Latest news with #Pandora'sBox
New Indian Express
2 days ago
- New Indian Express
Rourkela police takes warehouse owner on remand, security audit of explosive magazines starts
ROURKELA: The loot of the explosives-laden truck by the Maoist operatives has opened a Pandora's Box with violation of safety and security protocols on storage and transportation of explosives coming out in open in Sundargarh. Four days after the loot, two more trucks laden with illegal explosives were seized from Rourkela. All three trucks carrying unaccounted industrial explosives had started from Bargaon-based warehouses owned by Shraban Agarwal who was arrested with his truck driver Birsa Samad on June 3 (Thursday). Rourkela police on Thursday took Agarwal on two day remand. The 41-year-old businessman has one explosive licence in his name and another in his spouse's name. Police also questioned his wife on the day. While police have, so far, ruled out Agarwal's direct link to outlawed CPI (Maoist) outfit, it is probing the supply of his unaccounted amount of bulk explosives. It is also taking help of the State GST directorate to find out the details of explosives procured and supplied by Agarwal. An officer involved in the investigation said Agarwal had mentioned about supply of bulk quantities of explosives to one client of Balasore district and a second one but both have apparently denied. Alarmed by the developments, Western Range of Odisha Police has launched a massive exercise to conduct security audit of all explosive storage centres and magazines in the jurisdiction of the Rourkela, Sundargarh and Keonjhar police districts.
India Gazette
30-05-2025
- Politics
- India Gazette
Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing "national security" and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America's "intellectual leadership and soft power." At stake is not just Harvard's global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US. But exactly how 'open' is Harvard's admissions process? Every year,highly qualified students- many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores - are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, andoutright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged$1 billionto open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script. China's swift condemnation of Trump's policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for "America's international standing" amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis whichspread like cancerto all branches of the government. So, what was behind China's latest gripe? The answer may lie in the unspoken rules of soft power: Ivy League campuses are battlegrounds for influence. The US deep state has long recruited foreign students to promote its interests abroad - subsidized by American taxpayers no less. China is apparently playing the same game, leveraging elite US universities to co-opt future leaders on its side of the geostrategic fence. For the time being, a judge has granted Harvard's request for atemporary restraining orderagainst Trump's proposed ban. Come what may, there is one commonsense solution that all parties to this saga would like to avoid: Forcing Ivy League institutions to open their admissions process to public scrutiny. The same institutions that champion open borders, open societies, and open everything will, however, not tolerate any suggestion of greater openness to its admissions process. That would open up a Pandora's Box of global corruption that is systemically ruining nations today. Speaking of corruption - how is this for irony? Astar Harvard professorwho built her career researching decision-making and dishonesty was just fired and stripped of tenure for fabricating her own data! Concentration of wealth and alumni networks The Ivy League has a vested interest in perpetuating rising wealth and educational inequalities. It is the only way they can remain atop the global rankings list at the expense of less-endowed peers. Elite universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MITdominatelists of institutions with the most ultra-wealthy alumni (net worth over $30mn). For example, Harvard alone has 18,000 ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) alumni, representing 4% of the global UHNW population. These alumni networks provide major donations, corporate partnerships, and exclusive opportunities, reinforcing institutional wealth. If the alma mater's admissions process was rigged in their favor, they have no choice but to cough it up, at least for the sake of their offspring who will perpetuate this exclusivist cycle. The total endowment ofPrinceton University- $34.1 billion in 2024 - translated to $3.71 million per student, enabling generous financial aid and state-of-the-art facilities. Less prestigious institutions just cannot compete on this scale. Rankings, graft, and ominous trends Global university rankings (QS, THE, etc.) heavily favor institutions with large endowments, high spending per student, and wealthy student bodies. For example, 70% of the top 50 US News & World Report Best Colleges overlap with universities boasting the largest endowments and the highest percentage of students from the top1% of wealthy families. According to theSocial Mobility Index(SMI), climbing rankings requires tens of millions in annual spending, driving tuition hikes and exacerbating inequality. Lower-ranked schools which prioritize affordability and access are oftenovershadowed in traditional rankings, which reward wealth over social impact. Besides, social mobility these days is predetermined at birth, as the global wealth divide becomes unbridgeable. Worse, the global ranking system itself thrives on graft, with institutions gaming audits, inflating data, and even bribing reviewers. Take the case of a Southeast Asian