[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer considers how a stellar-mass black hole of 70 solar masses got so unaccountably huge.
• Alex Tolley at Centauri Dreams considers the colours of photosynthesis, and how they might reveal the existence of life on exoplanets.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares some links on humans in the Paleolithic.
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the scripts of jokes.
• Gizmodo reports on the repurposed China-Netherlands radio telescope operating from an orbit above the far side of the Moon.
• JSTOR Daily considers the political rhetoric of declinism.
• Language Log considers the controversy over the future of the apostrophe.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog notes a YouGov prediction of a Conservative majority in the UK and how this prediction is not value-neutral.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper from India noting how caste identities do affect the labour supply.
• Ursula Lindsay at the NYR Daily considers if the political crisis in Lebanon, a product of economic pressures and sectarianism, might lead to a revolutionary transformation of the country away from sectarian politics.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections looks at some of the many complicated and intermingled issues of contemporary Australia.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest projects funded by the ESA.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shares ten beautiful photos taken in 2019 by the Hubble.
• Strange Company reports on the strange unsolved disappearance of Lillian Richey from her Idaho home in 1964.
• Window on Eurasia shares a Russian criticism of the Ukrainian autocephalous church as a sort of papal Protestantism.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the positive potential of homoeros.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Montréal, Camden, Derry, Rome, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Dhaka & Calcutta

• La Presse notes that the Bixi bike-sharing service in Montréal is celebrating its 11th anniversary.
• Marginal Revolution notes how better policing cut into crime in Camden, New Jersey.
• The NYR Daily looks at how Brexit and a hardened border will hit the Northern Ireland city of Derry.
• Guardian Cities reports on the gang that goes around Rome at night making illegal repairs to crumbling infrastructure.
• CityLab reports on how Cape Town is coping, one year after it nearly ran out of water.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares tips for travellers visiting Hong Kong.
• Guardian Cities reports on the families made refugees by Partition who tried to swap homes in Dhaka and Calcutta.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how the dinosaurs seem to have been killed off 65 million years ago by a combination of geological and astronomical catastrophes.
• Centauri Dreams examines Kepler 1658b, a hot Jupiter in a close orbit around an old star.
• The Crux reports on the continuing search for Planet Nine in the orbits of distant solar system objects.
• D-Brief notes how researchers have begun to study the archaeological records of otters.
• Cody Delistraty profiles author and journalist John Lanchester.
• Far Outliers reports on the terrible violence between Hindus and Muslims preceding partition in Calcutta.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing suggests the carnival of the online world, full of hidden work, is actually an unsatisfying false carnival.
• Hornet Stories reports that São Paulo LGBTQ cultural centre and homeless shelter Casa 1 is facing closure thanks to cuts by the homophobic new government.
• io9 reports on one fan’s attempt to use machine learning to produce a HD version of Deep Space Nine.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the increasing trend, at least in the United States and the United Kingdom, to deport long-term residents lacking sufficiently secure residency rights.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the literally medieval epidemics raging among the homeless of California.
• Marginal Revolution considers how the Book of Genesis can be read as a story of increasing technology driving improved living standards and economic growth.
• The NYR Daily interviews Lénaïg Bredoux about #MeToo in France.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the subtle differences in colour between ice giants Uranus and Neptune, one greenish and the other a blue, and the causes of this difference.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle shares beautiful photos of ice on a stream as he talks about his creative process.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers what the universe was like back when the Earth was forming.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a statement made by the government of Belarus that the survival of the Belarusian language is a guarantor of national security.
• Arnold Zwicky was kind enough to share his handout for the semiotics gathering SemFest20.

