02 May, 2017
Denial: a timely reminder that we should confront distortions of history
American historian Deborah Lipstadt poses these questions to a classroom of students in the opening scene of the film Denial, which opens in Australia this week. …
01 May, 2017
2016, the year that was: Business and Economics
Around this time last year, the Coalition government was trying to manage the nation’s economy despite political shakeups, we were all watching a country on the verge of leaving the European Union, and some businesses were in the spotlight for behaving badly. …
28 Apr, 2017
The schoolgirls of Charles Blackman – haunting works from a politically innocent age
Charles Blackman first came to prominence in the early 1950s when he exhibited his schoolgirl series of paintings and drawings in Melbourne. …
28 Apr, 2017
MONEY 2.0
Bit Coins is the most popular and valuable crypto-currency. Introduced in 2008, it is a digital currency that is essentially a piece of information regarding the transaction between two entities or individuals. This information is analogous to a mail communication where both the sender and the recipient have the knowledge as well as an evidence of communication. …
27 Apr, 2017
Australian politics explainer: how women gained the right to vote
Between 1894 and 1908 a wave of women’s enfranchisement swept across Australia. Beginning in South Australia in 1894 and ending 14 years later in Victoria, Australia’s six colonies allowed women to vote. …
26 Apr, 2017
East Timor, war, coffee and Australia’s debt of honour
The fond appreciation for the nation’s beans traces back to the second world war, where Dutch and Australian commandos – known collectively as Sparrow Force – engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in what was then known as Portuguese Timor. …
25 Apr, 2017
Embracing the bots: how direct to consumer advertising is about to change forever
The tech revolution is coming to advertising. Chatbots are replacing humans, big data threatens our privacy, and the blockchain is linking it all together. In our series on tech and advertising, we’re taking a look at how the industry is being reshaped. …
24 Apr, 2017
Can a four-year-old be sexist?
The Victorian government has announced it plans to teach its Respectful Relationship program to preschoolers as a way to target and prevent sexist behaviour among children aged three and four years old.The program – which is taught to teenagers in schools – more broadly aims to tackle issues around family violence, and also to develop young people’s social skills and promote respectful relationships.
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21 Apr, 2017
How accurate are the costumes in TV period dramas?
There are two types of period drama watchers: the pedant and the swooner.The pedant can’t look at an historically inspired costume without scrutinising its every detail, their remarks – “would that type of embroidery really have been used in 1683?” or, “I’ve never seen that kind of trimming on an 1812 pelisse!” – at the ready. …
17 Apr, 2017
Why South Sudan continues to fall out of favour with its international partners
The relationship between the government of South Sudan and the donor community is changing. International discourse on the East African country has moved from warm and sympathetic to disapproving, critical and exasperated. …
12 Apr, 2017
Demographic Dividends in the age of the 4th Industrial Revolution
This essay on `Demographic Dividends in the age of the 4th Industrial Revolution' by Abhijeet Yadav (Civil Engineering graduate from IIT Delhi) tries to understand the interplay between the yet nascent 4th industrial revolution (4th IR) and India’s imminent demographic transition (dubbed the demographic dividend). …
05 Apr, 2017
This Bangladeshi woman can tell you how real climate change is
On March 28 2017 United States president Donald Trump signed an executive order nullifying many of the country’s commitments to global-warming mitigation. The decision will have far-reaching consequences. As the world’s second-biggest polluter, the US has just made the ambitious goals set by 192 states in the 2015 Paris climate deal all but impossible to reach. The Conversation …
05 Apr, 2017
Energy and Environment: an uncommon connection
The word energy has become a fundamental part of our lives. It influences almost every aspect of human life like access to water, health, education, job creation and many more. Daniel Yergin, in his article, ‘The Globalization of Energy Demand’ expresses that the harnessing of energy is what makes the world as we know it. …
27 Mar, 2017
Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt: a new global hub for social impact start-ups
Refrigerators in the Moroccan desert; a bracelet to prevent heart attacks in Tunisia; a source funding system for charities in Egypt. Mission-driven start-ups are blossoming in these three North African countries, which are now at the forefront of social entrepreneurship. …
27 Mar, 2017
A Sloppy Divorce: BREXIT and Article 50
In a tremulous vote on 23 June 2016, the British people clearly expressed their will to leave the European Union. The outcome was unexpected, even by the proponents supporting the leave campaign; hence with no coherent proposal of the future, it would not be naïve to say the British Government was ‘caught with its pants down”. …
27 Mar, 2017
Harvard study: Policy issues nearly absent in presidential campaign coverage
Years ago, when I first started teaching and was at Syracuse University, one of my students ran for student body president on the tongue-in-cheek platform “Issues are Tissues, without a T.” The ConversationHe was dismissing out of hand anything that he, or his opponents, might propose to do in office, noting that student body presidents have so little power as to make their platforms disposable. …
26 Mar, 2017
Buyback of shares – A fashion statement or fiscal reward
In the middle of a brewing crisis of corporate governance at Infosys between the company's co-founders, board and CEO, the company’s former CFO necessitated the idea of share buyback to shield the interest of shareholders.After Cognizant’s $3.4 billion buyback plan, TCS took a position to consider buyback of equity shares sooner than later. …
24 Mar, 2017