Passionate About India

“Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.” So wrote Daniel Lyons some years back, in a classic Forbes cover story titled ‘Attack of the Blogs’. As the Senior Editor of Forbes then, Dan was simply expressing his extreme frustration at the utter nastiness of the Internet community, which seemed to have a super-majority of calumnious commentators, who thrived on the faceless protection that the net provided in order to leave shamefully slanderous and defamatory comments left, right and center. Cut to the present, and the situation has sickeningly worsened. Not just globally, but perhaps more so in the Indian perspective. Take a quick ‘surf’ across various pages of the Internet and it would not be hard for one to realise that every fourth or fifth page is filled up with some or the other pejoratively aberrant content against respectable individuals and compa...

Kasab was a terrorist from across the border – a man who was seen killing innocent Indians, by millions, almost live on TV! He had to be hanged and announcing it in advance could have created international cross-border tension. His secret hanging was understandable though the political calculations in the times of a fast rising pro-Narendra Modi wave and an intention to extract credit was apparent. Although there was euphoria around the Kasab hanging, the fact is that the hanging didn't benefit the government – it at best reduced ammunition in the hands of the BJP to criticize Congress. The government apparently didn't learn lessons from that episode. With the intention of creating another wave of euphoria, this time they executed Afzal Guru in a similar fashion. Guru, however, can by no stretch of imagination be equated with Kasab. In fact, his is a case where the veracity about his very involvement has been questioned by far too many intellectuals, Arundhati Roy included. In...

Indian policymakers had been daydreaming all along that the public-private partnership (PPP) model could solve all the infrastructural deficiencies of India – a clear case of vision that had turned into wishful thinking. In reality, the supposedly resounding thrust on PPP has backfired and has even choked the prospects of this model. It is true that there is promise in the model, which had raised the hopes of the nation, especially in the areas of mega-infrastructural development projects. The entire nation had started to envision our metros becoming the equivalents of Shanghai or New York in the years to come. And why not? The drumbeats and glitter associated with the PPP model have been quite profound. If we compare the beaming airports of Delhi or Hyderabad (built through the PPP model) to the shoddy government achievements showcased in the quite ordinary looking Chennai and Kolkata airports, the point does gets proved. Against India’s poor infrastructural backdrop, PPP had been ex...

For almost a decade, Dr Manmohan Singh has failed to deliver the goods when it comes to decent economic policy making governed by common sense. Given his background and past experience, this has come as an unpleasant surprise to all Indians. This coming budget is perhaps his last opportunity to stamp his authority and secure his place in history. He can still remain silent; but his policies must do the talking for him “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” “Leadership is about solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded that you do not care. Either is a failure of leadership.” “This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two differe...

On January 8, 2013, Pakistani soldiers illegally entered Indian territory through the Poonch sector of Jammu & Kashmir, attacked an Indian patrol team and eventually killed two soldiers. They went ahead and beheaded one of the soldiers too. This cold-blooded murder is not only inhuman but is also against the international conventions on armed conflicts. A few days thereafter, Pakistani troops attacked two Indian army posts in the Mendhar sector of Jammu & Kashmir, followed subsequently by another series of attacks in the Krishna Ghati sector. In spite of a flag meeting between the defence personnel of both these nations, Pakistan violated the ceasefire agreement and entered the Indian side of the LOC, not once but five times! Against this backdrop, our Prime Minister continued to have an obsequiously soft approach and announced restrictions on the visa-on-arrival facility for Pakistani citizens. Furthermore, Dr Singh found it “tough to conduct business as usual with Pakistan” ...

The volatile situation sweeping across nations because of the devastating effect of storms, tsunamis, floods and other catastrophes is predominantly a consequence of the rising sea levels – a direct impact of global warming. The last few years have seen the consequences of global warming like perhaps never before. More than 110 people were killed in the US alone by Sandy, apart from 67 casualties in the Caribbean and 2 in Canada. In Philippines, the biggest and the deadliest typhoon, Bopha, killed at least 540 people, injuring another 1100. Topping the misery chart in recent times is Japan’s tsunami, which claimed a jaw dropping 15,700 lives – a toll that created a shock wave not only in Japan, but also across the world. All these calamities, and – as the scientists claim – many more that are queuing up against the backdrop of climate change and global warming, are posing an impending danger to human lives. This year itself has begun with a scary chill across the world with temperatur...

My brother-in-law and friend, Prashanto’s mother couldn’t make it, after the burn injuries she suffered during Diwali (refer to my December 13, 2012 editorial http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/how-patents-are-anti-poor-and-are-harming-essentials-like-healthcare-worldwide/44915/ ). At 74, her body gave up after a fight of more than 50 days. And it was a life well lived. Yes, we always have a slightly better view of life on hindsight. I got to think of three key things today that I want to share. The first being about the goodness of doctors. Yes, I still believe doctors in general have fallen down to almost being merchants of death (refer to one of my past editorials http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/run-the-merchants-of-death-are-angry/36061/ ) and I also have had pharmaceutical company heads telling me stories about the doctor junkets they propagate in the garb of ‘seminars’, about how crudely doctors behave after getting sloshed over drinks and how each one is there ...