An outside opinion...

A wise friend of mine once said, "If you want to know what really happens in India or what India really does, read Dawn, the Pakistani Daily". These were not empty words as my friend used to first read Dawn before picking up TOI everyday! I never tried to figure out how correct he was, but the below article in todays TOI sure reminded me of him!

India’s growing misfortunes
Following the signing of the nuclear agreement with India, owing to India’s pressures, America declined to sign a nuclear deal with Pakistan… But now, America is ignoring India’s opposition and has commenced preliminary discussions in that direction with Pakistan. As a result of this change of policy by America, India is in a grave predicament today… In addition, America refusing to hand over Headley, who is now in the custody of America, to India for interrogation, in connection with the Mumbai terrorist attack has further aggravated India’s plight. It is India’s failure to perform its South Asia leadership role duly safeguarding the American interest, which is at the epicentre of India’s present inescapable quagmire… India is the architect of its own misfortunes.
— Daily Mirror, Wednesday,
March 31, Sri Lanka

How much of truth is hidden in the above article is open to discussion, but this sure gives us a relatively unbiased look at the current situation and for us to understand where we stand or where countries with an interest in the matters surrounding India or South East Asia think we stand.

Really?

Our President, Pratibha Patel is no where as dynamic as Mr.Abdul Kalam. As a result, she is hardly seen or heard doing anything significant other than trying to ensure her family has a holiday every time she goes on an "official" visit abroad.

Off late, our leader has been donning the newspaper for equally frivolous reasons. She is going into the record books for sitting inside a Sukhoi fighter jet. Really? Is this really so important? What the hell does this accomplish for anyone? Is anybody "proud" of her? Damn as hell I am not! She just wasted a shit-load of my taxpayers money.

I wonder why our leaders are still stuck doing these kind of cheap gimmicks even in this time and age!

A mandate...

... like no other in recent past.

Lok Sabha 09 was the first time I voted in "any" form of elections and this was probably the reason why I followed the results as intently as I did. Karnataka again voted to not be in sync with the centre! The mandate that resulted was quite surprising, since I just didn't expect the UPA or for that matter the Congress to do as well as it did. But what suprised me more and quite happy that I was, the fringe players who thought they were more than fringe players have been shown their place. Mayawati almost made it look like she just deserved to be sitting in the PM seat, now with some 20 something seats, she can just forgot about it for a while. The communists who were quite arrogantly bossy after their good showing in the last elections have got their worst number of seats ever, if I recall right. And the list goes on... Lalu, Paswan, Gowda(s) or even Mulayam, have all been shown their place.

What this means is that Congress has a free hand for most part in the running of the Government and the decisions to be made. Good or bad... time will tell.

Sense And Sensibility!

When Mumbai 26/11 was happening, all the media channels ensured that no political parlays were allowed or debated. They could afford to do this because they had an opportunity to not do any programming and had LIVE "action" to show. Now that the 'LIVE'ness of the incident is over, the media is back to the politicians for debates and gyan. Can't blame them in entirity, as they need to look at their topline too. And at the end of the day, the whole incident was covered more correctly by the media than what we see them do on a daily basis.

No, this is not a 'rant' on the media, but on the same old boring topic of politicians. Why I don't tire telling this to people I meet or writing about it in emails and now blogging here is coz, the sheer narcissist attitude of many of the senior politicians after the incident is unpardonable at so many levels. You wanna be corrupt, be corrupt. You wanna be inept, be inept. You wanna be lazy, be lazy. The people of India usually don't care. But this... this is very very different. 'Everybody', in my office, my family, my friends, whom I have personally met have had a sense of seriousness about what has happened. There are no jokes cracked, there is no blame game going on, its just sheer shock about what has happened and worry about what are we going to do about all this. And what do we hear from our politicians ?