diploma mill where some of its initial batch of female students had been arrested for prostitution. Despite its flagrant lack of academic integrity, it grew rapidly to secure an unusually high QS global ranking - ahead of venerable institutions like the University of Pavia, where Leonardo da Vinci studied, and which boasts three Nobel Laureates among its ranks. Does this grotesque inversion of merit make any sense? Government policies increasingly favor elite institutions. Recent White House tax cuts and deregulation may further widen gaps by benefiting corporate-aligned universities whilereducing public fundingfor others. This move was generally welcomed by the Ivy League until Trump took on Harvard. With such ominous trends on the horizon, brace yourselves for an implosion of the global education sector by 2030 - a reckoning mirroring the 2008 financial crisis, but with far graver consequences. And touching on the 2008 crisis, didn't someone remark that "behind every financial disaster, there's a Harvard economist?" Nobody seems to be learning from previous contretemps. In fact, I dare say that 'learning' is merely a coincidental output of the Ivy League brand The credentialism trap When Lehman Brothers and its lesser peers collapsed in 2008, many Singapore-based corporations eagerly scooped up theirlaid-off executives. The logic? Fail upward. If these whizz kids were truly talented, why did they miss the glaring warning signs during the lead up to the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression? The answer lies in the cult of credentialism and an entrenched patronage system. Ivy League MBAs and Rolodexes of central banker contacts are all that matters. The consequences are simply disastrous: A runaway global talent shortage will hit$8.452 trillionin unrealized annual revenues by 2030, more than the projectedGDP of Indiafor the same year. Ivy League MBAs often justify their relevance by overcomplicating simple objectives into tedious bureaucratic grinds - all in the name of efficiency, smart systems, and ever-evolving 'best practices'. The result? Doctors now spend more time on paperwork than treating patients, while teachers are buried under layers of administrative work. Ultimately, Ivy League technocrats often function as a vast bureaucratic parasite, siphoning public and private wealth into elite hands. What kind of universal socioeconomic model are these institutions bequeathing to the world? I can only think of one historical analogue as a future cue: Colonial India, aka the British Raj. This may be a stretch, but bear with me. Lessons from the Raj AsNorman Daviespointed out, the Austro-Hungarians had more bureaucrats managing Prague than the British needed to run all of colonial India - a subcontinent that included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, it took only 1,500-odd white Indian Civil Service (ICS) officials to govern colonial India until WWI. That is quite staggering to comprehend, unless one grasps how the British and Indian societies are organized along rigid class (and caste) lines. When two corrupt feudal systems mate, their offspring becomes a blueprint for dystopia. India never recovered from this neo-feudal arrangement. If the reader thinks I am exaggerating, let's compare the conditions in the British Raj and China from 1850 to 1976 (when the Cultural Revolution officially ended). During this period, China endured numerous societal setbacks - including rebellions, famines, epidemics, lawlessness, and a world war - which collectively resulted in the deaths of nearly 150 million Chinese. The Taiping Rebellion alone - the most destructive civil war in history - resulted in 20 to 30 million dead, representing 5-10% of China's population at the time. A broad comparison with India during the same period reveals a death toll of 50-70 million, mainly from epidemics and famines. Furthermore, unlike colonial India, many parts of China also lacked central governance. Indian nationalists are quick to blame a variety of bogeymen for their society's lingering failings. Nevertheless, they should ask themselves why US Big Tech-owned news platforms, led by upper-caste Hindu CEOs, no less, showed a decidedly pro-Islamabad bias during the recent Indo-Pakistanimilitary standoff. Maybe, these CEOs are supine apparatchiks, much like their predecessors during the British Raj? Have they been good stewards of the public domain (i.e. internet)? Have they promoted meritocracy in foreign lands? (You can read some stark exampleshere,hereandhere). These Indian Big Tech bros, however, showed a lot of vigor and initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing their employees to take the vaccine or face the pink slip. They led the charge behind the Global Task Force on Pandemic Response, which included an "unprecedented corporate sector initiative to help India successfully fight COVID-19." Just check out thecredentialsof the 'experts' involved here. Shouldn't this task be left to accomplished Indian virologists and medical experts? A tiny few, in the service of a hegemon, can control the fate of income inequalityis now worse than it was under British rule. A way out? As global university inequalities widen further, it is perhaps time to rethink novel approaches to level the education field as many brick and mortar institutions may simply fold during thevolatile 2025-30 period. I am optimistic that the use ofAI in educationwill be a great equalizer, but I also fear that Big Tech will force governments into using its proprietary EdTech solutions that are already showing signs of runawayAI hallucinations- simply because the bold new world is all about control and power, not empowerment. Much like the British Raj, I would say. (
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
British Attacks on Free Speech Prove the Value of the First Amendment
