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With Omar Abdullah all set to assume the chief ministership of Jammu and Kashmir, it brings me to the topic of young blood in politics. As much as I hate dynasty politics in India (Congress, NC, DMK, Shiv Sena, etc.), I am left wondering if it is a blessing in disguise. As a side note, a recent poll showed Rahul Gandhi to be a favourite choice for the PMship.
In an ideal India, any young person with the vision and passion to serve could rise up the ranks of any political party. But we can all agree that isn’t happening as most parties’ headquarters are increasingly looking like old-age homes. Very few young leaders have impressed me and Omar Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi are certainly not among those. Omar has made quite a few statements he wouldn’t be proud of while Rahul is still doing his assignments of presenting the plight of one village woman every session. Milind Deora seemed sensible after the Mumbai attacks but an unknown politician Kiren Rijiju (there are a few clips of his on youtube making arguments in the parliament) seems to be most impressive (More details in this article here).
In such a situation, I have to make the sad statement that dynasty rule could actually work well for India. If Abhishek Bachchan can learn some acting in so many years, I am sure these blessed sons can learn some things with time !
To end, I leave you with a profound statement from Omar Abdullah recently,
By the evening, the situation appeared to have undergone a change with Farooq deciding to assume power himself to which Omar’s comment was, “Well, I am 38 now, even if my father serves one full term, I will be 44″.
P.S. : I still am of the opinion that dynasty rule is bad for the country, and I am just wondering if it is a boon in the current scenario. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Comsidering Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan’s U-turn on the dog comment directed at NSG martyr Sandeep Unnikrishnan (viz. I did not make the dog remark), I propose the need for added traffic metaphors to address the growing pressures of politics and the increasingly complex characters of our leaders, lest the burden always fall on the phrase U-turn.
Thereby, any statement made apologizing for a movie, painting, dress, book and in general any statement made by Harbhajan Singh, Mallika Sherawat or M.F. Hussain would be called a right turn (Right-wing organizations ! Cool, no ?).
Similarly, any statement made by the Congress before the nuclear deal vote and any statement by the BSP after it, would henceforth be referred to as a left turn.
A tailgating driver would be any statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The car ahead is always assumed to be headed to 10 Janpath.
A red car that started years ago with a left then followed it by a U-turn followed by a right followed by a U-turn followed by a halt and now moving in reverse, would be the CPI(M).
A form of driving where you always follow a Big Bmw would be Amar Singh’s quotes.
A driver in the middle of an infinite desert with just one tree in the whole desert and who still crashes into the tree, that would be a statement by R.R. Patil.
A car that cannot go faster than 5 kmph with a horn bigger than the car, that would be the ageing BALeful tiger.
A saffron car with a steering locked in a right-turn position, causing it to just move around in circles, which they would proudly refer to as the Sudarshan chakra, is the RSS.
The media. They don’t drive, nor are they going to learn or own a car. They would be the nagging wife prodding the driver from the passenger seat. (Bloggers enjoy the ride sitting in the rear, then go home and write about both).
A driver hitherto ignored, who bangs into a huge corporate building and in the process of running away crashes into all people living nearby, cries foul over all onlookers, at the end blames the road for everything, and eventually goes back to being ignored, that would be Mamta Didi.
And lastly.
A crazy driver who rams his car into any vehicle not registered at the local RTO ….
I leave that to you.
Disclaimer : Nothing above is to be assumed to be true. And none of the above characters exist. In fact, considering the hits I have been getting from the netherworld, even you might not exist.
This is exactly what I have been proposing all along. Adopting democratic tactics to protest against injustice.
The MNS leaders and workers finally got their long deserving punishment; watching Deshdrohi, that too at a sub-standard cinema hall in Andheri : Link
I am sure they will think twice before attacking a north Indian in the future !
Thankfully the senseless regional politics in Maharashtra is coming to a close sooner than expected :
No north Indian name for Maharashtrian road.
Wonder how long before they realize that Ram and Krishna are both ‘bhaiyyas’ and turn atheists ?
.. comes from the father of the youth from UP, lynched in a train in Mumbai, who was offered Rs. 2 L as compensation by the Maharashtra government :
Take Rs 20L, give me MNS chief.
To be honest, I woudn’t advocate such a thing too. That would just mean moving further away from a democracy.
A certain M.K. Gandhi had said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. What if the people are already blinded ?
