Monthly Archives: February 2014

By Bhavya Naxal terrorism, today, tops the list of internal threats to national interests in India. Most of us have heard, or read about Naxalism and the Red Corridor, and thanks to the coverage it gets, most of us are even familiar with what actually Naxalism is about, and its history and its role in politics and so on and...

By Shreya Election fever has caught hold of everyone; Congress and BJP both are preparing their pitches and designing and altering them according to their requirements. For the Congress, the Food Security Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill remain the only two main achievements that it could showcase before these elections. Congress is trying to transfer votes by introducing new...

By Mahak Walking back to home from college when I showed one of my guy friends a girl I found pretty, all that he said was “she is dark”. I can’t comment about the world but “India” is definitely obsessed with “color”. Especially, when it comes to “Indian men”,   they seem to give a lot of preference to “fairness”, that...

  By Nikita Rana From giant bricks to feature phones to touch screens… cell phone industry have always had something new and exciting for humans... And when touch became boring, air gestures were introduced for specific tasks, and the time is not far away when we will witness bendable screens phones in India also. Samsung, caption of Industry, has its hands in...

By  Mahima Rana The other day my roommate was playing “Sunny Sunny” on repeat, the entire day. Irritation level at its peak, I turned on my laptop just in time to read about Rohail Hyatt not producing the next season of Coke Studio Pakistan. This made me sad but was also a reminder about the purity of music the show...

By Kriti Kaul Music reverberates everywhere. There is little wonder then that music has acted as a muse, as an inspiration for cinema as well. A thorough cataloguing would probably throw up hundreds of such movies, however, as a music lover; I would say the following make for a great weekend viewing- ⦁    Chicago- An Academy Award winning musical film, it...

By Nikita Madan   Hasee To Phasee (mind you the title has no relevance to the film!) is a refreshing take on the clichéd boy meet girl story. The film directed by Vinil Mathew and produced by Karan Johar‘s Dharma Productions and  Phantom Productions, which is run by four filmmakers Anurag Kashyap , Vikramaditya Motwane, Vikas Bahl and Madhu Mantena is...

By Harshita Kain   In the recent years, stars have invaded our lives in each and every possible way. While earlier the presence of Bollywood celebrities could only be felt in cinemas and theaters, these days they can be seen everywhere. Be it on the small screen, newspapers and even on covers of magazines or hoardings. From Shahrukh to Salman, every actor...

By Nikita Defying the conventional way of writing, I would like to start with a disclaimer: This article might sound to one a bit overfilled with emotions and “effeminate”. Some might not want to spend the next few minutes reading a not very “informative” piece. But to those who wish to give it a chance, this is my personal experience...

By Shreya Do you really enjoy driving to work every day? What is it that puts you off: the actual drive or the utter lack of driving sense of fellow drivers on your way? How many times have you waited patiently in a queue (bank, railway ticketing etc), only to have someone else just jump the queue? How many times...

By Kokil Sachdeva   “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote down ‘happy’! They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life.” - John Lennon Happiness is that one...

By Shreya 16 December 2012 has been marked as black day in Indian history, when a 23 year old paramedical student, Jyoti Singh was gangraped in a moving bus by 6 men in New Delhi, not only was she gangraped, but was also brutalised; she displayed immense strength and courage but unfortunately could not sustain the injuries and lost the...

By Shreya The congress meltdown at Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh etc. etc.......maybe the list will end with general elections of 2014, which may mark the end of congress dynasty rule in India. Rahul Gandhi has made stump speeches but failed to win sufficient backing. Even the aggressive campaigning ahead of the vote by all party members didn’t secure them votes....

By Bhavya If Kiev is raging today, its reasons are, in-depth, political-economic in nature.  The unrest is primarily due to the dissatisfaction among people with the economic set up of the country. Ukraine's largest trade partner is the supranational organization called EU, but it is followed close by Russia, which ranks first among the list of countries Ukraine trades with....

 By Abhilasha So my inspiration to write this article basically came from a dinner table conversation I was having with my dad, who turns out to be a staunch supporter of Narendra Modi and the so called ‘Hindutva’ ideology of the BJP. The conversation started out as a perfectly healthy discussion on what may or may not happen in the...

