Shut up and let money talk

There is a prick out there who is peddling fake MBA education to thousands of unsuspecting students who fall for his tall claims of rankings, international exposures and placements. In the end, most are left with a 'degree' that is not worth the paper it is printed on, and employability that will probably not get them through the front door of most corporations. 

Yet money talks, and it is quite true in this country that those who rock the boat are not looked at kindly. There is a Indo-British writer, Siddhartha Deb, who wrote a book called "The Beautiful And The Damned: Life In The New India", which explored the various ideas and aspirations that drove Indians from all economic backgrounds today.

Quite an interesting description by the person who is reviewing the book, a noted Indian writer in English in his own accord, Amit Choudhuri, who writes...

The book is divided into an introduction and five chapters. The first of these, "The Great Gatsby: A Rich Man in India" (Deb's second Fitzgerald allusion after the title), concerns the hugely successful but enigmatic entrepreneur Arindam Chaudhuri. His opening sentence reworks Fitzgerald shrewdly: "A phenomenally wealthy Indian who excites hostility and suspicion is an unusual creature, a fish that has managed to muddy the waters it swims in." How true: wealth, decried in the Nehruvian age, has never had a higher reputation in India.

Yet who is Arindam Chaudhuri, this grinning, pony-tailed, bespectacled man hovering on the edge of Indian middle-class awareness? Clearly, like other public or would-be public figures, he's an invention; but a uniquely self-driven one. We hear of him through his advertisements, and occasional reports containing accusations of fraudulence; Deb's piece is probably the first proper profile of the man. Deb speaks for many when he observes that, "throughout the years of Arindam's meteoric rise, I had been happily oblivious of him, although once I heard of him, I began to see him everywhere". Chaudhuri made his money running a business school that admits people who don't have the background or money to enter the canonical Indian Institute of Management; he then, in some magical strategy of auto-consumption, employs his graduates to run his business school. He's written a putative bestseller, Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch. None of these successes can be entirely verified, and they are, indeed, disputed. But Chaudhuri catches people's attention by insisting to them, repeatedly, that he's successful. In this, he conveys (via Deb's prose) something of the astonishing quality of present-day India.

What Arindam Chaudhuri has done is that he has sued the writer, Siddhartha Deb, the magazine - The Caravan, owned by Delhi Press and where Deb is a contributing writer and which published an excerpt from the book, the publishers Penguin India, and perhaps to attract more attention, Google India.

As much as I, and perhaps millions of others who can see the fraud at work and can see how this company is able to browbeat any criticism of its predatory activities, hate the situation, this article is not about this company. I strongly believe that Arindam Chaudhuri has embarked on his life in cinema using the money he has earned selling his fraud degrees to youth all across the country. His fraud company's advertisements in the media are worth crores of rupees, and that is the reason why any criticism against his activities comes only from smaller publications and from independent writers and bloggers. So when a question is raised in the Parliament if his company, which had paid Rs. 400 crores on advertisements in one financial year, had paid taxes, the government is quick to respond that everything is fine. So even when universities have said that this company is not legitimate, the advertising juggernaut still rolls on. 

What amazes me is the number of youth who aspire to be a top notch corporate executive with an MBA but do not even do the simple homework of checking the credentials of the entity they are going to join. Perhaps there is not much success for them in the corporate world then. While the big newspapers in the country shut out the bad news and instead stick to the lakhs and crores they are getting from advertisements, the internet is a vast place, and I feel any person aspiring to be an MBA should be able to get some access to the internet and use it. Yes, if you think the "institute" has any legitimacy because Shahrukh Khan advertises for it (he also advertises for other worthies such as skin whitening cream and the most popular shaving cream in barbershops), then perhaps you deserve this?

Unfortunately, higher education is big business in India. Every politician worth his or her salt owns an engineering college or a MBA school, and there are thousands of Random Institutes of Technology churning out graduates by the dozen, but the fact remains that quality education's capacity is very very limited, even today. Sure everybody can blame the IIM's for only taking in less than 2000 students in a year, but what stops other schools to aspire to have the same high level of education and industry is something i can't fathom. Is it that quality of Indian society that Amartya Sen wrote about - crabs pulling each other down? Anyways, meritocracy is something that is slowly being removed from our system, even with more quotas and other regulations.

In a recent article in The Guardian (it kind of makes me uncomfortable that so much of this blog is sourced from British newspapers), Mr. Deb wrote about the issue, and the broader issue of how this society somehow fails to defend all that we feel proud to boast of as a democracy - such as freedom of opinion and dissent, and is somehow more than accepting of browbeating and bullying from rich and powerful forces in the country to suppress any criticism against them. The politicians use brute force to silence criticism, especially from single individuals or groups of individuals, and the rich use their money and the loopholes in law to get the courts to do their dirty work.

In his article in The Guardian, Deb makes a few interesting points....

