State of Emergency

If like me, you were born after 1980, then probably it is something you have often heard about but seldom given serious thought to. June 25 is just like another day for you but not for those who have seen the India of 1970s when Indira Gandhi ruled India. It was the night of June 25-26 in the year of 1975 when this daughter of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Iron Lady who played a significant role in dividing Pakistan and creating Bangladesh, obtained President’s approval to impose a state of Emergency in the country.

Those who have lived through that era have mixed feelings about those 19 months when most of the civil liberties were curbed, political opponents were jailed, there was no freedom of press and scores of people were detained without reason and even tortured. Most of the non-Congress leaders we have today were jailed during the emergency. The Jay Prakash Narain movement that opposed Indira actually launched the political career of several leaders of North India like George Fernandes and Laloo Yadav.

As democracy was strangled by the government, it is normal for the intellectuals to recall that period as the darkest hour of post-independence India. What probably complicates the matter is that the period of emergency saw the rise of Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s youngest son who quickly became infamous for his forced sterilization drive. He is said to be the main driving force behind the so-called violations of human rights and slum demolitions that took place during that time.

While the internet is full of horror stories of that era which would seem to indicate that there was nothing good done in those times, the reality is different. Yes, the excesses of emergency were probably uncalled for but there lies the hidden reality. A lot of people have told me that during emergency, trains ran on time, in fact they arrived at stations even before the scheduled arrival time; clerks, bureaucrats and babus were never late to office and were often seen running frantically on the roads if they were late to office.

This aspect is the positive part of emergency. It showed what fear of government can do in this country. Perhaps the execution in 1975 was imperfect but just imagine if our government and leaders had taken some lesson from that episode of our history and executed it in a better manner, how wonderful things would have been in our country. Looking for examples? Sample this:

1. Jat protestors would not have been able to block the water supply to Delhi for their demands of reservations
2. Manipur blockade would not have happened
3. Naxalism would have been crushed by now
4. India would not have been a ‘soft state’ when it came to tackling terrorism
5. Senior policemen would not have been able to molest young girls and laugh their way out in courts
6. There would not have been so many cases pending in our courts for Judges would have worked overtime to close cases rather than take long recesses.

The list is endless. If you look at the above points carefully, you would realize that I am not arguing for a state of emergency to be imposed on us for achieving these goals. Just taking the right lessons would have transformed our dysfunctional government into something a lot better.

India needs to control its population. Sterilization or other forms of birth control are required. Forced sterilization may be against human rights but if certain sections of the population refuse to take part on religious, social or cultural grounds, it defeats the purpose and actually puts those communities who control their population at a disadvantage in terms of representation. Of course, it makes eradication of poverty and hunger an unachievable goal.

Almost all our cities have slums and a creaking infrastructure. If we have to make our cities modern and like Shanghai, London or New York like our leaders keep promising in election rallies, we need to demolish slums and relocate people. Is this possible in India today? No, it isn’t because different stakeholders involved would never agree to a common solution. The only option if you have to make things happen is do it forcibly. Was it wrong to demolish slums and beautify cities during emergency? The answer may not be straight-forward and the move certainly had its merits.

After the emergency was lifted and general elections called for, Congress led by Indira Gandhi and Sanjay was routed in the elections especially in the northern part of the country were JP movement was strongest. Both Indira and Sanjay lost and a new political formation led by Janata Party formed the first non-Congress government in Delhi.

However, if emergency was all wrong and nothing right, why did Indira Gandhi storm to power in 1980 within three years of her biggest political defeat? We need our civil liberties, we need freedom of speech, we need free journalism but we also need a strong government. Despite all its flaws, full marks to Emergency for showing us the face of a government that acts and gets things done.

First published in e-magazine Reader’s Quotient on July 26, 2010

http://readersquotient.com/2010/07/26/state-of-emergency/

Why Are We Afraid of New Ideas?

Ever since Mr. Shashi Tharoor has joined politics, he has been shrouded in one controversy or the other. It’s not entirely his fault actually. If we leave out his ‘cattle class’ remark which was more a joke than anything else, the other controversies provide an interesting insight into the way our Indian society looks at views which are out of sync with the beliefs and values of our times.

Therefore, when he said that on Gandhi Jayanti, people should be working rather than taking a holiday, there was an outrage. How can this educated fool disregard the day set aside to pay homage to our father of the nation? Similarly, when he said something which was interpreted as criticism of the foreign policy pursued by Gandhi and Nehru, knives were out and he was forced to issue a denial and may be apologize to the powers within his age old party. Surprisingly, comments to this tune were found even on online news and discussion forums which are supposedly the forte of the educated, internet-aware younger population that resides in cities. If Indians start working on Gandhi Jayanti, will it really be an insult to the Mahatma? Were Gandhi and Nehru ‘super-humans’ who could do no wrong? And if it turns out that one out of so many policies drafted by Nehru was indeed wrong, will it make the man fall from the pedestal of greatness he enjoys? If no, then why contempt for a man who has just expressed an opinion or a fresh idea?

