Check out Should Greenpeace keep talking to the Tatas? Or should we stop the port?

I want you to take a look at: Should Greenpeace keep talking to the Tatas? Or should we stop the port? 

...

My last blog post was sometime in August last year (and that was more of a necessity than free will)...since then I've done nothing of note and still been busy. The irony of the whole thing is I'm not sure as to what I've been busy with; Office? Naah, my work profile is too darn mundane for me to plead 'busy'! So what else?
Visits to campus? Well… I must confess I’m going down those hallowed corridors more often than i used to go during my college days but that isn't something that's been keeping me "busy". But am i busy? Well i haven't posted anything on my blog for almost 6 months so there must be something that must be keeping me busy...but what?
May be I'm just a lazy bum who punches the keyboard for almost 8-10 hrs at a stretch in office and doesn't fancies touching the QWERTY thing once he's back at home.
Ok that seems plausible.
Maybe I will get over my laziness and will start competing with Riddhi vis-à-vis number of blogs posted every month. Ah, that will be good...competing with the pro. But till then I shall go back to my hibernating state. It is more fun than this :)

Beijing has wooed the world

Deadly riots and a crackdown on protests in Tibet in March this year not withstanding, all the World leaders will squat in the 'Bird's Nest' to watch the spectacle of the Opening Ceremony of 2008 Beijing bOlympics. The ethnic unrest in Western China, brutal clampdown on resenting voices will not perturb Mr Bush and Monsieur Sarkozy as both of them have warmed up considerably to Comrade Hu.

During the torrid times of the torch relay, through a volatile Paris and San Francisco (followed by a farcical “run” in New Delhi), all and sundry cried foul over almost everything, starting from Tibet to Darfur. Nicolas Sarkozy almost threatened to boycott but later climbed down from his high horse. Maybe selling Airbus planes and nuclear equipment to Chinese customers ranks higher on the agenda of the French President. President Bush is travelling down to Beijing because he doesn't want to displease Chinese people. Maybe he doesn't count Tibetans amongst the “Chinese people”. Well there's at least one similarity between Comrade Hu and President Bush!

At the end of the day all the leaders have their reasons for not 'displeasing the Chinese people' and 'glitterati' of world leaders will be in Beijing on the 8th of August.

Sitting inside the 'Bird's Nest' watching the spectacle orchestrated by Zhang Yimou (of House of Flying Daggers fame), the 100 odd world leaders who are touted to attend the gala will hardly be bothered about what goes on in the rough terrain of Tibet.

China's regime has seized on the Olympics to boast about its development and portray itself as a 21st century global power. The Opening Ceremony will be enough to prove, as the fleeting glimpse that has been systematically leaked shows that all the artists, technicians and producers who have been working on the ceremony for years, encapsulating 100 year old Chinese history and tradition in a hour long show, that the Chinese have done a creditable job.

By attending the Opening Ceremony, will the world leaders give a sort of legitimacy to all the actions taken by the ruling regime of China? Only time will tell whether they will end up becoming some sort of props in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

This blog first appeared on the Expressblogs.

Why do we need a window?

This blog first appeared on expressblogs, my source of mutton, chicken & shahi panner!

All this talk of ICC creating a window in the ‘Future’s Tour Programme’ (FTP) for tournaments like IPL to flourish doesn’t make any sense to me. The basic premise of the Indian Premier League is taken from the highly successful soccer club competitions across Europe where international players play in various clubs but whenever they are required to join their international squads, the clubs have to let them go. There are no two ways about it. FIFA rules make it very clear that international fixtures hold priority over club clashes. But they make sure that when important matches are held, like knock-out matches of tournaments like Champions League in Europe or the tournaments in Latin America, soccer bodies don’t fix any game during that particular time.So it is a fine balancing act that keeps the multi-million dollar/pound/euro club soccer system going without harming the importance and relevance of international FIFA matches. Here the International cricket body, ICC, is mulling about stalling international fixtures to allow the ‘big players’ to earn more by playing in tournaments like IPL. To me personally it sounds preposterous to say the least. Whatever maybe at stake financially in tournaments like IPL, nothing can match the edge in clashes like India-Pakistan or Australia-England and that is what a true cricket fan wants.
Not a war minus bullets and slaps but a hard fought game in which cricket comes out as the winner. I am all for IPL and other tournaments like it and personally I love the Twenty20 format but frankly stalling international cricket matches for a period of time to facilitate cash-driven tournaments is just not done

Will sworn enemies kiss and make-up?

