Maloy Krishna Dhar, ‘having seen Indian elections since 1952 as a school kid, managing a couple of these exercises during service career in the IB, manipulating a few on orders of the ruling cabal and witnessing the bones, marrows, and soul of the Indian electoral process’ describes an encounter with an election manager of a [...]
Archive for March, 2009
The Great Indian Circus
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Business, Caste, Culture, Dalit, General Elections 2009, History, Human Rights, India, Media, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Society and Women. 1 CommentAdvice for voters
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Democracy, General Elections 2009 and Politics. 0 CommentsMumbai Guy has some advice for voters:
2. All political parties are good, bad and ugly. Do not vote for the party, vote for candidate even if they are independants. I know this may result in hung parliament but then that is lot more better than electing bad and crooks. Dont let anyone hoodwink you with [...]
Opening the closet door
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Gender & Sexuality, Human Rights and Prejudice. 0 CommentsSam opens up to his mother:
As you all know, last week I came out to my mother. I and my mother are fine now. My mother may have a long way to go, to finally be comfortable with all this, but I for one have stopped feeling guilty. I wish to thank you all from [...]
arey aaj kal to dhobi, rikshey valley bhi lete hain ek dhed lakh dahez mein
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Caste, Culture, Dalit, Education, Gender & Sexuality, India, Patriarchy, Society and Women. 0 CommentsAmrita, a Dalit Buddhist girl who worked hard to build a career for herself as a businesswoman, talks about how tough it is to escape the hold of institutions such as dowry and arranged marriage in India and how most of the times a girl loses her identity in the process of marriage and dowry. [...]
Back to the future with Indian elections in 2050 A.D.
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Politics. 0 CommentsKiran writes a satirical post about what elections would probably look like in 2050 A.D. in India:
Over at Amethi, the capital of the Targetary Republic of India, leaders of several smaller regional parties have come together for a meeting. The agenda is to discuss pre-poll alliances. These parties do not want to be part of [...]
Undergraduate research in India
Published by March 31st, 2009 in Education and Science & Technology. 0 CommentsIf you are an undergraduate (in any discipline) in India (or even know any), I would say that Mekie’s post is a must read:
Such opportunities give you a taste of what a career in science might be like. If you are interested in going to graduate school, these experiences might give you an edge over [...]
Praveen is up to biking from Kolkata to Siliguri and more. He shares impressive pictures too.
It was to be more of frustrating ride ahead with never ending traffic. So many cycles that i felt that i was invading a cycle rally! As a biker it was very tough riding conditions with so much slow traffic [...]
Science Fiction Writing Workshop At IIT Kanpur
Published by March 30th, 2009 in Fiction and Literature. 1 CommentVinod has the details.
Goal & Plan: The workshop will help new Indian authors develop their skills and encourage SF with a south-Asian focus. Specifically, the students will read and critique some of the best SF writing in the field, both classic and modern. Second, the daily writing exercises and group-critiques of the weekly story submissions will [...]
Climate change and political will
Published by March 29th, 2009 in Environment, General Elections 2009, India, Policy and Politics. 0 CommentsRadhika Viswanathan comments on the lack of political initiative in dealing with climate change and its ramifications:
Thirdly, Greenpeace’s recent report on energy efficiency notes that given the right political will, India could potentially source 35% of its electricity requirements from renewable energy. Arguing that economic development need not be compromised, it calls for an “energy [...]
Don’t vote for the Third Front!
Published by March 28th, 2009 in General Elections 2009 and Politics. 1 CommentIf in case the Third Front announces the formation of Government, I am sure that we will immediately see the BSE and NSE collapsing like we have never seen before. Here are a few people talking about taking India back to the stone age and I am hoping that the people of India, you and [...]
Tools and rationality for IT in education
Published by March 27th, 2009 in Business, Development, Education and IT. 0 CommentsAtanu has posted a very interesting article about the “effectiveness, efficiency, affordability” and ease of use of tools in general and then applies that analysis to the way Information Technology (IT) is being treated as a panacea for all diseases ailing India:
Even if we have determined that a CAT scanner is the tool required in [...]
The ‘Bangalore model’
Published by March 27th, 2009 in Capitalism, Culture, Economy and Globalisation. 0 CommentsInteresting post by SocProf at the Golbal Sociology blog on the growth of global cities and other places in the South:
At the same time, the authors show how Bangalore (the global city in which they did their fieldwork) also illustrates the process of universalization of the particular as the “Bangalore model” is adopted by other [...]
