Its facets include concentration of media ownership and the transformation of news into a commodity. THE last two decades have witnessed a dramatic transformation of India's ‘mediascape' – a term first used by Arjun Appadurai, an academic of Indian origin based in the United States, to describe how visual imagery impacts the world and to describe and situate the role of the mass media in global cultural flows. While there...
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Right to Food Campaign gives call for ‘action' against draft food Bill by Gargi Parsai
-The Hindu The Right to Food Campaign on Tuesday appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to set aside the government draft of the Food Security Bill which “minimises government's obligations, restricts people's entitlements and is devoid of any accountability”. Rejecting the government's draft Bill, the Campaign gave a national call for action. In an open letter to the Prime Minister, the Campaign said the draft Bill approved by the Empowered Group of...
More »Concern over Corruption by Prabhat Patnaik
There is no gainsaying that corruption breeds cynicism which undermines the democratic foundations of our polity. There is no gainsaying, too, that corruption results in a net shift of resources away from the poor. There can therefore be no two opinions about the need for controlling corruption through an appropriate lok pal bill. But the impression is unavoidable that the current hullabaloo about ‘corruption’ constitutes a case of mistaken identity:...
More »Bicycles getting crushed under India's rushing prosperity by Neeraj Kaushal
It is the 21st century version of the classic rabbit and tortoise story. Last weekend, a group of cyclists decided to race against Jet-BlueAirlines in Los Angeles when one of its busiest highways was shut down for construction and renovation. To help people get across the town fast, JetBlue started a special flight service. A group of cyclists decided to challenge the airlines to a bikeversus-airlines race. It turned out...
More »Urbanization: it’s happening, can we cope?- Anil Padmanabhan
Last week, the census commissioner released the second round of data, which showed that the move towards towns and cities received a fresh impetus in the decade ended 2011, as a result of which the country achieved a laudable milestone: a little under one in three Indians now lives in areas classified as urban, reversing a lull apparent in the previous two decades. This is something to be welcomed as in...
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