Super MJ

MJ Akbar's latest post is just awesome. I like the part where he refers to Obama's sleight of hand on his recent trip to China.

The lean and lissome Obama has learnt to slap [us] with a long hand.

Obama did not have a word to say, incidentally, about Dr A Q Khan's latest revelations on Chinese help in fuel and technology for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, a clear instance of illegal proliferation. Do not be surprised, however, if India gets a lecture or two on nuclear proliferation.

Yeah, Mr. O, not a big fan of what you were doing in China (apart from lecturing us on 'having good relations with Pak'. We know that. Thanks but no thanks)

Some politicians take recourse to fudge, and sell the notion of India as a soft power. This is a useful screen when you have turned the nation soft, instead of making it powerful. If we were in the midst of the Garden of Eden, this would have been laudable achievement. But we live in a region where terror haunts the headlines.

Amnesia is an invitation to the next terrorist assault.

Super.Super.Super...

It Touched Something. Not sure what..

Kaudu Wins

Mardi, a small rural village in Maharashtra is where my paternal ancestry has it's roots. My Grandfather owned enough area of land and farms to require a decent labor force to manage all that.

One care-taker of the farms even after my Grandfather passed away was a guy named Kaudu. Kaudu and his family stayed right near our ancestral home. And over the years when we visited sometimes, he would be the only person to take care of our brief visit.

I remember him narrating something, that stayed with me. He said, every few years when there are elections in Yeotmal, the people over there feel it's a ritual to stand in line at election booth, and put a stamp on Panja (Congress(I) symbol). The idea he said was to go, put a stamp and collect your money from one mai-baap leader.

In other words, Elections = Stamping on Panja symbol. Most of them were unaware they had to 'elect' an option.

Turns out not much has changed in Maharashtra since 80s. People still stand in line and vote for Panja even when Maharashtra had the highest farmer suicide rate in the country, even when metros and semi-metros are reeling under power shortage, not to mention one of most glaring display of incompetency by state government in handling Terrorism during Mumbai carnage.

If people of the state are ready to accept such morons to rule over them, giving lazy excuse of TINA (There is no alternative) good luck Maharashtra.

Update : Analysis by Rediff's Bhatt

In last five years, officially each Maharahstra MLA has got richer by Rs 4 lakh. Once again, as it happened in the last ten years, Sonia Gandhi will forget that mini-India named Mumbai needs mega vision, mega planning and great leadership. Till, the next election Raj will be cuddled covertly by the Congress to keep him alive for future use. Floor Space Index is the only thing that would attract her party's leaders. Marathas will not allow OBC to get stronger in state politics and once again the new government will give us a bogus dream of making Mumbai into Shanghai.

Telling Tale

Maharashtra will go for polls soon and it's a sad fact that my home state is in such a bad shape.

The current government (Congress-NCP) has squeezed out every drop of juice from State treasury, and has nothing to show for development in last eight years of its epic misrule.

But the alternative formation doesn't look appealing either. The BJP-Sena government which some would say gave a credible government for most part (It's contribution to infrastructure building( Gadkari..) and handling price rise was much better than the current rulers) in it's only rule, has nothing to offer now. It looks a pale shadow of it self. No leadership and no vision.

And worst part is people like Raj Thackray are only making it insane, spending all energies in silly things that have nothing to do with state's real issues. (It has to be noted, he is not with Sena anymore. And is only helping Congress-NCP with his stunts and vote splitting. There's rumor in some circles that he may have a tacit support of Congress/Pawar. One can easily add 2 and 2 and see that)

Sudheendra Kulkarni has a telling tale on Maharashtra

There was a time in the 1960s, 70s and the 80s, when Maharashtra was indeed recognised for many attributes of greatness ― as a leader in industrialization, as a pioneer in the cooperative movement, as a high-performer in the quality of administration, etc

Yes it surely *was* a pioneer in lot many things.

Not anymore. Maharashtra has declined in many parameters vis-à-vis other states and it's fortunes continue to go south at a humongous pace. According to National surveys conducted by it's own party at center, Maharashtra is one of the worst governed states today.

If there ever was a need for a Nitin Gadkari and a Pramod Mahajan, it was now. But alas, we are stuck with bunch of morons on both sides. Maharashtra looks doomed for now unless we can discover our own Modi,Dixit,Patnaik or a Nitish Kumar.

..

Post Script : During it's hey days Congress Party produced some real good leaders in Maharashtra who did great job specially for Mumbai-Pune belt and South-Western Maharashtra, in late 70s and early 80s. The current bunch of crooks leaders should look at some of their achievements if they have a modicum of dignity at their disposal.

Google Gandhi

Even today, he's India's best known brand

Whoa!

As the country bid farewell to goddess Durga, the demon-slayer, on Dashami and witnessed the evil king Ravana being vanquished on
Dussehra, a humble Muslim woman in a remote Jammu village slew a dreaded Lashkar terrorist single-handedly.

