Skip to: Site menu | Main content


Archive for the 'Opinion' Category

Self financing colleges – double standards by LDF

Marxist party has been fighting self financing colleges for a long time. According to them, self financing college is an evil. Unfortunately all that changed once LDF came in power. Since LDF came to power, a lot of self financing colleges were started all around Kerala. Here is a break up of colleges allotted by [...]

Trivandrum – criminals heaven

Kerala’s capital Trivandrum is slowly becoming a heaven for criminals from other districts. Whenever there is a political, religious or trade union demonstration in Trivandrum, all criminals converge on the capital city and unleash violence. They are pretty sure that police won’t take any action and can continue damaging property and beating up people. Since [...]

Free Software in Kerala – exposing double standards

Just few days back I wrote why free software enthusiasts should be ashamed of the immature protest they did at the National Free Software conference held at CUSAT in Cochin. They went on to do things that clearly was criminal in nature. Police had to be called in to throw them out. What was the [...]

Is Malayalam a classical language?

I always wonder why we spent so much energy and effort on things which matter least. The latest in these controversies is the demand for giving “Malayalam” the classical language status. The demand is triggered by the recent addition of Kannada and Telugu as “classical languages” by Government of India.
It was in 2004 that government [...]

The scary state of food adulteration in Kerala

Whenever our local fish seller used to come to our colony, we could see an army of house flies converging on his bike. But recently something strange happened. I could no longer see any army of houseflies. They are still there in and around the house, but they seem scared to touch the fish! [...]

A look at the technopark layoff controversy

In Malayalam we have interesting and intelligent proverbs (“Pazhanchollukal”). Probably the most used proverb these days is,
“Kaala pettennu kettappol kayareduthu”
It is very difficult to translate it. It is something like “He made necessary arrangements when he heard his bull has delivered a baby”. Kerala government is adopting the same approach when they ordered the Labour [...]

Sabari rail project to be scrapped – environmentalists strike again!

Earlier (1999) Railways had planned to construct a 45KM new railway line from Kottayam to Erumeli. After stiff resistance from environmental and farmer groups, this project was dropped. Then another project was proposed which will link Angamaly to Azhutha (120+ KM line).  This project was called the “Sabari” project as it would link the pilgrim [...]

Global/US Recession to hit Kerala hard

It appears that United States and rest of the world is heading towards a long and painful economic recession. It has caused the bankruptcy of a country (Iceland) and even capitalists are nationalizing banks to protect investors and bank customers! The most affected areas of this recession seems to be banking, finance, insurance and IT [...]

Malayalees rejoice at KSEB power cuts

It may give intense pleasure to those who are living outside Kerala to know that our beloved Kerala State Electricity Board has started 30 minute power cuts for everyone. This is affectionately called as load shedding. The monsoon god seems angry with Kerala and this year we may see power cuts for a few [...]

stay away from tata sky – perils of privatization

I have been a strong advocate of privatization and I have written many posts before on why we need strong competition in the market to ensure consumer protection. But unfortunately even at this early stage, private companies are displaying such greed that I am getting skeptical now. In a country like India where people look [...]

Kerala government offers more torture – No private bus in nationalized routes

In an idiotic move, Kerala government completely banned private bus services in nationalized routes from today. Earlier private buses were allowed to run up to 10KM through nationalized routes. Now not even an inch through the nationalized routes are allowed and that means they can’t even cross them.
This move will surely bring untold misery to [...]

In praise of KTDC Motel Aaram

If you are travelling often on Kerala highways, you would be looking for good hotels where you can relax and get some decent food. If you are not a regular traveller, this is much more difficult than you think. Most of the highway side hotels are a rip-off.
I don’t know about other activities of KTDC [...]

union for criminals? – welcome to idiot’s own country

Today there was an interesting news item which caught my attention. The agents who facilitate bribe at the RTO offices in Kerala has a union and a minister (Mons Joseph) is going to inaugurate their annual meeting! If you don’t believe me, check out the news item below. Click for a larger version.

As I [...]

Law and the politicians – The wahab incident

Many times I used to wonder why some of the rich guys in Kerala want to join politics. Even in last election, there were a couple of rich NRIs contesting the election. The reason is simple – with politics come power and to do anything against the law. It is as if politicians are mysteriously [...]

Who needs high court in Trivandrum?

An agitation by advocates in Trivandrum is now in "hot" stage. They are demanding a high court bench in Trivandrum. A lot of unions/organizations have expressed their solidarity with lawyers and is very happy to fuel the agitation. Every one says that "common man" in Trivandrum need a high court. But my question is [...]