Seven thousand fanatical Christians have boycotted the census because they believe Nilekani’s unique identification project is Satan’s plan to rule the world.
When you have around 145,000 street vendors serving over 230 varieties of dishes—tasty, hygienic and dirt cheap—to nearly 10 million customers daily, it is a phenomenon by itself.
The despondent Left in West Bengal may be in for some real trouble real soon. The Congress and Trinamool are working towards an alliance to oust them from power in the state.
Some of them haven’t even attained puberty. But Maoists think nothing of brainwashing them to their cause and thrusting guns in their unsuspecting hands, using them to fight armed forces, lay land mines and inform on their kith and kin. This is the story of thousands of lost childhoods.
TCA Raghavan is a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and Singapore. His first book, Attendant Lords: Abdur Rahim and Bairam Khan: Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India, was awarded the Mohammad Habib Prize by the Indian History Congress. He is also the author of The People Next Door: The Curious History of India’s Relations with Pakistan and History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G S Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and Their Quest for India’s Past. His latest book is Circles of Freedom: Love, Friendship and Loyalty in the Indian National Struggle