To be fair to arch-rivals Hindu, only six out of seven in Manmohan Singh’s new-look council of ministers completed their degree at St Stephen’s. Jyotiraditya, the seventh, is reported to have procured admission in BA Programme, but he soon got through his undergraduate admission at Harvard, before going on to Stanford for an MBA.
Two sons-in-law! Two eras! Two entirely diverse results! By the mid 1950s, Feroze Gandhi, the son-in-law of the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was at the forefront to fight corruption in government. In 1956, he along with several others led the campaign to nationalise 245 private insurance companies, which were riddled with frauds, and consolidate them under the newly formed, st
I did make an honest attempt, but let me confess with that frankness for which I am known from one end of my table to a point close to the same end that I failed. Obscure tomes by monks from the Dark Ages I read and enjoy without the help of students’ guides of that era. But this, the US government’s report about reports about reports, prepared by its accounting office, stumped me.
He is dismissed every Thursday only to be awaited with bated breath the next Wednesday. Toast of the masses, darling of the media, this swashbuckling newest kid of politics is apparently also the fiercest of them all. With India Against Corruption’s Arvind Kejriwal taking the centre stage in politics, rules of the game are being considered for a revision by the old guard. Kejriwal
To fight corruption at the lower levels and eliminate role of middlemen the central government has introduced the unique identity number, Aadhar, in the delivery of social security services and subsidy – which, according to an estimate, accounts for Rs4 lakh crore annually. Aadhar, the “magic number”, has been endorsed by the topmost functionaries of the government as citizens
An uncle recently showed me the first currency note from the first salary he earned over half a century ago. It is no longer legal tender, of course, but its value for my uncle is way beyond anything monetary. He will not give it away for money or love. My hope of being remembered in his will received a severe setback when I told him it was a silly thing to do. There is no great sanctity to the
The spectacular growth of the economy during the last decade has changed the entire landscape of the transport sector in India, particularly the road and the air sectors. The considerable increase in disposable incomes has changed the profile of consumers as well as of service providers beyond recognition. While roads are teeming with cars of all sizes and brands, airports have become as crowde
Years ago when I was taught first in school about rapeseed, my friends and I were blushing and in splits. After the class we wondered and laughed for hours discussing how this seed of rape could spread crime in our society. The joke is back – in nothing-but-funny theories our political masters have been propounding of rape of late. Seems like failure to curb the crime has driven them to i
In Kolkata, that well-known doctor, Mamata Banerjee, has staked a claim for immortality by her latest medical discovery: dengue is caused by dieting. Fat ladies and overweight men are presumably immune; on the other hand if they do succumb to dengue it is because the virus has not read Dr Mamata Banerjee’s latest paper on the subject. Across the country, in Gujarat, the chief minister the
In the mid-1970s and a large part of the 1980s, a pitched intellectual and academic battle raged between legendary political scientist CP Bhambri and iconic sociologist Rajni Kothari on the structure, composition and character of the Indian State. A parallel and interesting skirmish erupted between the two giants when Kothari said that poverty is relative. Bhambri was of the strong view that po
The extreme of hatred is hallucinatory. In losing the prism of reason, we risk being capricious. Blinkered thus, we cannot tell black from white in a world which is largely grey. I will cite four examples to elucidate how we are failing to appreciate that innovation and innovation alone sets a leader apart from followers. The road is a teacher Indian road
The Prime Minister appeared concerned with the environment of cynicism in the country on the issue of corruption when he addressed the Anti-Corruption investigators at a conference in Delhi yesterday. He analyzed the present situation as ‘a mindless environment of negativism’ being created in the country which is obviously not healthy for any parliamentary de
The past decade has seen a unique exploration of Mahatma Gandhi’s life. If Sudhir Kakar wrote an imaginative novel on Mira and the Mahatma unraveling various aspects of Gandhi’s psychology, the Mahatma’s grandsons Rajmohan Gandhi and Gopalkrishna Gandhi explored his personality by writing a biography and compiling an anthology respectively to throw light on hitherto untouched
The content available on the internet encompasses the world; even a phrase such as “rum bum tum” which carries no meaning for a person with average intelligence presents 647,000 results in 0.35 seconds on Google search. Did you say, “Ting xing bing?” Roll your eyes; 5,490,000 results in 0.25 seconds. The Indian internet user has matured and has moved on to use mo
New Year resolutions are no longer about giving up smoking or being kind to strangers. It is about spending less time on the internet. Recently I met a friend who spends so much time on the net that he has no time for his real job. “I think I must get myself one of those things,” he said, “You know, that app... I can’t remember the name... I’ll have to look it up o
I am happy that Yuvraj is well and healthy but the cancer took its toll and it is typical Indian sentiment to boost him beyond his capabilities. It is heartbreaking to see the hypocrisy as we applaud every run he scores...like it was magical. Stop it. By the same token Harbhajan, Balaji, Irfan Pathan are yesterday`s people and already put to farm. Why resurrect them? As for Rohi
I have just joined in the department of economic affairs, ministry of finance, as joint secretary in charge of World Bank–IMF related work. I am in the seventh heaven of bureaucracy, so to speak. My batch got empanelled as joint secretary a few months back and most of my batch-mates would have gladly given their right hand to be in the place that I have managed to bag. In the IAS, there i
The planning commission has suggested the idea of allowing higher education institutions to run for-profit. In the final draft of 12th Five Year Plan, the commission has incorporated this suggestion despite strong opposition from the ministry of the HRD. The commission argues that the philanthropy-driven institutions do not have the resources to bridge the demand supply gap in higher ed
Incredible it may sound but National Knowledge Network (NKN) chairperson and advisor to the prime minister on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations (PIII) Sam Pitroda did hold a press conference on social networking site Twitter. In the name of `democratisation of information` (He "created a hash-tag #DoI" formally), Pitroda answered queries on the social networking site
When renowned Hindi writer Phanishwar Nath Renu wrote of Purnea in Bihar in the 1950s in ‘Maila Aanchal’, his protagonist, a doctor who chose to stay in the village observed from the closest quarters social backwardness, illiteracy, grief, ignorance, superstitions, social exploitation and struggle and diseases like malaria and black fever (both killed many in those times). T
