My Perspective

This article by former Under-Secretary General of United Nations, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, is about a letter written on August 27, 1947, by a young American woman, who had the rare privilege of being present at the independence ceremonies of both India and Pakistan. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/independence-in-the-words-of-a-young-american/article65761341.ece She wrote to her friend two weeks after witnessing the event: "The memory of the feelings that surged up within us as we watched their excitement and awe still brings tears to my eyes." It is striking that someone who, by nationality, had no direct emotional stake in the events she witnessed, still found them so exciting that thoughts of what she had seen kept her awake for two weeks. "The memories of the first Independence Day may have faded, but the power of that magical moment must never be forgotten." Wish a very happy and inspiring 75 years of independence!

I always felt that Rajya Sabha (RS) is being used as a backdoor to get politicians who lost either Lok Sabha (LS) or Vidhaan Sabha (MLA) elections. I mean Rajya Sabha is used as a political fiefdom. This must change for the better. We could use Rajya Sabha to allocate seats to citizens who have devoted their life for the betterment of the country viz. scientists, teachers, engineers, doctors, social entrepreneurs etc. We need to encourage people from different walks of life and professions to take up politics as a career. This would change the demographics of politicians in our country. I mean Rajya Sabha could do with few non-politicans who have dedicated their life to nation building.

NITI Aayog in India (the new avatar of Planning commission) predicted in 2018 that 21 major Indian cities would run out of groundwater as early as 2020; and more than 600 million people living in the states with lower water management would be impacted.  The best validation of this prediction is that a big city like Chennai ran out of its entire ground water table in 2019. So the need of the hour is

In the commentary on the Rig Veda by Saayanacharya, a line translates as "Salutations to Sun-god who travels 2202 Yojanas in half a Nimisha". Some proponents interpret this to conclude that people during vedic age knew the accurate speed of light. We will now discuss the accuracy of this claim. This is how they come to this surprising conclusion.

Hindi is the most widely spoken language in the Indian subcontinent. So it is understandable that many people wrongly assume it to be the national language. In fact Hindi is just one of the many official languages recognised by the Republic and there is no "national language" as per the Indian constitution. Yet there are concerted efforts to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speakers by the Hindi belt speakers. But do these Hindi proponents know the real origins of modern Hindi? The birthplace of modern Hindi - one of the youngest Indian languages - is in 

The casual indifference of undergraduate (UG) engineering students towards their academics is well known to all - not just students and their parents, even faculty and employers as well. This is not just limited to non-elite engineering colleges but rampant even in prestigious institutes like IITs as well [1-2]. Since the engineering education is heavily subsidised in all national or state owned or government-aided institutes, our country needs a better return on investment in the education sector. There are a number of factors that affect student motivation like the role of teacher to inspire the students through engaging lectures, assessments that are not testing the memorisation potential of the student. But in this article I limit my discussion to those factors that are solely dependent on the students themselves. I conclude with my suggestions on how to address these. The reason for this attitude stems right from the time of admission

I was unaware of the amorphous nature of pre-colonial caste system and the extent of colonial influence through creation of caste-based hierarchies of convenience!

Do you know what is the ancestral origin of modern day Indians? Is it Arya(ns) or Dravidians? Did prehistoric Indians emigrate in large-scale towards the West spreading culture and language? Or did they immigrate and bring their language and traditions to the subcontinent? Are you curious to know the latest scientific findings on these questions? A recent paper [1] published in Science journal used ancient DNA to address these questions. Key findings :

Indus Valley is the largest among all the ancient civilizations that existed around 4500 years ago, spread in region of what is now the modern day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and northern parts of India. Interestingly, Indus Valley Script is the world's oldest script that still remains undeciphered. Recently, I came across this awesome TED talk on "Computing a Rosetta stone for Indus Valley Script". Here is the link:  In this talk by Dr. Rajesh Rao puts forth his argument as to why the symbols represent a language script while disproving the claims of other research groups which say that those symbols do not represent a language script. Also read this excellent article by Dr.V.S. Ramachandran, brain researcher in California on plausible connections of Indus valley civilization with Easter Islands in Pacific ocean, a region unconnected geographically with Indus valley..! Quoting Voltaire, " No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking ". ...

The highlights on the criminal and financial background of MLAs in the newly elected May 2011 assemblies of four states - Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry: 35% of MLAs of West Bengal, 29% of Tamil Nadu, 10% of Assam and 30% of MLAs from Puducherry have criminal cases pending against them.   75 MLAs of West Bengal, 36 MLAs of Tamil Nadu, 8 of Assam and 2 of Puducherry have declared serious criminal cases pending against them including charges of murder, kidnapping extortion etc.   37% of MLAs of Assam, 52% of Tamil Nadu, 16% of West Bengal and 63% of MLAs from Puducherry are crorepatis.   For the complete analysis on this across all five states where elections were held please read this  report  (pdf) prepared by  Association of Democratic Reforms . For individual state wise analysis please visit this  page . All this information is prepared by collating all the information submitted by the candidates themselves and nothing more...

"Where the mind is without fear and the head held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action; Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

I happen to read this article written by Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri You guessed it right. It’s about the Indian economy and the competition with China . A Fight of Elephant vs. Dragon. Here is the link  http://www.iipm.edu/iipm-old/india-future.html In the article, the author says democracy is our greatest strength, I feel it can well become our biggest let down. Yes, democracy will be the biggest strength of a country not when we have political parties run by communal fundamentalists, or by generations of a single political dynasty, not when we have a foreigner running the government behind the screens and our so called prime minister acting as a puppet. Yes, we do have democracy but we don't have inner democracy within each political party. The current political parties that we have are communal, or either communist, or corrupt, or run by family dynasties, or based on caste-ist politics. When will our political parties rise above these partisan politics based on caste,...

The following is an excerpt from an news article... _____________________________________________________________ The Delhi police today lobbed teargas shells and used water canons to disperse hundreds of students of five premier medical colleges who staged a demonstration against the government's move to provide reservation in elite educational institutions. The police action came when an estimated 400 agitators were moving to another place from the scheduled venue of protest of Jantar Mantar, triggering a scuffle between the two sides. Accusing political parties of resorting to vote-bank politics while moving such a proposal, the protestors decided to go on a strike, demanding a roll back of the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.. "At the moment it is an all out strike by students of AIIMS, Safdarjung, Maulana Azad Medical College, Lady Hardinge and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital," Amitasha Sinha, a medical stude...