In this regional conflict with world war-esque potential/ where oil will probably shatter records this week and have several second order impacts, it is surprising to not read about AI boosting productivity or carbon markets being the silver bullet. Wars change the paradigm.

How Late-Stage Capitalism Produces a World of Permanent Crisis

Today, we’re living through what often feels like a constant stream of disruptions, from wars, economic instability, the climate change, and even loneliness and a loss of meaning and purpose in life.

In an article for For Pol India, political analyst Manishankar Prasad argues that these crises are not isolated but intertwined and due to late-stage capitalism. In this episode of BFM’s Beyond the Ballot Box podcast, Dashran Yohan speaks to Manishankar about how these overlapping crises may be a structural feature of neoliberal capitalism, driven by inequality, financialization, and the concentration of power in the hands of the elites. They also examine how automation and AI, rather than liberating people, often displace workers and deepen insecurity, contributing to a broader loss of meaning, and so much more.

Listen here 🎧👇🏾
BFM Website: https://www.bfm.my/content/podcast/how-late-stage-capitalism-produces-a-world-of-permanent-crisis

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6NmMUAdHA41KXCYOnEPRra?si=MrqPVjUlTdmT-Tz_zfjHWg

A plate of Thalassery Biryani is a trip back to Muscat, where we used to have this at Al Bawader Restaurant, an old school hole in the wall eatery in Al Khuwair near the now famous Turkish House after Jumma Solat. The place opened after prayers and ran out of biryani after ten minutes. We used to make a line to buy the Friday special. Those were simpler times, where joy used to be a plate of malabari biryani. The real Kerala story is read in malabari biryani or motta set, often in the Gelf.

‘We live in an era of geopolitics’

If one hears what Marco Rubio says about climate red tape at his address at the Munich Security Conference, with AI and Data Centres, energy is back to the table. Even EVs need energy to be charged which is not necessarily renewable.

Sustainability needs to speak to this reality, rather than through a stack of frameworks at every mention of anything remotely green or any shade of green.

A lot of communities still don’t have steady power access in the borderlands in SE Asia, hence plenary politics needs to be in conversation with local needs.

This is the most important development for me personally from Modi ji’s visit to Malaysia, as a long time advocate of transnational social protection for migrant workers. Linking social security in the host and destination countries in the labour migration corridor is needed.

Modi ji in Kuala Lumpur in his address to the diaspora ticked all the right boxes, roti canai, teh tarik, Netaji, Azad Hind Fauj, Tiruvalluvar chair at UM, movies, heritage etc. Modi ji in my rather deep interactions in Malaysia is popular with the Hindu Diaspora, and he paid homage to this very community in the address.

Modi ji called for more Malaysians to visit India in particular the Malay Muslim community, for greater people to people ties. India has a definite cache thanks to its large diaspora, but more needs to be done with larger investments in watering the goodwill.

We write all the time, for work and regular communication in daily life, but we hardly take a class in writing ever. I am an engineer who always wrote but never ever took a class in writing. An MFA was never on the radar, so one made a reading list, such as this one. An important reference on the tactics of writing.