A vent in the Delirium

The society, we live in, is obsessed with labeling things either black or white. It plays the moral police for each of its individuals. Since our childhood we are made to see things as either good or bad. There isn't much scope for grey. Grey, which is in fact the reality but we live in pseudo realities which are much more comfortable to accept. The moral uneasiness which comes with accepting the evil in you, is hard to accept. Probably the most difficult thing to accept, morally, would be that the murderers, the rapists, the goons; are just the humans that we are. Their morals and ideologies are similar to ours. When the (fake) wall of morality that we build between THEM and US falls, our moralistic self will get a shattering. We are so comfortable feeling and believing moralistic that we fail to see the evil in us. The evil is always in others while we have achieved moralistic zenith. Gitta Sereny, a journalist known for her unflinching studies of Nazis and child crimina...

India, by virtue of its population, offers massive opportunities and challenges. The manpower and human resource that remains untapped presents myriad opportunities and providing civic amenities to such a large population poses vast challenges. The opportunities as well as the challenges go far beyond just these. One of the major challenge is ensuring food security for the 1.2 billion Indians. This basic necessity for human life is still at bay, six decades after our independence. In a country where almost 50% of the children are malnourished and their mothers weak and anemic; one would have hoped that food security would be one of the priorities of the government. But six decades after the independence, 12 five year plans later, we are still "debating" a Food Security Bill and our expenditure on food subsidy has been less than 1% for the past 5 years. At times when food inflation is at its peaks and the poor are struggling to make ends meet; its quintessential that ...

Watching "the wall" of Indian Cricket speak after his retirement was enchanting. A mixture of emotions in his voice and body language. A bit of sadness, lot of pride, satisfaction, courage and commitment. It was a lesson in aesthetics, of how one should carry oneself in public. He was a model of modesty and humility. He is someone who epitomised putting nation before self. He was a man who was involved in 2 three hundred plus partnerships and a day long partnership in tests, but at all occasions was overshadowed by his partner at the other end. Yet, he continued doing his best for the nation. He is the single most under-rated, under-appreciated cricketer of his times. If consistency is the measure od greatness, then he is the greatest of his times. If its easy to be good at home, then again he is the greatest of his times. If number 3 is the most difficult position to bat in cricket then he is the greatest of his times. He did any and everything for the TEAM . When ...

When Manmohan Singh made that speech on 24th July,1991, marking the beginning of economic reforms and opening up of the Indian economy; it was little out of choice but out of compulsion. With only 3 weeks worth of reserves for import left, it was on the verge of default and had open up as a result of the IMF bailout. To say that nothing has changed in the 20 years since then would be utter pessimism and idiotic. A lot has changed but the malice still remains in the system. The economy reached the highs of 9% GDP growth in 2007, is now the second fastest growing economy of the world and is being viewed as a major player at the world stage. But corruption, inefficiency and official laxity is still prevalent. Recently we got a reality check on the progress on the road to reforms, when government had to rollback its decision to allow FDI in multi brand retail. Since then it has not treaded the path on any further reforms. Diesel and Kerosene still remain to be heavily subsidised. ...

The turn of events over the recent past has made evident the increasingly pro-US foreign policy followed by India. From being the prominent member of the Non-Aligned Movement in the times of cold wars, to being a close ally of the Soviet Union, it has come a long way in the current capitalist economic world order. With the fall of USSR, and the rise of West and and the US, to being the world's biggest superpower, there was a clear shift in world order toward west. There was centralisation of power both economical and political. India's bond with the US is largely a measure by both parties to keep China, a heavyweight in the region, in check. Hence the many joint drills that are conducted by the two armies . Also the signing of much hyped Nuclear treaty between the two countries for civil nuclear projects. There are economical reasons as well. US is the third largest trading partner of India and its largest trading partner is the UAE which is pro-US. India's major d...

Every individual enters school as an equal among his cohorts, the classmates. Children are distinguished in school, the top 1 percent opting for the international schools and the rest classified into the the convents, the public and the govt. schools. But in that school among your classmates you are equal, a sense of equality prevails. Then when we enter college there is divisions in that group of equals, when some make it to IITs and NITs, rest going to UPTUs and the others opting out or going for other courses. But again the equal chunk in more or less equal. The real difference starts to appear after college, when the equals get the centrifugal thrust. Everyone disperses from the centre of equality and keep on going far away from each other as time progresses. The IItians start getting what you expect 5 years from now. Even your own colleagues, start off on their own road of destiny. This is where comparisons must be avoided, as they can be lethal, and destiny be respected....

God as defined on Dictionary.com the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe. Religion as defined on Dictionary.com a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. Religion is but a means to reach an end not the end in itself. The end is God. Religion is nothing but a hypothesis, i.e. a proposed explanation to the phenomenon which has not yet been otherwise experimentally proved. It binds you within boundaries, within rules, within moral code of conduct. In blindly following the religion of one's birth, we lose the power inherent within to think for ourselves. We lose the power to reason, to think, and most importantly the power to disagree. We tend not to question one's religion and it's principles but accept it in...