Mind Matters

Hindu Service & Spiritual Fair - 2012

2012-01-27T16:43:00.002+05:30

It was an interesting Republic day for me. I spent most of the day at the 4th edition of the Hindu Service & Spiritual Fair in Chennai. I have always visited the fair each year and always notice that with each year, there are many amazing changes and improvements and an extremely sincere effort by the organizers to bring as many Hindu organizations together.

This year, its happening at the D. G. Vaishnav College, Arumbakkam campus. As I strolled along, I reached an interesting corner that had an artificial banyan tree named as Sanathana Dharma tree! And from its branches, dangled little cards that bore the names of all participating organizations!! It was a lovely idea. And against the backdrop of this tree, were about 10 kids from class V and VI, from SDRF Vivekananda School, Chrompet, that were cutely dressed up as various heroes of India. And as one neared any of them, they would stand and talk like the hero they were dressed up as, with a fervour and enthusiasm that was so cute and infectious! I enjoyed my time with the kids there, speaking like Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Katta Bomman, Jhansi ki Rani, M.S. Golwalkar, to name a few.

I realised how as children, we grow up reading about inspiring heroes with such lovely ideals and values, only to be lost as we exit our teens and start out on our professional courses. And such fairs bring us back our old school memories and idealism back. Hats off to the organizers for doing a fabulous job. I only wish I could take time out as many of them, and spend more time.

2012 and Earth Axis tilt - part II

2012-01-25T11:47:00.000+05:30

Aren't we a lttle bored of the happenings around us? Right through 2011, we saw Arab Spring, US autumn, Occupy Wall Street style protests across the world. Back home in India, we had anti-graft campaigns by Anna Hazare that made news headlines 60% of the year. We did have many other campaigns, the perpetual Telangana stir, anti-nuclear protest, anti- genetic modification protest etc etc.

To add some entertainment, we had shoes hurled at leaders, ink thrown at people, people being man-handled, slapped too:-). No wonder, the song kolaveri (means murderous rage in tamil) went on to become the song of the year, as it kind of captured the mood of the people.

But friends, 2012 promises to be a different entertainer. I think we can brace ourselves for unexpected surprises from Nature! As we near the solar cycle - maximum in the 11 year cycle, we can expect many solar flares and storms. While, NASA has assured all of us that its pretty normal to experience these sun storms, as the sun approaches its "solar maximum" in May 2013, we are seeing very high and intense activity, already. This makes way for many theories to get re-floated and I am doing the same by re-posting the link to one of my earlier posts on the Earth Axis tilt that is doing the rounds.

While, I am a firm believer in the continuity of life, and never will fall for any doomsday predictions, I do think there's going to be some interesting events happenning in the next 12 - 15 months. There seem to be many pointers to this possibility. I would like readers of this post to check out the following stories.

http://www.polereversal.com/

http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/mag.htm

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-guest.html

So, lets brace ourselves to an adventurous 2012:-)

Arunachaleshwar finally beckoned

2012-01-08T14:23:00.001+05:30

Its been more than 10 years since I have had this deep longing to go to Thiruvannamalai, a celebrated abode of Lord Shiva, representing the fire element. Its just a day journey from Chennai, where I live, but it never happened. Finally, HE organized it all for me, and in grand style!

It was all like perfect timing, right from the start. We entered the temple and the deities were being led in a procession, a regular ritual, but it felt as if the Lord came out to give HIS darshan. We took our time to enter the main sanctum sanctorum and before we knew it, a priest led us toward the Lord and took us right there, just within a foot of the Lord. Whew!! We spent precious time at HIS feet and left with our hearts feeling full. Later, I gathered he was the Chief Priest of the temple and had been serving the Lord for the past 60 years! He then took us around and gave us a similar darshan of the Goddess too. It was such an unbelievable darshan, we all felt so special, it was like it was all planned and organized for us. There were hardly any crowds and the temple appeared to have just us:)

Ramana Maharishi spent most of his life meditating in this temple and so we ended our trip by going to Ramanashramam. There too, we were just on time, for lunch was being served and we had prasad. We rested and meditated at the meditation hall and were thoroughly refreshed with just a few hours we spent there. Such was the calm inside.

The Lord does know how to make us feel special and chosen. What a perfect day it turned out!

Reminded me of what H. H. Sri Sri RaviShankar ji says, "Faith is giving the Divine a chance to Act". Experienced that in abundance.

Profound Truth

2011-12-23T12:20:00.000+05:30

Amazing, how casual conversations between 2 kids can turn out completely philosophical and profound. I will share this conversation my niece (6 years) and nephew (9 years) had the other day. The discussion was whether time or money was important.

Boy: Time

Girl: Why?

Boy: Because if you lose or spend money, you can always earn it. On the other hand, if you spend time, you can't earn it!

(if you thought this was a gem of an answer, hold on, there's more!!)

Girl: One can't spend time, times spends itself. You can choose to spend it or not!

Whew!! Such understanding and experiences kids of today have. Wonder if they realised the depth their conversation had.

Dangerous Trends & Kolaveri

2011-12-14T13:51:00.000+05:30

There seems to be alarming trends witnessed across the world - a kind of activism with not much purpose and intent. And in India, I can think of 2 big trends - one, its fashionable to be negative and oppose everything. The second big trend is that anyone and everyone thinks he or she is an expert on everything - from nuclear energy to FDI in retail to Mullaiperiyar dam to genetically modified crops to rupee value against the dollar and the list is really endless.

While it maybe good timepass to have such pseudo experts discuss these grave issues over a cup of tea or cocktails, the sad part is that its taken to the streets and such unconstructive activism is at an alltime high. If the concerns were genuine, there is scope for improvement, but if its to agitate for the sake of agitation, growth and development suffer. I mean, there are more Karan Thapars playing the Devil's Advocate today and setting up imaginary arguments.

I am alarmed at this trend, just this past year has seen many such cases in the country. We had this absolutely ridiculous controversy over Bt brinjal from those who didn't know the abc of the technology. The ongoing agitation at Kudankulam is a perfect example of people on the street pretending to be nuclear experts. Two days back Shashi Tharoor wrote a column on rediff where he has categorically stated that the Mullaperiyar dam is unsafe!! When did he become an expert to comment on structural safety of dams? His only claim to being an expert is that he hails from Kerala. Then, there have been endless fasts and agitations for Telangana, corruption, Lokpal, etc.

My theory is that intolerance has peaked and all of us have streaks of these, in varying degrees! So many incidents of shootouts at toll plazas, tea shops, murders over petty issues, road rage have become common place, across the country.

So, there appears to be a Kolaveri in all of us, probably why the song went viral and every Indian could relate to it!!

Mullaiperiyar or Mullaperiyar??

2011-12-11T20:44:00.000+05:30

As the debate rages between Tamil Nadu & Kerala, I wonder why so much hue and cry is being made when there is no case, apparently. From what I read in the papers (I am not an expert / pseudo expert in this matter:-)), there seem to be a couple of issues for which there are ready answers.

Kerala says "the dam is unsafe as its very old" - Fair enough, they have also said they plan to build a new one.. So, let them build.

Kerala says "it will build a new one but with reduced height..." - Totally unfair and against the SC ruling.

Tamil Nadu says "if Kerala will build a new dam but with reduced height, we will rather have status quo" - Fair enough. Point noted..

So, the simple solution is for a new dam with the height as dictated by SC... a win win for all.. Where is the need to fight and build tensions?

But Kerala is flexing their muscles through few Central Ministers from their state, not to mention a number of key Babus who occupy prime positions in North & South Block.

Poor poor Tamil Nadu:-( we have none to represent our case at the Centre, we have only those who are concerned about their personal cases.

So, its Mullaiperiyar or Mullaperiyar, depending on which side you are on!

Sustainability at the individual level

2011-11-29T06:21:00.000+05:30

It was a nice interaction with the DG (Dr. Julia Maton-Lefevre) of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and she shared some wonderful insights on the workings in IUCN. Personally, I left the auditorium very happy and satisfied. Although there were many things I had heard before but perhaps, I was in a receptive phase or perhaps she put it so well. Off the many things she shared, she said each of us, in our own ways, can modify our lifestyles and cut down on spending, irrespective of affordability. Right from taking public transport and going vegetarian, she spoke from the heart.

She apparently rides a bicycle to work in Geneva (unheard of, for a DG) and swims across the lake to France occasionally! At first, her colleagues were a little sceptical and even thought she had brought down the distinguished office of a DG! Soon, however, many consider it cool and have followed suit. She said it also keeps her fit and healthy. Something clicked inside me and I have since resolved to cut down on frivolous expenditure that we sometimes indulge in, to start with:-)

I think its the only way - to sustainable development.

24/7 media channels share a common art, in India

2011-11-16T15:40:00.000+05:30

It has just struck me how the media houses share one thing in common between them.. they successfully make everybody else so likeable and acceptable!!

Let me elaborate. I was never a fan of Vijay Mallya and always thought he was too flamboyant and flashy for my taste. While I agree it takes all kinds to make this world, he was not somebody I was inspired or motivated by. But the recent crises that Kingfisher has landed in, and the media frenzy and reporting has improved my opinion of Mallya. Yes, he continues to be the flashy guy but there was something more to him than just that - this came through during his answers to News channels yesterday. The news channels were shown their place!

Another person who I didn't think much of, but has risen in my eyes is Omar Abdullah, CM of J & K. I really enjoyed the way he gave it to Arnab Goswami a month ago over a custodial death. The interview was so good that it had me jumping for joy!

Media houses do one thing well - they make the rest of us very greatJ

LPG subsidy and graft

2011-11-14T10:15:00.000+05:30

Couple of months back, I was shocked at a Cabinet proposal to limit subsidy to LPG consumers, to 4 per year and charge Rs 800/cylinder for anything beyond that! While, my consumption is exactly 4 cylinders/year (so, I would remain unaffected), I was aghast at the steep hike. I was very glad the plan was shelved and the government didn't want to beome more unpopular than it is already.

But I am now convinced such a proposal be implemented with immediate effect!! Let me explain my change of mind: a very casual conversation with my cook and maid revealed that both of them booked a cylinder every 21 days and sold it at double their cost! Their consumption was 8 per year. Their argument was that if they didn't do it, the gas agency would pocket the cash anyway, by booking through their accounts! I guess I am doubly shocked that my helpers are indulging in unethical practices and also because it has become so widespread..

While I know that corruption and black market in LPG thrives due to subsidy, I am really shocked at how rampant and widespread the problem is!! I guess knowing it at a theoretical level and coming across it personally has freaked me out completely. I am now convinced that such a move to limit refills to consumers will check this rampant corrupt practice. Those who ought to be buying LPG at commercial rates, but buy in black, better start paying for their business.

Hats off to Dr. Kalam

2011-11-10T12:13:00.000+05:30

I have always been an admirer of Dr. Abdul J Kalam, former President of India. He set the standards for living life king-size in Rashtrapathi Bhavan, with simplicity. He had only few of the rooms functional and kept the remaining rooms shut, thereby cutting costs on maintenance of the sprawling campus. He did away with many symbolic protocols and moved around in a simple manner.

He also organized and attended several meetings, on drawing a scientific roadmap for the country. Such things were unheard of, as the President was a decorative position and the people who occupied the post conformed to the 'decorative post', to the hilt.

But Dr. Kalam did none of that and he made the Office of the President, very approachable and accessible. He probably gave many security officers and agencies a nightmare, but as citizens, we loved him. There is something very endearing about him that helps Indians connect with him, easily.

And his recent attempt to assuage the apprehensions of the protesters in Kudankulam is nothing short of inspiring. There are very few people who are brave enough to stick their neck out in such situations. One ought to raise a toast to him for accepting the role of studying the safety precautions at the Kudankulam plant and also considering the development of the local community. Within a few days of his visit and report, the situation has improved and Nuclear Science has been de-mystified, to a large extent. While sharing this with my colleagues at lunch, one of them remarked, "It is certainly 'good of him' to have done this for the country, don't know if its 'good for him', thoughJ

India could do well with more such people!

Where's the halo around Team Anna?

2011-10-21T12:02:00.001+05:30

I was expecting this to happen! Very often, people who lead normal lives and don't brandish a 'holier than thou' image are much more principled in life with greater self discipline. The context here is Ms. Kiran Bedi. I had great respect and regard for her while she was in service. She was an inspiration to many of us.

Her conduct since the beginning of the year as part of Team Anna's spokesperson however leaves a lot to be desired. This terrible urge to be on TV everyday and also in print media, is a virus that afflicts and leaves people addicted, I guess. Very often, I would note with amusement, how she would elbow her way to the mic and say something that either Anna or another Anna aide would have just expressed!

But the news item since two days about her charging business class fares to organizers and her defence really takes the cake! I am aghast at the standards employed by Team Anna to fight corruption. Just as Kiran Bedi justifies the inflated bills to donate to her NGO, every other crook from Raja to Kalmadi can claim to have worked on behalf of their party! Why should they be in jail? And with regards to corruption in smaller offices by junior officials, they can say their salary is not enough to pay for their family's needs!! And why not? What a bizarre explanation from Ms. Bedi. What is her new name - Ms. Robinhood??

I think Anna Hazare will do well to be in Silence for a longer time and more importantly, teach his closest aides Arvind Kejrival and Kiran Bedi the joy of being in Silence too!! Maybe with time, these aides can imbibe some of the spirit and values from Anna Hazare, apart from wearing Khadi kurtas and Gandhi topis.

Model Villages and Maharashtra

2011-10-18T15:45:00.000+05:30

While India has about 6 lakh villages, with different degrees of development and prosperity, I am very intrigued by the fact that Maharashtra boasts of a number of model villages. While Anna Hazare may have made Ralegan Siddhi very popular, reality is that there are many more examples of model villages in the state although they don't have any iconic leader amongst them.

Its fascinating to read about the development made in these villages; to name just a few I know, check out Hiware bazar, Kathewadi, Kapsi. All of them have a common thread, the villagers took it it upon themselves to better their lot and the results are for all to see. Many neighbouring villagers are now being inspired to replicate the model and the state government has come forward to replicate it many more villages too! (don't know how successful that will be)

Makes me wonder why there are so model villages in Maharashtra? Is it the resourceful, community spirit amongst the villagers here? Is the state government promoting rural development? Are there more NGOs in this state with focus on rural prosperity?? I have no answers.. would love to hear views and comments.

Arvind Kejrival & Diggy Singh

2011-10-15T10:50:00.000+05:30

Much as Arvind Kejrival will like to deny it, his recent sound bytes indicate that he ought to be in politics. Or rather, he is already a politician! One of the main qualifications of a standard politician is to contradict oneself and excel in doublespeak. Diggy Singh is a role model for many of his ilk, I am sureJ

Lets see what Arvind Kejrival has been saying in 2011

"Anna is above Parliament"; on hindsight, added, "every citizen is above Parliament".

On Lokpal being part of the constitutional structure; he rubbished it as "reducing Lokpal to a Jokpal".

"Civil Society has the right to question Parliament".

But after the embarrassing statement of Prashant Bhushan on J&K, he says, "J&K is a complex situation, and decision should be within the constitutional framework".

See, what I mean?? He has come a full circle... suddenly he seems to see value in our constitution. God help us!

Open letters have gone viral:-)

2011-10-11T16:36:00.000+05:30

I've caught the bug too!! This is the season of open letters... Anna writes open letter (OL) to PM; Digvijay Singh writes OL to Anna; India Inc writes OL to PM; Narendra Modi writes an OL... I am joining this august bandwagon:-)

I write to every Indian across the globe...

Dear Indians,

I know things have been crazy and chaotic in India, more so in the past year. We have been hit by scams of huge proportions, the ruling party seems lost, opposition is in disarray, civil society has become militant! People have become polarised to extreme cynicism / apathy to complete idealism / utopian ideology. Inflation has hit the common man hard, as prices of all the essentials - food, housing, fuel, healthcare, education are at all time highs. Loans have become dearer and interest rates unattractive. Government appears to be at a standstill with many, many pending decisions relating to mining to power projects to other infrastructure projects, as they are busy firefighting for their scam hit colleagues or negotiating with Team Anna.

But amidst all this, I urge you all to work hard and not be disillusioned by these temporary setbacks. Today, India is a force to reckon with in the world, not because of these politicians and policy makers, but despite them. So, lets get the focus away from these energy sapping news channels and politicians and lets concentrate on work. Lets work towards our dream like there's no tomorrow. Lets look forward to a new set of industrialists, other than the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Bajajs, Ruias and Mahindras, to name a few. Lets get going and chase our dreams furiously and demonstrate how hard work and innovations can drive India out of poverty!

Jai Hind

Light at the end of the tunnel

2011-10-10T16:47:00.000+05:30

After hearing rabid, extreme views on the issue of corruption for the past few months, its such a relief to hear from India Inc, a balanced, sensible and wide ranging reforms that they have asked, in their letter to the PM. I am so glad that we have people who are influential, and yet balanced and centred. I almost thought such people didn't exist anymore.

I was particularly very distraught with the goings on, both by the ruling goverment and Team Anna, with each of them taking a moral high ground and bringing the country to a standstill. I really thought there was no hope and that we would continue to be ruled or misruled by people who have very narrow and rigid views.

This letter has come as a huge hope and silver lining, to use a cliche. I really wish policy makers at all levels, take the views raised by India Inc very seriously, as these suggestions have the potential to take India forward. The views are balanced and does not have rhetoric and jargons that we seem to be fed with. I really wish media can focus on these and invite the signatories of the letter as panelists instead of running behind cheap sensationalism.

I really hope and pray that this marks a turning point of good things to come!

