India

An overview of institutional changes in Tamil Nadu over two centuries that explains the state’s relatively good governance Myron Weiner argued that India’s failure in providing universal education was due to the hierarchical mindset of the elite politicians and bureaucrats who did not consider it essential for children from the lower castes to be educated. Similarly in the Western world, there is evidence that evidence that relatively equal societies created provisions for universal primary education earlier. In other words, there is a strong relationship between social relations in a society and the role the government plays therein. I argue that […]

Overview of institutional change in Tamil Nadu & Governance

Horray, Google News is now available in Tamil I have been a great fan of Google News for a few years now. So much so that I read most news starting here rather than through news papers or their websites. . A big lacuna with it was that Tamil news was not covered in this channel. With Google Seithigal, Tamil newspapers will be indexed and covered. Basic details about this service are available in its help section. Here are a few additional tips. [ad#Medium rectangle] Searching Google Seithigal I do not understand why Google Seithigal does not have a facility […]

Google Seithigal: Google news in Tamil

By cheaply twisting facts, media makes headlines to bash the Left Parties After spectacularly winning 13 out of 17 Zilla Parishads, CPM and it’s partners woke up to see the following headline in the Indian Express, “Not just Singur and Nandigram, CPM gets battered across rural West Bengal”. Some sections of the media have kept up the tempo to manufacture a feel that the Left Front is loosing its grip in West Bengal. Referring to the same election two months later, Economic Times mentions, “Civic poll results are not at all encouraging for the Marxists in the wake of their […]

Communist bashing in Indian media

A report by the Dy. Commissioner, and SP Palamu indicates that police in Palamu is not serious about pursuing Lalit Metha’s murderers One of our colleagues, Lalit Mehta, was brutally murdered in Palamu, Jharkahand recently. A sloppy report has prepared by the Deputy Commissioner and the SP, Palamu indicates that the Jharkhand police is either insincere in pursuing the murderers or actively protecting them. Lalit was in the process of organising a survey on NREGA along with Jean Dreze and a band of volunteers. Instead of pursuing the murders, the report casts aspersions on the survey team and even goes […]

Jharkhand police: Enquiry or cover-up in Lalit Mehta’s murder case?

Here’s a news item from the Real news network on India’s refusal to sign the cluster bomb treaty along with China, US (not surprisingly), Israel, Russia and Pakistan.What is shocking though is the paltry coverage it got in Indian media for an issue that is clearly important. ToI, NDTV, Zee News, Economic Times, and a few others carried an article straight from Associated Press or other services. Given that India had not signed this treaty, some home work could have been done here – but NOTHING was done. This is true of the highly celebrated Hindu as well. No interviews, […]

India refuses to sign cluster bomb treaty & we know ...

In one of the worst cases of attack on an NREGA activist, Lalit Kumar was murdered this week in Palamu Right from the word go combating corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a major agenda of activists of the Right to Food Campaign. Needless to say, it brings activists into conflict with the vested interests that are deeply rooted in India today. This week in Palamu, a young and committed activist – Lalit Kumar – was murdered, perhaps a result of his actions to secure the poorest of people their rights. I am reproducing an […]

Murder of Lalit Kumar, NREGA activist in Palamu, Jharkhand

A growing collection of Ambedkar’s works are available online at Ambedkar.org Ambedkar is easily one of the finest Indian thinkers ever. Academically, he has a degree in law, a Masters in economics (from London School of Economics), and a doctorate in social sciences (from Columbia University). At Columbia he majored in sociology and economics for his M.A. with a smattering of anthropology, politics and philosophy as other subjects. He also had a stint at University of Bonn. His experience ranges from being a untouchable boy to the principal architect of India’s Constitution. He started and ran a political party and […]

Babasaheb Ambedkar’s works online: Books, articles, talks

O India produz mais filmes que todos outros país do mundo… …Muito mais. Tal vez tu sei que há muitas linguas na India. Muitos disso tem um grande indústria do cinema. O muito famoso é o indústria do Bombay chamo “Bollywood”. Muitos estrangeiros pensem que só Bollywood produz filmes na India; mas ha muitos outros centros do produção. O grande centro é Madras no sul do India. Também há Hyderabad, Calcutta, Kerala e outros centros. Tal vez, o filmes do Bengal são o mais famoso depois que o Bollywood. Begal é famoso para produzir os filmes artísticas e seu director […]

Introdução aos cinema Indiano

Thanks to a Historian, I now see the sublime where I merely saw superstitions The district gazetteers provide a good background to the important events of a district in a historical perspective. They were originally written by British civil servants and was then taken over by people appointed for the task with India’s independence. The British “manuals” (as they are often called) offer colourful details about the wars, positions taken by various parties, etc. The post independence gazettes (at least in the Madras Province) have a greater slant towards understanding development in a historical perspective. I was going through some […]

