Am back !!!

I am back after a long long time.

It's been more than 3 years that I have written a blog. Got busy with office work but large part of the blame goes to my laziness.

A lot has happened on professional and personal front but these blogs ain't about me. A lot has happened and is happening in India, which needs to be highlighted.

So, let's get started. 

Kab Tak ?

Of what use is development, when half of your population cannot walk late in the night, all alone, without fear in mind? This country is no longer safe for child / old / young / any women.

So, the inevitable has happened. Nirbhaya / Amaanat / Damini or whatever name you wish to call, the victim of Delhi Gang Rape has died. While the nation mourns and the condolences messages keep pouring in, we need to introspect and ask ourselves what has been the cause of such brutality. As the Chief Minister of Delhi and Police Commissioner try in vain to pass on the buck, the serious question in-front of everyone is who is to be blamed?

Is it the incompetent and powerless police force? Either they don’t have the will or they are under too much political pressure to act against criminals.

Is it the government? They have become so apathetic and detached from the reality that have tried all possible means to stop people from protesting peacefully. The insecurity has resulted in the cremation of the girl in a hush-hush manner. They have stopped so low by ridiculing the activists them names.

Is it the rapists? Think of their mind degenerating to such an extent to commit such a heinous crime.  because they very well know that the law isn’t strong enough to punish them.

Is it the people? We have become so immune to such incidents that we are not bothered if the person is not known to us. One should realize that if these things don’t end then someday, someone we know might end up as victim.

People are out on the street, there is a silent uprising and this time it is directed towards the establishment. Didn’t the government see it coming? This ticking time bomb had to explode and time has come. The government, so detached from the ground reality, is busy trying to silent the peaceful protestors. Had the government spent half the energy, they spent on controlling the protest, on tightening the security, Delhi would have been much safer place.

There is a demand for stricter laws and fast tracking of cases but do we expect our politicians to frame stricter laws and setting an example when these are the very people who makes sexist comments like “dented-painted women”, “paison ke liye national television par thumke lagana”, “women wearing skirts invites trouble”. Even some of the elected MPs have rape charges leveled against them.

While we discuss the pros and cons of capital punishment, rights and wrongs of protests taking place across the country; the question that needs to be asked is what has led to her death? Why the women don’t feel secure even in the national / political capital? I am sure laws will be made, culprits will be punished but the bigger question is what we are doing about it? It is one thing to blame the law, criminals, government; police or even the establishment but we should ask ourselves how much we are above the sins? Even today, in majority of the homes, the birth of male child is more welcomed than a female child, girl fetus is killed in the womb and newly born girl child is thrown in the dustbin. Heroines still gets objectified in the movies and the trend is on the rise in the past few years. Women gets blamed for inviting rape by wearing provocative dresses and going out late in the night and conveniently we pardon our sons / male child. Still there are many houses where women have to be in pardah, can’t go out for work and even not allowed basic fundamental education. How can we expect this society to improve when the very mindset, of treating both girl and boy child equal, is missing. Indian society as a whole has degenerated to such an extent that we view women as an object. They say charity begins at home; so shouldn’t we make the beginning. Shouldn’t we be the catalyst of the change we want to bring? Until we cure this disease, till we do something about it, I am afraid nothing is going to change and women will be on the receiving end.

Because the sad part is, while you are reading this article, there will be some gal / women / child getting molested in some part of the country. And we are doing nothing about it!

The great Indian political circus @ Jharkhand

There have been few instances of political opportunism in India but nothing could match what’s happening in Jharakhand at present moment. Last closest incident which comes to mind was the opportunism and chaos which prevailed in Karnataka when former PM H D Deve Gowda and his son H D Kumaraswamy held the state to their ransom by playing all tricks to keep them in the power. A same scenario is happening here in Jharkhand. Shibu Soren, known more for his notoriety than his work, has done anything and almost everything to keep himself in power. It is no hidden secret that there have been several charges levelled against him but that doesn’t stop Congress or BJP to align with him to fulfil their selfish agenda.

The entire episode started with Shibu Soren voting with the congress in one of the bills passed in the parliament. This resulted in the anger of BJP, ally of JMM in the state. To make the matter worse the new president of BJP, Nitin Nadkari, in haste, decided to sever ties with JMM in the state. Now both congress and BJP knows that they cannot form a government in Jharkhand without the support of JMM, which has given them the role of King Maker in the state. After realising its mistake BJP tried to salvage the coalition by deciding on some power sharing formula with half the tenure having a chief Minister from BJP and other half under the tenure of JMM’s chief minister. But with the kind of opportunist political party JMM is they realised this was not in their benefit especially the kind of power they possess. So now once again Shibu Soren has decided that he is not going to resign and will complete his tenure.