Built upon a series of interviews with Chaudhuri, a flamboyant, pony-tailed figure who is chauffeured around Delhi in a Bentley, the chapter was, to my mind, a nuanced portrait of the man and his business. It looked at the aspirations unleashed in the new India, both in figures such as Chaudhuri, whose face stares out at one from advertisements in virtually every newspaper and magazine of note, to the largely provincial middle-class students who flock to his schools in their desire to make it into the world of business management.

Nevertheless, on 30 April, a court in Silchar, a small town in the north-eastern state of Assam that is more than 2,000km from Delhi, issued an injunction against the Caravan article and the chapter. No notice was received by any of the defendants before the injunction was issued.

The injunction has received little attention in the Indian media. There has been hardly any discussion, as yet, of the fact that for all India's vaunted embrace of free-market capitalism and its frequent claims to being the world's "largest" democracy, it remains a place utterly reluctant to allow public criticism of the powerful and the wealthy. Indeed, India has had, in recent years, a very poor track record of defending either artistic freedom or critical nonfiction.

But the most mysterious of all such cases is the book The Polyester Prince, written by Australian journalist Hamish McDonald. This book was a biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, a shrewd investor who built a vast business empire that was inherited by his feuding sons Anil and Mukesh, two of the wealthiest individuals in the world. McDonald's book was published in India last year in an updated version under the title Ambani and Sons, but the original book, to be brought out in 1998, faced injunctions from Dhirubai Ambani's company and was never available officially in India.

This kind of suppression is far more insidious and much less visible than the way China locks up dissidents such as Ai Weiwei. It passes without notice in the west, but what is more significant is how damaging it is to India's fragile democracy. It promotes, in a country that is diverse but also deeply hierarchical, a culture of cringing before the rich and the powerful.

Business arrangements known as "private treaties" between media houses and corporations ensure positive coverage for the latter, a process known as "paid news". Arindam Chaudhuri himself produces a constant stream of advertisements for himself, and also runs a small media empire that includes a magazine called The Sunday Indian.

The sad fact is that this country, for all its thousands of years of history and philosophy and learning and apparent cultural "superiority" that we claim over other societies, has fast transcended into an intolerant cesspool where money drives the society, and power justifies all actions. If I get into a tirade of how our society has become an entity so materialistic and superficial, then it will not serve the purpose of this post. However, my main reason to talk about the frauds talked about in this post is to bring out the fact that with financial backing, it is quite easy to turn public action, or inaction, into your favor, and of course, much easier to take advantage of the clogged and hole-riddled law and order situation in the country.

Unfortunately, I do not believe it is as simple as the innocent versus the unjust, because in my view, no body's a saint, and I think every individual's first priority is one's own safety and security. When I deride our society for being so tolerant towards injustice and crime against women and children, it could be that its in our psyche, and it could be that as a society, we are now in such a constant state of bullying and subversion by politicians, business corporations and governments, that I think the ideas of change and justice remain in the minds only, and a common family man/woman would think of the safety of the family first, and if that means not getting involved in raising voice against injustice, then so be it.

Just to provide some closure to the story of the fraud institute versus Deb and Delhi Press, I suppose Delhi Press itself can boast of some strong credentials, and possibly some pull, so they have decided to fight out the case. The magazine is very forthcoming with the details of the lawsuit, and the reasons why they will fight it, and definitely the blogosphere has backed them, considering its the blogging community that is most vocal in bringing out the fraud at Chaudhuri's fake company. Its a good thing, because its always good to be totally open with information, and in this case, I think most people will see it as an individual using his money to shut down something written about him in the media. Its just like Harbhajan Singh and his mother not liking an ad poking fun at not him, but an ad which he had done for a rival liquor brand. Of course there is probably a big difference between the actions of Harbhajan and Chaudhuri. One is probably just embarrassed and the other, well, suppressing anything critical of his fraudulent activities is something that's been a regular feature.

So the magazine writes....

In addition to The Caravan and its proprietors, the suit charges Siddhartha Deb, Penguin (the publisher of the upcoming book by Deb in which the article is a chapter), and Google India (which, the suit alleges, has been “publishing, distributing, giving coverage, circulating, blogging the defamatory, libelous and slanderous articles”).

The civil court in Silchar granted the IIPM a preliminary injunction, enjoining Delhi Press to remove the article in question from their website, ex-parte, without any pre-hearing notice.

In 2005, the IIPM filed a case against Rashmi Bansal, a blogger and editor of Just Another Magazine (JAM), who published an article in print and online questioning many of the claims made by the IIPM in its brochures and advertisements, which highlighted that the IIPM had not been accredited by any Indian agency such as AICTE, UGC or under other state acts. The IIPM filed a case against Bansal from Silchar, Assam, even though she runs a small independent outfit based in Mumbai. The IIPM managed to get an ex-parte order from the court, forcing Bansal to remove the article from the website. The IIPM also filed for damages.

