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.

The day when you wake up and find that your city, no, your street has become a state unto itself is not a big impossibility now. But I would not simply close my eyes, and oppose or condemn anyone who asks for a separate state. We need to look at the history and the legitimacy of the demand, examine both these factors carefully and consider the sentiments and stifled voices of the people in that region. Only then can we make a call about any demand for statehood of any region. This brings us to the most hyped – and in the news – subject of Telangana.

The print media was called the Fourth Estate by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century.

Media, in any form, is a reflection of the society to which it belongs. Its role can be defined using the three E’s – to Enlighten, to Educate, and to Entertain. The role of media in spreading awareness is appreciable at times, but when things like TRP ratings come into the picture, the media resorts to an overdose of spreading awareness, creating havoc and panic as a result.

Today, India mourns as we remember the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attack on 26.11.2008. The nation is clamouring for justice for the martyrs – in the form of Kasab’s speedy trial and punishment – and for taking effective steps to prevent such things from happening in the future.The one thought in the mind of a majority of the people in India is – Kasab is the only one of the attackers who survived, and got caught – it is only fair that he meets the same fate as those of the victims of the crime perpetrated by him.

“Make him an offer he can’t refuse,” is an iconic line from an equally iconic book, The Godfather. The same principle probably applies to Amitabh Bachchan – give him an exorbitant amount of money and he wont refuse your offer, even if it involves hosting one of the crassest reality shows on television.

Once a legend, always a legend, they say. But, whether this applies to Amitabh Bachchan, who doesn’t seem to want the title anymore, is doubtful.

It was a usual lousy morning on a distant army post in Manipur for me, when I opened my eyes to the feebly shaking mobile which had already encountered seven missed calls. The screen read – ‘Home Calling’. Before I could utter a word, my mother, from the other end, like a burst from a machine gun, fired uncountable questions about my safety, my move, my leave, my health, my posting and….the war with China.

Last night I had a discussion with two of my closest friends. A debate that we generally have only in the confines of our home, and mostly in good humour. It’s said that religion, politics and sex should not be discussed in the public domain, therefore we try avoiding a debate on these issues publicly. The topic of the debate this time, however, was not any one of the three, but something related that is probably being discussed all over the world today. Something like a “clash of civilization” debate, where my friends were on one side teasing me for being a pseudo-secular.

During the journey of one’s life, one meets with, and hears about scores of personalities, but there are only a few who leave an indelible impression on one’s heart – former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in a helicopter crash on Wednesday (September 2nd, 2009), was one such personality. Four others, traveling with him on that fateful day, also died in the crash over Nallamalla forest area in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

Every now and then, a news channel or a news paper will have a piece on Economy – Recession, Bears, Bulls, Revival and other such economic mumbo-jumbo. But how many of us truly understand the Economy? It is not a thing that we can bind in rules and theories. Every Economics paper ever presented is basically based on the experiences and learnings of an individual, and how he or she feels while understanding the philosophy of economy. Economicsis not mere mathematics, it’s a spontaneous reaction of human kind to the situations they have created for themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, for better living, or for what their perception of better living is.

This so called black money affects the inflation in the country. It defies all the theories of economics. Thus whatever action the Reserve bank of India takes to curb the inflation, it is never effective as it has no effect on the amount of black money floating in the market, and as a result the prices of the commodities keep increasing in spite of the steps taken by the central bank to curb them. And no one is immune to price rise, regardless of the amount one may be earning.
However, despite its side effects we Indians are involved in this black money market in one way or another. Some of the ways in which we contribute to this black market are: