Crying wolf!
Recall that old story about ‘a shepherd boy and the wolf’. It went like this: “Once upon a time, there was a shepherd boy. He used to graze a flock of sheep outside his village. One day a ‘piece of mischief’ entered his head. He cried out loudly, ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ Hearing him crying, the villagers […]
Let’s assert
The politics in Kashmir which has been in a sort of perpetual turmoil, is witnessing increased tumult ever-since the election bugle has been sounded. Different political groupings in the mainstream camp are slugging it out against each other in trying to find some relevance for them. With an eye on the Assembly elections which may […]
Make your voices heard
In the world of politics, nothing can be taken for-granted, neither public respect nor their support. Machiavelli, with whom the idea of self-interest seems to have gained its greatest notoriety, said: “This is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, fake, cowardly, covetous, as long as you succeed they are […]
Power lag
For as long as one remembers, we have been told that Jammu and Kashmir has enormous water resources, which, if harnessed for generating electricity, can make it one of the richest states in the entire subcontinent. However, its potential to generate more than 20,000 MW of hydroelectricity notwithstanding, power shortage remains a perennial problem facing […]
Political realism
Despite repeated calls for the boycott of elections, that some people still choose to vote has once again reinforced the need of realism in the separatist politics here. Honest analyses of their politics here, and people’s dwindling participation in shutdowns and strikes called by them; now followed by their visible lack of interest in heeding […]
Please restore our roads
People of Kashmir should seriously start thinking about not paying the road tax. The reason is simple: government does not deserve it. Instead it is the government which should actually be paying people for the damages suffered by their vehicles while moving on the broken roads here. Such is the condition of the roads and […]
Why this bias?
Living in a globalized world where “man’s home” has widened to encompass entire globe, there are obviously certain technologies whose influence is so widespread that impact is felt in other peoples’ homes as well. Media of course is one such sphere of activity that wields enormous influence and those running and controlling different formats and […]
Elementary freedoms
The fundamental importance of human freedom, in general, is strongly supplemented by the “instrumental effectiveness of freedoms of particular kinds to promote freedoms of other kinds”. It is because the linkages between different types of freedoms are empirical and causal, rather than constitutive and compositional. This is explained with the strong evidence that various freedoms, […]
Systemic rethink needed
If the situation on ground is any indicator, the government is visible nowhere. The situation would have been different and the government would have been visible if the administrative machinery would have been in place. But the unfortunate reality remains that the ‘administration’ is there, but its writ is not. Those comprising the administrative set-up […]
Extolling sacrifice
If there is anything all the different political leaders and groups here are unanimous about – it is the SACRIFICE, and its importance for their politics. This is why word ‘sacrifice’ has become as if the flag-post of the entire political discourse here — so much so that past experiences as well as future hopes […]
