Continuing from Part-I that appeared earlier this week. Today, lessons from the MahaBharata.
*** What is “Dharma”? – Part II by K Harapriya ***

Lessons of the Mahabharata
One epic which still holds profound lessons for us,  is the Mahabharata.  Here is an epic where a central character, Duryodhana, is an ambitious king who seeks wealth and power.  These desires, in themselves,   are the hallmark of a kshatriya and therefore befitting a king.  He, as the first born son of the first born Dhritarashtra ,  considers himself the rightful heir to Hastinapura.  Leaving …

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I don’t think any comment is necessary.
I would simply like to reproduce two tweets from Kanchan Gupta and Atanu Dey respectively:
KanchanGupta: Folks it’s amazing, the manner in which the avalanche story is being downplayed to promote SRK interview! Sad. Very sad.
AtanuDey: My heart goes out to those soldiers and their families. They died to protect a callous Bollywood/Cricket crazed public.
P.S. The sites/publications that redeemed themselves: Indian Express, Pioneer and Hindustan Times
Related Post: The great joke that is Indian media – Part XIII (posted just …

…in which “opinion” masquerades as “news”.

Pl. read these concluding lines from Austerity proves costly for BJP:
In pursuit of happiness or their own lives, voters expect our netas to be honest, not corrupt but not really austere. Voters want accommodating vision, accurate polices for them. They know what’s austerity, what’s tokenism, who is working for the nation and who for self .
I wondered whether I was reading an Op-Ed. By the way, this is why I love NDTV
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Earlier posts in the series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part …

Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post on “Dharma” by K Harapriya. I will be posting this in three parts. At the outset, I am grateful to her for a very well articulated exposition of a difficult concept. Please read and share widely. Today, a definition of “Dharma” and the role of Itihaasa in the Hindu value system (formatting and emphasis is mine).
*** What is “Dharma”? by K Harapriya ***

In the last great battle of the Kurukshetra war, Bhima is engaged in a fight to death …

From the Indian Army website:
The Param Vir Chakra is awarded for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self sacrifice, in the presence of the enemy, whether on land, at sea, or in the air. The decoration may be awarded posthumously.
*** Saluting our Heores – Naik Jadu Nath Singh, PVC ***

A tribute to Naik Jadu Nath Singh who sacrificed his life on this date,  62 years ago.
January 1948: The battle to liberate Jammu & Kashmir is now in its final stages. The airlift in Oct …

This post has been pending for awhile. But I felt today was a very appropriate day to reflect back on five years of blogging that has generated more than 1000 posts.
As you will notice from the screenshot below, the blog had the highest number of daily hits yesterday (by a wide margin) following the “Open Letter” post that went live on Rediff.

At one point, the site was pulling in hundreds of comments every hour. As I noted elsewhere, although I was overwhelmed, I should not have been surprised since this …