More in Short Posts
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Why Barkha Dutt hates Hindus ?
(In view of what happened on the Sunday, reposting this old post from my other blog) Of course here Barkha Dutt is just a stand in for the whole sec-lib establishment, so the question really is why sec-lib establishment hates Hindus. Essentially this question is answered by my previous post, but...
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The Post Diluvian Creed
[Note: Reposting old post from my other blog] [This post is a result of email exchange with Don Virmani] Don raised an important query, one which has intrigued me for a long time. The query is this, despite the apparent contradiction in their world-view, why is left so enamored of Islam?...
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Baba and the BJP
At the time of writing this, New Delhi is all set for another period of high drama. It hasn’t been long since one Kisan Baburao Hazare went on a hunger strike demanding that the government show interest in the Lokpal Bill. Back then I had opposed and criticised this obvious...
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Cast away the caste
Yet another shocking incident of caste atrocity reported in Maharashtra. Out of woodwork will come few apologists to suggest that this is an isolated case The biggest stumbling block to building and sustaining a cohesive nationhood project has been caste. The historical origins of caste may have been rooted in a simple division...
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No big fuss over the win!
The ongoing Panchayat polls in J&K which were held after a decade(last one was in 2001) has been a success with around 80 percent of people exercising their franchise, exceeding the polling percentage in the 2008 Assembly polls which was estimated to be around 60 percent. The valley people have...
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TN 2011: Towards a post Dravidian era?
The DMK has just been handed one of its biggest defeats. Political analysts say the worst is yet to come for the pioneer Dravidian party. Karunanidhis’ list of woes almost appears endless: corruption cases, family bickering and a generally vindictive political opponent with a huge mandate in power. This is...
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Tackling Bureaucratic Corruption
Dr. Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor to Ministry of Finance, past and future economics professor at Columbia University, proposed, in a working paper, that changing legal status of a bribe giver would potentially reduce what he calls harassment bribes – those bribes that are demanded by babus simply because they...
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Sedition 101
There has been a fair bit of commentary on the Sedition law recently. The legal developments of the Binayak Sen Case ranging from his life imprisonment sentence awarded by the Raipur Sessions Court to the subsequent bail granted by the Supreme Court have brought a lot of attention to Section. 124 of the Indian Penal Code: the Sedition Section.
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Thoughts on Osama
Osama bin Laden, like Michael Jackson, had ceased to be relevant to his craft long before his actual biological death. He died the moment two large commercial airliners flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September, 2001. More accurately perhaps, I should say that he died the...
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Reconciling reason and Saibaba
Being one of those uncompromising atheists in my student years I was over-joyed to be able to travel in buses that carried advertisements assuring people that a God probably did not exist and that we could enjoy life guilt-free. The enthusiasm did wither away as I came to be gradually...
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Gujarat and Idiocy of Book Banning
For all his undoubted administrative achievements and perceptive evolution since 2002, a certain vulnerability of Narendra Modi continues to manifests often, much to the disappointment of his exponentially growing list of admirers who have been attracted by his stellar brand of governance. A continued streak of intolerance will be politically...
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India’s World Cup Win – A Personal Account
Guest Post by Siddharth Vij There exists an asymmetry in the speed with which a cricket crowd reacts to events on the field. When something favourable happens, the reaction is instantaneous – the cheering, the clapping et al. However, when something unfavourable happens it takes a second for the regular...
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The Lesser Known Aspects of Mahatma Gandhi – A Review of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India
Anita Desai’s review has covered most of the principal aspects of Joseph Lelyveld’s new book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India. Charmy Harikrishnan’s op-ed in IE and Lydia Polgreen’s news report in NYT together have almost all the details on the controversial aspects of the book especially...
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CRI Exclusive: India and Pakistan to concede runs and wickets as confidence building measure
Match fixing for world peace In an unexpected boost to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s efforts to utilize the World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan for improving bilateral relations between the two nuclear armed countries, both the Indian and Pakistani teams have announced that they shall deliberately concede atleast...