Bengal needs to make its stand now
For sometime now, the only news out of West Bengal is the havoc that the most recent spate of chit funds has wrecked on the state's already impoverished people. Bit by bit, many get-rich-quick schemes...
View ArticleQuestions Delhi University needs to answer... before it is too late
Unless there is a major, as yet unforeseen, intervention, come July, DelhiUniversity will move to a four year undergraduate programme with a structure that is radically different from the existing...
View ArticleTake charge of the environment
World Environment Day should be more than about speeches, competitions and awards. Unfortunately it is not the case. A recent survey by TERI on citizen’s perceptions across six major cities about the...
View ArticleTurn off the Maoists' money pipeline
At the all-party meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed as he has done often enough since 2005, that Maoists pose a grave threat to the country’s internal security. Over the last ten years,...
View ArticleUttarakhand Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority: A Damage Control...
Is Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahguna’s announcement of a Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority more than a damage control measure?Bahaguna’s announcement, clearly prodded by his bosses at...
View ArticleLet their death not be in vain
The death of 23 school children from consuming the lunch served in school is a tragedy. It is a shame that these young lives were snuffed out in the one place that is supposed to give then hope for the...
View ArticleIt is stricter monitoring that we need...
It took the suspension of Durga Shakti Nagpal, the subdivisional magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh, which is barely an hour's drive from the Capital, to put illegal sand...
View ArticleColouring the Food Bill Congress
There was never any doubt that the food bill when finally taken up for consideration by the Lok Sabha would be passed. After all it is an election year and no party wants to be seen as anything that...
View ArticleWhy the BJP shouldn't declare Modi as their man for prime minister
It would seem that by end of day today, the BJP will name Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections. Should the BJP announce Modi as...
View ArticleRahul Gandhi: the insider as the outsider?
It is tough when the ultimate insider presents himself as the rank outsider. It is tougher still when it is the Nehru-Gandhi scion and the heir apparent to the prime minister’s chair who does it.Rahul...
View ArticleOf Toilets and Temples
Toilets have forced their way back to centrestage, even though it was just for less than day. Actually, it was more about the controversy on prioritising toilets over temples, the BJP and other...
View ArticleWhy the Congress is scared of Narendra Modi
Congress leaders tell anyone who cares to listen that there is no Modi wave in the country, at best there is a pro-Modi sentiment in the media and social media. But where it matters, among the...
View ArticlePhailin handled, what's next?
Cyclone Phailin was handled, but what about the next such extreme weather event? It is time we factor in climate change into our planning process.The handling of Cyclone Phailin was noteworthy, loss of...
View ArticleIn 2014, let us say "NO" to coalition politics
Pre-poll surveys conducted by various news outlets, including this newspaper, reveal that regional parties will once again play kingmakers in 2014. Coalition politics, with regional parties allying...
View ArticleEnough with the history lessons, now tell us about the future
A senior executive of a British education systems company, who I met recently, asked about the India’s impending national elections. He asked in specifically about the kind of health and education...
View ArticleMaking political hay out of human tragedies
The communalism-secularism is back on the centrestage of the Indian political discourse. Riots from the recent past—2002 in Gujarat or the more recent riots in Muzafarnagar –are being used to...
View ArticleCan AAP change Indian politics?
The Aam Aadmi Party, the third player in the Delhi assembly polls, is being touted as a “game changer”. Its supporters and sympathizers maintain that if the former Indian Revenue Service officer and...
View ArticleTarun Tejpal and Tehelka and a guide to the future
For more than a week now, the sexual assault of a Tehelka employee by Tarun Tejpal, who at that point was the editor-in-chief has dominated the media. Tejpal’s gross abuse of power and arrogance (after...
View ArticleWarsaw saves climate talks, the planet not so much
Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines four days ahead of the 19th round of the UN climate change negotiations in Warsaw setting the stage for countries to take urgent action on climate change....
View ArticleMagic Wand--Modi or Kejriwal?
Election results from the four states--Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan--tells us that voters are looking at the governance record of the incumbent administration while making their...
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