Friends who know me well sometimes wonder how I manage to keep up with developments in spite of not reading any newspaper (in print) or watching any TV.
I stopped relying on the TV as a source of news more than 15 years ago (my monthly TV viewing these days averages between 2-4 hours at most).
I stopped reading news in print since 2005. At first, this was a reaction to my intense travel schedule and attendant jet lag. But as I began to  spend more time online for news, I discovered …

OR how the politics of subsidies kills the spirit of entrepreneurship…
From NextBillion, comes this story by Rishabh Kaul of an extra-ordinary innovation that is being threatened by the politics of subsidies.
…Last month, the Indian Newspapers were all ablaze with stories of Indian Government rolling out a massive national scheme under which they will provide the women in rural areas with sanitary napkins. While the exact details are unclear, women below the poverty line will be provided with the napkins free of charge where as the rest of the rural women …

This is what I am reading this weekend.
How Bengal towns are becoming transit points for fake notes
West Bengal’s intelligence agencies have expressed concern that Pakistan-and Bangladesh-based racketeers are using the state’s Murshidabad and Malda districts as transit points to smuggle in fake notes to India.
Statistics reveal fake notes of nearly Rs 2.5 crore was seized from more than 300 people arrested over the past five years…
The arrested people revealed Murshidabad and Malda as transit points for the fake money racket.
…Chapai Nawabgunj is one of many centres in Bangladesh where …

Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post by Sh Krishen Kak titled, “Yatha Raja, Tatha Prashasan”. The article was originally published in VijayVaani earlier this week. Following a suggestion by Sh Krishen-ji, I am also reproducing below some of the comments on this post from VijayVaani. Read on (emphasis mine).
*** Yatha Raja, Tatha Prashasan  by Krishen Kak ***
Each year, for about a month, I volunteer with an NGO that coaches candidates for the UPSC’s civil services interviews (officially, “personality tests”).
Each candidate, for interaction with subject …

…and we are in no hurry to do anything about it.
Excerpts from a very worrying article by Suman Sharma in Open Magazine (Hat Tip: Centerof right; emphasis mine):
Repeated violations of the Indo-Chinese border lead to an escalation in the war of words, but India continues to believe that the Chinese are following their usual pattern of aggravation and conciliation. Rapid Reaction Forces, comprising 4 divisions stationed at Chengdu and Lanzhou after an overnight mobilisation cross rapidly into Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.
Indian defences are caught unawares, but the Fifth Mountain …

This is what I’m reading as I find myself stuck in a travel black hole…
1. R Jagannathan on why “Manmohan Singh is the dynasty’s fall guy” (emphasis mine)…
Both the prime minister and the home minister have minced no words in calling a spade a spade. While Manmohan Singh has called the Maoists the biggest security threat to the country, P Chidambaram has promised tough action to deal with it. But here’s the point: months after launching Operation Green Hunt, it is not clear who’s hunting whom. The Maoists have been …

I was alerted to this by E E* (name protected on request). Please click on the image below.
Notice anything odd?

Questions for all of you:

How does a supposedly “secular” state reconcile this contradiction?
Does this not give an unfair advantage to Christians?
What happens in case a different date of birth is recorded in the municipal/high school records from the one in the Baptism Certificate?

Comments and thoughts welcome.
If any of you have seen any similar ad(s), please do bring to my attention.
I am also writing to Sh Devdas Uchil, AGM(HR-O), Mazagon Dock Ltd. …

Extracts from a thought-provoking interview of Pavan Varma by Kanchan Gupta: (emphasis added):
…“Those who have never been colonised can never really know what it does to the psyche of a people. Those who have been are often not fully aware of — or are unwilling to accept — the degree to which they have been compromised,” he writes in this book. That, in a sense, is the theme of Becoming Indian.
Pavan K Varma:…I must confess I profess a fair degree of anguish at our low threshold of satisfaction and self-congratulation. …

Start your weekend with Sandhya Jain’s review of Prof BB Lal’s latest book which traces the continuity of Indian culture since the dawn of the Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation. Excerpts from Discovery of India by Sandhya Jain (emphasis mine):
Barely seven years after Prof BB Lal penned The Sarasvati Flows On: The Continuity of Indian Culture (2002), the defiantly-in-denial UPA has been forced to admit the existence of the Vedic Saraswati. In response to a parliamentary question, the Government revealed that a study by scientists of ISRO, Jodhpur, and the Rajasthan Government’s Ground …

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 – 2nd Lieutenant Rama Raghoba Rane, PVC ***

A few weeks ago, we recalled the heroic story of Naik Jadunath Singh on this blog. 2nd Lieutenant Raghoba Rane’s story takes off from almost the same point as Naik Jadunath …