Exhibiting astonishing, raw courage, Rashida Begum took on the two terrorists who had barged into her home late Sunday night in Thana Mandi village in Rajouri district. The woman, in her early forties, grabbed an axe and swung it wildly, killing one of the armed terrorists and injuring the other. Seeing his partner meet a bloody end, the other terrorist fled in sheer dread.

Link

Bizarre

North Indian farmers are selling their wives to survive, it has been revealed.
The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price she fetches, it was claimed.
The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading "Vivaha Anubandh" meaning marriage contract. Once the new "husband" is tired of the woman, she is allegedly sold to another man.

What can be more insane than this - "The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper" Who makes these 'stamp papers'? What century are we living in?

The Difference...

between the two...

This almost made me throw up..

"He was able to kidnap an injured Indian officer whose throat he later slit, the report said. Kashmiri came back to Pakistan with the head of the Indian officer and presented it to top army officials, including then army chief Gen Musharraf, who gave him a cash award of Rs 1 lakh," the report said.

Pictures of Kashmiri with the head of the dead Indian officer in his hands were published in some Pakistani newspapers and he became very important among militants, the report said.

So much for common thread running between us..

Sau Chuhe Khake...

So the Congress Party is now giving us lessons in austerity it seems. Right from the 'Top'.

The Congress' austerity drive received a giant push on Monday. Sonia Gandhi flew on an economy-class ticket from Delhi to Mumbai to inaugurate a new party office.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi will travel by train to Ludhiana for an official function. So clearly, the Gandhis want to lead the austerity drive by example.

I understand this symbolism; specially when people in India are reeling under extreme price rise (thanks to inept handling of essential goods inflation by these "austerity drivers" by the way)

This drama does not surprise me one bit though. This same family claims 'not to own a Car' in it's declaration to Election authorities.

Sau Chuhe Khake...

'More dangerous than Swine Flu'

I couldn't help but ROTFL by this awesome comment..

'YSR is dengerous than SWINE FLUE'.. Link

On a more sombre note.. Slimes Times of India reported that..

[..]Telugu television channels estimated that 67 people died of shock on hearing the news of their leader's death in a horrific air crash Thursday or committed suicide, unable to bear the loss.

YSR, as the late leader was popularly known, has surpassed in death the popularity of actor and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder N.T. Rama Rao who died in 1996.

"Surpassed in death the popularity.."???????? Am I reading this right? In other words, since 67 people died hearing the news, which is probably more than NTR's score, YSR was a bigger killer hero?

My God people!!

I am speechless really.

I am posting this under..'It happens only in India'. The reason being, in India, people, specially the poor ones, are conditioned to believe Government and their leaders are their Mai-Baaps. These leaders are demi-gods who can sway these folks the way they want. Part of the reason being, Government has such awesome authority and hold over ordinary people's lives, they have no choice but to beg,crawl and genuflect. No wonder Socialistic mindset rules the roost even today. Government control is complete and unchallenged.

And since, these Mai-Baaps decide the fate of people, who better to worship than these Gods.

And as regards to YSR's sudden death, quite frankly, I find the deaths of those 5 people accompanying him more tragic. I mean the deaths of the pilot and the secretary who were forced to go in a Chopper in bad weather, ostensibly because 'God' YSR, wanted to visit some village in his personal Pushpak...

The Disconnect

Since a new Desi Theatre has come next door, I thought it was our moral obligation to watch a bollywood flick. And we did. Last weekend we chose in our wisdom, to watch a movie called Love Aaj Kal.. (Until yesterday I was calling it Love Aaj Tak, before my wife corrected me...)

The more movies I watch the more I feel disconnected with India. OK. Let me paraphrase this. The more new movies I watch the more I feel disconnected with new Generation India.

A simple explanation would be, "I am getting old and this is natural". But I think if I peel the layers, this is beyond me getting old (which is a fact of life anyways).

I have no beef against "romantic" movies in general. I think they are just fine; although given a choice between Comedy/Action and Romance, I won't sweat too much. It's a no-brainer. No it's not the lovey-dovey chic flicks I am against. I am against this whole, new thing of "trying to be cool" stuff.

Actually "trying too hard to be cool" stuff. Being cool should come natural. You should not have to make an effort to be cool, if that's your ultimate aim in life anyways. And that's where this excuse to a movie-making, Love Aaj Tak falters for me. It tries too hard to be super cool.

Only it doesn't. It's all over the place. Trying to cling on to "traditions" by having an over doze of Punjabiyat in the movie.. (Imtiaz Ali is one movie short of beating the Chopra camp now). And at the same time showing two NRIs of the Internet Generation trying to have a long distance relationship.

It's an interesting subject actually.. and very contemporary. Can connect to young demography. But....

