Around the world and mind...

A more than a hundred year old organisation with such a wide network has to go to level that its president has to announce, giving away alms to people who want to travel to their hometown. Also the opposition in Maharashtra is doing more or less the same. The terrible and hideous pictures of politics are being depicted. Also the news channels want traction more than conveying the facts. Simple example of regional news. In tier 1/2 cities like Mumbai and Pune, there are many labourers who wanted to go to their hometown in North India. There are continuously news being flashed of herds of these people being subjected to mild lathi charge on news channels. Moreover they play it on loop throughout the day. That is not required. In fact that is the very reason folks of my age and age group are resorting to OTT and alike media platforms. You have not full but most control over the noise there!! There are many paid platforms available which provide paid service for it. The known, fre...

The writer of this blog post is, according to me a very courageous lady. This post is a letter addressed to women around her and it is an interesting take on "women as a community dynamics". Writer's consent has been duly taken before posting it. Credits for the post given in the end. To, ~whomsoever concerned (PS : only for ladies!) Hello there! I hope everything is going well! Atleast it appears likewise to me! It is since a long time from now, I wanted to address you , because the informal, taken for granted attitude of yours, which started our story , was meant to end in a crisp, FORMAL manner! In the journey of my life, I went through several ups and downs like everyone else, and I was glad, in that struggle of mine I had you! To have a check on me because the formalities were universally declared, yet limited upto a 3 word question, . “Are you okay?” My mental health wasn’t your concern anymore when you wanted to compare your l...

The answer to that is- "It doesn't matter". 'Ours' is a very relative term therein and 'justice 'is more important. There are 'n' number of people who believe that this is a religious propaganda against a certain ethnicity and there are political heavyweights involved. The root issue is security of life and no politics should be ushered in thereof. Astonishingly, there was no word from our otherwise vocal Pradhansevak ji on this issue. Consider this scenario, not all amongst you, the readers know Aasifa personally still you feel something for her, thats social media for social media illiterates a.k.a critics. The influence, influential and influencers are all a horrendous group of people, I believe. Right from the instagram influencers to political ones, everyone want to brand themselves. Political ones, have a wider and more uglier perspective.   The victim was a eight year old girl. The moment you hear the name, your conscience ke...

At the very outset I want to make it clear that the article would seemingly be prejudiced, because it would be taking sides. There are two very prominent names which I’d be discussing. None of them, I’ve encountered personally but through internet and television as a media. I’ve had a liking for both their art, but now the case is different! I’ve made a choice. Maybe easily anticipatable but the reasons for it would be the real interesting ones. Both of them come from a humble background. Both of them made their way into the comedy industry. The reason why I’d be sticking to the comedy industry and not Television or Bollywood paparazzi is because it gets quite elaborate and shady there! Although I’d be considering Kapil’s entry in on television and further in Bollywood, Zakir bhai’s is a tale of sheer tryst with stand-up comedy. I’d not be discussing much about their personal background but professional ones. Because everyone’s is a different past and a more hopeful present a...

The picture of RK Laxman still is the identity of a common man. However, are the hardships, he goes through them bruised but unnerved. The value of tolerance and outreach are both balancing each other. When one exceeds, the other buffers it and these days… duh! There are many a problems which otherwise remain unnoticed if no outrage is there about it. Thanks to internet there are many fair and foul deeds done.  R.K. Lakshman's 'Common Man' (Source Google+) Sadly enough, the TV media houses are indulged in showing news in regards to a specific trend to favor their bosses. In such scenario internet remains the only neutral medium to portray what's really wrong. Only stand-up comedy and comedians are the responsible reformists in our country left('left' in the sense, remaining nothing else!!) as of now! It is hard to be on no one’s side and say the truth. Recently I came across the EIC outrage. It is east India comedy, a group of stand-up comedians vo...

“ The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck ” is making the airs lately. The plight of incorporating F-word in a book, caught my and maybe almost every reader’s eye. The F-word certainly catches our attention. But there’s more to it. The book doesn’t peep into life of the reader but still does!! The use of F-word has become colloquial nowadays and that fits in on every page and passage in the book. The Book Cover While reading the book we can relate ourselves to it. That’s the very essence of the book. These are one of those motivational ones, which don’t impart the positivity kind of shit, instead they show the reality. It is a story of a man who is not wary of being at fault. It is a story of man, which you and me don’t want to be just out of fear. The so-called society and the peers hound us to not to be so. The F-word is used umpteen times, because that’s the drill. But the best sentence to sum it up is, “It is good to not give a fu*k about everything, otherwise your life ...

