Like most of you, I watched and read about the proceedings of the last few days with a sense of sadness and great shame…Amidst all this, these words by Radha Rajan touched a raw nerve… Please read and think…(emphasis added)
*** The Nation as Draupadi ***
Parliament on 22nd July resembled the court of the Kauravas with the Speaker playing Dritharashtra. Every individual in parliament on that day, notwithstanding the party to which he or she belonged, was some character in the shameful court and I was the nation.
When the Prime Minister …

To those of us whose image of “Samraat” Ashoka (Ashoka the Great) has been shaped by Amar Chitra Katha or the eponymous movie, it will come as a suprise that there may actually have been three different Kings by the name of Ashok and the real history of the “Ashok the Great” may be more complex than hitherto imagined.
I am reproducing below some excerpts from some early but ground-breaking research by Kishore Patnaik which he shared on a Yahoo! group recently…It makes for fascinating reading (emphasis mine).
*** Excerpts BEGIN – …

How many of you have heard the story of great warrior Arjun suffering an ignominious defeat at the hands of a gang of marauders*? I had a vague recollection of it but when someone mentioned it to me the other day, I decided to dig deeper.
Courtesy psych-prism, here is the short story…and within it, a great lesson for all of us.
Once Bhagwaan Shri Krishna was wounded and Arjun decide to go and see him…On the way, he met Narad Muni who advised him not to touch Shri Krishna, otherwise great …

I recently came across an interesting article by Mark Fidelman provocatively titled, “Where Are India’s Innovative Companies, Products and Solutions?”
I would encourage all of you to have a look…Feldman has written persuasively about what ails innovation in India…but the real “action” is in the comments…one of which caught my eye and provided the inspiration for the title of this post. Bhamy V Shenoy commented on May 15 (emphasis mine):
“…The biggest problem (in India) in my view is the non-functioning governance system because of (the) indifference (of) educated people who …

My�distrust of the Indian mainstream media deepens by the day.
Courtesy Dina Nath Mishra’s article,�”Amarnath land grant and the reality around it“, I learnt today how even “..in this age of widespread and fast communication”, it is possible to hide facts.
Fact #1:�The land was to be transferred NOT allocated
Fact #2: It was to be only for a period of two�months in a year when Amarnath pilgrims visited
Fact #3:�No permanent structure was to be constructed, for Article 370 forbids the same
And yet, we had the Hurriyat and assorted leaders crying hoarse over …

From a Sify report on a seminar held last Friday at IIC on ’1914 Shimla Convention Agreement and Consequences’ (emphasis mine):
The fact that the Chinese refused to ink the 1914 Shimla Convention agreement between India and Tibet puts question mark over the legality or morality of China’s claim of sovereignty over Tibet, a group of India’s top jurists, scholars and security experts feel.
…The participants – who included senior Supreme Court Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, Arunachal MP Khiren Rijuju, Lt Gen. (Rtd.) F.R. J. Jacob, veteran diplomat Dalip Mehta, and writer Dr …

For many of us, the government’s craven capitulation on the Amarnath issue was less of a surprise and more of a denouement of something we had feared all along…i.e. our political leadership can no longer be trusted to look after India’s national interest.
Parama Karuna-ji summed it up neatly in one of her posts on a Yahoo! group:
I understand your point…I (we) have been trying my (our) best to be as diplomatic as possible, for many years. My point is that I think we don’t have much time left now.
Our task …

I am no fan of Ashis Nandi and disagree strongly with many of his views but I just cannot accept the argument that his writings or thoughts should be banned/censored.
There are other (better) ways of dealing with his arguments and deconstructing them…
Calling for a ban on his writings or calls for his arrest puts us in the same league as fanatics calling for Taslima’s blood.
For those of you who missed it, here is the original article – which started it all. Many of you will find the comments on this …

Amidst all the violence and “protests” around the issue of transfer of 40 hectares of land to Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), I noticed two questions that appear to have gone unanswered.
The first question…and this is really the elephant in the room, is, “How many “Hindus” would it take to change the demography of Kashmir?
It is important to consider this question as this is what seems to upset most Kashmiris. To wit:
…President of Action Committee Against Land Transfer (ACALT) and former Kashmir Bar Association President, Mian Abdul Qayoom…termed the (SASB) …

This analysis of�attitudes that the communist parties have�towards vital matters of national interest reveals why they are probably the most dangerous�element in the current political landscape…

Excerpts from Red Star over South Block�(emphasis mine)
As the Manmohan Singh government enters its last year in office, the contradictions in the approach to national security and foreign policy issues between a mainstream national party…on the one hand and the communist parties, which appear determined to make India a client state of China on the other, are becoming increasingly evident…There are…other serious differences between the …