Anna-bhai MBBS!

The world is staring to see revolutions in several countries, big and small, violent and non violent. While youth in Egypt rose for their basic rights and overthrew a corrupt regime, rioters in London managed to help themselves with some expensive goodies. India also witnessed uprisings, first by Kashmiris and then by Lokpal supporters.While the first section never really got any support from the people of India, thousands rallied behind Anna. Media declared Kashmiri youth as anti-India while Anna is hailed as the modern Gandhi.

I have no doubt that Anna's intention to bring this country back to track from the ugly hands of corruption which started to threaten the great Indian growth story. Unfortunately we cannot wipe out corruption by targeting top politicians of this country. One filmy slogan said, 'Mera Neta Chor Hai'. But who elected these leaders? Its the same people who are protesting now. Are all politicians corrupt? If that was the case there will not be any difference between India and Pakistan today. People who are shouting slogans against the PM should not forget the fact that he has impeccable integrity and has done great services to this country when he was a finance minister .

The Indian middle class should understand corruption is not just in the top brass of politicians ,its everywhere. We should take initiative and find ways to stop it .How many of us pay proper receipt when a police constable stops us for not using you using helmet.By passing laws nothing will change .We all know what happened with POTA. If you bring LOKPAL on to of everything and give ultimate authority to prosecute anyone, will all issues get resolved ? What if the Lokpal goes corrupt? We will appoint something to monitor Lokpal? Finally we will haveto ask God to intervene in that case. There is no magic solution to the problem, definitely corruption will not end by passing one law. Anna's campaign is just like a Bollywood movie, but I cannot see a happy ending.

Instead of protesting in the streets of Delhi, we should create awareness about corruption throughout India. The people of constituencies which elected the Rajas and Ranis of Indian politics should be educated about the value of votes and the importance of selecting the right candidate. Once the people are able to identify politicians with dubious background and evil intentions, the political will be forced to field candidates who are willing to work for country and not for their own pockets. Needless to say we need tighter control and monitoring of elections. Its very easy to degrade all the politicians of this country and be patriotic, but none of us can deny the fact that we elected them.

We need transparency in government offices and there should be clear cut deadlines for all the offices to action any request from public. We should wipe out middle men who are in and around each and every government office waiting for preys. We require grievance addressing systems in place which can take strict actions if things are not falling in place. We do not require laws to get this done, we need to fine tune the system. Above all this we need to change our own attitude, those who are protesting now should not use bribe as a means to get their work done before others. Anna and other campaigners are focusing on politicians while corruption in the lower end of government is much more than what we can imagine.

We are the largest democracy in the world. It is insane to change this system one fine day. Already there are enough bottlenecks in this country which is slowing development. Who will dare to invest in India if we have a weak government who can't take independent decisions? We need to look at the bigger picture before branding all the elected representatives as corrupt and reject the entire democratic set up. The media who hails the new Gandhi and his second freedom struggle has no relevance in this society as they are least bothered about the consequences which will directly impact a billion people of this country. A man like Gandhi will take birth only once in a million years.

Blind indeed

Lady Justice, the Roman goddess of Justice wears a blindfold in order to indicate that justice is (or should be) meted out objectively, without fear or favor, regardless of identity, money, power, or weakness: blind justice and blind impartiality. But in the Indian context unfortunately, the lady is not just blind, she is deaf as well.

I just can't understand this mockery called as Judiciary in this country. Looking at some of the recent verdicts, i can only say this system is a big joke. First of all why are we taking such a long time to arrive at a decision. We can't convict the grandchildren of the criminal for his offense. Is this because the whole system is outdated, or is it because the politicians and seasoned criminals/gangsters are able to work their way out and buy time (Years and years) fooling the system. At the same time petty criminals and part time robbers are well within the reach of law while big fishes are leading a comfortable life outside.

For killing 25000 people due to sheer negligence, we have given two years for 8 officials of the company. While the biggest culprit who cared a damn for 'indians' is still playing golf and leading a luxurious retirement life. The audit report submitted to the management 2 years prior to the tragedy clearly stated the risks, while the management promptly acted and upgraded their american plant, the indian plant was left like that. I guess the management decision was right when you look at the verdict now. Wonder what could have happened if the same accident occured in their american factory. Warren Anderson would have been hanged long back. Its not just because we do not have an active civil society, we have politicians who have unimaginable greed for money. I am pretty sure some of them would have made millions out of this tragedy while the victims got pathetic compensation. The only mistake bhopal victims did is that they are born in a third world country where price of human life is cheap.

We all know there is a terrorist named kasab who came from Pakistan and killed 100s of people in mumbai. We have seen this in TV, read in papers with pictures. You will get at least a 1000 witnesses against kasab. But still the government is taking years to hang him. Crores of rupees are spent for his security. This money is coming from the tax payers of this country. Is nt this ridiculous. One bullet would have done the job that day itself.

