Tag: Sandeep Sahu

By Sandeep Sahu Midway into his five-year term, Narendra Damodardas Modi‘s record as Prime Minister has been a mixed bag. He has notched up some notable successes and some equally notable failures. On the positive side are a series of initiatives to put some life back into the moribund economy, the mainstreaming of cleanliness as […]

By Sandeep Sahu Indians are nothing if not ingenious. Trust them to turn adversity into a business opportunity. One just has to look at the innovative ways some people have devised to work around the ban on Rs 500 & 1000 notes that came as a bolt from the blue for the nation on November […]

By Sandeep Sahu To give or not to give? How many times have you been confronted with this dilemma when you see a prematurely ageing woman in tattered clothes holding a baby or a haggard looking man all wrapped up in bandages making a desperate plea for some alms at a traffic junction or outside […]

By Sandeep Sahu Suddenly, the worst fears about the Modi government are threatening to come true. The one-day ban on NDTV India, the Hindi channel from the NDTV stable, on November 9 imposed by the NDA government on the ground that it had revealed ‘strategically sensitive’ details during its coverage of the terrorist attack on […]

By Sandeep Sahu It is so easy to criticize the government. It can be blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong – from the rain gods playing truant to a bus falling off a bridge. That perhaps is the price of power. But there are times when one does wish not to be in […]

By Sandeep Sahu I seriously doubt if Sunita (name changed) has ever made a call on her mobile phone. Every time she makes a call, it’s a ‘missed call’, the Great Indian Innovation. For some reason which I am yet to figure out, her particular brand of missed call would be so brief that bat […]

By Sandeep Sahu Time was when the college campus was the cradle that spawned the leaders of the future. Before independence, the college campuses were the places where the issues of the day were debated, preparing student leaders for the long struggle ahead. In more recent times, the likes of Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, DP […]

By Sandeep Sahu From the dusty, tortuous roads of Kalahandi to an aircraft flying serenely 30, 000 feet above the ground, Dana Majhi has taken an incredible leap in three weeks. The man, who set off on a back-breaking trek back to his village located 60 kms away from Bhawanipatna with his dead wife’s body […]

As Facebook celebrates 12 years of its epoch-making existence, I thought I would write my two-penny worth tribute to this global behemoth that has compressed the world to the size of a computer screen.

It’s a classic case of cutting the nose to spite the face. With its lukewarm response to the Centre’s missive asking for the list of small and marginal farmers in the state for their inclusion in the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Yojana, the Naveen Patnaik government has made it amply clear that it […]

When a layman says something like this, it is at least understandable, if not condonable. But when a person holding the exalted post of Governor, who is sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution, does the same, it has serious implications for democracy and the Idea of India. Meghalya Governor Tathagata Roy has disgraced not […]

How naive and gullible some Indians can be! I was more amused than angry after witnessing the concerted effort by a section of our intellgentsia to hail Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan as a ‘statesman’ after his announcement about releasing wing commander Abhinandan, who was in the custody of the Pakistanis, as a ‘peace gesture.””Are […]

It is a pathetic attempt at falsification of history. Health minister Pratap Jena’s claim that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was founded on the ‘ideals’ of Biju Patnaik and the BJP had nothing to do with its formation must have made the legendary leader squirm in his grave. Unfortunately for Jena, there are plenty of […]

As soon as it was announced, commentators were quick to hail it as a ‘game changer’. But nearly a week down the line, it is increasingly becoming clear that the 33% reservation of Lok Sabha seats for women by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo in Kendrapara, the first time any party in India has done […]

It is a house on fire right now. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which has emerged the clear front-runner in most pre-election surveys, is currently busy firefighting after the announcement of the first list of party candidates for the simultaneous Lok Sabha polls in Odisha last Wednesday. The rate at which BJD leaders are […]