The icing on the cake is the criticism Tharoor received for questioning the relevance of tightening of visa norms for tourists. He was criticized for two things – publicly disagreeing with the government stand and airing his disagreement on twitter. The media which has been calling him ‘twitter minister’ went into an overdrive. Stories of how his boss S.M. Krishna has publicly rebuked his opinion were played again and again. India’s educated youth started commenting on various sites and the criticism fell into three buckets:-

1. As a minister, he should not publicly disagree with the Government of India and more so on a platform like twitter which anybody can use.
2. People of India don’t need a minister who spends his time tweeting rather than do work for the public.
3. His tweets on visa norms actually weaken the national security (may be because it opposes stricter norms)

I disagree on all of these. What is the harm if a minister publicly voices his opinion against some policy? It happens in US all the time and shouldn’t the public of India know what their elected representatives think? If they need not, why do we have RTI for? As far as twitter is concerned, its just a platform. Saying something on twitter is same as saying that in a public gathering or rallies that our leaders frequently hold. Yes, there is an international audience but that is a threat only if some strategic information is leaked out. Just because someone doesn’t agree with a policy doesn’t mean that the law or the policy gets weakened. Unanimous decisions are rare in a democracy and differing viewpoints are what make a democracy vibrant. Sillier is the argument of wasting time. Are we sure that ministers who do not tweet are utilizing their office time to do good for the public?

In my opinion, the points of criticism and the kind of logic his critics have presented give us a reason why India is rarely at the forefront of anything groundbreaking. Barack Obama used technology to pave his way to the Oval Office. But if our ministers use technology, they are dubbed as cut off from the real India. ‘Minister for Twitter’ is just one example. Technology, no matter how useful, is considered elitist and therefore, is disliked by those who are interested in projecting the rural face of the country which sadly, for lack of suitable implementation of technology, is still underdeveloped. If Tharoor were holding four rallies every month, nobody would have noticed and he would have gone scot free despite using public money for self-promotion. But he prefers to use a cheaper alternative, that is, technology and suddenly, he is a wastrel. No points in this country for trying out something new.

The issue with our society is our reluctance to try out something new. Everybody wants to stick to the plot. So, if your child is good in studies, he should study science or engineering; if not, commerce or arts. If you are sharp and still choose arts, people laugh behind your back. In our corporate world, innovation is a buzz word but you are told to find a market first and then innovate. Why risk making a product which cannot be sold? As a result, there is hardly any innovation beyond copy-paste and changing the look and feel.

The shiv-sainiks were not even born when Shivaji ruled the lands that are now Maharashtra. But today if you do some research and unearth something new about his kingdom, you run the risk of getting yourself bashed up unless until your findings appeal to the local politics. The novel ‘Da Vinci Code’ told us something new about Christianity. It was a new line of thought for most of us because it was not mainstream. Majority of the world read the novel, saw the movie and went about their lives without thinking that it disparaged their religion. But in India, people demanded that the movie be banned. Surely, Christianity came to India from Europe. They can tolerate a difference of opinion, why can’t we?

We as a society are risk-averse and want to stick to the tried and tested path. We often lament about the way our politicians behave, the way our bureaucracy works and how our system is useless but if somebody tries to do something different, we are quick to dismiss the new approach. Why did the brain drain to US happen? Why are we always followers and never leaders? Why Indian scientists who migrated to the west did better than those who stayed back? Because our society did not let them think new. It is okay if not many of us Indians have heard of John Milton Cage Jr., an American poet, composer and philosopher, but it is time for all Indians to remember what he once said – “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m afraid of the old ones.”

First published in e-magazine Reader’s Quotient on February 4, 2010

http://readersquotient.com/2010/02/04/why-are-we-afraid-of-new-ideas/

The ‘What Else’ Phenomenon

Let me start by setting the context straight away. This post is a response to a post by Ms. Suchi Kumar on her blog which talks about non-focused nature of most conversations on any chat engine. To see this post, click here.

In her article, Ms. Kumar has highlighted three irritants:

The usage of ‘what else’ in chat?

The difference between friends and social acquaintances

The need to draw a line between good friends, friends and acquaintances

She has given the most importance to ‘what else’ and therefore, I would weave my story by outlining why ‘what else’ is important in today’s shrinking world.

It is said that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. This is commonly known as Six Degrees of Separation. This concept is at the heart of the social networks we use (Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn etc).

The main benefit of a social network comes from the loosely-knit ties that characterize it. Let me quote a few lines from wikipedia’s entry on social network –

“The shape of a social network helps determine a network’s usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties.”

Chat engines like Yahoo Messenger, MSN and Google Talk were developed to help people stay in touch with family and friends. As the social networking and collaboration concepts like Web 2.0 became buzzwords in our societies as well as professional set-up, the chat engines were integrated with social networking sites. In fact, Google perhaps was the first one to integrate orkut and Gmail contact lists. This has resulted in your social networking contacts appearing in your chat engine’s friends list. As a result, as of today, online chat has become a form or medium of social networking.

