RESEARCH

President Sarkozy is a big disappointment _______________ Mathieu Mercier _______________ L ast year, during the presidential election in France, facing Nicolas Sarkozy was another candidate, a woman. France, it seemed, was not yet ready to elect a woman as the head of their state. Ségolène Royale was being criticized in every public forum, sometimes quite unfairly. People thought she was too naïve and, hence, unfit to govern France. Sarkozy thus emerged as the other — the only viable — option left. Among other things, his oratory skill was largely noticed and appreciated. His experience as a seasoned lawyer came in handy! More importantly, Sarkozy’s past record as an administrator was clean. It was not surprising that the French thought he was the only person capable of governing France after years of rule by extreme and moderate socialists. However, with time Sarkozy started disappointing his voters with his mistakes, some of them seemingly intentional. He was also seen as a callous

________________ Surajit Dasgupta ________________ ( Click on the headline for details of cognitive behaviour therapy for hypochondriasis by the Journal of the American Medical Association ) The reproduction of this article in this blog has been provoked by a frequent topic of discussion at this writer's workplace: health profiles of the respective speakers. It amuses me, hailing as I do from a small town where I grew up leading a carefree and yet disease-free life, as to why the people living in big cities are often unduly worried about their health Asukh: This film by Rituparno Ghosh showed how the mere thought of a disease can wreck a family ( Published first in The Pioneer on 1 October 2007 ) E ver since The Pioneer published the story, "Indian woman stripped of her job for wearing nose stud in UK" (September 19), I have been trying to eat with my nose and figure out how it could possibly affect my hygiene and that of the people whose company I keep. Jokes apart, wh

Things exist because they do ____________ Debarshi Dey ____________ R eason and reality: these are the two parameters we constantly invoke in our post modern lives to validate and justify all that we think and all that we do. Such is the absolute power of these two concepts on our minds that even our Gods and our innermost dreams have to pass the twin tests: Are they reasonable? Are they realistic? We might use other words in their place: “scientific”, “rational”, “practical”, “pragmatic”, but they all convey the same meaning. In all our experiences, and in all our conscious responses to them, we try to satisfy ourselves that they have the twin blessings of being reasonable and real. When these ideas of reason and reality are of so paramount importance in the way we live our lives, or rather in the way we think and make sense of things that are happening around us, let us ask ourselves: what do these words actually mean? Reality: What is reality? What are the things we consider as real

Shivraj Patil must come clean ________ M Ratan ________ Ambala, New Delhi, Latur, June 6 : Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s record in office may not be much to write home about — a string of terrorist attacks across the country since he took charge and no sign of a breakthrough in any case. On one front, at least, the Minister has delivered — by providing the clout of his official address to help his son’s businesses, from a distillery in Haryana to a sugar mill in Maharashtra. An investigation by The Indian Express in New Delhi, Ambala and Latur has found that the Home Minister’s son Shailesh Patil and daughter-in-law Archana Patil have cited the Home Minister’s official residence, 4, Janpath, as their address when they became part of a Rs 149-crore distillery project sprawled across 52 acres in Ambala. Records obtained from the Registrar of Companies and pollution board authorities show Shailesh and Archana Patil joined as directors of N V Distilleries Ltd on May 9, 2005. The plan

Editors, shed a tear for yourselves A report published in HT City 's 13 June 2008 edition: Blogstress.com Burning the midnight oil, skipping meals, stressed out 24/7 - we aren't talking about students or BPO workers; we are talking of bloggers. Neck deep in competition to write the best post, get maximum clicks or make the most money, their lives are nothing but grist for their next post. They surf incessantly, are hooked on news updates, and are constantly thinking of opinions they can give. Taking a break is not an option. In the US, two popular tech bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, died suddenly of heart attacks. Another prolific blogger, Om Malik, 41, also had a heart attack, but survived. Delhi guy Pratyush Ranjan has been blogging for three years. "It's stressful. I need higher levels of concentration. I've to socialise to make my blogs popular, which further saps my energy " Zola Marquis's blog Elitechoice.org started as a passion. But now i

The RSS's prevalence in orkut had made Google nervous, as it briefly blacked out all RSS communities a year ago. It shouldn't be difficult to guess who had arm-twisted Google into taking the action of intolerant censorship. Nevertheless, the youth protested vociferously and all those banned fora were back online. This is an announcement of the commemoration of the event, marking youth power, next week ________________ Amit Chatterjee ________________ W e often celebrate festivals and days of national importance and also mourn the death and sacrifices of great leaders. The reason we do this is to remind ourselves and the present and future generations every now and then about our history so that they remember and learn from the past.This is a universal phenomenon. Such days or periods unify people and strike emotional chords. Similarly we, the RSS members who are regular orkut users, thought of remembering a dark chapter in orkut for the Sangha Pariwaar communities (or fora).

( Click on the headline for a surgeon's prescription describing genuine cases of appendicitis ) _________________ Surajit Dasgupta _________________ Anywhere in India, if someone suffers from stomach pain, the ailment could be anything. If it's West Bengal, and it's a woman, chances are high she will be diagnosed with 'appendicitis'. How reliable is this diagnosis? Background: This article was written in December 2004. However, none of the two newspapers I worked with during the period September 2004-March 2008 had enough space to accommodate it, even as it's difficult to do away with any of its technical details. The Pioneer had published an abridged version (about 800 words) of this exposition in 2006; the article was not uploaded on to the newspaper’s Internet version. Four years after writing this article, as I heard last week from friends and acquaintances from Kolkata and its suburbs and the towns Burdwan, Durgapur and Asansol, the scourge of doctors presc

______________ Nithin Sridhar ______________ I bow to thee : Before taking the oath as the 25th Chief Minister of Karnataka in Bangalore on 26 May, BS Yeddyurappa touches the feet of LK Advani as BJP national president Rajnath Singh looks on T he results of the Karnataka assembly elections are out and the BJP is all set to form the government with the support of a few independents. This election has been crucial for several reasons. It is the first election after the process of delimitation which the Election Commission had conducted decently. There was no sight of banners or sound of loudspeakers blaring all around. Better still, hardly any incident of violence was reported from any part of the state. The elections have largely been free and fair as they were held in three phases. The BJP having got 110 seats, 32 more seats than its tally in 2004, is the clear winner. The JD(S), which got 27 seats, 31 less than its score the last time, is the clear loser. Results also show that the po

But that does not surprise, as they don't know Hindi either ________________ Surajit Dasgupta ________________ Almost everyday for several years now, one has been coming across headlines and texts in the Indian newspapers and sound-bytes in the television news channels that are horrendous examples of communication. Even if content is considered more important than language, what cannot be ignored or glossed over is that many sentences do not mean what the respective writers had intended them to mean. This list is to highlight major flaws of the type. The collection does not include flaws that do not convey to the reader a wrong message. The nature of this post is such that it has to be constantly updated with new additions. So, watch this space T he Economic Times ' 14 May 2008 issue read: "Mobile services provider Bharati Airtel on Tuesday announced it would focus on extending its services to villages in Tamil Nadu with a population of 3000 ." We didn't know the