Summary posts of the past week

Stealing power is getting tougher In mid-2007 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that the government would “tackle the electricity theft and distribution losses on a war-footing”. Have the states got their act together…?While trying to find examples of successful drives against power theft in 2007… Difficult to believe, but not very long ago stealing electricity was not a criminal offence…What’s it like in the rest of the world…

Growth is not leading to development in India India is an emerging superpower and the economy is growing at 8-9 percent. India also has a politically stable government. Yet the country ranks badly on HDI (Human Development Index)…Money is one aspect of it. Implementation is another. Developmental funds are not being utilised in the proper manner…The Indian government seems focussed on improving our infrastructure…but is the government focussed on improving people’s health, increasing their literacy levels and improving their standard of living…

Photographs of the Sydney Test match 2008 The slide-show below could only be possible because Vishal was kind enough to send me photographs of the Sydney Test where he was present. He has captured the atmosphere of the stadium pretty well. In addition, he has some close ups of the players! All in all the slide-show will give you a feel of what you missed by not being there…

Men being harassed in false dowry cases Harassed husbands. This is being talked about in the press quite a lot these days and yesterday there was this rather stark headline: Harassed husbands take to the streets… It is being alleged that men are increasingly being implicated in false cases under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and anti-dowry law (of 498a). These Acts have been criticized because they are not gender neutral. The anti-dowry law is seen to be draconian…

A newspaper defends itself
A lot of people lambaste the media and some go to extremes. But it is unusual for the media to speak out and write something in it’s own defense. That was why I was surprised to read an article in the Times of India editorial page (not an ediorial), in which the newspaper defended itself against a vicious power point presentation circulating on the web…

Top six movies of 2007 I love movies, whether Bollywood or Hollywood. Last year I had made a list of my 10 favorite movies of the year, and thought I would make one this year too. This year however I found that there were very few Hollywood movies I loved (I missed Blood Diamond!!) and therefore have only one on my list. In fact most of the movies I saw last year were Indian movies. Even then there are just three movies which I considered really good…