Flip side of having a disastrous tour in England

2011-10-03T14:46:00.001+05:30

Most of us in India agree that cricket has hogged away the limelight and overshadowed other sporting events and players. All of us think the players are not worthy of the adulation and cult status they enjoy. But none of us are able to do any further! Neither could other sportspersons, save a Sania (for all the wrong reasons) or a Saina (for the right reasons) could alter the God like status cricketers command.

I guess the cricketers came to our rescue and other sportspersons in our country. They finally decided to play so badly and throw their matches that people lost interest in them and the game. The disastrous tour of England has turned the spectators away and hopefully will wean them away for good. The current CT T20 tournament are witnessing the change among the audience. Eventually, the sponsors will not flock as before and hopefully the game will resemble the sport as it should be, instead of the extravaganza and entertainment show that the game has been reduced to.

Apparently, other sports' bodies and associations are quite thrilled at the development and are secretly celebrating the debacle in England. Some cricketers have received anonymous mails thanking them for their good deed towards Sports in general, in the Indian context. Yours truly was privy to a conversation about Mr. Pawar contesting for the post of President of the Indian Hockey Federation. He has sent feelers to some officials and has promised to bring in money to the cash strapped organization, so they can pay their players, if elected, unopposed!

Blogger

2011-10-03T10:12:00.000+05:30

I love the new blogger interface and the options.. Looks cool. My very staid and drab blog suddenly looks so refreshing and hep. I really love Google's attempt to keep things fresh and current. I also think it has sparked more interest in me to do new posts and even read some of my earlier posts.

This new interface makes it very easy to browse older posts unlike the earlier version. And the options on offer, from magazine to sidebar to mosaic to flipcard look awesome! I keep flipping between each of the layout designs and have liked the 'magazine' look, the best!

Social media & upgrades

2011-09-23T12:43:00.001+05:30

Like most people, I have parked myself in cyberspace and signed up for Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn & Google+ accounts. I am fairly active on Fb and blogger but haven't used the others much. Not that I prefer these over the rest, just happens to be so, right now... Yes, there are days when I find facebook boring and listless with inane status updates or filled with PJs. But I have got back in touch with close friends from school and college through Fb, so it does have its place. And if you want to catch news, logging into Fb and twitter will keep you abreast of the newsmakers, be it in politics, sports or science. Blogging, for me, is more a relaxing hobby and not to be with the herd, so to speak. I discovered my love for writing and to be able to share my thoughts.

Recently, I have just got myself an Android based phone and learning about the Android market... the buzz all around me is App and was feeling so left out! While its all fun, I just realised how we are all programmed, these days! Today, these gadgets and media are so part of our life, much like a television was in 1970s in India, I guess.

Being updated and getting periodic upgrades are now a way of life... a few months without these and you will find yourself alone! Just got me thinking on how fragile and vulnerable we are letting ourselves be, emotionally. Strong family bonds, and catching up with real friends will actually be more satisfying and relaxing but these have been short-changed and substituted with a make believe, fast paced, largely virtual world, that actually makes our lives more complicated, restless, and emotionally weak.

The mature, balanced and strong-willed see through these illusory lifestyle, but the weak and unstable people are the ones who become victims.

Protests in India

2011-09-21T10:56:00.000+05:30

As I write this post, there is uncertainty on whether the Kudankulam nuclear plant will be commissioned! Media and many politicians from the opposition hail people's power and some of the debates on news channels border on absolute rubbish. As many people are pointing fingers at scientists and modern technology /science, for various past accidents and disasters and therefore justifying the closure of the nuclear plant, what agonises me is that the government is let off so easily!

The main cause of such protests are very clear.... people are not against nuclear plants in Kudankulam or Jaitapur or use of modern science but are against government officials. Indians have lost their faith in their government.

This in my opinion is what needs to be addressed, the government needs to instil the confidence in people and demonstrate that their decisions have peoples' interests in mind; engaging with people and having meetings with activists is not the solution. Activists are always against "something"... they never have solutions; they never bother to introspect on solutionsJ. However, the man on the street wants to have improvements in his quality of life, jobs, etc.

I really do hope such protests get the government to start working in the right direction. I am so reminded of this same government that took such a regressive decision on GM brinjal, based on activism on the roads by people who didn't know the spelling of Biology! Now, this same government says the people on the street don't understand nuclear energy!! That's just the point; these protests are actually a blessing in disguise for all scientists working in modern sciences.

Confidence building measures (CBMs) are confined to action in Kashmir, but the need of the hour is CBMs across the country, to improve public acceptance and government credibility. Its time for the government to stop passing the buck to the poor scientists (pun intended)!

Smartphones are for smart people!

2011-09-18T13:17:00.006+05:30

Recently, yours truly made the transition to a smartphone, yeah, the bug got me too... Since its a transition from a humble Nokia 6233 (a great phone) to a smartphone, I was told to get a mid range phone, to get the hang of things (read my husband didn't want to buy me iphoneJ). Well, being a good girl I bought the argument and got myself a Samsung Galaxy Ace...

Believe me, its funny initially... I felt a total rustic...and there is no manual to get going. To beat it, the salesman couldn't even demonstrate making a call as my sim card was too old and couldn't be read by the 'smartphone'J.

Thus began my saga of learning to use the phone... it’s now a month and I must say I have become a lot smarter

J. I certainly haven't learnt all about it yet, but I must say graduating to a smartphone can be a challenge for some. Right from receiving a call, to forwarding a text, is completely different. But once you know how to do them, it’s a breeze... Oh yes, there were moments in the first couple of days when I wondered why I invited this needless complication in my lifeJ. And to top it, the phone would switch off and seemed to have a mind of its own... I realized there was something to do with the settings but I was so tempted to go to shop and complain. Another problem is with managing contacts. As it syncs all your Fb and Gmail contacts, there is quite a bit of confusion if you have more than one person with similar nameJ.

A quick googling solved my problem of the phone switching off and I realized there were many people across the world who had similar experiences and there were the wise geeks who shared the solutions... Yes, it’s fun learning and exploring the phone... As someone said, learning to use a touchscreen is an intuitive process unlike the regular basic phones. And without a doubt, I will like to state that smartphones can turn even dummies, smart!

Arnab G - role reversal?

2011-09-16T15:27:00.000+05:30

Breaking and trending news today is that Arnab and his team are being questioned and grilled by CBI. Apparently, this team is in possession of too many secret, leaked documents from the government offices!! I knew it would come to this... he has been waving far too many documents circled and highlighted for his own good. The CBI has been with the team right through the day and sources reveal that Arnab is not amused at being questioned... He has always been the one asking the questions.. Infact, in the first hour of interrogation, the CBI officers had a tough time explaining to Arnab that he couldn't ask questions, instead he had to learn to answer themJ, as Arnab seemed to be hallucinating that he was anchoring the Newshour programme, while he was actually being interrogated!

This news story has many politicians grinning from ear to ear; across party lines... impromptu parties are planned tonight, in many homes in Delhi. Many Tihar inmates are also pleased with the recent developments. So are the other news channels. They can't believe this unexpected festival bonanza.. apparently, Diwali celebrations have been pre-poned and festive spirit is in the air, in Delhi. Team Anna, however, is not too pleased as they have lost their main TV anchor.

This is how yours truly woke up this morning!! Bad dream, huh??

Trendz in Bollywood

2011-09-13T10:03:00.000+05:30

Gone are the times when we got to know about the movie on the Friday of its release... that was two decades ago... Then came the time when the main actors began giving titbits while doing interviews for Cine magazines, to just prove a point on how busy they wereJ. Soon that changed and we had the directors and actors promoting and marketing their movies a month in advance through road shows and interviews in News channels at prime timeJ - a media blitzkrieg was their mantra. Soon, many got very intelligent and relied on generating a controversy 2 weeks prior to a movie release to ensure a 'hit'. Some two bit guys still adopt this practice, todayJ

Today, the scene is all too blurred and confusing.... we get to hear and see posters of movies that is yet to start shoot, for which shooting is in progress, movies which have their official music /audio launch, movies that are scheduled for release a month from now, and of course, movies that are showing in cinemas... This is all so confusing, and by the time a movie is released, we have heard /seen /read so much from the hero, heroine, producer and whoever is connected with the movie, that we wonder if we have already seen it!! For example, the papers are full of Bodyguard (released), Mere brother ki dulhan (released), Mausam (scheduled for a release), RaOne (scheduled for a release), Heroine (yet to be shot), Agent Vinod (shooting in progress), etc etc. See my point?

And the best part is, most of them don't stand apart (much like the actresses – you can’t tell one from the otherJ), nor do they make any original stuff. All play safe in doing remakes from other regional movies or from good old Hollywood. So much for marketing and hype and noise! ‘Wonder if an MBA is behind all this!!

Miracles - Indiashtyle

2011-09-09T11:07:00.002+05:30

As we come to the end of the Ganpathi festival, I hear people praying for miracles, everywhere:

· The Indian cricket team has been praying since July

· The Congress Party is asking for a miracle to disentangle from Lokpal, anti corruption movement, CAG reports, Supreme Court, Amar Singh, etc.. (the list gets added every hour)

· The BJP is not sure what they want, so they want a miracle for clarity of mind

· Mayavati has asked her Dalit God to punish the anti dalit Assange this moment

· DMK (an atheist party) is secretly asking for a miracle to keep their leaders in thier homes and not in prisons

· Corporates want a miracle to get the government to start reforms in earnestness

· Media channels want a big scam or a bomb blast / hoax every day, to justify their existence

The Gods’ reply, so far...

· Gods sent Messi to India to divert people from cricket

· Since the Congress party list is too long, for now, he has sent them their Prez back. Sent Agnivesh and Kejriwal for Silence courses... working on the other demands on the list.

· Advani has been asked to do what he can do best... go on a Rath Yatra

· Mayavati has been mollified by hiring Assange as her cook cum house keeper

· DMK patriach has been asked to become ‘God loving’ if he wanted miracles from HIM!

· Corporates have been asked to first observe reforms within their company and refrain from staying in Antilla style mansions

· Media houses have been asked to report news as it is, and not 'create news'

Ganpathi Bappa Morya, Mangala Murthi Morya!!

Arnab G sure needs a break!

2011-09-09T10:17:00.002+05:30

Its my earnest appeal to Times Now to have another set of anchors for their Newshour capsule. Arnab needs a vacation. And viewers will welcome the breakJ. While I enjoy his interrogations in Newshour, (not for his prowess but for sheer entertainment and his ‘holier than thou attitude’), yesterday, for the first time in years, I sat through his programme without flipping channels. He has surely lost it and looked jaded.

He was quizzing (yeah, just like a quiz master would) Shri Praful Patel on the CAG report and clearly had come ill-prepared. While I have no knowledge on the topic, it was apparent that Praful Patel came out more impressive than ever, a seasoned politician that he is. There were more than 3/4 occasions when Arnab had egg on his face although he pretended to be on top of the game. And his discomfiture was so apparent that he was often repeating sentences like, "my first question to you is, my first question to you is.."

I am always wary of people (more so, media guys) who think they have a halo around them, but our man clearly needs a long vacation. He has had better days on his show, believe me. He was clearly out of sorts and was nodding his head like he couldn't believe his terrible show, tooJ. And those of us who were watching couldn't help but sympathise with him while Praful Patel looked pleasantly surprised to be let off so easily.

And to top off the total comedy show, he announced very grandly that he had a set of 3 rapid fire questions to end the interview... by now I was sure Arnab has made some alternate career plans... And needless to say he managed to ask only one and had to gracefully bid adieu to the comedy showJ. I think Siddharth Basu has a new apprentice joining him!

Another blast and the all too familiar reactions from our leaders

2011-09-07T13:53:00.001+05:30

I refer to the bomb blast outside the Delhi high court this morning. A quick scan of the news report and we have the usual standard responses. The words seem all empty and far from they ought to mean.

Mr. R. Chidambaram says the NIA will investigate the bomb blast and also added that there was no intelligence report to warn him of the blast!! He expects an email 24 hour in advance, I think. Mr. Advani has condemned the attack and asked for citizens to be united! Now, what could that mean? J & K CM is quoted to have condemned the bomb blast! Isn't that but obvious. I wonder why our leaders make it a point to condemn the attack. Can anyone compliment it or support it?? I wonder why our leaders engage in this display of profoundity.

Going by recent past events, Anna Hazare may ask for the perpetrators of the crime, to be hanged! (Wonder if Team Anna have other ideasJ) I dread to think what Arnab will say at Newshour tonight. He may have his 10 questions ready by now.

We all know what our PM will say, "I am not aware"; but to give him credit, he is touring Bangladesh and may therefore be excused for speaking the truth.

Since the blast has happened in New Delhi, we will be spared the usual dose of how resilient the Mumbaikars areJ

Withdrawal symptoms of a new kind

2011-09-06T12:55:00.003+05:30

Apparently, both Anna Hazare and Team Anna (they are two different entities) have been diagnosed with a new disorder affecting their normal functioning. Times Trends has reported that both the groups are hale and hearty physically, but all of them reported a funny gut feel - all of them were not able to eat their two square meals fully and had nightmares of Diggy, Kapil, Salman, Ramdev etc.. plotting against them.

After subjecting them to a battery of tests, using sophisticated instrumentations, the doctors, on question of anonymity, have inferred and delivered their confidential prognosis. After some cajoling (read bribingJ), a news anchor proudly announced that they have a scoop, the only channel to obtain the confidential report on Team Anna's health... and we had to wait for a 2 minute commercial break! On resuming the story, we were told that all of them are suffering from a very rare withdrawal disorder, post their anti-corruption campaign. Having been under the arc lights 24/7, negotiating and doing street plays, etc for more than 2 weeks, they now faced the ignominy of fading from the front page on newspapers and news channels.

Apparently, doctors have advised each of them to stay away from each other's company and get back to their old ways of leading normal lives. This has reportedly not gone down very well with Team Anna and they can actually smell a rat. I heard that a press conference is in the offing within 2/3 days (they are waiting for a new picture of Gandhiji to be ready as a backdrop) where Team Anna will explain how the government has bribed and corrupted the doctors treating them.

Apparently, the main opposition party have got wind of the impending press meet and have offered a set of doctors, certified by Advani and Modi. Meanwhile, Team Anna sympathisers and facebookers have offered their own free advice - some of them have suggested that they start a new campaign on land acquisition bill, another has asked Team Anna to start a campaign on using ONLY renewable energy - solar, gobar gas, windmills etc. An ardent Team Anna and Facebook fan has requested that the Team start a campaign to thwart an Anonymous group's plan to kill Facebook on November 5, 2011.

I guess we Indians have no respite from campaigns for the next few years!!

News channels want another campaign to be led by Team Anna

2011-09-02T12:11:00.001+05:30

Apparently, news channels have gotten together for the first time, and agreed to shelve their egos and differences (much like the political parties) to debate and plan for improving viewership on their channels. Since this topic is on survival strategies, the media guys have agreed to chalk out a common strategy to "create news" (aka common minimum programme).

All of them have realised the current trending topic to be Team Anna and have zeroed down to having them start another round of their media blitzkrieg... Apparently, the point of discussion now veers on the title of the campaign. While Arnab wants a campaign on "Action taken Reports" on CAG findings, Rajdeep has shot the idea down as it will give one channel too much limelight. Karan Thapar wants to grill every Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP with Team Anna on the sidelights, at the Ramlila. Shekar Gupta disagrees and considers it not newsworthy, suggests walking with a bunch of them. Barkha Dutt apparently suggested a roadshow with Team Anna in every state, to be covered within 15 days and requested they take up local state/town issues. Sagarika Ghose shot it down and thought it to be boring. Prannoy Roy was conspicuously absent from the deliberations.

After two days of intense brainstorming and cerebral discussions, they decided to approach Team Anna themselves for ideasJ. All of them came in for a rude shock when Team Anna told them that they were choc-a-bloc till end of 2012 as they have offers from across the world to start campaigns for serious issues like "Right to Leave" in some European countries; USA has signed them on to show the world on how only USA can save the world from global economic crises; UK is negotiating with the Team to bring back the lost glory of England after they started playing second fiddle to USA; etc etc. The Mayans are keen to rope them into a month long agitation on the Apocalypse in Dec 2012!!

Needless to say the media barons came back to their studios, hugely disappointed at the missed opportunities to increase TRPs. Unconfirmed reports said the apparent bonhomie and truce amongst them has been called off and a huge wrestling match ensued with quite a few of them requiring emergency hospitalization. The Indian citizen is hence saved!

Freakonomics - India style

2011-08-20T10:48:00.001+05:30

According to the latest medical research conducted by a team of doctors and psychiatrists from Amethi University, a number of youth today are complaining of loneliness and reporting attention deficit disorders. Times Trends reports that the team finally came to the conclusion that this sudden spurt in loneliness amongst the urban youth is directly proportional to the number of friends who are 'online' in their Facebook, and those who participated in the Anna movement and were offline!

Apparently, the downside of the Anna movement has many youth staying offline and getting on the streets and facing the real world. Among the data analysed, the team found that an equal number of youth who took to the streets and those who logged in and found their friends offline, reported similar ‘loneliness syndrome’. While those on the street felt disoriented with the noise and din around them, they were only used to the noise of the keyboardJ When contacted, one boy confessed that he missed the fact that there was no 'like' button for him to agree to a slogan or when a patriotic song was played.

