June 2006
GALBRAITH THE GREEN, The Hindu
John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently, was an economist of capacious interests and controversial views. His many works of scholarship were widely read, acclaimed by some and dismissed by others. I am not an economist, [...]
May 2006
A MANAGED MEDIA, The Telegraph
Being an old-fashioned kind of guy, brought up in an old-fashioned sort of home, I came to believe that the duties of a newspaper were to inform, educate, and entertain. It was about a decade [...]
A DRIVE INTO THE PAST, The Hindu
Delhi is a city deeply layered in time, with the juxtaposition of the centuries manifest in styles of architecture, in the names of roads and buildings, in the dress of the city’s inhabitants and—not least—in [...]
April 2006
THE SOCIOLOGY OF RESERVATION, The Telegraph
The announcement that reservation for OBCs is to be extended to IITs and IIMs has provoked much debate in the press. Critics say the move will undermine the functioning of these institutions by devaluing the [...]
THE GREATEST INDIANS, The Hindu
Speaking to the singer Dilip Kumar Roy in February 1924, Mahatma Gandhi said that he was very fond of music although he ‘could not boast of the power of any expert or analytic appreciation’. He [...]
AMARTYA SEN FOR PRESIDENT, The Telegraph
In a little over a year’s time, the term of the current President of India will come to an end. Good man though he is, Abdul Kalam is unlikely to get a second term, a [...]