Freudian Slips

The Physics of BP

2010-10-10T23:19:00.001+05:30

Andhra Pradesh has a strange system of high school called as Junior Colleges. After 10th standard, students join these junior colleges where they do their 11th and 12th grades. In the summer of ‘97, I too joined one such Junior College. The Chairman looked scary and had a flair for expletives. He poached upon four lecturers from a nearby JC and used them to run his JC. BR and RP taught mathematics while BP and VK handled Physics and Chemistry respectively. In addition to teaching, each one was in-charge of a branch. Most JCs had many branches. All they needed was half-a-dozen rooms to start one.

Among the four, BP was unforgettably bizarre. He wasn’t a great teacher. That was not a problem to us since good teachers, like good students, are a rare commodity. The problem was that he had an unshaken belief that he is an amazing teacher. He would announce his arrival mostly with his abdomen and sometimes with a raucous laughter. He looked as if Vikku Vinayakram buttoned up his shirt with his instrument. A tragicomedy in a state of perpetual motion, we often wondered why no external force was ever applied to disturb his inertia. He fancied himself to be a very engaging teacher and was convinced that his antics would etch the laws of motion forever in our memory. No one mustered courage to tell them that at his best he was plain irritating and at his worst he was self-derisive.

“When you throw a ball”, he would cry, enact and expect us turn our heads to follow the trajectory of the imaginary ball. Ninety percent of the class wouldn’t even bat an eyelid and look at him with a straight face. The rest threw themselves into slumber. Over the next two years, with two hands, he threw projectiles, lifted weights, dropped masses, accelerated at 9.8 m/s² , reflected light, refracted rays, heated rods, compressed gases, located centers of masses and gravity, propagated waves, transmitted electricity, inducted magnetism and his histrionics reached acme when he demonstrated dual nature of light. His pantomime had all the ingredients except silence. It was 1998. A good seven years before the Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission would be constituted by the Government of Andhra Pradesh vide GO Ms No. 355, dated 11.08.2005 (General Administration (HRC) Dept.,) as per the provisions laid under Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. And BP took the maximum advantage of its absence.

His confidence never waned. His energy never sapped. His voice never mellowed. His jokes never improved. Some of us visited the adjacent Hospital for Mental Health at Erragadda to enquire if they had any preventive medicines / therapies to check mental degeneration amidst such daily doses of planned persecution. They did not meet with any success but one of them claimed to have seen BP’s name in the register that had list of escapees. Though, that increased our fears, we decided to dismiss it as a hallucination borne out of his constant remembrance.

Those days, unable to bear the misery, I used to bunk the post-lunch classes. The modus operandi was simple. We would confidently walk out of the main gate pretending to get a refill for my pen. Once outside, we would walk to the end of the wall from where my friends would toss my bag over the wall. The rest of the afternoon would be spent at peace in some cinema theater.

During one such escapade, BP spotted us strolling at a street near our college. We got terribly scared. He made us walk back and took us to BR, who was in-charge of our branch. BP explained the whole incident with extreme dramatics. He would roll his eyes to explain how he spotted us. He would clutch his palms to show how he caught us. He would oscillate his elbows in simple harmonic motion to demonstrate how we tried to run away. Then, there was an encore of the whole performance in every class he took in the post-lunch session that day. The rest of college was thankful to us for causing the only entertaining class of BP ever, while we suffered countless brutal blows with a broken branch of tree. BP continued to showcase the whole episode as an act of immense gallantry. To make the incident more dramatic and thereby raise his heroics, he began to report that we jumped over the wall and were running while he chased us in his car and caught us. That hurt us. We were honorable brats who walked out though the main gate and when caught respectfully walked back. But we couldn’t do much about our character besmirch. I later learnt that, year after year, BP continued to narrate his concocted heroics to every batch of students and finally stopped only when he learnt how the forest brigand Veerappan was nabbed.

Though we cursed him then, we now realize that his contribution to our lives was sizable. The continuous exposure to his daily melodrama had unconsciously strengthened our endurance levels. After those two years, be it university or workplace, India or abroad, none of us found any human being intolerable. Shailendra, who is now a senior software engineer, chuckles “In my very first meeting I laughed so approvingly at my boss’ PPJs (Pathetic PJs) that I got promoted thrice in the next two years. Thanks to BP, while my colleagues struggle to conceal their irritation, I spontaneously break into laughter which makes my boss feel that he is a reincarnation of Chaplain.”

Not just at work, BP’s classes have filled marital lives with pure bliss. Gokul, who is married over two years, chokes with gratitude when he remembers BP. “Thanks to his classes, these days I can effortlessly display poise when my wife animatedly describes for over two hours the saree of her choice. I can even pretend to be naturally excited when she describes the design as a mix of light periwinkle and peachy pink with prints of alternating strokes of honeydew green and cantaloupe orange.”

Hail BP!!!

Master of Sermon

2010-09-05T19:59:00.001+05:30

A common ritual in most organizations is the periodic congregations of motley group of people where a wise man talks and the wiser men sleep. It comes in various flavours like conference, meeting, training, etc. The sizes vary, venues change, topics differ, but the proceedings remain largely the same. Time, while ushering in a few changes, buttressed some practices.

Like globalization flattened the world, technology flattened the audience. Earlier, those with spectacles had a differential undue advantage in the act of sleeping without being noticed. Thicker their glasses, greater the refractive index and better the cover. Thanks to the powerpoint presentations, these days all the lights are dimmed and irrespective of whether you have the cover of glasses or not, one can sleep in utmost peace.

There are other things that are immune from time. The stupidity of Sidhu’s jokes, length of Sawant’s skirt and refreshments served in a meeting. It is always a tea and biscuits. No coffee. No lemonade, even if it blazing hot outside and the AC is dead. And the biscuits always have to be Krackjack. As if it is a compromise formula between plain biscuits and salted ones. Cream biscuits must have been prohibited because they trigger an insatiable urge to separate the biscuits and lick the cream and the ensuing danger of the cream sticking to the tip of the nose. Not a very amusing sight for the speaker.

Occasionally, once in 12 years, an epicurean becomes in-charge of the arrangements and you would be served a samosa. Though such a change is welcome for the audience, it puts the speaker into a predicament. The aroma of the potato filling wades through the air and reaches the nostrils of the speaker. The sight of people gorging onto samosa makes it appear to the speaker more delicious than it actually is. Though he wants to dispassionately continue his sermon on the chosen topic with the dedication of celibate, the coordinated messages from his visual and olfactory nerves, allure him towards the seductive samosa. Finally, succumbing to the sensual being in him, he decides to indulge himself. To avoid the embarrassment of appearing too eager to eat the samosa, he beckons the audience to have the samosa and says, “Please have”. It is almost a murmur. By now most of them are done with their samosa and are singularly watching him eat his. More embarrassment.

Snacks eaten. Tea Drunk. The small bottle of water also emptied. SMSs jokes received, read and forwarded. All possible activities that could be performed on chair have been exhausted. What next? Time to take a walk i.e. visit the loo. Those who are too lazy, decide to doze off. The speaker now feels the raising psychological pressure to force him declare a break. After spending a week preparing those 70 slides, he watches to his utter horror that he has barely managed to complete seven. It has always baffled me how did he aspire to complete 70 slides in two hours in the first place. Wasn’t he an audience in many such gatherings before graduating to a speaker? Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Finally, when he sees a yawn that would put a hippopotamus to shame, he declares a break.

Voila! The moribund room springs to life. Everyone is up and gather outside the hall. Gathering offers a wonderful opportunity for sociologists to study group behavior. The conservatives take the opportunity to pay obeisance to the seniors. They religiously surround a senior officer and reverentially reminisce about the glorious period when they had the fortune to work under him. It must be noted that the period could be as short as a day when they were both on an invigilation duty for an internal evaluation exam.

The liberals prefer forming groups with those of the same rank. They mock at the conservatives who chose to be with their erstwhile bosses. Their talk is characterized by a nihilistic view of the world in general and organization in particular. The voices are loud and intonation sarcastic.

The rules of engagement, however, are something that remains same for both the groups. While talking to those of the same rank, rant about the boss. While talking to those of higher rank, complain about the staff. If you are talking to those of lower rank, just shut up, listen to their pathos and nod sympathetically. Post-Munnabhai, an empathetic pat on the back can earn you admiration. However, the results are optimum when restricted to those from the same gender.

Post-break, the audience reassembles with the reluctance of a kid on his first day at school. By now, the speaker nonchalance catches up with the audience’s. He is least bothered whether he goes beyond the 14^th slide. As the clock ticks towards the closing time, he would rush through the slides at rate of 5 slides per second with a remark that he would leave a copy of the presentation for the audience to be viewed in leisure. The vote of thanks is proposed with the usual thank-you-for-taking-time-out-of-your-busy-schedule. It doesn’t matter even if the speaker is in a job where if he is not yawning, he is counting his forty winks. Both the audience and the speaker leave the hall happy as they have spent a day away from the office without taking a leave.

D - 49

2010-07-12T00:03:00.003+05:30

An attractive perk of working in the Government is the residential quarters. In metros getting a decent house on rent within the House Rent Allowance is like catching the Don - mushkil hi nahi, namumkin hai. Where in Hyderabad would I get a three bedroom house for Rs 6000? Often, the location of the quarters in upmarket areas, like Banjara Hills in Hyderabad, makes the deal more lucrative. So the first thing I did after joining at Hyderabad was to apply for a residential quarters. Thankfully, there were so many vacancies that I was given a list of vacant quarters to choose from.

I was told that I was entitled to a three bedroom house. When I entered, I found that all the rooms were of the same size. Small. It took me some time to grasp the functional utility of each room. After a careful examination, deep ponder and a silent sigh, I realized that the differentiation factor was the shelves. With some imaginative application of inductive logic, I deciphered the functional utility of each room. If the shelves are open, it is the living room. If the shelves have doors, it is a bedroom. If the shelves don’t have doors but have an adjoining sink, it is a kitchen. If there are no shelves, it is a bathroom.

Talking about the shelves, I must say that they are the biggest eyesore of the house. They have those sad unpolished black stone slabs which reminds you of a black leather shoe whose surface is dotted with fungus due prolonged disuse. Even if you decide to build a door to close them, you can’t. That is because the shelves are located in such strategic corners that there is no support for the hinges of the proposed doors. Just one look at them, you would realize how right Einstein was when he said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”

Einstein reminded me to check the incubator of ideas and the birthplace of Eureka – the bathrooms. The attached bath has pipelines for water heater but no electrical lines; just like having irrigation canals without dams. The common bath, by an act of providence, has both the pipelines and electrical lines for a water heater. So like Jack and Jill, the couples who stay there, should daily fetch a pail of water and, consequently, one day fall down and break their crowns. There were two pipelines, an inlet and an outlet, protruding out from the wall of the common bath, which happens to adjoin the dining area. The caretaker informed me that I could use the provision either to fix a wash basin (which, I had to bring and I have no clue what I would do with it if I vacate the place) or a washing machine. I imagined my guests watching my undergarments churn inside the washing machine while their food undergoes a similar process inside their stomachs. Not a very appetizing sight.

The windows were an architectural atavism. Unlike the contemporary windows which have a steel grill fitted within a wooden frame, these windows have a steel frame which is embedded in the walls. May be it was the architectural expression of the metaphor that the bureaucracy is the steel frame of the nation. Not that I have problem with their artistic liberties. But, if I have to tinker with the window to fit my window air-conditioner, I would have to break the wall. Something that is difficult to undo when I vacate the place.

All windows have plain glass. I guess the message is transparency, like charity, begins at home. Since the house is on the ground floor, I would be forced to draw the curtains during the day to protect my modesty, lest there would be initiation of disciplinary proceedings for behavior unbecoming of an officer and penal proceedings under section 292 of the IPC for obscenity.

The whole design made me wonder if there was an ingenious engineering mind that applied undue diligence to ensure that every provision would be available but none of them can be utilized. Or is it just the native intelligence of an engineering department whose designing skills are molded by rules, laws, bye-laws and budget than science, common sense and ergonomics.

Sufficiently scared for the day, I decided to immediately call off further inspection of the house. I asked the caretaker to get it painted as a coat of paint is complimentary for the new incumbent. The choice of shade, like with your parents, boss, kids and 432,345,958 other things in life, does not lie with you. Nine upon ten occupants subsequently regret availing the service and conclude that they could have spent money from their pockets to get their homes painted.

It took me a week to arrive at the same conclusion. The painter, with a maniacal sense of duty, went ahead painting the whole house. In the process, he forgot to remove the keys of the wardrobe before painting it. The result? Upon drying, the paint transformed itself into an incredible adhesive. I can lock and unlock my wardrobe but cannot take the keys out. The wardrobes were the only utilities that were well-placed and adequately functional. Now that they have joined the bandwagon of dysfunctionals, the house is ready to be occupied.

Welcome to D-49, Income Tax Colony, Road No: 10, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.

Meals on Wheels

2010-06-28T21:59:00.007+05:30

Though the quality of food on Indian trains has vastly improved, certain travelers refuse to give up the age-old ritual of elaborately packing food for their journey. Considering that we might soon have the Right to Food, disallowing these passengers from carrying their daily bread, which their mother on earth has prepared, would be against our democratic ethos. However, the collateral damage caused by the food to the neighboring passengers is neither too serious to complain nor too subtle to ignore. Just like the indigestion it causes to its vociferous consumers.

This is one among the plethora of grouses that we silently put up. I too remained so till I saw Rang De Basanti last night. Inspired by it, I thought I must take the initiative to prepare draft guidelines on dining in trains and fight for it with candles on streets till ~~the candles melt~~ the guidelines are prominently displayed in every compartment and a committee consisting of the TTE, Coach Attendant and the Guard are formed to oversee their implementation. So here they are.

Please do not carry more than 250 gm of food per passenger. The claustrophobic compartments should be the last place where you would want to have a seven course meal.

Please carry disposable plates. Train is not the place to flaunt the heirloom cutlery gifted by your parents / in-laws on the occasion of the colossal disaster, popularly remembered as your marriage.

Eat when necessary. Just because you have nothing to do, don’t keep munching like a camel chewing the cud.

Eat light. This is not your last supper and India is not a starving nation. There is going to be enough food at your destination.

It is not mandatory that you buy what every hawker sells. Give others an opportunity to satiate their hunger.

The wash basin is not your sink. Please don’t use it clean your heirloom cutlery. Watching your violent gluttony one of your co-passengers would want to throw-up. So, please keep the wash basin free.

Please clean the seat thoroughly after you eat. Pushing the spill-overs under the seat is not cleaning. It attract rodents which might have difficulty in distinguishing the remnant food from your foot after you put out the lights.

Sambhar, Rasam, Dal, Buttermilk etc are not anti-bacterial disinfectants. So, if you have spilt them, don’t spread them all over the floor with your dirty shoes.

Do not use the sheets supplied with bed rolls for cleaning. You might say that they are already stained. Remember, they are stained precisely because sometime back one of your ancestors used them to clean.

Carry some tissues. Don’t go around begging for newspapers. Not everyone spends time eating. When you can carry few tons of food and cutlery, the few grams of tissues should not matter.

If you still cannot control your urge to binge in trains, you may visit this place. It offers good food and the train ambiance.

One Down

2010-05-29T10:49:00.003+05:30

One year isn’t a very long time in one’s lifetime. But when I met my batchmates after a year, it seemed to be quite long considering the cumulative vicissitudes of their lives. Some gained weight while some remained the same. No one seemed to have lost weight, though. Some lost hair while one showed off his rejuvenated scalp. Some got married while I heard, sadly, a few are already heading for separation. And others like me are still sitting at the fence unsure of the kind of person to tie a knot with. Some became parents while one lost his kid. Those who were deafeningly silent during training spoke at length about their experiences in the field while those who were passionately argumentative failed to even make it to the batch reunion. A Teetotaler who despised our late night revelries during training was found clinking glasses with utmost gaiety. Some complained about life while some showed contentment. Some were so eager that they came two days in advance and left two days after the reunion was over. Some were so indifferent that they neither bothered to turn up nor offered any reason for their absence. It was fascinating to see what one year could do to a person.

We talked, talked and talked. Sometimes with our batchmates, sometimes with our faculty, sometimes with the support staff of the academy. During the day, during the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes with our mouths and sometimes with our eyes. Sometimes from the heart and sometimes from the mind. Sometimes in inebriation and sometimes in sobriety. Sometimes aloud, sometimes in a whisper and occasionally, in silence too.

Some emotionally went back to the doors of their erstwhile hostel rooms which were now locked as the present incumbents were away. Some like me wanted to but failed as their laziness got better of their emotions. Some donned their sports gear and went back to the sports complex in the evenings. Others like me just sat back surfing. Some trampled every inch of the roads in the academy recollecting their moments with those inches of space. Some faithfully went back to Poonam Chambers, the nearby shopping complex which catered to our day-to-day needs during our training days.

Someone said that when you look through the prism of nostalgia, everything appears beautiful. But one year is too short a time for nostalgia. So, I must admit, everything was not beautiful. Personal tragedies were too close in time to forget. Professional rivalries were too recent to forget. Comparisons, and the consequent envy, were not too subtle to miss. Some, unfortunately, still could not solve their issues on personal front. Contrary to the popular belief, selection in civil services is not a panacea to all the problems in one’s life.

But I believe, in the long run, we all get even and in the longer run, we all are dead. Till then, stay happy and keep smiling.

Who moved his cheese?

