My earliest “memory” of America is of my father telling me about the moon landing. “ John F Kennedy said we will put a man on the moon in 10 years and the Americans did it. “ As a little girl growing up in India, I imagined a country called America whose presidents were visionaries, whose people believed in science, and whose spirit was ambitious.
My second “memory” of America is reading about WWII. “ Roosevelt told the American people not to fear, and it was under his leadership that the Allies won the war “. I imagined this president…
The intersection of caste, class and gender make Dalit women the most unsafe women in India, their official rape figure of 10 rapes per day is NOWHERE near the truth.
Another day, another gang-rape story. A victim, whose biggest fault is being a woman, in a culture that regards women as lesser humans. Several perpetrators, whose biggest strength is to be men in a society where might makes right. Politicians, whose sole concern is power. TV news anchors, whose sole aim is ratings. Amidst the cacophony of agendas, a girl fights for her life; her tongue cut off, her neck broken, her body racked with pain. She probably knows she won’t make it but she fights nevertheless. She must live long enough to tell her story, to tell their names.
Remember the scene from the movie “Titanic”? The ship has hit the iceberg and taking-in water rapidly.
Rose: Don’t you understand? The water is freezing and there aren’t enough boats. Not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are gonna die.
Cal: Not the better half.
Now re-imagine the scene such that the iceberg is Climate Change, and the sinking ship is planet Earth, the crash event has already occurred. Are you one of those who are going to sink/die? …
As an Indian American, it is hard to escape the cacophony of diatribe for and against four more years of President Trump. Indian-Americans have traditionally affiliated themselves with Democrats but today their loyalties are split; two seminal events — the election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 and of Trump in 2016, along with the perceived friendship between Trump and Modi has drawn a wedge in the community, with both sides claiming an urgent moral right.
The opponents of Trump see his continued presidency as a threat to diversity and empowering white nationalism, continued governmental incompetence as COVID-19…
Our mindset is still locked in old forms of warfare, but a new form of war is right at our doorstep.
Albert Einstein famously said, “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
We know now that a key weapon in World War III is disinformation and the enemy is Climate Chaos. While our mindset is still locked in old forms of warfare, a new form of war is right at our doorstep, and we are grievously unprepared.
Due to its sheer magnitude, the…
Swati Srivastava
Telling stories with an analytical spirit
