The British Raj was undone by the Congress and the same pursuit of ‘Congress Mukth Bharat’ is being pursued by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fervently all over India and more so in North East India. The success of the later is a little doubtful as we inch closer to…
Posts published in “Opinion”
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the last full budget of the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Center on February 1, 2018. Considering the impending elections and the prospects of facing the elections next year (possibly earlier as some speculate), one thought the Budget will try to do justice to…
It is around 40° Celsius in Varanasi. Just climbing a few weathered stairs of the ghats is enough to make one wonder whether the heart is beating or the head. The slow, monotonous drum beating inside one’s body drowns all the noise of the busy chaotic ghats. Even as the…
Cleaning the Ganga was a major election plank for the victorious Narendra Modi-led NDA. The same Ganga where 80% of untreated waste is dumped in from 138 open drains. So when I decided to take a journey down the river, I did what no traveller does. Instead of the ghats,…
In flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, the streets of the state’s summer capital, Srinagar, resemble surging streams. River Jhelum has been flowing 1.5 metre above the danger mark. Chief engineer with Flood Control and Irrigation Department, Javid Jaffer, says that the state’s river and flood channels could carry 65,000 cusecs (cubic…
Santosh Singh, a resident of Sangam Vihar and a worker at confectioner’s shop, was threatened with a gun the last time he talked about water availability in his locality. All he had done to get such a treatment was to seek his neighbour’s support to ask Delhi Jal Board (DJB)…
Billed as the largest gathering of humanity in recorded history, Maha Kumbh has commenced in Allahabad. Over the next few weeks, pilgrims will jostle to take a dip at Sangam—the confluence of two polluted rivers of the country, the Ganga and the Yamuna. Soma Basu reports on its impacts on…