Political activists occasionally propose a new constitutional convention, which would gather delegates from the states to craft amendments to the nation's founding document. It's a long and convoluted process, but the Constitution itself provides the blueprint. Article V allows such a confab if two-thirds of Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures call for one. These days, conservatives are the driving force for the idea, as they see it as a means to put further limits on the federal government. Sometimes, progressives propose such a thing. Their goals are to enshrine various social programs and social-justice concepts. Yet anyone who has watched the moronic sausage-making in Congress and state legislatures should be wary of opening Pandora's Box. I'd be happy enough if both political tribes tried to uphold the Constitution as it is currently drafted. It's a brilliant document that limits the power of the government to infringe on our rights. Without the first 10—the Bill of Rights—this would be a markedly different nation. For a sense of where we might be without it, I'd recommend looking at Great Britain and its approach to the speech concepts detailed on our First Amendment. Our nation was spawned from the British, so we share a culture and history. Yet, without a specific constitutional dictate, that nation has taken a disturbing approach that rightly offends American sensibilities. As Tablet magazine reported, "74-year-old Scottish grandmother Rose Docherty was arrested on video by four police officers for silently holding a sign in proximity to a Glasgow abortion clinic reading 'Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.'" Thousands of Brits are detained, questioned, and prosecuted, it notes, for online posts of the type that wouldn't raise an eyebrow here. The chilling effect is profound. This isn't as awful as what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia, where the government's critics have a habit of accidentally falling out of windows. But that's thin gruel. Britain and the European Union are supposed to be free countries. Their speech codes are intended to battle disinformation/misinformation, but empowering the government to be the arbiter of such vague concepts only destroys everyone's freedoms. In 1998, Great Britain approved Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It protects a citizen's "right to hold your own opinions and to express them freely without government interference." But it comes with limits and conditions. The authorities may quash such speech to "protect national security, territorial integrity (the borders of the state) or public safety," or "prevent disorder or crime," or "protect health or morals," or "maintain the authority and impartiality of judges." One may not express "views that encourage racial or religious hatred." Those are open-ended terms, which has led to bizarre prosecutions. Our First Amendment includes these words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble." A constitutional amendment stating "no law" is more protective than a statute with asterisks and exceptions. With the political Left devoted to limiting speech based on its fixations on race and gender and the political Right's willingness to, say, deport students who take verboten positions on the war in Gaza and malign reporters as enemies of the people, I'd hate to see how speech protections would fare in a refashioned constitution. Traditionally, the Left has taken a "living and breathing" approach, insisting its plain words and founders' intent are up for reinterpretation. Sadly, modern conservatives, who previously defended originalism, seem ready to ditch the Constitution when it hinders their policy aims. Just read their dissing of due process—as stated in the 5th and 14th amendments, when it comes to immigration policy. When asked about habeas corpus during a Senate hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said it's "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." It's the opposite, as habeas corpus requires the government to explain why it's detaining people—and forbids it from holding them indefinitely. MAGA apparently believes the words of the Constitution mean the opposite of what they say. Frankly, I wouldn't want either side to be near a constitutional convention that's empowered to rewrite a document penned by men more brilliant and civic-minded than our current lot. "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards," wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1927 free-speech case, Whitney v. California. "They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. … If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." We don't need to revisit the Constitution, but to uphold the protections already within it. This column was first published in The Orange County Register. The post British Attacks on Free Speech Prove the Value of the First Amendment appeared first on
Time of India
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
China Vs U.S. World War Over Golden Dome? Trump Warned Against Opening 'Pandora's Box'
China Vs U.S. World War Over Golden Dome? Trump Warned Against Opening 'Pandora's Box' Source: China has strongly criticized US plans to build a 'golden dome' missile defense system in space, warning that the move could trigger a dangerous arms race beyond earth. The proposed US system, designed to intercept missiles and hypersonic weapons, was called a threat to global strategic stability by the Chinese defense ministry. Beijing said the plan violates the outer space treaty and accused Washington of pushing space toward militarization. #china #unitedstates #goldendome #donaldtrump
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Johnston: ‘Nothing like being a Maple Leaf' – but is that a good thing?
