Why be someone else when you can be you?

Pooja Bedi
30 June 2013, 06:01 AM IST

Our lives are like a train journey.  Imagine it as a black line on a white canvas. There is a starting destination which is birth and the final stop which is death, and in between a bunch of "common to the majority" stations like school, job, marriage, kids, grandchildren along the way. Your friends, family and spouse are the passengers on board your train, your journey is predictable and you most likely will make that your blueprint. However, it's not the black and white road map of the train route, but the incredible colours that you add between every station on the canvas of your life, the little detours you take for adventure between the predetermined stops that gives the entire canvas depth, meaning, originality, and purpose. Unfortunately, there are many that choose to let others paint their canvas or purposefully and purposelessly copy the canvas of others. What a pity! We are given such a glorious life, no one is born with the same fingerprints and yet choose to live a life that is unoriginal and not of their own determination. They allow themselves to be dominated, dictated to, lives their lives only in competition and comparison to the achievement of others, and there are those that blindly ape others be it personality, attitude or hair colour because they are too scared to stand out. There are parents that push their unfilled ambitions onto their kids. It's actually amusing that we worship with such intensity a man-made statue of God, but ignore the incredible uniqueness of being someone who was created by God himself. Revel in your thoughts, your dreams, your ambitions, your relationships, your choices. You are not a robot. No one has your remote control but you. Make your life matter. Make it yours.

I am a 40-year-old woman and I have a eight-year-old daughter. She is always stuck with me and becomes hysterical if I go out of sight. Because of this, I've had to leave my job and stay at home. I also have to drop and pick her up from school and always have to reassure her that I am there for her. This way I don't see my child growing into an independent and responsible adult. Please help!

Either there is a reason she is traumatised at being left alone or she doesn't have anyone else that she shares a close bond with. Perhaps you can sit with a councillor and ensure there is no one that is causing her stress or harm in your absence, and if there is or ever was such a person, that she heals from the trauma through professional therapy. Make sure kids her age come home and play with her. Get her into reading, craft or any other self-play options which will keep her occupied and enthralled. Let her home be a happy space with or without you. Responsibility is all about conditioning so ensure your time spent at home with her educates her in being responsible and independent, be it personal hygiene, self-imposed routines, manners, responsibility towards possessions, helping with household chores, etc.

I am a 21-year-old girl and I broke up with my ex two years back. But we still keep coming back to each other, only to part ways again. I have tried talking it out with him but we both find it difficult to permanently grow apart. Please tell us what to do.

It's very simple! If your prickly issues despite two years of effort have remained unsolved, it's time to move on. Of course it takes effort to move on and bravely walk the tough single path again v/s it being so easy and comfortable to slip into old shoes and travel familiar roads. But you're just 21 and you have time, exuberance and optimism on your side. The only way you will move on is if you keep the space empty for the right guy to walk into.

My son is 12-year-old and he has a constant habit of lying. With time I have realised that he lies even about the smallest things. This trait of his worries me a lot. I have scolded him on occasions, but he still continues doing the same. Kindly help. 

Parents don't realise that they themselves set the wrong example most of the time. They tell a crying child they are coming back in two minutes and disappear for hours. They make up numerous "bribes"  to keep a child happy for the moment but which they never deliver. So first ensure that your home environment is "lie free" and that the right value systems are in place. Also, when he does tell the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to digest, tell him you appreciate his honesty. Sometimes people don't tell the truth because they are scared to do so. Children respond to praise better than shouting. Praise him when he is honest. Praise honest people and express your admiration for them when in conversation with adults and he is listening. Make a chart with every family member's name on it and accord gold stars for every truth told. Let the weekly winner get a surprise treat or gift. Let him win the first week, but don't let him win every week, make him work towards it.

I scored a first division in my college exams but my best friend got a third division. Now, she's behaving very oddly with me and often snubs me in front of my friends. How should I tell her to mind her behaviour?

If she's your best friend, it should be easy for you to talk openly and honestly with her. Don't put your assumptions on the table, but instead tell her she matters to you and that you are sensing a distance being created and don't want the gap to widen. Remind her of all the fun, crazy, sensitive, deep moments you have shared and say such a bond should be lifelong and that she should share whatever bothers her about you, openly, because true friendship is about love and communication. Give her a tight hug, tell her you love her and let her make the next move.

Editor's note: Do you have a question for Pooja Bedi? Post it here. Your question may be chosen by her for an answer.

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Say no to domestic abuse

Vinita Dawra Nangia
30 June 2013, 08:53 AM IST

Women must not stay silent about domestic violence; think of the legacy you are leaving your children

"Mom, what then is the difference between Meena (our part-time help) and Nigella Lawson?" asked my shocked son when he heard that the celebrity chef had been physically abused by her husband Charles Saatchi in full public view at a London restaurant. The unlikely comparison jolted me while I struggled to erase mental images of the panic-stricken eyes of the superbly confident, sensual and ever-smiling Nigella, as her husband grabbed her throat.

There are very few women I try to emulate, but Nigella is certainly someone I try to live up to whenever in the kitchen. With her warm looks, sensuous honeyed tones, her sheer love of food and cooking, her frank confessions and wicked indulgences, she takes cooking away from the realm of drudgery into sheer sensual pleasure. When you cook Nigella-like, you feel like the empress of the kitchen.