A Brahmin historian at work

A search engine to search India’s Union budgets and State budgets (available) in one click A wealth of materials is available online today about budgets in India. Unfortunately they are dispersed across dozens of websites that take time to find. This search engine will enable to to search official budget websites of Government of India and most state governments in one click. It is periodically updated. The results are not perfect, but it is the best that I was able to produce given the clutter and the constant changes in the budget websites of various states. Loading

India: Union & State budgets search engine

Search websites of Indian Parliament and most legislative assemblies in one go [inline] [script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en”][/script] [/inline] About the search engine This is a special search engine that searches websites of Indian Parliament, most state assemblies and other government sites that offer content on debates and other proceedings in legislative bodies. It also includes a few non-governmental sites. It enables us to check if something is going on relating to a specific issue (e.g. VAT) in various assemblies in one click. Google is not very useful in doing this since it would cover all websites that include “VAT” in its […]

India: Parliament & Legislative Assemblies search engine

School violence is just a petty issue in India so far…we should ensure that it should continue so Two children have been shot dead in schools by their peers within one month. Brutal school violence of this kind is new in India; it scares me. Until I went to the US, I did not imagine that schools could be such ghastly places. I had my first shock came when I learned of metal detectors at a school entrance. A police officer was stationed in front throughout the school day. I could not believe it at first. Children routinely get into […]

Will school shootings guntinue in India: Should media care?

This public intellectual makes his integrity history Just before the first phase of elections in Gujarat the current Chief Minister made a controversial remark referring to the “fake encounter” of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. His own government has gone on record stating that it’s a fake encounter – but Modi has justified it stating that Sohrabuddin has been involved in extortions and other criminal activities. The Supreme Court of India is examining this extra-judicial murder currently. With just days to go before the election he decided to invoke Sohrabuddin’s murder. In a rhetorical fashion he asked the crowd what could be done […]

Cho Ramaswamy’s disappointing editorial

As big budget movies with huge marketing costs become popular and movie halls change, will the big drive out the small? Diwali is a time for new movies in India. Two big budget movies this time decided to go for huge spending on marketing. OSO and Sawariya together spent over Rs. 10 crores on marketing, swamping the media. Money was clearly spent on public relations rather than overt advertisements. “King Khan” was all over the place: watching cricket, dancing with cricket stars, doing shows, and being in any place that attracts public attention. Even if OSO were not mentioned overtly […]

Developments in Hindi cinema: Will the big kill the good?

The disastrous ‘India Shining’ campaign of the NDA government now has a sequel in ‘India Building’ campaign planned by the UPA government It looks like the UPA government is planning an ad blitz in a campaign named “India Building” with a budget of 100 crores. The lack of imagination in the campaign is stunning – specially after the disaster that its predecessor turned out to be. A grotesque amount was spent by the previous NDA government on an ad campaign named “India Shining” in early 2004. Like any advertisement campaign is supposed to, India Shining campaign caught people’s attention. Everywhere […]

‘India Building’ advertisement campaign: 100 crore rupees for nothing?

Stark naked, next to a pool of urine, in the background of Chennai’s smelliest river, on the pedestrian walk in a noisy smoke-filled road was this child of three. He was completely engaged, almost oblivious to the world around. He held in his hand a slate and was practicing the letter “aa” in Tamil. Someone, possibly his mother, must have made neat squares in the slate for the child to practice writing. The family was homeless or were living by the shores of the unbearably smelly covam river. Amidst this harsh life she was teaching the child to learn. Since […]

The will to learn

Brutal and grotesque punishments deter crime better than an inefficient and corrupt legal system argue many Brutal punishments are back into public debate in India with the airing of the video below. A boy who had snatched a chain from a woman was caught and brutally punished by a mob – relentlessly. A Policeman joined in meting out this “justice” by finishing the act by tying the boy to his bike and dragging him in the road. Even before this furore has died from public debate there has been another mob action today emulating the infamous Bhagalpur blindings epitomised by […]

Bhagalpur blindings, Gangajal & brutality in Bihar today

A little note on how Hariprasad Chaurasia’s concert left me between agony and ecstasy Hariprasad Chaurasia is a man who never disappoints. I have been mesmerised for a while in every performance of his and always. Typically I walk out in a semi-trance with a feeling of ecstasy that only a great live music performance can give. I was thrilled to bits when I heard that Chaurasia is coming to Madras for a concert – and that too free. I took a seat by the aisle that was furthest away from humanity in that auditorium. He started with a slow […]

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