Writing

World Environment Day: Indian consumers may not make choices based on company’s green outlook

Currently environmental concerns are not an issue in India for two reasons. First, India has a lot of things on its plate and this is just one of them. In the West, the problems are of having developed and seen the cost of it. And guilt since multinationals are exporting this; the responsibility becomes domestic,… Read more »

Why do we fear caste?

There is a large section of India where caste continues to matter a great deal; indeed caste can sometimes become a matter of life and death. But there is another India, albeit a small one, where caste or at least any reference to it is difficult to find. For people living in this ficult to… Read more »

Haalo, This Is Kalol Calling

The faded wall-painting in Raipur is for an event management company called Crazy Chaps. Only one part has been repainted, the only bit that matters: the mobile phone number. In a small but telling way, it speaks of the centrality of the mobile phone in India; it is as if almost every aspect of one’s… Read more »

Drinking Zyada Shakti

Actually, I was a Bournvita kind of person. If I could have had my way, I’d have been a drinking chocolate kind of person. But then, this was 1977 and I was 14 years old and in no position to be fussy about what I wanted. Before I moved to Delhi, I spent over five… Read more »

The Banality of Government Advertising

A few weeks back, major newspapers carried a two page ad for the Ministry of Tourism that was really a brochure for its Minister, Dr K Chiranjeevi. It contained 11 photographs of the megastar, doing various things. A couple of weeks of ago, we saw another two page advertising salvo, ostensibly to express solidarity with… Read more »

Santosh Desai Analyses Media Ethics in Current Times-Tehelkatv

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The ’70s to 70: An unbroken zanjeer

Commerce does not lie. At 70, Amitabh Bachchan is the reason why KBC is among the top 3 shows in the country today. He continues to be the face of many brands, and is among the top brand ambassadors, much in demand from categories as diverse as cement, hair oil and the state of Gujarat…. Read more »

The Revenge of the Vegetarian!

The image of the Gujarati within the country has undergone a sea change As a Gujarati growing up in Delhi, one didn’t really feel any weight that an outsider usually feels in a setting removed from home. For being a Gujarati was seen to be a harmless affectation; a declaration that one was not from… Read more »

A Case Of Bazaar Piety

Nothing underlines the power of celebrity as much as the outpouring of public reaction to Satyamev Jayate, Aamir Khan’s new television show. The issue of sex selection and female infanticide is hardly a new or undocumented one, and stories similar to the heart-rending ones we saw last week have been brought to us before, even… Read more »

India live

At any IPL match, the spectators never stop cheering. Regardless of what happens in the game, who wins or loses, the cheering goes on. The slightest stimulus can set off a higher pitch of hysteria- the turn of a camera, a song played by the DJ, the sound of the vuvuzela-like bugle. The spectators come… Read more »