One thing which the BJP and Congress have in common is their double standard when it comes to issues related to the western world. Praise from foreign leaders, newspapers and magazines is presented as an endorsement, while criticism is dismissed, by simply saying that external opinions don`t count. The grand old party spared no opportunity to shield Dr Manmohan Singh from domestic criti
The social media is smelling a rat in the alleged suicide of December 16, gangrape accused Ram Singh who, according to reports, hanged himself in his cell with a rope made of his ‘own clothes’. No one believes the story of the suicide; and the laxity of the police administration, which is unable to guard its own prisoners in custody, now comes to fore. Also re
Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister of UP, was recently reported as stating that the bureaucrat has “no allegiance to anyone” (kisi ka nahin hota hai). This statement was made while addressing the party workers. It is not clear whether the statement was adulatory, referring to the neutrality and impartiality of the civil servant; or was it a lament that the senior bureaucrat has no &
There is much anger among lawyers on the release of the upcoming release of Arshad Warsi-starrer starrer, Jolly LLB. As soon as its trailer went on air, at least three different cases were filed against the release of the movie scheduled for March 15. A group of lawyers in Meerut moved the Delhi high court against the release of the movie claiming that the scenes in the trailer
I woke up to screaming adverts and news stories in the papers this morning about the many facets, and the many faces, of Indian women; how important they are to our lives, and the national economy; how it is our duty to respect them. It felt good, though a little heady: a little patronising, are we being? Reaching office, I logged on to facebook, where a woman friend — a f
Now that Narendra Modi is not hitting the Skype on March 23 to make that keynote address at the Wharton India Economic Forum, the debate about what the issue was all about could be addressed in a more civil, reasonable way. Ania Loomba, one of the three Indian-American professors of the University of Pennsylvania who shot off the protest petition that led Wharton to revoke its invi
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India on March 4 rejected the German firm Bayer AG`s appeal of a ruling last year that allowed Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to produce a cheaper generic version of Bayer’s kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar. This would result in a treatment that more people would be able to afford. Our cover story for September 1-15, 2012 issue went behi
That is unspeakable. The Indian government has recommended that the age for consensual sex should be dropped from 18 to 16 after raising it from 16 to 18 so that mere teens can now romp about without breaking the law. Thought process: kids grow up faster. So what? To add insult to injury you have the National Committee for Protection of Children asking for the age to be dropped to 12. W
The UPA government has completed nine years in office. Nine years is a reasonable period for any government to leave its footprints behind. It can effect changes which will impact the destiny of the nation. The UPA has a dismal record in office. It inherited the governance of an enthusiastic nation. India was being show-cased before the world as an investment destination. The NDA left behind a
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India on March 4 rejected the German firm Bayer AG`s appeal of a ruling last year that allowed Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to produce a cheaper generic version of Bayer’s kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar. This would result in a treatment that more people would be able to afford. Our cover story for September 1-15, 2012 issue went behi
One day, many thousand years ago, somewhere near what is now the national capital lived a man named Devabrata. When his father, a king named Shantanu (ahem), a man apparently not known for his fidelity, like many kings of that era and later, fell in love with a fisherwoman’s daughter and wanted to marry her, young Devabrata took a vow that wows India till date: never to marry, to look aft
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India on March 4 rejected the German firm Bayer AG`s appeal of a ruling last year that allowed Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to produce a cheaper generic version of Bayer’s kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar. This would result in a treatment that more people would be able to afford. Our cover story for September 1-15, 2012 issue went behin
Pharmaceutical preparations containing narcotic drugs continue to be diverted from Indian pharma firms and smuggled into South Asian countries and beyond, says the latest report by the UN sponsored International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). "The preparations containing psychotropic substances most commonly diverted from India`s pharmaceutical industry are benzodiazepines and bup
When economic indicators are not very promising, one thing which can bring cheers to everybody’s life is an entrepreneurial activity in social, cultural, educational and technological fields. These mavericks will bring about new hope and generate new space for creativity to manifest, connection to be forged and empathy to pervade across sectors, spaces and social segments. If this
It’s 2014, just after the general elections and the national debate on who will be the PM is heating up. A look at how the main characters are lined up, and how they act, react and enact the PM-in-the-wings role before the curtains go up on the 16th Lok Sabha. Sonia Gandhi: As chairperson of UPA-37 (it came apart and came together 35 times in the last few months),
In 1999, on a monotonous bus journey from Lucknow to Allahabad to unwillingly (and by my own reason also unnecessarily) represent my father at the wedding of a long forgotten and wholly dispensable cousin, I was woken by the sudden jolt caused by the brakes. Tried more by reluctance than tedium, I angrily asked the bus conductor what we were supposed to do at the roadside dhabha near Pratapgarh
Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, it seems, is carrying the stick he ought to have left behind in the police station when he quit as a constable. On Friday, he threatened to use it — metaphorically, of course — on the ministry mandarin/s who messed up the message of his statement on the rape and murder of three minor dalit girls in Bhandara, Maharashtra. While making a state
The aam aadmi has his own views on P Chidambaram’s budget but he leaves you in no doubt about one aspect of it. When you ask him about the surcharge on the income tax on the super-rich, he grins and there are others as well who join him on this, all grinning and nodding in agreement. There is an added incentive too – the increase in duties on the vehicles that the rich prefer to dri
Finance minister P Chidambaram may have built a Robin Hood-like image for himself by imposing a ‘super rich’ tax on HNIs and corporate bodies while dramatically increasing funds for social sector welfare schemes, he continues to write off huge amounts of tax liabilities of these very super rich too. The statement of revenue foregone, released with the other budget documents,
Finance minister P Chidambaram may have built a Robin Hood-like image for himself by imposing a ‘super-rich’ tax on high net worth individuals (HNIs) and corporate bodies while dramatically increasing funds for social sector welfare schemes, he continues to write off huge amounts of tax liabilities of these very super-rich too. The statement of revenue foregone, relea