[NEWS] Five divides: New Brunswick, Rohingya Hindus, Chinese censors, Iranian internet, Brexit

• The Conversation notes how New Brunswick, with its economic challenges and its language divide, represents in microcosm the problems of wider Canada.
• This Los Angeles Times article notes how Rohingya Hindus see themselves, rightly, as sharing a different fate from their Muslim coethnics.
• This New York Times article looks at how the Internet censors of China are trained, by letting them know about the actual history of their country first.
• Bloomberg reports how on the Iranian government tries to engage selectively with the social networking platforms, like Instagram and Telegram, used by the outside world.
• Bloomberg notes that the concern of Japan that the United Kingdom, Japanese companies’ chosen platform for export to the EU, might engage in a hard Brexit is pressing.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• D-Brief notes that the opioid epidemic seems to be hitting baby boomers and millennials worst, of all major American demographics.
• Hornet Stories shares one timetable for new DC films following Justice League.
• Joe. My. God. notes a case brought by a Romanian before the European Court of Justice regarding citizenship rights for his American spouse. This could have broad implications for the recognition of same-sex couples across the EU, not just its member-states.
• Language Hat reports on a journalist’s search for a village in India where Sanskrit, ancient liturgical language of Hinduism, remains the vernacular.
• The Map Room Blog links to a review of an intriuging new book, Nowherelands, looking at ephemeral countries in the 1840-1975 era.
• The NYR Daily looks at the textile art of Anni Albers.
• The Planetary Society Blog explores the navigational skills of the Polynesians, and their reflection in Moana.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the widespread jubilation in Zimbabwe following the overthrow of Mugabe.
• Rocky Planet notes that Öræfajökull, the largest volcano in Iceland if a hidden one, has been showing worrying signs of potential eruption.
• Drew Rowsome reports on House Guests, an art installation that has taken over an entire house at Dundas and Ossington.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the story of how the quantum property of spin was discovered.
• Window on Eurasia suggests new Russian policies largely excluding non-Russian languages from education are causing significant problems, even ethnic conflict.
• Arnold Zwicky considers music as a trigger of emotional memory, generally and in his own life.

[NEWS] Four links about problematic history: swastika, Cornwallis River, castle restoration, humans

• MacLean’s argues that, in Canada and arguably the West generally, it is much too soon to rehabilitate the swastika.
• Global News reports on a proposal to rename Nova Scotia’s Cornwallis River.
• This effort to engage in a minimalist, non-misleading restoration of a Spanish castle is controversial.
• The argument that human history goes back millions of years, and encompass a huger area than thought, is compelling.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams describes a new type of planet, the molten hot rubble cloud “synestia”.
• Far Outliers describes the Polish rebels exiled to Siberia in the 19th century.
• Language Hat looks at words for porridge in Bantuphone Africa.
• Language Log examines whistling as a precursor to human language.
• The LRB considers the new normal of the terrorist state of emergency.
• Marginal Revolution notes the weakness of the Indian labour market.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer tries to explain to Uruguayans how Donald Trump made his mistake on the budget.
• Savage Minds remembers the late anthropologist of Polynesia and space colonization, Ben Finney.
• Towleroad examines the rather depressing idea of a porn-dominated sexuality.
• Understanding Society examines Hindu/Muslim tensions in India.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the weakness of Belarus’ opposition.
• Arnold Zwicky talks about Arthur Laurents.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Antipope’s Charlie Stross wonders if the politics of Trump might mean an end to the British nuclear deterrent.
• Centauri Dreams shares Andrew LePage’s evaluation of the TRAPPIST-1 system, where he concludes that there are in fact three plausible candidates for habitable status there.
• Dangerous Minds shares the gender-bending photographs of Norwegian photographers Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.
• The Extremo Files looks at the human microbiome.
• Language Hat links to an article on Dakhani, a south Indian Urdu dialect.
• The LRB Blog looks at policing in London.
• The Map Room Blog notes that 90% of the hundred thousand lakes of Manitoba are officially unnamed.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the remarkable Akshardham Temple of New Delhi.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes how citizen scientists detected changes in Rosetta’s comet.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer provides a visual guide for New Yorkers at the size of the proposed border wall.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper taking a look at the history of abortion in 20th century France.
• Torontoist looks at the 1840s influx of Irish refugees to Toronto.
• Understanding Society takes a look at the research that went into the discovery of the nucleus of the atom.
• Window on Eurasia reports on Belarus.
• Arnold Zwicky shares photos and commentary on the stars and plot of Oscar-winning film Midnight.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes an unexpected housing shortage in the Midwest, and considers the impact of the Panama scandal on the British Virgin Islands’ economic model.
• Bloomberg View calls for better regulation of the high seas, suggests (from the example of Yugoslav refugees in Denmark) that low-skilled immigrants can be good for working classes, and notes the failed states and potential for conflict in the former Soviet Union.
• The Inter Press Service notes the fight against religious misogyny in India.
• The Toronto Star‘s Chantal Hébert notes how voters in Ontario and Québec have been let down by the failure to enact ethics reforms in politics.
• Spiegel looks at the spread of radical Islam in Bosnia.
• Vice notes a photo project by a Swiss photographer who has been tracking couples for decades.
• Wired looks at the US-European trade in highly-enriched uranium.

