In the light of the fact that the investigation appears to have been compromised upon at the outset, the prosecution of….may well go way of the …case. Chances of others like….facing action are evidently thin. After the current media storm dies down, Delhi’s political class will, in all probability, go back to its old ways

Try and guess the year/month these lines were written. They are from an article by Praveen Swami – written in 1998 – and make for some pretty depressing reading (excerpts below; emphasis added). Anyone still unconvinced why we need a …

Courtesy Michael Zebulon, this brief excerpt from “Settlements, Agreements and Legitimacy”…please read each sentence carefully and think…
When the speaker names no names, cites no authorities, skirts the facts, skips the terms, buries the background — all the while speaking calmly and matter-of-factly, taking care to couch lynch-mob intimations in the passive voice, while moving smoothly and swiftly forward, without pausing for anybody’s absorption of, and reflection upon his damning demagogy — he forestalls or neutralizes any responsive demand to stand-and-deliver, even as the vile toxins are permitted to lodge and …

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968)US black civil rights leader & clergyman.
Thanks to Raj for this quote. Past quotes are here. Image courtesy: Dick Demarsico via Wikipedia

Excerpts from Bribeless In Bihar, a remarkable report on how things are changing in a state widely reviled as amongst the worst governed in India. There is still hope. Read on (emphasis added)…
…It was clear to Nitish Kumar that merely catching a culprit was not enough. A major handicap was that under the Prevention of Corruption Act, vigilance officials had to get clearance to prosecute an errant bureaucrat from his own department. That took time. He realised that the only way to deter corruption was to take away the wealth …

Dear friends, as some of you know, I am on the road for the next several days on an extended visit that I am really looking forward to…The tight schedule of 6 cities in 9 days means I will not be able to blog as frequently as I like to. On this visit, I intend to rely heavily on twitter..and quite a bit on facebook updates…

I will be posting occassional posts here – but mostly excerpts from various articles…I do hope to compile notes from the visit once I am …

UPDATE: Added Nepali and Telugu translations to Hindi, Marathi and English ones below.
UPDATE II: Added Gujarati.
Dear friends, kindly consider translating this short message in your own language and circulate it amongst your friends…It would help us to spread awareness on this important issue and do our bit to keep Sanskrit alive…I have already included the message in Hindi, Marathi and English below…please also have a look at Practical Sanskrit (also on facebook) and Samskrita Bharati
*** Request in Hindi ***
प्रिय मित्रों,जैसे की आप ओ ज्ञात होगा, भारत की जन गणना …