Coming back to Meena, she had limped into the house some days ago after a two-day break, and burst into tears. It shook me to learn that her husband had beaten her mercilessly with a cane over some minor matter. What made it worse was that despite my entreaties, she would neither allow me to intervene, nor involve the police. "Let me give him this chance," she said firmly. "He has promised not to strike me again."

Famous last words of all abusers. Wonder if multibillionaire art collector Saatchi tells wife Nigella the same before he reaches out to throttle or hit her every time? For, that's the pattern all abusers follow — abuse, hit, apologise, hit again! And Nigella's response seems to reveal she was not a stranger to abuse. Witnesses spoke of how the world celebrity chef tried to pacify Saatchi, kept a hand on his wrist and even kissed his cheek in between the verbal and physical onslaught. Wonder if my illiterate, doesn'tknow-any-better Meena does the same? At least, Meena has the excuse of illiteracy and poverty on her side.

But as we all know, it's not just the poor who hit their women. Celebrity singer Rihanna has publicly spoken of being physically abused by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown; Pamela Anderson had husband drummer Tommy Lee jailed on charges of domestic violence; Tina Turner was violently abused by husband Ike Turner; Mariah Carey has spoken of being subjected to mental and emotional abuse, and Madonna has also been subjected to violence by Sean Penn. But these are women who openly spoke of the violence and even got partners arrested and shamed for the same!

Back home, the iconic Zeenat Aman was in an abusive relationship first with actor Sanjay Khan, and later with husband Mazhar Khan. Former Miss Universe Yukta Mookhey was in an abusive marriage as was TV actor Shweta Tiwari. Rahul Mahajan's ex and present wives, Shweta Singh and Dimpy Ganguli respectively, have both accused him of being abusive.
What makes a man abusive towards women? And why do women tolerate it? For men, it is all about power and control. Researchers have said that alcohol and drugs are not necessarily the precipitants of abuse. Batterers are people seething with frustration who have probably been brought up in an environment that uses violence to solve problems. If they feel they are losing out on the power equation, they hit out in frustration in an attempt to keep the woman subjugated.

Most men who indulge in domestic violence have either suffered or seen the same in their childhood homes. Similarly, women who bear the torture quietly have either seen or suffered abuse at their childhood homes. It is reported that Nigella and her brother were subjected to domestic abuse by their mother. Victims suffer loss of self-esteem and convince themselves that the batterer loves them passionately. These women look out desperately for one word of love thrown their way, something the batterer keeps doing off and on in line with his pattern of abuse.

Statistics for domestic abuse are difficult to unravel in India because the fear of social stigma keeps most women from reporting abuse. Still, the National Family Health Survey records that nationally 8 per cent of married women in India have been subjected to sexual v i o - lence, 31 per cent to physical abuse and 10 per cent to severe violence.

Shamina Shafiq, Member, National Commission for Women, says, "I would say easily 70 to 80 per cent Indian women are subjected to some form of domestic violence — physical, emotional or psychological. A surprising new trend is children forcing their mothers to report domestic abuse. The Domestic Violence Act 2005 is amazing. But is it being implemented? The Act requires an independent protection officer in each district, but none of the state governments have implemented this. The Act also decrees that each district have a special shelter home, but again, implementation is weak. So, where does an abused woman go? Her best bet is still the local NGO and social workers. If she goes to the police, most of the times she isn't taken seriously, as domestic abuse is taken as something normal."

If you or anyone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, remember

Recognise abuse. Domestic abuse, as per the Domestic Violence Act, includes actual abuse or threat of abuse that is physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic.

Say No. Speak up. Or it will become a pattern. You have to raise your voice instantly.

Understand that you have rights along with responsibilities and duties. The Act assures you the right to secure housing in the shared household, whether or not you have any title rights to it.

Under the Act, the court can pass protection orders that prevent the abuser from committing or threatening any violence.

Think about the message you are giving your children by accepting abuse. Teach your sons equality of sexes and a sense of fairness and justice; tell your daughters about their rights and make them financially self-reliant.

Raise your voice against domestic abuse not just in your own house, but also that of your neighbours, friends and even strangers.

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Aakar Patel blows the lid off Narendra Modi’s “strong governance” hype….

Prashant Panday
30 June 2013, 01:21 PM IST

A few weeks back, Manohar Parrikar, the Goa CM and visible Modi backer, offered an impossible explanation on why Modi failed to control the mobs during the post-Godhra riots. Back then in 2002, Modi was a newcomer to governance apparently; he had just taken over as CM. He thus did not have a grip on the state machinery, he said. Well, in the background of a different piece, Aakar Patel yesterday recalls a natural disaster wich took place in 2006 to show how Modi mishandled the situation even then. In doing so, he throws Parrikar's theory out the window.

Aakar refers to the 2006 floods in Surat. I am reproducing a few parts of his passage which was printed in The Mint yesterday:

"In August 2006, Surat was flooded by the release of water from an upstream dam. A report on the Unicef website describes the state of the city: 3.5 million people, including women and children in Surat, were marooned on Monday by the swirling waters of the Tapi river, which flows in the middle of Surat city. There was no drinking water, no food, no milk, no electricity and no telephones".

