A mix of reforms and monitoring

August 28, 2011

The dust is gradually settling down after almost a fortnight of public anger and high-drama negotiations and this is the time some thinking work starts. Just read this objective piece on Wall Street Journal titled Getting a Grip on Indian Corruption that suggests a balanced approach of reforms and monitoring. Although the article takes a [...]

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What I think of team Anna’s victory

August 27, 2011

I have been an ardent supporter of the Anna Hazare movement and I really believe that this movement has made an impact on the country, but if I say I believe in the efficacy of the “Jan Lok Pal” bill, I  will not be totally sincere. This is not because I doubt the intentions of [...]

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Why can’t the Indian media cover issues like this?

August 25, 2011

Huffington Post, an American online newspaper, has published quite revealing details about the political holy cow of India, Sonia Gandhi. What makes this article a good reading is that the writer is totally objective, doesn’t sound partisan, and has merely expressed whatever she knows. In fact, it is a bit older article, as it was [...]

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Dealing with corruption at the local level

August 22, 2011

Since people are all of a sudden concerned about corruption “among us” ever since Anna Hazare began his anti-corruption campaign, we must come up with a workable solution to deal with corruption at the micro level, at the grassroots level where the everyday man has shell out Rs. 50, Rs. 100, or Rs. 500 to [...]

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Who is a patriot?

August 20, 2011

My good friend Abhishek asked in Twitter (@Abhishek_Rai), “Who is patriot?” I really don’t know what elicited this question in him. I’m assuming that he must had been reading various exchanges taking place on Twitter and elsewhere regarding the anti-graft movement being currently spearheaded by Anna Hazare and his team. Ever since he launched his [...]

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Corruption must be dealt with from all angles but let politicians and bureaucrats be the first ones

August 18, 2011

The main gripe of people opposing Anna Hazare’s anticorruption movement (see for example, India’s Selective Rage Over Corruption) is that the middle class is extremely hypocritical when it goes for corrupt politicians without exploring its own conscience. The second gripe is that most of the conditions mentioned in his proposal lurk in the realms of [...]

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Why India shouldn’t and cannot do a Geronimo

May 12, 2011

My this post is certainly not in conjunction with PM Manmohan Singh’s pronouncement that we’ll never carry out a USA-type operation, which I without doubt think has political motive. I had written this last week for Huffington Post. When they didn’t get back I decided to post this on my own blog. With the killing [...]

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Lopsided and stereotypical views on religion

May 8, 2011

Just read this well-written blog titled “Not just a Muslim” in which the writer writes about the difficulties she faces as a Muslim among her friends and colleagues. It’s not just Muslims that become victims of religious or regional stereotypes it happens with every minority group. The same happens when Muslims are in majority and [...]

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Does the killing of Osama bin Laden solve the problem of terrorism?

May 4, 2011

Just after it was declared that Osama bin Laden has been shot dead someone tweeted, “Good, now can I bring my shampoo when travelling by air?” Although it was said in jest there are many who believe that the killing of Osama bin Laden is a big victory against terrorism. Hardly. It is a moral [...]

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A strange dream about my work

April 30, 2011

Day before yesterday I had a strange dream, but before that, a bit of backdrop. My two sources of income have so far been my website — http://amrithallan.com — and my consulting services to Steve Dasseos (for http://tripinsurancestore.com and other websites). Recently I took a break from amrithallan.com and decided to focus primarily on Steve’s [...]

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