Madhumita thinks that by excluding Pakistani players from the IPL, the animosity between India and Pakistan has just been prodded further:
Had the Pakistani players being included in the IPL teams, no dramatic progress would have been achieved on the India-Pak relationship. When sixty years of efforts from our various governments couldn’t thaw the ice between [...]
Archive for the 'Politics' Category
The Pioneer’s Kanchan Gupta’s take on Jyoti Basu.
Jyoti Basu spent the better part of his life living off tax-payers’ money — the conscience of the veteran Marxist was never pricked by the fact that he appropriated for himself a lifestyle shunned by his comrades and denied to the people of a State whose fate he [...]
Over at The Indian Muslim Blog, Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan is worried about Amitabh Bachchan cozying up with Narendra Modi
So is it a confused move of his that he applauds a person like Modi, or is it a kind of ‘tasting the water’ theory, which he has adopted in order to see the mood of his [...]
2009 : A few days more…..
Published by December 23rd, 2009 in India, Misc, Politics and Society. 0 CommentsAditya sums up 2009 and is generally unhappy about how thing have turned out to be :
Well, its been very normal this year, & hence it is special.
As soon as i look back at the proceedings of this year, there’s nothing that i can recall to remember this year for an event or two. India [...]
Answers to: “Why do we need a separate state?”
Published by December 12th, 2009 in India and Politics. 1 CommentRaj has compiled a set of answers to that question: “Why do we need a separate state, Telengana”:
d. Nagarjuna sagar dam is built in Nalgonda district which is in Telangana but majority of the water from the dam is used for Krishna and Guntur district. The original dam was supposed to be build much ahead [...]
At the India First-Hand blog, they believe the issue demonstrates nothing but the impotency of the government:
Both the State of Andhra Pradesh and government of India made strategic mistakes. The issue of Telungana has been going on for many years. The people who are behind these movements like KCR have not produced any valid reasons [...]
Mumbai belongs to Indians
Published by November 20th, 2009 in Democracy, Politics and Prejudice. 0 CommentsSachin Tendulkar’s comment has generated some controversy (read, some people decided to call it a controversy). Here is what Attitude Speaks has to say about it:
Amitabh Bachchan to Sachin Tendulkar, all have borne the tongue-lashings of this man, who is a self-proclaimed protagonist of the interests of the Marathi “manoos”. Little does he realize that [...]
Assimilate or leave
Published by November 12th, 2009 in Human Rights, India, Politics and Society. 0 CommentsThe Mad Momma profiles the various forms of intolerance in the world today :
Be it the injured Marathi manoos Raj Thackeray who considers everyone else a threat to the Maharashtrian ‘culture’ and langauge – never mind what they contribute to the state.
Or the French burqa ban earlier in schools. And now objecting to it on [...]
Satire is all fine for the political class, as long as its done by themselves.
Tech girl writes:
On Oct 6, I started a Twitter account ‘Shashi Tharoor Fake’. The bio in this Twitter account had the word satire and the front page even linked to my satire blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.
My Twitter account Shashi Tharoor Fake, started [...]
The United Front of Left and Right
Published by October 26th, 2009 in Caste, Dalit, Media and Politics. 1 CommentThe Varkala Murder case (in Kerala State) and the Police relating it to a Dalit organization have once again exposed the mindset of mainstream media, mainstream Left and extreme Right. The interesting thing is that the Left and Right (CPM and Shiv Sena) allegedly join hands along with Police to hunt down the Dalits in [...]
After years of ignoring Gandhi and tilting towards fire brand revolutionary politics, Himank is finally over awed by the Mahatma :
All my life even I have always been anti-Gandhi, always been in favour of Subhas (arguably the second biggest Indian in the Independence movement) – Bhagat Singh fire brand politics. But, the more I read [...]
Justifying reservations
Published by October 15th, 2009 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Democracy, Human Rights, India, Justice, Politics and Society. 2 CommentsWinnowed argues for caste-based reservations:
In my opinion, purely caste-based reservations do perpetuate caste divisions in the short term. However, they also uplift untouchable and backward castes, to a large extent, though it is at the expense of the upper castes. If (social and economic) upliftment of the lower castes is the sole objective behind reservations, [...]
Remembering K.Balagopal
Published by October 14th, 2009 in Activism, Adivasi, Capitalism, Caste, Dalit, Democracy, Development, Feminism, Human Rights, Justice, Politics and Poverty. 4 CommentsA site dedicated to the memory of human rights activist Balagopal who passed away recently.
Anand Teltumbde recalls his association with his ‘dearest friend and comrade’:
I knew Balagopal since 1980s and admired him for his sharp intellect and deep commitment to human rights. Not many in the movement knew that he was a brilliant mathematician and [...]
Shilpa Jamkhandikar remembers disinterest among voters on another election day: what does Mumbai vote for?
Barely six months after the city saw its most audacious terrorist attack, Mumbaikars seemed to have forgotten it all, with hardly 41 per cent of the city’s electorate bothering to cast their vote.
Those that did come out to vote said security [...]
‘Quality’ and Inclusion
Published by October 12th, 2009 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Education, Politics, Prejudice and Theory. 0 CommentsRama ponders on ‘Quality’ and its western / imperial / colonial, or Brahminical / Manuvadi biases. Very interesting post.
The sociologist, Andre Beteille, delivered a lecture in Calcutta in March which I attended.
He touched upon academic quality versus inclusion (e.g. through reservation or affirmative action), and said quality need not be compromised. At the end of [...]
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 [...]
How would an agony aunt counsel the BJP? Read on the noiseofindia blog to find out:
Q Dear Auntyji, I’m a senior party functionary. I have forgotten my gmail password. Can you help me? – SS
Dear SS, all party functionaries use the same gmail password. It is “PM2014”
I like their tag-line: “putting the mock back [...]
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 [...]
Back to Mayawati’s statues
Published by August 18th, 2009 in Dalit, Democracy and Politics. 2 CommentsGarga Chatterjee understands the rationale behind the act but does not approve it.
Having said this, one also has to note the deep hypocrisy in the propriety argument. Both Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Panditain Indira Gandhi were made the Bharat Ratna when they were prime ministers. I am not judging these acts but can only say [...]
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 [...]
Different schools for different classes
Published by June 26th, 2009 in Business, Children, Education, Policy and Politics. 0 CommentsAvinash thinks Kapil Sibal is progressive:
Kapil Sibal, the new HRD minister of India, seems to have taken a stand completely contrary to that taken by his predecessor, Mr. Arjun Singh – he seems to actually be interested in the development of the human resources in India… ;) I am impressed by the reforms Mr. Sibal [...]
Silence and resistance
Published by June 25th, 2009 in Caste, Dalit, Feminism, Gender & Sexuality, History, Human Rights, Patriarchy, Politics, Prejudice, Violence and Women. 0 CommentsAnu explains that silence doesn’t mean the absence of resistance:
This on the face of it seems like pretty sound explanation, so with a magic wand if we push the upper caste down the ladder, upper caste men lose their ‘manhood’ when their women are appropriated and humiliated, right? Any caste that finds itself at the [...]
Ordinary crime
Published by June 22nd, 2009 in Democracy, Human Rights, India, Justice, Media, Policy, Politics, South Asia and Violence. 0 CommentsAjay Govind spends what seem to be ten not-so-ordinary days in Kashmir:
But the words that caught my attention were from the title of that piece. ”I’ve learnt how ordinary crime becomes an issue”. Here were his ‘exact’ words from the interview itself “…It’s a case study for me to understand how if not handled right, an [...]
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 [...]
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