Category: Popular Essays

Popular Essays

पुरुषी नजर व स्त्री पुरुष समानता

कौस्तुभ नाईक/KAUSTUBH NAIK

 

डॉ लॉरा मल्वे ह्या ब्रिटिश प्राध्यापिकेने १९७५ साली ‘व्हिजुअल प्लेजर अँड नॅरेटिव्ह सिनेमा’ नावाचा एक निबंध ‘स्क्रीन’ ह्या नियतकालिकात प्रकाशित केला. ह्या निबंधात डॉ मल्वे ह्यांनी मनोविश्लेषणाचे सिद्धांत वापरून तत्कालीन हॉलिवूड सिनेमात स्त्रियांना चित्रित करण्याच्या प्रचलित पद्धतीवर भाष्य केले. सिनेमा हे माध्यम पुरुष दिग्दर्शकांनी पुरुष कॅमेरामन वापरून पुरुष प्रेक्षकांसाठी निर्माण केलेले असल्याने पडद्याबाहेर पुरुषांची स्त्रियांकडे पाहण्याची नजर त्यात परावर्तित होत असल्याचे मल्वे ह्यांनी सांगितले. त्यामुळे स्त्रियांना नेत्रसुखासाठी न्याहाळण्याचा सुप्त पुरुषी इच्छा पडद्यावर पूर्ण करण्यासाठी चित्रपटात स्त्रियांचा समावेश केला जातो असा शेरा त्यांनी मारला. ह्या सुप्त विलासी इच्छेला त्यांनी ‘मेल गेझ’ (पुरुषी नजर) असे नाव दिले. (more…)

Popular Essays

Of Rising Crime and our Favourite Scapegoats

By AMITA KANEKAR

Crimes in Goa tend to attract a standard public response. It may begin with a lament for a mostly fictitious and long-lost Goa where crime was unknown. But it surely continues into an abuse of our favourite scapegoats – the bhaile. And, as has been explained in this column before, although the word bhaile actually means outsiders, it is usually used pejoratively for only non-Goan labourers, not all non-Goans. (more…)

Popular Essays

Technology and COVID-19

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

All the worst predictions about COVID-19 have, thus far, been proven true. Whether it was the rise of infection in a particular month, or the fact that the Government would clear “projects” in the absence of any opposition, or the increase in poverty and unemployment, the COVID-19 crises have deepened existing inequalities in accessing basic resources for sustenance, and technological ones such as internet and smart phones. With India’s GDP diminishing to about 23 percent in the first quarter, these technological inequalities will deepen further. (more…)

Popular Essays

A New Normal of Citizenship with COVID-19

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

To feel citizenship is to feel belonged, to be able to take part in the decision making processes that shape that society. It means one should be able to leave and return to the country/ies of citizenship. From this lens of citizenship, if one looks at how the Government of Goa has treated its citizenry through actions taken statedly to address the COVID 19 pandemic, then it has left in its trail much to be desired. The pandemic struck, shortly after the people of Goa (and India as a whole) were up in arms against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, the National Population Register and the National Register of Citizens (CAA-NPR-NRC). (more…)

Popular Essays

What’s New about the New NEP?

By AMITA KANEKAR

India’s third National Education Policy (NEP) has been described as making ‘sweeping changes’ in the education system of the country, causing excitement, surprise and dismay in various quarters, and animated discussions in the media. But, announced at a time when schools and colleges across the country are closed, and education has gone online only to fail miserably for the majority of students, the first sense one gets is of a government bizarrely out of touch with reality. A closer look reveals that there is actually little that is new in this new NEP, and nothing at all that addresses the big problems of Indian education. (more…)

Popular Essays

Reading A. K. Priolkar in 2020

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

How should we read A. K. Priolkar in 2020? Or, more importantly, how should we understand ‘his’ interpretation of Christianity and the Inquisition in Goa? Two important aspects of Priolkar’s methodology need to be borne in mind: the ideological context of the mid twentieth century when he wrote, and his reliance on a sparse collection of facts. (more…)

Popular Essays

Thinking Goa, Thinking Kashmir

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

On August 5, 2019, exactly a year ago, Government of India effectively abrogated Article 370, in the name of expediting development and ending militancy. Kashmir was subjected to a lockdown which included blockage of communications. One felt concerned, and definitely angry at the fact that the Indian State had stomped all over Kashmir, worsening an already bad situation, and without giving the people of Kashmir a voice in the determination of their future. One may say that these two, Goa and Kashmir, cannot be compared. True, they can’t be compared, in that, in the one, it was a forced and heavily militarised lockdown meant to gag, but introduced in the name of checking terrorism, and in the other, the police-enforced lockdown was said to be meant as a safety measure to prevent spread of COVID 19. (more…)

Popular Essays

Thinking BLM, Thinking India, Thinking Goa

By AMITA KANEKAR

The widespread protests that have rocked the US and other places, following the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, have given the world a lot to think about. Disbanding and de-arming of the police, and even replacing them by citizens’ forces, are issues that are being seriously considered in the US today. Not just racist violence, but everyday racism is also being called out, as also racism in all kinds of popular culture, including the continued celebration of well-known slave-owners and slavery-supporters in public statues, with the consequent result of great many of them literally losing their pedestals. (more…)