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.
The Maoist are recruiting and indoctrinating children and had constituted children`s squads and associations as part of mass mobilisation, a UN report said. The annual report of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, submitted to the Security Council last week, said information has been received on recruitment and use of children by Naxalites, particularly in Chhattisg
Professor Christopher Lingle, an American economist who now teaches at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala, has two views on India. Whenever he is not here, he is an optimist about India, but he becomes a pessimist as soon as he lands here. An acclaimed authority on public finance in Asia, Lingle predicted the Asean financial crisis of the late 1990s. As
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
Five north eastern states along with Himachal Pradesh have been rated as the most environmentally sustainable states in the country, according to the Environmental Sustainable Index 2011 released today by a city-based think tank. The report rates Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh in the top slots in its Environmental Sustainable Index 2011
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 world will produce ‘mountains of trash’ in the coming decade as nations are racing towards urbanisation, say a new report by the World Bank. In a report on “a relatively silent problem that is growing daily,” the World Bank said that the amount of trash produced daily will lead to global garbage crisis by 2025. Leading the creation of garbage is India and Chi
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
Diversified A2Z group in collaboration with UK-based e-waste management company Dataserv recently announced a joint venture A2Z Dataserv to provide e-waste recycling services in India. Its managing director, Amit Sardana, in conversation with Brajesh Kumar touches upon a number of issues including how his company offers its clients a complete solution in the field of e-waste management, its ass
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
Two Asian economic powerhouses – India and China – will account for more than half of the world’s total transport-related emissions by 2030, says a new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Transport-related emissions are expected to increase by 57 percent worldwide between 2005 and 2030, with China and India accounting for more than half,&
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
