Political Satire
Milan Kundera, Czech writer, former dissident, dies in Paris aged 94
Milan Kundera, whose dissident writings in communist Czechoslovakia transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism, has died in Paris at the age of 94, Czech media said Wednesday. Kundera's renowned novel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' opens wrenchingly with Soviet tanks rolling through Prague, the Czech capital that was the author's home until he moved to France in 1975. Weaving together themes of love and exile, politics and the deeply personal, Kundera's novel won critical acclaim, earning him a wide readership among Westerners who embraced both his anti-Soviet subversion and the eroticism threaded through many of his works. If someone had told me as a boy: One day you will see your nation vanish from the world, I would have considered it nonsense, something I couldn't possibly imagine. A man knows he is mortal, but he takes it for granted that his nation possesses a kind of eternal life, he told the author Philip Roth in a New York Times interview in 1980, the
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IT Rules amendments don't offer protection to parody, satire: Bombay HC
The amendments to the Information Technology Rules, prima facie, do not seem to offer protection to parody and satire, the Bombay High Court said on Monday while hearing a petition filed by stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra. The HC bench also said Kamra's petition challenging the amendments was maintainable. On April 6, the Union government promulgated certain amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, including a provision of a fact check unit to identify fake or false or misleading online content related to the government. Kamra, in his petition, claimed the new rules could potentially lead to his content being arbitrarily blocked or his social media accounts being suspended or deactivated, thus harming him professionally. He has sought that the court declare the amended rules as unconstitutional and give a direction to the government to restrain from taking action against any individual under the rules. The Union .
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Why political satire matters
Novelists will stitch together ironical narratives about politicians
Laughter is the best resistance to political bullying
Jokes are kryptonite to authority. They are to pompous egos what needles are to soap bubbles
 "Laughter is the best resistance to political bullying")
