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- Archives: December 2009
- Politics - Pigs At The Trough
We never did it under the socialist era when they ate into the coffers and made the country bankrupt and we didn't ask why the
- Baluchistan - The Forgotten Cause
Indian media reports about the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipe line through Baluchistan have glossed over the atrocities being committed there.
- Indian Cricket - Preserving Pace
Its quite interesting that unlike India, Pakistan and even Sri Lanka keep producing bowlers who bowl consistently over 140 clicks.
- Indian Hospitals: 3 Deaths, 24 Hours
I realized the conditions of our hospitals that day
- To Tweet Or Not To Tweet - Word of the Year
The fact that Twitter has been most searched and so vastly used, especially in 2009 bears a strange coincidence with the recession.
- Book Review: The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling by Stephen Denning
Storytelling is an art of weaving the story in such a way that the audience keeps looking at you to know ‘what next’.
- Remember Bhopal
Bhopal - 25 years and counting.
- Movie Review: Paa
While it isn't exactly a gem, it has just about enough going for it.
- Obama's Surge in Afghanistan
Mr. Obama seems to be erring on the side of the carrot with no stick in the background.
- Gallivanting in Galveston
Two days ashore in Galveston, Tx, USA
- Experiments with Truth
Was the Bhoodan Movement "the largest peaceful redistribution of wealth in the human experience"? Do the math.
- My Looks Are Not Your Excuse
I had the passport into BabeLand. Long enough to make me wonder whether the fairy godmother was really a wicked witch in disguise
- Pakistan’s Insider Jobs?
To turn against one’s own country and work for an enemy organization, one has to be embittered to the core.
- Movie Review: The Reader
This sort of political rhetoric continues to this moment where we justify wars, violence and terrorism.
- Movie Review: Kurbaan
Kurbaan uses the clichéd plot of Islamic terrorism against the US but then they throw in the love angle which is as absurd as Vinod
- Should The Girl Ask The Guy Out?
Being the woman taking charge means one is playing an unusual role and there’s ample scope to be misunderstood
- Nawwab and I: Inconsequential
t: Full freezer and empty bowls. N: The eternal tussle between the haves and the have-nots
- Cultural Translators: A Step Toward Waging Peace
When more army generals have cultural translators at their sides perhaps there will be hope for waging peace.
- Movie Review: Paa
Paa is surprisingly humorous and witty, two adjectives that you’d never expect reading the synopsis.
- Indian Nudes and Prudes
Can one trace the origins of nudism in Indian art?
- Saving The 'Feriwala'
Why a corporate takeover of the Indian 'bazaar' is not such a good idea.
- poetry: gold fish
the surgeon general should warn one and all / google alerts are bad
- Security Agencies & Personal Freedom
If security agencies are not sensitized against allegations of personal freedom, we become vulnerable.
- Poem: 1947 to 2009
All gone, from Jinnah to our present The country we fought so hard Now lies bare, in its awake, Who is to be blamed?
- Indian Government Caves In, Agrees to Separate Telangana State
The Telangana demand is the latest in the progressive splintering of the Indian polity.
- Poem: The Old Tombstone
Floating around; in the orbits celestial and earthly in search for wisdom and light
- Bolly Saga: The Case Of The Missing Brain
You don’t have to be remotely connected to medicine to appreciate that you’re being taken for a ride here.
- Telangana and KCR's Fast - Gandhi's Legacy
In India, fasting as a political tool was legitimized by Gandhi.
- Tiger Drinks Gatorade for Accenture
Isn't it the easiest thing on earth to have a chance to point fingers at someone?
- Mdantsane Spaza - Poems of Mdantsane
death has no color here in peaceful mdantsane
- Books That Give Answers
Two books and a conversation that attempt to give answers to questions that every democracy should ask itself.
- Bad News at My Doorstep - Surprises After a Target Shoot
No rest for the wicked! A long day at meetings and target practice - and more work when I get home!!
- McDonald's India - As Indian As You and Me
Being a little chubby should no longer be seen as a matter of pride or a mark of affluence.
- Test Cricket - A Twenty20 Twist
What test cricket really needs, is to have the spice and pace of a T20.
- Dilip Chitre - A Poet Remembers
He hated the word 'sahab' but Dilip Chitre undoubtedly remains the sahab of Indo-English Poetry.
- 2010-11: Crucial Period for South Asia
Mr. Obama's Afghanistan plan has Pakistan as its weakest link which is likely to make the whole region insecure
- Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes - Live Streaming of World Premiere
The Master has nothing to fear from pesky pirates, having faced down the Napoleon of Crime and much more.
- The Case for Telangana
This legitimate fight for creation of a new Telangana, within the legal confines of Indian Constitution, has had a voice since Independence.
- Politicians, Big Hoardings, and the Common Man
I wonder how these gimmicks would benefit a common man like me. These large banners, are they of any help to these politicians?
- Media - The Sure Race to Stupid
Cue the shepherd; the sheep are ready.
- Book Review: The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das
Have you ever thought what your Dharma is? When stuck in a dharma sankat, have you thought where the roots of the sankat can be?
- Shave India? Proctor & Gamble's Sexist Advertising in India
Gillette termed men, who have stubble, as lazy in a campaign called WALS-Women against Lazy Stubble.
- Haagen-Dazs Not Allowed in India
This is a sensitive issue for Indians and a reminder of the Raj when Indians and dogs weren't allowed into clubs & other 'white' places
- The State of the Indian Union
If we have smaller states, we will begin to tackle the issue of decision isolation.
