The day began with a lot of excitement and anxiety. When I entered office one of my colleagues was inviting everyone to participate in the Blood donation camp run by St. Johns medical college hospital in our office. I was in double mind, since I had never donated blood in my life. I was not sure whether to participate in the camp or not. My heart said that it’s a noble cause and its worth going there. However, bad memories of fainting during a blood test in my school days and the reluctance of some of our colleagues to donate blood restrained me from participating in the camp.
Finally after lunch when the HR lady came to my desk to check whether I have donated blood, I decided to give it a shot. Thankfully there were two colleagues of mine volunteered at the same time. I expressed my apprehensions to them. Since they had donated blood in the past, they informed me that it would not have any major effects on our body. Their encouragement helped me take a decision.
My mind was still filled with anxiety though I had taken the decision. The customary checks on the weight, blood group etc was over and I was interviewed by the doctor with the usual questions that they ask before donating the blood. There were ten beds in the hall and many of them were giving blood at that time. When the doctor was interviewing me I saw them collecting blood from the donors. It was almost the size of 500 ml milk packet. I was wondering whether there would be enough blood left in my body when they take 500 ml of blood. I had an urge to run back to my cubicle, but I restrained myself from doing so, realizing how bad publicity it would be if others come to know of it. When my turn came up a colleague of mine who had given blood had a black out. Looking at him my anxiety increased.
Finally I was in the bed thinking of what would be my status when I complete the activity. I was thinking whether god would have a list of people who have died by donating blood, and how the entrance of heaven and hell would be. But at last when the doctor came to me and told that the process is complete, I felt relieved. Finally I really felt good, because my blood could save a life in this planet. We would not get this opportunity on a daily basis. My suggestion to anyone who has not donated blood is to utilize these opportunities. To be frank, I never had any issues after donating blood. I was feeling a bit tired, which made me eat a lot of food during the day. Try it out at least once. It is worth the effort.
Finally when I was lying in the bed relieved that nothing bad has happened, one of the lady doctors came to me and encouraged me by saying that I had only given a small portion of the blood, which made me think about the sufferings that the other gender would undergo in the normal course of their life. Needless to mention, that this event increased my respect for the other gender.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Greatest Blunders in Indian history
On the morning of Janurary 26 (60th republic day) I happen to read an article about the achievements of China. The article mentioned that China has made huge progress in construction, engineering, power generation, airport development, railways, space technology etc. There are high speed trains between Shanghai and Beijing which runs at the speed of 300 kms per hour, whereas our trains struggle to maintain an average speed of 100 kmph. Looking at the advancements that China has made, I realized that it would take 30 more years for us to come up to that level.
It made me think about our achievements in the past 63 years. Well, there is nothing much to talk about in terms of achievement. Hence I thought it would be better to write about the greatest blunders committed, which might be the root cause of our current status.
1) Nehru as Prime Minister: This can be considered to be one of the greatest blunders. I am not sure what made Gandhi choose Nehru over Patel. The policies of Nehru are being criticized by their own party men today. He neither had the vision nor was he a shrewd politician. He messed up the Kashmir issue, did not handle the relationship with China properly, his policies on NAM was total crap etc. We were not clear whether to align with erstwhile USSR or US. The first few years after a country’s independence is very vital for its development. Nehru ensured that we would not develop for the next 100 years by making terrible mistakes.
2) War with Pakistan: Most of us feel proud that we won the wars against Pakistan. Though the result of the war was favorable to us we did not get any benefit out of that. Ideally we should have used the opportunity to make Pakistan dance to our tunes. Alas! We did not!! Where in the world you can find a country which won the war and agreed to give away a part of its territory to the enemy. Ideally Pakistan should have been thrown out of Kashmir and shown its way out. We should have made them agree to the fact that Kashmir is a part of India and they would not mess up with us henceforth. We did neither. Instead we gave a part of Kashmir to them and agreed on the Line of control as the border. Had we resolved the Kashmir issue in 1970’s we could have easily concentrated on our development instead of fighting terrorism.
It is an irony that every one of us wants India to develop rapidly; however our political system is so corrupt that it would take decades to even come up to the level of present day China. While China was able to host Olympics and prove to the world that they are a major economic force, India is struggling to complete the infrastructure projects before commencement of common wealth games. Though I am not a great fan of communist principles, I am sure china would not have achieved so much in this short span had it been a democracy.
It made me think about our achievements in the past 63 years. Well, there is nothing much to talk about in terms of achievement. Hence I thought it would be better to write about the greatest blunders committed, which might be the root cause of our current status.
