Passionate About India

While the government would make us believe that all is well with the economy, and that the Indian economy is resilient enough to withstand the shocks of global recession, one visit to any vegetable market in Delhi or for that matter anywhere in the country actually gives a very different kind of a picture. Food prices, in the last one year or so, have skyrocketed to such an extent that many items have become beyond the reach of the common man. For the common man in India, the staple diet consists of things as basic as potato, pulses and rice. But given the way the prices have increased in the recent past, today they can no more be called the ingredients of the common man’s diet. The price of pulses is almost touching Rs 100 per kg, while that of potato is hovering around Rs 40 per kg. Even a year back, pulses were available in the market for less than half the price and almost a fifth in the case of potatoes. So does it mean that all of a sudden the farmers of the country have decided ...

The untimely demise of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could not have happened at a worse time. The sequence of events that happened post his death proved the same. If initially it was a major political crisis that erupted with respect to the nomination of a candidate as the next chief minister of the state, later on, it was the demand of K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) for a separate state of Telangana that turned one of the most prosperous and properly administered states into a virtual battleground. The state, which for a very long period has been in the news for its strides in Information Technology and the successful battle against Maoists, is now in the news for all the wrong reasons. True to its style, the government at the Centre easily gave in to the demands of K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was quick to realise the political vacuum that was created by the death of YSR and found the revival of Telangana movement for a separate state an ideal platform to re-launch his political career graph. But wh...

AND WORK TOWARDS THE CREATION OF A BETTER AND CLEANER WORLD! An interesting piece of news had come out a few days back, where it was stated that the government is planning to replace polluting ‘chullahs’ in rural households with green stoves (stoves fuelled by biomass). As stated there, this flagship program would cover around 140 million households. In other words, it would cover over 560 million people. This, in itself, is a wonderful initiative and would go a long way in not just saving the precious forests of India but would also arrest many ailments which emanate from the poisonous smoke of chullahs. Another interesting news that has come up in the recent past is that India’s forest cover has grown by 728 square kilometers during 2005-07 and thus now stands at 21%. Similarly, one has also witnessed that there has been a sincere effort on the part of the government and also the judicial system to crack down on illegal mines in forest areas and force the fuel guzzling and polluting ...

Dubai sent shockwaves across the world when the news broke out that Dubai World, Dubai’s chief investment vehicle, wanted to defer its repayments on all or part of its $59 billion in debt. Dubai World alone is responsible for almost 75 percent of the entire debt of Dubai, which stands at $80 billion. Although post 25/11, when the news broke out for the first time, the ruler of Dubai did release an official statement comforting global investors (specifically on December 1, 2009 – the global financial markets stabilized a bit after that statement), but the world is still keenly looking forward to December 14, 2009, as that is the day when bonds worth $3.5 billion for Nakheel – the real estate arm under Dubai World and the company behind the prestigious palm shaped manmade islands – become due. A great deal of Dubai’s future and global investors’ fate would be determined on how the company deals with the bonds issue! In fact, for getting the right perspective of what is happening to Dubai...

THE FOCUS OF UPA SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON ISSUES RELATING TO HOW SUCH INSTANCES OF MAYHEM CAN BE AVERTED IN THE FUTURE, RATHER THAN RAKING UP A NEARLY TWO-DECADE-OLD BABRI ISSUE! The recent controversy regarding the submission of the Liberhan Report and the leakage of the name of the former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee as being one of those indicted in the report, has undoubtedly started the kind of furore and controversy that could have been well avoided by the government. Needless to say that it has again united all the ranks and fi les of the Sangh Parivar that is vying for a major face-off with the government over the manner in which such a confidential report was leaked to the press even before it was even tabled in the Parliament. Eyebrows and conspiracy theories would invariably be raised over the timing of the submission of the report and the systematic manner in which the name of Vajpayee has been leaked. The Babri Masjid demolition is undoubtedly one of the most unfortu...

It is not that Washington has done something like this for the first time. In fact, the US has got a checkered history of taking gratuitously arbitrary and insensitive stances, with a singular objective of fulfilling their own selfish motives. I’m referring to Obama’s recent trip to China and his most ridiculous statement of how China can play an important role in making the Indo-Pak relationship healthier. Not just this, Obama has clearly indicated a visible tilt towards China by offering to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together with China to promote peace, stability and development in that region! Although US Presidents have had a sparkling history of purposefully committing such extravagant blunders (for selfindulgent American gain), Obama seems to surpass them all, as it has been extremely rare for any American President to acknowledge China as a harbinger of ‘peace’ in South Asia, and that too with respect to India and...

Manu Sharma is back in the news again, and like always, for all the wrong reasons! For me, Manu Sharma is a special case, as his case is a classic metaphor of the state of judiciary in our country, which is painfully slow and visibly discriminatory! It is no secret that Manu Sharma was finally convicted with life imprisonment in 2006, for a murder that he committed in 1999! It took our courts close to a decade to convict him for a heinous crime like cold blooded murder, wherein evidences were yelling against him. Not to forget that he almost managed his acquittal in 2003; and it was only after Sabrina Lal’s (Jessica’s sister) determined fight for justice, media’s persistent and systematic follow up and a huge public outcry that Sharma was finally convicted in 2006! And it has been just three years that he was found partying at a lounge bar in Delhi couple of days back. As is reported, he managed to do so as he was out on a parole, initially for a month and then further for another mon...