Eight Threats to Freedom of Expression - Ramachandra Guha

The Eight threats:
1. Archaic colonial laws
2. Imperfections in the judiciary
3. Rising importance of identity politics
4. Police forces' support lumpen forces
5. Active connivance of all political parties
6. Dependence of regional media on government advertising
7. Dependence of English media on corporate advertising
8. Careerist or ideologically driven writers

Tarek Fatah​ reflects on Freedom of Expression

On The Future of Pakistan

Challenges to Modernity - M J Akbar

Are we ready to confront death without religion?

A rise in atheist funerals shows that fewer of us need to rely on faith when confronted with mortality

Adam Lee in The Guardian


For centuries, the Christian church wrote the script for how westerners deal with death. There was the deathbed confession, the last rites, the pallbearers, the obligatory altar call, the burial ceremony, the stone, the angels-and-harps imagery. Yet that archaic and stereotypical vision of death, like a mossy and weather-worn statue, is crumbling – and in its place, something new and better has a chance to grow.

Traditional funerals and burials are declining in popularity (to the point where churches are bemoaning the trend), in favor of alternatives like green burial and cremation. Personalized humanist funerals and secular celebrants are becoming more common, echoing a trend that’s also occurring with weddings.

As younger generations turn away from religion, the US is slowly but surely becoming more secular. As mortician and “good death” advocate Caitlin Doughty writes in her book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, America is seeing a sea-change in traditions and rituals surrounding mortality.

Doughty and others see this shift not as something to be lamented, but to be embraced. Instead of following a script that’s been written for us, we can create our own customs and choose for ourselves how we want to be remembered. We can design funerals that emphasize the good we did, the moments that made our lives meaningful and the lessons we’d like to pass on.

Rather than the same handful of biblical passages, we can have readings from any book, poem or song in the whole broad tapestry of human culture. Rather than mourning, gloom and sermons on sin, we can have ceremonies that are joyful celebrations of the deceased person’s life.

But the rise of humanism isn’t just influencing what funerals look like; it’s changing how we die. For ages, when the church’s word was law, suicide was deemed a mortal sin. Even today, studies find that more fervent religious devotion correlates to more desire for aggressive and medically futile end-of-life intervention, not less.

The most famous case in recent years was Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer who ended her life in 2014 under Oregon’s death-with-dignity law. Maynard’s story put a sympathetic public face on the right-to-die movement, which proved decisive when California Governor Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, signed a similar bill the next year despite heavy pressure from religious groups. He, too, cited the value of autonomy and freedom from suffering:

“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote in a signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain” he added.

In California and elsewhere, the staunchest adversaries of the right to die are churches and religious believers who assert that the time, place and manner of each person’s death is chosen by God, and that we have no right to change that regardless of the human cost.

And yet, almost without notice, that’s become a minority position. Gallup polls now find that as many as 70% of Americans now support a right to aid in dying. This position entails that, when people are suffering without hope of recovery, they should be allowed to end their lives painlessly, with medical help, at a time of their choosing.

This, too, is a deeply humanist conception of death. It springs from the idea that needless suffering is the greatest evil there is and that autonomy is the supreme value. If we’re the ultimate owners of our own lives, then we have the right to lay them down when we judge they’ve become unbearable.

Even as religious trappings linger in our rituals and attitudes around death, society is coming to adopt the humanist viewpoint on mortality, neither fearing nor denying it, but gracefully accepting it as an inevitable part of the human experience. The sooner we bury our religious past, the better.

Want to wrest back some privacy from Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook? Here’s how to cover your tracks

The Zuck has his eye on 3.5bn social media accounts – that’s a lot of data handed on to advertisers.

