RajivBuzz

Recently, I wrote a blog on retired Gujarat cadre IAS bureaucrat RP Gupta, with whom I used to interact during my Gandhinagar Sachivalaya days as the Times of India man. Written in the backdrop of the Government of India controversially easing him out of his position as CMD of the PSU Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a special purpose vehicle to promote solar energy, the title of the  blog  — "RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?" — is self-explanatory about the blog’s contents.

  Top academic and Magsaysay Award-winning activist Sandeep Pandey has offered a bold reimagining of India’s foreign policy, rooted in peace, regional cooperation, and dismantling hostility with Pakistan. Writing in his capacity as General Secretary of the Socialist Party (India), Pandey argues that if his party were in power, it would chart a drastically different course from the BJP-led government under Narendra Modi.

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

A new report by  Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the  Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

 A recent article by noted academic Prof. Hemantkumar Shah is likely to spark fresh debate over Mahatma Gandhi’s controversial role during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa. Writing in Gujarati, Shah explores how Gandhi—still years away from becoming the "Mahatma"—chose to support the British Empire over the Dutch-descended Boer republics, despite personally sympathizing with the Boers’ struggle for freedom.