Vilasrao Deshmukh:
i) On why Ram Gopal Verma accompanied him to the Taj : Many people come to such places
ii) On whether he is going to resign : I have offered to resign, and if the CWC thinks there is some responsibility I need to shoulder for this incident, then yes, I will obey.
RR Patil:
i) On whether he is going to resign : There is no question of resigning
ii) On whether there was intelligence lapse : In big cities, such small things happen
Achuthanandan:
i) On why Sandeep Unnikrishnans parents shouted at him : I don't know. If not for Sandeep, even a dog won't go to their house.
Mukhtar Naqvi:
i) On the outrage against politicians : All this is rubbish

There are many more examples:
1. Like how Veerappa Moily wanted a probe into why Hemant Karkare was targeted and there was BJP hand in it. Sure sir, that is exactly the problem!
2. Or how Arun Jaitley felt that the entire government should resign. Sure sir, now is the right time for elections and we can all get busy voting you guys back into power.
3. Or how Advani or Rajnath Singh cannot make it to the 'all party' meeting hosted by the PM. Sure sirs, lets win the elections in Rajasthan first, Maharashtra elections are not around for some time.

I mean... c'mon guys, even if you can't do your jobs, at least act Indian, FOR ONCE!

Keep Waiting!

The international airport at Bangalore is ready for use. Bangalore has been waiting for this airport for a long time and its now a reality. We will now have 747s and 380s taking off and landing in our very own Bangalore.

Wow... all the above sounds so good, nice and a done for deal. Just that all of the above are true and still no flight is gonna take off or land at the new airport any time soon. The politicians are at it again! Craving for election issues, they have now landed on this issue. The problem that people claim is that infrastructure to get to the new airport is bad. All understood, well intentioned and well pointed. And how is the situation being construed by the politicians ?? They are now going from Governor, to Prime Minister, to President to Supreme Court to keep the HAL Airport open till infrastructure improves! This time around, they also have all the people of Bangalore frustrated with the infrastructure in general supporting them too.

The point being missed here is... why the noise now ? Did a genie come and magically create the international airport in one day ?? Nope... all these politicians knew very well, that this day would come and there were no concrete steps taken to solve the problem before it hit us. I remember numerous statements made by one and all for each days delay in the opening of the international airport. All this pressure... for what? To see this day ?? We are now, point by point, going back on the very basic of agreements based on which we had international funding garnered for the international airport! How sick is that!

Now lets take a different view to the whole problem ? How many in Bangalore can afford to travel by air ? The answer to this question already brings us to a very small percentage of populous of Bangalore. How many of us who can afford air travel use this mode of transport ? Thanks to budget airlines, this number is quite a bit. That being said, how many times a year do we travel by air ? I would say 3 or 4 times a year should be a healthy average. Can't we take the pain of a few hours to get to the airport these 3 or 4 times ?? Is all this hoopla for a few sales, marketing, wealthy people who happen to travel every week ? If so, why don't they shift their residence to some place close to the airport and put all of us out of this constant ruckus! Lets have the politicians concentrate on getting their manifestos more focussed on the real issues!

I am in no way saying that the infrastructure is fine, no way is it even close to bearable. But then, the people who should be fried or fired for the pathetic state of affairs that we are in today are escaping it all by telling us that not having the HAL airport is bad for the public and that they will lose a tooth and limb (never will they ever) to ensure that the old airport is kept open or the new airport will stay closed!

Pricks! @#$%^&

Wakeup Call

I noticed the below sign board near the K R Puram bridge and was not sure if its a promo for some movie, like this, or if it was for real.




I went to their website and they look like its an honest attempt to get people out of the "hum kya kar sakte hain" attitude into "chak de!" way of looking at things. How valuable my vote is, I really don't know. But if its worth anything, I would rather give it to a party I can relate to and the current national or regional parties don't seem to fit my bill. But this party... maybe I will vote for them.

Queen Maker?

Coalition politics are here to stay in India and since Congress and BJP can never partner with each other, the local players of each state will be the king makers in each state. At the center the story is different but not too different. The power players of each state do have a role to play, but we then have a few big players too. For e.g. the left parties and more recently Mayawati.

Mayawati understands that she has her very best chance of becoming the PM now. She sees the Congress losing in most states, BJP winning in some. If the nuclear deal results in India going for mid-term polls, she knows that there is a very good chance of neither of the big guns getting a majority. This opens the door for her and she is readying herself. If she manages to split UP into 3 states (which is good, but being done for the wrong reasons), her party will now have majority presence in more than just one state. This will give her more bargaining power and don't be surprised if she does a Deve Gowda and ends up becoming the Prime Minister of the country!

Here is a preview of her fancy plans.

