Tag: travel

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Boeing accused of putting the pursuit of profit over passenger safety 

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The Aircraft Accident investigation Bureau in India is focusing on engine thrust. Investigators have discovered in the preliminary investigation into the Air India Flight 171 crash which killed 260 people on 12th June 2025. Just seconds after take-off both of the 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel-control switches abruptly moved to the “cut -off” position, starving the engines of vital fuel and triggering total power loss. Switching to “Cut-off” is a move typically done only after landing. The Cockpit voice recording captures one pilot asking the other why he “did the cut-off”, to which the other pilot replies that he didn’t. The … Continue reading Boeing accused of putting the pursuit of profit over passenger safety 

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Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Indian historian, 1990 Kerala-born, Manu Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries is a survey of four centuries of Hinduism’s interaction with other faiths to explore the myths of true Hinduism. When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned woman alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu “idolatry” was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses … Continue reading Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Wolf in Sheep’s clothing

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Historian Dalrymple whose visceral understanding of India, in Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. This relentless rise of in August 1765, the East India Company, who defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army- what we would now … Continue reading Wolf in Sheep’s clothing

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Saudi: A country that is all too easily misunderstood

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A new history of Saudi Arabia spanning its eighteenth-century origins to the present day. Saudi Arabia on the wealthiest countries in the world, a major player on the international stage and the site of Islam’s two holiest cities and also one of the world’s only absolute monarchies. David Commins narrates the full history of Saudi Arabia from oasis emirate to present-day attempts to leap to a past-petroleum economy. Moving through the ages, Commins traces how the Saud dynasty’s reliance on sectarianism, foreign expertise, and petroleum to stabilize power has unintentionally spawned secular and religious movements seeking accountability and justice. He … Continue reading Saudi: A country that is all too easily misunderstood

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The City that never sleeps

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Manhattan Down is a pulse-pounding contemporary thriller which dares to imagine the unimaginable, a leaderless world being held to ransom by forces unknown for reasons unknown. The questions it asks are terrifying- and so are some of the answers. Manhattan the city that never sleeps just said goodnight. On September 10th,  one day before the anniversary eve of the 9/11 terror attack, New York swelters under a a heat dome of record temperatures. Even the global leaders assembled at the UN HQ are forced to admit that the climate crisis has reached boiling point and the world’s time is running out. … Continue reading The City that never sleeps

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Curious history, endurance of English as a global phenomenon

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Would you believe it, two thousand years ago English was confined to a handful of savage tribes on the shores of north-west Europe, today, in one form or another, it is spoken by a billion people around the world. More widely scattered, written and spoken than any other language in history, English has become a global phenomenon. Exploring this amazing success, The Story of English is an essential companion for student and general reader alike. The Story of English discusses the influence of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible on the English language as well as how Early Modern … Continue reading Curious history, endurance of English as a global phenomenon

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How the Expo brought the world to the desert

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Like the legacy of France’s first World Expo in 1889 was the Eiffel Tower, Dubai’s Expo 2020 was leaving the car obsessed commercial hub with its first 15-minute city, connected to the gird-locked city via Metro Link. Amid world’s perceptions of Dubai and challenges faced by a fully pregnant, UAE’s longest-serving female minister Reem Al-Hashimy and her team’s efforts for making a pitch for the UAE in Paris, and her turning the desert into a vibrant city-space teeming with people, national and thematic pavilions, restaurants and cafes, parks and playgrounds, and how the Expo brought the world to the desert. … Continue reading How the Expo brought the world to the desert

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The Feminine Sea

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MUSE GALLERY: LUKE FOREMAN – “THE FEMININE SEA” 10-27 April 2025. 269 Portobello Road. W11 1LR info@themuseat269.com www.themuseat269londonCheck opening times before you travel. Closest tube – Ladbroke Grove. Also quite close to Notting Hill tube  and a wide network of buses. Using a purpose made printer for this photographic project, artistically composed (lighting/settings/form) hand printed  images of items coming from the sea are displayed in black and white as oak framed  artworks created by the talented photographic artist, Luke Foreman. Subject matter includes shells, octopuses, and other objects related to the marine theme. All artworks at the exhibition are Hand Printed on Ilford Warm Tone FB … Continue reading The Feminine Sea

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Ireland was a laboratory for empire: While million starved grain was hoarded 

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In the 1800s, as Britain became the world’s most powerful industrial empire, Ireland starved. In 1847, Richard Webb, the rector of Caheragh, County Cork, sent a group of men to check on his parishioners. On arriving at a cluster of cottages, they were turned back by farmers who told them, “those houses are cursed”. Webb persisted sending another emissary who discovered the corpses of the Barry family there, half-eaten by dogs. The cleric wrote: “I need make no comment on this but ask, are we living in a portion of the United Kingdom?”. The Great Irish famine fractured long held … Continue reading Ireland was a laboratory for empire: While million starved grain was hoarded 

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The Great Mughals

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THE GREAT MUGHALS – ART, ARCHITECTURE AND OPULENCE.Average entry price £22. CLOSES 5 MAY. VICTORIA AND ALBERTMUSEUM – MANY OTHER SECTIONS IN THE V AND A COMPLETELYFREE OF CHARGE. CLOSE TO A NUMBER OF TUBE STATIONS – CHECKWITH TFL FOR MORE DETAILS for example OF STAIRS FREE ACCESS. A piece of history miraculously conserved and displayed in manyforms.This detailed and awe inspiring exhibition celebrates the Golden Ageof the Mughal court in India (about 1560 – 1660) under the reigns ofAkbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.https://www.vam.ac.uk/southkensington/visit.See the bejewelled dagger and scabbard (c 1620), the portrait ofShah Jahan holding an emerald by Muhammad … Continue reading The Great Mughals