All’s well that ends well. So what if five more dead jawans have been added to the long list of martyrs being sacrificed to Pakis in uniform or mufti or in whatever attire? Now that Defence Minister Antony has arrived at the correct statement, after a few typo trials and errors, is it not wise on the part of political ‘stall’-’warts’ cutting across parties to call a ceasefire and get back to disrupting Parli and governance on some other pretext?
Browsing: COLUMNS
Telangana has been conceived many times in the past and aborted as many times. The arguments, for and against it, are as valid today as they were all through these years, despite the changing shades and shenanigans of the protagonists and antagonists at every point in history.
The Planning Commission and politicos, the deciders of the nation’s fate, seem singularly poor-blind. The sordid spectacle being staged in the name of the poor is at once sinister and sickening: Sinister owing to the seamless political posturings across parties; and sick because of the utter insensitivity of the numbers-oriented debate. The question is not who is on the side of the poor but the pervasive presence of poor. And it is inhuman to see the poor as just an ‘economic problem’.
Tamil filmdom has the distinction of creating and nurturing some of the greatest artistic talents ever. But it also has the selfish habit of appropriating them wholly. The lure and lucre that cinema offer have kept many a genius away from the larger canvas that they deserve.
A strange, sinister and self-defeating spectacle is now on show: ‘Let LeT be; first fix NaMo’, is the reigning credo of the rulers and a band of self-styled secular, liberal intelligentsia. To them, it does not seem to matter if terrorists thrive so long as Narendra Modi is kept in check. The benefit of doubt and bleeding hearts that the former evoke is matched only by the paranoia and partisan posturings of those against the latter.
Strikes by public sector staff always raise my hackles. Lofty claims of national interest fall flat in the face of unmitigated misery caused to the very nation’s public the ‘public servants’ are supposed to serve. Besides, the parasitical self-interest that underlies the itch to shirk work is too obvious to be missed. At a theoretical-level too, public sector employees cannot be called the ‘proletariat’ or the ‘working class’ in the Marxian sense, even if one were to take Marx seriously.
Only in March this year, and not earlier, mind you, the plight of SL Tamils touched a pathetic low; parallelly, only then the Sinhala ‘chauvinist’ regime’s atrocities too peaked. World Tamil champion K ‘quickly’ woke up to these wholly sudden and momentous developments and withdrew from the profitable UPA of which he was a prospering partner.
The Himalayan hill station was alluring. The serene spots seduced from the sites online. The holiday offers were quite inviting. The weather, on the charts at least, was welcoming. Indeed heaven on earth was beckoning. In contrast, grimy, hot Chennai was at its repulsive best. A travel nut like me needed no greater excuse to hit the heights.
Indians’ gambling tendencies have now become the subject of severe scrutiny and serious study. Not just law enforcers but psychologists too have got into the ring to unravel the secrets behind the raging IPL scandal. Indeed, if big-ticket businessmen with reputations at stake have no qualms in casting their lot with small-time bookies, the matter obviously goes beyond mere money and enters the maze of mind chemistry.