1) Nehru as Prime Minister: This can be considered to be one of the greatest blunders. I am not sure what made Gandhi choose Nehru over Patel. The policies of Nehru are being criticized by their own party men today. He neither had the vision nor was he a shrewd politician. He messed up the Kashmir issue, did not handle the relationship with China properly, his policies on NAM was total crap etc. We were not clear whether to align with erstwhile USSR or US. The first few years after a country’s independence is very vital for its development. Nehru ensured that we would not develop for the next 100 years by making terrible mistakes.
2) War with Pakistan: Most of us feel proud that we won the wars against Pakistan. Though the result of the war was favorable to us we did not get any benefit out of that. Ideally we should have used the opportunity to make Pakistan dance to our tunes. Alas! We did not!! Where in the world you can find a country which won the war and agreed to give away a part of its territory to the enemy. Ideally Pakistan should have been thrown out of Kashmir and shown its way out. We should have made them agree to the fact that Kashmir is a part of India and they would not mess up with us henceforth. We did neither. Instead we gave a part of Kashmir to them and agreed on the Line of control as the border. Had we resolved the Kashmir issue in 1970’s we could have easily concentrated on our development instead of fighting terrorism.
It is an irony that every one of us wants India to develop rapidly; however our political system is so corrupt that it would take decades to even come up to the level of present day China. While China was able to host Olympics and prove to the world that they are a major economic force, India is struggling to complete the infrastructure projects before commencement of common wealth games. Though I am not a great fan of communist principles, I am sure china would not have achieved so much in this short span had it been a democracy.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Exceptional exception
Two movies that got released during December 2009 are the greatest hits ever: 3 Idiots (in Bollywood) and Avatar (in Hollywood).
If a movie has to be accepted by the majority of the audience, the script has to be extraordinary. The story line cannot be different these days. Only the script can make a difference.
I was not impressed with Chetan Bhagat’s book Five point someone. In fact I was half way through the book when I watched 3 idiots. Any script which involves taking you back to the college days is bound to be a hit unless the script is really bad. On top of that, if it is presented in a comical way, there can be no doubts about its success. In 3 idiots, the way in which the director has handled the heavy scenes are really good. For ex, though the scene involving Raju’s mom crying about the family situation is a bit irritating, the resulting scene is really hilarious. Similarly when the scene in which Rancho brings Raju back to normalcy is also good.
Apart from the normal stuff for which the film can be appreciated, I liked it because it questioned the conventional way of learning. I could never accept the conventional way of learning. Attending classes and mugging the stuff taught there takes us nowhere. There was no fun in learning in my school life, except for a few classes taught by teachers who taught with so much of enthusiasm. One should appreciate the director for providing such unconventional thoughts in a way that is acceptable to majority of the audience.
I was skeptical about the success of Avatar since I heard that it was based on science fiction. There are innumerable numbers of movies in Hollywood based on science fiction; movies where aliens attack our world, insects attacking human races etc etc. These doomsday theories and movies involving aliens used to irritate me a lot. Except for the technical excellence there was no other positive aspect in those films. Hence I had never watched SF movies in theaters.
But I liked Avatar because of three reasons. First, technically it is really brilliant. Almost all the scenes are based on imagination and there was no major mistake that I could find out. Second, handling emotional scenes involving aliens and for a change showing human beings as villains is refreshing. (In fact we are the villains in our own planet, leave alone other planets). Last but not the least; I liked it because it really had a theme which is closest to my heart. Destroying nature, especially trees, for human development is atrocious. And I could not accept the fact that humans destroyed the beautiful environment in alien land. Even though its fiction, the success of the movie lies in making us feel for destroying the nature. The film conveys that through nature we are all connected, and if nature is destroyed it is as good as destroying ourselves. Since the movie was exceptional, I thought having made an exception to the rule of not watching a fiction movie was worth it.
If a movie has to be accepted by the majority of the audience, the script has to be extraordinary. The story line cannot be different these days. Only the script can make a difference.
I was not impressed with Chetan Bhagat’s book Five point someone. In fact I was half way through the book when I watched 3 idiots. Any script which involves taking you back to the college days is bound to be a hit unless the script is really bad. On top of that, if it is presented in a comical way, there can be no doubts about its success. In 3 idiots, the way in which the director has handled the heavy scenes are really good. For ex, though the scene involving Raju’s mom crying about the family situation is a bit irritating, the resulting scene is really hilarious. Similarly when the scene in which Rancho brings Raju back to normalcy is also good.