The lazy youth who stayed in their usual hostel/ homes also reported the same loneliness syndrome. Their self confidence hit rock bottom when they saw only 2 friends online whereas it was always a minimum of 20, at any given time, till a week ago. They felt insecure and had the tell-tale signs of chewed-up nailsJ

Times Trends contacted Facebook to check if they noticed any change in logging patterns of account holders from India and they were relieved to know the reason, as they were actually worried that they had lost the youth, to Google+ J

Best news channel award for the month goes to....

2011-08-19T10:37:00.000+05:30

Many many thanks to Congress and Team Anna's Civil Society, news channels are thanking their stars and loving their TRPs like never before:-)...

A year ago, any scam worth thousands of crores was a sureshot winner with news channels, not anymore, though! Arnab really worked hard with obtaining copies of CAG reports on CWG scam part II, Air India etc.. but the public were so numbed, that nothing could really interest them anymore. With IPL another 10 months away, and elections another year away, and with everybody blaming the media for the overdose of everything... Arnab and gang were a worried lot, till the India Against Corruption picked up steam, thanks to government handling (or bungling).

Never mind if the visuals were repeated every 3 minutes, the anchors were going hysterical with the reporting, much like the sloganeering youth on the street. It was pathetic to watch them but we had no choice but to endure them. Its like as if there is nothing else happening in the country or the world!! But apparently, there is the usual stuff, if you do happen to read the newspapers... there are floods in North India, Dengue in Orissa, floods and protests in West Bengal, Bombay preparing for the annual Chaturthi festival, farmers protests in Pune and UP. A US Senator was visitng India and met with politicians in Kashmir. Indian cricket team continued their show with Test cricket.. World economy very precarious and bleak.. Indefinite Truckers strike from today etc. etc..

Having watched TV this past week, with little to choose between them, I would say NDTV scores over the rest with a more balanced and mature reporting.. There seemed to be an attempt at genuine understanding and debate on the topic, with some quality experts on the panel.

The Red and Blue pills

2011-08-16T16:47:00.001+05:30

We human beings as a species seem to have lost our sense of balance and pragmatism. Look at the political scenario in US / UK / other European countries / India, etc. The main political parties seem to take positions that swing from one extreme to the other... Nobody seems to be value the prospect of the middle path.

Look at the politics in India, either you are with the Congress or you are branded communal and fascist. In such a polarised scenario, we see the emergence of the so-called civil society movement led by Anna Hazare. Unfortunately, he is also falling into the same weakness, that of extremism. While it is important to keep corruption in check and punish the corrupt, the means to achieve a corruption free society looks set to get derailed with almost clownish, immature, extreme, militant behavior of the team associated with Anna. We all know that more than 200 years ago, Lord Acton coined the now famous phrase, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". History shows that corruption, in some form, has always been there in society. What is new is the % of corrupt people and the magnitude:-)

To resort to a fast at the drop of the hat, or threaten a fast if his demands were not met is certainly not Gandhian behavior. There seems to be a rebellious, arrogant stance in this movement that can also describe the Congress party. So, as, citizens, we actually have not much to choose, far from the red and blue pill that the movement had originally promised. Back in April 2011, I was really taken in by the simplicity of Anna Hazare, but in less than four months the halo around him has vanished and he is just another wannabe. The corruption he wants to fight, probably started at the top, but today, it is a systemic disease and just attacking the leaders at the top will never weed out systemic corruption.

Greed is human nature.. But what is alarming is the extent and magnitude that is shocking us, today. Look at the reasons of the global economic collapse in the world.. it has been individual greed that has been the root cause. White collar crimes are becoming common place everywhere and in India too. Can this Jan Lokpal bill address all aspects of corruption?? Unlikely. If I could have a word with Anna today, I would tell him, "Great work done my friend, to force the government to introduce the Lokpal bill. Now, allow the bill to be debated and then influence changes and allow the bill to evolve, instead of attempting to perfect a bill and bringing the country to a standstill."

Mumbai to be renamed Shipumbai

2011-08-10T16:54:00.000+05:30

Apparently, there is another ship drifting towards the Mumbai Coast! This is going to be the third in as many months. What could the reason be? Media don't seem interested, as on date. Who should the concerned citizens go for help? Somebody came to me and asked for suggestions. I was quite blank but not one to look dumb, I managed, "Well, err, make a list of names who will not show any interest and then you end up with the right person". I thought that was a decent answer but nay, he persisted, "make the list for me".

As I had pretty nothing much to do on that Sunday evening, I said, "Lets see, let me jott some names randomly - Times Now, Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, the Supreme Court, CAG, PAC, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, The Hindu, Ministry of Shipping, Barack Obama, Greenpeace, Kapil Sibal, Digvijay Singh, Subramanium Swamy, ED, Home Ministry, IB, perhaps?" "Why not some prominent Mumbaikars like Udhav Thackeray, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar, or Mukesh Ambani?"

I could see the enthusiasm levels fall dramatically in my friend and he was probably wondering why he had asked me for help.... Not to let him off so easily, I had after all by now, gotten deep into the thick of things... I continued, "the Civil Society (not the one led by Anna) does not feature in this exhaustive list and is probably the right forum," I declared triumphantly...

The Civil Society was called in and was asked to prepare a detailed report on why ships were drifting towards the coastline, ever so often. They were asked to look at an obvious Paki hand, whether some money was getting pumped out through these ships, whether this was Mukesh Ambani's plan to get in oil to India, etc. etc. Or is the Home Ministry working through these ships since they are all at sea, anyway. Since no media showed any interest in this activity, the civil society was asked to look at collusion with media and politicians. A strict two month deadline was offered and the civil society went to work. They toiled hard and took their brief very seriously. And their findings took everyone by surprise. They said that the ships like the friendly Mumbai coast and gave a clean chit to everybodyJ. They ended their 786 page report by recommending a name change for the city to Shipumbai!

The Vanishing Thin Line

2011-08-10T11:32:00.000+05:30

Any cosmetic industry will get excited at the word "vanishing" but I am referring to the thin line between activism and violence. Increasingly, this seems to be the norm, in every part of the world. Most of us seem to be less strong in handling situations and challenges. And the phenomenon is rampant in the so-called developed / developing / third world countries, infact more so in the developed world as the citizens are probably not as resilient.

Let’s take the past two weeks and look at some events around the world...

one insane citizen massacred ~ 90 people in Oslo
a small unrest against police killing in a suburb of London has paralysed the whole city due to widespread arson and looting!
Virginia Tech Univ, already with a past history of the worst shooting incident in an University campus, spotted an armed man in the prowl, that has the students jittery
the less said about the Indian students in Australia, the better
apparently the Chinese province adjoining Pakistan is ridden with armed conflict

While the above stories do not shock us Indians and similar countries where violence, bomb blasts are becoming common place, we ought to look farther and see a similar pattern. Most often the reasons are disparities, lack of opportunities, racial hatred and unemployment.

Lets look at India a little more closely, a huge melting pot, where we have the best of technology firms jostling for space with sprawling slums, where the disparity levels have reached alarming levels. We have myriad problems, from population explosion, to corrupt political practices, to weak governments, to inflation, unfocussed agriculture policy and land acquisition, across all Indian states.

Corruption, however, is being singled out as the root cause of our problems and we have some bunch of activists-turned freedom fighters who claim to follow Gandhian values leading the movement. Never mind that they are resorting to violence by burning copies of Lokpal bill in public.. this is today's Gandhi for you, staring you in the face...

The profile of people flocking to these venues in Delhi and Bombay are either those with time on their side or those who are unemployed... the former are the ones who are the 'bribe-givers' and therefore feel indignant while the latter are the ones who don't have the means. It is indeed easy to get very romantic and think ourselves to be freedom fightersJ. However, nett nett, these movements have successfully brought the country to a standstill. There is been no policy level decisions taken, as all of them are always doing some fire fighting with respect to the Lokpal bill or the myriad scams that have hit the country in the past one year.

I beg to differ from these activists. I would root for growth, strong governance, strengthen internal security, be inclusive in sharing of resources with tribals and villagers. And most importantly, focus on quality education for every citizen. Such positive approaches will serve Indians far better, in the long run.

Interesting anecdote

2011-08-08T09:47:00.001+05:30

I work for a very distinguished and accomplished citizen in our country, Prof M. S. Swaminathan. Being his 86th birthday, we had the who's who come and greet him on the occasion. We had many people over, from a Central Minister, to International Scientists; to the most well known media personality of Chennai felicitate him. There were people who called him the most distinguished living Indian citizen and another said he prays for his work to be immortal and then another recommended him for India's highest Civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.

I sat there as part of the audience and looked at Professor and wondered how gracefully he handled the compliments and praise. When it was the turn of the birthday boy to speak, he shared a lovely anecdote that was the answer to my thoughts. He thanked one and all and said he was extremely grateful for all the love and affection shown. He ended by saying that once when Sir C. V. Raman was asked how the compliments never went to his head, he apparently remarked that he wore the turban tight to ensure the head didn't swell with compliments!! Professor added that he didn't have a turban to sport and so he apparently assumes the compliments are for another "Swaminathan" and that keeps his head intactJ. It’s so rare to see and work with such a genuine, humble and dignified person in spite of his yeomen contribution to transforming Indian Agriculture and the feeding the millions. It’s an honour to meet and interact with him.

The News Tonight

2011-08-04T18:55:00.000+05:30

Philosophically speaking, one can wonder on what is 'real' and what is a 'dream'... taking a cue from this seems to be the 24/7 news channels and the print media... At the time these 24/7 channels first began reporting, one could catch up with the headlines of tomorrow's newspaper by watching the 9 pm every night. Not anymore, it seems...

Often what seems to be 'breaking news' and headlines at prime time newshour does not find mention even in a remote corner in any page on the newspaper the next day!! I have been watching this strange news reporting for the past year or more and sometimes get confused on what is the ‘real headline’ news:-). I am sure I can be forgiven as I hope to have company! Last night for example, we had some breaking news on Ms. Sheila Dixit involved in CWG Scam II which we were told was bigger than CWG Scam I... There then followed a detailed discussion on whether she ought to resign, and a parallel in Karnataka CM resigning was cited. A very interesting discussion then ensued on the difference between "financial irregularity" and "corruption". However, there was nothing in the Times of India this morning, about this "very big scam"

Brings me to the question, what is real and what is not?

Anna is in great demand

2011-08-01T09:52:00.000+05:30

Just heard from uninformed sources that there is frantic back room lobbying by the Congress and the BJP (the ruling & opposition parties, for those with blurred visionJ), to get Anna onto their camps. Apparently, both parties see an excellent spokesperson in Anna, for their respective parties. He seems to have no qualms in talking to the media and giving vent to his feelings, never mind, if it contradicts what he said a few days earlier. This, according to a senior party member, is an amazing trait that will bowl the media and citizens alike. And yes, Anna also seems to have the ability to relate to Aam aadmi, that both parties would like to exploit as the netas seem to have got disconnected with the Aam aadmi, offlate. We were probably better off when we were with 1G communicationsJ

Apparently, the activity had reached feverish proportions on the eve of the Monsoon session in Parliament. While, initially, the media thought the parties were sending feelers with regards to the Lokpal bill, it is now unreliably learnt by a news channel, TV Now, that Anna is being sought out by both parties and a tug of war over him has broken out. Some sources claim that a Rajya Sabha seat is being promised to get him on their side! Some unconfirmed reports claim that he will be their official Presidential nominee in 2012J

Anna, as on date, has not spoken about the recent developments. We wonder if he may want to protest against this news by sitting on a fast in his own village in Maharashtra, as that seems to be the only place where he would be welcomed :-)

Rohtang Pass Scam and UPA II

2011-07-30T13:08:00.002+05:30

The headlines in the papers announced that the snow had melted in the Rohtang Pass, much earlier than usual. I was expecting some boring, dull scientist or a weather report on how the climate change was to be blamed for the melting snow. However, it looks like its another scam, as big as the 2G or is it 3G? This very inocuous news has the government on the edge, all thanks to our 24/7 news channel. The anchor, Rahul Goswami has 20 uncomfortable questions to the Congress spokesperson, Manoj Tiwari who looked distinctly unwell. Not to let the heat dissipate, lest the snow further melt, the grand old party tried their best to send their two best men, into the studios, Kapil Singh and Digambar Swain. "It is a mailicious campaign by the opposition, the snow began to melt during the NDA regime; the UPA government only continued the policy of the previous government were some of the replies.. They sure sounded jaded.

Kapil Singh went to the extent to explain that its part of any economic growth and development of a country and there is absolutely nothing alarming, as making profits have always been the idea behind development projects, that are aimed at Aam Aadmi!! Not to be buying this argument, Rahul Goswami, said, "Mr. Kapil Singh, India has the right to know why this news was not available one week ago and it was due to the painstaking efforts by this channel to source this secret correspondence between the Environment and Tourism Ministries." Mr. Kapil Singh was unruffled and said that media and civil society are always welcome to the offices in North & South block and can always discuss issues over a cup of coffee (there is now an Open House every 4th Saturday of the month, "Koffee with Kapil" - this new initiative is thanks to Lokpal, we are told)

Picking up the thread from this news channel, another channel had a detailed discussion on how this could be the handiwork of China and Pakistan. They even had inferences on the discreet help they sought from the USA and it maybe so that this Operation was outsourced to the US Army, as they didn't have many projects in hand. The discussions even veered to the possiblity of the visit by the Secretary of State to distract us from this Operation Snowstorm.

This post is inspired by Fakingnews.com

The Oracle of Chennai

2011-07-28T17:23:00.001+05:30

After two months of being tutored about the 'Market / Street', I feel compelled to share the knowledge gained or not gainedL (no, it’s not a reflection on the tutor but on my intelligence). It’s about my hubby - this post. You see, he always had this gamblers' streak in him and I always knew he would pursue this full time, one day. No, it’s not the illegal bets and match fixing deals I am talking aboutJ. Ah yes, I am referring to the little money he stakes on equity, commodity and whatever else he takes fancy that moment... seems pure fun? Well, not for me, I can assure you.

Let me give you a sample of our daily conversation... "Petrol prices are going to touch Rs. 100/-", I say. Pat comes the reply, "never mind, we have x barrels of crude"L. I was naturally horrified & speechless!

Another day, I remarked about a news headline on 2G scam or some other scam being the trending topic, he just looked up abstractedly from his screen and gave a lecture on how to study trendlines of stocks!! I gave up and stuffed my head into a book. And needless to add that the only channels we get to watch are Bloomberg, NDTV Profit, ET Now or some such... The favourites setting in the TV have either these or CN! Talk of bipolar tastesJ

Talking of books, years ago, I had mentioned about joining the British Council, he guffawed and said it was archaic and old fashioned, in the internet age, to read booksJ But now, its suddenly trendy to hangout there and sip hot chocolate and browse through reams of print - on markets, and read up on 'how to be a successful trader, investor'. There is even a book titled, “Make more money than God” or some such thingJ that he reads like the Bible. Does it make any sense??

He announced very gladly that he had enabled internet on his BB. No, he doesn't surf the net or catch up with friends on Fb or twitter, he has downloaded Apps that stream stock prices 24/7J Can anyone get more mundane and boring than that?

In any average household, people would talk about family and the usual stuff... but here, I have to endure a lecture about the lives and times of famous traders. I get to hear about the different categories of men – the employee, employer, entrepreneur, investor… get the drift? One day, I got home after my usual round of stocking up of groceries and veggies for the week and our man looked up absent-mindedly from his laptop and asked me if I had heard of some Big Five Corporations in Agriculture. I almost faintedJ

Upgrades can mean bad news too!

2011-07-21T12:21:00.002+05:30

Yeah, you read the title right! Lets talk of the most discussed topic on social networking fora.. "Will Google plus overtake Facebook?".. And the discussions go on and on and people pretend to be a Nostradamus - in predicting the future of social networks:-). To add my own two bit, I am a diehard google fan but I do aceept that I chose facebook over Orkut, so far. I think its too early to call

And Facebook, not to be outdone by all the news space that Google + was hogging, launched video calls on their site. This was hailed as "awesome" by Mark Zuckerberg and many others but it meant that facebook would be blocked in most offices. Most offices had blocked social networking sites but with video calls and conferencing options in Fb, it has definitely gone to the 'blocked list' of sites in offices that earlier allowed access to Fb.

So, there you see, upgrades and awesomeness may not be a good idea, always, and may actually boomerang for the company! I suggest Fb must commission a study to see if the active users are now less active or if they show altered / noctural times in their activity. It must be interesting for them and many others who are in this business.

Aadhaar card is a good joke

2011-07-10T20:11:00.002+05:30

With great fanfare our PM announced the Unique Identification Authority of India programme, that will serve many purposes, and requested Nandan Nilekani to head the project, in February 2009. Papers were full of the great opportunity ahead for him, and everybody had high expectations. Its two and a half years now and there seems no sign of the card being issued! I read about its launch in a remote village in Maharashtra a year ago. Surprisingly, media has not gone hammer and tongs at the UIDAI, yet. They have their hands full with scams and fasts unto death to cover, this past year. And our Chairman Nandan Nilekani still manages to talk of it (planning and promise) without drawing ire from the audience.

My personal experience appears a big joke, so far. One day in April, my office was abuzz with excitement, that an extension counter is doing the Aadhaar project (well that's the desi name) and will wind up in 3 days! So, as is expected, a mad rush ensued, tokens given and after many futile unsuccessful trips to the bank, I finally managed to get my fingerprints and biometric information taken. I was also promptly given a slip with date and time of my application and was told that the card will be couriered in 2 months! I came away impressed. An application number on the slip was one way to track the status of the card, we were told.

