Passionate About India

I write this not as my editorial, but as a protest to see if there are any listeners… because my blood boils in anger over the way another human being in the world’s largest democracy is being robbed of her freedom of speech. And the way everyone from the mainstream media to intelligentsia has maintained the conspiracy of silence! Taslima Nasreen, the author of famous books like Lajja and Dwikhandito (the book whose controversial passages landed her into trouble with various Muslim fundamentalist forces of West Bengal), has been under virtual house arrest in New Delhi, ever since West Bengal government decided to throw her out of Kolkata, her home for the last three years. Much like Salman Rushdie, she had dared to write about Prophet Mohammad’s wives in a questioning tone (which of course under mental trauma she asked her publishers to remove from her book about two months back). Unlike Hinduism, which has evolved as a religion, thanks to tens of reformers (can you imagine the days of...

At times I wonder why there is so much of contempt when fellow Indians are bashed up in Malaysia, when Indian immigrant labourers are ill-treated in West Asia, or often when they are at the receiving end of various forms of racial abuse in Europe, or for that matter when the Indian cricket team finds itself at the receiving end from the Aussies! It amazes me to no end because India is the same country where the treatment meted out by one Indian from one region to a fellow Indian from some other region is no different. In fact, at times the manner in which the natives of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the entire Northeast belt are often treated in other parts of the country is even more brutal and inhuman when compared to the treatment meted out to fellow Indians in a foreign land, amply vindicating our appalling double standards. Whatever is happening in Mumbai right now is a perfect imagery of how people of the same country are increasingly becoming aliens in their own homeland. For that ma...

Scores of ignorant poor, conniving doctors bereft of morality, toothless law, unprecedented demand for organs – and you have an ideal mix for a ‘small scale organ trade industry’!!! The irony could not have been bigger than this. For all the big talk around the country, the monstrous and thriving kidney transplant racket of Gurgaon was unearthed on Republic Day, amply vindicating the extent of the rot in our system. The current incidence at Gurgaon epitomises medical barbarism in its worst form. It is amazing how a team of doctors (reports are filtering in that the mastermind of this racket is not even a doctor by profession) seamlessly carried out such a ghastly crime for almost nine years, and that too only a few kilometres from the national capital, without anyone’s knowledge. It is all the more surprising that the entire administration got to know about the racket only after the team had managed to rob almost 500 to 600 abysmally poor people of their kidneys. Not just that, reports...

It seems that Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s Reliance Power issue was launched to take away the complete sheen from the Indian stock markets. In fact, it is a strange coincidence that since the day of the issue, Indian investors have lost more than Rs 17 trillion in the stock markets!!! It has been, by far, the sharpest fall for the Sensex. After scaling a new high of 21,206 on January 10, it crashed to 15,322.54 at 11.55 am on January 22, before some recovery. But by then, the markets had already lost a fourth of their worth. Like on most such occasions, the fall was triggered primarily by the Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) who had gone in for a collective selling binge. In five days, the FIIs collectively pulled out a staggering Rs 10,500 crores from Indian stock markets, stripping most of the blue chip stocks. Though domestic investors tried their best to hold the markets at sustainable levels, they too failed in their efforts. Incidentally, the fall was not unique to India a...

A one lakh-rupee car! And that too made in India!! It could have perhaps only come from one house in India – the house of Tatas. Tatas have traditionally been known as people with a different social commitment despite being a business house. While their competitors in the entrepreneur-unfriendly-era of licence raj went ahead with corrupt practices to grow, Tatas sacrificed growth in order to remain clean. The Tata history is replete with examples of patriotism. The famous Taj Mahal Hotel at the Gateway of India in Mumbai being one of the finest examples! The hotel had a sign outside which said, “Dogs and Britishers not allowed,” because many hotels then – and in particular a hotel right behind the Taj – used to have signboards saying, “Dogs and Indians not allowed.” Thus, the people’s car for India had to be from their stable! However, what comes as a surprise is that the car comes under the leadership of Ratan Tata. Though the house, as I just mentioned, has always been known for its ...

Of late, the word ‘affection’ has acquired a new meaning in Uttar Pradesh. The term, which otherwise is used to express qualitative and subjective feelings, has turned hugely quantitative in nature. And interestingly, this change has been spearheaded by none other than the current Chief Minister of the state, Ms Mayawati, whose followers, in a mad frenzy of this affection, had been filling her personal coffers with gifts and donations. The reverence of Bahujan Samaj Party party workers towards her had been so overwhelming that according to reports, in the last three years, her personal wealth has grown almost 50 times! Her personal assets – which in 2004 were around Rs 1.62 crores, a figure she herself had declared before filing her nomination papers – have increased to a whopping Rs 52 crores now! And mind you, she does not have any other source of income except for these gifts! Media reports have put on record that her personal property is worth Rs 37.82 crore, plus cash of Rs 50.27 ...

What a venue they chose to assassinate Benazir Bhutto. At the same venue, in the year 1951, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated. Fifty six years later, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007, indicating the state of security quagmire Pakistan has been in. The state of affairs is so appalling that the assassins could have terminated her life whenever they had wished. The fact is that the perpetrators had plotted to blow Benazir up targeting the day she had returned to Pakistan. They missed! And after that, within themselves, they must have discussed casually – ‘Well, no issues, we missed today, will try again, next month!’ It is unbelievable how easily they almost killed her once (during the first blast) and then actually killed her in a matter of a few more days. These shocking incidents only indicate the state of security quandary that the South Asian countries face, wherein the killing of top political figures is carried out almost at will...