We have read a lot about the Baba Ramdev and the related stories. There is no doubt that the move by congress to use force on peaceful protestors was atrocious. I hope you would be glad that if I mention that this post is not exactly about that incident.
Instead of evicting Ramdev, I feel, congress could have genuinely considered some of the demands of Baba. Though many points raised by him are valid, it’s not practical to implement it.
However two major demands raised by him appeal to me
1) Bringing back the black money stashed abroad in tax heavens and
2) Electing the PM directly.
It is easier said than done to bring back all the black money stashed abroad. Congress has been in power for the past 60 years. I am sure that most of the money would belong to the congress ministers / party members. No wonder 4 of the senior ministers went to the airport (or at least they were planning to) to convince Baba either to drop the demand or to convince him. The issue of graft has been haunting congress for quite some time now. DMK which has been a part of the congress ministry has also criticized Baba. I believe, if you note the parties which criticize Baba and trace the amount of black money stashed by the members such political parties, 80% of such black money can be brought back to India. It would be foolish to expect the government (any ruling party for that matter including BJP and congress in particular) to act on this as they would be directly affected by this. Who would bell the cat?
If people elect the Prime minister directly, he would have more power and authority. The PM would then be directly answerable to the public when it comes to important issues. However in the current scenario you can have a dummy person as a PM. However good he may be, he would not be in a position to act independently. Again it’s not easy to implement this. There would be several issues. For ex. What would happen if a person from one party gets elected as a PM and another party gets majority? Would he be heading the government, while the ministers would be from other parties? That would be chaotic.
I believe if we address the second point (somehow) we can easily address the first one quite easily.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A fish out of water
“We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're gonna live on the internet!” I am sure you are aware of this quote; however, I am not sure whether we have realized the implications of this.
I am sure that most of us get frustrated if we do not have access to the social networking sites for a few days and I guess a majority of them would be women.
If Google ever takes a survey of who uses their chats most during the day, I believe, they would come up with an analysis that women use the chat windows more frequently when compared to men and for prolonged periods of time. Their active chat windows never cease to come down, whereas I observed that the active chat windows of guys are a few. For your record, I have not tried to peep into someone’s chat window. These observations are based on the casual glance of the screens of my colleagues as I walk past them.
What is the impact of these in the work place? You might think that it makes women concentrate less on the official work because of the online distractions. True. To some extent it has the effect of distracting them from their official work. But I cannot imagine a situation in which the internet access is blocked. It would frustrate them more and would make them less efficient.
Though the thoughts expressed above are gender neutral, I have focused on women as its impact would be more for the other gender, based on my experience. What’s your view on this?
I am sure that most of us get frustrated if we do not have access to the social networking sites for a few days and I guess a majority of them would be women.
If Google ever takes a survey of who uses their chats most during the day, I believe, they would come up with an analysis that women use the chat windows more frequently when compared to men and for prolonged periods of time. Their active chat windows never cease to come down, whereas I observed that the active chat windows of guys are a few. For your record, I have not tried to peep into someone’s chat window. These observations are based on the casual glance of the screens of my colleagues as I walk past them.
What is the impact of these in the work place? You might think that it makes women concentrate less on the official work because of the online distractions. True. To some extent it has the effect of distracting them from their official work. But I cannot imagine a situation in which the internet access is blocked. It would frustrate them more and would make them less efficient.
Though the thoughts expressed above are gender neutral, I have focused on women as its impact would be more for the other gender, based on my experience. What’s your view on this?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Inflation and auto fare
It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post. During this period if you analyze the front page news items, two major news items have dominated the front pages; Corruption and Inflation.
There are enough articles about corruption written by various columnists that I am bored of thinking about it let alone write on that.
Although inflation is equally talked about and discussed by everyone I thought of presenting a different analogy: A comparison of Inflation with auto fares. Why? One reason could be to make you to read further. Another, I happen to think about it. No specific reasoning behind it. Let me know whether this analogy appeals to you.
In my childhood days we rarely used to take auto. We generally used to travel by local bus as auto was considered to be costly. However since the public transport is not dependable sometimes we do travel by auto. During the late 80’s the auto fare for going to my uncles place from our place used to cost us Rs 5. For a government employee (clerical grade) the salary at that point of time was around Rs.5000.
