Aakar Patel
Read biographyAakar Patel is a director of Hill Road Media. He is a former newspaper editor, having worked with the Bhaskar Group and Mid Day Multimedia Ltd.
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RAW does not make India proud
First, Pakistan's Express Tribune newspaper reported that India jumped the gun on an impending terror attack by Pakistanis. This was followed by The Hindu's report headlined: 'RAW left with egg on face as terror plot unravels.' The Hindu said that though RAW was wrong, it is possible it was fooled #Intelligence Bureau #Pakistan #Taliban #ToTheContrary
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The president should be political, not a ‘figurehead’
India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is in the running to become the nation's 13th president. The job comes a monthly salary of Rs 1.5 lakh, a Rs 40,000 increment over the cabinet minister's current take-home. And the home to take this salary to will be the 340-room Rashtrapati Bhavan. It was #HowThisWorks #Pranab Mukherjee #Pratibha Patil #Presidential polls
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India and Pakistan: The truth of the one nation theory
The first time I came to Pakistan, I was taken aback at how good some of the infrastructure was. The airports at Karachi and Lahore were small, but they were efficient and well designed. I think my host told me the Japanese had built one or both of them, and #Delhi #InMyOpinion #Karachi #Mohd Ali JInnah #Pakistan
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Gujarat and Modi: Is Gandhi’s state failing him?
An independent investigating team has said it cannot find evidence to support a complaint that Gujarat's chief minister was complicit in the riots there 10 years ago. Some believe this legitimises Narendra Modi, and makes him a viable candidate for prime minister. The reasoning is that it will make the BJP's #Ehsan Jafri #Gujarat #Gujarat violence #Narendra Modi #OnOurMind #Zakia Jafri
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What Manmohan Singh should tell Zardari today
What should Manmohan Singh tell Asif Zardari about Hafiz Saeed when he meets him today? He should say that the US move to squeeze Pakistan by putting a bounty on Saeed must be used to its advantage by Pakistan. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani says this is an internal issue for Pakistan. #Asif Ali Zardari #Hafiz Saeed #HowThisWorks #India visit #Manmohan Singh
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Hindus, Muslims and the Enlightenment
The Dark Ages is the period Europe spent in ignorance of Greek knowledge. How did Europe get out of this period? We saw last week how the foundations of modernity came about through a burst of activity in Greece starting around 500 BC. But two aspects are missing from this #Aristotle #ConnectTheDots #Greece #Plato #Saeed Akhtar Mirza
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A brief history of modernity
The history of modernity reads approximately like this. Around the time of Buddha, 500 years before Christ, the world was an ignorant place. It had little science. Reason was subordinate to power. And then in the 5th century BC, from nowhere, Greece produced a miracle. A series of geniuses, unprecedented #Aristotle #Greece #Plato #Socrates
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The irresistible appeal of Urdu: Watching the news in Pakistan
I have written before about the nastiness of Pakistan's Urdu media but let us look another aspect of it.The urban Indian reads and writes mostly in English, and often speaks a broken version of his mother tongue. In Pakistan, one is likely to find many more people who know Urdu #CultureDecoder #OnOurMind #Pakistan #Urdu
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Lessons from the riots in Gujarat
Tomorrow, February 27, is the tenth anniversary of the violence in Gujarat. In March of 2002, the Editors Guild of India sent a three-man team to investigate the role of the media in the riots. The team comprised of BG Verghese, Dileep Padgaonkar and myself. We filed a report whose finding #Ahmedabad #ConnectTheDots #Gujarat #Hindutva #Media
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Nobel Peace Prize: Honour Edhi, the Mahatma of our time
Editor's note: The 17th Annual Nobel Peace Prize Festival will be presented by Augsburg College and World Citizen on Friday, 2 March in Minneapolis. The last day for filing nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize was 1 February. Abdus Sattar Edhi has been repeatedly nominated and ignored by the Nobel #Abdul Sattar Edhi #Gandhi #India #Nobel Prize #WhyNow