The will to communicate

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The sun quietly drifted behind the hills and I was standing in the middle of nowhere as dusk approached. We had travelled nearly 30 kilometres from a near approximation of civilization called Daringbadi to get connected to the world outside, especially my office. We were out of telephone connectivity for nearly a day and I was worried about what my colleagues back in Delhi might be wondering. Even if there was a plan to be executed on the ground, there was no way anyone could get in touch with me to communicate that. I was supposed to get a minute-by-minute account of the Naxal-inflicted hostage crisis in Odhisha from ground zero and staying disconnected for abnormal durations at this back of the beyond was, doubtless, pretty frustrating. Added to that was the 48-hour and counting power cut in Daringbadi... which meant no TV news. No newspapers reached this so-called....

Nearest to the Church, farthest from God?

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There is a well-crafted banner hanging in an obscure corner of the central gathering place of the non-descript village of Jangipur in Murshidabad. This is the district that bears the dubious tag of housing the country's highest percentage of rural poor. The banner announced the finals of a local carrom championship, the prizes for which would be handed over by the country's finance-cum-external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee. The West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president also happens to be the parliamentary candidate from the region. A 60-degree turn of vision and it is difficult to miss a similar banner, this one announcing the finals of a local chess championship. "He has done this with amazing regularity every time he has visited his constituency in the last five years," said Md. Sabiruzzaman, a resident of Lalgola, adding, "his efforts were to consolidate the youth of this region into doing constructive....

Is Bengal the soft underbelly of unclear statistics?

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An intense battle of nerves is being fought in West Bengal much ahead of the real show. And for those who are politically inclined - a dwindling figure in Bengal these days - the result is eagerly awaited! The million dollar question still remains unanswered: Will the Congress and the Trinamul Congress manage to strike an alliance against the Left Front for their bare-knuckle fight for the 42 Lok Sabha seats? The decision, when reached, would actually have poignant implications... and much before the election fever gripping the far corners of the state. It would enable us to delve deeper into the Congress High Command's assessment of the overall seat share the Left might have in Parliament this time around. Hence, at the risk of sounding boring, may I sheepishly add that it has boiled down to the number game... and something on which Congress president Sonia....

Of Vice and Men

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A dingy lane... a non-descript shanty house that one would easily miss when one enters Tiljala Lane in search of the address 7B. Yet, this very two-room quarter would form the space for one of the biggest social dramas played out in Bengal in the past three decades. And it is still far from having come to an end... Initially, Rizwanur Rehman's unnatural death... murder, suicide, accident, et al... was the story of a poor but educated and liberal Muslim boy who fell for a rich Hindu girl and met with a horrible end... a fairy tale which turned upside down, apparently due to villains who dot the society in much the same manner as depicted in Hindi movies. And, of course, there was the pleasure principle at work among the masses, which identified some concrete faces behind the abstract entity called "social villains". Kill them, was the....