Well, its 3 months and more and there is no sign of the card:(. Not to lose heart, I told myself that its a mammoth project and prone to get a little delayed. My hopes are however dashed, as Wodehouse would have said... according to their website, none of our applications are traceable!! I would still have had hope but for the fact that our Chairman's application alone, the status message reads "under process". So, in India, the fancied Aadhaar card that has been hailed for the masses, is being done for VVIPs:-), as of now.

I am sorely disappointed with Nandan Nilekani, not because of my personal experience, but because he has failed to execute a project as he would have done in Infosys. I have a couple of grouses on the methodology used: why use bank staff premises and allow all and sundry to apply? Ideally they should have done this street wise and get all residents covered in 2 days for each street. Secondly, there is absolutely no information of the Aadhaar cards being issued in the papers. For such a prestigious project, I think its being very sadly executed and this is where we fail, most often. I certainly expected better from Nandan Nilekani but I guess he couldn't break the Babudom stranglehold, and has let us down!

Perhaps, he misses the Infosys culture and feels he would have been better off there:)

Favourite Things

2011-07-08T16:38:00.000+05:30

Sometimes an ordinary routine turns out to be special. This morning was one such day for me. As it happens often, I was running late to work and left a good 15 minutes late! I was dreading the traffic and the delay in getting into office. But the road seemed like everyone else decided to be home or left early this morning! I reached office in record time, like I would on a holiday:). Every painful traffic signal was green and the whole drive made me feel like they were waiting to make my day.

It was a wonderful feeling to reach office on a working day, during peak hours without being in a traffic snarl. Such a very small event, very trivial, but had me beaming as I parked and got into office. Like Maria Von Trapp lists a few of her favourite things, I guess I can make mine too:-)

Only in India!

2011-07-06T17:01:00.001+05:30

There is in an uproar in Chennai over the killing of a 13 year old boy, he got shot when scaling the wall of the Army campus. And why was he there in the first place? He was stealing almonds from the tree insideJ. The jawan / officer (?) has certainly over-reacted in shooting the boy, instead, of reprimanding him, but the public reaction borders on the ridiculous. That the boy ought not to be trespassing or stealing from inside the campus is all forgotten... The public want the jawan / officer to be handed over to them!! And even the State Government is baying for the his blood..Why, pray?

What do they want from him? What will the public do when they get their hands on him? Lynch him, most probably. One wrong cannot be set right by another. This is an important principle we all need to bear in mind. Actually, we need to put pressure on the Army and get them to initiate action against the jawan / officer, instead, we behave so irresponsibly. Such a response is so typical of India! Its always a knee-jerk, band aid reaction that we love to exercise, and make a hue and cry about. And promptly, these very 'public' will forget the whole episode in few days. My point is neither of these reactions are wise.

As I was cruising on the IT corridor yesterday, I had to slow down as a mob crossed over.. oh yeah, they were crossing under an overhead footbridge:-). Public (in this case, pedestrians) often break rules and get let off but the bad guys are the ones in cars / bikes... I wondered what would happen if my car had touched or hit one of them, as its hard to apply sudden breaks at high speeds... No guesses here, yours truly would get abused / beaten by the rest, and languish in the police station for a few hours, and be let off after paying a compensation or bribe:-) [aha, civil society members, don't read this line:-)]. But the point is the pedestrian ought to have used the footbridge in the first place, built just for him to cross the road!

I truly empathise with the all those who are often, for no fault of theirs, are made to pay a price!

Doing good comedy is tough

2011-06-29T16:35:00.005+05:30

Comedy brings humour into our lives but being good at it is just not funny:-). I recently happened to read in the paper on the mushrooming of stand-up comedians in India. The article had few of their best jokes... Some were ok, most were not funny and some had the yuck factor!! Don't get me wrong, I am not being snooty, but after seeing Seinfeld to have to watch these, is an insult to the audience and to comedy per se.

We do have some good clean comedy in theatre and movies, rare though.. Recently, I chanced into reading a site - fakingnews.com, a wonderful satire on India. Amazing how somebody has the time to write so much, and its good read! Its very topical and only those of us following news related to India will actually understand the satire. Bernard Shaw, the ultimate satirist would approve, I am sure.

Satire is even more difficult than plain comedy.. its subtle, witty, intelligent, yet entertains. No wonder your truly likes it best;-). How I enjoyed the humour of Yes Minister series:).. Brits are clearly the best at it, I guess... We do have our own desi ones.. Cyrus' programme on the "Week that wasn't" is pretty good on some days... And we do have Sidhuisms in cricket, although some border on being vulgar or mean; subtlety and Siddhu can't go together, I guess.

R. K. Laxman's cartoons simply stand out from the rest. He is simply brilliant. He was good at both, the caricature and the satire. I used to catch his joke everyday in the Times, even if I didn't have time for the headlines! And his collection series of the "You said It" cartoons of the "common man"are simply outstanding... If you go through them, you realise you have actually caught up with all the trials and tribulations and politics in post independence India

Change is the only Constant

2011-06-22T10:16:00.001+05:30

Philosophically speaking, change is inevitable and is supposed to be the only Constant! Infact, most of the challenges we face in life is when we resist change:). This is so true, isn't it? Some of us welcome change in some areas and resist in some:). Change often gets us out of boredom, gets enthusiasm back in our life. Take music for example, we listen to different genre, based on our moods, weather, time of day etc. We like to party on some days and some days, we love to be left by ourselves. Even the cuisine, its plain Indian some days or some exotic Orient / Chinese / Italian, on some days.

Often, our accessories speak for our moods.. While our personality doesn't change drastically, we use accessories to speak our different moods... We are a colourful personality and play many roles during the day. We are formal at work and the opposite with family and friends. Recently, I tried out a pair of coloured contacts and loved it... Women have always had opportunities to accessorise but today, there are options for both, men and women.. To cater to our moods, we do have interesting products:

mobiles that come in different colours
watch straps to add colour
sarees with different colour options
coloured contact lenses
laptops with interchangeable covers

Go on, try these out and its sure to be fun:). And perhaps, we would also be well equipped to adapt to changes in our life, easily.

Do we need new Bills??

2011-06-17T10:38:00.004+05:30

Its true that Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have brought marked awareness to the general public and highlighted the widespread corruption in high places, in record short span of time. But what about the degree of corruption in everyday life? Will that get taken care of in the Lokpal bill? I am for stengthening the mechanism to bring anyone against whom there is proof of corruption, to docks. And I am not sure if I want the Lokpal bill as envisaged by the Anna camp nor the Sibal camp. While the government obviously wants a watered down bill, the Anna Camp wants to create a new fourth powerful body other than the Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary. There is an inherent check and balance between the three and I wonder if a fourth can be accomodated. I read a very balanced article on this subject this morning.

I would rather look at implementation of the many laws / bills that already exist in our Constitution to bring transparency and accountability at all levels in the government. I would like the Anna team to focus on implementation of existing laws and usher in electoral reforms and such. A very important facet to this movement is also to reform society, at large. There has been so much written 'for' and 'against' the Lokpal bill that most of us have become either neutral or indifferent to the issue as the so called 'civil society' has not been able to consolidate and sustain people's attention, for long.

Its time for the Anna team to also work on transforming minds for which I think spiritual leaders like H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar can play a very significant role. Its also important for people to start maturing and not engage in war of words and slanging matches. India is poised to becoming one of the important economies of the World and we need to start preparing to be world leaders and not behave like petty school children.

Life is Colourful

2011-06-15T12:19:00.003+05:30

Can you imagine life in black and white? Just running through past memories of events conjures up colourful images in our brain. Even philosophically, there is no black and white, its all various shades and hues of colour, in between black and white:-). Ah yes, black and white does have an old world charm and is good to see once in while but its the colour that brings Life to a picture, be it our family album, World history, movies, simply anything! Just imagine a picture of you playing Holi in black and white, for example? It just wouldn't be able to bring back the entire scene vividly, as much as a colour snap would.

Lets take our daily routine and see how dependent we are on colour to brighten up our life:

Lets take the formal reports that we prepare in our offices. There maybe just a dash of colour in the logo in one corner of the page but it does add to the overall presentation and appeal of the document. The technology in printers have really improved and are a far cry from the inkjets and lasers of yesteryears. Check out the HP laserjet site for their latest offerings!
And surely we use colourful powerpoint templates to impress our audience:). Imagine black and white presentations... will have a retro feel but cannot capture our interest 100%.
And imagine your life as a creative / graphics designer in an era of black and white!! You will have your task cut out and have to work much harder on your designs... But with colour, a simple stroke carelessly thrown in, can make all the difference to your designs.
And imagine teaching without colour! A simple guide to bird watching or a book on flora and fauna of a region is a good tool for a nature lover, if its in colour, and can replace hundreds of words.
We now have lovely colourful options with textures, for doing up the walls of our home /office unlike drab and fewer options a decade ago. The wall hangings add to the ambience. We have one at home that every guest with an eye for Art says is the most arresting in terms of the choice of colours used.
Imagine MF Hussain and his ilk! What would they do without colour in their profession:) - pun intended:-)

A lazy rainy day and Goli Vada Pav

2011-06-15T10:20:00.000+05:30

There is a certain excitement when the rains come on, the first rain of the season is indeed joyous and one can sees children prancing in the rain, and the young at heart enjoying the walk in the rain. Its such a pleasure to just be in the 'moment', not to have to worry on falling ill, getting the clothes slushy or getting a sermon at home on our impulsive behavior:-). Indians get highly romantic over the first rains and every second movie features a song and dance sequence in the rain. Who can forget the song from the Raj Kapoor - Nargis starrer, Shree 420, pyaar hua ikraar....

However, once the rainy season sets in, we don't enjoy it anymore; suddenly the romance with the rain is over! All we are left with is the blocked and choked drains, bad roads, traffic snarls, damp clothes, walking in slush, wading through waters, dirty footwear, often leading to blocked noses too!!

Personally, having grown up in Bombay, monsoons remind me of having freshly roasted 'bhutta' (corn) with liberal doses of chilli /lime sprinkling. Or having garma-garam aloo tikki:-). Yesterday was one such day in Chennai! We had sudden showers and the first rains to mark the season. Ended up driving in the rain and caught up with Goli vada pav at Express Avenue and came home happy!!

Indian Weddings of today

2011-06-11T09:00:00.023+05:30

Indian weddings often conjures up images of days of gaiety as a run up to the wedding day, and post wedding, there are a series of formal exchanges and luncheons and such niceties. Depending on budgets, the weddings get longer and grander but has a common thread of laughter, fun, music, dance and poignant moments all thrown in!! This is how most typical traditional weddings were!

But with current fast paced lifestyles, its often not an enjoyable experience. Also, personally, I think weddings are a huge waste of time and money. Its over rated and most families look at it as an expense that they wish can be avoided, but they finally end up outdoing their relatives and friends:-). And so it continues, generation after generation with some modernity added too!! Nobody wants to break the tradition with weddings, although there are a few sensible couples who go in for a temple wedding or a simple civil wedding followed by a feast for friends and family.

Often, much time and energy is lost in planning the logistics and shopping and food for the guests that the brides' and groom's parents are a bundle of nerves and finally fall ill, out of sheer exhaustion. Their ill health prevents them, often from enjoying their own plans for the wedding:-). Weddings these days are used as occasions to prove a point or two to our peers and family! Guests, often, get stressed out at weddings, they need to leave from work early, buy gifts, dress up and drive in heavy traffic, all to participate at weddings, where they yawn for a while, make boring polite conversation with faint acquaintances and eat food that's often not to their taste:). Everyone, from the hosts to the guests seem to be mighty compelled to go this ritual grudgingly and silently!

High profile weddings have celebrities drop by, they do a small jig (get paid for it handsomely, ofcourse). The recent talk of the town is somebody's wedding where the 3 Khans of Bollywood are expected to arrive but they will give their timings well in advance in order to ensure none of the three bump into each other!! Ah well, good old weddings were always a place to make amends and let bygones be bygones... But no, we have the media and the organizers bending backwards to ensure the 3 Khans don't meet at this wedding!! We have complicated weddings so much so that we now engage a Wedding Planner to take care of arrangements and food, so the hosts can take care of the guests:). And then we have these hi-fi corporate weddings, where the close family and office colleagues are invited with security swipe cards, to ensure there are no gatecrashers! Boring weddings:-).

Nett nett, we still continue to spend obscene amounts of money at weddings, however modern it maybe.

Movietime folks!

2011-06-10T13:20:00.000+05:30

Well, after a couple of serious articles on Lokpal and Freedom of Expression, I want to tell you guys that yours truly, also engages in entertainment activities... All my friends were raving about a tamil movie Kho, that's showing for about 2 months now... Everyone I asked said its great and a family entertainer and good clean fun, etc.etc. Also, my research on the net confirmed these views.... So, with great expectations and anticipation, we went for it. As you may have guessed, it was a huge let down. So, fellas, those who are still planning to go watch, do yourselves a favour, pass it completely. Alright, it does have a different storyline but the movie is so badly taken and completely lacks class... To be different, the movie often bordered on being too contrived...

There is so much violence and gore and fights, that it beats me to think this movie is hailed as a family entertainer!! Either I am completely disconnected with the current moviegoers or the other movies currently showing or recently released, are even worse!!. So, people seem to like this..

Its a perfect example of how a nice story can be killed and made boring by extremely poor direction. Music is also pathetic, as has been the case in all tamil movies for some years now. And it runs for 3 full hours. Nett nett, go for it if you like the food in the theatre or if there is a power cut in your home:-)

Freedom and Responsibility - in an Indian context

2011-06-10T10:13:00.001+05:30

As students of Civics class in school, we are taught about what democracy means and the true meaning of freedom as envisaged by those who participated in the freedom struggle. I found Civics extremely boring and dry but there is one line that stays in my memory, "..with freedom comes responsibility.."; there is no 'one' without the 'other'.

These past few weeks, this line has been ringing in my ears as I watch news on TV. But since yesterday, this line apparently is considered 'right wing' and if I were to state it in public, I am almost likely to be arrested for being 'not secular' and for curbing the freedom of expression!!!! I am naturally shocked. So, I write this post and request readers to kindly enlighten me. I also have a couple of lines from Gandhi (I think he is still called the 'father of the nation' and I will not have the secularists baying for my blood if I call him so:-)) that I would like to share:

Gandhi explained his idea of Swaraj carefully: "The root meaning of Swaraj is self-role. Swaraj may, therefore, be rendered as discipline role from within... 'Independence' has no such limitation. Independence may mean license to do as you like. Swaraj is positive. Independence is negative... The word Swaraj is a sacred word, a Vedic word, meaning self-role and self-restraint., and not freedom from all restraint which 'independence' often means." (CWMG 45:263-64) He made this comment in 1931, having emphasized this interpretation of freedom since 1909 from the publication of Hind Swaraj. His purpose was consistently to teach this hard political lesson, that freedom demands responsibility, that rights are earned through civic service and the attainment of difficult social reforms.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect."

These are the definitions that I learnt as a kid and believed them to be true. But the distinguished panelists and artists on TV news channels yesterday, feel otherwise. Each one went on and on about how M. F. Husain had a right to 'freedom of expression', as an artist, and the intolerant goons in India drove him out of the country. He may have been the greatest artist from India, but nobody has any right to hurt any section of society, irrespective of the religion he hails from. If it was unintentional, he could have apologised and got on with life... But he chose to be obstinate and later regretted not being able to live in India. I think his life is a perfect case of enjoying the consequences of one's own action.

And needless to say, I am not an artist, or an intellectual. I am an ordinary citizen of India

The Means to an End

2011-06-05T17:17:00.003+05:30

"Means to an End" is the guiding principle in my life. I have always been on the side of 'means' being as important as the 'end' in itself, in all discussions. While we can quote instances from the Ramayana and Mahabharata (I have not read any other scripture - so please pardon!) to be otherwise, as mere mortals, I am firmly of the opinion that its our dharma to also consider the 'means'. (I am reading Krishnavatara and so my language has been influenced by K M Munshi here:)).

Lets take the current civil society movement, as an example. The intentions and the 'end' is highly desirable and needed in our country but the 'means' through which it is being fought leaves one a little dis-illusioned. It is extremely commendable what Shri Anna Hazare and his team achieved and mobilised swiftly. Creating awareness, making the Indian citizens aware of the extent of corruption and strenghtening the Lokpal is simply brilliant. The whole nation rallied behind this move and captured the mood of people. For the first time, I believed that the apathy levels amongst average Indians are not that bad and people do respond to 'social movements'.

What is equally important is to also know when to take a bow and also to work within the democratic machinary. This sadly is not being demonstrated by the Anna Hazare team. And if we were to take Baba Ramdev's recent 'fast', the credibility further comes down and leaves more questions in people's mind than answers them. Baba Ramdev says he has simple demands which the government ought to agree upon, failing which, he will go on a fast unto death. Is this the way to make the government work? And if you read his demands, he seems to have a say on black money, MNCs, land aquisition act, genetically modified food, indian currency denominations etc...

While asking for money stashed abroad is an important point that will have consensus, who is he to tell the government to send the MNCs out, and ban genetically modified foods? Does he know more than experts in this field?? In today's world of globalisation with all its pitfalls, shunning MNCs is the most ridiculous argument, that holds no water. Today, we have Indian companies that have taken over companies in UK, US, South Africa etc. What will you like to call these?? Does he know if ICICI is an Indian or foreign bank? Today, Indians can and do invest in companies abroad and vice versa. So what's he saying about MNCs.

I have written many posts on genetically modified food and the concerns and myths... To put it simply, he knows not what he is talking about. Does he think all the best brains with the experience behind them, don't know what they are doing and he knows ALL??