By Abhilasha Perhaps the most commonly heard term on most news channels and most frequently contested issue on all debates: Telangana. There are innumerable controversies and geo-political issues associated with and intermingled into each and every alphabet of this nine letter word. The entire problem can be traced back to 1953 when Telangana had been carved out of the Madras presidency...

By Abhilasha Yes, she is definitely superwoman! She is the most trusted woman in Barrack Obama’s life, and no, I'm not talking about Michelle Obama here!! This 67 year old female controls the economy of the world’s largest superpower and has proudly taken up that task sporting a wide smile on her face. Any guesses…I know you guys must have...

By- Smriti Joinwal Nowadays, all of us want to look the best. Size zero is completely in and we can go to any heights to achieve it. Little we know that along with a lean figure we are subjected to other harmful effects which we had not bargained for. The main problem is that people, who go into a frenzy diet to...

By- Harshita Sharma Can money buy happiness? Is every rich person happy and every poor person unhappy? If we assume this assertion to be true then the possible reason behind it could be that due to poverty people cannot afford the basic necessities of life like good food, shelter and healthcare facilities which reduces their life expectancy and increase their chances of acquiring...

By- Ira Sharma Any one would be shocked to hear that inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the past two decades, and thesaddest part is that it makes our country one of the worst performers among emerging economies. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says the top 10% of wage earners make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, as compared to six times 20 years ago. The paris based OECD is a grouping of 34 advanced and emerging economies.  The OECD says India has the highest number of poor in the world. In India the ratio between the top and the bottom wage earners has doubled since the early 1990s, and the saddest part is that India has also not fared well in poverty reduction. It says 42% of Indians live below the poverty line, as against the official Indian figure of 37%. Recently, the Indian government was criticized for saying that an individual income of 25 rupees (52 US cents) a day would help provide for adequate private expenditure on food, education and health in villages. I, on my part would challenge the members of the Planning Commission to live on 25 rupees  or 32 rupees a day till such a time that they are able to explain to the public in simple words the basis of the statement that this amount is 'normatively adequate'. Even the countries like Indonesia, Argentina have recorded significant progress in reducing inequality over the past 20 years. The most interesting part is many experts came up and argued that the income limit to define the poor was too low and aimed at artificially reducing the number of people below the poverty line and in return power holders didn't even gave it a wise thought. Even World Bank also stated that attempts made by Indian Government to combat poverty were not working. Aid programmes were beset by corruption, bad administration and under­payments. The Indian government has released its latest census, its population has grown by over 17% in the last decade to 1.21billion people. The figure indicate the kind of social and economic progress India has made over the past decade, but also highlights where India lags behind.

By Anusha Gupta, 2014 is the year to watch out for, not only will it see the most landmark Lok Sabha elections of our times, it will also see India changing in ways in which we had never manifested. Amidst the hue and cry around corruption, economic policy and Honey Singh, what is lying unnoticed is India’s manoeuvre in Afghanistan. A...

Devbagh??! What place is that? That was my first reaction. When this place was initially described to me over the phone, my uncle said "hum kohliyon ke gaon mein ja rahe hain; forget your wi-fi, welcome drinks and five-star food". I'll be honest, it didn't sound very welcoming. But Boy! Was I pleasantly surprised on reaching there (after 12...

By- Smriti Joinwal India boasts of one of the largest school systems in the world with 13,623,24 elementary schools (DISE 2011) and 19, 5000 secondary and higher secondary sections in 2009-10. The country has made tremendous efforts in achieving 100% literacy rate but unfortunately there has been no paradigm shift. Something is surely amiss. We need to find out what went wrong and help tackle the...

By- Yash Sood The debate over who is the best tennis player of all time is quickly changing from a deliberation to a rhetorical question. Is it Roger Federer, the 32-year old Swiss wizard who has won a record 17 grand slams or Rafael Nadal who holds an impressive 23-10 record against Roger and is the winner of 13 grand slams himself. I...

By-Yash Sood Juan Mata’s transfer to Manchester United has surprised many as the Spaniard was one of Chelsea’s best players in recent seasons (Accidentally Player of the season for Chelsea for the last 2 seasons.) However, a number of reasons have made the 25-year-old’s life miserable at Stamford Bridge and thus, a move to Old Trafford gives a welcome opportunity to the Spaniard. Buying Mata...