Openions Blog

It’s been a few days since US President Donald Trump tested positive for the Coronavirus. What I have seen on the Internet over the past few years has been increasingly pointing towards political polarization, and that’s the reason I came out of retirement (so to speak), to pen down this article about where we’re headed as a generation if we can’t find a solution to this ever-increasing political polarization, and soon. The problem is the celebration of people when Trump was diagnosed, and due to this age, was deemed at a high risk of dying from the virus. Political preferences aside, celebrating someone’s illnesses and wishing death on someone is not my definition of healthy political discourse. A similar phenomenon in India was observed when Home Minister Amit Shah tested positive for the virus a while ago, and this represents a part of an ever-growing serious problem that needs to be addressed. The divide between conservatives and liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers, or whate...

Indian Judiciary (Source: NewsClick) 2020 has been a year rife with disasters and problems, one after the other. Even in the field of politics, entertainment, and with respect to the entire society as a whole, several incidents have just forced us to stop, look, and reconsider some of the things that we earlier used to take for granted. One of these things is the presence and the relevance of the judiciary in India in the current context.  Several incidents over the past couple of months have seriously made me question that if the public and the media is playing the role of judge, jury, and executioner already, then why do we even need a judiciary anymore? In this article, we shall be discussing some of those events and incidents in some detail.  From Thain Thain to an Upturned Car, Evolution is Real Vikas Dubey Encounter (Source: India Today) Perhaps the most crucial and most recent event deserves to be mentioned first: the Vikas Dubey encounter. Not having witnessed the inci...

(Source: The Economic Times) Ever since the Galwan incident occurred in Ladakh a few days ago, the #BoycottChina movement has been trending everywhere on social media. But this movement is actually a lot older than just a couple weeks. The movement has been popularized from May, when border tensions with China first came into limelight. And Indians on Twitter went crazy with tweets on boycotting China. From blaming Nehru again to tweeting with #HindiCheeniByeBye, Indian news channels, as always, fanned the fire. We’re even considering the boycott of Momos and Manchurians now. But, is a trade boycott really feasible? Will it make much of a difference to the Chinese economy? Here are 11 reasons why the boycott will do more harm to India than it will to China: Chinese Goods are More Efficient and Better (Source: Financial Times) Let’s face it: the only reason people prefer Chinese goods are because of their higher degree of reliability and lower prices. Under a globalized economy, c...

In 2017, a video surfaced on social media and quickly went viral. It was the video of an old woman, christened Gormint Amma by the public, saying “Ye Bik Gayi Hai Gormint” which loosely translates to “The government has been sold”. Gormint Amma (Source: YouTube) We all know that historically, the government comprises of three main parts: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.   But, in the modern governmental context, most people have come to admit that there is a fourth segment of governance as well; the media, often called the Fourth Estate.   The media is perhaps the most powerful estate in any democracy. It has the power to make or break opinions, to dictate policy, and to bring about change in the society. But do they? No, they don’t, at least not in India. So today, in this article, we analyse the claims of our beloved Gormint Amma with respect to the Fourth Estate, the media. So, has the media been sold to the highest bidder? Is it performing the funct...

The issue of racism needs no introduction in the modern world, and neither do the recent protests that are taking place in the United States. But for the sake of those who haven’t caught up with the news in the last week, here are the highlights: A man named George Floyd, of African-American origin, was murdered by a police officer. This was caught on video, where it is clearly visible how the cop pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for 4-5 minutes, resulting in Floyd’s death. Protests Against Racism (Source: The Jakarta Post) When the video surfaced, most of America went into outrage, and most people started flouting lock-down rules by coming down on the streets and protesting. From Minneapolis to Los Angeles to even Washington DC, protests against police violence and institutional racism were happening everywhere in the USA. But this wasn’t limited to just the States. Over the past 7 days, similar protests have been taking place all over the world, in cities like Paris, Melbourne,...

Indians or Americans are no strangers to corruption, right? We’ve all grown up hearing the names of scandals involving inconceivably large amounts throughout our childhood. 3G? Bofors? Coal? Chaara? Ring a bell? Corruption in India (Source: Times of India) All our lives, we’ve been told that corruption and government are two inalienable sides of the same coin. It’s high time that changed. Today, we shall talk about how corruption can be ended. But first, it’s story time. Imagine this: you’re a student at a reputed school. You’ve been studying a lot to get good grades in your exam, devoting almost 6-7 hours a day. We’ve all been there right? Must be pretty easy to imagine. Your exams go well, and when the results come out, you’ve gotten a pretty good score. (Source: Study in Australia) You get into the college of your dreams. You work hard for 3 years in college, doing assignments on time and maintaining good relations with your professors. You abhor all forms of s...

Times are changing, aren’t they? The world is no longer what it used to be. The scales of power have always been constantly shifting in terms of global politics, or to use the words of Daenerys, “Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell: they're all just spokes on a wheel. This one's on top, then that one's on top, and on and on it spins, crushing those on the ground.” Daenerys Targaryen (Source: Pinterest) Earlier, at the time of World War II, USA and the USSR controlled world politics. They had the power to make regimes rise and fall anywhere in the world. And, as two competing superpowers always do, they were constantly at war with each other. No, not directly, because of a little something called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), they didn’t go to war directly. Rather, they chose little playgrounds to go to war in. These playgrounds included modern-day Korea, Vietnam, and most of South America, among other countries. The Vietnam War (Source: Britanni...