Tag Politics

What Justice

The number of Bollywood stars to die in three months was abnormally high in the second quarter of this year. Death of any human is sad. The circumstances of the death of Sushant Singh Rajput were salt to the wound. I subscribe to The Hindu, and the story did not get much prominence. I wondered why, because the news of the death of Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor had smacked us right in our face.

Janata Curfew

Some of us defeated the whole purpose of the Janata Curfew today. At five this evening, we hear the sounds of clapping and the shankh-dhvani and people clanging plates and all of that. We look out of one of our windows and see about ten people fist-bumping, high-fiving and shaking hands. The last part was disappointing. Listen to this post on your favourite podcast platform. The point of the Janata Curfew was not showing your political allegiance to someone or sending forwards, and then coming out on the streets at five to show support.

Is the JNU protest justified

Despite hating to say it, it started with WhatsApp University. WhatsApp University is a term used for all of those streams of knowledge tidbits that you get from WhatsApp, that replace your beliefs, your thoughts, your rationale with what’s now popular belief. There is a massive engine that drives this, and this engine includes people with the ability to write posts like this on their phones. This is amplified by people who have all the time in the world to forward them to the masses.

Kashmir and Article 370: Part Three

In the last two posts, we understood the technical aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. To repeat for the benefit of those who landed here directly, this is the third part of the three-part series on the Act. Part One of the series is about the background of the formation of the Union of India and accession of Jammu and Kashmir to it. Part Two of the series is about the current situation, along with the legal and geo-political view of the change.

Kashmir and Article 370: Part Two

This is the second part of the three-part series on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. If you came here directly, this post alone will not do justice to the situation. Go back and read Part One. Reading the series partially will make you judgemental with limited knowledge. This article is available as a typeset printable PDF as well. This post talks about the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir and Article 370: Part One

We heard a lot of noise throughout the last week over the abrogation of Article 370 (and subsequently, Article 35A). Everyone kept saying: Article 370 is “no longer valid” in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Why, Jammu and Kashmir was no more a state! But then, as with all noises, this noise added to the confusion in our minds. And before we go any further, let me say in simple English, what Article 370 and Article 35A are.

Are Government Freebies Bad

Ever since the word, “Socialist”, got added to the Preamble of our constitution—or perhaps much before that—political parties, in their manifestos, have continued to promise freebies to us citizens. This is so common, that we now take the freebies and subsidies for granted. Understand that I am not talking from a political standpoint; I am talking of politics, but not from a political standpoint. Take this post in the sense of an economy and its members, which is us; everyone of us.

Where democracy should begin

Education is perhaps the most powerful weapon in the world. Education, starting from our childhood, shapes our thoughts, actions, interactions, and overall, our lives. Not only are our perceptions based on the learnings of our past, but our assimilation of new learnings depends strongly on the basis created by our experiences and past learnings. The talk of education brings to us the thought of literacy. We start thinking about how our rate of literacy is improving year on year.

Surgical Strike 2.0

I am an ordinary citizen. And as an ordinary citizen of a country that hates terror attacks, and personally holding the same stand as my country, I was upset and immensely angry on the 14th of February 2019, when forty CRPF jawans got killed in a terror attack. The terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the strike. I was upset that India’s September 2016 strike on terror camps in Pakistan hadn’t borne fruit—that the terrorists hadn’t received the message the right way.

Capitalism, communism, socialism ... wtf-ism

Let’s face it, this is the generation of isms. Everywhere you go, every channel you pick, every Facebook page that floods your newsfeed, have one or the other form of -ism being talked about: whether it’s a meme, or a debate video (where you barely hear a thing), or a long post like this one. Needless to say, we’re all either tired, or are numb. But still, we end up retaining a part of every incomplete or complete piece we gather, only to happily use it later on, whether the understanding or the context is right or wrong—of late, mostly the latter.