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‘Media is diverting attention & dividing people’
The Press Council of India (PCI), a statutory body for “preserving the freedom of the press and maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and news agencies”, has a new …
Congrats, your taxes have helped buy 265 ads
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: After the advertising blitzkrieg to mark Rajiv Gandhi‘s birth and death anniversaries, and the death anniversary of his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru earlier this year, …
M.Y. Ghorpade: maharaja, minister & a lensman
It is one of life’s ironies that Bellary that is now the byword for mind-numbing, blood-curdling corruption of the Reddy brothers’ kind, also produced Murari Yeshwantrao Ghorpade, who passed away …
Are Indians endemically corrupt as a people?
2G scam, CWG scam, mining scam, Adarsh housing scam, NREGA scam, coffin scam, matchfixing scam, denotification scam…. There is no escaping India’s favourite four-letter word in the papers and on …
As they say, ‘Picture abhi baaki hain, dost’
Namma Metro is here, but it is not the full thing; in fact, it is not even ten per cent of the full thing. It was just the trailer. While …
Raichur malnutrition deaths & BJP ‘governance’
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: More than 2,600 children under 6 years of age—that’s two-thousand-six-hundred children under six years of age—are reported to have died of malnutrition in Raichur district over the …
Another reason why South is ahead of the North?*
From all of us, to all of you, a very happy and safe Deepavali. Wherever you are, may the lights usher in peace, happiness, health, laughter, and just a little …
CHURUMURI POLL: Advani yatra in Karnataka?
Lalchand Kishinchand Advani‘s near-comical anti-corruption yatra—with the HUDCO scam-tainted Ananth Kumar (whose links with the 2G scam tainted Niira Radia are well known) as the navigator—has predictably taken a farcical …
Namma Metro as a study of the Indian psychology
Be it Delhi then or Bangalore now, there is something about the metro rail that seems to do something to us as a people. There is a sense of pride, …
The cons, cheats & frauds lording over Karnataka
RAVI KRISHNA REDDY writes from Bangalore: It is truly a sad state of politics in Karnataka. Charlatans and confidence artists, with none of the qualifications desired by a good and …
Pujaris, Pudaris & the People on Namma Metro
Four years, six months and five days after work began on it, the first official train of Namma Metro rolls out, to the coconut shells of the priests, the wave …
After all, a metro station doesn’t open every day
On the night of the morning before Namma Metro rolls out, the M.G. Road station looks all decked up and ready to go as young and old file past to …
Should gods, goddesses have caste identities?
In a roundabout sort of way, Mysore is at the centre of a raging debate in the seats of learning in the nation’s capital. The Mysore-born A.K. Ramanujan‘s classic essay …
How many sheets does it take to cover an ex-CM?
Once upon a time, last week, B.S. Yediyurappa used to furiously wave a “V” sign at anything and anybody with the most manufactured grin on his face. A week is a …
The waiter who rose to be a vedic encyclopaedia
Mathoor Krishnamurthy (left), the executive director of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, passed away on October 6 at the age of 84. Mathoorji, as the world called him, rose from …
CHURUMURI POLL: President Narayana Murthy?
One day, last week, he was quoted as saying that “it would be a great honour to be the next president of the country” if all political parties agreed to …
Gandhi’s Dandi march to Yedi’s Danda march
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Ajji was watching the TV intently. “Konegoo Yediyurappanna arrest maadidrallo!” “Howdajji.” “He went where no chief minister from our State had ever gone before, even if it …
Long arm of law catches up with a desh-bhakt
Nothing—not the permanent vermilion mark on his forehead; not the myriad visits to temples and mutts; not the prostration before swamijis and godmen; not the advice of astrologers and numerologists; …
CHURUMURI POLL: Will BJP dump Yediyurappa?
The “former future prime minister of India“, Lalchand Kishinchand Advani‘s much-ballyhooed anti-corruption yatra—with the 2G scam tainted Niira Radia‘s former western ballroom dance partner, the HUDCO scam tainted Ananth Kumar, …
A property broker with a Vidhana Soudha address
Former muzrai (religious endowment) minister S.N. Krishnaiah Shetty, who collapsed in the Lok Ayukta court on Saturday, after special court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao directed his arrest, being carried to …
You may not know Rafiq, but he needs your help
DEV S. SUKUMAR writes from Bangalore: Right through our conversation, I thought those were slices of raw meat there, placed in water on a plate, all bloody and flies hovering …
Why modern Kannada films loathe Bangalore City
The depiction of the “City” in Indian cinema has changed from one of unbridled optimism and opportunity in post-Independent India to the ossification of the great urban dream in the …
All that glitters is a big gold scam about to burst?
RAMYA KRISHNAMURTHY writes from Bangalore: Always never very stable, my blood pressure has been shooting up alarmingly over the last few months, and—surprise, surprise— poor Arnab Goswami is not even …
Make no mistake, someone’s always watching you
Lights, camera, action. On Bellary road in Bangalore on Wednesday, a passing lensman captures kites watching the passing parade of life, from their lofty perch atop the floodlights in palace …
One question I’m dying to ask Janardhana Swamy
The well-earned reputation of the average Indian politician—of a lying, looting, hypocritical, bogus, backstabbing rogue, with his eyes forever focussed on wheeling and dealing, and using his position to make …