Passionate About India

It was a pleasure to speak on the "Absence of God" in the presence of School Principals - from about 70 of Delhi's most progressive schools, at the Forum of Public Schools !! Gratitude to all the principals for allowing me to question the existence of God and elaborate upon the extreme harmful effects of religion on mankind. Hats off to to their open mindedness.. after all if Principals aren't the torch bearers of logic and evidence based learning over faith based unscientific blind belief then would? And if scientific reasoning and attitude of questioning all kinds of superstition doesn't start at school then where will it? As they say we are all born atheists but very few of us are lucky enough to remain so. Because when it comes to religion or god, from almost the day we are born our parents start feeding our brains with lies. Be it through various pujas and namakaran ceremonies or baptism or janeyu ceremony or circumcision etc. Blatant lies without evidence. B...

  Finally every genuine news site of the world, for the past seven days has a headline I am pleased with. Russia starts war in Syria!! What the world desperately needed has started. Almost like the cold war era, Russia has taken America head on without caring... smashing the USA backed extremists in Syria, while additionally destroying ISIS; bombing them in a manner last seen maybe 70 years back. From state of the art bombers and missiles to absolutely brilliant sea to land missile attacks from a distance of 1500 km. In fact as I write, today they are actually expected to deploy 'Blazing Sun' - heavy flamethrower 24 barrel missile launchers capable of flattening eight city blocks, not just by its sheer heat but also by sucking up the oxygen in that area and creating a near vaccum. Finally after days of near silence and efforts to demean Russian efforts the western media has woken up and started writing the truth (though the Indian media is still sleeping). And the truth is IS...

Modi has completed a month! And there have been all kinds of things happening! And an analysis is most required since the hype and expectation around his becoming Prime Minister was exceptional; so every move, especially in the first few days, was being observed by the whole world with a lot of curiosity. So what has it been like? Well, one thing is sure, there has been nothing bad at all. Let us begin with the excellent! The most excellent thing about Modi has been his intent and his most excellent speeches post becoming the PM. The way he addressed the Parliament with calm poise, a subtle sense of humour and ubiquitous confidence, gave the nation the much needed sense of pride that had gone totally missing over the past decade. The truth is that Gujarat has not been the only success story. Tamil Nadu too has been one; and to his immense credit, Modi, like a great statesman, was so humble about learning from the TN model. The most excellent has been his "toilets before temples...

In my previous editorial, I had written the first of a two-part editorial on what must Modi do, now that he's in power. In that editorial, I had suggested that Modi must first focus on transforming the judiciary, improving education and healthcare services, and initiating employment generation schemes and slum-removal schemes to give people dignified existence. Continuing with that, here is the second part of my editorial on what else must Modi do: Legalizing Black Money I have suggested this in the past too; and shall suggest it again verbatim – we should legalize all the black money stashed abroad by structuring a consolidated tax payment of 10% on the black money amount. To sugarcoat the offer, even this 10% could be taken in five equal annual installments of 2%! But this has to be with two key riders! The first one is that the government must ensure that it takes persuasive and decisive action to recover the black money stashed abroad from day one. In this, the government shou...

So now, Modi is finally there! And if I foresee it correctly – he being a man of action, ambition and humility – he would continue to be in power for at least for 10 years, and perhaps for 15 years! That means he has enough time to completely change India and its history. Since the list of must-dos for Modi is very long, I shall write them in two parts; with the first part being presented in my editorial this week, and the second part in the next week. I've written about these in the Alternative Budgets that I have presented in the preceding years, and they have only gained in importance with each passing year. So here are the first set of key points that Modi needs to work upon immediately. Transform the judiciary Modi's first priority in an environment of people being fed up with corruption is to transform the judiciary. The Jan Lokpal Bill was given its silent burial with a manipulative and flawed bill. As it is, even at its best, the Bill would not have been successful to ...

It's like a holding company and its subsidiaries. Very often, the holding company asks its subsidiaries to run their business their way, and thus appoints CEOs, gives them targets and then does quarterly or annual reviews! In the same manner, RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) used to look at BJP as its subsidiary, even when BJP won elections the last time! At that time, BJP was more or less independent as RSS gave much autonomy, hoping that Vajpayee would stick to the principles of RSS. However, Vajpayee became more populist and RSS was not necessarily the most satisfied with him always. Insiders in RSS believe that BJP went out of power because RSS principles were not followed properly by Vajpayee. Despite that, RSS followed its style of looking at BJP as just another subsidiary and gave it reasonable autonomy. In fact, the RSS has always called itself a social movement and never a political party. Its aim has been to build a robust, democratic and free India since 1925. It be...

What is the role of a ruling government, after all? I'm sure my answer doesn't consolidate all views, and might even be considered too simplistic for the eco-politico geeks; yet, aren't the elected group of politicians in any democratic nation supposed to ensure that there is continual social, economic and cultural uplifting of citizens through dynamic, focused and objective oriented policies and measures? If you agree to this, then you would also agree that on each and every such aspect, Indian politicians have had minimal and insignificant contributions, if not nil. India's pockets of improvements have either occurred because of the spirit and perseverance of its civil society, or in specific cases, because of a conspiratorial connivance of the political class with the business class. In either case, the impact of any advancement has not benefited the majority of India's population. How can one justify the fact that India still has such a massive population of pe...