SLUMDOGS AND MILLIONAIRES

Shabana azmi is one of the most eminent citizen and actor of our country, who is known to have taken up causes ,especially of the poor and down trodden. But, recently on her 60th birthday she and her husband, famous script writer and lyricist javed akhtar chose to do an act ,which could perhaps open the debate of how do these bollywood people really care about the people which they always pretend .

On the birthday party attended by the who's who of bollywood , She cut a cake which looked like a slum house with an open drain flowing nearby. Creative people are known to do things which doesn't always suit the sensibilities of common people, although they are in their right to express their creativity in the form of freedom of expressions but certain acts which make a mockery of the life style of a section of people(surprisingly70%) can't be brushed aside under the garb of privacy and freedom of expression. The fact that these very celebrities cry hoarse in front of t.v. cameras and news channels about how much do they care about the common people of this country, once off camera these very people become an object of scorn,contempt and sometimes ridicule for them.

Sometimes back during the release of the movie slumdog millionaire, megastar Amitabh bacchan had criticised the movie director for portraying a negative image of our country. But couple of years fast forward and the same messiah of indian culture and middle class values was seen having the same cake from the hands of shabana azmi with a gleefull smile and smugness fit for a corrupt politician.
Maybe they are bored of playing the role of mother teresa and gandhi and want more variety.

http://sreeandramesh.instablogs.com/entry/shabana-azmis-birthday-cake-creates-controversy/

THE GHOST OF AYODHYA IS BACK

The ghost of ayodhya is looming over the country once again. The Supreme Court has ordered the Allahabad High Court to delay a potentially explosive verdict on the Ayodhya -babri masjid demolition case by 30 September. The long pending Ayodhya case is about the ownership of the Ayodhya land to which Hindus and Muslims have been making rival claims over past 125 yrs.

The Babri Masjid (the 16th century mosque in U.P. state) was demolished on December 6, 1992, by karsevaks and right-wing extremists who claiming it as the Ram Janmabhoomi site. And this had triggered worst religious riots since partition in 1947, and some 2,000 people died.

Amidst the uncertainty over the verdict a faint ray of hope has been shown by the Supreme Court, when it gave a week’s time to the opposing parties to come up with a settlement through informal parley. I think this is an excellent time in front of our country and the concerned parties of this case to use it to think out of the box and out of their narrow personal or religious gains.

I know it would be very difficult for any one of the community to loose this case and how they show their disappointment could be potentially fatal for the communal harmony of this country. So to protect our country from plunging into a cycle of madness , I suggest we should look towards New York, Where at the place of ground zero the government is proposing to build an inter faith mosque. Although majority of the Americans are opposed of this project mainly because of it being mostly a mosque, but, we can still take a leaf out of their book and build something acceptable to both the community and the country at large.

It could be a hospital, school, a memorial or a park. By doing this we will present a picture to the whole world of a mature and healthy democratic India, which can handle its internal contradictions through meaningful dialog.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-lifts-stay-Ayodhya-verdict-on-Sept-30/articleshow/6641574.cms

COMMON WEALTH GAMES- A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

We have been listening about the delays in our preparedness for the common wealth games since last year, but we never imagined even in our wildest of dream that up until the last day we would still be staring towards the skies, hoping for a miracle to happen or wishing if the morning newspaper doesn’t have a headline writing CWG with kalmady’s face on it.

It’s just not the matter of timely preparedness of our stadiums and infrastructure or the hygiene standards of games village. Its about image, it’s about what message we are giving to the world at large. This is the time when the whole country is under the spotlight, this is the time when the execution of our promises made to the world has to be done, but, what exactly are we doing?

The statement of our sports minister M.s. Gill “ the preparation of these games are like the wedding of an Indian daughter, it all looks messy in the beginning but as the date approaches every one gears up and ultimately everything goes well” does give an insight of the typical Indian mindset or the Indian government’s mindset at least.

In the fast changing dynamic and interconnected world where precision is the norm and time is considered to be the most precious asset, the whole rigmarole of this episode does make a mockery of these universally accepted global norms. Not able to put up a better show is one thing but not able to put up a better show despite having all it takes at your disposable and spending at least 5 times more of what an average game of this magnitude would have cost, there were never any room for excuses.

I am still very sure that the games will go well, that India will bag the second highest if not the highest gold medals and the same leaders who are hiding their faces from public now, will again resurface with newfound zeal and make a song about how they are responsible for all these great achievements and soon this ugly episode of delay will be brushed under the carpet of time, because public memory is too short and they want to live in the make believe world.

