Critique of the Times

No sooner had Mamata Banerjee made her “I am a simple man” gaffe on CNN-IBN, than Twitter went ablaze. Digs and jokes ranged from the derisive to the racist. And sexist, of course. They went on. Yes, accents and pronunciations can indeed be funny. Quite often. And if you are a pundamentalist, you can always have a rolling day out in a multi-lingual country like India. But this Mamata ‘slip of the tongue’ was more a ‘slip of the mind’, and it was certainly not punny. Mamata is not known for her...

The West, led by the United States, has been incessantly pounding Libya in the name of humanity the last few days. Saving humanity, so we are told. Yet, the gravest humanitarian crisis of our times remains grossly neglected by the same self-righteous nations. If the rape of 400,000 girls and women in a 12-month period is not a humanitarian catastrophe, what on earth can be one? If the rape of 1.8 million women in the 15-year Democratic Republic of Congo conflict is not macabre, what on earth can...

In August last year, India’s beleaguered conservationists found something to cheer about after the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) announced that the elephant would now be declared the country’s National Heritage Animal. Whatever that meant. Minister Jairam Ramesh also declared emphatically that the ministry would constitute a National Elephant Conservation Authority (NECA) with the same degree of visibility, importance and criticality as accorded to the National Tiger...

US President Barack Obama’s smug assertion that he had ruled out a drone attack on the Osama bin Laden haven in Abbottabad to avoid civilian casualties is a joke. It is, in fact, a cruel joke on hundreds of innocent people who have been blown to smithereens on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier in brazen drone attacks. When so many could have been passed off as collateral damage in the war on terror earlier, there was no reason why they could not have carried out a drone attack one last, furtive...

If you look at the above picture, you might find it heart-wrenching. You may feel pity for the child. You would even think what crime the child might have committed to deserve this. But that pity could well turn into anger if you were told that it is the current dispensation in Delhi which is, to a considerable extent, responsible for the plight of the child. For, it is the Congress-led regime which has been callous to the perils of a pesticide called endosulfan and has done all within its mite...

You, more often than not, become a product of the times and the circumstances that you live in. If you live in a conflict zone, the incessant bloodletting gets to you sooner than later. Either you become inured to brutalities, or start believing that killing one’s fellow human beings is the only to either to gain salvation or to solve your immediate existentialist problems. But suppose you were to extend this analogy to a place where cattle-rearing is one of the mainstays of the people. Would...

It is not rare to see corporates letting the people know in no uncertain terms about how the State ought to be run. There's nothing wrong with that; it is an inalienable democratic right. It is however yet another thing to believe in democratic values. And practice what you preach. So their honchos time and again pour their hearts and anger out in books, in interviews. Among those with the holiest attitude is Infosys. Yes, the same company that has been trending practically all day on Twitter...

The Northeast often gets into the mainstream India news for the wrong reasons. This time it's all about Irom Sharmila. For the wrong reasons, though. The not-so-young-anymore woman, unfortunately, has become a rallying point between the Hazare brigade and the Hazare bashers. The only point common to Kisan Baburao Hazare and Iron Sharmila Chanu is that both have had undertaken fasts. That's where the odious comparison ends. For, Hazare did so as a blackmailing tool and Sharmila did as a protest —...

Earlier this month, outgoing Colorado Governor Bill Ritter granted a posthumous pardon to Joe Arridy, a mentally challenged man who was executed for murder more than 70 years ago, in spite of evidence suggesting his innocence. Arridy was executed in 1939 by lethal gas after being convicted of killing a Pueblo girl with a hatchet. He had an IQ of 46 - too low to be considered for the death penalty today. Arridy appears to have given a coerced confession and was likely not in Pueblo when the 15...

It's foot-in-the-mouth season for the Congress. Digvijay Singh, P Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi have made statements that have been derided by one and all. No one takes Digvijay Singh seriously anymore. Rahul Gandhi is not known to wear a thinking cap. But it is the suave, Harvard-educated, lawyer Chidambaram who is a cause for worry. Not only we have at hand a Union Home Minister who talks first and thinks later like Digvijay, he is also a grossly uninformed demagogue like Gandhi. Chidambaram is...