Apart from the normal stuff for which the film can be appreciated, I liked it because it questioned the conventional way of learning. I could never accept the conventional way of learning. Attending classes and mugging the stuff taught there takes us nowhere. There was no fun in learning in my school life, except for a few classes taught by teachers who taught with so much of enthusiasm. One should appreciate the director for providing such unconventional thoughts in a way that is acceptable to majority of the audience.
I was skeptical about the success of Avatar since I heard that it was based on science fiction. There are innumerable numbers of movies in Hollywood based on science fiction; movies where aliens attack our world, insects attacking human races etc etc. These doomsday theories and movies involving aliens used to irritate me a lot. Except for the technical excellence there was no other positive aspect in those films. Hence I had never watched SF movies in theaters.
But I liked Avatar because of three reasons. First, technically it is really brilliant. Almost all the scenes are based on imagination and there was no major mistake that I could find out. Second, handling emotional scenes involving aliens and for a change showing human beings as villains is refreshing. (In fact we are the villains in our own planet, leave alone other planets). Last but not the least; I liked it because it really had a theme which is closest to my heart. Destroying nature, especially trees, for human development is atrocious. And I could not accept the fact that humans destroyed the beautiful environment in alien land. Even though its fiction, the success of the movie lies in making us feel for destroying the nature. The film conveys that through nature we are all connected, and if nature is destroyed it is as good as destroying ourselves. Since the movie was exceptional, I thought having made an exception to the rule of not watching a fiction movie was worth it.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Charged by passion, Driven by egos
It has been quite a while since I updated my blog. Though I promised to write more about Nigeria in my previous post, I could not find time to write about the experience. I thought my memories of Nigeria would fade over a period of time, making it difficult for me to recollect the experience. However it still seems to be lingering in my mind. The kind of brutal treatment meted out to the foreign tourists in the airport, lack of organized approach, failure to adhere to the rules etc made it a much more bitter experience in Lagos. In contrast, both my colleagues and the client were very friendly. How do I explain this? Can I say that it resembles India? Probably, yes.
Let’s move to the topic of this blog. Sometimes I wonder how boring it would be for the editors of the daily newspapers. If you categorize the front page news items in the last one year and sort it, do a count (*) and group by ( toad skills!!), you would probably get the following count.
26/11 and Pakistan’s involvement – 200
Warnings by Manmohan singh and ministers – 300 (sometimes they take off on Sundays and other holidays)
Pakistan’s rejection tactics – 250 (Sometimes AA Zardari would agree that terror elements in Pakistan is responsible for 26/11, then the next day he would release the arrested persons; even god cannot predict his behavior)
Kasab and his tactics – 120
Iraq bomb blast – 200
Afghan deaths – 150
Mukesh vs. Anil – 301.
I just gave 301 to the final item not just because it’s the topic of this post. In reality if you do the analysis you would certainly get this figure. Now imagine how difficult it would be for the editors.
Dhirubhai Ambani was passionate about his business and built reliance from scratch. It was very difficult for businessmen to do business in the license raj era. In spite of facing so many obstacles, he could grow it by leaps and bounds. The growth was possible because reliance was built with passion. Though there was negative publicity in the newspapers about reliance cheating the government, the public did not bother much because most of us cheat the government in some way or the other. I used to get inspired by the boldness of reliance group. Once there was some problem between reliance and BSE, I still remember the day on which I saw a full page advertisement by reliance about its intention to delist from BSE. Public debated that Ambani was stupid to do it. But, the next day BSE resolved the issue with Ambani. He was so powerful, yet he was not driven by ego, at least not in the eyes of public.
After his demise, the fight between Mukesh and Anil is the only story that keeps appearing in the front pages of the newspapers. They just want to prove each other, how powerful and mighty they are. Both have political clout, but yet they are not able to achieve success easily. I believe nowadays reliance group (Both RIL and ADAG group) is not able to achieve much because they are driven by egos, not charged by passion. If they have to as powerful as Dhirubhai Ambani, they should shed their egos and work passionately to achieve their objectives; else they would be riding for a fall.
Let’s move to the topic of this blog. Sometimes I wonder how boring it would be for the editors of the daily newspapers. If you categorize the front page news items in the last one year and sort it, do a count (*) and group by ( toad skills!!), you would probably get the following count.