So, that brings us to the question of "to what extent can civil society go in using these pressure tactics??" Whilst such movements have their place and are certainly required, one needs a little maturity to also rein in, and not get carried away by the success of the movement. One needs to know when to start and where to step aside in such movements. In my opinion, the movement has started well, the leaders ought to know the limits and learn to withdraw and work within the domain of democracy. Its a skill and I hope they learn to practise it as there will be no difference between these leaders and others who pronounce that they are fighting for a cause, too!! (terrorists, naxalites, maoists, secessionists, etc.)

Which is why I feel my stand is vindicated on the means being as important as the end - holds true, once again!!

Technology vis a vis Safety

2011-06-02T14:14:00.001+05:30

The latest WHO report has people wondering how safe their mobile phones are and whats the risk of developing brain cancer... I am surprised the news is hogging so much space on prime time because there is nothing new in the report and the report also says they need more data to make a direct co-relation between cancer prevalence and mobile phone use! We all consume so many things that are carcinogenic like coffee, for example. All of us know the harm caused by alcohol on liver and cigarettes on the lungs. Have any of these come down?

But I look at this brouhaha as a positive development. Now the activists have another product to be "against":-). Looking back, I am glad we now have news reports of the safety concerns of nuclear energy, mobile phone use etc. Earlier, the activists were not educated on these issues and they thought that genetically modified crops are probably the only dangerous products in the world.

People will now wake up to reality as it is. Life is tough and with increased technologies and constant need of man to want easy and cushy lifestyle, we are exposing ourselves to different risks. I must say that the developers of new products do undertake rigorous testing and quality checks before commercializing a product. So, as educated citizens / government policy makers, we need to weigh the risks / benefits of any technology and strengthen safety and regulatory mechanisms for any and every technology. And not discard any technology (the recent decision by the Germans to close down all their nuclear reactors can be likened to pressing a panic button).

Some of the commonly used modern lifestyles that causes harm to the environment but we still use are driving cars; using jet planes, burning fossil fuels, generating tonnes of e-waste, producing more babies than the earth can hold, mining indiscriminately, building huge dams, etc. etc. The next time some activist talks about GMOs, you are now informed and armed:-)

Twists and Turns of the Lokpal Bill

2011-06-01T12:24:00.008+05:30

There is such a buzz about the Lokpal Bill in 2011, that most wouldn't know that its been in the pipeline for 42 years now!! (almost as old as yours truly:))... Well we ought to thank Anna Hazare and team for bringing it back from the backburner...

Anna Hazare is an impeccable man and having him rally us Indians for the Lokpal bill is appropriate, at face value... I was as charged as many other fellow citizens and was happy to see that a mini uprising against corruption by the citizens had the government sit up and take notice. But with time and also some analyses, I have many second thoughts on the whole issue of Lokpal bill and the constitution of the members who are drafting it. To be fair, the large numbers who turned up in every city / town in India was to do with the fact that 2010 was an amazing year for unearthing scams; from CWG games to 2G to housing scam to black money laundering etc etc.. People were horrified at the magnitude and scale of immunity that politicians enjoyed and they all rallied behind Anna Hazare. Also, the 24/7 TV channels took the issue up, to beat their rivals in TRPs. So, it was more a case of having the right man, at the right time and at the right place.

Post the April fast by Anna Hazare, a 10 member committee was formed to draft the Bill, 5 from the government and 5 members were from "Civil Society". Since April, I am completely confused on this term "civil society". Are politicians not part of civil society?? Are they aliens? Civil society was a term used to distinguish the armed forces from the rest... But post April 2011, here was a new meaning to "Civil Society". I lapped it up reluctantly.

Human mind loves to ruminate and on further thinking and discussions I slowly found myself getting disillusioned with this new so-called "civil society members". As a thumb rule, I have often observed that anybody with a 'holier than thou' attitude falls, sooner or later. But these civil society members basked in their glory of fame and actually think the people are behind them... I have problems with some their assumptions.

Who has authorized these 5 members to represent civil society?? (why not me for example:-))
What is their term? Where is their accountability? How do they get elected / nominated?
And if we do get a Lokpal bill passed on the lines of these members, what is the role of the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislative? Will this bill not undermine the role of PM, President and the Chief Justice?
Are we not empowering another body with Supreme powers that can itself become corrupt?

I am now of the view that we are better of without the Lokpal bill, and instead I believe in the power of democracy, to be able to vote a government out, just as we saw in the elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal.

And to top it all, we have had many volte-faces from Anna Hazare himself. Within a few days of the appointment of the Lokpal drafting committee, he read out a letter from Sonia Gandhi and praised her for her offer to help, in the War on Corruption. Recently, he blamed her and praised the PM. Two months back he praised Narendra Modi and last week he called Gujarat a badly governed state... He clearly seems to be a green horn. The less said about the Bhushans the better... these two are lawyers who own acres of land in UP and Delhi, between them. That leaves us with an emotional Santosh Hegde and an activist in Arvind Kejriwal. In contrast we have solid veterans politically and legally in Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid and Pranab dada and Moily.... If the meeting on May 30 is any indication, these thorough-breds are capable of disarming these rookies and will probably have the last laugh:)

Don't get me wrong, I am no UPA supporter, but I don't see much hope for the "Civil Society":):), from these Aliens!!

Krishnavatara by K. M. Munshi

2011-04-04T10:11:00.001+05:30

Just began reading the series of 8 books - Krishnavatara, written by Shri K M Munshi, founder of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, among his many other pusuits. Its a delightful series, narration is excellent and its captivating, hard to put it away:-). Yes, the subject he is writing about is all too colourful and powerful and the easy reading style in which its written, is a pleasure to read.

Its as if he has captured every detail of HIS life and there are so many stories tucked away that many wouldn't have heard of. Reading the book gives the reader the same effect he / she would get if a grandpa / grandma were to tell the story. I haven't finished the series, yet, and I am looking forward to reading it all.

The only suggestion I have for Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is to bring this out as a Collectors' Series too... I mean a nice hard bound, better quality paper and larger fonts. I highly recommend this series a "must-have" collection in every home.

Indians can do with some maturity

2011-03-30T16:22:00.000+05:30

Often, we get to hear about the greatness of Indian culture and that we are one of the oldest civilizations and have had such history and so on... How come we lost most of our virtues that are displayed by much younger countries and civilzations, today?

I have always wondered about this and today's headline on banning a book on Gandhi has me hopping mad. What will we achieve by banning a book except give it free, unwanted publicity? People who had not heard of it will now want to know more:-). Indian government therefore successfully will have achieved the opposite result by banning the book. This book written by a westerner, that too a Pulitzer winning author is hardly something to be bothered about. Honestly, how many of us read such authors? Had we ignored it, I could have counted the number of people reading this book with my fingers.

We have done this many times, be it movies, books, parties, etc. etc. Banning anything is always counter-productive (ofcourse I am not referring to doing drugs and other illegal activities). I wonder why India always does this knee-jerk reaction. This is actually a ploy used by many today, to market their books / movies etc., generate a negative publicity and ensure its success. But our government doesn't seem to learn from the past. I am sure we have intelligent people running this country and one need not be a brainer to understand psychology. So, why then do we ban books, movies?? Are we, as a society highly intolerant to different viewpoints? But ours is supposedly a "pluralistic, inclusive society". Or do our Babus feel compelled to take action? Never mind if its stupid and may boomerang?

Oracle of Omaha and India

2011-03-28T14:42:00.002+05:30

I have great regard for Mr. Warren Buffett and his awesome record as an investor. He is considered as half- God by some at home, and that's how much I know about his work. He visited India amidst great fanfare last week and there were some good interviews too. I think there is much for people to learn from him and he does come out as an intensely sharp and intelligent man. Having said that I do think we must talk about things where our competencies lie. While his philanthropy is commendable and extremely generous, I don't think he has any idea about the deep rooted culture of India.

Philanthropy in India is not done by the millionaires and billionnaires, its done by everybody, the rich and poor alike. Its part of our nature. Its also a culture in our country to not talk much about our generosity. The 'nature of giving' has been ingrained into us mainly because we have always been a populous country with huge disparities. Such a society will naturally take to 'giving' and sharing one's wealth. While I have no qualification to comment on US culture, I guess, a country where social welfare is strong and robust, and is part of the "developed world', philanthropy is probably not a built-in mechanism, and is only practiced by a handful.

India, with its 1 billion plus population, with ~40% of the population living below the poverty line, less than a dollar a day, its the philanthropy by many Indians that is keeping this population alive. Not only are we just alive, we are doing fairly good, else we won't have the likes of Bill Gates / Warren Buffet landing up and talking to India Inc. My suggestion is for them to stick to sharing their business ideas and world trends and not lecture us on philanthropy.

Go to any state in India and see the amount of charitable Trusts that dot the landscape and they are spread across sectors of food security, education and health.

Muhammad Yunus and Nobel Peace Prize - decoded

2011-03-28T10:10:00.002+05:30

Lot of us have been reading about Muhammad Yunus being recently overthrown from Grameen Bank that he founded, and even won a Nobel Peace Prize for it. I never got to know further details and was curious on the real reasons behind his ouster. There was a column in the Times of India yesterday by an Economist from Columbia University who seems to know a lot more than many of us on this subject.

While I have no first hand knowledge on the issue between the two leaders, I like the article for giving some details to readers. A revelation was the huge grant from Norway to the Grameen Bank and apparently the losses were covered up with the huge sums of money he received from abroad. The second revelation, although, not surprisingly, the interference of US in the internal affairs of Bangaldesh. Apparently, the US Secretary of State, Ms. Hillary Clinton has taken the side of Mr. Yunus and is behaving completely in contradiction to the stated US policy of "non interference to friendly, democratic countries"

This is a rather disturbing trend. One, the fact that Nobel Peace Prizes are won, not by merit or worthiness, but by intense lobbying and international policy dictated by powerful countries, mainly the USA. Secondly, the increasing interference of the US in almost every country! The India cables' Wikileaks have further revealed what was always suspected to be US policy. Isn't it shocking that the Cabinet Ministers of the world's largest democracy is decided in Washington DC? Please don't get me worng, I ain't no Communist and don't belive in them at all, infact, I abhor them and their ways.

But, can this kind of sham and levels of hypocrisy be worse? Where are we heading? How much longer do we all have to suffer and subjugate ourselves to the US? What are so-called International, supposedly, neutral bodies like the United Nations doing?

Isn't it time all other countries get together and stop this Big brother behavior by the US?

Cricket commentary

2011-03-25T19:21:00.000+05:30

I hadn't thought of television Commentators as a profession, but offlate, the TV commentary has degenerated drastically! So, I got thinking... they are really not required, quite a redundant, dispensable breed they are.. Cricket commentary in the 70s were a thrill, one heard them on the radio and we all were full of gratitude to them, for giving us the updates... The 80s saw the beginnings of live telecast and we looked forward to our telecast with some good commentary. Who can forget our 1983 Prudential or World Cup finals and the historic win over the mighty West Indies! Lovely sweet memories!! We still live off it.

But today, we have every retired cricketer hanging his boots and taking on the mike, so to speak! Some are cartoons, they get to do analysis - paralysis and keep the discussions light. Some serious English speaking ones get into the commentary box. Some of them were good, no doubt, but these days, even these good ones come up with such banal comments, some downright ludicrous. Just made me realise that this is one job that has zero accountability. You can praise a batsman / bowler / fielder in one over and in the next over, skin him alive. They do that with no qualms at all!

And yesterday, during the India - Australia match, I heard one of them say the most stupid thing. It was a crucial time in the second innings, when a bowling change was effected, and Michael Clarke was introduced. He said Michael will either stop the runs for India and take a wicket, or the Indians may have a field day, blasting him to different parts of the ground. Wow! what an analysis.. Do we need to pay him to say that?? Aren't these the only two possibilities? Its like an astrologer telling a couple that they will have a girl or boy!! What a prophecy indeed! You do hear of some top notch Dalal Street / Wall Street market analysts telling us very profoundly on TV, "Markets will either go up or down, with this news"... What else happens to the markets, for Pete's sake??

I suggest we do away with this highly decorative profession, if we must have them, they can probably be spared the rod and asked to speak one sentence over 2/3 overs and restrict to some analysis, rather than state the obvious which the viewer can see, anyway:-).

Turning the poor in Tamil Nadu, to beggars

2011-03-25T17:26:00.006+05:30

World over, every nation talks about enabling and empowering its citizens to become self reliant and financially independent individuals. But in Tamil Nadu, politicians see merit in promoting "beggar culture" among the poor, and thereby making large populations "dependent", in the State. They call this sops, freebies, during elections... other times, it would be called dole.

Even after natural disasters, there is a conscious move among developmental agencies, governments, NGOs to empower, rather than give relief, in kind. Infact, post tsunami in Tamil Nadu, we saw this phenomenon happening right in front of our eyes... Lot of people rushed in with aid, and this gave immediate relief to the beneficiaries, but in the long term, brought in a culture of laziness and a mindset of "begging bowl culture"... It took many years to erase the harm done by these so called enthusiastic NGOs. One of the main complaints with NREGA today, is that it has made people lazy and labour is hard to come by, in India, since its implementation.

The election manifesto of the main parties reads like a discount store or worse, a store that is folding up and filing for bankruptcy. It is most shocking and disgusting to put it mildly... I deliberately brought this topic with different colleagues of mine and as expected, got different and ingenious answers too!! Some are hilarious and some are quite leftist:-). Here goes a sample of reactions:

These are not to be mistaken as sops, these are required for the under privileged. "Why should only you and me have laptops? They too are hardworking". (oh really indeed? Wonder if they know the meaning of earning their bread)
"Brilliant move!! They can take it a little further and start community kitchens in every street and serve breakfast, lunch & dinner, much like the soup kitchens in the US. All homes can close down their kitchens. Because, giving rice, wheat, gas separately may take up too much time". (makes sense, maybe even pilferage can be brought down, I quipped)
"There are no free lunches in the World, obviously we are paying for all this" said one.
Some said, white goods retailers in State will have no customers, all goods will be available free, at ration shops
"They can give gold coins but not "mangalsutra", as it is very demeaning for women to be bound by such gender stereotyping" (whoa!! a feminist here, amongst us:-))

Welcome to the decadent State of Tamil Nadu politics and elections, which the Times of India calls "Dance of Democracy":-)

Indians can do with a Jasmine Revolution

2011-03-22T18:30:00.001+05:30

With so much talk of unrest in many countries in West Asia and a brewing discontent in many more countries, Jasmine Revolution seems to have got a lot of civil societies together, in many countries. Most of these countries don't have even have a facade of "democracy", leave alone true democracy. So, one hopes things will settle down and these countries will soon have elected leaders and things will be fair & square. Infact the whole world is applauding this in different ways and feel this is how countries need to be governed, end of day. Hail democracy!

But, if we sit down and think how democracy has been fair and square to Indians, I wonder if such revolutions, giving way to democracy will anyway be different to the anarchy / dictatorship that they overthrew. I guess all these boil down to individual psyche and culture. Indians have had a feudal system long before it got invaded by the Moghuls, English, French or Portuguese. So, this culture seems to still lie within our psyche somewhere and we have displayed it time & again.

So, no amount of reforms, civilised society that we call ourselves, has changed anything, much:-). We all continue in the same way, we can call it British Raj, Democracy, License Raj, whatever, but the average Indian continues to be very feudal, at heart. As a consequence, we have become a very very apathetic society and nothing seems to stir us out of this subjugation and slumber. Maybe, that explains the case of dynasty politics that is so rampant in every state and every party.

Its time, we wake up to this decadence in our country and show some anger and resistance to the goings-on around us. What say?

Azim Premji has all the makings of today's JRD Tata

2011-03-22T12:49:00.002+05:30

While the Tata group is searching for an able successor to Ratan Tata, Azim Premji is the most suitable successor to JRD Tata - not as Tata Group Chairman, but as a Corporate who does "nation building" as a passion. JRD, in my opinion did more for nation building than all political leaders worth his salt, put together, today. He started Tata Airlines which became Air India, set up world class premier institutions like Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), Tata Memorial Hospital, Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS), & the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), to name a few. Azim Premji is the closest who qualifies, as I see it.

While continuing to lead one of India's best known IT companies, he has set up a foundation years ago, the Azim Premji Foundation, which focuses on education. This foundation has transformed the lives of many rural school children and teachers in rural Karnataka. They have dramatically improved the pass percentage of the schools in which they work and have inspired children to continue their education. Education is one the key sectors which need transformation in our country today and Education is the key to getting millions of Indians out of the poverty trap, their families face.

This current academic year, his foundation has set up a University that will offer PG courses in education, social work etc. This in my opinion, will be one of a kind of University, where Education is the main focus and not commercial interests, unlike many other Universities that dot the Indian skies, today.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Azim Premji keeps to himself and rarely speaks out on National issues. But, when he does speak, the Nation listens. His article on the Commonwealth Games in the Times of India and Economic Times front pages in August 2010, is one such example. He does not brag about his foundation work and instead lets the transformation do the talking. I really salute this simple man who has achieved and contributed to nation building like no other in his generation.

Peepli Live - a class apart in Bollywood

2011-03-21T10:41:00.001+05:30

Managed to see Peepli Live only yesterday, a good eight months after its release.. I am so glad I finally could watch it at home. Its about farmers' plight is most Indian villages and captures the ways of Indian politicians, and the Indian media in continuing and exploiting the situation. Such a serious subject but handled in a very light hearted manner and yet leaving the viewer with thought provoking questions..

