Farm loan waivers should not be regarded as expenditure but as incentive and investment, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The differently-abled deserve a normal life. Nothing will stop Poonam Natarajan from ensuring that India, slowly but surely, gives it to them, discovers Shobha Warrier.
Not much is heard or read about Sun Pharma's media-shy owner.
Once the Covid crisis subsides in the state, the NEET exam this year, whether conducted or cancelled, could become an electoral issue next year, along with the BC-MBC reservations issue, especially the 'creamy layer' aspect, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
'Some people make the majoritarian argument that a lot of Indians speak Hindi.' 'But where exactly? Is that not relevant?'
If purists are surprised as to why and how people are not demanding prohibition or not talking about past promises, both in the election manifestos five years back and even those made to the courts, the answer lies in how the state has been evolving and changing these past few years, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Congress party hated him because he had not gone to jail, he was not lathi charged, he had not gone on hunger strike.' 'They felt he had lived in London all his life and then he came to India and became an MP and a minister.'
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
Critics argue that much more could have been done and that the government was slow to react to many events.
Annabel Mehta, Sachin Tendulkar's mother-in-law, has dedicated her life to working with the Beautiful People of the other half of Mumbai without whom the city would neither exist nor thrive. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel met the amazing lady who was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire for her service to underprivileged communities.
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
In 2002, at 13 she lost both her hands and severely damaged her legs in a freak accident. Today she is a dedicated social worker, a motivational speaker and model for accessible clothing in India.
Protester Sasi Perumal's death has given a new fillip to the pro-prohibition movement, which was beginning to draw attention across Tamil Nadu after different political parties began to make it a part of their poll manifesto for next year, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Flowing from an inadequate understanding of Tamil history and politics is an urban elitist mindset that does not seem to be able to touch and feel the real angst of the larger Tamil-speaking masses, cutting across the social and economic status of the individual, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Everybody says 5G and communication is important.' 'Everybody says automation, robotics, human computing interfaces -- people and machines working together -- is the future.' 'Everybody agrees that cybersecurity is something that is here to stay.' 'Everybody agrees that synthetic biology is important.' 'Instead of outlining thinking about industries for tomorrow and the future, let the evolutionary pathway be built in a way that it promotes robust, creative, thinking.'
'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
'The corporate sector says by 2022 they will create 300 million jobs.' 'In the last 70 years we didn't do it, how will we do it in 5 years?' 'Only agriculture can bail out the economy. Unfortunately, it is not being looked into.'
'The Chinese have a set pattern. They demonstrate, warn, threaten, attack and withdraw.' 'We were lulled into complacency, but I am certain things are being corrected now.'
Rediff.com reproduces the 1997 feature about Laxman, his passion for crows, and of course, his genius.
The incidence of more crimes across Tamil Nadu is threatening to make law and order an inevitable poll issue in the state-wide local bodies elections due only months from now, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
Ameesha Joshi tells Harish Kotian/Rediff.com what made her and Anna Sarkissian devote much of the last 10 years on a movie on women's boxing in India.
We need to question ourselves if we are to be implicated as well in the institutional murder of Rohith and many other Rohiths, if not bodily but in spirit, because of our complicity in naturalising this elitist, exclusionary, discriminatory-to-the-core conception of education, says Kishalaya Mukhopadhyay.