Krishna Kiran's

As a student, I have heard the word Religion in Social Studies class when my class teacher Ms. Ranjini at N.S.M. Public School taught us about the German economist Karl Marx’s phrase ‘the religion is the opium of the masses’. As a child, religion meant occasionally going to the temple with parents, praying at home ( the prayers were intense during exam and unit test times) , celebrating various festivals and wearing new clothes (if we could) during Diwali and Sankranthi.  In the class, like in any other school, we had friends from all religions. The names didn’t ring anything in the mind at that point in time nor do they now except being proper nouns. They were just friends and classmates, not a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu. They are friends for life. We have Christian missionary schools that contributed a lot to education in India and continue to do so. There are teachers from all religions working in such schools. Every school or college in the country is a mini-Indi...

Fight against corruption is the buzzword in most Indian political parties’ manifestos. It is also one of the biggest evils plaguing not only our nation but the whole world. Especially in India, it is a serious problem given our population and the poverty rate as corruption is bound to affect more people and leave the poverty to remain at the same levels even after multiple changes of governments. Though political leaders/parties say that they would fight against corruption but none really follow what they say. People are so vexed with corruption that they made a hero out of Arvind Kejriwal who fought along with Anna Hazare against corruption. Indirectly, the subject of corruption helped Kejriwal to launch a political party AAP that has become quite popular in a short span of time. According to me that is the only positive outcome of recent fight against corruption in India - the birth of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Nobody needs to be told that corruption is the result of man’s greed f...

Looks and profession can be deceptive most of the times. Look at this person in the picture who is around 65 years of age and whom I have engaged from Rajghat to Connaught Place in Delhi. He runs this recently introduced eco-friendly rickshaw to carry at least five passengers on share basis to eke out his livelihood. The maximum speed it can touch is 35km/hour and costs around Rs.1.2 lakhs. Anyway that is not of much  relevance here. He is very friendly and seems to have a permanent smile on his face.In the 15 minutes pleasure ride I had on this rickshaw in the company of my colleague Saroj Kumar Singh, interesting things have been realised that illustrate the power of technology and how it has made even ordinary people powerful and well informed. His name is Abdul Rahim and he is an AAP sympathiser, that too because of Arvind Kejriwal's association with Anna Hazare in the past during the anti-corruption drive. He is proud to wear the AAP badge on his shirt but feels that A...

I am a voter and I am neither anti-Congress nor pro-BJP but against the way Congress has been governing this country all these years. I am for progress and growth that should become visible in real terms across the length and breadth of this country and not just in a few posh localities of cities and towns.   I am pro-change . I am an ordinary citizen vexed with the system of governance. At the same time confused as to what to do and feeling helpless. The only weapon I have is a vote and I own nothing else that could bring change. Our votes only changed governments and not the lives of the millions of people of India who continue to live in penury election after election. Political parties that do not serve the people’s aspirations and fulfill the promises made in their manifestos can be classified into two categories: CAT parties and DOG parties. All these years, we have been voting for either of them because only they have been contesting in the elections. ...