News & Views from The Himalayas
Avay Shukla retired from the Indian Administrative Service in December 2010. He is a keen environmentalist and loves the mountains. He divides his time between Delhi and his cottage in a small village above Shimla. He used to play golf at one time but has now run out of balls. He blogs at http://avayshukla.blogspot.in/
The naked truth is that Rahul Gandhi did not lose the 2019 polls, Congress ideology did. Messers Modi and Shah have created a New India in which there appears to be no place for what the Congress has always stood for: liberal values, secularism, inclusiveness, consensus, human rights, genuine federalism, compassion for the poor.
The explosion of trekking in forest areas and fragile mountains is getting completely out of hand and in the days to come shall pose the biggest danger to the natural environment, including its flora and fauna.
The Modi- Shah duo have single handedly replaced the idea/ideology of a humane, plural, tolerant India with an assertive, Hindu dominated, impatient, proud India which is prepared to wait another five years for the fruits of development to trickle down to it.
Even by the standards of our rapidly plummeting polity and social discourse the events of the last week have shocked all right (and left)…
Most people would be surprised to learn that Himachal’s most iconic symbols are neither Preity Zingta nor Kangana Ranaut, it is the HRTC (the…
There is a tendency in India for all powerful public figures to allege a “conspiracy” whenever they are charged with any wrong doing. The Chidambarams do so when they are enquired into in the Aircel-Maxis case, the PM when he is accused of irregularities in the Rafael deal, MJ Akbar when he is called out for giving interviews in his underwear, Kamal Nath when his aides are caught with crores of unaccounted lucre. The CJI has just added himself to the list.
What can be more ironical and hypocritical in these farcical times than the fact that a lady candidate’s allegedly khaki underwear has become the…
The BJP, credit be given to it, is the cat which has jumped off many hot tin roofs but has always landed on its feet.
Come March every year and I cannot wait to get back to my tiny village in the mountains after a seven month , soul…
