#WATCH | Ranchi, Jharkhand | A class 12th student, Sarthak Sidhant, says, “…I have written a blog that compares the tender documents of CBSE. I have uploaded and published it… There were at least 15 discrepancies, as per my blog. I would like to highlight three or four of them. Let me give a background about Coempt. It was known as Globarena, and they have a very shady background. 23 students killed themselves because of coempt… Now, I would like to tell you about RFP (Request for Proposal). What happens is the government issues a tender and asks the bidder to bid for it. CBSE issued this tender three times… I have compared the old RFP and the new RFP, and I found some discrepancies… The first discrepancy is that there were three clauses of poor performances which was completely wiped out from the new RFP. In the earlier RFP, there was a clause called blacklisted earlier, whereas in the new RFP, it was changed to blacklisted currently. Why would the board want a service provider which was blacklisted earlier? The third thing I found out is the 50 crore limit, which you needed to qualify, and coempt qualified that by 1.7% … The time frame of corrupt practices was halved, and there were project criteria changes… It shows a pattern that the industry giant TCS was not preferred, but coempt was preferred, which works as a very fragmented group of institutions…”
The habit of reading is a 'samskara'. You are born with the inclination to read. The world of books draws you in since your childhood. What may expand is the scope of reading and the new genres you discover as you read more.
While we bemoan the declining quality of literary fiction, all is not lost. Some of the most beautiful literature in India being written in English is coming from the North East.
A remarkable collection of short stories that I read recently is, Tales from the Dawn-Lit Mountains, by Subi Taba. It is the kind of literary work that makes you want to write. Her stories open a window into the unseen cultural, ecological and mythic worlds of Arunachal Pradesh. Through elements of folklore and magic realism, the stories draw us into the forests, the river valleys, the mountains and the memories of India's eastern frontier, allowing us to encounter a world where landscape, story and identity are deeply intertwined. In fact, this is the most potent use of magic realism as a literary device that I have come across in the recent times.
Taba does not attempt to translate these worlds into a comforting familiarity of our everyday existence. Ancestors, spirits, animals, forests and dreams blend seamlessly in the narrative as a lived reality. Nature is an active character in these stories where rivers possess agency, forests have memory, mountains shape lives and where the difference between the visible and the invisible, the human and the animal is a fluid shadow of perception (read A Night with the Tiger).
This collection of stories is an important reminder of how the indigenous traditions understand human existence not separate from nature. Through this sense of belonging and the tension between human desire and natural order, the stories explore the consequences of disrupting ecological balance.
The author also brings out the friction in this world facing modern life. There is the inevitable reality of change where roads arrive in hitherto unreachable villages bringing them modern governance, bureaucracy and the world through mobile phones. New knowledge systems appears in new types of schools.
The stories give a sensitive portrayal of communities negotiating this socio-cultural transition without reducing them to a simplistic struggle between tradition and modernity. The story that stands out is, “The Last Donyi-Polo Priest”, where a village priest could not say no to his father’s profession. In a moving description we get to see his inner state as he made the decision to stay back in the village years ago:
‘The priest turned away his head, pained by the memory of that when he walked back home, defeated by his father’s pride, and sat beside his priest father, under his wing as his assistant priest, learning the secret language of the Nyibus, memorising each word in sacred dedication till the words became his breath, sacred ode engraved in his soul.’
Taba's writing is intimate, and like all good literature, empathetic. There is a stamp of oral storytelling tradition visible in the narratives that capture wonder, violence, melancholy, loss of identity and grief in equal measure. This book is an important contribution to the Indian literary fiction as its documents voices that remain underrepresented in the mainstream discourse. It is also a masterclass in the craft of writing where the indigenous way of telling a story holds its own in a new world.
The stories lingered in me with a sense of having travelled through a land where stories still live close to the earth. I swam in its rivers and breathed the green of its forests. I was haunted by the spirits floating in its valleys and I was sitting next to the bonfires lit at the edge of its villages. Most of all, I fell in love with a people that still believe in ways of seeing this world that we have forgotten.
Go, pick the book! Happy reading!
India’s healthcare system is facing a growing “#patient#confusion crisis”, with nearly eight out of 10 patients in Delhi-NCR turning to #Google or #socialmedia after visiting #doctors because they leave consultations without fully understanding their #illness, #treatment or next steps, according to a new #survey. The India Patient Navigation & Confusion Index (IPNCI) 2026, conducted among 1,000 respondents across Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, found that 73.8% patients felt rushed during consultations, while 78.5% searched online later for clarity about medicines, tests or specialist referrals. @timesofindia #health #healthcare
@SriToosh
This weekend read The Halo Effect:
The core idea of the book is that when a company is performing well financially, observers- journalists, investors, analysts- tend to retroactively describe its culture, leadership, strategy and people in glowing terms. When the same company later struggles financially, every previous attribute get recast as a flaw. The underlying reality may not have changed much but our perception of the cause changes to match the outcome.
I think that India is currently suffering from a negative Halo Effect. Because the market has not done well and needs to be rationalized the observers are finding all possible flaws to try and justify the reasons in hindsight.
If we can separate the current performance from the – in this case negative- Halo, we can better understand whether this poor performance is temporary or something more permanent.
