Jina asks whether reservation ensures dignity, and instances from her life leaves her with shades of grey. Nice read.
This, in one of the most evolved campuses known for its social conscience and moral fibre.I have heard sob stories from fellow management classmates [who happened to be belonging to a caste which offered him reservation] on [...]
Author Archive for BVN
Dignity, among other things
Published by April 21st, 2008 in Caste, Human Rights, Personal, Poverty and Prejudice. 0 CommentsTrivandrum - 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 [...]
Its the first day of spring, thanks to google, greetings to all!
And Uma has a beautiful post on Father Anthony de Mello’s last meditations, on seeing beyond our valued illusions and images, and loving in contemplation.
Because most of the time, what you think you love, is nothing more than an image, a pretty picture you [...]
Tibet - not a blade of grass grows there
Published by March 19th, 2008 in Geopolitics and South Asia. 0 CommentsIn India – Nehru, careful of the relations with and the might of Chinese then, did make a silly remark when questioned about Tibet and the warmer relations with PRC. In defense he said, “…not a blade of grass grows there” referring dismissively to the Aksai Chin area of Ladakh. Yes, it was clear then [...]
Dr.Babu Paul muses on redemption, from Shivratri to the New Testament
In the Old Testament event the child asks the father about the sacrificial goat. Where is the lamb? And in the New we find that as John the Baptist watches Jesus he proclaims that Jesus was the Lamb of God that would bear the sins [...]
The girl was now openly staring at him, hands tightly clutching her pink handbag. She was a typical, tiny, far eastern female who would get blown away by a strong wind. She reminded me of Ziyi Zhang in Memoirs of a Geisha, though she was not as pretty. So let us call her Ziyi from [...]
Delhi from the sky
Published by December 24th, 2007 in Personal and Science & Technology. 0 CommentsI soar and swoop over Delhi, and look down at its rooftops and markets, its parks and gardens. I have Wikimapia, which makes my computer screen the window to home, while snow is falling outside my ‘real’ window here.
Wikimapia zooms in on Anand’s multi-layered maps of nostalgia and longing. He writes about Delhi as seen [...]
When we were young there were two Christmases every year, December for the Latins and January for the Syrians. Now I know that neither is real Christmas, what we celebrate is a baptised Pagan festival. As a student of the Bible I feel that it is more reasonable to think that Jesus was born before [...]
But I think that’s a reality that each one of us relying on Corporate India has to be aware about; that careers are becoming shorter and that you are needed only till you provide value for the money that’s being given to you. And its no news that today, talent in India is highly over [...]
Political meltdown & the Nukes of Pakistan
Published by November 7th, 2007 in Geopolitics and South Asia. 1 CommentIn the backdrop of Pakistan’s new crisis, Pakistaniat plots the Chronology of a political meltdown. A unique peek into the recent history of Pakistani politics, with a compilation of Pakistaniat’s posts in the past one year which explains why Pakistan is where it is.
“… the emergency declared by Gen. Musharraf is deeply disturbing, but not [...]
Ekram Khawar puts “Mullahs” in the centre of all things that keeps Pakistan away from its promise. The post takes a quick look at the emergence of the ‘mullah’ based on the social history of Islam.
And what sort of Allah, in the final analysis! Not the one who is a Rahman and a Rahim and [...]
Fellow Blogbhartian Bhupinder says NBA should have found a connection between the site of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and Lord Rama. His excellent take on why the NBA failed, around the sounds of Ram Sethu agitation.
The NBA’s fault lay in that it tried to oppose the dam in the name of the poor, in the name of [...]
Avoid ordering grilled chicken. Dissecting a dry fried piece of chicken is an exquisite art. Some surgeons whom I talked with said that doing a Cataract surgery with one hand is much easier. It’s like formula 1 racing. A split second mistake can cost your chicken leg, which might have landed in nearby Parthasarathy’s soup…
Cherian [...]
Its been a busy summer for Rupin Thomas,
……heights of watching the 4th of July fireworks from a rooftop bar in the meat packing district of NY, a world dominated by an urgency to rule…to sitting on the sea side drinking a cup of tea, in a world alive with an urgency to survive.
“I mean, do you sort of worship cows in India? I mean, i sort of heard that you can get into big trouble in India if you hit a cow with a car, much more than if you hit a person? I know that in Egypt, it is okay to hit a woman with a [...]
Free Software movement in Kerala
Published by September 10th, 2007 in Science & Technology. 2 CommentsIn the largest such simultaneous deployment of ‘free-and-open’ software in India, over 15 lakh Kerala school children on September 7th started taking their quarterly practical tests in Information Technology on personal computers using a special Linux version. Sasi Kumar writes a brief history of the intrepid free software movement in Kerala.
“Free software” is a matter [...]
Amrita’s been following the Shambo (the bull) episode at the Skanda Vale Temple.
The courts of appeal went with those who believed the law should be equal to all. Shambo was once again on the block. The protests went into overdrive. The temple offered to keep Shambo in isolation and when that didn’t work, offered to [...]
Uma writes on adversity, creativity and walking naked
“So one fine day your brain cells flash this ingenious idea at you. You act on it, decide to strip to the bare essentials and proceed to walk through the streets of the very conventional town in which you live, in protest. Although you manage to shock the [...]
Abhi and Dhanush are back from the Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey 2007. Their accounts and snaps. Abhi writes,
The view of More plains was just too celestial that it immediately froze a frame in my mind to treasure forever. A huge expanse of desert, surrounded by brown mountains at the horizon with an outline of clear [...]
Where do we(Techies) go from here
Published by July 19th, 2007 in Education and Science & Technology. 0 Comments“Some of you might have already wondered on what is the purpose of their lives. I don’t intent to give an answer to that here. But in that process, some of you might have realised that it is impossible to remain happy when there is no happiness around you. And that you find the most [...]
A tour of China in the cards? Nita has a crisp write up on the places she visited, few tips and the snaps (ofcourse)
Another very exotic place at Guilin is the Reed Flute Cave (240 meters long) where you can see stalagmites and stalactites which have formed over thousands of years. One has to walk [...]
“Starting an audio blog/music blog is fairly simple. All you need is a mic, a good recording software and a blog” - Jo
Jo compiles an Idiots guide to Audio Blogging. Jo is ‘not promoting any specific products or companies’ , nor is Blogbharti.
Aishwarya writes…dogs dying is something I cannot stand. But the worst bit has been the reports of the dogs being so trusting and friendly towards the people about to kill them. That part is horrifying to me.”
This is why people (real people) don’t kick puppies – because puppies have no reason to think they’ll be [...]
Akshay’s photo blog on Varanasi, ” where many return to die in the hope that they may achieve moksha, the salvation of the soul from the cycle of birth, where it is said that Shiva himself whispers the mantras of salvation into the ears of a dying person.”
Full set of photos on Flickr
But we managed to optimistically drive a logical wedge in our minds between the ‘good CPM’ - the party at national level, and in states other than West Bengal - and the ‘bad CPM’ - in a word, West Bengal. This was not without foundation. Who, after all, did we instinctively turn to as the [...]
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