The OPEN Magazine (to which I have taken quite a fancy owing to its insightful articles) carries this article by Hartosh Singh Bal titled Bhopal: The Other Story

On the forthcoming 25th anniversary of perhaps the biggest man-made tragedy of our country, Hartosh writes as to why the Bhopal victims are better off without the hordes of visitors who will fly in to commemorate this rather dark past.

An interesting excerpt:

If you want the truth, don’t pay attention to those who parachute in for a day or two or those who claim to understand Bhopal from London, don’t even take my word for any of this. Go to Bhopal armed with a knowledge of Hindi and see for yourself. Allow yourself a month or two in the city to see how the victims who cannot obtain the medicine they need are helped by a story on the front page of the New York Times or a book on the Booker shortlist.

Read the complete article here.

Amidst a lot of hue and cry over the delay in prosecuting Kasab, here is Amit Desai giving a sane view on Why Kasab deserves a fair trial.

Do read, especially the explanation on why Kasab is being tried under the Indian Penal Code and not under an anti-terrorism law.

Link obtained via Dilip D’Souza.

About a month ago, I had come across this interesting article about goddess Lakshmi, which gave a very different perspective on the concept of wealth creation and its associated morals. The article was so insightful that I made note of the author, Devdutt Pattanaik, and bought one of his books – Vishnu, an Introduction.

Hence, I was glad when I came to know (via @aditisi) that Devdutt Pattanaik was one of the speakers at the recently concluded TED Talks. I would highly recommend this talk which you can view below. If you are unable to view the player, click on this link.

Devdutt talks about how differences in beliefs of God, Life and Death influence culture. An important line that he states is “culture is man’s reaction to nature”.
Do check out the entire talk (it is about 18 minutes long and well worth your time).

Yesterday’s Times of India, Bangalore edition, carried this article on how a chain-snatcher was caught by the public.

No doubt its good that a chain snatcher was nabbed, but what got me thinking is this excerpt:

“…some passersby caught hold of one of the chain-snatchers . He was thrashed by the public before being handed over to the police” [emphasis is mine]

Why is it not even a concern for us when we read this? Isn’t thrashing anybody an illegal thing to do? Isn’t the law & order system supposed to take care of the punishment? Yet, why doesn’t the police or even the journalist reporting it raise this as an issue? Or is it that we are happy to have dished out justice as we no longer trust the state and its ways? And this has become a part of our lives. Where does this lead us?

Vir Sanghvi’s article on Manu Sharma and the parole issue.

In the case of Manu Sharma, parole was granted for a reason that is already so unusual as to raise eyebrows — Manu wanted to check how his business was doing. Two other reasons were tagged on. His grandmother had just died and his mother was unwell.The Delhi Police, which was asked to investigate the reasons, reported entirely accurately that a) Manu’s business was doing okay, b) his grandmother had died a few months ago so the rites were over and c) that his mother was fine.

Vir makes an important point with this paragraph of his:

Can it be a coincidence that even after the case hit the headlines, Opposition parties offered only a tepid response? There were no calls for the chief minister to resign. No demands for fresh elections. No jail bharo campaigns, etc.When it comes to its children, the political class is united. It’s them first. And it is the rest of us afterwards.

What is needed the most right now? A political reform? Or an improved judiciary and police machinery? Where do we even start from?

The editorial page of Hindustan Times carries this revealing article on why the west might now be encouraging their people to “let it flow in the great outdoors”:

As suspected by some of us busy unclogging pipes here in India, these ‘naturalists’ with a twist want people to urinate in the open to save the world from — well, of course! — global warming. The more we take a piss in the privacy of our bathrooms, the more we end up flushing the lavatory, thereby ‘wasting’ water.

Well, someone should figure out soon on what we should be doing. Lest we have a globally warming smelly planet on our feet.