The rape discourse
The Public Philosopher session by "rockstar philosopher" Michael Sandel focussed on the December 16 rape and the protests that followed. For once, many more women than men participated in the discussions. "This horrific event may have the redeeming effect of
making democracy more morally robust and engaged," Sandel said.
Make way for De
Shobhaa De, dressed in a psychedelic kimono-like thingie and big sunglasses, was surrounded on the press terrace by a group of journalists looking for her sound bites. And she was happy to oblige.
In defence of Hindi
The Hindi-English Bhai Bhai session which discussed the distortion and dominance of one language over the other, had the audience in splits with panelists Ira Pande and Ravish Kumar joking about popular advertisements that use Hinglish. Ashok Vajpeyi said that though he was saddened at the loss of Hindi's original flavour, he is also happy that "wrong English" is spoken in the country. His idea that regional languages would wage a losing war against Hindi in the future, however, drew criticism.