The Indian Patriot

Dil ke tukde tukde

2012-04-01T14:17:00.001+05:30

A lot of my readers have written in asking me why I have ceased to write articles. The fact of the matter is I stopped writing since Jan as my heart was shattered when a frail old man sat on stage, his dreams in tatters around him as the realisation sank in that nothing would change, it was too late.

I have recently gone through a similar realisation. My heart lies on the floor in tiny shards with the realisation, that no matter what I say or do, nothing will change in India and that the cancer is so deep that the patient will die rather than be cured.

With Raja Bhaiya in charge of prisons, Kalmadi still on the Olympics Committee, MPs watching porn in Parliament, our defence in shambles, mangroves covered in shanties, can anyone say this is not a repeat of Sodom and Gomorrah ( every real Indian is now perhaps realizing the real reason behind the name Sodomy)

Yesterday, from Andheri to Bandra (Dist 13 Kms) took me 1 hour 45 mins and my odometer read a grand speed of 8 Kmph. Every crossing was gridlocked. Me before others has become the Motto.

When I discussed this with my friends, and one of them made a very poignant observation. She said that things had become so bad that she had stopped reading beyond the headlines in their morning paper since its all, this one innocent, that one let go free.

Its a complete breakdown of the system. For example, we all see movies where an MLAs son fills jeeps with his goons and then goes out and beats someone in open public while people stand around watching. We turned a blind eye when we heard of such incidents in rural villages but WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS CAN HAPPEN IN MUMBAI ? ( click here for details)

Whats more, post fact, the family was threatened and wanted to arrive at a “COMPROMISE”. (click here for details)

What is really left now ? A public humiliation of women being stripped and paraded naked for having an “affair”. Oh its already happening !!! (click here for details)

This rot is all around us. Cyber law clearly says if someone forwards a “pornographic” or “sexually explicit” clip , it is a cyber crime. However, we find MPs standing up in Parliament and openly naming another MP who has “forwarded” the clip and nothing is done. Even if the Clip was not pornographic but that of a festival gone bad, it was still sexually explicit in nature.

OPPS!! I forgot a corollary to the cyber law is that the clip should be capable of possibly corrupting the morals of the receiver but I guess the morals of our reps are so low that their possible defence could have been that it could not be corrupted anymore than it is.

As to the Janlokpal, I guess it will now rest in pieces. The politicians have so cleverly stage managed the issue that while everyone thought they were bumbling, they were working beautifully in concert to ensure that it dies. In Mumbai we have a saying “yeda banke peda khana” (seem like a fool to get the sweets).

What we got was a time delaying tactic by all concerned, with a massive anti-climax, followed by a convenient delay till Budget session so that they could push in a budget which was so draconian in nature that it would make the common man scramble for his daily living.

Theres an old adage , the only way you can make someone forget his pain, is to give him a bigger one……I guess that has been proved now.

Money Money Money

2011-12-26T17:39:00.001+05:30

A couple of days ago, I woke up in the post operative room of a hospital in Mumbai and the first thing I heard in my drug dulled ears was the mewing cries of a child saying “ghar jana hai, ghar jana hai”.

The cries went on and on, soft, scared and persistent till I managed to open my eyes and saw opposite me on a bed a mother holding a small child cradled in her arms, who was burrowing her way into her mothers chest crying softly with the repeated plea to go home.

I managed to drag out the words to ask her what happened and why was she crying, and even in the state I was in, I wept when I heard the story.

Her mother explained that the little girl was 4 years old and her name was Heer. It seems that their building is being redeveloped, like a large majority of buildings in Mumbai. During this redevelopment, the residents are still there for some overlapping period and the builder has put up a temporary water lines to start his preliminary work. This means that the place where the children normally run around had water pipes across it.

The kid being a kid, went out to play in the evening and was trying to swing from this tempting water pipe line when it broke and crushed off two of her fingers. The end tragic result, an innocent child of 4 years or so has to spend the rest of her life with 2 fingers less. My mind took a few minutes to digest the fact.

Once it did, my rage was unbearable. The rage at us ourselves and our stupidity, our greed. I have been to a few society meetings recently talking about re-development and all I hear is what can we squeeze out of the builder, how much more can we get, thats all , more more more.

Even if there is some talk of safety, its not about the safety of the residents, its how do we safely secure our flats, and never never about how do we secure our children and their future.

No society today talks about how safe will the layout be for our children, they talk about how much more carpet area we can squeeze officially and un officially. No society talks about if we will have a green space for the children to play in, its always about how many cars can we park if we convert the proposed green space to a parking lot.

In the last 6 months , at my residence both my cars as well as the cars of all my neighbours are covered with paint spots as a souvenir of the society being beautified, one of my cars got covered in cement the other day thanks to the building next to my office being “redeveloped”. Best part is that out of the 40 odd cars in my compound, I’m the only one who complained, the rest have accepted it as “hota hai”.

Friends, our greed is killing our children's future. When we were children , it was a sheer joy to run around in the compound playing Dabba I spy and chor police. We turn around and pontificate to our children for spending too much time indoors but have we done anything to make them enjoy the outdoors, we are turning what little they have into hells playground.

I wrote last week about Mumbai 227 and how we need to get the right corporators in place in Feb elections who understand that parks are meant for children to play and not for slums to encroach. But before we embark on cleaning up the city, WE NEED to introspect and get our head straight. Let us clean our own houses first before we start preaching to others.

If we don’t want or demand the basic needs for our children why would the politicians care. They are servants and will only serve what the master orders.

WAKE UP !!! GET ACTIVE !!! Find a green space in your area, collect your locals, clean it up, give your child a space. Tomorrow it could be your child not Heer who has to live his / her life with 2 fingers less.

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It can be done

Pictures of garden we created from a broken down plot using monetary and time contributions from local citizens and MLA & MP in Versova. Proof that the ordinary citizen and good politicians can make a difference

Anatomy of a Mahatma

2011-12-25T12:39:00.001+05:30

As my readers may have noticed, I have been unusually quiet the last few weeks. Fact is, I have been introspecting. A lot of my readers have written in and said that I’m doing a yeoman job waking up people and India needs more and more people to light such fires.

Unfortunately, this is a huge responsibility for anyone to carry and it scares the life out of me. With 50,000 plus readers, what if I write something which is not correct ? Even if I’m sure of what I write and do through research before writing, we are all humans swayed by emotions, what if I guide people wrong ?

If a person like me just someone off the street is bowed under such a burden, I got to thinking what an impossible burden it must be like to be a Mahatma and meet peoples expectations. What must it be like to have people like Tushar Gandhi pass summary judgement on you and call you un Gandhian when he himself sells the Gandhi name for a few dollars.

What must it be like to wake up every day with hundreds of reporters waiting to shove a mike in your mouth for a sound byte. What must it be like to say what you feel and have every two bit wannabe dissect and rip it to bits and my eyes filled up with tears.

I started looking deeply at the closest we have today to a Mahan atma (great soul), Anna Hazare. Everywhere I look, people argue back and forth saying that he is modern Gandhi, others argue that it is wrong to call him that, but no one is really looking at why he raises such strong feelings in all of us.

I started looking at some of the qualities which according to me make people call others Mahan Atmas.

Playfulness: One thing common between Gandhi and Hazare is the playful way they treat some topics. Playfulness and child like innocence in certain matter is according to me one of the key elements in becoming a Mahatma. Unless someone is one with his / her inner child, everything in the world seems grave, somber and dark

Persistence: Another thing which I see as the signs of becoming a Mahan Atma is the conviction of knowing the right path and then sticking to it come what may.

Simplicity: Mahan atmas live life with very few trappings, as Anna says ,the total sum of his possessions is he has a bedding and a plate.

Good of others before onesself: A Mahan Atma always thinks and talks in the terms of greater good, never in selfish terms. Every word he utters and every act he undertakes reeks of what will benefit others and general society and never himself / herself.

Readiness to give up his life: A Mahan Atma knows that life is illusionary and that death is but a counterpart. This readiness to give up his life for his principles is another of the trademarks of a Mahan Atma.

Non violence: A Mahan Atma has realised that violence is the last tool of fear and stems out of it. A real Mahan Atma practices non violence in all walks of life and not just in words.

Some of the people I would qualify as Mahatmas based on the above are Mahatma Gandhi, Osho, Sharmila Irom, Sai baba of Pasupatty and of course now Anna Hazare. (This list is just off the top of my head and is not all inclusive)

Now me being the devilish person I am, of course couldn’t help making a comparison chart against our current day politicians:

Trait	Mahan Atma	Politican
	Gandhiji, Osho, Sai Baba, Hazare	Sharad Pawar, PM, Sonia Gandhi, PC, Sibal, RG
Playfullness	Many examples of jests on record from each	The closest we ever get is perhaps a something said in moronism instead of jest which turns funny eg RG’s remark “ how long will you beg….”
Persistence	From Hazares fasts to Osho’s sticking to his ideas even to the point of death	Manmohan Singh says one thing one day and reiterates the next. Munde says he will throw Enron into Arabian Sea and then calls them saviours
Simplicity	A plate and a bed , living in a temple	Palaces of gold like the Reddys or being caught at an American Airport with a roll of Dollars and a Columbian drugloards daughter as a companion
Good of others before onesself	From Hazares fast to death and almost dying to Gandhiji’s fast for Harijans	I don’t even need to say anything here, its self apparent
Readiness to give up his life	Each one of the above has been ready to lay down their life for a cause they believe in	Our politicians are so afraid for their lives that they run around with gun toting guards
Non violence	Each of the Mahatmas has professed that he would rather die than have even one iota of physical violence committed against another human being.	Politicians use violence at the slightest drop to cover their fears, from Jallianwallah Baugh, to midnight raid on Baba Ramdev’s shibir.

Friends, lets face facts, Mahatmas are a rarity and when we do find one , lets not wait till after he is dead to put garlands on his pictures or use him as an ideal image to push guilt onto our children, lets go up to him NOW when he is alive and throw our arms around him.

Let them know that we acknowledge that we cannot even be one 100th of the person they are. Let them know we understand that the burden he / she carries is enormous and we appreciate whatever he/ she is doing since they are doing it for us.

Satyamev Jayathe, Vande Maatram

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AARAKSHAN

I am in splits. Sometimes politicians are so funny without even knowing that they are being so. I just heard that politicians are insisting on reservations in Lokpal.

Now let us understand their twisted logic. Reservations are meant as a handicap where there is lack of something and the playing field needs to be levelled for the greater good eg backward classes have a problem getting into good schools so we have reservation to allow them to move forward.

For example in Education, this means that a person with much lower grades than a normal person can get into a prime school if he is from a backward class, this is by presuming that he had a problem getting a good education and giving him a handicap. ( see my earlier article on reservations and why Indians like being a backward class)

Lokpal is an anti corruption law, does having a reservation means that some people who are weak in corruption should be given a handicap so that they can catch up to others ?

By this twisted logic of the politicians, reservations in Lokpal should mean that we should allow someone with a corruption taint on their name onto the panel just because they belong to a certain category of society to sit on the panel with completely clean people to create a level playing field since they may have had a disadvantage which made them turn slightly dishonest ?

Jai Ho !!

Merry go round

2011-12-11T18:51:00.001+05:30

When I was young , whenever we visited the local mela (local fair), one of the things I wanted to ride the maximum was a merry go round. Now that I’m grown up, I no longer see the fascination in it, however it looks like no matter how old our politicians grow they never seem to want to get off the political merry go round.

We have Advani at 84 years young still harbouring ambitions of being the next PM of India.

Another example is that we have politicians who fail year after year in even the basic issues like controlling onion prices and allow it to yo yo at Rs. 120 at least once a year for some reason of the other are still kept in the chair as Agricultural Minister and if you point a finger at them, ulta chor kotwal ko dante ( the thief reprimands the police)

The other day this situation was thrust in my face when I couldn’t help but notice a very funny contradiction in the local Times of India. On Page one, was an article saying that Sharad Pawar made fun of Anna for saying that he is supporting corrupt politicians and therefore deserved the slap and maybe many more.

On page 5, there was a second article, about how the NCP is taking back its suspension of a rape accused MLA since it needs his support to win the upcoming elections. (pic enclosed of both articles)

Please keep in mind that NCP is a political party led by Sharad Pawar.

Has anyone wondered how is it our politicians get away with such blatantly false statements. Simple, its our own idiotic “chalta hai” attitude. We are to blame.

Let me share another example is, we have a Govt which flip flop every few hours of each and every point in the Lok Pal Bill. The PM says something, and few hours later, there is a Cong meeting and he does a volte face. What do we do, shrug our shoulders and say “mind it, we are like this only”

Honestly friends its now so bad that I doubt that even one thinking person in India can stand up and honestly swear that he truly believes in his heart that the UPA will bring in a strong anti corruption bill.

Its again and again thrust in our face that politics is a funny funny game and we can do nothing about it.

The other day , I happened to pass by the Andheri office of our local MP and saw a swirling mass of humanity. I naturally asked what the issue was and was informed that Andheri was a ladies reserved constituency in the upcoming municipal elections. This means we need a female candidate come municipal elections in Feb and that this was a drive to register the local female constituents as to who would like to be a councillor.

I looked around and was shocked with the quality of women candidates present. We must remember that Versova has a large fisherwomen contingent. A unusual number of them seemed to be present all dolled up as if they were on their way to a wedding and the raw hunger I saw on their faces was amazing. It was as if the elections are a lottery and that this was their way of buying a ticket to riches. I can bet my hat that maybe one out of the couple of hundred women there would be able to understand the importance of having BRIMSTOWAD as a urgent drainage solution. ( see my earlier article on the current quality of councillors who control the life and death decisions of Mumbai)

If even one of them actually gets the Congress ticket, I can understand the reason why Mumbai has lost almost all of its green space, since they looked like the kind who would be more comfortable if the local green space was encroached upon instead of cleared as soon as possible.

In this context, I must say the MNS has shown one step in the right direction by having a preliminary exam for its potential and sitting candidates, but as we can see from the article above political exigencies may force all good intensions out of the window.

Friends, One valiant effort being made and one which I fully support is called the Mumbai 227.

One group of active Mumbai citizens have finally had enough. Mumbai has 227 wards and they have decided that they would make a candidate stand in each and every ward in the next Municipal elections under a single banner called Mumbai 227. If even 10% of them happen to win (just 20 odd seats) , a significant amount of transparency would come into the system since these councillors would then act as a check and balance.

Of course the natural questions came into my mind when I was introduced to the concept and I spoke to them about it. The first was, what would change ? I was informed that there are 5 weaknesses they have identified with the earlier citizens candidates as of date and have tried to plug each and every one.

1) Most of the work done in the BMC is in Marathi so the candidate has to be fluent in it

2) Just 1 or 2 candidates winning seats would not help since He / she would be deboned in no time 1 civil society swimmer against 226 potential flesh eating political piranhas , so it has to be at least 10% to make a dent.

