Category: Editorial
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India’s zest for fair skin creates odd jobs for white girls
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Morgan Kane is not her real name. When she decided to share her story online, she chose a pen name. As many white girls working in India do – change their name for work. I am not referring to shady or hanky-panky work – though some of the work borders…
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OPINION: Is Gandhi still relevant?
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Today, we see violence everywhere – we have Syria; we have Egypt, we have the US, the UK and India. Name a country and we’ll find a conflict brewing. Except in a few nations like New Zealand, civil strife is killing people in every place with human settlement. It is…
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Opinion: Rape is in our culture
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Rarely have I seen a country of 1.2 billion people come together to express one emotion – rage over heinous rape and brutal murder of a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi. Rarely have I seen a disconnect between a population and its clueless leaders. The government’s attempt…
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Blind woman gets sport award
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Neelusha Memon, the first legally blind competitor to complete New Zealand’s South Island Coast-to-Coast multi-sport race, is the winner of the Attitude Awards’ Courage in Sport for 2012. The tough race was just one of the Wellingtonian’s goals and the $3,000 prize money will help her towards another – to complete the…
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Bal Thackeray – Secular farewell to ethnic leader
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“Don’t threaten me. Do as you wish. I am not afraid of anyone!†My editor was responding to a threat call as I entered the newspaper’s office. The threats by the Shiv Sena, a largely-local political party, to the editor of the local newspaper where I had just started freelancing,…
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Prem Watsa raises stake in BlackBerry
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Samsung Galaxy, iPhone and Android-based smartphones have reduced the popularity of once-market-leader BlackBerry, but an Indian is showing faith in the troubled smartphone. Prem Watsa, known as Warren Buffett of Canada, has raised his stake in Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian maker of BlackBerry, indicating a belief that there’s…
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Is Pranab Mukherjee the right man?
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Who will be the next president of India? Pranab Mukherjee is leading the race with the UPA nominating the current Indian finance minister as its candidate to take over presidency from the outgoing president, Pratibha Patil, whose term comes to an end next month. In the meantime, A P J…
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India continues to kill her daughters
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On Monday morning, India woke up to the shocking news of a three-month old baby fighting for her life in the government hospital in Bangalore. On Wednesday, India hung its head in shame as doctors lost the battle to save baby Afreen who was beaten up, burnt and tortured by…
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Opinion: lies, limelight and citizenship
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Who will you trust more – the politicians, the bureaucrats or the media? And who would you turn to, when these three pillars of trust come together to overshadow one of the most sentimental events in your life? In an unexpected turn of events, an access-to-information request filed by the…
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OPINION: Honour killings, open immigration and women – a paradox
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The latest incident of a Muslim teenager forcibly married off by her father came as a shock to the mainstream society in New Zealand. While such incidents are not rare in conservative countries like Pakistan, it is not what one would expect in the capital city of a western country.…
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Mumbai blasts put pressure on India-Pak relations
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The latest terror attacks in Mumbai, three serial blasts to be precise, have claimed 21 innocent victims while seriously injuring 200 people. The attacks come at a time when the world has gained renewed hopes of fewer terrorist activities after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Far from it! Soon…
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Why are NRIs so touchy about India?
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Call them NRIs, people of Indian origin (PIOs), or the most recent label – overseas citizens of India, they have one thing in common – their overt patriotism. Does it occur to them that “patriotic non-resident Indian” is an oxymoron? Just like ‘dancer Sunny Deol’, an ‘orator Azharuddin’, or an…