Therefore, when someone pings Ms. Kumar, this is no more a simple chat as it used to be in 2000-01. It is social networking and since it is based on loose connections, most of those doing the pinging may turn out to be mere acquaintances. And by design, these people don’t know much about you and hence ‘what else?’ is the best conversation starter.

I will quickly now address the second and third points raised by Ms. Kumar. We know each other for around 10 months now. How on earth would I know whether she considers me a social acquaintance or a friend? Like one-sided love, one-sided friendship is more common than we think. The whole idea of drawing a line between different kinds of ‘friends and contacts’ is flawed. I may pour my heart out to an acquaintance when I am emotionally broken but when I have recovered, I start thinking about propriety and limits. This is a self-serving thought which can be used as an excuse to accuse others of crossing the limit time and time again. And most importantly, it is not practical as the person on the other side of the chat engine would never know if he has reached the line that marks your area in the jungle. Unless of course, the intrusion is into somebody’s personal life.

So, if you’re busy and cannot talk, please don’t leave the status green. Better still, log off and come online only when you can manage a chat. Don’t confuse others by flaunting the green signal. Filter out acquaintances from your chat list if you don’t like them pinging you. And don’t think somebody pinged you because they didn’t know what to do with their spare time. They might actually unwind seeing you act pricey.

In 2007, Microsoft paid a $240 million price for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook valuing the start-up at $15 billions. Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $850 million and $1 billion respectively, based on relatively recent valuations whereas the last valuation of MySpace was $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp. Let us not forget this value has been created by users who have flocked to these sites; Users who are friends to some and social acquaintances to most members on these sites. And they network using an irritating phrase that reads – what else?

Let me start by setting the context straight away. This article is a response to a post by my friend Ms. Suchi Kumar on her blog which has left me wondering if I am her friend or a social acquaintance. But let’s leave that for some other day.

In her post (To see this post, click here), Ms. Kumar has censured the non-focused nature of most online chat conversations and highlighted three irritants/issues:

1. The usage of ‘what else’ in chat
2. The difference between friends and social acquaintances
3. The need to draw a line between good friends, friends and acquaintances

She has given the most importance to ‘what else’ and therefore, I would weave my story by outlining why ‘what else’ is important in today’s shrinking world.

It is said that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. This is commonly known as Six Degrees of Separation. This concept is at the heart of the social networks we use (Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn etc).

The main benefit of a social network comes from the loosely-knit ties that characterize it. Let me quote a few lines from wikipedia’s entry on social network –

The shape of a social network helps determine a network’s usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties.

Chat engines like Yahoo Messenger, MSN and Google Talk were developed to help people stay in touch with family and friends. As the social networking and collaboration concepts like Web 2.0 became buzzwords in our societies as well as professional set-up, the chat engines were integrated with social networking sites. In fact, Google perhaps was the first one to integrate orkut and Gmail contact lists. This has resulted in your social networking contacts appearing in your chat engine’s friends list. As a result, as of today, online chat has become a form or medium of social networking.

Therefore, when someone pings Ms. Kumar, this is no more a simple chat as it used to be in 2000-01. It is social networking and since it is based on loose connections, most of those doing the pinging may turn out to be mere acquaintances. And by design, these people don’t know much about you and hence ‘what else?’ is the best conversation starter.

I will quickly now address the second and third points raised by Ms. Kumar. We know each other for around 10 months now. How on earth would I know whether she considers me a social acquaintance or a friend? Like one-sided love, one-sided friendship is more common than we think. The whole idea of drawing a line between different kinds of ‘friends and contacts’ is flawed. I may pour my heart out to an acquaintance when I am emotionally broken but when I have recovered, I start thinking about propriety and limits. This is a self-serving thought which can be used as an excuse to accuse others of crossing the limit time and time again. And most importantly, it is not practical as the person on the other side of the chat engine would never know if he has reached the line that marks your area in the jungle. Unless of course, the intrusion is into somebody’s personal life.

So, if you’re busy and cannot talk, please don’t leave the status green. Better still, log off and come online only when you can manage a chat. Don’t confuse others by flaunting the green signal. Filter out acquaintances from your chat list if you don’t like them pinging you. And don’t think somebody pinged you because they didn’t know what to do with their spare time. They might actually unwind seeing you act pricey.

In 2007, Microsoft paid a $240 million price for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook valuing the start-up at $15 billions. Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $850 million and $1 billion respectively, based on relatively recent valuations whereas the last valuation of MySpace was $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp. Let us not forget this value has been created by users who have flocked to these sites; users who are friends to some and social acquaintances to most members on these sites. And they network using an irritating phrase that reads – what else?

There are better ways to cut costs!

Cost-cutting must be one of the most commonly used words these days. CEOs and MDs of top companies are making appearances all around us and are declaring that cutting costs is going to be one of the focus areas in the next 12 months. Of course, these statements are tied to the economic slowdown which doesn’t seem to be ending soon.

