[First published in Groundviews] The choice of Sri Lanka as a venue for CHOGM 2013 has always remained controversial. Two weeks from now, the Heads of Government of 53 Commonwealth countries will congregate in Colombo’s Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall to discuss, among other things, the Commonwealth’s commitment towards the promotion of human rights, democracyContinue reading “Commonwealth must honour its own commitments”
Category Archives: Opinion/Columns
The other side of otherness – Reflections on fieldwork in Sainsbury’s
A supermarket store in the posh London Borough of Islington might come across as an unlikely choice for a research project in anthropology – a discipline whose historical association with the study of the exotic and the esoteric by (mostly) White, European men in remote places is well-known. But here was I, an Indian student finding my wayContinue reading “The other side of otherness – Reflections on fieldwork in Sainsbury’s”
The Fast and the Furious – Starring Baba Ramdev
The easiest way to capture the imagination of a nation glued on to its television sets is to don a saffron attire, embrace a cause and sit on a “fast unto death”. The strategy of ‘satyagraha’ that Mahatma Gandhi so effectively deployed to raise the consciousness of a nation during the British rule, has inContinue reading “The Fast and the Furious – Starring Baba Ramdev”
An anthropologist among the journalists 