Every time I go to Bhubaneswar, I end up making queries about land rates, hoping I would be able to buy a plot for my post-retirement housing. But each time I return disappointed. Land prices and housing costs in the city have risen so much that the middle class — for whom Bhubaneswar once was a dream city — has been priced out. Read more

This monsoon season we are likely to get up to 10% less rain than a normal year, according to the latest indications from the Met department. If that shortfall was evenly spread across the country, the impact on the nation’s agricultural output and the farmers would have been limited. Read more

As I write this blog, I can see at least five stories on rape, violence against women and child abuse, among others, making up the news list on a day when there hasn’t been much action in the nation’s capital to report. Read more

Speculation has it that Congress President Sonia Gandhi will likely charm Trinamool firebrand Mamata Banerjee into supporting the UPA’s candidate for the next president. And as of now, our dear Pranabda remains a frontrunner for Raisina Hills. Read more

Last week, the government released a set of statistics that have since caused much anxiety over where the Indian economy is headed to. Read more

Census details for Delhi are out. From car-owning households to phone connections and Internet access, the city-state has seen all such “indicators of development” register robust growth between 2001 and 2011. And that is not surprising as everything has worked for Delhi to gain more than most other parts of country from India’s sweeping economic transformation over the past two decade. Read more

As the computer was taking time to open my bank account details, the customer care executive chose to chat up. “So you are from Orissa,” he guessed, and that’s not a difficult guess to make — mine is a surname that’s not common to any other state. “There are lots of Maoists there,” he said, as if there was no other description. Well, there has never been a description that has made me feel good about my state. Read more

I am not a big fan of cricket. I stopped following test cricket when I was in college — in the late 80s. The last one-dayer I watched was probably sometime in 2003 or 2004. Read more

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen thinks there isn’t enough clarity on economics in India. The Indian government and economists who influence policy making are oriented toward growth and lack in paying attention to expanding human capabilities such as food security, access to education and healthcare etc. Read more

If you are a supporter of Anna Hazare and you are in the market to buy a house in Delhi, don’t complain if you have to spend twice or three times more on registering your property. Read more