CALCUTTA -THE CITY THAT REFUSES TO DIE
Nowhere else in India do people engulf you as they do in Calcutta. From the moment you step off your train or plane, and begin…
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CALCUTTA’S INDIANS TAKE ELECTIONS IN STRIDE
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuters – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from…
CALCUTTA IS FOEVER
Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!”…
Friend in Need
The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (RSS) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…
Toilet – Training India
On September 25, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the Gates Foundation’s Global Goalkeepers Award in New York for his leadership of the Swachh…
Show Me The Jobs
Let’s quit beating the bushes and chase the real quarry The government is striving mightily, but the needle is moving inexorably lower on the jobs…
A first-rate problem
I believe the government is counting too much on the RBI to wield the magic wand India’s economy is lurching like a car with two…
Close, But No Cigar
What lies ahead? A messy GST rollout could be one shock too many after demonetisation… Finance Ministers take on a certain air when they think…
Finger on the pules?
Modi has promised to double farmers’ incomes by 2022, but angry farmers have lost faith Two-thirds of Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. As…
Killing me Softly
Death is inevitable, but not in a gas chamber He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind,…
Keep The Ballast
We need our institutions as much as we need our democracy Narendera Modi’s first term in office will be bracketed by malodorous stand-offs with two…
APOCALYPSE NOW
Forget global warming and focus on local warnings Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur. Nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities…
Viral Fever
The only antidotes to fake news are truth and commonsense Start exercise your smartphone thumb, because the next big election will be fought on our…
Clutching At Straws
Palliatives, pain-killers or band-aids: take your pick We are so frozen in the headlights of the on rushing slowdown that even a flicker leads us…
The Air is Thick
On Earth Day, let’s look at what our politicians promise on air pollution The Good news is that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress…