Asian Lite News Archive

Category: COLUMNS

  • THE WAITING GAME

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    Daily Dose By Bikram Vohra It is a sobering thought but people spend as much as thirty percent of their waking hours waiting. That’s all. Just waiting. In queues. With patience and with resignation. Isn’t that incredible? That is nearly as much as we sleep. So, it is a kind of stand-up sleep. I did…

  • IT’S THE FACE THAT COUNTS

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    DAILY DOSE BY BIKRAM VOHRA You must have heard of the RAF syndrome: it is known as Rent a Face. What happens here is that the owner of a company discovers this super-boss fellow who looks and plays the part and he is appointed at a salary that is more than the combined salaries of…

  • Plight of Yazidis by Yaser Yunes

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    To escape IS jihadis, Yazidis hide on Mount Sinjar…writes Yaser Yunes from  Mosul, Iraq Recent inroads by militants of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Yazidi territory in Iraq have led 2,500 people to seek refuge on Mount Sinjar, which has become a safe haven for the minority Kurdish sect for the second time this year.…

  • THE TROUBLE WITH TELESPEAK

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    DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra They came from London to this terrific job in the Gulf and the first day he went to work and his wife called his office and was told by the operator that he wasn’t in his cabin. “Not in his cabin,” she said, ” Not in his cabin, but that’s…

  • A GOOD NEWS! Exercise is bad for your health…

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    Nury Vittachi in his column Funny Side analyses the other side of exercise  Your narrator met an old friend while practising for a triathlon the other day. That is, he was practising for a triathlon: I’d just taken a taxi to the shop for a second box of donuts. NOT that that means this writer…

  • ALL I WANT TO DO TO IS RELAX!

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra However, in recent years, I noticed a marked craving for relaxation. It’s almost a fetish. Visualise the hurried executive at work. He looks at his watch, “I’m off”, he says, leaping up. “I have 90 minutes relaxation period now”. “Come on”, he exhorts body, “ree-lax, hurry up”. “I’ve got to…

  • THE LAMENT OF THE LONELY BACHELOR

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Have you noticed how newlyweds suddenly having discovered true marital bliss (where was she hiding all this time) now believe it is their mission in life to get all their bachelor friends stampede down the same bridal path? the won’t leave them alone. It becomes a mission like you have…

  • Plight of Palestine refugees

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU, looks into the plight of Palestinian Refugees During the donor conference held in Cairo a few days ago, the US, EU, and other countries pledged $2.7 billion for reconstruction in Gaza. It is undoubtedly necessary to make such a humanitarian effort…

  • Oil prices may put Modi on reform mode

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    By Saroj Mohanty  One single international development that has not received the kind of play it deserves in the Indian media but is keenly watched in policy-making and strategic circles is the falling prices of oil – despite the geopolitical uncertainties in the Middle East and Nigeria – whose impact could be felt in government…

  • SPIK INGLIS OLL RONG!

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    DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra Many of us speak English with a forked tongue. Say that in a nice way. Like we mess about with the language, mangling it like laundry without realising we are doing that. Yesterday I heard a high profile executive say he has to ‘cope up’ with the situation, whatever the…

  • Erdogan scripting his last act in Kobane

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    By Saeed Naqvi  It was a toss up between Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. In fact, compared to Lula’s two terms as president, Erdogan completed three glorious terms as prime minister. With the downturn in the global economy in 2009, Turkey towered above regional economies. One comparison was particularly…

  • LOYALTY AND THE RAW CARROT

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    DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra                                  LOYALTY AND THE RAW CARROT So common these laments. I treated him like a son and taught him everything and he just walked out on me for a fistful of dollars. He was raw as…

  • Fair, Slim and Tall…

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    Sabina Ahmed looks into the matrimonial adverts which specify that the girl should be “fair, slim and tall                                                   Fair, Slim and Tall… It seems in this day and age, considering that…

  • Will Modi reform defence or bite the bullet?

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    By C. Uday Bhaskar  Former Indian Navy chief, Admiral D.K. Joshi, who had resigned in February this year after a number of accidents on naval platforms, has dwelt on the background to his unprecedented decision in an extended media interview and in the process shed much needed light on the deeply embedded institutional flaws that…

  • Special Report: India’s ties with Morocco

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    Tarun Basu recently toured Morocco at the invitation of the Moroccan government. He is saying India should engage more with Morocco Two vignettes stand out from a recent trip to Morocco — one, a smartly-dressed woman police officer flags down an errant male driver at a busy Rabat intersection and ticks him off for a traffic violation;…

  • Saeed Naqvi on UK air strikes

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    Ankara, Baghdad and Riyadh ask: Are US air strikes working? …asks Saeed Naqvi  The ISIS, plaguing many countries in West Asia, made a symbolic assertion during Haj too. At the ritual stoning of the devil at Mina, five kilometres to the East of Mecca, fluttered a black banner of the Islamic State (IS). The police said…

  • HOW RICH IS THE WRECKAGE?

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra The two elements needed to indict any motorist in India is to have him own a foreign made luxury car and live in a posh area. If he then finds himself in an accident he is nailed to the cross with glee and malice flowing like lava from the those…

  • Indian States Beckons Investments

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    States as magnets for investment – Column: Active Voice by  Amit Kapoor and Sankalp Sharma0 The theory that developing countries should attract investments is based on the fact that investments, especially FDIs have immense ability to raise the standard of living of the people. FD’s continued to be the most significant foreign inflows to developing countries in 2014. If…

  • Bad Karma and Good Karma

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    Kill a pest and karma’s going to get you…writes Nury Vittachi  in his weekly column The Funny Side A tiny lizard has been clinging to the wall behind me for two hours. I want to change the TV channel but I feel I ought to at least ask him, right? Yeah, I know it’s irrational but…

  • Irony of peace award amid border friction

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    By C Uday Bhaskar  In a surprise announcement, India’s little-known child rights adherent Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai have together been awarded this year’s prestigious Nobel Peace Prize “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”. This prize assumes significance not only…

  • Leaving No Escape Route For ISIS

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU, says ISIS is a movement driven by religious fanaticism that rejects any other brand of Islam and defies any limits or constraints to achieve their perverse objective to establish a Caliphate encompassing Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and…

  • Holistic infrastructure development needed for India

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    By Amit Kapoor & Sankalp Sharma  India is an infrastructure-starved country – be it roads, ports, railways, airports, power generation or distribution facilities, irrigation facilities, access to telecom infrastructure or even the very basic housing and sanitation infrastructure. Some people also prefer to call it an implementation deficit. But the terminology makes little difference to…

  • UPSTAGED BY SONS IN LAWS

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra My son in law has just bought an iPhone Plus, something that does everything his old phone used to do but only better. It is a sleek piece of silver steel or titanium, (not that I would know), and after I hide my 99 dirham Nokia so the difference is…

  • Do we care?

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    Sabina Ahmed: I think we need to say it loud and clear, those of us who follow the true spirit of Islam, that it is not right to kill innocent people and put them on the video                             Do we care? The…

  • REVIEW: Modi’s US visit

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    Saroj Mohanty says Modi co-opts US business in remaking India  One thing that singularly defined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high voltage US visit was the open courting of American capital and his efforts to alter the narrative about India as an investment destination. In his individual and collective meetings with business leaders in New York…

  • Will Modi’s broom sweep away legal cobwebs?

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    By Parmod Kumar   The Narendra Modi government is determined to clean up the country in more ways than one. In an ambitious move, the government intends to junk in one stroke at least 287 obsolete laws and thousands of old appropriation bills which are choking the statute book. Not only does India have one of…

  • PLEASE BE QUIET MR YESUDAS

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra What is wrong with smart, clever people they can say such stupid things? Where was the need of an accomplished, wel l-respected celebrity like Yesudas to sound off about women wearing jeans. And then indicting himself for his hypocrisy when pictures off his daughters in law in exactly that apparel.…

  • Clean India: Mindsets need to change

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    Rupesh Dutta says mindsets need to change if India wants to clean the country from filth Mindsets need to change if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India Mission to make the country litter and squalor free in the next five years is to succeed, diplomats and foreign tourists say. “I believe…

  • Saeed Naqvi on Modi’s dry Hindi

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    Saeed Naqvi is asking Indian Prime Minister to use more Hindustani than Sanskritized Hindi to wider audience  I did not understand a word of what our prime minister said at the United Nations General Assembly. Well, except for words like “taaqatwar”, “rozgar” and “zahir”, all other words were beyond my comprehension. I had to fall back on translation.…

  • Is Didi Going the Amma way?

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    Anurag Dey says legal battles are Mamata’s Achilles’ heel?  The legal woes of West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee government seem to be unending. Constantly embroiled in legal battles, it has now been reprimanded by the courts, prompting the opposition to question the existence of rule of law in the state. In a blow to the ruling Trinamool…

  • Abbas’ dismal failure at the UN

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir says instead of using the occasion to provide constructive proposals and use reconciliatory language to advance the cause of peace, he engaged in acrimonious and discordant statements against Israel that did nothing but further embitter and alienate the Israeli public, whose support he needs the most to realize Palestinian aspirations As someone…

  • ASIAN GAMES: THE BIG FAT CHEATS

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Cheating is just that. Cheating. Sarita Devi was not a sore loser when she refused her medal. She was a sore winner and rightfully so. Even her opponent agreed she had been thrashed by Sarita. That no Indian official came to make the protest is also par for the course.…

  • SPECIAL COLUMN: Keeping us safe

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     Sabina Ahmed looks into the Home Secretary’s move to curtail rights in the name of safety and national security                     Keeping us safe The Home Secretary gave a rousing speech to the Conservative conference. We need to, she said, give extra powers to the security services, to…

  • Emerging issues in the regional race

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    Amit Kapoor in his weekly column Active Voice looks into the issues affecting regional competitiveness An emerging theme in the area of competitiveness is the importance of regional competitiveness as the right unit of analysis. It includes not just the endowments one has like natural resources but also how one is able to utilize endowments and…

  • WHAT SORT OF A STAFFER ARE YOU?

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra The next time you hear someone say, “but that’s the way we’ve always done it” suggest you take him for a long one way walk. It must rank as the most annoying cop out available for avoiding doing something. The award winning Urdu writer Quratulain Haider once said that anyone…

  • MODI ON THE MIKE

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra The UN General Assembly is one of the worst places to give a speech. The atmosphere is dull and dreary, the podium is small and apologetic, there is scarcely anyone in the vast cavern and no one is really listening. You ignite little passion and are often one of a…

  • ISIS the real Saudi nightmare

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    By Saeed Naqvi  In President Barack Obama’s initial list of the coalition against the Islamist State (ISIS) are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan. Others are being cajoled, tempted, lured but are not quite there. India too was sounded. Mercifully, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is embarked on a mission of economic diplomacy. He…

  • Modi will market Brand India

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    By Ranjana Narayan When Prime Minister Narendra Modi sits down to breakfast with the CEOs of top US companies Monday, he will be speaking to them with the knowledge and authority of a business honcho who knows what he wants and can possibly market India as an investment destination better than anyone else. The prime…

  • THE MADNESS OF MOTIVATION

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra You have to be a professional moron to fall for such drivel. I have this friend who is into psycho-executive analysis which sounds very heavy but what it means is that people are not happy in their work and he makes them feel better about the situation. For this he…

  • ISIS:  Illusions Vs Reality

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir looks in to the rise of ISIS as a global threat and the US strategy to destroy it Much has been said about President Obama’s strategy to degrade and eventually “destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Regardless of the soundness of the President’s strategy, to ensure greater success in…

  • By Modi, about Modi ‘Make in India’

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    By Prashant Sood  The launch of “Make in India” campaign here was as much about the new initiative as about the man behind it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the star of the occasion as a galaxy of industry leaders showered praise on him for his vision as Modi connected and bonded with the large…

  • HARD WORKERS HAVE HARD HEARTS!

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    DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra All you lazy sods in office. Now you have a real excuse to slouch off and not pull your weight. By working less you might live more. I can imagine so many people saying, woo, this is good stuff, this is the sort of research we want, now we have…

  • TOP DOGS AND UNDERDOGS

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Argument. Why  does everyone always root for the underdog. Why knock the person or side that is closer to excellence? It seems so unfair considering how we exhaust our lives trying to get to the top. Then we kick the guy off the pedestal and hate him for winning. I…

  • Scottish Referendum Opens Pandora’s Box

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    Things are very strange in Britain nowadays. People are talking politics! Pubs, supermarkets, hospitals, offices …people are more engaged in political debate than gossiping…writes Kaliph Anaz Things are very strange in Britain nowadays. People are talking politics! Pubs, supermarkets, hospitals, offices …people are more engaged in political debate than gossiping! Thanks to Scottish referendum. A record…

  • Modi’s defence of Muslims came too late?

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    By Amulya Ganguli  If some of the recent statements of the saffron netizens and the actions threatened by Hindutva outfits are noted, then it can seem that the hardliners have learnt nothing from the setbacks suffered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent by-elections. Except for winning an assembly seat in West Bengal,…

  • SPECIAL: Vikas Datta on James Michener

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    History made readable: James Michener’s epic novels Can there be a better source of inspiration for novelists than the expansive and colourful pageant of history, though man’s magnificent achievements, raw heroism,inspiring progress and human resilience may frequently be offset by events more inglorious and tragic? One writer who utilised the past for engrossing but insightful…

  • VOHRA AND THE SPOILS OF WAR

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra I once saw Andre Agassi play at Roland Garros (pronounced ‘orran gawo’, you uneducated slob) and after he had won the match he took off his shirt and flung it into the stands, thereby starting a mini-riot as a slew of lovely French ladies fought stalwartly to retrieve the trophy.…

  • Veturi Srivatsa column on Acche Din for Sport

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    Veturi Srivatsa says sportspersons should at least see acche din!  Most well to do sportspersons complain of the lack of state patronage and insist they got to the top on their own. It is not all true, even those who can afford a holiday in the Swiss Alps are not graceful to acknowledge the amount…

  • Modi’s Muslim Favour – Is it too late?

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    Amulya Ganguli says Modi’s defence of Muslims – a little too late? If some of the recent statements of the saffron netizens and the actions threatened by Hindutva outfits are noted, then it can seem that the hardliners have learnt nothing from the setbacks suffered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent by-elections.…

  • VAT EES YAR PRABLUM?

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Is it so difficult to laugh at ourselves? So Doordarshan, the official Indian TV station, sacked an anchor for addressing the Chinese President Xi Jinping as Eleven Jinping. No one told her how to pronounce Xi. Point is, she should have been briefed. By that token, most of us reading…