WhatsApp, Privacy and Me
Sometime in January, WhatsApp started showing a pop-up asking me to agree to their updated privacy policy if I wanted to continue using the app beyond 8th February. In the normal course, I would have agreed without giving much thought to it. After all, we don’t really read the User Agreement every time we install or update an app. Like everyone else, I am also blasé about my privacy online – willing to risk the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Cyber, Internet, Media
Gen Thimayya’s Resignation – Statement by Pt Nehru in Parliament and debate – 02 Sep 1959
Prime Minister’s Statement Sir, I wish to apologize for my absence from the house yesterday. I was anxious to be here because of a number of adjournment motions on a subject which had naturally aroused much interest, but as the house knows, I had to go to Palam just at that time to meet the President of Pakistan. (Gen Ayub Khan had a brief halt at Palam Airport on his way to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Civil Military Relations, Military, Politics, Uncategorized
CDS and DMA – Penny Wise Pound Foolish?
Appointment of CDS and setting up of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) under him within the Ministry of Defence is a long overdue, ground breaking reform undertaken by the Modi government. The need for such an institution to provide single point military advice to the government had been repeatedly talked about since independence, specially in the aftermaths of the 1962 and Kargil wars. The government must therefore be lauded for having implemented it, overcoming … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial
Aam Aadmi Khaas Baat
Latest in the series of embarrassing revelations about the ostentatious lifestyle that Aam Aadmi Party leaders, and in particular their supremo Arvind Kejriwal seem to leading, is a set of bills for catering at his official residence. Raised by The Delhi Tourism and Tpt Development Corporation, they are for meals provided by Taj Mahal Hotel at exorbitant rates of Rs 12,472 and Rs 16,025 per plate (on 11 Feb 2016 and 12 Feb 2016). This comes on the heels of revelations of similar extravagances at public expense – Rs 1 Crore worth samosas (including Rs 47 Lakh worth at office and residence of Arvind Kejriwal), Rs 1.05 Crore paid to a PR agency for promoting Kejriwal’s social media outreach program ‘Talk to AK’ in Punjab, Goa and Gujarat, and the move to pay … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Politics
An Open Letter to Aakar Patel
Dear Mr Patel, This is in response to your piece published in today’s TOI under a presumptuously named column ‘AakaarVani’. I’m writing this to correct you on some factual and a lot of perceptual errors that seem to behind almost every sentence in the piece. I’m writing in the hope that you may correct these, unless of course these aren’t inadvertent, but deliberate spin that you want to give to bolster the argument you make in the title of the piece. Let me start by pointing out the irony in the title itself, since having written it yourself, you obviously didn’t spot it. That an article criticizing the army and saying a lot of things about the faujis is titled “Nothing can be said about our faujis, they’re above criticism”. If irony … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Media, Military
Close Encounters
The trouble with opposition generated and media sustained hype about anything that could be used to embarrass the government is manifold. First, there seems to be no issue too serious, no institution too sacrosanct to avoid politicisation and sensationalizing. We recently witnessed major opposition parties casting serious aspersions on the credibility of the army by asking the government to furnish proof of the operations that the DGMO briefed media about. One regional leader of the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial
Karan Johar and Capt Boycott
Had Sir Charles Boycott been alive today, he may have empathized with Karan Johar. Wanting to get his lands harvested amidst protests from tenant farmers in 19th Century Ireland, Sir Charles resorted to hiring 50 workers from outside the county to do the work. The catch was that they had to work under protection of a 1000 strong force and the resultant cost was several times the profit from the harvest. Faced with a similar … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial
Mere paas Maa hai
Since Rahul Gandhi is approximately the same age as me, it would be safe to guess that he watched the same movies that I did in early childhood. The staple Bollywood fare of the 70s, which had a recurring central theme – rich versus the poor. There would be variations of course. It could be the poor mill workers pitted against the unscrupulous tyrant of a mill owner, who often had a side business of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Politics
Mirza Ghalib and the veterans
Mirza Asad-Ullah Khan Ghalib died a poor, miserable man. Like most geniuses, his work got its true approbation long after he wasn’t around to bask in the glory. But the lack of recognition was only part of the reason for his misery. He had much too high an opinion of himself to hanker for praise from lesser mortals, though admittedly it never hurt to be extoled at mushairas. The major cause of his melancholy was … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Military