What is our country coming to?

No seriously, what’s going on???
Large parts of central India are affected by what our Prime Minister has described as Number One Security Threat. While the alternative media cries itself hoarse over the one sided view of Naxalism being painted by the government and the popular media, the tribals, and indeed the common man in Naxalite affected districts, continues to suffer at the hands of both the insurgents and the government troops.

Read the following for some insights… and there are probably thousands more out there…
Arundhati Roy’s article in Outlook
Priyanka Borpujari’s blog (a freelance journalist)
Javed Iqbal’s blog (a photojournalist with the New Indian Express)
I love this take on the rise of the Maoist movement by The Great Indian Clearance Sale

The North East continues to be marginalized.
And now Kashmir is on the boil again. Its been ravaged in the last couple of months by protests against the killings of innocent youths by India’s Security forces, leading to more action by the security forces, and more killings! And now the clampdown on the media… Is this a democracy we are living in?

Following are a few links, some of the many articles floating around…
Rekha Chaudhary’s emotional piece on Rising Kashmir
Muzamil Jaleel article on stone throwing as a form of protest
A moving piece by a young Kashmiri journalist

In the meanwhile people in our megacities seem oblivious to the plight of the majority of the country- a middle class with ever rising aspirations, blinded by the consumerism, with unsustainable lifestyles, consuming ever more natural resources at a rate faster than Nature can replenish, sending their cities to the dogs by building more… more houses, more malls, more flyovers… more, more, more even in the face of crumbling infrastructure. What is this ostrich mentality? Its so stupid it’s nearly unbelievable…
Is there hope at all for us as a nation?