RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Indian Detective (Canadian Miniseries, in Hindi and English; 2017) Netflix (Season 1, E1-E4) The 1950s were important in world politics. The Second World War was over, but the world, never learning from its past mistakes, was building another. The world was divided into two, those subscribing to capitalism or communism. The Cold War was brewing. The newly independent nations, the Third World, was up for grabs. In that environment, in 1955, a few countries got together in Bandung, to assert that they were not aligned to either side of the fence. The Americans, however, viewed it as the ranting of the newly-independent third world states with a slight socialistic stance as they were not invited but China was. One of the prescient thing that the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had said was that the Chinese residing in different countries should show their allegiance, not to China, but to the countries they are residing.  That too must be applicable to the Indian diaspora...

Allah, Liberty and Love (2011) Author: Irshad Manji Thanks to the religious authorities of Malaysia, this book received free publicity after the seizure of its Malay translation. This author was almost unknown when the English version was out in the Malaysian bookstores. The moment the Malay version hit the shelf, all hell broke loose. That, in turn, drew many a curious mind to delve into her work. Manji is an unabashed Muslim lesbian who drew many a flak from professors of the religion. She is quite comfortable with her sexual orientation and has no qualms in practising her belief as she sees fit. The purists, however, are up in arms, literally with her as they believe that unconventional sexual practices are condemned to the highest order in the scriptures. As the sole purpose of conjugal relations is procreation, to them, same sex relationships are a no-no. Period. Based on this point alone, all her intelligent arguments are rejected wholesale. Manji is one the preachers ...