Not just including Major General Tanvir Ahmed’s (Pakistan’s Army) picture in an ad by the Government of India, but the Dreamer also questions why there are no women achievers on that collage:
Even if we do accept the Hon.Minister’s explanation, there is something really wrong with this picture, in my humble opinion. The caption boldly asks [...]
Archive for the 'Government' Category
National Girl Child Day gaffes
Published by January 25th, 2010 in Feminism, Gender & Sexuality, Geopolitics, Government and Media. 11 CommentsJustice for Rathore
Published by January 13th, 2010 in Activism, Corruption, Culture, Development, Government, India and Law and order. 0 CommentsThat’s what The Diary of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala wants. That and Justice for ND Tiwari, Paneerselvam, Dinakaran..
Me: OK, I think …..I have a solution.
DINAKARAN: WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT !!! SIRJI! PLEASE DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME.
I’m the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and was due for promotion to become a Supreme Court Judge.
But the media [...]
Crime and Punishment
Published by January 2nd, 2010 in Government, Human Rights and India. 1 CommentThere is a recent directive by Ministry of Home Affairs to convert all police complaints into FIR is a knee-jerk reaction (yes reaction) to the recent news of an ex-DGP’s indictment in a molestation case. But Yodha feels that
If good intentions could lead to good governance, we could already be living in Utopia or Ram [...]
Demystifying India….
Published by December 30th, 2009 in Caste, Children, Corruption, Culture, Development, Education, Gender & Sexuality and Government. 0 CommentsIn the movie Swades Shah Rukh Khan says when asked about whether India is the best country in this world compared to others ,” I dont think that India is the best country in this world, but we have the ability, we have the resources” and for that to happen each and every person has [...]
Justice for the High and Mighty
Published by December 22nd, 2009 in Activism, Gender & Sexuality, Government, Human Rights and Justice. 0 CommentsSudhadeep Bhattacharjee comments on the ridiculous punishment handed down to ex Haryana DGP S P S Rathore in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case :
Is the price of a young girl’s life compelled to commit suicide by a man just six months? How is it that Rathore a criminal who committed that crime in police [...]
Defending our policemen
Published by December 2nd, 2009 in 26/11, Government and Society. 0 CommentsWith the anniversary of the Mumbai terrorist attacks all over the media, Omkar thinks we ought to give all policemen more credit than we normally do:
Yes, there are Police Officials who create conspiracies, who fail to realize their duties, who act for their own good rather than that of a common man. But then one [...]
Agriculture economics and the blame game
Published by November 18th, 2009 in Development, Economy, Food, Government and Regulation. 0 CommentsSugandha has a point by point criticism of why the finance minister is pointing fingers at the wrong “inefficiencies of the farm market” while addressing the sharp rise in food prices:
The food policy has so far been characterized by various kinds of input subsidies. The problem is that, unlike support for extension of irrigation or [...]
The News is for sale……
Published by November 11th, 2009 in Democracy, Government and Media. 1 CommentFour News items of your choice and your profile costs only between Rs 5 to 20 lakh depending on the page of our newspaper.If you are rich enough we will publish for you a special supplement about your achievements for only Rs 1.5 crore.”
Charakan describes the rates for sale of newspaper columns to affordable candidates [...]
Heading west
Published by October 15th, 2009 in Education, Government, Indiaspora and Science & Technology. 0 CommentsAmid all the hoopla over Dr. Ramakrishnan being the new “Indian” Nobel laureate, read Mohan Sinha’s very interesting and thought-provoking article about the false pride we take over people who win awards abroad and we sing and dance that they have an Indian gene somewhere:
And look at the way the Bongs and the Tams fighting [...]
Drifting towards chaos
Published by October 14th, 2009 in Development, Geopolitics and Government. 0 CommentsJohn Elliot , a reporter in India for 20 years wonders about why problems are left to fester till they escalate into crises instead of being tackled before they do serious damage :
Inefficiency, lethargy and corruption have come to haunt the country and dominate the news this week on two quite different issues– the alarming [...]
R.I.P. Dr.Balagopal
Published by October 10th, 2009 in Adivasi, Capitalism, Caste, Dalit, Democracy, Development, Government, Human Rights, India, Justice, Policy, Politics, Poverty and Violence. 0 CommentsAditya pays tributes:
A relentless crusader for human rights for three decades now, Andhra Pradesh HC lawyer Balagopal has fought cases from extra-judicial killings of political dissenters to atrocities against Dalits and women. And he has often suffered personal attacks for his efforts, by the police and others shamed by his exposes. But he has never [...]
Marrying en masse…
Published by September 28th, 2009 in Development, Gender & Sexuality and Government. 0 CommentsMass marriages in India have been used by communities to help parents with inadequate resources to manage the colossal expenses demanded by cultural norms incurred in hosting a wedding, especially since the bride’s parents are the ones who bear the costs of the ceremony. Deepali Gaur Singh examines the practice :
The success of such events [...]