2010-02-18T00:12:00.000+05:30

Last Sunday, I decided to break the tradition of spending weekends in bars and pubs. So, I decided that we would lunch at a restaurant. I pulled along three other friends, AC, PK and GV, and headed to an Italian restaurant in an upmarket area. It was brimming with people. Since, the owner was a good friend of my dad, we jumped the queue and found ourselves comfortably seated within a few minutes of our arrival. The first thing that we noticed was the gorgeous girl seated in the adjacent table. Tall, slender and with fine features, she looked like one of those characters from television serials, eternally beautifully irrespective of the time and place. We later noticed that across the table there was a guy too. He appeared too lost into the conversation with his date to notice our presence, which was good for us.

We got ourselves Mojitos and began our usual banter. Just then we heard a thud. GV, who was dragged from his bed, petulantly asked what it was. “The balloons. Today, is Valentine’s Day”, I replied. He sighed indifferently. All four of us were single since day we were born and do not see much hope in the near future either. Therefore, Valentine’s Day never meant much to us. We continued our banter. Suddenly, one of those moments when all of us were busy munching and none of us spoke, we were interrupted by loud plea from the adjacent table.

“Can’t there be a reason for a relationship other than marriage?”, the guy asked in a pitch that was difficult to ignore. I almost replied “Yes, there can be. Sex” But luckily, it was those rare moments where my sanity was in control of my mind and a situation that could have left the couple, my friends and owner of the restaurant in utter embarrassment was successfully averted. But the question, which appeared straight from a television chat show claiming to discuss serious problems confronting the nation, inadvertently got us hooked to the conversation.

Soon words like blood, heart, soul, love, feelings etc flowed with scant respect to logical possibility and grammatical correctness. While the words individually made sense, the sentences, depending on your level of artistic and scientific perceptibility, were either surreal or outright obscurant. Considering the Spartan intellectual capabilities that I am endowed with and my usual inability to put them to use, I decided, very wisely, to avoid any attempt to decipher them. It was the guy who mostly spoke and occasionally when we glanced at the girl, she had the standard expression of an air hostess; smile and nod, even when you say that the restroom is soiled.

The heat of the monologue soared. GV, who was till then utterly nonchalant, partly due to insufficient sleep and partly due to the mediocrity of the pasta, got alarmed. He bent across the table and in a grave voice confessed that he feared that he is likely to be a victim of collateral damage if the lady decides to respond to the diabolical rant with some physical action like splashing the cocktail or tossing the pasta on the guy’s face. I reassured him that the girl looked too genteel for such reaction. But deep inside, I knew that his fears were perfectly genuine and entirely within the realm of reality. I fervently prayed that even if GV had to be atoned for his sins, which were infinite in number and unpardonable in nature, let it be with the cocktail as the pasta was fresh from the pan. But, I guess, that was not his day of reckoning. The monologue tapered off and we heaved a sigh of relief.

The girl got up to order some pizzas from one of the live counters. She gave instructions to the chef with such an authority that she could easily pass off as a native Italian who binged on pizzas ever since her teeth erupted. When her dictation on the topping ended, she sharply instructed, “No Cheese, Please.” She turned to the guy and declared like a benevolent dictator, “You had too much of cheese.” The guy faintly protested with supreme humility in a whisper that was as silent as his own breath, “But, how can they make pizzas without cheese?”. Her reply began with an air of obviousness and ended in a condescending note. “Just spread the toppings without the cheese and bake. Simple. “ “ You could as well go to Paris and come back without seeing the Eiffel Tower ”, I told myself.

The guy was bewildered. For a moment I could see Edvard Munch’s The Scream etched out on his face. And just like the celebrated painting, this one, too, was muted. Conscious of the dangers that lied ahead if he continued the expression, he made desperate attempts to transform the instinctive countenance to the one that beamed gratitude and piety. His facial dexterity would have left even Kamal Hassan spellbound. I, With great difficulty, restrained myself from giving him a standing ovation.

Pizza without cheese? I was shocked by this blatant atrocity being committed in broad daylight. It was akin to watching Basic Instinct on Star Movies when you actually have the Director’s Cut DVD stashed away in your draw. I was wondering what could be the potential consequences of having a spouse with such fertile proclivity towards torture. The first thing that flashed on my mind was, “ You may go the pub but you shall have only mocktails and be home by nine”. It scared me so much that I decided to stop thinking further and concentrate on my pizza. It, thankfully, had a generous topping of cheese. At that moment I realized that, henceforth, I must thank the Father in heaven for giving me not just my daily bread, but also for having cheese on top of the bread.

Needless, to say, the guy feasted on the cheeseless pizza with same fervor the starving African children eat their occasional meal. The girl watched him triumphantly as if cheeseless pizza was gift to mankind which ranked next only to fire and wheel. By the time the guy finished it off, tears welled in my eyes. As they rose to head towards the dessert section, I could no longer contain myself. I left to get myself another drink. The dessert session, expectedly, did not last long. The calorie intake, I am sure, would have been calculated till the seventh decimal.

When they finally left, we unanimously concluded that staying single, though might sound insipid, is still the best prescription for a safe and healthy life. As we finished and rose to leave, another couple walked in. The innocent smile on the guy’s face evoked deep sympathy among us. However, we were emotionally drained and couldn’t bear to see another guy in misery. Even without waiting for the elevator, we fled the place taking the emergency exit stairs.

Doubt IV: Telangana Revisited

2009-12-14T00:34:00.006+05:30

Three years ago, I made this post on Telangana. I, then, spoke from my observations as one among the hordes of engineering graduates who aimlessly join colleges and aimlessly pass out of it. Today, I will not claim to be wiser than I was then. But, I am, slightly, better informed. I am posted at Vijayawada and I hold the additional charge of Khammam. One in Andhra, the other in Telangana. Every week, I shuttle between the two places. Double work, double responsibilities, double reprimands, but single salary. Thanks to my jurisdiction which is predominantly rural, I got the opportunity to meet more than a dozen farmers. Farmers from both Telangana and Andhra regions. I must have spent, on an average, half an hour with each of them. The motive behind the interaction, or interrogation as they would call, was to ascertain their income. I have questioned them in an excruciatingly detailed manner about their families, lifestyles, crop cycles, credit facilities, past, present, future etc. And like any typical loquacious villager, they would tell me more than I would ask. I have also interacted with a lot of civil contractors from both the regions who execute irrigation projects in both the regions. It is these interactions which form the basis of my present post. I am not a sociologist or a political scientist. My observations could be totally wrong. But I will say, what I have to.

In this post, like in many others, it has been projected that a separate Telangana will fetch more water to the farmers in the region and, hence, greater prosperity. But, irrigation projects have become extremely complex in the present era with issues like environment, displacement of people (especially tribals), rehabilitation, resettlement, compensation etc. The separatists often project those from other regions to be shrewd, dominating and successful lobbyists. But even these attributes could not help them in making Polavaram a reality. Last year, when I cruised on Godavari from Rajamundry to Perantalapalli, all that was visible of the project were the concrete blocks placed by the survey teams indicating the extent of submergence. Polavaram is a testimony to the compounding complexities of mega projects in recent times. A new state would just be an addition to the existing hurdles. Every proposed project will reach the hallowed portals of the apex court, with the downstream farmers appealing for a stay. Yes, I understand that the constitution clearly leaves river water sharing to the legislature. But that did not deter Karnataka and Tamil Nadu from knocking the doors of the Supreme Court. And to overcome all these, political stability is crucial because decision-making becomes the first causality of political instability. Empirical observation reveals frequent leadership changes in smaller legislatures.

Hypothetically, let us assume a utopian scenario. There is an unbelievable consensus among the leaders in the proposed state. They exhibit imaginative statesmanship and succeed convincing all the stakeholders to agree for the irrigation projects. The projects are completed well within timeframe and the cost escalation is so less that the projects become a case study for schools of governances in the universities across the world. Will it usher in prosperity in the agrarian lives?

During my interaction with the farmers, both from Andhra and Telengana regions, the problems faced by them had little to do with water and more with other issues like increasing balkanization of farmlands, salinity of soil, raising prices of agricultural inputs etc. Since, most of them have to endure months at a stretch without seeing a single rupee of income, they just can’t wait for remunerative prices to arrive. Initially, I was very happy to notice the presence of large number of cold storage units in this part of the state. I was happy that finally technology has empowered the poor farmer to fetch him the best price for the crop. But my joy was short-lived, when I enquired a little. I was told that produce in the cold storage mostly belonged to the non-farmers. The real beneficiaries are the commission agents. And except a few large farmers, who have the financial strength to wait and preserve them in cold storages, the rest can never avail the best prices. The middlemen procure and preserve them in cold storages. Officially, the commission agents earn 1% of the transaction. Remember, it is one percent of the transaction, not the profit. (So they make money, irrespective whether the farmer makes profit.) But, the actual earnings would be much more due to price fluctuation, discrepancies in weighing and discounting on the account on “poor” quality of the produce. I have come across agents who earn Rs 35-40 lakhs a year. Now, consider this. A person makes Rs 35-40 lakhs a year, without having even an office. He does not have to bear the vagaries of nature. He does not suffer from risk of pests. Most importantly, he does not have to wait for six to nine months. This man does not have an identity, unless the UID cards give him one. Some have registrations. But many don’t. They don’t file their returns of income. There are thousands of such faceless agents who thrive on the sweat, blood and misery of the farmer. Yes, you have market yards, legislations, rules, bye-laws, vigilance systems and many other systems which aim to protect the farmers and ensure they get the right price. For example, the rice millers are barred from procuring paddy from persons who are not farmers. The Government has framed every possible law and rule to protect the farmer. But farmer is in such desperation for money that he would be more eager to cooperate with any deviation if he assured of instant cash.

Do those, who have burnt public property worth in the last few weeks, have any imaginative solution to such issues? I am surprised that none of the blogs have addressed these issues. Can you remove these faceless agents from Telangana? There are many of them who belong to other states, let alone other regions of Andhra Pradesh.

People speak of the employment which the irrigation projects would generate. Again, on the surface it looks very attractive. And when you apply a dash Keynesianism, it appears as if it is time-tested. Scratch a little, the facts become different. I deal with a lot of civil contractors who execute irrigation projects. And they do not use local labour. Most of them get labour from states like Maharashtra, Chattisgarh and Orissa. They claim that the labour from these regions is cheaper than local labour. Further, since the workers are away from their native, they turn up regularly for work and consequently, the absenteeism is low. Let us leave aside the genuineness of their reasons to opt for labour outside the state. The fact remains that execution of irrigation projects in a region may not necessarily translate into employment opportunities for the residents of the region.

Therefore, there is no guarantee that the new state will benefit either the farmers or daily wage labourers. These form the bulk of the poor and impoverished.

So, please enlighten me, in whose name, the public property worth crores are being destroyed?

I am not alone

2009-08-29T23:25:00.003+05:30

An excerpt from the book "Revolutionary Wealth" by Alvin & Heidi Toffler.

As a then-leading member of the U.S. Senate, Connie Mack, once complained to us:

We never have more than two and a half uninterrupted minutes for anything on Capitol Hill. There’s no time to stop and think or to have anything approaching an intellectual conversation….

We have to spend two thirds of our time doing public relations, campaigning or raising campaign funds. I’m on this committee, that task force, the other working group, and who knows what else. Do you think I can possibly know enough to make intelligent decisions about all the different things I’m supposed to know about? It’s impossible. There’s no time. So my staff makes more and more decisions.

Very reassuring.

You are the Assistant Commisioner of Income-tax when...

2009-08-15T22:44:00.003+05:30

Every letter / notice / circular gets marked to you irrespective of its intended recipient. And you are expected to respond to it.

You unconsciously attain specialization in sending reports of whose purpose you have no idea and of whose contents you have no clue.

You get RTI applications asking for data pertaining to the last 20, 30 or even 50 years when the Income-tax act deprives you of any power to look into issues more than six years old.

Any file you open reminds you of the Harappan script you saw in your sixth grade history textbook.

You start nodding to everything your boss says irrespective of its practical viability and your personal capability.

You wish that you could outsource the task of hearing the Chartered Accountants / Advocates / Income-tax Practitioners to Sach ka Saamna.

You spend 90 % of your time searching for your staff while they spend 90% of their time searching for the file you asked for.

The remaining 10% of the time is spent counting the number of digits in figures of the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss accounts.

All you see during examination of books of accounts is numbers scrolling down like the famed matrix screensaver.

You issue refunds worth lakhs of rupees, but your own reimbursement of official travel bill of Rs 340 never sees the light of the day.

You realize that if your salary is linked to the number of signatures you affix, you could breeze your way into the Forbes list within a year.

Idiot and I

2009-06-19T00:57:00.002+05:30

If traffic is something people have to fight everyday in metros, it is boredom in smaller towns. More often than not, you are miserably alone. You wouldn’t have too many friends of your age and those who are older have families to go back to. Having got used to always-on internet connectivity for around half a decade, browsing on a USB modem is not an entirely pleasurable experience. All these have pushed me into a forced wedlock with the idiot box. It is boring and utterly irritating. Yet, I go back to it every evening and it is the first thing I see when I wake up each morning. That is why I call it wedlock.

So let me give you a glimpse of my marital bliss. Frankly, I don’t watch anything in particular. I just keep surfing the channels. Today, when my better half was turned on (no pun intended) it was showing one of those soaps. It was a close-up shot of a couple who were holding each other. The teary-eyed lady looked deep into the man’s eyes. I waited for ten minutes but neither of them even batted their eyelids, leave alone indulging in any other motion. The camera showed them in two dozen angles with jarring vocals playing endlessly in the background. I shifted to the next channel.

The enterprising channel was interviewing a maid who supposedly worked in the same neighbourhood where Shiny Ahuja lived. I immediately ran down to the one-room temple below my guest house and thanked God that dogs still do not speak a language the news channels can understand. When I returned, the programme was drawing to a close. The anchor signed off saying, “There is a glaring difference between the on-screen and off-screen images of stars.” What a revelation! Thanks dude. But for you I would have still remained under the belief that Tobey Maguire could actually jump from one skyscraper to another.

My next pit stop was MTV, which more than makes up for the unavailability of FTV. As usual, a bunch of girls were flaunting their long sun-tanned legs performing acts on which even those with abnormally low IQ would have second thoughts. Seeing them being so jobless, wandering without proper cloths or food (they seem to survive on Papayas and Watermelons), I am convinced that recession is for real. I don’t understand why those creative brains that run the ticker refuse to rename roadies and splitsvilla as leggies and stripsvilla. If you try to listen what they speak, it would something like this: “What the *beep*. I know I am the most deserving. This *beep* is trying *beep* me off. Just *beep* off, OK? “

At the succeeding English news channel, after discussing India’s loss at T-20 for more than 20 hours since the loss, the newsreader remarked that a 360 degree coverage of the loss would follow. Can’t we have a 20-20 version of news? When we can have a nano car and nano houses, why not nano news channels? Any business house which starts such a channel can claim to have delivered the biggest CSR.

An aspirin and a few clicks later, I found myself watching Gemini Music. It made me nostalgic. A lot has changed in the last three years, including the name of the channel, but the husky beauty has stuck on. Nothing has changed. Neither her voice nor her wardrobe. Who says that change is the only thing which is constant?

The following 38 channels had the same programme. People of all ages and genders were dancing or singing or doing both. Kids displayed undesirable precociousness in garments and gesticulations. And the judges were those whom people wanted neither to sing nor to dance. Even better if they stayed at home. If not singing and dancing, they set upon narrating jokes on which only the judges laughed and the studio audience clapped. Captive audience in every sense of the term.

At the next click, I returned to where I began. The lady was still looking deeply into the guys’ eyes. The camera must have zoomed in from 845 different angles. Tears, which welled up in her eyes, still did not roll down. I think I must revisit my high school physics and relearn surface tension lessons. I am sure if I can understand this, the Income-tax act would be a cake walk.

I disinterestedly set upon the next round of surfing.......

Krishna Connection

2009-06-13T23:14:00.001+05:30

Vijayawada. That is the place chosen for me to begin my career. Everyone would like to work in metros and big cities. That is where the action for IRS lies. Big cases, complicated issues and ingenious chartered accountants collude to sharpen the learning curve. But small towns have their own charm, I was told. If you dispute my terming of Vijayawada as a ‘small town’, all I can say in defense is that small is relative. The last time I referred to Vijayawada as small, the listener broke into a sarcastic laugh. An accomplished bureaucrat who retired as Chief Secretary, he must have felt that I was being snobbish. I can’t blame him much. Even my batchmate in the IAS, who is posted in Eluru, protested instantly at my judgment of urban sizes.

It is characteristic of my service that we don’t begin with places like Rampachodavaram. Atleast not till the Government thinks of taxing collection of honey and sale of wild jackfruits. And that, considering the reluctance to bring agriculture in the ambit of taxes, seems very remote. So for IRS, where a lot of our colleagues start their careers at places like Mumbai and Delhi, Vijayawada is a small place.

So what is it that makes small places charming? It is the people. The day I was to reach here, my train was scheduled to arrive here at 4:45 in the morning. I called the office the previous day and asked if they could send someone to the railway station as I was new to the place and was arriving at an odd hour. In about an hour’s time, I got a call from the driver. I asked him to be at the station by 4:30 in the morning. He said he would be at 4 am. And he was. It was just the beginning. It is ten days since I came here. And I have never come across anyone who thinks twice when you ask him for something. People here respect you to the point of embarrassment.