Only Aamir Khan can come up with such fine productions. He has brought glory to Indian Cinema through this film and hats off to him. He has shown that Indian viewers do appreciate good films and they need not be pure art films nor the usual commercial crap that is dished out to the masses.

The movie captures how the media houses are polarised across political parties, how they fight to do exclusive stories without having any sensitivity of the very people on whom the stories are done.. It captures how callous and insensitive the politicians are in passing the buck to another department or the state or central government.

The movie is about a story of how a farmer contemplates taking his life to avail the compensation his family would get if he commits suicide. Yet, the politicians are not concerned about the agrarian crises in the country and the plight of farmers, all they focus is on their survival and upcoming elections. And the media look at it as a story to roll out for the next week and jostle about for exclusives stories and leads. The media houses fight over this story to boost their TRPs and therefore please their bosses and sponsors.

The entire movie is filmed with class, much like any other foreign movie, and has a good run time of 1 hour and 40 minutes. So, it brings the awareness on the burning issue of the Indian farmer and yet entertains. A must watch for any movie buff.

Economics is not a Mechanical Machine

2011-03-16T13:41:00.001+05:30

I was shown this article written by Bill Bonner that captures the way the Economy works in any country and for every individual, much unlike any other mechanical machine... Its one of the best articles that captures the subject and so philosophical... I felt the author was echoing the Hindu way of life..

I am copying the part of the article in this post...

"An economy is not really like a machine at all. It is not a mechanical system. It is a moral system.

Yes, dear reader, it is a system that punishes sin and rewards virtue. It gives no one what he expects…and ALMOST everyone what he deserves. The “almost” is an important qualifier, to which we will return…

What do we mean when we say it “rewards virtue”? Well, that’s what it does. It rewards saving, thrift, hard work, innovation, honesty, thinking about others, self-discipline, creativity and all the other qualities you normally associate with decent people and financial progress.

As for sin, it punishes the obvious ones – greed, vanity, short-sightedness, extravagance, envy, laziness, lying, cheating, stealing, stupidity, self-indulgence…and so forth.

When the Fed creates money out of thin air, for example, it is a lie. It is a sort of fraud. It is trying to get something for nothing. It is distorting the facts and encouraging mistakes. It surely will be punished. When? How? We can take a guess, but it’s not for us to say….

Likewise, take a fellow who works hard and saves his money… Will he be wealthy? Again, we don’t know. All we know is that he OUGHT to do well…

So, we should return to our qualifier…it USUALLY works that way.

Some greedy bastards do get rich. Some lazy fools win the lottery. We never know for sure who will make money and who won’t.

Why not? First, because we’re not God. He sees things we don’t see…and He has his own plans that he doesn’t share with us.

Second, because there is sin and virtue IN THE SYSTEM itself…to which we are all subject. When the Roman Empire fell apart, and Rome was sacked by barbarians, even the most virtuous Roman probably suffered a decline in his standard of living. Not much he could do about it.

Why would a system that rewards virtue and punishes sin be so frustratingly unreliable?

Well, that’s just the way it is. It’s a moral system, remember. And moral systems do not make it easy for you. If all you had to do to get rich were to respect the moral rules it would not be a moral system. It would be a simpleton’s system. Everyone would follow the rules. Moral systems are more demanding. They require you to follow the rules without being sure what it will do for you.

As every theological thinker from St. Augustine to Billy Sunday has noticed, you can’t get to heaven just by following the rules. That would be too easy. Instead, you follow the rules…and HOPE to get heaven by the grace of God. Similarly, you have to follow the rules of an economy…knowing you might not get rich after all.

There’s no gaming the system. There’s no pretending. There are no quick fixes…no shortcuts…and no guarantees. And even if this isn’t true, you’re better off believing it anyway.

You have to love virtue for its own sake. And hate sin.

And keep your fingers crossed."

Brilliant read, isn't it?? Readers can read the full article here.

Paradox: The Misinformed are more Articulate!!

2011-03-16T12:22:00.004+05:30

People who know the subject rarely speak out and media rarely takes the trouble to speak to the real experts!! Often, we get to hear from only the half baked, and misinformed "so-called experts". Lets take the nuclear reactors in Japan as the first case... Apparently, they are not nuclear accidents, or radiation leaks, rather planned and scheduled standard procedures, when a nuclear reactor is shut down under emergencies!! Since there is excess heat within, caused due to the fission experiments that have suddenly been stopped, these are planned releases to cool these reactors. How many of us are aware of this fact?? Without understanding the Chemistry and Physics of it, we rush to conclusions and cause panic and fear amongst the public.

Most of us are fed with overdoses of panic and rumours of nuclear radiation and disasters with far fetched stories of radiation travelling to Phillipines and then to India!! How much more hilarious and stupid can we get? Its these same morons who want a better quality of life and conveniences and want India to become a well developed country. Conveniences mean more energy requirements, plain and simple. All of us want a good life and good comforts but little to we realise that such growth and conveniences have energy requirements. These past few days have many up in arms over India's nuclear energy plans and will no doubt stall and slow down the plans for increased nuclear capabilities.

Today, another story that caught my eye was about a NGO sending a veggies cum fruit hamper to our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Nothing wrong with that, except, that the reason for sending it is all wrong. Apparently, our PM mentioned how genetically modified Golden Rice can help reduce Vitamin A deficiencies, in India. Immediately, our so-called "informed experts" cry foul and a NGO thinks they are the only educated Indians who care for their fellow citizens and the environment. The Scientists who develop the technology are made out to be villains who don't care for human health, leave alone environment! Scientists, today, according to the ill-informed activists, particularly in India, are the new age Monsters and Asuras who are out to destroy nature and have "evil intentions". One expert quoted in the article today, apparently heads the Department of Biotechnology in his College and speaks against Biotechnology!! What an irony?? His students have my full sympathy. He is quoted as saying that one needs to consume 9 kg of rice per day to meet the Vitamin A requirements. What a joke!! He needs to first go and get updated on the technology before educating his students and the public. Being in this area I know he is talking about an older version but the current golden rice requires a human being to consume only 144 gms of rice to meet the daily requirements of Vitamin A, but imagine the average person on the street, is going to believe this trash.

And the media also laps it up and publishes such crap. This always has me worried and concerned. How is it that the half baked experts are louder than the fully baked? How come the activists are more articulate and get quoted in the media, than the scientists? Why are scientists not publishing articles refuting the rubbish that is dished out in popular media? These questions are very discomforting and I wonder if there is hope at all.

Dalai Lama & Jasmine Revolution

2011-03-11T11:24:00.001+05:30

Calling all specialists to quickly come up with a term that can be an antonym to the Jasmine revolution... In my opinion, Dalai Lama announcing his retirement from politics is just that.. While, every other leader, be it elected, self appointed ruler / owner of countries these days, clamour for more power, and stoop at nothing to hold on, here is our Dalai Lama who says he is retiring!! Its such a welcome relief to see such people in today's world. To digress a bit, I read in today's paper that a very powerful, local leader in Tamil Nadu plans to contest in a 'safe constituency'... if the leader is so shaky and insecure, what can be the fate of the rest, in the party?? We, in India, lack leaders who are strong and visionary and that is definitely one of the major factors for the decadence we see in our country.

Getting back to Dalai Lama, personally, there are very few spiritual faces in the world who I greatly admire & adore, and Dalai Lama is one of them (the only other is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar). There is something about him that makes me smile when I just read about him or hear his name mentioned; I love his talks and lectures, heard a few on TV and one Live. He is so cute and so simple. I watched him with interest in an interview, years ago, that his hobby was to set wristwatches right!! What a quaint thing for a Spiritual and Political leader of Tibet!

Everything about him is so humble and he epitomises Peace, to me. It is such a paradox that a person who exudes so much happiness and peace to everyone around him does not have the Chinese feel the same way, as the rest of the World.

The recent announcement by Dalai Lama has further strengthened his arguments for a free and elected leader for Tibet. I do wish there are other leaders who take the cue from him and learn to be inspiring mentors to the young, rather than clinging on to power for dear life!

My blog is turning 3!!

2011-03-10T17:10:00.002+05:30

I just realised that my blog is turning three! Seems like I have just begun to get a hang of blogging! I had a quick look at the number of posts and I am well past 200.. I seem to have rambled along quite frequently:-), without a clue:-)

Very surprisingly (for me), majority of my posts are on current affairs! I didn't know my interests in current affairs till I started to blog:-) And the pleasant surprise has been how enjoyable it is - to blog; I mean, its freedom of expression in the best possible way. Ah yes, there is recent murmur to regulate the content of blogs in India, much like they do in many other restrictive countries:-(. But lets keep our fingers crossed. Blogging, in my opinion is here to stay, Fb and twitter can't be substitutes, as many others seem to think. There is so much of individuality here, creativity and everybody can get to be as close to being a journo as possible. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against FB and twitter, they have their place and usefulness, just that they can't be compared to a blog.

Nett, nett, blogging has become a part of my life, little did I imagine that it would be the case. And the hidden talent of my writing skills has taken me by surprise, in some posts. I am not being very modest, am I...

Magnetic North Pole Shifts & Indians

2011-03-07T13:01:00.002+05:30

For some strange reason I am extremely fascinated by articles on the magnetic north/south poles and their movements and their possible implications on our lives. Many a times, these news stories read like science fiction which probably is the reason why it interests me so greatly, but increasingly, I am more and more convinced that some dramatic changes may happen in 2012/13. There seem to be far too many pointers from many reports including from NASA on various shifts, re alignments, etc. Infact, a couple of months ago,I did a post on the Mayan calendar. More than anything, I want something dramatic to happen as it will be far too interesting to be there when they happen, than read about something that's likely a million / thousand years later:-).

Today, my eyes caught on to the report that the magnetic north pole which is somewhere in the wilderness in Canada is moving towards Siberia at a faster rate than ever before, at the rate of 65 km/year!! Apparently, this will have huge implications on our lives and maybe even "flip", causing compasses to invert! Wow!! You can read the full story here

While NASA and many scientists say there will be little or no impact of such flips:(, it makes for a good story and doomsayers will have a field day.

I would like to wonder how Indians will take these changes. Maybe some /all of the following scenarios may happen:

The orthodox may consult astrologers and probably change the direction in which their Puja room lamp is lit
Some superstitious Indians may want to change the direction in which they sleep
The Vaasthu freaks will have to reinvent the wheel and do a fresh round of renovations / constructions to have their homes /offices vaasthu compliant. Vaasthu experts will love this!
Some may want their horscopes redrawn. Astrologers will love this!
Some Indians will quote Nostradamus and say that this shift will bring more crude to India, as he had predicted:-)
Doomsayers will say that Kaliyug will come to an end and look northwards for a man on a white horse to save them!

A case of Misplaced Activism??

2011-03-06T17:30:00.004+05:30

Off-late, I have been having serious discussions on democracy and governance with my family and I am surprised at how different our viewpoints are... I see absolutely no point having democracy for the sake of "democracy", if it does not translate to good governance. I guess, having such luxuries (of democracies), and not necessarily "good governance" can be considered in highly developed and rich countries, if at all, not in a country like India, where we need to optimise on all our resources.

Adding to that discussion was my utter revelation on how USA is run by the large Corporations and how wonderful democracy is, through the eyes of Michael Moore's documentary!!

And today, I read Gurucharan Das's point of view in a very well written article. He has brought out very elegantly, the need for India and China to maintain their current growth rates, although the western world will like it otherwise, and even put us through a guilt-trip of causing ecological harm, due to this high growth rate. And how our so-called activists jump the gun and start demonstrations and attempt stalling projects, all at the cost of huge losses, without understanding the real issues and dynamics!! I really liked the point GD makes about continuing the current growth rates, if only to feed our respective poor, and get them out of penury and abject poverty conditions that they are subjected to.

All this points to having good governance as the need of the hour, rather than democracy, in India! Would love comments from readers

Capitalism: A Love Story

2011-03-04T22:42:00.000+05:30

I hadn't heard about this movie, just chanced into watching it at home... Its extremely well taken and has Michael Moore excelling himself, in making documentaries. This one, by far, is far more appealing and extremely poignant. The amazing real life stories of people who have have been affected by the recent collapse of the banking industry and various other stories of families that he brings together, is a revelation!!

Apart from raising the issues of the extent to which Capitalism has taken roots in the social fabric of US, he has raised some very valid points of the human greed and the decadence that Corporations have reduced themselves to, all in the name of shareholder wealth, profits, etc. Such heinous unethical stories from a "so-called developed" country is far too much.

Michael Moore has very neatly captured the context of US economy booming, post WW II, and how wrongly it was presumed that Capitalism was responsible for the boom, whilst it was the lack of competition from Japan and Germany that actually tilted in US' favour and the fab story couldn't continue after these two countries were on the rebound.

I am most amazed at how the US Prez can now stand up and point fingers at any other country for human rights violations, terrorism, unlawful practices, unethical laws etc etc. Michael Moore has brought out the plight of middle class America, that the outside world seldom get to see. We either get overdoses of the big cats at New York financial markets, or the absolute poor who are on social security.

Anybody who wants to learn how America is run, must watch this movie.

Jasmine Revolution

2011-02-28T10:34:00.000+05:30

We have all been following the news in Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Egypt and that the unrest is largely led by citizens which are mostly student-led. The underlying issue seems to me misrule, corruption, inflation, unemploymnet, at intolerable levels... Many of us will wonder how much longer before many more countries join this revolution:). It is indeed very tempting and ideal to believe that such uprisings and unrest will solve the real problems. I do have my doubts, but they do, no doubt, serve as huge deterrents for subsequent leaders to amass wealth at the cost of governance.

Yesterday, I read Swaminomics which had another angle to the unrest. You can read the article here. It is very insightful and brings another set of dynamics into play in the region which is fraught with many, many problems and agendas for many countries to interfere and dictate their preferences for bringing so-called "Peace" to the region.

In the meanwhile, I wonder why the name "Jasmine revolution".. whilst the internet speaks of the various colour revolutions from rose to orange to lotus to white to green revolutions in various parts of the world, it is still not clear why this is called the 'Jasmine Revolution'. Can anybody throw some light in the etiology of the term?

Ah, Life in an Apartment!!

2011-02-27T09:15:00.003+05:30

Like many of us in Indian cities, I live in an "apartment" and there are many greats to doing so! Well yes, sometimes, we do wish we could live in luxury of a "house", but as we all know, Antilia is facing a lot of flak and I would rather live in anonymity than be neighbours' envy:)

Anyway, getting back to living with a potpourri of neighbours, I just realised that life in an apartment can be a great leveler. For example, we have every single car of almost all companies in our apartment... we have the Nano, Alto, Swift, Santro, A-Star, Zen, Chevy Beat, Getz, Accent, Ford Fiesta, Corolla, Honda City, Ford Endeavor, Innova and the grand BMW SUV... What a range!!

All these manage to get parked and its fun to see these cars of all hues!! Being in Chennai, we have most models of bikes & scooters too!! 'wonder what their conversation will be if they can have one:-). Will it be as snooty / artificial, as their owners? Or will they plot to swap places for a day? Will they have role reversal games for entertainment? Will they help each other out in times of trouble?

Maybe we could make a Herbie movie out of these cars:-) Or better still would be a sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:-) Will be interesting, no doubt, any takers from the film industry?

Perfect weekend

2011-02-26T21:06:00.000+05:30

Had a lazy weekend with window shopping at Express Avenue and yeah, some real shopping too!! But the best part of the afternoon was the discovery of Goli Vada Pav in Chennai!! They have a small stall in the ground floor and I gorged on it... Amazing how childhood memories are so strong and latent.

I never thought I missed my vada pav much and infact having stayed in every metro since, I have become quite unattached to any city or rather attached to every city (depends on how you look at it, I guess:)), or so I thought... But Vada pav sure seems to have a permanent place in my heart, to use a cliche.

And now you readers might want to know if it was as good as the ones in the Streets of Mumbai... Well the verdict is Yes... I loved my vada pav.... but I wonder why they don't think the red powder is important to vada pav.. I had to request them to use it... Vada pav without the red thingy is like having Gujarathi dishes without adding the sugar component. Venky Iyer better train the Chennai fellows the nuances and speciality of Vada pav. But the vada pav capped my lazy afternoon and I came away happy and Dilkush, not for the purchases but for the Goli Vada Pav at Express Avenue..

I wonder why there were no big billboards about the Vada pav joint there, I might have almost missed it! I think it ought to have a bigger display announcing its arrival in Chennai

Namma Singara Chennai

2011-02-24T11:31:00.008+05:30

Every city has its characteristics and Chennai is no exception. But it takes a non Chennaiite to actually list the telltale signs for Chennai or for any city, for that matter. So, here goes my list... You know you are in Chennai when

You see larger than life-sized cut-outs of local filmstars - its a film crazy city
You see women's faces doused with turmeric powder - ever wondered why their faces were yellow?
Women's hair plaited and adorned with jasmine /crossandra flowers
The first shops to open in city are the TASMAC outlets - authorized shops that sell liquor
You see flyovers that don't ease traffic woes
You see huge hoardings 20 feet x 30 feet of politicians in the street corners where they live
You realise that cricket as a sport can also be practised as a religion
You see commuters of all hues, fish carts to bullock carts to cycle rickshaws to autos to pedestrains to bikes to cars to The Hummer, all fighting for space in narrow alleys, we call "....Main Roads"
College students celebrate 'Bus day' - a crazy exercise

While the rest can be dismissed as quirks and culture or lack of it, of the city, the Bus day celebrations done by certain college students really beats me! Its highly stupid and is highly ridiculous... Apparently, the practice was started some years ago by students to thank the bus drivers and conductors (its always the local government buses) at the end of the academic year for having helped them commute to college. It actually has turned out to be the most unruly and violent days of the year. The students run amok (much akin to the animals in the sanctuaries and zoos) and disrupt traffic, make a nuisance of themselves and the police end up mute spectators. Is it a surprise that only the most notorious colleges in city observe this practice?? Speaks volumes of the real agenda of these celebrations

This year, the police acted tough and even the courts wondered if they could consider banning these celebrations!!! Like they consider banning jallikattu every year around January:-)

Some things never change for a city although one wishes and hopes it does!!

