Columns

My chronology, unlike Mr. Amit Shah’s, is fairly straight forward and transparent: I was born in December 1950, joined the IAS in 1975 ( someone had to) , plighted my troth  (and blighted Neerja’s life, according to her mother) in January 1977, retired in December 2010, and am therefore a senior citizen, aka the Walking […]

It is relatively rare for retired civil servants to join political parties ( though the trend does seem to be increasing of late), and rarer still for those who do to retain the objectivity and value systems that they had been taught in the Academy at Mussoorie. We have only to look at the worthies

Nothing reveals better the depths to which we have sunk as a nation and a polity than the remission granted to the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, and the events surrounding this depraved decision. One can’t help but notice that the muted reaction to the release of these rapists/ murderers is in sharp

Now that the manufactured frenzy of Independence Day is over ( as if India has never celebrated 15th August before), I am happy to report that it is now apple plucking time in Puranikoti. I have a few apple trees on my land and look after them assiduously: I keep pumping in money for their

I am not aware whether Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Lewis Carrol ever collaborated on a book or not, but had they wanted to, the India of today would have been the perfect subject for them. For it contains elements of  the sinister,  the malevolent and the ridiculous that would have fascinated them. It contains

About four years ago, in an effort to renovate my perennial dumb image, I bought a middle range smart phone. My image has improved marginally since then, but the phone battery is now giving way: it never charges more than 50%, and so I have to charge it at least three times a day, even

I don’t usually watch video forwards on Whatsapp lest I get FIRed by some cop in Hathras, but last week I did view two, and I’m so glad I did. The first was a short speech in his Parliament by the Prime Minister of Singapore in which he succinctly explained how elections even in democracies

Animals continue to contribute immensely to Indian politics ( and here I am not referring to the herds which congregate in resorts before a vote, or rush into the well of the House to drink deep of the Pyrean spring). I refer to the genuine, self respecting quadrupeds who are increasingly turning the country into

If there is one quality Indians cannot be accused of, it is the ability to be sensitive- to the feelings of others, to the environment, to civic decencies, to social mores. One has only to look at their behaviour in public places or even a familial setting, to realise how true this statement is, unpalatable