Rajdeep Sardesai writes in an open letter to Raj Thackeray pretty much what it is on everybody’s mind. Hope we get an answer :
When you started your party a few years ago, it had been pitched as a party committed to a “modern” Maharashtra. If that vision still stands, why don’t you take it forward in real terms? Why don’t you, for example, set up vocational courses and technical institutes for young Maharashtrians to make them competitive in the job market? Why not, for that matter, start English-speaking classes for Maharashtrian students to equip them for the demands of the new economy? If cultural identity is such a concern, why not launch a statewide campaign to promote Marathi art, theatre and cinema by financially supporting such ventures? If Mumbai’s collapsing infrastructure worries you, then target the politician-builder nexus first. And isn’t it also time we realized that Mumbai is not Maharashtra, that the long suffering Vidarbha and Marathwada farmer needs urgent attention? Why not use your political and financial muscle to start projects in rural Maharashtra instead of focusing your energies on Mumbai’s bright lights alone? An employment generation scheme in a Jalna or a Gadchiroli may not make the front pages, but it will have far greater value for securing Maharashtra’s future.
Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra!
Methinks the answer is obvious : Because .. it is tougher.
Neither.
I am hoping everyone would have heard about Rahul Raj (and no, he is not Shahrukh Khan’s alter ego).
A youth from Bihar comes in to Mumbai at dawn, holds a bus at ransom in the morning and by noon is history, leaving behing a tale of politics and continued hatred, the end of which is nowhere in sight.
Sadly, almost no one has reacted as a responsible citizen.
The police are yet to disclose details of the incident, which could well be a deciding factor in the argument. Either way, if a passenger’s life was threatened, I would go with the Mumbai police here. They were not netting a butterfly here. This was an armed person they were dealing with.
Maharashtra Home Minister R.R.Patil made the famous ‘bullet for a bullet’ quote. And this, when he was in Sangli with hardly any details about the incident. Wonder why he did not apply his same logic all this time while the MNS was happily rampaging the streets of Mumbai.
Politicians from Bihar, weirdly united and most of whom are hailing Rahul Raj as a martyr, with even lesser details about the incident. Lalu Prasad Yadav calls it a murder and not an encounter, just because the police were not injured.
Mr Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister of India. It would be fair to say that a cute little kitten might scare me more than his words.
Lastly some people of Mumbai, who incidentally, also happen to be citizens of India. Very possibly as an indirect consequence to the recent incidents, a youth from UP was lynched in a train in Mumbai.
Whatever your opnion might be, I think across the board we can atleast agree that the recent incidents have brought out the worst in everyone.
And that terrorists are not born, we make them.
Amidst all the violence, politics and nonsense that generally clutters the life of an average Indian, this is a moment we all need to be proud of. The launch of Chandrayaan-1, which by definition proves that there are more to follow !
Firstly, about the name; I have heard many variations (which includes one friend referring to it as Chandranarayan) but the right pronunciation is चंद्रयान-1 (Courtesy : Wikipedia).
So we are back to the good old times. Back to kids saying they wanted to become an astronaut; technically weird, since this was an unmanned mission (or maybe being a pilot didn’t seem too attractive courtesy Jet Airways).
Among its other minor achievements are a mention by Barack Obama, a discussion in the Ubuntu Forums (where people are learning about India) and of course, a mention in the Stanford Daily here (information by Raghu).
Chandrayaan-1 had a textbook launch (which lead to one wise person at RDB wonder if there was a textbook inside) but there are serious concerns that it might run into some trouble in space very soon :
Image via email from Tushar B.
But to be honest, I am doubly excited about our forthcoming manned mission to the moon, with the hope that we get to vote whom to pack off.
Yes and to follow the rich tradition of our mostly otherwise media, you can send in your wishes to the ISRO team who made all the Indians proud, by writing in the comments section below !! Let’s write to them and boost their morale !
P.S. : You can also send in your good wishes/messages in case your neighbour’s dog gave birth to a litter, your manager was caught cheating on his wife, India’s victory over Australia in the 2001 Kolkata test and any random occasion. Just like our news channels, I will make sure the concerned party reads it, even if it is a dog.
While a lot of bouquets and brickbats have been thrown at Raj Thackeray recently, this is something which stumped even me :
Raj’s act dangerous for Hindutva: Puri seer.
I did not get head or tail of his reasoning. But a smart move to be in the news, considering the media is a sucker for anything related to Raj; including what he ate for dinner last night – chappati, vegetables, fruits and a cup of tea. I am rather disappointed that TOI did not report whether his digestive system processed the food well.
