Karthik Kumar is a noted theatre and Kollywood actor. He is also known as Evam Karthik for his theatre background. Karthik quit his job to start his own venture Evam Entertainment (with partner Sunil Vishnu) which is India’s only corporate that is into performing arts, arts management and education, and behavioural training. Among the exceptional plays of Evam is The 39 Steps, which h
More than 1,27,71,043 girls are missing in India. These girls have not vanished overnight but were killed in the uterus between 2000 and 2014. This is almost half of the total sex selective abortions across the globe in this period and also the highest in the world followed by China and Pakistan. Around the world, as many as 2,45,61,345 girls disappeared before birth in the last
The story of Prince Gopaldas Desai, an egalitarian ruler, is indeed extraordinary. You have noted in the preface that you had heard about him from your father in the 1950s. But what exactly was the trigger to write this biography at this juncture? After my father’s mention to me of Darbar Gopaldas in 1950 or so, I “ran into” Darbar Gopaldas in 1
A latest report released by property consultant Cushman and Wakefield revealed five factors like power, infrastructure, funds, technology and social capital to be inculcated in the 100 smart cities initiatives. India is embracing this push for smart cities after the NDA government came to power last year. By most estimates the level of urbanisation will reach 50 percent in India by 2039. But ev
In his Madison Square Speech in September 2014, our prime minister had reminded the world about India’s advantage of demographic dividend. This has become an important data point to show the world that Indian population is not a problem now. World is of course looking towards us from the perspective of huge demand/investment potential but every other Indian statesman is still hyping on yo
Exactly a month ago as the rains thundered down and caught us unawares, a farmer quietly walked to the middle of his field and hung himself from a tree. Nobody knows Sandeep Shinde. But for a handful of reports, his suicide was no news. Few have heard that this farmer from Beed was running a debt of over a lakh rupees and clutching onto his jowar crop as the only seed of hope. It
Much debate as taken place on the way forward of ‘Net Neutrality’ in India following the issue of the consultation paper by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for inviting stakeholder feedback which comes to a close this week. The need of the hour is to address all stake-holder concerns. This discussion paper tries to deal with some of the key issues relevant for the w
After stalling and procrastinating for countless times in the last five years the Brihanmumbai municipal corporation (BMC) finally unveiled in February its development plan, or DP, that it confidently claimed will hold the financial capital in good stead at least till 2034. Following widespread criticism,
Network neutrality is all about keeping the internet free and open from the clutches of telecom operators/carriers. The government is expected to finalise a policy on net neutrality in a month’s time. When it actually does, it must keep in mind a few things to protect cons
India is the fifth largest generator of e-waste in the world. The country discarded 1.7 million tonnes (Mt) of electronic and electrical equipment in 2014, said a United Nations report. Most e-waste in the world in 2014 was generated in Asia at 16 Mt or 3.7 kg per inhabitant. The top three Asian nations with the highest e-waste generation in absolute quantities are China (6.0 Mt
As parliament resumed its budget session after a break, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, minister of state for parliamentary affairs speaks to Sweta Ranjan on the business and the challenges. Excerpts: What important legislations are lined up for remaining part of the budget session? One is the land bill and tho
Rajeev Chandrasekhar has an unusual CV for an MP: he worked in Intel and founded BPL Mobile, before joining politics – and has been twice elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka as an independent member supported by all parties. In an email interview with Shishir Tripathi, he comments on his PIL and free speech in the digital age.
Bank account penetration in India has increased from 35 percent in 2011 to 53 percent in 2015, which means as many as 175 million new bank accounts were opened in these three years, says a World Bank report on measuring financial inclusion across the world. The report also says that the country also suffers from high dormancy rates. As mentioned in the report, the Pradhan Mantri
When the Bamian Buddhas came crashing down like an avalanche, the first person I called was my maternal grandfather. On deputation to the Kabul press in the 1960s, he was lucky to have seen the imposing sixth century monolithic statues that stood guard on the edge of the Bamian valley. He often told us gripping stories of his time in Afghanistan and through his eyes we saw a once flourishing ci
Born in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Zia Haider Rahman moved to London as a baby soon after the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation. In London, his father, a bus conductor and waiter, and mother, a seamstress, struggled to make ends meet during his growing-up years. He studied at Balliol College of Oxford University and pursued further studies in Germany and at Cambridge and Yale universities. He has
It is one of the most unforgivable incidents, yet it is one in many. This week a child fell to her death in a sump at school because she had to go to fetch water. The government primary school that Susanna studied in is not in the rural interiors of India, but in a bustling, modern city – India`s IT capital Bengaluru. Yet it doesn`t even a have tap for children, let alone purified drinkin
From the archives: Narayan Desai spoke to Ashish Mehta in November 2010, when he was in Delhi for the 88th Gandhi Katha. Excerpts from the interview: You started doing ‘Gandhi Katha’ in Gujarat in June 2004, two years after the communal violence in the state. What prompted you to take this innovative way of propagating Gandhi’s
It took nearly 15 minutes to write this story and as many minutes for tobacco to kill 30 people. Tobacco kills one person in 32 seconds. The real time data records over 23,200 tobacco related deaths since April 1, 2015. At the same time, the tobacco companies across the globe made a profit of Rs 6,50,900 lakh.
Recipient of Padma Shri and the Sahitya Akademi award, novelist, poet and critic Bhalchandra Nemade has taught English, Marathi and comparative literature at various places, including the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Before retirement, he held Mumbai University’s Gurudeo Tagore chair for comparative literature studies. A proponent of ‘Deshivad’, Nemade
The week ending March 5 acquired significance indicating the direction we, as a country, seem to be heading in. In the preceding five days, there was a ban a day in the country, including the one on beef in Maharashtra and on the screening of the BBC documentary, India’s Daughter. The documentary is detrimental to the nation’s reputation abroad – the nation was told by one of
