It's time all across India that schools changed their syllabus. At least as far as languages go. And parents insisted that they do that. French and Spanish may help your child prepare well to be a global citizen, Sanskrit may make you feel they are in touch with their roots but it's Marathi, that will get your child a ticket to the future, closer home. That is if they want to be in India, central India to be more precise, struggling hard to make a living or if he/she fails at securing admissions in a university abroad. For, if schools refuse to make curriculum changes then they are only setting stage for their wards to have a limited future. A future, that will be governed by the boundaries of the states in the country. One, that will have a chance at shaping into real perhaps only in the North of India or at best in few other states outside of...

Over a year back, on a rather uneventful news day when I was left to meet the many bureaucrats one hopes to get a tip-off for a story from... I got a call from my editor. The National Affairs Editor at CNN-IBN was calling to assign me a story. My assignment for the afternoon was a rather urgent one. In the call that he made, my editor also warned me that I may end up getting no bytes for the story but I was still to try. My only hope was to seek help from the defence correspondent in the office who knew my story subject well. Sam Manekshaw was unwell. Out of the hospital but not quite alright. We were to do a story. The defence correspondent gave me the requisite details. Names... Addresses even phone numbers. The job at hand was to go to Hauz Khas, the residence of Sam Mankeshaw's daughter, Maja and get her to speak about her father who...

It's one of the largest mosques in Asia. The most important in India...one that actually set the architectural pattern for all mosques in North India. It's also the last architectural wonder of the Shahjahan. But very soon all of this will change. The 17th century Jama Masjid will be better known for the shopping mall that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is building almost at a handshaking distance of the monument. The MCD's plan is shocking. It plans to dig 60-feet deep, just 30 meters away from the footsteps of the mosque. It has approved a 1200 crore rupees plan for a revamp of the Jama Masjid precincts..... which can even threaten its survival in the long run.... The plan is to build: an underground 60 feet deep four storey basement, complete with a shopping mall comprising over 600 shops and three tier parking space to accommodate 60 buses, 4500 cars and 4000 two-wheelers. The shops will be air-conditioned and designed to look like...

Soldiers are not supposed to think and mull over war and death. Their job is to shoot when ordered so. If soldiers get philosophical, perhaps all wars will be lost. Worse still, all thinking soldiers will perhaps be the first to be shoved into body bags. And that is not what army training is all about. It is about survival and victory. No soldier's ever gone to war thinking in his head that he will lose the war he is heading for. In some ways, journalists - no matter how small or big a story they are working on - are a little like soldiers themselves. Their lives are tough, jobs demanding, deadlines and results sacrosanct and mostly the boss's word has to be followed. So there is no missing a story. Like there is no missing a shot. There is no room for lame excuses like there is no room for a mishap. For whatever it should take, all that matters at the fag...