3) There has to be a open continuous review mechanism in place post elections by the people in the respective wards with no political bosses to answer to.

4) Most current candidates put forward by political parties need to work half for themselves and their public and half for their parties to ensure that enough grease is available to keep the wheels running.

5) The selections of the candidates must be done in a clean efficient transparent manner. (Mumbai 227 has enlisted the voluntary services of a HR company to shortlist the candidates and pre screen them to ensure suitability)

Its a mammoth task Mumbai 227 has taken on and my hats off to them.

To all of my readers who write in regularly expressing their helplessness at the carnage around them and asking what they can do to change the situation, I say:

Now is the time, grab the moment, “CARPE DIEM”

Log onto mumbai227.com, register yourself, give them time, give them help in whatever way you can. Every little bit counts.

Friends, if you don’t do it now, along with the fancy cars and multi crore flats, you leave your children, you will also leave them a festering stinking city where slum dwellers camp right outside their compound walls and they can do nothing about it.

A life too far

2011-11-19T22:08:00.001+05:30

Today a bike rider whizzed by me ridding triple seat. You could see the bike was tottering under their combined weight and it was an accident waiting to happen.

Ever since the triple seat stunt of Amir Khan in the Bollywood movie, Three Idiots, we see more and more people riding triple seat on motorbikes in Mumbai and all across India. Its so bad that not only do these triple seats whiz by cops standing nonchalantly, now even the cops do it and no one blinks an eye.

A little later in the day, one of my reader told me a story and it hit home. I then realized that along with our collective conscience our civic conscience has also started relaxing slowly slowly.

She said that a young friend of hers was killed in a traffic accident a couple of days ago. My automatic question was , “ on a bike ?”

Isn’t it funny how the moment we hear the words young person and motor accident , our mind automatically assumes it was on a bike and the youngster was driving rashly. Why do we automatically assume its always the youngster to blame ? Its not that we have all not been young and brash (read my article those were the days for details)

I asked for details of the accident and was shocked when I heard it. It seems that these four youngsters, only 18 years old, were in a Manipal college to study. They got into an auto, three in the back and one in the front next to the driver ( as is the norm in the smaller cities)

They were going up a lane in semi darkness, when all of a sudden a truck turned into the lane at a sharp corner perhaps at a speed that he hit the auto head on. There was no time for anyone to react. WHAM ! one split second and it was over.

The two in the front were able to bale due to the very design of the auto which has wide openings in the front but the three in the back were caught dead on. One died on the spot, one on the way to the hospital and I believe the third is in serious condition.

Who is to blame ?

Is it the civic authority who badly planned the corner ? Is it the truck driver who was over the speed limit ? Or is it the auto driver who loaded one extra person ? Or maybe its the parents who sent them to small city Manipal to get good degrees ? or the innocent kids who went to the little town to study and achieve the stars they had in their eyes ?

Each has his own justification to feel himself innocent in his mind.

Such a tragic unnecessary end to lives so young. We all read about such incidents in the papers or hear of them from friends f friends and say that it could never happen to our kids. WRONG !! These could be your children, they were the children of people just like you and me.

I have someone very close who is in college in Indore studying engineering and it gives me the shudders to think of what can happen any single night. When time came for me to choose which college my niece would attend I chose Singapore instead of India for simply this reason. We Indians do not value the individual life. For us the deaths are just a number on a chalkboard, a statistic. Its a demand supply thing, we simply have too many lives. Even the Govt has valued the Indian life at 2 Lakhs , which is what they give as an exgratia amount, every time there is a natural disaster.

The time has come for us to go to the other room and take a long look at our children / nephews / grandchildren. Give them a tight hug since unless we get law and order back on our roads, the next time they go out, it could be them in the auto.

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Is se mera kya hoga ?

As I write this article, I read in the Times of India that the union Law ministry has given the ok to raise the possible fines 10 fold to try and curb rash driving. How many of us think that is going improve anything ?

No way. Corruption in India is so rampant that all pushing up fines will do is increase the entry barrier. Its an open secret that corruption in the traffic dept. is at an all time high due to the system which is frankly, nuts.

The system is designed to make things so difficult that the motorist will want to take the easy way out. This is done by designing the whole system of impounding the licence (since people below a certain rank cannot compound [forgive by taking a fine on the spot] an offense) and then subjecting the motorist to a completely maze-like head wrenching legal system where he is humiliated at every nook and turn. Most people I know will happily pay a fine if they have erred, what no one can stand is the crass humiliation the system subjects them to.

Imagine standing in the middle of a smelly court corridor, right next to the loos stinking of the fetid smell of urine (Bandra court) while you wait your turn at the dock like a common criminal. Then you’re briefed by your lawyer that if you say anything but guilty, you will be made to a hell of a lot more, so quickly plead guilty , even if you’re not and say sorry and you’re out of there. Finally, your turn comes, and the judge sneers a you as if , how could you be so stupid as to get caught. He asks how you plead, one minute later the ordeal is over, UNLESS YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO PROTEST.

Therefore a motorist does what is natural, and negotiates a price which will make both their lives easier.

Since the price arrived at is one a which the motorist will find value for his time and one that the corrupt cop knows he will get no more from, all the increase in fines will do is raise the level at which both the bribe giver and the bribe taker will mutually settle.

I am all for fines going up but what we need along with the price rise in the fines is a swift judicial system , one which instead of humiliating people, deals with them in a firm but sure manner to ensure our roads are safer for all of us. Its not that there are no traffic offenses across the world.

Ask anyone, in countries like the UK and Australia, people are scared if they make one wrong turn, since the massive fine will be collected on the spot unless you wish to contest the traffic ticket, and God help you if you try to bribe a cop.

In US a while ago, there was a bit of a spurt in corruption, so what did the Americans do, what they always do, depend upon technology. They installed cameras on cop dashboards and ,made it illegal for cops to deal with offenders outside the range of the cameras.

The irony is, in India, which probably made the software that runs those cameras , if they try to do that, the corruption will ensure that the cameras never work and the people will accept that that’s the way India is and go back to that “sau ki patti in a silent handshake”

Collective Conscience

2011-10-24T12:02:00.001+05:30

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms (principles and rules). In psychological terms conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a human commits actions that go against his/her moral values and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to such norms. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based in reason has occasioned debate through much of the history of Western philosophy – Wikipedia

My friends, I mourn the near death of our collective conscience in Indian citizens. Once in a while like the IAC agitation, it does show some signs of recovery but on the whole I think any good doctor would pronounce it almost dead.

There are many of the symptoms of the disease all around us, one such symptom is the article in the newspaper where traders are complaining that the cargo facilities at Mumbai Airport are so dismal that goods are stored in the open air for lack of space. Since it rained a few days ago unexpectedly, valuable life saving equipment like imported CATSCAN machines were badly damaged.

On the other hand just a couple of days before that there was an article that the slums are being cleared around the airport to make way for shopping malls. AND NO ONE BLINKED AN EYELID. In a society where the collective conscience was alive and well, people would have poured out on the streets screaming that airport land should be used for Airports and passengers and cargo , not malls.

Another symptom visible, was the attitude of people when the Kiran Bedi fudging of the bills came out. It seems Kiran Bedi one of the leading lights of Team Anna, is usually invited for lectures, etc. The normal arrangement for such invitations is that the hosts pay for the airfare, etc. In Ms. Bedis case she has recd a gallantry award which entitles her to airfare @25% ( 75% discount) of the standard fare.

It has been reported that despite the fact that Ms. Bedi was invited for being a prominent person , exactly the same reason for which she recd the discount award, this discount was never passed onto hosts and they were billed for the full fare. Since this bill was a re-imbursement of expenses, technically this is a misrepresentation which could in certain ways be interpreted as a fraud on the hosts.. AND NO ONE BLINKED AN EYELID.

When this came out, people howled in her favour from the rooftops saying things like:

She never pocketed any money herself ( eg excuse used by Manmohan singh)

The benefits of this mis-billing went to the NGO ( eg excuse for all sops, rob rich to pay poor)

What was the harm, who lost money, people who were aware of the arrangements and would have paid that much anyways ? (eg excuse of policy decision on 2G)

The best and most revealing dialog on this was from Mr. Ram Jethmalani, that old fox, said “Fudging of bills is in Indian blood, everybody does it” (paraphrased). For example, The peon fudges his expenses to the boss, the boss fudges his income tax and the govt is creative with its figures to the public. Everyone does it.

The death of the collective conscience is there in the fact that a group of people are able to enter the Supreme Court and assault a senior lawyer and then crow about it to the world with impunity. The silence of the same rabble who screamed from the rooftops about the supremacy of the Parliament and how it was being subverted are now deathly silent on the insult to the sanctity of the Supreme Court.

The closeness of the death of this conscience is visible from the fact that Indian citizens are sitting arguing for and against the death sentences of the People who attacked the same Parliament with weapons and in whose attack brave jawans died. A large amount of these people arguing are the very same who felt that an old frail man in a khadi cap was a threat to the same Parliament and were screaming at the top of their voices against him.

Another glaring example of this rot is in the open murder of a couple of youngsters at Amboli ( Andheri W in Mumbai). It seems that a few youngsters boys and girls went to a restaurant at Amboli for dinner. After dinner they went to eat paan outside. While buying the paan , a drunk man fell on one of the girls and pawed at her. Naturally the boys did what any person would do, they pushed him away and threatened him with a thrashing.

The man seeing that he was perhaps going to be thrashed ran away but within minutes he was back with three autorickshaw loads of men with rods and chains and a sickle. These people set upon the youngsters and slit open the stomach of one and has injured another fatally. The bystanders stood around gawking and fearing for their lives silently instead of rushing to their help, AND NO ONE BLINKED AN EYELID

The rot shows in the fact that the drunk was able to gather 3 autoloads to come and kill young boys, The rot shows in the fact that when he cops went to arrest the accused, the slum dwellers attacked the cops.

I don’t know about you, but I have a young son, and everytime he goes out, I’m afraid of what incident may end up costing his life. Friends, we are all playing Russian Roulette with our kids. We are counting on the numbers to say it will happen to others and not to our kids, there are so many other kids in Mumbai to get killed, mine never will.

>>> BREAKING NEWS >>> As I write this the papers report another incident of similar mob violence against a young boy who refused the advances of a young girl at Mulund. It seems this teenage girl was besotten with this boy and hen he refused her advances she got a gang of boys to attack him with rods etc in broad daylight. Not only that , its now reported that knowing they had not finished him off , they had the guts to enter the hospital with weapons to finish the job there, but ran away when they were detected.

Lets face facts. Mumbai is dying. Forget the glitzy towers, the big cars, the flash of jewellery showrooms, the air conditioners in slums. The real life of a city is its culture and homogeneity, ours unfortunately is being sacrificed on the altar of greed.

The irony is we may blame the whole stinking mess on our politicians but the real culprit is all around us , its the death of all our collective conscience.

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The curious case of Ms. Bedi

An interesting twist in the Ms. Bedi case is now it has come out that he bills for the FULL amount were raised by a travel agent and not the NGO. So I am eagerly awaiting the news of how the extra amount was transferred from Travel Agent to NGO and if the whole amount was given or was a little something held back as arrangement fees?

To the supporters of Ms. Kiran Bedi who are blindly thrashing out, let me point out that the Govt is in the habit of making us overlook things by putting a grey cloud over it and confusing the hell out of us, if we allow others to do it shame on us.

We cannot condone one kind of corruption and condemn another.

Doing our bit

2011-10-19T01:07:00.001+05:30

Today, someone parked his car in such a way that our whole lane was blocked while he was up partying at a neighbours house. When the watchman of our building tried to stop him explaining he would cause inconvenience to hundreds of residents, he said do your worst. Then in another incident, at Amboli, a motorcyclist hit another at full speed and then started to argue with victim, despite the fact that he was driving recklessly and without a helmet.

India today reminds me of an old story I heard once. It seems there was a very rich king who was greedy for more, more power more money. So he consulted his priests as to how he could become richer and more powerful.

His priests told him, that he needed to perform a yajna (a ritual of offering to the Gods). Accordingly, he asked for a large pit to be dug in the centre of the capital. He then made a proclamation that each subject must make an offering into the pit of a bucket of milk as an offering to the Gods to make their kingdom prosper.

All day no citizen came forward , and the king got more and more anxious. He sent sentries to each household to tell them that they would be arrested if they did not put in their share. As it started to get dark, the citizens started lining up to pour their offerings into the pit. By midnight everyone had poured their offering and the king retired to his bed happy.

The next morning, lo and behold, everyone was amazed when they found that the whole pit was full of water. It seems like every citizen had put in a bucket of water instead of milk thinking dilution of one bucket of water in hundreds of buckets of milk would never be noticed

Some thought, why should I give up my childs’ milk to make everyone else richer, another thought I’m poor and have only one cow, let the richer folk with more cows make up my share, yet another thought let the kingdom become richer or poorer what’s it got to do with me. Each one had some excuse or the other in his mind with which he justified his misdeed.

We are all that way, in our minds we have one excuse or another for that corner we cut in our duties towards India. For example, only 3% of India is registered for Income Tax, 97% doesn’t even come on the radar.

We all know that the prosperity of a nation depends upon the contribution of its citizens. However, scam after scam is being unearthed, each one headed by a citizen of India some of them as high as Cabinet Ministers and State Chief Ministers.

Like the citizens of the kingdom in the story who put buckets of water instead of milk, each one of us has some justification or the other in his mind for skipping his duty towards the general good of the nation which allows us to sleep at night.

What is sad is its not the outsiders coming in on zodiac boats carrying AK47s who are killing India, it is its own citizens in their blind selfishness.

Bucket after bucket of water is being poured into the pit by Indian Citizens who is not ashamed of what he is doing, after all how will his bucket of water affect the pit full of milk put in by others.

Happy Birthday Pops

2011-10-02T14:08:00.001+05:30

I am almost 100% sure that today if Mahatma Gandhi ( who we call Father of our nation, lovingly referred to as Bapu) would have said “I told you so”

After we had gained freedom, It seems Bapu said to Manuben that he had lost faith in the Congress and he wanted it disbanded. He said they were no longer able to or willing to work along his principles.

Power politics prevailed and Congress remained.

This week has shown the wisdom of his words. In the last 6 months we have a PM declaring , he has no control of the country due to co-alition politics. We have a Finance Minister declaring he cannot control runaway inflation. We have a Home Minister who says he cannot stop terrorists attacks.

What can the Govt do? May I the common citizen of India ask ?

Today we have a Congress Govt who has in place a Finance Minister who says he sees Inter Ministerial Official Memoranda (notes) but doesn’t read them and passes them on ? That means almost all the “notes” seen by him and decisions made on them, can be recalled in future since he can claim he saw them but didn’t approve them. Is this the form of Parliamentary Democracy the Govt is so desperately trying to protect.