26/11 and Pakistan’s involvement – 200
Warnings by Manmohan singh and ministers – 300 (sometimes they take off on Sundays and other holidays)
Pakistan’s rejection tactics – 250 (Sometimes AA Zardari would agree that terror elements in Pakistan is responsible for 26/11, then the next day he would release the arrested persons; even god cannot predict his behavior)
Kasab and his tactics – 120
Iraq bomb blast – 200
Afghan deaths – 150
Mukesh vs. Anil – 301.
I just gave 301 to the final item not just because it’s the topic of this post. In reality if you do the analysis you would certainly get this figure. Now imagine how difficult it would be for the editors.
Dhirubhai Ambani was passionate about his business and built reliance from scratch. It was very difficult for businessmen to do business in the license raj era. In spite of facing so many obstacles, he could grow it by leaps and bounds. The growth was possible because reliance was built with passion. Though there was negative publicity in the newspapers about reliance cheating the government, the public did not bother much because most of us cheat the government in some way or the other. I used to get inspired by the boldness of reliance group. Once there was some problem between reliance and BSE, I still remember the day on which I saw a full page advertisement by reliance about its intention to delist from BSE. Public debated that Ambani was stupid to do it. But, the next day BSE resolved the issue with Ambani. He was so powerful, yet he was not driven by ego, at least not in the eyes of public.
After his demise, the fight between Mukesh and Anil is the only story that keeps appearing in the front pages of the newspapers. They just want to prove each other, how powerful and mighty they are. Both have political clout, but yet they are not able to achieve success easily. I believe nowadays reliance group (Both RIL and ADAG group) is not able to achieve much because they are driven by egos, not charged by passion. If they have to as powerful as Dhirubhai Ambani, they should shed their egos and work passionately to achieve their objectives; else they would be riding for a fall.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
My first impressions of “The dark continent”
When I was asked to travel to Nigeria for a Project, I was not really excited. Especially after reading the travel warnings issued by the US and OZ. Nevertheless I had to travel. I had no other choice…
My total travel time to Nigeria took almost 22 hours including the stopover in Dubai for six hours (and excluding the six hours it took from Lagos to Abuja). When I was in Dubai, I thought those were the last few hours in a developed country.
Lagos and Abuja: Lagos is the economic and financial capital of Nigeria. Lagos was the capital of Nigeria from 1914 up to 1991; it was stripped of this title when the Federal Capital Territory was established at the purpose-built city of Abuja. Lagos is similar to Mumbai (so they say) and Abuja is like Delhi.
I was supposed to land in Lagos and take a connecting flight to Abuja. (Not a bad idea; I could cover two cities)
When I landed in Lagos, the flight attendant handed over a photo copy of the landing card (Yes Photo copy!! There are no printed landing cards). They set the expectations very clearly even before arrival. I filled up the landing card and went to the immigration section. There were two queues: One for the foreigners and the other for Nigerians. The foreigners queue was very quiet. I heard a commotion in the Nigerian side. Everyone was shouting at the top of their voice. No doubt the foreigners queue was very quiet. Obviously they were terrified at the sight of Nigerians fighting amongst themselves. They would have feared that they might show their anger on them at any point of time. Finally we came to know the subject of the discussion. Some of the Nigerians in the queue were terribly pissed off with the facilities available in the airport. One of them mentioned to the foreigners that the passengers have to pay $1 for the trolley in the airport.
The Lagos airport was very small. I could not imagine such a small airport for such a big city, esp., when it’s the commercial capital of the country. There was only one luggage conveyor belt. And there were passengers from many flights who were waiting for their baggage. There was confusion all around. I realized why the Nigerian was so agitated. This incident gave me the first assurance that at least some of them are good, if not all.
When you come out of Lagos airport, they have a system of verifying whether you have picked the correct luggage. I thought they might have such a system as some of the passengers might take others baggage and get away with it. A person verified my baggage tag on the boarding pass and on the luggage. Then he asked me to give him some chocolates. Somehow I managed to convince him that I do not have any chocolates and ran towards the driver who was waiting to pick me up and take me to the Lagos National airport, for my travel to Abuja. I was wondering what would be the state of the national airport esp., when the status of the international airport is in such a condition.
The national airport was ten minutes drive from the international airport. The landscape of Nigeria is similar to that of India. National airport was slightly better when compared to the international one. I checked in my baggage and waited for four hours to catch the connecting virgin flight to Abuja.