In 2009, Careers360 magazine, published by Maheshwar Peri, who is also the publisher of Outlook magazine, carried an article titled “IIPM - Best only in claims?” investigating the authenticity of many of the claims made by the IIPM in their advertisements. The magazine’s investigation revealed that the IIPM claimed that its students were eligible for MBA degrees from IMI, Belgium, but that NVAO, the accreditation organisation of Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium), did not recognise IMI. Also it reported that following a local agitation against the opening of a new campus in Dehradun, the state government of Uttarakhand had asked the Uttarakhand Technical University to conduct an enquiry on the activities of the IIPM, with which IIPM did not co-operate. The investigations revealed that IIPM could not in any circumstances award valid MBA/BBA degrees or conduct such courses in the state of Uttarakhand. The IIPM, again, filed a case against the magazine and the publisher in Silchar, and obtained ex-parte restraint against them. The IIPM also filed a criminal case against Maheshwar Peri from Uttarakhand, which was subsequently quashed by the High Court.

The Caravan intends to fight this suit because we believe that we must defend the right of journalists to report on controversial subjects or persons without undue fear of legal intimidation from powerful entities or organisations that seek to insulate themselves from criticism.

Those with money know its very easy to keep cases against them in courts for as long as they like. Some can have the pull to knock off witnesses and pay off the other parties, some are just content in agonizing the other party through their ability to pay lawyers who are good at finding the loopholes in the country's laws, and there are, of course, many, in addition to the fact that there are more than 300 crore cases pending in our judiciary system! It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out.

The Horn of Africa suffers again

I do not expect many Indians, and perhaps many more around the world to be aware of the fact that there is a famine raging in Somalia and spreading quickly to other parts of North-Eastern Africa. While I do want to write about the famine and how the world community is reacting to it, I cannot but feel angry at the same world community, especially the UN, for letting the situation reach the stage when thousands of Somalians and other Africans are dying of hunger. Its easy to blame it on Somalia's internal strife and warn-torn status, but I believe that allowing such crisis, even in this new millennium where we seem to move on from one technical achievement to another, allowing a famine to occur anywhere on the planet is a matter of shame, and excuses such as allowing each country to govern itself, or in this case, bring itself out of the misery, are just that, excuses.

The big word associated with Somalia in recent times has been piracy, and I have read and heard on more than one occasion that perhaps the biggest reason for piracy to exist is because its the only bread earner for many Somalians on the coast. Absolutely there is no doubt that bad elements, and genuine criminal elements do get involved and run the show at a number of places, but gone are the days when pirates would go looking for gold and hoarding it. It is my opinion that the world's inability to bring Somalia out of this internal strife is a matter of shame, because clearly in my mind the country is unable to bring itself out of it. If the great powers of the world can impose their will upon nations to bring them "freedom", surely the aware and advanced developed, and developing, world of today can get together to pull the poorer nations of this world out of their misery and despondence.

Clearly, Somalia, and a lot of countries around the world, need the positive intervention from the rest of the world, even if for the most idealistic reason of "humanity". The Islamist rebel group in Somalia called Shebab had banned foreign "aid" groups in the country, or whichever part of the country they control, and according to the BBC, are denying there is a famine in the land! For good effect, the BBC throws in the factoid that the group has ties to Al-Qaeda, perhaps so the news registers better in the mind of the western reader. So once we know that Islamist rebels rule most of Somalia, is it quite easy to pin the blame on them for now allowing the rest of the world to come together and help the starving people of Somalia.

The United Nations World Food Programme was one of the organizations that had left the country in 2009, and here is my peeve - what stops the rest of the world from coming together and pulling Somalia out of this misery? When we can have some stupendous forces such as "Coalition of the Willing", or the "Global War on Terror", or "Operation Iraqi "Freedom"", I do not think it will take much to come up with a "Maybe Somalia needs intervention too". I mean, what stops the world from getting together and getting rid Al- Shebab and all the warlords there?

Initially, there was a news of draught in the region, but only recently did the United Nations raise the crisis to famine. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer article -

It is a famine. The U.N. made that official this week when it noted that a "food crisis" had reached level five on the U.N.'s Integrated Phase Classification system. By that standard, famine is said to occur when malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent and when the death toll rises to more than two adults or four children per 10,000.

This is the first official famine in East Africa in 19 years. But an alternating current of drought, famine and war has plagued this land and its mostly innocent people for all of human history.

Drought is inevitable in the arid regions of East Africa. Famine follows, killing thousands who never recover enough from the last famine to fend off the ravages of the next.

