RESEARCH

Suspecting foulplay is unfortunate __________________ Chandramouli Suresh __________________ T he general elections in India concluded a couple of months ago and the ruling Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won. The Congress party won over 200 seats. The main opposition BJP was pushed to a distant second securing a little over 115 seats. Just about two months since the results were announced, the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) that have been used for so many elections for several years are suddenly finding themselves mired in allegations of being dysfunctional. Leader of the Opposition LK Advani says: “We should revert to ballot papers unless the Election Commission is able to ensure that EVMs)are foolproof and every possibility of their malfunctioning is taken care of”. The same sentiment is being echoed by many other opposition parties who have bitten the dust in the recent general elections. Further, we have been seeing, hearing and reading stories of develo...

The media is hysterically celebrating the reading down of Section 377 of the IPC that has decriminalised homosexuals. Fine prints of the judgment are being overlooked at will and ignorance of both science and religion are being bandied about by English media journalists, gay rights activists and, yes, also religious heads. In this backdrop, Research , setting out to put the records straight, finds that neither side in the debate is bang on T he ruling by the Delhi High Court that treating consensual gay sex as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution, is welcome. Indeed, what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom is nobody's business, least the state's. But the euphoria in the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) community succeeding the verdict must not suppress some questions that keep intriguing the learned who are not so visible in the debate. Most importantly, the charged atmosphere of political correctness th...

Otherwise, there is little that has merit in his hastily proposed new education policy _______________ Surajit Dasgupta _______________ T he then Science & Technology and Ocean Development (ST&OD) Minister, now the Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal unknowingly made my transition from a teacher to a journalist a smooth affair. Hardly three days into what was then my new vocation, as I was still asking my colleagues for tips on journalism, came an invite from the ST&OD Ministry in The Statesman office. The subject matter for the press conference to be held at, no prizes for guessing, Shastri Bhawan, seemed inconsequential. So much so, I am unable to recall the subject now. When I asked my boss if it was needed that I be there, he asked me to hang around in the corridors of the Press Information Bureau nevertheless... to develop some contacts if for nothing else. With little pathbreaking research happening in India, and with a discovery or invention happeni...