G Venkatesh laments that animals and birds have become soft targets for anyone trying to make a quick buck today and earnestly believes that the concept ‘One India One People’ is not confined to Homo sapiens alone. When we say ‘One India One People’, we think of the Homo sapiens inhabiting the country. That would then be ‘One India, One Anthroposphere’ or something on those lines. We conveniently forget that India is also home to many different animals (and birds, insects and reptiles) – fauna in other words. Just as there is diversity among Homo Sapien Indians when it comes…
Author: mindworks
Along with the nation’s armed forces, the country witnessed many people who came out in the open to launch a fighting front against the Covid second wave, wised up by the earlier experience. Manu Shrivastava records how they rallied to bring the situation under control and presents Nandurbar as a case study in the effective management of the scourge. As India grapples with the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 infection, the frontline workers have been on their toes saving lives. The pandemic, however, has also brought to fore ‘heroes’ who have risen to the occasion to help their brethren…
This pandemic has accentuated the challenges that family caregivers go through as they try to balance jobs and taking care of the elderly and other dependents. E. Vijayalakshmi Rajan draws upon her experiences to speak about these challenges. One of the untold stories of this lockdown is of the family caregiver to the elderly, to bedridden parents, to parents suffering from Alzheimer’s, to children with special needs, siblings in wheelchairs. The list is a long one. Most of us have spent the months of lockdown bemoaning the ban on part-time helpers entering our residential complexes. The current lockdown in place…
Born Gujarati and married to a Maharashtrian, Shilpa Sontakke is a polyglot whose poetic instincts have found a creative expression in an array of emotions though Hindi poetry. A published writer of six books, she earnestly believes that the appreciation of poetry is a complex affair and that the ecstasy and agony resonating from it could be spontaneous or incidental. With a throbbing, pulsating mind of her own, she finds elixir in poetry. Here she chats with A. Radhakrishnan on matters poetic. DDescribe yourself. I am simple, straightforward, loving, and strive to spread positivity wherever I go. Since childhood, I…
A casual, random interaction with a retired professor on facebook takes Nivedita Louis to a scintillating and ecclesiastical detour of the once French colony of Pondicherry and the grandeur of its quaint churches. The resplendent beauty of the Gothic structures evokes in a feeling of awe and serenity, and as she puts it, “faith, hope and love”. With lockdown clamped for major part of 2020 and travel restrictions in place, I was yearning for some solitude early this year. An escape from the stifling concrete jungle that we call home! The decreasing numbers of Covid cases in January 2021 gave…
Gajanan Khergamker explains the distinction between Freedom and Liberty; debates through instances their significance and makes out a case the riders that come into play when it comes to their enforcement. The bottom line: Fundamental rights are conditional and not absolute. The concept of Freedom, as construed strictly, is understood by its presence in the Indian Constitution legally enforced in 1950 that is said to have ‘borrowed’ the most pivotal concepts from Constitutions all over the world. So, the ideas of Fundamental Rights and the Preamble were said to be elements borrowed from the United States Constitution while the concept…
Many countries are facing consequences of the problems that have emerged with the popularity and reach of social media. The problem with social media is while fake news spreads rapidly and catches on, the information correcting or countering it doesn’t, observes Kriti Kalra and traces how use and abuse of social media have become an integral part of protests. In early May 2021, immediately after the Assembly elections, the West Bengal CID tweeted a video link where a user had claimed that a man was assaulted with stones and sticks. The agency further mentioned that the video was, in fact,…
For speech to be unfettered, the need for a law specific to its protection and proliferation is needed strongly, less as an assurance and an exhaustive definition to identify range and reach but, particularly to create a buffer for punitive action and counter attempts to stifle the same, avers Gajanan Khergamker and says it`s time “propaganda” is defined clearly. It is in the seemingly innocuous employment of propaganda, disguised with practiced deft as the exercise of a Fundamental Right camouflaged as ‘freedom’ that lie the bane of existence of the very same right. And, ironically too, the enforcement of the…
The need for law to be in tune with social transformation is now felt more acutely by the film industry than before. Amol Palekar’s PIL provides just the platform for the Supreme Court to re-examine the legislation and provide directions to the Centre and authorities to tweak the law so it matches the need of the moment. It’s now over to the Centre and its subjects. Ruchi Verma lays the issue threadbare. The censorship debate in India has picked up significant momentum in early 2021. That it emanates from the fundamental right to Freedom of Expression provided by the…
Renuka Goel takes a long, hard look at the phenomenon of migration in the times of pandemic – first in March 2020 when frantic crowds scrambled to reach to the safety of their home states and their subsequent return to work while the state govts grappled to cope with the new-found problem on their hands – and now again as the second wave hurtles the migrants in similar situation. She feels the management this time appears better. When the national lockdown was announced on 25 March 2020, no one had expected it to last that long or its crippling aftermath…