Make Sense of the world
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In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden endlessly insisted on the idea of “unity.” He repeated the word nine times. In the various media’s account of the event, commentators endlessly repeated a different word, one that Biden himself cited when he said: “This is our historic moment...
It is a well-established fact that America, as it approaches its 245th birthday, is a divided nation. Red versus blue, conservative versus liberal, right versus left, black versus white, rich versus (a growing number of) poor, urban versus rural. Further divisions may be drawn along education,...
I hit 75 years old a little over two weeks ago. All in all, I have been lucky throughout my life to have found much to be thankful for as each birthday rolled around on the shortest day of the year. Early on, I couldn’t understand why my birthday was shorter than everyone else’s and was a...
In September, India passed three bills that immediately led to protests by farmers demanding to repeal the legislation. The new laws seek to remove the government’s minimum support price for produce that shielded India’s farmers from free-market forces for decades. In allowing the farmers to...
Last year, a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that of the 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 around the world, more than half — 50,000 — were murdered by intimate partners or family members, mostly in their homes. According to official...
Nearly a year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, its effects on people’s lives, countries’ economies and health care around the world are becoming clearer. In some Central and Eastern European countries, however, this pandemic has had repercussions in another crucial area: democracy....
The remains of Pinar Gültekin were found in the woodlands in Turkey’s Mugla province on July 21. The 27-year-old economics student was strangled to death in a fit of rage by her ex-boyfriend, who then burned her body. One of many tragic and preventable deaths, Gültekin’s murder sparked...
As India completes 73 years of independence, agriculture has emerged as a mainstay of the economy. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, Indian agriculture is poised to grow by an estimated 3% in 2020-21. Shaktikanta Das, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has acknowledged that agriculture...
Mao Zedong once stated that “Women hold up half the sky.” This has been particularly true over the past months with COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the globe. In fact, it is legitimate to claim that during the pandemic, women have held up significantly more than their share of the sky. Anyone...
Cartagena’s city center is a vibrant and colorful area full of international visitors. However, the outskirts paint a different story. Here, the invasiones, the shanty towns that surround the main city, are ridden with poverty. The effects of inequality stem beyond economic concerns as...
According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, India faces a serious decline in employment due to the COVID-19 crisis. An estimated 122 million people lost their jobs during the first quarter of 2020. Streams of migrant workers returned to their villages — often the only fallback option...
