Asian Lite News Archive

Category: COLUMNS

  • WHY ARE WE SCARED OF BEING IN OUR OWN COMPANY

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Oops, I have just had a thought. Not one of those cosmic, celestially illuminating, lightning strikes the empire thoughts but one of those ‘what do you know’ variety where something vaguely hits you and it has been there for years tucked away in the recesses of the mind except you…

  • Poor Taj!

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    Brij Khandelwal says growing human load seen as threat to the Taj More than 200,000 people visited the Taj Mahal in two days over the weekend, causing alarm among conservationists who feel the ever-increasing human load on the fragile white marble wonder on the banks of the Yamuna could prove detrimental to the health of…

  • Smart Cities – Engines of growth

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    Amit Kapoor & Sankalp Sharma say Competitive cities as fundamental drivers of prosperity  Cities have been the engines of growth and prosperity since time immemorial. In fact, it may be surprising to note that the rise of Europe before the industrial revolution was, in part, driven by port cities like Genoa and Venice which competed against other…

  • India need 20-20 vision to win Test

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    Veturi Srivatsa says Indian players should have 20-20 vision of Test cricket  Ask any player anywhere in the world and he will say Test cricket is the ultimate. But today – though he may not openly admit it – he knows in his heart that his Twenty20 performance is far more important. It may sound…

  • WHY WE HATE TO CHEER?

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    Bikram Vohra comments on the lack of “warmth” of Indian audience As a people we are lousy when it comes to applause. We hate giving it with generosity. I was watching the Modi speech and the thousands gathered could not muster enough enthusiasm for applause… just a smattering here and there, nothing wholehearted and collective.…

  • Special Report: India’s new foreign policy

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    Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, former High Commissioner of India to UK, writes on Modi’s foreign policy. The veteran diplomat, who also served in Nepal during the Himalayan country’s transition from a kingdom to a democracy, says Modi’s initiative is a good beginning in protecting India’s core national interests  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal, the…

  • Saeed Naqvi on Modi’s I-Day speech

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    Outside of India I have seen men and women find privacy behind the sand dunes in, for example, the Sahara desert Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s courageous elaboration in his maiden Independence Day speech, on the nation’s need to build toilets had in it a touch of Acharya Vinoba Bhave. It also brought back a Devi…

  • Why I don’t want to celebrate…

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    Bikram Vohra says only a handful of super-patriots risked their lives to take on the colonists while the majority did nothing but aid and abet the invaders Every year I put out this article or a form of it hoping someone will agree. Lonely me. So far no one has patted me on the back and…

  • Modi – the orator

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    M.R. Narayan Swamy  says Modi takes India by storm with Red Fort speech Indians across the country Friday heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his stirring and maiden Independence Day address — for capturing the nation’s imagination. In city after city, and on the social media, the young and the not-so-young universally hailed Modi’s over…

  • CRICKET: BCCI treasurer has 3 offices!

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    Abishek Roy reports on extravagance and corruption in the BCCI. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) now maintains offices for its treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi — and surprisingly not in his home town Bhiwani besides a a 5-star hotel suite! Successive cricket board treasurers have often asked for the…

  • Cricket: What’s wrong with Indian cricket?

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    Bikram Vohra says Indian cricket wrecked by instant wealth… And Caesar said to Mark Anthony: Let me have men about me that are fat. Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, such men are dangerous. He clearly did not have India’s cricket team in mind. For when…

  • Selector’s Logic – Heads I win, tails you lose

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    Veturi Srivatsa looks into selectors’ logic – Heads I win, tails you lose Selectors in most sports insist they are invariably correct while picking teams. Sometimes they take the rankings into account and on other occasions they argue about the potential of a player for picking him or her — it is a case of heads they win,…

  • Amulya Ganguli on Modi’s I-Day speech

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    Amulya Ganguli analysing the impact of Modi’s Independence Day speech on the Saffron Brigade. Will saffronites heed Modi’s I-Day counsel of restraint?  Perhaps the most important part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech from the ramparts of New Delhi’s Red Fort was his call for a 10-year moratorium on caste-based and communal violence.…

  • Are you a workaholic?

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    Do you spend much more time working than initially intended or you become stressed if you are prohibited from working? Chances are that you are already a workaholic. In a first, Norwegian researchers have formulated a seven-point criteria that decides if you have reached the level of chronic work addiction or not. “If you reply…

  • Global Cricket and Indian Money

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    Veturi Srivatsa looks in to the power of Indian money in global cricket  It is immaterial whether they lose the five-Test series at the Oval 1-3, 1-2, or tie 2-2, India will still return to England to play another five-match series four years from now. That’s the power of Indian money in global cricket. It is…

  • SO WHAT’S THE NEW INDO-PAK EQUATION

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    Bikram Vohra analysing the issue of “war and proxy-war” as India and Pakistan prepare to celebrate 68th Independence Day Indian Prime Minister Modi deflected from the importance of the scheduled Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary talks by resetting the parameters of the relationship between two neighbours who have not been neighbourly for 70 odd years. And, besides…

  • Erosion of NHS values

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    Prof. Rajan Madhok says the NHS’s current arrangements for delivering race equality have been found seriously wanting. Best practice needs to be implemented in appointments, education, rewards and discipline April was one of the most eventful months of my professional life in the NHS. We had a judicial review case that the British Association of Physicians…

  • ASIAN LITE TRIBUTE: Robin Williams

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    CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN ,YOU DID SEIZE THE DAY…Bikram Vohra pays tribute to Robin Williams I guess he gave so many people so many laughs he ran out of laughs for himself. People who make people laugh are usually isolated people and the goblins in their mind come from a whole other tribe. Robin Williams kept his…

  • DAMN WE EAT BADLY

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Have you ever made observations that not only get you into trouble but also earn you the undying wrath of people who hear you. Like I was at a few airports earlier this week waiting for planes with that stoic sense of surrender when I said the human race is…

  • British politics in turmoil over Gaza

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    The British-Asian voters will decide the person who will hold the key to No 10 Downing Street…writes Anasudhin Azeez British Prime Minister David Cameron is heading for a route in the general elections scheduled to be held in May 2015 over the rumblings in the coalition, problems in the party and the mood of the…

  • DARLING, THANKS FOR THE SPACE,

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    Daily Dose By Bikram Vohra My wife and I are currently staying in a swank hotel. No, let me rephrase that. We are in the same room in which she has 93% of the space and I have the rest. This division is not inclusive of the bathroom which hovers around 98.4%… hers. First, there…

  • Veturi Srivatsa on Anderson episode

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    Veturi Srivatsa is his weekly column asking Is Anderson’s foul language a part of the game?  Humour has no barrier, so long as certain unparliamentary words are uttered in jest. When a Test cricketer unleashes a barrage of invectives against an opponent when they were leaving the field after a hard session, it is not…

  • Saeed Naqvi on Gaza and Arabs

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    Saeed Naqvi says Israel and Saudi Arabia in a jam in Gaza The US decision to launch limited air strikes to check the ISIS in Iraq and the Gaza initiatives in Cairo are obviously linked. To understand the collective Arab panic over the Gaza ceasefire, an overview is required. Ever since King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia…

  • Amulya Ganguli on Priyanka’s NO

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    Amulya Ganguli says with Priyanka’s ‘no’, Congress revival prospects dim  There is little doubt that by declining to join “active” politics, Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra will not only cause huge disappointment to her growing body of supporters in the Congress, but may also undermine the party’s chances of revival. To her followers, she represents the last and perhaps…

  • OKAY, FRIEND, WHERE WERE YOU YESTERDAY

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Don’t you just dislike it when people offer you smarter options than the one you exercised after the event is done and dusted? Like you have just told them how expensive the flight was and they say, really, why didn’t you go for the package deal, it was much cheaper…

  • Will Bibi Seize The Moment?

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir analysing the latest crisis in the Middle East   There is a growing consensus among Israelis and Arabs that the Israel-Hamas war will end just like the 2009 and 2012 encounters. Hamas will declare victory by pointing out the casualties and pain inflicted on the Israelis and the likely limited relief it…

  • CAN YOU GET SICKER THAN THIS

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    Bikram Vohra condemns the photographer Raj Shetye’s Delhi Bus Rape Backdrop Remember the Nirbhaya assault on a Delhi bus that woke a nation to its sordid record of rape in the millionth degree. Well, someone has taken that ugly scenario and made it the basis of a fashion spread so you have the rape victim in…

  • THE LADY AND THE LOST LENS

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra On a flight recently, I chanced to sit near a crusty old man reading a novel and a lady of some thirty-five years, who had evidently come straight from a shopping spree to the airport and charmed her way past security with half a dozen duty free bags, a carry-all…

  • Bravo Bhaji – Tribute to a Baroness

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    Kaliph Anaz says the resignation of Baroness Warsi will affect the Tory prospects of winning some of the marginal seats in the 2015 general election Barosness Sayeeda Warsi will be remembered in the British history for her brave decision to quit the government over a principled stand on Gaza. Mrs Warsi, Bhaji to her loyal…

  • The risk of seeking remedy on Internet

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Most of us are compu-Doctors. We feel so good when we are unwell. To compound this felony we have, thanks to the Net become experts. I turned into a compudoc about three years ago and am now convinced that I have the symptoms of at least 37 ailments of the exotic…

  • THE FUNNY SIDE – Gender Issues

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    Nury Vittachi focus on gender issues which can be confusing  I was so outraged when an American friend said that Asian males were kind of “girly” that I almost hit him with my shoulder bag. But instead I just gave him a cold stare and turned back to my Hello Kitty collection. Westerners have bizarre…

  • Portrait of a politician as a writer

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    Vikas Datta portrays politicians as successful writers  A British prime minister who was a novelist too, a US president known for works on history and nature, an Indian statesman who was a famous philosopher too… They make a compelling case that politics is not a full-time occupation and its practitioners can shine in other fields…

  • BJP elders sidelined in the Modi era

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    Prashant Sood says in Modi era, little place for BJP seniors like Advani and Joshi They anchored the rise of the BJP in the 1990s and guided it through the tumultuous years in the opposition but do not appear to have a role in the party’s first full-majority government. L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi,…

  • REVIEW: Modi’s first visit to Nepal

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    Saroj Mohanty says Modi’s Nepal visit unfurls vision of an integrated South Asia  Flying in to Kathmandu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wanted to forge a “new relationship” with Nepal that could serve as a model for regional partnership in South Asia. After his two-day visit, it is apparent he has succeeded to a large…

  • DID YOU TAKE THE RIGHT ROAD?

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra It doesn’t matter how wealthy, healthy, successful or on top of the heap you are. In all our lives there was one turning we did not take, one that would have changed our lives completely. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t come to that crossroad and made that…

  • SPECIAL FEATURE: Human Development

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    Amit Kapoor in his weekly column Active Voice looks into Human Development: Ends over Means Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices. The most critical ones are to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living. – HDR 1990 Human Development Report-2014 (HDR 2014) was released…

  • SPECIAL REPORT: Communists in India

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    Samir Kar Purkayastha says Communists in India need new leadership to recover politically The Communist party of India – Marxists (CPI-M), the largest Left party in India, has decided to hold its 2015 party congress in Kolkata instead of Agartala, capital of the only state now ruled by the party. Tripura is far off, more…

  • WHO REMEMBERS LIFE

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Isn’t it sad that we live most of our lives without any recall of what happened over the years. Like I am 65 and if I bundled all my memories together it would come to about two or three years max. The rest is all a blur, just white noise…

  • COLUMN: BJP Old Guard in Exile

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     Amulya Ganguli  says Modi sends Advani, BJP old guard into exile  In the Hindu way of life, old age entails exile from home and hearth. As the Manu Smriti says, when a man sees “his skin wrinkled and his hair gray and when he sees the son of his son, then he should resort to the…

  • THE GREEK JUSTICE

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    It sounds like Greek to you but it doesn’t sound like that to the Greeks. To them this is justice. Never have the scales of justice been so blindsided as they were yesterday when a Greek court set free four countrymen who were accused of shooting (with real guns) 28 Bangladeshi workers who were protesting…

  • THE AFTER PARTY AFTERMATH 

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra See that car. At the STOP light. Next to yours. With the man and the woman in it. She is leaning to the left. He to the right like disjointed windshield wipers. They are a husband and wife and they are returning from a party. You can see the ice…

  • COMMENT by Dr. Alon Ben-Meir

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    Trapped Between Delusion And Denial The Israelis and Palestinians have been trapped for decades between delusions and denial and both have resorted to ideological and religious dogmas that dismiss with conviction any factual evidence to the contrary.A powerful Israeli right-of-center constituency led by Prime Minster Netanyahu insists that Israel is not an occupying power, the…

  • Tarun Basu on Modern China

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    Chinese gambit: On an ancient route to modern greatness People’s Daily, China’s iconic newspaper known to the world as the voice of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), is constructing in the heart of Beijing a 32-storey office tower that will have 140,000 square metres of working space with new-media ventures alone occupying seven…

  • Cotton-wool Children

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra This is the world we live in. A woman sent her 7-year-old son to the nearby park to play and because he was ‘unsupervised’ adults at the park called the police and the mother has been arrested in the USA. She is fighting back and saying, “We pay enough taxes…

  • Daily Dose – INTIMIDATED 

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    DAILY DOSE by Bikram Vohra I am so totally intimidated by certain things. Cutlery and sit down dinners. Five star hotel staff who have that supercilious sneer. Expensive stores like you know where they sell their cheapest watch for $5000. A gold shop because they know you are the disco necklace type what are you…

  • PEACE IN PLASTER 

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra This is just the sort of stuff nobody reads because nobody wants to face their role (or complete lack of it) in doing nothing to make the world a better place…ergo ,the satire sails into the distant horizon unnoticed and unsung. Went visit Peace in the ICU. He was all…

  • Currency Corner – Price of Gold

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    Vatsal Srivastava in his weekly column Currency Corner says taking directional call on gold risky over next six months  Gold has been in a narrow trading range of $1,200/ounce-$1,400/ounce so far this year. The yellow metal has managed to trade above the key support of $1,200/ounce mainly because US 10 year yields and the US…

  • WHEN TV FEEDS INDIA’S FOOLS 

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra I have come to a conclusion. Indian TV provides a platform for crackpots and encourages them to bask in 15 minutes of fame, however sour the limelight. Take that BJP twit in Telengana, Dr K.Laxman who made some absurd remarks about Sania Mirza being a Pakistani daughter in law and,…

  • India needs a new growth startegy

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    Amit Kapoor in his weekly column Column – Active Voice says  India suffers from unequal growth and the different regions of the country cannot boast of the same levels of basic development required for the potential economic superpower to grow India has long been considered a goldmine of potential, banking on its ability to integrate despite…

  • DON’T BLAME THE WIFE 

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    DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Why is it when a young man marries a woman and stops stepping up to the plate as a son and brother everyone in the family blames the minted wife. A distant relative of mine has done the dirty to his aging parents and being a complete pratt which is…