Passionate About India

My learning on people started in IIPM classrooms... in classes of Dr N R Chatterjee and Dr J K Mitra – both ex Deans of FMS Delhi, my gurus, gods of psychology and great human beings. Their classes made me so mesmerised that though I took finance as my elective, I attended all classes of HR too and became a very keen student of psychology and behavioural sciences. With time, this took me beyond classroom books to the world of Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis to books like ‘Born to Win’ to the world of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung. At one point of time in my life, I went so much into this that I ended up reading semimedical books like abnormal psychology etc! After I became a leadership trainer, the learning only kept growing. But all that was nothing till my son, Che, was born in the year that marked the beginning of the new millennium! It’s been almost ten years now and the human behaviour I have focussed upon most during this decade has been child behaviour. I have since then ...

My first brush with Tagore was when I was in the 5th class, when I was supposed to recite one of Tagore’s poems at one of our local Durga Puja ceremonies. I didn’t like the idea at all. But my father was insistent. I looked at the poem and wanted to run away. It looked too long – four odd pages... But my father knew what he was doing and I had no choice. The poem was about "the hero". About a young boy’s journey with his mother and how he saves her from villains... “Think as if we are travelling together mother... to a land far away – a strange and dangerous land... You are going in a palanquin and I am trotting on a horse next to you...” It filled inside me a sense of aspiration and dream and heroism... Because a line later, when the mother gets a little frightened, the boy says, “Mother, do not be afraid... Because I am there...” Nothing could have been more inspirational. For days, I used to visualize that poem inside my mind and imagine that I was taking care of my mother...

ARINDAM CHAUDHURI ANALYSES HOW CPM MIGHT JUST ABOUT DO THE TRICK AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME ON THE BASIS OF A COMBINATION OF WELL PLANNED STRATEGIES AND PRO-POOR PROMISES! Lack of development, apathy towards the poor, scientifically implemented mass rigging, muscle power, murders, guns and goons... These have been the things that made the Leftist people of Bengal angry and furious, and made them think seriously of an alternative after decades. These are the things that made the people to come out and vote against CPM in the elections that have been happening of late, including the Parliamentary elections last year. Of course, that can’t take away the credit from Mamata Banerjee, who has been fearlessly taking the CPM head on! She felt the pulse of Bengal, had the courage and gave the alternative that Bengal was looking for. And it was only after the setback that the otherwise arrogant CPM leaders of Bengal received due to their loss in the general elections last year, that they really starte...

My heart goes out for Mumbaikars! They face the worst of crisis time and again, despite being in the midst of plenty. Mumbai is our industrial capital and India’s richest live there. People come to Mumbai from all parts of India with dreams in their eyes to strike it big. Not that all of those dreams come true – 40% live in the slums of Mumbai. Yet, many strike it big and dreams do get fulfilled. More importantly, everyone is on the move and working hard – rich or poor. It’s in their culture. But then, from blasts to water clogging, issues just keep testing them and trying to slow them down – the latest one being their unending month-long water crisis, which is hitting everyone in the city, rich or poor. In the biggest and swankiest of buildings, there is hardly any water and people are now going to work very often without taking bath. Water comes from tankers and that too for a few hours only. The whole day, taps have no water. Tankers too are not easily available and there are offic...

In Chattisgarh, more crpf jawans get killed by mosquito bites than by Maoists! Yes, that’s the ironic piece of research my friend Prasoon dug out for his article in the last issue of The Sunday Indian! It does tell a big story. Of course, on one hand it tells the pitiable story of our CRPF jawans, as Prasoon pointed out in his article last week. Thanks to the Maoist attack recently, which left 75 dead, the government suddenly is feeling concerned about the jawans’ lives! However, before this incident, in the last two years over a hundred of them had died of malaria, which was more than the numbers killed on duty. But previously, of course, the government was not concerned about the lives of jawans because malarial deaths obviously don’t happen in a dramatic newsworthy manner. Is it not ironic that our paramilitary forces die more of curable diseases than of bullets? Well, that’s the crux of India's problems. That more CRPF jawans are today scared to die of malaria than of Maoist b...

Poor Lalit Modi. He went a little too fast with his scam and partied a little too hard in front of public eyes. As per a confidential income tax report, he bought a luxury yacht, a private jet, a fleet of Mercedes S-class cars and what not! All in the last three years! He gave every possible deal to do with IPL to his relatives and family and friends or to people whom he owed money – so that they don’t come behind him. Again, this is as per that report which came out in The Economic Times. More, he took personal stakes in disguise in three of the IPL teams and is supposed to have been himself involved in fixing the outcomes of IPL matches along with a prominent page 3 personality; again according to the same report. He is linked to Betfair – a UK firm that runs one of the world’s largest betting syndicates on the internet – and is helping it to enter the casino and hospitality business in India! This is what the Income Tax Department scooped out from Lalit Modi’s email box. And all thi...

We, at Planman Media, have been always very appreciative and excited about any policy that has ever made an attempt to bring in any substantial change in the state of Indian education – especially in primary education. Be it the annual budget or discreet policy decisions, education has always been our primary area of focus and inspection. There are two reasons for the same. Firstly, the returns on investment (in terms of societal dividends) on primary education, including intangibles, are very high; and secondly, knowing the fact that the returns are high, it is the very same primary education which has been subjected to perpetual political negligence and budgetary ignorance over the years. But then, with the introduction of the Right to Education bill (on April 01, 2010) the table seems to be finally turning. This act, at least on paper, holds the promise to deliver free and compulsory education to one and all, till the age of 14, across the nation. On the face of it, I feel too exci...