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Showing posts from 2009

The power of rupee!

Morning 7 o clock... Amma pulls the bedsheet and says ' Harsha, get up.. its time for your school'.. listening to the last word, I try to think of a reason to avoid going to school.. I say to her that I have a head ache, she shouts back saying ' Its all because of your bad habit of watching TV so closely, now get up and brush your teeth'. I quickly change my mind and say that I have a stomach ache too.. She senses that I am acting and pulls me out from the bed. She puts the towel in my hand and pushes me into the bathroom. I enter the bathroom and think another day is wasted since I could not make a good reason to skip the school. I take my own sweet time to brush teeth and after some time, a banging sound is heard. Its my younger brother shouting that ' Amma is saying hurry up, come out soon'. I put my uniform and then head to the hall. Appa gets me ready in no minute and says ' Go out, keep cleaning the scooter. I will come in a minute'. I take out the

Election Introspection

In the 2009 Indian general elections, the Indian National Congress (Congress) won 206 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 116 seats out of a total of 543 seats. Five years ago, the Congress and the BJP had won 145 and 138 seats respectively. A jubilant Sonia Gandhi reiterated that Manmohan Singh will be Congress Party’s choice for the prime minister. Manmohan Singh will be the first Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after a full five-year term. In short, Indian electorate’s love affair with the Nehru-Gandhi family continued. Most of the poll pundits had predicted a spilt verdict and regional parties would be crucial in forming the government. This was completely dismissed by the “Indian Voter” who chose stability over the change. The rejection of the Left and its brigade would be the best example for the decision made by the Indian electorate. What went wrong for BJP or what clicked for Congress? There is a fundamental truth to political communication:

Poverty in India

“60+ years of Independence.” We are still a developing country; we are looked down as place of hungry people. We have enough swanky cars on street; we also have equal number of homeless people on streets of our city. We are posting impressive year on year growth in our GDP, boast about having foreign reserves which runs into billions of dollars. Still, poverty in India is still rampant despite an impressive economic growth. So, why are we not able to eliminate poverty? In general, Poverty can be defined as a situation when people are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life. According to the definition by Planning Commission of India, poverty line is drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If a person is unable to get that much minimum level of calories, then he/she is considered as being below poverty line. The World Bank uses an income cut off of Rs 21.6 per day in urban areas and Rs 14.3 per day in rural areas (at 2005 prices) to defin

Vote for a change this time

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I spent the afternoon in the Nehru Park before going to IGNOU campus where a workshop on "Rajiv Gandhi Rojgar Yojna" was being conducted. After the workshop, I took an auto from the Sanjay Gandhi flyover to catch my flight from Indira Gandhi International Airport. The flight landed in Rajiv Gandhi International airport where Jawaharlal Nehru University Vice-Chancellor was waiting to receive me. Read the above paragraph again. You cannot help but notice that the Nehru family albeit with a Gandhi surname makes up for most of the names for hospitals, airports, convention centers etc., Look around you, and you will find that, most of the government educational institutions, hospitals, roads, libraries etc bear the name of the Nehru family. India is free from the clutches of British colonial rule. True, but a sneak peek into the Indian history post Independence shows that we are still under the oldest Indian national political party (Congress) dynasty rule. We have witnessed in t