He continues "There was also no state…..My parents lived in Surat, by the edge of the river, and their phone was dead. There was no transport going into Surat…..There was no access to the city and I spent the night outside. The next morning I swam and waded my way to the bridge on the Tapi just across from where our house was"

"For the next three days, every day, I came and stood by the end of the bridge hoping to be able to aget across by there was no means to do so. There was nobody from the government around. On the fifth day, as the water went down of its own, I made my way and met my parents walking the other way. They had been on their terrace without food and water all this time"

And then he takes the jab "This was remember in the middle of Surat, the second largest city of Gujarat". Further "In that year, 2006, Narendra Modi was himself Gujarat's minister of finance, home, industries, the giant irrigation projects of Narmada and Kalpsar, mines and minerals, energy, ports petrochemicals, administration, besides others. Now he has also taken on the task of saving north India from the disaster" (!). Continuing "I have no problem watching him strutting around Uttarakhand spewing his gospel of micro-management and pretending his touch fixes everything"….and then "I wonder if he remembers his performance in Surat".

Though Aakar's piece was on a different subject titled "How we respond to the pain of others" in which he basically focuses on how painless we Indians can be in dealing with others (in the context of how so many people extorted money from hassled victims), he narrates this story towards the end to bust the pompous claims that Modi is wont to making.

When Parrikar gave that explanation for Modi's handling of the riots, I thought to myself: How strange, for Modi's claim to fame (before becoming CM) was his good organizational abilities. In his biography on Modi, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay writes this "Modi proved his mettle while doing risky underground work during the 1975-77 Emergency, often travelling in disguise and on a motorcycle. Seniors in RSS soon realized his excellent organisational skills and analytical mind." (reproduced from Business-Standard.com). Mukhopadhyay also writes that Modi was credited with the win that Modi landed the BJP in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation elections in 1986. If anything, he was well versed with the administration when he took over the state. The post-Godhra riots did not even require Modi to do anything. All he had to do was let the police do their job. If that had happened, the casualties would have been in the hundreds, not thousands, and the attacks would not have been so muslim focused as they were. Modi was hyper-active, and fully in control, not the other way. Besides, this was not the sole incident which makes us think of Modi the way we do. The spate of encounter killings in his state, spread over a longer period of time, tells us that he was the key driver of many of these activities, not just a poor administrator who was still to come to grips with his administrative machinery.

But even if we were to believe Parrikar, what about 2006? By 2006, Modi had been CM for 5 years. Surely in five years, he had become as good an administrator as he claims to be now? Surely, he could have rescued millions of stranded people a little faster, deployed the state machinery a little more effectively, and in short provided better governance in the face of tragedy and challenge? The Surat disaster was small fry compared to the Uttarakhand one, and yet he mishandled it. The Center did a much better job eventually in deploying all available resources, rescuing people, air dropping food packets and medicines etc. It took a week to control a vastly higher order disaster in which thousands even died. And in a much more difficult terrain than Surat. Yet Modi had the audacity to play with the sentiments of the people with his Rambo-like rescue act. Pathetic.

Like his development hype (for which he has earned the #feku tag!), Modi's governance hype is all just that….hype. Had he been so good in governance, his state's HDI indicators would not have been so pathetic. He would have appointed a Lok Ayukta in his state as soon as the position fell vacant. He wouldn't have messed with the RTI set-up the way he has done. Modi has usurped all the success of his state, creating an illusion that he is responsible for its success, forgetting (or wanting us to forget) that most development in Gujarat pre-dates him by decades. Modi is a good CM, but he is hardly the development and governance poster boy he is made out to be.

The real truth is that Modi is as much a feku on governance as he is on development matters. His Rambo act in Uttarakhand has left a very bad taste in the mouths of even his most ardent supporters. Besides, his refusal to apologize for 2002, and to make amends in a tangible manner, cannot be explained away by the likes of Parrikar….

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EC should listen to Gopinath Munde…..not disqualify him

Prashant Panday
29 June 2013, 06:30 PM IST

Gopinath Munde, senior leader of the BJP in Maharashtra made a rather candid admission the other day in Mumbai. He said that he had spent Rs 8 crores four years back on his LS election. The Election Commission is now starting an enquiry to establish if this statement was actually made by him. It will disqualify him if it finds he really said all that. Rather than disqualifying him, the EC would serve the country better if it listened to him and took a pragmatic view at the point he made. It would help clean politics up, and reduce the scourge of corruption.

The EC allows a ridiculously low spend of Rs 40 lacs per LS seat. Rs 40 lacs? The EC's got to be kidding right? 40 lacs wouldn't get even be enough for a low-key brand marketing campaign, spread over a short period of time. Election campaigns take place over an elongated period of time, and are far more intense. The competitive intensity in most LS seats is far higher than what most brand marketers face; and if 40 lacs is inadequate for brand marketing, surely its inadequate for elections right?

That's the bitter truth that the EC doesn't want to acknowledge. It has drawn this ridiculous line and it wants politicians to tow it. So politicians do that – only officially of course. In reality, they spend far far more than that – Rs 8 crores as Munde said. The moment they do that, they have become some sort of criminals, who should be disqualified. Their spends become branded illegal. Further, this leads to instantaneous generation of black money, as illegal spends can only be justified by illegal generation. The sourcing of the funds goes underground. This is the starting point of corruption in India. It is estimated that politicians spend a combined of Rs 1 lac crores every five years for their LS and assembly elections. If 90% of this spend is beyond what the EC allows, then Rs 90,000 crores of illegal money has to be generated every five years. To facilitate this, a parallel banking system (parallel to the RBI) has come about in the country. This parallel system is what is under attack from civil society activists. But all of them only attack the symptoms of the malaise; none wants to go after the root cause of the problem, which is this bizarre EC specified election-spend limit. Such large spends are not possible to generate very quickly, and so large "chit funds" of various hues and shapes have come about (SEBI/SC is hounding the biggest of them these days).