Now auto fare for the same distance costs Rs.50. Auto fares keep increasing on a regular basis to factor the increase in the fuel prices and to factor in the inflation in the economy. Hence I thought considering this as a basis for the inflation is justified. Assuming that my assumption holds good (in sincerely believe it is), one should be earning Rs.50000 a month to be in the same category of the government clerk 20 years back. This shows how bad the purchasing power of a rupee has diminished over the years. If you consider the figure of 5000/50000 in the above example as net of tax, the gross figure should be around 65000-80000 (approx) assuming that you would be in a tax bracket of 25-30%
If you compare the above figures with your 5/6/7 figure salaries you can imagine at what level you are in the society vis-a-vis the government employee (clerk) a two decades back.
All these figures are for the period during administered pricing for the fossil fuels were in place. Going forward I cannot imagine a situation in which the prices keep fluctuating (read it as going up as the chances of downward revision is just a dream). Rupee has seriously lost value over the years, and what we have done is just added a few 0’s to our expenses and our salary. In actual terms either we have stagnated or went from bad to worse.
There are enough articles about corruption written by various columnists that I am bored of thinking about it let alone write on that.
Although inflation is equally talked about and discussed by everyone I thought of presenting a different analogy: A comparison of Inflation with auto fares. Why? One reason could be to make you to read further. Another, I happen to think about it. No specific reasoning behind it. Let me know whether this analogy appeals to you.
In my childhood days we rarely used to take auto. We generally used to travel by local bus as auto was considered to be costly. However since the public transport is not dependable sometimes we do travel by auto. During the late 80’s the auto fare for going to my uncles place from our place used to cost us Rs 5. For a government employee (clerical grade) the salary at that point of time was around Rs.5000.
Now auto fare for the same distance costs Rs.50. Auto fares keep increasing on a regular basis to factor the increase in the fuel prices and to factor in the inflation in the economy. Hence I thought considering this as a basis for the inflation is justified. Assuming that my assumption holds good (in sincerely believe it is), one should be earning Rs.50000 a month to be in the same category of the government clerk 20 years back. This shows how bad the purchasing power of a rupee has diminished over the years. If you consider the figure of 5000/50000 in the above example as net of tax, the gross figure should be around 65000-80000 (approx) assuming that you would be in a tax bracket of 25-30%
If you compare the above figures with your 5/6/7 figure salaries you can imagine at what level you are in the society vis-a-vis the government employee (clerk) a two decades back.
All these figures are for the period during administered pricing for the fossil fuels were in place. Going forward I cannot imagine a situation in which the prices keep fluctuating (read it as going up as the chances of downward revision is just a dream). Rupee has seriously lost value over the years, and what we have done is just added a few 0’s to our expenses and our salary. In actual terms either we have stagnated or went from bad to worse.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
An Intriguing Inception
Inception is one of the wonderful movies I have watched in the recent times. It has the potential to be crowned as the decade’s best movie. In case you have not watched the movie yet, I would advise you not to read the rest of the contents of this blog. Please watch the movie and then read this. The content of this blog post has the potential to spoil all the fun.
It has been a long time since the movie got released. I have watched it twice and many of us would have watched it twice by now. There are still some nagging questions about the movie which are still lingering in my mind, unless someone comes up with a proper logic for the questions. They are
1) Mal (Leonardo’s wife) is just shown as a projection. Or she lives in her mind or whatever. How can a projection take away the character from one level to another?
2) For the characters to go from one dream level to another, they need to be connected to the machine. However Fisher and Saito moved to other levels even when they are not connected to the machine!!
3) How did Saito find Cobb in the final dream level? Where did Saito get some men to work for him? Ideally Saito is not the dreamer. He neither has his own projection nor has the capability to defend an attack on his mind as Fisher did.
4) What was the kick for Cobb and Saito to come out of the limbo? If you assume that Saito shoots Cobb and shoots himself, then there is no need for Cobb to search for Saito. Saito could have killed himself anyway.
I think there could be some logic for these. Guess I may not have noted some of the assumptions in the movie. Do you have the answer for these questions? If so don’t forget to leave your comment.
It has been a long time since the movie got released. I have watched it twice and many of us would have watched it twice by now. There are still some nagging questions about the movie which are still lingering in my mind, unless someone comes up with a proper logic for the questions. They are
1) Mal (Leonardo’s wife) is just shown as a projection. Or she lives in her mind or whatever. How can a projection take away the character from one level to another?