The best place for the rich culprits to hide is hospitals. Satyam Raju has proved that if you are rich and influential, no law can put you in jail as there are so many judges in our country with a price tag attached to their black coat. Seems like the Modis and Tytlers will roam around free till the next civil war.

Masters of Marketing

World has become really competitive these days and unless you market yourself you are never going to succeed. Marketing is an art and marketers follow the key message in Gita ‘end results are important and not the ways to reach them’. Nowadays marketing tactics and advertisements are extremely complicated. Unique and innovative ways of marketing were adopted to generate interest for their products/services.

The marketing department of the movie, “”My name is Khan” has definitely succeeded in generating interest in public through a series of cleverly planned ‘real incidents‘ with the back up of our electronic media. The series was kick started by SRK getting ‘detained’ at an American airport and questioned for an hour or two. Then there was another rumour that SRK’s naked scanned images were taken at the airport and those pics were leaked out to public. SRK has to face all these brutalities because his last name - ‘Khan’. News channels broadcasted these as breaking news! We live in a multi lingual, multi religious country which has innumerable social problems which requires immediate attention. However, this is an era of ‘Paid news’ and the concealed ad campaign of SRK’s movie was given preference. Not surprising at all, as the news channels have stooped down to mere advertisement medium for politicians and bollywood.

The massive ad campaign was to promote 2 parties. One is MNIK the movie and the other is Shiv sena, who is desperately trying to regain its lost fame and loosing their ground to another set of goons – the MNS. SRK and Shiv sena clashed through the media and the following words of exchange and public protest ensured to meet the two objectives of the whole campaign.

1) To brand SRK as a powerful person who stood by his principles and thereby promote his movie MNIK, which basically highlights the racial profiling by west.

2) To show the strength of Sena and to show the world that they still have supporters at the root level who can execute Babasaheb’s orders and thereby proving that no security can stop the sena.

We have enough idiots in our country who wasted their precious time watching the WWF match between SRK and Shiv sena. Shiv sena lived up to their name - what more can one expect from the followers of ‘God of destruction’. SRK managed to create curiosity in public and managed to prevent a huge financial burden for his producer who unfortunately financed a ‘hindi forest gump’, where SRK overacted throughout the movie.

The number of film stars in Twitter and blogs has been on the rise, the major objective is to market their new releases and to get public visibility through the medium. The rise of controversies just before and after the release is also very common nowadays. Similar to SRK – Sena drama, the makers of 3 idiots and Chetan Bhagat fought in public. 3 idiots went on to become a huge hit and the sale of Chetan’s book went up by a significant percentage. Classic example of a win-win situation. No points for guessing the real idiots !!!

The Indian Idoiot Box

When the first time I heard someone referring Television as idiot's box, I thought it was titally baseless. I wouldn't have seen great epics like Ramayana and Mahabharatha without this wonderful equipment. I would have missed Sachin's straight drives and Amitabh's breath taking performances. Times have changed now. DD gave way to innumerable private channels. Capitalistic greed to maximise profits took center stage while quality and content of the programs took a back seat. Channel owners are ready to even kill each other for their share of viewership. There is no question about the enormous reach and influence of visual media especially television on Indian viewers.

However, after watching some of the shows I realized that the ‘Idiot Box’ comment is not completely baseless. The prime time viewers shifted their attention from ‘Surabhi’ to ‘Roadies’. Roadies was a huge hit and it has become the topic of discussion for youth. A reality show which is completely scripted and fake like a WWF wrestling match. The key learning points from the show is – ‘never trust anyone (even your best buddies)’. God himself runs this show by the nick name - Raghu. His words and actions on the show suggest that he is nothing short of a street rowdy. He and the participants of the show mistook arrogance for attitude. Bitching and backstabbing are the key ingredients for this ridiculous show. The creators of the show would not have realized that a significant population of kids also watch this show and today television also plays a part in shaping up their behaviour. According to the show, the mantra of success is ‘being selfish’. However, no country or society will prosper if the individuals think only about themselves completely forgetting the collective interest of the nation or society which they belong to.