Children grow out of being artists. Elif Shafak explains why:
"If you ask in a room full of children, 'Are there any artists in this room?' So many hands go up. All of them are artists. 'Are there writers in this room?' They're writers. 'Poets?' They're poets. At that age, girls are perhaps a little more vocal than boys.
Then I'd give the same talk to 16 and 17-year-olds, and everything would have changed. 'Are there any writers in this room?' No hands go up. 'Are there any poets? Painters?' No hands. And girls have become timid.
Because we taught them: be careful how you sit, how you talk, the length of your skirt, the sound of your voice...you will be judged. Once you are judged, you will be categorized. We internalize that fear, and little by little, that kills our creativity."
The paradox we are witnessing in India is an incompetent national education board and spineless educators who have somehow produced some of the smartest kids in the world who in turn are intelligently dragging an entire bureaucracy through a swamp of their own making.
Dear Journalists,
This is how badly you have failed the future of this country.
Bunch of teenagers are dealing 1-2-3 blows to expose CBSE HQ's incompetence and lies.
DON'T YOU DARE KILL THIS STORY OVER THE WEEKEND.
THIS NEEDS TO BE COVERED EVERY DAY UNTIL RESULTS ARE OUT.
For every nation, there are a few enduring ideas that bind together its conscience and collective belief system. Institutions may weaken, governments may falter, systems may collapse but certain foundational truths continue to hold society together.
In India, especially for its vast middle class, that enduring belief has always been merit.
For generations, children across the country have grown up hearing the same simple creed: 'study hard, work honestly, and results will follow' It was more than parental advice...it became a moral framework. A deeply internalized belief that while many things in society may be corruptible, merit and hard work would ultimately prevail.
And for the most part, life reinforced that faith.
When we worked hard, success often followed. When we failed, we usually understood why. The outcomes, however painful at times, still felt fair. They affirmed the values we were raised on … God helps those who help themselves and the harder you work, the luckier you get.
That is why the country collectively smiles at news headlines about a rickshaw puller’s son topping NEET, a domestic worker’s daughter cracking IIT-JEE, or a poor farmer’s child excelling in board examinations. These stories were never just about individual triumphs. They were reaffirmations of a national belief....that talent and perseverance could still overcome circumstance.
They kept alive the middle class’s faith in meritocracy.
But when that faith begins to fracture, the damage runs far deeper than outrage over a leaked examination paper.
Today, repeated reports of compromised competitive exams ....from the country’s toughest entrance tests to even basic CBSE examinations are striking at something fundamental. They are not merely exposing administrative failures...they are eroding the moral contract that generations of Indians have lived by.
Because when young people begin to believe that hard work alone is no longer enough, when parents start doubting whether sincerity can compete with corruption, and when merit itself appears negotiable, the consequences become existential for a society built on aspiration.
The angst, anxiety, and despair surrounding exam paper leaks are therefore not disproportionate reactions. They are expressions of a deeper collective fear ...the fear that the one institution ordinary Indians trusted above all else may no longer be trustworthy.
The institution of meritocracy - where each parent - each child appearing for an exam was a stakeholder .
..And once a society loses faith in merit, what remains is not just disappointment, but disillusionment.
A nation can survive poverty. It can survive political instability. It can even survive corruption for a time. But it cannot afford to lose the belief that honest effort will eventually find reward.
Because that belief is what keeps millions striving, sacrificing, and hoping despite overwhelming odds.
And in India, where ever we look we know merit has always been our greatest national resource.
So if the governmental today is looking at roping in the armed forces to make sure there is no leak in the the NEET retest - then so be it..because the kind of action needed to re in-still that belief .. needs to be at war footing .
During my years in service, and even after retirement, I have interacted with numerous senior police officials in both official and personal capacities. Never once have I witnessed such casual, insensitive behaviour, poor public conduct, or complete absence of leadership as displayed during the Coimbatore police press conference concerning the horrific abduction, assault, and murder of the 10 year old girl in Sulur.
Officers smiling and appearing casual while addressing the media on such a brutal crime reflects a disturbing lack of empathy, professionalism, emotional maturity, and basic human decency.
A uniform and rank is not merely a position of authority, it carries the responsibility of dignity, restraint, compassion, and moral seriousness, especially while dealing with unimaginable human tragedy.
Such behaviour damages public trust in institutions and sends a deeply wrong message to society. Immediate accountability, along with a thorough review of police media conduct, and protocols for handling crimes involving children and women, is absolutely essential.
@tnpoliceoffl@TheFederal_News
#coimbatore #tamilnadu #police #viral #socialmedia #pressmeet #outrage #crime #JusticeForSulurGirl
#TamilNadu
#Coimbatore
#PoliceAccountability
#ChildSafety
#JusticeForChildren
#HumanityFirst
#SensitivePolicing
Giribala Singh isn’t your evil-saas prototype from old TV serials, stirring kheer and plotting in the kitchen. She is the upgraded 21st century version: English-speaking. Educated. Respected. Legally aware. Powerful. Her violence is no longer loud. It is strategic. Documented. Sanitised. And that’s what makes marriage terrifying for young women today.
"Global diversification is not something you do as a kneejerk reaction to the Indian market not giving you returns for a year, it has to be part of a well thought out portfolio strategy."
you know who did that... our clients!😎