Dear All: It is my great pleasure to publish this guest post by Anupam Sarwaikar on the Vedanta controversy…Anupam has written previously on the blog…I am sure you will find this post as thought-provoking as his previous one, “Of False Propoganda & Goebbelsian Lies” (on the “Indus Water Treaty”). Comments, thoughts welcome as always…
*** The Vedanta Controversy by Anupam Sarwaikar ***
*** CAUTION: Long Post ***
The recent Vedanta controversy provides some thought provoking observations for those who are interested in India, India’s development and upliftment of India’s poor. Before delving deeper …

Dr Prodosh Aich, in “Lies with Long Legs*” (Ch 1, Pg 51):

We are, what we know.
And we only know what we have been told.

Past Quotes and Thoughts for the Week are here.
*The entire book (“Lies with Long Legs“) is in the process of being made available in downloadable, pdf format. You can now read/download the first chapter (200kB) via the “Docs and Slides” widget on the “Resources” page.
Related Post: Thus a system was created..later identified..as “corruption” in the Third-World

Thanks to Vikram for alerting me to this. Below, a shocking excerpt from a recent piece by Kuldip Nayar, “The shame of misrule” (emphasis added):
…Typical of Congress’ furtive ways to cover up its misdeeds, the home ministry claims it does not have the emergency proclamation issued by then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Nor does it have any record of the decisions taken on the arrests of thousands on the basis of false allegations, the appointment of certain people to key posts and the manner in which the statutory provisions governing …

Excerpts from “The media has misled us on the Adarsh scam” by Carl H. Gomes, courtesy VigilOnline:
The “housing for widows of the “martyrs” of Kargil” is a media creation because the scheme was never meant for them nor was the plot reserved in their name.
..The project was never promoted as a housing project for the widows of Kargil..the Kargil conflict itself was used as a ploy to get the land transferred to the society with the active connivance of the Defence Estate Officers..
…The Navy had no role to play in …

This post was prompted by Tavleen Singh’s recent article in the Indian Express titled, “We live in neo-feudal times“. In the article she wrote (emphasis added):
Handing parliamentary constituencies down in the family is so usual in India today that us political pundit types no longer write about this neo-feudalism.
…I despise democratic feudalism because I believe that it has caused serious damage to the political fabric of India. In my view, our two biggest problems, corruption and incompetence, are a direct consequence of this peculiarly Indian form of parliamentary democracy. The …

The majority of our people are Muslims. How can we not talk of Islam?

I can’t help wondering – what happened to the famed “Kashmiriyat”?
Source: Interview of Syed Ali Shah Geelani by Kaveree Bamzai, India Today, November 8, 2010
Additional Reading: Rajiv Sikri on what happened to the much-touted Kashmiriyat? and Is this man the biggest roadblock to peace in Kashmir valley?