One reason could be because officers of my rank are few. There are five officers of the rank Assistant / Deputy Commissioners in Vijayawada. The corresponding number in Hyderabad is more than 50. Other could be historical. During my interaction with a senior officer, who hails from this place, I was told the behavior of people towards Government officials is result of the colonial history. Since the region, unlike Hyderabad, was under the colonial rule, the people are well-acquainted with administrative machinery and are more conscious of the power, potential and the reach of Government. This is something which would be put to test soon. How?

My jurisdiction consists mainly of old parts of the city and adjoining rural areas. The economic growth is not very vibrant in these parts. But that doesn’t grant me immunity from upward revision of revenue targets. My predecessor felt that collections have reached optimum levels and are likely to plateau. The only way to increase collection was to widen the tax net. So I have sent about 400 letters to assesses, who were not filing returns to do so. Non-filing of Income-tax returns when you have a taxable income or when you belong to particular class of assesses like companies could lead to imprisonment. The response to these letters would reveal whether the people here are truly respectful of the authority of Government.

Personally what I like the most about small cities is their contribution on the professional front. You get to deal with all types of cases. In big cities, there is an element of specialization in the jurisdiction. Some charges deal with only salary cases, some with business cases and others with companies. However, in small cities, the jurisdiction is territorial. So one gets to deal all kinds of cases and consequently the experience is more varied. Secondly, the workload is relatively more manageable. Not that every colleague of mine in the metros are getting buried under the piles of files, but a few of them do have quite a Herculean task ahead of them. And for me, after two years of slumber at Mussoorie and Nagpur, keeping myself awake when sun is still high is in itself a Herculean task.

Autobiography of an Another Yogi

2008-12-30T23:16:00.005+05:30

Today, I woke up very very early. At 7:10 am. Thanks to the kind-hearted soul who banged my door as he ran to the sports complex for the morning Yoga. In a jiffy I ripped off my shirt, the one in which I dozed off last night watching a movie, and groped for my t-shirt in the darkness. It was there exactly where it was 56 days ago, under the pile unread newspapers, scissors, a DVD which I rented three weeks ago, the charger of my phone which I dumped two weeks ago and ear phones of my present phone. Despite the risk of being late, I took a moment to feel proud about how systematic, orderly and organized I am. Not a single molecule moves from its preordained position. Time seems to have no effect on them. I smiled. It feels good to start the day on a positive note.

I stepped out and observed a sea of OTs dressed in the dark blue academy jackets. It reminded me of The Matrix. I was the only one without a jacket. It then occurred to me that it was cold. I cursed the vagaries of weather due to man-induced changes in the environment. How on earth should I know that it would be so cold in the morning? The last time I went to Yoga, the temperature was 15 degrees higher, a little humid and the sky was cloudy. I never realized that such huge difference existed between the mornings of monsoon and winter.

When I reached the sports complex, I had same effect on my friends which George Bush wanted on Iraq, shock and awe. Depending on their respective academic, social and religious indoctrinations, analysis and conclusions ranging from End of History to End of the World emerged. I sheepishly smiled and wished them thinking it would divert their gaze. It ended up as an exercise in futility.

I entered the Yoga room. The mats were new. May be they were bought to cater to the new batch of probationers who arrived last week. Amidst the melee of probationers spreading their mats and settling down, the Yoga instructor sighted me. He adjusted his glasses and looked if it was really me. On confirmation, he had the same look on his face which a bollywood father has in the climax when he meets his son lost in the opening reels of the film.

As the count began for the asanas, a tinge of nostalgia stuck me. It was just as if yesterday was the first day I missed my morning Yoga class. Time is such a deceiving devil, I mused. It flies faster than we think. As I returned to my room after Yoga, I found the maid in-charge of my floor cleaning one of my friend’s room. I asked her to come to my room after she is done with the room. She quizzically asked on which floor my room was. With utmost honesty, I replied that I stayed on the same floor. “Oh”, she remarked as if something from her long-term memory suddenly got retrieved. “Room number 21”, I said to avoid further embarrassment. She had a derisive smile in which I could read, “That room which never opens even after a hundred knocks.”

She promptly came. She too was surprised that things did not change one bit since she last visited. As she cleaned, the bearer got the morning tea. I extended my mug. He raised his eyebrows with remark which only I could hear, “So, you too have your morning tea?” I proudly smiled saying to myself, “Yes, I do.” Once, I finished my tea, the laundry guy came to my floor. When he saw me standing with cloths, he almost dropped the pressed clothes he was carrying. I remember him knocking my door every alternate day asking if there were any clothes to be pressed. I involuntarily shout from my blanket that I had none. One day, despite my repeated shouting he continued to knock my door. I furiously opened to give him a dressing down. But before I could burst out, he pleaded “Sir, please take back your pressed clothes. I am trying to give them back since a week but you refuse to open the door.” As usual, I got away with my trademark sheepish smile.

I was happy that I could do a lot of tasks that were pending. But what was more satisfying is that my presence at the early morning Yoga has motivated my friends to think and dream big. VV, who previously worked for railways, now believes that trains running at 500 km/hr would be a reality in the next six months. MJ, a doctor, thinks that next year we could have an oral vaccine that would protect us from both cancer and AIDS. NN, who hails from Bangalore, is confident that next time he visits home, he can reach M.G.Road from airport in 20 minutes. Today, they have realized that “I have a dream” and “Audacity of hope” are not mere dramatic phrases. If they could spot me at the early morning Yoga, they can even expect their day dreams to come true.

The One Year Itch

2008-12-16T02:37:00.001+05:30

It is one year since I joined the National Academy of Direct taxes. I think it is time that I share what I have learnt in this one year. The major subjects were accountancy and Income Tax Act. Accountancy was truly unnerving to say the least. Though I come from an engineering background, I am not very comfortable with numbers with a trail of zeros. I don’t mind algebraic expressions. But pages with high density of numbers is not something I was familiar or comfortable with. Till date, the maximum numerical density I could tolerate was the soduku square. Here was a long list of numbers waiting to be divided into two categories, debit and credit. The challenge was not in segregation, but in ensuring that their totals were identical. And that’s where my woes began.

Actually, debit and credit are not entirely new to me. Debit is the name of the card which was given to me by the bank which has my salary account. It is a good card but doesn’t work after the 10^th day of the month. Credit is the card which my dad gave me. It works 365 days a year. To sum up, I had very pleasant memories of “debit’ and “credit”. But ever since I started my accountancy classes, I began to hate those words. At the end of the course, the only thing that I am confident of is that I can draw a line that would run exactly through the center of the page.

I don’t think my experience with the Income Tax act is very different. Even the best of the argumentative Indians will acknowledge without second thoughts that it is the most difficult and complicated pieces of legislation. But that is how tax legislations are. It is said that Prince Siddhartha left his kingdom the day his taxation classes began. Later, he attained enlightenment pondering over the first word uttered in the class, “Income”. Chandragupta Maurya, fearing that his son too might run away, divested himself of the finance portfolio and handed it over to Chanakya. Chanakya’s concern for posterity took the shape of Arthashasthra. But that is where the problems began to grow in geometric progression. Codification of laws gives rise to a new phenomenon called “interpretation”, whose limits coincide with that of ingenuity and insanity.

The Income Tax Act, 1961 must be having around 400 sections, 1200 sub-sections and god-knows-how-many provisos and explanations. But I know only two sections. Section A and Section B. Section B is where HK and CM sit. I too ~~sit~~ sleep there. HK sits next to me, wakes me up when the class is over and reminds me that it is time to go for lunch / tea / home. CM was her predecessor. But for these two, I am not really sure to which sections the rest of my batchmates belong to. I hardly see any of them. The road from the mess to my classroom is utterly deserted when I run every morning to the class with a toast in mouth and paper tissues in my hands. If I am lucky, I wouldn’t be caught by my Assistant Course Director at the entrance of building.

If I am luckier, then he would send me back and ask me to join the next session. I would then go back to the mess and have a complete breakfast. Since I would be the lone diner, the entire staff of the mess would be there to serve me. I would leisurely eat till I risk falling asleep on the dining table. I would then take a cup of tea and take a stroll across the lawns opposite to the mess and wonder for the zillionth time how beautiful early mornings are. Never mind the clock striking 10. ‘Early’ is relative.

Yes, I lose one half casual leave for missing the class. But how does that matter. I never needed any leaves. I don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. During probation, marriage is the most common occasion for which officers apply for a leave. I don’t see myself getting married even in my next birth and don’t have sufficient foresight to look beyond that. I don’t even have a beautiful fiancé / girlfriend whom I would love to meet. Considering that it took two and a half decades to get rid of me, I am the last person whom my parents would love see at their door. No wonder, in my one year stay in the academy, I just took one day leave. That was just last week. It was to attend a wedding of my batchmate at Punjab. At the risk of repetition and boredom, I would like to confess that I had no luck with lasses at the wedding.

On my way back, at Delhi, I managed to detain MS for a coffee. I love meeting MS because she is the only human being who often tells me that I am smart, intelligent and funny. I know it is her education that makes her say so. She was a practicing psychiatrist who is now pursuing M. Phil at IHBAS. It was more than a year I met her and I shared my achievements (or rather the lack of it) with her. This time even her professional experience couldn’t prevent her from getting shocked at how disastrous a person could be. When she recovered, she managed to blurt out, “I am scared what is going to happen when you go to office next April.”

I calmly replied, “So is the Government of India”

Honest Taxpayers

2008-10-07T23:38:00.000+05:30

“I have some more cases for you”, my surrogate trainer (ST) announced.

It was around 10 days since my “On Job Training” (OJT) began. He handed me a case bang on the day I reported to him. It was a case where the investigations were in progress. He asked me to study it, find Grey areas and prepare a questionnaire. That he served my questionnaire on the assessee[1] without much change was a tacit acknowledgment that I did a decent job. Or atleast I concluded it that way. Self-confidence building measures, you see. The assessee asked for time to file his reply. It was at this juncture that my ST announced that he had more cases in store for me.

I was happy because going through these files was certainly more interesting than observing office procedures like maintenance of records, handling mails etc. And, occasionally, you also get some page 3 pleasures when you see where and how the rich and famous have their wealth made or stored. I looked forward to the next case as it was an opportunity to prove that my previous efforts were not a fluke and I did have some soft mass beneath my hard skull. Not that my ST doubted; He was fine trainer who seemed to believe positively in the potentials of young officers. It is just that I did not want to prove him wrong like I did to most of my teachers who taught me previously.

Files of three cases were brought and placed on the large table of my ST. I picked up the case with the bulkiest of files. It is said that the best way to overcome the fear of something is to face it. And that was precisely what I was trying to do. Get over the fear of files, more importantly, the real fat ones. I took them back to my desk. STs are usually range heads, whose functions are mainly supervisory. He would have around five assessing officers under him who would scrutinse the Income Tax returns filed in the range. The range head does not do the scrutinies. However, in recent years, the range heads have been asked to scrutinise the top 20 cases in their jurisdiction. The case given to me was one such case. I found that my ST had begun investigations and had called for a lot of information from the assessee. He virtually called for proofs of every source of income and every source of expenditure. That explained why those files were so bulky. The assessee too seemed to be a meticulous person. He filed every detail that was called for; That too in a very neat and organised manner. I was impressed.

For the next three days, I perused through the documents. As with most cases, it took sometime to grasp the orientation of the case. True, I had a briefing about the activities of the assessee. But trying to deduce the line of investigation from the documents produced does take some time. Especially, when it is just the second case you are seeing. After three days of perusal, I was utterly frustrated. I could just come up with one issue. In the last case, where the file had just around one-third of documents in the present case, I came up with seven issues. When I brought to my ST's notice, the sole anomaly detected by me, he casually replied that it was already brought to the notice of the assessee, who conceded it. Wow. So that is a clean zero. The following day such was my desperation that I even began to verify the conveyance bills. I called up my friend who lived in Bangalore for four years and asked him the distance between various places in Bangalore and the corresponding taxi charges. This yielded just what my previous efforts in this case yielded. Nothing.

Finally, I gave up. The following morning, when my ST asked the progress in the case, I confessed that I could not detect anything. He seemed to be least perturbed. He made me understand something, remembering which, would hold me good stead in days to come. It not necessary that I always succeed. There would be honest taxpayers and in such cases any amount of scrutiny would not yield anything. Wisdom lies in accepting this fact. There is no point in passing orders making additions to taxable income merely because I have spent days investigating a case and I cannot accept the result to be nothing. It is not a question whether such orders would stand the test of the appellate authorities. They are sure to be knocked down. But in the process, it creates undue hardship to the taxpayer and avoidable workload to my colleagues. Instead, accept the income offered to tax and close the case.

After that day, I went through many files. And not a single one was flawless. But yes, that one file taught me that honest taxpayers are not a realm of fiction. They exist. I may not come across them very frequently. But I should accept one when I come across.

[1] The process of scrutiny of Income Tax returns is termed as assessment. The person being assessed in a case is the assessee.

Performance Anxiety

2008-08-13T20:24:00.001+05:30

Last week, I came across an open letter to Mr. Vinod Rai, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Mr. Rai mooted for performance-linked pay for PSU bank managers at a certain lecture. In response, the author raised the issue of assured pay and promotions in the civil service and wondered why not such a scheme begin with the civil services.

Considering the paltry increase in pay one gets with promotions, I wonder if denial of increments and promotion would really be effective. Since promotions are usually accompanied by transfers, I have heard people who desisted from promotion due to personal commitments. Also, there are people who perceive jobs in the higher rung to be sinecure and those below to be more interesting. So there is every chance that someone may be actually happy to retain a post of his liking than be promoted to a post of his dislike.

What is more important is that right persons man the right jobs. Government is a wonderful place which not just accommodates but actually needs all kinds of people. There is a place for the hares to usher in change and there is also a place for the tortoises to maintain the status quo. And remember, status quo is not such a dirty word as many presume it to be. In large diverse country like ours, stability is as important as change. A good administration is all about finding the right mix of both.

Unfortunately, it is these status quoists about whom many complain. The complaints become shriller when the status quoists are posted in places where change is urgently required. The solution is not punishing them with a refusal of promotion or increment. It would do no difference because even at a lower rank unless he is posted to the right job, the desired results will not be achieved. The solution lies in identifying one's skill and style of working and posting him to a place where his skills would be utilized best.

P.S: I don't want any sweeping cynical generalizations that those who work for the Government lack skill.

Doubt III : Parliamentary Democracy

2008-07-05T00:51:00.002+05:30

After a long long time I read The Hindu and found this.

....Curiously, it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has no known electoral base and holds office by virtue of being a member of the Rajya Sabha, who has been allowed to pull the trigger on the political arrangement ......

How many times have Sitaram Yechuri and Prakash Karat been elected to Lok Sabha? I lack general awareness. So, please let me know.

The Making of a Taxman

2008-04-03T08:29:00.001+05:30

(This post is dedicated to my Cultural Secretary, who silently works hard and comes up with innovative proposals. Be it purchase of new musical instruments or creating a collection of different genres of music from all parts of the country or celebration of every festival from Lohri to Pongal to Holi or an extended game of Dumb Charades, he is always working to ease out the stress of tax laws. Commissioner Baghalpur Saab (as we fondly call him), you rock!!! )

I must apologise for the long hiatus in posting. It is only a fortnight since I got my computer in my room. I still don’t have internet. And it is difficult to blog amidst the din of our computer lounge. To those who are wondering what happened all these days, I present a brief summary of what happened in this long gap.

It is close to four months since I arrived at National Academy of Direct Taxes. To chronicle my stay in one post is virtually impossible. But idiots like me can achieve even the impossible with an unbelievable ease. At least my stupidity helps me to believe so. Before, I proceed let me inform you that I have a slight problem in judging time and space. At times, this is aggravated due to short term memory loss. So if you find that I have mixed up tenses, places, persons, genders, reality and fantasies, please forgive me.

We landed on 9th December. Contrary to our expectations, December was pretty warm. Probably, it was the warmth of our preceding batch, the faculty and our then Director General, who always had a special love for probationers. As days passed, the warmth increased. But this was from a different source – Tea. Now don’t dismiss this with a condescending sigh. It was at NADT that I discovered that there exists a ritual called High Tea. For someone who seldom drank tea, high tea was something very alien. But, soon we learnt that high teas were a common thing in the government and one must learn to enjoy it.

We had so many High Teas during December that the IPCC almost issued a missive accusing us of disproportionately contributing to global warming. An undisclosed highly placed report from the Economic Intelligence wing reportedly observed that if FBT was imposed on High Teas, then the fund collected could single-handedly meet the budget requirements of NREGA, SSA and NACO. However, considering that it would place a huge burden on most of the Government departments, the observation was silently pushed under the carpet.

On a serious note, high teas actually serve as an excellent platform to impart soft skills. For example, how to eat crispy golden fried Jalebis with a fork while holding the tea cup in a saucer in one hand and the plate containing the jalebis in another. Or how to eat with poise even when you might have actually been starving for three days and the snack is your favourite one.

But soon the incidences of High Tea reduced and we got restless. So we decided to elect a Cultural Secretary a.k.a CulSec and a Film Secretary a.k.a FilSec to make our evenings more eventful. The new CulSec took his role too seriously and celebration of various festivals became a serious affair in the academy. He is forever worried about what to celebrate. Such is his enthusiasm that when the calendar did not have any events for two consecutive weeks, he decided to celebrate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He insisted that we have a really really sad song and a dance in slow motion. Luckily, just in time I informed him that you can just commemorate it, but not celebrate. He dropped the idea but not before finding a new reason to celebrate.

