New York Times (25 03 2012):
Newswallah: Long Reads Edition
By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE
Reuters
A magazine stand on a railway platform in Mumbai.
The latest piece by Booker Prize-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy in
Outlook Magazine is titled “Capitalism: A Ghost Story.” It is a story that
begins at Antilla, “the most expensive dwelling ever built,” which belongs to
the richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, Ms. Roy writes.
After a familiar recounting of corporate exploitation of the poor masses and
the state’s complicity in it, as she sees it, Ms. Roy turns to the central
theme of the essay – corporate sponsorship and philanthropy and the exercise of
“perception management.”
Ms. Roy quotes an excerpt from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s poem “Standard
Oil Company,” and uses that to typify big corporations. She suggests that such
corporations have been behind most social and cultural movements, including
microfinance organizations such as the Grameen Bank, the national Unique
Identification program, literature festivals and anti-corruption movements.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi of Gujarat has made it to the cover of Time
magazine. In the profile of the right-wing leader titled “Boy from the
Backyard,” the writer, Jyoti Thottam, describes Mr. Modi as a “controversial,
ambitious and shrewd politician.” The article offers interesting insights into
what makes the man tipped to be a strong contender for India’s top job
powerful, and what stands in his way of changing India as we know it.
M.J. Akbar, writing for The Sunday Guardian, turns our attention to another
politician, the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, who seems to be
calling the shots in New Delhi. Mr. Akbar argues that Dinesh Trivedi, former
railways minister and Ms. Banerjee’s colleague from the Trinamool Congress
party, “has done a Mamata Banerjee on Mamata Banerjee.” The writer translates
that as, Mr. Trivedi taking the moral high ground and projecting himself as the
wounded soldier, “fighting the good fight because it is the Right Thing To Do.”
This kind of politicking has often been associated with Ms. Banerjee.
Removed from the “tamasha,” or circus, of Indian politics, India Today revisits
the lives of the “Children of Khalistan.” These are aspiring, young Indians who
lost members of their families, more than two decades ago to the secessionist
movement seeking a Sikh state to be carved out of Punjab. Raised in private
orphanages set up in the mid-1990s to rehabilitate such children, the article
focuses on how they have tried to shed the baggage of their past and are
striving to create a successful future.
“It is a great time to be alive,” 20-year-old Kavardeep Singh – born a few
months after his father swallowed cyanide to escape capture by the Punjab
Police – tells the writer, Asit Jolly
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
assam@assamnet.org
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