The biggest generators of these illegal sums are of course "land banks" of all forms. They are called "real estate" in the urban context of housing and commercial properties, and cities like Mumbai and Delhi become the biggest generators of this type of black money. They take the form of "mines" in the context of coal and iron ore mining. And now, if the CAG is to be believed, then our politicians have become even more innovative and started making money off "virtual" landbanks – airwaves/spectrum (2G, S-band etc) etc. We've seen alleged scams in mining/2G over the last few years. The only reason why a full scale real estate scam hasn't broken out yet is because all politicians (of all parties) are in on it, and they have agreed to a code amongst themselves (the "Omerta" code) to split the booty rather than to croak on each other.

The EC has to recognize these ground realities. But the EC wants to fool itself and continue with some cocky figure set in a bygone era. Rather than being pragmatic, it is happy to put a blindfold on itself. It's this unwillingness to address the elephant in the room that corruption has risen so much in the country. Along with encouraging legal contributions to political parties, it is essential that we also encourage the declaration of the correct spends. The EC should get confidence from studying what happened when we reduced our Income Tax rates. Declarations improved; and black money generation from tax evasion reduced significantly.

Why should there be any shame if large amounts are spent on elections? We are a democracy and everyone knows that in a democracy, politicians need to undertake extensive "people contact programs" which can cost a lot of money. No one complains about nearly a billion dollars being spent by the two US Presidential candidates because those monies were collected (and spent) legally. Imagine if there was an arbitrary limit of, say, $25 million imposed on each candidate there. All the legal monies would turn illegal in no time! That's effectively what the EC is guilty of doing here.

Wrong laws and policies are the one of the major reasons for corruption in India. Wrong laws such as the 25-year age requirement for consuming hard liquor. It's almost impossible to identify who a 25-year old is (in contrast, it is possible to identify an 18 year old) and this law almost encourages a youngsters to "pay and sway". Wrong laws on FSI (floor space index) make builders do illegal things (build non-existent flower beds for instance!) and allows politicians to access the booty so generated. Wrong traffic laws (speed limit of 50 Kmph on the Bandra Worli sea link for instance) make people bribe policemen. Wrong laws are not made accidentally in India. They are made intentionally. So as to help unscrupulous elements make money. And fund the politicians. We need practical laws to remove corruption…..and it's a good time for the EC to make a start.

The real truth is that we should pay heed to what Munde said; and make amends in the spend limits. We do need limits, so that it doesn't become a purely money game. Having practical limits will make election spends legal. And reduce election-related corruption…..

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Tips to select the right branch of engineering

Ajit Varwandkar
29 June 2013, 06:47 PM IST

 

The two most prominent questions bewildering parents & engineering aspirant children these days are:

                         1. Which college?

                         2. Which branch?

Welcome to the admission season; in addition to summers, winter & rains, we in India have to acclimatize with this additional season. In this climate one get's to savour enticing advertisements from various colleges imparting professional education. Since long, engineering has been the most preferred & "rest assured" choice for a professional career. It has been time and again proved that engineers are highly versatile when it comes to identifying employment. We have seen engineers getting into multifarious career ventures like creating a milk revolution, telecom revolution or may be becoming a politician, an author, a cricketer or even a magician.

Getting an engineering degree was once like a dream achieved, today it is no more a lucrative profession to pursue. The story beyond engineering college is not very encouraging these days because jobs do not come automatically to the fresh pass out engineers. A very important question to be answered is the reason why are these many unemployable engineers churned out year on year?

Opportunities definitely follow those students who select the right academic slot. Choices are the hinges of destiny, said Pythagorus. Especially when one is on cross roads of career and the decision taken today decides the course of future life.  A parent visited me last week and wanted career counseling for their child. Father is a reputed builder and desperately wanted his son to join his business. "Sir please guide my son to become a Civil Engineer". It was a close ended request. Father had not given any alternates to his son. On the first place I had doubts if the young lad even had an aptitude for engineering, leave aside civil engineering.  The kid confessed, he wanted to get into computer science engineering but his pop was pushing the professional need down his throat. In spite of all my counseling efforts, I am afraid; the boy might have to digest the course of civil engineering education.  

Mechanical, Mechatronics, EEE, Electrical, Computer Science, IT or something else?; there are hundred plus varieties of engineering branches and sub branches available in the prospectus to select from. Deciding upon the right engineering branch is too tricky for both students and their parents. "It is just like medicines; every composition has some value and is helpful to cure some or the other illness but this happens only when the doctor reads the symptoms rightly and prescribe the right medicine. Likewise all engineering branches lead to success - what is required is to have the right match."  The need is to choose the branch as per the interest, aptitude and ability of the student. Selecting a branch of engineering also depends on the students career planning. It is must that students should be able to evaluate their inherent personality traits and match it against those which may be the mandatory determinants for success in any particular branch of engineering.

