Who are these people? Salman Khan's 'airline' themed Bigg Boss 8 fails to take off

The cream of Indian reality shows began last night. I’m not being sarcastic.

Bigg Boss really is the crème de la crème of reality TV in India. And this is purely because of Salman Khan. Whatever we may think of his acting chops or lack thereof, his superstar status makes his hosting a reality show equivalent to having Brad Pitt hostBigg Brother US.

But that’s the where the glory of the show ends this season.

We don't need PM Modi's new 'smart' cities, we need to run the existing ones better

Fourteen years ago, when Bill Clinton was issued a driver’s licence in minutes by the then Chandrababu Naidu government in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, a classmate in Hyderabad immediately decided to bring my excitement and awe to a quick end.

“Don’t exult yet. Things can go wrong: the computer or the printer may not work, or the cussed clerk at the counter may just not let them work.”

This is more or less a truism of a sort, for later I discovered that a senior secretary to the Maharashtra government would just not get to read my emails. His PA with the password would be on leave, or in those days of limited sizes of the mailboxes, wouldn’t have cleaned it up. My mails would bounce back. It was exasperating to have access to technology and not use it.

Have you taken the Rice Bucket Challenge in India?

Desi Challenge for Desi Needs, Cook or buy one bucket of Rice / Biryani and feed the needy.

The whole world seems to be busy pouring buckets of ice water on themselves for spreading awareness and raising funds for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. 

But Manjulatha Kalanidhi, a 38-year-old resident of Hyderabad took inspiration from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and started the Rice Bucket Challenge to cater to needs of our country.

The challenge is simple but significant. All you have to do is donate cooked or uncooked rice to someone in need, post a picture with him or her on social networking sites and nominate four other friends to do the same.

Bigg Boss 8 ready to take off on 21st September 2014

Salman Khan as a dashing pilot in the new teasers of Bigg Boss 8, has increased the curiosity level of the viewers. In the promo, the Bollywood actor and Bigg Boss host promises to take the contestants, as well as the viewers, on a thrilling flight.

This year's theme will reflect in the new set of the Bigg Boss house, located in Lonavla, which has been designed to resemble a jumbo aircraft. A source says, "To elevate the excitement level, the house will be designed as the interior of an aircraft, just as last year's season seven was designed as heaven and hell." Sources further revealed that the house will also have a waiting lounge and two different sections for Economy and Business class.

Exclusive: 'Invisible Strings – The IB Report On NGOs'

Anti-growth. Anti-Hindu. Movement-buster. Reactionary. Corrupt. NGOs have drawn flak for one reason or the other. While there is a clear case for cleaning up the voluntary sector, nothing justifies this attempt at muffling dissent.

The Hindu nationalist. The neo-liberal. The grassroots activist. The Leftist. Everybody, it seems, has a reason to hate NGOs.

Some, like political commentator Radha Rajan who edited a collection of essays titled NGOs, Activists and Foreign Funds: Anti-Nation Industry, have charged several NGOs with “de-Hinduising India” and sought to expose “the essentially anti-Hindu activism of some NGOs and activists… and their foreign sponsors, supporters and funders who have their own vested interests in keeping the Hindus in this state of powerlessness”.

How hoarders and retailers are ripping off the govt in cigarette sales?

Every year, the Union Budget is a universal nail-biter. Members of the working class think of how much they have to shell out in taxes, companies work out how to avoid them using creative accounting techniques, the income tax department sits and thinks of new ways to ensure that you pay what you owe, and keyboard warriors go viral on social media decrying excess taxation, State spending, sops, no sops and so on.

Everybody’s woes are recorded except one group, who are consumers of a $4 billion industry — smokers, who shell out for the taxes and the production cost of cigarettes and a substantial amount in illegal profiteering, which generates thousands of crores of rupees in tax-evaded money.

Why Intel Agencies Are Wary Of Hiring Muslims And Sikhs?

SPECIAL REPORT: In the third year of UPA-2, the then prime minister Manmohan Singh called a meeting of top officials of the Special Protection Group (SPG), the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to seek advice on whether the representation of Muslims in the intelligence agencies could be increased, whether they should be allowed to join RAW and whether to end the ban on the entry of Sikhs and Muslims into SPG. The officers reportedly pointed out that any such move would be risky. They asked who would take the blame if something went wrong after the established system was tinkered with. Nothing came out of that meeting and the issue was never raised again.

Intelligence agencies in India have long followed an unwritten ‘no entry’ policy for Muslims (though there have been a few Muslim officers in the IB), while Sikhs are banned from SPG, formed in 1984 to provide security to the prime minister, and the National Security Guard (NSG), the elite anti-terror force functioning under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. “This is not a new policy. There have been no Muslim officers in RAW since its formation in 1969,” says a former RAW officer. “It has its own reasons for following this policy.”

Who is Responsible For Crimes Against Women?

While everything from the manner in which women dress to the eating of fast food and the use of mobile phones has been added to the cause list of why appalling crimes against women continue to take place in India’s most populous state, a recent report points to ‘unspeakable neglect of women’s rights, hatred, misogyny, and breakdown of governance, crisis and justice protocols’ as the actual reasons behind this trend.

Based on findings from primary research undertaken in Badaun, Sitapur and Bareilly- all three scenes of recent, sordid crimes, the 28 page report (titled ‘Report and Recommendations on Crimes Against Women in Uttar Pradesh’) puts the root of these crimes in ‘administrative lathery coupled with collusion between the police, politicians and local goons’ which leads to general lawlessness. Add to these a police system that places the onus of proof on the victim, a generally unsupportive social structure, woefully few police women, lack of any kind of training on dealing with crimes against women and it becomes clear why the state turned in the highest number of complaints of harassment and crimes against women to the National Commission for Women (2853 out of 2889 in 2011).