When we hear of aid, or a UN official talking of aid, we tend to hear that the developed nations need to do more, the developed nations need to take the lead, more money is needed from the developed nations of the world, but in my opinion, it is absolutely wrong on the part of the rest of the world to sit idle. The global media reports on what the American government is doing, what the American Army is doing or what Europe is doing, but what about all these new big boys on the scene such as BRICS, and others? I can feel the hypocrisy in my own writing when sometimes I write about how the third world is going to rule the world and now I fall back to the old line that the developed world must do more. Even now, all the world media reporting is about the US - the US will allow this if this happens, or the US says this, or the US does this, or should the US help at all, but perhaps the rest of the world, including the new rising powers, are not ready to take on a bigger role in the world. Its very easy to showcase their new economic might, or argue confidently for their cause at international trade fora, but countries such as the BRICS must do more on the philanthropy and assistance front.

Its quite true that for most of the third world groups fighting for whatever cause in the world do not trust the WASP countries, and particularly the United States. But what stops China and India and others to take the lead and be more proactive politically and philanthropically?

I feel that most nations suffering from whichever strife afflicting them today are there because of their inability to raise themselves out of it. For the rest of the world, it becomes that nations' internal affair (for the most part that is), and thus it allows that nation to run itself to the ground. At the same time, I feel that even the global community itself, including the UN, can sometimes come across as pretty incompetent when it comes to dealing with the world's problems. According to this lady writing in the Gulf Daily News....

Two decades later, poverty has not yet been made history and repeated calls for aid have largely been ignored.

SOMETIMES defining a situation properly merits some sort of action. It took an estimated 10 million people in East Africa, including half the population of Somalia, to be severely malnourished before the United Nations declared famine in two southern regions of the country.

What possible effects such an announcement could have is anybody's guess.

Does it somehow legitimise to the international community that the Somalis are in real need of food and haven't been arbitrarily dying all along? The first famine of the 21st century wasn't a horrible surprise sprung on the world, it has been some years in the making. Poor rains since last year and the increasing desertification of the Horn of Africa have turned the region into a dustbowl.

Fourteen years ago, at a special convention of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in New York, it came to light that 73 per cent of dry lands in Africa used for agricultural purposes had been degraded. The current crisis is in part the result of the Sahara desert's continued encroachment into the East African countries, a process that has turned these regions arid.

The growth of lawlessness and extremism that followed Somalia's war with Ethiopia in 1991 has devastated the country.

Maybe, there's a problem with the definition of the word famine. The UN says famine can only be declared when two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die of hunger every day. Now that the world community has got its statistics right, I suppose we can expect some real action. Somalia has often been called as the world's first failed state, but on hindsight, it's we who failed them.

The lady raises a very valid point about "definitions". The sense of urgency that we seem to be seeing today from the United Nations and other agencies and nations has come about once it was officially declared that there was a famine in Somalia. So if children were dying in that country but could not muster the death rate needed per 10,000 for them to be declared living in a state of famine, perhaps this process would have continued till an indefinite time while we could continue to keep ourselves busy in everything else.

As far as I know after scanning the online news sources for a while, I think the Indian media is still oblivious to what is happening in Somalia, and it is not surprising at all. In the World headlines section, that shitty NDTV is reporting such important news (most of which are America-centric) such as that of a small airplane making an emergency landing on a highway, or how a hundred street signs have been stolen in some town. The Times of India, well, is the Times of India, no expectations there. Yup, checked out a couple of other sources and their international coverage begins and ends with the US, Europe, Pakistan, and tabloid stories from the rest of the world.

My prayers are with the region, and I will try to locate if there is anything going on in India at all in terms of aid or help towards Somalia and if lucky, get to contribute towards it. The rest of the world must come together and help, and ask questions about why was this allowed to happen.

Between blasts and everywhere

Lately, I seem to be going back to my state of numbness, not wanting to do anything mentally and physically, and slowly and surely slipping into a lethargy that I thought I had managed to pull myself out of a while ago. Perhaps it is the weather that is bringing me down. I hate showing up at work drenched regularly, and being in that wet state makes me quite irritable, so much so that I begin hating a lot of things I normally enjoy doing, and a lot of things that I would simply not bother about begin getting on my nerves. So unfortunately, that has been my mental state the past few days.

In this state of mental frustration, its very easy to doubt everything, and even easier to lose one's faith in everything positive and representing home. At least for me, i've become a very cynical being these days, and in my cynicism, I see that nothing around me is changing. The media continues to feed us the same muck, or rather, the people in the news continue to feed us the same muck, and the media presents the same muck to us with one or two variations in its flavour and presentation.

When I have to look at what is happening politically, I see that there's nothing new to write about. I wish I had the political insight that would allow me to read into actions and decisions of politicians and political parties, and I believe most of the media lacks the same, most unfortunately. If I had to think more on this subject, I think that it is perhaps prudent of the media to not focus on conspiracy theories. Now there is two rebuttals in my mind regarding the same. The first is that while the media steers clear of conspiracy theories (well, most of them anyways, those that remain I think are part of a plan), the fact is that more often than not, there have been such ridiculous truths unearthed in recent times that one wonders what the truth in Indian politics is any more. So my first point is that now I believe more often than not, prevalent rumours regarding our governments and politicians seem to hold more weight than before. Especially in this environment of government unaccountability and misgovernance, the nation is merely a spectator in some big game being played at the highest levels.

