I guess we were all waiting for our new Prime Minister's address to the Nation with bated breaths. Many of his admirers as well as detractors were a little discomfited by the fact that one had not heard him at all after he took over as PM. I do not know about you, but...

I think I am well placed to write an apologia in defence of the English language which has come under fire in recent days. Courtesy my sometimes quirky parents I barely spoke English as a child as Kamala, my unique mom, wanted her child to speak Hindi which thus...

I urge you to read this post and give your take on it. Thanks. AnouIt was more than a decade ago that my dear friend and mentor DV suggested we have a detailed budget on our website as he felt that total transparency would help us gain the trust of people and hence...

In the past days we have been 'treated' to what I can call call the absurdities of one Dr B, who has taken on single handed the mantle to defend India in a rather inane way. But beware this is not just a lone crusader that would at best be laughed at and set aside....

Neil Gaiman begins his book American Gods with the following quote quote from Joe Miller's jest book: The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we...

Dispassion is a gift not given to all, certainly not to me. I found this turn of phrase in the personal histories column of last weeks Tehelka magazine. The piece is entitled How Does One Deal With So Much Suffering Every Day. This is a question I ask myself day after...

Arti 2001-20048 children died in Gaza yesterday when a drone struck a refuge camp. Hundreds of children have died in this incomprehensible war between humans who once lived side by side till some wily politicians who search for causes to 'espouse' and 'defend' like...

Did you know that we Indians should be credited for inventing stem cell technology. According to Dina Nath Batra - yes the one who compelled a publisher to pulp a book not to his taste - and I quote “…America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell...

I am about to finish reading Zia Haider Rahman's In The Light of What We Know. It is intriguing as well as delectable and challenges the reader at every page. I am enjoying every line and even find echoes to my own life journey. Somewhere along the way of the...

Is this the only news we have, snapped the Karnataka Chief Minister when asked about the horrific assault on a six year old in Bangalore. No sir we have a lots more of you want to listen: today's news and yesterday's news too. In your very state Sir, a mentally...

When the Chief Minister of a State questioned by a reporter about the terrible assault on a 6 year old inside her school quips: Is this the only news we have? you know something is terribly wrong. It almost seems as if India is loosing it, insidiously,...

Sometimes a simple picture can say more than a thousand words. This is a snapshot taken by one of our kids during a photography workshop. I presume it is the picture of his home, a home he is a proud of. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that this is a...

It has been a long time side I spent a sleepless night. Yesterday was one such night. Even at the nadir of R's illness, I still slept, albeit restlessly but slept nevertheless. Last night I was haunted by the image of a lovely young child, though she is now a teenager...

Project Why's incredible 3 musketeers are back to school. This is what happens to you when you perform impeccably and have learnt whatever the old biddy could teach you. Over the past 14 years now I have tried to the best of my abilities to share and teach all the...

Ever since an NGO mutated into a political part, the acronym NGO, which had always make people look at you with suspicion and distrust, has come under the scanner of one and all. A recent Intelligence Bureau Report accused foreign funded NGOs of stalling development...

Today's Times of India is replete with all the subjects that concern me and that I think need answers, subjects I have often blogged about giving by two penny bit in the form of simple suggestions with of course no takers as they stem for common sense. From the lack...

The car drove away just a few minutes ago taking Popples back to boarding school after his summer break. The house feels almost eerie. A strange weighty silence has engulfed us all. It will take time to fill it with the right 'noise'! Agastya will miss his pal and big...

One of the reasons I decided to write Dear Popples was because I felt the need to 'make memories' for my darling Popples. I wanted him to know about his early years however difficult and dark they were, and also to know how many people loved him and stood by him. Now...

Saturday is my version of Temple Run. I dutifully visit three temples. The first is the Bhairon Temple in front of the Kalkaji bus depot; the second is the Shani Temple in Govindpuri and the third is Mataji's temple in Giri Nagar. Normally if we do not leave on time,...

NGOs are in the news and for all the wrong reasons. A recent article entitled It Is The Pot Calling The Kettle Black examines the two sides of the coin quite pertinently. The author states: not all NGOs are neo-liberal Trojan horses furthering a subversive...

On his website, our new health Minister has stated that sex education in schools should be BANNED! This of course made headline news! This is part of his 'vision' Document for Delhi schools and is item 5 of section B - Curriculum Development - . It...

There is a battle raging in our capital city. It concerns the debate between the three year BA course versus the four year one introduced last year. It seems that one is set to revert to the good old 3 year BA course we all passed! One wonders why the controversial...

up for adoptionShe is up for adoption! But who is she you ask and rightly so. She is a blend of the old woman who lived in a shoe and Mother Courage. You remember the nursery rhyme that says: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.She had so many children,...

The buffalo and the jackfruit. Sounds like a Panchatantra tale or a La Fontaine fable. Not quite. One could call it a tale of a fable but not of yore times but of India today! In February the entire police force of a district of biggest State in India went into a...

For the past week I have been knee deep - figuratively - in poo! It all started when some time back a wannabe philanthropist who landed in my life via the pristine greens of the Delhi Golf Course courtesy the husband, informed me of his desire to bring about what...

One thing that the a appointment of a young, feisty, articulate and gutsy woman as our Education Minister has done is given many the motivation to share their views on how to heal our moribund education system. Almost every day one sees articles, opinions, columns,...

Come May and Maam'ji starts dreading the holiday homework saga. It is a biannual epic in numerous acts with two main protagonists: Utpal and his Maam'ji a.k.a me! It has many props: copybooks, charts, all kinds of stationery ware and more. The two yearly performances...

5000 - 208 - 3.4. These are the number of children under five who die every day-hour-minute of malnutrition and malnutrition related disease. These diseases have fancy names: Kwashiorkor, Marasmus etc and the signs of malnutrition are many from moon and simian...

53% is the number of households who defecate in the open in India. This is according to a World Bank study. So about 300 million women have no access to toilets. The two young teenagers who were gang raped and hung on a mango tree had stepped out of their homes to...

“If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.” wrote Taylor Swift and that is what two young boys and some other incredible kids have done. I guess we have all have been bullied sometimes along life. I was...

An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life wrote activist David Suzuki. It makes a lot of sense but to reach there, we in India have a log way to go. At present our system...

It has been about 5 hours since I wrote my blog about the horrific gang rape and hanging of two young teenagers and my decision to raise my voice against such shameful occurrences till someone finally breaks the deafening silence. Five hours is all it took to be at my...

The new dispensation has fixed its top priorities, ten of them reminding us of the ten commandments! Priority number 2 states: Prioritise education, energy and water. Mr Modi has repeatedly during his campaigns said that the expectations of the education system remain...

This picture is not from some old western. Nor is it a shot from a movie set in medieval days. This is a picture that was taken a week ago,  214 kilometres from where I sit and write. It is making world headline news and simple Googling for the words - cousins -...