We have a Govt which has a Minister who claims dementia and still wants to attend Parliament, and a Home Minister who announces in a Press conference smirking, that “he has a short memory” click here to view. In some circles that’s a sign of an unsound mind. I’m surprised that the journalists laughed, I would have screamed at him:

Is there anyone sane left in the UPA ? Dear Home Minister, please do remember that youre a Home Minister in charge of Police and Homeland Security and that we have terrorist attacks regularly and that something should be done about them. If your “memory loss” is genuine, please resign immediately to save the lives of our brave officers.

This kind of callous joking in the face of terror attacks which cost Indian lives is a slap in the face of the families of the martyrs, be it RR Patil and his “chote Mote Haadse” comment on the Mumbai attack or Chidambram on his “short memory” remark on such a serious issue. It is symbolic of the problem facing Indian Govt today.

Earlier when we visited Govt offices, the fat babus sitting behind their desks were not afraid. They knew their jobs were secure so they behaved disgracefully with common people. Chidu and the rest of the Govt are doing the same. They are complacent and cocking a snook at us from their lofty chairs saying “touch us if you dare for the next 2 years”.

RR Patil was removed as Home Minister in an eyewash, he came back as soon as the public attention was misdirected and today Mumbai is as unsafe as it was, in fact more since the thieves have seen the path and they know the worst they will get is a bullet and matyrdom or a tonne of attention and biryani.

Chidu knows nothing can touch him which is why he can record a soundbyte confession which technically disqualifies him from a Ministerial or even a Parliamentarian post under Sec 191 of the Indian Constitution (click here to read). Whats the worst that can happen, if people catch on, he will go on record and say like Pranabda and say that “he said the words, but they weren’t his”, and people will go about their happy ways thinking matter is closed.

Folks, Bapu is dead but we are not. Anna showed us the way for which I will be eternally thankful to him and for which he must go down in the annals of history. His words “ I am Anna, you are Anna, we all are Anna” in my mind reflects “ I am Bapu, you are Bapu we all are Bapu”

Let the Bapu in each of us arise on this Occasion of his Birthday and stand up and say “I AM BAPU” and I am a proud proud Indian and no Govt is going to grind me to the ground.

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To those detractors who will bombard me for misusing the Gandhi ( In my mind there is only one true Gandhi, rest are just a surname) name.

I ask you to look in the mirror. Today Tushar Gandhi (Bapu’s great Grandson) has written in Times Life that Anna showcased that as long as the ends were noble the means did not matter. This, Bapu, would not agree with.

Let me see, Hmmmmm…isnt this the same Tushar Gandhi who sold the Mahatma’s name to a pen company in return for a cheque to a foundation which according to him was a noble cause and that the end justified the means….ROFLMAO

I love these holier than thou people, they make my Sundays.

Right to Steal

2011-09-25T18:06:00.001+05:30

Yesterday, I saw a sight we see almost everyday but never pay any attention to. I saw a auto-rickshaw driver come up a one way street the wrong way and then start to abuse another poor rickshaw driver who was in the right but couldnt move ahead thanks to this fellows stupidity and the crowd cheered the rickshaw driver who was wrong.

And the whole rush of thoughts came tumbling out.

The situation we are in is ridiculous. Everywhere around us we have started accepting the wrong and the illegal as the way to be. We have resigned to the thought that this lawless way is how India is. Its so bad that now if someone is in the right, they no longer have any voice to speak up about the injustice.

Last week, the auto rickshaws went on strike to protest, guess what…..the crackdown on illegal meters and fitness certificates. This means they are saying “allow us to use false certificates and tampered meters” or we will harass you by creating an artificial shortage……WRONG WRONG WRONG , its so horribly wrong.

In another example, I was driving down Matunga and a scooter came from a side lane to my right and blocked the opposite side of the road at right angle, waiting for me to pass. Another scooter which came from opposite at breakneck speed couldn’t stop and banged into him.

The person who was 100% wrong in coming half way across the road and blocking the path despite knowing he couldn’t cross till my car passed started fighting with him. The public sided with him since poor thing was carrying a extra heavy precariously balanced load of eggs (illegally) which broke.

Example after example shows this disintegration of moral fabric in India. This week, I visited a discourse by Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev (a very enlightened mystic) and he made a good point, he said our exposure to corruption doesn’t start from giving money at Govt. offices, it starts with us pushing our child ahead in the line, trying to get the movie tickets before someone else. That’s where we start training our child that to break the rules is good, to break the rules is ok. What do you think the child will do when he grows up ?

These are the same children who today have become our parliamentarians, they have been brought up this way and today have ended up so shameless since they see no wrong in what they do. How else would you explain the Govt on one end declaring the poverty line in India at Rs.32/- per day and on the other hand asking for enhancement of travel allowance by an additional 9 lakhs and new cars since the older ones used by the MLAs are uncomfortable.

Not only is the shame non existent but the insolence in face of law breaking is now so blatant that if you’re a citizen, the Govt in India says you elected us now shut up for 5 years. You cannot speak and have no right to speak till you need to vote for us again and extend our contract. If you do open your mouth despite this we will slap privilege motions on you.

The shameful fact is that our Ministers are Govt servants and as per standard accepted norms, servants need to be kept an eye upon by their Masters. Maybe even fired if they are not doing their job properly.

Friends, if you’re the kind of person who hires a manager and then allows him a free hand for 5 years to skim whatever money he wants from the company coffers and run the company in the ground without a review, there can be no bigger fool than you.

Believe me, if it was your company that had such a foolish set of directors pissing your money down the gutters, you would be breathing down their neck every day asking all sorts of questions, so why are you not doing this for your country ?

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I received this hilarious clipping in the mail. I would recommend all my readers see it. I was in splits. Its called “har neta ka ghotala hota hai” and is based on the new Airtel ad “har friend zaroori hota hai”

Click here or on image to see the clip:

Balidaan Ka Bakra (sacrificial goats)

2011-09-18T22:32:00.001+05:30

Friends, I seriously think someone has gone off his rocker in the Govt we have currently. They make one mistake after another, each one a bigger PR disaster from the previous.

As most of my readers and twitter followers know, I am a big fan of Arnab and Newshour on Times Now. Day before yesterday, he justified my faith in him. Thanks to his expose and the uproar following it, the Govt had to cancel a meeting which would have push a very very stupid proposal though.

As usual he had a “paper in his hand” which was a proposal put to the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to cancel the subsidy on LPG gas thereby bringing the price up to a POSSIBLE Rs. 750 to Rs. 800 per cylinder. I understand the need for cancelling the subsidy and raising that price if it is honestly required to do so to take the country forward, but two parts of the proposal made me sit up and take notice.

First issue, was a thought in my mind as to if the price hike was actually necessary. Here we have a Govt which takes money from a common man in the form of exorbitant taxes and uses it to fund crackpot schemes which benefit no one but those in power and their relatives and cronies.

For example its an open secret which was even reported in the papers that money spent on compensations schemes like Tsunami relief and Bandra Fire disaster etc was diverted to people who had died many years before. So who was the Govt paying compensation to ? Their ghosts ? ( Check one random example here of funds for Gujarat riots being diverted)

Wouldn’t it be simpler to cancel some of these haywire schemes which are money guzzlers like NREGA, perhaps even cancel that sinkhole called UID which has just asked for 15,000 Crores more allocations to pay private companies to collect data. (We all know where the money is going when we say replace Govt data collection agencies with PAID private companies).

One of my readers just told me today that in Tamil Nadu now that mixers, TVs etc are passe and the new trend is that political parties are giving cows in their taxpayer funded largesse.

Once this wasteful expenditure is corrected we may find that price hikes are not necessary at all since to all intents and purposes these hikes are being made to plug these leakages into certain pockets.

One of my readers tweeted the following flow chart for funds in India:

Tax Payer—> Govt—> Development Projects—> Politicians & Bureaucracy (Kickbacks, commissions)—> Swiss / Cayman Island / etc Bank

The second issue which made me think deeper was the misconception that the middle class is being subsidized and is a pampered lot and therefore the cancellation of subsidy was to be selective in nature excluding the taxpayer. ( Here taxpayer means anyone who is registered for a PAN card even if he is not eligible to pay income tax due to losses) That actually boils my blood.

Let us examine a situation of Mr. A and Mr. B.

Mr. A is a normal middle class man, just earning enough to survive and trying to meet his EMIs on a flat he bought. He has either voluntarily taken a PAN card or was forced to take one due to his job. (Only 5 Cr odd PAN cards have been issued INCLD company PAN cards in a country of 120 Cr residents which means in real terms only 2 Cr or so individual PAN cards or 2%)

Mr. B is your small town resident. Just bought a flat and is meeting the EMIs slightly easier since his food costs etc are not as high and he has not got a PAN card so is under the radar and gets to keep whatever he earns.

Now Mr. A gets only 66% of what he earns since 33% is removed for tax and whatever he spends is considered his drawing in accountancy terms

Therefore in real money terms the cost of the cylinder post hike would be Rs.800 + 33% he has worked for but not recd since it went to tax i.e approx Rs. 1040 /-.

On the other had Mr. B, is cleverer. He never applied for a PAN card. So if he earns Rs. 1000/- he keeps Rs. 1000/- to spend, for him in real terms the LPG refill cylinder cost is Rs.800 – 33% which he would have paid the Govt if he had honestly filed for taxes i.e Rs. 560/-.

So who says the middle class taxpaying public is being pampered ? Hes the poor balidaan ka bakra who is paying through his nose to keep the country going.

Sab Kavve Kaale (all crows are black)

2011-09-09T13:16:00.001+05:30

The other day, I suddenly decided to take a long weekend in Thailand. No it was not for the normal reason that Indian men visit Thailand, this was a pure relaxation trip with my family.

The first day I opened the news paper and while reading it a thought struck me “ Sab Kavve Kaalein hai” (All crows are black)

What I saw in the paper could be a Xerox copy of any Indian newspaper nowadays.

One of the first things I saw was that there is now a fight between the civil society and the Thai elected Govt as regards the format of subsidies of rice which is the staple produce of Thailand. What the people want is a price insurance scheme which pays farmers a cash compensation in case price drops below a certain price.

What the Thai Govt is trying to push is they become the main buyers of the rice crop from the farmers and then they store it and give it to millers, etc instead of letting the farmers sell in the open market. The people are screaming that it will mean four things,

the Govt Godowns will overflow and stocks get wasted.
The only people who will benifit will be the millers and exporters
Only 10-15 out of 150 large exporters will benifit from this scheme
The price in market will skyrocket since a lot of the grain will be wasted instead of reaching common man.

SOUNDS FAMILIAR ? (read my article on the wastage of grain in India)

The second one which caught my eye was the daylight shooting of a whistle-blower against corruption.

The third was the govt interference in the selection of National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) which would steer things like 3G etc. ( Fight is civil society say as per tradition , telecom etc sectors can only belong to King and citizens and not be privatized, so loading the committee helps steer this in proper direction which the politicians want)

The fourth is the story that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is trying to get a pardon for his conviction of 2 years remotely (he is in exile). This appeal is based upon a technicality and the whole Parliament and populace is in twists with his legal shuffling.

To add spice to it, the current Govt is headed by his sister Yingluck Shinawatra who people are watching to see if she behaves impartially.

PSSSTTT---Thai nationals don’t get your hopes up. From our Indian experience, they get away with it.

The problem is most politicians are not corrupt to begin with. A lot of the ones I know start with the best of intensions, but the system grinds them down. The lust for power and money infects and the pus starts seeping out.

Be it David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch in the UK, the Berlesconi Bunga Banga Parties or Nira Radia and the Telecom Czars in India, the infection is spread by the corporates who act as major carriers of the disease which is why this time in the Anti corruption drive there was not a peep from the Head of Industry.

Therefore to all the people who say” to change the system , get into the system”, I say Bah !

If you get into the “system”, you are a part of it so why would you change it. The only change will happen will happen from outside.

If your “takiae kalaam” was true, Gandhi would have to have been selected to have been the Queen of England or Viceroy to ask for Independence for India.

Instead he was a lone man in a khadi dhoti with a stick who in the end forced the mighty empire to call him in as the legitimate representative of the India populace.

One man can make the difference. That man can be you and you dont need to be a Kalaa Kavva to do it.

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When I spoke to some Thai nationals about the corruption issue they said there was a joke about Indian corruption circulating here, it is:

In developed countries like US etc the corruption is defined giving extra money on the table

In China and Thailand corruption is defined by giving money under the table

In India the system of corruption is giving money along with the table.

Saap Seedi (Snakes and ladders)

2011-08-28T22:15:00.001+05:30

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Friends, to date I have never asked for anything from my readers. Today I’m going to request for something very very humbly.

The Govt has played a nasty trick on us and is now making us beg for our right in front of the Standing Committee. Don’t get fooled by this talk of them having agreed to Anna’s conditions. Its an eyewash. We saw the twists and turns the Govt did in the last days of the fast. We can be sure the dirty trick bag is still full.

Please fill in this form on http://tinyurl.com/3vek4yq and a letter (sample of the letter here) will be generated which we will forward physically to the standing committee before the 3rd of September 2011. Fill this form, make yourfamily members fill it and forward to everyone you know to fill.

THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING FOR OUR CHILDREN. If the Govt law comes through without change which it will unless we put up a strong enough case, you better start teaching your children how to bribe everyone everywhere.

Thats not a life I want for my son. Is it what you want for your child ?

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When I was small we had a game called snakes and ladders This was a game where threw a dice and if you land on the base of a ladder you advance to the top of it and if you’re land on the mouth of a snake you slither down it to its tail.

Last couple of days, I feel like I’m watching a game of snakes and ladders in Indian politics. Every politician is coming and taking his turn at the dice and the public either gets elated or goes down.

In the last 48 hours we seen almost every political stunt and twist that can legally be done and perpetrated on the public and am feeling helpless.

There is an old saying, if you want to break iron, bend it back and forward a few times, it will snap by itself. On one hand , they agree to all terms except three one night (UP A LADDER) and then go back and hold a working committee meet and next day, come out and say we don’t agree to the terms we did last night ( DOWN A SNAKE).

They said they would send a letter agreeing to debate in parliament the issues that concern the common man and Anna insisted on one night (UP A LADDER) and then next day say not on calendar so cannot discuss it (DOWN A SNAKE)

Frankly, this see saw is making me sick to my stomach.

We have seen politicians who deride Team Anna by saying they have subverted the parliamentary process when almost every parliamentary process has been subverted by them at will For example.

What do you call the fact that : A chit of a (42 year old) boy comes in and suggests that it may be better to have an independent constituted body like “an election commissioner” and lo and behold 2 hours later an EX ELECTION commissioner comes up with just such a complicated idea all ready and gift packaged.

I would call that a travesty of the use of the parliamentary system.

What do you call the fact that: The Govt decides to call just one civil society for a joint drafting committee, IGNORING OTHER DRAFTS / SUGGESTIONS. Then ignores that one society too and pushes just its own draft in. Then when things get tricky, says lets consider all drafts. Now thats what I call a subversion of the parliamentary system.

