I AND MY WORDS

  As they walked in, Saurabh felt a strange burst of uncomfortable heaviness all around him. It was as if the air in the unfinished tunnel had become extremely heavy, almost to the point of being suffocated. And yet it was not suffocation; rather it felt that the body was all of a sudden wrapped, somewhat embalmed in something invisible. The light of the mobile phones doubling as torches also seemed to be somewhat bent, or was this a trick being played by the mind? Saurabh could not decipher this eerie feeling all around him. All of a sudden Adhir spoke up. “Why are we standing here? Let’s go back!” The three started to tread backwards, and soon, they were out of the tunnel. It was only now that they could see each other clearly, and there they spotted the same cloud of unease over the faces of the other two that perhaps was also present on their own. “What the hell was that!?” Ranjan was perhaps the most freaked out, having nearly screamed out the question in a fit of anger. “Dare...

Saurabh was standing with his friends at the tunnel of Barog station. The train was yet to come. Having come prepared with every detail on the phone, he had decided for sure that he would walk through the haunted tunnel. The long drawn summer and the brief monsoon in Shimla had given way to the autumn spell, bringing a nip in the air while the afternoon sun’s languid nature had made his small roadside resort residence’s lawns become an ideal spot to lull around.  But lull he would not. It was his mission to explore the history, as he drove around to visit the various places like the Dagshai cantonment that had housed Mahatma Gandhi and had been a theater to the mutiny of the Irish soldiers during the Home Rule movement of 1914 in an encore, albeit a much smaller one, of the Curragh incident. Even more was his interest to check up on the remnants of the Gurkha forts, a testimony to the theatre of war the region had been for nearly fifty years in the 19th century between the various ...

No small matter, this Much noise is being made on the rising petrol and diesel prices in India. Is it worth the shouting matches that are being indulged in? When one looks at the petrol and diesel prices data from the Petroleum Pricing and Analysis Cell under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, and starts doing some basic analysis, interesting trends start to emerge. As against the petrol price increments that were taking place between April 2007 and April 2014, the price of petrol has been under control, lower than what it could have been if the trends had continued. This can be understood when one sees the trendline based on prices for this period versus the actual prices for the subsequent period till 1 June 2021. It must be noted though that the anomaly could very well be a result of suppression of fuel prices under the UPA for the longest time. Interestingly, the UPA government had removed the market flexibility policy that the previous Vajpayee regime...

The Circus Called Indian Media (courtesy: Mint) The latest advisory of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on treating COVID-19 gains praise from a wide spectrum of the medical and scientific community for its evidence-based approach towards COVID management . Also, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on record to laud India’s scientific community for their invaluable contribution to the nation’s fight against the COVID pandemic. However, given the utterly deplorable and false propaganda of a section of India’s liberal community, it is time to ask a few tough questions of the eminent liberals of our country who think they know more than scientists. Modi Government’s Multiple Steps in Sync with Science That the oh so liberal liberati of India was bereft of any cranial abilities was well known. What has been on demonstration for more than a year and a half however account for nothing less than plagiarism. The word plagiarism is used because the model templates that their ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons The consensual comity of scientists have failed the world on the COVID pandemic, and the strike down is not on just one count alone. Why do I say so, many would ask? Just look at all the evidence piling up since last year, finally being accepted with great reluctance regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the world, driven by its science based policy making systems, has been forced to accept the possibility of a laboratory leakage. This, when there has always been evidence to suggest that the COVID-19 virus pandemic was likely triggered by a leakage from a virology lab in China, where it was perhaps being studied. Accidental or not, what is certainly known to us is that the global comity of scientists has shamed itself by covering up through herd consensus and attempting to discredit alternative views, and raises serious questions on how the public can believe them anymore. What is even more problematic is the fact that ‘gain of function’ research has been...

With the ongoing pandemic a few things are now becoming obvious on the economic front.  The much touted economic recovery plan Aatmanirbhar Bharat has been partly successful; however, with judicial interference now and anticipated in the future, one can see the reform roll out promised under the program failing to materialize before end of 2023. The Loan sanction vs disbursal ratio under the emergency credit loan guarantee scheme clearly did not pan out on desired lines for some crucial reasons I had highlighted earlier. Agricultural reforms remain in the cold storage for now.  Part success of course has been used because PLI schemes of certain sectors have received great response . Particular focus for applause should go on mining, pharmaceuticals and electronics, as well as medical devices which also hold great promise and can be indeed transformative along with textiles. However, in the other sectors it remains an expression of noble intentions like solar PV modules an...

Courtesy: Times of India Yes, you read it right. There is disaffection in the Indian middle class right now with the Narendra Modi government. This is not about tier I wine sipping elite intellectuals. This is about the great Indian middle class that has suffered immensely due to the COVID lockdown. This is the great Indian middle class of tier II, tier III and tier IV, living across India, many of whose children were working in tier I cities but lost their jobs and came back to sit idle at home. This is the great Indian middle class that forms a significant skilled migrant set that is increasingly getting  frustrated at the lack of job opportunities in the job market. This is the great Indian middle class that pays taxes across all hues but does not count as a significant voter base any more for the BJP. There is this sentiment among several well wishers turned haters that the BJP rose on the backs of the Indian middle class only to trample its spine and move forward to ensure tha...