Political Parties and the RTI Act - Shock but no awe
A full bench of the worthies at the Central Information Commission has finally ruled that political parties in India need to adhere to the Right to Information Act of India, 2005. The full decision...
View ArticleOut, damned spot (A short cricket fairytale)
Very few or maybe no other actresses have got 5 Amul spots. I guess a 6th one is being fixed up right now? http://amulhits.appspot.com/topic/shilpa But hey, this is not an essay on her. This is a...
View ArticleRight to Luxury Act demanded by Indian leaders (at and across parties)
Goa is now the favourite spot for political gatherings of all sorts. In the latest version, an IIT-Bombay graduate endorsed a runaway and returned chai-wallah as candidate for Prime Minister from his...
View ArticleFalling rupee - treason on the Nation
The value of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar, in your bank, pocket or anywhere else, just came tumbling down another 8% or so over the last few days. Compounded annually, that is, what, 5000% or...
View ArticleModern day middle-class migrations
April 1947 a young and decorated Hindu Indian Army Captain took leave. His paltan , Baluch, was in the Kanpur area, re-forming itself after some hectic action seen during the 2nd World War in Burma. He...
View ArticleSpate in the Ganges
The Ganges has always fascinated me. As no doubt it does millions of others. But still, leaving so many, breathless. As a young man heading out of teens seafarer working our way with the winds and...
View ArticleGovernment - largest client for luxury cars in India now?
Very interesting observation by a friend a few days ago - government cars in India are becoming bigger and more luxurious by the day. Especially visible when you head out for places like Lodhi...
View ArticleReturn of priviligentsia?
There are two online references to the term "priviligentsia" pertaining to the widely used Chinese term meaning the same thing as pertains to matters of the WaBenzi sort in India. One is by Rajiv...
View ArticleUncivil Aviation
In the not so distant past, there were dozens of private airlines in India, doing pretty much what they pleased. Most of them did what they wanted to not very well, so in due course, they found...
View ArticleMumbai's Laundry - cleaning soiled or fakes?
For those of us who have had the pleasure of falling afoul of Maharashtra's most famous and extremely dligent as well as no doubt honest and hard-working Octroi department when trying to move basic...
View ArticleBanking on defaulters-and how to get our money back
If you do even a cursory search, then it jumps out of the screen - the Reserve Bank of India has been promising to reveal all details about bank loan defaulters and get the money back since 1994. And...
View ArticleBreathless morning walk & jog in South Delhi
Sunday morning woke up blood glucose is rocking at 106 great to be alive and full of energy so walk to re-affirm all that is good about India and its potential for old time's sake so I start trotting...
View ArticlePoultry's Revenge, Attacked Dairy
If there are two food products which are beginning to cause concern on the adulteration and bad health step-ladders, in India, then they are poultry and dairy products. This is also because they have...
View ArticleOnline shopping in India pros and cons for customers
I have been one of the earliest users as well as watchers of online providing and shopping, and then moved into being part of making technology for this industry too, in India as well as abroad. The...
View ArticleThe Post Office does not live here anymore
One of the oldest shops in Defence Colony Market, Delhi, the Post Office, is finally about to shut down. Way back in the late '50s and well into the '60s, it functioned also as a "poste restante" for...
View ArticleBad meat - the head always stinks first
Decades of hard effort as well as good training by friends who live along the coast and on islands has given me a reasonably good idea on how to select and judge sea-fish for our kitchen. Yes, we now...
View ArticleTourist guide to Delhi's Vigyan Bhavan
Meeting up with a friend who recounted his last experience attending one more of Delhi's many seminars at Vigyan Bhavan brought back memories of my own brushes with the world of the High and the even...
View ArticleThe Indian Elephant - teaching us to swim underwater, quietly
For many years, rhetoric pushed by the world's media labelled the South-East Asian economies of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China as "tiger" economies while applying...
View ArticleRed Light Area
"When my son/daughter grows up and gets a good job, she/he will have a car with a red light on top, and also a new white towel behind his chair". How many people have gone through this wet dream in...
View ArticleCompulsory Rural Service
There is an agitation going on in Delhi by young doctors, protesting the 2-year compulsory rural service, which is sought to be imposed or re-imposed, depending on how you look at it. There is a vast...
View ArticleIndependence day on the road
Yesterday I got some tyres fitted in a car in a small town on the West Coast of India. Reason is that I wanted Indian tyres on a car that I was testing, which had come clad in imported tyres, and I...
View ArticlePension paradigms in India
"One Rank One Pension" with retired and retiring personnel of the Indian Armed Forces has been an issue for some time now. Likewise, the issue of disability pensions and compensations for those...
View ArticleResponsible tourism in Goa and some of our favourites
Goa has been on our family's horizon since half a century and maybe more. Growing up in an Armed Forces family, it was impossible not to be impressed by the large number of "Uncles" and "Aunties" from...
View ArticleEconomy derailed?
The term "economy derailed" can best be described by this photo, the scene for which I chanced upon a few days ago, while on a train ride from Goa to Delhi. Lying by the side of the tracks, not too...
View ArticleRTI Act in India, the 8th CIC convention - Part I
This article starts with a photo of the CIC's citizen friendly car. Please take a closer look? http://www.flickr.com/photos/vm2827/397635313 I was lucky and privileged enough to attend as a...
View ArticleRTI Act in India, the 8th CIC convention - Part II
The second day of the CIC RTI Convention at DRDO Bhavan started off better than the first day - they finally permitted us to drive our cars into the massive premises and internal parking lot, and also...
View ArticleRTI Act in India, the 8th CIC convention - Part III Top-down system change
At the time of writing this, the applicability of the Right to Information Act of India, 2005, on political parties, has now been referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for "elaborate study"....
View ArticleRTI Act in India, the 8th CIC convention - Part IV - Perception Management
Delayed due to some research on the riots in Western Uttar Pradesh, but relevant too, since the subject of transparency in governance and perception management is common to both elements. Communal...
View ArticleConsumer durable shopping in India - what's new?
I've been writing about automobiles for almost two decades now, and have seen almost every trick that could have been pulled on customers, and then a few more. Nothing surprises me. But one thing is...
View ArticleHow heavy is that school bag?
It's been a while since our children finished school, so maybe I've been a bit out of touch on the subject, but heading home on the Metro a few days ago a bunch of school children standing near me...
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