Category Archives: society

Road From Democracy to Fascism

The recent storm cre­ated by the Shiv Sena in Maha­rash­tra is indica­tive of a resur­gent Fas­cism as cor­rectly noted by Soli Sorab­jee. This rot in Maha­rash­tra is elo­quently ana­lyzed by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, which you must read to get a grasp of the sit­u­a­tion.
What dis­tresses me to a cer­tain extent is the debate I observe

In Remembrance of 26/11 and Thanksgiving to the Heroes

Warn­ing: A post with­out struc­ture, theme or com­po­si­tion. Sense­less unedited out­pour­ing. Read at your own risk.
Blood, bul­lets, and deaths. Bru­tal vio­lence. Screams. Help­less­ness. Despair. Pain. Courage.
A nation of a bil­lion aspir­ing to be on the UN Secu­rity Coun­cil brought to its knees by just ten armed ter­ror­ists.
Hun­dreds died. Thou­sands wept. Mil­lions pan­icked. A bil­lion were ter­ror­ized.
The

How To Become A Spiritual Guru

Becom­ing a spir­i­tual guru is not as dif­fi­cult as it may seem.
There are one or two guides already writ­ten on the web, but after my pop­u­lar Rule­book for Indian TV News Pro­duc­ers, I thought I would write my own guide to becom­ing a Spiritual Guru.

Appear knowl­edge­able about at least one ancient phi­los­o­phy and way of life.

India Swine Flu Helpline Details & Contact Information

With the first swine flu death reported in my city of Pune, I thought I’d pro­vide some Swine Flu related infor­ma­tion spe­cific to India.
Swine Flu India is the cen­tral web­site for all infor­ma­tion and updates.

The Min­istry of Health and Fam­ily Wel­fare has an infor­ma­tion page for Swine Flu.
This MS Word doc­u­ment sup­plied on the above page

Mentally Challenged, Raped, Pregnant. Abort?

While Barack Obama pro­claims White House sup­port to the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties to which India is a sig­na­tory, the Indian Supreme Court has deliv­ered a land­mark judg­ment in a unique case of young woman in India. My apolo­gies, but the sub­ject neces­si­tates a lengthy post.
Back­ground
Born in 1991, this woman

Encouraging Superstition on TV

A few days back, I was watch­ing a children’s real­ity show on TV, Zee Saregamapa Lit­tle Champs. Young chil­dren sing and com­pete in this show, and there are two judges, one of whom is Ms. Alka Yagnik.

After one of the kids sung a song com­posed by Bappi Lahiri, Ms. Yag­nik said she had brought a

Religion vs. Gender Equality & Feminism

How do reli­gions treat women? How do eman­ci­pated women treat reli­gion? A sequence of events recently has made my mind unquiet over this sub­ject. Nita asked if Hin­duism was com­ing of age, with peo­ple per­form­ing the sacred ‘thread cer­e­mony’ on their daugh­ters. The BJP found itself trapped in the maze of con­fu­sion sur­round­ing Hin­dutva. And

A to Z of Films Meme (O)

O
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
One of the most pow­er­ful anti-establishment movies I’ve seen, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is the story of a crim­i­nal McMur­phy who prefers an insane asy­lum to prison, and leads a sus­tained revolt against the suf­fo­cat­ing and stul­ti­fy­ing atmos­phere and prac­tices of the bar­baric asy­lum. Unlike main­stream movies, here

The Straight Dope FAQ on Indian Elections 2009

Or what news­pa­pers and media will not tell you about the 2009 Indian Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tion.
Will the new gov­ern­ment go in for reform?

Absolutely! Though there may be a slight dif­fer­ence between what every­one under­stands by reform and what the gov­ern­ment means by reform. From the government’s per­spec­tive reform means re-forming the gov­ern­ment. The party in power

A to Z of Films Meme (B)

[I may write a para­graph or two at the begin­ning of each post about some aspect of film-making, shar­ing thoughts, facts, or expe­ri­ences, etc. This may or may not be related to the films I write about.
Do feel free to com­ment on the films, my writ­ing, as well as rec­om­mend and dis­cuss other films. The more