KISHAN KUMAR GUPTA

While addressing the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Session of 2024, Mia Mottley, the PM of Barbados remarked, "The UN system was formed when most of the countries of the world were not sovereign entities, and whether we like it or not, it cannot reflect the true representation of world's current realities". She further added, "If we want to hold on to the past, we better get eyes in the back of our head rather than front of our head, because we are seeing the dying of current world order. This opinion voiced by Ms. Mottley is neither unique nor limited to the Global South. Benedict Franke, the CEO of Munich Security Council (MSC), the so called elite club, also expressed similar concerns stating that most of the global south doesn't very much like this "rules based world order" (RBWO) because the rules were made when most of them weren't independent". So, let us briefly see what is this current world order that is so talked about.   The ...

 The suffix "-ism" is used to denote an ideology, belief system or thoughts. Ideologies for centuries have been used to mobilize masses at large scale for some lofty goals or purpose. So, "Trumpism", a very recent phenomenon in USA's domestic politics is also a kind of belief system propped up by billionaire business tycoon Donald Trump in mid 2010s. So, what Trumpism is in strict sense. It is not an ideology in typical sense because ideologies have certainty in ends and coherence in means, exactly the things missing in Trumpism. Because when it comes to Donald Trump, be assured of surprises, unpredictability and summersaults every here there, now and then. But despite these deficiencies the lofty goals of "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) remains the force to mobilize a very large section of US population. So, let us try to understand this unique phenomenon which is all set to take over White House as 47th President of United States of America. Consid...

 The so called 90's kids must be remembering the famous dialogue from Bollywood film, "Mard" starring Amitabh Bachchan which says "Mard Ko Kabhi Dard Nahi Hota" ( Men don't feel pain). How proud we felt hearing that line again and again. It almost became tag line to represent masculinity. It isn't just used to portrait men as dominant but also has also become a punch line to ridicule someone as being less of a man than others. Such is the patriarchal nature of society that any type of feeling or emotion that may make one appear weak is instantaneously dubbed as feminine characteristics. Be it the feeling of care, love, politeness or emotions like crying or getting sad, it is considered as something that only suits to women or girls. While anger, assertiveness, dominance are linked to men. In childhood when we fell while playing or cried for petty things, immediately we heard a taunt, "Kya Ladkiyon Ki Tarah Rote Ho ?" (Why do you cry like girls ...

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 Renowned French philosopher and poet Paul Valery once famously remarked that war is a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who knows each other but don't massacre each other.  On 24th February 2022, when the people woke up, none ran for newspapers to read what happened yesterday rather glued themselves to live news witnessing the unthinkable. Russia had launched a full blown attack on it's neighbour Ukraine. The situation appeared straight out of a typical Hollywood movie where it's always the Russians who attack someone and then USA comes to the rescue of the victim. However, this time it was not reel but real, playing out in open with full military might. For those in their 20s or even early 30s, this was certainly not something very common or should I say completely uncommon.  Similarly, on 7th October 2023, Gaza based Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise cross-border attack on Israel killing over 1200. What followed...

 These days we are observing the disappearing provisional stores on the corners of our locality, where we had to ask for each product we wanted, one by one and sometimes had to buy whatever is available due to lack of alternatives. Rarely any of us would be going for shopping to traditional garment shops where they show us limited number of clothes that too one by one, and after sometime would simply refuse to show more if they guessed your unwillingness to buy nothing. In both cases we have moved to online stores or to big marts or shopping malls where we get to choose out of so many things without anyone expressing displeasure. We are at liberty to run through hundreds and even thousands of products yet are free not to buy anything.  If you are wondering why there is such a rapid trivialisation of online shopping plateforms or of mega marts. The reason is fairly simple and obvious and that is choice. They offer us to choose what we want. Isn't it human nature to demand more ...