That the purpose behind cutting costs is sustainability of the business is beyond doubt. And in tough times, expenses must be cut. However, almost every time someone from the senior management utters the phrase – ‘we will cut the fat, not the muscle’, it indirectly means that people are going to be fired. HR personnel throughout India and the world are busy searching for excuses in order to meet their sadistic objectives and almost always the reason cited is poor performance. I find it hard to believe that all of a sudden so many people from the Indian IT industry have turned poor performers. Hard to digest till Infosys declared that now the tolerance for poor performance is zero. Does this mean that companies that valued excellence and claimed to be driven by intellect were actually turning a blind eye to incompetence all these years when the going was smooth?

To an extent, this allegation is true. Most IT companies, big or small, have tolerated laggards and not just tolerated them but have even promoted such employees. I remember one Ms. P. Sahu, an Account Manager with a leading IT firm, who was in the habit of having weekly project status meetings that lasted for a minimum of two hours every Friday and all that was discussed there was what children were doing in school and how her children didn’t let her sleep the previous night. You will easily come across people who did fabulous work in their projects but were given a lesser rating as they didn’t participate in account-level initiatives like celebrating birthdays of their colleagues. Many of such poor performers like Ms. Sahu are among the senior middle management now presiding over the ‘pink slip distribution ceremonies’ that happen every now and then.

I am all for cutting costs and promoting a culture based on meritocracy. But IT companies have themselves to blame if they find themselves with a large pool of employees who don’t have a project and are on bench. These companies always had a sizeable bench size and this was seen as bench strength. But these firms cannot shrug the blame now as they themselves created an illusion of explosive job growth in IT sector by hiring in far larger numbers than required. Even today as these top firms fire people in the name of poor performance, they are continuing to hire freshers in large numbers. This is because freshers will be paid lesser salary compared to the experienced associates and as a result the wage bill will be in check. A true capitalist will find nothing wrong in this selective firing but at least the companies should have the guts to admit that this is for purely economic reasons and not for performance.

Coming back to cutting costs, companies must fully exploit other avenues before resorting to layoffs. Here are some of these:

Cut back on deputations and transfers: These increase costs for the company as well as for the employees.

Try to retain employees: Like acquiring a new customer, acquiring a new employee is costlier than retaining the existing one.

Reduce Business Travel: Despite teleconferencing and videoconferencing technologies being available, only a handful of companies have effectively utilized these.

Discourage the culture of working extra hours: A lot of managers look down on employees who work for 8-9 hours and want their subordinates to stay late in the office. Owing to this culture, a lot of employees also prefer staying back, both for the sake of appraisal and for using free internet and air conditioner. Just imagine the electricity that will be saved if people worked for not more than 10 hours and no more than 5 days a week unless business required them to work on weekends.

Switching off PCs before leaving: Make it mandatory for employees to switch off their monitors when leaving their workstations for more than 1 hour and to shut down their PCs before leaving for home.

When confronted with tough economic conditions, senior management should lead by example by turning down their bonuses and curbing wasteful marketing and relationship building expenditures like paying high stipends to summer trainees. Only when these steps have been tried, should companies consider firing employees. Granting leave without pay or with 25% pay for 3 months may be a better idea than snatching away somebody’s means of livelihood. I am not turning communist but one must explore all other avenues before taking extreme steps like layoffs.

Where Customer is not the King

I have completed almost two months in Kolkata, the capital of Left ruled West Bengal. The experiences have been mixed as they would be in any part of the world. It is a city where life is not as fast as Mumbai, where you get delicious street food and where you can have a sumptuous meal for fifty rupees. But there are certain areas that weaken the case for the city. The metro and the former capital of India, performs poorly when it comes to customer service. The attitude of service staff (not all but most) is appalling at best and if you are moving from Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai or Bangalore, you are in for a culture shock.

The first I experienced this ‘so-what-if-you-give-me-business’ attitude was when I was eating egg rolls at a roadside stall. It was 8 pm on a Friday evening in Sector-2, Salt Lake, one of the posh localities of this city. A couple came and ordered for two egg rolls. The vendor prepared these and asked for money. The gentleman handed him a 50 rupee note. The vendor asked for change and when he didn’t get it, declared – ‘Roll hobe naa‘. I was taken aback at his refusal to sell rolls that had already been prepared. Nobody would buy them stale and a roll costs Rs. 10, so it was not that he had to produce change for 500 bucks. The couple had to walk away.

Sector 5 Salt Lake is where all companies are located. I had skipped lunch and so at around 4 pm, went to Tea Junction, outside RDB Boulevard for some snacks. I asked for two samosas (costs Rs 8 each) and gave out a 20 rupee note. The vendor said – ‘Change nahi hai?‘ (You don’t have change). When I replied in negative, the standard answer came – ‘Samosa hobe naa‘ (No samosa then). I had to leave and move around to get something else to eat. I am still not able to believe that this guy couldn’t have managed 4 rupees change after doing brisk business (the place is always full of people coming for tea and snacks) all throughout the day. May be if he had waited for another customer, he would have got his change.

