Opinion News Updates

History is witness to the fact that meaningful social change has never come easy anywhere in the world. And when it is a conservative society bound by centuries of tradition like India, change becomes even more difficult. In this backdrop, the fact that not a single woman devotee in the menstruating age group could make […]

With a large number of people living within or close to forests, the phenomenon of humans being killed by wild animals is not exactly uncommon in India. Human greed and rapacity has seen the country’s forest cover shrink rapidly since Independence, forcing wild animals to stray into human habitations in search of food with increasing […]

When something happens twice, it is coincidence. But when it happens, without fail, every single time on a dozen or so different occasions, there has to be something more than coincidence to explain it away. A few years ago, I returned from a party late at night and went straight to bed. On waking up […]

Zero to 26 in four days flat. That is certainly an incredible leap for a government, which had stuck to its ‘zero casualty’ boast till Friday. Even after Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Bishnupada Sethi confirmed 26 deaths due to Cyclone Titli on Tuesday morning, an unapologetic Surjya Narayan Patro refused to admit that anyone had […]

Watching a short, two and a half minute long video posted by someone on Twitter recently, I was awestruck by the spring in the feet of the Birthday Boy who is celebrating his 76th birthday today: Amitabh Bachchan aka Big B. It was a scene from a film shoot. The septuagenarian actor, who has straddled […]

Even as cyclonic storm ‘Titli’ is all set to hit Odisha early on Thursday morning, there is no sign on the state’s radar of another storm that has hit both mainstream and social media in India for nearly two weeks now: the #MeToo campaign that has already put a host of celebrities from the world […]

For the suave, educated, well-bred city dweller, raised to appreciate and relish the ‘finer things’ of life, the mere thought of someone eating rats may make him/her want to puke. But it is staple ‘diet’ for thousands of Musahar (rat-catcher) families in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, not because they love its taste but because they […]

Pre-election ‘surveys’ are the flavour of the season. And true to form, we have worked ourselves into a tizzy over the findings of two back to back surveys – the India Today ‘Political Stock Exchange’ survey and ABP C-Voter ‘Desh ka Mood’ poll – coming within a week of each other. While the India Today […]

Coming as it does so soon after the disastrous England tour, the commanding victory against the West Indies by an innings and 272 runs at Rajkot today should have lifted the spirits of the Indian Test cricket fan (this writer certainly counts himself as one!), despondent after the merciless drubbing in Old Blighty. Instead, it […]

Twenty seven and counting. That is the number of colleges where elections have been cancelled after a wave of violence swept campuses across the state in the past few days. Add to this list five universities – Utkal, Berhampur, Sambalpur, Ravenshaw and North Odisha – and you get an idea of the extent of the […]

Act first, think later. That appears to be the golden principle the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has been following religiously. Any hope that the change of guard at the top would put the messy affairs of the 12th century shrine back in order was rudely shattered on Wednesday when hundreds of angry residents of […]

There is a particularly poignant scene in Sir Richard Attenborough’s iconic 1984 film ‘Gandhi’ where a crowd of rustic looking men marches ahead with quiet determination, two at a time, to be baton-charged by policemen. A group of women in white sarees tow the men away as they collapse to the ground under the impact […]

Everyone in India, even the unlettered, has an opinion on everything under the sun. So, it was not at all surprising to find people from all walks of life holding forth with their own interpretation on the Supreme Court ruling rendering Sec 497 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) null and void. The facts of […]

It is a fraud on people. First, the then chief administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Suresh Mohapatra, for reasons that have never been explained, took over two years to complete the investigation into the fiasco in the all-important Brahma Parivartan ritual of the Holy Trinity during the Nabakalebara in 2015. [Considering that […]

Politicians must be heaving a huge sigh of relief at the Supreme Court decision to lob the ball to the court of Parliament on the question of disqualification of candidates charge sheeted in criminal cases. They know Parliament is their ‘playground’ and they can frame their own rules of the game. Many of them must […]