Idle Thoughts

The Hindu reports that the nation paid Rs 60 Cr to subsidise MP's lunch during the last 5 years. The numbers are revealed as a response to an RTI petition. Let's look a bit deeper into the numbers. Rs 60 Cr in five years translates into Rs 12 Cr per year or Rs 1 Cr per month. If we take that the canteen functioned 20 days a month , with 500 MPs eating at the canteen on an  average per day (considering that the parliament is not in session always, I think these numbers are quite high) , the subsidy amounts to Rs (1 Cr)/(20*500) or Rs 1000 per MP, per day. The report quotes typical subsidy for some of the dishes: Non Vegetarian meal : Rs 66 Stewed Vegetables : Rs 38 Fish Fried with chips: Rs 70 Mutton cutlet : Rs 52 Mutton curry : Rs 60 Masala Dosa : Rs 24 Roti is sold at a profit of Rs 0.23 per roti and khomani ka meetha is sold at cost price. Remember that these subsidies are at today's cost. The subsidies during the previous years would definitely be less as

Recently Dilip Gandhi claimed that there is no India specific study that proves linkage of tobacco (specifically Beedi) habits in India and cancer. Shyam Charan Gupta chipped in with his two cents that there are other products like sugar that pose health issues. Can we warn the people about the harmful effects of everyone of these products? News channels have been covering these issues for the last couple of days. Congress leaders, Trinamool leaders, doctors and many others came on TV to testify that Tobacco usage is indeed bad for Indians. There were many comments on the intelligence of Dilip Gandhi and Shyam Charan Gupta. But other than indignation there was hardly any content in these responses. I spent some hours browsing channels looking for some answers in vain. There was no detail of specific studies on tobacco usage and cancer in India. There was no discussion on the issue of educating the public on the harmful effects of specific food items. Just more and more people appe

Before I start, let me make an admission - I have used the terms RSS/Hindutva and secular quite informally to describe specific views. Hope this does not offend you one way or the other. One of the charges that the ‘hindutva’ camp (as well as many others) level against the 'seculars' in this country is that their values are not really free of religious thought, but are rather closely aligned to Christian values. We can not dismiss this charge lightly as the seeds of secularism was nurtured in a culture where Christianity was the de facto religion. I don’t know if it is too early to announce that the tides are turning, but I have some evidence to show the influence of RSS thinking in the ‘secular’ response to Mohan Bhagwat statements on Mother Teresa. Mohan Bhagwat mentioned in one of his speeches that Mother Teresa did indeed help the destitute but she had an ulterior motive to convert them. According to him, this motive made her service less selfless and hence somewh

Recently there were multiple incidents that in one way or the other brought forth the discussion on freedom of expression. Penguin pulping Wendy Doniger's book, massacre of the french cartoonists, protests against the Tamil novel Madhorubagan, Mohan Bhagawat's speech about Mother Teresa and the documentary 'India's daughter' were some of those. What was fascinating was the fact that many who defended the freedom of expression fiercely in some of the cases were not so liberal when it came to some other issue. I am not talking about everyone. There are some true liberals who are consistent with their views. But there were many who wore the liberal skin when the issue at hand did not offend them. But when it came to their own sacred cows, they were aghast at the lack of taste and sensibility of the offender. Then the issue transports itself from the freedom of expression space to the space of basic decency, good taste and sometimes plain simple sensitivity. Here is