But that would be a real backward step, it’s not about creating an inquiry commission, it’s actually about the masses to wake up and take notice of how people play with sentiments and public money with equal ease. We should take this episode as a learning curb and vow to improve our and our leader’s standards as well.

http://upcoming.current.com/search?q=Commonwealth+Games+footbridge+collapses+leaving+23+injured

INDIA BUILDING, BHARAT RISING

In the latest data released by income tax department small tier-2 and 3 cities have overtaken the traditional powerhouses like Delhi, Mumbai and kolkata in terms of income tax collections.
Small cities of states known to be slow on development and growth like patna, merrut, Kanpur and lucknow have surprisingly shown income tax collection figures of as much as 91 to 95% growth in 2009-10. Delhi and Mumbai on the other hand have grown in the range of only 4 to 6 percent in this period


 This is a welcome new development from multiple points of view. First it shows that the metro cities have reached their saturation in terms of further growth and for future growth  companies have to look for these tier-2 and 3 cities.It’s a known fact that metro cities have been adding people to their population on a daily basis, most of these people come from either the rural hinterland in the form of unskilled daily wagers or from these very small towns and cities partly due to the lure of a better life and largely because of lack of job opportunities in their own backyard.
 Luckily from now on they can hope to get employment in their own city. This will help the metros in controlling the population explosion which they are witnessing at the moment and concentrate on building the kind of infrastructure which can truly make them livable and perhaps world class.


On a macro level, this new development also answers the criticism of in equal nature of Indian growth story. Whether you term it as the result of trickle down nature of capitalism or due to the saturation of metro cities, this new development will surely shift the focus away from Delhi and Mumbai for a while and give future entrepreneurs added hope and incentive to invest in the so called other India i.e. Bharat
.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Tier-II-III-cities-power-nations-growth/articleshow/6615628.cms

WHY BLAME THE BUTCHER ?..17 kashmiri protesters got killed or got sacrificed

I am surprised at the level of ignorance of our kashmiri friends, who have been behaving like loose canons and dancing like puppets of the tune of anyone who wants or pretends to be their leader. These leaders, ultimately make a fool out of them by giving them false rays of hope which in many cases have been proved to be the headlight of an incoming super fast train, about to run them over.

In the latest case, gathered kashmiri people were shown fake pics of the burning of Koran in United States by some hardliner leader or his protégé, and all of a sudden people started thinking as if the whole Islam is under fire, willingly agreeing the dictates of the instigator. 


The result - burning down of a catholic school and the building of social welfare department,  and the mayhem which followed took the life of 17 young bloods. After seeing these things happening again and again, I am feeling compelled to ask few questions from anyone who feels or has any interest in Islam or its teachings.

1 What is the authenticity of this news and why Islamic people always believe in words of mouth facts?

2. Even If it was true, does that give anyone the freedom to burn other people’s religious places, as those whose buildings got burnt wouldn't have been responsible directly or indirectly for this act.

3. Why they always pretend that they are the only ones who have true religion and behave too touchy for it. All religious symbols and places have been attacked by mischief, time and again, but nowhere one will find the kind of irrational, barbarian and stupid way of reaction that can be seen when an Islamic symbol gets attacked.

4. Isn't it a fact  that Muslims not in entirety, but mostly are insecure about their religion and to get rid of this insecurity end up doing more damage to it, which no other religion could possibly think of.........

and at last I condole the killings of 17 people yesterday in the firing, but
for this time at least, please don’t blame the forces, because the bullet doesn’t kill anyone nor does the person who fires it wearing the uniform, it’s the cunning leaders who prepare situation for the events like these so that they can sacrifice the ignorant at the alter of their greed. For people like these the cost of human life is equivalent to that of a sacrificial lamb. So why blame the Butcher?

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?231540

“Raise my salary”—D.SUBBARAO

RBI governor D.Subbarao, in a recent function raised an issue which is quiet relevant and in fact has been simmering for a while now i.e salary structure of psu banks and other companies. It's been widely felt across the board that the compensation of public sector bank’s employees is not quiet in sync with their actual competence, otherwise how can you justify the fact that India’s or perhaps south Asia’s biggest bank’s managing director O.P Bhatt takes home an annual pay package of 25 lakh which is perhaps equal to what a new entrant in an mnc or private sector bank gets.


This anomaly is not a “one way traffic” , at the entry level there are people in the PSU banks who get quiet attractive salary as compared to some of the private bank’s employees. Take the example of a peon in a public bank who gets at least 15k, plus other benefits and the fact that he is totally unaccountable and has his future secured because of pension does cause inequality in the society.

