First Person

[ The 'Towards a Free Revolutionary Art' manifesto was written by Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1938. Diego Rivera was a co-signatory. ] We can say without exaggeration that never before has civilization been menaced so seriously as today. The Vandals, with instruments which were barbarous, and so comparatively ineffective, blotted out the culture of antiquity in one corner of Europe. But today we see world civilization, united in its historic destiny, reeling under the blows of...

It is a matter of debate whether my lack of belief in the existence of an Omnipresent, Omniscient God is due to my arrogant pride and vanity. It never occurred to me that sometime in the future I would be involved in polemics of this kind. As a result of some discussions with my friends, (if my claim to friendship is not uncalled for) I have realised that after having known me for a little time only, some of them have reached a kind of hasty conclusion about me that my atheism is my foolishness...

Our class enemies are in the habit of complaining about our terrorism. What they mean by this is rather unclear. They would like to label all the activities of the proletariat directed against the class enemy's interests as terrorism. The strike, in their eyes, is the principal method of terrorism. The threat of a strike, the organisation of strike pickets, an economic boycott of a slave driving boss, a moral boycott of a traitor from our own ranks – all this and much more they call terrorism...

Since the Nobel Prizes were instituted, 106 individuals have won the Nobel Prize in Literature on 102 occasions. It was shared four times. The youngest Literature Laureate is Rudyard Kipling, best known for The Jungle Book, who was 42 years old when he was awarded the Literature Prize in 1907. The Laureate till date is Doris Lessing, who was 88 when she was awarded the Prize in 2007. Twelve women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf being the first...

It was a sunny winter afternoon, and as cold as it gets in West Bengal. We, a group of journalists, were on a press trip to Mahishadal in West Bengal's Midnapore district. It was one of those occasions when seniors would be tied up, giving a rookie an opportunity to report. With barely a year in the profession with news agency Press Trust of India (PTI), and that too on the desk, I needed this break. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was to address this rally. With kar sewaks at their dance of death in...

Every now and then someone or the other asks me about how they should ensure their privacy on Facebook. Then there are quite a few others who are not on Facebook simply because they are mortally scared that their much-cherished privacy would be intruded upon. Those who seek advice may not be Facebook-savvy. And those who are scared, their fear is not that misplaced either. What most don't know is that existing tools on Facebook go a long way in helping you keep your privacy. Quite a long way...

Maintaining bookmarks is a wonderful practice. But when one has to make a selection of 20 from hundreds of bookmarked items, not many of which you would remember anyway, it doesn't seem to be a very wonderful task at hand. It is tedious. One has to go through every second item to remember what on earth it was about. Of all the things that I do, I had been maintaining a bookmark folder dedicated to articles on Kashmir. I, initially, thought of compiling a list of 10 articles that all non...

India is the biggest censor of The Economist, the magazine has said on its website. Since January 2009 The Economist has been banned or censored in 12 of the 190-odd countries in which it is sold, with news-stand (as opposed to subscription) copies particularly at risk. India has censored 31 issues. However its censorship consists mainly of stamping “Illegal” on maps of Kashmir because it disputes the borders shown. China, however, is more proscriptive. Distributors destroy copies or remove...

When Facebook introduced its "like" button, the idea was liked across the social networking site. The lazy ones liked it because instead of having to undertake the arduous task of having to type "hot" or "awesome" or even "nice" in the comments box, they could just click on the button and carry on with their task of liking posts, links and status messages all over the place. Then, of course, are there are those people who do take the trouble of keying in "hot", "awesome" or even "nice". But do...

The online world is one of such hoaxes that it gets my goat quite too often. My mailboxes (I have loads of them, and they collectively get me hundreds of mails every day) collect email hoxes far too many for my sanity. Either I am too steeped in work or simply too lethargic to respond to the senders. The average sender, usually, is a friend who is blissfully naive or unaware of email hoaxes or both. He or she would have, in turn, got the mail from some friend of his/hers and would have forwarded...