Saturday, February 9, would have been just another day had news channels not begun beaming the news of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging. Not that it made much of a difference to the man/woman on the street going about his/her business on an exceptionally sunny day, marking the onset of spring in Delhi. Not, also, that the news brought a collective sigh of relief
Air pollution is the fifth largest killer in India taking 6.2 lakh lives per year and Delhi is among one of the five most critically polluted regions in the country, a study by a US-based health institute has claimed. The other four most critically polluted regions in the country are Ghaziabad, Gwalior, West Singbhum district in Jharkhand and Raipur, according to the study. The study ha
Governance Now and CVoter carried out a survey of the trust various institutions of governance inspire among the people. Read more about the overall findings of the survey here: Trust of the Republic survey: little faith in government or in print in the February 1-15 iss
On January 20, following two days of stimulating discussion and deliberation to perk up the party ahead of next year’s general elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said in Jaipur, “I assure you that I will personally continue to press for the passage of the law that would provide for one-third reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures.” It was a
At some strange level, the Indian political system has a deep, if not too apparent, connect with Bollywood. Like a half-decent Hindi masala flick, the Indian polity, and thereby the political system, sees and believes in only the colours black and white, with no chance in hell for the existence of a grey, let alone shades and tones of it. Like the sheriffs in the Western flicks, from where Boll
The government’s decision to secretly execute Guru just days before Maqbool Bhat’s death anniversary — Bhat was a symbol of Kashmir’s resistance against what many in the state believe is India’s claims over the region, who was also executed in the same Tihar jail 28 years ago — seems to have touched a raw nerve, especially among the youth of the Valley.
David Devadas, veteran journalist and author of `In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir`, wrote for the Hindustan Times on December 2 last year why Afzal Guru should not be hanged. We present the column, as a counterview. Courtesy Hindustan Times: Stick
God only knows that I was horrified when I heard my 10 years old cousin sang out loud in front of me "Main to tandoori murgi hun yaar, gatka le saiyyan alcohol se”. "Too much TV," I sighed. The government today has done probably what every parent has been secretly praying for: barred what are called `item songs` from TV telecast because of their explicit con
February 8 This must be the most tragic day in the forever-tragic republic. What have the poor politicians done to deserve this? The papers are full of reports that there are way too many of those security men protecting us. That’s nonsense; pardon me, but sheer human excreta. The supreme court seeking
A 1988 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Muktesh Chander has served in Delhi Police for over 20 years and is known for deploying technology for better policing and traffic management. He is an electronics and telecommunication graduate from Delhi university and is currently pursuing his PhD in information security management from IIT-Delhi. As centre director of the national critical i
“Ye dagh – dagh ujala, ye shabgazida seher/ Woh intezar tha jiska, ye woh seher to nahin.” (Light dirtied by stains and daybreak bitten by a poisonous night/ Is this the dawn we waited for?) As we celebrate the sixty-third birth anniversary of our republic, I am forced by an unexplained inner urge to cry aloud these apparently pessimistic lines penned ironical
The refrain — yes, that’s what it has become — “treat women with respect” has reached such levels that now the only reaction it elicits is that of psychic numbing. So, now it is UP minister Rajaram Pandey, who praised a district magistrate for her beauty — and for possessing a perfect body. Pandeyji is happy that every time he comes to Sultanpur there
It will take India some tough decisions and several years before it can think of going back to a growth era of 8 per cent and more, which was an easy walk through till a few years ago, IMF has said. "To go back to eight per cent (annual growth rate) you (India) need to see move on a lot of fronts and investment picking up very robustly. "It will depend ve
India’s “virtual middle class” Those of us who sign online petitions, forward chain mails on fighting corruption, join threads of debate on blogs and ‘friend’ campaign groups on Facebook have finally arrived. The world-renowned trend-catcher Thomas L Friedman has captured this latest trend, naming them India’s “virtual middle cla
Of late, we have been witnessing a number of things going on in our country which compel us to think where we are leading our nation to and what after all we have got as the idea of India after 65 years of Independence. We are witnessing on TV screens how the proceedings of parliament are disrupted, how the people are fleeing from fear from Assam, how the people are demanding the
In all the ideas of financial accountability, financial inclusion is most important. Nevertheless, the policy circle represents it awkwardly and measures it by the number of new enterprises created which is flawed. The primary concern of the lending should be to target the prepared individual, who is capable to run a business and nurture entrepreneurship. In most cases, beneficiaries of the ins
Gulshan Rai has over 25 years of experience in the area of cyber security, e-governance and legal framework on IT. He has drafted the IT Act, 2000 and IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. Currently, he is director general of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) that is the only government agency tasked to respond to cy
Recently, as a member of the expert group set up by the King of Bhutan, I attended the meeting to develop gross national happiness (GNP) as a viable substitute for gross domestic product (GDP). The latter goes up when the trees are cut while the former goes down for the same act. There are many other differences between the two concepts which have triggered a worldwide debate. So
Mirror mirror on the wall, which neta is the most anti-free speech of ’em all? In the open season on muffling free speech in India, that Mamata Banerjee’s is one of the bigger silhouettes seen on that mirror often goes unnoticed. Yes, she calls people “Maoist” at the drop of a hat; yes, she has people arrested for questioning her policies (the
In an age where 22-second sound bites become the source of heated political debate and vacuous intellectual discourse, eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy’s indiscretion may seem unpardonable. Clearly, he is too old to adapt to bites-induced intellectualism, making him almost incompatible with an impatient class of social elites whose intellectual span is defined by the limits set by TV studi