Having a skewed salary structure at a time when money is increasingly becoming the most important factor to judge one’s social standing in the society will add fuel to the already burning fire of inequality in our society. Time has come for the government to decide to do away with all the state patronages and controlling of the society through doles and subsidies and instead make level playing fields for every one where all gets their due share according to their competence and hard work and not because of extraneous factors.

All I am saying is the 10 yearly review of salary structure by the pay commission, is an out dated concept, where every month brings in a new reality P.S.U banks I am afraid have caught up in a time warp and loosing talented individuals to the more efficient private sector banks, this is a sad news for a country like India where the social responsibilities of these banks are much desired.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/business/rbi-guv-bats-higher-pay-psu-executives-872

ROTTING OR BEING LET TO ROT

Malnutrition is one of the most important problems of our country. In the 21st century when most of the government and other intellectuals are claiming to make India the next superpower of the world , the news of 25 lakh tonnes of food grains rotting in open fields of Punjab and Haryana is disappointing to say the least. Amidst the news of the last ditch attempt by the government to save their faces from the inability to put stadiums to use and the allegations of unprecedented levels of corruption in the common wealth games, this news does explain the  "priorities of our government".

The fact that this situation was in the making since last year due to the bumper crop, explains the preparation of our government. But it doesn’t mean I will join the chorus of condemnation and hail  the Supreme Court’s dictate to the government to distribute this grain for free among the 37% people of country, who are living below the poverty line. Doing this would at best add to one more token gesture, like the numerous ones we had had and take the focus away from the real problems of food procurement, storage and distribution. More than that, the example of judiciary substituting the job of the legislature and the executive would set an unhealthy precedent in the otherwise excellent relations between the three pillars of power.

There is an institutional problem of food procurement and distribution in our country and the nodal food procurement agency i.e. FCI (food corporation of India) is corrupt and inefficient from top down.

The inadequate number of cold storages to store food grains for longer period of time and not allowing 100% FDI in the agro sector are some of the major problems which are hampering the growth of farm sector of our country, which incidentally employs 52% population of the country. So we should address them first instead of making the poor happy by giving RS 2 per kg wheat to them which is not even fit for the cattles to eat.

Is this the solution for the twin problems of income inequality and overcrowding of Indian cities?...MAY BE

http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2010statements/2797/

Chicken or Egg (classroom argument which remained inconclusive. which is inconclusive)

India is not called as the country or the subcontinent of conflicting realities for nothing, here if we can find something  true, another exactly opposite thing can be found  completely true as well.

If we take the development vs. the tribal’s or nature argument, which is currently hogging the limelight in the press, thanks to the proposed Vedanta’s bauxite mine plants being cancelled by the supreme court , then we will find equal number of people supporting both the issues.

I happened to get myself submerged into one of these debates where people from both the sides were putting equally sound and logical arguments and misgivings in support of their position, but I find myself sitting on the fence and hiding my face inconclusively as I find one either has to be a big fool to say that he doesn’t want these digging up of natural resources at the cost of uprooting the way of life of the tribal’s , or an arrogant capitalists who believes in “success at any cost” .

The very means of communications or transport which we are using, the freedom and liberty which we are enjoying and the quick metamorphosis of our metros into the newyorks and pariss of the western world come at the very cost which most of us are pretending to be close to our heart . But to turn the whole earth into an urban jungle would also be a nightmare to say the least.

The line seems to be very fine between the sustainable development and the development that we are seeing in our country today, but in reality is very deep and fast making the two inseparables. Its very easy and fashionable to talk about tribal welfare and protecting mother nature from the predatory tendencies of development but to put the words into practice is very difficult and most of the time quiet not possible. It is one of those chicken or egg arguments which have no end.

I think if we really want to do something serious about protecting our nature, than we must start from the top and not vice versa. As masses more than what is right ,follow what the classes make them think or allow them do what is right and frame strict guidelines and penalties for it.

1 Strict Fuel emissions 2. limit in the Number of vehicles one can hold. 3. Declaring forest areas out of bound for mnc’s use 4. Give forest rights to the tribals so that they can live and protect their way of life with dignity 5. And not to be so obsessed about what and how china is doing or making its country prosperous.

all those above listed points barring 2 and5 are cliched as they have been incorporated in the guidebooks already,but the problem is of implementing them and thats a whole new debate, the same chicken or egg story,so my argument has proved itself right, it is just incoclusive..