Transforming engineering education in India
Published by March 27th, 2009 in Culture and Education. 0 CommentsRead Kishore’s really well thought post on what can make education a better experience in engineering colleges in India:
I do feel for the faculty, most of whom are sincere to their work and deserve better response from the students. I’m guilty as anyone in this regard. But the problem is deeper than mere lack of [...]
No thanks to Mamata
Published by March 26th, 2009 in Business, Democracy, Development, Economy, Law and order and Poverty. 0 CommentsOf course, how can someone mention the Tata Nano and not talk about Bengal’s saviour Mamata Banerjee:
In the end, the market prevailed. Tata built its car in Gujarat and now a whole generation of people will be able to own their own cars and the freedom of movement that entails. Additionally, people with the Nano [...]
Kunal posts a thorough review of the much hyped Tata Nano. He calls it “a modified Share-Auto”:
A popular member of the low segment car, Nano is supposed to be better amongst the counter-parts, The Maruti 800 and The Alto. So much so, Nano is said to posses 21% more interior space than any other car [...]
Election Ticket
Published by March 25th, 2009 in Democracy, General Elections 2009, India and Politics. 0 CommentsAmreekandesi writes fictional story about a candidate tryng to a ticket for contesting elections.
I went to Delhi with some of my supporters. All five hundred of them. Insider tip: A show of strength always helps. The more people you take with you, the better your chances. If you dont get the ticket eventually, these supporters [...]
‘Atrocities on Arunthathiyers’
Published by March 25th, 2009 in Caste, Dalit, Human Rights, Language and Prejudice. 0 CommentsAn interesting blog- the blogger, Karuppu Samy, is a ’social worker working with Arunthathiyer children and women for thier rights’.
Jade observes things have changed for the better in UP in Mayawati’s administration:
I was traveling from Singraulli to Varanasi few days back, there were few SP workers protesting the LPG rise hike & they had blocked the road. I was filled with pride that our bus driver yelled at them “Yeh Mulayam ka raj nai [...]
An embarassed non-voter
Published by March 25th, 2009 in General Elections 2009, Personal and Politics. 0 CommentsB.Shantanu urges you to vote, even while he admits he hasn’t voted until now:
Blame circumstances…Here is a brief timeline and some context around this…
May/Jun 1989: The first Lok Sabha elections in which I could have voted. I was travelling in the North East of India at the time, working and hitch-hiking my way through Assam, [...]
Intra-party democracy
Published by March 25th, 2009 in Democracy, General Elections 2009, India and Politics. 0 CommentsMunish Raizada makes the excellent point that all political parties which extol the values of democracy should start practising it at home:
1. Role of Primaries: The MLA or MP aspirants must pass through ‘Primaries’ to emerge as winner. Let us take an example: There are 5 aspirants from Congress party who want to secure a [...]
The Coke Connection
Published by March 25th, 2009 in Development, Environment, General Elections 2009, Geopolitics, Human Rights and Politics. 1 CommentColonos points out at Congress’ celebrity candidate Shashi Tharoor’s connection with a Coca-Cola funded organization and how it might impact his politics. The post also has a reply from Tharoor and the counter reply from India Resource Center.
“The very assumption of the report, in estimating the total groundwater availability in Chitoor block, that 20 per [...]
‘Elections for Kashmir will be held in Ireland’
Published by March 24th, 2009 in Cinema, Democracy, General Elections 2009, Humour, India, Politics and Sports. 0 CommentsPagal Patrakar breaks some fake news:
“First they shifted Indian movie shootings to abroad venues. Then they shifted IPL matches. After Bollywood and Cricket, it was but obvious that Politics was next in line, and it has happened now. I won’t be surprised if Religion, another favorite pastime of Indians, is also shifted abroad. So watch [...]
India’s First Digital Elections
Published by March 24th, 2009 in Blogging, General Elections 2009, IT, India and Politics. 2 CommentsGaurav Mishra writes a post for Golbal Voices’ special coverage of Indian elections: he calls it India’s First Digital Elections. Interesting.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s blog
Published by March 24th, 2009 in Democracy, Economy, General Elections 2009, India and Politics. 0 CommentsRajeev Chandrasekhar, independent member of the Rajya Sabha, head of Jupiter Capital (and formerly of BPL Mobile) blogs here.
The latest post discusses the coming elections:
All this indicates that elections 2009 could be an inflection point for our country. We are probably entering new political age – a period of transition, uncertainty and possible volatility for [...]
More news unveils from the happenings at IIT Kharagpur, and it seems not everything is what the officials want us to believe. Here is what Rahul Munshi reports:
Meanwhile some attempts were being made to prevent students from having any further opportunity to unite. The British divide and rule policy has become such a household stuff [...]
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