Portfolio
(All headers in italics are clickable links to my writings)
Newspaper Articles
I am a published writer and I write opinion pieces for national dailies and longer commentaries/essays for some national weeklies. I write on Business, Technology, and the Economy. Here are the links to a couple of them.
This is my commentary on the Indian Telecom Industry—how it is transforming from a fiercely competitive market to a duopoly with the attendant malaise of high prices and repair times. I have used metaphors from nature (my passion) and drawn parallels with Telecom (my profession) in this write-up. This was published on the Telegraph Op-Ed page in November 2021. https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/telecom-why-theres-no-joy-in-seeing-a-prophesy-come-true/cid/1839227
This is my commentary on the three industries (dairy, leather, and buff meat), dependent on bovine (cattle and buffalo) livestock, that employ 14 million Indians. The article looks into how an ostrich-like head-in-sand attitude of the government has paralyzed the bovine economy. This was published on the Telegraph Op-ed page in March 2022. https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/hung-up-on-bovines-an-ostrich-like-head-in-sand-attitude-of-the-government-has-paralysed-the-bovine-economy/cid/1858001
These are my reflections on the position and standing of the LGBTQ community in light of the September 2023 judgment in a much-in-the-news same-sex marriage case. Why cannot the LGBTQ community live with dignity? This was published on the Telegraph Op-Ed page in January 2024. https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/revealing-encounters-why-cannot-the-lgbtq-community-live-with-dignity/cid/1994475
My Blogs on Current Events
What I write as a passion goes into my blog www.devbaul.com where I talk about my life 1.0 (work and otherwise), my second passion–birdwatching; and pretty much anything that catches my fancy. A couple of blogs from my blog site www. devbaul.com that got a fair bit of traction are:
This is my commentary on the Arab-Israel war with an allegorical reference to Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” and a contextual reference to the India-Pakistan relations.
I write about the plight of the migrant workers during the covid lockdown and how their story is uncannily similar to that of Ramkinkar Baij’s “Santhal Paribar.”
My commentary on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident on October 3, 2021, in which farmers were mowed down by a Union Minister’s son. This has a metaphorical reference to Madame Defarge
I wrote this blog when they chose to remove Gandhiji’s favorite “Abide With Me” from the “Beating Retreat” ceremony.
Other Blogs
Here I explore how birds and mammals survive in harshest of conditions at the highest lake in India at 18500 feet. This was published in a Bird Newsletter. Page 25
I write about my encounters with one of my favorite birds—the cormorant. These encounters have been through nursery rhymes, spy thrillers, and physical sightings across the world.
This is my take on how Lord Jagannath’s Rath Yatra has affected the Western world’s psyche and how the West was forced to rethink about Indian traditions.
This is from my blog site’s “Lost in Translation” section. I write about Sunil Gangopadhyay’s exasperation with bigotry, fundamentalism, and indoctrination.
Kompoo, a story written in the early 70s is about a computer created by Shonku. I have given an English translation. I have compared Kompoo with Alexa and OK Google.
A tale of two poet-laureates separated by centuries, continents, and languages.
Here I present an English and a Hindi version of Shankha Ghosh’s poem “The Crawl.” This epigrammatic poem, to my mind, is most representative of his writing.