Commentary
India’s Gutless Media
That a deep pocketed media house like the India Today Group folded its tent without resistance in the face of Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s legal threats, while an obscure activist with a checkered free speech history dared to resist, is a permanent blot on a storied media house, for which it owes its readers and the public an apology and an explanation.
Can’t Indians Take a Joke
Learning to ignore or letting-it-go, seems totally alien to India’s political class and compulsive agitators
Let Them Eat Cake
The extraordinary arrogance of Indian elites in dissing foreign aid for its poorest citizens and their chest thumping over India’s meteoric economic rise glosses over some glaringly painful realities.
Protecting Sonia From India
The Indian public is under threat from satirical images of Sonia Gandhi? Really?
Dinner at the Patels
I could feel them taking inventory of my outfit, my hair, and my non-designer shoes, and inevitably, as soon as whomever I was talking to chalked me up as being a “fresh-off-the-boat,” they simply turned to someone more important.
Sterilize the Rich
Local elites in many developing societies shared the Western sensibilities and often took draconian measures to limit population growth.
Saving Capitalism from Capitalists
We may be headed for a fairly long economic downturn, Far from improving, Western economies could slide into a double dip recession. We could be sitting on a powder keg, which will explode.
Lists for Fools
The richest people and companies — such as Fortune magazine’s list of the world’s largest companies or the world’s richest — are atleast based on measurable criteria of wealth, and even they hit and miss, because not all assets are in accessible public databases.
Empires R Us
A steady stream of recent news and scholarly articles has been predicting the decline and fall of the American Empire.
2011 Feels Like 1980 Again
Casting a glance back at how India appeared to the outside world just a few months ago is rather like looking at grainy footage of yesteryear: a booming economy, IT whiz-kids making waves all over the globe, top ranking in international Test cricket, the ICC Cricket World Cup in the bag, Bollywood on the roll.
A Carnival Called India
Wah India. Your myriad avatars, your million mutinies never cease to amaze. We try hard to hijack you. Some cry, "India is Indira". Others sing, "You are my Sonia". Still others chant, "Saffron Shining."
Gandhi's Revenge
For India to join the developed world it needs much more than eight-lane highways and spanking new airport terminals. It needs to drag its politics into the 21st century, along with the rest of the country.
Why Do India and Pakistan See America in Opposite Ways
"Give me a name, America, make of me a Buzz or Chip or Spike. Bathe me in amnesia and clothe me in your powerful unknowing."
The NRI Dilemma
The Never Return is a unique breed of people. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that they think they are the most fortunate people in this world. For them India is a third world country which is confined to those once-in-a-few-years visits for the sake of completing the formality of seeing their loved ones
Indians Behaving Badly
It is time for some soul-searching within the community, before more Indians discover themselves attracting the relentless public humiliation that Kaur’s boorish and arrogant conduct has subjected her to.
Deeply Rooted
You might as well not be, if you don’t belong.
Clay-Footed Titans
The slew of recent financial scandals in which so many Indians have been ensnared is the natural corollary of the community’s fixation with wealth.
Gandhi For Dummies
Clearly the self-appointed guardians of Gandhi’s legacy neither have read Lelyveld’s book nor have any understanding of the man they so venerate.
The New McCarthyism
Islamic terrorists should indeed be ferreted out wherever they are. But King’s hearings and other Republican and right wing theatrics and political grandstanding serve only to inflame bigotry while doing nothing to address the genuinely serious problem of homegrown terrorism.
Mumbai On Heels
Colaba has become one of Mumbai’s trendiest neighborhoods, home to designer boutiques, home decor stores, western-style cafes and hip bars.
Caught in the Vise
For centuries, the ruling kings, sultans and emirs in the Middle East have plundered their national resources to finance their extravagant lifestyles.
Dreams & Nightmares
Some day theories of the multiverse may yield satisfying secular answers to our most enduring existential questions on life, justice and afterlife.
Diplomatic Inhumanity
The humiliating pat-down of India's Ambassador Meera Shankar might sensitize Indian diplomats to the indignity and pain experienced by thousands of its citizens seeking consular services every year at the hands of inept, indifferent and callous Indian consular officers.
From Mumbai, NY
After coming to New York from Mumbai a year ago, I realized that I have lived here forever.
Shame Of A Nation
Unlike China, which showcased its economic and organizational prowess on the global stage by pulling off a spectacular Olympics, India was internationally humiliated by the ineptness and chaos that engulfed the Commonwealth Games.
Teed Off!
Magic markers and cardboard signs have a shot against spreadsheets and slick powerpoint presentations again.
Immortal Names
When I was growing up in Tennessee, names like Anderson, Baldwin or Caldwell were the norm during roll call in class. Once the teacher got somewhere to the mid-C’s, there’d be the inevitable pause; a squinting of the eyes … then they would give it a go.
Trivial Pursuits
America is reeling from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but the Right is obsessed with the faux outrage over the construction of a Muslim cultural center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.
Red White And Desi
It was a funny thing being an Indian American in Paris. In America, I always considered myself Indian.
Voting Rights For NRIs
The government has proposed a bill in Parliament to amend Section 20 of the 1950 Representation of People’s Act.
Haley’s Comet
As more and more Indian Americans storm the citadels of political power behind Jindal and Haley, overcoming public prejudices against non Judaea Christian office seekers will be their next great challenge — and, hopefully, accomplishment.
A Pen-ny For Gandhi’s Thoughts
Montblanc’s marketing honchos have transported the Mahatma to a new level of corporate iconography
Wages Of Arrogance
The NRI wonder-boy with the golden touch ultimately fell victim to the most basic of human weaknesses.
