columns

Justice Katju’s views on journalists are over-the-top, over-generalised. Namita Bhandare writes. When the new chairman of the Press Council of India says he has a low opinion of the media and journalists are of “poor intellectual level”, you can just hear the hurrahs from the cheap seats. With the finesse of a pugilist, Justice Markandey […]

There’s a gap between the law and reality when it comes to gendercide. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image The 40th anniversary of legalised abortion in India went by unnoticed. Women’s groups remained silent. The government was quiet. And there was virtually no mention of this landmark legislation in media. Perhaps there was a reason for

Are we the world’s greatest conspiracy theorists? The question struck me while watching two eminent doctors argue with Mark Toleman, one of the co-authors of a Lancet article on the presence of a superbug in Delhi’s water. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Are we the world’s greatest conspiracy theorists? The question struck me while watching

LK Advani’s yatra is a last-century tactic to deal with this century’s problems, writes Namita Bhandare. HT Image Oh-ho, there he goes again. Like an Annual Day school theme, every edition of LK Advani’s rath yatra comes with its own slogan. This one’s against corruption. And black money. Heck, it even has its own rock

Domestic violence rages in India even today because society allows it to, writes Namita Bhandare. HT Image A day before she died, Supriya Sharma called up her mother and said, “I fear for my life.” It was the last time she would ever speak to her. Supriya had been married to Chandra Vibhash Sahu, a

When they’re not scamming the country, disrupting Parliament or schmoozing with businessmen and film stars at cricket matches, our netas fall back on their next favourite past-time: Saving Bapu. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image When they’re not scamming the country, disrupting Parliament or schmoozing with businessmen and film stars at cricket matches, our netas fall

There are few memorials for terror victims here. We don’t honour the dead, writes Namita Bhandare. HT Image The remarkable thing about the Ground Zero memorial is not its aesthetic or its scale or even that Dubya and Obama had buried party differences to come together to honour the 3,000-odd lives lost ten years ago

The phone had started ringing minutes after the bomb blast at Delhi high court’s gate number five. Facts were still fuzzy: was it a bomb in a briefcase? How many injured? Any dead? Was there a second blast? Twitter was abuzz and so was my phone, writes Namita Bhandare. Already the front pages are crowded:

Another Day HT Image Autumn was to have been the season of hope; a time for words and ideas, listening and learning. A time for the Harud (autumn) literature festival which would have made Srinagar join that membership of cities in the region that host lit fests – Jaipur, Kovalam, Karachi, Galle, and Thimpu. Kashmir

The government’s attitude to private healthcare is crippling. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Two days ago, Vijay, who works with me as a driver, came to me in tears. His wife was seriously ill. He had to rush to the village where she lives, and he needed a loan. Where had she been admitted, I

Parliament must rise more often — every day in fact — to preserve its sanctity HT Image Outside there was passion and intensity; inside reason and erudition. Outside, cries of Vande Mataram and invocations to Anna Hazare. Inside, references to history and invocations to the Constitution. Outside, angry people feeding soundbites to insatiable TV cameras.

While we raise children to be independent, why is it so difficult to let them go? Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image It didn’t hit me until I saw my dog. Now if you’ve never seen my dog Nigel, there is no way you could possibly know that he is the fattest, laziest Labrador ever. But