Sriram Anathanarayan notices the strong presence of strong women in the North East:
Of course my heart took a little dive when I saw the local Sub-Inspector of the Assam Police at the station receive his weekly bribe as they were unloading the sacks, but even here the women’s chutzpah was evident. She handed him [...]
Archive for March, 2008
North East Diary
Published by March 31st, 2008 in Adivasi, Culture, North East, Personal and Women. 0 CommentsCommon School System
Published by March 31st, 2008 in Education, History, Human Rights, India, Policy, Politics and Poverty. 0 CommentsAnil Sadagopal advocates a Common School System:
The role of Common School System in forging a sense of common citizenship and nationhood is yet to be appreciated. This becomes a critical nation-building function in a geo-culturally diverse country like India. How can the present multi-layered school system fulfill this requirement? Today, the school system is like [...]
6th CPC: Private sector v/s public sector
Published by March 30th, 2008 in Development, Economy, Government and India. 0 CommentsGlowfriend is doing a series of posts on the Sixth Central Pay Commission Report. This post deals with public v/s private sector jobs.
The biggest advantage offered by a Government job is the job security attached to it and the assured retirement benefits. Commission has attempted to make the retirement benefits more attractive. It has [...]
A walk down the Red Corridor
Published by March 30th, 2008 in Activism, Capitalism, Democracy, Development, Economy, Human Rights, India, Policy, Politics, Poverty and South Asia. 0 CommentsFire on the Mountain has been posting a series of in-depth interviews with revolutionaries from South Asia. The interviews, it appears, were conducted by the Norwegian Revolutionary Socialist party (Red!) for their party magazine. The first of the interviews, with G.N.Saibaba, Deputy Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an All Indian Federation of [...]
Looks like Shruthi, fellow Blogbhartian, belongs to a family that believes: a family that blogs together…. Well, they blog on different sites but they do seem to share a common zest for life- of turning little things into wonderful stories. While Anil Kumar JL, Shruthi’s uncle, admits it was his niece who was instrumental in [...]
Silverine’s brother M decides to masquerade as his grandfather and slaughters a teenager’s Easter:
M (continuing mercilessly): And will you be drinking?
Roshan: No achchacha! I am not yet 18!
M: Ha!! I know you will drink!! Rascal!!
Roshan (hurt): I swear achchacha I won’t.
M: Remember the old saying when Satan tempts you, “Do not drink and park, [...]
The Black King decides to end his blog:
After some time, the need to confess anonymously and to find faceless help ends. When realization dawns in, you don’t really bother whether someone approves or disapproves of your actions: you don’t need anyone else’s judgement to justify your own existence.
Wonder what purpose our own blogs serve, and [...]
AMIT Budhiraja and Rinku Sachdeva had everything: good jobs, a nice flat, money to splurge, and a future that beckoned with promise. Or at least that was what the world thought. It is now obvious they were leading tormented inner lives before Amit killed her and hanged himself on Sunday.
Ramakrishna SR asks: do these murders [...]
Satyen Bordoloi, reviewing ‘The Lives of Others’, says ‘there are parallel worlds on offer in this film’:
The film is symbolic in a lot of ways. It’s an Orwellian world and as if paying tribute to author George Orwell and his creation ‘1984?, the film begins in 1984, through to the final fall of physical borders [...]
Aparna tries to find out about India’s participation in this year’s Olympics and discovers more bureaucrats than sportspersons:
Once I thought about my initial quest I forgot about the poor appearance of the site and decided to start the hunt for Team india. Alas I was up for more disappointment. The site had wonderful photos [...]
It might be too short a notice but Earth Hour is being celebrated today, the 29th of March between 8 PM and 9 PM. To those who want to observe this means that you have to shut down all electric appliances during this time period in a bid to increase awareness about Global Warming.
The Naive [...]
Saad Sultan lays down 7 Precepts for living in Pakistan, his take on PTV is reminiscent of the Indian Doordarshan channel:
If, on the other hand, you can’t help but watch the news because you think that being told what’s happening makes up for your doing nothing about it, then watch PTV News. You will be [...]