That old *$/&#

The eternal bane of Karnataka and one of the shrewdest politicians around is at it again. Deve Gowda and JD(S) have withdrawn support from the 7 day old BJP government. Technically, they didn't withdraw support. They apparently put a bunch of demands which will govern the now popular term, CMP (Common Minimum Program)

Unlike the erstwhile Dharam Singh government, the BJP government realized that with these demands on the paper, its unlikely they would be doing the ruling. And hence, the BJP government resigned. Apparently efforts are afoot on one front to woo Congress to form the government or support JD(S) to form one and on the other end there is a desperate measure to split JD(S), as the party legislators are pissed off at being told to not support BJP at the 11th hour! While JD(S) is relatively quite about the whole thing, the BJP is definitely making a big hue and cry about it and that they were stabbed in the back. Trust ? Does that word have any place in politics? Who is BJP kidding? As if they trusted Gowda and gang! Deve Gowda is not dumb either. He would definitely know that something of this sort would hurt him and his party more than anyone else. Then why would the master strategist take such a decision?

Apparently U R Ananthamurthy, the noted Kannada writer has the answer. The whole thing has as little to do with clashing ideologies as the Iraq war had to do with WMDs. Its all about the money! What is thriving in Karnataka outside of Bangalore? most definitely its the Mining industry. Lots of money and very little supervision and hence a very lucrative ministry to hold. What is the most money making business in Bangalore ? One can confidently say, its real estate. Another very lucrative ministry to hold. The JD(S) held both these ministries for 20 months and as per the deal, it was time for BJP to hold them and make merry. But of course, Gowda couldn't let that happen. He asked for these 2 ministries this time around too, BJP refused, the government fell. Its all so simple!

The JD(S) surely doesn't want to go to elections with such easy negative propaganda available in the hands of the BJP. It most definitely has some backup plan with Congress brewing. And I am afraid Congress will trust the Gowdas and will bargain for significant share of the rest of the power.

Anyway, we the poor souls of Karnataka are destined to watch this mockery of democracy at the hands of the mighty and greedy go on for more time to come. Sigh!

Marriage-Divorce : The Gowda Play

Pardon me if this post actually gets outdated by the tomorrows morning news. Last heard, JD(S) has decided to forget their differences with BJP and have decided to keep the marriage of convenience going. Yediyurappa will be the BJP candidate for CM and the promises that the coalition will stay strong has started.

It looks like the thought of losing more than just power got the JD(S) supremo, Deve Gowda to agree to the alliance. One of the reasons for JD(S) to be so bullish about breaking the alliance instead of handing over power was because of it having comfortably won local body elections. This gave them confidence that even if there were mid term polls, they would come out better in terms of number of seats in the assembly. But after breaking the pact to hand over power to the BJP, the public backlash was so strong that JD(S) realized that things were not going to plan. One of the exit polls showed them winning a paltry 17 to 19 seats. Couple with this was senior JD(S) leader MP Prakash trying to get things going with the Congress again. With Sonia visiting China, there was no swift action on this front, but the fear of a party split was very real. The Gowdas quickly regrouped and got the alliance going with the ever ready BJP for the second time.

Lets just hope that after all this power struggle and spitfire comments we will end up having some decent governance from the next 20 months. (fingers crossed)

Smoke?

India has won the T20 world up quite handsomely. There was a lot of vindication of the selection of the team, of the captain, of the playing eleven etc. Very sunny days for Indian cricket these.

While all looks well and wise, there are some administration woes under the carpets. The ICL has got as much sympathy or support because it has pointed to many of the problems that ail BCCI and vouched to fight or get rid of them. One of the biggest of these ailments being zone politics. Look at the selection of Team Managers for the last few tours. Ravi Shastri for Bangladesh tour, Chandu Borde for England tour and Lalchand Rajput for the T20 World cup, all from Maharashtra. Now, the post left vacant after Kapil Devs resignation as NCA chairman goes to Ravi Shastri. Ravi Shastri, after his retirement, has been more of a businessman and at best a commentator than an active coach or mentor. I don't have an alternate candidate, but I do question the merit of this decision. Is this the smoke that indicates fire?

BCCI may have bought some time thanks to the distraction from the World Cup win. But if it doesn't get its act together, the well preparing ICL could take the game away from them, pun intended.

Epitomizing Thick!

