Before being a cartoonist/GRAPhic novelist, I am a citizen first. A citizen with the freedom to have feelings — if not the freedom of free speech. Now, the former is far easier than the latter. I have the freedom to have feelings and the freedom to deal with those who hurt my feelings. And on that note, I want Sarojini Naidu arrested. Posthumously, but so be it. In an All India...

The task of positive disciplining will be trickier for the new age teachers, who are already GRAPpling with the new found malaise of increasing student aggression on teachers.  With “corporal punishment” and “mental harassment” punishable under the new Right to Education Act, many educators are left nonplussed.  Yes, most of them believe sparing the rod need not necessarily spoil the child, but how can teachers abdicate their prime responsibility of shaping young...

-The Times of India   More than a decade after 23 people, mostly women and children, were killed when a mob set ablaze a shelter for Muslims huddled together for safety in Ode during the post-Godhra riots, a Gujarat court on Monday found 23 of the suspects guilty of murder and conspiracy. The Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) has sought the death sentence for those convicted of murder.  The special court in...

Each time 25 year old Salma takes her one year old son Zubair to the Batla Clinic (a private clinic in Delhi) for a shot of the DPT, the cost of transportation and the vaccine adds up to approximately Rs.500.   When it is time for Zubair to take the next immunization dose, Salma may find that the expenses have entirely spiraled out of her reach. New vaccines and expensive brands of baby...

Nowhere are the argumentative Indians more visible than in the cacophony surrounding poverty estimates. Poverty is declining; inequality is increasing; no one can live on Rs 28 a day; nine per cent of Indians are poor; 70 per cent of Indians are poor. Poverty is too important to be used as ping-pong between optimists and pessimists on the Indian economy. I am deeply disillusioned to discover that there are no certainties...