On February 6th, he wanted to celebrate the National Day of Niue. Officer Trainees (OTs) who had geography as their optional in Civil Service Examination, especially those who got the interview call again, are still trying to find where this country is. Nevertheless, the CulSec went ahead and planned a full-length programme with a folk dance from Tamil Nadu, a bhangra from Punjab, two songs (one instrumental and one vocal), and one dance. We, again, got into a fire fighting mode. We had to create an alternate event. Since the auditorium had excess capacity and no one in Nagpur was willing to come we decided to call our batchmates from Customs and Central Excise. They smelled something fishy and sent their senior batch. And this was what we were waiting for. The moment they landed in Nagpur they were led into the guest rooms and for the next one week we taught them the Income-tax Act. Why should only we have the pleasure of learning the act? Of course, we did keep our promise and treated them to the promised cultural evening on their last day of their stay.

While you are reading this post, the CulSec would get ready to celebrate Africa Malaria Day. It promised to be a grand event as sponsorships have already been obtained from all leading mosquito repellent products. When he is not organising festivals or lobbying for sanctioning of new proposals, he would be found writing his autobiography “Count Your Hair Before They G(r)o(w)”. And he is not the only budding writer here. At least a dozen books are on the offing from our batch. Some of the interesting ones are: How to Tax the Dead – A key to widen the tax base, 10001 Successful Reasons for Casual Leave, Seven Habits of Highly Unsuccessful KTPs[Refer footnote 1], Outsourcing Assignments and Income Tax for Dummies. All copies of the last book are sold out even before the first print.

I am not so intellectually endowed to write a book. So I prefer to read. I love autobiographies and Richard Branson’s is my all-time favourite. I have been reading it for over a decade. No luck, yet. Well, I am a slow learner.

When we are not reading or writing books, we watch movies. Our FilSec is no-nonsense guy who believes that movies must go beyond their targeted purpose of entertainment. At least he makes an attempt. What is great about watching meaningful movies? The challenge lies in watching meaningless movies and then trying to figure out what the movie was about. Towards this end, we had screenings of bollywood avant garde movies, like Mumbai Salsa. It was a cinematic expression of modern art. No one understands what it is, but everyone has a radically different story to tell, though they see the same visuals. Getting back to the movie, it had two far-reaching consequences, one unintended and one intended. First was that two Officer Trainees (OTs) qualified for an exchange program with the hospital [Refer footnote 2] across the road. Second was that the Hobbies Secretary started salsa classes. It was only later we came to know that salsa wasn’t as easy as it appeared. I had to abruptly drop out as doctor advised me not to lift weights more than 100 kgs.
My description of life here would be incomplete if I fail to mention the most exciting and adventurous activity which a few brave OTs undertake, marriage. Every weekend someone sets off to try his luck with the opposite gender. Activities range from visiting a prospective spouse, negotiating terms for a peaceful and non-violent marital life, actually getting married (which again could range from civil, ceremonial, secular, religious etc), pestering for family quarters in the campus etc. Those who do not have an opportunity to indulge in any of these luxuries spend their time watching movies like “Runaway Bride”, “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Four Wedding and (my?) Funeral”.

If you are wondering about the conspicuous absence of academic activities in this post, it is because I really don’t get what is happening in the class. My understanding of English is a little poor. So when the Basic Hindi classes [Refer footnote 3] are conducted, I go to my Basic English classes. I am the only student there. I have learnt the spellings of articles, pronouns and propositions. I am beginning to learn the spellings of a few nouns like “Income”, “Tax”, “House”, “Property”, “Business”, “Profession”, “Salary” etc. Once I complete my English classes, my regular classes will commence. Till then I have been advised to sleep (but not snore) in the class. I sign off with the promise in the next edition you will find my experiences in the class.

1. KTP – Keen Type Probationers, those whose excuse for existence is to study, study and just study.
2. Opposite our campus, there is mental hospital.
3. It is part of the Official Language Policy.

The Spotlight is on me !!!

2008-01-12T15:17:00.000+05:30

Kuffir wanted to know why I joined the Civil Services, a very very personal question. And I told him the secret.

Thanks Kuffir, for the invitation to write for Blogbharti.

Doubt II : Regionalism

2008-01-05T23:39:00.000+05:30

Twenty guys speaking in Hindi is fine but three guys speaking in Tamil is regionalism.

Enna Koduma Saar Idhu.

Goodbye LBSNAA

2007-11-29T15:59:00.000+05:30

All good things come to an end. So does the 81^st Foundation Course. It started of on an exciting note but the hectic schedule, especially the early morning PTs and weekend treks, began to take their toll. Adding to that was the excruciating climb to the mess and somnolent speeches by the guest speakers. All along the way, we cried, cribbed and cursed. But as the course nears its completion, the beauty of FC begins to dawn upon me. The biggest lure of the FC is its academic insouciance, something that will be sorely missed during our professional training.

When I look back, I realize that in these three and half months I have done scores of things that I would have never imagined I would be doing. A random list….

Waking up to a false alarm at 4 AM and again sleeping off ……only to be late for the PT

Relishing Upma at the breakfast……. a dish which I passionately hated at home

Late night movies in common room with friends….. with orange glow of the room heater and murrukkus

Meetings…. Syndicate Group Meeting, Counselor Group Meeting, Trek Group Meeting, Village Visit Group Meeting….

Watching Yamini Krishnamurthy perform at the age of 67 ..... truly inspiring

Sleeping in the class……..sometimes complete with dreams and snores

Weekend treks, early morning jogs …… and visits to the dispensary feigning injury

Pulling of an entertaining one act play complete with costumes, lighting and sound but without a written script

Trekking to a height of 1000 metres over six kilometers with a sprained ankle to visit a Gurudwara for the first time. (A wonderful photo essay of trekking in this stretch is available here)

Seeing a glacier .... and touching it.

Drinking tea at the last tea stall of India...

Trek in the company of icy Himalayan winds, barren rocks and zero vegetation…

Enjoying the bonhomie of ITBP jawans at Gastoli …… their warm barracks, their lovely songs and dances that went late into night

Playing cricket on a helipad at an altitude of 14,500 feet…..

Not taking bath for three days

Managing the traditional telugu dhoti for five hours before someone pointed out an impending wardrobe malfunction

DPs unfailing company to the breakfast……everyday

Surprise cancellation of PT

Waking up at 9 am and having bath at 12 am on sundays

Basking in the warm sun

Gorging over food at Andhra Bhavan in Delhi after being starved of south Indian food for over two months

Visiting Bihar…

Conducting a gram sabha and addressing the villagers in broken Hindi

Verifying the muster rolls of NREGA

Spending sleepless nights with VM to bring out the batchbook …… and then getting mobbed by OTs for a copy when it is finally released

Listening to Ilaiyaraja’s songs for a whole day…..snuggled in a blanket

Last minute preparation for exams….and sometimes going without any preparation

Unscheduled vodkas at the drop of the hat……..and the funny drunken banters

Searching a lecture hall for 20 minutes…..and when unsuccessful, simply going back to the room and sleeping

And finally….

Friend’s list in Orkut swelling by more than 100 in 100 days.

I will miss you, LBSNAA.

* Trek is one of the highpoints of FC. One of the more challenging parts was the Mana – Gastoli stretch. Mana (10,500 ft) is a village three Kilometers from Badrinath. Gastoli (14,500ft) is 14 kms from Mana towards the Indo-China border. The International Border is around 30 kms from Gastoli. All that is present in Gastoli is a lone ITBP camp, which is operational for only six months in a year. The camp has no electricity or telephone. Lights are solar powered and for cooking, kerosene is ferried from Mana by truck for around 10 Kms and from there brought to the camp by mules.

* Batchbook contains the profile of all OTs with their photographs, likes, dislikes etc.

Decline of Civil Servants? Not Really.

2007-11-04T16:01:00.000+05:30

It is widely perceived that there has been a gradual decline in the moral and ethical standards in public life since independence, which is also reflected in the character and conduct of public servants. Corruption has affected all sections of society and is prevalent from the highest to the lowest levels of bureaucracy. It was believed that, with rare exceptions, IAS officers were person of integrity and moral courage who administered law and rules with a degree of fairness and impartiality. This perception has changed to an extent that it is now believed that a majority of The IAS officers are deviants; and do not abide by the normative standards of behaviour and conduct expected of them.

Those are lines from the first paragraph of Chapter III – Values, Attitudes and Moral Imperatives from “Report of the Study Group on the Training of IAS Officers: Impact Assessment and Strategy for the Future”. The report was the result of the study group set up by the Department of Personnel and Training Vide its sanction order No. 15012.2/1/95-(Trg) dated 14th march, 1996. The team had closely interacted with various training institutes and had a special focus on LBSNAA.

Prima facie, these lines might not surprise a lot of people as it is a general perception that there is a decline in the quality of public servants, especially in the moral quotient. That perception has also been often extended to even the entrants into the service. Paragraph 3.8 from the same chapter in the report is a pointer in that direction.

Fresh entrants into the civil services today, who operate in this unwholesome environment, are disillusioned and confused right from the start. As they observe their seniors, many of whom are either apathetic or unhelpful, the younger members choose the relatively pleasant course of expediency, and swim with the tide, while paying lip service to ethical standards and norms of conduct.

However, after reading this memoir of a former IPS officer who attended the Foundation Course forty four summers ago, I wonder if there has actually been a 'decline' in the quality of entrants.

One evening four I.A.S. officers got a bindas (uninhibited) lady probationer of Indian Railway Accounts Service drunk in a room of Kutesar Castle and then made her condition so pathetic that for about a month she could sit only on a pillow in the classroom. The matter had become the talk of the academy but the administrators, in their concern for the career of the young I.A.S. officers, initiated no action against those probationers, and considered it sufficient to advise them, "Choose bearable number."

One year earlier, an I.A.S. probationer had criminally assaulted a minor daughter of a poor man living on the hill-slope behind Charleville Hotel. The then Director, with stated intent of saving the girl's honor, had hushed up the matter after advising the probationer, "Choose proper age."

Nothing, even remotely as serious as the instances above, has occurred during the present Foundation Course. So the logical conclusion should be that the quality of entrants is actually improving. Encouraging, isn’t it?

Lessons @ LBSNAA

2007-10-15T01:26:00.000+05:30

I am back !!!

Ever since I joined the Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), I have been suffering from intense pangs of anomie and laziness. Added to that are the various explicit and implicit restrictions that come with the status of being a civil servant. The conduct rules places a restraint on our freedom of expression under the clause of “criticizing the Government”. So probably there wouldn’t be much criticism of Government in this blog henceforth. But, I guess that the restrictions would be a challenge too. Anyways, it feels good to have a disclaimer on my blog. I finally feel usefully and gainfully employed.

So much has happened in the last two months that it would be ~~difficult~~ boring to chronicle them in a single post. Glimpses of life at LBSNAA can be had at blogs of my colleagues, Aunrag and Sundar.

Today, I would like to give some insights on the training that happens here. The importance of soft skills has been realized by the Government. And they have also realized that all lessons cannot be imparted in the conventional classroom-type teaching. So here are a few out-of-the-box and out-of-the-classroom techniques of imparting soft skills.

Auditorium

The enlightening lectures at the Sampoornanand auditorium is often a transcendental experience. The Officer Trainees (OTs) go into a different mental plane, which the course team and visiting faculty term as “sleeping’. It is here that the dreams and vision for the glorious future of our country take birth. OTs train themselves (You see we are also made adept in Self-learning), in Dr Kalam’s art of dreaming and developing a vision. The seeds of Vision 3030 are sown here.

Dispensary

The dispensary is the place where OTs hone their persuasive and negotiating skills. Every visitor tries his best to convince the Doctor that any activity other than walking, particularly the early morning Physical Training, is lethal. Previous records state that the OT who gets the maximum exemptions from attending the PT sessions inevitably wins the A. N. Sinha One Act play.

OT Lounge

The billiards table has more players than the number of balls. The place makes an excellent case study for successful implementation of principles of equity and inclusiveness. And way the game is played is an exposition on classical laissez faire at work. Such is the freedom that one ingenious OT revealed that he prefers reverse usage of cue as it is more convenient to hit the ball with the handle, which has bigger circumference. Who says bureaucrats are bookish, impractical and unimaginative?

Treks

It is necessary that public servants are polite, courteous and helpful. The weekend treks help in inculcating these much-valued traits. They bring out the chivalrous knights hidden inside the OTs. The extent of chivalry is directly proportional to slope of the path and the goodlooks of the OT. A couple of clarifications here:

1) Beauty is subjective and depends on the sole discretion of the beholder.

2) The second factor has ten times the weightage of the first one.

3) If the recipient belongs to a good cadre and the knight to the cadres that truly demand him to be a knight in a fighting armor, then chivalry is unconditional.

Officers’ Mess

The food is a symbol of national integration. You will never be able to distinguish a South Indian sambhar from a North Indian dal. Such is the cross-cultural culinary acclimatization that the Indian Foreign Service probationers who do not skip a single meal at the mess are the ones who feel at home in Côte d'Ivoire.

We have much more than this in our training. But let me save them for another post.

PS1: It is mandatory to leave a comment for all OTs reading this post.

PS2: Firefox users, please note that the LBSNAA website works well only with Internet Explorer.

Doubt I : Disqualification of Kalam

2007-06-25T14:14:00.000+05:30

“Can we imagine an umpire or a referee who knows nothing about the sport. A President is not called upon to write poems, stories, novels nor talk about scientific research. He should take decisions on issues affecting political, economic and social life of the country,” Mr. Bardhan said giving a talk on Presidential elections at a meeting organised by the State council of CPI here on Sunday.

Sir, shouldn’t we then have some minimum educational qualification for legislators?

He said the country had entered a crucial era of coalition politics, breaking the monopoly of power by Congress. In this context, the highest office required a person who had knowledge about the relationship between parties that made up the coalitions. “Tell us, what is wrong in our thought”, he asked.

Nothing sir. We are just wondering if such knowledge is possible. Will some present/erstwhile members of any coalition Government shed light on their ‘relationship’ with other constituents?

He said the Left was opposed to second term for A.P.J. Abdul Kalam because it had not supported him even at the first instance.

How consistent!

Vignettes of a Tamil Refugee

2007-04-20T22:36:00.000+05:30

This is my delayed response to Sambol’s evocative post on the pain of those who are forced to leave their strife-torn countries. [Link via Desipundit]. It brought back the memories of one such Sri Lankan Tamil family whom I had known during my stay at Madurai.

The family consisted of a couple and their three daughters in their prime of youth. The youngest one had the loveliest oval face with big communicative eyes and a skin that was unusually fair and flawless for those south of Tropic of Cancer. Unfortunately, she had some problem with legs and could walk only with a limp. Fate seemed to have some cruel grudge on them.

The lady taught me Tamil. I was in fifth grade and the school, like many in Tamil Nadu, required me to study Tamil. I, then, barely knew the alphabet. So bad was my Tamil, that my parents eagerly waited to read my answer scripts for my unintended wit and humour.

Instead of writing “Kandhai aanalum kasakki kattu” [Even if it is a rag, wash thoroughly before wearing it], I wrote “Thandhai aanalum kasakki kattu” [Even if it is your father, wash thoroughly before wearing it]. Thanks to her, I just failed only in my second monthly test and by the end of the year, I always managed to get above 60%.

India in the pre-Manmohan Singh era provided little employment avenues for residents, let alone refugees. And of all the places, Madurai, a very sleepy town which my uncle often calls as a mega-village, gave them a very slender chance of resurrecting a living that was as respectable and as secure as they had in Sri Lanka.

The lady taught in a neighborhood school and a few students from there came to her home for tuitions. Except me and a few others, most of the students were Sri Lankan Tamils. They were pretty close to each other. Probably, they derived some kind of emotional coziness from each other. I used to find their accent very different and funny. Yet, I must confess that it had an element of rhythm and purity embedded in it. When compared to regular rustic Tamil of Madurai, even their angry spews appeared sweet.

The lady was very professional at her work and ensured that the time we spent there was used only for academics. Despite this, when the some student made an odd statement about someone who returned recently or some news from Jaffna, she would become both nostalgic and hopeful. Nostalgic about the past and hopeful about the future, though she knew that there was not much to hope.

Whenever, I see Kannathil Muthamittal, I wonder if she too fled amidst shelling. The song Vidai Kodu Engal Naadu empathetically captures the pain, agony and the uncertainty of being uprooted not just from your town, but from your country.

kaN thiRandha dhesam angae
kaN moodum dhesam engae?

There is the land where I was born.
Where is the land where I will die.

Of course, development always led to displacement. But the displacement a refugee faces has uncertainty written all over his future. People displaced due to development lose their home. But refugees lose their homes, their claim for compensation, their land, their identity. You begin to live on someone’s mercy. A family uprooted from a river basin confidently settles down at the nearest urban slum. But a refugee is often thinking about a piece of land for him to stand. Overnight, landlords like my tuition teacher, who owned a home in Jaffna, have to think about a place to even sit.

I was there for just one year. We later shifted to Hyderabad. A few summers later, I watched her walking past my grandfather’s home, where we went for our annual summer vacation. She was now giving home tuitions to one of my erstwhile friend. She was just same. Square face with prominent cheek bones and eyes securely rested in their deep sockets. She spoke to my mom with the same cheerfulness and wished me good luck. As she walked away, my mom recollected her travails. My mom was scared to touch upon sensitive issues like daughters’ marriages. In a small town like that we could always learn from others and if there was anything very encouraging, she would have definitely shared with us. I never heard of them again.