One of my colleagues has recently shifted from Chennai. He had an Airtel number there and since he has been with Airtel for some time, he wanted to transfer his connection to Kolkata. So, he visited the Airtel shop at City Center, Salt Lake. The guard stopped him and asked him why he wanted to transfer. My friend got so pissed off that the guard would not let him speak to the Airtel Customer Care guys sitting behind the desk that he just walked out. And the Customer Care guys just kept looking at the whole incident and didn’t intervene at all. Now, this gentleman gives a business of around Rs, 1000 per month. Shouldn’t such a customer be treated with respect?

There are many such incidents that I am coming across almost at the rate of two every week. My blogging here is not going to change anything but perhaps this is the reason why City of Joy offers no joy to the customers at Kolkata and why people keep ranting about work culture and unprofessional behaviour in this great city.

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Postscript:

I would like to add here that I am very happy with the Airtel Broadband service that I have recently taken. My calls and queries have been handled very efficiently. However, this post is not a bundle of lies  or conclusions derived in haste – my mobile service provider Vodafone has refused to send me a PDF copy of my April bill as the paper copy has already been generated. So, they say I will get the PDF version from next month onwards. What puzzles me is why can’t they accept and process my request immediately when PDF generation costs them nothing! [April 25, 2009]

Why Dev D is a classic

A lot of my female friends who have watched Dev D, a modern take on Devdas conceptualized by actor Abhay Deol and directed by Anurag Kashyap, have dismissed the film and the concept. The reasons I hear are one of these:

• There is nothing new about the story except an overdose of sex
• It’s all about sex and drugs

However, it is this alleged ‘overdose’ of sex which indirectly hints at the message that today’s younger audiences should have grasped. But first, let me honestly accept that some of the scenes are indeed quite shocking. Like the one where Paro, played by newcomer Mahie Gill, carries a mattress to the fields on a bicycle in order to be able to make out with her lover Dev. Or the dialogues that Chanda, the MMS scandal victim played by Koel, speaks to her on-screen father.

Let me make it clear here that while these scenes are shocking, it doesn’t mean that they don’t happen in real life. Go to villages and you would find that couples having sex in a field is nothing out of the world. Chanda uses the same slangs and vocabulary that today’s college going crowd uses daily.

So where is the message I am talking about? The message lies in the treatment Paro receives at the hands of Dev. And it’s not a single message, rather there are four points that the director leaves its audiences to ponder with.

The first point is the obsession with sex that today’s college going youth has. In the movie, it is not difficult to assume that Dev is addicted to porn. Look at his expressions when he is downloading Paro’s topless picture on his laptop and you would know what he has been learning in London. The second example of this is when Dev tells a married Paro that he wants to love her and in the very next scene talks about ‘making love’ as if you cannot love a person without ‘making’ love.

The second point about our society reveals itself in the way a village guy who claims to love Paro talks about her sexual behavior. Not only he says this to Dev, he brags about it to others as well. I was surprised how true this is to real life. During my intermediate and engineering days, we often heard such stories about girls who were more outgoing that the average. And the rumour-mongers often went to great lengths to claim that their stories were nothing but the truth. The fact, as we know now, is that 9 out of 10 such stories were totally fabricated. How easy it is for we guys to malign a girl’s character, isn’t it?

In the movie, Dev believes the rumours he hears about Paro. The reason is simple. Because Paro is ready to do it with Dev, her beloved, she must be doing it with other guys as well. And he calls her a slut. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we brand women who are not meek and have a mind of her own as ‘sluts’? This is the third point that Anurag Kashyap makes.

Dev refuses to marry Paro, breaks her heart and his own in the process. And after he goes on a path of self-destruction, he finally meets Chanda and finds love. And it is here where the fourth and probably the most disguised point about the movie comes to light. Not many people have understood that Dev D is a slap on the face of a male-dominated society that is so obsessed with a women’s virginity. Dev has no reason to doubt Paro’s virginity but does so because he himself is no saint and finally accepts as his own a woman who has taken to prostitution. Can it get any more hard-hitting than this?

Dev D is a tight slap across the male community who equates love with sex and brands women as sluts.

No to Subsidies, Yes to Infrastructure

As the inflation in India rises to 8.75%, it is time for the economists and the policy makers in India to rise above petty politics and ponder over a long term solution for both the oil crisis and the capacity of the economy to digest the amount of money that is pouring in the country.

For many years now, India has been subsidizing the consumption of oil products in the country. As a result, the efficiency with which the average Indian uses these sources has taken a hit. There was a time when I saw my parents and uncles complain that the prices of petrol have hit Rs. 20/litre. Now it is close to Rs. 60. While prices have risen considerably, the government has, time and again, resisted passing on the full burden of the global price rise to the Indian consumer. Some of this resistance has been because of the regressive politics of the Left parties but much of it has been the lust to remain in power.

The oil producing countries, chiefly the OPEC, have taken advantage of this situation. While crude oil is a limited resource and will be expended completely in some time, I believe we still have sufficient oil reserves globally to last a century – if we also start promoting and using renewable sources of energy. This is to say, that the current crude oil prices which stand at $ 139 does not seem justifiable. There is more to it than meets the eye.

