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Doctors and teachers, once held in the highest esteem for their service to society, have become the new mercenaries in India. Both these noble professions have been demeaned by the current breed of money hungry medical and academic practitioners today. In India, teaching, particularly in schools, is not the preferred profession of the brightest academics. Instead people take it up for the weirdest of reasons. Women have a tradition of preferring this profession for the convenience of timings and vacations. For others, it is often the last career option, after being rejected in the selection rounds of other, more preferred, corporate or administrative positions. So we have a situation in which most school teachers are either frustrated wannabe scientists or historians, mathematicians or linguists. Since teaching is not their first love, how can they withstand its rigours and challenges? Most teachers are an over-burdened lot, with 40-50 students to manage in one class. So compassio...

Tomorrow India celebrates her Independence Day with the routine parades and speeches. A remembrance of past glories and the extreme sacrifices made by our nationalist heroes and heroines only to see the dream of freedom come true. A dream which came true eventually, albeit at a great cost and the loss of many precious lives. However, whether freedom actually came or not is still a big question mark. Freedom, yes, we had from foreign domination, but we stepped into the domination of our home-grown netas. Who have been exploiting and oppressing the common people endlessly, perhaps even more than our foreign rulers did. The poor remained poor, dying of starvation and exploitation; and some people fattened up at the cost of the ignorant masses. Women and children continue to be tortured, and beaten into suppression; religious animosity continues, ready to flame up at any instant; education still remains a distant dream; and healthcare services and sanitation still remain exclusive. We...

Another mindless Hindi flick becomes a blockbuster, crosses the 200 cr. mark. Salman Khan's Kick, hailed by everyone as a supreme no-brainer, expectedly sets box-office afire. Its really amazing, the Indian viewer's tolerance towards, and endorsement of Bollywood trash. Cocking a snook towards critics and reviews, filmmakers laugh all the way to the bank on the basis of their masala pot-boilers. A little of everything: superhero gymnastics, social message, violence, revenge, romance, eve-teasing, item song and dance, bicep flexing, and voila, you have a readymade recipe for a hit. Add an ageing hero, with a massive, crazy fan-following, and you have a blockbuster on your hands. No logic, no rationale can explain this phenomena. I wonder about it again and again, after Dabangg 1 &2, Chennai Express, Dhoom 3, Krish 3, all go down in Bollywood history as top grossing blockbusters. What is it about these films that people flock to see them? Is it the ageing hero, who epi...