When I boarded the flight to Abuja, for the first time in my life I faced a situation where two people were assigned the same seat number in the aircraft. !!! Weird isn’t it? This confusion has happened even though the boarding pass is generated in the system. There were several people in the aircraft complaining of the same issue. The flight was delayed for an hour, because of this confusion. Some implementation of IT system has gone wrong!!
The flight to Abuja took off finally, when the flight attendant requested some of them to board another flight and some people were accommodated in the business class.
A wonderful first impression isn’t it? Expect more on Nigeria and its people in my following posts. Please post your comments on this post. Am expecting it :). Thanks in advance….
My total travel time to Nigeria took almost 22 hours including the stopover in Dubai for six hours (and excluding the six hours it took from Lagos to Abuja). When I was in Dubai, I thought those were the last few hours in a developed country.
Lagos and Abuja: Lagos is the economic and financial capital of Nigeria. Lagos was the capital of Nigeria from 1914 up to 1991; it was stripped of this title when the Federal Capital Territory was established at the purpose-built city of Abuja. Lagos is similar to Mumbai (so they say) and Abuja is like Delhi.
I was supposed to land in Lagos and take a connecting flight to Abuja. (Not a bad idea; I could cover two cities)
When I landed in Lagos, the flight attendant handed over a photo copy of the landing card (Yes Photo copy!! There are no printed landing cards). They set the expectations very clearly even before arrival. I filled up the landing card and went to the immigration section. There were two queues: One for the foreigners and the other for Nigerians. The foreigners queue was very quiet. I heard a commotion in the Nigerian side. Everyone was shouting at the top of their voice. No doubt the foreigners queue was very quiet. Obviously they were terrified at the sight of Nigerians fighting amongst themselves. They would have feared that they might show their anger on them at any point of time. Finally we came to know the subject of the discussion. Some of the Nigerians in the queue were terribly pissed off with the facilities available in the airport. One of them mentioned to the foreigners that the passengers have to pay $1 for the trolley in the airport.
The Lagos airport was very small. I could not imagine such a small airport for such a big city, esp., when it’s the commercial capital of the country. There was only one luggage conveyor belt. And there were passengers from many flights who were waiting for their baggage. There was confusion all around. I realized why the Nigerian was so agitated. This incident gave me the first assurance that at least some of them are good, if not all.
When you come out of Lagos airport, they have a system of verifying whether you have picked the correct luggage. I thought they might have such a system as some of the passengers might take others baggage and get away with it. A person verified my baggage tag on the boarding pass and on the luggage. Then he asked me to give him some chocolates. Somehow I managed to convince him that I do not have any chocolates and ran towards the driver who was waiting to pick me up and take me to the Lagos National airport, for my travel to Abuja. I was wondering what would be the state of the national airport esp., when the status of the international airport is in such a condition.
The national airport was ten minutes drive from the international airport. The landscape of Nigeria is similar to that of India. National airport was slightly better when compared to the international one. I checked in my baggage and waited for four hours to catch the connecting virgin flight to Abuja.
When I boarded the flight to Abuja, for the first time in my life I faced a situation where two people were assigned the same seat number in the aircraft. !!! Weird isn’t it? This confusion has happened even though the boarding pass is generated in the system. There were several people in the aircraft complaining of the same issue. The flight was delayed for an hour, because of this confusion. Some implementation of IT system has gone wrong!!
The flight to Abuja took off finally, when the flight attendant requested some of them to board another flight and some people were accommodated in the business class.
A wonderful first impression isn’t it? Expect more on Nigeria and its people in my following posts. Please post your comments on this post. Am expecting it :). Thanks in advance….
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Shortcut to happiness
Happiness is a state of mind. Nobody is happy at all times, but some people are definitely more fulfilled than others and it doesn't seem to have much to do with material goods or high achievement.
Not all events in our life fulfill our expectations. Destined events, good and bad are bound to happen in our lives. If you think about it spiritually, there is a reason for every event in your life. Bad events also help us learn certain things in life.
Also, when we get things in life after great struggle, it gives us immense satisfaction. In those days when I used to watch Doordarshan programmes like chitrahaar, if a good song is played in that, it would become the talk of the town next day. If they play a good movie on Sunday evening, all the roads will be empty. However nowadays we tend to ignore even the best movies, because we know that we can watch it some other day. When you get things easily, you would not realize the importance of the same. However when you struggle for something and get it finally, you cherish the same and value it. So don’t worry if you struggle in your life. You would taste success one day and enjoy the same.
It is said that “The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.” Hence scale down your expectations. This would keep you happy always.
