Aswini Ashok

Two things totally unrelated to each other happening right now have a strange yet compelling connection. One is the Indian army’s call for women officers seeking permanent commission to start sending their applications. Another one is the promotion works of the movie, Gunjan Saxena. If you have ever wondered why this, much celebrated Kargil girl is still not serving the IAF unlike many Kargil heroes still in their uniforms. The answer lies in the first event mentioned. It is because women were not granted permanent positions in Armed forces. Well, times have changed now. The Supreme Court judgement earlier in February this year was celebrated for promising equality in the Indian army. Though it is a welcome move undoubtedly, it is imperative to understand the evolution and reasoning of the demand to understand what costs equality, even in its limited scope. Captain Bhavana Kasturi leading an all-male contingent in R-Day parade 2019 Women in Army:        ...

It may be in the best of interests when the PM asked everyone to stay put in their respective locations when the lockdown was declared. But, things had gone astray ever since. Especially that of the stranded migrant workers. While the rich had the privilege to fly back on the last day, it is always the poor and underprivileged who bears the wrath of any difficult measures being taken in the country. The recent decision by the central govt. advising the state governments to take necessary measures to transit the migrant workers shall be commended only for being better late than never. Labor ministry sources indicate there could be as many as 2 million migrant workers in the country. The government should have been more sensitive in dealing with a crisis of this magnitude. At least 25 people have died walking hundreds of km in the last one month alone. While some were lucky enough to have made it to their villages, the sight of people walking all the way in highways with constantl...

Every election season we get torn between two narratives. One is the majority and politically correct stand of exercising our voting power by hook and crook. The other is by the extreme leftists on how the current electoral system is a mess and no good will happen through voting. Amid this there are other miscellaneous narratives on how a single vote will (not) bring any ‘huge’ change or the need for representative electoral, etc., etc., However, one cannot deny the fact that every election season we get worked up on who to vote for or who to vote out, unless otherwise, we are following any party or person blindly. That makes it simple sometimes. Anyways as millennial voters, we are time and again lectured on the need to vote for the right candidate irrespective of the party. Let me illustrate how I have religiously followed it and loosened my stand over time. It was in the year 2015, I have developed a severe hatred  against our ex-Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for the scam...

Patriotic lessons are seeded in our minds from time immemorial. Ever since we started school education, we were taught to be patriotic, through the sacrifices of great men who fought incessantly for the freedom of our country. Unfortunately, patriotism is taught only as a ‘concept’ of fighting an invader and the Patriots are only those who have fought the intruders. The evils within our own country and the system which made it accessible for ‘outsiders’ to conquer us is seldom educated. And the people who fought the internal system are never given the badge of patriots. Our History lessons were of valiant emperors, ambitious to spread their empire. The history of the subjects who form the majority of the kingdom is largely ignored. We know how mighty an empire was, but never know how satisfied the people were under that rule.  Thus we have fundamentally gone wrong in understanding ‘patriotism’, for which we are paying a big price now. The recent terror attack at Pulwama and the r...

Disclaimer: Based on inputs from "அணு  உலை  அறிவோம்" by J.Prabhakaran., and other sources.  Contains disturbing pictures. Read at own risk. With massive increase in the awareness among common people and widespread reach of media in the form of print, visual and social, the importance delivered to protests concerning environmental impacts have become stupendous. One may argue that with the growing agitation the country will turn zero tolerant to any kind of development project, which will only make the country’s growth spiral backwards. But it is equally important to value and understand the livelihood and emotions of the people and to be a responsible citizen to realize the real cost we pay for every development without rubbishing off the demands of the under privileged in the name of the greater interest of the nation and to equally develop the standard of living of common people without creating a valley between them and nation’s development. The term ‘developm...