David Nield in The Guardian

Mark Zuckerberg has a gargantuan social network. If you add up the number of accounts from the services he owns – Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram – you get a figure of 3.5bn, which is roughly half the world’s population. Granted many people will have multiple accounts and belong to multiple services, but still, that’s a lot of pokes, likes and cat gifs. Especially impressive given the scepticism and the love-hate relationship many have with his empire, particularly the Facebook mothership – or Dark Star, depending on your point of view. Being part of modern society without being involved somehow with the Zuck is increasingly tricky: instant messaging is hard without going via Facebook’s servers; you’ll need Instagram if you want to show off your perfectly arranged avocados and children’s fancy-dress outfits to the world; and if you want to date, no Facebook means no Tinder. Even if you’re one of those refuseniks who proudly claim “I’m not on Facebook”, you probably are – what about that chemically inconvenienced stag weekend in Tallinn that your pals created a Facebook album for? Yes, you’ll have to join to find out.

It’s a Faustian pact: in return for these sometimes useful services we give up our privacy and allow Facebook to mine our lives for data to sell to advertisers – but it’s a deal we can finesse a little to reclaim a bit of our dignity. Here are some suggestions how…

1 Hide your Facebook profile from search engines


If someone should Google (or Bing) your name, the chances are your Facebook profile might be one of the first entries to appear in the list of results. If you would rather this didn’t happen, head into the account settings pages of the Facebook app and choose Privacy. The final option, “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”, can be disabled with a couple of taps. Note that it may take some time before you disappear from search engine results, and you can still be found in a search inside Facebook.

2 Prevent Facebook from tracking you outside Facebook

Facebook’s technology stretches well beyond Facebook itself, as you will know if you have ever logged into a different site or app using your Facebook credentials. As a result, you might see hotel ads on Facebook if you spend a lot of time on hotel websites. If you’d rather this didn’t happen, go to ads in account settings, select “Can you see online interest-based adverts from Facebook?”, then turn it off. You will still be shown the same number of ads on the social network, but they won’t be based on the browsing you do on non-Facebook sites.

3 Stop Facebook using your likes in ads

You’ve probably seen ads in your newsfeed related to something that one of your friends has liked. If you don’t want your own likes to be exploited in this way, open up the account settings page, tap the ads button, and choose “Who can see your social actions paired with ads?”. By changing the bottom value to No one, you can make sure your Facebook contacts don’t see ads linked to your likes – although they can still be used to influence the ads you see in your own feed.

4 Stop people tagging you

If one of your friends wants to upload an embarrassing photo of you, there’s not much you can do except beg them not to; but you can prevent the picture (or any type of post, from updates to locations) being tagged with your name. From the Facebook apps menu, choose settings menu, settings and timeline and tagging: this screen lets you enable a post-review feature, so that you can block or approve all tags before they’re applied. There are a number of other tag-related settings to play around with on the same screen, too.

5 Disconnect third-party apps


You’ve probably logged into various apps and services using Facebook but you don’t want to give these third-party developers permanent access to your account. Head to account settings and apps, inside the mobile apps you can change the permissions of these external apps and even kick them out altogether – ideally you want to boot out any that you’re not using on a regular basis (you can always add them again later). The fewer connections you have, the safer and more private your account.

YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating

6 Stop Facebook automatically playing videos


Your timeline can resemble a cascade of YouTube spam and irrelevant video ads – the latter are important to Facebook as they are a major revenue earner. The YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating, so you may want to turn the auto-play feature off. Here’s how: from your browser select settings, video, and at auto-play videos, hit the off button. Within theiOS app you take the same route and select “never” for auto‑play video.

7 Mute conversations in Messenger

For particularly busy conversation threads inside the Facebook Messenger app, you may not want to see or hear alerts every time there is a new message – that’s where the mute feature comes in. On Android, tap the info button (top right) inside a conversation and choose notifications to mute alerts for a certain period – anything from 15 minutes to indefinitely. On iOS, tap the title of the conversation rather than the info button. Messages will still come through, but you won’t get any notifications to that effect on your device until they’re enabled again.