If they wanted all drafts to be considered why did they keep quiet when they thought they could get away by bulldozing just their draft through.

If Gandhi was alive today , he would have absolutely no option but to say “He Ram” in disgust looking at the way the party he has given birth to has messed up his legacy.

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Bribery Vs Extortion

All during the Agitation one thing has angered me off more than anything else.

That is the holier than thou punters from common public who keep parroting “haven’t you ever given a bribe” or “won’t you give a bribe from now on, its the system”. They look down your nose as if they are superior than you since they openly admit that they are corrupt people and you don’t admit the same. They wear their badges of corruption proudly as if its a major achievement.

To these people I would like to say the following, please check the following two definitions:

Bribe (ghoos) : The bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct in favour of the person committing the act of bribery.

eg: When a person pays someone to do something like extend his house into the lane illegally or pays to get a Govt contract despite not being eligible technically.

Extortion (dhamaki dekar maangna): Extortion is an act which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion (eg by tying up their work in endless rounds of red tape)

eg: When a person is made to pay for legitimate things like getting a birth or a death certificate which is inordinately held up due to nonsensical issues. or for example not awarding a contract to you despite being eligible unless a % is given to them as facilitation money.

Let us understand, In the case of bribing you do things to benefit yourself, in case of being the victim of extortion, you are an innocent victim who has been placed there by circumstances.

I have no sympathy with the bribers since they know the fruit of the poisonous tree they sow, its the innocent victims I feel sorry for. The current situation is such that any petty babu, any petty peon, can extort with impunity by delaying your paperwork without fear of repercussion and you have no option but to bow to it, after all “system” hai.

The whole object of Anna and the Janlokpal agitation is to setup a mechanism to remove the methods of extortion and punish the bribers.

Once this differential is understood, I say I am ready to swear “I WILL NOT BRIBE”.

You may then very well say noble thought but that doesn’t solve the problem at hand which is how do we remove the scourge of extortionist “ghoos”

Friends, I once took over a company which was in a mess. One of the first things I realised was that almost everyone in the company didn’t know what was expected from him and in what time frame, which is why it was in such deep trouble. I immediately set up a charter which told every person what was expected from him and when.

The Janlokpal is trying to do the same. Inherent in it is a provision for setting up of a Citizen Charters which the Govt is trying to avoid, which defines time frames for procedures in each Govt agency, etc. This would then remove the greyness of procedures and allow the cracking of the whip in case paperwork was being delayed by a “babu” as a preliminary step to extort.

The mountain of corruption will not disappear overnight, but at least we can start chipping away at it with the Janlokpal. At least we can ensure that the A Raja and Kalmadis of the world do not sit there thumbing their noses at us suckers.

In a lighter vein..

2011-08-24T00:46:00.001+05:30

When I saw Anna on TV today, one thing stuck me as a fundamental lesson in politics which it looks like Congress leaders never learnt :

Never play a game of “chicken” with someone who is ready to die for his cause especially since you are not ready to bleed even a drop for your cause.

Today, when I spoke to some people about the Janlokpal Bill, I heard a very worrying thing. Within 5 mins of speaking, a few of them stated murmuring “We have been talking too long, tell us what to do, we want immediate action”. This is a cry repeated everywhere I go.

With Anna showing failing health, what worries me is that this is a loaded weapon and Congress / UPA Govt. is playing Russian Roulette with it. All it needs is one spark and this whole thing will blow up in our faces.

In between all this I received 2 pieces of gallows humour which I decided I must share with my viewers before the bungling of the UPA Govt turns matters so serious that we lose our sense of humour completely.

The first is how the TV channels would cover the sound-bytes of the event of crossing of the road by a chicken in todays troubled times:

"But there is No Road" - Kapil Sibal

"I Never Laid out Any Road for Anyone to Cross" - Kamal Nath

"Hamari parteeeee....aam murgeeee ki parteeeee hain" - Italian waitress

"The “chickon” cross the road on 24 May at 6 pm...we're no longer accountable as now it is 27 May" - Pranab Mukherjee

"We had no intelligence that the chicken was going to cross the road" - P Chidambaram

"But sources within the Congress say that the chicken did follow the
rules ... the PM was misled" - Barkha Dutt

"But who hid the chicken from the Prime Minister?"- Nidhi Razdan

"Many chicken have been run over by trucks. I saw the bones" - Rahul Gandhi

"Rahul has been misquoted and quoted out of context by the media in this
chicken issue" - Jayanthi Natarajan

"Chicken died while crossing the road.. It called and told me RSS did it" -
Diggy

"We give a clean chick...errr....chit to the chicken" - CBI

"On 'Face the Nation' tonight: Do chicken have a right to cross the road
when the roads are so mismanaged?" - Sagarika

"Wish there is a day when special roads are built for chicken to exercise
their freedom. Till then, Goodnight" - Rajdeep

"Our government is taking strong steps to protect chicken by closing down
roads. BJP is anti-chicken by building roads" - Manish Tewari

"Dead chicken will file affidavit in court clearly stating that new roads
are being built in Gujarat to kill them" - Teesta Setalvad

"There are two kinds of chicken out there. One who live happily in luxury of
poultry farm. Others who slog it out on the road" - Rahul Gandhi

"Look, I represent the Congress party and not the Government, so I can't
answer this" - Jayanthi Natarajan

And of course :

"I have papers here in my hand .. you can't deny that chicken did cross" -
Arnab

The second is based upon the current way Congress has mishandled the whole Anna situation. It imagines how the Congress would have handled a situation if the horse they were riding on suddenly died under them.

Instead of just dismounting and admitting horse is dead :

Congressmen would start by buying a stronger whip.
They would then to change riders.
If that failed they would quite probably appoint a committee to study the horse.
Followed by arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses
They may then lower the standards so that dead horses can be included.
Congress may also reclassify the dead horse as living-impaired.
They may try to hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
Or try harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
One more idea they may try would be to provide additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
Some Congressmen may try doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
The Finance Minister may even declare that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
They may even try the age old formula of rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And finally of course....

They would try the ultimate of promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position in a parliamentary committee.

Ten Myths about Janlokpal / Anna

2011-08-18T19:32:00.001+05:30

Myth 1: Anna wants his way or no way

There are rumours that Anna wants only his copy of the bill to be passed. Let me categorically state that the current draft of the Janlokpal Bill is not one thought up from mid air by Team Anna ( called that for the lack of a better name). It is based upon thousands of pieces of public feedback from an open website by the general public to plug the shortcomings of the Lokpal Bill drafted by the Govt.

Truth :Team Anna and all of us are ready to accept any Bill which takes care of the issues raised which scare the life out of all intelligent citizens of India detailed in my last article. (click here to see the article)

Myth 2: Anna is taking over functions of the Parliament

Let us understand the functions of the Parliament. To draft and make laws. These are distinct function which the Govt has separated themselves. They made a National Advisory Council out of civil society headed by Sonia Gandhi to draft laws.

Truth: So to all effects the Govt itself set the precedent that “civil society” can draft laws. Now they are crying foul when their own manipulations are going against them . As to the making / pasing of laws no one incld Team Anna has ever said anyone BUT the Parliament has any right to do that.

Myth 3: Janlokpal will not remove corruption completely from the country

Janlokpal never professed to do that. The Govt is putting words in peoples mouth. Janlokpal is a redressal mechanism, not a eradication one. We all say, traffic rules would work better if we had strong enough laws to clamp down on offenders. Whats so different now, we possibly have a bill which will act as a deterrent since the punishment to corrupt politicians who eat thousands of crores will finally be more than a mere slap on the wrist.

Truth: Janlokpal may not remove corruption completely but will make sure that the corrupt dont sit laughing at the foolishness of the common man.

Myth 4: Anna is a self proclaimed Gandhi

Anna never professed to be a re-incarnation of Gandhi. We have strict instructions not to use his image on communications since he believes that the cause is bigger than him.

Truth : Unfortunately, the Govt keeps imitating the British atrocities which is causing the public to perceive Anna as a Gandhi since that is the only image they can fit into this situation.

Myth 5: Anna is holding the Govt to ransom

Anna is following the rules of Satyagarah. The reason people are given the image of someone holding the Govt to ransom,is that the Govt is faced with a man of iron will, one who will die rather than bend one iota from his path.

Truth : This is the second time in history of India such a man has surfaced. They say lightening never strikes twice in the same place , they are wrong. If this frail 74 year old man had caved into the Govt. double standards , no one would say he was holding anyone to ransom.

Myth 6: Janlokpal Bill is envisaging a all powerful, all pervading body

Every enterprise of the Govt for example the BMC., has something called a vigilance dept.

The problem is the head of vigilance is posted from the heads of other depts of the same enterprise. Further in the next round of transfers inside the BMC transfers he will be sent back into the same melee.

Eg the current head of vigilance BMC may be from Hydraulic Engineering in his last postiing and after he has served his term, next transfer may go to Roads and Stormwaterdrains.

While head of vigilance, do you seriously think he will block any potential scams where he may make money in the future or investigate any dept / scam of which he has been a part in the past.

Therefore the staff shortages brought up by the Govt in their draft of the Lokpal as an excuse for not putting B, C & D class officers under Lokpal, was countered by Janlokpal Bill by moving these people from the current vigilance position to a identical dept under Janlokpal so as to avoid duplication of work, since to all effects both will be doing the same thing to the same people.

This would mean that in effect though vigilance officer would come from the BMC, he would report to the Lokpal and not the BMC Commissioner who may have his own Co-alition Dharma to obey. This would make the vigilance dept of each Govt enterprise truely independent.

Truth : This is one way of saving money and avoiding duplication or jobloss but has been twisted to mean that Janlokpal wants to take everyone over. Of course, Janlokpal could have gone the Govt way and said “ lets hire a whole new platoon of staff for Janlokpal, after all its not our money, its the public’s money ?”

Myth 7. Janlokpal wants the PM under its umbrella to have control over him

As of today, for example a normal income tax officer can call for the Tax return of the PM which is under his purview and then call him to his office for survey / prosecution. All the Janlokpal is asking is dont make our powers of investigation lower than a common Income Tax officer.

Truth: Till March even the Congress wanted the PM under the Lokpal, so what changed ? (click here to read my article on this ) Could it be that very soon we may see a young man groomed for PMship who is afraid of skeletons in his closet.

Myth 8. This is not a second freedom struggle

Truth: The Govt is currently behaving in the autocratic way just like the British did with the common Indian man. One frail old man in khadi stood alone and was supported by a strong team of experts like Nehru, Sardar Patel, Jinnah, etc.

When the British Govt did an eye wash of granting him something while stabbing him in his back, he told them he would die rather than go back on his principles. Soon, it was apparent he was ready to die for his people without blinking an eyelid while the British ran around like headless chicken not knowing how to handle the situation.

Sounds familiar ?

Myth 9: Anna was being unreasonable in not listening to all the 22 Delhi Police conditions laid out citing security reasons

Let us understand, the Delhi police put 22 conditions on him some of them a joke in themselves. They said only 50 cars could come to the venue whereas our President travels with 52 cars in her cavalcade. They said only 5000 people could attend whereas a single venue viz Andheri yesterday saw a crowd of more than 5000. They said protest would only be allowed for 3 days, whereas Anna asked for a month.

Truth: I dare and double dare the Government to show me one other permission in which they have asked for 22 conditions from any other protest / political rally.

Myth 10: Yeh sab se kya hoga?

In Hongkong corruption was rampant. It was as bad if not worse than India currently. The people had had enough and passed a law called Independent Commission Against Corruption. Today Hong Kong is a pleasure to work in and visit.

Truth: I challenge any detractor to visit Hongkong and from the Airport itself I will guarantee that they will be Janlokpal converts.

==================================================

Ten good things about the struggle

1) Complete peace and no damage to property: Imagine a protest involving such complex issues and such diverse elements of the public without a single incident of violence or damage of property

2) No theft: I went to the protest and while I was on stage for the hunger fast I took off my good pair of slipons in open sight. I went up at 10 AM and got down a 7.30 PM. To my surprise, my slipons were exactly where I had left them untouched by the thousands who must have passed by them.

3) Voluntary Sharing: Everywhere I saw, people are sharing things like water, candles, umbrellas, everything silently and voluntary.

4) Mix of Ages/ cultures : From Azad Maidan to street marches I see a mix of ages, from a10 year old yesterday to 90+ barely able to walk. I even saw a street eunuch with a candle walk in front of me for quite a while chanting in the Andheri march.

5) Voluntary closure of shops: Everywhere we went / passed , shops were closed, lights switched off outside not inside the shops as a mark of respect. Shopkeepers stood outside respectfully till we passed.

6) Agitation down to the common man: From the dabbawallahs to the doctors, everyone has come forward and pledged support, this agitation has hit a common nerve and united a splintered India. I had once said, we are not Indian first, we are Maratha, Bihari, Gujarathi first. This agitation has made one India once again.

7) Sheer Numbers: A single march yesterday at Anddheri saw more than 5000 people get on the street, Delhi india gate and Tihar jail were a sea of humanity. Azad Maidan had 30,000 plus on the first day. The sheer numbers has me surprised in a country which is apathetic in nature.

8) Voluntary Contribution: Everywhere I look, people are doing their bit. They are volunteering money and resources without being asked. People like Ramesh Chavan of Bisleri deserves a commendation since water for all the agitations is sponsored by him. Without him it would have been a massive bill. This is not to belittle any of the other contributors who have done their bit selflessly

9) Respect for agitators: I know of countless cases, where people have gone to their bosses and explained they would like to join the protest and have been helped by their management. Everyone I have spoken to workwise saying I am unavailable this week , has helped me by doing their bit to make sure I have the time to join this agitation.

10) Respect from the police: I think the most telling example of how successful this fight is comes in the form of the respect the police is giving us. Even during the jail bharo, every policeman behaved with respect and dignity.

I think policemen have finally realised that if corruption were to go, they may not earn as much but instead of having to travel for 3 hours each way and have an 18 hour day ending in a heart attack, they would finally be able to spend a few hours with their family to enjoy what they earn.

They may finally not have to wear faulty bullet proof vest and that every time they left the house their wife would not worry that terrorists would gun them down due to their faulty rifle.

=====================================================

One sad thing I must point out. Bollywood, except for Anupam Kher and Milind Soman is sleeping. Industry except for Capt Gopinath and Ramesh Chavan is sleeping. Even the Mighty TATA Tea jago re campaign seems to have gone to sleep.

Bahut Confusun hai Bhai

2011-08-14T21:11:00.001+05:30

To date my family thought I was jumping up and down making a big fuss about nothing and life would go on as per the system. Yesterday when I finally managed to explain to them what all the fuss around Anna Hazare was about, they were shocked and have decided to join me in my fight.

They then insisted that I write about the issue immediately since loads of other people may also be confused about the core issues we are fighting for.

Let me first start with dispelling the myth that the Govt has suddenly woken up to the fact that Corruption is a cancer and the scams that are boiling out of the gutters of the Indian government machinery are now starting to stink.

