Bureaucracy-The Power that be

All private secretaries to Union ministers are equal, but S.R. Bhatia is more equal. Bhatia is the private secretary to Prakash Chand Sethi, the Union…

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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…

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Mysterious U-Turn

Although it is a blasphemous thought, it has cropped up in many a legal mind during the last few weeks: if bets were placed on…

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Political Compulsion

Two experts on Soviet studies, both lecturers in major universities, were informed late last month by the University Grants Commission (UGC) that their applications for…

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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,…

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Democracy Dies in Darkness

At least in the United States, the light of a free press still shines bright The Washington post adopted this four-word slogan “Democracy Dies in…

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Anna Data

Our government owns one of the world’s biggest databases. What does it mean? Annadata means “Bestower of food” – a synonym for god. In some…

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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…

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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…

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