DesiPundit

Rushdie’s video image was not allowed at the Festival, but he was on television tonight in India, being interviewed on NDTV, and he spoke out angrily about the “unscrupulous” Muslim groups that threatened him, and an Indian government that failed to act. Speaking from London, Rushdie called the whole affair “fantastically fishy” and blamed the ruling Congress Party and other officials for bowing to electoral priorities and ignoring the priorities of freedom of expression.

Sigh!

Open’s staff writer Mihir Srivastava likes to sketch nude portraits of regular people—men and women, strangers and friends, thin and fat. Some are disgusted when he asks them if they would pose for him. But, surprisingly, many agree. Why?

Would you?

The boy, a Class VII student and the son of a Uttar Pradesh farmer, pulled out several of his friends alive out of a burning van, caring little about his own safety. On September 4, 2010, Om Prakash was going to school along with other students in a Maruti van. But all of a sudden, the van caught fire because of a short circuit in the gas kit. The driver immediately opened his door and fled. But not Om Prakash. He broke open the van door and pulled out the others, caring little about the flames that had spread to his face, back and arms. He saved eight children. For his bravery, he has won the Sanjay Chopra Award.

One of the best parts about India’s Republic Day Parade. Wish the media talked about their stories more.

My colony has a fancy western-sounding name and, while constructing the illusion that we were buying into something exotic, the builder has installed statues vaguely modeled on Venus de Milo — nearly nude white female forms, arms missing. Then one day, our statue was found dressed in a nightgown. But perhaps some poor person needed that nightgown, so the statue was bare again. Soon enough, somebody had dressed it up again, in a man’s shirt. I often wonder at the people who did that. I doubt they were worried about the dignity of our fake plaster-of-paris Venus. It hasn’t been molested (as far as I know).

I’m sure some plaster-of-paris statues have been molested but then if that prevents from actual humans from being molested, we ought to install more nude statutes.

Politicians and clerics offer illusory benefits to Muslims, who want education and jobs. Instead they get quotas, and not skills.

More often than not, we’re focused on the temporary issues affecting minorities instead of focusing on empowering them to succeed. 

Content law is a field of law unto itself, and the Indian corpus juris contains over twenty statutes governing content. In addition to statutory law, case law and tort law also govern content – for example, the right to privacy (and the corresponding prohibition on the publication of content invasive of privacy) finds its roots not only in constitutional law but also in tort law.

Most Indian content laws are not directed specifically at online content. However, they are, for the most part, applicable to online content (even though recent debates may lead one to believe that the legal regulation of content in India is non-existent). These laws, however, do not focus on ‘pre-screening’; as with most laws, they prescribe sanctions upon the publication etc. of illegal content.

Dating back to 1860. Who says we don’t protect our history? [via @gkjohn]

Anuradha Vaidyanathan is India first Ironman athlete. The multi-tasking 30-year-old PhD holder and entrepreneur tells us about the challenges she’s had to face and how she made it.

Very few of us may have even heard of the sporting event she represents. Fewer are probably aware of the extreme physical endurance it demands. Ironman one-day triathlon that involves a 3.8km swim, 180km bicycle ride and a 42.2km run. The relatively ‘easier’ triathlon event is the Ultraman — a three-day stage race that involves a 10km swim, 420km bicycle ride and an 84.4km run.

Anuradha Vaidyanathan is India’s first Ironman athlete and one of the only 450 people in the world to have finished an Ultraman.

The study focuses on West Bengal, a state in eastern India, where one-third of the pradhan positions have been randomly reserved for women since 1998. This policy is part of a larger effort in India to put women in local government: In 1993, the country widely adopted gender quotas for village councils. As a result, India’s proportion of local elected leaders who were female rose from less than 5 percent in 1992 to more than 40 percent in 2000.

It’s all about role models. However, I bet it would help more if familial ties did not always play a role in advancement of women in Indian politics.

Having spent three months snooping around a restaurant, Sohini Chattopadhyay reveals why even great recipes sometimes don’t make it to the menu, the food service industry’s unforgiving hierarchy, and other secrets.

It’s hard out there for a chef.

I’d like to see the Lok Sabha implement a Prime Minister’s Question system akin to the one in the House of Commons. The post of PM is not a ceremonial one but an executive one. The current prime minister has shown a revulsion for saying anything that is not delivered from a pulpit or behind closed doors. This has only compounded the feeling that nobody is in charge. I find this utterly ridiculous.

Back after a long hiatus, Sidin puts forth this Whatay Wishlist for governance in India; or as most resident Indians will dismiss it as jibber-jabber by a NRI by saying, come here and talk, nah!

The reputation of a country affects the way citizens are perceived abroad, too. A citizen of a booming, honest and friendly country is treated very differently from a citizen of a graft-ridden, poor nation. NRIs, therefore, care more about the brand value of India than those who are sheltered within their domestic borders. It is the individual NRI out there who is at the front line of what are personal, but very significant, political efforts on behalf of their country. The dignity with which they present themselves, the quality of their contributions, the ability to hold their own in unfamiliar circumstances, all add to the respect of the home country.

The Lokpal has been left in the lurch. Who is to blame? Just about everybody who claimed to be in the Bill’s favour

Everyone got their fifteen minutes of fame and in the end, we’re left with the bill. Or rather no bill.