Here are a few tips to wisely select the right branch of engineering :

1. The big dilemma: Branch or College?

My take: both are important, branch as well as the college and you have to be really fortunate to be the one to get both. Nevertheless in a situation where one has to make a choice, I suggest the students to first weigh the options available with them and research the credentials of the institute thoroughly. Study the college websites and ensure the basics of accreditation etc to be in place. You have all the rights to ask for these details. Review the past performance of the institute in terms of placements, teaching faculty and infrastructure. Even if the institute which comes your way might not be as rated as the top notch institutions, I would still suggest giving more numbers to the branch of your choice. Faculties keep moving from one college to another and down the list institutes keep moving up in order if the management's vision is right.

2. Stick to your interest

Many children get compelled either by parents or by peers to select some particular branch of engineering. All such students should take into cognizance the fact that future scope would be worthwhile only when you have the desired aptitude to work in the particular field. The fact remains that every branch brings about decent set of opportunities. However if you end up selecting a branch only on the basis of presumed job prospects, irrespective of your interest,  it might not lead you anywhere.

3. Look beyond four years

Engineering degree is not the end of journey for most of the students. A lot many students prepare for post graduation either in engineering or administration or management. It would be wise to plan for future and weigh the options of higher education, coaching etc available in the city where the institute is located. Students should try to understand the life after graduation thoroughly. Every branch of engineering terminates into a specific job role. Before selecting a branch of engineering students should try and meet as many engineering professionals as possible and understand their lifestyle and career prospects. This will give them better clarity about the profession and enable them to take the right decision.

FINAL WORD :

All branches of engineering have the potential to deliver a great future to the student. More than selection of the institute it is the selection of the right branch which is critical. Before finalizing on any institute a student should necessarily be satisfied with the institution's accreditation status. Understand & analyse your aptitude, interest & skills and apply these details to select the right branch of engineering. Where ever required, do not hesitate to take professional help to select the right branch and the right institute.

Happy Engineering to you.

Connect with me on Twitter : Ajit Varwandkar

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Why Modi’s rescue act backfired, and why it needn’t have

Anand Soondas
29 June 2013, 07:39 PM IST

On June 22, as Narendra Modi held a meeting in Dehradun's Hotel Madhuban with top BJP leaders and bureaucrats from Gujarat regarding the crisis in Uttarakhand, a party worker, clearly impressed by the relief-and-rescue systems the chief minister had put in place, wanted to talk about it with me. He wasn't even offering me a story. He was perhaps only hoping that I would be interested enough to write about it.

"Boss, what I have seen here is exceptional," the man, Uttarakhand's BJP spokesman Anil Biluni, told me. He was working so closely with Modi perhaps for the first time and was overwhelmed. It was a crowded room in the hotel where the conversation took place – leaders from the state, bureaucrats, security officers were milling around. Everyone had something to say. Modi was next door, still huddled with his people, brainstorming. It was about 8.30 pm.

"Ok," I said, finally. "Tell me about it." Biluni spoke of the crack rescue team Modi had got together to get Gujaratis out of Uttarakhand. In the group were five IAS, one IPS, one IFS and two GAS (Gujarat Administrative Service) officers. Two DSPs and five police inspectors had also come along. They were all personally coordinating efforts and reporting directly to Modi. The Gujarat team had already para-dropped a couple of medical teams in some of the worst-affected places and set up camps across flood-hit Uttarakhand. Prominent BJP workers at the village and panchayat levels were dealing unhindered with members of the rescue committee, telling them where food, shelter and medicines were needed.

"See," Biluni excitedly went on, "around 80 Toyota Innovas and 25 buses have been requisitioned to ferry Gujaratis to safer places in Dehradun. There are four Boeings on standby. I think in the past four days we have helped send home 15,000 Gujaratis.''

The number struck me. "Did you say 15,000?" Biluni answered in the affirmative and said that's the number those on the field had given him. It is entirely possible that we have helped extend support in terms of reaching food, transport, first aid, even some money, to 15,000 of them, he said, quite earnest. "There were more than 1 lakh pilgrims from Gujarat when the tragedy happened starting June 15."

Close to 70,000 stranded people had been evacuated by the armed forces by then; many, held up at less dangerous places, had found their way back on their own. It seemed feasible that 15,000 had been given succour by Modi's team.

The next day, when TOI carried a story on its front page that `Rambo' Modi had rescued 15,000 Gujaratis (the headline, given by a well-meaning but enthusiastic desk hand, brought sharper attention to the piece), it created a flutter that almost swamped everything else that was being written from Uttarakhand. In the rush of things – I filed the story at around 10.30 pm, late by our deadline standards – we made one crucial mistake. We failed to put the figure of 15,000 in single quotes. And because Biluni was quoted in the story, we took it for granted that the number would obviously be attributed to him.

In any case, the point of the story was to talk about Modi's by now familiar micro-management of things and, two, to hint at the fact that here was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate looking out for fellow Gujaratis, still trapped by his parochialism.

All hell broke loose and the heavens shook. There were frenzied debates on TV, online participation and a slew of agonized editorials. The BJP, happy till two days after the story appeared, suddenly froze. What was it doing talking about the rescue of Gujaratis as the country was headed for general polls and its man from Gujarat nurtured hopes of becoming the PM? Party president Rajnath Singh suddenly waded into the debate and said he didn't know where the contentious figure had come from.

I knew about the storm the story had unleashed but was still writing from Uttarakhand. That was when Prashant Jha from The Hindu called me to talk about the article. In another front page write-up, he mentioned the fact, quoting me, that unlike what Rajnath announced, the story had indeed come from the BJP. That set off another round of requests for interviews from papers and magazines regarding the Modi story.

