It’s that time of the year again (actually, it is always that time of the year but we don’t notice it). The time to select books that you are actually going to read rather than the ones you think you ought to read. For many years now I have planned to read Anna Karenina. It’s in my ‘To be read soon’ (or alternatively, ‘one of these days...’) boo
Nothing seems to go right with the Coal India Limited (CIL). In the first week of April, the government issued a ‘presidential directive’ to force it to supply 80 percent of the coal required by various power companies to improve power generation. But that didn’t work, simply because CIL has failed to produce enough coal, frequently falling short of the targets. Now, the gover
Tension hung heavy in the air on April 19, Thursday. Sharp at 8.07 am, as a giant ball of fire leapt out of an ignited Agni V ballistic missile which left in the next lightning moment the launch pad for its 5000-km long journey, everyone felt relieved at the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. But none as much as an unidentified open defecator in a nearby remote area of the Balasore district that
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined 11 cement companies to the tune of Rs 6,300 crore, that is, 50 percent of their net profits for 2009-10 and 2010-11, for violation of provisions of the Competition Act, 2002 which deals with anti-competitive agreements including cartels. These companies include ACC, Ambuja Cements, Ultratech Cements and JK Cements. The CCI pass
A motley crowd of waiting passengers on the dimly-lit platform number one of Bathinda junction, in south Punjab is a common sight. Every day the passengers wait for the Lalgarh-Jodhpur train, “cancer train” as they call it, which carries, on an average, 70 cancer patients daily to Bikaner in Rajasthan for cheap treatment and free medicines. The passengers of this train are s
It’s eight on clock and pitch dark in this medieval city. The monument of love on this new moon night looks like a ghost of its 364-year-old heritage: immersed in darkness, it is more like a white sheet spread on a bed of green. An apparition of the emperor, fabled for centuries now to have walked its lawns on countless such nights, must be piqued at this neglect and would be vindictive.
Filth and noise seem to be the two most distinct features of our urban life. We are already at the bottom on most parameters that determine development standards; all social indicators, or human development index as they call it, portray a dismal picture of the country. But our griminess takes the cake and it has only been increasing as city after city is literally going down the drain.
The Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Ministry has prepared the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill 2011 which shall be placed during the monsoon session of parliament. In real estate, most consumer disputes hover around the disputes pertaining to the buyer and builder. The bill seems to recognise three key problems: 1) Most disputes are the result of the pr
It’s been over a week now that my domestic help one day decided not work for me. It came unexpected. Perhaps my questioning her on coming late one day did not go down well with her. After making her anger evident on the dishes she cleaned, scowling at me all the while, she just couldn’t take it anymore and stormed out of my house without a goodbye. Even though appalled at the half-m
On the face of it, petroleum minister S Jaipal Reddy’s proposal earlier this month to the finance minister to impose additional excise duty up to of Rs 2,55,000 on cars running on diesel to cut down on fuel subsidies seems logical. Diesel is subsidised, unlike petrol which was de-controlled in 2011. The under-recovery (or nominal loss to the oil marketing companies which are then compensa
But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. – Walt Whitman Times are cruel when we are traitors and do not know ourselves. No economist has said that. But it fits a description of Dr Manmohan Singh’s plight like nothing else. His weakness, which became his
Located in the Karakorum/Himalayan mountain ranges, Siachen or “the place of wild roses”, as it is ironically known (in Balti, a Tibetan dialect spoken around the region), has been at the heart of a constant conflict between the countries of India and Pakistan. The Indian Army occupies the upper ridges of the glacier giving it a strategic edge while Pakistan is in control of
There is an articulation of ‘anti-racial’ lingo towards mobilising a desperate flank subsequently encapsulating the northeast vis-à-vis daily experience of social profiling and discrimination in other parts of India. The lingo is raised amidst the clout of protest, with its epicentre in Manipur and Meghalaya, ignited by the ‘mysterious’ death of two students; Rich
Elitism seems to be a deeply ingrained trait which is difficult to dispense with among human organisations. That seems to be the case with the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) which have been consistently resisting an attempt to hold a joint entrance test for admission of engineering graduates. IIT-Kanpur and also a few other IITs have raised the banner of revolt against the i
Making a complete mockery of its exercise to fix responsibility for the police highhandedness witnessed during the midnight operation against Baba Ramdev and his sleeping supporters at Ramlila grounds in New Delhi last year, Delhi Police has put the entire blame on six lowly functionaries – a sub-inspector, a head constable and four constables of Kamla Market police station.
The government is planning to designate the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) as the agencies for carrying out offensive cyber operations, says a report in the Times of India. The need for an offensive posture in cyberspace has also been highlighted in the recent report of DSCI-Nasscom, “Securing our Cyber Frontiers&rdquo
I have two sets of friends – those who don’t call me in the afternoon because they think I might be taking a nap, and those who do for the same reason. Like Samuel Coleridge, I sometimes get calls from insurance agents. But I leave no poem unfinished. Or even started. The Greeks who have gods for everything don’t have one for the afternoon nap. The Titans who ev
Until recently having or not having nuclear weapons appeared to be and was treated as a question of yes or no. From now on it will make more sense to describe a country nuclear-weapons status not with a yes or a no but with a time schedule (Schelling, 1976). The above paragraph is an extract from Thomas Schelling’s piece ‘Who Will have The Bomb’, written in th
Written words seldom communicate the force of authority. Visuals do. One such had demolished the myth about a caste Robinhood in Bihar in not so distant past. Exuding an aura of invincibility, impudence and spurious machismo, Anand Mohan Singh had created a ruckus and terrorised a police party accompanying him to jail in 2005-06. No one seemed to know what to do — other than an irrepressi
India on May 23 signed an agreement to buy gas via the much vaunted TAP or TAPI (Trans-Afghanistan) gas pipeline. Seen by many as the modern continuation of the Silk Road, the pipeline will reportedly earn the Afghan government at least 8% of the total revenue of the project (close to $350-400 million) in transit fees. Envisioned in the 1990s as an alternative to
