May 15, 2016
I want to laugh, I want to cry. I want to feel good, I want to feel bad. I want to love, I want to hate. I want to enjoy, I want to suffer. I want friends, I want enemies. I want to curse, I want to praise. I want to read, I want to […]
Read MoreApril 28, 2016
THE SUNDAY SUNDRIES The other day, while interacting with officer trainees in Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, I read out the Greek mythology related to Narcissus to trigger revulsion in their minds against the tendency to stare at a self-painted, self-flattering, make-belief reflection in their own minds about their own ultimate truthfulness, sincerity, […]
Read MoreApril 28, 2016
Felt nostalgic to find in Panjab University electronic catalogue my grandfather Professor Paras Ram Kaushalâs reference as author of some commemoration volumes titled âEssays presented to Sir Jadunath Sarkarâ.
Read MoreFebruary 19, 2011
Manifestoes have increasingly been used in the recent past for seeking votes by promising moon to the electors. It is perhaps the tyranny of the electorate that compels the political parties indulge in abrasive display of one-upmanship in offering sop after sop with no holds barred. There is no provision in our laws to ensure […]
Read MoreJanuary 20, 2011
Thatâs what my politically confused wife said while holding a cup of bed tea precariously close to my snoring nose. I was taken aback as it was she who had over the years encouraged my morning stupor for the tranquility she looked for. âJago Sarvesh Jagoâ she said, âWe have stepped into the Jago Eraâ. […]
Read MoreNovember 16, 2010
Friends, if we do not deliver, we shall perish. For saving us as a class from virtual redundancy and eventual extinction from the overall scheme of governance, we need to focus upon quantum and quality of citizen service delivery. The day has come when instead of looking at the peripherals in the name of administrative […]
Read MoreAugust 16, 2009
A stage comes in a bureaucratâs life when creativity gets buried under the dunes of monotonous official and domestic chores. The tragedy of beingâ inÂconsequential angelsâ is writ large on the faces of those who once solemnly resolved to act as the catalysts of change. The idealistic individual gets haplessly sucked into the gutter of […]
Read MoreAugust 12, 2009
I had named it âGood Morningâ. A Gurkha family living in the servant quarters of my neighbourâs house had reared it. Meticulously punctual in waking me up at the first sign of twilight, it crowed deafeningly to throw me out of bed. The early morning alarm was at times very irritating, particularly after the late […]
Read MoreJuly 30, 2009
After almost two decades, I have an occasion to walk across the bank of Chandigarh Sukhna Lake. I realise that it is ageing faster than I do. Silt seems to have choked its arteries, while dry patches show up like a boney rib-cage. It has gone pale. Its pristine glow is missing. Deforestation in the […]
Read MoreJuly 30, 2009
With the much valued media freedom having reached its acme and even extended itself to crude intrusions into private grief, ailment, distress and such personal matters which are ordinarily of no interest to the public, many questions agitate a thinking mind despite inherent respect for the institution. Basking under very weak defamation laws and their […]
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