BROAKING NEWS !!

Got used to hearing, listening and watching the same old and cliched 'breaking  news'?

Relax.

The Indian Media has decided that enough is enough, its time to move forward. Gone are the days when you will be forced to find the 'breaking' element in the 'breaking news', we now present before you BROKING NEWS.

Yes, you read it right, there is no spelling error, it is indeed BROKING NEWS.

26 and counting..

We are back to the last month of the year.

Another year of the new millennium is about to make way for the next.

And once more we will be told about what happened 26 years ago in the capital of the state at the center of India.

The grief, the pain, the suffering, the accusations, the pleas for 'justice', the 'hope' never ceases to end.

The saga continues !

Many were delighted when last month Obama hinted at his willingness to support India's candidature for the 'coveted' permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. These people claimed that the moment of India has arrived and has been acknowledged by the United States at last.

Bag-pack Oh-mama !

Its happened all over once again. 

Now before you ask what has happened all over again, lets do an "if-then" analysis and then perhaps the thing will become clear.

If : A foreigner celebrity ( read Presidents and Prime Ministers of other nations) visits our country, or decides to visit our country.

Then : What happens?

Then : The India media (and to some extent some Indian people too) goes gaga about the trip. Melodramatic, over excited, out of the mind, exaggerating- all of these and many other words are just indicative of the reactions of Indian media. We seem to be too much obsessed about everything foreign ( read American) and this tendency is at its best when someone says something about India, or someone comes to India.

Tatkal and its Avatars

Recently on my train journey back to home a lady joined us with three time the luggage I was carrying. On top of it she did not have a confirmed ticket and kept repeating the following sentences every 5 minutes( or whenever any fellow passenger looked at her ( obviously she too had to look at him/her then !) ):

" I booked my ticket 3 months ago, it was wait-list no. 135 then, its 135 even now"

" I booked in 1st AC, in 2nd AC, in 3rd AC, in first class, but couldn't get a confirmed ticket"

" Railways are so bad, all are crooks".

I thought for a moment to interrupt her and point to her that there was no 1st AC in our train, but I refrained for the fear of listening to her all over once again. But it again made me think for the umpteenth time, in the last few months, about the "Tatkal" scheme.

Before I proceed further, I must say I genuinely admire the ingeniousness of the person who came up with the concept of "Tatkal" in Indian Railways sometime earlier in this decade.

I admit that it has been, and still is beneficial for many passengers in many ways.

It has also helped Railways improve their earnings.

But somehow I still feel there is a lot fishy about Tatkal.

Pictures can speak too

Pictures from my blogs.
Some of these speak more than the blog itself !!

Aliens in India

Empathy and sympathy: two words which are often misunderstood by many. Rather, the former is often misunderstood as the latter, probably because they both sound alike. They however convey different meanings, infact much more different than it appears at first. Empathy, to take definition from one of the dictionaries, is intellectual identification with feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others. Very few know when to sympathise and when to empathise. One of the key differences is that suffering or pain is the sine qua non for sympathy, but not empathy. Sometimes one needs to look beyond the obvious to empathise and then act accordingly.

You might be wondering that what has empathy to do with aliens? And when did aliens come to India? Or are they planning to come to India?

The next few sentences talks about issues beyond the obvious meaning of aliens. It talks about the not-so-often-obvious pain of not being from the mainland India and more importantly the pain of not being recognized and treated as 'other' Indians. It tries to look into India and Indians from the eyes of those who are increasingly considering themselves to be less Indian than ever. It talks about the potential danger which India and Indians might have to face if they continue to remain oblivious of something which will in sometime appear very apparent. It talks about what is lacking in all of us.
It talks about the need for empathy.

Race against Race

When will the race against race get over?

The recently concluded Commonwealth Games would be remembered for various reasons and the reasons could be very different for different set of people.

There would be Indians who initially would have felt let down by the "leaders" and the "games" officials who were busy playing games with the Indian people and the image of the nation. These same bunch of Indians would be breathing a sigh of relief now that the games have concluded without any issues( barring a couple of glitches). The opening and the closing ceremony would definitely have given each Indian a moment to feel that extra pride of being an Indian.