8 Block other WhatsApp Users

Unfortunately, there’s always the chance not everyone you chat to has nice things to say, but WhatsApp includes a contact-blocking feature that’s fast and efficient. Blocked contacts can’t send you messages or calls, can’t see when you’ve been online, and can’t see your status or WhatsApp avatar picture. Go to the app menu, choose settings, account, privacy and then select Blocked contacts (Android) or Blocked (iOS): the subsequent screen lets you block and unblock contacts as required. You can also quickly block contacts from inside individual conversation windows by opening up the chat menu.
FacebookTwitterPinterest

9 Keep your location to yourself in Instagram

Be wary of adding location information to your Instagram photos, especially if your feed is public and for areas near your home or place of work. If you go to your profile page and tap the location pin, you can see which of your images are linked to a location – to remove the geotag, tap the menu button (on Android), choose edit and tap the photos or groups of photos you want to remove. Remember Instagram also allows you to share pictures (geotagged or otherwise) in private one-to-one conversations rather than your main feed.

10 Prevent contacts seeing when you read their WhatsApp messages

Head to the main settings page inside WhatsApp to the read receipts option – if you untick this setting, people won’t know whether you’ve read their most recent messages. However, the function will be disabled in the other direction, too, so you’ll no longer get any indication whether your messages have been received (those two blue ticks that usually appear after posts). The last seen update (which shows your contacts when you last had the app open) works in the same way and can also be disabled.

11 Enable two-step verification

This is probably the wisest security precaution you can take to prevent your account being hacked. With this feature enabled, each time you or someone else attempts to log into your account from a new computer or device, Facebook will text you a code – which you will need in order to finish the process. Find this feature on the drop-down menu top right: settings, security, login approvals and check the box: “Require a security code to check my account from unknown browsers”.

12 Download all your data

While this isn’t a security measure in itself, downloading all the data that Facebook holds about you is an eye-opening exercise. Go to settings and click on the link “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the page. Once you’ve unstuffed the zip file, you’ll be able to see everything. This includes every message you’ve ever sent or received but not deleted (ie still plenty you’d rather forget); every time you’ve clicked on an ad; every survey you’ve completed; every photo you’ve uploaded; IP addresses you’ve used logging into Facebook (and the locations Facebook infers); the ads they think you’re interested in; and everyone one you’ve ever poked (stop sniggering). You might describe it as surveillance.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

13 Choose who can see your posts

Whenever you update your Facebook status through the mobile apps (or indeed anywhere else) you’ll see an audience selector box that most likely has “friends” selected. Tap this to choose who exactly can see your next post: you might want to restrict it to family members, work colleagues, or an even smaller group of people (you can specify contacts one by one if necessary). This is where friend lists come in handy – Facebook makes some for you automatically (close friends and acquaintances for example), but you can create your own through the desktop Facebook site.

14 Delete your account?

If downloading your data freaks you out, the only way to remove it from Facebook’s servers is to delete your account. It takes Facebook up to 90 days to scrub you from their data banks, but be aware that items such as messages you’ve sent and friends’ photos you appear in will remain. The bonus of this tactic is that you’ll never be able to use Tinder again.

15 Deactivate your account

If deleting your account seems too drastic, too cold turkey, you could choose a trial separation from Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe you need a little space to think things through, see if you can survive without the emojis. Deactivation hides your timeline and means aunties, exes, criminals etc won’t be able to find you from a Facebook search. It also requires an iron will – your account will be reactivated any time you log back in – so stay away from the wine. You may also accidentally reactivate your account when you use your Facebook details to log into another site such as Airbnb. Therefore it would be wise to disconnect third-party apps (see above) before deactivating. Another precaution would be to change your password prior to deactivation, which would disrupt any saved logins you have scattered around your devices.

The non-EU workers who’ll be deported for earning less than £35,000

 Despite having spent her adult life in London, Alyson Frazier could be sent back to the US under new income rules. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian


Donna Ferguson in The Guardian


Alyson Frazier, a 25-year-old classical musician from Washington DC, is trying to describe how it feels when people ask her whether she wants to stay in Britain. “It’s like asking a fish: ‘How’s the water?’. London is my home. This is where I have built my adult life since the age of 19.”

Unfortunately Frazier – who has a first class MA from the Royal Academy of Music and is the co-founder of Play for Progress, a therapeutic music programme for refugee children – only earns £17,000 a year.

