Finally...I'm back

Indeed. It's been a very long time, and unfortunately I might have to go on sabbatical again as I leave for Chicago early tomorrow morning. Clearly much has happened in my absence so it would be sort of futile to do a summary of all that. The UPA released its new manifesto and brought with it many grumbles. Again, I wouldn't read too much into it. But what is indeed worrying has been Natwar Singh as Foreign Minister constantly shooting his mouth off! I will be the first to admit that one of the few achievements of the NDA government was the bonhomie with Pakistan. And perhaps some of that could be attributed to the personal chemistry between Musharraf and Vajpayee. Either way, our good frient Natwar Singh seems hell bent on destroying that.

The Cauvery dispute seems to have been raked up again. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about it! It also reminds me that I must blog at least a short summary of my thesis at somepoint. I'm also hoping that over this summer I'd probably convert a part of the thesis into an article, particularly the bit linking the politics over the dam to Hindutva philosophy and the politics of the BJP.


This is great news. NGOs in Calcutta (Kolkata?) have done a good job in Sonagachi, the city's main red light area with their AIDS awareness campaign. What has been admirable about the Sonagachi campaign is that there's never been a moral stand taken on the issue. Rather the aim is to teach them about condoms, educate their children, and to teach the women how to retain control over their own bodies.

The question of reservations in the private sector will require an entire post devoted to it. Incidentally you can find the complete text of Kalam's speech to Parliament here. I know this will be somewhat controversial, but I do support reservations for the public sector. I agree wholeheartedly that they have been ill conceived and badly implemented but there's a lot going for them as well. Further, if you do remember that approximately 20% of our population is Dalit, and are denied opportunities, perhaps we ought to do something about it. The fact is that opponents of reservations never have an alternative solution except for saying: we need economic growth and we need to uplift them. Ummm...how? Anyway I'll deal with this at some later point. And I'll try to keep blogging while I'm there, although I can't promise that!