … Continue reading →

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Johann Hari of the London Independent Exercises His Freedom of Speech with Regard to Religion, and It Results in Hysterical Protests, Intimidation, and Arrests in India

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Once again, Islamic fundamentalists are trying to physically intimidate a writer, and his publishers, for exercising freedom of speech. Read Johann Hari’s original essay here, and the outbreak of protests, threats of violence, and actual arrests that resulted, here.

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The Future of Journalism?

Posted on December 27, 2008 by Santi Tafarella

Maureen Dowd’s recent column on the outsourcing of a California newspaper’s entire content to Indian writers at $7.50 per thousand words is sobering reading. Money quote: He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making … Continue reading →

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Etiological Narrative Watch: Did the Hindu God Hanuman, and an Army of Monkeys and Squirrels, Build the Limestone Shoals Between India and Sri Lanka Known as “Adam’s Bridge”?

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Santi Tafarella

An etiological narrative is a story that purports to explain (in mythic, religious, or literary terms) the origin of something. It is, in other words, an imaginitive story triggered by a question about how (or why) something came to be in the … Continue reading →

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“Like a Tortoise Retracting Its Limbs”: The Bhagavad Gita as Literature, and Its Doctrine of the Two Selves

Posted on September 28, 2008 by Santi Tafarella

One of the most enduring pieces of world literature is the Bhaghavad Gita. And one of the keys to reading the Gita is to understand its doctrine of the two selves.  In the Gita the two selves are: the “big … Continue reading →

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