[LINK] “Will We One Day Reunite as ‘Akhand Bharat’?”

The Inter Press Service carries an article from The Daily Star of Bangladesh, by one Muhammad Azizul Haque, looking at the prospects for a reunification of South Asia. As Haque puts it, there is little chance of this given India’s issues with its existing Muslim population.

India’s ruling BJP’s General Secretary, Mr. Ram Madhav, recently said in an interview to Al Jazeera that the RSS, his core organisation, still believes that one day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, “which have for historical reasons separated only 60 years ago, will again, through popular goodwill, come together and ‘Akhand Bharat’ will be created”. The idea of Akhand Bharat is a dream of the RSS, and of the BJP, which is a right-wing party with close ideological and organisational links to the former, and of other Hindutvadi organisations and their adherents. I am not going to speak for Pakistan. But, whether future generations of Bangladeshis will reunite their country with India will depend fully on those generations that are probably yet to be born.

If we recall history, we see that despite innumerable attempts by the Muslims of the unpartitioned India, they failed to ensure and protect their politico-economic, socio-religious, cultural and other rights in the midst of the overwhelming Hindu majority population, and under the 27-month-long Congress rule following the general election of 1937. In every Hindu majority province, the Muslims were victims of serious riots and oppression.

A separate State was not in the minds of the Muslims at the beginning. But the Congress’ intransigent opposition to any measure by the British Government aimed at benefiting the minority Muslim population – like the 1905 partition of Bengal, grant of separate electorate for the Muslims, giving power to the Muslims in those provinces where they were in majority – compelled them to demand a separate homeland. The Congress repudiated all British government plans that stipulated power-sharing with the Muslim League – the party that at those times epitomised the aspirations of almost all Muslims of India.

Have the basics of the Hindu-Muslim relations changed in India over the last 68 years? One proof that they have not changed much is the fact that right-wing Hindutvadi cultural and political organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, BJP, etc., that envision India as a Hindu country, still wield enormous popular support and influence. In effect, they regard Muslims as outsiders. Even after about 70 years of existence of the democratic and constitutionally secular India, Muslims are killed there for eating beef. The Muslims in India could still be coerced into converting back to Hinduism under the Ghar Wapsi programme. Celebrity actors like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan felt insecure and alienated in an atmosphere of growing religious intolerance in India in recent months; and they faced severe backlashes for voicing their sense of insecurity.

At the behest of the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a High Level Committee, chaired by Justice Rajindar Sachar, prepared and submitted a report on the socioeconomic and educational status of the Muslims in India in November 2006. It’s not possible to mention all of the findings of that committee in the extremely limited space of this article. But some key ones were: the unemployment rate among Muslim graduates was the highest among all the socio-religious categories and participation of Muslims in jobs in both the public and private sectors was quite low. The number of Muslims in Central Government departments and agencies was “abysmally” low at all levels. “There was not even one state in which the representation of Muslims in the government departments matched their population share (around14 percent)”, states the report.