There might be a selfless reason why India insists on doing so poorly on the Olympic stage. For, in Beijing, our poor show could firm up closer relations with the host country, writes Pratik Kanjilal.
Twisted criminal genius who tried to nuke Fort Knox in 1959, as chronicled by Ian Fleming. Also, popular epithet for Indian shooting stars. We are like this only. Pratik Kanjilal has more.
National versions of Big Brother, with their promotion of obscenity and ganging up have created unlikely celebs and given a new lease of life to fading stars and non-entities, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
Thanks to the SMS revolution, whatever we write comes out in ‘txtis’. But resistance is futile, because we’ve already lost the power to communicate, writes Pratik Kanjilal.
If the Tatas carry out their threat to withdraw from Singur, it might cause political and social upheavals that are way beyond the wherewithal of a car factory, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
The Health Minister backs the right causes but harbours a fascist streak that turns them into frightful pogroms. In India, a law against smoking in public will only fatten the wallets of the police, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
The fact that child participants in reality shows now raise more hackles than the thousands who labour without pay or are trafficked out, shows how we have learnt to deal with ‘reality’ in India, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
Just how many masterminds does it take to run a terror bombing spree? The Delhi police have nominated Mohammad Atif Amin chief of the Indian Mujahideen.
In comparison, writing in English seems so depressingly middle class, so utterly divorced from the new social reality of an India where the underclass is increasingly restive and creatively assertive, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
India’s lunar mission is doubtlessly a feat to be savoured. But then, before planning to send a man to the moon, can the man on the street get a bit more attention please?
Apropos of the report Killer coating (October 27), consumers are tempted to buy sweets with silver coating under the impression that such sweets are healthy.
The meltdown does set you yearning for the domesticity of our socialist past. In our quest for growth, maybe we’ve overvalued everything to monstrous proportions. Not just assets, but even people, writes Pratik Kanjilal.
As auxiliary verb, one-third of Obama’s slogan, ‘Yes we can.’ Also, one-third of scary hacker slogan, ‘Because you can.’ As noun, one-third of doom-laden phrase, ‘Can of worms.’ writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
Col Purohit’s arrest has unlocked a Pandora’s Box revealing a long line of radical Hindu orthodoxy but its figurehead, the BJP, unlike Deobandis, finds it tough to disown its protégés, writes
Pratik Kanjilal.
Nurtured in a surreal political culture, we have always known when to laugh, but maybe we’re getting a bit slow. Raj Thackeray’s puny politics can’t be carried beyond the borders of Maharashtra, writes Pratik Kanjilal.