Apart from risks related to the integrity of the process, the SIR process also turns what is celebrated as the festival of Indian democracy into a nightmare for the excluded. It can create divisions and split neighbourhoods, particularly when the numbers are large and hotly contested, as they have been in the most recent example in the state of West Bengal.
The rise of the Cockroach Janata Party may ultimately fade as quickly as it appeared. Most internet movements do. But the frustrations driving it are real and unlikely to disappear soon. Millions of young Indians feel politically unheard and economically cornered. Increasingly, they are expressing that frustration not through traditional political participation, but through irony, parody and nihilistic humour.
At another level, it reveals a growing impatience with conventional politics. When citizens feel unheard, they often resort to satire as a form of protest. The joke becomes a shield, allowing them to express dissent without fully committing to a cause. But there is also a risk
The tendency to over-categorise and group citizens under labels is a slippery slope. It leads to the ‘them’ versus ‘us’ divide that silences voices standing up to the dominant narratives of our times, oversimplifies what are complex issues and, in the end, does not serve the cause of justice. Categorising all environmentalists or all trade unions or indeed the youth, positively or negatively, betrays a prejudice Of Cockroaches, Prejudice and the Language of Justice
The statue has cost substantial money but is fully funded by the public through a charitable trust managed by a number of Indians residing in the UK. The chair of an advisory group that oversaw the project was former Pakistani-origin mayor and minister Sajid Javed.
An increase in support of free food means cutting back on maybe health, education, infrastructure, military or pension benefits. The government cannot escape these difficult fiscal tradeoffs.
Thus the mantra of development should be spirituality with high technology. Both these things allow us to reduce our greed for resources and live in harmony with nature – something that Gandhi preached intuitively all his life.
But for Gandhi, India's political destiny would have been vastly different and her moral stature vastly inferior.
Clearer commitments and standards on access and quality, making oversight and redressal mechanisms more participatory, and allocating adequate financial resources alone would make the right to healthcare to all citizens a reality.
The book is a must-read for all policymakers, diplomats, academics and civil and military personnel who have an interest in Siachen.
In a world slowing down due to a recession, even if our share of trade goes up from 3 to 4 per cent, that would be a huge boost for the Indian economy. And that is eminently feasible only if we are less afraid of open and free trade.
The book, in many ways, is the last word on the tragic and defining years of Punjab’s turmoil that took a large number of lives.
There are currently 41 ships and submarines under construction, 39 are being built in Indian shipyards, while in-principle approval is there from the Defence Ministry for 47 ships to be built in India.
The author’s prognosis of a major contestation in the not-so-distant future is situated in the South China Sea. The compelling logic portends China’s proclivity to fight one or possibly two major wars before 2035, either with Taiwan or India before the major US-China war.
Riding the global strategic shift in manufacturing, India is on the cusp of attractive large-scale domestic and foreign investors by incentivizing supply chain manufacturing
It would be appropriate to design a comprehensive plan for India to create 10,000 unicorns in the next 25 years and with a few hundred becoming decacorns - enterprises with a valuation of over $10 billion. These enterprises alone could add over $12 trillion to India’s GDP.
It is important to note that India has sufficient food stocks to be able to help the affected people in flood-ridden Pakistan. There is an urgent need to ease border restrictions at least to the levels of 2009 to provide easy access to food and relief materials
While the Assam government must sustain its present moves against radicalisation, New Delhi must be firm in ensuring that insidious attempts/activities by anti-Indian elements/groups are neutralised effectively in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and some other states
So, the assessment for the fifth largest economy is that this is a slowing phase, as growth drivers need to pick up along with investor sentiment
