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Rendezvous With Trauma
In his first successful novel titled Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke talks about Overlords, a race of devil-shaped aliens who come to Earth and bring about peace and prosperity. They start by disbanding all individual governments, thus ending war. Using their superior technology to solve the problems of poverty, hunger and oppression, they herald a utopia in which most scientific research is deemed unnecessary and exploration of space is banned.
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Fairy tales for everyone
Ours is a rising nation. Everything keeps rising -- rising prices, rising crime, rising corruption. In an imperfect world such as this, everyone is entitled to their share of fairy tales. It is for this reason that I've always made it a practice to read fairy tales to my younger son. They are required reading for impressionable minds, just the right input to build a strong moral fibre in the very young.
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"The Governor never discussed Tata funding with me"
The mood in Assam Bhawan is upbeat. Having successfully averted a near political disaster, Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is a relieved, if not relaxed, man today. "My stand is vindicated," is how he reacts when asked about the Governor's refusal to grant sanction for his prosecution in the multi-crore-rupee LoC scam.
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Inside track
Some time back, Nawaz Sharif inquired from an Indian journalist the number of Punjabi ministers in Deve Gowda's cabinet. Sharif's regional chauvinism was offended to learn that there were only one-and-a-half Punjabi ministers in the Indian cabinet. (I.K. Gujral, a legitimate representative of the Janata Dal counted as a full minister and Balwant Singh Ramoowalia who represented only Har Kishen Singh Surjeet's interests counted as half a minister).
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