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Thank you for your comment. It is not a recent phenomena, its just that more women are coming forward to report these atrocities. Women’s issues in India..are receiving international attention more than ever.. India is currently caught in tumultuous churning between tradtional and modern ideas. As far as Indian culture is concerned, its replete with examples of women’s subjugation. Practice of Sati(where women were to burn themselves on the funeral pyre of their husband) is only two centuries old. India still has a long way to go to provide safety and equality to its women

I concur. As a Buddhist you bow to the robe that represents the mantle of the Buddha, so the mightiest Buddhist king bowed to the youngest novice.

The existence of bogus monks and wayward monks however is common knowledge. So is the fact that the regime has used the former at the same time got the nerve to smear the dissenters/protesters during the Saffron Revolution as bogus monks. Word is the USDP just donated a huge consignment of gold brooches in the form of a scroll that says “Law defending race a success” (seen them on social media) to Ma Ba Tha from their bottomless war chest to fight the elections.

Back to topic, the NLD not only needs to lift the standard but a plan B in the event of a defeat (as the military backed USDP cheats like there’s no tomorrow… for the rest of the country) or a partial victory in a coalition where it plays second fiddle to the military.

As an aside, paying homage to a monk in Burma cannot be read into very much.

The Burmese concept (or version of Buddhism at least as used to be- as everything is going to dog at light speed nowadays) is that it is the “Thin-gun” (the robe) you bow down to. So long as someone is “duly” ordained with a”Thin-gun” you are supposed to bow. Whether the person who is wearing it really observes the required rules is the problem of that person, nothing to do with the homage payer.

In that sense, it would be akin to Thaksin clan bowing to the king. Doesn’t really mean they are in love with each other.

The disgusting Marcoses of the Philippines are politically back??? Imelda is a Congresswoman, daughter Imee is a Governor and son Bongbong (a well-deserved name, had he been Thai) is a Senator going to run for the Vice-Presidency??? Democracy is working beautifully well in the Republic of the Philippines …. I would say.

What am I complaining about anyway? Sooner rather later, a Shinawatra would be back too in Thailand. Thaksin’s son Oak, perhaps … even with that Baht 27 million commission KTB scandal closing in.

Democracy is unstoppable. Ask Imelda. Ask Thaksin. They could explain to us all in plain simple language why.

Dreading the night in India for women is a very sad state of affairs. Men’s predatory behaviour and disrespect towards women, dare I say it objectification, is a cultural problem anywhere in the world especially when it becomes unsafe for women to walk or travel alone.

I suspect sexual repression in both genders in many of our Eastern cultures plays a part.

I agree with Esther there is no excuse whatsoever for such harassment common enough also in the West, even if a wolf whistle a woman gets walking down the street is regarded as a compliment instead in Western cultures. And I agree with R N England too that such behaviour (except in the workplace) unless it amounts to physical assault cannot become a punishable crime but needs to be tackled by education starting from both school and home to value and respect the opposite sex.

According to Wikipedia statistics, twenty people were executed during SBY’s presidency. This number includes three Bali bombers and three Catholic militants.

Assuming that these figures are correct, SBY presided over more executions than his successor has done so far. Whether he uses kromo or Jokowi’s preferred form of slangy Indonesian, SBY doesn’t appear to have any moral authority to press Jokowi for the abolition of capital punishment.

We may have to fall back after all on that wretched chorus of foreign human rights activists which this author refers to.

The Orr brothers had class, as did Ted Williams and Johnny Unitas. Sports has changed. It’s all about the moolah and the ratings. It hasn’t been a gentlemen’s sport for 50 years or more. Hell, cricket and rugby matches are fixed now. You think Thai boxing is any better ? Look at “poor” Mr Blatter. FIFA makes the UN look credible (almost).

Andrew Marshall writes:

“The problem with “Not aligned” is that he posts messages all over the internet using a plethora of aliases…”

Please share some links or at least some of the other aliases. I find Not aligned’s point of view refreshing.

And just, if I may ask, how do you know about these aliases?

As Wilhelm Reich (sexpol) noted, authoritarianism, fascism and sexual supression are closely correlated. Not the least, because those enforceing laws to suppress sexuality can thereby live out their neurotic perversions. Aren’t there a lot of porn videos linked to “spanking”? If you don’t have access to Porn – like in Aceh – it seems that the real thing is needed.

I sort of wonder just how much Chomsky might have influenced Pavin, when and if he eventually gets some sort of residency (or even a vote) in another country.

Almost everyone globally has been suckered by the endless trash-media propaganda and demonisation of even mild dissent by the neo-liberalist scam artists. Almost all of us essentially now have one political option – to vote or not to vote for a project that has long been a long-term failure of even greater proportions than Communism – that is for the vast majority of us. Democracy has been deliberately induced into a coma, almost everywhere. If that is the gut feeling of a very large part of the global electorate, when they figure Big establishment Brother isn’t watching, it would seem difficult to argue that neo-liberalism has actually achieved anything other than ridiculous levels of rising wealth for a very small minority. When I hear someone here informing us that democracy is under threat, I now automatically distrust that person’s motives. If they were to say that democracy has always been little more than a fantasy in Thailand, I might begin to take an interest. That is the plain truth of it, but you won’t find many political folks who have the courage to say it. There are some people brave enough to admit the non-existence of democracy here, but then they almost always seem to go and spoil it all by sucking up to some past, present or future tyrant.

How much of what happens here on New Mandala is just preparing the way for further neo-liberalist reverse ratchet, I wonder? Is a lot of what is mulled over here just attempting to engineer political/economic systems that lend themselves readily to mass deception of the global electorate against its own better interests? Could it actually be that New Mandala is as much part-and-parcel of the looney-libetarian establishment defense strategy as say Fox News? Is NM’s real gripe with Prayuth that the junta just doesn’t get the newsspeak and politically-correct soundbite spin of modern-day neo-liberal networks? Is the junta’s real problem with establishments elsewhere that it does old-fashioned stuff that undermines the ‘clever’ spin of neo-liberalist think-tanks? And is NM just another of the numerous economic and political groupings that have been deliberately re-engineered to covertly promote the neo-liberalist line. We hear that there are almost no voices of dissent left in modern-day university economic and political faculties these days. Or do Australian university’s somehow buck the trend?

I see no reason not to enquire into this, as stonewall silence will probably indicate that I’m not too far wide of the mark. And that is what I’m expecting.