Sunday Posts

I wrote a note on Kolkata, the city I come from and would always belong to, in July 2010. Since then, the post attracted many visitors and comments, mostly critical, as most people, including those from Kolkata, couldn't see any future for the city. My current effort, some 18 months down the line, is also prompted by a recent article in The Economist, The City That Got Left Behind , which echo the pessimism somewhat.  I, at least emotionally, disagree to all the pessimism: After all Kolkata is home and I live in the hope of an eventual return. Indeed, some change has happened since I wrote my earlier post: The geriatric Leftist government that ruled the state for more than 30 years was summarily dispatched,  and was replaced by a lumpen-capitalist populist government. Kolkata looked without a future with the clueless leftists at the helm; it now looks without hope. However, apart from bad governance, there is no reason why Kolkata had to be poor and hopeless. It sits ...

It seems that Shiv Sena and RSS are inching towards a full scale ideological battle, as the former is bent on stealing the MNS agenda of ' Mumbai for Maharastrians ' and RSS is scrambling to protect their Hindu nationalist identity. The statement from RSS looks very non- RSS , ' Mumbai is for people from all communities'. BJP is caught in the crossfire - its chief Nitin Gadkari definitely looked lost and short of words and ideas - and does not know how to keep its alliances in Mahastra and Bihar intact at the same time. Despite the chaos, one has to admit that such conflicts are likely to become increasingly common in India. The biggest casualty of such disagreements are going to be the national parties, BJP in this case. However. Maharastra Congress has done itself no favours by stoking up the sentiments in the first place, with a rather naive posturing on taxi drivers requiring to know Marathi, a position from which they had to do a humiliating about-turn...