That’s less than half the salary she, her fellow-Americans and other non-EU migrants will soon need to stay in the country permanently, thanks to rules being introduced next month.

From 6 April all skilled workers from outside the EU who have been living here for less than 10 years will need to earn at least £35,000 a year to settle permanently in the UK. Some jobs, such as nurses, are exempt (see How the rules are changing, right) but Frazier’s is not. Unless she gets a higher-paid job, she will be deported in September.

“I’ve chosen to take a lower salary because I’m trying to improve the lives of unaccompanied child refugees and do good in the world through music and education,” she says. “How do you put that on paper in a visa application? How do you show the value of trying to make a child’s life better?”

A petition to scrap the £35,000 threshold has attracted more than 100,000 signatures from British citizens and was debated in parliament on Monday. “I started the petition because I don’t want to live in a Britain that will quietly usher thousands of people out of the country without raising a whisper of protest,” says Josh Harbord, the British citizen behind the Stop35k campaign which has attracted the support of SNP, Labour and Green MPs. “I don’t want to live in a country that values people’s incomes over people’s contributions to society.”

But the government is adamant that the policy is fair, and that individuals have had many years to prepare.

A Home Office spokesman said: “In the past it has been too easy for some businesses to bring in workers from overseas rather than to take the long-term decision to train our workforce here at home.

“We need to do more to change that, which means reducing the demand for migrant labour. That is why we commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to provide advice on significantly reducing economic migration from outside the EU. These reforms will ensure that businesses are able to attract the skilled migrants they need, but we also want them to get far better at recruiting and training UK workers first.”

Home secretary Theresa May was criticised for failing to attend the debate in person, instead sending a junior minister with an unrelated portfolio – Richard Harrington, minister for Syrian refugees – to defend the policy.

In its own impact assessment, the Home Office estimates the new salary threshold will cost the British economy between £181m and £171m (PDF), while the other organisations have put the cost much higher, at £761m (PDF).

The word ‘bonkers’ springs to mind. If the so-called gain is a modest one, why inflict so much pain?Stuart McDonald, SNP MP

“These new rules will damage the British economy, our standing overseas, and our society as a whole,” says Ralph Buckle, co-founder of the Commonwealth Exchange. “We have already seen dramatic falls in Commonwealth migration to the UK due to existing restrictions and the salary restrictions will only make things worse.”

Latest Home Office statistics show there were just over 55,000 applications for skilled work visas in the year to March 2015. Americans were among the largest groups – 12% of applications – while Australians made up a further 4%.

The government’s own admission that the reforms will only make a “modest” contribution to its target of reducing net migration was repeatedly highlighted during the debate: “The word ‘bonkers’ springs to mind,” said Stuart McDonald, an SNP MP. “If the so-called gain is a modest one, why inflict so much pain?”

Gillian Brown, 26, is one of the Australians at the receiving end of that pain. Her entire family decided to emigrate to the UK when she was 18 but, due to her age, she could only enter the country on a student visa (while her younger brothers were classed as dependents and are now full British citizens). She graduated with a first class BA and an MA from The University of Sheffield, and currently earns £20,300 as an online marketing assistant after moving into a skilled workers’ Tier 2 visa in 2014.

The fact Gillian Brown’s family emigrated to the UK is not enough to prevent her having to return to Australia. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

“Previously, I’d have been able to apply for permanent residence in the UK after five years, earning my current salary. Not any more,” says Brown. “It’s a constant worry. If I can’t convince a company to sponsor me again next year, I’ll be deported back to Australia after eight years in the UK, and separated from my parents and brothers. But the British government doesn’t care about separating families – they’ve made that very clear. ”

Australian migration specialists True Blue say the new rules have caused a spike in the number of British-based Aussies looking to head back home. In the last week of January, it saw a 50% increase in calls seeking advice on how to secure their British partners a visa in Australia.

Walkabout, the Australian bar chain, has already begun stepping up its recruitment strategies to try to deal with any fallout from the visa restrictions. “We have been losing Australian staff for some time,” says Nina Marshall, HR director. “Recruiting Australians is essential to the authenticity of our brand and this challenge is only going to become significantly more difficult.”

