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SEPTEMBER 2009

Cover Story & Featured Stories

Sacred shit

The most sacred river of the Hindus has been rendered into a stagnant sewage drain, leading to mass and hidden epidemics. But Hindutva and other parties care a damn

The Reality Show called Kargil

Where media and politicos go berserk with frenzy annually celebrating the Kargil victory, why does this nation treat its war heroes with such organised disdain?

Better half? Not really

Travelling after dark is a challenge that every working woman undertakes in Delhi, but it’s not a pleasant experience and anything can happen

The LAST Tiger

At the turn of the century, India had 40,000 plus tigers. Today, 1,411

It’s the sea route, stupid!

What happens if another ten come from the same sea route and create mayhem, even while we protect the Taj as if nothing else matters?

Nuclear Family’s Untouchables

Thousands of Dalits still clean shit with their bare hands and carry it on their heads. So how come a 9 per cent growth rate economy can’t generate alternative professions for them?

DOMESTIC bliss?

The humble domestic worker in India is often treated like a modern-day slave

A putrid ribbon of black sludge’

Union environment minister said the Yamuna is not a river in Delhi. If it is a sewage drain, whatever happened to Rs 1,800 crore spent on cleaning the river?

Dark is POWER

The Union power ministry has failed to achieve its power generation capacity targets over successive Five Year plans

Don’t fake it

So why call the encounter real when it’s strikingly fake?

More Stories from this Issue

Bugbears and other bugs

Rupa Gulab

I'm a little puzzled about China. In spite of the fact that the country's leaders look wrinkly and ancient, they behave like brats.

Genocide, as usual

Hashimpura massacre, Malegaon blasts, Gujarat 2002: Will those involved in communal carnages ever face punishment in India?

Everyone loves a Good DROUGHT

Both home and world prices greeted the news of drought by moving up. Will the government rein in the profiteering market forces and ‘relief bureaucracy’ that loves every drought as a boon?
Kamal Nayan Kabra Delhi

It’s raining DIRTY Money here…

Even while people in Marathwada and Vidarbha crave for rains and relief, politicians not only hate rains, they are declaring normal rainfall zones as drought-hit. Clearly, financial bounties of drought relief are too high
Aritra Bhattacharya Aurangabad (Maharashtra)

Jinnah re-visited, thank you Jaswant Singh

The issues Jinnah outlined still haunt India and Pakistan today
Beena Sarwar Karachi

A Sundowner in Daytime for Jaswant Singh

Amit Sengupta

It's just that the wounds of partition have not healed.

If it hurts, let’s heal wounds

Sanjay Kapoor

The horrors of partition still live inside us. An entire generation of Indians and Pakistanis have journeyed through this living nightmare more than 60 years ago.

Yet to learn drought lessons

Food prices are rising not due to a delayed monsoon. It is because of massive hoarding, black market and speculation. Yet, the government takes refuge behind the excuse: markets driven by sentiments
Devinder Sharma Delhi

Maya JUST doesn’t care

The Mayawati regime approved of Rs 556 crore for construction of parks and statues, but allocated only Rs 250 crore for drought relief. Even that money is not reaching as helpless people starve in drought-hit UP
Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

Shrill, Kill Feel, This Pill

It is especially the way contraception is advertised that makes us think, how little it has to do with women’s liberation and is more a way of upholding status-quoist ideas on sex, gender, family, class
Pallavi Paul Delhi

Bollywood: Mix of cynicism & sincerity

Dr Rachel Dwyer grew up on the films of Satyajit Ray but today she cannot have enough of Bollywood. The professor of Indian studies and cinema at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is already the author of nearly a dozen books on Indian cinema and has written the biography of Yash Chopra.
Mehru Jaffer