I AND MY WORDS

It has been a while since the Power Minister of Government of India, Mr Piyush Goyal, announced the Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). The purpose of the programme is to permanently resolve the crisis of indebted state owned power distribution companies (utilities) in India. The crisis is pretty severe - despite a 2012-13 financial restructuring package, the total outstanding debt on the distribution utilities is over INR 4 lakh crore. Most of the debt is ironically concentrated in just eight states, including notable names such as Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana being among these ignonimous leaders. UDAY tries to target the past legacies of debt by repackaging it as state debt instead of discom debt. This debt, upto 75% of which shall be taken over by the state, shall be repackaged as state bonds and shall be sold with first right to banks and pension funds. While the standard loan interest rate has been at around 14%, the bonds shall be giv...

An ariel view of a submerged Chennai (courtesy: NDTV) The recent washout that Chennai is nothing short of a catastrophe. It happens on a regular basis in other parts of India; however a Mumbai or Chennai does manage to get our attention in ways we cannot fathom. The severity of the low pressure system has ensured that rain stopped only yesterday, giving the city, the administration and the agencies involved in disaster relief a moment to gasp and bring some semblance of normalcy to people's lives. Of course, the real disaster danger lies once the rain stops and the water begins to subside, as the threat of epidemic manifolds itself in the city. Mind you, so far we have only heard of Chennai - many other cities in Tamil Nadu are faring much worse. Kanchipuram has been completely submerged, and other affected towns are still off-limits to many. While the rescue and relief operations are going on and the Chennaiites must be commended for rallying together in this time of crisi...

In Alliance We Won _ Nitish Hugging Laloo (Courtesy: The Hindu) The verdict is out , and the combine of Laloo Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and the All India Congress Committee of Rahul Gandhi hanging by the coattails of the other two has swept across Bihar. There are several interesting observations that need to be made in order to understand the trend that was with their alliance against a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led coalition in what was perceived to be a tight race. It is very interesting to note that democracy, equality and liberty are nebulous terms, and their vagueness can be seen in the oddity of the alliances and the outcome of the results. As Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn points out in his book Liberty or Equality , the premise of what constitutes the sense of freedom and the freedom to choose are not necessarily concomitant, and the ideas are certainly at variance as exhibited in the result. That democracy can be...

In March earlier this year I had gone to Colombo in Sri Lanka for work. Coincidentally, it followed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's successful visit to the country that had elected a new President, Maithripala Sirisena a few weeks earlier. While I drove around in taxis and visited offices, courteous Sri Lankans, of Sinhalese and Malay descent, kept talking to me in pidgin English about how they find our new PM fascinating, and how Indians generally are seen as good friendly neighbors but for the destructive Sri Lankan Tamil politics practiced by Tamil Nadu politicians. I was witness to a post-engagement lunch in the restaurant where I ate of a Tamil couple, being served with prompt attention by the mostly Sinhala staff. Much of it then made me wonder whether much of the reportage as I saw for Sri Lanka and its problems in the post-LTTE phase deserved attention. In this context, I decided to pick up a book written by Padma Rao Sundarji, an old Indian hand of South Asian ...

Diagnosing the Problem - Arun Shourie (Courtesy The Hans India) Since yesterday evening there are words and acrimonious exchanges flying thick and fast within and without the right wing sphere. Much brouhaha has to do with Arun Shourie's 'criticism' of the Narendra Modi led government , and many Adarsh Liberal Presstitutes have been trying to give a spin to what he said (and did not say) to imply that there was nothing but bluster for Modi. Irony could die a thousand deaths because the very same bunch of people derided him for attacking holy cows of secularism in the past; such hypocrisy is indeed hard to miss. However, there are several layers of subtext that most people have conveniently ignored, especially if one has been following Arun Shourie's assessments over the past year. Arun Shourie has criticized the government on economic reforms repeatedly. His repeated diagnosis has been that not enough is being done to free the economy. Now it is no secret that th...

The Nautanki of Nayantara Sahgal - Much Ado About Nothing (Courtesy - The Hindu) Of late, we have been seeing writers across the board returning their Sahitya Akademi award for great creations. It all started with the niece of the hallowed Jawaharlal Nehru, Nayantara Sehgal, followed by people like Ashok Vajpayi, Uday Prakash and many other people, including the likes of Surjit Patar joining the list, totaling to a grand number of twenty one. "Freedom of speech being throttled", "no space for free speech", "vitiated communal atmosphere" are phrases that are being bandied about as reasons for the protest. A cursory examination however demolishes many of the facts that are being loosely thrown around recklessly to vitiate the atmosphere. Most of the writers have just announced returning of awards. A news report by the Indian Express has specifically noted how many of these 'eminent' writers have been more than eager to announce in the media ...

नव युग के नव प्रभात में नव पंकज तुमको है खिलना रंग प्रकाश सुगंध भाव संग क्षण भर भी विक्षन्न न होना स्मरण करो उन बलिदानों को शूल छिन्न उन अपमानों को मत भूलो इतिहास की वेला क्या कुछ नहीं है तुमने झेला चक्र चला है आज अनोखा समय द्वार पर पालक देखा सत्य बधिर, मूक कण्ठ धारे चहुँ ओर माया का फेरा शब्द असत्य, चित्र असत्य कण कण में है घोर असत्य अंतःकरण को कर भ्रमित है मिथ्या की पाशों ने जकड़ा अवसर आज, अस्त्र भी साथ कर में थाम तू कर प्रहार मिथ्या के पाशों को काट कर स्वतंत्र तू सत्य को आज हुई पराजय बीते कल में छीनो उससे विजय को आज करके पलटवार पुनः तुम सत्य का दामन थामो आज देखना तुम, इस बलिदान से विजय पताका संग के साथ नित्य संघर्षरत रहो तुम अवसर मिलेगा फिर न आज नव युग के नव प्रभात में नव पंकज तुमको है खिलना रंग प्रकाश सुगंध भाव संग क्षण भर भी विक्षन्न न होना