But there would also be a bunch of people( those primarily from the West) for whom it is not over yet. These are the people who were the most vocal critics of games going to a "third world country" like India. What is more disturbing is the fact that this had little to do with the mishandling before the games. The major reason for it was the latent "superiority feeling", or the "racial prejudice" which many of them seem to harbour even in this supposedly "free from race" era.

A-Yodhha for Ayodhya

Verdict is out on one of the longest running cases in the Indian courts.

This is one verdict, the build up for which in the fast few weeks witnessed the best of behaviour from the Indian politicians ( which unfortunately is very rare). And it was not only the politicians who behaved responsibly and rationally, the people and the media also behaved in a commendable manner.

Now that the verdict is out, it is time to act even more rationally and more responsibly.

Its time to reflect on the greater repercussions of this decision.

The Absent Leadership

Maoist insurgency

Inflation

Food Shortage

Railway Accidents

Kashmir

Ayodhya

Un-Common Wealth Games

The list continues to increase.

Issues are plenty, leadership is empty...

Howsoever inappropriate the above sentence may be from the language point of view, it is a sad but brutal truth on the current absence of leadership in India.

Never before have so many problems faced India at the same time and never before the absence of response from the leaders has been so much felt.

The Un-common Wealth Games

The game has started.

In fact it has started with much bang and hoopla much before the scheduled inauguration of the actual games.Its still nearly 50 odd days for the 19th Commonwealth Games and we are all witnessing the action unfolding infront of us. The funny part is that its not being played on any one single ground !

No Mamta for Rail

No mamta for Rail.

It is tragic.

It is tragic when there is no mamta (used as an emotion) for the plight of Railways. This year alone, there have been 13 accidents which have come into the limelight, the most recent being the one in Sainthia ( West Bengal). To talk about the number of casualties would be to trivialise the matter for those who lost someone and for those who care about the plight of Indian Railways.

Bhopal @ 25+

This post is not about Bhopal. Its not even about the fact that its been more than 25 years since the day Bhopal got its name registered in the record books. It is about looking beyond the obvious questions surrounding the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. But why I am discussing about Gas Tragedy today? It is not even 3rd December, its July now. So what exactly has happened now?

The answer is: nothing exactly has happened now(verdict of the Bhopal court is too trivial to discuss).

I am discussing about Bhopal because Bhopal is not something for which our minds need to be "refreshed" only on 3rd December. It is something which should shake our soul atleast once every day even if it is for the briefest moment possible.

To think that its been more than 9356 days(more than the number of days I have been on Earth) since the disaster, and that pain has still not subsided is truly convulsing for me.

I will not talk of justice because I don't believe in the logic of Justice in this context. What is Justice? What is the meaning of Justice when lives have been lost. Can anything be "just" when lives are being lost year after year?

The pain lingers on !

The Un-met Hopes

It was billed as the football for hope 2010. After all for the first time, Federation Internationale de Football Association World Cup Football was being organised in Africa. However it didn't turn out to be "the hope" for many of the players hoping to make a mark amongst the deafening sounds of Vuvuzela. Lets pay homage to those who went there with some hope ( or no hope)but whose hopes were left shattered and bruised.

The "Pawar" factor

The world continues to amaze us all or rather I should say the administrators continue to amaze us all. Year after year we keep coming across events which catch everybody's attention due to all the wrong reasons The recent rejection of candidature of John Howard for the post of the president of the international cricket council was one such event.

We will remember you Jyoti Da

We will remember you Jyoti Da
We will remember you Jyoti Da for rising from being the third son of one Dr Nisikanata Basu to the 21st Chief Minister of West Bengal.
We will remember you Jyoti Da for getting elected to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly a record 13 times after Independence.
We will remember you Jyoti Da for being the longest serving Chief Minister of a state in India- 23 years- from 1977 to 2000
We will remember you Jyoti Da for undertaking one of the most successful rural land reforms movement in India- Operation Barga.
But we will also remember you Jyoti Da for transforming Calcutta- a hub of intellectual and industrial activity into Kolkata- a stagnant economic and professional hub.