Radio and TV in India have both made tremendous gains ever since they were freed from government monopoly. With freedom has come abandon, which is at times becomes recklessness.

There is need to make students skilled workers through career-oriented course and in India, we have done precious little to provide vocational education to our students. As a result, there are thousands of students with degrees and no jobs. Heightened expectations after obtaining college degrees, lead to a tremendous amount of frustration, more so since these students find it “demeaning” to take up jobs that require skilled workers, not degree holders. We must provide proper vocational education at home, even now tens of thousands of Indian students are going abroad to study courses that promise jobs, sometime becoming targets for racists, the government must allow private players in the market and provide facilities to government-run institutions.

Nigella Lawson has a great following among people in India, I realised, after I had written a short middle on her, which was published in The Tribune on June 5, 2009. The call and comments that I have received were very emotional, from people who are fans of her show to some who appreciated the middle and an elderly gentleman who said “I ate into my inheritance”, quoting from the piece. Here, I have posted the original version, not the slightly edited one that was published, and a link to the review of Hardeep Singh Kohli’s book.

In India, the expression “do number ka mal” roughly translated as “number 2 stuff” is often used for underhand dealings and the like. The Palace of Westminster shook as the British public reeled from the exposures by The Daily Telegraph, about the misuse of the fund meant for expenses for a second home for the Members of Parliament. Writing a middle was one way of giving vent to what one felt about this issue….

Summer often reminds Stephanians like me of the good times we had and of Rothas’ Nimbu Pani. “There is hardly any nimbu, some sugar and a lot of water in Sukhia’s Nimbu Pani, but we all love it,” said a fellow student, yet the dhaba is rightly a part of college lore.  I wrote a little piece [...]