TERROVISION

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Last night as I watched the five-hour-long train hostage drama unfold on various television channels, I was forced to rewind my memory to the Indian Airlines Kandahar hijack of IC-814. You might not be convinced with the comparison I am making but allow me to put my point across which of course will be dissected threadbare. As a school student years back, images of gun-toting, black turbaned Talibans remains fresh in my mind, the sudden news of young Rupin Katiyar who was on his way to his honeymoon stabbed to death, the nation left in tearful prayers for the stranded passengers, and then the big swap of Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Maualana Mehsud Azhar with the airline passengers -- all this unfolded before the nation for the first time on the television screen. Years have gone by now, but the phoenix of the Kandahar hijack raises its head time and again....

MY VIEW ON AMEN

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There are two sides to Amen. First, how entertaining is Amen, as a book, and the second is the subject matter. And although it's difficult to separate the two, I have to make that distinction here. Amen is the autobiography of a nun, something that's very apparent from the name. Sister Jesme, born in 1956, realized that she wanted to spend her life in service to Jesus when she was in her late teens. She completed all those courses and compulsory tests that you are supposed to do if you want to become a nun, for years and years apparently. After joining the Church as a nun, she realises that things are not like she thought they would be. In her book she mentions that homosexuality is very common in the Church and those who don't reciprocate the senior sisters' advances have to face the consequences. Sister Jesme....

Luyten’s bungalows or Let-in bungalows?

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Sometimes, I wonder if politicians were not around, journalists would be starved of stories. That probably is not true, but yes, the colour of journalism looks brighter when stories revolve around netas and their controversies. No matter how big or small the neta is or even if he is dead, journalists reap a vicarious pleasure in bringing out the skeletons from the cupboard and as for the general public it mulls thinks and broods to a certain point and then forgets. Life moves on for the people and for the journalist it's another story, another day and another sensation. . Well, these were just thoughts which came to my mind while I was on this operation. But I know I am a journalist who cannot keep harping on these points as a story a day is the grub on which our channels feed and that's how we earn....

M Seedy officials

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Amidst the incomplete columns of illegal structures that mushroom in Delhi throughout the year, bulldozers are a rare sight. But not this month, as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi went into an overdrive, bringing down illegal structures across Delhi, incurring the wrath of house-owners and shopkeepers alike. A demolition squad generally comprises four to five people of the inspector rank from the Municipal Corporation along with hordes of policemen. But how clean are these officials themselves? That was the question we set about asking and the answer was uncomfortably familiar. We heard of one such demolition officer who was active on the drive ordering buildings to be razed to the ground. Inspector Satish Bhatia works for the Defence Colony zonal office of the MCD. Cameraperson Abhay and I introduced ourselves as husband and wife and posed as buyers for a home we had heard Bhatia was interested....