Some years back, when I applied for the TNPCEE exam, I was glad that there reservations for Tamil refugees. However, it seems that since 2003, these children are being denied admission into professional courses due some Madras High Court order and subsequent dilly-dallying of the center. The refugee camps, which Thiru says are equivalents of open-air prisons in Kannathil Muthamittal, are going to be worse with rising conflict in Sri Lanka.

When I read Sambol’s post, I felt how lucky he and some of those who left comments were to go to a western country. There were only two occasions when I could see a gleam in my teacher’s eyes. One, when she discussed about their joyful Jaffna life. Two, when she learnt how someone in a similar situation could migrate to western countries.

I hope she too got a chance to move out to greener pastures.

An IIT for Andhra Pradesh

2007-03-16T23:51:00.000+05:30

The location of the new IIT in Andhra Pradesh has become a bone of contention. The CM has proposed the location at Medak, a neighboring district of Hyderabad which is being steadily encroached by Hyderabadi suburbs. However, Mr. Ramiah and others who have been at the forefront of the campaign for an IIT at AP, want it to be located at Basar in Nizamabad district as it has the famed temple of Goddess Saraswati.

Amidst the din of arguments from either side, it has been lost that AP already has an IIT. High school students from AP have silently accomplished what politicians and academicians could not do. If don’t believe me, see this. [Link via Abi]

“During a recent year under review 979 candidates from South Zone secured admission. Of them 769 were from AP, while TN accounted for 94 successful candidates, Karnataka, 84, and Kerala, for no more than 32 candidates.”

Since we live in an age of acquisitions and mergers, the IIT for AP can be established in the following manner with minimal investment and zero contention.

Rename IIT (Madras) as IIT (Hyderabad).

Rename Guindy as Gandipet Phase - II.

Incorporate the locality into the proposed Greater Hyderabad.

Appoint Mr. Ramiah as the director.

Don’t worry about the Tamilians. Give them an additional 100 million cubic feet of Krishna water and they would happily agree to this.

Ayn Rand in Wonderland

2007-03-11T07:30:00.000+05:30

This month, Atlas Shrugged completes fifty years of its existence. It reminds of my non-iterative love-hate relationship with Ayn Rand. I was in high school when I completed this book. It was the first piece of serious literature I ever read. And, expectedly, I was blown off by it

When I look back, the book resembles like an intellectual version of a bollywood potboiler. A fantastic escape for the ordinary into extraordinary. Everyone is exceptionally talented in the book. Some even exceptionally rich. Common man has no place in her society. He is a passive sheep who has to be led by the ‘minds of the world’. Only people who are the ‘best’ of the society need to be talked about. Sounds like an intellectual Page 3. Doesn’t it? Such artistic liberty may be fine for a book like Fountainhead which deals with objectivism at an individual level. But when you try to extrapolate it to the wider canvas of society, characterization should be representative. Rand easily forgets that all those “talented” businessmen and artists need the man on the road for their survival. Her conception of Atlantis, completes her denial of the common man. It is surprising that she chooses a fantasy land as a ‘rational’ solution to the problem.

Despite the flagrant contradiction, Atlas Shrugged comes out as the most influential book after Bible for the Americans. But I don’t find any influence of Atlas Shrugged on America. Rather, America stands for everything that was denounced in the book. Instead of innovation and ingenuity, the American corporations now rely on non-tariff barriers, strategic superiority and even brute force to make money. The nation that has a statue for liberty is holding thousands under indefinite detention violating principles of natural justice. The biggest joke is that while Rand celebrates the Dollar as the proof of infinite superiority of the human mind, every dollar itself states that “In God We Trust”.

The only visible influence is that most people just pick up Rand’s hedonistic morality to justify their ways and views of life. For this, Rand creates numerous characters to reinforce her idea of morality. One excellent example is, Hank Rearden, a man who invents some strange blue steel, which is supposed to be the elixir of infrastructure. The society, externally, and his family, internally, are depicted as thankless leeches who suck him for their survival. And just like the gullible readers, this man of munificence, suddenly realizes that there is nothing wrong in abandoning his factory and family. I say, he should actually be thankful to his family members for giving him a chance to be their savior and stoke his ego.

Societally speaking, what if Hank Rearden invented a cure for AIDS rather than that silly blue steel? Would all those who worship him still agree if he refuses to sell the drug at a price other than that he determines and only to people whom he chooses? Or still further, what if my happiness lies chopping the fingers of persons whose name begins with “H”? After all, by the Randian philosophy happiness should be the only guiding principle. So at close quarters, the whole philosophy becomes animalistic way of life. (May be that is why their sex is characterized by violence, rape, BDSM and adultery.)

Randians might argue that your happiness should be pursued only to the extent that it doesn’t hurt others. But who will draw the line? A neutral regulator? That can’t be. As Anaconia in his celebrated speech says “production cannot be decided by those who do not produce”. So unless you are a serial killer, you can’t regulate my homicides.

May be Ayn Rand did not know how to find answers to all these. So she very simply created an imaginary isolated land where all like minded people get away. Great. But why will the world stop? If Newton did not wonder about apples, Clinton would have. I wonder how all her “extraordinary” minds were so like-minded. Why did not their intellectual superiority have different perspectives of life and happiness?

She calls those who tax the ‘productive’ population to fund welfare schemes as ‘looters’. Her naivety doesn’t get better than this. It is because of the ‘looters’ that the ‘minds of the world’ had law and order and social and physical infrastructure on which their genius could blossom. Again, my friends on the other side of fence would love Rand as she gives them a reason to cuss the tax collectors.

Ayn Rand understood neither man nor the society. She knew neither economics nor politics. Yet she set off to paint a grandiose philosophy and, expectedly, it was neither rational nor sustainable. She should have done some reading of her compatriot, Dostovesky. The consequence of assumed intellectual superiority, and the resultant liberty to act by personal judgment alone, was beautifully brought out through Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. While he showed how one Raskolnikov was an abberation, Ayn Rand fills up the Atlas Shrugged with umpteen Raskolnikovs and claims them to be the saviors of the world. Atlas Shrugged is interesting, but, as Abi calls it, a hoax. To sum up, Mark Skousen could not be more correct when says,“John Galt – it's time to come home and go to work.”

And I Thought I Was Joking....

2007-02-28T21:40:00.000+05:30

Two of my ideas found a mention in today's budget.

Private Jets
MMS Downloads

Not bad for a first time guesser. :-)

Budget Speech 2007-2008

2007-02-25T01:34:00.000+05:30

Mr. Speaker, Sir

It is a pain to present the Budget for the year 2007-08. I hate the PM for making me stand for three hours and I hate Health Minister for refusing to give me a false certificate for acute arthritis. You will rot in hell.

The budget speech has been deliberately made long so that all those who are listening can go to sleep and have a dream budget, like they had under a sleeping PM. Before I begin to start my budget speech, I would like to share a few pearls of wisdom which will help my allies and the Opposition to receive my proposals in the right perspective. The great modern actor-philosopher of Tamil Nadu had once enlightened us that Adhighama Aasappadra Left um Adhighama Kovappedra Right um Nalla Vaazhntha Charithrame Kedayadhu. (A Left which is over demanding and a Right which is extra fiery will die of worms in their stomach.) So please don’t expect much.

I will not present the overview of the economy because I have already mailed you the copy of Economic Survey 2007-08. Please read it when you find time. If you have doubts, please ask Alex. Even I refer his blog when in doubt.

Our Government has always been conscious of the National Common Minimum Programme. Under the able stewardship of the Chairperson of UPA, we have discovered 23,584 welfare schemes with names containing the words, National, Bharateeya, Pradhan Mantri, Rashtriya, Savarakar, Shayama Prasad Mukherjee etc. They are going to be suitably replaced with the words Rajiv and Indira in the ratio of 10:1.

The farmer has always been the man closest to our heart. Since we have failed to contain the farmer suicides, I have decided to do my bit in ensuring their post-suicide life is made more bearable. In this direction, I introduce Saral forms for claiming compensation for suicides. These would be available in local languages and will have just 29 columns to fill, which is eight lesser than the one used for Income Tax.

Now, I come to the most awaited part of my speech – Taxation.

First, the direct taxes. It has become a common feature for every sector of industry to vie for some kind of tax benefits. I have received representation from so many quarters in the last few weeks that I have become a confused man. To ensure that I do not confuse you further with multiple concessions, I have devised to introduce one-by-six rule for the corporates. Those satisfying any one of the criterion, are eligible for a flat 25% refund of their Corporation Tax. The criteria are as follows:

1) Firms dealing with alcohol and tobacco.

2) Firms who aid firms mentioned in (1) by allowing their employees to consume alcohol and tobacco.

3) Firms whose share price is more than Rs 1000 and less than 15% is held by public.

4) Firms which have personal jets.

5) Firms which sponsor polo matches and speculate in derby.

6) Firms whose CEOs attend the meet at Davos.

Women, children and family welfare are the key to success of any nation. For women, alimony from husbands double their ages will not be treated as capital gains. For the youth, the beacon of the nation, gifts bought for their girl friends are exempted from fringe benefit tax.

As my budget will have something for everyone, I have something even for the men. Since dowry has only been going upwards ever since IT boom has occurred, it would be foolish for any administration to ignore such a potential source of revenue. From next year, grooms who take large dowry will get commensurate depreciation against the wealth with every passing year of marriage. Further, if they survive the seven year itch, they will have an option to convert the erstwhile assets into a liability. (This has been my personal experience) This facility would be available provided they submit TDS certificates from their fathers-in-laws at the time of registration of marriage.

In its two years of operation, the Banking Cash Transaction Tax has proved to be an amazing success in curbing the growth of black money. Our research tells me that this technique can also be used to contain the growing inflation. Hence, I propose to impose a small marginal tax of 5% every time you take money out your purse to make a purchase. That is you pay just five paise for a rupee you spend. I have already asked RBI to start minting five paise coins. For women, the definition of “purse” would also include handbag, clutch, tote or any place where they keep their husbands' money.

Under indirect taxes, as boost to the vibrant film industry, I propose a cut in the customs duties so that they can import better heroines from Norway, Czechoslovakia etc. For the textile industry, I propose a cut of 5% on excise duty on White Dhotis and an additional 5% when they are sold with white cotton shirt.

I regret to inform that the 8% excise duty on packaged software imposed last year has not yielded the expected results. In fact, the whole revenue realized from this category happens to be solely from Government of India. Hence, I propose to modify the proposal to 8% excise duty on pirated software.

As with every year, I plan to bring new promising services like fashion shows, sleazy MMS, illegal occupation of land and extra-legal settlement of land disputes under the service tax net.

In tune with our commitment to financial and auditing reforms, I plan to introduce a radically new budgeting technique – Zero Based Budgeting 2.0. As against the conventional incremental allocation of funds, we plan to add zeros at the end of the previous figures to ensure exponential increase in social spending. However, to ensure that it does not result in runaway inflation which would antagonize our allies from the left, we have devised a formula to suitably move the decimal point towards the left for every added zero.

I am pleased to announce that the outcome budget introduced by me last year has produced outstanding result in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The revised target for overtaking China in population is 2009.

All progressive Governments are keen on ensuring that the citizens are delivered Good Governance. In this regard, crores of rupees are being allocated, which usually find their way into rehabilitating retired bureaucrats, sponsoring foreign holidays (with spouses) under the cover of study tours and filling the pockets of failed academicians who pose as “consultants”. I have, therefore, decided scrap all such programmes and have come up with a cost-effective ingenious alternative. Names of all Governments will henceforth be prefixed with “Good”. The Government of India will be now known as Good Government of India. Similarly we will have Good Government of Tamil Nadu, Good Government of Andhra Pradesh and so on. The scheme would be first applied to the states ruled by constituents of UPA and it would be extended to other states when we come to power there.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have finally ran out of patience, perseverance and paper. If you kindly wake up the honorable members, we can adjourn the house and chill out in the canteen.

Sir, with these words, I commend the Budget to the House.

Back Scratching

2007-02-05T19:26:00.000+05:30

Freudian Slips declares Goofy as the Person of 2006 for nominating me as the Person of the Year.

Note: Retrospective nominations for Person of the Decade, Person of Century, Person of Millennium are invited. For details, please click here.

Animal Harm

2007-02-02T00:07:00.001+05:30

Post-Rang De Basanti, there has been an increasing awareness on the use of animals in movies. I, therefore, wondered if “Veerasamy” had obtained the mandatory permission from Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), before using an unusual animal, Sloth Bear, for its title role.

Rule 7 of the the Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001 issued by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment says that:

Prior information for use of performing animals in films : -

(1) Every owner desirous of hiring out or lending a performing animal in the making of a film shall give prior information in the format as specified by the prescribed authority for this purpose to specifying the kind of animal, age of animal, physical health of the animal, the nature of performance to be done by the animal, the duration for which the animal shall be used for such performance, the duration and method of training of the animal for such performance and justification for the use of such animals in the film and such other information as may be required by that authority.

As a The Hindu-reading responsible blogger, I decided to verify the facts before making a post. I filed a RTI application with the AWBI and was glad that the movie had indeed obtained prior permission from AWBI.

The copy of the application seeking permission, which was given to me in response to my RTI, is reproduced below.

Kind of Animal – Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus)

Age of Animal – 18 Till I Die

Physical health of the animal – Fight, Flight and Dance Worthy

Nature of performance to be done by the animal – Acting, Story, Screenplay, Dialogues, Direction, Music, Lyrics, Editing, Audiography, Art Direction and Cinematography (when he is not acting)

Duration for which the animal shall be used for such performance – Till the camera runs out of raw stock

Duration and method of training of the animal for such performance – NIL . It is a born genius
Justification for the use of such animal in the film – Self-employment

Singur: The Hindu responds, partly

2007-01-22T11:00:00.000+05:30

It was a pleasant surprise to find the Reader’s Editor of The Hindu responding to the accusations made in my previous post on Singur/Nandigram. Thanks to Desicritics, Desipundit and Blogbharati for extending the reach of the post.

I came across some interesting comments on some published letters on the Singur/Nandigram land acquisition controversy in West Bengal. A letter referred to "rumours of land acquisition" while the same issue of the paper carried the news of the Chief Minister admitting that the Haldia Development Authority had issued a notice to acquire land. This "factual inaccuracy" is explained by the time gap between the processing of letters and placing them on the page, which is done early in the day, and the news development and its reporting.

Along with this comment came the observation that all the letters The Hindu carried were from "non-Bengal locations," 2000 km from West Bengal. This is strange: is it the argument that only residents of a State can comment on developments within that State? The spread of the paper's readership is known. It is only natural that the letters originate mostly from this readership.

The first explanation is accepted. With regard to the second, my major contention was that the Letters to the Editor should be a representation of the people’s perspective on the issue. It should give voice to dissent and avoid reiteration of the newspapers’s stand, something which has been agreed in the above column.

But that process should not muffle or distort the voice of the people, which the column presents. The letter appears under the contributor's name and should reflect the original as faithfully as possible. Variety in style should be the spice of this column, not rewritten uniformity. They should not become opinion manufactured in-house — that some newspapers are said to do, and a charge a couple of readers laid against The Hindu too.

Priority should be given to alternative opinions. After all, we see newspaper as a source of information; not as a snap poll on the agreement or otherwise of its readers to its views.

I never questioned the liberty of non-residents of the state from commenting. What my concern was that, if the selection of the letters carried atleast a few from the state, it would have been a better reflection of what people at the ground zero think. I am not convinced with the cover of “spread of the paper's readership”. Yes, we all know that The Hindu has a better readership in South India. But I am sure it enjoys a respectable readership in Kolkatta, if not in the whole of West Bengal. A letter or two from there would have extended some credibility to the column.

Finally, one of the commentators on the Singur post at Desicritics wondered if “The Hindu puts doctored or manufactured letters under Letters to the Editor.” I confidently responded that “I don't think The Hindu would stoop so low to doctor letters, though from my personal experience, I know that they do reduce the length of letters.”

Today’s column eroded my confidence when it admitted that a two-sentence letter was re-phrased and published in a manner that the “printed version had no resemblance to the original”. Retrospectively, the Editor-in-Chief feels that instead of “sanitizing”, the letter should have been "dumped". So while The Hindu clamors for freedom of expression, even if it means protection of dubious finance companies, it itself would never grant the same.

Singur : The Emperors Have No Cloths

2007-01-12T11:17:00.000+05:30

How much more will The Hindu defend the Marxist Government of West Bengal? For over a month, the campaign to paint the Marxist Government white has breached all decent limits of “fearless unbiased” reporting. As pointed out in my previous post, not content with the 22 pages it has everyday, The Hindu also wants to use the tiny “Letter to the Editor” column to propagate or rather thrust upon its views. Similar to the cry of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that since all the available land is under cultivation, they are forced to encroach upon agriculture land for industrialization, The Hindu seems to say that since all the available space is either filled with news or advertisements (or even Rs 13-per-Sq-cm obituaries), it has no option but to forcibly intrude into the only available space on the paper – “Letters to the Editor”.

Look at this piece that was published two days ago.

"The report that six persons died in clashes in Nandigram, West Bengal, following rumours of land acquisition for a Special Economic Zone, is disturbing."

