Nickeee Cleggg, Nickeee Cleggg, what a wonderful, wonderful name (sung to the tune of Nicky Arnstein from My Fair Lady). Forever written into in history for having changed it so dramatically and finally drawn the curtain on democracy’s mother parliament and her affection for bi-partisan sitting arrangements. They say it is rather like the first kiss, the first olive in the jar or k
None of the 423 class-I cities in India is “healthy and clean” in terms of various sanitation parameters, and 99 per cent of them suffer from poor or absent community toilets and safe management of human excreta, says a government-commissioned study published on Monday. Over 47 per cent of all cities ranked are found to be “needing immediate remedial action” in t
“The one who loves my Gujarat is my soul. The one who loves my India is my God.” With these lines from his poem Narendra Modi signed off his blog of March 28, a day after he faced a 10-hour interrogation from the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). It was a characteristic Modi intervention. He ably deflected the attention to Amitabh Bachchan an
I had hardly got admitted to the Master’s degree programme in English, when the campus got abuzz with the news of the semester system being introduced in Jammu University. There were many apprehensions in the minds of students, particularly the student leaders. And these often took the form of agitations and dharnas, disrupting the even tenor of the academic activities on the campus. Fina
India which was ranked at 113 in the 2008 United Nations e-government survey has fallen by six positions this year. The 2010 survey which was released on Friday by department of economic and social affairs of the United Nations (UN) ranks India at 119. The report titled leveraging e-government at a time of financial and economic crisis as released by the UN. Republic of Korea takes the
In a new survey done on the different government agencies around the world, the Backward Classes Bureau of India has emerged as “the most inappropriate government agencies” in a listing prepared by the US-based Foreign Policy journal website. Its study says that the name of the bureau “is a rather blunt designation for lower-caste Hindus and other disadvantaged religio
Hillary Rodham Clinton could not contain her apparent anger when she spoke out against Pakistan in a lexicon only the secretary of state of the world’s lone super power could dare to use to chilling effect. In an interview to a news channel Clinton threatened Pakistan of dire consequences had the Times Square bomb scare been more than just that. "We`ve made it very clear that if, hea
Surendra Mohan is perhaps is the only surviving socialist who can claim to have closely worked with Ram Manohar Lohia, imbibed and understood his leader’s anti-Congressism credo and its context. In a free-wheeling interview with Ajay Singh at his east Delhi home on a Sunday evening, he talks about Sonia Gandhi and the UPA’s “socialist and egalitarian&rdquo
A friend of mine once tried to work out the differences between the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi. He said that it was more than a question of persona. A persona stands between mask and face, individual and role. Sonia Gandhi, he claimed, was an ecology. She was also a translator. If Singh represented government and economics, Sonia stood for gov
On May 4th, 2010, Andhra Pradesh government sanctioned Rs 6 lakh to the state information commission as membership fee for the latter to join National Federation of Information Commissions in India (NFICI). Registered as a society over a year ago and headquartered in Hyderabad, NFICI is an association of information commissions (not commissioners) which is meant to be “a permanent
The setting swiftly transports you to the screen classic Sholay. In this landscape dotted with evocative rocky outcrop, you can hear the hair-raising thud of heavy boots punctuated by razor-sharp dialogue, all played out on a stereophonic soundtrack within the recesses of your mind. You shudder at the prospect of a close encounter with a Gabbar Singh, with a Sambha somewhere up there and an arr
Ajay Mathur, the director general of Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), has been taking a number of initiatives to fulfill the mandate of his organisation. The bureau now plans to set up funds to help companies to get energy efficiency measures financed. Innovation centres are also being set up by the bureau to further the development of energy efficient products suited to
Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) and the management led by Vice Chancellor Deepak Pental obviously do not enjoy a cordial relationship, as is borne out by the recent confrontations between the two sides. So one should expect salvos fired from both sides. But using students as a shield or a weapon in this battle is crossing the limits of propriety – analogous to a violat
Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast on Tuesday a handsome 8.2 per cent GDP growth for India, but cautioned that policy makers will have to do a tight balancing act to protect growth from rising prices. “India’s rebound from the global crisis is set to accelerate in 2010, with estimated growth of 8.2 per cent, although rising price pressures present a challenge to policy ma
On his website Suresh Kalmadi informs us modestly that “As President of the Indian Olympic Association, (he) got the country the first-ever gold medal in individual event (sic) at the Beijing Olympic (sic) 2008.” Perhaps it is the same modesty that prevents him from mentioning that he has also overseen the decline and fall of Indian hockey, made a mockery of the government&rsq
By continuing with his plan to amend the RTI Act, 2005, riding roughshod over public sentiment, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not only seeking to emasculate India’s most pro-people legislation ever enacted, but is also shamelessly going back on his word. “Any amendments to the RTI Act would be considered only after completing consultation with all the stakeholders and wit
Scan the news channels or the newspapers for update on the current parliament session and you will come across these headlines screaming at you: “Lok Sabha adjourned over Mumbai railway strike”, “Parliament adjourns twice after uproar over 2G spectrum issue”, “Parliament adjourned over phone-tapping issue” and so on. The list is endless. The previ
In the coming 20 years, India needs to invest $2.2 trillion (Rs 97.35 lakh crore) on its cities to meet the urban infrastructure demands, the global consultancy firm McKinsey says in its latest report. The study further states that 40 percent of India’s population - an estimated 590 million population is likely to live in the cities by year 2030. In its report – Indi
The Indian economy is growing at eight-plus percent but all is not well for most people making up the economy. In this country, 1.83 million children die every year before reaching the age of five and close to 70,000 women lose their lives due to pregnancy or childbirth complications. These are the findings of the State of the World’s Mothers report prepared by the childrights organisatio
I have not been able to figure out why an artist’s personal choice, as a citizen or as an artist, should cause a deep political divide. If M F Husain decided to barter his nationality for whatever reasons – lofty existentialist or base commercial – it should have been ideally treated as his own business; especially when the artist himself, while taking the decision, did