By subsidizing the Indian consumer, the government has not forced us to use petrol, diesel and LPG judiciously. Wastage may have dropped as a result of the rising prices but efficiency is far from being attained. As a result of the subsidies, the demand for the oil products is artificially maintained, leading to a situation where the OPEC is benefitting directly by raising prices. If the full impact of the rising global prices of crude is to be borne by the consumer, three things will be achieved:

Consumer will use oil products judiciously. This may lead to car pools and more use of the public transport. This will help contain the global warming problem.
Reduced demand may help reduce our oil import bill. This will significantly benefit the economic health of companies like Indian Oil Corp. which suffer tremendously when forced to sell petro products at a price lower than what prevails in the global market.
A developing country like India with massive energy will be forced to take to clean energy sources like nuclear power and alternative energy sources. This has long term benefits for the ecosystem; not to forget that the future generation will have to use renewable energy extensively.

If we leave aside the problem of rising crude oil prices, the other factor that we need to address is how to keep inflation under 5%, even when the economy is growing at close to double digits. This overheating of the economy when foreign investments get pumped into India shows that the economy is not equipped to handle so much money. In other words, the supply response from the economy is not fast enough and bottlenecks in infrastructure and in the expansion of productive capacity limit the economic growth.

Instead of looking to curb inflation by raising interest rates, the government needs to look at the supply side. China has been able to grow at around 11-12% while keeping the inflation at 3-4%. This has happened because the Chinese have built roads, bridges, and dams long before there is an actual need for them. Contrast this with India, where infrastructure projects almost always exceed their time frame (e.g. Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai) and where the state governments keep dilly-dallying on SEZs and manufacturing plants.

Accelerating the nation’s production capabilities will help the economy cruise along at a higher speed with lower inflation. It is important that infrastructure bottlenecks are not allowed to become a constraint on the Indian economy. In addition, it is important that we address the agricultural issues by not only increasing productivity but also by limiting the wastage while storage, which currently at 10%, is extremely high.

Clearly, action on agricultural and infrastructure front will help solve the nation’s problems. Subsidies by delaying the much-needed action at grass-root levels will only compound issues in the long run.

Misusing Rights, Misusing Freedom

A few weeks back, I read an interesting piece in the Pune edition of The Times of India. It was a letter to the editor. A sindhi lady had expressed her anger at Shahrukh Khan for showing five fingers in the ad for his quiz show ‘Kya Aap Panchvi Pass se Tez Hai’. The reason – showing five fingers is considered unlucky according to sindhis. What had me laughing for the next five minutes was the next line in that piece. The lady wrote  – ‘The mayor of Pune has been informed about this. Hope she takes necessary action’.

This got me thinking about the way we Indians misuse the freedom of speech and expression granted to us by our constitution. If this sindhi lady believes that showing five fingers is a bad omen, she should observe this in her personal life and within her community. Who has given her the right to force others to follow the same? More importantly, isn’t she wasting the time of Pune mayor by raising irrelevant issues?

Sometime back, some clerics have raised objections on the length of Sania Mirza’s skirt. Needless to say, Sania’s skirts, t-shirts etc. are her business and hers only. Still people who use their freedom of speech to curtail someone else’s freedom are found everywhere in the society and go unpunished. The intelligentsia dismisses them as publicity hounds and they go scot free. The same applies to those who try to don the mantle of protectors of our culture, morality and religion. Yet no action is ever taken against such elements.

After reflecting enough on this topic, I have come to the conclusion that preaching or lecturing is not going to change the behaviour of us Indians. We listen only when punishment is in the offing and by making an example of these people only can we expect to move towards a society wherein an individual is free in the real sense of the word. For this to happen, the courts and the administration need to play an active role. If someone files a complaint or PIL or makes a statement in front of electronic media and it is found by the mayor or the district magistrate or the court that the complaint is based on personal whims or preferences and infringing upon someone else’s freedom of speech, expression or way of living, strict punishment should be given to the offender. The officers cited above should be given the power to act directly against such people even if no other member of civil society has lodged a protest.

The punishment can be in two forms: A fine and some hours of community service. An indirect benefit of such a law would be a decrease in baseless cases and hollow PILs. Anything that can reduce the burden on our already burdened judicial system would be good for the society in the long run.

Just Not Cricket

Whatever happened in the last test between India and Australia at Sydney has highlighted that cricket is no longer a gentleman’s game. Kumble’s comments at the end that only one side was playing the game in the right spirit aptly summed up the behaviour of the Australian side led by Ricky Ponting. It has also highlighted that the Aussie behaviour has gone from arrogance to inacceptable.

Ponting is a man unable to understand the thin line between playing mercilessly and winning at any cost. In my analysis of the issue, I look at several factors that sum up why Indians were justified in feeling sore after the loss and demanding the removal of Steve Bucknor and why reigning in Aussies is a right thing to do. I also analyze as to why the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) needs to play a more active role in ICC.

