Columns

  I have always believed that politicians, in many important ways, are better human beings than bureaucrats. They can be far more empathetic, sensitive and genuinely helpful than us ” bandh gala” types, throttled by our training, self centeredness and inflated sense of importance. G.S. Bali, who passed away in the early hours of 30th

There was a time when I used to frequently visit Ajoy Bhavan which houses the headquarters of the second oldest political party in India, the Communist Party of India. It was founded on Christmas Day in 1925 in Kanpur (though, according to some sources it was founded even earlier). In a few years will celebrate

Anyone with even an iota of intelligence and an understanding of our dysfunctional legal eco-system knows that there is something deeply problematic and rotten with the Aryan Khan case. The NCB’s ( Narcotics Control Bureau) conduct is deeply suspect, even without the personal allegations now levelled against its Zonal Director Sameer Wankhade. The entire case,

As a child, I grew with a poster and a slogan that was ubiquitous everywhere. The slogan read “Hum do, Hamaare do”. The picture was of two children – one small boy and another small girl with the caption “Do ya teen bus”.  Loosely translated as “Two or three – no more”. The slogan was

In my more lucid moments ( which are now becoming few and far between) I seriously wonder why Himachal has a department of Environment or a Science and Technology Council at all. Neither shows the least interest in either protecting the environment or in exposing the scientific fallacies in the hare-brained schemes regularly manufactured by

The last seven days have been a bit of a mixed week for me, somewhat like what the Delhi voter got in 2020 when he voted for Kejriwal : neither fish nor fowl but a chameleon. And for once this dog’s breakfast has nothing to do with our presiding trinity- the alliterative ascetic, the corpulent

The other day when I was at the Chemist, a retired Air India employee came in with a prescription from an Air India dispensary. He looked morose. News had come in during the day that the company was finally being handed over to the Tatas to run by the government. The chronically loss-making company is

I don’t know about you folks, but I found the obiter dicta by a two judge bench of the Supreme Court last week very disturbing. Hearing a petition by a farmers’ organisation ( not connected to the protests) for permission to congregate at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the bench asked the question: Do the farmers

Circe is the mythical Greek goddess- sorceress who ruled the island of Aeaea; any shipwrecked mariner who landed on its shores was turned into an animal- wolf, lion, swine- a fate which also befell the Greek hero Odysseus. In 1965 Nirad C Chaudhri, the last of the breed of Anglophiles, wrote a book of essays