The second point is that if the media is so careful to steer clear of conspiracy theories at the political levels, surely that had not stopped them from accepting conspiracy theories at other levels, and all these "human interest" stories that the media churns out are an example of that. Numerous stories have been nothing but a big, pointless, and inexplicable media circus, something to keep the people glued to their television sets. At the political levels, I trust nothing what the media reports, anything that comes with an opinion attached, which is most often the case now. The Radia tapes showed that the media is merely a fiddle for the political class to play with each other, and my trust in them is really low. So my second point is that if most of the Indian media - print and television, wastes no time in cranking up their tabloid expertise at all levels, at the political level, they are only interested in indulging in propaganda and spreading bias. Of course, these are very broad and sweeping generalizations I am presenting here, and I wish I had more proof or examples of what I write, but I am relying more on anecdotal evidence here than anything else. If anybody pays attention to what is going on in the media, they will agree that the Indian media of today has a huge credibility issue.

After the Mumbai blasts (the latest one), lots of newsreel has been spent on who is saying what (mostly from the Government of India, but mindless), what evidences have been found, and what the cops are up to. The good sign is that there are indeed a few leads that police from multiple states are following. There is no mistake in my mind - India is at war, but it is overt and most are unable to see it. Our politicians on the other hand, do not want to act on it because it goes against their interests.

The Government of India started the National Investigation Agency (NIA) post Mumbai blasts so that a national level agency directly under the center could be created that would assist state police in probing terror. As far as I remember, P Chidambaram was really gung-ho about the whole thing, and now that it faces its first crisis, it has to "pull out".

Call me a cynic (and since I am in that state of mind these days), even if India faced the most horrific of wars, our government structure would still not be able to coordinate with each other and put together a unified response. People can say that it is a very exaggerated statement, but I think it depends on conditioning. We just don't seem to have good administrative leadership in this country at the highest level, and there are just too many egos and self-interests for Indians to come together. The reason the NIA pulled out was because it was not getting the support it needed from the Mumbai police. At the same time, the police say that NIA wants to go alone, and it is just not capable of doing so. That India's law and order is in tatters is a statement I keep parroting, and like I said, no matter what happens in the country, I think our security forces will always be deprived of good equipment and training and on an invisible political leash.

Coming back to other things, 9 July was the first Independence Day of Africa's 54th and the world's 194th country, the Republic of South Sudan. One of my buddies in Philadelphia was a South Sudan boy, so he must be pretty happy. Here's to you Mike. From the little I know, South Sudan was a separate land culturally and linguistically different from the more Arab north, but the British (who else?) put them together. It was Mr. Nelson Mandela's birthday yesterday, a great son of Africa. I was reading an article written by a Sudanese teacher how the white President of South Africa when it ended apartheid also received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Mandela, when he led the community, or whatever you want to call the white people, that till then still practiced the most shameful of segregation seen in modern times? So basically the lady was saying that Omar Al Bashir should also be given the prize because even if the country was being broken, he would let it happen, and in fact ensure that it happened peacefully.

Oh, heres something new. Shri Ramchandra Guha writing in the Financial Times about how "India is too corrupt to be a superpower". Well, my initial first thought would be that its not that we are too corrupt, its that we are just not that driven to be any sort of power, least of all the common man/woman who struggles to make ends meet. Just like how you can't preach religion to an empty stomach, so you can't expect the millions of have-nots in the country, in terms of food, education, housing, healthcare, to care even an iota whether India became a 'superpower' or not if they still can't bask in its benefits. So yeah, its the intent. When the top leadership can't think big despite being on top of the political food chain, I don't suppose they can lead the rest to think big too. A few big M&A deals and lots of Bollywood do not make an Indian century.

Goodnight everyone.

July 13, 2011, Wednesday, Three blasts in Mumbai

After more blasts in Mumbai on Wednesday, I am beginning to believe that terror attacks aren't even registering as an important event in this city's psyche any more, which perhaps is not a good thing.

I was at work and about to leave to meet a friend when news first started trickling in of a blast in Dadar. It was through a phone call somebody received from somebody. A quick google search shot up nothing, and some old references of a gas cylinder blast in Dadar. I was hoping that this is what it would be, but as more news started trickling in, I came to know that there are three blasts, and then the online news sources came to life, and televisions went into overdrive with the blasts at Zaveri Bazar, Dadar Kabutarkhana (one of my favorite places in Dadar) and Opera House. 