The Umpires: Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson
There were nine wrong decisions in the game and both umpires were guilty. And eight of these wrong decisions went against India. Now statistics will tell you that this is a significant proof that one side benefitted from the umpiring decisions. No prizes for guessing how Australia equalled the world record of 16 straight test wins. And one must not forget that even the third umpire gave a wrong decision. When this happens despite the technology, it makes one feel that India were playing not against an Australian side of eleven but against fourteen men. Isn’t it obvious when you see umpire Benson asking Ponting whether Ganguly was out or not?

Bucknor’s history against India. Go through the list below to find out how he has been giving wrong decisions against India on a regular basis:

1. Tendulkar at Brisbane in 2003 when Gillespie said he was very lucky to have gotten that LBW. See Tendulkar lbw Gillespie
2. Tendulkar vs. Pakistan in that game in which he denied India’s appeal for bad light, and then proceeded to give him caught behind with the ball nowhere near the bat. (Search Youtube for Tendulkar Bucknored, and you can watch this video.)

The second Test could have very well gone in India’s favour but for the poor umpiring. Symonds, centurion in the first innings, got at least three lives, one inferred by the TV umpire. He himself admitted of being out at the score of 30. Skipper Ponting got two lives. Similarly, in the second innings Michael Hussey got thick edge of RP Singh before Dhoni caught it but Mr. Bucknor thought otherwise. Umpiring was equally horrendous during India’s batting. Wasim Jaffer was given out in the first innings off a no ball. In the second innings, Steve ‘Slow Death’ Bucknor lifted his index finger even when the ball caught behind was deflected of Rahul Dravid’s pad. Mark Benson, decided not to lag behind and asked Ganguly to leave as Michael Clarke caught him off Lee’s delivery in slips. The TV replays showed Clarke didn’t collect the ball neatly. Even if one ignored this, nobody could overlook Clarke’s followthrough. He didn’t complete the catch as the ball touched the ground when Clarke fell and rolled.

It seemed Team India is up against two teams, Australia and the Umpires. Had umpiring been upto the mark, the Border-Gavaskar series might have been levelled in Sydney. Bucknor’s erroneous outing in India’s last tour Down Under in 2003-04, fetched him zero from Sourav Ganguly in captain’s report. It seems Bucknor is determined to sustain his score and his decisions have not only influenced the match but his fellow umpires.

Catch the clip on Youtube: Bad Umpiring leads to Aussie Victory

Aussie Sportsmanship
Ponting has completely lost it when he keeps repeating ad nauseum that he sees no problem with his team’s behaviour. The team and ACB keeps repeating that their team plays hard and fair. But there is no fair angle to their style of play. It was so obvious to all that Michael Clarke had edged the ball to slips, yet he waited for the umpires decision. He should have walked. Adam Gilchrist appealled for the catch behind off Dravid when he would have known that Dravid did not hit the ball. It is a form of cheating and is disgraceful. Australia is now trying to say, ‘We uphold the spirit of the game’, but it is a very unusual spirit of the game. If you are upholding this spirit you cannot appeal for something when you know a batsman is not out. You cannot stand there when you have hit the cover off the ball. Ponting points to the incident in the first innings where he declined a catch as he had not taken it cleanly. But integrity is not a one-time gesture.

In Sydney Morning Herald, one of the most respected cricket writers in the world, Peter Roebuck wrote – “Ricky Ponting must be sacked as captain of the Australian cricket team. If Cricket Australia cares a fig for the tattered reputation of our national team in our national sport, it will not for a moment longer tolerate the sort of arrogant and abrasive conduct seen from the captain and his senior players over the past few days. Beyond comparison it was the ugliest performance put up by an Australian side for 20 years. In the past few days Ponting has presided over a performance that dragged the game into the pits. He turned a group of professional cricketers into a pack of wild dogs. The only surprising part of it is that the Indians have not packed their bags and gone home. There is no justice for them in this country, nor any manners.”

There isn’t any need for any more proof.

The Race Row
Harbhajan Singh was banned by match refree Mike Proctor for making a racist remark to Symonds. It is said that Harbhajan called him a monkey. There was no audio or video evidence. Sachin Tendulkar was close to Harbhajan and he denied any racist remark ever being made. Tendulkar has earned respect for his sportsmanship yet Proctor chose to ignore him and trusted the australians. Australian sympathizers are saying that since Harbhajan has apologized to Symonds during the India tour, he should be considered a repeat offender. But the fact is that there is no evidence against him this time.

Indians themselves are of various shades of brown. It is purely silly of australians to think that Indians are racially abusing Symonds because of his skin color. India is a country that let go off an opportunity to win the Davis Cup because South Africa’s policy of apartheid.

Australian Hypocrisy
Australians play their cricket not only with their bat and ball but also by their mouth as the whole world knows that they are the greatest sledgers. Cricket fans will recall how the australian greats sledged West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan when he stood his ground against their pace bowling. Everybody knows that the aussies abuse their opponents on a regular basis and call it mental disintegration. Isn’t it strange that now they have a trouble with sledging when India has stood up to them and paid back in the same coin?