This blog first appeared on expressblogs, my source of mutton, chicken & shahi panner!

All of us have heard about great cricketing rivalries of the past, Gavaskar vs Lille, More vs Miandad but none of them had to face the dilemma of sharing a dressing room. Now Graeme Smith and Shane Warne aren’t exactly great mates but it will be rather interesting to see them put their head together to scheme an opposition batsman’s downfall. Similarly any opposition captain to have played against Sourav Ganguly will not wax eloquent about him and if it is a certain Mr Ricardo Ponting then the camaraderie shared between the two individuals is well, not exactly great to say the least. After sharing such a tense relationship on the field for so long its hard to fathom how these two players will gel inside a common dressing room or how Ponting is going to take orders from Ganguly on field! Your guess is as good as mine, but it will ensure that the paying public gets value for its money.

Can we bridge the “Digital Divide”?

In the poverty stricken Nangla Maachi slum in New Delhi, Sarai-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) along with Ankur, an NGO, provided the teenagers with computers way back in 1991. They started jotting down their daily dairies and basically articulated bits and pieces of their daily life on the computer. Sometime later the Delhi state government realized it has the responsibility of ‘developing’ the area so it began by demolishing the slum to lay foundation for a flyover. This “media lab” (as it was called) had to be shifted and since then, many from the slum continue to write regularly about their experiences of homelessness on a Hindi blog, which are translated into English by volunteers from the aforementioned organisations.

Yes, this is India, the land of stark contrasts and bitter irony. It is the country which flaunts 200 million cell phone connections but finds it difficult to hide its 250 million people who continue to languish below the internationally defined poverty line of earning one US dollar a day. The global scenario is changing rapidly with the advent of technology and India is evolving with it, but isn’t it a bit insensitive, if not obscene, for us to celebrate the boon that technology (specifically internet, means of telecommunication) has been? Our problem is that we have stopped looking outside the comforts of our urban cocooned existence.

Just one statistic will make it clear. In 2006 there were 40 phones for every 100 residents of cities like Delhi and Mumbai but at the same time teledensity in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Orissa was a pathetic two. Bridging this ‘digital divide’ between Bharat & India will not be an easy task as the socio-economic reality of rural India doesn’t makes the idea of adopting technology alluring.

There is always a kind of scepticism and mistrust that shrouds the ‘T’ word in India and for the masses to feel comfortable with the whole concept of imbibing technology in their daily lives spreading awareness about the ‘positive’ side to it is imperative. This ‘awareness’ again cannot be brought about by sustained PR campaigns (that’s effective only for family planning) on which the government spends a bomb each year without much success. It all boils down to basic primary education, which unfortunately the authorities have failed to provide. Most people will be shocked to know that in Asia, India has one of the highest drop-out rates for students in primary school. We as a society have to change this scenario upside down. Turning one Gurgaon into some sort of cyber city won’t absolve us our guilt.

We need to look at the bigger picture where Information technology & ‘IT enabled services’ will have a prominent role to play in the socio-economic development of the entire country. Technology, especially computers and the assortment of gizmos that accompany it can work wonders for our farmers. From helping them to keep an eye on the ‘market prices’ to educating them about the advanced farming techniques used in developed nations. It can open up a whole new world of opportunities for them. Realising this dream won’t be easy as we will have to start from scratch but hope for a better tomorrow might just be the inspiration that will drive us to success.

Of Momentous Heroes & An Uncertain Nation

In Delhi the best place to look for ‘affordable’ continental food are the small restaurants in Paharganj. I happen to visit Paharganj recently and went out to have lunch (picture of Lasagne floating in my head) with a friend at one such restaurant. The place was not very crowded but what struck me was the fact that in the 20 odd people sitting there we were the only Desis and rest ‘white’ Videshi. In minutes I saw a few more blonde heads trickle in and a dreadlocked head move out of the door. While I was chatting with my friend arguing about what to order the waiter kept on hanging around our table to get our order, the food on other tables was conspicuous by its absence.

भारत

The fact that the waiter (a 15-16 yr old lad) never bothered to ask the man with white skin about his order, while he kept on hounding us for full 20 minutes that we took for ordering the pre-ordained Lasagne opened my eyes to a bitter reality. I saw a society that still believes that they are the “White Man’s Burden”. If one starts introspecting after 60 years of independence the failure to exorcise the colonial ghost and an inherent inferiority complex when compared to ‘them’ has been the biggest failure of India as a society. The silver lining in this otherwise gloomy cloud of hopelessness have been individuals who have shone through their abilities and intellect and have shown them what we are all about.