The fact is that India has signed the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) which is designed to make its member countries bring in legislation against corruption to end it effectively. 140 countries have signed this convention.

In order to meet with the terms of this convention, India had no choice but o come up with something which showed an eyewash that it was trying to stem corruption in India. They therefore came up with something called a Lok Pal Bill.

When the educated people heard about this Bill this was a slap in our face since not only did it not do anything to prevent corruption, it was designed to aid it and that too very blatantly. Some “civil society” thinkers got together and asked the public for their suggestions on this joke of a Bill. Thousands of suggestions came in via the internet and there were compiled into a new draft Bill called the Jan Lok Pal Bill which was framed along the format of the Govt Lok Pal Bill, but had plugged all the loopholes.

Which loopholes were there to help corruption in the Govt draft, you ask, let me cover the salient points quickly.

The first and most scary provision of the Govt draft for my family and all of us Indian citizens is:

If a citizen complains against a “babu”. The Babu has a right to file a counter complaint against his accuser in court. If the accuser fails to prove the “babu” is corrupt, he can be jailed for 2 years. ( this means when you accuse a babu , you will have the onus of proving him corrupt and if you dont you get 2 years jail).

The tragically hilarious part is if you do manage to prove him corrupt his max sentence is 6 months. The fail nail, to ensure that no-one ever has the guts to complain is that the “babu” gets a Govt appointed attorney FREE, while you need to pay for your own defence.

The second scary part is something called the preliminary investigation:

As per he Govt draft, if a “babu” is accused of a misdeed, lets say I complain that there is a particular person looking the other way in Olympic Committee in return for 200-300 Cr that he has accumulated. The LokPal has to call that person in and present ALL the evidence he has collected to the accused.

The accused then has a right to explain his defence, which may take a few days. This means that even before the Lokpal can do a CBI style raid and catch the accused offguard, the accused has 2-3 days to make sure the evidence is wiped clean. This is a travesty of justice. Nowhere in the world does an investigative agency have to show all the evidence to an accused BEFORE even a trial starts.

The Third part is that Govt draft covers only A class officers of the Govt service. Not B, C & D class. The reason given by the Govt is that there aren’t enough officers to control so many cases of corruption which would come up if all these officers were included. ( Indirectly they are agreeing that too may B, C & D officers are corrupt to the core).

However, this manpower shortage has not stopped them from including all NGOs REGISTERED OR UNREGISTERED from being under the purview of the Lok Pal. THIS IS DANGEROUS, this means that even your housing society is under the Lok Pal.The deceit is obvious in just this one move if nothing else.

Without all the Govt officers of all classes as well as the PM & MPs and all other parts of the bureaucracy, etc being under the purview, the bill is toothless and scams such as 2G, CWG, Reddy mining, etc are all untouchable. Scams such as Public Distribution scheme Ghotala, Medicine in Hospitals diversion, Misuse of funds in PWD and Punchayats will be non pursuable.

Corruption is a crime even today under the Prevention of Corruption Act, But according to the Govt’s skewed logic because there are too many offenders if we include all classes of Govt officers, so we should overlook certain crimes. This infers that if tomorrow we get too many rapes, we will have to allow rapists of only one particular type of rape to be arrested since they are too many criminals to arrest all types of rapes.

Right now we know that certain elements in the CBI, do bow and scrape to the Govt which is why people like Quatrocchi and Hassan Ali live charmed lives. One more bone of contention lies with the fact that the Govt version of the Lok Pal Bill allows for a 9 member committee. 5 of which will be Govt appointees such as MPs etc. The others will be people like the serving CVC who will be indirectly behoved to the Govt., this means that the govt will control the lokpal by proxy like they do the CBI.

Once you put all this in place , post Govt version of Lok Pal Bill, we have a state where a babu from “A” category service cannot be raided without him coming to know in advance, who can then file a case against his accuser FREE and get him jailed for 2 years.

Kya India se corruption kabhi jayega if this happens ????

====================================================

Krishna to Arjun at Kurkshetra:

yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srjamy aham

Translation: O Descendant of Bharata! Whenever there is a degradation of religion and righteousness and surge in irreligion and unrighteousness, at that time I manifest Myself.

The days of depending upon Krishnas has gone. Today each one of us is a Krishna and each of us is an Arjun. The shankhs are sounding, time has come to pick up the reins and enter the battle field.

Program for this week unless the Govt tries any stunts over the weekend:

on 15th Aug 2011: 7 PM – Press conference by Anna Hazare on TV addressing the nation in a call for action

8PM to 9PM – switch off light to show a black swath to the Govt. across the nation

On 16th Aug 2011 ( Mumbai): 8 AM to 1 PM - Collection at railway stations and requesting people to give some time out of their day to the issue

1PM: Move to Azad Maidan for protest

Dukaan Bandh

2011-08-11T00:09:00.001+05:30

Overheard at a pan-bidi shop someone saying to the vendor “yeh Anna Anna kya laga ke rakha hai, agar lokpal aa gayaa jaise Anna chata hai to teri yeh dukaan bhi banddh ho jayegi.” ( What is this Anna’s name you’re chanting, if his version of Lok Pal bill is passed your shop will close")

Me being the kind of person I am, then decided to check on my drive to office “aur kya kya band ho jayegi” (what else will close).

First, I realised that the footpath would be reclaimed by the pedestrians and the hawkers would have to shut shops finally there would be a mechanism which will allow crackdown on the babus who allow them to ply their trade while turning a Nelsons eye.

I realised that flat buyers may finally get some apartments on land with clear titles instead of ones built on usurped land / forest lands / Govt. Lands grabbed by the builders in connivance with the babus.

I realised that we may finally get some roads without potholes since babus turning a blind eye to bitumen dilution could face the possibility of being jailed.

I passed the school and realised that no more would the trustees be able to slip the education dept people some gifts in cash or kind and jack the fees indiscriminately at random.

I passed the traffic signal and saw the dead fish eye camera and realised that robberies would reduce since procuring of shoddy materials and certifying them as ok would become a crime.

I passed an airport and realised that no more would my security be endangered by slums just a broken wall away, which survived on the blessings of the local politicians and municipal officers who would now become accountable.

I reached a skywalk and realised that I would not have to wake upto headlines screaming " 700 Crores worth of skywalks now worthless" where a single Dept of the Govt. called MMRDA, first builds the skywalks at great inconvenience to the public and then talks of destroying them since they come in the path of the new Metro.

I reached a traffic jam, and realised that theoretically no more would I be hampered by half dug roads left open causing bottle necks just so the contractor could push in his escalation clause causing cost of the road to go up 600%.

I crossed the large cut-out of a crony wishing his local neta a happy birthday and realised that these people may now become accountable for the lavish 1000 guest party at Turf Club for the marriage of their children while their constituency begs for scraps outside.

I then turned a corner and saw a fat cop huddled in an almost transparent transaction with someone he had caught, fiddling with one hand in a pocket, and my musing came to a halt. My dreams came to a thudding crash.

I realised that no way would this happen if the current Govt version of he LokPal Bill is allowed to go through.

The current version is pro-corruption, so designed for loopholes, that even the ones being caught (not convicted just caught) right now under Prevention of Corruption Act would go scot free.

I agree to a degree that the current version being railroaded by the Govt is a cruel joke on the common man and should actually be called a JokePal.

16th Aug is your last chance to make these dreams of mine and yours a reality. Aug 16th is a day of peaceful Satyagarah.

Dont just dream of a better India, make it happen.

VANDE MATRAM !!!

=========================================

I was unfortunately not able to make it to the 9th Aug rally with Anna, but two things were conveyed to me by my friends who did attend.

The first was that there were almost 2000 or so people there, which clearly shows the sign that people are waking up. My only take is in a city of more than 1.2 million who bitch day and night about the quality of life, are only 2000 able to think of the future ? Makes you think.

The second was a moving sight. I believe the moment it started raining, people did not bother who was next to them, they just spontaneously shared. 3 or 4 people under an umbrella.

Soundless , automatic sharing and camaraderie.

Mera Bharat Mahaan

God Bless America

2011-08-02T12:14:00.001+05:30

Friends, Today I’m a happy man. They say a one legged man doesn’t realize how lucky he is till he sees a paraplegic. Click on the image to see the World debt clock to see how well India fares today on the world external borrowing chart.

I thought only we Indians were fools who got diverted by trivia and the important issues fell through the attention span of the common citizen.

This was reinforced last week when I saw Suhel Seth arguing on TV if Anna was taking on the duly elected Parliamentary system if India and then Kiran Bedi getting into a moral match with him. I scratched my head. Why do we Indians get so diverted by trivia. (Click here to see my article on trivialisation of Kapil Sibal and his right to interfere in Reliance Telco penalty issue)

The only response that I would like to say about Anna’s actions of indefinite hunger fast is, he is one man who has stood up alone and is protesting something he does not like. If a few million other people are in sync with him who feel the same and are ready to stand up and shout too, is that wrong ?

Lets see Yeddurappa is blackmailing BJP saying he has majority of MLA and therefore BJP must listen to him.

Yeddu show of force kiya to parliamentary system, Anna kiya to parliamentary system disrespect kar raha hai. Wah re India.

Today I know not only India, the world world has gone mad including the educated public of America after seeing, the debt ceiling relief package designed by American Politicians.

Not only Indians but even Americans who are the so called educated masses are fooled by slight of hand of wily politicians and move onto wasting hours debating trivial issues leaving aside he real crux of the matter.

Before we explore this world madness, let us understand the mess that America is in, in the words of the Guardian newspaper which has put it beautifully.

================Beginning of Guardian Article ====================

Why is America facing a debt crisis?

In short, because it is not allowed to borrow any more money. The US national debt cannot legally exceed a debt ceiling of $14.29 trillion (£8.86tn) – a seemingly huge amount, but one which was reached in May.

So what happens next?

Either the US raises the debt ceiling (and can then issue more debt), or it does not (and is then barred from borrowing to pay its bills – such as social security and the health insurance programme Medicare). With a 2011 deficit of at least $1tn, the stakes are high.

Why doesn't Obama just raise the ceiling?

Because the leader of the world's largest economy does not have the authority. Any changes to the debt ceiling need to be approved by Congress, and this has led to a protracted stalemate between Republicans and Democrats.

Why can't the two sides agree?

Both sides realise that the US debt needs to be brought under control, but have rather different ideas about how to do it. Obama is proposing a 10-year, $4tn package of spending cuts and tax rises – including higher income taxes. The Republican party supports a $2.4tn package of spending cuts, but is not backing the tax rises.

How has America been keeping afloat since May, when the debt ceiling was reached?

By stopping payments to certain federal pension schemes, and by liquidating some of the scheme's assets. Treasury secretary Tim Geithner has pledged that the shortfall will be repaid once the ceiling is raised.

How urgent is the situation?

The US treasury estimates that funds will dry up on 2 August. However,the deadline is actually 22 July – to give time for legislation to be written and approved.

Has the debt ceiling often been raised?

Many, many times. More than 70 times since the mid-1960s, and 10 times in the last decade. It's not been entirely one-way traffic, though, since Congress did vote to lower the limit twice in the 1950s, during America's postwar economic boom.

Without a deal, will the US immediately default on 2 August?

Not according to Ben Bernanke. The Federal Reserve's chairman told Congress on Wednesday that the first response would probably be to cut social security payments, Medicare and military pay.

================End of Guardian Article ====================

Let us understand some of the important concepts in this article. First America reached its borrowing ceiling in May. So how is it continuing to run? “By stopping payments to certain federal pension schemes, and by liquidating some of the scheme's assets”. This means the common is now paying for all those nice wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan “anti-terrorism” measures finally.

What would have happened if the debt ceiling was not raised…lets see… they would then barred from borrowing to pay its bills – such as social security and the health insurance programme Medicare. BANG…..the common man is walloped again. Bye bye social security bye bye Medicare.

Dear Obama, ONE SUGGESTION which may help - STOP sending money to Pakistan…..cut that first.

Now lets us understand what they have done to raise the debt ceiling. They have now decided to raise the debt ceiling by 2.7 trillion dollars over the next 4 months. Their current debt is 14 trillion so the rise is approx 20% rise allowed. As of today debt per taxpayer of America is US$ 130,000 approx or 60 lakhs Indian Rupees. After the rise it will be approx 72 lakh rupees.

Who holds that debt, China, Japan, etc. Isnt it funny how the high and mighty American is now working day and night to pay his debtors.

Bill Maher an American comedian came up with some very telling words: When you ask a American on the street if he wants to raise taxes or cut spending the unanimous opinion is “cut spending”, then when you ask them what to cut spending on, not a single person is able to name one thing.

My thought process says, I wonder if we should send them our ballsy ex Finance Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh who was able to pull India out of its debt trap but is wasting time in his current position.

===============================================

I doubled up in laughter when I read one article in the Sydney Morning Herald. The headline speaks for itself:

Apple has more cash than US government

One thing we must give Americans, they know how to laugh at their miseries. Please click on the image to hear a rap song about the debt ceiling by an American rap artist.

Even if you’re broke, it doesn’t cost anything to laugh.

For the people, by the people

2011-07-29T20:15:00.001+05:30

Folks, I am a disappointed man. I have expected a lot from the common Indian and what I saw is no where close to where we need to be. We have a long long way to go to catchup to the Chadrashekar Azads, Rani Laxmibais and the Bhagat Singhs.

This week, a vegetable vendor on our road, put up a frame of wooden bamboos and put a plastic sheet on it and made a nice quasi stall. I went up to her and explained that even though she left at the end of the day, drunkards etc came in the night and slept there. In this time of terror it was also a possible threat just like the stalls at Opera House proved to be. She refused to remove the stall.

I then approached our area committee and explained that this was the starting of a permanent pitch like the other vendors who have slowly crept in. They of course piped up with let the BMC handle it. I explained to them that this same apathy is what causes stalls to come up everywhere.

I explained that Its time to stop blaming the BMC for the failures and to take matters in our own hands satyagarah style. I asked them if I could get 5 volunteers who would come with me and carefully disassemble the stall in the night and place the bamboos and plastic sheets and lay them neatly on the ground, sending a clear no nonsense message that such tactics of setting up stalls illegally would not be allowed while vigilant citizens were around.

Guess what its two weeks now, and the volunteers are still getting back to me.

We Indians love passing the buck to others to clean up our mess. Be it the BMC or God. Someone else will come clean it up, I’m too busy living my own life. NO MORE. Time has come for us to stand up and be counted.

Yesterday, the Govt passed a joke of a Lok Pal bill in Parliament. This Bill is so bad that even the ones being prosecuted now can no longer be after the advent of this Bill.

Today Anna has been denied permission for the Aug 16th fast. Yeddurappa has refused to vacate his seat despite clear indications of raping the coffers of the common man.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Anna and his team are now ready for the worst, be it preventive arrests, lathi charges or worse. Its now time to do or die. It is now time to stand up and say I don’t want a corrupt India for my son or my daughter. Its time to say, Govt don’t rule us, it Governs us. Friends, there is a difference.