Following the success of roadies, so many other reality shows propped up. The basic ingredients are the same – aggression, arrogance and glamour. However, the tag for most disgusting show has gone to ‘Such Ka Samna’. This one has crossed all the limits and the content is indecent to the core. Star Plus must have got its share of viewership and the participants must have got their share of the profit by virtually striping in front of public. Creative freedom doesn’t mean that you can air even adult movies through national channels. There should be some kind of regulation to prevent such shameful, indecent shows. The curiosity of viewers to look in to other’s personal life and the sadistic joy of watching how his wife and kids react to the dark secrets of his life is absolutely disgusting. The viewers of this show needs psychological help.
The so called “creators” of these western rip offs forgot one key point. The culture and values are different for different audiences. This is a place where family values have utmost importance. The family system in India replaces the Social security system of the western countries. Blindly following westernization is not going to help us. Unfortunate part is most of the good things from the western world are conveniently ignored by us. How much ever educated we are, we still can’t follow lane discipline while driving. We care a damn for public property. Even though we are intelligent and creative, we still lag behind because of lack of discipline, which is one thing we should learn from westerners.

Forgot to mention another show, ‘Rakhi Ka Swayamwar’. I could hardly watch it for ten minutes, because I do not have money to buy another TV! Rakhi visiting her potential ‘In-Laws’ and explaining her demands was totally ridiculous and I don’t think even after 100 years no Indian girl will dare to do this. Seems like she is going to marry some NRI soon. But I dont even have a slightest doubt in my mind that this is yet another show where every single dialogue is carefully scripted. The high profile marriage at the end of the show will be a gimmick just to fool the viewers.People who talk crap (like Rakhi, Mallika) have got good market value nowadays, which indicates the degradation of values in Indian society.

There were nation wide protests following Mangalore Pub incident, however no one is bothered about the below incident where a girl is slapped publically. Is it coz Shambhvi deserves to be slapped in public?

Elections 2009 - Ray of hope from Trivandrum.

We are a nation of 1 billion people. We have some of the richest in the world, on the other hand our country is also home to a significant population who live under poverty line. A booming middle class which is ready to take India to new heights and an emerging economy which has the potential to transform India to a developed country. Some of us have even dared to dream of India becoming a super power as America. I will not blame the dreamers, because we were one of the most developed civilization at one point of time. We can find a lot of sucessful Indians who hold key positions in western world. Indira Nooyi, Vikram Pandit, Lakshmi Mittal are specific examples. The cream of our graduates from IIMs and IITs has been lured away by foreign companies. India would have been a much better place, had we been able to prevent this brain drain. Still there is no lack of talent in India. The Tatas and Ambanis showed us that Indian companies can also dream big and can have Global aspirations.

India's dreams can be achieved only through political will. For that we need politicians with vision, and more than that they should be focused on the development of the nation and above all should adopt a honest and transparent approach of governance. Ethics, morality, honesty and integrity are characteristics which we hardly see in any of our netas. India's dreams will remain dreams unless we elect honest candidates who have real passion for the progress of our country. However, there will only be a handful of candidates in that category.

We have two national parties who claim to have nation wide reach and a bunch of regional parties who have no ideology what so ever and who are ready to change ideology and principles and awaiting the right opportunity to back stab major national parties. Some of them have tried to set up a third front also. There is no doubt that the regional parties are becoming stronger and national parties are losing grounds which is a very worrying fact. Clearly the regional parties do not have a national vision. I can't imagine an India led by lalu or mayawati.

Divisive politics and hate speeches have become very common. Varun Gandhi's speech has attracted serious attention. His speech was particularly disturbing because it came from a person who is educated at the London School of Economics. Varun's grand father was a Muslim and his mother is a Sikh. Still he made such a disgusting hate speech just for votes. He is the new opportunistic face in a party which laid its foundation by spreading hatred towards minorities. Young Netas like varun and Raj has taken clues from their seniors and realised that communal remarks and regionalism fetch votes even in modern era. Campaigns like jaago re have been trying hard to attract voters to polling booths. However, even though there is widespread protest against criminalisation of politics, political parties gave tickets to criminals. How can we expect educated urban classes to come forward and vote for criminals and fraudsters.

The list of candidates from Kerala is really encouraging this time. Shashi Tharoor is contesting from Trivandrum. He is one of the most eligible candidates in election-2009. His global experience and knowledge can easily earn him a cabinet post . Going by his track record, he is more than capable of taking Trivandrum to new heights. Bloggers from trivandrum have started campaigning for him through blogs and for the first time in my life, I am going to vote.

Please visit his website and try to support his campaign in whatever way you can. Can he be the ‘Obama of Anandapuri’ and deliver the change we are looking for? My answer is a definite yes!

Baapu returns.....

TV channels celebrated another Indian Victory after Vijay Mallya brought back Baapu's belongings. News channels declared Mallya's win as the show of Indian strength and money power to the world. I always had a feeling that television media has never been able to cover the real issues of the country. They always concentrate on stupid controversies, while real issues went unnoticed.

Gandhiji considered drinking as a social evil which can hinder the progress of our nation. Now Mallya has managed to get his belongings using the money from his liquor business. I can’t see any reason why we should celebrate this; on the other hand we all should be ashamed. Gandhiji's trademark is simplicity, its an irony that his belongings went to someone who is exactly opposite, who lives a luxurious fast paced life.

