Subroto Royevery, contributing editor for The Statesman, believes that the basic fiction that the Union and State governments have made themselves is that their idea of an industrialisation plan is necessary for economic development.
It is not. Real economic problems in West Bengal and elsewhere are financial to do with State budgets.. The communists have been [...]
Archive for December, 2006
West Bengal: Hobnobbing with the Rich
Published by December 31st, 2006 in Development and India. 0 CommentsDos Hermanos accompany their father and discover their culinary roots in a Bengali sweetshop in London’s Brick Lane, made famous by a novel by the same name as also by Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines.
Particularly as he was keen to explain the difference between the West Bengali cuisine and East Bengali ( Bangladeshi ) cuisine. [...]
Dude Hyderabadi thinks 2006 was an year to remember. Heartcrossings receives a greeting, ’subject to clarification or withdrawal’, that conveys
‘best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect [...]
Asks Harmanjit Singh:
Civic services have reached their nadir in India. What are some of the basic needs of a citizen of a country for which he/she pays enormous amounts of taxes and how are they being fulfilled?
Water, electricity, air, food, health…security – the post lists the shortcomings in the quality of some basic services in [...]
ShaKri looks back on 2006 and resolves he doesn’t need resolutions.
Let’s take my ’06 for instance. I had never planned to write (read finish) a complete book and publish it. I actually managed to do it. The one major milestone of being an officially published writer is mine for life. Who’d have thought I would [...]
Kavery Nambisan is from Coorg. She studied medicine in Bangalore and got her FRCS in UK. Her interest to work in rural India brought her back to Coorg where she now practises. Though she doesn’t mention it anywhere in the book, it is clearly autobiographical. The book is both easy to read and yet touches [...]
Anil Thakraney suggests a Jessica-Priyadarshini style campaign to ensure justice for Priyanka Bhotmange:
A number of readers have written in to ask what we busy-with-our-own-lives guys can do to ensure torturers of Priyanka get their just desserts. And that already is a good sign… the fact that at least some of us care.
Well, my answer is quite [...]
Escaping poverty and falling into it
Published by December 30th, 2006 in India and Poverty. 0 CommentsAbi at How the Other Half Lives writes about a research work that measures the migration into and out of poverty. He also talks about the policy implications discussed in the paper
Through carefully designed field studies, Krishna’s research has measured, in a bunch of villages in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, not just the [...]
Dalits: At the intersection of Caste and Class?
Published by December 30th, 2006 in Caste and India. 0 CommentsPrithviraj Datta dissects an article on Dalits and asks:
Is the problem of victimised Dalits in India today compounded by problems of class, in addition to the historical social disadvantage they have faced?
However it was the Turkish Muslims who are in the spotlight this Hajj due to their massive presence in Makkah. It signifies the return of Turkey to the Islamic fold after decades of experimentation with the European way of life.
Abdul Matin is blogging his Haj journey.
Whenever I think of how insular we are as a [...]
Saddam Hussain- Paradoxical Justice
Published by December 30th, 2006 in Geopolitics and India. 0 CommentsMadhukar comments on the hanging of Saddam Hussain.
Saddam is now dead and gone, killed by a form of “justice” which is paradoxical.
Anjuman Singh writes a poem on India
Oh Country, My Country,
Why are you lying in poverty?
When everywhere else is money,
And no value for penny.
Go ahead and read
Deepthi talks about some of the Indian celebrities she likes
We know the famous quote “beauty and mind never go together”…….. but this is not true and even the beauty is not only that we see physically.
the real beauty comes from the deepest parts of the heart….
so i found few of them in the current [...]
Narayanan Thyagarajan seems to think that Tamilnadu is one of the developed states because no party could get elected again
I ‘am bit confused that why Tamil Nadu moves forward and some sort of development takes place in the state and other states doesn’t develop at the pace in which TN grows. The reason I [...]
How can we end the year on a serious note? Musings on India offers us a joke to laugh the year out
Manu Sharma. Santosh Singh. Lalu Prasad Yadav. All judgements very close to each other. Media and the public outcry against Manu Sharma and Santosh Singh. Manu Sharma – convicted. Santosh Singh – convicted. [...]
Weekend Warrior discovers the Buddha and Johnny Bhai, in a trip to the Ajanta caves.
At the second cave, we ran into Johnny Bhai. A cut above the rest, JB was hired for Rs 300: a little for our knowledge and a lot for our amusement. As he began his first discourse on the carved figures [...]
P. Madhav Rao critiques the Pension Reforms in India that, according to him, favor the fund managers and not the proposed beneficiaries.
The committee cautioned the Government by saying that pre-funding pension liability from the Government budget will not reduce the burden on the Government on the other hand it will increase the government burden during [...]
Firaq : The Poet of the totality of Love
Published by December 29th, 2006 in India and Poetry. 0 CommentsSham Khanna writes on the poety of Raghupati Sahay ‘Firaq’, who is probably more popular in Pakistan than in India.
Under the impact of his verse, Urdu poetry gradually became more conscious of its Indian heritage. Firaq was a great advocate of Khari Boli Hindustani, which forms the common base for both Hindi and Urdu.” His [...]
Jo carries a letter written by his close friend and psychiatrist, Dr. Balakrishna Verma, to Amrita TV expressing his concerns over the way kids are put through an ordeal in Superstar Junior, a competitive show on the channel.
The children are all between the age of 5 to 15. The way your two judges,Mr Deepak Dev [...]
Indian Ocean’s Black Friday – a music review
Published by December 29th, 2006 in India and Music. 0 CommentsSheer Melody reviews the music album “Black Friday” by Indian Ocean. Now if only they released the movie in theatres.
With the album Black Friday, Indian Ocean has finally come of age. I remember the first time I watched them perform at our college, astounded at their technical proficiency and at the same time, the wonderful [...]
Vikram Karve shares his experiences of the day after he quit smoking. Useful during new year resolutions time.
I removed from my office my ashtray, declared the entire place a no-smoking zone and put up signs to that effect. The working day began. It was a tough and stressful working day. I was tired, when my [...]
How To Write About India?
Published by December 28th, 2006 in Globalisation, Humour, India and Media. 11 CommentsNeelakantan has a funny post on how to write about India for the foreign media.
Your piece has to start well. Therefore you first create, with good vocabulary, a nice paragraph on the social inequities in India. Keywords to be used are caste, poverty, illiteracy. Statistics like 80% of India lives on farms or 50% of [...]
Time to look beyond the dollars
Published by December 28th, 2006 in Globalisation and India. 0 CommentsSiddharth Varadarajan talks to Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Prize winner
Winner of the 2001 Nobel prize for economics,Joseph Stiglitz is a trenchant critic of the “market fundamentalism” of the International Monetary Fund. I caught up with him last week in New Delhi to interview him on some of the ideas in his latest book, Making [...]
Something to Say writes about the nightmarish task of buying the ‘right’ kind of toy for her son.
Given this spread – I (as the designated toy buyer) spent hours browsing the net and toy shops to figure out what toy was ‘right’ for his needs. Each toy came with its own skills development promise. Did [...]
one brown woman makes a confession about the careers she’d like to have. Among other things, she’d like to be a famous blogger, a talk show host and yes, even an event planner.
A famous blogger. I know that isn’t really a career or job per-se. But it would be amazing. The reaction many people have [...]
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