Passionate About India

The last elections had invariably cast a heavy spell on BJP. As a result of which, over sometime now, the party had had been busy in meetings. And aptly so, these high profile and highly secured meetings had been named Chintan Baithak (‘thought sittings’). But ironically, the outcomes of these meetings have not been as thoughtful though! On the contrary, the party has been reeling under a perpetual conflict, and unfortunately all of this is coming from the leadership. The lineup of miseries starts with Arun Shourie’s remarks and stretches up to Vasundhara Raje's clichés with the party over her resignation and the suspension orders served to her loyals Rajendra Rathore and Gyan Ahuja. Before Raje’s episode could have been resolved any further, a new episode on BJP leader and party veteran Jaswant singh popped up, wherein he was recently expelled for writing a book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his thoughts on partition. On this, the two veteran leaders, Arun Shourie and Vasundhara Raje...

SRK's interrogation is not the issue. The issue is that Americans need to learn humility. The week’s big story was Shahrukh Khan's interrogation in the USA. True, as people would say, why give so much importance to SRK being detained in the airport for two hours, when there are so many more important socio-economic issues bogging the country – from poverty to illiteracy! But truth also is that while socio-economic issues should be picked up constantly – and we at The Sunday Indian do attempt the same most religiously – yet, there are the SRKs who will make news from time to time because they too impact the country in many ways. And this time around, SRK’s detention has brought to light the plight of thousands of others who go through a similar kind of a treatment on a most regular basis. Personally speaking, I haven’t ever been subjected to a detailed profiling; but yes, the kind of questions and the way I have been asked were good enough for me to decide years back that I woul...

THAT IS, THE POLITICAL MINDSET - TOO NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED IMMEDIATELY! The impending pandemic of swine flu has once again brought to the fore the hapless condition of Indian healthcare, the under preparedness of the government as well as the indifference with which the babudom tends to treat such incidents that generally plague the common man to a large extent. Incidentally, just as the news of swine flu is spreading panic like wildfire, these days there are also reports of thousands being affected by cerebral malaria in Bihar. Yet, that doesn’t make prime news; and won’t make much news even if the casualties there were to happen in multiples of those dying due to swine flu. And the reason? Well, deaths due to malaria and such diseases like dengue, Japanese encephalitis or say diarrhoea have a correlation with the socioeconomic conditions of the people affected by them. Thus, in the protocol driven corridors of babudom, the chances of these diseases creating any significant impact is ...

Although the Naxalite movement today has grown to become one of the biggest threats to our internal security, I would not blame the Naxals completely for this current predicament. And I have my reasons for the same. A movement that started as a class struggle in Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, in the late 60s, has now spread over the entire country. If observed carefully, this movement has strategically spread to those rural hinterlands, which have been completely cut off from any form of economic development. Naxalism has spread like a wildfire in those areas of Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, which are completely cut off from mainstream India. Lack of development coupled with years of negligence and oppression have further added to the Naxalite struggle. So much so that today, thousands of young men and women, mostly tribal, have joined the movement because that is the only recourse left for them to lead a very basic dignified life – a life...

When Barack Obama occupied the White House around six months back, expectations from him were tremendous! A considerable amount of this expectation building can be credited to his predecessor, who had done so much of damage that people all across the globe were waiting desperately for the big change in America’s highest office. And the rest of the credit goes to Obama’s mind blowing speech that he delivered in Illinois post his win, which further exponentially compounded those very expectations that people had of and from him. So not only were those beleaguered Americans residing in the US and their brethren marines in Iraq expecting a miracle from the new President elect, but also people from all shades of life all across the world, who eagerly accepted that change had finally come. In fact, it was not surprising to observe that Iranians sitting in Teheran had as much faith in Obama bringing change to the Middle East as a Chinese sitting in Beijing. All of a sudden, it seemed that ho...

As I watched Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Calcutta on 21st July, I was forced to wonder where her courage comes from! It was simply amazing to see a lady managing an entire show all on her own in the middle of quite a heavy rainfall. She was drenched and so were all her members on the stage. But she carried on. Kept giving her simple and honest speech! Kept inviting on the stage and felicitating one after the other of her still honest party members. And the thousands of people present kept watching it all and applauding it all amidst the rains – some under umbrellas and some completely drenched. But no one seemed to be interested in going back! The crowd further had the presence of one of CPM's ardent past supporters Mahasweta Devi, who, despite her deteriorating health condition, had made it a point to be there! And the crowd had another old woman too! 43 years ago, a 12-year-old boy had fallen to police bullets when students hit the streets for food, kerosene and exercise books in ...

Nandan Nilekani’s resignation as the co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies might be a great loss for one of the most iconic companies of India but is indeed a great gain for Indian governance. Now that he has taken up a job, which in certain respects is more challenging than what he had done for more than three decades at Infosys, Nilekani – as the Chairman of the newly formed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) – if he succeeds, could forever change the way the poor can be served in this nation. Yet, even when such a card is a long time due and even when almost the full majority of Indians would be happy to have a card like that, one can take it for granted that many in the bureaucratic corridors of India, down to the people in the local administrations of the block offices, would abhor if such an occurrence were to eventually materialize. The reason for the same is simple – such a card would be a permanent roadblock to their ability to earn the extra buck that they have go...