IAS Amit Khare was appointed the new secretary of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle involving 24 senior IAS officers by the Centre on Friday. Don’t know who this brave bureaucrat is? This IAS officer rose to the limelight after unearthing a two-decade-old Rs 940 crore fodder scam. Or as it is popularly called – The ‘Chara Ghotala’ in Bihar and Jharkhand. This is […]

Things I would like my children to do, so that, they do not become knowingly or unknowingly bullies. Children are playful, they love to play and there is nothing wrong about it. There is a fine line between empowering children, giving them too much power and keeping them away from empowerment by saying no to everything that they do. Empowering the child too much may make him a bully where […]

I am sure most of you have read Prime Minister Modi’s tweet. April 28 will go down as a milestone moment in India’s history. Manipur’s Leisang village became the last to be electrified. According to the Government norms, a village is considered electrified if at least 10% of its households, as well as public places such as schools, panchayat offices and health centres, have access to electricity. The electrification is […]

Over the past few weeks the commentary is turning almost hoarse on the plight of the eight year old girl, Asifa. The heinous crime committed against her is now taking a religious hue. People suddenly seem to forget the kind of torture that was meted out to an innocent eight year old. Instead a whole new angle of religious inconsistencies is being highlighted. Strangely I am reminded of the fateful […]

A Hindu priest from a temple in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad made headlines for carrying a Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) man on his shoulders into the temple’s inner sanctum. It has been seen as a dramatic move because Dalits have historically been denied entry into temples as they are considered “impure” by many conservative Hindus. Even today, most temples in India do not allow Dalits to enter. […]

While there are separate lawyers for clinical incompetence in the military and other crimes, the crimes among the representatives remain unaddressed. At least 48 MPs and MLAs have declared cases related to crime against women, with BJP having the highest number of such politicans at 12, a report said on Thursday amid a nation-wide outrage over rape incidents, including UP’s Unnao where a ruling party lawmaker is an accused. To […]

Many parts of India has been undergoing a so called cash crunch. Though the overall impact of crunch is fairly limited in cities like Mumbai, the ATMs in many of the rural and select urban locations are running dry. What can be the possible reasons for this? Is there really any cash crunch in the country or is the RBI regulating the cash flow? There are many theories doing the […]

Just four years ago I was a cheerleader. Social media was supposed to be the great hope for democracy. I know because I told the world so. I said in 2014 that no one could predict where this revolution would take us. My conclusion was dusted with optimism: a better connected human race would find a way to better itself. I was only half right: nobody could indeed have predicted […]

We are entitled to our opinions, not our facts. Sadly, since the horrific Kathua gang-rape has unravelled, vile opinions have been masquerading as ‘facts’ to change the narrative. As usual, the battle has reached social media where WhatsApp and other mediums are being used to fuel conspiracy theories which seek to somehow justify the rape-murder or give it a different angle. Here are two different sets of WhatsApp rumours that […]

In the aftermath of the brutal gang rape and murder of an 8-year-old child in Kashmir, several prominent public figures took to social media in outrage, to condemn the act. Among them was actor Renuka Shahane, whose heartfelt Facebook post looked into how the act of rape signifies a loss of humanity. What makes her post different from countless others? She cuts to chase. She identifies that sexual violence is […]