2) For the characters to go from one dream level to another, they need to be connected to the machine. However Fisher and Saito moved to other levels even when they are not connected to the machine!!
3) How did Saito find Cobb in the final dream level? Where did Saito get some men to work for him? Ideally Saito is not the dreamer. He neither has his own projection nor has the capability to defend an attack on his mind as Fisher did.
4) What was the kick for Cobb and Saito to come out of the limbo? If you assume that Saito shoots Cobb and shoots himself, then there is no need for Cobb to search for Saito. Saito could have killed himself anyway.
I think there could be some logic for these. Guess I may not have noted some of the assumptions in the movie. Do you have the answer for these questions? If so don’t forget to leave your comment.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The power of punctuation
This is one of the shortest blogs i have ever written. Yesterday when i was travelling back home i was shocked when I peeped through the window. I was looking at the name board on top of a roadside shop which read as "Anus Hair Designer". Since I knew the local language as well, I checked out what was written in the local language. Then I realized that the name of the shop should read as "Anu's Hair Designer". Shows how powerful and important punctuation is, isn’t it?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
In the dog house...
It has been a long time since I updated my blog. I was contemplating different topics to write about in the blog: the telecom mess, failure of UPA II to address the price rise, naxal attack etc. But finally I decided to write about the topic which everyone could comment on. Yes, finally I am writing about cricket.
It had been quite some time since I watched cricket with interest. IPL, I thought, rekindled the interest in cricket across all sections of the society. For the past three years it has been attracting a lot of attention. But this year it has attracted a lot of negative publicity because of the heat it generated in political circles, ahead of the summer season.
When all is said and done, credit has to be given to Lalit Modi for making IPL a success. It is not a child’s play to conduct such a massive tournament, involving international players, in Indian soil with lots of domestic disruptions including the terrorist threats across the subcontinent. In the first year there was the challenge of making IPL a success by giving it a lot of publicity, conducting it in India in spite of the heat (peak summer season) and the disruptions like the bomb blast which ripped apart the pink city etc. Second year the problems were created by the Union government, as it was the election year. The tournament had to be shifted to South Africa in a very short notice. Still it was conducted successfully. The final year brought lot of negative publicity.
No doubt, when so much money is involved, most of the politicians in the country would watch like a hawk to ensure that they get their share. It’s taken for granted, that they should be getting their share, especially when they dole out so many tax sops for the tournament. This time, the infamous Shashi Taroor got involved in the bidding process, by openly supporting one of the bidders by being a mentor, which cost him the job. Modi then brought the ownership issue and then all hell broke loose. The government and BCCI woke up as if they knew anything about all this for three years. There were income tax raids on IPL franchisees, and there were rumors about the ownership and tax payment of various teams including KKR. Though there were raids by income tax department, there has been no action against any of the franchisees, as expected.
I am not sure what went wrong between Modi and Tharoor. But it’s clear that lot of money would have changed hands in the political circles. When the whole system blames one person for all the problems (especially when politicians are a part of the finger pointing exercise) you can be sure that they have identified a scapegoat. Modi has unfortunately been blamed for the entire mess, whereas everyone has a part to play in the whole affair.
At this point it looks like Modi is in the dog house. Let us see how things shape up after Modi’s response. He has submitted a response for 12000 pages. By the time BCCI reads it and takes action against Modi, I think the next IPL would be completed successfully.
It had been quite some time since I watched cricket with interest. IPL, I thought, rekindled the interest in cricket across all sections of the society. For the past three years it has been attracting a lot of attention. But this year it has attracted a lot of negative publicity because of the heat it generated in political circles, ahead of the summer season.
When all is said and done, credit has to be given to Lalit Modi for making IPL a success. It is not a child’s play to conduct such a massive tournament, involving international players, in Indian soil with lots of domestic disruptions including the terrorist threats across the subcontinent. In the first year there was the challenge of making IPL a success by giving it a lot of publicity, conducting it in India in spite of the heat (peak summer season) and the disruptions like the bomb blast which ripped apart the pink city etc. Second year the problems were created by the Union government, as it was the election year. The tournament had to be shifted to South Africa in a very short notice. Still it was conducted successfully. The final year brought lot of negative publicity.
