Analyses

The very nature of power is such that more it devours you, the more you need it to survive. You can never have enough. Power is about control, and absolute power is about being in control of things without being answerable. As power keeps consuming you, the more you crave for absolute power. And absolute power, to borrow a mathematical analogy, tends towards infinity. In a political theatre, a dispensation can be in control of things by making use of the law and order machinery that is there at...

Few would dispute the argument that the Internet has empowered us considerably, especially in the last decade or so. But that freedom, call it digital empowerment if you may, will soon be snatched away by a cartel that masquerades as a trade body. This bloc, comprising telecom companies, presents a clear and present danger to our freedoms that, in the context, can be simply summarised as Net Neutrality. So, what’s up? The issue at hand is a consultation paper put out by the Telecom Regulatory...

The Bharatiya Janata Party's notable performance in the elections to Assam's urban local bodies (ULBs) held earlier this month has been described as a "sweep" by some, as a "surge" by certain others. The truth, as is often the case when hyperbole is used to describe electoral performances, is the casualty here. For, the truth lies elsewhere. The BJP's accomplishment was good, quite impressive. But winning less than 50 per cent of the seats and just about half of the ULBs can hardly be described...

The media has gone to town with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, Raghuram Rajan's mention of Adolf Hitler and "strong" governments in his speech on 'Democracy, Inclusion, and Prosperity' at the DD Kosambi Ideas Festival held on February 20 in Goa. What many have been gloating about is that the RBI governor was essentially taking potshots at the Prime Minister with the insinuations. The two paragraphs that have been circulating on social media would certainly seem so, especially if one...

Too much hot air is being blown into Monday’s Supreme Court judgment clarifying that fatwas are not binding on Muslims. That’s possibly because there’s a new government in New Delhi that is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and some people have a morbid tendency of contextualising issues. In fact, if anyone contextualised anything, it was the Supreme Court. The court ruled that fatwas are not illegal, but are also not legally binding on those against whom they are made. It was hardly a...

Bangalore South is one of those few constituencies in the country the bulk of whose electorate is the target group of all the three major political formations. It is reckoned to be a prestigious constituency, and in terms of ethnicities is as demographically fragmented as any other in the country. And now it's become the cynosure of all eyes, with talk of former Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani being the possible Congress candidate for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Even though Nilekani...

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is in a veritable financial mess, and few have a clue about how to extricate the Palike from it. In spite of available data on municipal finances, little analysis has been done on them, and accountants (even though there is a shortage of them) are the only ones who understand the data. These observations come from a well-known economist who has studied the BBMP’s budgets, and has a number of recommendations to make. Mukul Asher, who specialises in...

When environmental activists had voiced their apprehensions about the adverse effects of GM crops, particularly Bt Brinjal, proponents of this so-called agricultural wonder had accused them of crying wolf. But as in the unfortunate case of the fable, the wolf was for real and so was its henous act of devouring the sheep. The fodder in this case is the indigenous matti gulla brinjal, now being precipitously pushed to the brink of extinction by the lab-generated Bt Brinjal. Activists, of course...

In 1997, the largest and most powerful insurgent group of the Northeast signed a suspension of operations agreement with the Indian government. With the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) (NSCN-IM) agreeing to come to the negotiating table, many saw it as the beginning of the end for conflict in the region. They had reasons to believe so. For one, it was the NSCN(IM) which held sway over the many other smaller militant-secessionist groups of the region, which it had willy-nilly...

The according of World Heritage Site (WHS) status to the Western Ghats will make the going tougher for the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). On one hand, the Indian government will be under obligation to maintain the ecological diversity and sanctity of the Ghats. And on the other, it will remain under pressure to dilute the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) which has called for drastic measures to maintain the biodiversity of the region. With the last...