Anywho... so looks like it will be a while before I revisit the Desi Theatre next door. Even the samosas over there suck! Bad Desi Movie and bad Samosa. That's a loose-loose.

P.S : Sigh!..I am already missing those samosas in Alankar Cinema, Ambazari Road

Images : India

There's work around for everything, ain't it! No fuss, No sweat! Thaz my India :)

Sulking

I feel terrible. And my weekend is ruined by this Indian election results.

For me the dynastic politics of the Congress is the deal-breaker apart from a laundry list of issues I can go on and on. Nevertheless, the Indian voter has spoken and now there's no point cribbing about it.

Anyways, I think its not all bad. It's good that UPA got a major verdict in the sense that it now does not have to depend on the Left anymore. In fact the decimation of Communists is the best result of these elections IMO.

Rajasthan, Maharashtra to some extent Gujarat was disappointing for BJP. But I think Delhi,Uttarakhand, Punjab and Harayana cost them around 20 seats. Congress on the other hand gained quite a lot in the south. Andra Pradesh is now firmly in Congress umbrella. Kerela is the other state that voted overwhelmingly for the Congress this time. Both these states added 40 odd seats to Congress. That really made all the difference.

I strongly feel that for a nation to have an all round growth, a strong opposition is the key. A balance of left-of-the-center and a right-of-the-center policies are key to any nation's progress. And that's where BJP needs to position itself.

In final analysis I think few things worked for Congress.
1] Very strong media support all 5 years that conveniently over looked some key national issues.

2] Well crafted image of Gandhi family,MMS etc (again Media has a massive role here)

3]Complete and very successful demonization of BJP.

4] Reservations and loan pay offs of farmers

5] Mass transfer of muslim votes from Lalu,Paswan.Left etc to the Congress.

6] Apathy of the middle classes towards politics continues to help the Congress. The "All politicians are crooks" notion helps them win a lot of seats by default. But this is not specific to these elections.

For a non-Congress guy like me, it is easy to be cynical and pessimistic today. I think I am going to have some drinks and catch on the IPL to divert myself. That should be my Advil for a few days from this pain.

What a joke!

One should seriously question the wisdom of having elections in India anymore. I think we are better off just "handing over" the power of governance to the "first family". Actually we should not even have democracy. Let's just officially become a Monarchy instead of shying away from that term. At least the Monarchs are good at stacking up all the cash in Swiss banks, allowing the Talibanization of India, that allows more and more 26/11s (helps population control i guess) and making mockery of democracy at easy whims.

It is apparent that no one will get a enough seats to form the central government. But here's the best part, the same people who fought with Congress during the elections will come together to form the government with it to "keep the Devil BJP" away from power.

So the most likely government would be a combination of the following 1] Sonia Gandhi Inc (a.k.a Congress Party) 2] Communists 3] Mulayam and/or Mayawati 4]AIADMK 5]BJD 6]Chiranjeevi's party etc

And all these people were actually fighting Congress (and not BJP) during the elections. lol!

Boy!, were it not for the Mullah-Marxist-Media trio, Congress and the "secular ilk" would have been decimated. But then the media demonization of the "Hindu" party is so complete now, that half the nation does not even care and other half has been hoodwinked by the Barkhas and Somini Senguptas of the world that they can't even see through their agenda. (I wish we had more MJ Akbar's and Swapan Das Guptas. But alas!)

So again, why were the elections held at all? For one month so much of money was spent, so many resources were occupied, so many gallons of gas was used in campaigning.. all for what? So that all people who fight against each other finally come together to hold the power?

It's like Obama and McCain fighting for one long year and than finally when results are out, Obama makes Sarah Palin the Vice President and Mitt Romney the Treasury Secretary. It's almost like that in India now; only worse.

Black money? What's that?

No prizes for guessing why the Indian government and the loud,progressive, secular media (NDTV,IBN,The Hindu,Toilet-paper-of-India) are thunderously silent on all the Black Money stacked by Indians in the European Banks.
De has better explanation so I wouldn't really expand..

No wonder, the first family keeps coming back to power year after year after year.. The Monarchy makes me sick to my core, but the crawling and bending media houses make me cringe even more..

In their tax / asset declaration to the Election commission, the Gandhis declared, they did not even own a Car. (Puke, puke...)

If even 25% of the money is brought back to the country, we'd have more roads, hospitals and schools in rural India. But then, we need the Monarchy to continue ruling the hapless voters who can be bought at 500/- on the voting day. Democracy? Ya right.

Rediff comment

Check this comment on rediff.com

I am producing it in full here..

Shahrukh Khan will pay the price for removing Gaguly
by Shilpi Sen on Apr 18, 2009 03:35 AM Permalink | Hide replies

Shahrukh Khan is most hated person in Bengal. He went against Bengali people quite a few times now. Last year he sent back 6 Bengali players to cut the cost but kept non performing Ppakistani players in team.