This political circus involving three parties JMM, Congress and BJP is there for a quite a long time in Jharkhand and now needs some serious mending. I hope the people of the state would make sure they won't select political opportunist parties to power. But having said that it's really difficult to identify who is and who is not.

Australianism

John Arlott had written about it in 1948 at the end of a successful tour of England by Don Bradman's men. ""Australianism," wrote Arlott, "means single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. It means where the 'impossible' is within the realm of what the human body can do, there are Australians who believe that they can do it - and who have succeeded often enough to make us wonder if anything is impossible to them. It means they have never lost a match - particularly a Test match - until the last run is scored or their last wicket down."

On why Ajmal kasab should be given death penalty

Finally today, after a year and half, Ajmal Kasab, main accused in 26/11 attack, was convicted in all the 86 charges levelled against him by a court. Inspite of such a delayed judgement, people of this country are relieved that atleast judgement has come. Now icing on the cake would be to give death penalty to Ajmal Kasab. Many would argue against it but then I have my own justification for demanding such a stern punishment.

1. There are costs involved in keeping terrorist alive. Costs like legal fees, police personnel, providing extra security, creation of bullet proof cell, etc. According to one estimate it has cost around Rs 44 Crore (Rs 8.5 L/per day) for providing security and keeping Ajmal alive. And if not given death sentence, then the expenses of holding him up in custody. So instead of wasting so much money it can be utilised elsewhere.
2. Main charges Ajmal has been accused of

· Murder of 7 people (Highest punishment - Death)

· Abetting murder of 159 people

· Conspiracy

· Under Unlawful Activities Prohibition Act for terrorism

· For being part of the banned Lashkar e Taiba

· Wrongful confinement of victims

· Kidnapping

· Under the Explosives Act

· Under the Explosives Substances Act

· Under the Arms Act

· Under the Railways Act

· Under the Customs Act

· Robbery

So you wouldn’t want a person accused of such charges to be walking alive.

3. Think of people whose family members, relatives are being killed or injured during 26/11 incident. Ask the family members and they will tell you why.
4. Think of the morale of the police force and army personnel who give their life fighting such terrorists.
5. With already India having a tough time fighting naxals, it will be boost to all the anti-Indian activities.
6. Above all, if Ajmal Kasab is not given death sentence then it will send a signal to Pakistan (and rest of the world) that India is a soft state. And this could be very damaging for India.

I feel these are valid enough reasons for him to be given death penalty. Now lets wait for the judgement, which would be out tomorrow.

Indian Political League

How would you describe a country’s neta who are busy discussing IPL in cricket over important issues like Dantewada massacre, discussion on budget, sensitive issues like phone tapping, price rises and many more? This is the sorry state of affair which is being witnessed by millions of people in the country. It has been an eventful fortnight in India. It started with worst internal crisis at Dantewada when 76 CRPF men were massacred by Naxals. And around same time Mr Lalit Modi Tweeted which resulted in Shashi Tharoor losing his ministership. Then the case of phone tapping in which government had tapped phone of some influential leaders in this country. But then instead of having a meaningful discussion and taking tough measures against Naxals, Indian politicians choose to discuss IPL and put Dantewada at back burner. When some of them tried to discuss phone tapping issues, then they were asked to keep shut. It was the trio of Yadav clan (Lalu, Mulayam and Sharad) who were vocal in raising IPL issues and stalling the parliament for such irrelevant issues like IPL when there were far more burnings issues at hand. It is high time Indian politicians realise that they are being selected by people not to make mockery of democracy by discussing such petty issues , instead they should discuss things which are far more relevant and make our democracy stronger.

The day we got Chandratal-ed

I had been long wanting to write about this memorable trip, which I had with seven of my classmates (Amit, Anurag, Divyanshu, Kunal, Manish, Navanidhi and Prabin), in the month of August 2009. But due to my laziness and reasons unknown I was not able to start. Finally the zeal in me has got better of the laziness in me and here I am writing about this trip. Chandratal has been of the better trips of my life. And it was mainly due to the journeymen, the landscapes, the events and the destination. I am about to take you to this wonderful journey of ours.