We don’t expect such radical sacrifices as Anna and their team from every citizen, what we do expect is that they will be there for an issue which directly affects them they do something, unlike the volunteers I’m seeking for the dismantling of the stall.

All we expect is for every concerned citizen of India to take one day off from his work, and to come on the streets on 16th Aug carrying an Indian flag. For every citizen to paste the flag on his car window. Let India be a sea of tricolour for one day. let the Govt know WE ARE AWAKE. We are not one, not two but a million, two million citizens of an awakened India who will no longer be silent victims.

kuch karna to hai,
bhale aag nahin lage,
chingari to jalana hai.

VANDE MATRAM.

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Satyagrah movements where you can play a part.

9th Aug – reading and tearing of the Bill at August Kranti Maidan followed by a peaceful march to Azad Maidan.

16th Aug – Take to the streets waving a tricolour flag. Peaceful voluntary giving up of work for the day. NON COOPERATION Gandhi style.

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The A to Z of indian bureaucracy

Recd this wonderful mail from a reader.

Twenty six ways in which Indian babus are making a mockery of governance, ethics and public service

Arrogance

For months, the media in Delhi screamed hoarse that the planned ‘BRT corridor’ scheme dreamt up by a few babus of the transport department is a disaster. The bureaucrats blithely went about imposing this nightmare on citizens of Delhi with traffic jams becoming the norm. Now the babus arrogantly blame citizens of Delhi for choosing cars over murderous buses for commuting to office! A babu without arrogance would be like a dodo... Extinct

Bullying

Like all bullies, the babu rides roughshod over those below him and fawns obsequiously on his masters. You only have to watch the rude and callous manner in which a bureaucrat behaves with a citizen who has gone to his office for some work. And then compare his behaviour in front of a politician in power. The ‘public servant’ is actually the ‘master’ of the public and the ‘servant of the ‘master’ – usually a minister, and sometimes a mafia don!

Corruption

This is synonymous with Indian babudom. Whether you are the aam aadmi or a billionaire, your file won’t move an inch unless cash changes hands under the table. In the 1980s, the Octroi department in then Bombay went on a strike & army officials manned the check posts. The strike was withdrawn after the media reported that Octroi collections had gone up by more than 500%.

Delay & denial

Perhaps except the Konkan Railway and the Delhi Metro, no project ever undertaken by an Indian babu ever finishes on time. There are some irrigation projects that are in the process of completion for the last 30 years! Delays are always deliberate because they throw open more opportunities for ‘money on the side’. And of course, whenever the media or the judiciary highlights the delay, the Pavlovian reflex of the Indian bureaucrat is to deny, and then deny some more.

Enquiry & extension

If corruption and sordid acts are the dirt, the omnipresent ‘Enquiry Committee’ is the proverbial carpet under which the dirt has been carefully hidden.The principal purpose of the Enquiry committee is to delay, and then deny in the hope that the media and the public will eventually forget about the case. In English, enquiry rhymes with another interesting word called bury! Bureaucrats never ever retire; they just keep getting those ‘extensions’!

Failure

That one word can neatly sum up the history of the Indian bureaucracy after independence in 1947. Worse, babus find it difficult to digest the fact that entrepreneurs can usually do a better job. So you will see bureaucrats banning ‘private’ bus operators and forcing citizens to take state run buses that don’t run. So you will see envious bureaucrats ‘de-recognising’ or not recognising world class centres of higher education. Perhaps their biggest failure till date has been their total inability to kill the great Indian spirit!

Gutless

There is a saying about the Emergency: they crawled when they were asked to bend. That can neatly sum up the behaviour and attitude of most bureaucrats in independent India. It is virtually impossible for a minister to get a babu sacked; and yet bureaucrats crawl before netas and justify their behaviour by whining that they are otherwise harassed.

Hustling

You would associate this term usually with dealers in a casino. But Indian babus have become masters of the game. Just look at how Sudhir Goswami hustled his way into the cover of Time Magazine as one of the Indian heroes. It is only much later that dumb struck Indians found out that Goswami was lining his pockets and bank accounts with money meant for flood relief! And does any one remember Ashok Agarwal, the Enforcement Directorate official who turned black mailing into a fine art!

Impose inefficiently

When corruption, delays, denials and hustling don’t work, the Indian babu resorts to ‘imposing’ rules and regulations. It is a different matter that the bureaucrat performs even this destructive act very inefficiently!Impose price controls if inflation hurts people so that they are hurt even more. Impose quotas at the behest of political masters. Impose rules which entrepreneurs have to break if they want to run a successful business.

Justify

The Indian bureaucrat has acquired and mastered the legendary act of justifying anything and everything. File a request under the Right to Information Act and the babu will deny access to it. He will then justify his cussed behaviour because it involves something termed as ‘national security’. Ask a bureaucrat about delays in construction of national highways and you will get simply no response, He will justify his stonewalling in the name of ‘public interest’!

Kafkaesque

If Franz Kafka had encountered Indian babus, his novels would have been even more depressing and disturbing. Analysts are sadly mistaken when they call Kafka’s writings surreal; they perhaps meant the Indian bureaucracy. A Kafkaesque bureaucracy is “marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity”. B&E challenges entrepreneurs and citizens to say confidently that they understand the frighteningly complex jargon that is used by babus.

Lies

Arguably the third most favourite sport of the bureaucrats after corruption and delays. When denials and stone walling don’t work, just resort to outright lies. The Indian babu will lie about files, projects, public interest, national security, corruption, delays, hustling and any other act that might embarrass the bureaucrat individually or the bureaucracy collectively. Thanks to judicial activism and some bureaucrats being sent behind bars for contempt of court, babus are now wary of using this weapon!

Mismanagement

If Jack Welch would watch an Indian babu ‘manage’ something, he might just end up committing suicide.With extremely rare and honourable exceptions, almost every thing that a bureaucrat touches turns into dust. When babus announce a grand new plan to increase electricity and water supply to citizens, the taps dry up and the lights go out. When they announce a plan to tackle monsoon in Bombay, even Dalal Street virtually shuts down because no one can reach office! And of course, they then justify it in public interest!

Nepotism

Like the courtiers of the Mughal era, Indian babus-thanks to their access to the new kings and queens of India (Ministers, MPs and MLAs)-are perpetually trying to curry a favour or two for themselves and their family members. The best overseas scholarships are thus ‘reserved’ for children of bureaucrats. Some of the best jobs in the private sector are thus ‘reserved’ for the children of bureaucrats. And some of the best college seats in India are thus ‘reserved’ for the blessed progeny of these new age courtiers!

Oblivious

Quite mysteriously, the ‘If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake’ persona of the French Revolution has been transplanted into Indian bureaucracy. Cocooned in their bungalows and VIP areas, the Indian babu is utterly oblivious to what is happening in the rest of the country. The babu is oblivious of the fact that 300 million Indians are starving; that roads don’t exist in much of India, that water and electricity are mirages for the aam aadmi, that…The only thing they are not oblivious to is their ‘status’.

Proliferate

Like bacteria and termites, Indian babus have proliferated and invaded virtually every sphere of activity in the country. No wonder businessmen and citizens say that our system is rotten to the core. Indian babus run companies, they manage climate control, they run the Railways, they operate fleets of buses and aircraft, they run duty free shops, they run anti-poverty programs, they run schools and colleges and hospitals… They might start running modelling agencies and spas too. In short, proliferating bureaucrats have run India to the ground!

Queue

When the first bureaucrat in the history of mankind had a fantasy, he saw a long and winding queue of forlorn, dejected and frustrated people. That day, God was perhaps in a bad mood and condemned mankind to a life time of queuing up. For Indian babus, the ultimate high is making citizens stand in never ending queues-for money, for ration, for tickets, for liquor, for passports and even for death certificates. Of course, queues are meant only for the public, not for ‘public servants’!

Red tape

The ubiquitous file tied up in red thread is the ultimate symbol of the corrosive and destructive powers of Indian bureaucracy. It is as dangerous as the Swastika of Nazis; as devastating as the Red Star of Stalin and Mao and as vainglorious as the Eagle of the United States. The Indian babu starts getting withdrawal symptoms if he is not surrounded by musty files; many of which have perhaps not been opened for decades. Red Tape is the Bramhastra that is used by babus to systematically throttle India Inc.

Sycophancy

Many at B&E suggested socialism & sadistic as a better option than sycophancy. Eventually, the consensus was that arrogance coupled with sycophancy is the Yin & Yang of Indian bureaucracy. The sycophancy is reserved only for the powers that be-for the criminal turned neta who has become a minister, for superiors who can gift plum postings and assignments and for very rich entrepreneurs who lavish money on the bureaucrats.

Tragedy

Indian bureaucrats are always feverishly praying for natural and man made tragedies and disasters to strike India. A minor flood is welcome; a drought is even better and a disaster like an earthquake or a super cyclone is heaven sent. A tragedy means ‘relief’ money from government coffers and an opportunity to make enough to build another house or two. Now you know why sincere and dedicated babus fight to have their districts declared ‘drought prone’!

Utopian

Hare brained ideas and schemes have become the monopoly of Indian bureaucracy. One day, you will have the Lt. Governor of Delhi thinking aloud that I-cards for people from U.P. and Bihar might be a good idea. The other day, you will have another babu stipulate that a homeless destitute must provide proof of residence before he gets free food. Soon, expect a bunch of sycophantic babus kowtowing to a neta and drawing up legislation for reservations in the private sector.

Verbose

This term just about pipped the word vindictive to the post. Whether it is the annual function of a school or college or a gathering of India’s top businessmen, the Indian bureaucrat is in his element when he gets a chance to deliver a ‘lecture’. Hypocritical words tumble out of his mouth like honey laced with arsenic. Children & businessmen have no choice but to suffer in silence for a vindictive bureaucrat is worse than a verbose one!

Wanton

Four synonyms for the term wanton are-uncalled for, needless, meaningless and reckless. But wait, the wanton behaviour of the Indian babu is on display on selective occasions. Over cautious bureaucrats suddenly turn decisively over zealous when it comes to squandering tax payers’ money on fancy schemes that only line up their pockets and that of politicians.

Xenophobia

When all else – including corruption, delays, denials, hustling, nepotism, red tapism and sycophancy – fails, the Indian babu resorts to the good old pass the buck game and starts blaming ‘foreign powers’ for all the ills that bedevil India. The foreign power could be the CIA, it could be terrorists from Pakistan, it could be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, it could be the insidious designs of China and it could be a conspiracy of developed countries to deny prosperity to India.

Yes minister

Most readers of B&E must be familiar with this hilarious and yet poignant book and British TV series. Just in case you are not, it is a series of episodes where bumbling but clubby bureaucrats make fools out of vainglorious politicians in the U.K. In India, it is difficult to say who is making a fool of whom. But one thing is for sure, both bureaucrats and ministers are sure making fools of Indian citizens. Not just some of the people some of the time. But all the people, all the time!

Zero sum game

In this game, one of the two participants has to necessarily lose. More importantly, the quantum of gains that are made by the winner is exactly the same as the quantum of losses. In India, the bureaucrat and the citizen have been playing a zero sum game right since 1947; perhaps even before that, when the British had ruled India through a civil service stucture. No prizes for guessing who the decisive winner is when the opponents are the citizen and the bureaucrat. Unlike those classic zero sum games, the politician is the joker in the pack in this case!

GOOD MORNING INDIA !

2011-07-23T18:04:00.001+05:30

Folks, we have a problem. The problem is that India was once a colony of Britain and all laws made by the British were designed to suck the colony dry and enrich the masters. The whole system was designed to suck money upwards.

When the British left, the laws and systems remained in place.

Everyone knows most of our laws have hardly been amended from their times since then, as they do what they were designed for very well, move money upwards into the hands of the masters.

Unfortunately , now we don’t have colonizing masters anymore so surrogate masters have moved in to replace them. The money still flows upwards but into different hands.

Everyone of us Indian citizens seems to have forgotten that the Govt was elected by the people and for the people. Every current politicians seems to think that if they have managed to fool the voters during election time , they cannot be rocked till the next election, before which they will do an eyewash and the voter will be fooled into voting them back again.

We have a straw PM who seems to have lost his infamous mettle in light of a harness from behind and scams coming out of every nook and corner slapping up in our faces.

We have a situation where if we are not careful the total of the money syphoned from the legitimate (white) market into alternative channels will soon equal our budget.

**A friend joked with me that if we could just bring either the money from the scams or the money found in temples into the white market (taxed), the rupee would equal 20 to the dollar and if both come in perhaps even surpass the dollar.**

I have been in the middle of a whirlwind the last few days. India is seeing one of the most unusual movements that has ever happened and the Govt seems either oblivious to the fact or plain is ignoring it.

A while ago in one of my articles, I had said the tinder was set and the spark seemed close. My friends the spark is here. As my wife said the other day, imagine the charisma of a person like Mahatma Gandhi who could unite a diverse nation with diverse belief systems like India under one roof with just his call. We need someone like him to make Indians forget their petty causes and come under one umbrella.

In my previous articles I expressed my opinion that India is a country undergoing a pregnant pause awaiting a leader to draw it out of its chrysalis stage.

Every person is looking to his right and left to maybe see a faint glimpse of a Subash Chandra Bose or Shaeed Bhagat Singh. Common people who did not see what the other was doing but selflessly laid his all for the common cause of the future of our children.

I’m happy to say, we have such a persona again, His name is Anna Hazare.

This is not a publicity blog for Anna, nor is it one of the regular mails we get talking about this, that or the other which is wrong with India. It is a wake up call for your future.

The time for talking has ended, the time for action has come. If you wish for a nation where you do not have to teach your son how to pay a bribe at a signal, if you wish for a nation where you dont have to beg your local MLA to make a call to get your son into college, if you wish for a nation where you dont need to think that no work will be done unless it carries a green pati with it, NOW IS THE TIME TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.

Every citizen now needs to understand that the situation is not more different than the times of the British, just the oppressors are different. Therefore every citizen has be a Bhagat Singh, every citizen has to be a Netaji, every citizen a Nehru. Doesn’t matter where or who we are from a beggar to a millionaire, we need to understand the cause is now common, the cause is our future.

We need to echo what Rabindra Nath Tagore said in his dream for his nation:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

I know most of us feel that whatever we do will not make a difference. Things will be the same tomorrow and the day after and the day after.

MY FRIENDS, you are wrong.

Today with the persistence of the “civil society” we have RTI. This law with the right people behind it is an important tool. Its has shaken the very foundations of the corrupt who used to hide data with impunity before.

The problem lies that once you have received this data under RTI, and you know your local Babu or bureaucrat is making an “ullu” out of you, what do you do ? The data goes nowhere …… Jan Lok Pal bill addresses this lacunae …. lets call it a simple beyond the RTI step.