We have known George Bush to make some really stupid gaffes and here is the latest. He has pronounced Mandela to be killed by Saddam! :-)) In fact, Saddam has killed all the Mandelas.

Since you can get almost anything on YouTube, here is the video of the famous words being uttered!



If people find public speaking scary or difficult, you cannot find better inspiration than this. Here is the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, making the most ridiculous of blunders one after another and still on song for a encore the next day. :-)

Niyatthu!

The title of this entry is a kannada word which means something close to mix of "decency" and "honesty" but maybe a more stronger version of the same. Read the rest of the post and you will know the reason for the title.

Some 18 months back an almost unexpected turn of events happened in the political scene in Karnataka. A young aspirant politician, HD Kumaraswamy, pulled off a true political coup. He took a bunch of JD(S) MLAs and went to some resort in the outskirts of the city as JD(S) pulled the carpet from under the feet of the then Congress government. HD Deve Gowda, then, couldn't believe what was happening. Kumaraswamy's elder brother, and a more seasoned politician, HD Revanna stood at the sidelines with wide eyed and open mouthed. BJP was becoming a force to reckon with in the state over the last 2-3 elections and they wanted a stint at governance to prove their mettle. They were more than happy to side with JD(S) to form the government. To add, their leader Yediyurappa was aging and wanted to be a CM before his time is over. All these put together, Karnataka saw a successful political coup.

What followed was political drama at its best. Deve gowda was distraught. There were talks of him taking political sanyas. Every interview of his in the days that followed showed a dejected and teary eyed former PM, totally at loss of words. Senior JD(S) leaders wanted the "rebel" MLA's expelled. This would of course mean the end of JD(S) as everyone knew since the majority of the MLAs were with Kumaraswamy. As days went by, a deal was made for splitting the governance in 2 stages. First 20 months to Kumaraswamy and next 20 months to Yediyurappa. Somehow, Deve Gowda slowly warmed up to the whole thing and all was well then. This brought an end to the political careers of many senior JD(S) CM aspirants like MP Prakash. Deve Gowda gets back to his good old irritating ways and look like things are actually gonna work out.

18 months go by, we come to the present day and close to the day when JD(S) needs to transfer power to BJP. But now, we suddenly have all kinda problems to get this done. Kumaraswamy who brazenly went against his dad when he had to form the government, now swears totally by his father and says he would do whatever his dad says. Deve gowda says he will talk to Vajpayee and they will decide the future. Yediyurappa is already seeing his dreams of his tush on the CM gaddi fading. BJP feels betrayed, JD(S) does what they do best... hold on to power or pain the people in power(Dharam Singh can vouch for this). Where is the niyatthu?!?

When I first heard of the Kumaraswamy move a year and a half back, I felt sorry (very very little) for gowda, but when I saw them patch up in a week or so, I figured this was a well planned show for the people. And now, the real face of the drama comes back. We bring these jokers to power and these guys play their games while the people who voted them in.. well, they wait for these guys to finish making their crores and then do something to make the common mans lives better!

How times change...

India has followed the caste system since ages and probably was started with some noble intent. This has unfortunately been construed into a license for discrimination by many so called upper castes on the lower castes. Who or when this was conceived is always open to argument, but one thing that was consistent in my memory is the dual face of politicians when it comes to treating the so called lower castes. I am going to drop the "so called" from now on, for the record, I don't consider anybody to be upper or lower caste. Now to continue... most of the politicians have one and only agenda, get to power. To achieve this, they need every vote they can conjure up and hence keep the lower castes in this constant state of misery. This ensures that every election these folks suffer from memory loss of the previous time the same politician was in power and always vote on sentiments.



Nonetheless, the general talk in the "middle class" used to deem being of a lower caste to be demeaning or somehow less becoming. When I was trying to get admission after my 10 or 12th, the SC/ST quota was in play and most of the SC/STs I knew were not proud of it. They were well to do and yet were using the quota system. They would tell me that they know what is happening is not right, but then, it probably helps the needy somewhere. From the state of affairs that existed then, today we have the Gujjars fighting to be called tribals! They are a pretty big community and media reports suggest that they are relatively well to do. Why would they want to be called a tribal or crassly put "a dalit"? Doesn't this indicate something wrong with the Government policies? Doesn't this indicate that the quota system is being so badly misused that folks don't care a damn of what the society would look upon them as (which is usually a big deal in India), all just to get reservation in education or government offices?