Jeffries Briginshaw, CEO of BritishAmerican Business, is also concerned: “American companies are deeply entrenched in the UK economy and American citizens are part of UK society, whether this is in business, schools or families. Any restriction to the Tier 2 visa scheme will have a negative impact on the way American businesses operate in the UK and how American citizens can be part of the UK.”

It’s not only business leaders who are against the change. “Migrant teachers make a significant contribution to the UK,” says Kevin Courtney of the National Union of Teachers. “It seems absurdly counterproductive to force schools to dismiss migrant teachers they’ve trained and invested in, and who are still very much needed, at a time when highly skilled, qualified teachers are in great demand. The policy urgently needs to be reconsidered.”

Jon Excell, editor of trade publication The Engineer, is equally worried about the impact on the UK’s engineering sectors, which he says are also facing an acute and worrying skills shortage. “If the UK wants to maintain its position as a world leader in key areas of engineering, international skills are essential. Not just to fill roles, but to help UK-based firms retain an international perspective and reap the economic rewards of a diverse workforce. Yet the average salary of a junior engineer is just £32,000.”

The Home Office insists that the £35,000 threshold is a fair reflection of skilled salaries in the UK. It adds: “We do not believe there should be an automatic link between coming to work in the UK temporarily and staying permanently. The £35,000 threshold was set following advice from the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent advisory body consisting of expert labour market economists, and was equivalent to the median pay of the UK population in skilled jobs.”

It points out that anyone entering the UK on a Tier 2 basis has been aware of the changes since 2011. “Those individuals were aware when they entered that new settlement rules would apply to them. Employers have had since 2011 to prepare for the possibility that their non-European Economic Area workers may not meet the required salary threshold to remain permanently.”

Following the debate in Parliament the Stop35k campaign is urging the government to reconsider the implementation of the new rules, and to give the Migration Advisory Committee an opportunity to complete an assessment of suitable pay thresholds across different jobs and regions in the UK.

It says it will continue to lobby MPs, regardless of whether or not the policy is implemented as planned.

How the rules are changing

To enter or stay in the UK as a skilled worker, non-EU migrants must have a Tier 2 visa. To qualify, you must have been offered a job in the UK and have held at least £945 in your bank account for 90 days.

The job you’re offered must pay at least £20,800, although the government is currently considering a recommendation to raise this to £30,000. Certain occupations do not have to meet this threshold.

You must also get a certificate of sponsorship from your employer (which involves a fee of between £536 and £1,476), pay £200 per year as a healthcare surcharge and be able to prove your knowledge of the English language.

Non-EU migrants are only permitted to remain in the UK on Tier 2 visas for a maximum of six years.

However, at the moment, skilled workers who have been living here on these visas for five years are able to apply for “indefinite leave to remain” in the UK.

It’s this that is about to change (PDF).

From 6 April, only those who earn £35,000 a year will be eligible to apply for “indefinite leave to remain” once they have lived here for five years.

Nurses are temporarily exempt from this threshold, along with PhD level jobs and anyone whose occupation has ever been on the official “shortage occupation list” at any point while they have been living here. The new rules also do not apply to anyone who entered the country on a Tier 2 visa on or before 5 April 2011.

In January the Migration Advisory Committee also recommended the government set a £1,000-a-year levy on companies employing skilled migrants from outside the EU, and raise the salary threshold for Tier 2 visas from £20,800 to £30,000. The Home Office has not yet outlined its response.

There is still one route to permanent UK residence for low-earning migrants, however. You can apply for “indefinite leave to remain” if you’ve been living in the UK legally for 10 continuous years. There is no salary threshold for this.

For example, if you entered the UK 10 years ago on a student visa and moved directly onto a skilled workers’ visa – without ever leaving for more than 180 days at a time or for 540 days in total – you would be eligible to apply to settle in the UK, no matter how little you earned at that point.

Applying for “indefinite leave to remain” costs up to £1,900 and applications can take six months to process.

The Home Office says anyone who is unsure whether they may be affected by the changes can call the general inquiries for immigration matters on 0300 123 2241.

