Dheeraj Kalgutkar

Misinformation and our inability to think a level down the surface are going to kill us before the virus does. Karwar which recently treated 11 coronavirus patients and discharged them successfully is about to see it manifest before its eyes. Misplaced fear and paranoia spread through news channels and Whatsapp University are consuming us. Would they devour us completely before we wake up remains an open-ended question. Karwar has zero Covid-19 positives. The 11 patients it treated were not from Karwar but many km away from it. If that makes you applause Karwar for its altruism then you must hold your hands some meters apart. Uttara Kannada district in total, by the time of writing this, has recorded 39 cases of COVID-19 positives of which 11 were earlier treated and discharged from INHS Patanjali Hospital in Karwar which is an Indian Navy hospital meant for its staff. It admitted this initial batch of positives on request of Uttara Kannada District Commissioner Dr K Harish...

Screenshot of the post from a RW website So a right-wing friend of mine who believes Congress is the worst thing that happened to India and Modi the best, sent me this piece ( How the Congress Party has Surrendered to the Breaking India Forces) to read, so that I get aware of how Congress looted India. I usually do not indulge my time into these recommendations if they aren’t from known and reputed sources but this request was coming on repeat and from a school friend so I dived in. Here’s what the article had. Unbelievable gobbledygook. Our ancient political thinkers didn’t randomly make politics subservient to civilization and culture — it was the result of deep, sustained philosophical reflection on the nature of things and the nature of fundamental human impulses itself. Who are these thinkers? What did they say? How did what they said made politics subservient to civilization and culture? No answers. We are just presented with wisdom like a good old relig...

Across the world, democracy is seeing a fast decline. Now one may deny, dismiss or raise unwarranted doubt over this at one’s own risk but it is an observable fact across the globe. "In Turkey and Egypt, Hungary and Poland, the Philippines and Venezuela, we are witnessing pseudo-democracies taking hold. Meanwhile, democracies that once inspired - South Africa, Brazil - are now marred by depressing stories of corruption. For the 12th consecutive year, Freedom House released its annual survey of democracy being pushed back: between 2000 and 2015, democracy broke down in 27 countries; 71 countries suffered 'net declines in civil and political liberties'", said former director of BBC news, James Harding in his Hugh Cudlipp lecture. Propaganda is fast becoming the chosen tool of politicians and what more, we are seeing that it is working, authoritarianism is on rise everywhere, people especially the young are losing their belief in institutions, citizens n...

As if gate-keeping was not bad enough, the big boys are planning to be our referees now Remember that ‘breaking news’ when we woke up to Edward Snowden claiming Osama Bin Laden Is “Alive And Well In The Bahamas”? Well, that was fake news. So is Donald Trump, President of The United States of America claiming “72% of refugees admitted into U.S. (2/3 -2/11) during COURT BREAKDOWN are from 7 countries: SYRIA, IRAQ, SOMALIA, IRAN, SUDAN, LIBYA & YEMEN.” Then there’s news about Russia sending Snowden to US as “gift” to Trump which Moscow has recently denied . These examples are but recent and sort of tip-of-the-iceberg of what is now a behemoth empire of fake and clickbait ‘news’ business. It’s everywhere. From Facebook which can be called the mine of it all to Google to any other service you use. This is not just confined to news about Snowden or Trump’s lies but there are massacres ‘happening’ where there are none to people getting elected for NASA when there’s ...