Former central minister and Rajya Sabha member Mani Shankar Aiyar has once again criticised the hosting of the Commonwealth Games, going so far as to say that he would be unhappy if the event was a success. He has said those opposing the Games were on the side of the good while those in its favour were with the evil. He has made this argument before: that a developing country lik
We raise this question today because the CBI has a completely clean record in this regard—it has never nailed or jailed a politician involved in any sort of wrong doing. Lalu Prasad is roaming free and the Rs 1,000 crore fodder scam has been forgotten. Closer home, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, accused of involvement in the anti-Sikh riots, are roaming free too. Mayawati and Mulayam Si
Gujarat`s minister of state for home Amit Shah has finally stepped down as the CBI has slapped the murder charge on him in connection with the `fake encounter` of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and friend Tulsi Prajapati in November 2005. Modi has maintained that his trusted aide is innocent and accused the Congress of using the CBI to target its political rivals. The BJP
External affairs minister, S M Krishna had slammed the home secretary, G K Pillai over his speaking to the press about the disclosures made by Headley saying that the timings were bad. More than anything, the spat between ministry of home affairs and ministry of external affairs has lead one to believe that both ministries are not in sync on their Pakistan policy. Krishna had during his visit t
Death of yet another RTI activist, Amit Jethva, in Ahmedabad last night, brings to fore the obvious question: Is the government serious about the whistleblowers’ safety? Does it really want to fight corruption and encourage people to expose it? Doubts arise firstly because ever since IITian Satyendra Dube was killed in 2003 in Patna for exposing corruption in the national highway
It is clear as daylight that Mamata Banerjee has neither competence nor inclination to run the railway ministry. She is too engrossed with the West Bengal politics to know the difference between a human failure (or signal failure as the home ministry said), that led to the collision of two trains near Sainthia in West Bengal and a sabotage that she insists on to explain the accident (and her fa
Hosting the Commonwealth Games, we are told, is a prestigious event for India. So prestigious that crores of rupees are being spent on – much of them in doing footpaths and then redoing them – at the poor, inflation-hit taxpayer`s money. Still, it`s a matter of India`s prestige before the world. So be it. However, precisely how prestigious is this event? Olympics champions Usain Bol
A Kerala college lecturer paid heavily for allegedly insulting the Prophet in a question paper when his hand was chopped off allegedly by activists of the extremist organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI). As the police proceed to take action against the accused, PFI has cried witch hunt but several other prominent Muslim organisations have not. Then why is the Congress following the PFI lin
In this country, few actually take books seriously – till there comes a scholarly tome that offers a second opinion of sorts on a historic leader (or religious practice and so on). Then, even hooligans will take a book seriously and will go on a rampage, destroying priceless manuscripts as they did at a Pune institute. They were protesting against American scholar James W. Laine`s book `S
Karnataka governor H R Bhardwaj created a flutter within the state government and the Bharatiya Janata Party that runs it when he called for removal of corrupt ministers indulging in illegal mining. The governor met the president in Delhi and later told the media that he had already taken up the issue with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa. "I have told him you have appointed the ministers an
The government is likely to tell our corporate tycoons to reconsider their “ostentatious lifestyle” and practise austerity, according to a report in the Indian Express. This, of course, will be the second round of austerity – finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had called for a sim
Delhi`s now officially unsafe for women - `officially` here meaning that the government acknowledges it. Sexual harassment is now a daily feature in police books. According to a survey conducted by the department of women and child development (WCD) of the state government, around 43 percent of all sexual offences against women happens on the roads while 31 percent happens on public tra
Department of industrial policy & promotion has released a discussion paper on FDI in retail sector. The discussion paper has sought opinion on allowing retail chains with foreign capital to open stores in select cities. People against the move have raised issues that it will adversely affect the fortunes of over one crore small retailers in the country and force them to shut shop.
Road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath has articulated a widely-held view that the Planning Commission is an armchair adviser with no accountability or performance targets. That he did so in the presence of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia made it all the more significant. "When the PM inaugurated Terminal 3 a
When Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde paid heed to senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani`s appeal and withdrew his resignation, the opposition parties slammed him for having compromised his position. Having blamed the incumbent BJP government for not allowing him to function, the Lokayukta had no business to call Advani a father figure and withdraw his resignation, the opposition sa
Sports bodies have been natural hunting grounds for Indian politicians of all hues for decades but Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has gone global and taken over as head of the International Cricket Council. This surely represents a high of sorts as Pawar is just the second Indian and the first Indian politician to make it to this position. What`s more, his appointment has come at a tim
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met US President Barack Obama in Canada and despite the furore over the government inaction over Bhopal gas tragedy back home he refrained from discussing the issue of the extradition of former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson. "We will try to ensure that the US government takes a favourable attitude towards his extradition," the prime minister told jour
The disturbing image of menacing youth armed with sticks and raining blows on a trapped policeman near Srinagar on Monday presents a more complicated picture than the state government or the opposition parties in the troubled valley would have us believe. Of course, the politicians in the state would now say that the Kashmiri youth were provoked into retaliation by the brutality of the paramili
The Delhi government`s information technology (IT) department is planning a helpline number 111 for the Commonwealth Games. Through the number an individual can complaint about overcharging by an auto and seek information about the city. It is proposed that a call to 111 will inform a person about the games schedules, stadia, cultural events, hotels and other tourism-relat
Commonwealth Express, an exhibition train, on the themes of sports and Information Technology (IT), was flagged off from the Safdarjung railway station, New Delhi yesterday. The train consists of 11 coaches out of which five coaches have been allocated to Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase the history of commonwealth games and 6 coaches to showcase history of IT in India. The train will
