Shortly after independence, a one man commission was appointed to assess the extent of corruption in government offices. On submitting the report the author reportedly exclaimed that the experience made him believe in God. Questioned how, he had said ‘there is so much corruption but still the people seem to be happy. It has to be the hand...
Some days ago, I received a mail from an RTI activist stating that another RTI activist has been murdered in Gujarat, taking the toll of RTI activists murdered there to eleven. While any crime has to be condemned and murder is the worst, I was left wondering whether the RTI Act was still surviving in Gujarat. The Central Information Commission and the Kerala...
This part begins with Palat Mohandas, 1st Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of Kerala State Information Commission (KSIC), whose manipulations started with his appointment as CIC. He was Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala when the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) came into force on June 15, 2005. The law had provided for suo moto disclosures, a...
Having discussed the strong points ofthe law, we shall analyse the clauses that have been exploited as loopholes. Thereare some shortcomings, but whether these are deliberate or not cannot be judgedbecause the way it has been implemented suggests that some loopholes were leftdeliberately and some unintentionally. Vagueness is not an attribute
The Right to Information Act is the only citizen friendly and pro-democracy law in India as on date. It is simple, clear and unambiguous, as any law should be so that those affected by the law understand it and follow it, and those who are required to enforce the law also enforce it fairly and fearlessly. Unfortunately, a decade plus down the line (law was e...
In his effort to improve Saudi Arabia’s badly tarnished image and project the kingdom as embracing an unidentified form of moderate Islam, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has hinted that he envisions a conservative rather than an ultra-conservative society, but not one in which citizens are fully free to make personal, let alone political choices of...
The unauthorized “harvesting” of personal data of over fifty million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica is the latest in a continuing saga of data related scandals. Breaking his long silence, Mark Zuckerberg apologized to his billion plus users worldwide and called it a “breach of trust” and vowed to take steps to protect user data. But the damage has bee...
The distinguished scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking, breathed his last on March 14, the day his illustrious predecessor Albert Einstein was born. It could be a mere coincidence. But there are other much lesser known facts about his life that makes it scintillating, exciting, and at the same time makes one wonder what this great genius was doing all...
While the experts were wondering about the possible evolution of the world order towards a multipolar system, or even a simple tripolar system, the sudden advances of Russian military technology forces the return to a bipolar organisation. Let’s take another look at what we have learned over the last three years, until the President Putin’s revelations on...
An agency of the central government is serving as administrative cover for an inter-connected group of international donor agencies, multinational corporations, international policy and advocacy groups, Indian industries and Indian non-government organisations, all bent on bringing the next wave of industrialisation to food and its sales. The FSSAI communic...
The Russian presidential elections are blissfully over, for they were extremely nasty and embarrassing. Mr Putin could have won more modestly and plausibly. The election results would make Turkmenistan proud, if not North Korea. The turnout was quite high, 68%. The incumbent President received almost 77% of the vote, while his main contender Mr Grudinin’s sh...
In July 2018, the United Nations will likely undertake its sixth bi-annual review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy that was adopted by consensus in 2006. In the dozen years that have since elapsed, terror attacks have spread all over the globe, challenging authorities with their shape-shifting tactics – bomb attacks at civilian targets, armed atta...
Shakespeare said it best: Much ado about nothing. That’s the “Russian interference” in the 2016 American election.
A group of Russians operating from a building in St. Petersburg, we are told in a February 16 US government indictment, sent out tweets, Facebook and YouTube postings, etc. to gain support for Trump and hurt Clinton even though most of these ...
The regularity of frauds at Indian banks has shaken the faith of the public in the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has attracted a lot of flak for the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud for the fact that it happened right under its nose and the fraudsters got away. Suggestions have poured in from well-meaning opinion makers and couch pundits – ...
Once the imminent defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq became obvious to pretty much everyone, those fighting under its black flags started packing to take a long trip home. However, ISIS militants wouldn’t take this unbelievably brutal adventure alone, as they were known for bringing their wives and kids along with them for them to live in the areas that used t...
Dhimmitude is a relatively recent concept among Islamic scholars though it has played a major role in the history of Islam. It was brought into focus by the pioneering work of the Egypt-born scholar Bat Ye’or (her pen name, which means ‘Daughter of the Nile’). Dhimmitude may be seen as the state of mind induced in the victims of Islamic terror, more particul...