TORONTO – The Florida Panthers are on to the Eastern Conference Final, but they left behind a parting gift here in the centre of the hockey universe. After sending the Toronto Maple Leafs into the summer with a pair of humbling home defeats to close out a second-round series, the Panthers ripped open Pandora's Box by suggesting it was the crippling pressure from fans and media that ground Toronto's game to a halt rather than their own relentless forecheck and superior execution. Advertisement Matthew Tkachuk went so far as to say he felt bad about how much his counterparts in Toronto had to deal with, suggesting during a Monday appearance on 'Spittin' Chiclets' that other teams can use the weight of expectations against them. While the Leafs naturally pushed back against that notion in their exit meetings – 'I don't know how they could do that, but maybe they could call me up and tell me,' head coach Craig Berube offered Tuesday – it remains a very real perception around the NHL. It's an idea that will hang like a cloud over an offseason where superstar forward Mitch Marner appears set to walk away from his hometown team in free agency. Should that happen, a portion of his decision will be a desire to find a new environment, according to league sources. Marner has experienced a bit of everything during his nine seasons with the Leafs. He's received celebrations and adoration, earning a nice sideline income through numerous sponsorship opportunities. But he's also dealt with periods of intense criticism and even some harassment in the community. Before speaking at the Leafs practice facility on Tuesday, he thanked a reporter for deleting a social media post after Sunday's 6-1 loss to the Panthers in Game 7. A fan had crossed the line in the replies. The best way to navigate life in the spotlight of a hockey-mad city, according to Marner, is not to focus too much on the negative things people say. Over the years, he and his wife Stephanie learned to lean into all of the good things happening around them. 'You know there's so much love and appreciation for yourself from the fans out there,' said Marner. 'Just because you don't (always) hear it, you know it's still out there. You know you've got the love of a lot of people. Sometimes the noise you hear is not (what) you want, but that's how it goes. I'm sure my family is taking it hard, especially being in the crowd for a couple (playoff games), but that's how this game of hockey goes. The passion the city brings is something you appreciate and love about it.' Advertisement The Leafs have arguably the most dedicated and tortured following in the NHL. Despite not playing for a Stanley Cup since 1967, let alone winning one, they're accustomed to seeing pockets of blue sweaters wherever they play. They also generated the league's highest home gate revenue in local dollars this season. They are basically hockey's answer to the Cowboys, Yankees or Real Madrid, and some tradeoffs come with the scrutiny in the form of high-end facilities, training and nutrition resources, plus an unmatched program for injury rehabilitation. 'I've never seen anything like it,' said veteran forward Max Pacioretty. 'There's nothing like being a Maple Leaf.' Pacioretty, the former Montreal Canadiens captain, believes Tkachuk, Brad Marchand and Panthers coach Paul Maurice missed the mark when pointing to pressure's impact on the series' outcome. 'Anyone can say whatever they want,' said Pacioretty. 'Everyone can have their own opinions as to how or why we lost, but at the same time, you can use (pressure) against someone. Or you can use it to your advantage. I guess I'm a glass-half-full guy at this stage in my life, and I see that there are ways to use it to your advantage.' The Leafs failed to do that during these playoffs, though. They went 4-3 in the games they played at Scotiabank Arena, and each of the home-ice defeats ended in blowouts. That includes a 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators in Round 1 before back-to-back 6-1 losses to Florida, sandwiched around a huge season-extending Game 6 win on the road. Internally, the organization tries to identify players who won't feel rattled by the volume of media coverage or heightened attention from fans in the community. That was part of why management was comfortable giving William Nylander the richest contract in franchise history last season. Advertisement Nylander calls life in Toronto his 'normal.' 'I mean, it's been a dream,' he said. 'I think every kid wishes that they could play for such an organization like this.' John Tavares was the NHL's marquee free agent when he chose to join his boyhood team in 2018. Even after the ups and downs of his seven-year run, in which the Leafs have gone 2-7 in playoff series, Tavares enters this summer hoping to earn another contract here. What Tkachuk sees as 'crazy circus stuff' around the Leafs, Tavares views as an opportunity. 'It's an unbelievable place to play,' said Tavares. 'An incredible fan base that loves its team and so badly wants to see it win. When it happens here again, it's going to be something pretty remarkable, and we want to be a part of that.' To be fair to Maurice, who spent two seasons as Leafs coach earlier in his career, he did mention that anyone part of bringing success to Toronto wouldn't have to buy lunch again for the rest of their lives, while also discussing 'the cost' of playing here. As the Panthers push on in search of another championship, the Leafs believe Florida will face the same kind of heat they were under until their own playoff run ended. 'If you're playing in Game 7 and you're in Columbus, there's pressure to win, OK?' said Berube. 'The only pressure that we should feel is right inside the locker room from each other. 'That's honestly my opinion.' (Photos of Auston Matthews and Leafs crowd: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)