All plans were cancelled and my immediate worry was to figure out a way to get home. I really did not know how big the attacks would turn out to be, and after 26 November 2008, one would think better systems and networks and measures would be in place to prevent another serial attack on the city, but then, the law and order of a nation run by a government that has given up on governance and whose sole motive now is to be on the back foot deflecting scandals and defending allegations, should be expected to be porous.  

I am still not sure of the final count of the death and injured is, but the number of dead is reported to be around 18-20, with over a 100 injured, and perhaps this is one reason why, despite any terrorist attack being as heinous as the next, this city found it just that much easier to take it in its stride and stand up right after? It is macabre and just wrong to think about it, but yes, our acceptance towards injustice and death of fellow Indians really makes us accept a lot of bad things that continually happen in our nation, situations that can be prevented by a more aware citizenry, a much, much more responsible media than they are today, and well, a simply better functioning government at all levels.

When I first heard of the blasts, I thought at least somebody in the CONgress led UPeeA government will be glad to see the media focus drawn away from their shenanigans. At the same time, what I didn't see was that these blasts seem to be angering the general population even more given the already incompetent and unresponsive government the country has today. Dr. Manmohan Singh has become a ghost who speaks nothing, announces nothing, and God forbid should be have control over the actions of HIS cabinet ministry. The buggers just underwent some cabinet reshuffle, which I suppose is common in governments so as to allow every suckling neta from the coalition to have a chance to sit in the spotlight and make some money while in it, but this time, perhaps it was also to try to present a picture of action. Hmm, whatever, all I know is that economic progress or no economic progress, if this country isn't safe, then we all should probably just start organizing our own neighborhoods and societies and take the law and order situation into our own hands, because the entire system has been hollowed with poor laws and missing intent.

After the 2008 attacks, a minister then, R.R Patil said that such small incidents keep happening in such big cities. Now Rahul Gandhi, the 41 year old bachelor and supposed PM in waiting says that it is not possible to prevent all such attacks. I think Gandhi's missed the point completely. The rest of the world perceives India to be a super soft state, and such attacks only reinforce such a perception, thus emboldening all the people who want to harm the nation. The attitude is wrong, Rahul, the attitude is completely wrong.

Manmohan Singh and Godmother Gandhi paid a visit to Mumbai to cry some crocodile tears and say some strong words such as "we will prevent future attacks", "our hearts are with victims and their families", etc etc, and while they visited the victims in the hospitals, the victims' kin waited outside for these VVIPee's to finish their daily routine of farce. Bastards, bastards, bastards.

There's so many ideas and theories and analysis that I have come across in the past two days that I am not even sure of what to write. Every thing should say that Pakistan is involved, and I am quite amazed at how the word has not been mentioned even once by the Government of India or Government of Maharashtra. P Chidambaram said that "all" terror groups are under investigation, which actually has no leads till date according to the media, and certain media sections have been quick to defend Pakistan when some guest speakers pointed a finger at them. There is this organization called the Indian Mujahideen, who apparently are only around because the government lets them be around because they happen to be Indian Muslims. Ah yes, the only reference from the GoI has been that this should not derail the piss process, I mean peace process with Pakistan. Actually, a few officials have said there is no Paki link to it, so there you go, if they are being so categorical before the investigating agencies have had even an iota of success, then surely they must be right!

Godmother Gandhi's most loyal pet said that at least India is better than Pakistan where the blasts take place every day! Ha ha ha, I am really not sure whether I should laugh, cry or cry with laughter. Another anecdote from TV came when a former top spy chief from India was listing all the things that the UPeeA government did, or didn't do to strengthen law and order in the country, the other guest on the show, CONgress spokesman Abhishek Sanghvi, accusing the former of being a BJP supporter! I think the Government of India is truly going crazy, and this is not a good sign for this country. I fear we may have to keep paying with our blood for voting these ridiculously shameless group of people to run our country for us. Well, back to normal life now and probably wait for some other tragedy to strike this country from within or without.

earth rant.

There were a few thoughts running in my mind about how humankind is ravaging this earth, so before I forget these wondrously negative and retributive thoughts out of my head, I think it will be a good idea for me to put them down here.

When we talk of global warming, resource crunch, loss of forest cover, change of weather patterns, what are we talking about? We talk of how we are shifting the way the planet is functioning. When we use such phrases such as destruction of the eco-system, or extinction of species, or simply how the planet is being destroyed, I think we all mean how we are changing earth the way we know it. This is not a new thought that I am articulating, but I just want to reiterate it again - we are afraid of changing the planet the way we know it. If I look at earth as just an emotionless planet in the vast universe, then what we do is inconsequential, because for all our knowledge, there could be millions of other systems like ours which are being built and destroyed as we speak. One reference that always fascinates me is that of a clock. If the clock was the life of the earth, the history of man is merely the last few seconds, or even the last second, so what happens next second could be any body's guess, and for the earth, it will be just another second! For humankind on the other hand, that next second could be the second when we all just get ahead of ourselves and just destroy our civilization.

