[Prof Gupta writes about the need for an innovation park in Ahmedadad, where he and several organisations he has been working with are based. Of course, the argument need not be limited to Ahmedabad, it can also apply to other cities.] I normally don`t start a dialogue on a negative note ever. But permit me to say that I have failed to get powers-that-be excited about cr
The recently concluded two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul (March 26-27), a follow-up to the first summit in Washington in 2010, ended with a promise of meeting again in the Netherlands in 2014 for what will be the third and final global summit of this kind. The focus of the 2012 summit as the name suggested was ‘Nuclear Security’, a term not to be confused with
Travelling somewhere with my small cousin, Prabha Prakarshiki, is a nightmare for my uncle and aunt. She doesn’t sit still, runs in the train compartment, screams a blue streak in the airplane and asks her parents to sing songs to her until she is asleep. Looks much like any normal kid in the house. But autism makes Prabha special. Drooling, crying and responding in a spec
The silly season is upon us, again. Policy makers and experts have taken their positions debating threadbare whether the planning commission’s recent report claiming that poverty has fallen on the basis of NSSO data for consumption expenditure between 2004-5 and 2009-10 in consonance with the Tendulakar committee’s poverty line prescription – Rs 28 per capita per day in urban
Strange things are happening in the defence administration of the country. The dead past is now being dug up from the back of the graveyard just like the future was being fought tooth and nail in the court until sometime ago. The present tense is simply the writing on the wall. When an army chief crosses swords with a defence minister, perhaps such is the order of the day (the use of oxymoronic
In 2009, four members of British Parliament`s upper house — the House of Lords — were accused of accepting bribes to introduce motions for amendments that would have helped change the law to benefit a Chinese businessman wanting to expand a chain of stores in the country. Later, it was found out that the `Chinese businessman` was a front for another party and was completely fictitio
Just about a year ago, when Anna Hazare started his anti-corruption movement from Jantar Mantar, few would have predicted the reception he was to get: passionate support from masses across the country along with fierce criticism from some commentators. The movement became a platform for the expectations of the common man. Be it at the India Gate or at the Ramlila Maidan, the huge support the Ga
The recent 28th shodhyatra in Mizoram has been quiet cathartic for me. I had been aware of the need to conserve water and the proper practices we should follow in our daily life. But I must confess when I washed my hands in the morning, the tap used to remain open while scrubbing soap. It is difficult to do so now. I want to share the experience which has made me feel embarrassed about my own b
The supreme court on Tuesday dismissed the union government’s petition seeking review of its judgment in the Vodafone tax case - giving the much needed consistency and finality to its earlier said judgment. The fine print of the newest order is not yet available and thus reliance has been placed on newsreports. Following the verdict of the supreme court on January
A disconnect runs through the nomenclature, preamble, objectives and content of the National Food Security Bill, 2011. The Preamble goes beyond the Title and states that the Bill provides “for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable price….” Even on cursory reading, it is clear that
Justice Pranab, in the budget 2012, proposes clarificatory and retrospective amendments to Sections. 9 and 195 as if to restate the legislative intent regarding the scope and ambit of these provisions, thus far not expressed in the language/text of the provisions. Following are the proposed amendments to Sec 9 and other related sections of the income tax act:- (i) Amend section
The Election Commission of India as an institution enables the people of India to exercise their right to choose a government of their choice through free and fair elections, held periodically. The underlying assumption being that the participation of people in adequate numbers is guaranteed and the role of the commission is merely to facilitate and administer the election process. The reality
In the last few weeks, the international media has been flooded with articles asking "What is Iran thinking?” This is indeed an important question and I certainly don’t have an answer nor does my article intend to provide one. However, this article suggests that somewhere debates have lost sight of what I believe is the core problem and therefore to even try and understand what
When union steel minister Beni Prasad Verma was booed in Rahul Gandhi`s presence in his constituency in Gonda during the campaign, I asked a senior journalist friend who belongs to the city if he found it surprising. ‘No,’ he said matter-of-factly. “Had Rahul not been there, Beni would possibly have been roughed up,” he added. The poll results have reflected
Just when it became apparent that the BJP had fared badly in Uttar Pradesh where the party had pinned great hopes, party president Nitin Gadkari appeared before the press with his usual bravado. Given his penchant for doing politics in Bollywood style, Gadkari cannot be faulted for mistaking content for style. But he committed an unforgivable faux pas which is symptomatic of what ails the
UP may not have achieved headline-making growth rates, but it has gone a step further, by reducing poverty over a decade. Uttar Pradesh is often regarded as part of the backwaters of development in India. The picture, it seems, is changing and is changing fast. There are at least two threads of change, one that has been noticed by some and the other which has gone almost completely unno
For years we worried about computers taking over the world. Science fiction writers made a fortune out of our fears, the more daring of them even extending the argument to salt shakers and bedside lamps taking over the world. And then it happened. They took over the world; the computers, I mean, not the salt shakers, although the one on my table has been staring at me meaningfully in the past m
The Karnataka assembly believes that its honour has been besmirched not by members watching porn even as proceedings were on but by the news channel that ran the exposé. Our sanctimonious representatives think they are above public scrutiny, much less reproach; that the very grounds that they conduct their business on are hallowed. The questions posed by the inquiry committee to
When internal strife overwhelmed Indira Gandhi and she began losing her grip on both politics and administration in 1970s, she used to famously pass the buck to ‘foreign hand’. More than three and half decades later, having found himself in a similar situation our present prime minister is doing an encore. In a recent interview to an international journal he used the same bogey to e
Questions have suddenly become more important than answers. At least, the campaign for the Uttar Pradesh election showed that amply. Politically correct questions kept being fielded from all sides throughout the poll campaign. The answers were expected from the electorate who had himself a list of questions to ask. Those, however, were conveniently drowned in the din. After a fu
