The Planning Commission and politicos, the deciders of the nation’s fate, seem singularly poor-blind. The sordid spectacle being staged in the name of the poor is at once sinister and sickening: Sinister owing to the seamless political posturings across parties; and sick because of the utter insensitivity of the numbers-oriented debate. The question is not who is on the side of the poor but the pervasive presence of poor. And it is inhuman to see the poor as just an ‘economic problem’.
Lyric loses lustre
Tamil filmdom has the distinction of creating and nurturing some of the greatest artistic talents ever. But it also has the selfish habit of appropriating them wholly. The lure and lucre that cinema offer have kept many a genius away from the larger canvas that they deserve.
Terror: The fatal error
A strange, sinister and self-defeating spectacle is now on show: ‘Let LeT be; first fix NaMo’, is the reigning credo of the rulers and a band of self-styled secular, liberal intelligentsia. To them, it does not seem to matter if terrorists thrive so long as Narendra Modi is kept in check. The benefit of doubt and bleeding hearts that the former evoke is matched only by the paranoia and partisan posturings of those against the latter.
Devils and deep seas
Strikes by public sector staff always raise my hackles. Lofty claims of national interest fall flat in the face of unmitigated misery caused to the very nation’s public the ‘public servants’ are supposed to serve. Besides, the parasitical self-interest that underlies the itch to shirk work is too obvious to be missed. At a theoretical-level too, public sector employees cannot be called the ‘proletariat’ or the ‘working class’ in the Marxian sense, even if one were to take Marx seriously.
