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Showing posts from January, 2025

United Nations And The Crisis Of Legitimation

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 ...

Trumpism Simplified

 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...

Men Don't Cry, Really ?

 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 ...