Dheeraj Kalgutkar

There are 6,653 cases of COVID-19 in India as of 9 April 11:45 PM. And this is despite India testing the least. And our government is broadcasting these comparative low numbers as some sort of success. Think of this. If India had not tested anyone at all then India would have had zero SARS-CoV-2 positive cases. And the gullible public would have bought even that as the success of their God Modi. People are yet to realise or do not want to indulge in a thought that goes against great leader’s image how the ‘low number of recorded cases across the country might be a result of the government’s strict guidelines on who can be tested.’ The number of cases in India right now is dreary low compared to the world at large but even these numbers are not being managed respectfully. Doctors in India are facing a shortage of PPEs so much so that according to a Reuters report, PPE shortages are forcing some doctors to use raincoats and motorbike helmets. If doctors are facing this, it is not...

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash We have long-established that Facebook, that big mammoth of an organization today knows more about us than we do ourselves. The feat has lost its vanity, it isn't cool anymore. It is not a fact that you clap to when a magician or card-reader reveals something about you that you yourself might have overlooked. You submit voluntarily to them, not so much to Facebook. Facebook today stores far greater information about you than the tidbits you provide to it yourself. And it uses that enormous information to decide what you like, what you might be interested in, what kind of deaths will disturb you more, what news you might be interested to read, what videos pick your interest, which political party you might vote to, are you a fence-sitter, essentially it knows you. You might be confused about what you wish to eat for dinner tonight but I bet Facebook if given a chance will tell you exactly what will interest you at the dinner table. Th...

Yesterday, Indian Parliament headed by BJP which enjoys brute majority declared Article 370 which gave Kashmir special status in Indian union revoked, it bifurcated the Jammu and Kashmir state into two parts, and it also declared both the parts as Union Territories. The reason why they did this is one part of a debatable story; the manner in which they executed this is another. Kashmir was never a federal state like others. It was and continuous to be a military occupation (with increased troops now, one gunman to 10 civilians). But now it has lost even the facade of being an independent state. And we are told Kashmiris are real people. If they are real people like mainland Indians, why does military occupy civilian spaces there? When are we scrapping AFSPA? You have numbers now. You can do anything. Democracy, those who have read would know isn’t about numbers but doing what is right even when what you want to achieve is wrong in the eyes of the majority. It i...

Across the world, democracy is seeing a fast decline. Now one may deny, dismiss or raise unwarranted doubt over this at one’s own risk but it is an observable fact across the globe. "In Turkey and Egypt, Hungary and Poland, the Philippines and Venezuela, we are witnessing pseudo-democracies taking hold. Meanwhile, democracies that once inspired - South Africa, Brazil - are now marred by depressing stories of corruption. For the 12th consecutive year, Freedom House released its annual survey of democracy being pushed back: between 2000 and 2015, democracy broke down in 27 countries; 71 countries suffered 'net declines in civil and political liberties'", said former director of BBC news, James Harding in his Hugh Cudlipp lecture. Propaganda is fast becoming the chosen tool of politicians and what more, we are seeing that it is working, authoritarianism is on rise everywhere, people especially the young are losing their belief in institutions, citizens n...

I’m a slow reader and a human, there are times when I miss reading something and there are times when I choose to not react if I feel I know not enough, West Bengal’s Panchayat elections were one of them. This one is on West Bengal and the elections that were concluded some time back, but do not fret, what happened in Bengal wasn’t a stray incident that loses its relevance after a day or week, the Bengal election will come to haunt us in future if we do not pay attention to it. In West Bengal, Of the 58,792 seats in total, one-third is where opposition (left front and BJP) didn’t field their candidates. Mamata Banerjee’s TMC won them uncontested. Across the country we see these uncontested seats where candidates win without a fight and people (or supporters of that candidate) celebrate this as some macho victory but they forget that this is anathema to the practice of democracy. What do you think? All the people in a constituency love their one leader, so much so that not one ...

As if gate-keeping was not bad enough, the big boys are planning to be our referees now Remember that ‘breaking news’ when we woke up to Edward Snowden claiming Osama Bin Laden Is “Alive And Well In The Bahamas”? Well, that was fake news. So is Donald Trump, President of The United States of America claiming “72% of refugees admitted into U.S. (2/3 -2/11) during COURT BREAKDOWN are from 7 countries: SYRIA, IRAQ, SOMALIA, IRAN, SUDAN, LIBYA & YEMEN.” Then there’s news about Russia sending Snowden to US as “gift” to Trump which Moscow has recently denied . These examples are but recent and sort of tip-of-the-iceberg of what is now a behemoth empire of fake and clickbait ‘news’ business. It’s everywhere. From Facebook which can be called the mine of it all to Google to any other service you use. This is not just confined to news about Snowden or Trump’s lies but there are massacres ‘happening’ where there are none to people getting elected for NASA when there’s ...