Anna has given a call…on 16th Aug 2011, let us show the Govt, that we care, we want our nation back. let us show the Govt who scoffs at us as a ragtag bunch with no backing, that we are not one, two, ten or twenty thousand, let us show the world that Indian citizens can move worlds given the right fulcrums.

On 16th Aug, Anna has asked every citizen who cares, to come onto the street. Stop what he is doing and just wave the Indian flag all day ……. Peaceful satyagarah …….. Peaceful non co-operation. Let India become one big mass which says ……. We are the future , we are the world.

VANDE MATRAM !!!

Charity begins at home

2011-07-10T16:14:00.001+05:30

My friends, I am hopping mad. Here we are screaming shouting saying corruption is all around us but does no one realise that we are a part of the corruption. Our very version of our ethics we apply to our daily lives is.

What do I mean by this. Last week we heard about a treasure trove of 1 LAKH CRORES (Approx 25 Bn in US$ terms) being found in a Kerala temple and there is still one more chamber to be opened. It is important to note that this is a pure notional value and not antiquity value which would be many times more.

This figure can be put into perspective by saying our national budget in 2010-2011 was valued at approx. 14 Lakh crores so the figure in this temple alone is about 1 /14 of India’s annual budget.

This is not the only temple which has this kind of riches. There is a plethora of them from Amarnath in the North to Gurvayoor in the south. Plus we can add in the documented and undocumented wealth of the god-men figures from Sai Baba to Baba Ramdev and we see we have a religious wealth of many times the annual budget of India.

What is so wrong with so much money being with religious foundations. We are a religious country and have always been taught to be charitable, so we should be proud that we give so much. Why am I behaving irrationally and climbing on my soapbox to rant on about it ?

Let me start listing my disconnect with this current state of affairs:

1. Religious wealth is now turning political: Politicians are waking up to the fact that God means money. So in Maharashtra we have open talks of if one party is managing Sidhivinayak the other wants to manage Shirdi. It is a new form of seat sharing. Religious foundations hold large amounts of funds distributed and used at the behest of the board of trustees. So naturally every politician wants a piece of the cake.

2. Religious wealth is not accounted properly: There is talk of wealth found in bed chambers of a recently deceased religious leader. This wealth does not seem to be accounted for in the books of the foundation. Even if it is going to be in this years books, is the bedroom of the head person of a sect a storeroom for donations, pending declaration.

I stretch my imagination to think what is to stop a temple insider from taking 35 Lakhs out of this unaccounted funds in the temporary storage mechanism , putting it in a gunny bag and then moving it in a temple car to somewhere untraceable since the money was never accounted for in the first place…..wait a minute that's what seems to have been done recently and no one is speaking about it anymore.

3. Religion is a Holy Cow: No one wants to speak of irregularities on religious accounting since everyone fears the wrath of God and public if they do.

4. Religion is a shortcut to relief from sins: People lie, cheat, hurt, murder and then go to the nearest or most distant religious place depending upon how machostic they are and drop a large sum into the “Daan Peti” or ‘tithe” or “WAKF box” and expect instant absolution for their sins.

I say enough is enough.

Let us bring some accountability into this system. In a country where people earning above Rs. 20/- (50 cents US) per day are considered above poverty line every rupee we can bring into the tax net will mean wonders.

My suggestion is that we be realistic and understand that people make anonymous donations IN CASH or kind and that part of the transaction is untraceable.

It is also understandable that in order to make this donation in cash, the amount will have been earned in cash. This means that to this stage this whole transaction has contributed nothing to the exchequer but in fact has helped in creating and propagating the evils of a parallel black economy.

It is also important to keep in mind that to all effect this cash donation is the fruit of the forbidden tree and should be treated as such.

Once we have this stipulated, we should remove these cash donations from Sec 80 and the amount should be taxed as income from other sources in the hands of the trust running the religious location. This would mean that this money would become accounted and come into the mainstream from the parallel stream. Ergo,a part of it would be used to help infrastructure and other Govt spend.

IMPORTANT: India is a charitable nation and we should not forget that aspect therefore the proposed clamp down on unaccounted donations should not affect the donations made officially with PAN number, etc in cash,kind or cheque since those are being declared and should continue to enjoy tax breaks under Sec 80 for both the donor and donee.

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Policy Decisions

This has been a week of confusion and I would request any reader who can clear this up for me to please write in as soon as possible with an explanation as to my thought patterns below:

In India we have something known as Universal Services Obligation Fund ( Under Department of Telecom, India). This Fund is used to subsidize telecom infrastructure in rural areas where telecom provision is too costly.

The operators who opt for this scheme sign a Universal Services Obligation Fund Agreement where penalties are defined for contravention and default. There is also a clause which says that the company has studied the local conditions and is aware of the existing scenario, etc.

Now let us take a case where a company is sent a show cause notice for a fine of 650 Crores since according the the Director of the USOF decides they have defaulted in 13 such circles and the maximum penalty should be levied @ Rs. 50 Crore per circle as defined in the agreement.

The company replies back with a set of replies most of which are counter replied by the USOF fund management as is regular with most disputes.

Therefore by all rights, the contractual dispute should go to an Independent body for telecom dispute redressal which the Govt has put into place called the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI.

Now assuming TRAI rules against the company and the company is not happy with the ruling, it has the courts of law to appeal to.

WHERE DOES A MINISTER COME INTO PLAY TO DECIDE AMOUNT OF FINE ?

I think people have forgotten the role of a Minister in India. He is there to decide POLICY matters and act as a representative of the people. Deciding spectrum pricing is the role of a Minister since it is a policy matter, deciding amount of fine is not since it is an individual matter.

The problem is lawyers always muddy the water and our minister being an ex-lawyer has done an excellent job of doing so. We have been so busy last couple of days wonder whether the Minister was right or wrong in reducing the fine, or arguing about if it was 1 circle or 13, or if the fine was 50 Cr or 650 Cr, no one questioned if it was ever proper for the Minister to even speak in the matter in the first place.

Now by following this corollary of what the public is swallowing, if I am unhappy with the tax demand sent to me (the penalty part of it) by the IT Dept next year , can I please please have our Finance Minister reduce it. Especially if I’ve been a good boy and paid some of last years tax this year.

Buddah Hoga Tera Baap

2011-07-06T15:48:00.001+05:30

I was speaking to a reader and she said she needed some help with a computer program. I asked her why did she not ask her son and she said her son laughed at her and said she was a “buddhu” in matters of technology.

I thought about it and suddenly realised that there was a major disconnect between generations and in many a household around us the generations looked at each other with disdain.

Every generation has the habit of looking down at the next generation for doing things differently. A common dialog is “hamare zamane mein aisa to nahin hota tha”. This is reciprocated by the next generation by rebellion.

Till that time I had not realised what this clash meant since I and my family are followers of Osho, so a lot of his principles have ensured that my son has grown up as an individual and not an accessory to be trotted out to show in party clothes at family gathering for people to cootchie coo over. In return since he is treated as an individual, we have received respect back.

My thoughts then led me to the conclusion that problems start when older generations look down at the newer ones for doing things differently for example, I replied to a reader on the slut walk article if he didn’t think his parents wore bags of trousers which were 4-5 times looser in the crotch than his tailored trousers were.

Of course his newer trousers would be better fitted since the materials have changed, improved. He would look silly wearing gabardine baggies in this day and age which was the rage at his parents time. His children would perhaps have a lot more lycra and jersey which are more form fitting in their wardrobes.

Then if he shouted at his daughter for wearing SHORTER better fitted relatively more body hugging clothes, wouldn’t it be right for his own parents to call him a man of loose morals for those relatively crotch hugging suggestive trousers as compared to their generation.

Every generation needs to realise that new ideas adopted by the next is not necessarily bad and that what is the norm in our generation was radical in our own parents time.

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I then sat and thought deeper and realised perhaps another reason why the family unit in India is breaking down and clashes between generations are getting more and more is our loss of real Indian cultural values. All around us we can see more and more business houses are splintering.

Upto a couple of generations ago, the Indian system for business families was such that as per Hindu norms, a mans life was divided into 4 stages or ashramas.

The First Ashrama - "Brahmacharya" or the Student Part
The Second Ashrama - "Grihastha" or the Householder Part
The Third Ashrama - "Vanaprastha" or the Preparatory Part
The Fourth Ashrama - "Sannyasa" or the Ascetic part

Each of these Ashramas were approx 20-25 years of age.

In the 1st part (birth to age 20) the student played and learnt about life. In the 2nd part (age 20-40) he took up the responsibilities of a householder which included marriage, working and providing for the family. The 3rd was preparatory stage for complete renunciation.

Now if he produced a child at the beginning of his Grihastha ( 2nd householder stage 20ish), by the time he reached his Vanaprastha ( 3rd Prepatory stage 40ish), the child would be about 20 years old and entering his respective Grihastha (2nd Householder stage).

This means that he would be ready to step into his fathers shoes even in business. The father at this stage would by norm move into his Vanaprastha ( preparation for the complete retirement and renunciation stage which comes next), thereby vacating the chair for his son.

In this kind of cycle, the father in his third stage would aid the handover and come into the office once in a day or so for a couple of hours, the son would allow him to sit in the main seat, take his advice on some matters based upon his experience after which he would leave the son to his own means.

This would allow the son to work the business his way with new technologies, etc and least amount of interference but with the right guidance. Ergo no generation issues due to new technologies, etc. No friction.

However, there are more and more families where the fathers refuse to vacate the seats despite being old and toothless and well into the third or even fourth stages. They still feel they have many years left and whats the hurry to renounce the world and think of God. They cling onto the business chairs full time till they die of a heart attack in it, and the son therefore has no where to go.

In such cases, even if the father allows the next generation to participate in the business, the child is almost never allowed to use his generational knowledge base and latest technologies since they don’t fit into the mindset of the previous generation since they are used to doing things in a particular way.

This causes an ideological clash since the son is dying to try out his ideas etc. for which he never gets a chance and leads to the next generation setting up a new business or a competitive one all of which leads to unnecessary friction.

If only parents learnt to give the next generation space and that whatever we did was radical to our parents too, we may understand that compassion is the true essence of Indian culture.

Conspiracy theory

2011-06-26T23:46:00.001+05:30

This morning I opened the news paper and suddenly was hit by a wave of paranoia. For one second I thought what if all the political events of the recent past were a part of a massive Machiavellian conspiracy.

What if we had a government which saw that there was no real opposition party to speak of and decided that no matter what PR disasters happened in the near future, the elections were in their pocket since people had short memories. So Human rights violations like midnight lathi charges, etc could take place with impunity.

Let us for one moment go on a massive flight of fancy. Let us for one moment reflect on "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," by Steven Covey where he says there are two categories of kinds of tasks urgent and important.

In real life, everywhere around us, we spend most of our time handling urgent tasks like fire-fighting issues and very little time handling important tasks which take care of our long term goals.

Therefore very little gets achieved and time is wasted.

If such a government existed , it could perhaps see that there was an important issue looming which could in all rights endanger its very way of life called a Janlokpal Bill.

A strategic thinker in such a Government could then come up with a diabolical plan wherein Scam after Scam could be slowly leaked to the press. This could be done making sure that sound bytes were the norm and the media was too busy jumping at each new tid bit as it rolls out and everything under the sun was discussed except the important issue.

The best part is that the hullabaloo over these scams would be, that the charges could then be investigated by agencies controlled by the self-same government which would of course find no merits to the charges since during the period of investigation papers in the hands of Govt servants could disappear .

Of course such a thing could never happen in a democracy like India. JAI HIND.

My friends EK HI LAKSH – Jan Lok Pal Bill

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Another paranoid thought struck me immediately after:

Diggy Raja has gone on record saying that Rahul Gandhi would make an excellent PM. Lets suppose a very very wild flight of imagination.

In 1991, India was on its knees financially and was a hairs breath away from bankruptcy. One very gutsy Indian man’s immediate response was to secure an emergency loan of $2.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund by pledging 67 tons of India's gold reserves as collateral.

This man Finance Minister Manmohan Singh with the support of his Prime Minister almost singlehandedly risked the entire nations wrath with an overnight airlift of the gold which at that time was seen as a betrayal of the Indian mans trust. He did this to back a move which he knew would save India.

Let us assume that this same fiery gentleman then was the architect of dismantling of the Licence Raj and restructuring of its monetary policy which made India into a great national power with financial muscle to fight along side the best ( India has just contributed to the IMF, the same agency from which we borrowed funds against the gold).

Now we take this gentleman and make him into a Prime Minister. Suddenly he is a damp squib. No fire and almost clueless.

Suddenly we hear words like “coalition politics” for allowing public funds to be looted, suddenly the fiery gentleman goes squeaky when time comes for hard talks like International relations with unfriendly neighbours.

Could it be that his image is purposely being projected this way so that when we get a weak behind the knees person to replace him as our next Prime Minister , that new person will seem very bearable and almost godlike.

Andhoon ke desh mein kanaa rajaa.

I’m up here…..

2011-06-22T00:00:00.001+05:30

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This post has even more relevance, now that I’ve read todays paper where a young girl was abducted and raped at Kalyan….. was she dressed slutty ?

Other detractors will say that she had no business being at Kalyan at 2 am, SHE WAS WITH A MALE FRIEND in a city….supposedly safe for women.

STOP BLAMING THE POOR VICTIMS

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Today, I’m going to talk about something which I feel very strongly about. The proposed Slut Walk or Besharmi Morcha in Delhi.

This topic may not be within the aesthetics of some of my readers but it does need to be discussed.

I am outraged at the “che che” attitude of so many of my readers who have not even understood the meaning of the protest march. I’m surprised that even a person of the calibre of Shobha De who I have praised in my earlier articles has spoken against it. To a large degree I think that the Indian mind just cant cross over the word “Slut” to see the protest march for what it is, an enraged outburst of the masses.

An Indian man hears the word “Slut” his mind automatically goes to an image of someone who he can force himself on, can be brutish with, can show his “mardangi with”.

Mistake it not my friends, the “Slut Walk” is an extension of the Jasmine Revolution, a civil protest in its own mutated form.

It is a cry from the heart of a generation which is tired of being talked down to. Its the cry of a generation which says that the Indian man has turned into a hungry predator in some cases preying upon the very poor child who looks upon him for protection.

Its a cry of a generation which sees the Uttar Pradesh Govt say that 11 reported rapes in 3 days is STANDARD for the state. (Todays times of India)

The Slut Walk is a protest against this very insanity, started from a single event on January 24, 2011. It seems that Constable Michael Sanguinetti at a York University addressing the issue of crime prevention commented: "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." referring to rising cases of rape.

This was the last straw to a generation which to date has been blamed for every thing from sunrise to sunset. They stood up and said that it was nonsense to blame the clothes or the wearer for the stupidity of the beholder and spontaneous protest marches have followed in Chicago, Edmonton , Amsterdam , Sweden , Denmark, Brazil, Canberra, Los Angeles, Cardiff, San Diego & the last one is proposed in New Delhi on June 25 to protest against this nonsensical statement.

