Let me correct myself.  Hindi is not our national language. It is just an official language, which the architects of the Constitution thought would gradually replace English in 15 years time. Read more

I don’t remember when I last sung Vande Mataram. Try and remember. Not many of you would have sung the national song since you left school. There is hardly any occasion to sing Vande Mataram. All one gets to hear and hum perhaps is Lata Mangeshkar’s Vande Mataram or AR Rehman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam on one of the FM stations these days. Read more

The words are harsh. But the reality is harsher. The poor who sold their land, are now selling their daughters in rural India. Not to dwell in luxuries, but ward off hunger.

And it’s happening everywhere. In cities it could be a matter of choice, but in rural India it is per force. Read more

Those were the days when the goons of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were bullying and bashing up the North Indians in Mumbai. A friend from Texas sent me an email sharing the revolutionary step taken by a school to break racial barriers.

Why can’t you ape our schools? How can geographical, linguistic or communal barriers stay in an era of online communities? Read more

Isn’t it disgusting? The two Yadav chieftains of the Hindi heartland – Mulayam and Lalu- grew up in politics opposing the dynasty rule that Nehru had introduced in the country. They also played to their political galleries opposing 33 per cent quota for women in the Lok Sabha and the State assemblies. Read more

I happened to visit Tata Memorial Hospital during my Mumbai stint. There was so much pain all around. The only heartening news was the quality time spent by some people, including the two Bollywood stars Salman Khan and Vivek Oberoi, with cancer patients. Read more

Perhaps for the first time, a Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh stayed away from the tradition of garlanding the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the heart of UP’s capital Lucknow on October 2 last. Read more

It’s preposterous!  When Rahul Gandhi travels by train, the media rants and raves over the money saved. And when he breaks bread with Dalits and spends night in their homes, Mayawati fumes, his party sulks.

I know not many admire Rahul for whatever he does. Not because they don’t like his face or functions, they simply hate him for the fact that politics and power has come to him on a platter. Read more

Every time I travel to the remotest areas of the country my conviction grows that there is no one India, but two India. One in which we live and the one that lives in abject poverty- only seen in films like Mother India. Read more

Is the BJP trying to unburden the Muslims, who till date believe they carry the slur of country’s partition? I never connected to the ongoing clamour over Jinnah in the BJP with the post partition trauma of the Muslim community till a friend MA Khan, an intellectual with plans to float an independent political platform for the Muslims, brought it to my notice.

I am still skeptical about his arguments, but then he believes the issue over Jinnah’s secular credentials had potency to influence the voter’s mind. Read more