Month: August 2011

On 10th Aug., in less than half a minute, Maharashtra State Assembly passed ‘Maharashtra Self-Financed Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act’ and this has now formally opened the doors for Education barons and businessmen. Now in the free market, where educations is traded as commodity, they can run their ‘Education Malls’ and reap huge profits out of it, estimated to be worth USD $68 bn by 2012. read more

If Aadhar, currently in the process of registering every citizen of the country by providing each citizen with a Unique Identification Number (UID), comes into force then it would probably put Hitler, Mussolini or even the Rajapakse regime in Sri Lanka to shame. By gaining unprecedented access to each individual personnel and financial records, it would be a potential orwellian state in the making. read more

Nearly 2 years after the floods in Northern Karnataka that devastated the lives of many thousands of people there, the newly constructed houses ‘asare’ for those who lost their houses has acquired a caste dimension to it. The prospects of houses being distributed randomely among people irrespective of their caste had terrified many upper caste households, who could not imagine living with lower caste households as neighbors. Instead many of the upper caste members got together and occupied houses even before it was even alloted to them. While among the lower caste members the houses were distributed at random, many among the lower caste household feel that this outrage by the upper caste households will only lead to their further ostracization in an already caste ridden society. read more