Columns

Is that a blackboard or a black box?

A child preparing for a school exam the other day thought he’d save time and energy by simply asking me some questions. And I was pleased, as anyone would be who thought that children still believed adults had all the answers. “What is Archimedes’ Principle?”, he asked, and I realised all of a sudden that my education had consisted of a series of unconnected images that

Don’t fiddle, dismantle MPLADS

Jairam Ramesh loves to hog the headlines and play to the gallery. This he did through his tenure as the environment and forests minister admirably and frequently without making an iota of difference to the pathetic watchdog’s job that the ministry has been doing. He is at it again, this time as the rural development minister. First he introduced a poorly drafted and self-defeating Land Ac

Congress and vote bank quota

Union law minister Salman Khurshid announced on September 18 that the government was planning to bring in reservations for Muslims in educational institutions and government jobs. He didn’t provide details but going by his disclosure that the Andhra Pradesh model was being considered, it may be safely assumed that the plan is to provide four percent reservations for the religious minority

IIT billing can take a hike

The government has hiked the fees for undergraduate engineering courses at IITs from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 8 lakh, which will apply from 2013.  The hike leaves out SC, ST and OBC students and graduates from the general category who are unable to afford it or choose to study further.Those being charged can pay the amount in easy instalments after they take up job offers. While the hike is a welco

Blast from the past

The handling of convicts such as Afzal Guru, Ajmal Kasab, Arif alias Ashfaq – the ugly faces of the attack on parliament, the Mumbai attack and the attack on Red Fort respectively, –symbolise the increasing sense of loss and despair over the judicial delivery system only delivering stillborns to the citizens. The judicial delivery system has repeatedly come under the

Neglected hubs of innovation

I have written earlier about how small towns are producing big innovations, how small institutions are producing big minds and even bigger hearts. Concern for social needs, whether of small industry or the informal sector, is not found universally among all social, professional or educational segments. But those who have it are often motivated by the urge to produce innovations for the larger s

How do you like this column, dear reader?

Ladies Choice is terror, wrote Jean Paul Sartre – unless what he said was ‘Freedom is terror’, in which case you are free to choose what you like while we attack the problem from another angle. “We are at the crossroads,” wrote Woody Allen, “one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us choose correctly.”

Disgraceful omission

The hockey finals between India and Pakistan for the Asian Championship one day after the thrilling 2-2 semi final draw was not telecast by either country even though they have pretended for over half a century that it is their national game. India won 4-2 in the end at the shootout while a large part the country and its eleven flannelled fools looked up at the English sky and hoped to win the

Cradle of death

Every year since 1982, the ministry of women and child development has been promoting September 1-7 as the national nutrition week. But, what the nation witnessed on September 3, 2011, in an expose by the Times Now, were the tragic deaths of 11 new born infants, less than five days old, at the Kurnool government hospital in a space of 48 hours. Some of us may recall a similar tragedy that

Cricket above Law

A day before the Cabinet took up the National Sports (Development) Bill, 2011 (“Bill”) for consideration, a reputed astrology site read: “As per the prasna chart, Sun which indicates Government, is in its own sign Leo. This signifies that the Government would like to pass the Sports Bill 2011 to bring Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) under scanner. Jupiter

Private chor vs public thief

The spate of scams that hit the body politic during the last few months and the startling public disclosures from the Radia tapes had already made discussions on corruption the most favourite national pastime. Now, Anna Hazare’s fast, the constitution of the Lokpal bill drafting committee and the surge of popular support have firmly focused the spotlight on the issue of corrupti

Let`s not leave the question hanging

So long as a nation has a death penalty somebody will hang. But whether justice is served is the question. The eight-week stay given by the Madras high court to the three convicted killers of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who were scheduled to meet the hangman on September 9 underscores the flaw in a judicial system that creates so wide a gap between the crime and the punishment that

Anna’s pathshala: What about parliament’s accountability?

What made Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress’ most politically savvy and sensitive leader, to dismiss Team Anna so disdainfully Wednesday night? What made him go back on all his and his government’s previous assurances on the Lokpal bill and also dismiss Anna’s fast as none of his or his government’s business? The answer clearly lies in the views expressed by

Anna has HBS honchos fired up

It was rather cute of moderator Paul Beckett of WSJ to introduce Ratan Tata (Harvard AMP, 1971) as the owner of the lovely hotel when a few hundred Harvard Business School (HBS) alums gathered in the Taj Mahal Ball Room Tuesday. The fast at Delhi’s Ramlila Ground lent character to this eclectic huddle of dark suits. On hindsight, it was only natural that Anna Hazare’s collision agai

Anna has HBS hochos fired up

It was rather cute of moderator Paul Beckett of WSJ to introduce Ratan Tata (Harvard AMP, 1971) as the owner of the lovely hotel when a few hundred Harvard Business School (HBS) alums gathered in the Taj Mahal Ball Room Tuesday. The fast at Delhi’s Ramlila Ground lent character to this eclectic huddle of dark suits. On hindsight, it was only natural that Anna Hazare’s collision agai

Course set for correction or collision?

What started as a legitimate fight to check, curb and legislate against corruption has now taken on a direction which even Anna Hazare and his team of civil society activists could perhaps not have contemplated. Because of their inherent nature, it is always difficult to predict the direction any movement takes, but it would be hard to accept that Team Hazare expected the kind of mass appeal an

Anna’s pathshala: In democracy, people are ‘king’

Anna has baffled most politicians, a large number of public intellectuals and middle-class heroes like Nandan Nilekani, Aruna Roy and Arundhati Roy. Every now and then we hear Anna’s movement being described as ‘undemocratic’, ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘anti-parliament’. But is Anna’s fast and peaceful people’s movement around hi

Salman and his silly bill

Law minister Salman Khurshid, a noted legal eagle himself, proposes to enact the Legal Practitioners (Regulation & Maintenance of Standards in Professions, Protecting the Interest of Clients and Promoting the Rule of Law)  Bill, 2010, (“the Bill”) which could result in: (i)  diluting and duplicating the scope and applicability of the Advocates Act, 1961, (ii) taking aw

Who does the buck stop with?

The US is facing a major financial crisis. Analysts feel it might even spark a recession. The bond rating agency Standard & Poor lowered Washington’s credit rating down a notch to `AA+` from the highest AAA level. At the time of crisis the whole US sees a saviour in president Barack Obama. Rather than passing the buck, Obama accepted the blame for the mess displaying exemplary integri

Sibal`s empty words vs Anna`s potent gestures

“Saala jhooth bolela, kaali dilli ka chhora saala jhooth bolela” was a soulful but rebellious rendition of a Bhojpuri song which found resonance across eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in 1988-89. A rather little-known Bhojpuri singer named Baleshwar Yadav sung this song at the peak of the Bofors controversy and alluded to the involvement of the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in th

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


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