Avay Shukla

Many years ago, more years than I care to remember, I was posted as a probationer under district training in Mandi district of Himachal. On two days every week I had to sit with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) in his court when he heard grievances and received petitions from the public. The purpose was to […]

At about this time last year my elder son quit his very well paying job as a senior executive in a multi-national: he had had enough of the El Dorado mirage sold by the IIMs and IITs. He had been working 14 hour days non-stop for 16 years, paying Rs. 65000 a month for a

The Himachal Pradesh chief minister recently announced that the state government has identified 50 new locations to develop tourism, including adventure sports. The prospect fills me with dread, because the government’s track record in this respect has been an environmental disaster so far. Forget the mess in Shimla, Manali, Kufri, Mashobra, McLeodganj or Kasauli. In

For the last two weeks now the otherwise tranquil state of Himachal has been roiled in a vortex of Islamophobia, despicable politics, violence and opportunistic silence by those who should be speaking out. Right wing inspired crowds have been flooding the streets of Shimla, Mandi, Solan, Hamirpur and elsewhere, protesting against illegal mosques and “outsiders”(which

India is going through another great Renaissance, as ordained by a gentleman whose own educational qualifications are shrouded in doubt and about which RTI questions will never be answered. All our learnings of the past two thousand years have to be discarded and a new learning, as enshrined in the NEP (New Education Policy) and

In the reasoning of most right thinking people who are alarmed at the direction in which the BJP is taking the country the primary validity and defendability of the TMC govt. in West Bengal stems from its proven ability to keep the BJP at bay in that state. Mamata Banerjee has done this for the

Kangana Runout is all over the news these days like a bad rash , there’s just no getting away from her interviews, statements and tweets. I find her very refreshing in these morbid days of rapes, lynchings, bridge collapses, encounters, defections and states going bankrupt. What is enlivening in her utterings is the novel perspective

Himachal Pradesh should regulate trekking to make it safe and eco-friendly, writes Avay Shukla On the night of 17 July, about 120 trekkers were stranded below the 14,000-foot high Hampta Pass in Himachal, without adequate shelter, clothing or food, in very adverse weather conditions, torrential rain and almost sub-zero temperatures. They were members of three

In the reasoning of most right thinking people who are alarmed at the direction in which the BJP is taking the country the primary validity and defendability of the TMC govt. in West Bengal stems from its proven ability to keep the BJP at bay in that state. Mamata Banerjee has done this for the