I am a believer in the origin of species, so if you believe that we were put on this earth by a higher intelligence, you should probably stop reading this. While I firmly believe in God, I believe God exists in our minds and hearts as an entity that gives us hope when we realize that we have no control of anything around us.

Is the earth missing the pre-historic man? When I say pre-historic, I mean history as today's humankind perceives it. I doubt that the earth does. Does the earth miss the dinosaurs? I highly doubt it. In fact, for all we know, the evangelists could be right and may the dinosaur bones were put on this earth by the devil to misguide us! So perhaps in the future there will be another life form that may or may not be similar to us, may or may not have the same power of thought and abilities, that will be scraping through the rocks and mounds in the earth to look for bones of the current homo sapien. So we will be their dinosaurs!

Yesterday I was taking a few print outs at work and I noticed the pile of waste paper in a box next to the printer. Every day, kilos of paper is discarded the same way, and I wish whenever I look at it that our company is waste conscious enough to diligently recycle all this paper wasted every day. For a company with so many thousands of employees and dozens of locations, one can imagine that the amount of paper discarded daily will be in tonnes, and when you imagine that there are thousands of such organizations around the world with the same paper usage and wastage patterns, then you can well imagine that every day, many million tonnes of paper is simply wasted or discarded. Add to it news print, brochures, paper used in books, notebooks, paper cups, oh, and even toilet paper, the whole unimaginable volume of this paper makes we wonder how in the world are we able to procure the raw material to generate so much paper!

And what will happen when the earth just can't support the production of so much paper? Any company worth its PR harps on how it is trying to save paper, adding little signatures in their employees email id about refraining from printing the email and all that, but I know from my own company that there is absolutely no effort made to create any employee awareness on how to save paper and basically cut down on consumption while at work. A lot of paper and other resources at work is wasted simply because of ignorance. It is quite true that most people don't even realize their habit to litter and create unnecessary waste.

Well, I suppose I have nothing else to say except regurgitate my own belief, that I will wait for this kind of world that we are living in today to run its course and wait for some epochal life style changing events to happen. The sad part, once again is that while so many millions will have lived the entire life cycle of gratuitous consumption, billions will continue to live in poverty and without resources, as the world's food crisis and resources crunch keeps getting more inimical to human survival. But at the same time, I know that what we fear is that we (the modern people in developed countries and the haves in the developing nations) will lose the earth as we know it today, with our levels of consumption and production. That's fine with me, I think, but what I do believe in most certainly is that humankind is simply not capable of destroying the planet, because it is way more capable and smart to survive our onslaught.

We need to get back to the ways of living with the attitude of nature as a friend, and this freakin western philosophy that the earth is something to be tamed and mastered is absolute hogwash. Perhaps the people thousands of years ago worshipped the earth not because they were afraid or anything, but they lived as one with what surrounded them.

Aliens

I think I had written about it a long time ago that this tendency of developed nations to refer to outsiders, especially the emigrants from poorer nations looking to migrate or just work, as aliens was very offensive, and at least in my mind, told me that these developed countries minced no words in letting the poor non-white immigrant know that he/she should consider himself/herself lucky to be given this opportunity to go to their developed, advanced country. In my mind, using the word 'alien' at once establishes the notion that the immigrant is different, in a negative way, from the people of the country he/she is going to. But apparently alien is an actual legal term to describe people who are not of legal status in another country, so I could be just being irrational when I say I find the term highly offensive and condescending.

With the way the economic scenario is changing around the world, and as the third world is rising, it was my sincere hope that this equation would change, as better opportunities arose at home, and basically global trade became more equitable. Having spent so many years in the United States, I suppose I can say I have seen first hand how big an issue illegal Mexican immigration is over there, and when I read about this article in the New York Times this morning about how illegal immigration to the US is trickling down due to better conditions at home in Mexico, it only reinforced my belief that these next two decades could be the decades of change that will make the developed world more irrelevant to the developing world (which constitutes most of the world population by the way).

While many Americans go to great lengths deriding the hordes of Mexicans in their country, they tend to keep quiet when it comes to all these Mexicans tending their gardens or building their homes or serving them their fast food at the drive in. Of course, some states such as Arizona have such an "inspired" leadership that they've given their police unprecedented powers to simply check anybody who they believe is an illegal immigrant. So I am not a white or black person and I happen to be walking around in Arizona, the police have every right to stop me because of the colour of my skin. Those who call it an example of ethnic and racial profiling are correct. According to the article, while strong sentiments, enforcement and border sealing is a factor, there is no denying that there are better opportunities for many Mexicans at home, and especially the younger generation which has access to better education and opportunities.

