Society

When they were launched, the then Web-based and now app-based cab companies had come in as a breath of fresh air for consumers dog tired of what they were having to deal with. But just a few years down the line, many consumers are now sobering up to the contention that they (the companies) are pretty much like the errant auto-wallahs and callous taxi-drivers that they had promised to replace. Not a day goes by without an adverse report on these cab companies, be it Meru or Ola, be it Uber or...

Statistics of road accidents in Bangalore are a classic example of what numbers can tell depending on whether you have an ulterior motive in interpretation, or just want to look at figures dispassionately. Contrary to the popular notion that road safety scenario is worsening in the city, the situation has actually been improving over the years. Marginally yes, but improving nevertheless. The numbers are actually going down All the data that we had at our disposal were the six columns of numbers...

In early April came the slightly disconcerting news that the Union government was planning to dilute the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. It may soon be illegal to employ children below 14 years of age in any type of commercial or paid work, except in family shops and ventures. It is the exception here which is the dilution in question. And, there’s more in the details. Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya, was reported in the media...

Few would dispute the argument that the Internet has empowered us considerably, especially in the last decade or so. But that freedom, call it digital empowerment if you may, will soon be snatched away by a cartel that masquerades as a trade body. This bloc, comprising telecom companies, presents a clear and present danger to our freedoms that, in the context, can be simply summarised as Net Neutrality. So, what’s up? The issue at hand is a consultation paper put out by the Telecom Regulatory...

Too much hot air is being blown into Monday’s Supreme Court judgment clarifying that fatwas are not binding on Muslims. That’s possibly because there’s a new government in New Delhi that is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and some people have a morbid tendency of contextualising issues. In fact, if anyone contextualised anything, it was the Supreme Court. The court ruled that fatwas are not illegal, but are also not legally binding on those against whom they are made. It was hardly a...

India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality In The 21st century explores mating habits of youngsters on campuses and in offices; examines the changing face of pornography and prostitution; probes oppression of the LGBT community. Author Ira Trivedi, who would be in the city later this month, tells dna how India in Love was stitched together. I believe this book was in the making for four good years. How did you go about planning how you would move around the country? What about logistics? Yes, it did...

It took five years of painstaking work since the time he embarked on his project, to finally seeing the translated work in print. And when acclaimed Marathi writer Ranjit Desai's celebrated novel on painter Raja Ravi Varma hit the stands, it was gobbled up in no time. The translated work was in English, and the one who hit on the idea was engineer-turned-writer Vikrant Pande. He now lives in Bangalore with his family, and the city and its weather being what they are, Pande doesn't feel the need...

It's taken him more than 30 years to chronicle the experiences he underwent as a strapping, young IAS officer. It had anyway been a long haul for him from the beginning itself, quite literally at that — from getting his bags packed in home Kerala to travelling all the way to farflung, landlocked Manipur. The year was 1978, and insurgency was not yet so virulent in that Northeast state. C Balagopal had cleared the civil services exams, and had been drafted into the Manipur cadre. In the three...

The Global Decade for Road Safety is in its fifth year, but things remain as dismal and bloody they were. Experts believe that the focus needs a paradigm shift from 'what can be done' to 'who ought to do what' for things to change. With some 15 agencies/departments/ministries being involved in the process for instance in a place like Karnataka, the time has come for a wholesome sectoral and planning integration. The need of the hour is one of evidence-driven approaches, says G Gururaj of NIMHANs...

There are many reasons why Bangalore remains the startup capital of India. And one of those is that the young here are workaholics, and the lines between their personal and professional lives are blurring fast. Market expansion advisory firm Zinnov has come up with numbers that, the organisation contends, point to this trend. About 49 per cent of respondents to a recent Zinnov study in the 21-30 age bracket use tablets for work. This is reckoned to be signify a younger generation that is leaning...