No doubt, when so much money is involved, most of the politicians in the country would watch like a hawk to ensure that they get their share. It’s taken for granted, that they should be getting their share, especially when they dole out so many tax sops for the tournament. This time, the infamous Shashi Taroor got involved in the bidding process, by openly supporting one of the bidders by being a mentor, which cost him the job. Modi then brought the ownership issue and then all hell broke loose. The government and BCCI woke up as if they knew anything about all this for three years. There were income tax raids on IPL franchisees, and there were rumors about the ownership and tax payment of various teams including KKR. Though there were raids by income tax department, there has been no action against any of the franchisees, as expected.
I am not sure what went wrong between Modi and Tharoor. But it’s clear that lot of money would have changed hands in the political circles. When the whole system blames one person for all the problems (especially when politicians are a part of the finger pointing exercise) you can be sure that they have identified a scapegoat. Modi has unfortunately been blamed for the entire mess, whereas everyone has a part to play in the whole affair.
At this point it looks like Modi is in the dog house. Let us see how things shape up after Modi’s response. He has submitted a response for 12000 pages. By the time BCCI reads it and takes action against Modi, I think the next IPL would be completed successfully.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Hindu, which is against hindus
A newspaper is a printed periodical whose purpose is to deliver news and other information in an up-to-date, factual manner. Though the news section only brings the facts, the facts can be interpreted in the editorial columns of newspapers.
Newspapers are supposed to provide views which are unbiased. Most of the newspapers in India try to balance their views. When it comes to religious views I believe most of the newspapers are secular. However there is one publication “The Hindu”, which has the habit of providing news and views which does not support the secular principles.
“The Hindu” claims to be secular in outlook. However, I find the articles are totally biased. Today when I read the article about MF Husain being given the citizenship of Qatar on the front page I was surprised. I wanted to check whether the same importance for this is given in other national papers. A quick check revealed none of them cared about this news item. However in Hindu, there were many articles about this apart from the front page article. The articles described this event as a national shame. I was wondering what is there in it to be considered as a national shame. There were many articles which carried views of various artists and film personalities toeing the line of “The Hindu”.
M F Husain is just an artist who derives pleasure in painting nude pictures of hindu goddess. Some people wonder how painting nude pictures of hindu god can be considered artistic. Lets not delve into that topic. Let us assume that it’s artistic. I am not sure why he does not try to paint Mother Mary in such a way? Why does he not try painting the picture of Prophet (leave alone nude pictures of him). I would have accepted that he has artistic tendencies if he had been impartial to any religion. However he has not done that. Had he painted the picture of prophet he would have been killed by the same country which has granted citizenship now.
I used to admire “The Hindu” for the quality of their English. However, the articles fail to impress me. I am sure if they continue to publish pseudo secular views; sooner or later the publication would have to find out a place in some other country where it can start it operations, just like the person whom they support.
Newspapers are supposed to provide views which are unbiased. Most of the newspapers in India try to balance their views. When it comes to religious views I believe most of the newspapers are secular. However there is one publication “The Hindu”, which has the habit of providing news and views which does not support the secular principles.
“The Hindu” claims to be secular in outlook. However, I find the articles are totally biased. Today when I read the article about MF Husain being given the citizenship of Qatar on the front page I was surprised. I wanted to check whether the same importance for this is given in other national papers. A quick check revealed none of them cared about this news item. However in Hindu, there were many articles about this apart from the front page article. The articles described this event as a national shame. I was wondering what is there in it to be considered as a national shame. There were many articles which carried views of various artists and film personalities toeing the line of “The Hindu”.
M F Husain is just an artist who derives pleasure in painting nude pictures of hindu goddess. Some people wonder how painting nude pictures of hindu god can be considered artistic. Lets not delve into that topic. Let us assume that it’s artistic. I am not sure why he does not try to paint Mother Mary in such a way? Why does he not try painting the picture of Prophet (leave alone nude pictures of him). I would have accepted that he has artistic tendencies if he had been impartial to any religion. However he has not done that. Had he painted the picture of prophet he would have been killed by the same country which has granted citizenship now.
I used to admire “The Hindu” for the quality of their English. However, the articles fail to impress me. I am sure if they continue to publish pseudo secular views; sooner or later the publication would have to find out a place in some other country where it can start it operations, just like the person whom they support.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)