While Delhi readies new deterrents to private motorised traffic on city roads, how much is it really geared to take on the demands on public transport that will arise as a result? How aptly will it address issues of technology and logistics? The city is planning to bring in congestion charges that will tax vehicles plying on roads during peak traffic hours of the day. It might prove eff
Wildlife conservation in India has become synonymous with tiger conservation. The majestic animal, which is also India’s national animal and a magnet for tourists, hogs the limelight in the media and also catches the fancy of people at large. But there are many lesser-known birds and animals which have been identified as being ‘critically endangered’ in a list prepared by the
At its plenary session in Burari, we are told, the Congress did not have time to ponder over its history. It should have, if for no other reason than the fact that 2010 is its 125th anniversary. Yes, there was a dramatised enactment of the first session of the Indian National Congress
My barber, whom we call Masterji, is a psephologist caught in the wrong profession. Ever since I have known him, all his electoral predictions have turned out right. But as a voter, he has his own likes and dislikes. Being a Muslim living in Delhi for the past 43 years, he is not fond of the BJP – a feeling shared by his community in the walled city. I remember a visit to his salo
UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi presented her five-point charter to fight corruption in her address to the Congress plenary in New Delhi on Sunday. These are high on rhetoric, low on practical use, except for the last one – state funding of elections. Her five suggestions are: a) Fast-tracking all cases of corruption involving public servants; b) Full transparency in public procurem
Experimenting with new words with the help of a thesaurus was a fad in school days. Over the years it only became a habit as a journalist. Until one day in recent past when I looked up my thesaurus for synonyms for media. The thesaurus looked sadly vulnerable. It did not list the word Radia. Perhaps I looked up an old Collins thesaurus gifted to me by my parents as a kid. Bu
When she was only eight, Nisha was put on the road by desperately poor parents to earn her keep selling cigarettes, gutkha and other odd nicotine fixes. Two years later, today, not much has changed for her. She religiously puts up her makeshift shop every morning at the same spot she claimed for herself then, on a Noida pavement - the one by the DND near sector 16. Her dishevelled
I attended a talk at Oxford by Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo and Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1990 and he spoke on Power and Norms: What can the Nobel Peace Prize accomplish? Being an Indian student at Oxford I had one obvious question in my mind “why did Mahatma Gandhi never receive the Nobel Peace prize?” Somebody symbolic of
Around a decade ago, LK Advani gave a sagacious advice to the Ambani brothers. “Let politicians do their politics and run the country; you concentrate on your business,” Advani is believed to have told the Ambanis when they called on him at his office at North Block. The meeting followed what appeared to be brazen attempts by the two brothers to influence public policy and poli
I am hard placed to understand the hissy fit Indians are having over the US airport pat down of ambassador Meera Shankar or the one now on another diplomat Hardeep Singh for being asked to show his turban. What part of the American message have we not understood since 9/11? I love the way a billion people go up in arms over abs nothing. In any case, diplomats are just people who j
A significant section of mediapersons, largely those who describe themselves as belonging to the “old school of journalism”, have been experiencing a serious degree of heartburn and gut churn following the recent media exposés on Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, and the NDTV discussion where a collegial panel of scribes put Dutt under the microscope. Such exposés, by their
Bureaucracy in India, a la PJ Thomas and Neera Yadav shenanigans, needs a complete overhaul. Prime minister Manmohan Singh has been advocating, for umpteen numbers of times, transformation of the civil service in the country. Come Civil Service Day (April 21), homily and sermons do surely make headlines, till one more bunch of terminology replaces the earlier ones. That the civil service in Ind
Today, the Indian media - both print and television - are focusing on the recent corruption scandals involving the UPA government with unusual zeal. However, I fail to understand why almost every commentator, every TV anchor, every editorial writer feels compelled to pay ritual obeisance to the “personal honesty and integrity” of Dr Manmohan Singh while dealing with the scandals ema
Corruption is again dominating the news in India. Long-standing issues, such as broad attempts to avoid taxes, have simmered back to the surface and been joined by new accusations against the wealthy, major companies, and the government. Scandals have crossed finance, property, and telecom. Crimes have been
[Nikam published this column on May 12, 2010 on his website. See the original here.] For the last nearly a month, the name of Niira Radia has been in circulation. Two publications, Outlook and The Pioneer, raised the issue first almost simultaneously. While Outlook concentrated on the is
Barkha Dutt was sold down the river by NDTV. If this was the slave era, Prannoy Roy would have got a good price for the wench. He still won. What he did get for his coldblooded murder of the Dutt icon was a one hour self indulgent exercise in marketing his channel as a citadel of virtue and Dutt be damned. Take her away, she’s damaged goods. For graceless TV mediated by a dreary Edit
The study of history can be, at times of media polemics as the one now ravaging the Indian media, fun,fascinating and immensely valuable. How PR, or more specifically political PR,a la Nira Radia Tapes, emerged as a powerful tool and a full-time preoccupation in America can be gauged from the fact that in the US today there are a couple of lakhs of practitioners who call themselves
I was struggling to make space between two seats in an overcrowded ladies compartment of the Delhi Metro for a little girl to sit when my phone beeped. It was my mother. The message said: Women are beating men in the ladies compartment of the Guragon-bound train. They are showing this on TV. Policewomen are making them do sit-ups. The text was followed by a smiley. My mother hardly tr
"Yahan se pachaash- pachaash kosh door gaon mein jab bacha raat ko rota hai to maa kehti hai bete so ja, so jaa nahin to Gabbar Singh aa jayega.” This immortal dialogue of Gabbar Singh, one of the most popular villains of Hindi cinema, remains firmly etched in our minds. As Nitish Kumar is applauded for his hard fought and well-earned victory
