Thursday, December 2, 2010

I expresses grave concern over the state of governance in our country, which in recent months has touched such a low that even a normally reticent industrialist had to warn the government about turning the nation into a banana republic.

To begin with, there is no evidence that politicians are treated at par with citizens when they commit crimes. This is unacceptable because political leaders being role models should be awarded much more exemplary punishment and sooner, compared to an ordinary citizen for a similar crime. While the head of a corporate entity has been imprisoned, politicians with seemingly greater frauds against their names are roaming the world like dignitaries.

It is also unacceptable that after their crimes are detected – usually by the media and not by our high-cost crime busting agencies – they simply resign, wait for a cooling off period and are back in business.


Over a span of 25 years - between Bofors and Adarsh Society - a wide range of major scams have been unearthed by the media. These have unequivocally nailed the government from top to bottom. Yet, like slippery eels, the politician always gets away, presumably with generous help from the government itself.

The time has come when the civil society tells the Prime Minister “WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK”. You cannot preside over a government that has squandered away tens of thousands of crores of public money, ostensibly into personal coffers, and pretend as though nothing has happened. You cannot hide behind a fast eroding veneer of dubious honesty and not be accountable for spectacular fraud with the people of India. You cannot hide behind some archaic constitutional protection which allows you to be insulated from criminal misgovernance that has kept our wondrous country poor, illiterate and backward.

The time has also come for the civil society to ask the government “WHERE DID YOU GET THE MONEY FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE?” By all accounts, the original budget for the CWG was some 600 crores. Where did the government get 70,000 crores from? And if you had this kind of money, where was it hidden? Why was it not used for poverty alleviation, primary education, women’s health and for modernizing our decrepit infrastructure?

Monday, March 22, 2010

Honest Criticism

Reflections on India By Sean Paul Kelley
If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.
India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones. First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum–the capital of Kerala–and Calicut. I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)
More after the jump.. The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that wait lists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the over utilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead. I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.
Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia–and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan! One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime. Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative. Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist,
<http://www.agonist. org/> in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, <http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2008/11/10/25449/781/Diary/An-Introduction-Of-Sorts> on satellite radio and Air America.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

SACHIN GOD TENDULKAR

this is what some of the great cricketers said abt SACHIN
(greatest ofc being sachin tendulkar)


Mathew Hayden:

I have seen GOD , he bats at no.4 for india in Tests.

Ravi Shashtri:

He is someone sent from up there to play cricket and go back.

Mark Taylor:

We did not lose to a team called india...we lost to a man called Sachin.

Brain Lara:

Sachin is a genius , i am a mere mortal!

Barry Richards:

Sachin is crickets GOD

Martin Crowe:

The shot played on this ball is only possible for the GOD of cricket.

Ian Botham:

If someoom the highest peak of the world.

Shane Warne:

I would go to bed having nightmares of sachin dancing down the ground and hitting me for sixes.

Mathew Hayden:

His life seems to be a stillness in a frantic world... [When he goes out to bat], it is beyond chaos - it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man. The people see him as a God...

Viv Richards:

He is 99.5% Perfect.. I'll pay to watch him play.

Dennis Lillie:

If I had to bowl to Sachin I would bowl with a halmet on. He hits the ball so hard.

Steve Waugh:

After being defeated in the Coca-Cola Cup finals in Sharjah) "It was one of the greatest innings I have ever seen. There is no shame being beaten by such a great player, Sachin is perhaps only next to the Don''

Sir Don Bradman:

I saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at him. Now I never saw myself play, but I feel that this player is playing much the same as I used to play, and she looked at him on Television and said yes, there is a similarity between the two...hi compactness, technique, stroke production... it all seemed to gel! in reference to Sachin Tendulkar.

Michael Kasprowicz:

Don't bowl him bad balls, he hits the good ones for fours."


Wasim Akram:

Today, he showed the world why he is considered the best batsman around. Some of the shots he played were simply amazing. Earlier, opposing teams used to feel that Sachin's dismissal meant they could win the game. Today, I feel that the Indian players, too, feel this way.
Wasim Akram, after game at Hobart, CUB series, 1999

Brett Lee:

You might pitch a ball on the off stump and think you have bowled a good ball and he walks across and hits it for two behind midwicket. His bat looks so heavy but he just waves it around like it's a toothpick. Brett Lee, on Sachin Tendulkar's batting, 1999


BBC Sports:

Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their television sets and switch off their lives.

