An alleged “mass molestation” on the streets of one of India’s biggest cities on New Year’s Eve was the result of young people trying to “copy” western mindsets and clothing, an Indian state minister has claimed. Thousands of people gathered on two central streets in Bangalore on Saturday night to celebrate the new year. Local newspaper reports and witnesses said the crowd became unruly and began to subject women to sexual assault and harassment. The Bangalore Mirror said its photojournalists were “first-hand witnesses to the brazen, mass molestation of women” on the city’s streets, publishing pictures of one woman pressed in by a crowd of men and another appearing to cower on the shoulder of a female police officer. One witness told the Guardian: “I saw women being molested in the crowd and people trying to find places where they could hide themselves and not be attacked.” “There were inhuman acts,” said … [Read more...] about ‘Mass molestation’ in Bangalore blamed on Indians ‘copying’ west
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Guy Debord predicted our distracted society
"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all life presents as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation." With echoes of the most rapier-like prose written by Marx and Engels (eg "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"), so begins Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, the treatise on the modern human condition he published in 1967. It quickly came to be seen as the set text of the Parisian événements of the following year, and has long since bled into the culture via no end of people, from the Sex Pistols to the Canadian troublemakers who call themselves Adbusters. Its title alone is now used as shorthand for the image-saturated, comprehensively mediated way of life that defines all supposedly advanced cultures: relative to what Debord meant by it, the term usually ends up sounding banal, but the frequency with which it's used still speaks … [Read more...] about Guy Debord predicted our distracted society
Secrets of their smartphones: see how voters follow the news in memes
Jim Waterson Media editor Thu 5 Dec 2019 12.57 GMT Last modified on Thu 5 Dec 2019 13.10 GMT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Ever wondered what people really get up to on their phones? To understand what news the British public are reading and watching during this election, the Guardian has partnered with research agency Revealing Reality to conduct an in-depth study of the phone usage of six individuals. Each of the volunteers had their entire phone screen usage recorded as a video file for three days at the end of November, which was then analysed for election-related material. In addition to the broad conclusions, this is what we learned about each person, who agreed for their cases to be discussed using a pseudonym. The findings offer a snapshot, rather than a representative sample, of how Britons are consuming news in the 2019 election. Fiona, 22, student, Bolton A Brexit-backing fan of Boris Johnson who feels Jeremy Corbyn is … [Read more...] about Secrets of their smartphones: see how voters follow the news in memes
Jarvis Cocker fronts campaign to save Sheffield trees
He may be one of Sheffield’s best-known pop stars but Jarvis Cocker has become the unlikely frontman of a bid to secure the future of the city’s trees amid a long-running battle with council bosses. The former Pulp singer is fronting a competition to find the city’s greatest tree, as part of a campaign to save hundreds of roadside trees from being felled by council contractors. Cocker, who was born in Sheffield, has teamed up with his former bandmates Richard Hawley and Nick Banks, as well as the BBC presenter and naturalist Chris Packham, in the latest attempt to save the trees. The row came to national attention in November when council contractors summoned people out of bed to move their cars and police detained protesters – including a 70-year-old emeritus professor and a 71-year-old retired teacher – as eight trees were chopped down in Nick Clegg’s constituency of Hallam. It was, said Clegg, “something you’d expect to see in … [Read more...] about Jarvis Cocker fronts campaign to save Sheffield trees
Was my Jewish great-uncle a Nazi hunter?
For two years I tried to meet the daughter of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz. Each time I called, she put me off, saying that she was too busy, or wasn't feeling well. She lived in America, in an affluent suburb in Northern Virginia. Nazis and extermination camps were a world away. She didn't speak about her childhood or father to her own family. Why would she talk to a journalist? I was researching a story about my great-uncle, Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who had fled Berlin for London in the 1930s and who, I heard, was responsible for tracking down and capturing Höss. I was attempting to discover if the story was true. Höss's daughter, Brigitte, had grown up in the family villa, adjacent to the main camp, less than 200 yards from the crematoria. She had lived there from 1940 to 1944, between the ages of seven and 11. She agreed to the interview. When the day arrived, I decided not to confirm beforehand. I was so close. What if she pulled … [Read more...] about Was my Jewish great-uncle a Nazi hunter?