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April 29, 2024
 

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Pankaj Mishra
For Pankaj Mishra's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2014
India's election will not be decided on old lines
A great rage and discontent is blowing across India's landscape of thwarted modernization. Whoever rides this angry tiger into the country's highest office following the current election will have to pacify it quickly.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2014
Don't let Cold War warriors reboot their dated thinking
The hundred think tanks that bloomed, and the thousands of mediocre academics and pseudo-experts who found easy employment in the universities and the media, feel obliged to make themselves relevant and important again after Russian President Vladimir Putin's land grab. Don't let them reboot the Cold War.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2014
Nuclear-tipped pursuit of an old Eurasian fantasy
Russia's political elites seem far from willing to undertake a makeover in the image of the West. Indeed, their cultural attempt at self-definition compels them to close alliances with China and other Asian countries.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2014
Protests in Ukraine, Thailand likely to backfire
The specter of secession suddenly haunts Ukraine and Thailand, two countries where demonstrators have uncompromisingly battled corrupt or unresponsive rulers. Are modern states in general strong enough to survive today's explosions of popular will?
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2014
Big money backs wrong man in India
There is a great, virtual storm blowing through India today to make Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, seem like the nation's natural and inevitable leader.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2014
Fragmented Asian loyalties
Across Asia, the authority of older political, economic and military elites is being challenged and often overthrown. Fresh social networks and NGO-style activism are defining an alternative way of doing politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2014
Villagers transforming Asian cities
The election of engineer Arvind Kejriwal as the new chief minister of the urbanized Delhi region adds an Indian dimension to the worldwide phenomenon of political newcomers challenging entrenched elites.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2014
Has the world hit the end of the end of history?
Almost 25 years after the intellectual and political collapse of communism, another — and by far grander — narrative of promised progress is unraveling: that of liberal capitalism.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 8, 2013
Nuclear power: India shouldn't buy what Japan is trying to sell
Despite the Fukushima disaster, Japan remains at the center of the global nuclear-industrial complex, ready to sell demonstrably dangerous technology to wannabe nuclear powers.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2013
Free migration lifts all boats
The eager courtship by Western nations of deep-pocketed and well-educated foreigners can mislead one into thinking that globalization encourages free and open movements of peoples.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2013
Brain drain taking toll on India, China
Disillusionment with India's seemingly ineradicable corruption and inefficiency has resulted in a brain drain abroad. A similar quest for more congenial climes affects China's privileged classes.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2013
German absence of vision
Chancellor Angela Merkel's pragmatic and cautious defense of Germany's national interest in the age of globalization may yet instigate an aggressive new nationalism in Europe.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2013
Streets worldwide showing the failings of democracy
Historians examining our era will marvel at the proliferation of street protests defining the appeal of political community in old and new democracies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2013
Turkey's turn to fight over future
The protests in Turkey now involve an extraordinary diverse group. They are said to pit secularists against Islamists and authoritarians against democrats.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2013
What Bismarck can show Red China
More than a century and a half after it was published, Alexis de Tocqueville's "The Old Regime and the Revolution" has become an unlikely best-seller in China.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013
Why China's developmental state says no to liberalism
Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in Britain and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger views of political developments in the non-West.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 14, 2013
Last refuge of weak leaders
Why have anti-Japanese sentiments resurfaced in China and South Korea in 2013 — just as Japan is trying to recover from two lost economic decades
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 17, 2013
Japan must re-learn its militarist past
Japan's conservative rulers will need a more capacious sense of history if they are to succeed in building new bridges with the country's Asian neighbors.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2013
Democracy votes to kill in Indonesia, Pakistan
The recent slaughter of Shiites in Pakistan is another grisly reminder of the perilous condition of its minorities. Indeed, in Pakistan and Indonesia, the two largest Muslim countries, both of which are in the midst of a fraught experiment with electoral democracy after decades of military rule, murderous assaults on Shiites, Christians and Ahmadis by majoritarian Sunni fanatics have become routine.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
In Japan, regional revitalization fails to halt population decline
Sakiyama elementary school in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, in March .Over the past decade, the government has directed efforts toward policies designed to give young people incentives to base themselves in rural areas.
Putin’s war will soon reach Russians’ tax bills
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

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