|
|
|
Friday, August 29, 2003
PERSONAL : Star-crossedThere are some events in an individual's lifetime that are repeated so, so rarely in history that missing them is inviting eons of ridicule for all your pushts/generations to come. It's like an English soldier when asked where he was during the 45-minute war, replies that he was on the pot (metaphorically speaking, of course), blissfully unaware. August 27th 2003, seemed to be one of those days. Due to all the publicity received by the event in the papers, National Geographic, Discovery channels and not the least of all, Rediff, everyone in the world knew about Mars being closest to Earth than it had been in the past 60000 years. I was dragged there, by Busybee who is as far out there, as Mars. So after a gruelling (sic!) day's work at office, we managed to reach Birla Planetarium at 8.30pm to get a sight of the red/orange/whatever planet. The sight that greeted us, was no lesser than the Kumbh mela which I have seen in Allahabad. Chattering Tam families, yapping kids and hawkers galore greeted us with a queue that at first sight, made me remember my Data Structures professor from college days. It was indeed what they always refered to as a "circular queue". After we managed to decipher the tail end of the line, Ankh used all his statistical fundae to estimate that the amount of time taken to reach Mars would be at least 2.5 hours. So we stood there, talking, crawling through the masses, (me wondering why I wanted to see Mars so badly), Busybee and Ankh (who fell prey to that age old problem of "If you've waited this long in the line, you might as well wait till you get there) refusing to budge, we braved the crowds, the smells and the bratty kids and of course, hunger. Ankh wondered if that distant light in the distance was Mars, only to realize that they were the approaching Indian Airlines flights. Ankh realized that there the similarities ended with the air-hostesses (pc: flight attendants). Wise Kingsley, stayed in office, working, hoping to sigh another day. Finally when we did get a peek into the telescope, all I could see was a tiny dot in the sky. Was it orange, you ask? If it wasn't, I have since deluded myself into believing that. The only takeaway from the evening, was the beautiful woman I saw there, who I was told, obviously later, was a Pakistani. I am now a convert. Only if the rest of India would be so easy.
Thursday, August 28, 2003
THE 'ONE' NATION : The Spirit of the Indian NationJivha's effort to sustain his "It Happens only in India" category seems to have fizzled out, while Ankh has another post up on his version of "It happens only in India". :) While the last post covered the social resilience of this great nation, this one covers our economic resilience. Circa 1991 : India did not have any foreign reserves. At one point of time after the Iraq oil war, because of the burden of the oil prices hike, we didn't even have enough money to pay for more than 2 weeks of imports. Any economist will tell you how bad that is. If you can't get hold of an economist, mail Jivha who will wax eloquently about the mess we were in. To add to the foreign reserve crisis, our economy which was sustained by large exports to a large Soviet/Eastern block (which had then collapsed), was at it's nadir. Right through the '60s and '70s, the Hindu rate of growth for this country was projected at a abysmally low 2%. As a last straw, India pledged it's greatest asset, it's gold reserves, to the Bank of England for loans. Circa 2003 : India's foreign reserves stand at $83.25 bn. These rank as no. 7 in the world. India paid it's last loans to the IMF in 2000. India's long term debt has been steady for the past 5 years. India is now a lender to the IMF, contributing $283 mn to the IMF for an African Nations reserve fund. As a country, India has used it's new found wealth to raise more people out of poverty in the past one decade than any other period in Indian history. India now has an GDP growth rate of 5%, though the IMF insists we can reach 8% as the Chinese economy has. There have been some remarkable things about this Indian resurrection. Some of them being, the economic independence of India during all this. We opened up selected sectors, and didn't rush into it all, as is often done in a crisis. We retained our Indianness during all this. In this story, we do have a lot of problems to be sorted out, a lot of corruption at all levels to deal with, a lot of poverty and mismanagement of funds to still work out. But we're on the way. And that, happens only in India.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
THE 'ONE' NATION : The spirit of the Indian man - IThis is the first post in a new category that I�m beginning today called �It Happens only in India�. The posts that come under this category will reflect the spirit of this country and all that is good about India and it's people. There are two reasons for this category of posts. One, was Jivha starting a similarly named category which reflects "the disparity, inanity and reality that most Indians silently put up with". The other was the grave accusation by a friend, that my posts border on the verge of fanaticism (and perhaps ranting). Both those reasons, struck me deeply. So without rambling on about it, here goes the first of my "Tribute to India" posts - We had an earthquake in Gujarat in January 2001. Thousands of people died in that quake and about a few other thousands were rendered homeless. In one such village/hamlet in the district Rapar, most of the houses were completely destroyed and all that remained was a pile of stones (what you would call "khandar"). I was there, with a couple of friends, working on figuring out alternate livelihood schemes for a nearby school/council and was visiting this abovementioned hamlet. We were around there right through the morning, talking to people, looking at the alternate work people could do. The sun was scorching, and we hadn't eaten all day long. Around two o'clock, a wizened old man and his old wife came up to us with a small cloth packet and a bowl in his hand. As their frail hands opened the packet, we saw about 6 dry bajra rotis. The bowl contained jaggery/gud dipped in ghee. We asked what they would be eating, if they gave their meals to us. They replied "Beta, aap humaari madat karne hi to aaye hain, hum itna sa nahin kar sakte aap logon ke liye?" (English translation: "Son, you're here to help us, right? Can't we do this much for you?") And that was my greatest memory of the place and those people. Surrounded by death and destitution, they offered us their mid-day meal for all that we were doing for them. And that, happens only in India.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
SOCIAL DISTRESS : A Recipe for disasterA recipe that the Government must follow when a city/town faces a dastardly terrorist attack.
For more consistency, repeat till the plot thickens.
SOCIAL DISTRESS : The headlines that said it allA lot has been said on blogs about the Bombay blasts. I have just one observation for you. Sify reported the following headline - Blasts shock Mumbai into silence. ET reported the following headline - Zaveri Bazar sheds a tear, gets busy again. So much for the hue and cry over such a tragedy. Have we become desensitized to justice? CONSUMER : Consumer CAS-ualtyIn yet another game of politics affecting the common man, the Government has taken a decision to defer the implementation of CAS (Conditional Access System) only in south Delhi till after the legislative assembly polls. The rollout is planned to go forward as expected on the September 1st deadline for the remain metros (zonal in Bombay and Calcutta, and city-wide is Chennai). A debatable point, when you wonder why the rest of the metros should act as guinea pigs to the political centre of the country. The idea behind the implementation, though well-intended, is not well thought out for such a hurried rollout. Here are the issues that the consumer faces -
But above all, the decision to delay the rollout of CAS in S. Delhi shows how Delhi-centric Indian politics and how a city can hold a larger social decision to ransom. The entire decision stinks of hypocrisy at the heart of Indian politics.
Monday, August 25, 2003
SOCIETY : ENCOUNTER - The KillingNiraj comes across an article in the Washington Post about Bombay's new breed of "encounter" cops. As is well known, Bombay was a breeding ground for criminal/mafia-style operations and films like Company aren't exactly fiction. There is the ethical question echoed in the article by one lawyer ... "Our courts do take time, witnesses turn hostile and the criminal often gets out on technical grounds. But are staged encounters and extra judicial killings the remedy?"...but these cops have my respect for cleaning up the dirty streets. Sometimes, the end justifies the means.
|
Powered by
RSSify at PHP-Homepage.de
Teascapes
Cut,Twist,Curl
Conversations
Black - Strong
AnarCapLib Kashmiri - Nutty
Adventures with Yardboy Nilgiri - Easy
Gandalf
Roots
Concept :"Discussions over Tea"
Strength
|
|
|
|
