RESEARCH

The recommendations are not driven by a doctrinaire free market philosophy. It’s a pragmatic approach towards making the department viable. I   have procured a copy of the recommendations of the “ Committee for Mobilization of Resources for Major Railway Projects and Restructuring of Railway Ministry and Railway Board” headed by eminent economist and NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy. Bibek Debroy In the report, the advisers recommended an overhaul of the entire system from decision-making structure to accounting systems, from human resource management to budgetary relationship between the government and Railways, from financing to regulation and implementation of policies and programmes. Advocates of liberal economics who must have turned ecstatic over the talk of trains by private companies in this morning’s newspapers must note that even the existing private domains are functioning below par because of confusion over returns on investment and the unce...

But the NDA government entertains them because of a chequered history of the BJP and India's own inability to appreciate genuine secularism A Sikh youth challenges another to prove the latter’s commitment to Sikhism . How? ‘Vandalise that church!’ the first guy allegedly provokes his friend. The excitable friend obliges. “Narendra Modi to blame!” Burglars steal Rs 12,000 from a convent’s kitty, leaving religious symbols of Christianity untouched . “RSS is responsible!” Antisocial elements who infiltrated the country from Bangladesh ‘rape’ an elderly nun. “BJP’s ‘saffron’ agenda!” The last sentence in each paragraph above does not obviously reflect this columnist’s opinion. During the reported incidents, such was the tenor of headlines in a large section of the media that has been betraying acute discomfiture since the BJP-led NDA government took charge of the country last year. Unfortunately, the government is buying it — no questions asked! In February, Home Mini...

It has all the right messages for the nation. The polity will be well advised not to slot him into a caste for identity politics or cherry-pick from his statements to imprison governance in dogma. A Bengali in Bihar, I spoke simple Bengali, shorn of Sanskrit-origin words that I thought were meant only for editorials in Anandabazar Patrika until I migrated to Kolkata after school. My Hindi was horrible, with the written form as devoid of gender sensitivity as Bihari Hindi is (and I used to wonder how Biharis couldn’t get it right while speaking but could pull off written compositions perfectly). No elder ever congratulated me for my exam scorecard; for, amid all the scores in 90s, and a few 100s, that in Hindi hovered in the 50-60 range, creating an eyesore and attracting the attention of everybody who had the authority to scold me. But even this hopeless student of Hindi got goosebumps all over when the teacher recited Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ (who was a Bihar...