World Cup 2011

2011-02-18T14:49:00.003+05:30

The cricket World Cup has just begun and media is doing its best to whip up a frenzy among the Indians to get excited and start breathing cricket, every moment, if possible. I am not sure if I seem to be to be missing something here! There is a marked lack of interest in cricket amongst us, as compared to 4/5 years ago... This, in my opinion is a very good thing.. We are having an overdose of it in terms of IPL and also increased matches between countries. And the scams and corruption in IPL last year has given cricket a beating:-). I, for one, am not complaining.

I always felt that our cricketers enjoyed a demi - God status in our country... Its rather incongrous and a number of other sportsmen who excel in their sport don't even get a mention in the papers or TV. This kind of correction or change is really welcome. Its a sign of a maturing population. Oh, I don't have anything against the Sport. Actually, I do enjoy watching the game but clearly it was an overdose and there's just too much of it.

Well, its not as if nobody is interested in the game, but the madness has considerable reduced. Its still early times and before we know it, two weeks from now, the nation may just be living, walking, talking, cricket! And many parents are really very worried.. the World Cup has barely started, there is just four days separating the finals on April 2 and this years' IPL!! And its bang at the time of final examinations. Many parents I know are unplugging the Cable Network but kids will always find their ways to work around such bans:-)

Indian Democracy - clarified by none other than Manmohan Singh!

2011-02-18T14:18:00.000+05:30

I am so glad our Prime Minister clarified the current state of anarchy India finds itself in!! In his interactions with the media a couple of days back, he explained it all as, Coalition Politics... "My hands are tied" he cried:). How ridiculous and pathetic to hear your Prime Minsiter on National Television express his helplessness in the most abominable manner... Its bad enough to have him watch the goings on in silence, but to call the media and say that he can't do a thing, does carry it far.

This further vindicates my earlier post on Indian Democracy:-). What more can I want than the PM of India agree with me!

Sceptics will like to argue that besides having my blogpost vindicated, have I been successful in rooting out corruption?? Well, the answer is a No, for now... but I am positive there will be few readers who may like to join hands to fight the rot in our country today. We need a movement in our country and there is need for like minded individuals and organizations to get together and act responsibly.

Indian Democracy - a cruel joke?

2011-02-14T12:30:00.002+05:30

The events unfolding in Cairo has lots of reason for us to cheer. I would think we in India can learn a thing or two from the citizens of Egypt. We may call ourselves to be the largest democracy and pat our backs on how great democracy in India is and if you meet NRIs, they even get romantic about it. But, its time we keep our intellectual exercise away and speak from our hearts. What kind of democracy do we have in our country today?

Have any of us been able to stem the rot when we see one? Can we be successful Indians without falling in line with the corrupt system that is ingrained into our country? Right from the electrical supply to the water connection to the gas connections to the telephone linesman, we need to "toe the line" if we want to get what is our Right. This is the state of our country. Is this democracy? Or is this anarchy? For anything and everything, you need a recommendation to get what is your Right, in this country.

Oh, we do justify and rationalise many of our problems to our huge population and the demand-supply ratio. But China with a more populous country is able to manage with better governance. They make no tall claims about being democratic. Atleast there is no hypocrisy. That to me is the biggest disease plaguing our country. We will rank very easily as the most hypocritical society in the whole world. We love to hush things up and not face the truths. We love to live in fools' paradise and not come to terms, even when we see the writing on the wall. We live in our past glories and love to blame the rest of the world for all the problems we have today.

I see a Cairo happening in the streets of Delhi and Mumbai very soon. And I would hail it, just as the whole world is hailing Cairo today.

Naadha Vaibhavam - Theme song by Ramesh Vinayakam

2011-01-16T08:36:00.001+05:30

The 30th year celebration of Art of Living begins in Chennai with a carnatic musician ensemble, "Naadha Vaibhavam", meaning Celebration of Music. To encompass the different sounds of music and the celebrative nature of music, Shri Ramesh Vinayakam was requested to compose the Theme Song for the programme. He is a music composer and director and has been trained in both carnatic and western school of music. He has quite a number of hits to his credit and he has brought out many devotional albums as well.

He has done a magnificent masterpiece, that encompasses all the different genre of music. While it is not a fusion, he has retained the traditional feel of each genre (from Carnatic to Hindustani to Western to tamil folk to Irish) and yet, has brought them all together, just to give the message of how Universal, Music (Naadham) is. A real tribute to music.

The song lyrics has been written by Shri Ravi, Ramesh Vinayakam and David Pascal and has a galaxy of lead singers like Unnikrishnan, Sanjeev Abhyankar, Shankar Mahadevan, Srinivas, K.S.Chitra, Rita, Manikkam Vinayakam, Vijaya Shankar and instrumental greats like Karaikudi Mani Sir, Lalgudi Krishnan, Veena Parthasarathy.

This is a treat for all music lovers.. The song will be played on 30th January 2011 at Shriram - The Gateway, Perungaluthur, Chennai.

Barkhagate

2010-11-21T18:38:00.002+05:30

This is just what I needed:).. Media has often been at the receiving end in this blog and today its at its best, probably:). Politicians, industrialists getting caught lobbying, etc., does not surprise me anymore. But its shocking to know that the half baked media in India are also as bad. Earlier, I only had a problem of the quality of reporting... But now, that they are no different from politicians and the rest, is a revelation!

The media has always played a "Holier than Thou" attitude and has always pointed fingers at everyone while maintaining a self drawn halo around themselves... Well, this link will dissolve that halo in seconds:)

What is even more deplorable is the ganging up of all mainstream media and they have successfully blacked out this youtube video... The same media that would have jumped 10 feet if there was a probable scam in any part of India, has decided to go silent on this... This is good brotherhood, man!

This same brotherhood among industrialists or political parties would be ripped and torn apart by these very media houses. Can there be a better example of double standard??

Well, I am actually glad this video clip has come to light... I couldn't stand these TV presenters wearing a "larger than life" virtuosic personality, anyway.

Reality Shows - what a misnomer

2010-11-19T11:29:00.001+05:30

I guess we have been having reality shows on TV for some years now. Being a very rare TV watcher and a conservative one too, these shows have never caught my fancy. All I knew about them was what I read in the papers. It did surprise me that reality shows make headlines on the internet and the newspapers. And that was that.

But I happened to see the current Big Boss 4 on Colors Channel and and I must say that it is far from reality. I wonder whoever thought of calling these "Reality Shows". Its so cut off from "Reality", I wonder what will they call a programme on state of agriculture, or a programme that talks about urban - rural disparity, etc..

Its downright boring too!!! How can it interest anyone what some bunch of wannabe or failed actors do when they get holed up for 2 months in one house! The conversation was so boring and totally arbitrary. It was so bad that even the most boring film clip would be more entertaining. I wonder if people really enjoy these, it perplexes me. But judging by the number of advertisements, I guess I belong to a very small minority.

I was so glad when the government decided to pull this show up for adult content and move it to beyond 11 pm. But, my joy was shortlived. The advertisers moved court and obtained a stay on the government ruling! That brings up the other issue. If the Courts are so Supreme (pun intended), why don't they govern the country, why do we have politicians and bureaucracy?

Naadha Vaibhavam: A grand Carnatic Magnum Opus

2010-11-10T10:38:00.001+05:30

As part of 30th anniversary celebrations, The Art of Living is organising Naadha Vaibhavam, a grand musical symphony on 30th January 2011 in Chennai. The concert will have 5000 Carnatic musicians perform in unison, from the world over, on a single stage in the presence of H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The event will be the grand finale, signaling the end of the Music Season, in the city that prides itself as the Mecca for Carnatic Music.

The event is particularly organized with the intent to offer a spiritual aura and desires to highlight the glory of Carnatic music to one and all. There is a buzz in the city with a number of musicians and budding artistes willing to participate and registering themselves. This event is likely to feature in the Guinness Book of World Records!! Its going to be on such a grand scale that I ask readers to just "Be there, be part of history, in the making:)".

Please stop by at http://www.naadhavaibhavam.in/ for more details about the Event and The Art of Living.

A valid argument indeed!

2010-11-03T15:30:00.001+05:30

Post the Commonwealth Games, there has been a lot of promise to clean up the cobwebs and bring in new blood into the Sports Associations/Bodies/Federations. Suddenly, it was discovered that all the office bearers of all Sport federations were above 70 years and that a retirement age must be put in place:). At the face of it, its a brilliant idea. But these shameless chiefs have turned the argument around and ask how come the same yardstick doesn't apply for political posts like the PM of the country, CMs of states, etc. I think this is a very valid point.

In a half hearted attempt to clean up the system, surely the politicians could have come up with a better idea, that will not boomerang on them and still keep these existing chiefs out of their posts?? How about proposing that the Chiefs can, at best have 2 terms at office? This can also boomerang on the politicians but atleast we will have a cap on the number of years these people can head Sports Bodies / country.

We need reforms in the political system very urgently.

State of Environment in India

2010-11-03T14:54:00.002+05:30

We have the most concerned Minister of State for Environment in the country. He truly cares for the environment unlike most of his predecessors. He is so concerned for the Elephants that get killed by trains at night that he couldn't sleep for many nights subsequently. Soon, he came up with the bright idea that trains ought to be stopped at nights, so as to allow elephants freedom to walk around:-). Its another matter that its his very ministry, under his able guidance, that has been sitting on the file about the Elephant corridor in West Bengal!!

Today, our man is most furious with Harry Potter fans!! Incredulous, you say? Well, its true. He has got hold of a report of the dwindling population of owl species and some smart Alec has proposed that Harry Potter fans are buying the owls from illegal traders!! Now, how many people can buy and house owls at home? Can our Minister show some more concern to real issues that such news hogging stories?

What about alarming pesticide levels in vegetables, H'ble Minsiter? A recent TOI report says there is alarming level of pesticides in most vegetables. And what does he do about it? He promotes it further by stalling the release of Bt brinjal. Brinjal, incidentally attracts maximum pesticide use and farmers spray indiscriminately to reduce pest damage. Bt brinjal consumption is probably much more safe than the pesticide ridden non Bt brinjal:)

And what about the environmental clearances, rather rejections our Minsiter so loves? He says no to something one day and after a few months reverses his stand. Or he says yes to something and years later, stops it because his party now has other plans for the tribals of Orissa.

I am not surprised by a report that he is apparently the most hated man in his own party and also outside. I wonder what the Environment thinks of him, though:)

Baramati

2010-11-03T14:26:00.000+05:30

I had an opportunity to visit a small town called Baramti near Pune in Maharashtra last week. Its Pawar land and there is no mistaking or forgetting this fact, even for a moment. He has a demi God status among the locals there, and anybody I spoke to, across different strata, worship him like God! I found it very amusing at first, having been in a city all the time. I, for one, don't know who the local MP is and I don't see this hero worship amongst any of my city folks even if they are more politically educated than me!

There was so much pride in the driver who drove me around and said, "Saheb ne kiya hai". I met a Scientist who heads an Institute there and I quote "He works beyond human capabilities and is on a different plane"

Great job indeed. Apparently, the town has always had some history but Pawar saheb seems to have brought it on the India radar. There is quite a number of industries, namely, steel, dairy apart from the number of sugar factories that dot the skyline.

Reminded me of another occasion when I went to Gwalior and whole place was owned by the Scindias. I was struck by the adulation at that time too but I attributed it to them being part of the Royal family.

So, if each MP can take care of his constituency like some of these people, I guess India will have a great future.

Long Hiatus

2010-11-03T14:08:00.000+05:30

Ahaa, I am back to my posting on the blog. I can't believe I haven't done a single post in two months! Seems ages since I even visited my blog.. I guess I have what is called the writer's block:-). There's been so much happening these past 8 weeks that I could have done two postings a day!

Anyway, I guess its time to write and enjoy the experience:). Well, these past two months have been hectic and enriching, both personally and professionally. And with regards to current affairs, there's been no dearth of interesting stories, right from CWG being a runaway success to being also most marred in scams and the plethora of other scams.

What is it with Indians? Why do we attract scams, as a country? Is there a deeper meaning? Is there a lack in our psyche or is the prevalent disparities too glaring?

Interesting to do some introspection, if not for anything, atleast for academic interest.

So, guys, do visit this blog often as I promise to post regularly:)

The Complete Man

2010-09-02T06:05:00.007+05:30

Its a Hindu festival that is celebrated across India, in different ways. I am referring to Janmashtami, birth of Lord Krishna. Happened to read a blog about the description of the Lord yesterday and was inspired to do a post on it.

Lord Krishna is looked upon in so many different forms, as an adorable child, as a charming companion, as a trusted friend, as a darling son, as a perfect consort, as the Saviour, as a great Ruler, as an avatar to establish Good over Evil, as the most Wise Teacher who gave the Bhagwath Gita on a battlefield! He is celebrated and worshipped in all these forms... Its amazing!!

And, if you look at his life, he had to face so many obstacles, even before he was born! He, however, celebrated every moment in his life and smiled through the hardships... This is is the message for his devotees. Life is not a bed of roses, but smile and dance through it and you will enjoy every moment of it!

Many times, people draw comparisons of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna as they are both avatars of Lord Narayana, yet lived seemingly opposite lives:). Lord Rama was the epitome of Righteousness and his message to the world at that time was to lead a Perfect Life. Lord Krishna in his avatar, did everything under the sun to establish Good over Evil. He broke the law if required and used a lot of skill to achieve his goal. I particularly liked one description of Lord Krishna: it said, even his form, is bent at many places, he stands on one foot and other is bent and rests on a toe, his knee is bent, his hip is at a slant, etc.. - in a dance, while Lord Rama was straight and upright. Lord Rama is a perfect man and Lord Krishna is a complete man, summed up my hubby!

I heard another nice story between Lord Krishna & Lord Rama... Apparently even their devotees, are very distinct.. a typical Ram bhakt will eat dal roti chawal and dress very plainly, whilst, a Krishna bhakth will like a sweet and a pickle alongwith the main course and more! and dress up colourfully, with ornaments and jewellery! I really enjoyed this one and wanted to share... Incidentally, in school yesterday, many kids in kindergarden dressed up as Krishna / Radha:). Here is my niece, as Radha.

Sri Sri RaviShankar has given a nice talk on the Contradictions in the Gita. He says, although there appears to be many contradictions in the Gita, it is not contradictory at all! In his inimitable style, he has given many insights and explains them in great humour and wisdom. A gist of His message is here

Good Jokes

2010-08-27T21:08:00.002+05:30

There two jokes that I would like to share here...

1. The day the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament) passed the Nuclear Liability Bill, news channels were abuzz with the news and busy getting bytes from those who mattered. At one point, Arnab Goswami from Times Now shared a good joke... He said, "The congress found it easier to amend the bill and take BJP's support to pass the bill in Lok Sabha, can't say same from their own Minister, Jairam Ramesh" :-)

2. This is joke of today... The Primer Minister, Shri Manmohan Singh, inaugurated a meeting with Heads of Missions from different countries and he said, "India, by and large, has good relations with her neighbours. We were engaging them without looking at reciprocity, in our own enlightened interest"

Isn't the second joke terribly funny?? Our record with Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China is at an all time low... What do you think he had in his mind when he said this?? Perhaps he lives in the past or future - 100 years ago or later:)

I am proud of Vada Pav:)

2010-08-27T19:30:00.001+05:30

Having grown up in Aamchi Mumbai it is but natural to like Vada Pav. Strangely, no other city has caught on to this snack. I mean other snack items and chaats have now mushroomed in every big city in India but Vada Pav is quite confined to Mumbai.

I have since moved on to many other cities before settling down in Chennai and miss my Vada Pav dearly. So, I am quite thrilled to read about the latest avatar of Vada Pav. Please read more about it here.

Recently, I was at a wedding reception in Bangalore and they had Vada Pav and I gorged on it. I am sure there will be many takers for Vada Pav in Chennai. Chennai has now become more welcoming to different cuisines and many exclusive joints serving Thai /Mexican/Lebanese/Korean/Italian dot the skyline here.

Can't wait for Goli Vada Pav to set shop in Chennai... Is Venky Iyer listening?

We will be like this only!

2010-08-27T17:04:00.001+05:30

I refer to the latest controversy surrounding bauxite mining by the Vedanta group in Orissa. Although I know very little of the technical aspects of the proposal, it is evident that the Environment Ministry's action has nothing to do with the technical specifications / guidelines, rather to do with vote bank politics.

Two days prior to the rejection by the ministry itself, there were reports that Rahul Gandhi would be visiting Orissa and the tribals at Niyamgiri hills and rejection of Vedanta's mining proposal was a foregone conclusion. So, Congress is already in election mode, they are trying to woo the tribals and get their votes... So, it pays the Congress to keep them in poverty and if possible keep them as tribals forever, else, their winning in Orissa is at jeopardy. How typical!

Although vote bank poilitics is not new to anybody in India, it however shocks me when its as blatant as this, and at the cost of development, in that region. Will we never grow up?? Is there no hope?? How hypocritical it is when our government makes speeches from Red Fort and where have you, on how serious they are about dealing with naxalism and maoists!! On the contrary, isn't this action nurturing and supporting the movement?

