So, Barack Obama has won the race to the White house, and there is jubilation all around, with much talk about breaking of racial glass ceilings and so on. Whether or not Obama is a “typical” African-American (after all, his father was a recent, educated immigrant from Kenya, and his mother white), symbolically, it is still a […]
Posted on November 6th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Other Social issues in India | 6 Comments »
What comes to mind when you think of famine, of people starving, of death from hunger ? Africa, isn’t it? Harsh as that may sound, most of us tend to associate that unfortunate continent with the misery of famine and hunger - Ethiopia, Somalia - these are the names that come to mind. Though we […]
Posted on October 21st, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Other Social issues in India | 3 Comments »
The other day, I was talking to my sister about this feeling I have increasingly; this feeling that I am living an extremely privileged life due to what is essentially an accident of birth. I didn’t always feel this way. When I was younger, my focus was mainly on what I wanted to do, the […]
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Other Social issues in India | 8 Comments »
A few days ago, when I thought about the conflict parents face when their daughters become “too liberal”, I was really thinking from my own perspective as an educated, young, urban professional. When a commenter mentioned that liberalism does not yet extend to accepting choices such as homosexuality, I was, at first, a bit startled. […]
Posted on July 17th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism in India | No Comments »
Religious leaders in India do their best to outdo one another - not in wisdom, compassion or charity, but in demanding concessions, sticking to outmoded ways of seeing and doing things, generally being intolerant of anything, etc. So, a few years ago, RSS Chief K.S.Sudarshan urged Hindus to have atleast 3 children. Now it is […]
Posted on June 17th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Other Social issues in India, Women & Feminism in India | No Comments »