Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but  what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication. Quoting the September 27 MoEFCC's Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) meeting,  released on October 2, a senior scholar-activist of the top environmental advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has  reported  that in a "respite" to forest dwelling communities, fragile biodiversity and community conservation areas, the EAC has "rejected" the Adani application for project. However, the window for continuing with the controversial project hasn't been entirely closed. To quote Parineeta Dandekar, the

The year was, if I remember correctly, 1990. At that time I was special correspondent of semi-left Patriot daily and Link newsweekly in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev's parestroika and glasnost were on an upswing, though keen observers seemed to notice cracks beginning to appear in the powerdom under him. Apparently to assess what was happening, the then Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary EMS Nambudaripad had come down to Moscow along with young Sitaram Yechury -- the party general secretary who passed away on September 12, 2024 at the age of 72. Young Yechury looked like the photo above.  I had never met either of them when in Delhi, but had heard about Yechury, who was a Jawaharlal Nehru student activist-leader associated with the CPI(M) student wing, Students' Federation of India (SFI). I was a year junior to him then, and was in Delhi University in first half of 1970s. Most of us in the Left would talk about him as an open minded, soft spoken student leader,

A few days back, after taking a round of beautiful hills surrounding Salt Lake City (SLC), we drove down to a popular, somewhat fashionable spot -- Harvey Milk Blvd -- not very far from the Down Town. We visited a few shops, where mainly souvenirs were being sold, and also a few sex toys! Finally, we visited an ice cream parlour, where we tasted Italian ice cream. It is a well decorated parlour, with different coloured lovely goodies  hanging across the restaurant. I took a lemon flavoured ice cream -- really liked it. The parlour is called Dolcetti Gelato. Thereafter, while returning to take the car, we found two persons sitting on outdoor chairs, with old manual typewriters on makeshift tables. They were typing out exactly the same way I used to in 1980s to do my stories before faxing them from Moscow to Patriot office in Delhi.

One of the most interesting things I noticed in Salt Lake City where I right now, is the prevalence of gun culture. Anecdotes take a round on how someone fired at an xyz person, and yet got way with it. Nothing new, as we in India also keep reading about how guns are commonly used in the US leading to fatalities even in schools. As we were moving towards the nearby mountains, I noticed a young man on a motorbike. His t-shirt proudly advertised the necessity of keeping a gun. Printed on the backside of the t-shirt was "You can't buy happiness, but you can buy guns", offering the name of the place where you can have it. Searching on the internet, I found that, as per a 2023 survey, 32% of Americans own at least one firearm. From 1994 to 2023, 28% gun ownership increased in America, in which women ownership increased by 13.6%! The recent use of an assault rifle by asuspected gunman who shot Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 may be a stark reminder about the

Even as rains lashed Salt Lake City, the capital of the US state Utah, where I live now, I was a little surprised to read a story  in a local website. The story says, "When it comes to per capita water use in the US, Utah ranks second at 169 gallons per day. That's only slightly behind Idaho's 184 gallons per person each day." I was interested in the story as it would help those seeking to compare water usage and management in India -- many of whose states are water scarce -- with that in US. In India water usage is 443 gallons per day (both domestic and agricultural).  Utah  gets very little of precipitation compared to other US states. It's capital, where I stay, Salt Lake City, gets about 16 inches of rainfall in a year. Another town, Delta, gets 8 inches of precipitation each year. By way of comparison, India's average annual rainfall is around 115 inches, and of Gujarat, a water scarce state, it's around one third of it. At the same time, the story cl

I was a little surprised to read a picture story in DNA news website, which includes Ahmedabad as the first city among seven where non-vegetarian consumption is banned.  I don't know about the other cities in the list -- Pushkar, Palitana, Tirupati, Veshno Devi, Shirdi, Haridwar -- in the story, which claims that the information is not an opinion but has been obtained from media reports.  However, as for Ahmedabad, non-veg food is not only easily available but is fast becoming increasingly common for those seeking to eat outside home. Not only this, you can easily order it online -- I have myself done it several times.  Of course, there are Jain-dominated housing societies where non-veg food is "not allowed". But I am told even some Jains go out and reach up to non-veg eateries in western Ahmedabad to have "tasty food."  The DNA story is as false as the common saying that Gujarat is a vegetarian state. Officially, 42% people are non-veg in Gujarat, but a caste

After watching the Pioneer Day parade, a week later, I walked into a top University of Utah institute in the Salt Lake City, and on the very entrance I found copies of the Salt Lake City Weekly freely available. I picked up one of them. Containing mostly ads, scanning through, I found an article titled Pioneer Day, which interested me. It is authored by Wes Long, who happens to be from the Mormon community, a Christian sect which owes its allegiance to what they call "Latter Day Saints". A close knit community, Mormons dominate Utah's population, and are said to love to have up to 4-5 children in their family. The article (available online here ) surprisingly says, the Mormon Church originally was a "laboratory to create a Zion society, wherein there was to be neither rich nor poor but rather the pure in heart", underlining, "Such was the vision for which the Mormon pioneers lived, however haltingly, within the larger 19th century American context of racis

Currently in Salt Lake City, which hosted Winter Olympics 2002, and will again host them in 2934, it quite a spectacle to watch the Pioneer Day parade just about half a mile from where we currently live.  The parade marks the foundation day of Utah State of the US, and the city happens to be its capital.  It was very informal, with people sitting on folding chairs, squatting on ground, many of them underneath the small makeshift canopies they had installed -- all on two sides of the road along a small park and the huge library on the side. There was virtually no security, I could see no cops pushing people to one or the other side, though there was traffic police at a crossroad nearby to ensure people crossed the road without any difficulty, even as allowing smooth movement of the very has running trams (they call them metro).  Some people -- mostly families with children -- who perhaps had come from other areas of the State had put up their rents in the garden, and were living in ther