Whether the Gujjars have the right reasons or not to place this demand, with respect to SC/ST status, the times sure have changed....

Mr ya Mrs

A "well contested" presidential elections in India, hasn't it been a while since we have seen one? The office of the President has become a test lab for the political parties of India. The main reason that K.R. Narayanan was the President was to gather the SC/ST vote bank. Next came Mr. Abdul Kalam, through whom the BJP tried to reduce the animosity that the Muslim community in India felt towards them. Now its the turn of Mrs. Pratibha Patil. Here the emphasis is on trying to woo the female vote bank. C'mon UPA, she was in political oblivion from 1996-2004, you pulled her out of nowhere and made her the Governor of Rajasthan and since she listened to your every move, she gets the next big promotion to Presidency? Any chance of thinking of the country's good before your own?

Since the ruling party usually proposes the winning candidate, there is a high probability that Mrs. Pratibha Patil would be the next President of India. If she wouldn't be the perfect rubber stamp President, then I don't know who would be! If looks could tell all the story, she would be succeeding the most popular President India has had, to become the most meekest President India has had. She is being so well protected by the Congress party that anybody but her would do the talking for her. The biggest question the educated people of India would be asking is, "What is wrong with Mr. Kalam?, why can't he continue as the President?". An answer to which, I am sure, the politicians of UPA or NDA would not have. The left over parties, aptly called UNPA i.e. !(UPA+NDA) :-), tried to woo Kalam into the race. Kalam said the most politically naive thing and the people opposing him had a field day. He said he would contest if he is sure of winning. Duh! This is politics, you are not supported by the 2 biggest party coalitions, you stand next to no chance of winning. You had a good run and unfortunately the political masters of India care more for their next elections, than continuing with the best President India has had. Now, the UPA leaders say that this is proof that Kalam is not really apolitical and he has shown his love for the chair. I ask, what is wrong with having the love of the chair? especially when he has done such a commendable job? Does that one statement make him a political guy? By accusing him of showing his political side, are you agreeing that being political obviously means being bad? I anything, I would say the statement shows his patriotism, as he wants the office of the President to not be corrupted by politics and in that regard his credentials beat the other competitors by a long margin. BJP on the other hand seizes this obvious admiration that people have for Kalam and ask the Congress as to why they oppose Kalam so much. Hey BJP, if you love Kalam so much, why field your own candidate? Why not support Kalam? And Mr. Shekhawat, poor guy must have been waiting for this day so bad. The only rubber stamp post more perfect than that of the President is that of the Vice-President! He must have been dreaming of getting the promotion to being "THE" rubber stamp instead of the Assistant rubber stamp.

All in all, another political drama unfolding to culminate in another political fiasco. It would not be too bad to see a lady take up the post though, giving the women of India a boost. But, in Indian politics, there is no other post that is as hypocritically admired and yet disregarded like the Presidential post. If anything, this win by Mrs. Pratibha Patil would put the women trying to earn a break in the male dominated work-socio setup into reverse gear, as this is exactly the attitude that they are trying to fight in their everyday life!

Let the games continue....

The drama called politics

The new year partying was not over yet and the drama of politics soon acted up. The festival Eid was on the 1st of Jan. Though this is a religious event what also marks this event every year is the bevy of political heavyweights attending Eid prayers and Eid-ul-fitr parties. The Wakf minister in Karnataka, Zameer Ahmed had one such prayer session planned. If you remember, Zameer Ahmed was one of the trusted lieutenants of the now chief minister Kumaraswamy, who supposedly drove the minibus that took the the state MLAs to a resort somewhere outside the city (to prevent horse trading, the bloody horses!!)when Kumaraswamy was plotting the coup to down the then Congress government.

When such an established friend of the chief ministers tells his loved supporters that the chief minister would come to the Eid prayers he has planned, and then the chief minister doesn't turn up, what would he do? The obvious of course, threaten to quit. Now, when the chief minister didn't really bat an eye lid, he had to follow it up and come good on his threat. Now things had gone too far and repair work had to start. There is already speculation on BJP getting restless to take over the CM's seat and with such infighting in the Kumaraswamy camp he is gonna have far less bargaining power. So, a couple of days later, this photo hits the news stands.




Hail the very best actors in our state!!