I am hugely disappointed with Rahul Gandhi. I really thought he was different, and was well meaning, and had the country's interests ahead of the party's... All my hopes are dashed, as Wooster would have said:)

I want reforms in our political system. This is one reform no current MP will support!

Azim Premji - one of my heroes

2010-08-27T10:09:00.002+05:30

One of the leading business heads who I admire and idolize is Azim Premji. What particularly endears me is his simplicity, frugality, inspite of his accomplishments and contributions to nation building and job creation, and ofcourse, his personal wealth. He has been a silent statesman unlike many of his peers and never talks out of turn. But yesterday, he chose to speak out against the Commonwealth Games, in the Times of India. Those of you who didn't read it, please see the link to his article. There is a certain respect for him and when he decides to speak out, I am sure policy makers will sit up and listen. Its time, Indian policy makers take hard decisions, rather than playing to the gallery or succumbing to vote bank politics. These have cost India dear and we cannot afford to continue in this manner. I am really glad to see people like Azim Premji speak, loud and clear. We need to hear these people and take action.

In the article, he has very nicely brought out the burning issues plaguing our country and the need to prioritise. While he agrees its not black and white and not easy for the government to decide one project over the other, he very clearly mentions that lack of amenities for budding sportsmen, and lack of education in many districts of India, is a serious concern. Hosting a sporting extravaganza is not exactly in keeping with the reality India is in, currently.

I particularly admire Azim Premji for his vision to concentrate on primary education for the economically challenged. His foundation is really touching the lives of thousands of children and teachers in rural Karnataka, to make a difference to the quality of education. This, in my opinion is priceless contribution to nation building. Kudos to him and may he inspire many more to follow his path of silent transformation of rural India!

Opposite values are Complementary, indeed!

2010-08-23T12:52:00.002+05:30

I had the most unique experience of getting ready and pack up to catch an early morning train, only to find out that my ticket was waitlisted and couldn't board!! I couldn't believe it, I have heard many people recount such experiences but I have never faced this before... Its just too disappointing, imagine not being able to do the work you set out out for the day, and that too on a monday morning!! And I woke up early, cooked and completed morning chores only to find that I have to go back home.. It was very difficult to be there on the platform and watch the train depart with you standing with your bag:(. And the agent who promised you the ticket refusing to take your call:(. I was thoroughly disappointed and despondent.

Realising I had to get on with the day, I got out of the station to hail an auto. But to my delight, there was a AC bus, part of local public transport that was waiting at the bus stop. This bus stops bang opposite my house! I jumped in like a child and chose my seat. It was empty, save for another gentleman. This is my first bus ride in more than 11 years in the city and its my first ever ride in an AC bus:). I was so thrilled with the experience that I almost forgot the disappointment of not getting on the train!

As H.H.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar often says, opposite values are complementary, two sides of the same coin.

Thank God for Supreme Court in India!

2010-08-12T14:37:00.001+05:30

I would rather have the Supreme Court govern the country than the politicians:-). Offlate, the Supreme Court seems to be pulling up the government and getting sense into their heads. This is a very good thing, only I wonder if they will then have very little time to hear the pending cases of undertrials languishing in various prisons across the country.

I refer to today's judgement by SC to distribute the food grains to the hungry, "free". I am so glad to see this news. Its such a stupid ironical twist to see rotting grains in godowns that no one will use and >250 million hungry mouths simultaneously co-existing in the country... Can we do anything more stupid?

All these years, the political class and officials hid behind the term, "buffer stocks" and justified the rotting grains in godowns. Today, with a hyper active media watching and having free access, the pitiable state of our godowns and warehouses and the inefficiencies of the Food Corporation of India have been completely exposed. I wonder why we cannot have privatisation in these sectors. Why can't business houses get into storage and distribution of food grains in the country. PDS can work closely with private firms and ensure optimum distribution than it exists now.

In my opinion, reform in post harvest technologies and logistics is going to be critical for India in the coming years. Else, all the toil by farmers and contributions from agricultural institutions will come to naught and we will only see rising food prices and more shortages.

The month that went by

2010-08-11T10:09:00.000+05:30

I have been quite irregular in posts lately... Not that there is any dearth of topics to write about, just didn't find enough time to collect my thoughts.. So, here goes... wrap up of the month that went by..

I was terribly aghast and horrified to note that the Census has decided to club beggars, housewives and prostitutes under the "economically non-productive" category!! The Supreme Court, rightly, has not taken this well and has questioned the authorities responsible for this. Believe me, I am no feminist, woman activist, nor the housewife, in any sense of the term, but this is the most derogatory, offensive abuse a woman in India can be subjected to... But what beats me is the complete lack of attention in the media, who otherwise are quite adept at making mountains out of molehills. And where have all the women activists, women rights' forum, etc doing?

As expected, the scams surroundings various contracts awarded in the Commonwealth Games hogs the news channels these days. We just don't get to hear about the Indian contingent and their preparations and chances at medals etc.. Isn't this funny? But then I guess its going the IPL-way... Media and public are more interested in Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar's wheeler dealings and court room action, than on players and teams... And after a point, they forget and corrupt officials get away with this "short term public memory", just like politicians do.

There are a number of movies I want to watch, Inception, Peepli Live, are top in the list..

(Un)Commonwealth Games - The Indian Version

2010-08-01T09:34:00.004+05:30

Here's a welcome to all athletes who have bravely accepted to participate in the Games in New Delhi. Its going to be an experience for everyone, from organizers to participants to citizens of the city. Indians always take things in their stride, I mean very lightly. I wonder what the fuss is about?? We Indians travel in filthy trains and buses everyday to work, ditto for our roads that are littered, not to mention the overflowing garbage! And all our roads will put any obstacle race to shame anyway. Where is the security for the aam aadmi as he/she gets to work/school and back?? Where is the quality in terms of stay, transport, amenities etc for any Indian? But then, I am told, all the fuss is for our foreign delegates!!

Ah, how we love to fawn at the sight of white skin, makes me squirm..... I wonder how much longer it would take us to shake this legacy since British rule.. Getting back to the games, there are critics other than Mani Shankar Aiyer deriding the amount we are spending on hosting the event, instead, it could have been spent on developing world class infrastructure for the sporting fraternity across the country, they argue.. Well come on, such things can be debated forever. What about our many fancy missions? We spends crores on a mission to send man to the moon? Is this really required?? Critics can say we can first invest in developing decent aircrafts and not have to lease from Airbus & Boeing:-). Socialists will say, remove poverty and hunger first and then send people to the Moon!

Getting back to the CWG in India, what is unfortunate is the rampant corruption in awarding contracts and misuse of money. To start with, we can have office bearers with fixed tenure with no more than one or terms, in office. Since I can remember, its always been Suresh Kalmadi at the helm of the Sports affairs in the country. Surely there are many more people who are as qualified or more to take over! If we can overhaul our bureaucracy in appointments, and have transparency and professionalism of Sports Organizers and Coaches in our country, we will see more medals. There is certainly no dearth of talent in our country.

We are barely weeks to the event now, cancelling it will be as much an embarassment as holding it!! In my opinion, things have to happen simultaneously, we need to invest in the Moon mission and address the pressing problems of poverty and unemployment and rising prices!! And if possible, host the Olympics too:-)

Columnists

2010-07-14T10:34:00.000+05:30

I have shared some of my favourite columnists, who write well, on my blog before. I have to say that I find Santosh Desai's column, City City Bang Bang in the Times of India, really good. Apart from agreeing with his views on most topics, I really enjoy his writing style. Its ages since I came across such good journalism, people who write on serious stuff and, with flair. His latest article on the Bandh that the opposition called for, is simply brilliant!

I am really envious of people who have great command over language, be it as an orator or a writer. I aspire to reach decent levels by posting regularly on this blog and improve my writing skills. Do keep encouraging me by leaving your comments:-)

And the Grand Finale!

2010-07-13T12:53:00.002+05:30

To complete the story, the finals was anything to write home... both teams were quite listless in the first half and the Spanish team particularly only had possession of the ball. There was no beauty in their game. The only saving grace for the Spanish was their captain - goalkeper who simply excelled in his game. He undoubtedly deserves to be called one of the best keepers of the game, today. He was a delight to watch.

I maybe be biased in my comments but I liked the Dutch play the game, particularly Arjen Robben. He moved with the ball at lightening pace and it was a treat to watch him. While the Dutch had less possession of the ball, they did more than possess and pass the ball to their mates... I do think Robben had some amazing shots at the goal, however, they were off the post by few inches. Had the Dutch won, it would have been a fitting and perfect tribute to the Dutch stalwarts who shaped the game for their country these past 30 years. There were moments in the game when I thought the Dutch played the game so well, almost as if telling Spain, "Tirupathikke laddu va?" For those who didn't follow, it means that just as the laddu is so closely associated with the temple at Thirupathi, so is the beautiful, "total football (totaalvoetbal)", closely associated with the Dutch.

I happenned to watch the game with a group of diehard Dutch friends as part of the Netherlands Council group. It was a perfect ambience in farout Chennai, all of us dressed in their national colour, Orange, with the country flag painted on us and a few Vuvuzela horns thrown in, not to mention a lavish buffet spread with plenty of spirited options for the fans too!

We were all resigned to the fate of the game getting into penalty shootouts when Spain managed a goal in the final moments of the extra time. I couldn't believe it!

So, Spain won the Cup with ample help from the English referee and we all trooped out, mighty disappointed:-)

Happiness anyone??

2010-07-07T14:28:00.001+05:30

There is an article in the Times of India edit by Sanjiv Kaura today, that has set off this post. While I agree partly with his viewpoints, I differ from him on who needs to pursue 'happiness'? Yes, I agree that having post graduate courses on Happiness does border on being weird; at the same time, I earnestly also think that youth today need to be guided with values and taught the importance of adopting a fine balance between 'being prosperous' and 'happy'.

'Happiness' and 'Prosperity' need not be looked at antagonistically and they actually need to complement each other, and its completely pointless having only one of them in our lives!! So, if my ten year old picks up the Bhagvad Gita, I wouldn't stop him/her. On the contrary, I would encourage them to read the Gita. As far as my understanding goes, the Gita is a simply brilliant treatise and it actually talks of the fine balance that each of us need to imbibe in our lives.

But I do understand Mr. Sanjiv Kaura's concern about children getting misled and confused with questions on happiness and end up like zombies and misfits in society. They also end up causing immense heartburn or headache to their parents, so much so that parents get put off by spirituality and happiness!!

But, if we were to actually read the Gita and understand it right, we wouldn't need to attend a Masters Course in Happiness:-). We would be leading very prosperous lives and enjoying every moment of it too!!

Perfect Indian

2010-07-05T10:25:00.001+05:30

I chanced upon reading a humorous post on genetically modified humans by Anand Ramachandran. Its hilarious and written in good style. Ofcourse its sci-fi but our own apna stuff, not borrowed from West. I just realised that we have a dearth of sci fiction writers and if you notice, all good fiction that we read or watch as movies are from the West. Wonder why a Mani Ratnam or Karan Johar can't make a good science fiction movie? Surely, audiences will love them. If people can go and watch a theme that's as beaten and boring as Raavan, any averagely made science fiction will be a hit.

I loved "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars" series, and stand alone flicks like "The Time Machine", "2001, a Space Odyssey", "Extra Terrestrial", "The Fly", "Contact", "Men in Black", "The Matrix" etc. This is not an exhaustive list, just a few that I remember.

Here's to many more Anand Ramachandrans in India, maybe, we need to clone a humour /sci fi gene into Indians:-)

The Chevrolet Beat Review

2010-07-03T10:40:00.002+05:30

Its now five months since driving the Beat and I am now ready to give a full fledged review. For any standard, professional auto review, check out sites like zigwheels, carwale, bsmotoring, gaadi.com etc. Here, I am going to share my experience of driving the car, as a layman. I've done ~3700 kms now and am fairly conversant with the car.

What I love about the Beat:

I own a cocktail green LS version. Initially, I had booked a LT version but didn't get the colour and settled for the LS version. Believe me, I am glad I did that, on hindsight! The VFM is in this model. I get to fit the jazziest music system I like and not settle for a factory fitted version which I believe is pits. Secondly, I was enamoured by the roof rails and rear spoiler and was disappointed to not have it. I am quite happy without these frills, although I may still go for the spoiler soon. The best part of the car are the door handles for the rear seats. They are very stylish and masked which gives the car a two door sporty look. And lastly, the LS version looks better with a black contrast in side view mirrors rather than a full body colour outfit that LT has.

The interiors are much nicer than any Maruti and Tata car we are are exposed to at this price. They have a rich feel as compared to the Marutis of the world. Also, the spaces for water, mobiles, perfume, shades, etc are all quite thoughtful and tastefully done. The seat upholstery is also a welcome change after driving the Zen for ten plus years. The boot is pretty decent, enough for a small family to make overnight trips. The fuel efficiency on expressways is a pleasant 19 km/l whilst its 13 km/l within the city. So, its moreorless what the company claims, so that's a first too, most car companies make tall claims that users find hard to emulate:-) The Beat scores on height as well, over the Zen, almost all cars today have this advantage.

What I don't like about the Beat:

I like its rear side but the frontal view borders on 'ugly'. I wonder why they have gone for such a rounded buxom look. Could have looked leaner. Also, there are some blind spots in the car and the driver is caught unawares, probably due to the closed, side view on the rear window. I guess, one gets used to using the side rear view mirrors more often, to overcome these blind spots.

I did like my Zen but the Beat is definitely very sporty and a tad more powerful.

Sidelights of World Cup

2010-07-02T15:32:00.002+05:30

One of the upsides of having the World Cup is that there is never a dull moment on TV. Every channel has got into the act and has some interesting shows. For two days we didn't have any match but the TV channels have realised that Soccer fever can be capitalised. 'Happened to watch some bits of the show with people from different cities in India share their thoughts on how Soccer is a Religion - some diehard fans alright

Somebody very nicely quipped, and I quote, "Everybody is watching the game closely, people from every strata... I got into the car today and the driver tells me that Brazil is having some problem with midfielders". He went to his office and the office colleague said "Germany has an edge over Argentina". The joke doing the rounds is, children when asked, who won World War II are saying, "Germany 4 - 1":-). Right or wrong, these people will put any expert to shame in terms of the conviction with which they spoke.

There was another chap who brought the point of how Wimbledon is currently on and India won the Asia Cup a week ago but all these have been buried in the din of Vuvuzelas and Samba dance. Earlier, it was only Kerala and West Bengal that went crazy over the sport but clearly the times have changed and people from many more states are hooked to the game now. This is very good for India as we are broadening our interests and looking beyond cricket! Wonder if BCCI will ban the telecast, for survival!!

We also had a spot on how citizens of Ghana are resorting to some voodoo to get their team to the semifinals. And a very interesting story on an octopus that's playing oracle for Germany. Apparently, its picking out the winners accurately thus far... but what's hilarious is that the story goes on to add that Germany will prevail over Argentina on Saturday but it will be a close match that may well go to penalties as the octopus took more than 45 minutes to pick the winner!!! Meanwhile, North Korea has sent their national team to some farout mine and has asked them to start digging!! Wonder what punishment they give prsoners for rigorous imprisonment, in North Korea:-).

The last word was one chap clarifying that "The match between Germany and Argentina is not just a matter of Life & Death. Its more than that" :-)

Interesting Insights

2010-06-30T09:42:00.000+05:30

I attended an interesting lecture by Prof. M.S.Swaminathan tracing the transformational change that Sir Charles Darwin's theory brought about in Biology, to the current scenario of Modern Biology and the tools to address Climate Change. While the presentation was brilliant and lucid, there were two messages in the lecture that stood out - apart from the theories and advances in Biology that was highlighted.

One, is the fact that Darwin set out on the voyage on the HMS Beagle and spent five years observing and recording his findings on that eventful trip. But he apparently took >22 years to analyse and decode his observations that he documented in his now famous book, "The Origin of Species". This goes to show what patience can bring to a research publication.

The other interesting insight was the relationship Charles Darwin shared with his wife. Apparently, she was a staunch Catholic and believed in the Creationist theory and didn't believe a word of what Charles Darwin wrote!!! But she very painstakingly edited his manuscript, as she had a good command over the English language and the couple agreed to disagree on the theory of Evolution. She maintained that she went by belief which was based on faith and, not logic and reasoning, that Darwin believed in.

Both these insights, rather these are very important lessons many of us need to adopt in our lives:-)

More Soccer

2010-06-29T16:23:00.000+05:30

We have entered an interesting phase of the tournament, we are well into 20 days of action!! I have watched very few matches fully but I get educated round the clock. But what really shocks me is the lack of modernisation in this huge immensely popular sport.... watched the world over. Every other sport has used technology to minimise human errors but I heard a FIFA official say that referee errors are part of the game and it should continue!! I find this highly unintelligent and out of place in this technology era.

Another jarring fault seems to be with the Jabulani ball itself. Wouldn't one think that any new ball needs to be tested in a smaller tournament before being accepted as the official ball in a World Cup Soccer? I know this to be the case in cricket. Its but the most logical thing to do. But, FIFA seems to think otherwise and we have these FIFA jokers playing with the teams and causing extreme heartburn to many teams. This ball behaves completely different at higher altitudes, the aerodynamic properties change and goal keepers and strikers are having a tough time controlling it.

Very rightly, the headline in the Times of India read, "Red card to Technology". That seems to be so appropriate in this World Cup. I would like to add that all the FIFA officials need to be given a red card now:)