Reflections

  Vinesh Phogat  ( from Vinesh Phogat disqualified: What we know so far on Indian wrestler's CAS hearing. 10 points (msn.com) When the Indian wrestler, Vinesh Phogat, was disqualified from her event in the Olympic games, it led to ill-concealed mirth among a section of Indians who are sympathetic to the ruling alliance. The underlying sentiment appeared to be “serve her right”, for having dared to defy the government and one of its minions who used to run the Wrestling Federation of India. The opposition, on the other hand went to town hinting that there was a conspiracy to do her in by the establishment with the tacit encouragement of the powers that be. It reminded me of the last World Cup. Or to be more accurate, the last-to-last World Cup. Cricket World Cups come so thick and fast nowadays that one loses count. I mean the one in which India did so well throughout but lost spectacularly in the finals in its own den. The Prime Minister who had come to bask in the succ...

This article is reproduced with permission from the media watchdog " The HOOT ". This website, is in my opinion required reading for all those interested in the working of the Indian media. The original artilce can be found here . Politics and media control BY ADITI ROY GHATAK and PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA A cartoon in The Hindu (that predates the current Ambedkar cartoon controversy) depicts the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, trying to calm down a bunch of jubilant students, saying “I banned Marx, not marks”. Trinamool Congress chief Banerjee’s ire is primarily directed towards her arch political rival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), whose mouthpiece, Ganashakti, which she does not want the State-funded libraries to subscribe to. There are many others on her list, especially after cartoongate. The point here is not about cartoons but that West Bengal has a pronounced culture of political parties (in the Opposition, from distant yesteryears to ver...

Sometimes a good politician does not realise that he is getting past his sell by date. I strongly suspect that this is what is happening to Dr Manmohan Singh. There is no doubt that he is deserving of our respect and gratitude for his work during the nineties and also during his first term as Prime Minister where he cooled down passions generated by the arrogance of the BJP following the success of their Gujarat line, declined to behave as if the poor did not exist and to my mind, most importantly, told Karat and co where to get off. However now it seems increasingly obvious to all of us , if not to his own party and to himself that it is time that he retired. He should learn from the experience of his predecessor. Atal Behari Vajpayee was all set to retire in 2004. However I think he was seduced by the power and I strongly suspect, wanted to trip up Advani and was prevailed upon to try again with the disastrous results that we have seen. He had to face the unnecessary humiliation o...

There is an interesting study from the Indicus Analyticus, a think tank founded by Bibek Debroy. After being kicked out of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation for forgetting to mix politics with economics (he authored a study which placed Modi’s Gujarat atop of India’s states in facilitating industry), he has set up this think tank. While I am skeptical of the economists who sing hosannas about the growth rate while forgetting about the human misery it often unfolds, I admire his writings. They are at least always thought provoking. This study available in the net at http://www.indicus.net/Media/index.php/2009/1324-transforming-west-bengal-changing-the-agenda-for-an-agenda-for-change , calls for an overthrow of the comrades. If not in so many words, he points out that West Bengal is ripe for change and in his own words “If it has not succeeded in the past, why should it succeed in the future?” There is statistical data to show that West Bengal is at best in the middle rank of the States of t...

Yesterday I attended function held to inaugurate a new Hospital in Jalpaiguri, the district town of the eponymous district, about 40 kilometres from Siliguri. The road is execrable, many parts resembling ploughed fields rather than the State Highway it is supposed to be. And the government wants investment in North Bengal! Anyway let’s not chase that rabbit but come back to what I was saying. The function started about 40 minutes late, inevitably as the organizers had invited the local MP and one nondescript minister of the West Bengal Government. There were the inevitable speeches; I noticed with some amusement that a Ramakrishna Mission monk who inaugurated the function could talk effortlessly for ten minutes saying nothing in particular as well as any politician! The local MP stood up to speak. She informed us, without batting an eyelid that the Government run health service is the best in West Bengal among all the states of India. Apparently 73% people avail the services and “most...

There may have been a lot of irregularities. It is not possible to believe that all those BJP and other opposition MPs voted against their own side out of sheer conviction that th Nuclear deal will benefit India. However i can vouch for the fact that around 70% of all people that I polled ( In an entirely unscientific manner) were pleased that our great revolutionary from the Kremlin on the Jamuna, Mr Prakash ( Fathead) Karat got his comeuppance. We can only hope that the Bengal comrades now put their foot down and tell him where to get off. It is incredible that he should ignore the needs of his own party to massage his own ego. It is also amusing that the opposition which was so eagerly crowing about the defection from the Samajwadi party ( all of whom defected because of their conviction that the government was selling out to the Americans of course, ) became so het up when Amar Singh got into action from the other side. One thing however, Manmohan Singh may be principled and all t...