The Heroes

Not counting the Nehru’s, Patel’s and the man called Gandhi, there was one man called V K Krishna Menon. After being appointed India’s first high commissioner to the UK in 1947 he had a huge responsibility on his shoulders to represent our nation in the country which had ruled us for almost two centuries. He performed his duty with utmost dignity and established himself as a distinguished ambassador. He never cared about the overtly patronising nature of the British society in general towards India and on occasion he let them know that they are dealing with one of the finest brains in the Indian politics.

One such incident is of a lady from British aristocracy who asked the London School of Economics educated Menon, how he can speak such articulately in English. Menon retorted, “Ma’am I happen to have studied this language, which you merely have picked!” Also on 23rd January 1957 Krishna Menon, then the head of Indian delegation to the UN, delivered an unprecedented 8-hour speech defending India’s stand on Kashmir and vociferously criticizing the United States. To date, Krishna Menon’s speech is the longest ever delivered in the United Nations Security Council.

Cricket despite being a relic of the British era had become a religion of sorts in post-independent India. In 1951 when India defeated their past masters at their own game in Madras (now Chennai) by an innings and 8 runs, the skipper Vijay Hazare was put on a heavenly pedestal. But still it was a team comprising of gentlemen who just played the game and when confronted by barrage of expletives (and bouncers) from their English counter-parts they preferred to sway away from the line. In 1971 Pakistan wasn’t the only nation cowering from the onslaught launched by India. We beat them in their own backyard for the first time and the reason we were able to do that was the team’s self belief and its ability to stand up to their erstwhile colonial masters as equals. The white cricketer was shown his place by players like Dilip Sardesai, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and later Sachin Tendulkar amongst others. But nobody did it as emphatically as Saurav Ganguly. After rubbing (snooty??) stalwart of the game Steve Waugh the wrong way during the home series in 2001 (which by the way India won!), Ganguly went to England and did a ‘semi-nude victory jig’ in the hallowed Lord’s balcony.

It made Ganguly an icon for this star-starved nation for next few years and ensured that this incident will be firmly etched on the memory of anyone who saw ‘Dada’ swirling his t-shirt and telling the Englishmen what exactly to do next! It also became the face of the new aggressive India that was dynamic and wasn’t ready to be cowed down by the colour of the skin of his opposing number. From that day onwards we have finally learnt to play our game differently and have ceased to be the docile ‘good boys’ of the game. But have the people, who deify these very players, being able to make that attitude shift that apparently the Indian cricketer has made? The simple answer of this difficult question is no.


We still feel blessed if a European tourist enquires about the way to the lavatory from us while the African students are called names while they travel using the public transport. It’s as if that we have accepted the supremacy of the white skinned and the English speaking over us. By imposing a cultural hegemony of sorts on us through language and various other Medias, the ‘West’ has been successful in its endeavour to turn us into a nation of ‘Brown Sahebs’. As the father of Western Education in India Thomas Babington Macaulay visualised we are turning into a nation of “…Indian in blood and colour, but English (read Western) in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”

Language is the most important vehicle to assert identity and by loosing it or corrupting it we are loosing ourselves. Studying English language isn’t bad but learning it at the cost of your own mother tongue leaves a kind of void in one’s personality and similarly appreciating western culture is fine till the time you are at least aware of your own roots. When the later condition is not fulfilled then we get a generation of disjointed individuals floating in nothingness in a dazed condition searching for their own space, their own identity.

Our trepidation for the white skin manifests from this colonised mind which forces us to automatically cow down in front of an otherwise a normal white person. We are looking for fair skinned people even amongst our own community, so you see those horribly absurd and rather bemusing matrimonial adverts looking for a ‘fair groom’. It throws the conventional ‘tall, DARK, handsome’ norm for a man’s attractiveness out of the window. The only party not complaining here are the ‘fairness cream’ manufacturers who have sold more millions of tonnes of cream, both to men & women.

We need to realise that it is crippling us intellectually, morally, emotionally and spiritually. Embracing the so-called modern world at the cost of loosing one’s identity, culture and sense of individuality may not be such a sensible thing to do. The process of decolonising the Indian mind might take some time but we can make a start by putting a stop on giving out those absurd matrimonial adverts and trying to judge an individual on parameters other than his skin colour.