Daily Reads-53 (Level-1)

Reading Suggestion-1

Article Name: The anniversary of a divide
Author Name: Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Source: The Hindu
Category: Politics

Summary for this article:

This year, the 70th anniversary of India’s independence is also the 70th anniversary of India’s partitioning.

The author vividly describes the events that unfolded as a result of the partition of India. The division was not neat. It was a giant, bloody mess. Uprooted from their homes, some 14.5 million human beings, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, left the new Pakistan for India, or India for the new Pakistan. Some two lakh to twenty lakh human beings were butchered in the process.

He reminds us of the price we Indians had to pay to gain this Independence and the partition.

Today, he says even after 70 years of independence we are facing a gloomy situation under the current government. Though we have been and will continue to be a pluralistic society and claim ourselves in being secular; this bedrock position is weakening.

We live in a nation where the Dalits are still fighting for their rights; where farmers have to prove their dark situations by indulging in suicides; where the Hindus, who are culturally connected to the idea of the Hindu Rashtra, demand the non-vegetarians to justify that his/her food contains no beef. Fear has dug its roots deeper, though not seen, yet these current happenings have not shrunk its depth.

The author concludes by saying that on its 70th anniversary of Independence and partition we must resist a second partitioning of India.

Words to learn from this article:

Ramshackle: Not carefully made, needing repair ( ex- movie’s ramshackle plot)
Mayhem: Destructive in nature, having violence
Congregation: Assembly of religious people ( ex- the priest addressed the congregation)
Dissident: Not in harmony/heterodox/unorthodox

Reading Suggestion-1: Click to read full article

Reading Suggestion-2

Article Name: Does debt waiver improve living conditions of poor farmers? Data for the 2008 scheme paints a very bleak picture
Author(s) name : Mrinal Mishra, VenkateshUpamanyu,
PrasannaTantri and Nagaraju Thota
Source: Times of India
Category: Politics and Economy

Summary for this article:

In this article, the author explains how the 2008 national debt waiver data showed no signs of improvement in the living conditions of the poor farmers in the post waiver period; rather their research and the research done by the economists at the World bank showed that these waiver beneficiaries had cut down on the farmers consumption and increased precautionary savings.

Extending this experience, he explains why the voices demanding such debt relief schemes across the states especially in MP and Maharashtra would be a bad idea and will not help in improving the loan performance.

Words to learn from this article:

Bleak: Not encouraging
Regression discontinuity: A method of evaluation based on estimation and analysis

Reading Suggestion-2: Click to read full article

Reading Suggestion-3

Article Name: The price of leadership
Author Name: S.Leelavathi
Source: The Economic Times
Category: Society

Summary for this article:

In this article, the author says how a leader has to endure it all. A leader is assailed and adulated for all his good work but at the same time envied and even replaced once a better one is found.

If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader….”, says the author. Through a home spun story he explains how a children’s book also defines leadership as a poison.

Words to learn from this article:

Supplant: To take the place of something
Homespun: Madein home or simple
Bone-tired: Extremely tired
All hell broke loose: Chaos ensued, disaster happened.