Oh my god!! What a piece of philosphy I have written here…..Sorry guys I am feeling so sleepy. Hence I have written all this. Read the following paragraph. This will certainly provide you the shortcut to happiness.
First create a folder named “Happiness” in your computer. Then right click and create a shortcut. Then paste that shortcut in your desktop. There u go…..
Not all events in our life fulfill our expectations. Destined events, good and bad are bound to happen in our lives. If you think about it spiritually, there is a reason for every event in your life. Bad events also help us learn certain things in life.
Also, when we get things in life after great struggle, it gives us immense satisfaction. In those days when I used to watch Doordarshan programmes like chitrahaar, if a good song is played in that, it would become the talk of the town next day. If they play a good movie on Sunday evening, all the roads will be empty. However nowadays we tend to ignore even the best movies, because we know that we can watch it some other day. When you get things easily, you would not realize the importance of the same. However when you struggle for something and get it finally, you cherish the same and value it. So don’t worry if you struggle in your life. You would taste success one day and enjoy the same.
It is said that “The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.” Hence scale down your expectations. This would keep you happy always.
Oh my god!! What a piece of philosphy I have written here…..Sorry guys I am feeling so sleepy. Hence I have written all this. Read the following paragraph. This will certainly provide you the shortcut to happiness.
First create a folder named “Happiness” in your computer. Then right click and create a shortcut. Then paste that shortcut in your desktop. There u go…..
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Mediocre Media
It has been quite sometime since I had blogged. I was looking for some interesting topic to post here. My last post evoked some interesting responses, especially, the comments on Madhavan. I was tempted to criticize Shahid Kapoor in this blog post, but since my post could disappoint his female fans, I refrained from doing so.
I was really annoyed by the news item that blocks half of the newspaper columns for the past few weeks. It’s about the racist attack on the Indians in Australia. True, some Australians have attacked Indian students and they suffered in that process. Do we need to react so much for that? This is very common in many parts of the world. Bad elements do exist in all the societies. In many cases the victims would be whites. How do the media know that the attacks were motivated by racist intentions? If Australians are racist, then why are they not attacking other Asian student communities? There are more than 100000 Chinese students studying in Australia. Why are they not being attacked? Why are they not protesting along with the Indian students?
If attacks on the foreigners can be termed as racist, then in India lot of foreigners are being mugged / beaten to death very frequently. Scarlett case is one such example. Did the western media term it as xenophobic?
The quality of journalism in the western world is much better compared to that of India. In BBC or CNN you can never notice a news reader airing his opinions on the subject. They bring in the expert to provide opinion. For ex, I was watching Sky news channel during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The terrorists targeted British and American citizens in that attack. In spite of that, the news readers were calm and composed. The newsreaders did not air their opinion. They had invited political and other experts from Asian region to understand the nature of the attacks and the people / organization behind the attacks.
Majority of the Indians are driven by emotions. Indian media tries to utilize this and sensationalize every news item. They just try to achieve higher TRP’s in this process. When people start losing interest in this news item they move on to the next news item for a few days. Don’t you think the Indian media needs to mature? Please leave your comments...
I was really annoyed by the news item that blocks half of the newspaper columns for the past few weeks. It’s about the racist attack on the Indians in Australia. True, some Australians have attacked Indian students and they suffered in that process. Do we need to react so much for that? This is very common in many parts of the world. Bad elements do exist in all the societies. In many cases the victims would be whites. How do the media know that the attacks were motivated by racist intentions? If Australians are racist, then why are they not attacking other Asian student communities? There are more than 100000 Chinese students studying in Australia. Why are they not being attacked? Why are they not protesting along with the Indian students?
If attacks on the foreigners can be termed as racist, then in India lot of foreigners are being mugged / beaten to death very frequently. Scarlett case is one such example. Did the western media term it as xenophobic?
The quality of journalism in the western world is much better compared to that of India. In BBC or CNN you can never notice a news reader airing his opinions on the subject. They bring in the expert to provide opinion. For ex, I was watching Sky news channel during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The terrorists targeted British and American citizens in that attack. In spite of that, the news readers were calm and composed. The newsreaders did not air their opinion. They had invited political and other experts from Asian region to understand the nature of the attacks and the people / organization behind the attacks.
Majority of the Indians are driven by emotions. Indian media tries to utilize this and sensationalize every news item. They just try to achieve higher TRP’s in this process. When people start losing interest in this news item they move on to the next news item for a few days. Don’t you think the Indian media needs to mature? Please leave your comments...
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