Otis has approached Government of India to avoid the auction. In return he has asked the government to spend 5% of the GDP for health and sanitation of the poor. I think Gandhiji would have preferred Otis to have his belongings than Mallya. At least he understands what Gandhian principles is all about. Finally Government claimed that they brought the pride possessions through Mallya in order to save their face. However Mallya has rubbished this claim quickly and announced that the government has nothing to do with the auction.

I believe we shouldnt worry too much about his spectacles and other personal belongings. We should pay attention to what he taught us. His ideology of simple life style has great relevance in today's world where people struggle to pay off their credit cards.

The commercial value of Baapu is sky high. Lage Raho Munnabhai, has proved this fact. He still lives in the heart of millions of people around the world. Many think Gandhian principles are difficult to practice now. However, living a simple life has its advantages. It will make us less complex human beings. The mad race behind money is not going to take us anywhere.

Nuns - Innocents Sentenced for Life time imprisonment by the Church.

Dr Sister Jesme's autobiography has been a huge embarrassment for the Church in kerala. I have very high regards for this bold lady who challenged the mighty church by revealing bitter truths. In her book she has narrated even the personal trauma and shame she faced during her days as a nun. Church has been under severe criticism, after few priests were accused of murder of sister Abhaya. This one adds on to the numerous allegations against the church, which always managed to ridicule allegations by its political power and its influence over the mainstream media.

The life of a nun is not an easy one especially inside the huge walls of churches. Most nuns in kerala join the church in their early ages. It may not be their personal choice, most of the time it will be their parents and the family who decide that the girl should go to church and become the bride of jesus.

Imagine the mind state of that girl who will be alienated from her family and asked to live a life which is as good as a life term (even murders come out after 15 years). Will they not have normal feelings and emotions associated with girls of their age group? Who is benefiting by wiping colours off their dreams of life.

The church has a meticulous system to brainwash girls from a very young age and motivate them to become nuns, obviously with the full support of the family. The systemic brainwash might work for some, and they live a life without ambitions
for the rest of their life. But mother nature has created all of us with instincts. Even after decades of brainwashing, the normal human instincts may still prevail. Lesbian tendency among nuns is mentioned in her book,which is not a surprise at
all. This is not just about sexual needs, even nuns wish for love,care and support from someone. Deprived of almost every mode of entertainment, nuns are supposed to live like aliens from some other planet. Isn't this human rights violation? Its
like chopping a bird's wings before it could fly around to see the beauty of this world. How can a progressive society like us support church to deny basic human rights for these sisters. Isn't this talibanisation? what is the difference between the taliban in afpak and one of the highest literate society in India? Where are those human rights activists and feminists who shed tears for Muslim girls suffering in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Are they blind to ignore the sexual assault on nuns by the priests Or is it coz they are not powerful enough to raise their voice against the church? It is
coz Gandhi notes have power to block the even the so called, 'secular' voices, and the church has bundles of them.

I do not believe in superpowers. But if there is a god, he has created all of us with almost the same set of basic emotions, feelings and instincts. Denying the instincts is denial of God. Nuns are advised to live isolated from main stream to concentrate on community initiatives to uplift the society. There are people who have showed the world that family life is not a hindrance for community services. Community services is a mask anyways. The hidden agenda of religious conversions is not a secret any more. Churches get foreign funding (They might have targets to achieve as well!!) which is used to bribe tribal leaders for mass conversions. All in the name of
Jesus! Most of the educational institutions run by church are cash cows. A new business model adopted by Mata Amritanandamayi is actually copied from church. Community services is just a marketing initiative to turn the attention of the public and media.

There are similarities between a nun and a Devadasi. They both are wedded to 'Gods'. Both are exploited by established systems, nuns by churches and devadasis by the priests. Both of them are isolated from main stream. The stupid system of devadasis was stopped by law. Christian missionaries have played active part in eradicating the cruel and inhuman system of Devadasis. But ironically they do not notice that the church is also involved in a similar crime.

Last year there was an mms of a nun from aluva circulated by some lunatics in internet. After media reports church expelled the nun. Media covered it extensively and gave importance to the nun's expulsion. But they missed one important point, who is the culprit? Is that the driver who exploited the lady's love or the nun who gave everything to him trusting his love. According to me, the man has to be pelted with stones. She shouldn't be ashamed of herself, instead she should be proud that she followed her instincts. Heaven is for those who follow instincts as instincts are directly from god which has greater sense than the stupid system laid by his 'middle men'. I hope the society will open its eyes to this heinous system and free those sisters from the iron walls of Church.