In hindsight, it would have served the BJP better had it owned up to the story. From all accounts, Modi was indeed doing a good job in Uttarakhand. All that the party's spokespersons needed to say as rejoinder was that with such confusion all around the numbers – 15,000 – could have gone awry a bit on the higher side. That would have taken nothing away from the story. As a senior party leader later said, "It is a fact that thousands have been helped by the Gujarat government. And nowhere are we saying that Modi flew the choppers himself. We are just saying he extended all help that he could to thousands of people."

Madhu Kishwar a few days later wrote a lead edit piece in The Economic Times, headlined 'In Defence of Rambo', and said that the Gujarat CM's rescue efforts in Uttarakhand was really not aimed at publicity, nor was it a gimmick. She said: "Gujarat today has a fighting-fit bureaucracy because it was enabled to develop expertise, team spirit and deliver results under the most adverse circumstances. The Gujarat Disaster Management Authority (GDMA) has become a thoroughly professional institution capable of responding to natural or man-made disasters. It has a 24×7 monitoring system and well-publicised helpline numbers well known to Gujaratis — both in the country and abroad... That is why the first response of Gujaratis anywhere in the world is to contact the chief minister's office if they are caught in a calamity." 

She went on to say: "Also, consider this. Modi arrived in Delhi late 17th night for a meeting with the Planning Commission on 18th when news of cloudburst and landslides was telecast on TV. He held an emergency meeting to take stock of the situation since he knew that thousands of Gujaratis are likely to be among the Chardham pilgrims. Right away, a camp office was opened at Gujarat Bhavan and the Resident Commissioner's team in Delhi was made responsible for coordinating with Gujarati pilgrims. On the 18th morning, Modi called Dr Pranav Pandya of the All World Gayatri Parivar to provide space and infrastructure in his Shanti Kunj campus for the relief centre proposed to be set up by the Gujarat government. He chose this campus because of his close knowledge of, and rapport with, this Gandhian institution that can house and feed thousands of people at a short notice. On the 18th evening itself, a set of computers with internet connections, telephone lines, television sets and all other paraphernalia required for Gujarat government's relief operation were set up. Therefore, when a team of Gujarat government IAS, IPS and IFS officers came, they could get going within minutes of reaching Shanti Kunj... Team Gujarat had two officers from Uttarakhand — Assistant Director General of Police Bisht and Forest Service officer SC Pant — who had close knowledge of the terrain to guide both the stranded pilgrims as well as rescue teams on the safest possible routes to take…When Modi landed in Dehradun, Team Gujarat was already in control. Far from attacking the state government, he offered all possible help…officers were provided phone numbers of BJP functionaries of all 190 blocks in Uttarakhand and vice versa... The Congress party is understandably upset because its chief minister has proved a disaster, its party machinery is in disarray, Congress Sewa Dal workers are nowhere in sight, Rahul Gandhi's Youth Brigade is clueless even in routine situations, leave alone know how to face a crisis like the Uttarakhand deluge. That is the reality of the Uttarakhand relief operation led by Narendra Modi."

There was also a preposterous insinuation that the Modi story was "fed" by his "public relations agency, an American outfit called Apco Worldwide. In 2007, Apco was hired, ostensibly to boost the Vibrant Gujarat summits, but to actually burnish Modi's image, for $25,000 a month". The fact is that it happened at a more organic level, the way it happens when reporters are on the ground and begin speaking to the people they trust. Sitting in Delhi, away from the spot and burdened by ideology, columnists quite often lose objectivity or don't care too much for it. A reporter, provided his integrity is intact, can spot a 'plant' a mile away in the first year of his career. 

So that's that about the Modi story. That it came from one of the BJP's leaders; that, to be fair to Biluni, he did not try to hardsell it; that in the mad, late night scramble to write the story we missed directly attributing it to the source or putting the said number in quotes; that the party made things worse by pretending they had no idea where all this was coming from; that instead of doing its bit to make Modi look like a hero they unwittingly turned him into the butt of jokes; that in such a charged political atmosphere, what with Modi's increasing focus on New Delhi, the story acquired wings and dimensions of its own – like the Innovas with helicopter rotors.

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Raj Jain, Politics’ Fall Guy

TK Arun
28 June 2013, 11:44 AM IST

So long as Indian democracy is funded by the proceeds of corruption , business will stay dirty

Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die — the maxim spelt glory in the military context. It spells wastage of talent, delay, jaw-grinding , hair-tearing frustration and loss in the context of doing business in India. Ask Raj Jain, who quit as CEO of Bharti-Walmart , a company that is caught between the unstoppable pressure of a US law that bars corrupt acts by American companies and the unyielding wall of corruption in India, which lets no man pass without losing his virtue. It is time India's corporate leaders woke up to the need to reason why, and not just keep on doing what the corrupt system wants them to.

Raj Jain is this week's story. Last week, the story was about executives of edible oil major Bunge. Its internal audit found that the purchase of land by the company was not squeaky clean. Of course, for those who take the 60/40 split for granted, that 60% of the payment would be in unaccounted-for cash and the rest by cheque, Bunge's executives are victims , not perpetrators, of corruption . But they had to quit.