The eight of us embarked on this journey on 13^th Aug’09 in a Quails (I know you would be wondering how nine of us including driver got fit into a single Qualis, but we somehow managed). Each one of us had some personal/official problems behind us and we knew that if we go ahead with the journey then our life may not remain the same. One of us was busy managing the finances of the college; one of us just had his conclave postponed; three of them were fighting hard to save off their relationships; a soul searching was being done by one of the most gifted person to have joined FMS; a wannabe Shakespeare who was bit incongruous at the place. The journeymen couldn’t have been more diverse.

The idea was to reach Manali late in the night, take a break and then start a long journey towards the destination Chandratal Lake. But then they say when you have people so diverse then be ready for any eventualities. The journey got started on a very bad note; first it was the delay from our side (getting all eight people ready is one hell of a task) and then our tire got punctured within the first 5 KM of the journey. This delay plus the opinion of majority to stop at some Dhaba in Muthal for a special parantha threw us way behind our schedule. During the journey all my friends got beer bottles for their enjoyment (1 coke bottle for me). We had a great time pulling each other’s leg, bringing out skeleton from the closet and cracking lots of PJs (some on a country’s GDP and Olympics like stadium). During this time one of my friend was busy fighting to save off his relationship, another was busy building one; one of them giving suggestions on how to allocate funds for the coming events and then there was one thinking ways of getting alternate dates to his conclave. Due to late start and other difficulties we reached Manali only in the morning 6 AM on 14^th Aug’09. We didn’t have time but we knew we had to take rest so found a hotel to take break of 2-3 hours. But the required break just got extended a bit; first due to the difficulty in waking up everyone (I have told its one hell of a task), waiting for everyone to get ready and then the sudden disappearance of the driver. While two of us decided to search for the driver, couple of us decided to check on the tents and other items needed for the journey, while the rest as usual decided to take this as an opportunity to extend their nap. During the enquiry we were told that there is no need for tents and we will get the same later. Finally everything fell into place, driver was located, people woken up from their sleep and left for the rest of the journey.

It was around 11 AM, when we started the 2^nd leg of the journey. The first half of the journey was to go uphill till Rohtang pass and then go downhill to a place called Chhatru and from there a long narrow stretch of 18-20 KM in a single lane to Chandratal. On paper everything looked perfectly fine but then what is the fun everything goes as per plan. The entire journey from Manali to Chandratal was simply fabulous. But throughout the uphill journey we were accompanied by rainfall and the rain reached its peak while we were atop Rohtang Paas. And boy we had to brave the chill wind and a sudden drop in temperature courtesy the rainfall. We knew we are heading to a region which won’t have people, any sign of vegetation leave alone mobile signal so we had to finish our businesses fast. Made couple of calls to sponsors, one of us tried to save off his relationship, while some were busy eating chips. But just before we entered the no signal range, we got one bad news – one of us had his break-up. As usual others told him that there is nothing to worry upon while the person knew it’s easier said than done because if he was at others place him would have said the same thing. I must tell you something here; the best time for receiving any bad news is just before a memorable trip with your friends because it gives you a chance to forget all your worries by the end of the trip.

The downhill was all narrow and the rain had made the journey more difficult. On the way to Chhatru, we witnessed one of the most unbelievable sights of rainbow. Later one of my friend described the scene as “mesmerizing natural splendour”. Due to rain our journey had been slowed because travelling becomes much more difficult on a mountaineering terrain. Throughout downhill, we were accompanied by a stream of river flowing between the mountains. On the way we witnessed of the better lessons of marketing (selling to be precise) as one old lady asked for a lift to a certain distance. With a long stretch to follow and no vehicle in site we agreed to give lift only to realise that by the time we agreed she had pushed one more old lady into the front seat. And we had to manage with one of us lying on three sitting at the back seat. It stayed on like that till we reached a small house where they got down. We continued our journey and reached Chhatru by dusk. We had to take a decision whether to continue our journey through that difficult terrain towards Chandratal Lake in darkness. By vote of majority we decided against it and we were lucky to have done so as one of the trucks met with an accident and had fallen into the river. The stay at Chhatru was a blessing in disguise for us as we witnessed one of nature’s splendour. Chhatru is a small place with hardly any population (they say it’s 100 but we thought it should be including the travellers who stay there for the night). We got to stay in a place next to the stream of river (which was getting violent in the night) flowing between mountains. The feeling was awesome and the icing on the cake was the bonfire we decided to have in the night. There are always some memories which stay in your life and this was definitely one of them. We decided to stay at one of a very small like place with 10 beds in it. We decided we will continue our journey the next day at 5 AM (which means the task was given to me to wake everyone up).

