RESEARCH

______________ Surajit Dasgupta ______________ People, especially apolitical Hindus, have got so used to hearing scandals involving the so-called saints that news of the type does not shock them anymore. To theologians, these scandals are but expected as they can tell a true spiritualist from a fake religious leader. As people drift away from faith, disillusioned with the present crop of evangelists, much as they may need faith in these stressful times, the solution is for commoners to graduate to being theologians NRI's murder: Five Swadhyay members arrested The Indian Express | AHMEDABAD, 4 JULY 2006: Five members of the Swadhyay Pariwar, a socio-religious organisation founded by Pandurang Shastri Athavale, were today arrested for allegedly clubbing to death killing non-resident Indian Pankaj Trivedi outside a club here on June 15. Two years before his death, Trivedi had written to Chief Minister Narendra Modi that he feared for his life at the hands of Parivar members. ...

The metaphors he used in Parliament during the debate for the confidence motion were far-fetched, on the verge of being laughable _________ M Ratan _________ W hen the handsome crown prince of the ruling party, the Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi stood up in the Lok Sabha on July 22 to expound on energy security while defending the India-US civil nuclear cooperation deal, in the debate on the trust motion, I said to myself that the young leader had the best chance to prove his mettle. He was on the live television with a captive audience and friendly news channels to glorify him. He took us to the poor homes of Sasikala and Kalawati in Vidarbha, which he toured recently in his "discover India" journey. He talked of Sasikala and her husband's meagre daily wages and their three children's big dreams. He also narrated details of Kalawati's large family and her farmer husband's suicide. He tried to trace their misery to their lack of access to energy. What ...

______________________ Indraneil Roy Choudhuri ______________________ Today with a lot of gratitude, I share with all of you my experience in dealing with the passing away of my father. It all started the beginning of last month when during his regular check ups, the doctors found that my dad’s blood count was unusually high. My father had been diagnosed with the cancer of the lymph nodes in 2005, and through timely treatment of chemotherapy, he was totally cured. However, as a part of his routine, in the gap of every two to three months, he had to go for regular blood tests to check if there were any further occurrences of growth. This increase in blood levels suggested the onset of leukaemia and since it was detected somewhat early, the doctors suggested that it would be best to "nip it in the bud". They suggested a cycle of chemotherapy, which would be augmented with an experimental drug, to expedite the recovery. I felt that this was a time for me, to prove to everyone th...

_____________ Nithin Sridhar _____________ Two more terrorist attacks, a series of bomb blasts in two prosperous cities, many people dead, many more injured and a grave national loss! This has become a part and parcel of Indian life. The target shifts, outfits involved in terrorism changes, but the impact remains same and the intentions remain the same. This time the location was first Bengaluru, the Garden City, an IT hub and, next, Ahmedabad, one of the fastest developing cities of the country. In Bengaluru, low intensity blasts took place in the afternoon of 25 July 2008 in which at least two persons died and seven were injured. While the first seven blasts took place between 1.30 pm and 2.30 pm. The eighth bomb blasted at Hosaguddahalli near Gopalan Mall on Mysore road at about 5.30 pm and the ninth blasted near the Army Engineering College on Mysore Road at 6.30 pm. The Bengaluru Police has termed it as an act of terror. The crude bombs, stuffed with nuts and bolts, exploded at Ma...

_______________ Surajit Dasgupta _______________ Going by science, electricity from nuclear energy was an afterthought. Going by history, China eyes Arunachal Pradesh the way Saddam Hussein eyed Kuwait. Talking about the present, India is still surrounded by hostile countries. In terms of dealing with defence apparatus, this country, which never built a dangerous weapon before its enemy did, is being asked to trust the United States, the sanctimonious international preacher that is itself a proliferator. In terms of both legalese and its interpretation, most international laws to check nuclear weapons are not ratified by the country that urges every other country to sign them. In these circumstances comes the 123 Agreement, all in all, a conspiracy to deviate India’s attention from where India needs nuclear energy to where it does not The science of afterthought Let’s begin from the beginning. When a motley group of maverick American innovators first set about to harness nuclear energy...