Cannon to the Right

India ranks 132 in the World Bank's ranking of 185 countries in terms of ease of doing business. India ranks below Nepal, Bangladesh, the Maldives , Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Is it the case that Indians just do not know how to reform administrative procedure to make things hassle-free and fast? That sort of an explanation might hold for some nations relatively new to social complexity. 
But in India, just the opposite is true. We know precisely how to make things simple. So we arrange things exactly the opposite, with the express aim of collecting rent at every hurdle. The greater the number of hurdles, the greater the booty.

To get routine things done, you pay speed money. To prevent being victimised, you pay protection money . To get policy formulated that will allow your business to function and is also socially benign, you pay through your nose.

Now, these are things that you pay for, although these should have happened on their own, because instituting them is part of the legitimate business of governance. But in India , the wheels of governance will turn only with a certain amount of grease that you have to supply.

Cannon to the Left

Then there is the money paid to bend policy to suit you. For this, you have to be big and you need to pay big. Nor are bribes the only basic instinct of those wielding power that the businessman has to pander to. Moving up or down a rank in "ease of doing business" entails much torture of the flesh and the spirit. How much more of this should Indian, leave alone foreign , business endure?

Fortunately, this last variety of crony capitalism is likely to go, and soon, thanks to a variety of developments . One, the Right to Information Act, enacted in 2005, has brought new, unprecedented levels of transparency to the working of the government . Two, a profusion of watchdog bodies, activist groups and assorted media, made possible by the growth of communications and information technology, keeps track of every aspect of the working of the government. Three, a section of Indians have prospered without owing anything to purchased favours and resent being the victims of corruption and are vocally indignant. And four, various institutions of the state , such as the judiciary and the Comptroller and Auditor General, have turned activist. While they have gone overboard in some cases, and grossly failed to appreciate policy propriety, the net effect of such activism has been to make it difficult to bend rules to play favourites.

Why so Much Noise?

But routine, widespread corruption remains. For this to go, one has to address the root problem. And that is the failure of Indian democracy to institute transparent funding.

The highest income reported by the Congress for any year over 2004-11 was in 2008-09 : . 496 crore. The BJP reported its highest income that year as well: . 220 crore. These figures represent tiny fractions of these parties' actual income and expenditure.

Democracy is expensive. Running a political party costs money, even without elections. National parties easily run up expenses that total many thousand crore rupees. They make this money essentially in three ways: they loot the exchequer, extort from the public and sell patronage. Individual politicians do this, corner most of the proceeds and pass on a fraction as party funds.

They cannot do this without collusion by civil servants, who get suborned . Many of them turn corrupt as well. And the system loses all accountability . This is what explains retail corruption in India. Corruption is systemic, needed to fund Indian democracy , and not opportunistic as in most other countries.

The solution is to institute transparent funding of politics. Business must fund parties openly, not covertly , off its books. Parties must declare their expenditure at every locality, that must be contested and finalised and aggregated. And they must show source of income.

And companies and businessmen must take the lead — to replace military valour with business sense.

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Kerry home message

Anoop Kohli
28 June 2013, 11:52 AM IST

Had it not been the Mother of all tragedies, and  the daily heart-breaking news from the Kedarnath shrine of rescues, and the challenges of more to come, the coverage of the US Secretary of State's visit, perhaps would still have been kept away from normal daily exposure and comment.

The visit of Mr Kerry (once a presidential candidate himself) is too broad based in agenda to define the core purpose. Therefore the core purpose is to have a working understanding on some crucial issues to be taken up later during vice-president Joe Biden's visit to India in July, finally followed by Prime Minster Man Mohanji's almost mandatory annual visit to Washington. This is either clubbed to the UN General Assembly, or a few weeks prior.

For all that has been spoken at various conclaves, discussed with the Foreign Minister Salman Khursheed, there is an unmistakable lull in political drama that had reached boiling point in the main opposition party. Surely, the extent to which a democratic US would legitimately like to decide the politico-economic leadership it would like to support in future, is a message that has trickled to the undergarments, and may be beginning to show! No more political discussions or intellectual battles on the media turf. If you want to bite your piece of cake there are conditions. If you want to have it too, well those conditions too can be worked out. I mark this lull beyond a mere coincidence of this visit.

Unmistakably, and probably connected to the phenomenon described above, there is a flurry of activities in India inc. The gloomy discussions of an unprecedented collapse of the rupee is being chided away by some NRI money coming to the rescue to the realty sector, maybe other sectors too. The drop in the Sensex is being linked to no fault of economic policy, but to a withdrawal of stimulus to the US economy, that indirectly affects India and the subsequent shift out of FIIs. IT majors as Infosys, Tech Mahindra, are back to revamp. I hope the Pharma too shows competence and solidarity, for the real battle lies there! Bad news sans the immediate demonstrative panic this country is used to, cannot be set aside in the final analysis of the variables.

The discussion on Mr Snowden was softly taken up with the External Affairs Minister. If there was a snoop on the electronic communications' confidentiality, the matter does not directly require clarifications being offered to India, for we are no conscious keepers in such matters, and our own record is still not on record. Chances are crucial government transactions may have been traced, and some honorable and key game changers might have come under the scanner, because the US is presently extremely sensitive to any unaccounted or piled –up money anywhere, fearing that it may reach extremists via the known underworld channels. The sudden visa fee hike from an otherwise seasoned player as the UK, may have been a veiled alarm that some future strategies that might have been advertently exposed need not lose their contractual sanctity. The present discovery of an Indian gene from Surat in the monarchy of the erstwhile Empire is a work of diligence at its best! One gene I suppose is more than enough, or tap a common jokes on 'Surtis' form the Gujaratis about those who have inherited a pair of dominant Surti genes. "khe po che" is perhaps some sort of coded abbreviation. The somewhat ambivalent news is that the real breed to an extent got wiped out in the undecided "plague " that struck the town two decades ago.

