Monthly Archives: December 2008

Symbol of Progress [Metro Rail of New Delhi]

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Dinesh Wagle
Walge Street Journal
[This article originally appeared on today's Kathmandu Post. Nepali version appeared in today's Kantipur. Click here to read as it appeared on the page of Kathmandu Post and click here to see as it appeared on Kantipur page.]

Metro rail of new delhi
Inside the Metro rail of New Delhi. Pic by DW

Two reasons prompted me to take a ride on New Delhi’s Metro train this month. First, it was one of the easiest means of transportation from Dwarka to Central Secretariat from where I could take a bus to Jangpura Extension where I live. Second, I wanted to see the famed Metro that has been widely described as one of the world’s best city transportation facilities. No doubt, the coolest train system of Delhi is also one of the top tourist attractions in the Indian capital. While travelling about 30 kilometres of distance I not only enjoyed the aura of the fancy compartments but also got to see the city from the height of a three-storey building. The elevated train track runs over the road where ever growing number of vehicles fight for the road space and get stuck in red signals. Up in the air-conditioned metro compartments passengers don’t face traffic jams. Instead they are treated with a good view of the cityscape. Continue reading →

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India’s “White Tiger”

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Many Indians, it appears, find it very difficult to accept that their country is still part of the third world

Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
[This article originally appeared on the Op-Ed page of the Kathmandu Post today. See it here as it appeared on the paper.]

In an interview with last week’s Tehelka magazine, leading Indian sociologist Andre Beteille mentioned the hotel that came under terrorist attack earlier this month and said: “The Taj Mahal Hotel is, of course, a symbol, but whose?”

Of the elites of India.

N. Kunju, provided further explanation in a letter to Outlook magazine last week: “All this disproportionately loud noise on the Bombay terror attack is because the affected come chiefly from the elite. The victims were people who could afford Rs. 10,000 for room rent and a few thousand on dinner. If this were a terrorist attack in which more people were killed at a religious place like Varanasi or Ajmer, the whole incident would have been written off in a couple of columns.” Continue reading →

B 19, Jangpura Extension [New Delhi-110014, India]

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The Kathmandu Post intro for the following story: Our New Delhi correspondent finds his bearings in a new city
[Here is the PDF version of the Op-Ed page of the Post dated 10 December where this article appeared after it was first published in Kantipur.]


I live in the third floor of the pink building on the left- Jangpura Extension

“B 19, Jangpura Extension,” I told the cabbie soon after landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi a month ago.

In 45 minutes we were in JE looking for the B block. Four minutes later, we were in B block looking for house number 19. And soon I was in front of the building whose third floor is rented by Kantipur Publications, the publisher of Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, for their New Delhi Bureau office and residence for the bureau chief. As the cab came to halt, I stood in front of what would be my home for the next several months.

I didn’t think that finding a house was that easy in New Delhi. The credit goes to the efficient naming and numbering system that makes the city navigation as easy as finding a dance bar in Kathmandu. The Nepali capital also has similar naming system in place, thanks to the European Union, but it is not as effective as it seems to be in Delhi, whose population cannot be compared with Kathmandu. Continue reading →