Smoke Screen

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• Alter Ego

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• Recent Posts

  • Almost Twitter-gated!
  • And more …
  • Translating boundaries
  • Birth, control, and the pill
  • Navarathri
  • Linguistic hierarchy and multilingualism
  • More on English in India
  • From amnesia to language death
  • The (English) language weapon
  • Symbol, action and meaning
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• Twitter Updates

  • Gaddar on KCR: So glad someone pointed out publicly that the emperor has no clothes! 2 days ago
  • K C Tughlaq Rao: Surely there must be laws against inciting and instigating people into mindless, meaningless violence. 2 days ago
  • @DesisInAmerica Precisely because current states aren't. 2 days ago
  • Watching students (?) of KU and OU on the rampage one wonders about the kind of education they're receiving 3 days ago
  • Bandh for them, holiday for us. Erm...win-win? 3 days ago
  • @DesisInAmerica No, not no states, just no new states :-) Especially not when motivated by narrow, self-serving agendas. 3 days ago
  • # Telangana. Aren't 28 states proof enough that statehood does not bring about development? 3 days ago
  • Deplorable scenes at Osmania. Yet again the unsavory politicization of universities. 3 days ago
  • @supportloksatta Ridiculous, no? Entire parties have been swindling the state for decades! What can we expect a man to do in just 6 months? 5 days ago
  • What bliss! RT @thenoblesavage Whole day to myself, no work and a clean house. Life is good. 6 days ago

• From My Reader

  • Manipur schools closure: Boycott enters third month 26 November, 2009
    For over two months, young Manipuris have boycotted schools and colleges in the state. Two killings in broad daylight in Imphal, including one allegedly custodial, have resulted in the deadlock. Thingnam Anjulika Samom has more.
    (author unknown)
  • Back to the Future? Why the MCD's ban on horse-drawn tongas in the Walled City may be less practical than it seems 24 November, 2009
    Last week, the MCD announced that horse or mule-drawn tongas would be soon be banned from the streets of Old Delhi. The Council says the move is aimed at reducing both "cruelty to animals" and traffic congestion.  According to The Hindu, BJP Councilor Vijender Gupta summed up the motivation for the policy thus:These animals are subjected to cruelty […]
    Hari Batti
  • On being welcome 18 November, 2009
    A correspondent writes to ask about the modern usage of you're welcome as a politeness formula used in response to an expression of thanks. Is it an Americanism? Certainly the usage is very frequent today, in some parts of the world. It seems to have become the expression of choice in service environments (such as responding to customers in a restaurant […]
    DC
  • On singing accents 14 November, 2009
    A correspondent writes to say he's noted that regional accents disappear in songs, or at least become less detectable, and wonders if there's an explanation.This is true, as a general observation, and there two reasons for it. The first is phonetic. Several of the main identifying features of a regional accent tend to disappear when singing - the i […]
    DC
  • Feminism or Womanism? 12 November, 2009
    Illustration by Rajesh Kumar, JNU, New Delhi A Personal Herstory By Cynthia Stephen It took me over fifteen years to work out the answer to a personal puzzle: Why was I, a socially committed middle-class young woman, reasonably well educated, experiencing a deep sense of alienation in the field of development where the buzz word was empowerment?  A South Ind […]
    Cynthia
  • Women In Fear – The [Non?] Evolution of the Female Role in Horror Movies 30 October, 2009
    Seven years ago, I watched the original Friday the 13th (1978) with my friend in broad daylight while eating pasta. One startling scene made us fling our plates straight towards the ceiling. Covered in hot noodles, we laughed, and didn’t really think beyond the cleaning up we had to do. Two years later, I watched [...]
    Jia Jung
  • Nobel for ostrom: Are Indian policy-makers listening? 3 November, 2009
    Popular ideas of development and management of common resources should be revisited in light of this year's Economics Nobel Prize, given to Prof. Elinor Ostrom, writes Prakash Kashwan.
    (author unknown)
  • The Trouble with Trash (It's not the imported condoms we should be worrying about) 27 October, 2009
    This week, we are talking trash about trash!Today, we'll look at Indian companies' growing appetite for imported trash, and the problems this hunger causes. Some credit for all this trash talk goes to the October 24th issue of Tehelka, where you will find a pair of interesting articles on the subject. We'll save the story about toxic ships for […]
    Hari Batti
  • Indian languages in South Africa 26 October, 2009
    A school principal of Indian descent in South Africa is asking that his students be allowed to learn their "heritage languages" officially, instead of learning Afrikaans or an indigenous African language. In another report, students of Indian descent are saying the same thing: "We'd rather study Hindi".The principal, Vishnu Naidoo, d […]
    गिरिधर | giridhar | గిరిధర్
  • In praise of academic difficulty 23 October, 2009
    It is a plague that afflicts popular writing about literature and the humanities-social sciences. It is seen in Indian and Western media alike, in newspaper columns, blogs, and trade books. It is often but not always those trotted out by right-wing culture warriors, and sometimes by those with one foot in the academy. I refer to the chronic grousing about th […]
    Rohit Chopra
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