The curtains may have come down on year 2010 but it has not done any good to my sense of anguish and hopelessness as a citizen of India – India that apparently has become corrupt to the core. Year 2011 may have dawned but it has not helped my new found belief that my country has lost its conscience completely. Wait. It has nothing to do with the rise of the Rajas and the Radias. T
Sitting here in Dubai I am stunned to hear that a person in New Delhi suffered a cardiac arrest and could not reach the hospital because they closed the roads for the PM’s cavalcade. Awesome. Technically, under any law of jurisprudence, the PM and his convoy are accessories before the fact and guilty of contributing to a death that may or may not have been avoided. Ergo, th
“We will be back tomorrow with more direct questions,” the man signed off in his characteristic combative tone. “Bhai, how come we always see this man on this channel?” my 11-year-old cousin Soofiyan asked, “Are they short of people on their staff?”
The Gurgaon administration recently launched auto rickshaws exclusively for women. On its front and rear parts is written `keval mahilaen` or `women only`. Partly coloured in pink, the 10 such rickshaws operating in the city are an eye-catcher even for a passerby. But it’s more a window dressing than an intercity transport facility. Though reserved for women, such rickshaws
In Israel, former President Moshe Katsav has been convicted of "rape, sexual harassment, committing an indecent act while using force, harassing a witness and obstruction of justice" by the Tel Aviv district court. The eighth president of the country, who served from 2000 to 2007, has been found guilty of raping an employee in 199
Dear Professor Manmohan Singh, I hope you don’t mind the temerity of this letter. It is written as one scholar to another, one citizen to another. I know you are a PM and people like me may not be influential. However some things must be said and said clearly. I was aghast to find that Doctor Binayak Sen has been given a life term for sedition. Let me put it simply. I thin
The central government has scaled up its plan to open common service centres, from one lakh villages in its original vision for e-governance to a centre in every village across the country. These centres are meant to make government services available to the common man. So the decision to scale up seems a step in the right direction. But the fact remains tha
Justice is undone. Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra, to be precise. Not by a sentence, by a mere phrase - a loaded one which would make the country`s only woman judge in the supreme court seem somewhat medieval, and a great deal sexist. She listed the `marriages` of her two daughters as liabilities in a declaration of assets. Liabilities, wherever they may lie, are not the burden of one sex or the oth
“Don`t let schooling interfere with your education,” said Mark Twain. This surely does not apply to Indians. Looking at the nursery admissions scenario this year, it seems education has everything to do with schooling and schools – especially after the guidelines issued by the Directorate of Education (DoE) of Delhi which leave the process and criteria of admission to be decid
After being in business for around a year and a half, the competition commission of India (CCI) on December 2, passed its first final order where it held that the practice of imposing prepayment charges by banks and housing finance companies on the early repayment of home loans is not anti-competitive. The impression is CCI tottered its way to be able to come of age. This first ord
On Tuesday, for the fifth consectuive day, it took me more than 80 minutes to cover a distance usually covered in 55 minutes - Noida Sector 16 - Tilak Nagar on the metro. Last year when the metro entered Noida, it brought relief for many people working here. A relief from hours of waiting at the bus stops or fighting with the autowallahs, who did not have permit to enter Noida an
India in 2010 truly arrived on the international scene because of its sustained economic momentum which insulated it from the financial crisis that has engulfed the world since 2008. India is likely to register a growth of 8.75 percent during the quarter ending March 2011. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have projected India’s growth
Last week, the department of personal and training (DoPT) found itself in a strange situation. It received more than 13,000 emails in response to the proposed RTI rules. The huge chunk of emails sent its server for a toss. The department was flooded with phone calls from all over the country with people telling the officials that the emails they had sent had bounced back. It had to rope in tech
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