This year again he removed Kolkata from the KKR wordings and then removed Ganguly from the captaincy.

If Shahrukh Khan is upset with Ganguly and Kolkata then why his movies should be shown in West Bengal? Why last year he was requesting Ganguly to talk to Basu for tax exemptions. Shahrukh Khan is fooling whole India in the same way but Bengali people has seen his true colors in last 2 years.

I can say this confidently because I witnessed many KKR matches last year and seen change of behavior from SRK when they started loosing.

Clearly it is all over the place. This statement really got me though - "If Shahrukh Khan is upset with Ganguly and Kolkata then why his movies should be shown in West Bengal?"

No comments.

4th most corrupt!

Quite frankly I am not sure how they come up with an empirical data for this, but if this study/survey is to be believed, India is the 4th most corrupt nation in Asia.
I am thinking it should be in top 20 if not 10 of the world.

If you were born and raised in India this should not surprise you one bit. We have seen,heard and even lived corruption. Corruption is a way of life in India. And we have come to a point in last 60 odd years of "independence" to expect corruption to be regular, normal and mundane. It's like, its a given.

I am sure even reading about it is a yawn. But just think about it, why have we taken this for granted? How low have we set our bars?

I know people will say, "So what? All nations are corrupt. America has corruption too, but only at higher level."

I would like to stick my neck out on it. America may be corrupt. And I am sure in the higher echelons it is. But I can say for sure, that for day to day routine for commoners like me, it is not in same ball part as India. Not even close.

Point in case - I got my US driver's ID in 1 hour flat. It took me years to get it in India, and when I did get, I got it under the table (there; i have a red flag in my blog now)

I was speaking to one of my co-workers the other day. Her family is originally from China although she's an American citizen. We often compare stuff on India and China. She did mention it to me a couple of times that corruption is rampant in China too. You cannot get your simple, regular "work done" unless you grease the palms of some authority.

Considering that both India and China are pretty corrupt, it can logically be deduced that "monopolizing" of a system leads to corruption. Both India and China had "socialists/communists" leanings and hence had the State controlling the 'commanding heights of economy'. The result was that extraordinary power came in hands of few. This monopolizing of power gives sundry authorities like government workers more power than they merit. And power corrupts.

In other words distribution of power diminishes the probability of corruption instances, although there's no possible system that can completely eliminate it. Distribution of power is necessary although NOT a sufficient condition for eliminating corruption.

Which comes to my next conjecture. Since man by nature is imperfect, it would be impossible for man to create a perfect system. He can only improve but never "nail it" really.

6 billion imperfect men cannot develop one perfect system. The chances are 6 billion times remote. But we can create the closest to best or perfect (second best, i.e). Meaning the closest we can get to be best.

In terms of CMM model we need to "optimize" and keep improving. None of the systems will ever be perfect. But we should try and adopt a system that gives more bang for the buck. In short, something that is beneficial to vast majority, if not to ALL. (There are always going to be fringe elements in society who would loose out. To think that those fringe elements somehow represent the whole template is not reasonable)

If all the systems of the world are to be compared, Socialist and Communist model surely do not make a strong case for that "second best system" I am talking of. It can be a romantic concept, but on ground it has reverse impact on quality of life for the majority. And the key word I need to emphasize is Majority again. Which is exactly my argument. (If 42% of children in India are still malnourished, you get the drift)

For all the rambling that I have done so far, only one line from the brilliant Winston Churchill should really suffice -

The inherent vice of Capitalism is uneven distribution of wealth. The inherent vice of Socialism is even distribution of miseries

Happy New Year

Today would have been something back home in Nagpur. Puran Poli, probably bhajees, kadhi, patal bhaji and what have you.

Guddi Padwa is one of those simple, non-fussy, non-loud days. It's subtle and neat.

Happy New Year to you all .... :)

[I have to add though, it's not all bleak. V, has decided she's going to make it as special as she can. She does a good job at keeping me from going off the unnecessary gastro-senti.. path]

[//todo : Update with a pic]

Elections

There's this quote I like - "You can fool all people sometimes, you can fool some people all the times, but you cannot fool all the people all the times"

Apparently this does not apply to Elections in India. From what I have read so far, looks like current rulers will be back in the saddle in 2009 General Elections. Only stronger. As there is, what is called as the, TINA factor. Meaning 'There Is No Alternative' factor.

Which also means UPA will come to power by default. And one of these days...I am gona throw up...

Jaya Ho

J.Jayalalitha has now discovered Gandhigiri; she is - Fasting to protest the Lankan cause.

If I had to take a guess, she could very well be masquerading her once-a-week strict diet plan, as "Fast". (Ek Teer Doh Nishaan)

Wonder if she has considered Weight Watchers!