First, some exhibits. Today’s edition of the business newspaper Mint carries a small announcement on the front page: Note to readers Dear Reader, The Media Marketing Initiatives on Pages 13 and 29 are the equivalent of paid-for advertisements, and no Mint journalists were involved in creating these. Readers would do well to treat them as adverti
Our union law minister Salman Khurshid made some breathtaking observations that reflect how this government is fixated on growth at any cost. First, his take. Speaking to the Indian Express on Sunday, he said: “What will affect the functioning of the government is if other institutions do not understand the kind of political economy we are faced with today: what is needed t
No government in the past had been even subject to the enormous and multiple challenges in governance that the present dispensation faces. Issues and concerns making the challenges monumental include the perceived low public confidence and credibility in the government, instances of corruption of never-heard-before proportions inflicting numerous sections of the dispensation, inept handling of
When I logged on this Vijayadashami morning, the apple.com home screen announced the demise. My next stop was facebook. Several friends had already pasted the piercing black and white picture on their homepage. Twitter had thousands of tributes; President Obama’s and Bill Gates’s among them. The speech at Stanford had been delivered six years back, but its
The much publicised National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 has wheels within wheels. The bill is uniquely prepared as it consolidated the provisions of acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement on one single platform. Some key FAQs on the bill are as follows: 1. What is the add-on in the definition of ‘Person Interested&r
Not long ago (to be precise exactly 15 years back), Narendra Modi passionately talked about a dream he had been nursing for a while. Like a wandering ascetic, he wanted to walk along the course of the river Narmada in a spiritual tradition which seeks pursuit of god through penance. In Gujarati society, penance is deeply ingrained in the people’s psyche because of influence of Jainis
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.”
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
