It is a story of how a foreign power, then occupying the country, using their power, forced a native Kingdom to agree to give up its rights over a river and its water for 999 years, in exchange for a small amount to be paid as rent to the Kingdom. This agreement was inked in 1886. Even after the occupying powers had left the country, the succeeding popular Government of Kerala agreed to honour the agreement that was obviously one sided – in favour of Tamil Nadu – and executed a fresh agreement in 1970, with substantially same provisions.

The round one of the confrontation between Anna Hazare led India Against Corruption and Dr Manmohan Singh led Government of India, has been won by the former. The manner in which the latter and the Delhi Police dealt with the agitation, by taking Anna into preventive custody and subsequently housing him at Tihar jail, has given further impetus to the anger of the constituency that is behind Anna’s movement, the Indian middle class, making them come out on to the streets.

These days, the Lokpal Bill has become one of the most important national issues. This issue is grabbing the attention of anyone who is concerned with the betterment of the country. This is one of those few milestones in Indian democracy that, if achieved, will help in achieving the much required transparency in the whole democratic setup of this country. There is a lot of hue and cry about the Lokpal Bill in various spheres like Govt., media, civil society etc.

Swami Ram Dev has become a household name today. Even before his Satygaraha campaign, he was easy to find on one channel or another, either teaching yoga or preaching about how yoga was the cure to every problem in the world. You could love, or you could hate him, but you could not ignore him. That, however, was not enough for Baba Ram Dev. He had bigger dreams, and so he started a campaign for making India Corruption free.

Broadly speaking, people have given a strong message to the political parties of this country. The message from the voters of four states and a union territory is clear and bold that corruption, political cynicism, arrogance in any form will not be tolerated and good governments will be rewarded wholeheartedly.

The World cup, 2011 has entered the third week, and this time there have been no major surprises, except for Ireland who have managed to cause quite a stir by causing the only upset of the tournament till now by beating England in a game that saw more than 650 runs being scored. Before the World Cup had actually started, India, England, and Australia were the likeliest to lift the world cup, and most likely in that order too. In the past three weeks, nothing has changed. Most teams are playing as was expected from them.

The much awaited Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is finally here. A lot of people were waiting for MNP to become a reality for various reasons, and many people were trying to push the date for MNP further off for various reason of their own.

The Telecom Regulatory authority of India (TRAI)had issued the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations in the month of September, 2009.

A nation represents the collective soul of the Individuals who are it’s Citizens, and the State in which a nation is… is a reflection of the attitude that it’s people have towards themselves and each other.
Why am I writing this today?
Because…
It’s August, the 15th again – the Indian Independence Day. What am I going to do for this occasion?. I’ll probably go to my hospital & do my duty, while feeling a little bad that this 15th Aug fell on a Sunday and I have been robbed of one of my 11 precious gazetted holidays…

The whole world is in a tight grip of soccer fever these days, or shall we say Vuvuzela fever this time. Even in India, in spite of the fact that the Indian team has never played a game in the football world cup finals, people are singing “just like a wavin’ flag” with great enthusiasm. South Africa, the host nation, is like a huge country on carnival. People, in their colourful attire, are supporting their favorite teams with the zeal of a kid who has just learnt cycling. So what is it about sports like football, or for that matter cricket in some parts of the world, that makes people go round?

It was a quiet Wednesday morning in Mumbai, on the 13th of January. And all I will remember of that day will be a 31 sec video that ran on a loop on YouTube, showing a girl holding her mobile and looking out of her terrace in disbelief as the city beneath her had suddenly disappeared under a thick cloud of dust. A voice kept breaking down in the background, “the world is coming to an end”. She didn’t realize how true her words were, that their world had actually come crashing down.