Tag: Scandeep

By Sandeep Sahu Come election time and suddenly, cine stars are in great demand. As per a well-established tradition, the most sought after among them invariably head for the party in power with the opposition having to make do with second and third rung stars and starlets from tinsel town. It was no different when […]

By Sandeep Sahu The inevitable has happened. After resisting complying with the Supreme Court order to lay down office as per the recommendations of the Justice RM Lodha Committee, Asirbad Behera, the uncrowned king of Odisha cricket who had an uninterrupted 16-year long reign as the all-powerful ‘Honorary’ secretary of the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA), […]

By Sandeep Sahu Nothing sells like sleaze. But when sleaze combines with crime and politics, it makes for an explosive concoction. And that is precisely what we have been witnessing for four days at a stretch now. The sex video allegedly featuring BJD leader and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena and its […]

By Sandeep Sahu The lengths – and depths – to which the state government went to foil the farmers’ rally proposed to be held in Bhubaneswar today by the Navnirman Krushak Sangha (NKS) make one wonder if it was really worth the trouble. The heavens would not have fallen if the farmers had been allowed […]

By Sandeep Sahu The ongoing CBI investigation into the multi-thousand crore chit fund scam is fast turning out to be a theatre of the absurd. More than a year after it last questioned Balasore MP Rabindra Jena and Laxmibilasini Biswal, wife of Choudwar-Cuttack MLA Pravat Biswal, in connection with the Seashore case, the agency suddenly […]

By Sandeep Sahu What Albert Einstein had said about Mahatma Gandhi could well be said – and equally befittingly – about Nabakrushna Choudhury, an illustrious disciple of the Father of the Nation. “Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” But in […]

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 It is no secret that politicians are held in extremely low esteem by most people in the country. And Monday provided yet another instance – if one was needed at all – why they are such a despised lot. The occasion was Union Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s visit to Malkangiri, which has […]

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 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 […]

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 […]