Passionate About India

AT A TIME WHEN IT IS NOT ABLE TO GUARANTEE RETURNS TO THE OWNERS? Unlike last year, this year’s IPL is in the news for all together a different set of reasons. Now that it has already been declared (assuming this decision to be the final one, without further change) that this season’s IPL would take place in South Africa, it is time for India to take stock of what she has lost and what not on account of this decision. But before that it is even more pertinent to question why IPL organisers accepted this in the first place? Is it that they are deliberately trying to run away from hosting the event in India, using the general elections as an excuse? And considering the fact that general elections should be given topmost priority, was it so very challenging to postpone the event by some time, and hold it later on in all the states? Why is there so much hurry to force upon a decision, and that too, to host one of the most popular sporting properties of India outside India? Is it that the o...

With general elections round the corner, it is not just the political parties but various organisations that have voluntarily launched themselves into the election campaign. The only difference being that the former is wooing the voters to vote for themselves, and the later is making various attempts to either get voters to the booth or educating them on their franchise rights. And with each passing day, the visibility and the audability of such campaigns are increasingly getting louder. So, on the one hand it is Aamir Khan beaming on the radio – ‘aao hum apne bachchon ke sar pe haath rakh kar kasam khate hain that we will vote. Not for, but against. Against those who are against our nation’. Or on the other hand, some other campaigns are saying something like - ‘the dot on your finger is hot’. No doubt, if one has to judge on the merit of mere campaigns, full marks to their efforts and the very right, motivational and positive intent… but then the truth is that a nation cannot just ru...

In the current Union Budget, while the UPA government was increasing the allocation for its flagship NREGA program – from Rs 16,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore, resulting in a hike of an incredible 87% – it was again surreptitiously trying to ignore the CAG report. The CAG, or the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, has been consistently criticizing the government for alleged misappropriation of funds, faulty record maintenance systems and rampant corruption that have become synonymous with NREGA and similar other government initiatives. For example, for the financial year ended March 2007, out of an outlay of Rs 12,074 crores, all that was spent was Rs 8,823 crores for NREGA. Not just this, the CAG report also indicted the government for making available only 37.05 man-days of work against the promised 100 man-days. For the year 2007-08, the more shocking revelation that was made by CAG was that while the government had allocated more that Rs 51,000 crore to NGOs for implementing w...

Like in a few of my previous edits, this time too, I thought of writing on a topic, which is close to my heart. And that is the irreducibly fundamental fact that it is none other than the educated youth who, by joining mainstream politics, can not only salvage the ever deteriorating image of the Indian political class, but also arrest the continuous corrosion of Indian democracy. No doubt, it is easier said than done, for the kind of fractious political environment that our disputatious leadership has created over the years in itself has become the biggest deterrent for any educated and equitably honest youth to take politics up as a scrupulously dignified career. In fact, over the years, the entire trenchant political environment has been constructed in such a discordant manner that it has managed to keep young, potently dedicated and benevolent youth away from it. If that is not the case, then how does one justify that almost 25 per cent of our Parliamentarians have criminal backgrou...

And Indian politicians remain as shameless as ever! The Oscars have been won – as expected! And it sure was a pleasure to hear Resul Pookutty speak about the power of silence and Om, and give Hollywood a chalk-talk lesson or two about Indian philosophy. It was also a great feeling to see the Indian living legend – A R Rahman – get something he more than deserved (though he has done far better work as well). The Indian film fraternity has some amazing green thumb talent; and some of them surely are at par with the world’s best. Thus, although only these two (Rahman and Resul) got the Oscar, I am sure there are many more deserving Indians out there who are no inferior. The only unfortunate thing is that the Oscars for them were awarded for a film that has been made clearly with one callow intention in mind – to draw up a caricature of every possible negative side that is there to India, for the sole viewing pleasure of western audiences – as I wrote in my editorial on the same issue a fe...

The vote on account budget is a very tricky budget. If the ruling party gives too many freebies in it, it will immediately be rapped for using the budget as a tool to unfairly influence the coming elections. Yet, never before perhaps, in the name of Parliamentary propriety, was such a brain dead, irrelevant and unimaginative budget presented... that too when the entire nation was looking up to the Finance Minister for some relief from the seemingly unending woes of economic slowdown! For two hours, the Finance Minister spoke about what the Manmohan Singh regime achieved; but didn’t give anything new on a real time concrete plan to deal with the present crisis of recession. A day before the budget, when it was made clear that it would be Mr. Pranab Mukherjee who would be presenting the budget speech, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was extremely appalled at the scarcity of quality people in the Congress. In the last one year or so, it has always been Pranab Mukherjee who has come t...

On 20th of January, 2009, when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of United States of America, delivering one of the most outstanding speeches ever, many would have thought it to be a tokenism, as reversing the economic fortune of the current order is easier said than done. Only time would perhaps prove how much he would succeed eventually. But if one has to go by the precedence being set on each passing day, Obama is perhaps not just on the right track, but is also indicating why he is the only person who deserved to be there in these times. By announcing his intentions in clear cut terms of curbing the salaries of top executives of companies to a ‘maximum’ of $500,000, which have been seeking bailout packages from the US government to remain afloat (under the Troubled Asset Relief Program), Obama has made it clear that the much needed change of fortune of the US would not happen unless the highly skewed income disparity is arrested and the culture of carrying on with obs...