Articles by T R Gopalakrishnan

The irony was too stark and tragic to ignore. Along with millions of fellow countrymen, I whooped with joy and pride at India becoming the first nation to land its Chandrayan 3 lander safely on the moon’s southern polar region. Unfortunately, the day's newspaper was lying next to me and I could not help notice the headline that stared back at me. A young girl had suffered serious injury as an electric pole fell on her. Just a day or so earlier, the same newspaper had carried a similar headline. Then again, the victim, a young man, had been grievously…

It's a term Bangaloreans have become quite familiar with in the past one year—white topping. I have seen this work happening in certain areas and the disruption it causes to citizens living and working along that stretch of road. But last week, white topping arrived at my doorstep and since then my wife and I have virtually been under lockdown. The roads in front of my house have been closed to traffic. Which means I cannot take my car out. The cement surface laid is so high that getting onto it is difficult without some stepping stone. We always have…

Let me start this editorial with an important caveat. It is not, in any way, an argument against welfare schemes for the poor. Well designed and implemented welfare schemes are today more necessary than ever. My argument here is against the casualness with which such schemes are announced in a public speech as part of a party’s poll campaign strategy. Without the slightest thought given to cost or consequences. As a reporter, I have many times asked candidates how they intend to fulfil their poll promises. Every candidate gave the same reply: “satta me aane do. Tab dekhengen (let us…

An old saying goes “it is better to side with the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. To me that seems the only reason for Bengaluru’s voters resisting whatever wave swept the rest of the state. Only in Bengaluru did BJP retain the 2018 number of 16 seats, even as it got washed away everywhere else. There are analyses aplenty in the media and the internet on how and why the BJP lost the state so badly. You can draw your own conclusions from them. Maybe India needs a new Long March revolution to get out of the…

The webinar was titled “The mysterious process of budget allocations”. The panellists were all people who had for many years studied budgets, the process and its many shortcomings. They could not solve this particular mystery. But all gave very practical steps to give the budget more meaning and substance and make it less mysterious. To me, at the end of the discussion, one thing stood out. The figures all budgets bandy about, in this case especially the thousands of crores supposedly allocated to Bengaluru, mean absolutely nothing. Their yearly presentation is a meaningless ritual that the law demands. My point…

“The pace of the Char Dham road project must be reduced to four kilometres a month from the present 40 kms a month. That is the only way to preserve the ecology of the region.” That was one of the many policy and governance issues recommended by Dehradun-based Dr Anil P Joshi in an exclusive interview with Citizen Matters in the wake of the land subsidence incident in Joshimath. Which, Dr Joshi emphasised, is very different from land slips, which are a completely different phenomenon. The interview covered a range of issues and recommendations for preserving the fragile Himalayan ecology.…

Living in Delhi can be hazardous these days. If the ongoing cold wave does not get you, breathing in Delhi air will probably do so, though in a prolonged and painful way. For unfortunately, the public health effects of poor air quality, coupled with Delhi recording its lowest temperature in the last two years (for which poor air quality may well be a reason) is rarely referred to when discussing ways to combat air pollution. It would be difficult to recall when Delhi last had a clean air day, most probably for a few days during the COVID lockdown. The…

Did you know that the launch of textbooks in Hindi on anatomy, biochemistry and physiology for first-year MBBS students, to presumably replace the ones in English that have been used historically, will convert India’s “brain drain” into “brain gain”? How exactly that will happen is not clear. But so said Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a launch function of these books in Bhopal last month. There was plenty of other rhetoric by various speakers at the function. Including invoking Nelson Mandela, who was quoted as having said “If you talk to someone in a language, it reaches their brain.…

I wonder what it would be like if protestors stormed Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, like the protestors who stormed the presidential office in Colombo. It is an unlikely scenario, no doubt. But maybe there are lessons there which governments in India need to learn quickly. Especially prudent management of the economy. Which basically means ensuring easy and affordable access to essential commodities and services, creation of new jobs across the socio-economic spectrum and across skill levels, and constantly renewing hope in people that “ache din aayenge”. To quote from Jawaharlal Nehru’s historic August 15, 1947 ‘Tryst with destiny’ speech in…

Former American President Harry Truman apparently once said that he wished he could find an economist with only one hand. When asked why, he replied, “Whenever I ask an economist a question, his reply always is “on the one hand…”, followed by “on the other hand…”. Truman had a valid grouse. For instance, do you know what “inflation”, a term much bandied about by economists, media and the RBI in recent weeks, means. Inflation basically means the rate at which prices of goods that you buy on a regular basis, especially food items, are rising. For example, the price you…