| News Links | Source | Comments |
The Rise of Totalitarian India
K Lakshmana used to be a 26 yr old, cheerful employee working with HCL in Bangalore. On August 31 in the early hours of the day he was blissfully sleeping when he was rudely awaken with a jolt. He was facing a dozen cops who ordered him to be get immediately dressed since it was going to be a long ride. He was told he was being arrested for defaming Shivaji? A terrified Lakshmana pleaded that he did not know any Shivaji? Of course you do, the cops retorted; we are referring to Chhatrapathi Shiva...
| S Basu |
|
Constitutionally Recognized Separatism
During the time of Indias partition, in the year 1947, all the states of the subcontinent were given the rights, under the Indian Independence Act, to accede either to India or Pakistan. Displaying his grand statesmanship the then Indian Union Home Minister, Sardar Patel, succeeded in merging 565 princely states with the Indian Union. As a result of obstinacy and rigidity of Hyderabad and Junagarh, Sardar Patel merged them by employing military means.But the issue of Jammu & Kashmir was retained...
| U Prabhu |
|
Terrorism and our Response
Blasts have rocked Bangalore and Ahmedabad within days of each other, following earlier attacks in Jaipur. More threats have been issued, and it seems we are just getting ready for this battle. The road ahead is long and difficult, primarily because there are numerous difficulties in fighting this menace called terrorism. The Government of India, no matter whether it is UPA ruled, or NDA ruled is terribly inadequate to tackling this singular task of protecting its citizens from further attacks.I...
| Kalyan V |
|
Tackling Terrorism: One Step at a Time
This is probably a less lucid post than most of what I write.In spite of that it has taken me a very long time to draft this.Aafter hearing of the blasts in Ahmedabad, I asked myself.what would I have done? What should the Government do? What can we do.as concerned, anxious and angry citizens?I decided not to write anything more about the attacks until I had some idea of the answers to this questions.This post is an attempt in that direction.It mainly deals with what the government should do/ or...
| B Shant.. |
|
Free Trade lessons from WTO failure
The recent failure of the World Trade Organizations Doha Round of negotiations in Geneva on the issue of subsidies in the developed countries and tariff protections in the developing countries is the lesson for free-trader who has propagated the virtues of free trade to the developing countries to open up their economies to the unrestricted imports from the developed world. The debate is not about to go away but will intensify, thus, eventually forcing the developed countries to use increasingly...
| D Basu |
|
Permanent Seat for India in UNSC
A buzz that has been going around in the Indian press for the last couple of years is about India gaining a permanent membership in the UN Security Council and as if it is going to happen very soon, with veto power, no less. Frequently the newspapers carry news items such as that some remote leader of a remote African country or some visiting dignitary from Europe had offered his support for Indian membership. The African leader may not even know the workings of the UN and the European dignitary...
| Venkat L |
|
Proper Management of Largest Dam in..
The largest dam of the country, Hirakud that was inaugurated in 1957 continues to be the single most important piece of infrastructure of the state of Orissa. The multipurpose Hirakud Dam was built primarily for flood-control, and the two secondary functions were irrigation and power generation. Hirakud has been irrigating around 155,635 hectares of land for Khariff and 108,385 hectares for Rabi crops every year, and generates about 300 MW of electricity per year. Hirakud has been largely succes...
| N Das |
|
Trust vote: PM hiding behind charades?
The UPA government smooth switch of allies from lal to dalal has been hailed by most sections of our popular media proving how corrupting tendencies has invaded even the fourth estate. Amar Singh and his cohorts have been squarely implicated for buying MPs through we all which industrialists money but the channel which was supposed to telecast the tape has surrendered the idea itself by latching on the lame excuse that their investigations were not complete. Perhaps, Rajdeep Sardesai needs to be...
| S Basu |
|
Caring For The Rivers In India
Vyaasadev who composed the Mahabharata and Durga Saptasati, towards the end of his life while still engaged in intellectual pursuits by the banks of the venerable Saraswati, observed that the magnificent civilisation that stood beside, and is nurtured by, the life-giving Saraswati, will disappear due to the moral decline of the citizenry. His observation, nay prophecy, came true. What he was referring to was the greed of the citizenry and their blatant disregard for, and rampant abuse of, natura...
| N Das |
|
N-Deal: For the Nation or Against?
From a couple of years we have been hearing a lot on Nuclear Deal. While villagers and poor people do not know anything about these stuffs, most of the literate group feels, the deal is a necessity to help India meet its Energy need. Unfortunately, no one seems to do some study on this before incorporating such thoughts within them. Let me share with you some of my study about this hype deal. Here are few points that must be analyzed before I quote the tits and bits of this Nuclear Energy....
| Chanchal |
|
Awareness of Water Quality
Water is the prime limiting factor for the sustenance, growth and development of human civilisation. From a human perspective, the planet earth has no dearth of land, but has a serious shortage of fresh-water that makes large areas of the earth uninhabitable. This precious natural resource and its quality must be managed carefully, simply for the very survival of our human species. Fresh-water for human consumption is obtained from rivers or lakes, and from the ground below.Contamination of fres...
| N Das |
|
Blasts in Bangalore, Does anybody care?
Another terrorist attack, another Bomb blast, few deaths, few injuries, few economic losses. These have become a part and parcel of Indian life.Location changes, outfits involved changes, but the impact remains same, the intentions remain same.This time the location was Bangalore, the Garden city, the IT city. As in the past, TV, Newspapers and all sources of media will report it in headlines, then will make analysis and then forget it. People have lost interest; they comment about sad state and...
| Nithin S |
|
Greed, Religion and Political Violence
Theoretically, religion is for personal salvation and it is concerned with morality and ethics for believers. Standards of morality and ethics are not same for personal salvation and political management of the state. A prudent mature civil society develops a political process such as secular democracy to keep the two separated.Courage is to recognize betrayal by those we had expected better from. Courage is to restrict religion to influence individuals seeking personal salvation and not allow m...
| K Bhatia |
|
Reservation: Unmaking Of Constitution
This article is a response to those pro reservationists who have been claiming ad infinitum that reservation is their birthright and they shall have it! Popular media has not ever addressed the veracity of this claim and instead maintained this dogma as some axiomatic truth without any critical inquiries. The irony is that even an impartial international scholar like Thomas Weiskoff considers the framers of the Indian constitution be in favour of policies of affirmative action in stark contrast ...
| S Basu |
|
Drama of Unreality - Indo-US N-deal
The recent drama regarding the Indo-US nuclear treaty has demonstrated the unrealistic approaches of all parties concerned both the Congress and the so-called Left parties. The unrealistic expectation of The Congress party is that by signing the treaty India can somehow avoid the danger posed by the increasing price of crude oil and a possible energy shortage in future. Another unrealistic expectation is that USA wants to set up India as a bulwark against China and in future it would protect Ind...
| D Basu |
|