Wasim Akram rightly described them as ‘cry-babies’ for whingeing about racism when they had been cricket’s worst sledgers. While Peter Roebuck criticised the aussie behaviour, he himself tried to strike a reconciliatory note with the national team a day later. This time Roebuck said that the behaviour of the Indian team was far from ideal and is a factor too behind the recent controversy. This is another case of aussie hypocrisy as anybody who has followed the match would vouch for normal behaviour from the Indian camp. Roebuck himself failed to enlarge on any perceived criticism of the Indian players’ behaviour.

Racist World stands up for Hogg
As per Naseer Hussain, putting Brad Hogg on dock on charges of hurling abusive language (using the word bastards) on Anil Kumble and Co. during the controversy-ridden Sydney Test was kowtowing to the financial clout of BCCI.

On Harbhajan’s alleged offence, Hussain says – “India may claim that the use of the word monkey was not meant to be offensive but, I’m sorry, for Harbhajan to use it, if he did, to the only player of mixed race in the Australian side just a few months after Symonds received racial abuse from some Indian fans on tour there means he is on very thin ice”. However, he defends Hogg by saying – “If any Australian cricketer who used words like that had faced a charge over the years, they wouldn’t have got a team out on the park”. My questions to Mr. Hussain:

1. How can ‘monkey’ be an objectionable word, leave alone racist if ‘bastard’ is fine in the world of sport? If Australians object to ‘monkey’, Indians are right in taking offence as the word ‘bastard’ is seen as something very offensive in Indian culture.
2. Does he mean that Australians should be allowed to abuse others because they have been doing it for years?

Bias of Cricketing World against India
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), former England captain Naseer Hussain and West Indian great Clive Lloyd have described Bucknor’s removal as bowing to the whims of the richest cricket board, the BCCI. According to them, this sets a dangerous precedent as any team can now demand an umpire’s ouster. But they forget that at 61, Bucknor perhaps is no longer competent to umpire and must go. If he is costing team matches by his poor umpiring and judgment, it is better for cricket to have someone else in the elite panel of umpires. Britain’s spineless media commented – “Bucknor deserved better than to be ruthlessly tossed aside by the ICC at the whim of India’s powerbrokers.ICC has dumped a black umpire to appease a team accused of harbouring a ‘racist’. A shudder must have run through every white coat, every match official in every sport, as Bucknor became the scapegoat.” Steve Bucknor: A scapegoat? Britishers sure have some sense of humour.

India is one country that has always help sportsmanship above winning or losing. The BCCI is the richest cricket body in the world and this is often held against India whenever our cricketers are shortchanged. While everybody is agreeing that India lost because of umpiring decisions, they argue against Bucknor’s removal as this showcases BCCI’s muscle. Even as Harbhajan is banned without evidence, learned men say revoking the ban would mean selling off to BCCI’s financial clout. If we know that justice has not been done, is correcting that mistake unfair?

Conclusion
Steve Waugh was admired for his mind games and toughness but Ponting’s behaviour has shamed the world of cricket. Michael Clarke stood his ground when even a blind person would have given him out. May be Australia are backing the wrong person to be their next captain. The aussie arrogance is evident in some sections of the media hailing Ponting as a hero who has exposed racism in cricket. But they suffer from selective amnesia. How can australians fight against racism when their white society is one of the main perpetrators of racism. Any asian who has lived in Australia would know how the whites treat others.

India would be justified in cancelling the tour if Harbhajan’s verdict is not overturned. Pride comes before sport and Indian team should pride itself for standing up to a “win-at-all-costs” Australian side who won’t shy away from cheating to make a few records.

Secular Credentials of Mr. Dasmunsi

Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi has emerged as the new face of pseudo-secularism. Just sample what he had to say about the Taslima Nasreen issue that has been going on for more than a month now. According to the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen must apologise with “folded hands” for hurting the sentiments of Muslims in the country. Munshi says and I quote – We are a pluralistic nation and we respect all religions. I love literature and I have nothing against her writings. That does not mean she can use her pen to insult and hurt the religious beliefs of any community. The comments made by her in the book in question (Dwikhandito) were uncalled for. She should bow down before the people whose sentiments she has hurt and apologise with folded hands, and expunge those pages from her book. We did not allow Salman Rushdie’s book (‘The Satanic Verses’) when it caused a flutter and raised controversy. She will not be an exception. Bangladesh is a neighbouring country and neither the society nor the government can allow such controversial writing.

Now who is Dasmunsi to say this to Taslima? If our ‘secular’ government has any problems with what she has done, it can throw her out of the country. But it certainly cannot ask her to apologise. And if Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi is so concerned about our beloved pluralistic nation, why didn’t he give the same advice to Tamil Nadu CM Karunanidhi when he passed those comments about Lord Ram’s existence among other things? Is it okay to allow such comments about Hinduism, Mr. Dasmunsi?