What is the “Slut Walk” ? It is a walking protest where women dress in their regular clothes (not in any kind of provocative clothes, just normal clothes) and walk saying “Don’t you dare call us sluts in a bad way”, “Is this dress an invitation to rape” etc.

It is their way of saying “ This is me, this is my body and don’t you dare”. Its their way of saying “Don’t link our clothes with our rapes”

It is the modern generations way of saying to the perverts, the cops, neighbours and myopic families who turn a blind eye to it , your daughter did not wear slutty clothes for you to rape her, your little niece or tiny neighbour did not wear slutty clothes before you touched her inappropriately so don’t blame it on the clothes, blame it on your naked bestiality.

Actually, we have already had the Indian version of the “Slut Walk” where in Manipur in 2004 where more than 40 women paraded naked to protest the brutalities on women by the Indian army posted there. This is tame as compared to that.

This afternoon I asked someone, if someone saw a tribal woman walking on a road without a blouse, would that give anyone a right to rape her, would she be called slutty ? Of course not, then why do we try to justify the depravity of the street side failed lothario using the excuse of the size and style of dress.

India is more and more getting to be a society of sexually frustrated people who pounce on defenceless young women since they know that they will most probably get away with it. (Todays times has 3 rapes on its front page side bar)

Which woman has not had her body mauled while travelling in any form of public transport in any part of India. Whether she is wearing a saree, burqua or a mini skirt does not change the sexual depravity and hunger of the common molester.

This is a major pity, India was one of the most sexually open countries as I have said in my earlier articles. Rape was a rare phenomenon. If it did happen , heaven and earth shook with the consequences. People were reduced to ashes with the wrath of women disrespected.

India has such shining examples of respect for women such as Sita staying in Ashok Van and Ravaan not having the guts to touch her without her approval.

This did not mean that men of Ancient India were sexually repressed , rather sexuality was a part of daily life and there was no taboo for sexual gratification under the right circumstances.

For the record the word Slut is a misnomer and here has been used in irony. It was used in the Early English times to mean a unkempt or slovenly woman. It later came to mean a person who has taken control of their sexuality and has sex with whomever they choose, regardless of religious or social pressures or conventions to conform to a straight-laced monogamous lifestyle committed to one partner for life.

Slut is therefore a word for a woman or man who chooses their partners. It is a pro-choice word and not a pro-force word.

Friends, whatever, they call it, Slut Walk, Besharmi Morcha or simply SHAME ON YOU Morcha … this walk needs your and my support …. Whenever it happens lets be out there standing side by side with the few who have had the guts to stand up and draw attention to a shameful chapter in Indian History.

Three thoughts

2011-06-17T22:06:00.001+05:30

Three very important thoughts cross my mind brought there by my readers who have been very active this week with their feedback.

The first thought is about the PM being under the Lok Pal Bill and that there is a major trap being laid by the Government, for the “civil society”.

Till March this year the Govt kept talking about bringing the PM under the Lokpal Bill. In fact in Jan this year Govt announced that “the Ordinance will "draw heavily" from the Lokpal Bill that is being vetted by the Law Ministry and provide for filing of complaints of allegations of corruption against the Prime Minister, Ministers and MPs with the Lokpal,”. Law Minister Moily was quite vociferous about it

This clearly shows the Govt’s intension of the PM being under the Bill till March 2011, so what changed in March when the Govt suddenly changed its tune?

Obvious, some smart alec in the Govt realised that if a confrontation came head on with Team Anna, something would need to be seen to be given from the Govt side as a compromise.

What better idea to fool the public than to protest to high heaven against including the PM under the bill and then allow it to happen as a compromise ?

Folks, we need to beware of the trap. Throw back the Govts’ words in their face and show them that our memories are NOT THAT SHORT. Any compromise to include the PM under the Lok Pal is not a compromise, its a forgone conclusion.

Have we forgotten Rajiv Gandhi and Boffors ? Was he not PM when accused, so how can the PM be justifiably excluded from the Bill if we are serious about killing corruption ?

The Second Thought is Manish Tiwari and his comments : "If this democracy faces its greatest peril from someone, it is from the tyranny of the unelected and the unelectable"

Very Interesting words: Unelected and Unelectable…..

Unelected….well Manmohan Singh lost his 1999 election from New Delhi and was directly inducted as a PM under the UPA despite the fact he had not on the Lok Sabha Election…….

Unelectable ……wouldn’t you say someone who has lost and election had done so since the People had rejected him, so technically I would say A person who had lost an election is unelectable….

People, I seriously suspect someone was talking to Manish Tiwari a few mins before the interview where he said such rubbish about the Prime Minister and as people are wont to do , in the hunger for sound bytes and the heat of he moment Mr Tiwari repeated the same words for Team Anna which don’t fit the occasion at all.

The Third thought came when we were discussing Munde and his imminent change of parties.: Someone expressed a grave concern with our electoral process. He said, when candidates come to us they hand us a manifesto of the party they represent saying they stand for this, that and these policies. They promise that if they come to power , they will do this this and this.

Based upon the combination of the personal achievements of the candidates and the party manifesto from which he is standing, we elect them. Some time later, they decide that the Party they are with is no longer suitable for their personal political ambitions and decide to switch parties. What happens to the pre election manifesto….the pre election promises they made to the common voter.

Let us take the example of Munde. He says he is a BJP person and as such is for the Hinduvta creed, stands for the bringing back of the black money, support Sushma Swarajs’ dance at Raj Ghat as patriotic, etc which stands at the heart of the BJP fundamental creedo.

Tomorrow if for arguments sake he joins the Congress, will he turn around and scream blue murder at Hindu Fundamentalism calling the BJP fanatics and say all kind of nonsense against Sushma Swaraj for dancing at Gandhi’s grave.

What happens to the poor punter who voted for him and believed that Munde actually stood with the manifesto he propagated.

We then discussed that this kind of middle term switching in politics was akin to a horse race, where lets say Jockey Lester Piggot who has a excellent track record sits on a horse A , and you bet a large amount on it based upon the combination of horse and rider…..halfway down the race he decides that Horse A is no good and jumps onto Horse B and continues the race.

The question to ask ourselves is if this did happen…..has my bet moved with him ? Of course it hasn’t.

If Piggot did that you would be yelling for his blood, so why are we allowing politicians to do it silently?

Silence of good men

2011-06-12T11:05:00.001+05:30

Edmund Burke says that all it takes for evil to triumph is the silence of good men.

In 2008, I wrote about the malicious emails that were being circulated on MF Hussain. I then did a small research project on it and found that a lot of the malicious pictures attributed to him were unauthenticated.

The Govt knew this was true but chose to keep quiet. A man was heartbroken and decided to take his life where he was loved. I fully understand why he did so.

After his death emails and tweets are shooting back and forward saying he should have been buried in India.

I suspect that some of the same people who forwarded the malicious emails without checking the authenticity of these pictures are now forwarding emails about what a pity it is that he is not buried in his own country.

Where were these voices of support when he was alive ? Where were these voices of support when his home was vandalised ? Where were they when obscure cases were filed against him ?

I could see the poor mans heart break and it was obvious to anyone observing that what was done to him was unfair but what is the value of a mans heart when rabble rousing is the need of the hour.

Adolf Hitler correctly said:

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

For once with the death of a great man, a man who lived by his own rules, even if they did not fit societies mold, let us take an oath of voice.

An oath which says “NO MORE WILL WE BE SILENT LEST ANOTHER GOOD MANS HEART BREAKS NEEDLESSLY”.

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My 2008 Article on Hussain:

A few dabs of paint

I normally discourage the circulation of any email the facts of which have not been thoroughly checked by me. Thus to date, I have kept my mouth shut on the nonsense circulating about MF Hussain but cannot restrain myself anymore.

I’m sure a lot of you have received this mail wherein there are pictures said to be painted by MF Hussain which show that he’s a Hindu Hater and a Muslim lover. Its one of the most circulated mails on the internet.

The straw that broke the camels back and made me break my silence on this mail is a piece of rabid nonsense quoted to me by a fanatic who in turn, was merely quoting a well known writer who has professed himself to be an authority by de-riding the ‘so-called’ Hussain paintings.

I am pained to see sensible balanced Indians lapping up this nonsense and then re-circulating it.
To begin with, let me say that I have done a search on the net and cannot find any of the paintings sent to me, except 3 – the Draupadi, the nude Bharatmata and Saraswati ones, as confirmed Hussains.

These are the same paintings which the Honorable Court has taken cognizance of as being possible offenders of public morale.

The others may or may not be the work of someone with Photoshop and a lot of free time. (As a matter of fact, I would not mind buying some of the paintings as they are quite good and who knows, someday they may even become invaluable “piece-d’arts”)

Hussain, according to me, is nothing but a man for whom adulation has gone to the head – someone who has now started abusing his artistic license by making paintings on the edge.

The one about him in the form of a bull in copulation with a Manaxi signed as a "Mcbull " is Freudian at the very least and reflects a mind which needs some serious "meditation".

Artists are known to be a bit edgy ( for example Van Gogh was put in an asylum and shot himself in the end or Chintan Upadhaya sits nude as his own installation). But, someone needs to sit Hussain down and tell him the facts of life.

However despite Hussain and his eccentricities , I do not see any greater sinister design in these paintings, except perhaps some manipulation by some clever politicians over a bunch of weak minded fools for their own gain.

I found that upon trying to research MF Hussain there are very few links to paintings done by him and a lot of blogs repeating and attributing the same unconfirmed pictures said to be drawn by him.

If any of my readers have confirmed links to any of the images I have labeled as unconfirmed, then please do forward these links to me immediately, so that I can do a follow-up for our readers.

Now, here’s my interpretation of the paintings (even if the unconfirmed ones have been done by him) as compared to the misinterpretation in the mails sent to me:

NAME: Hussain unconfirmed (Durga on a tiger)

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Goddess Durga in sexual union with Tiger

My reading of this painting; How does one have sexual union with a tiger in the middle of his back ? and isnt Durga's mount a tiger, wouldn't it be more logical to assume Durga riding a tiger since shes on the tiger instead of vice versa. What king of sexual union are these people used to ? I've heard of woman superior position but this is too much.

Also why has no one objected to the use of 3 breasts on Durga instead of 2, isnt that an insult ?

NAME: Hussain unconfirmed: (4 leaders)

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Out of the four leaders M. Gandhi is decapitated and Hitler is naked. Hussain hates Hitler and has said in an interview 8 years ago that he has depicted Hitler naked to humiliate him and as he deserves it ! How come Hitler's nudity cause humiliation when in Hussain's own statement nudity in art depicts purity and is in fact an honour ! This shows Hussain's perversion and hypocrisy.

My reading of this painting; Buddhist art has used a symbol for Buddha with things like sun showing that his light was so big that it could not be shown as a normal being.

Can we not also read this like Gandhi's light of knowledge was so brilliant that Hussain was overwhelmed by it and a sun has been used to symbolise it.

Whats more important why is no one talking about why Gandhi has only one arm in the picture ? perhaps because it would not serve any political purpose ?

NAME: Hussain confirmed : (Bharatmata nude)

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Bharatmata - Hussain has shown naked woman with names of states written on different parts of her body. He has used Ashok Chakra, Tri-colour in the painting. By doing this he has violated law & hurt National Pride of Indians. Both these things should be of grave concern to every Indian irrespective of his religion.

My reading of this painting;Hussain during this time was a person in a madness phase overwhelmed with the adulation which mad people gave him by quoting 100 crores for 100 paintings.

He's a monster created by us and the media and now he's come back to bite us.

NAME:Hussain unconfirmed

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Full Clad Muslim King and naked Hindu Brahmin. The above painting clearly indicates Hussain's tendency to paint any Hindu as naked and thus his hatred

My reading of this painting; Can this painting not be seen as an evil Muslim leader pulling a wicked looking sword behind the back of a defenseless innocent Hindu ( the nudity symbolizing defencelessness) , thereby be-lying the claims of the detractors of Hussain who say that he shows Muslims in good light and Hindus in bad.

NAME:Hussain unconfirmed:

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Lord Hanuman and Goddess Sita sitting on thigh of Ravana

My reading of this painting;Hanuman is a monkey god, would it be right to clothe him ? I dont see Ravan wearing a loin cloth, so why are the people not protesting that ? Is it ok to show the genitalia of villians ?

I don't see Sita sitting on Ravan's lap. What I do see is a Sita behind Ravana in a repeat of Sania Mirza-Indian Flag controversy.

What I see is a ferocious Hanuman fearlessly coming to rescue Sita after Ravana has tried to outrage her modesty.

NAME : Hussain confirmed : ( Draupadi)

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Draupadi

My reading of this painting;

Offical title is Draupadi on dice. It is supposed to symbolise Draupadi who fell after she was lost in a dice game and the cloth covering her almost nudity ( along with her falling motion which is a symbol of her helplessness at the hands of the men who used her as a plaything) symbolises the cover she was provided by Sri Krishna.

( If Hussain really wanted , he could have made the cloth transparent like the ones we see in a lot of older Hindu paintings and sculptures made by Hindus, just so that we could see her nudity, the fact he made it opaque says volumes)

NAME: Hussain Unconfirmed:

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Shri Parvati

My reading of this painting; I'm not even sure this is a genuine Hussain since the style is definitely different but I could be wrong. Why are we not seeing an objection to Parvati being portrayed with three arms like a freak instead of 2 ?

NAME: Hussain unconfirmed:

Explanation of this painting sent to me: Goddess Lakshmi naked on Shree Ganesh's head

My reading of this painting; Again style seems different doesn't it. Again 3 arms ? What does this man have with 3 arms / why not 2 or 4 or any other even number? Is there is Christian conspiracy with the Holy trinity being shown in the three arms subminally ( just joking)

(There is another piece of rubbish circulating on the net talking about the Christian Churches and how they control the media.

Why are these jokers not alleging that perhaps the Christian Churches could easily have bribed Hussain to Show the Holy trinity sublimely in Hindu Gods thereby pushing Christianity as superior to Hinduism)

Among all the mails showing Hussain as against Hindus there were a few pictures which said he was slanted towards Muslims since he showed prominent Muslim and other figures he respected as clothed.

So I went out and found some pictures confirmed as done by Hussain which we can compare with the unconfirmed and confirmed clothed paintings in the mail which are said to portray the evil Mr. Hussain.

This shows that all in all we should not make hasty judgements by just pulling a sample out.

Hussain unconfirmed sent in mail to me:

Title: Muslim poets Faiz, Galib are shown well-clothed

AGAINST Found by me : Ganesh Clothed

Hussain unconfirmed sent in mail to me: Well clothed Muslim Lady

AGAINST Hussain Confirmed found by me: Clothed Indian Sitar player

Last but not the least, a Hussain I found was a durga but alas , fully clothed:

As to Mr. Hussain , if he wishes to paint himself as Mc bull or any other kind of animal in a copulatory or any other pose, he's welcome to do so as long as he keeps the sensibilities of the public in mind.