Tag: Sandeep Sahu

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 […]

By all accounts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went farther in his criticism of the Naveen Patnaik government at the two back to back public meetings in Talcher and Jharsuguda on Saturday than he has done since coming to power in May, 2014. The rally in Jharsuguda, in particular, was significant because it marked the first […]

For well over a week now, the state has been riveted on the unseemly round of charges and counter charges between expelled BJD leader Dr. Damodar Rout and his former party. While this was entirely expected, what has come as a surprise is the viciousness with which both sides have been aiming their barbs at […]

Naveen Patnaik has certainly redefined politics in Odisha. When he entered the scene in April, 1997, he was like a breath of fresh air in the filthy, stinking cesspool that Odisha politics had been reduced to. In the two decades since then, the man who was a complete greenhorn then has metamorphosed into a consummate […]

It came 68 years too late. But Thursday will certainly go down in history as a landmark in India’s progress towards becoming a modern, liberal democracy. In reading down the obnoxious Sec 377 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), a relic of the Victorian era, in a unanimous 5-0 verdict, the Supreme Court has righted a […]

A picture, they say, tells a thousand words. Just look at the picture above for proof. It is sad to see Lal Krishna Advani, the man who played a key role in the BJP’s transformation from a pariah till the 1980s to the pre-eminent political party in the country today, standing like a supplicant with […]

Talk of marijuana/cannabis/pot/grass – better known as ganja in India – and the image that most people conjure up is one of a group of rickshaw pullers puffing away merrily on their chillums by the roadside. Those who smoke the stuff are seen as losers in life trying to cope with their frustrations and disappointments. […]

In his death, Atal Bihari Vajpayee may have provided the BJP just the shot in the arm it needed ahead of the 2019 elections. While he was alive and ailing, very few in the party bothered about him. In fact, it is entirely possible that had he not been ailing and confined to his home, […]

Now that the High Court has struck down the October 22, 2017 notification issued by the state government insisting on an affidavit to be furnished by the agitating teachers before they become eligible for revised pay under the grant-in-aid (GIA) policy as violative of the fundamental rights granted to all citizens under Articles 14 & […]

It all sounds so eerily familiar. Three members of a tribal family die in a span of 18 hours after consuming a gruel made of fermented mango kernel in Mainapadar village in Jharigaon block of Nabarangpur district. And within an hour or so of the last of the three deaths, a minister is quick to […]

Trust the Modi government to come up with one crazy idea after another. As if the ambitious – but foolish – decision to go for a bullet train, costing upwards of Rs. One lakh crore, wasn’t bad enough, it has now given ‘in-principle’ consent to the proposal for setting up a ‘sea aerodrome’ at Chilika […]

Last week, the appointment of senior IPS officer Satyajit Mohanty as the Commissioner of Twin City police replacing YB Khurania made big news in the local media. As soon as the announcement was officially made, it was splashed across TV channels as ‘Big Breaking’/’Breaking News’. All TV channels went live when the new police chief […]

Laxmidhar is distraught. The man from Tigiria, who looks after his family of five with the paan-cum-tea shop he runs below the under-construction Lingaraj Vihar flyover in Bhubaneswar, is about to be squeezed out of his place. “Where shall we go? Please do something for us. Sir,” pleads Laxmidhar, not ready to believe that there […]

The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been frequently pilloried and ridiculed for being a ‘jumla sarkar’ – and justifiably so. But surprisingly, the fact that the Naveen Patnaik dispensation in Odisha has been no less a ‘jumla’ government appears to have escaped the attention of commentators in our state. Forget the charges made […]

As the circumstances leading to the death of Rakbar Khan, who was lynched by a ‘gau rakshak’ mob in Alwar in Rajasthan on Saturday night on suspicion of illegally carrying cattle, come to the fore, it is becoming increasingly clear that his life could have been saved had the cops been a little less callous […]