About This Site

I started blogging in May 2011, when I was with the Times of India’s Gandhinagar representative, looking after Gujarat government. The credit for this goes to Bharat Desai, who was editor of the paper then. I was discussing with him how, when I went to see a Gandhi museum on the spot of yet-to-built Mahatma Mandir, I saw life-size, even bigger, photos and cut outs of Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister. The Modi displays outsmarted those of the Mahatma, not to talk of other national movement leaders. 
“I am reminded of what I saw when I was in Cuba in 1985 for a ‘Patriot’ assignment”, I told him. “I saw larger than life screens showing Cuban leader Fidel Castro giving speeches... Screens were on roads, in hotel where we stayed, everywhere.” Prompt came Desai’s advise: “Why not write a blog on this?” A blog? Only a chosen few in the Times of India were allowed, I thought. But I was happy. 
He chose me, forwarded my first blog, and it was published. Thereafter, I wrote 86 blogs for the Times of India. All of them were called True Lies blogs, the last one being “The Wavering Vaghela” in July 2017, which was removed from the site (republished here) after publishing it, with no reasons given.
No complaints, part of many journalistic hazards, I thought, but stopped writing blogs for the Times of India thereafter. I argued with myself: Why not spend time instead on writing stories for my own news site, Counterview, which is an open forum, where all can write? This is what I have been almost exclusively doing since July 2017. 
In this site, I have sought to reflect my blogging skills, whatever they are left of me. The reason is simple: All journalistic stories cannot be blogs. The space for stories is Counterview, where I also take blogs. Nearly all the Times  of India blogs written in first person, reproduced in this blog, were first published here. Also reproduced here are Counterview blogs.
After all, the word blog is derived from "weblog", is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web (www) consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Seventy-nine of 86 Times of India blogs fall in this category, hence I have reproduced them in this blog. This is the link to the list of TOI blogs not included here.
Please feel free to read, comment, react, criticize. 

Email id: counterview.net@gmail.com