Debarth's Den

Any visit by a president of the United States to India is a cause for great expectation and fanfare within the echelons of Indian politics and its polity, and Obama’s upcoming visit is expected to create no less an effect. However, India’s expectations of support and empathy from the US with regard to its perennial conflicts with Pakistan have always fallen flat, insofar that America cannot afford to ingratiate India at the expense of Pakistan, while the reverse may be true to some extent. The ascent of Obama to the highest post in the US has so far not augured very favorably for India, in that Obama’s stance towards the Indo-US nuclear deal and the offshoring of US jobs to Indian shores has not been particularly agreeable. These fears find further confirmation in the diplomatic jugglery resorted to by the US High Commissioner in India, Mr Tim Roemer, when, in a recent interview to Times Now TV channel, he was quizzed by new journalist Arnab Goswami about the prospects of US president ...

India has long been struggling to rid itself of the seemingly inextricable images of filth, dirt and corruption that have clung to it like a leeches ever since it embarked upon a journey of reinventing itself on its own post independence. The last two decades have seen the Indian psyche undergoing a pleasant change with governments, corporations and individuals committing themselves to a quality of life hitherto unseen on Indian shores. The endeavors of a vast majority of Indians towards mending the many flaws in the Indian social, political and economic systems have begun to bear some fruit, with the world at large viewing India as a symbol of something other than its clichéd shortcomings, and Brand India beginning to get its due respect on foreign turfs. So, it hurts all the more, when one hears and reads about the embarrassing fiasco that the build-up to the Commonwealth Games 2010 had thrown up, borne of a few unscrupulous and corrupt individuals, inflicting an unkind cut upon the ...

Democracy is a beautiful word. It gives the common man uninhibited freedom to air his or her views on virtually anything without fear of retribution. But the same word takes a repugnant form when used for furtherance of petty personal gains. And when such attempts involve accretion of petty gains at the cost of the life and property of another, they become abhorrent, to say the least. Such was the effect of the fatuous gossip that was circulated by one TV channel in Andhra Pradesh on the night of the 7th of January 2010. The channel in question, TV5, perhaps succumbed to the perverted idea of giving itself a new-year gift of massive TRPs at the expense of the reputation of a large private sector company, which would explain its decision to sensationalize an unsubstantiated, obsolete piece of graffiti from an obscure overseas publication in a manner that ensured a public outcry of gargantuan proportions. Add to that the pugnacious gusto of the ubiquitous party worker (read “goon”), and ...

Close to a decade has elapsed since we witnessed those incredible visuals on TV of the twin towers in New York crashing down to earth. The henchmen involved in the attack have been taken for dead in the suicide attacks, save for their masters, long believed to be the hard-core Islamic terrorist organization, Al Qaeda and the man supposed to be at its helm, Osama Bin Laden. At the time the FBI declared Bin Laden as the mastermind of the carnage, their were more than a few skeptics with eyebrows raised in incredulity, and not unnaturally, at the deduction of the investigative agencies. It was simply hard to digest the fact that a few men hiding in the desolate mountainous terrains of an equally desolate country could gain access to the resources that were employed in the highly sophisticated operation. Anyway, the conclusion was arrived at, and accepted by the world at large, and gave the Americans the license to run over any part of the world where they felt the ‘suspects’ were holed up...

Consistency is not an attribute that can be strictly associated with all human beings, however emancipated those human beings may be. Whatever is noble can never be guaranteed to get nobler or, at the least, to stay as noble. It is unfortunate that the nobility of the Nobel Prize for Peace has been the latest victim of this fickle trait. There is no doubting the fact that puzzling rationale has often been applied in the selection of awardees for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, the choice of Barack Obama for the 2009 award surpasses many a farcical selection. Barack Obama was rightly and pleasantly surprised (‘astonished’ might be more apposite) to have found himself a Nobel awardee one fine morning. The arguments of the Nobel committee in favor of the strange decision have been based on the premise that Obama has taken ‘decisive’ steps in the direction of attaining world peace. A hardly cogent argument that, considering that Obama is yet an infant in the field of world politics, still in s...

Visuals flashing across news channels today reminded me and many other Indians that the time has come once again to spare a moment of our lives to reminisce over the greatness of the Father of The Nation. As I watched the ceremonial homage being paid to the Mahatma by the various political leaders and their well-rehearsed speeches in praise of Bapu’s principles and values, I found myself unable yet again to ward off strong thoughts of cynicism from intruding inexorably into my mind. The bevy of political bigwigs making a beeline at Raj Ghat looked so much like a shameless exhibition of hypocrisy that the solemn occasion lost all its austerity in my eyes. Mahatma Gandhi gave himself up for the cause of an India free from the reins of imperialism. That he achieved his dream of living in an Independent India, that too without having to indulge in or abet any form of violence was an incredible feat in itself; a feat that should have heralded the beginning of a new India built on the founda...

The rain Gods are no longer as benevolent as they have been for India. The writing is large and ominous on the wall. India can no longer afford to lie back and hope that the clouds from the South West will come knocking at our doors on the dot, year after year. El Nino is one explanation for the aberration this year, but there are sure to be other reasons that may crop up in the future for Mother Nature’s inability to quench our thirst. Politically appropriate statements from ministers and statistical jugglery from the meteorological department have never done anything, or are ever likely to do much to assuage the despair and despondence of the millions of Indians whose very survival depends upon the timely arrival of the rains. Agriculture is the very foundation upon which the economic and social well being of the entire country rests. To allow this foundation to be held ransom to the Monsoon winds, which are threatening to be more whimsical than ever, would be the undoing of this co...