Internet is a big boon for the generations now and about to come although with some harmful strings attached. Let’s keep that negative aspect aside for a while. But factually, it is really helping many who remained abandoned from the learning opportunities. Especially the rural or suburban pockets have been deprived of education and related opportunities of late. In spite of being akin to fruitful abilities, they remain deprived of education. This is thanks to the tyrannical government policies and the growing urban migratory mindset. Recently I had a chance to listen to ma’am Vidhi Jain . The platform was Josh Talks . The examples that she narrated were startling and equally horrendous. She terms the schooling that we go through as the ‘factory schooling’. She narrated this one incident of conducting an art and craft workshop which consisted of about thirty pupils. Twenty-six out of them were so called school-going folks and remaining four were from nearby kachchi-ba...

What is 'Doing Business'? According to the world bank report , "The Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level." Most importantly, EOB, looks at the conducive and harmful norms that pertain to a particular national economy. Most importantly it captivates one's attention, because it tells more about the regulatory norms for starting a business at the local level. Amid all the political controversies, if one goes through the report, the leap although not spell bound, but it is worth to inspire entrepreneurship in India. Image source: Doing Business . What is DTF? In above picture there is a diagram showing something called Distance to Frontier(DTF). It is just comparing the economy under consideration to the best one on an absolute scale upto 100.(It can be viewed on diagram above.) It is designed to address both ...

Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post on Monday said that Chinese engineers were testing techniques to build the tunnel, the world’s longest one. The alleged plan was to divert the waters to the Xinjiang desert. Until now, China's longest tunnel is the 85-km Dahuofang water project in Liaoning province, while the world's longest tunnel is the 137-km main water supply pipe beneath the city of New York. The location and its significance. Courtesy: The Pioneer India being a riparian state, has already conveyed to China about the growing concern regarding dams built by the latter in and around Brahmaputra river called, Yarlung Tsangpo in China. The view was "to turn Xinjiang into California". The water will be diverted from the Yarlung Tsangpo River(The Brahmaputra's tributary in in China) in southern Tibet, which turns into the river Brahmaputra once it enters India,extending to the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang. Wang Wei, a researcher who helped draft...

Today's Delhi cracker ban did hurt sentiment of many a people, and it surely did! There is an increasing trend of so called learned elites going to Supreme courts specially in decrees involving Hindu customs and traditions which they feel are vestigial thereof. Sad part is, this clan is amongst the Hindu community itself, and they don't vouch for any collective responsibility. The gentleman who filed this case has Arjun Gopal as his name. There is a copy of court proceedings dated 12th September 2017(Link below). It was prior to the judgement delivered today. Most of it suggests preventive measures to be practiced during festivities and many more such 'measures'. I don't know for how many number of times the PIL can be filed/entertained with same grievance. But I think this issue was taken up constantly right from 2015 until today’s judgement. Supreme Court has led ban on 'manufacturing and selling' of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR On reading thr...

Right from our childhood we’ve heard and went through this first word of the title. The great Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar said शिक्षण हे वाघीणचे दूध आहे . ( Education is like a tigresses’ milk ) . He meant that it instills a sense of self-righteousness and empowers us to stand on our own. This is the profound belief behind education, more so. The Indian education system starts with a balwadi or Shishu gat sophistically called the kindergarten. The end of all this is decided by hope, ability and economy of oneself. The erstwhile pioneers in education right from Mahatma Jotiba Phule and Dhondo Keshav Karve started the schools and universities as centers of learning. The revered female educationists like Savitribai Phule and Ramabai Ranade too will not remain behind the curtains of history, strived for female literacy. Those father figures still instill hope and faith in education. They are the sources of inspiration for us to get ourselves educated and know why. Lokmanya Tilak was ‘for...

Last Friday to Sunday PM Modi was in Varanasi. This time he was in Varanasi as a MP and to kick-start those various hand loom projects and other schemes worth thousand crore he sanctioned three years ago. The extent of his will and work is pretty outstanding. Yes, if we purely view it neutrally then your heart says this. The erstwhile dispensation has been at least trying to establish the principle of welfare state, that's for sure!! However true that is, Varanasi still stands in ruins. I had a chance to visit Varanasi few years before. The Kashi-Vishveshwar still mesmerizes his devotees as the surrounding locality still stands in ruins. We do have some grudge after watching the dome of the mosque forcefully constructed alongside the temple. Same grudge beams up when we move in through the wee streets of old Varanasi called the 'Kashi' after the famed 'Kashi-Vishveshwar' The single roads running through the residential areas are all flooded with vehicles ru...