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How The Obsessive Greed Of The Wealthy Is Actually Making Homes Unaffordable For Renters And Genuine Buyers

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  Billboards promoting investment in rental properties and urban studios, reflecting the growing real estate market amid rising rents. Notice in the above image how the billboard targets the investors who will buy and rent this property instead of home owners who will buy and stay in it. It promises assured returns more than what banks offer for your savings. The targets are not home-owners and families who would stay in it, but those who would buy and rent it out as an investment; it is sold as an opportunity to make money. This was not always like this. In past, renting a house was never a business someone was in. You just ended up with extra property by virtue of your moving due to work or other reasons, and so you rented it out to someone in need. Due to this, the prices were always reasonable. The amount was not enough to make you rich, nor did the owner see it as a money-making enterprise. It was just some extra money they received, and someone made use of what was otherwise...
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Scandal Meets Celebration: Why Do We Cheer On Holi What We Criticize Year Round?

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  “ A 25-year-old Hindu man was allegedly strangled to death in Rajasthan’s Dausa district for trying to stop three men from applying colour on him during Holi celebration”. Every year on Holi, we hear news reports of molestation and non-consensual touches. Year after year these stories have become so widespread and familiar that now we have got subconsciously wired to simply ignore them and move on with our lives. “Holi hai!” (It’s Holi!) is a cry that is shouted, and like clockwork, anyone would come, apply colour to you and proceed further to the next person. Implicit in that cry is, all is well, or all goes on Holi. But in recent years, incidents of communal nature have added themselves to the long list of Holi complaints. Protecting law and order is the job of the police. A murder by a murderer can be stopped in two ways: either you control the situation such that the murderer does not get the opportunity to commit the crime, or you do the murder yourself, leaving the...
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Our Non-Sacred River

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  I too live by the river Our river though is not sacred It is still clean Perhaps it's the fate of sacred rivers to be dirty We too go to our river to swim We don't take dips, we swim and swim till our lungs and legs can no longer hold And we run from our river only when our mothers holler our names There are no flowers floating in our river No oil lamps float in our river too We don't even leave our dead in our river Our river is not sacred like yours We still love our river though It feeds us, it nurtures us Do you think our river misses being sacred? Do you think your river likes being sacred?  
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That Beer-Biceps' Joke Did Not Warrant This Rage; What And Why Are We Agitated Then?

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  There is uproar on social media right now over the Beer biceps joke at Samay Raina's popular show India's Got Latent. Ranveer asked the guy on stage "If he had to choose between watching his parents have coitus the rest of his life or to join one time and end it, which one would he choose?". The episode of the show is now pulled down by youtube after notice from the I&B ministry of the Indian government. One, he has said far more objectionable things on his podcast and elsewhere that did not tip the scale for social media patrons to object. I'll revisit this point. Two, why do you think is his latest joke objectionable? And yes, I'll still call it a joke because he meant and thought it was a joke. We can then classify it as a bad joke, obscene joke etc but it is a joke nonetheless. But why was this objectionable? The premise or foundational basis of the joke is a belief that children don't like the idea of their parents having sex. The joke is b...
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While His Defeat Was Inevitable; Kejriwal Is Free And More Dangerous For The BJP Now Than He Ever Was

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While AAP lost to BJP, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were also defeated in their respective constituencies      Many, especially people in Delhi, saw this coming. In a way, it is good. Or as someone mentioned, it was inevitable. Just like how it was important to defeat UPA at the height of their powers and ego trip in 2014, equally, it had become important and necessary to defeat the politics of Arvind Kejriwal. He was thinking that a mini-version of BJP's politics was the strategy to go by. He repeatedly projected himself as the better version of BJP's divisive politics - as if he could hate Muslims but continue to also provide free public services. At every step of the way in recent times, he projected himself as more religious and narrowminded than the BJP. He even avoided supporting his own Muslim legislator and rallied against admitting children of migrants in schools. Forget about his actions concerning Shaheen Bagh and CAA. And of course, he had grown hubris that he ...
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Why I Support Modi’s Plan Of Downplaying Kumbh And Railway Deaths

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 I’m completely in with Modi’s plan of largely discounting 30 deaths in Kumbh or 1000 plus deaths under railway ‘accidents’ in his tenure. Modi knows all too well, more than any of us could ever grasp it, that the population of India is its largest problem. And it needs to be controlled. And since people are not taking care of it by themselves, he has taken it upon himself to prevent it by any and all means. Modi is a pakka Gujarati who knows his economics rather too well. He understands how to maximize capital. Mr Modi comprehends unlike too many of us that marriage and taking care of a wife is not just mentally exhausting but makes little sense economically as well; wife and kids are accountabilities that end up creating large holes in one’s pockets. That is why he stranded his wife before it made him a pauper. He knows how a legal wife leads to mental strain and as PM he cannot be under any extra stress or be emotionally occupied. Some things need to be done, hard decisions oug...
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Truths And Lies About 500 Mahar Soldiers Defeating 28000 Strong Army Of Peshwas

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Vijay Sthamb (victory pillar) - The pillar was erected by the East India Company in memory of those who fought the battle and includes the names of the Mahar soldiers who unknowingly brought an end to the Peshwa rule in 1818.   The battle on January 1, 1818, where the British, with just 834 infantrymen — about 500 of them from the Mahar community — and 12 officers defeated the 28,000-strong army of Peshwa Bajirao II - was one of the last battles of the Third Anglo-Maratha War, which ended the Peshwa domination. While this would tempt many to suggest Mahars/Dalits always sided with the British - absolutely nothing wrong if they did give the conditions they were forced to live in - in truth, they were before this battle part of the Maratha army. During Shivaji’s reign, especially before Peshwas, many didn’t realise that Peshwas were not a continuation of Marathas under Shivaji but a deviation from it. One would do well here to remember how Brahmins of his dominion refused to conduct ...
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