The Indian constitution states that “the state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people, protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political for all.” It is on these basic values that India continues to endeavour to provide its people basic socio-economic requirements such as food, employment and shelter. In gen
Two path-breaking judgments by the Supreme Court on privacy and triple talaq were a reminder of how much we have begun to rely on the judiciary to make sense of a conflicted world. Seventy years after Independence, India’s judiciary has many accomplishments to its credit. A large judicial infrastructure has been created, with a powerful Supreme Court, 24 high courts with some 600 judges o
Instant triple talaq – which the supreme court banned recently, while asking the government to legislate against the decadent practice – is something Muslim women had no doubt wanted to speak up against but couldn’t muster strength to bring about progressive change. It took five Muslim women, who received little if any support from the community and were opposed by religious l
In a candid conversation with diplomats from 50-odd countries recently, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is learnt to have drawn a distinction between Hinduism and Hindu-ness. Bhagwat`s considered view, according to reports, was that while Hinduism can be guided by certain rigidities, codes and dogmas, Hindu-ness is a liberated concept, free from such limitations. Here`s what he is report
We are already in an age where some people have a job, some have work and a lucky few have both. ‘Job’ and ‘work’ are used interchangeably. Within a fast changing urban context, however, there is a fundamental distinction between the two. A job is a product of a classical urbanism whose end state is a city. It’s a city that’s always powered by a large scale u
Journalist Gauri Lankesh`s murder in Bengaluru on Tuesday has quickly turned into a war of ideologies with intelligentsia and media jumping the gun to blame the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS for the murder even before the investigating agencies have had the time to open a case file. That reminds me of this passage from Fyodor Dostoevsky`s classic, "Crime and Puni
L`affaire Antrix Devas no longer makes newspaper headlines, but little snippets about it keep surfacing periodically. It has a strange history, starting from 2003, has seen three PMOs and two enquiries, first by former cabinet secretary BK Chaturvedi, then by former chief vigilance commisioner Pratyush Sinha, and then a CBI enquiry. Strangely again, as newspaper reports say, the CBI`s pre
Bimal Roy – synonymous with the aesthetics of cinema… evolved into a legend in his lifetime, writes Shoma A Chatterji in her book which is an in-depth account of the great filmmaker’s work in Indian cinema. She chooses to use the word ‘cinema’ because it “encompasses an entire socio-cultural history” and so did Roy’s movies. His career span from
In 2007, Shyamlal Yadav, then a senior journalist with India Today magazine, decided to use the RTI law, enacted only two years ago, to find out the details of foreign trips made by union ministers. Foreign travel is expensive, time consuming and, more often than not, does not serve any real purpose. Yadav wanted to know which minister travelled how much. It took him 59 applications and appeals
Pakistani leaders must be feeling frustrated after US president Donald Trump warned Islamabad that America would not remain a silent spectator if Pakistan continued to be a safe haven for terrorists. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also said Pakistan could lose the privilege of being a US ally if it “failed to change their posture”. These two statements mirrored New Delhi’s l
Gone are the days of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Madhav Rao Scindia and Nitish Kumar who hogged the limelight and even moral space by resigning after train accidents that claimed human lives. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu is made of a different stuff. Despite a series of accidents under his watch, he is content to punish officials, forcing a member of the railway board and senior officials to go on
To get to a point where anything quantum must move from a theoretical possibility to an applied end state requires the use of bizarre props where every leap of logic is also a leap of faith. It stands steadfast even when the intent is to prove the sheer absurdity of it all. Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger used an imagined cat for a thought experiment with an intent to prove that quant
India began her tryst with destiny almost seventy years ago, in the midnight intervening 14th and 15th August 1947. The country the British left behind was but a collection of over 600 native states and principalities, driven by internal differences, caste prejudices and severe social infirmities. The idea of India was yet to emerge. The literacy rate was 18% and the average life expectancy was
Only that exceptional logician and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein could have brought forth the limitations of human intellect in such a pithy and matter of fact manner: the limits of my language are the limits of my world. ‘What is quantum urbanism?’ is a question that has the same quality as Wittgenstein’s deep reading of the human condition. In exploring that question, we w
At no other moment in the history of Indian national life after Independence the dalits are as oppressed as this moment: dalits are set ablaze, slaughtered like animals on the slaughtering bench of history, and humiliated like slaves in the marketplace in full daylight. When the social hierarchy is interiorised and reduplicated within the institutionalised life of higher education like the univ
There are a zillion secret reasons why people start on the one habit that has not even a single benefit, worsens their health from the very first day, uglifies their teeth and makes them smell unbearably foul, and what’s worse, is a major cause of cancer. We are speaking, of course, of smoking or otherwise ingesting tobacco. (Even alcohol in strict moderation is supposed to be good for th
Feel your favourite city. The words that typically come to your mind are liberally fused with adjectives in a valiant effort to give shape to our deeply felt emotions. It is quite common to find descriptions that are a chaotic and joyful mix of traits and idiosyncrasies that one can mistake for a good friend rather than a city. Now, think your favourite city. The words that spring up are analyt
Government projects typically suffer from time overrun and cost overrun. There appears to be no project management discipline, and extension of time and escalation of cost rarely attract the kind of serious attention they should. There is no system of fixation of accountability for these substantial deviations which, as a result, become the norm rather than an exception. Apart from being a refl
For the past 25 years, India has been rising in stature. It is continually called an upcoming superpower but has been unable to reach the promised status. India’s importance in the world is more due to its immense population and potential as a market than any objective assessment of development. India is classified by the World Bank as a lower-middle income country below the likes of Nami
Back in the early 1990s, Shankarsinh Vaghela was (or at least perceived to be) more popular of the two people running the BJP show in Gujarat. Today, the other man is the prime minister, and Vaghela is reduced to a footnote – albeit an important one – in the Narendra Modi saga. On Friday, at a grand meeting in Gandhinagar to celebrate his birthday, V
