Criminalization of Politics  The leaders who achieved independence for India spent long years in jail; many a politician today ought to, justly, be in jail. The former were imprisoned for fighting a just cause against an alien rule; the latter is no better than common criminals- petty thieves, gangsters, murderers, and rapists. For politics today has become not the last but the first resort of the scoundrel.           An important reason...

The world needs more Tolerance “Tolerance is the only real test of civilization”. It was Arthur Kelps who thus extolled the virtue of tolerance. Man in the 21st century believes he is more civilized than his ancestors. But is he also more tolerant than them? Unfortunately, the virtue of tolerance is not abundant in the world of today and the world is in dire need of it.           Tolerance can be...

Teaching September 5 is Teacher’s Day, commemorating the birthday of scholar and philosopher and the second President of India, DR S. Radhankrishnan. What is the day meant to signify? Recall the importance of teachers? Show them respect, at least for  the day? There is a tradition in many schools to give the teachers a day off from teaching; instead, the senior students take on the mantle of their teachers and do...

Child Welfare  November 14, Children’s Day. It no longer gets the attention it used to even a few years ago. The media- print or electronic- mention it, hardly. No colour supplements tracing the origin and significance of the day; nor interviews with famous personalities about the importance of children , their own memories of childhood, their experience with children and so many other things our original thinkers in media come up...

Health Recently, the government launched the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) aimed at correcting rural inequities in the matter of health. It correctly seeks to integrate health with those essential inputs in health, namely , sanitation, hygiene , safe drinking water, and nutrition. Most of the schemes and programmers initiated by our governments looks good on paper; where they fail is where it really masters-on the ground, in the implementation. The...

The Problems of a Huge Population India’s population, according to census figures, will be somewhere near 1.45 billion by 2035. So we will be the leading country by population in the  world. A dubious distinction at most, despite the optimist’ view that human resources are to be seen as potential and not as a burden.           Can we in reality provide the kind of education and skill development opportunities to these...

Politicians Above the Law Every now and then, we hear someone declare proudly, if a bit self-righteously, that Indian is the biggest democracy. We love to point out that the framers of our Constitutions so that our best ideas and principles from world constitution so that our best ideas and principle from world constitution so that our own  document could be one of the best. Practically all kinds of dangers to...

Terrorism Can never Lead to Democracy The  two slogans are, indeed , contradictory , and yet how often we see that yesterday’s freedom fighter is today’s dictator! The terrorist groups that operate on a worldwide stage today are imbued with this contradiction; not one of them is free of it. Whether it is the LTTE, the ULFA,  the Nasalizes of various hues and shades, or the so-called ‘Islamic’ fundamentalists fighting in...