Ripley's inclusion of Irom Sharmila is nauseating

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The fact that Irom Chanu Sharmila's fast for repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur has joined Ripley's odditorium will leave many nauseous. The Iron Lady of Manipur, who has refused food for more than 10 years to protest one of the most draconian acts to be enforced on her home state, has been clubbed together with '3 feet, 5 inches of unbelievable upper body strength', 'frozen bodies waiting to be revived in the future', 'Man saws off own foot to continue receiving jobless benefits', 'Bailey the buffalo the world's largest domestic pet' and the famous 'skydiving dog'. What many may find more astounding is that supporters of Irom, under the banner of Just Peace Foundation (JPF), had reportedly written to researchers at the US-based Ripley's franchise themselves, requesting them to include her case in their list of unusual and unbelievable feats. "They have....

Singhvi CD lessons: get ready for more

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Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi had to resign from all his official positions in wake of a certain video footage which started doing the rounds on social networking sites. The footage allegedly shows Singhvi getting physically intimate with a woman lawyer who was reportedly in line to become a judge. Singhvi claimed that the footage was doctored and morphed and got a court injunction preventing a particular media group from broadcasting the footage on its channels. But the social media phenomenon, which has led to considerable democratisation of information and has loosened the stranglehold of the official media outlets on news and opinion, became his undoing. The rich and the powerful in India as well as in the rest of the world are finding it rather hard to control information flow on the social media. It was easier when they only had to deal with government and private....

Professor arrest: Mamata, the Nero of Bengal

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The path of self-destruction, that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has embarked on since May, 2011, has been concrete-reinforced by her government's actions over the last two weeks. Yesterday's actions, where the cops and Trinamool goons teamed up to beat up protestors including senior citizens and a university professor was picked up in a separate incident for sending cartoons mocking the chief minister to some 65-odd people, show that the era of democratic lumpenism, last witnessed in Bengal in the early 60s and early 70s, is well and truly back in Bengal. The Trianmool Congress chief who had come to power on the basis of a strong anti-land grab agitation and on the purely emotive but non-ideological slogan of 'Ma, Mati, Manush (Mother, Motherland and People)' has totally changed her colours. About 180 families, mostly displaced people from south Bengal and a few other areas had....

Why Iran may not be behind the attacks...

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I don't think Iran or Hezbollah is behind the series of attacks that have targeted Israeli citizens and establishments in the last one week. I just don't think that contention fits the pieces of the puzzle. The attack on the Israeli Embassy vehicle carrying the Israeli Defence Attache's wife in New Delhi and the failed attacks in Georgia and Thailand happened in February, 2012. In November of this very year, US President Barack Obama, riddled by Republican criticism of his plans to cut US defence budget and to heavily tax the rich (in case he gets elected), would seek a second term at White House. Now that I have given out the starting point and the end of this conspiracy theory thread, let me turn to filling the blanks left between. First, Iranian intelligence would never choose India as a venue to launch such attacks. It is....

Adjourned House, blighted India

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The Parliament has been adjourned for the 9th day in a row; the notional loss to the country's exchequer touches the Rs 36 crore mark. The deadlock over allowing FDI in single and multi-brand retail shows no signs of abatement. So it is perfectly natural to assume that this figure will go up appreciably once our esteemed parliamentarians return after a long weekend. The notional loss is calculated as the sum total of wages and salaries of all MPs and staff of Parliament; the cost of the elaborate security bandobast; and operating costs like electricity charges, office expense, canteen expense, stationary expense, etc. This amounts to nearly Rs 4 crore for a day when the Parliament is in session. This is how responsible elected representatives of a country, which accounts for more hungry children than 26 countries of sub-Saharan Africa taken together and whose human development index....

The chaos India has become

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Looking at the state of the Indian Union and the polity that governs it, one is prompted to dig Henry B Adams out of his grave just to hear him say: "Chaos was the law of nature, order was the dream of man." The southernmost states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are still fighting over whether to construct a new dam over the Periyar waters. Since there is no solution without both sides tuning their strings down, it is a problem which is unlikely to be solved by human intervention. Any compromise on either side will have severe political repercussions on the political parties in power in both the states. A bit up north, suddenly Karnataka is no more in news for being home to the Silicon Valley of India. Its erstwhile chief minister is embroiled in multiple scams and scandals. The loot of the country's mineral....

Mamata can't run a state like a youth club

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October is a month of festivities. There is Durga Puja and there is Diwali. But for more than 6000 retired employees of the Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC) and their family members, there was no joy this year. They were breaking into their meagre fixed deposits and life's savings just to keep themselves alive in these hyper-inflationary times. The West Bengal government, led by Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, in an unprecedented move, has suspended pensions of these employees from August. To add to it, current employees of the State Transport Department have not got paid till now for the month of October. Granted, West Bengal is faced with a precarious fiscal situation. But that can't explain abruptly stopping the pension of 6000 old people, many with ailments, in these times. Along with the festivities come festival expenses. Most of the pensioners used to draw sums of money....

Facebook petrol price hoax: Think before you 'like'

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A senior colleague of mine pinged me a Facebook post today. He was already facebooking and I was yet to hop on. Anyways, the post read: PETROL PRICES : Pakistan Rs.26 Bangladesh Rs.22 Cuba Rs.19 Nepal Rs.34 Burma Rs.30 Afghanistan Rs.36 INDIA Rs. 70.00. How it comes to this... :- Basic cost per 1 litre - 16.50 + Centre tax - 11.80% + Excise duty -9.75% + Vat Cess- 4% + State tax -8% = Total Rs 50.05 .. + Now extra 23.35 Rs..per litre... What a Great job by the Govt. of India !!! The figures were attributed to World Bank. Like a typical salaried-class Indian, I had tanked up last evening, much before the midnight clock would strike. It was not the Rs 3.14 price rise that made me do it. Every time I come back to my Noida residence from New Delhi,....

Our Silicon Valley pedagogy ain't gonna help

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A scrutiny of India's pedagogic system is absolutely indispensable while attempting to analyse the social and economic impact of India's economic growth which is often generally referred to as development. Determination of the best techniques for applying a new device or process to production of goods or services is certainly a part of development but definitely not its last word. In a country like India where a substantial part of the population (more than the population of Europe taken together) live under $2 a day, a certain percentage figure called growth rate cannot camouflage the sea of poverty and deprivation. In a globalising India, the focus is entirely on technical education. India not only fully caters to the need of the IT and knowledge-based industry in the country but also supplies significant amount of manpower to new economies and new sectors emerging all over the world. Accordingly,....

SC stick hurts govts across political divide

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Over the last ten days, the Supreme Court (SC) has taken some steps, passed certain orders and has come out with a number of directives which exactly do not show the executive, either at the federal level or at the state levels, as competent authorities to deal with the matters concerned. It started on June 27 when the apex court criticised the Uttar Pradesh government for acquiring prime agricultural land and passing the plots on to builders to erect luxury dwelling units in Greater Noida. The Supreme Court not only questioned the invoking of urgency clause that barred farmers from raising objections but also said that it would step in to prevent 'more Nandigrams'. On July 6, the court set aside land acquisitions in Noida Extension. The SC rap is not just limited to the confines of Uttar Pradesh. It resonates in nearly every nook and corner of....