Blog@GraceJunction

The government has floated three town planning schemes for an area called Bopal in Ahmedabad but has not been able to implement any of these as Bopal has witnessed haphazard and unplanned construction activities for the last two decades. The layout and the utilization of the spaces in this area is so bad that the government is wary to start anything. The government wishes that it had shown foresight before approving plans for the area. A regret, that will remain unattended for decades. (more…)

It was sad to read the story of Chitra Parmar in the morning today. Depressed over a failed love affair, this 20-year-old student of National Institute of Fashion Design, committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan on Sunday evening. In the suicide note she said she was taking the step because she could not get over the fact she had been jilted by her lover Hiren Patel. She also named three more people as responsible for their break-up. Finally she apologised to her parents in the suicide note. (more…)

Religulous is a 2008 American comedy/documentary film written by and starring political comedian Bill Maher. According to Bill Maher, the title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words “religion” and “ridiculous”; the documentary examines and satirizes organized religion and religious belief. (more…)

 
Dear Son,

I want to tell you something that I have been keeping in my heart for quiet some years. This happened thirty years back, when we were a newly married couple and we just wanted to enjoy our married life for the next two to three years before we thought of expanding our family. More than that, in those days I had a not so well paying job of a stenographer in the state government. Your mother had taken up some tuition to help me with the finances and that helped us in making ends meet. (more…)

This is how the 63rd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations began this year. The Secretary General, as usual, addressed the gathering.

“Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to the opening of the general debate of the 63rd session of the General Assembly. It is customary for the Secretary-General, on this occasion, to assess the state of the world and to present our vision for the coming year. We all recognize the perils of our current passage. We face a global financial crisis. A global energy crisis. A global food crisis. Trade talks have collapsed, yet again. We have seen new outbreaks of war and violence, new rhetoric of confrontation. Climate change ever more clearly threatens our planet. We often say that global problems demand global solutions. And yet … Today, we also face a crisis of a different sort. Like these others, it knows no borders. It affects all nations. It complicates all other problems. I refer, here, to a challenge of global leadership.”

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The entire nation (and in fact a few more nations) is still ranting and raving because of the despicable carnage that it was forced to watch helplessly (which need not have been relayed live to this extent in the first place) and breathlessly even as a few (no one knows for sure how many) perverse and fanatic young men held a host of our army and other security men on their toes and positions for about 60 hours needlessly killing hundreds of men, women and children of diverse religion and race in the due course and damaging property worth millions and much worse, denting the image and morale of this allegedly glorious nation (glorious perhaps only by its own definition and that definition too perhaps acceptable only to not the whole of itself)! A mask, the nation, at least at the socio-political level, is inwilling to put off! Let me show you the masks associated with the Mumbai event! (more…)

Like every other civilised person I was horrified by the senseless carnage that occured in Mumbai this week. The slaughter of innocent people can never be justified irrespective of who commits these hideous crimes.One fact is very clear however, the so called “War On Terrorism” can never be won! That may sound like I am prepared to hoist a white flag in our efforts to eliminate this scourge. Far from it, the battle has got to continue but I humbly suggest that the way this “War” is being waged only encourages would be terrorists to join the fight against who they see as their oppressors. (more…)