It is a violently subversive darkly comic take on police brutality, white supremacy, and US machismo – and Childish Gambino’s music video, This is America, has been released to critical acclaim, 133,000,000 YouTube hits (and counting), and minimal backlash.
Tag: Censorship
We are curious about why the government wants to block our website. A traveling arts project is not exactly threatening the status quo. Further, curiosity and engagement with processes of identity construction is necessarily an open-ended process. There is no in-advance condemnation of any particular party, politician or any social group. From concerns about language, to food habits, to religion, marriage, divorce, clothing, color of skin and other minutiae of public and private life, identity has acquired weight if you live in India.
We, the undersigned Adivasis strongly condemn these literary activists and self-styled guardians of Adivasi culture and morality, their hypocrisy, acts of provoking the community and their smear campaign against author Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s act of denying exemption of censor for three films selected for the 10th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala has invited strong reactions from various corners. The festival, one of its kind in the country, is an avenue for documentary filmmakers to get a wide audience for their films. It is particularly an important platform for independent filmmakers. What is common to these three films—In the Shade of Fallen Chinar, Directed by Fazil N.C. and Shawn Sebastian; The Unbearable Being of Lightness, directed by P.N. Ramachandra; and March March March, directed by Kathu Lukose—is that they deal with issues related to contemporary politics.
The government-ordered raid on NDTV and searches of Prannoy Roy’s properties should show the Indian bhadralok, if it requires any showing, how far things have gone under the Modi regime. Fascists have ordered the raids on the channel not for being anti-fascist or upholder of democracy, but for not being fascist enough. The message is to fall in line, and fall in line they would after a couple of protests and a scathing programme or two anchored by Ravish Kumar. Roys are no great seekers of martyrdom.
Remember the terrible anthem with bad green screen video called Namami Brahmaputra by some guy called Papon? Obviously you don’t. Why would you even remember that abomination. But you remember the Original or the Truth Version of that Chutiyami Brahmaputra Song by that guy from Haflong? Obviously you do.
So it’s farewell, then, to Gawker. After 14 years of dancing on the edge of ethical probity and legal propriety, doing some good journalism as well as some less good, the New York-based website – an online blend of investigation, gossip, commentary and satire – has been forced out of business.
It is indeed noteworthy that the only organised and consistent resistance to state and vigilante censorship in India has been from the community of documentary filmmakers. Individual filmmakers have had their battles with censorship and the Censor Board over many years.
I have this to say to those super patriots who keep bringing up the bogey of “jihadis”, “radical Islamists” or “Pakistani proxy” while justifying all atrocities against Kashmiri Muslims.
With the sudden Chidambaram realisation that Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses must be unbanned in India, we tend to forget that there is something called…
The BJP’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 has ushered in an unprecedented attack on India’s democracy and injected new elements of intolerance and authoritarianism in the lives of people living in the country.
While driving back home in evening, the remark “How much free time does Modi, our honourable prime minister and his cabinet have to impose such bans?” kept buzzing in my head
On Shillong ‘ban’ – Raiot interviews Digital Suicide and also want you to listen to their song #AKHUNI
On 28th August 2015, Digital Suicide, were prevented from performing in Clod9, weekend retreat of the elite of the Crap Rock Capital of India called Shillong. Listen to their song #NOSTATENOREST
The Letter That Vanished
On 16th of July, 2018 some of the news portals in Kashmir Valley published a letter from Abdul Manan Wani, member of the resistance group – Hizbul Mujahideen. Mr. Manan was a research scholar from one of the prestigious universities in India and was in news some months back when news channels flashed ‘scholar turned militant’ in the headlines. Within no time the letter was taken down from the virtual space from by the State authorities and the police were quick to start legal action against the web-portals who had published this letter.
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