Putting a spin on the Uttarakhand tragedy

Politicians have used the Himalayan tragedy to score political brownie points and the media has been a willing participant, says Mahesh Vijapurkar. Politics is the art of the possible, and spin......

Why the Sanjay Dutt case highlights need for jail reforms

Our jails are not reforming inmates but are turning into an inhuman system of heaping punishment, says Mahesh Vijapurkar. It is common knowledge that jails are no picnic spots. The conditions there......

Real Estate: Offenders go scot-free, victims pay

Civic bodies which are supposed to regulate the dimensions of a city’s growth, including what land ought to be used how, also have the responsibility of detecting and curbing flouting of......

The two kinds of violence on display at India Gate

There were certainly two kinds of violence at India Gate: one avoidable, another reprehensible, notes Mahesh Vijapurkar. No doubt there was violence at India Gate. The violence was of two genres,......

Bullet trains? First change the stinky coaches and stations

Amid all the changes that Railways has undergone over the decades, one thing has been constant - untidy stations and malodourous trains, says  Mahesh Vijapurkar.There are four categories of......

The unresolved whodunits of urban real estate

The real estate business thrives on creating excess spaces beyond the permitted building codes, short-changing the buyer, and even opting for poorer quality of material. This finds an enthusiastic......

Ho-hum, so the Lok Sabha discussed black money, what's new?

Can a corrupt revenue system be trusted to keep confidences when oodles of money are involved, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar The other day, when Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani moved an......

Road projects, flyovers: A major scandal?

Mahesh Vijapurkar smells a scandal in the BOT model for road projects. I am beginning to suspect that construction of road and related infrastructure like flyovers and bridges in out country could......

Say no to the Games, else the guilty will escape!

Mahesh Vijapurkar urges sports persons to stand up and show contempt for the poor standards that appearthe benchmark of the Commonwealth Games. Much has been said on the Commonwealth Games (CWG),......