“Rumors”? What rumors? When you turn two pages you find this article where, Mr. Bhattacharjee admitted that the Haldia Development Authority did issue a notice to acquire land and the said authority is headed by a CPI(M) MP. Why publish letters that are factually incorrect?

Incidentally, all the letters are from people who are more that 2000 kms from West Bengal. What a representative collection of letters!

As if that was not enough, yesterday’s edition carries another letter toeing the line of The Hindu and coming from a non-West Bengal location.

“The death of six persons in clashes instigated by some organisations in Nandigram is unfortunate. The fact that these organisations played up rumours of land acquisition saying the West Bengal Government had issued eviction notices, when the reality is that it has not even completed the identification of lands, shows their vested interest.”

The other letter in the column too supports the Marxists. Readers often look towards the letters to learn the dissenting or the alternative points of view. In the first place, the reporting on the Singur issue has been very one-sided. Ms. Medha Patkar and Ms. Arundhati Roy, who usually get lavish space, are now given single-column insignificant coverage. By publishing letters that just mimic the articles, The Hindu is forcing regular readers like me to look for alternative sources of news.

The fine line between your beliefs and the truth is always sacrosanct. In this editorial, where they term Mamata Banerjee’s fast as “high-wire theatrics” and “meaningless”, has breached that line. The editorial, which also commends Mr. Bhattacharjee’s handling of the issue, give us an FAQ on Singur.

“What are the key facts about Singur? The State Government went about acquiring the land sought by Tata Motors not by dispossessing the people on the highly fragmented land, but by seeking their consent through offering compensation that was significantly higher than the market price.”

The moot issue is not the price but the consent of the landowners and rehabilitation and that has been consciously eclipsed.

The biggest lie that Chief Minister Bhattacharjee has been repeatedly telling is that the lands have been acquired with the consent of the landowners. But the “Final Report on Singur” which available on the website of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation reveals a different story.

“Consent under section 11(2) is a means of involvement of the citizen in determination of award. However, non-submission of consent in writing in terms of Section 11(2) does not prevent the Collector from declaring the award and acquiring the land. For those landowners who do not submit consent in writing under Section 11 (2), the Collector shall proceed under Section 11(1) and declare the award and such awardees will not receive the additional 10%.”

Hence, irrespective of the landowner’s consent, the lands have been acquired by the West Bengal Government. The consents that were obtained before the calculation of award are called “Pre-Award Consents”, which is quite logical. The “consents” of those who have not given their consent are called “Post-Award Consents”. It is by using such oxymoronic phrases, Chief Minister Bhattacharjee is shouting from the rooftop that he has got the consent of the landowners.

The Pre-Award Consents get 10% additional money for kowtowing the Communists. When people have finally realized that irrespective of their consent, they are losing their land, they decided that they would rather give their consent to gain the additional 10%. This is quite natural and has obviously happened.

“But even after Declaration of the Award, many persons came forward with the appeal that due to various reasons and constraints, they could not submit the consent in writing for compensation before the date of Declaration of Award. They submitted applications requesting that they may also be paid the additional 10%.”

Predictably, the report is silent on proportion of Pre-Award and Post-Award consents. Incidentally, the third page of the report mentions Important Provisions of the Land Acquisition Act 1894:

The first one under that is:

“Section 4: By publication of notification in the official gazette, two dailies (including one in regional language) and by publication of public notice of the substance of such notification in the locality, the Collector notifies the intention of the Government to take specified lands for any public purpose.”

When did setting up of private industries become a “public purpose”? The self-proclaimed labour-friendly Government has not given any guarantee that the displaced would be employed in the proposed factory. The argument of generating employment seems hollow considering the past record of the Tatas at Pimpri, Pune.

“The Tata's Indica project, comparable to Singur was established as an extension to its initial car-truck and other production enterprise, in Pimpri, Pune. Tatas were given 188 acres of land possessed by Pimpri Housing and Area Development Corporation that was supposed to be used for housing of labourers in the industrial belt. ……
….. no one from about only 125 families who lost their land for the project is employed in the factory which is highly mechanised and have altogether only 300 employees. Telco has anyway slashed about 10,000 and more jobs during last 4 years and Tata Steels downsized its workplace by 30,000 during one decade, as per estimate."

The Left which supported the principle of land-for-land rehabilitation in Narmada Valley and elsewhere, is dispensing the present oustees with cash. With little investment opportunities, lack of alternative skills and the temptation of demonstrative consumption, they are soon going to become impoverished slum dwellers. Just the way numerous tribals ousted from Srisailam are found begging and selling earbuds on the crossroads of Hyderabad.

Much has been made out of the Mr. Bhattacharjee’s repeated offers to Ms. Mamata Banerjee, in a “civil tone”, to discuss the issues and his decision to set up a consultative mechanism within the Left Front has been recommended to be emulated by others. If the intentions of Mr. Bhattacharjee are truly as angelic as it is being projected, then why isn’t he allowing Ms. Medha Patkar to visit Singur? If the Chief Minister’s claims that there is absolute consensus in the land acquisition among the land holders, then why did he confine Ms. Medha Patkar to a youth hostel in Salt Lake? Wasn’t the State Police well-equipped to handle even 1% of the dissenting local population? It was the same CM who gleefully invited the media to show the vandalism caused by the Trinamool legislators in the Assembly.

Mr. Bhattacharjee, is not just re-inventing Marxism in economic terms, but also in political terms. He is adopting the same tricks which his so-called arch rivals, the capitalists use. The Singur media blockade and the extended videography of broken furniture in the West Bengal Assembly are the pointers towards manipulative dissemination of information. Even the majority of Pre-Award consents, happen to be sourced from the members of Gram Panchayat [predominantly manned by their own party workers] and not the Gram Sabha.

Religion, something which the Communist never recognize, too, is being use. At Nandigram, Mr. Bhattacharjee sought to take refuge under Jamait Ulema-i-Hind. It is not surprising as saffron and red have very similar wavelengths.

With so much going on, The Hindu, has been publishing one-sided stories which have become a joke on journalism. A sample.

“West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here on Tuesday that a notification issued by the Haldia Development Authority….”

Said? I thought he admitted that the notification was issued. Admitted because he was consistently denying any such move, even when six persons were killed. But how can Buddhadeb or for that matter any Marxist be wrong in the eyes of The Hindu. And when they are not wrong, what can they admit?

He goes on to say that the notification was “used by certain forces to create confusion in the minds of the locals to incite them to violence.” But a few lines down the article he contradicts himself saying “Confusion among the local people is only natural if such a document from a State agency is brought to their notice.” Mr. Bhattacharjee, please clarify if the confusion was incited or natural? I am confused more than the locals. Or is it that you yourself are confused?

And it seems that the unbiased the reporting of “The Hindu” has forgotten to mention in the article that the head of the Haldia Development Authority is a CPI(M) MP, Lakshman Seth. So Mr. Bhattacharjee, what we need is not an All-Party Meet which you want to convene, but please convene your own party meet or atleast a meeting of your legislators and parliamentarians. May be they will clear (y)our confusion.

It is high-time that the Marxists and their unofficial Media Partner realize that the emperor is wearing no cloths.

Crossposted at Desicritics.

Jockey - Idhi Chaala Pedha Rod Guru

2006-12-24T23:34:00.000+05:30

Everyone thought that Krishna Vamsi had lost his touch and Anthapuram was the last of his impressive movies. NTR Jr was similarly written off after the failure of successive movies like ……., ……., ……. (Please fill the blanks). But both are back with a fatal vengeance and unfortunately it is not just on their critics. Krishna Vamsi tries to do a Shankar – packaging socially relevant themes in a commercial format. We therefore have an unbearably powerful movie. So powerful that the crowd is thrown off their seats into restrooms, corridors, staircases etc. The theaters are sealed during the show to prevent any damage of adjacent buildings.

Jayakrishna, fondly called as Jockey, has a fetish for undergarments and is a strong votary for their public display. He is pained by the society which reprimands skimpily clad women, especially those flaunting their undergarments from their no waist, I mean, low waist jeans. He is supported by one sister and two girl friends, one in-house (Maradalu) and one next house. The former is fair and fat (Charmee) and the later is fair and flat (Ileana). Towards the end, fat makes way for the flat. A metaphoric depiction of upholding the socialist principle of haves making way for the have-nots.

The films is extravagant from the word go. More characters than that can fit on a 35 mm film. More dialogues than you can possibly hear. More songs than you can remember. In short, the first half of the movie is a walk in the clouds. Aimless, directionless and meaningless. It has everything other than a story. If you find that the interval is no where in sight then it is not your fault. You need to beg, bribe and finally bash up the operator in the projector room before you get that much needed relief. But before that, the doting sister of Jockey dies of a fire accident caused due to her sari catching fire in the kitchen. He solemnly vows that he would not rest till he liberates all the Indian girls from the clutches of traditional dress and attains them the freedom to bare themselves in bikinis. With that, the director leaves you to take a break and get ready for a second dose of gang bang. Let me again remind you that the theaters are sealed and you cant run away.

In the second half, Jockey takes inspiration from the Swadeshi movement and decides to burn all cloths except undergarments. Such is his obsession that he doesn’t care even if the cloths are on someone’s back. It is here where Krishna Vamsi slightly, very slightly, loses the grip over the script. The director seems to have got confused between serial killing and mating of lions. (When mating, the lions copulate every 20 to 30 minutes for 4-5 days) Nevertheless, the manner in which Jockey seamlessly travels across the breadth of Hyderabad and kills 40 persons in a single day would serve as a case study for traffic and time management.

Since, Jockey is a guy for the women, by the women and of the women, the police department gets a hysterical women police officer, Suhasini. She often shrieks in such high pitch that the theaters had to install temporary noise reduction devices to prevent damage to the speakers. You should keep in mind that this sound is a supplement to Jockey’s angry verbal spews. You now know whom Spielberg hired for giving voice to Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurrassic Park.

Finally, mercy dawns on Jockey and he decides to surrender. In the court, he asks the judge for two minutes before the judge pronounces his verdict. When you eagerly start your stopwatch, you realize that he meant two minutes on Pluto (whose 1 year equals to 248 earth years). By the time he completes his harangue on the socio-cultural, economic, political, psychological and historical importance of undergarments, any amateur can easily complete all the 18 holes on a golf course.

The climax, like the rest of the movie, is equally powerful. Prakash Raj, the judge in charge of delivering verdict, is blown off by Jockey’s commitment to the cause and immediately resigns and disrobes himself, endorsing Jockey’s cause. He further takes a solemn oath that he wouldn’t cloth himself till the highest court of the land acquits Jockey. Thankfully, we are not exposed to the execution of the oath.

The film closes with Jockey telling a huge crowd of women how the most powerful men, He-Man, Superman and Batman, always proudly displayed their underwears. Thus the corollary, greater you show, the more powerful you grow. He emotionally appeals that we should live in such a free society where there would be no necessity for another Jockey. For once, everyone watching also agree with him.

Every department of film-making has scaled new heights in this movie. The music stands apart and even tears you apart. During the crucial scenes, Narayana Murthy (of Dandorra and Erra Sainyan fame) renders an inspiring hip-hop number in the background. To prevent piracy and reuse, all songs have been remixed with suitable phrases like “Come on Baby”, “Yes you can”, etc. The result - A nostalgic remembrance of Mayadari Maisamma at the engineering college festivals.

Krishna Vamsi, not just emulates but outbeats Shankar is all areas. In logic, he outbeats even Stephen Hawking. The clinical precision with which he burns scores of people without even a speck of soot on him is something that would keep physicists thinking for another two decades. The vividness of colors used by him in the sets of songs is forcing Bill Gates to contemplate on a 512-bit true color version for windows desktop. The graphics used to picturize burning sequences has put to shame the animators at TNT Cartoon Network.

If such is the technical strength, then can acting be behind? NTR Jr’s expression of shock and anger is something which you might have never come across - that of a eunuch deciding between which restroom to use. Illeana, in an extremely sensitive portrayal, sobs more than the guys’ drool during the songs. Charmee, with her obstinate obsession for perfection, has chosen to dub herself. The consequence is a perfect telugu in a neutral accent. Never mind her village background and never mind that the words come out at the rate of one word every 30 seconds.

The movie is a must watch for all those guys who are tormented by their spouses’ eternal question, “Does my butt look big?”. However, a word of caution. Answer that question while looking at NTR Jr and not Ileana. Else you might end up in dog house for the rest of your life. To conclude, Jockey is a thought provoking movie that forces you to think on a serious contemporary issue that confronts the liberal urban women – the right to reveal your underwear from a low waist Levi’s jeans. So watch it if you are bold enough to discuss such issues. It is definitely not for the weak hearted escapists.

P.S: NO. I did not see the movie. I swear I did not see the movie.

Dirty Doles and Perverted Poors

2006-12-09T20:53:00.000+05:30

Kuffir has been a strong votary of direct money transfer to eradicate poverty instead of numerous employment generation programmes which have been in operation under various names. Initially, like many others, I too was not very keen about the idea. My apprehensions were the usual ones like misdirection of expenditure of the allotted doles and a possible dent in the potential creation of infrastructure. The second one had virtually disappeared when the NREGA programme in Vizianagaram literally adopted the Keynesian suggestion of digging and filling of trenches. This recent post had once again set me thinking on why such direct transfer of money should not succeed. I now feel that the conventional apprehensions are not really very sound.

Cash would lead to unproductive expenditure, they say, and even I thought so. But if you are really worried that the money would go into booze, why do you auction liquor licenses? On a serious note, irresponsibility towards family is matter of personal perversion. It is not and cannot be linked to poverty. The chances that a father would be irresponsible in a rich household are in no way lesser than in a poor one.

But we cannot come into terms with this fact. For us, the poor have to be ignorant and irresponsible. Else how can we justify our capacity to teach them their way out of poverty? Hence don't give them cash. Instead give them work, even if it means filling and digging the same wells. Give them grains, even if it means that they have to be transported over thousands of kilometers benefiting rich farmers and transport companies.

Speaking about food subsidy, the Planning Commission admits that it spends Rs 3.65 to transfer Rs 1 of food subsidy. The case would not be very different in other subsidies. Effectively it means that for every one rupee that goes to the poor, Rs 3.65 goes to the rich. Wow! What a means to achieve our socialist goals! It is in this scenario that I feel that direct transfer of money would be more cost effective.

I agree that there is a chance of leakage and corruption in the identification of beneficiaries. But that is common to all approaches. But where doles might score against others is that there is no additional leakage in terms of deciding what "asset" should be created, which contractor should create it, how much should it cost, etc.

With a wide network of banks and growing computerization the administrative costs of such programme would be very low. Secondly, since the programme would just have to identify beneficiaries and not the contractors or assets to be created or the procedures to be adopted, decision making would be faster. Thirdly, doles wouldn’t be subject to seasonal vagaries. Most of the works which employment generation schemes undertake come to a standstill during monsoon as manual labour cannot be performed under rain.

However, unlike Kuffir, I am not asking for scrapping of all employment generation programmes. What I say is that when there is no work or if a particular task can be performed more effectively and economically using machines, it is cruel to create work just for the sake of the programme. It is even crueler to leave the allotted funds unused like it happened in Raichur District where of the 10 lakhs not a single paisa has been spent. [Link via Kuffir] It is in such cases that we should not shy away from distributing money among the needy.

One of the criticisms of doles is that it discounts the need for work and that unearned money is frittered away recklessly. Considering the gargantuan proportion of poverty in India, any possible dole would hardly be a few hundred rupees per month at its fanciful best. As most our programmes promise, it would at best alleviate poverty but not eradicate it. Thus, doles would never do away the need for work. As far as frittering away unearned money is concerned, I wonder if people who are starving, who are chronically diseased and whose kids are congenitally malnutritioned, have even the energy, let alone a heart, to spend on things other than food.

Why is it then that we don’t consider doles? I think the problem is fundamentally in our mindset. Cash is a very dirty word. I remember till I left my school, I was never given money at home. My parents always said sternly "Money would spoil you. Tell us what you want and we would get it". The unsaid tag attached to it was "if we think it is worthy". It is the same psyche that runs through out. Right from the most basic social institution, the family, to the most complex ones, the Government and international agencies like World Bank. Everyone thinks that the poor and the weak are unintelligent, unimaginative and irresponsible. Hence, the Government (read babus) have to shoulder the "white man's burden" of "guiding" (read deciding, regulating and monitoring) the amelioration of the poor. If the Government can think of making PSUs and Panchayats autonomous, why can’t it give the freedom to the poor to decide their priorities in spending the money allotted to them? Ultimately, all the welfare schemes must ensure capacity building, not infrastructure (a very catchy word in the 10%-growth aspiring-era) building.

Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi.....