Wasim Akram:

"I dont know what to bowl at him. i bowled an inswinger n he drove me thr covers of d front foot. then i bld an outswinger n he again punched thr covers of d backfoot(for tamil fans-dai avan eppadi pottalum adikaranda). he is d toughest batsmen i 've bowled to. he shold live long n score lots of runs, but not against pakistan(smiling) "--LEGENDARY WASIM AKRAM on our own SACHIN on 24th april 2004 on espn Sachin's 30th B day program.(i think) on his knock in 2003 worldcup.

Adam Hollioke:

"In an over I can bowl six different balls. But then Sachin looks at me with a sort of gentle arrogance down the pitch as if to say 'Can you bowl me another one?'"




Wasim

"Cricketers like Sachin come once in a lifetime and I am privileged he played in my time,"

"Tuzhe pata hai tune kiska catch chhoda hai?" Wasim Akram to Abdul Razzaq when the latter dropped Sachin's catch.


Navjot Sidhu:

"His mind is like a computer. He stores data on bowlers and knows where they are going to pitch the ball."

Mark Taylor:

"We did not lose to a team called India...we lost to a man called Sachin" - Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1997)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

For a Change i Support Shiv Sena


I am a bihari living in Maharashtra working in Pune , You can understand how much wrath and frustration i must be having toward political parties like Shiv sena and Raj thackrey who try to threaten us on a daily basis and are dim-witted extremist group,but i am an Indian first and for a change i support the views of Shiv Sena of not allowing Australian cricketers to play.
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, a couple of days ago, wrote in his party’s mouthpiece ‘Saamna’ that he and his party co-workers will not allow the Australians to enter Maharashtra in order make one point clear and straight: attack on Indians in Australia is not acceptable; a point that people sitting in North Block clearly seem to have missed.

I have always hated hardcore fascist parties like Shivsena for many reasons,but i later realized that we need elements like them for counter-attacks on many diplomatic fronts even Pakistan etc.It is the only party which has taken such a good decision on national interest ,why the hell other national parties so silent on this very important issue of our dignity and survival.
Shiv Sena seems to be right in threating Australian players as if they are hurt it certainly will have effect on Australian government and it will take harsh action against people who are committing racsist crime against peaceful Indian students and workers. When they will have fear of retalliation then only Mr Kevin Rudd will understand the problem and take it seriously.

True to the core…. Citing an incident again mentioned by Thackeray, when a great actor like Amitabh Bachchan could deny the award offered to him by the Queensland University, so as to protest the racist attacks, then why cannot the Indian cricket team follow suit? I know politics should not be mixed with the sport but everything is fair when a war on our dignity is going on.When players sing thier respective national anthem by keeping their hand on their heart ,if that is not politics than what is it??

It is not that I have some personal grudge against the Aussies, nor I am an extreme nationalist. On the contrary, the Australian cricket team is one team I admire the most.
Then, hundreds of our fellow citizens were killed by psycho terrorists inside our country, and now, many of our fellow Indians are being killed by some Aussie psychos in their country. So why should the outcome be any different? Why shouldn’t the Australian government know that whatever is happening in their country with our people is just not tolerable.
I think Australian players will also be hit economically end their cricket board will certainly pressurize their government to take some action to stop these race attacks.

A colleague of mine quoted Mahatma Gandhi while checking this piece, ‘An eye for an eye will make the world blind!’

I would have agreed to this thought before. But now, I feel, that if we continue to follow that idea, we would be far from solving this issue. I am not ‘Bapu’ who believes in non-violence and tolerance. I am more of a ‘Bhagat Singh’ follower, where ‘action speaks louder than words’!


I think we are too weak in international community and thats why we are taken for granted in every other field. The Indian government has still not been able to take any concrete measures to deal with its counterpart Down Under. And so, I am happy that at least one political party in our nation, the Shiv Sena, had the guts to come up with a statement too direct and straightforward; make your country safe for our men or you won’t be welcome here either!
Shiv Sena inspite of all its negativity is bang on target in this case and i solute there a stand and support them from my heart (Only on this point mind it)