Full Stop Conversion
by J. Ajith Kumar 
It is quite ironic that one of the most vocal opponents of religious conversion in India was none other than Mahatma Gandhi and yet we do not have any effective law or system to prevent the illogical and immoral process of religious conversion. Foreign and local missionaries are still having a good time in India harvesting souls to increase their numbers. Scores of old and new factions of Christianity are vying with one another in getting more numbers into their fold Read On

Depressed Investors
Haunted by One Query:
When will Mayhem End?
by Anik Basu
Where is the Indian equity market headed and when will the current mayhem end? This is the question an estimated 20 million investors in the country were asking as they nervously hoped for solutions to tackle the global financial meltdown that has pulled Indian equities down over 16% last week Read On

India Weighing Political Impact
of Tough Economic Decisions
by Sushma Ramachandran 
The tsunami like financial crisis engulfing the globe has flooded India as well, virtually drowning the stock and currency markets. The response of the Indian government has so far been somewhat slow. It has set up a committee to study the problem of liquidity as late as Friday, while the central bank has yet to announce a cut in interest rates. Read On

India's Nuclear Deal and Two Worldviews
by K. Subrahmanyam  
Now that India and the US have formally inked the 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement and sealed another pact with France following the Sep 6 waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), it is time to look at the fierce debate on the issue in this country with some detachment. The debate was not just about the nuclear issue alone. In fact it was about two competing worldviews held by rival groups. Read On

Samudra-Manthana by Shekhar Sen  

 

In the opening chapter of the Mahabharata, Sauti describes the epic thus,
“It is like clouds to man, exhaustless.
It is, to illustrious poets, a source of livelihood.”
Truly the Mahabharata is a magic box of stories from which story after inter-weaving story appear in delightful succession providing future generations of poets with an inexhaustible source of plots. But for the ordinary man of the IT-infested twenty-first century, there is a problem. He begins his career-seeking life attending school as a mere two-year old, racing breathlessly through his days and nights, inevitably missing out on most of the exquisite things that adorn the hours of childhood and early youth, including the stories of the Mahabharata. Read On

The Aftermath by Gaurang Bhatt, MD

America – The idiocy of the American electorate in electing retarded Republican Bush has led to doubling of the national debt, galloping inflation, increasing job losses, collapsing economy, trillions lost by individuals, corporations and pension plans and loss of American prestige. Republicans are selfish immoral intellectually bankrupt slaves of the rich. Clinton Democrats and Blair laborites are mere incompetent imitators of the Republicans. The upcoming election results will be a measure of the stupidity of the public more interested in abortion, gay marriage, sham capitalism, religious & other bigotries.  Read On

President Bush:
Many Thanks for the Us-India Nuclear Deal
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
President Bush deserves many thanks from India for his superhuman efforts to push the Nuclear Deal first through the Nuclear Suppliers Group meetings and finally through the torturous processes of the US Congress. In one bold stroke President Bush has brought about a dramatic and historic transformation of the strategic relationship between the United States and India. Read On

Naxal Network Expanding Reach
by Col. Rahul K. Bhonsle 
The expanding reach of Naxals in India is evident, even as Governments at the state and centre grapple emerging problems of security, law and order and communal strife each day. Chhattisgarh saw Maoists carry out an IED attack killing a Deputy Superintendent of Police and three others, on the day of the visit of President Pratibha Patil. In another attack three CRPF personnel and a policeman were killed and six injured in a landmine blast triggered by the Maoists in Balrampur district bordering Jharkhand. Police personnel were recently suspended for not reporting for duty ....Read On

The Hari Putar Dialogues: 26
by Rajesh Talwar
A woman today chopped off the ear of her husband after a family feud. The incident occurred in the outskirts of Jammu city. They said Mohinder Singh and Jasvinder Kaur clashed over some family matters and in a fit of rage the woman took out a dagger and chopped off the ear of her husband. Neighbors after hearing cries rushed injured Singh to Govt Medical College hospital, they said adding that a case has been registered against the woman who fled the scene. Read On

Self Fulfilling Prophecies of Greed, Fear and Doom
by Michael Levy 
In the beginning, the money orientated greed god said; let there be greed and yay, it was good. Well, maybe not good, but it sure felt good to the housing cartel of owners and estate agents who were feasting on an upward spiraling market. It also felt super good to the investment banks that were hatching out leveraged collateralized notes on falsely valued homes with little or no down payments and low interest payments for a few years. Read On

