Politics

It's now open season in Bengaluru after the Karnataka High Court ruling that the state government and the State Election Commission (SEC) will get a maximum of six months to hold elections for the reconstitution of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) which was dissolved last week. A Division Bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice DH Waghela and Justice Ram Mohan Reddy, on Friday delivered the verdict while setting aside an earlier single-judge order asking the government and...

The very nature of power is such that more it devours you, the more you need it to survive. You can never have enough. Power is about control, and absolute power is about being in control of things without being answerable. As power keeps consuming you, the more you crave for absolute power. And absolute power, to borrow a mathematical analogy, tends towards infinity. In a political theatre, a dispensation can be in control of things by making use of the law and order machinery that is there at...

In a milieu where bedlam and mutual suspicion hold discourse to ransom, it is difficult not only to find voices of sanity, it is as challenging to remain circumspect oneself. One invariably ends up believing not the truth, but what suits one’s own predilections and narratives. It is this unsettling milieu that reigns supreme in the country today, and in such a frenzied backdrop comes a shoddily-drafted document that unabashedly spins a conspiracy yarn so fantastic that one would gleefully accept...

Conflict is debilitating, for ordinary people. But conflict studies, on the other hand, can be fascinating. There are as many narratives as there are stakeholders, most in conflict with each other. And the truth does not always lie in the middle as many would like to believe, it often veers towards the victims. I recommend the following books, all non-fiction, for a closer, better understanding of the Kashmir narrative. There are, of course, many other excellent books on Kashmir that are...

The anti-corruption protests of 2011, if not anything, were an outpouring of anger that people harbour against politicians. Probably, more against the regime that ruled India at the time. The agitation, that spawned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was simplistic to the point of being infantile. The anti-politician hysteria that was whipped up by KB ‘Anna’ Hazare deftly dodged core issues: it did not delve into the very definition of corruption, it sidestepped the assertion that corruption is all...

The ability to cast a ballot is often a given. But can one make the entire voting process a bit more pleasant? How can we encourage more people to cast their votes? Are there more efficient ways that can be introduced to improve voting practices? Can 'service design' play a role in this? A leading design company, Tata Elxsi, feels there is enough scope. Narendra Ghate, chief designer (service design) with the company, has some ideas and some solutions. These can be seen as recommendations for...

Discourses, when not rooted in ground realities, have an aberrant tendency to become fallacious, and end up being embarrassingly farcical. That's why chinwags about elections among the chattering classes often fail to predict the outcomes of elections. The reason why these discourses are so cerebrally vacuous is that they usually dwell more on non-issues, chose to emphasise needlessly on personalities over electoral realpolitik. Bangalore South is a case in point. It is reckoned to be a...

For roughly two weeks, a few weeks back, Bangaloreans in various parts of the city would wake up in the mornings to a pleasant surprise from the government. The main roads in their areas would have been tarred overnight, and it would be a fairly pleasant ride or drive to any other part in town. Over those two industrious weeks, most of the select roads were given, er, a fresh coat of tarred chips. The pressing reason for this routine work to be carried out on a war footing were well-nigh obvious...

Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar has been a vociferous advocate of planned, intelligent solutions for the varied problems a fast-growing metropolis like Bangalore faces. A strong advocate of the need for the devolution of power to evolve governance reforms based on citizen-centric decision making, Chandrasekhar has been vocal about the need for greater transparency and accountability in governance institutions and public authorities alike. Chandrasekhar is at the forefront of drawing the...

The organisation of political power within and between nations and citizens if failing miserably to protect the public's health. Not that you didn't suspect it. But this time there is corroboration, and it comes in the form of findings of a new Commission from The Lancet and the University of Oslo. These power asymmetries, together with the piecemeal way that global decisionmaking has developed since World War II, are having a disastrous effect on human health, say the report's authors. The fact...