- Poem: The Civilizations (Mirrors of Our Existence)
From years of our travel We look back Upon these civilizations
- Haagen-Dazs, Mistaken Cause
Mad that foreigners offended Indian dignity at the new Haagen-Dazs franchise? Not so fast, folks. How about the facts?
- Financial Independence and Freedom for Men
Financial freedom can free you from rat race and transform the quality of life that you live.
- Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, Mdantsane
the sky occasionally moves down and it is then the trees leap to search the forgotten
- The Democracy Delusion
The claim of India being a functional democracy stands on a sand pool.
- The Best Movies of the Noughties, 2000-2009
This decade has been truly a decade of popular culture as much as it has been a decade of change
- Contempt of Court and the Pakistan Army
In a country where every one including the top brass of the army and the opposition parties are tainted, a clean sweep will produce a
- Movie Review: Avatar
CGI technology takes on a new 'Avatar'.
- Haagen-Dazs - Ice Cream or Creaming The Indian Hide?
The Haagen-Dazs fiasco has implications, both for Foreign Companies and for "Emerging" India.
- A Magic Pill to Eradicate Corruption
This is more or less, briefly, roughly, approximately, the sum and substance of our current view of corruption in public life, in India.
- Should Voting Be Mandatory?
Compulsory voting - an infringement of the basic freedom of a citizen.
- Movie Review: Paa - The Self-Absorbedness Of Bachchanalia
If the story wasn't supposed to be about the disease itself, then why bring it in?
- 2009 - Tragic Deaths Of the Year
Never forget.
- Focus is the Key
Multi tasking is in, but it is a myth. We just do one thing at a time, fast. The conscious policy of focus has advantages
- No Cop-out At Copenhagen
Copenhagen climate meet produces some positives
- Gems of the Planet: Infinite Vision
"Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful."
- Post-liberalization India - A Free For All?
This kind of annoying in-your-face, bordering or outright illegal “marketing” and deterrent reparation processes is not isolated to Airtel.
- Do You Believe in Santa?
To give something and see the person's face light up, in surprise, in happiness, even puzzled on occasion, but always pleasant, is receiving.
- Too Much Tweeting? Mum Tweeting Son's Death Causes Uproar
What does one do when a loved one passes away?
- New Indian Visa Regulations Impact Tourists
This kind of haphazard and ham-handed approach to implementing new regulations does not help anyone.
- Gems of the Planet: Mass Awakening
Once we are aware of this connection, it is hard not to serve.
- Food Review: The Geist Weber East-West Grill-off
We weren't complaining - much fun (and food) was had.
- Indian Police - Protectors or Perpetrators?
Life in India. Who is accountable?
- Ruchika - Indian Law Allows Child Molester to be Let Off
The law prosecuted Rathore for molesting a young girl, but doesn't prosecute him for raping the trust the common man had on the Indian civil
- Book Review: Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers
Read this book if travel is what your dreams are made of
- Movie Review: 3 Idiots
A marriage between RDB and LRM: While comparisons are both inevitable as well as immaterial this is that big fat wedding.
- Another Bungled Blow-up: Passengers Safe, Suspect Apprehended
How much more can the airport security be tightened?
- Punishment to Fit the Crime
It would be great if the civil angle were looked into in parallel with the criminal one
- Paradigm Shift in Male Identity: Freedom From Being a Hunter
Gender roles have blurred. The traditional male identity is now seriously constraining men. Here are tips to break free.
- What Ails Healthcare Delivery In India? Part 1- The Infrastructure
The answer lies perhaps in freeing healthcare from corrupt political influence
- Sleaze with Ease
While Tiwari can be pardoned due to his inherent weaknesses, what S.P.S Rathore did to Ruchika was indeed lewd and outright perverted.
- Jharkhand - Smaller States Will Also Fail
Political alignment is not the same as geographical or linguistic homogeneity and definitely not the same as efficiency in administration
- Exchange Ajmal Kasab for Sarabjit Singh
Does it make sense to pardon a criminal to save another life?
- Looking Back: Fokker Aircraft Hijack, 1971
Pakistan has consistently alleged that this hijack was staged by Indian intelligence agencies
- Jesus-Era House Excavated in Nazareth
The discovery of a Jesus era house in Nazareth has excited the attention of many during Christmas time
- Will Behavioral Change be an Effective Remedy?
At times a simple behavioral change could achieve what morality could not.
- Photo Essay: Marble Arch, London
A photo essay on the Marble Arch monument in London
- poetry: long live god
An overwhelming wave of insensitivity and insulation that wraps and warps our perception of suffering.
- TV Censorship Issues
Personally, I feel that Indians need to grow out of this censorship business.
- Shashi Tharoor's Unfettered Tweets
Tharoor might be the tech savvy politician that India may have never had, but his online support will only remain online.
- Egyptian Government Attempts To Prove Minarets Are Useful
They are important to Muslims? D’oh. Yes they are.
- Ruchika Girhotra: Where's The Justice?
After 19 years, justice still hasn't been meted out to Ruchika Girhotra, who committed suicide after being molested and continually harassed by Rathore.
- The New Year Post
At times, it seems the process of New Year wishing has become so mechanical.
- Modern Terrorism & The Christian Insurgency in Islamic Spain
The beginnings of the resistance to Moorish conquest of Spain is explored and the impact the reconquista has on current terrorist ideology.
- The Splendour of Tibet
The game we played was simple but really an exercise in the development of travel plans that ‘may never happen.
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- Politics - Pigs At The Trough
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