Ovi magazine; Monday July 10th, 2023

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday July 10th, 2023

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Modi Lied to the US Public Once Again by Dr. Habib Siddiqui

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi spoke at the joint session of the US Congress on June 23. Modi became the second Indian Prime Minister after Manmohan Singh to be honored with a State Visit to the United States. This visit and speech came after seven years of his last visit in June of 2016 when he said, “Mr. Speaker, our nations may have been shaped by diverse histories, cultures and faiths, yet our belief in democracy for our nations and our liberty for our countrymen is common… Today, across its individuals and institutions, and in its villages and cities, in streets and states, are anchored in equal respect for all faiths.”

He lied.

This time, in his speech to the US Congress, Modi said, “Now, the US is the oldest and India the largest democracy.Our partnership augurs well for the future of democracy.Together, we shall give a better future to the world, and a better world to the future.”

Modi’s actions since getting reelected belie his claims and aspirations. The US-India partnership is bad for the future of democracy and the entire Indo-Pacific region.

Continue reading HERE!

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Who lies to himself #poem & #painting by Amir Khatib

“There,
who lies to himself,
And whoever buys lies at the most expensive price,
Although lying is more available and cheaper than flies,
And there are those who transcend into emptiness and find no one pointing at them other than their own shadow.”

Continue reading HERE!

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Book Review: Deep Corruption, Deep State: What, Who, How and Why By Lim Teck Ghee

For Murray’s work is not just about the massive monetary corruption associated with 1MDB and the mountain of financial scandals that have made the headlines and which the public is well acquainted with. It is about the larger and deadly cancer of debasement and degradation of the nation’s leading institutions – political, religious, economic and socio-cultural – which has eaten away at the heart, soul and other parts of the nation’s body since independence, and has gone little checked.

The existence of the deep state in the country was first brought into prominence and public attention by Foreign Affairs Minister Saifuddin Abdullah in April and June 2019 when he accused deep state actors for the Pakatan government’s failure to ratify the Rome Statute and ICERD, the convention to eliminate racial discrimination. According to him, “the deep state is real and it is out to sabotage Pakatan Harapan’s reforms and policies”.

Continue reading HERE!

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Screws & Chips #64 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Screws & Chips HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Tuesday February 28th, 2023

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Tuesday February 28th, 2023

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The Modi Phenomenon – at what price? by Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Narendra Modi has become a phenomenon – that can’t be ignored.
As the twice-elected prime minister of the most populous country in our planet, since 2014, Modi is arguably the most popular political leader in the world today. He is enormously popular in India, even in the eastern state of West Bengal where the opposition Trinamool Congress has been ruling for more than a decade.

According to a survey conducted in 2022 by LocalCircles, a Community Social Media platform in India, 2 in 3 Indians surveyed believed that Modi Government had met their expectations. If the survey results could be trusted for being unbiased, seemingly Modi government’s positive ratings have been above 60% since 2015 (with only two exceptions in 2018 and 2021). Few other incumbent leaders around the world have such consistently high polling numbers.

Modi’s support is not limited to within India only. He is very popularwithin the diaspora Indians living outside India. It is worth sharing here that most of my former Hindu and Jain classmates from Indiawho went to graduate schools with me in Canada and the USA are now unabashed supporters of the BJP politics and Modi’s brand of Hindutva. A few of them were not strict Hindus then. So, it has been a shocking experience for me to find out that they arenow great admirers of a mass murderer – the Butcher of Gujarat.

Continue reading HERE!

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Gemini #poem by George Cassidy Payne

“Is the kind of man
who feels as if he
will be apprehended
by the holy ghost
at any moment”

Continue reading HERE

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Ovi Bookshelves: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe by The Ovi Team

Robinson Crusoe has been assumed to be based in part on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded in the Juan Fernández Islands.

June 2021
First published: 1719

Download PDF HERE!
And you can always enjoy reading it online, HERE!

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Insert Brain Here 2.0 #034 #cartoon by Paul Woods

For more Insert Brain Here 2.0, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Tuesday February 21st, 2023

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Tuesday February 21st, 2023

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The Modi Question – What’s New? by Dr. Habib Siddiqui

The recently released two-part TV documentary by BBC (The Modi Question)–based on thoroughly reported documents and interviews–is a reminder of the painful and harsh reality that marks the life of minority communities in Modi’s India. It takes the mask off the face of India as the ‘largest democracy’ wedded to secular ideals and offers a reality check to the world.The first part was released by the BBC on 17 January 2023, and the second part on 24 January 2023.

The first part covers Modi’s early political career and his role in the Gujarat massacre. It sought to answer the question of one of the three British nationals who survived the violence. What happened to his two relatives, and if they were killed, then why, and how? What kind of violence were they killed in? Who did it and why didn’t the government take effective steps to stop it? Was the violence spontaneous or was it planned?

The second part examines the activities of Modi’s administration following his re-election in 2019. It covers a series of controversial anti-Muslim policies, including the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy and a new citizenship law. It also depicts the violent response to protests against the new laws, and the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi riots.

Continue reading HERE!

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Our march in time #poem by Bohdan Yuri

“Our march in time seems so sublime, yet,
we cannot savor life’s forward climb.
in the darkest corner of any forlorn sight
there lives a demon in the long lost night.”

Continue reading HERE

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Ghostin’ #58 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Ghostin’ HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Monday December 13th, 2021 – World Violin day

 

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday December 13th, 2021 – World Violin day

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The ‘Modi-fied’ #Indian democracy is a threat not only to its religious minorities but also to its neighbors by Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Indian democracy has always been majoritarian since its first day as a republic. As a matter of fact the trend has its roots in the pre-partition days of Congress leadership that did not allow for an inclusive democracy in which Muslim and other non-Hindu minorities could participate on an equal footing. That majoritarian pull of the Hindu leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel pushed Jinnah and tens of millions of Muslims to feel alienated. And the rest is history! Pakistan emerged, albeit moth-eaten, as a separate state.

While all the founding fathers of the Indian republican are dead now but their ghosts are still with us in the likes of Narendra Modi and other Indo-centric politicians to whom majority has the absolute right to decide how India should be run, and who is an Indian and who is not. Thanks to the toxic fascist ideology of Hindutva, promoted under the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)-rule, the non-Hindu minority religious groups are worse off today than any time in the past in India’s volatile history.

Continue reading HERE!

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“Tell this to your son” #poem by Shola Balogun

“And when I am gone,
Remember how I wished you tell this to your son
That he should read not my lines”

Continue reading HERE!

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Talcott Parsons and the Promise of Transdiscipliarity by Rene Wadlow

Talcott Parsons (13 December 1902 – 8 May 1979)  was a leading US sociologist usually considered a member of the structural-functional analysis school.  Some of his major theoretical writings are The Structure of Social Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), Essays in Sociological Theory Pure and Applied (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1949), The Social System (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1951), and Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils (Editors). Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).  Parsons taught at Harvard University and was the doctoral thesis advisor of students who went on to became important figures in the same tradition such as Robert K. Merton Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949), Marion J. Levy Jr The Structure of Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952) and Clifford Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). He also had students who went on to have radically different approaches and who became strong critics of Parsons’ approach such as C. Wright Mills in his The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).  Parsons’ approach was also attacked by George Gurvitch (1894-1965) a Russian-born French sociologist who spent the Second World War years in New York City and became knowledgeable with the schools of US sociology.

Continue reading HERE!

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Ephemera 21#31 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

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