I think this theme is being repeated in many places, including India where the phrase "brain drain" now seems used so long ago. There are more opportunities here, although not as many in comparison to the size of the population chasing them, but there definitely are. India becomes different from the rest of the world, I feel, because it has a huge population, and no matter what one does, it is simply impossible to create millions of good jobs in a year, despite all the increased production and consumption. Thus while I am all for greater economic development in the third world, it does not mean they should not continue pushing for more equality in global trade, which also includes trade in labour.

Joseph Stiglitz had written in one of his books that when it comes to global trade between the developed and the developing economies, while the developed economies have their manufacturing prowess and can flood the developing nations' markets with their goods, the best export for most developing countries, such as Mexico or India, is their people, and this is where developed nations tie themselves up in knots. I think its fairly obvious for most to see that its very easy for people from developed countries to move around the world, especially if they happen to be from a white developed country, while people such as Indians, Chinese, maybe Latin Americans, are always presented difficulties in traveling, lest they immigrate to that country. Work visas for the third world are especially hard to come by in places such as the United States and western Europe, which is quite unfortunate, and just points to that attitude that you are good enough to sell our products and services to, but just not good enough to work in our country and earn in our currency.

I've always ridiculed the double standards of global trade as it stands today, but have also written about how so many third world nations are finally coming out of the economic shadows of the developed nations. There is greater south-south trade, better management of their resources (now a western oil company simply can't come in and take over an oil well after paying off the local rulers/oil companies of the developing nations are in the fray as well), and I suppose just better awareness towards economic management and development. Thus while the North Americans and the Europeans can continue debating (or pretending to debate) this immigration issue, I think the best thing is what is happening already - third world countries beginning to stand up for themselves.

Metro musings

Among other news, today is the 4th of July, made famous throughout the world by Hollywood as the American Independence Day. Having spent a few of them there, I know the kind of feeling, passion, and revelry they generate, with fireworks, parties, strong words, chest thumping, and the bursting "Proud to be American" echos everywhere.

Been traveling the past week, so didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write something, but there's quite a few things I noticed around me. For one, maybe I have mentioned this already, but the Delhi metro is a wonderful system most of the time, and if it wasn't for that, it would not have been possible for me to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi to Noida and back for 4 days in a row without spending lots of money and time and doing it in the sweltering Delhi heat. I do wish DMRC is planning to expand the system, not just extending the current lines to run farther, but new lines altogether. There was an old map I had come across some years ago of an impression of DMRC's vision for the Delhi metro in 2021, and since we are 10 years away from there, there's plenty of time for the company, and a willing government, to see them in reality. I am not quite sure if I remember whether that plan had new lines, but what that plan did have was a lot of new lines that connected the existing lines at various points, thus creating numerous loops all across the city that connected each of the lines with each other at multiple places.

While technologically and planning wise this seems very good, but we must keep in mind that modern urban technologies are fairly new to our society, and it takes years of training and acquaintance for the general public to know how to use, and more importantly, understand these systems better. The big problem of civic etiquette is also something that takes a long time to build when it is not backed by strict enforcement, which is the norm almost everywhere in India.

A very simple example was when somebody I knew had to take the metro to the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. To do so, they had to hop onto the yellow line and then switch at Kashmiri Gate to the red line, but they found it very difficult to do so, and didn't sound too confident. Thus, even if all the instructions are also written in Hindi along with English, it is still very difficult for many common folk to understand instructions, or simply to navigate through the fairly confusing and bustling junctions, such as Kashmiri Gate and Connaught Place (sorry, Rajiv Chowk, renamed after Mr. Gandhi by the Congress sycophants). While the security at the Delhi Metro is fairly strong and the cops are alert and armed, they also double up as information givers, which is totally fine.

I typed a lot of things here a few minutes ago and all thanks to my awesome luck, lost it all. I was saying that I did find the map of Delhi metro grid on http://www.urbanrail.net/ as they hope will look in 2021, and it will include a new line, which is good.

Ah the sweet anger inside me to see all those words just fade away. I'll type later now. All that I wanted to type about Reliance, Mumbai, the metros in other cities can probably wait now.

Its good to see that other cities will have metros running, but cities like Chennai and Bangalore can certainly do better than have just two lines running in them. I feel cities of their size and scope should have more lines, and just having two lines just makes it more like leaving a political landmark than anything else. Of course countless studies and forecasts are done before a decision is taken, but still, a politician can't be expected to understand most of the economics behind urban transportation. Recently, Jayalalitha was quoted as favoring the monorail in Chennai, simply because it was the DMK which pushed for the metro, and she just wanted to show that she is different. Or at least this is now the story goes.

So I was writing about how Mumbai seems to be in no hurry to get anywhere quickly at least on the infra front. It seems that decisions here take longer than anywhere else in the country, which I am assuming is mainly because its always been such an enterprising city that everybody is fighting hard to corner a piece of the pie for themselves, thus leading to delays due to more wranglings and agreements. The perenniel politician-builder nexus which everybody talks about will always remain there.