Jihad is the central doctrine of the Islamic state, ordained by its scripture. Thanks partly to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the world now knows something of jihad and its ties to Islamic terror. Nonetheless, jihad continues to be presented as a noble internal struggle over one’s baser instincts - so...
The “Arab spring”, which began with distant events in the small country of Tunisia, brought very different changes to a range of countries in the Middle East. If, for example, in Egypt it led to regime change, then in countries such as Syria and Iraq, it led to civil war, whose end is not yet visible on the political horizon. The changes that have taken plac...
Putin’s March 1st presentation of new Russian weapons has been greatly misunderstood as a declaration of strategic parity or triumphalism. There was a much more urgent need, namely, to prevent an imminent strike. This danger is not over yet, for a week later, on March, 7, President Putin emphasised his readiness to employ the nuclear weapons for retaliation ...
China has done away with presidential term limits, suggesting that Xi Jinping could rule the country until he dies, provoking a backlash among the country’s opposition and taunting in the ‘democratic’ world. But if you think about it dispassionately, it’s amazing that otherwise rational people can believe it’s better to have a leader who cannot fulfill his p...
A major financial scam hit the headlines in January 2018 involving “fraudulent and unauthorized” transactions involving letters of undertaking (LoU, guarantee) to Antwerp-based diamantaire Nirav Modi, amounting to over Rs. 12,500 crores at the Punjab National Bank (PNB). Initial reports suggest that this originated at a branch in Mumbai where a manager alleg...
A heart-wrenching Indian tragedy. Recently, Sabiha Banu, 15, of Mangalore, was married (read sold) to Abu Bakr Al Moum, 55, of Nigeria, who is probably 10 years older than her father. Just the other day, I and Chris Gay, managing director of Engage Africa Now, were discussing about the sexual slavery of minor Baloch boys and women in Balochistan, Hindu women...
In recent months, American politicians have presented the public with a constant barrage of statements about various Islamic State (ISIS) strongholds in Iraq and Syria falling in their hands one after another. One can recall that last year the so-called Islamic State lost both of its capitals: the Iraqi city of Mosul, and the Syrian city of al-Raqqah. In fac...
No U.S. Senate subcommittee has been established to study it. No Stratfor analyst is bleating about it. And no New York Times literary genius has reported it. Regardless of their negligence though, the waking reality of Putin’s unstoppable “Assassin Nuke” is crystal clear. The U.S. backed liberal world order is on notice now, that Putin and Russia will “get ...
If we cast our minds back to those heady days of the Afghanistan invasion, we might recall how Condoleezza Rice informed us that the Taliban were financing their Muslim War Against the West with heroin production, which was being used to destroy the lives of our young. This message echoed earlier dire warnings about the flood of heroin unleashed by the comm...
Among the Bangladeshi nationals listed in the National Register of Citizens, a foreigner detected in June 2005 has acquired a voter’s identity card and Aadhaar card. Obviously, the population of illegal aliens determined to settle in Assam is a natural votebank for the party that provides the documentation enabling eternal residence and rights in India....
National unity coalition of the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) so far has not been able to evolve a coherent action plan to recover its lost ground after they suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa-backed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) in the local government elections held on Feb...
The diminished reliance on the US dollars is one of the major trends of international geopolitics. A lot of media attention has been paid to steps taken by the BRICS states, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to decrease their dependence on American currency. Both the BRICS states and a number of other international players have repeatedly ...
Recently, the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)’s highest decision making body – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee – is reported to have held a high level meeting with religious personnel (Tulku, or living Buddha) to educate them on the 19th Party Congress ‘guided’ by President Xi Jinping’s new guiding philosophy for China in the new era. At the mee...
The Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal, attained siddhi on 28th February 2018 at the age of 82. He had earlier complained of breathlessness and was taken to the hospital where he attained siddhi. Millions of Hindus as well as his followers in India and around the world mourn his loss. In 1954, the nineteen year old M. ...
The best Prime Minister the country has ever had. This is how Benjamin Netanyahu is referred to by his numerous supporters. He is the longest-serving one, since the founder of the Jewish state, David Ben Gurion; he served longer than Vladimir Putin. But now apparently he is on the way to follow his predecessor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to jail. Olmert had b...