2006-11-24T16:08:00.000+05:30

Banu: hi
Me: hi
Me: saw the movie?
Banu: yeah man
Me: kaisa tha?
Banu: Nice .. hard hitting in the sense of what happens so fast to Vikram Malhotra
Me: doesn’t the song now seem more beautiful?
Banu: yeah. its good
Me: he is truly a baawra
Banu: exactly..
Me: the way he rests his head on her shoulders in the end........and still persists with his love … baawra bawre se iss jahan mein bawara ek saath ho, iss sayani bheed mein bas haathon mein tera haath ho… He has actually left the sayani bheed of Delhi…….
Banu: haha... he still persists with his love...
Banu: she knows he loves him from the first moment but she never accepts his love
Me: hmm
Banu: and even in the end, she doesn't love him but cares for him
Banu: and dammm people help each other in such conditions of distress
Banu: I liked that
Me: hmm
Me: but Sid was the sickest of the lot....
Me: the way he ditched Vikram
Banu: yeah.. he tried to do something but always looking confused
Banu: I don’t think he ditched Vikram...
Me: the way he looked to his dad when he was checkmated
Me: he was the weakest of the lot
Banu: yeah.. that was very bad.. and also the way he flew off to

England

or someplace leaving Gita right there
Me: As some one correctly remarked somewhere........... he talked the talk, but could not walk the walk
Banu: She came to Bihar because of him
Me: Gita and Vikram messed their lives just because of him
Banu: and he leaves
Banu: exactly
Banu: both of them got messed up
Me: When you look back, they were much better. They are very clear in their thought.......anything for their love/friend
Me: and though they do not commit, they always went out of their way
Banu: haha.. they always stood up to their love/friend..
Me: exactly raa..........i loved that
Me: ultimately what did sid contribute?
Me: It is very clear that his contribution to society would have been done by someone if not by him
Me: but Gita’s and Vikram's contribution for their friends was irreplaceable
Banu: he actually destroyed some students life
Banu: yeah...
Banu: and Sid calls Vikram ‘asshole’,‘comic’, ‘foolish’
Me: and it is the other way around
Me: though silent.......dumb-looking......and selfish........Vikram is more selfless and more courageous.
Banu: not to say selfless..
Banu: more courageous? yes
Banu: helping a friend out of the way... is it selfless?... a general question
Me: He might have had an ulterior motive in saving Gita....... but why should he save Sid?..... He knows what Sid did was self-inflicted
Banu: why did he go to help him..? big question
Me: Did u notice something in the movie? The relation between Sid and Vikram is mostly through Gita. Personally, he doesn't seem to have any big equation with Sid.
Me: So I wonder if they were really friends in the true sense.
Me: They actually just seem to be acquaintances.
Banu: Yeah. I notice now.
Banu: dammm
Banu: now this is selfless
Banu: dammm
Me: He is truly sweet.
Banu: Yeah, he looks like a crook to all but he is sweet
Me: And look at Sid........
Me: for sex, he spoils Gita's marriage by meeting her slyly
Me: when in trouble, he disturbs his ailing old father
Banu: yeah
Me: then leaves Vikram, when he knows that the police can do anything. Remember how they beat up villagers accusing them of killing a cop, when all along the cop was drunk and went missing.
Banu: I think he was brought up with riches and hence was confused.
Me: Even after seeing what has happened to Vikram, he goes to England to study Medicine. Very confused. Wonder why he suddenly decided to learn medicine. I guess Medicine is just a pretext to escape from his overwhelming internal conflict.
Banu: coward and etc..
Me: It seems that he doesn’t really care for the society. Just his ideals, with stress on the word "his" and not on "ideals"
Me: To fulfill his ideological ego, he used society. Just as he used Gita to satiate his sexual ego.
Banu: He should not have done what he did to Gita. I feel bad about it
Me: Oh Man, Chitrangada is really really beautiful.
Banu: Yeah man. Totally awesome. And she looks sooo telugu (or south indian)
Me: yeah
Banu: how can she be a Singh in the first place
Me: You can see her feminity when she surrenders to sid, at the same time, u can see the maleness, when she fights for him and with him.......even when that feminine coward leaves and runs away.
Banu: yeah
Me: A right mix of Yin and Yang.

Related Links: Ghalib's Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi, Baanwra Man by Swanand Kirkire

Suspended Animation

2006-10-09T03:24:00.000+05:30

Bheegi bheegi bheegi jaadu bhari lamhon ki ye raatein

Dekho karne lagi hoon main boondon se baatein

Boondon se baatein

Boondon se baatein main boondon se baatein

Boondon se baatein main boondon se baatein

I shall be away for more than a month. Till then, I leave you with these pictures.

Wish me luck for my exams !!!

Transparency Begins at Home

2006-09-14T21:48:00.000+05:30

So there are things worse than having pesticides. [Link via Kuffir] But more than this, it hurts to know that media has let off these guys easily.

Look at the way how they covered the reservation issue. They gave airtime to every remotely relevant point of view. Not that all of it was bad. While juvenile idiots were given opportunities to show off their pretensions of ‘saving the nation’, they also highlighted the status in media and various sociologists’ perspectives. There was an attempt, no matter how biased it was, to see issues other than what met the eye.

Or for that matter the rains in Mumbai. There was coverage even before the first cloud appeared. And then it was a deluge of reporting on the ill-preparedness of the Municipal Corporation. Views, suggestions, comments and alternatives followed.

But when it comes to Hero Honda's labour policy or Coca Cola's water policy, I wonder where is the "in-depth analysis brought by correspondents across the length and breadth of the nation"

No investigation, no follow-up stories, nothing. Mere mechanical reporting of what the CSE, Government and the suckers had to say.

It is not difficult to see the reason for the anomaly. Right in the midst of reporting on the suckers, we would find their advertisements during commercial breaks. Even respected newspapers seem to be succumbing to the lure of MNCs like never before. One such instance was highlighted some time back and the dialectics can be seen here.

Nearly after a month of the episode, the Apologist-in-Chief of Hindu presented the inside view of the journalism-advertising dynamics.

N. Ram spoke in detail about how he and the editorial team have been trying to keep intact the Lakshman Rekha between editorial and advertisement. It is only a conceptual line and no wall exists between the two areas of operation of the paper. There is continuous interaction between the two where the pressures and constraints are aired and discussed.

So it is just a conceptual line. That means it can be and will be subject to distortions due to the pull of advertising revenue.

Continuous interaction? Why should there be an interaction between the two at all? Why should the editorial department know who is funding their salaries and cost of operations? At the best, they might be informed of their budget to help them plan their operations. But why should they know the source of their revenues?

Mr. K. Narayanan’s views reflect the symptomatic malice that affects every media. Atleast he has been honest to admit it. If this is the status of a newspaper of Hindu’s stature, I dread to think the scenario in other media groups.

Would any media group bother to show the break up of their advertising revenues from different companies? Just as shareholders have the right to know the finances of their company, don’t the readers have the right to know the altruistic souls who are subsidizing their newspapers? Transparency and right to information, after all, should begin at home.

Edukotla Andhrula Atma Gauravam

2006-08-22T23:08:00.000+05:30

It is disgusting to hear YSR, saying that the issue of separate statehood for Telangana would be decided by Sonia Gandhi. The State Congress Chief even says that “she would be the ultimate word on it.”

Irrespective of the outcome, can someone please tell me who is she to decide. Does she belong to this place? Did she win an election from here? Is she aware of the history of this region? Or can she atleast spell “Telangana” without looking into a prepared text?

Shame on the CM and rest of the Sonia Sycophants a.k.a Congress legislators. You are worse than those who fall at the feet of Amma. Unlike you, atleast, they don’t sell themselves to an outsider.

Worse. The party founded on the premise of restoring aarukotla andhrula atma gauravam, is totally silent on this shameless outsourcing. Neither are those who raised hue and cry over her Italian origins.

They might be in favour of Congress’ refusal to grant a separate Telangana. But that doesn’t mean that they should be mute spectators of a political party transferring the mandate given by people to someone who cannot even speak their language.

I Have a Vision .......

2006-08-12T00:43:00.000+05:30

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness.
Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul.
You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable.
Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings.

You have great vision and can be very insightful.
In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself.
Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend.
You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Sex Appeal

2006-08-11T17:32:00.000+05:30

It seems that August 14^th is ‘Half’ Valentine’s Day. Now these are those dreaded days which remind me about my miserable single status. My life has become as barren as the parched Telangana lands. Such infertility, that some of my cells commit suicide on a regular basis by drowning themselves into water. I am unable to stop this cellular genocide as I am incapable of providing them with their counterparts with two X chromosomes. Like the Indian Government, all I can do is provide them with promises and packages. But I am not sure how long I can manage this way.

Yes, I did try my luck with the members of opposite gender. And all I got was the realization that I did not have the magical four-lettered word. Luck. (No, I am not thinking yet about its rhyming partner, which is more appealing.)Those who met me, never came again. I did hear from some common acquaintances that I had a repulsive odour. Now, this, I knew was a blatant false claim. After all, I regularly have a shower on 5^th of every month. In addition to this, I also avail the complementary spray from the MCH every monsoon, which keeps not just the germs but even big mosquitoes away.

I approached the Ministry of Youth ‘Affairs’ to help me set up a date. They agreed support me under their Scheme for Promotion of Adventure. After all, spending time with unpredictable species like girls is no less than an adventure. They promptly (i.e. after 8 months) sent me an application to be filled with a few supporting documents like Caste Certificate (may be they din’t want to disturb the endogamous nature of our society), Birth Certificate (Moron, if I was never born, then who the hell is sending you this application), Age Proof (Does my desperation to reach you, with full knowledge of your bureaucratic redtapism, need any more proof of my withering age?), Ration Card as proof of my BPL status (Impoverished people eat meat. They don’t play with it)

Anyways, I managed to get all except the ration card. I decided to forge one. But for that the DTP guy wanted to have a look at the original. I approached my servant maid. She looked puzzled and asked, “What card?”. “Ration card”, I replied with maximum stress on ‘Ration’. She replied with an air of obviousness, “At the moment, I have Credit Card, Debit Card and SIM card and my boy friend has an AGP card and WLAN card. But never heard of Ration Card” Before I could react, she excused herself to reply to an SMS from her boy friend. I was as frustrated as seeing my inbox filled with spam advertising Viagra.

I finally did manage to send the application. It was returned saying that I had to submit to the MRO, who would then forward it to the District Collector. He would then send the documents for verification to the issuing authorities. There would then be a personal verification by the Special Branch of the City Police. After confirming the veracity of my claims, my application would be forwarded to the State Secretariat. Since, the programme is partly funded by the Centre, a copy would be forwarded to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, who would make a parallel verification. I protested saying that if they followed the whole process, what I would get is not a girl to take me to the bed, but a nurse to take me to the bathroom. He promptly (0.08 seconds) put down the phone.

I approached an NGO, Youth for Equal ‘Opportunity’, to help me take up the case. They gave me an ingenious idea to file a RTI application with census department so that I can get a list of all eligible, or rather, available females. I finally managed to get 22 contact numbers, The first one had a very stern recorded message “This facility is not available in your telephone”. The rest also had the same message in rest of 20 regional languages that appear on the currency notes.

Miraculously, the last one clicked. The female very coyly replied that she would date only with parental consent. I jumped with joy with some potential chances in vicinity. My parents would give consent for anything that would keep me away from them by 500 meters. She soon killed my nascent hope when she clarified that parental consent meant her parents. What? Me going to her home to ask permission? What a cruel comedy! Leave alone entering her home, in my present status even the stray dogs won’t let me into her street.

But it is not that I never dated any female. Thanks to Internet, may Eros bless who ever invented it, I did meet a girl whom I met on the chat. The moment I saw her, it was Kuch-Kuch -Hota-Hain for me. But unfortunately, and as usually, the Kuch-Kuch-Hota-Hain was not in my heart, but in my stomach. She appeared like a creature straight from some genetic engineering labs in Zimbabwe. She dressed up so jarringly that I never understood which was her skin, which was her dress and which were her accessories. She spoke little, ate a lot and had some childhood affinity for monosyllabic replies. And when she spoke, it was mostly over her mobile. Of course, I never got what she spoke. Her monosyllables, laughter, giggles and burps, all sounded the same - like the Jurassic Park ringtone which I use to identify my dad’s calls. Later, I realized that Blind dates are meant for only for those who are not just blind but also deaf, dumb and mentally challenged.

I have lot more, but would like to save them for Full Valentine’s Day. All those who know of any available members of the opposite sex, please recommend me to them. For every successful referral you would be eligible for a free aquatic screensaver.

All those singles who want express their solidarity with me can treat this as a mercy petition which would be forwarded to the President of India. All petitions, be it about sex or stray dogs, are usually sent to him and I don’t want to break the convention, though that guy himself was not successful with females. (Wonder who gave him the title "Missile" man.) So please sign this petition by leaving your comments.

Monsoon Wetting

2006-08-04T00:12:00.000+05:30

The rain has held back for days and days, my God, in my arid heart. The horizon is fiercely naked---not the thinnest cover of a soft cloud, not the vaguest hint of a distant cool shower.

Send thy angry storm, dark with death, if it is thy wish, and with lashes of lightning startle the sky from end to end.

But call back, my lord, call back this pervading silent heat, still and keen and cruel, burning the heart with dire despair.

Let the cloud of grace bend low from above like the tearful look of the mother on the day of the father's wrath.
- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

It is finally raining here !!!!!
And for those who hate rains, all I can do is to shake my head in disbelief and mutter, “Kahan se aise logaan aathe ki, kya hai ki”

Telangana - Whose Cause is it Anyway

2006-07-28T23:44:00.000+05:30

Seven years ago, on a cloudy but warm winter afternoon, a bunch of sophomores barged into our class. They finally managed to snatch a time to get themselves introduced to us, en masse in our classroom, in the typical engineering college way. A short bespectacled guy ordered us to introduce ourselves giving details of our school, intermediate college, academic aggregates and our future aims. We were a class of 60 and I am sure on that day there were atleast 50 of them in the class. At the end of the session, I found except for 5-6 students, the rest professed their ‘aim’ to be ‘MS in US’. They all echoed each other just as if they were doctored in a community school of a communist state. It didn’t require great brains to decipher that most of them were not using their brains. They were merely repeating what the society instilled in them. And there lies the greatest curse of Andhra Pradesh in general and Telangana in particular.

High industrialization, and subsequent development, of neighboring Tamil Nadu is often attributed to their colonial advantage. But strictly speaking, the British never bothered beyond the ports of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. Yet, I was pleasantly surprised when a decade back I found the best of stationary stocked at Walden, which was targeted, both in its pricing and packaging, at the upwardly cosmopolitan, being produced not at Chennai, Bangalore or NOIDA but an interior town in Tamil Nadu, Sivakasi. And that’s not a lone example. You find towns like Erode, Thiruppur, Dindugul etc booming with various small and medium scale industries. And these don’t lie in the Kaveri delta, which can be the nearest analogy to the Andhra Region, if and only if, Karnataka releases water that year. One reason I could figure out is the entrepreneurial streak in them. The will to create and do something on their own rather than work under someone, even if the pay isn’t quite appealing. Self-pride, something that is synonymous with the Tamils, looms large in them, though often it turns into jingoism. Even the politicians there chip in their bit. The country’s only steel plant which has neither an iron-ore mine nor a coal mine in its proximity is the Salem. The politicians from Tamil Nadu managed to force the Centre to invest in something that defies economic logic, just to ensure there would be regional development. What has been the contribution of the TRS in this regards? It is more than two years since the party has been in the Union Government. It holds two portfolios which directly deal with fate of poor and downtrodden, Labour Ministry and Rural Development Ministry.

Some of you might site the examples of numerous ITES firms being started by NRIs. But, investing in a booming sector with seemingly perpetual rosy prospects can by no means be called entrepreneurship. It is being plain opportunistic. Just the way people are making quick bucks out of the booming real estate business. Those NRIs who profess their ‘love, admiration and concern’ for their ‘home’ and its ‘development’, would do well to invest in ventures that are more locally relevant, that would help in the development of entire region and region does not mean the boundaries of Cyberabad municipality. Start projects which would be able mitigate the plight of displaced and deceased farmers, whose land is being given to the gyms and pool rooms of your offices. Whose MSPs are kept stagnant so that you get subsidies to take your spouses to exotic locations on the pretext of visiting industrial exhibitions. Who would have to wait for a generation to get power and water, so that you can run your premises with uninterrupted power supply.

So, my fellow classmates/ batchmates - turned-NRIs, I guess it should be pretty clear to you now why Telangana is backward. If you can do something on these lines, please do. Else leave it us. We have enough politicians out here and we don’t plan to outsource our politics to you.

This post may be very similar to what Kuffir posted. But what I am trying to say is that the attitude of people hasn’t changed much. Those who leave the shores today aren’t very different from those who left during the time of Kuffir’s graduation. Atleast, I wish that the present lot doesn’t indulge in distorting the facts in the guise of representing of people, of whom they know little.

President - Yes, Prime Minister

2006-07-26T04:10:00.000+05:30

Congress is truly the party of Aam Aadmi. Every aam aadmi is a leader in the party. Every aam aadmi becomes its spokesperson. No, you don’t need any authorization to express your views on behalf of the party. At times, you don’t even need to be a member of the party. One such aam aadmi spokesperson is Mr. Harish Khare. After the exit of Anand Sharma to the cabinet, Mr.Khare has self-appointed himself to the post of Chief of Defense, Congress Party. Of course, N. Ram would have endorsed the post to be Office of Non – Profit and any doubts in this regard would be dispelled by Narayanan, Chief of Defense, The Hindu a.k.a Readers’ Editor.

In this latest defense of Congress, he points out the President’s use of “(doubtful) discretion” in returning the bill to the cabinet. Can he please enlighten us what was so “doubtful” about the discretion? The discretion is an explicit constitutional right and not an undefined constitutional term, like “Office of Profit”, which has been glaringly abused and whose retrospective legitimization was questioned by the President, while returning the bill.

Again, he feels that seeking the advisory opinion of the Supreme Court, another explicit constitutional right, independent of the cabinet’s advice, is “fraught with dangerous implications”. His source of interpretation? BJP’s such interpretation when they were at the helm of affairs.

