India lives in its villages, and while the cities have grown immensely over the last 20 years, rural areas have not seen that kind of development. For India’s economy to be strong, the rural economy needs to grow. Rural areas are still plagued by problems of malnourishment, illiteracy, unemployment and lack of basic infrastructure like schools, colleges, hospitals, sanitation, etc. This has led to youth moving out of villages to work in cities. This could be compared to the brain drain from India to US. Our villages need to grow in tandem with cities and standard of life has to improve there for inclusive growth to happen. If rural India is poor, India is poor.

India lives in many generations, and visiting rural areas very easily shows that they lag behind cities by decades. While we have latest services and products available in our cities now, villagers are still coping with age old products. It is easy to see the rising disconnect between cities and villages. Some examples are –

UnderApplauded… Is that even a word? Even if it is not, I have coined it now, and its suits perfectly for someone who is also known as “The Wall”, Rahul Dravid!! Now let me explain why I say so… BECAUSE —

• He is the player who has faced ball after ball over the last 14 years with levels of concentration not many can match. You need to see him sweat during a match to understand his concentration levels. Right in the beginning of his career, he batted 541 minutes in the first innings of this match and followed it with another knock in second innings while the rest struggled to put bat to ball.
• He is the player who have been criticized by viewers and critics everytime he has got out cheaply but he has never used his mouth to answer them. Neither does he need to, as his bat is enough. Not many people have hit centuries in both innings of a test match, and he has done it twice. (vs Pakistan and New Zealand ) Only Gavaskar has done it thrice.
• He is the player who has stood alone on bouncing tracks alone while all his distinguished mates have struggled and… Read the rest
  

Independence Day comes every year on the 15th of August, and this was the 26th time I witnessed it. Over the last few years, it has been awaited more for the holiday it brings than for the occasion. During the school days, there would be flag hoisting ceremonies and some functions highlighting the patriotic sentiments. Back home, there would be patriotic songs and movies playing on television. In the last year 5 years, it was only just another holiday. But this year was different! One of the best Independence Days I have had for a long long time.

I have been volunteering as part of YEFI (Yahoo Employee Foundation Initiative) to teach English to school kids in a school which is partially funded and supported by Yahoo. More than the teaching itself, it is the interaction with the kids, most of whom belong to poor families, which has been a wonderful experience so far. Most of the kids speak only Kannada, Tamil or Telugu and neither Hindi nor English, so I thought communicating with them would be a big problem. But let me tell you, you don’t need a language to interact with kids. Kids are always natural and… Read the rest

Read some of my other most popular poems – Go the Extra Mile , A Ripple of Hope and Why God made Mothers?

Often called the Lifeline of the Nation,
Indian Railways runs more than 14,300 trains!
It carries over 13 million passengers daily,
Across hills, tunnels, rivers, lakes and plains!!

With 1.6 million employees under its rolls,
IR is one of the world’s largest employer!
Traveling across the country in its 63,000 kms of tracks,
You are bound to have more adventure than Tom Sawyer!!

Trains run from North to South, East to West,
Across the length and breadth of the country!
Jammu to Kanyakumari is 4751kms,
Is covered by Himsagar Express in 66 hrs, albeit slowly!!

The Railways was a legacy of the British,
And we have come a long way since then!
We have new tracks, trains and coaches,
And technology’s presence is felt even in the engine!!

But while the world has zipped away,
With the high speed and maglev trains!
We continue to live in the British era,
And our trains still run as if enslaved in chains!!

The TGV in France runs at more than 250 km/hour,
Chinese… Read the rest

In the 80′s, there was terror in Punjab. Then there have been continuous terror incidents in Kashmir from the late 80s and early 90s. But the 21st century brought with it a new kind of terror in India. Terrorists now managed serial blasts all across India, and also carried out personal fidayeen attacks in many cities of India. Apart from the terror attacks, there has been religious violence in Gujarat and continuous attacks on Churches across states. There has been violence in Mumbai over North Indians, in Rajasthan over Gujjars demanding a lower SC status, in Punjab over Dera Sacha Sauda, and then there is Naxalism in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, and many other states. So what happened to the idea of a Safe India?

Terrorism have took a new turn in the last decade. Terrorists now dared to attack the Red Fort in 2000, the Parliament in 2001 and the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat in 2002. There have been bus/car bombings in Mumbai in 2003, serial blasts in Delhi in 2005, serial attacks in Varanasi in 2006, bombings at Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad in 2007, serial attacks in Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad in 2008 plus… Read the rest

It has been almost a year now since the Indian media has been blasting Australians for racial attacks on Indians down under. After all, it makes for good news which people watch. And who cares for the facts!! It it sells, then show it on prime-time TV or make it front page news… and people will watch too. But do we try to wait and understand what actually is Racism, and is it racism what is happening in Australia?

Racism is defined as “any discrimination or prejudice based on race“. Going by this definition of racism, is it not racism when political parties like MNS and Shiv Sena protests, most of the times violently, against North Indians? Is it not racism when we have reservations for certain “backward” classes for the last 60 years? Is it not racism when we have many temples in our country where non-Hindus are not allowed? In the Sabarimala Shrine in Kerala, women between the age 6-60 are not allowed inside. There are even some shrines where men are not allowed.

Dalits, who represent 16 percent of India’s 1.1 billion population are often beaten or killed for using a well or worshipping at a… Read the rest