15^th Aug’09 – It was early morning at 4.00 AM I put my alarm so that i could wake everyone up to start our journey. But when you have a bunch of hostellers travelling with you then the task becomes next to impossible. Finally after a repeated trying, they got up to a frustrated, annoyed and shouting me. We started the journey at around 6 AM to celebrate our independence (day) from the rest of the world. And while on the journey we realised how difficult and impossible the journey would have been if we had decided to continue in the night. The whole stretch of 18-20 KM was a so narrow that two vehicles could not pass each other and for doing so, more often than not, one of the vehicles had to go back till it reached a place at the edge of the cliff to let the other vehicle pass through. But the route was just like out of the ‘travel and living’ channel. We braved the difficult terrain sometime overcoming dangerous turns we survived and reached Chandratal Lake. Though I am not a big follower of lakes and I like travelling to mountains and hills but I fell in love with the lake the moment I saw it. We could see the clear reflection of surrounding snow covered mountains. We were so overjoyed seeing the place that we all jumped into the waters and took a dip in an almost near zero freezing water. We took a walk around the whole lake and it took us more than an hour to just complete the round. The mesmerising beauty meant we all posed and took lots of photographs that we lost track of the time. And yes the best part of the journey was that the person who had a break-up was overjoyed with the place he sung ‘I want to break free’ to overcome the emotional atyachar he had faced over the past couple of days. And as I said, the best time for break-ups is when you are leaving for a trip. It was so good to see each one of us happy. We had a true Independence Day celebration because we all were free and were not having any contact with the outside world. We decided to continue our journey back and reach Manali by night because we knew if we are late this time we wouldn’t get a place in the middle of hills.

The journey back was again through those terrains with again fresh round of rains. It was difficult but we knew if could make it once then we will surely make it twice. But due to sudden climate change, drop in temperature meant that couple of us had a fever by the time we reached Rohtang pass. Two of my friend replied to natures call at the top of Rohtang pass. We decided to continue the journey as we didn’t have any option but to reach Manali. To add to the woes, driver had a sudden bout of headache and it was very severe. Inspite of asking him to take rest, he was all charged up and he told he will take rest once he reaches Manali. We reached Manali by 10.00 PM in the night with our mobile signal coming back to haunt our life. We took a hotel for the night stay and decided to go for a late night view of the place. Much to our delight, we met bunch of our classmates eating by the next restaurant. We exchanged our experiences and it was no surprise we had a better time.

16^th Aug’09 – Inspite of having an amazing tour, on the way back we decided to extend it further and decided to pursue River rafting in Rishikesh. But then to our bad luck there had been a death reported a day earlier while rafting so all the places were shut down. So we decided to head back to Delhi with just stoppage for dinner and snacks. But during this journey we came to know that another person amongst us also had break-up with his girl friend. One of us got the news that conclave date has been decided for some later day in the next month. There was news that society review has been put for next day and loads of work was pending. And we knew that we are back to this fast paced world where even though we have all the facilities but there is no peace.

We decided to coin the journey as being ‘Chandratal-ed’. Chandratal-ed because even though we had our shares of bad news (seeing two break-ups and one almost surviving on a thin line), we had just embarked on a journey which had become memorable because of journeymen, landscapes, difficult terrains, an amazing climate, events unfolding and the ultimate destination (travellers paradise) Chandratal Lake.

Naxals – Single biggest internal security threat

“Naxalism is the single biggest internal security challenge India has faced”. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, November 2004.

It took 6 years and massacre of 76 CRPF personnel in Dantewada district for India to realise that the threat is real. According to a report by Research and Anlaysis Wing (RAW), there are 20,000 armed cadre Naxalites operating apart from 50,000 regular cadres working in various organizations.

Before we look into what the all fuss is all about let’s see what these naxals are fighting for? The naxal movement in India had started in late 60s (1967) at Naxal Bari, a small village in West Bengal. The movement had started as a protest against feudal exploitation and oppression over rural power. Naxalites claims that they are fighting to create a class-less society. But people opposing to naxal movement claims that they are terrorists oppressing people in the name of a class war. Not going by who is right or wrong but looking into the actions of Naxals in India over the past two decades, there is a clear indication that Naxalism is the single biggest challenge. Otherwise who would justify the killings of innocent civilians and armed personnel in the name of creating class struggle? One cannot give an alibi to terrorism or extortion in the name of poverty and brining equality within the society.