The Indian State’s contradictions
Published by September 3rd, 2009 in Activism, Democracy and Government. 0 CommentsVikram explores the contradictions within the flailing Indian State. He explains that the Indian state (i.e. the Union and State governments, various government departments, police etc.) is as confusing as the nation it represents and controls. Whereas on the one hand there are reports of its agents engaging in gross human rights abuses, it goes [...]
A ban on headscraves in Dakshina Kannada
Published by September 2nd, 2009 in Government, Religion and World. 0 CommentsAn unofficial ban and a complicit Government is escalating tensions in Dakshina Kannada.
Says Aysha Ashmin, an 18-year-old student from Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada district, “Initially, Muslim women were asked to remove their burkas before entering class rooms. A month later, this was extended slightly – no burkas in college campuses they said. So women hurriedly [...]
Grow local, sell local at Himachal Pradesh
Published by September 2nd, 2009 in Economy and Government. 0 CommentsNityin has discovered that it is much better for him to sell the apples from his farm locally in Himachal Pradesh rather than be at the mercy of the traders in Delhi:
Delhi traders have exploited the growers for long. Till date, how apple is sold in Delhi is still a mystery. The buyers speak in [...]
Shahrukh Khan at the airport
Published by August 21st, 2009 in Government, Indiaspora and Politics. 3 CommentsOver at the Punekar blog, Sagar Sheldekar thinks “its all in the name”:
Thousands of Indians get frisked everyday on airports all across the globe. My wife is an American citizen and she has to go through the same security checks every time she is entering or leaving the US. So I fail to understand what [...]
Mayawati statues
Published by July 12th, 2009 in Caste, Dalit, Development, Economy, Government, India and Politics. 7 CommentsWhile Ranjeet ‘praises’ Mayawati for installing statues in UP and has some more suggestions for her,
1) You also remove existing statues of un-important people like Gandhiji etc and install your own huge ones (I mean statues) there.
2) Why not also introduce an entire chapter in the history books of school children dedicated to you?
Aditi Phadnis [...]
Proud of the Statues
Published by July 2nd, 2009 in Dalit, Government, History, Justice, Politics, Prejudice and Society. 3 CommentsPrabin tells you why he is proud of Mayawati’s statues:
So I believe, what is disconcerting to the political parties about the statues that Mayawati unveiling and the Memorials she is constructing is not the wastage of precious resource – there are a lot many instances of govt. squandering revenues and tax payers money- but the [...]
Want to file an RTI ?
Published by June 27th, 2009 in Democracy, Development, Government, India and Justice. 1 CommentYou want to know why or on what basis some decisions were taken or not taken by a public authority. In other words you want to exercise your right to seek some information but do not know how.
Ankur tells you how to file an RTI.
it makes them accountable to the public and makes it hard [...]
Right to Indifference
Published by June 20th, 2009 in Democracy, Development and Government. 0 CommentsQuirky Indian feels that the Indian bureaucracy has a sense of humour: while everyone from international watchdogs to the Maoists give them a bad rating, the babus think they know better.
Lalgarh, like Nandigram and Naxalbari, has become another addition, courtesy West Bengal, to our socio-political lexicon. Here’s an article where one of the Maoists has [...]
Prithvi opines that the State is withdrawing in West Bengal:
This is reflected in the conditions leading to the Shalboni attacks on the CM’s cavalcade: while the government did nothing for years to counter Maoist infiltration into Lalgarh and the surrounding areas, it reacted with brutal, and terrorising, force against local tribals following the incident. The [...]
The terrorist in Hindi cinema
Published by June 17th, 2009 in Cinema, Culture, Geopolitics, Government, Human Rights, Politics, Prejudice, Religion, Society, South Asia, Terrorism and Violence. 0 CommentsPurdah is trying to figure out ‘the shifting figure of the terrorist in the Hindi language film industry’:
The military events at Kargil in 1999 launched a slew of Indo-Pakistan war films. A few were romance films on patriotic steroids like Anil Sharma’s Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara, and Kunal Kohli’s bizarre Fanaa. The [...]
‘Mistaken Macroeconomics’
Published by June 13th, 2009 in Development, Economy, Government, India and Policy. 0 CommentsDr.Subroto Roy writes an open letter to the Prime Minister:
What, at the outset, is supposed to be measured when we speak of “growth”? Indian businessmen and their media friends seem to think “growth” refers to something like nominal earnings before tax for the organised corporate sector, or any unspecified number that can be sold to [...]
‘New Governance’
Published by June 12th, 2009 in Development, Education, Government, Health and Policy. 0 CommentsVikranth thinks the government’s agenda of inclusive growth would be meaningless if it isn’t backed up by reforms in governance:
In a recent survey conducted by an Hong-Kong based consultancy ranked Indian bureaucracy as least efficient in Asia and termed as “slow and painful and a power center in their own right”. After the economic reforms [...]
Illusion of Democracy
Published by June 9th, 2009 in Democracy, Education, Government, Human Rights and India. 0 CommentsDr.T.Prasad opines that democracy in India is an illusion:
Moreover, the instrument of governance used by such a ‘democratic government’ for delivering the services to the people remained the same which was designed and used for systematically exploiting a colony and is thus totally anachronistic and unsuitable for democratic governance. This renders the constitutional declaration of [...]
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