Will Aafia Siddiqui Live to Tell her Tale?
by Zofeen T. Ebrahim
"Whatever the truth, it is immaterial. Nothing justifies the depths of sadism that the US government and its lackeys routinely descend to," remarked Najma Sadeque, a Pakistan-based rights activist and senior journalist, referring to the treatment meted out to Dr Aafia Siddiqui by the authorities in the United States. Read On

'Nor'Westers' Usher in the New Year by VK Joshi
In the Tropics extreme climatic vicissitudes are common and mostly of convective nature. Large tracts of eastern India, i.e. Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar, Assam and parts of some northeastern states are hit by sudden convective storms accompanied by rain, thunder and lightening. These storms are initiated during the months which precede the monsoon; that is from April to June every year. Read On

Celebrating our Bodies, Ourselves by Radhika Chandiramani
Here it is, the new OBOS, on my desk, calling me to open it and dive in. OBOS? Yes, 'Our Bodies, Ourselves', a book that was first written by a group of women in 1970 for other women. It was the result of 12 women regularly meeting around their kitchen tables to discuss their bodies, health, and sexuality as a result of being fed up of being paternalized, spoken down to and treated as morons by doctors and by men. Read On

Professor G.S. Ghurye by V. Sundaram 
No one can dispute the fact that Professor Govind Sadashiv Ghurye is the founding father of Sociology in India. Even in the last decade of his life when he was over eighty years old, he continued to make his intellectual presence felt as an incisive social thinker, highly innovative and equally at ease with Vedic India and contemporary India. Read On

Who's Afraid of Sexuality, Asks Orissa's Virginia Woolf
by Eliza Parija
She is considered the Judith Butler and Virginia Woolf of contemporary Oriya literature. And yet for her, feminism is not just about battling male hegemony. For Dr Sarojini Sahoo, an award winning Oriya writer, feminism is linked with the sexual politics of women. She refutes the limits that patriarchy places on female sexual expression and identifies women's sexual liberation as the real motive behind the women's movement. Read On

A Feminist Festival Celebrates Differences Unlimited
by Ila Mehrotra
'Chromosome: Gender Under the Lens', the two-day film festival organized in the Capital last month by the women's rights organization, Jagori, focused on two specific issues under the over-arching theme of gender - that of masculinity/femininity and societal norms of beauty. Read On

Mom's Got The Teenage Blues by Naunidhi Kaur 
The growing up years are always difficult. Most parents do not know what to do when their children drink, do drugs and display spells of incessant anger and violence. It's tough when children, who until recently were playing with Barbie dolls or sitting glued to 'Spongebob Squarepants', transmogrify into angst-ridden teenagers. And when the inappropriate behavior patterns increase with time, parents find it hard to come up with remedial action plans. Gradually, they become hostages within their own families, anxiously following the mood swings of their recalcitrant teens. Read On

Beyond Hard-Work by Mohit Talwar 
Remember famous adage “There is no substitute for hard work”. Myriad businessman, celebrity, sportsman can be heard saying this precious line. But even after doing a lot of hard-work when we fail then a thing always comes in mind that endangers the veracity of hard-work. Read On  

Hijacking of a Religion by Pramod Khilery
So at last we too have ushered in a time where no longer we can blame across the border elements for terrorist strikes engendered out of jihad. At the most we can only hint at complicity of across the border elements. When we heard the name Indian Mujahideen for first time, didn’t we think that it was just another ploy of some terrorist outfits to distract the attention of Intelligence agencies? But it did not take more than three months for this bitter fact to be revealed that we, too, now harbor terrorists. Read On

Sri Lanka Peace Process RIP
by M.R. Narayan Swamy 
This is a revealing book on Sri Lanka's now dead peace process, written by one who was in the thick of it all. Austin Fernando was Defence Secretary when PM Ranil Wickremesinghe signed the Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement  with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in February 2002. In no time, critics, dominantly from the Sinhalese majority, began to accuse the government of betrayal. The opposition,  the media viciously targeted Fernando, whose job was to ensure that neither the military nor the Tigers spiked the prospects of long-term peace. Read On

Changes- A Quarter Life Phenomena by Avni Mathur 
‘Mum I think I don’t intend to marry right away’. I guess this is one line, every mother dreads!! when you reach the marriageable age. I am no exception in this case. All was well till I was studying and the minute I graduated hell broke on me. Every day I am asked the same question ‘when will you marry’ from my near and dear ones, when my facial muscles start showing slight trepidation the next question is quickly shot. ‘Do you have someone in your mind’. Phew!! Ladies and gentleman welcome to the world of mid 20’s a time of your life when you become financially ... Read On