What Mr. Khare effectively says is, “If someone, irrespective of their credentials and the prevailing circumstances, says something which can be used to your advantage, use it.”. Would he then justify demolition of mosque by Congress? It is ridiculous that Mr. Khare chooses to take constitutional classes from a party which he often denounces as being unconstitutional.

Mr. Khare’s warns that “The Zail Singh temptation needs to be firmly resisted.”

So, just as Rajiv Gandhi wanted to read the letter written by Amitabh to Rekha, Manmohan Singh might want to see whom Mallika is smooching tonight on her bed and might accordingly introduce a bill, Right to Intimate Information. It would be passed with voice vote and without debate as our geriatric parliamentarians any day would prefer watching Mallika’s mouth’s silent smooches to Mamta’s mouth’s screeching shouts, which might be followed by paper hurling.

In such an event, Mr. Khare expects the President to gladly give his assent and get ready for nocturnal revelry.

I don't defend Zail Singh's act of sitting on the bill, but the very fact that the successive Governement did not pursue the bill, vindicated the accusations that there was something patently anti-democratic in the Postal Bill.

May we remind Mr. Khare, that only if one such President applied his independent thinking, we could have avoided the biggest blot of Indian democracy - Emergency. If the President is supposed to be a glorified rubber stamp, then we would rather do away with him. He rightly points out that:

“In the coalition era, almost all constitutional offices are prone to take advantage of the political uncertainties, and seek to expand the scope of their power and authority at the expense of the executive. The higher judiciary is the prime example of this over-reach. Often this kind of activism is sought to be justified as a healthy caveat, necessary to produce the requisite checks and balances.”

But he falters at the next line, when he says that it would lead to paralysis of the Government. The “over-reach” which he accuses the higher judiciary, had given inter alia residents of Delhi breathable air, demolished illegal structures, banned strikes, prohibited smoking in public places, interpreted right to information as a fundamental right etc. Something which the executive could not do in 50 years. In a democracy, over-reach happens only when the designated authority fails to perform its function.

A simple point to ponder. In which period has India grown faster? From 1947 to 1977, when there was no worthy Opposition and literally no checks on the executive or between 1987 to 2007, when there are more voices, more opposition, more checks?

Blogger's Block - Enemy of the State?

2006-07-18T00:21:00.000+05:30

For long people such as this person have been complaining about blogger's block. The Indian Government, with its utmost sincerity in alleviating the problems of its beloved citizens has solved the problem once and for all. Block the blogs. Naa rahegi baans, Naa bajegi bansuri.

I am unable to access any of the blogs hosted at blogspot. But yes, I can definitely access debonairblog (No, I am not giving the link as you might end up there ignoring my post), which is a favourite porn blog of numerous Indian males (Don't know about females). I wouldn't be surprised if Wordpress was left out just because it was hosting this blog. After all, what would be the state of the frustrated middle-aged senile secretaries of GoI if such sites are blocked. And what earthly use would those laptops be put into use, which have more files in Temporary Internet Files folder than in My Documents? Where those flaunting them would struggle to create a PowerPoint presentation or an Excel sheet, but in a jiffy would tell you how to clear cache?

So guys, next time you find some steamy stuff on my PC, don't call me a pervert. I am just being forcibly guided by the CERT-IN .

By the way, people tell me that they plan to use RTI to get to know the list of sites which were asked to be blocked by the Department of Telecommunication. But who knows, may be tomorrow there could be another confidential list of person who are to be denied use of RTI. Or may be the water, electricity, postal and even police department might be give confidential lists of people to be blacked out. In fact every department except Income Tax could be asked to boycott perceived enemies of the state. Oh yes, I forgot the Election Commission, which is very liberal in this regard. The other day, they supplied my mom with two verification forms for issuing her photo ID card. One with my dad's name as her initial and other with her dad's name as her initial. Now the joke is how they got my mom's name with her dad's name as initial in their records as she never lived in this state, let alone in Hyderabad, before marriage.

And in the meanwhile, all those who want to circumvent the block, and for those even pkblogs is blocked, you may use shysurfer. There are other anonymous surfing sites too, but this one allows you to log on to you blogger account and make posts. And also do not forget to enable the option in you Blogger account which lets you post by email. In times such as this, we must be well-prepared for more such censorships.

Affirmative Action and Reservations – The Missing Links

2006-06-11T01:00:00.000+05:30

The recent reservation debates, while drawing comparisons with Affirmative Action (AA) of USA, fail to highlight the proactive facet of AA. AA is superior to our reservations both in letter, spirit and scope. While the Indian reservation system extends to the Government sector alone, the historic Executive Order 11246 issued by President Lyndon Johnson covers almost 200,000 government contractors and sub-contractors.

This article, while quoting Adarand Constructors v. Pena fails to inform the background of the case. The case challenged one of the remarkable components of AA, the minority set-aside programs. These require the Federal, State and Local Governments to set aside a percentage of funds exclusively for minority contractors. Such provisions are glaringly missing in our reservation system. Public Works Employment Act, 1977, which was the first legislation to implement set aside programs, was challenged in the Supreme Court by white contractors and the Supreme Court upheld the law in Fullilove Vs Klutznick. Sadly, the Bhopal Declaration, which touted for such measures, hibernates in the UPA's Common Minimum Programme.

On the AA front, the Supreme Court of USA has played a pioneering role upholding it and ensuring that it is followed in various aspects inter alia education, recruitment, entrance tests etc. Some of them deserve a mention here.

The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, in addition to ruling in favour of racial preference for disadvantaged groups, also held that “the goal of achieving a diverse student body is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race in admissions decisions” and that being a minority group could “be deemed a plus in a particular applicant’s file”. Unfortunately, in India, instead of recognizing the role reservation in ensuring diversity, it is treated as a sop to the deprived classes.

In the United States v. Paradise, the Supreme Court upheld the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama’s rulings with regard to discrimination in the employment of black trooper. In 1972, the court ordered to hire one black trooper for every white trooper till the percentage of black trooper reaches 25, when it found that in the past 37 years not even a single black trooper was recruited. After 11 years, when the District Court found that the progress had been tardy, it followed up with the order of promotion of one black trooper for each white trooper elevated in rank. On the contrary, in India, most of the reservations go unfilled and administratively get reclassified as “Backlog Vacancies”.

On the issue of entrance tests for employment purposes, the U.S Supreme Court, in the Griggs v Duke Power Company (1971), ruled that the Civil Services Act banned discriminatory employment practices that cause exclusion of disadvantaged groups, when it cannot be shown that those practices relate to job performance. The employment practices include intelligence tests and minimum education qualifications. Further, to ensure that the practices followed relate to job performance, the court ruled that the correlation between high scores in tests and high job performance must be shown by the employers.

In Albemarle Paper Company Vs Moody (1975), the Supreme Court ruled that culturally biased tests were illegal even if the employer was not discriminating intentionally. In Connecticut et al Vs Adele (1982), the same court said that using culturally biased tests were illegal even if the state promoted more blacks than whites. Infact, till the Civil Services Act, 1991 was passed, most recruitment processes followed a practice called Race Norming where additional marks where awarded to the minorities to offset the cultural bias in the tests. In sharp contrast, glaring cultural biases like testing English vocabulary in exams like CAT and predominant usage of English as the medium of tests have gone unchallenged in our country where most of the disadvantaged students are tutored in vernacular medium.

Such comprehensive and detailed implementation of Reservations is sorely missing in India. Yes, we can’t compare AA with reservations. They have a far wider, deeper and more honest reach.

Godavari - Celluloid Sweetness

2006-06-08T16:04:00.000+05:30

A movie that deserves more than one post. I hope to make atleast one detailed post in the near future. Actors, photography, music, lyrics and background score - all merge as harmoniously as the waters of Godavari, the Paapi hills, the hues of sky and the rays of the sun. Veturi’s lyrics are truly beautiful. When a lyrically challenged guy (me) could understand and appreciate (though not completely) the song “raama chakkani seetaki...”, it shows how beautiful the lyrics could be for those who can understand them fully.

eDama chaetanu Sivuni villunu...ettina aa raamuDe
ettagalaDa seeta jaDanu taaLi kaTTe vaeLalO

That Rama who could lift Siva’s bow with his left hand
Can He lift Sita’s plait when he ties the Thaali?

I would love if someone can post the rest of the lyrics. Or atleast give me the links. If it is with transliteration it would be good and if it has translation (even selected lines would do), it would be great.

Thanks Shekar Kammula & the team for not letting me down.

Check out the lyrics and the song here

For a more beautiful description (not review), check these Ramblings on Godavari

N.Ram and maR(a)N - Comrade at Arms

2006-06-07T00:45:00.000+05:30

When I made this post, I thought that the doomsday prediction was limited to Tamil Nadu. But after I came across this, I realised that things were far worse than I thought.

What is worse is that "The Hindu" has refused to publish the article by Sevanti Ninan, whose column "Media Matters" is one of the best critical evaluations of the Indian media.

I had known since long about Hindu’s DMK relations. No, I am not referring to the coincidence that “N.Ram” is almost a palindrome of “Maran”. Dayanidhi Maran’s wife is the grand daughter of Rangarajan, the publisher of Hindu. The refusal to publish Sevanti Ninan’s article just reaffirms Hindu's hidden vested interests. I am yet to comprehend what was so “legally risky” in the article. Remember, Hindu had the clout to get a stay order the very next day from the highest court of this land when they were threatened with warrants and a person no less than the Solicitor General appeared for them. A court which takes ages to solve basic problems of the most deprived sections such as the ousted tribals, gas leak affected victims etc was ready to hear even after the official hours. Such a newspaper calling the article “legally risky” is as genuine a reason as to say that they ran out ink while printing and hence the article was omitted.

And while a few people would aware of Hindu's duplicity, they would earn accolades by publishing articles like this. A very intelligent way to masquerade their immorality. This post, which I also referred to in my previous post accusing Hindu of bias, raised the questions of caste composition of the Hindu management and their ownership pattern. While Mr. Varadarajan slams the media in general and his ‘previous’ newspaper in particular, can he or his Big Boss, Ram tell us how diverse is Hindu’s editorial staff or what steps have they taken to increase inclusivity. Or why the card-holder refuses to give his employees a share in the company?

Hindu should learn that in the age of blogs and sms, it would be difficult to carry on their hypocrisy forever.

'Under'Cover Stories - Sex, Lies and Surveys

2006-06-01T18:13:00.000+05:30

I stopped reading magazines ever since India Today carried Natasha Singh’s suicide on its cover page. And the way tabloidification of magazines has happened since then, I never had to regret my decision.

A recent edition of The Week (unable to fish the hyperlink) chose to carry on its cover a survey on sex at workplaces. Initially it dint interest me as I neither have sex nor work. You see I have this disastrously repulsive combination of being both ugly and unemployed. And literally, neither lady nor luck, smiles at me.

But then I decided to have a peek hoping against hope to find some alchemical formula to liberate myself from virginity. I remember how few years back I ran to a book shop when I knew a book called 'Losing Virginity' was released. On reaching there, I realized that it had everything other than what was written on the cover. These magazines too are something like that.

India Today did some similar survey and every forgotten female made news by just commenting on what one clumsy female commented in it. So did Outlook and virtually every other magazine except our dear Frontline. They believe in Real Story. Everytime. In case of sex that would be disappointing at its best and depressing at its worst. One common denominator among all these stories (no, I wouldn’t call them surveys) is that they never tell you anything that you dint know.

They would begin talking about the increasing stress in urban life, failing relationships, work pressures and then go on to tell you how sex is fun, stress busting etc etc. Wow! Revelation indeed. I swear I never knew that till I read these stories. I always thought that sex was for artificial insemination in men, and to produce broiler babies in women.

And then a couple of couples in coupled positions. A few bold (I mean the font, not the content) titles about relationships, marriages, divorces, flings, preferences, positions etc etc. But whom are they trying to surprise. Every kid knows that these days sex and infidelity fit as good as six and nine. I know that was gross. But I am happy that I was able to comment on relationships, preferences and positions in one go and that’s what people seem to like these days. Considering the popularity of sex and the falling visits my blog gets, I too plan to have a new section, “Sex”.

To add a technical touch, you would have a sociologist, psychologist and, of course, a sexologist who tries hard to look sexy from the small passport size photo beside his byline. This one in the Week, recommends nipping causal (read sexual) relations in the bud. So now we are going to have two departments in the HR, one to prevent sexual harassment and one to prevent sexual appeasement. The first would ask the guy to take his hands off the girl and the second would ask the girl to take her hands off the guy’s hands so that they can then ask the guy to take his hands off the girl.

The survey itself was crap. 47% were not aware of casual relations. So with close to half of the respondents blissfully unaware of what rocks their cars, tables and lifts, how accurate would the survey be. Another sore was “No Comments”. For god sake, you are not a chargesheeted politician speaking to the media. With anonymity assured, why can’t you open your mouth and speak something which you have been dreaming, speaking and hearing ever since you passed out of your kindergarten. And damn those who make the survey. In a population of 1 crore they can’t find 1000 people who can answer all the 10 questions.

I won’t start preaching the media on socially responsible journalism as I know they are not going to desist from such surveys and news in future. But what I wish is that they should be useful.

For Example:

1) Top 30 Firms (with the full postal address) whose proportion of female employees is atleast 75%

2) Among these, top 20 Firms where the average age of females is less than 25 years

3) And finally, the top 10 firms where the standard deviation from 36-24-36 is less than 1.213

4) Top 5 approach lines

5) Next 5 approach lines

If they fail,

6) Top 5 cover-ups

7) Next 5 Cover-ups

If they too fail,

Repeat the survey with the next 30 companies in the next issue.

Iteration to continue ad infinitum.

For pre-marital sex, please replace firms with schools. And please don’t ask people like Khushboo and Sania for comments. One is too old and the other hardly went to school.

Additionally, annual subscribers should be rewarded with complimentary details. Something like one-year subscription should get you the first names, two year subscription, both first and last names and three year subscription should get you both names and mobile numbers.

Do this and I assure that the editors can laugh their way to the banks and readers to the beds.

DMK Victory - Manufacturing Manufacturing Consent

2006-05-16T03:30:00.000+05:30

Now that the DMK has come back to power, it would be keen to fulfill its promise of free Colour TV with cable connection. While giving colour TV would not be much of a problem (atleast logistically), the cable connection could prove to be a tricky issue.

The Government could start a state-owned service provider. But if it does, then I am sure it would not be allowed to compete with other providers as Kalanidhi Maran owned Multi System Operator (MSO) Kal Cables Private Limited would take a beating with the low pricing of the state-owned service provider. If the state-owned service provider is to provide service exclusively to those households which got the free TV, then it would be a perpetual loss-making organization, which no modern fiscal-deficit-conscious Government would be ready to bear.

They could alternatively consider the telecom way of dividing the state into circles and floating tenders for license with a rider that the Government-specified households should be given free service. This too the Government would reject as there is every possibility that Jaya TV would garner substantial licenses. Also what about those circles which are financially unviable?

So what I figure out is that the Government would go for the DTH option. The State-owned DD Direct would be a non-controversial choice and since DD Direct also beams more than a dozen private channels, the DMK Government could pass it off for something as good as a cable TV. The biggest advantage would be that since DD Direct is free (you only pay for the set-top box), the whole investment would be a one-time affair.

So far, so good. But things don’t seem to be as good as they look. When I checked out the DD Direct FAQs, I found that Sun TV is the only Tamil Channel in the offing. Of course, people wouldn’t complain because Tamilians equate Tamil satellite television to Sun TV as the others have extremely pathetic content. Jaya TV was trying to spruce up, but I find that Sun TV as too deeply ingrained in the Tamilian psyche to be dislodged by Jaya TV.

With this, for the first time in the history of Indian television, we would have a channel which has 100% reach. With such a reach, their advertising revenues and stock prices would go to unimaginable heights.

Now look at the grip DMK will get out of this. Literally every household in TN will now watch Sun TV. By the time the alternative sources of news like newspapers reach, they would have a whole 12 hours (considering the earliest eveninger and discounting radio) to inject into people not just their news, but also their views. So when Jayalalitha returns after 5 years (that is obvious) and decides to arrest Karunanidhi ( this is more obvious than the previous one), you would find the whole state being burnt by a frenzy mob ignited by the DMK cadre and fuelled by the Sun TV’s doctored news. For that matter, they can do this for any of their needs.

In case, DMK manages to get another term, then the state would be another West Bengal in the making where people since their infancy would be brainwashed with DMK’s ‘contribution to TN’ and oppositions’ failures. Every kid would grow up thinking Jayalalitha as a corrupt lady who owns stories of sandals, saris and silver, while Karunanidhi was the crusader who was fought against impostion of Hindi., emergency and Jayalalithaa’s cruel mid-night arrests.

Combine this with other facts, Maran’s newspaper acquisitions, Eveninger Tamizh Murasu and a daily, Dinakaran with a predatory Re 1 pricing. Add to this the rumor of his desire to acquire 33% stake in Tata-DTH. à la Manufacturing Consent in the making.

In a single move, Karunanidhi and subsequently the Marans (they have shrewdly marginalized Stalin who might end up as the former next CM) have captured power, money and control. All this under the disguise of sincere fulfillment of a pro-poor election promise. Whoever said that the DMK manifesto was the real hero of the DMK’s success, would do well to give the due credit to the script writer for such a Kautilyan plot.

At 83, Kalaignar rocks !!!