Just like that

I had never been one of those person with an ardent nationalistic fervour within. Apart from the momentary goosebumps that one gets while hearing "Desh ki Darti" type songs, or a bit of guilt to see some pictures of our Army heroes slogging at the borders, I do not boast of any such feeling. However, while watching the drama of the missing chopper of YSR and the massive rescue operation on television, there was a moment when my nationalistic pride actually perked up a little. It was when the visuals of a mangled paper, wrapped in a Lifebuoy soap, appeared. The torn paper had some hurriedly scribbled mathematical jottings. Later, when the reporter explained that the piece of paper contained some geographical calculations about the location of the falling chopper and that it was believed to have been dropped by the pilot of the ill-fated chopper, I was amazed. I was stunned at the duty consciousness of the pilot who made his last effort to inform about the chopper's locati...

The Gujjar community in Rajasthan is fighting tooth and nail to downgrade its caste status in the government records. They want to be moved down to Scheduled Tribe (ST) status from their present categorisation under Other Backward Classes (OBC). But why such a downgrading? All in the hope of getting preferential access to jobs and education for its youth. By being considered under the ST category, the Gujjars stand to benefit by way of more quotas in educational institutions and job quotas in government offices. Government of India has classified various communities into a host of categories based on their social and economic status. Those under ‘Scheduled Tribes’ are people living in the forests or on the hills but are not necessarily socially backward, while OBC comprise castes that are not isolated from the society but still are educationally and economically backward. In Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Gujjars already enjoy ST status, but in states like Uttar Pradesh, Harya...

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, announced yesterday that Pongal, the first day of the Tamil month of Thai, will be announced as the Tamil New year’s day and a government directive to this effect will come into force very soon. He claimed that a group of 500 Tamil scholars after various deliberations had finally arrived at the consensus of making Thai as the first month of the Tamil calendar instead of Chithirai, which is currently followed and mostly falls on April 14. But this disagreement over renaming the Tamil New year seems to have had its genesis in 1921 spearheaded by Maraimalai Adigal, a Tamil Scholar who lived during the early 19th century. The Hindu calendar is based on both the solar and lunar movements and has been formulated based on their relative positions to earth. This is based on principles of Surya Siddhanta, a treatise of Indian astronomy written as early as 3rd century BC, which even Indian astronomers such as Arya Bhatta and Varahamihira too have m...

18/12/2007 Moments ago, I was reading a mail that enlisted the simple pleasures that people born before the 80s enjoyed. One which talks about the regular activiities of the kids of those times, rare for kids of these days, which involved simple pleasures such as jumping over the wall, climbing the tree, running in grounds, a fairly good immunity to eat anything that we want, so on and so forth. Just after basking in that cosy feeling, the first news to hit me from the ticker was that of a class 11 boy stabbing a class 8 girl for rejecting his "marriage" proposal. Dejected over the girl's refusal to "marry" him, the boy had stabbed her to death and he consumed poison himself. Not long ago, was that incident in a Delhi school when a class 9 student fired gun shots at his classmates over some minor disagreement. A similar case of a school boy throwing acid in the face of a girl who rejected his wedding proposal also hit the headlines a couple of months ago. O...

It is one of the most ironic judgments of an Indian Civil court. We all know that the mother is the natural guardian of a child. Even the animals acknowledge the fact. However, a local court in Jaipur refuses to believe the dictum. Recently, a Rajasthan court has passed a judgment in a case filed by a woman under the Domestic Violence Act saying that that the mother cannot take care of her daughter because she is a HIV affected patient. And how did she contract the virus? From her husband who was an army officer. Her husband who died March 19, 2003 gifted his wife both the daughter and the virus before his last journey. And the poor lady, ever since her husband’s death, has been facing the wrath of her in-laws. With the diagnosis of HIV virus in her, she was even thrown out of the house. And now the in-laws have taken away her daughter and are even refusing to let her meet the child. Disgusted with her state of life, the lady had appealed to the court of law hoping for some justice and...

Bitten by the blogger’s bug and also by my editor (who insisted that I produce at least a couple of copies after the month-long recess from work), here goes my first international travel tale (read travail). Curiously enough, the start of the story was a sudden bolt from the blue in the form of a call from the US consulate in Chennai. They called up to let me know that I had been invited for a month-long trip to the US by the Bush Government. “Hey.it was not even the month of April?” I replied thinking that it was one of my friends trying to play a prank. But the lady at the other end assured me that she was an employee of the USIS and that she wanted my consent for the economic journalists programme immediately. Initially, it was a moment of pride to proclaim myself that I had been invited by the US State Department but later I realised that it was one of their annual event and many journalist colleagues have already been a part of this exercise. (May be I was the only one in Chennai ...

Not just being satisfied with having donned the rold of Amitabh in Don, now Shah Rukh is going to take his seat in KBC too. This is sad news for all those KBC lovers who were held spell bound with Amitabh's antics and baritone voice. The show rose to be one among the top ten, mostly owing to Big B's charisma and presentation. I am not sure how much will Shah Rukh be able to replicate Big B in dealing with the people in the hot seat. Definitely, it will be a let down for all those who had stayed glued to the programme. So much so, that even my son, who is a great of fan of KBC, is not happy with the idea of seeing someone other than the BIG B himself. Amitabh is so dear to children too especially with the kind of ads that he gets featured in. No wonder he is the top most brand ambassador in the country who endorses the maximum number of products. But with rumours agog about his imminent entry into politics, and with his proximity with Amar Singh of Samajwadi party, it will sure...