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- A Wicked Leak: Stratfor, Dow Chemicals, and India | By Ulrik McKnight
'Union Carbide India Limited’s 1984 Bhopal pesticide plant leak is one of the worst industrial accidents in history, killing 4,000 people overnight and leaving 500,000 severely ill. The accident site has still not been cleaned up, victims continue to die in many thousands, and to suffer in hundreds of thousands ... The Stratfor materials reveal that over an extended period of time, Dow has employed Stratfor to produce intelligence reports on Bhopal activists. This was not a one off piece of analysis, but an ongoing, multi-year, and presumably very expensive campaign.'
- Part I of Krishna Kavita Kasturi's account of teaching Indian languages and culture to American diplomats
'Everybody asks me how I landed my job. That is because, in the National Capital Region of Washington DC, I get to speak my mother tongue, wear my native attire and am paid to wax forth on my motherland & its shenanigans for five days a week. (Telugu. Sari. India.)'
- Part II of KK Kasturi's story
'No, we don’t ask if a woman is pregnant unless it is obviously evident that she is, although we are an extremely nosy kind of people otherwise. No, we don’t ever divide the bill/check at the restaurant under the waiter’s nose as he watches, smirking at your tight-fistedness. Oh! Please remember to always share whatever you eat, will you? But not if you have already tasted it… that would be inappropriate… but (Is now a good time to talk about Caste?). No, we don’t really understand what you mean by “space”, physical or mental. Emotional space? (ayiyyo! who wants THAT? Is it why Americans have so many psychological issues?)'
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Loading ...J. Jayalalithaa and Sasikala: The Big Break-Up | By Nandini Krishnan
'In most photographs and videos of Jayalalithaa, a dour-faced woman wearing an expression not unlike that of an anxious grandmother watching a toddler bumble about the garden, can be spotted somewhere in the frame. She is Sasikala Natarajan, the close aide and best friend of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Some believe she’s also the CM’s puppet master. Often seen whispering furtively to Jayalalithaa, occasionally caught smiling, and never interviewed, the wary-looking Sasikala was her most – perhaps her only – trusted lieutenant. On 19 December, 2011, a terse statement was issued from the office of Jayalalithaa. She had expelled Sasikala and 11 of her relatives from the AIADMK party “with immediate effect”...' (The India Site)
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Whisky, frisky | “A drink of the royalty and the clergy, ladies in Gurgaon has readily taken to expanding their pallet. “It is no longer a man’s drink. In fact such is the scenario that there are men who can’t have a sip of whisky while there are women who love single malts,” said Hemant Nautiyal, owner of Striker Pub and Brewer based in Sector 43, adding that 8-9% of the women ask for whisky on the rocks”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/Gurgaon-women-raise-the-bar-for-fine-whiskeys/articleshow/12049780.cms#mce_temp_url#
Qutubuddin Ansari, whose life was saved in Gujarat in 2002: “His boss didn’t want any trouble and fired him immediately.”
Read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17150859
Is that really all, minister? | “Antony terms China’s objection to his Arunachal visit ‘unfortunate’…”
Read: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2937841.ece?homepage=true
Ashok Malik: “Gujarat 2002 was an anachronism, a 20th century riot in 21st century India. In its narrative and its mobilisation techniques it was no different from the riots of, say, Calcutta (1964), Ahmedabad itself (1969), Bhagalpur (1989) and Bombay (1993). In its background — the sedulous radicalisation of sections of Muslims, the conversion of underworld figures who happened to be Muslim into Islamist warriors, the transformation of Hindutva from a political idea into an ugly and unwholesome street phenomenon that habitually challenged the law — Gujarat 2002 encapsulated so much of the wrenching emotionalism of the mid-1980s and early-90s. Yet it was also a phenomenon past its time”
Read: http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/Edits/The-mood-s-different/Article1-817544.aspx
Yeddyurappa wants to become Chief Minister again | Wonder why? | “The first instance pertains to Yeddyurappa denotifying three pieces of land measuring 1 acre 36 guntas, 23 guntas and 33 guntas of adjoining land in Hebbala Amanikere village in favour of Trishul Developers…”
Read: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/229537/lokayukta-court-summons-yeddyurappa-his.html
How Indian diplomacy forgot about the Maldives. “South Block then scraped the bottom of the barrel and came up with the name of a consul general serving in North America. He too refused and there was enough political support to persuade the leadership of the IFS to thwart his posting. His plea was that he had hydrophobia, which made the Maldives unsuitable”
Read: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120213/jsp/frontpage/story_15127924.jsp
Mihir S. Sharma in Business Standard: “In China, the income-tax base has increased from less than 0.1 per cent in 1986 to about 20 per cent in 2008; in India, it has remained at two or three per cent of the population … In China, income tax revenues will be over five per cent of GDP in a few years. In India, they’re around 0.5 per cent. So it isn’t aam-aadmi transfers that are giving Mr Mukherjee sleepless nights. It’s what India’s vociferous middle class, which expects pampering from its government, will do and say if its cash-cow state reforms itself”
Read: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/mihir-s-sharma-handouts-forwell-heeled/464330/
“A man going under the name of a Bollywood movie character is among four British Asian terror suspects who are said to have confessed plans to launch a “Mumbai-style” attack in London. Bizarrely, the 30-year-old man of Bangladeshi origin the city of Cardiff told British police his name is Gurukanth Desai — the character played by Abhishek Bachchan in the 2007 film ‘Guru’. The fictional role was said to have been based on the late industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani”
Read: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Europe/Terror-suspect-held-in-UK-gives-cops-filmy-name/Article1-805419.aspx
‘The Hindu, meanwhile, remained mired in the conservatism of the Indian south, and in a left-wing politics that seemed curiously reactionary despite its suggestion of radicalism. To read [The Times of India and The Hindu] in succession can be akin to feeling as if one has just been addressed by a teenager and then a dotard’ (Chandrahas Choudhury in Bloomberg View)
Read: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/india-s-top-newspapers-battle-for-readers-hearts-and-souls-choudhury.html