society

Thoughts on Homosexuality

There was a time when I met a gay person, my first thought would be, “Oh my god! He does it with another man!” The second would be will he make an attempt on me. Upbringing and society had not equipped me to interact with gay/homosexual/alternate-sex people normally.

Ethics of India's De-monetization

It has been a year since prime minister of India announced the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes from the Indian economy. A necessary bitter pill or short term pain for the figh

Let's destory Khajuraho temples!

Let’s petition the Supreme Court of Aryavrat and demand the destruction of Khajuraho temples and

ऊन्हें डर है - ओम प्रकाश वाल्मीकि

ऊन्हें डर है
बंजड़ धरती का सीना चीर कर
अन्न उगा देने वाले सांवले खुरदरे हाथ
उतनी ही दक्षता से जुट जायेंगे
वर्जित क्षेत्र में भी
जहाँ अभी तक लगा था उनके लिए
नो एंटरी का बोर्ड

Campa Cola society vs slums: The demolition doublespeak

With the Campa Cola controversy exposing the hypocrisy of the city of Mumbai with respect to demolition drives, it is important to separate fact from fiction, says Javed Iqbal

What are creative people like?

Here’s a thoughtful look at the so called creative people and how they function. Most often we put creative people into the esoteric or odd-ball category without giving much thought on what really goes on within. Here's a nice blog article on the subject by Matthew Schuler. Why Creative People Sometimes Make No Sense

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught

"You've Got To Be Carefully Taught," (Lyrics from South Pacific.)
This is so true in our country. We are unfortunately tought to hate from the day we are born. Our mothers would tell us, beta/beti (son/daughter), marry any one but a muslim. Or how we are taught to ignore atrocities on lower casts but asked to stand up for the cast/community/religious honor... We are taught to hate woman by our religion, our customs, our socital bias, our overlooking for domestic voilance and rapes by relatives. All this we are carfuly taught.

Changing Education Paradigms

India v/s Pakistan - Cricket Rivalery

India v/s Pakistan. Today's cricket world cup semi final match goes life in less then two hours. Roads have virtually no traffic, offices are half closed, businesses are closed! We've made plans to watch the match at a friends place with roughly 20 people.

Conversion in India

There is a great debate happening on "Rare Book Society of India" group on facebook. Some one has come up with a book detailing how western powers are financing identity politics in the garb of humanitarian work for dalits and Dravidian folks in India. All this to undermine India's growing clout using human rights violations and cast / identity issues. Debate goes into conversion etc...

Some things I said on a FB group debate:

I do not believe Indian dalit is a radicalized, strong, united, and of ambiguous identity group. Its not even strong enough to protect its members getting raped, killed, humiliated on a daily basis. Even when in power, say in UP, dalit members of our society have not shown signs of "making them pay of historic injustices" type of behavior or conduct. So by clubbing them with terrorist movements be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai (i.e. christian) and not to mention Maoists, we are doing more harm then good. It will add another section of our society to our righteous list of enemies.

Vikram Singh