The New Age Scheharazade has a whole set of sizzling ideas (and a very well-thought Plan B as well) for board exams:
[...] Wherever you find a suitable question, insert a line about how exam stress is killing today’s children, and how a recent study has proved that they’re losing hair at an alarming rate. Then [...]
Three years on a beautiful island
Published by March 28th, 2008 in Environment and Personal. 0 CommentsEvery month or so, we would cross the Pulicat lake to get to the mainland for shopping, tuition classes, or just for a break from the monotony of the colony. The Pulicat lake, dry and lifeless during summer, would come to life after the rains in October. Thousands of migratory birds would fly in from [...]
Viswapriya observes the similarities and differences between two stories- a short story and a true story:
But could it be the same love? Or have we all finally reached this stage where instant gratifications have taken over every other parameter of our existence? Love- now, Justice-now, everything- now? Or is fiction, as always, an idealization of [...]
“(Yo)nifying with the self”
Published by March 28th, 2008 in Culture, Feminism, Personal, Society, South Asia, Women and sexuality. 0 CommentsAfter much debate with her inner voices, Sunshine finally submits her scripts for “Yoni ki baat” a play inspired by Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues”. Some of her scripts were accepted and she’s now rehearsing for the play.
More than reaching out to the South Asian community, I have reached out to myself, in some of the [...]
Thyagaraja Vaibhavam
Published by March 28th, 2008 in Blogging, Language, Literature and Music. 0 CommentsA blog dedicated to the saint composer Thyagaraju: V.Govindan has been posting trasliterated versions of the composer’s Telugu Kritis in English (and in Devanagari, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam scripts), together with the translation in English. A commendable effort. The latest post features the Kriti ‘ramA ramaNa rArA’.
Trivandrum - raising development
Published by March 28th, 2008 in Development, Education, Globalisation and Policy. 1 CommentNow that its summer vacation, everyone is posting about the city. And summer vacation is afterall about wish-lists, nostalgia and planning to have a nice time.
Ajay at TvmRising does an incisive analysis of the Singapore model and lays out a way forward for urban development in Trivandrum using its strategic location like Singapore.
In the 1950s [...]
However, I still indulge in nostalgia and link to a post from IISC life, where someone is desperately trying to escape playing Holi. The post is a fiction too.
Pazz researches quite a bit on the different kinds of people traveling on the Mumbai locals:
‘Saath me ladeej hai’ Species: This species is extremely paranoid when it comes to the well being of their female-kind. So much so that they make them travel with them in the ‘general’ compartment instead of the ladies dabbas.
Heh… wonder [...]
Poverty is a political issue
Published by March 27th, 2008 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Development, Economy, Human Rights, Policy, Politics, Poverty and Religion. 0 CommentsAnalysing a paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly, John Samuel suggests poverty isn’t just about incomes, it is also about identities :
The notion of impoverisation (or the process of the active creation of poverty with in society or economy) needs to be seen in the context of social, economic and political inequality. Such [...]
Now, the bill
Published by March 27th, 2008 in Economy, Government, Politics and Poverty. 0 CommentsGaurav Shukla emphasizing the need to link salaries to performance, calculates the bill:
The pay hike will bring about massive strain on the exchequer. With the implementation of the fifth pay commission’s recommendations, the central government’s wage bill shot up by nearly 99 per cent. The present recommendations, when implemented, are expected to cause an additional [...]
Ajay Shah thinks the new pay commission report has made only ‘tiny progress’ in increasing the inequality in wage levels between junior and senior government workers:
How do I know so clearly that at junior levels, salaries in government are 2x to 3x too high? Some time after I left the Ministry of Finance, one day, [...]
How will Ishant Sharma lose form or fade away? Jrod looks at the potential ways:
His adam’s apple is actually an alien, sent from the planet klaatu, and is intent on killing us all.
Some Bollywood producer (aka India mafia dude) gets him a gig on the Indian remake of irreversible starring Aishwarya Rai, but he takes [...]
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