Shiva Is A God Who Likes Marijuana — And So Do Many Of His Followers

Danielle Priess in Goats and Soda



A Hindu holy man in Kathmandu smokes a chillum, a traditional clay pipe, on March 6, the eve of a festival honoring the god Shiva.Prkash Mathema /AFP/Getty Images

Shiva is one chill deity.

He's one of the three major gods in the Hindu religion. And he has a penchant for pot.

"Shiva loves marijuana. So we come to share Shiva's prasad [offerings] with everyone else," explains a 60-year-old holy man who gives his name as Radhe Baba.

It's the eve of the festival of Shiva Ratri, or "The Night of Shiva" — March 7 this year. The celebration marks the day Shiva saved the universe from darkness and married the goddess Parvati.

Groups of dreadlocked Hindu ascetics sit around small smoky fires puffing on clay pipes at Pashupati, one of Nepal's holiest Hindu temples, in the capital city of Kathmandu. Hundreds of holy men (and some women) have traveled from around Nepal and India for the festival. They spend the days before the holiday alternately praying and lounging to prepare to commune with Shiva.

And they also smoke hashish. Marijuana smoke mingles with the bonfires. Both are symbols of religious devotion. Shiva, it's believed, used marijuana both to relax and to focus better for meditation.

It's scenes like this that made Kathmandu famous among hippies. Indeed a few days before Shiva Ratri, Pashupati had the vibe of a relaxed music festival. It's a little more like Bonnaroo by the time over a million devotees have arrived for the big day.

"That [smoking marijuana] makes us forget everything and we communicate with Shiva," 50-year-old Madhan Lal Baba says, sitting next to Radhe.

The two have traveled with a group of holy men from Benares, India, and said that the Indian government even gave them some money to make the trip. As ascetics, they've renounced possessions and survive off stipends from the temples and alms from devotees.

The marijuana helps stave off worldly desires, they say. Sharing the "prasad" – in this case, the weed — shows their love for Shiva, Madhan Lal explains.

"Baba, do you have prasad?" a visitor asks a seated holy man.

"Sit, smoke, relax," the holy man responds, gesturing to the stone temple steps next to him and packing a conical clay pipe, called a chillum, with hashish. The holy man smears ashes on the visitor's forehead with his thumb as a blessing and offers a puff on the pipe, for which the man hands him some rupees.

Though the temple authorities insist they are cracking down on the drug use, marijuana consumption is considered acceptable on the day of the holiday. "The police don't say anything because it's Shiva Ratri, and we're giving [marijuana] to Shiva followers," Madhan Lal says. But not everyone indulges. Many of the pilgrims simply visit the temple to make offerings and pray.

Devotees also light bonfires to warm Shiva and signify the end of winter. Fire is holy in Hinduism. But touching the fire with unclean things is thought to pollute it. So the holy men cup their hands around the base of their pipes and suck the smoke through. This prevents their lips from polluting it.

"Fire represents God," Ram Das Bairagi explains. "We do [bonfires] for Shiva, to call him. Maybe he will see the fire." Bairagi, an ascetic who lives at Pashupati temple year-round, has wrapped his long dreadlocks in a leopard print scarf, representing the animal skin Shiva wears. His body is white from ashes, taken from the cremation sites at the temple.

"These are ashes of cremated bodies. They represent homeless people, animals, mentally disabled people," says another man who'd spread ashes on his body. He gives his name as Dandi Baba. Wearing the ashes allows these different entities to attend the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, he explains.

According to legend, Shiva Ratri is the night when Shiva married his bride and experienced the beauty of love and pleasure of sex for the first time. Though Shiva is associated with sex and creation, many of his most devout followers remain celibate.

"My life is fully dedicated to Shiva. I have no wife, no family. The first thing I knew was Shiva," says 72-year-old Dandi Baba.

"God is such a mysterious thing, but you have to follow it because it's inside you," he adds. "We don't follow money or day-to-day things. They're not important; you don't need those things. The only thing humans need is to share love with each other and share our culture."

And then he passes the pipe.