Then why not take a tough stand against naxalites? Like various other causes in this country, naxal struggle has also got support by some so called intellectuals, who find reasons to sympathise with this so called struggle. Apart from these intellectuals these naxals have also got support in the right place in the government with people like Shibu Soren (who seems to have won election with the support of Naxalites).and closeness of political parties like CPI, CPM to these movements. We should rise as a nation against this threat and make sure stringent of action is taken against these people who find no remorse in killings innocents. For if no strict action is taken then the day is not far when these naxals would overthrow government and form a government of their own as it happened in our neighbourhood Nepal.

When unity is not strength – Greek Fiasco

On 1^st Jan 1999, eleven European countries joined together and adopted Euro as their official currency. These eleven countries joined forces with an intention to bring stability to the region and also to develop an alternate currency to dollar. With the advent of Euro, it made trade, investment and travel easier for these European countries. Also joining together made currency of each of these countries stronger. Euro was considered to be as strong and stable as dollar or yen. In 2001, Greece became the twelfth country to adopt Euro as its currency. Decision to include Greece in the list was more of a political decision than an economic one because Greece was not as stable as other countries in the region. A clear north-south divide in Euro was prominent. On one hand there were countries like Germany, in North, which had a strong economy and which relied on exports to power its growth, saved hard and ran trade surpluses. On the other hand, Southern economies such as Greece leant too much on consumer spending, had weak public finances and relied on foreign capital to supplement their low savings. This was the coming together of two un-equals and differences were obvious. But still Euro members went ahead and included Greece within their fold. As they say, when economy is booming everything you touch becomes gold and so was the case of Euro, it moved from strength to strength and problems with Greece was neglected. Some people had predicted that such a situation would arise soon after the inclusion of Greece in the group. For Greece, membership was a boom. It allowed government to refinance debt in favourable terms and also improved the sovereign rating of the country and thus gave easy access to long term borrowings.

But history continued to haunt Greece. Always known to have fiscal trouble, Greece continued with its chronic budgetary mismanagement, resulting in public debt to increase more than 100% of GDP and fiscal deficit to increase to 12.7% of GDP. And now rating agencies have reduced the ratings of Greece to BBB- and thus downgrading the sovereign rating of the country. There have been many voices which are suggesting removing Greece from the group and still many who are insisting to keep it within the group. It will be a tough decision for Euro to decide whether to bail out or to let IMF bailout Greece from this financial mess. The treaty governing the European Union includes a “no bailout” clause, forbidding countries from assuming debt of others. But then it would set a very bad precedent for Euro if it lets one of its member default, so the logic step would to bailout Greece themselves and then enforcing steps to ensure that Greece would not resort to such loose fiscal measures in the future.

Some experts are calling this as the beginning of the end of Euro. But we all know it’s always good to get pot holes at the start of the journey so that you learn to build the road to the future and this is just the beginning of the Euro journey.

Sex, Lies and Celebrities

Of late media has found new ways of exposing celebrities. And by exposing I really mean exposing them really bad. It started with Tiger Woods, followed by N D Tiwari and few days back it was the turn of Chelsea & English skipper John Terry. But what makes these exposures really turn around our head and make us sit and waste hours in front of TV, newspapers, etc. We always have been inspired by heroes and we always live our dreams through them. These celebrities give us the joy of living through the lives we have always dreamt of. So we follow our celebrities in their moment of joy and grief. We rejoice when they achieve something special and we celebrate in their moment of reckoning. The media put them to front page and make sure they are treated like Demi-gods. But what makes us really happy is when these Demi-gods fail. It’s human tendency that it gives us more happiness when the infallible falls. When we see these celebrities getting exposed then it gives us sigh of relief that they are also mortal human being. And media don’t fail to take advantage of this and makes sure they add all spice up reports and make a good business out of it. But should we really make such a fuss about celebrities and their personal lives? There isn’t a reason that the needs & desires of a Tiger Woods or a John Terry would be any different from that of an average person on the planet. But what makes their life different is that their life is always viewed under microscope and is in complete media limelight. So every action or statement by these celebrities makes it to the drawing room of their followers and fans. So it becomes the responsibility of a celebrity to act in such a way that he/she is idolized as a role model to millions of fans. But then as we say “To err is human and so are celebrities”. So it is the duty of us, common men, to become mature enough not to take extreme views in the event of rejoice and despair & let these celebrities have their personal space as well.