The serious part of the matter, either as an outcome of Indian protests, or part of a pre-thought agenda, is the Indian involvement in containing Taliban, and whatever be the unruly part of Afghanistan, after the 2014 US troop withdrawal. From what was initially a martial slogan of "smoking them out of their holes", has suddenly turned into a diplomatic round table, where the only united group shall be the Taliban leadership, with the age-old discontent between the two neighbors taking yet another dimension. Besides, India has no first-hand experience either in the formation of the Taliban, nor does the organization in principle have an anti-India agenda. The animosity is perhaps comparable to similar attacks in Spain, 7/7 in the UK.

If the background so be, let the Taliban be well rehabilitated, even more than the US soldier, if it prevents further bloodshed in one single treaty. Once a group of people acquire a brand name and an agenda, you do not leave them without striking off the labels, and zeroing the agenda that brought on a 10yr+ war. Nazism, Swastika, even Mein Kopf as books of a certain philosophy were also banned. No-one talks about a horrid chapter in human history, and Germany and Japan are innovative global players. The theme is not to rake up old ideologies, but to get along with the economic realities.

There has been talk of the "good" and the "bad" Taliban for a while. One never knew that it may lead to such abject diplomatic surrender. Why can't the outfits be dissolved with full honors as a worthy enemy if that be the complexity of engagement. But to leave an agenda and to continue to recognize an outfit defined as the most unwanted by a section of the world leadership, is to call for increasing mayhem. It may require good rehabitlitation, compensations, but to leave them alone may presently escalate the animosity between two neighboring countries, and can have a backlash anywhere across the globe.

We saw unresolved crucial issues when the Imperial power wound up after WWII. Is history repeating itself to mere convenience to leave people in the lurch and be at the mercy of others to defend and survive.

I sincerely hope that at the moment it is political arm-twisting for further economic agendas to be pushed in at desired rates. That still makes sense. Another way is to take up  the matter of rehabilitation, dissolving or relocating at the UN General Assembly. To do it at your own level with sincere and binding intentions has generally worked out better.
Shake hands with the Taliban, but by all means wash away any animosity or destructive agendas if they began to nurture them over time. It should be the responsibility of those who engaged them either way. That is the only way out if you at the same time are deeply concerned about nuclear weapons sprouting in every other country, while the world is heads towards a state of environment and economic doom!

The message has to reach, and I am sure the wise who run this world are aware, but just to put in an irresistible couplet of the Master of Urdu poetry, Ghalib:
"Lo ho chaley hum bhi naamawar ke saath–saath,
 Ya Ilahi, apna khat khud pahunchayen kya?"
( I have decided to accompany the postman,
O God! What a time that I have to personally deliver my post).

21.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

272: The 2-tier strategy to get there

Minhaz Merchant
28 June 2013, 02:53 PM IST

On two recent programmes – NDTV and TimesNow – I was consistently asked this question: but where are the allies? The debates were on the NDA's departing allies – the JD(U) principally – and how it made L.K. Advani's dissenting plea for an "inclusive" Prime Ministerial candidate (himself?) imperative rather than a polarizing one (Narendra Modi?) 

In a thoughtful op-ed in the Indian Express on June 27, Prof. Ashutosh Varshney argues persuasively (Doing the Modi math) that only a "broad anti-Congress alliance" can take the NDA past 272 seats in the 2014 general election.  

Prof Varshney is right when he says "the NDA was a coalition of 13-17 parties (rising to over 20 after the 1998 elections)" that helped the BJP-led NDA form the government 15 years ago. He's right as well in identifying the 1998 general election as the one closest to 2014 in terms of political atmospherics. 

Then, as now, voters were dissatisfied with several years of Congress-led or -supported governments from 1991 to 1998. Following L.K. Advani's rath yatra and the Babri demolition, polarization had set in. 

But Prof Varshney misses a few key points. 

The increase in the BJP's voteshare, as Prof Varshney points out, from 18.80% in 2009 to around 24-25% needed to win around 190 seats in 2014 means the BJP must raise national voteshare by 5-6%.

Now consider the chart below:

	Congress		BJP
	Voteshare%	Seats	Voteshare%	Seats
1998	25.82	141	25.59	182
1999	28.30	114	23.75	182
2004	26.53	145	22.16	138
2009	28.55	206	18.80	116

The BJP's voteshare fell from 22.16% (2004) to 18.80% (2009) when Advani was declared the Prime Ministerial candidate. It would be very brave to assume that, aged 86 in 2014, his candidature could significantly increase the party's voteshare. 

There are three ways in which national voteshare can rise: one, strong anti-incumbency; two, a strong Prime Ministerial candidate; three, allies. 

The first condition – anti-incumbency – exists. According to three recent opinion polls, the Congress is unlikely to get much more than 110 seats on its own and will probably lose around 3% national voteshare at the very least – down from 28.55% (2009) to around 25%, a level it last hit in 1998. Some of this lost voteshare will go to regional parties, some to the BJP. 

The second condition now kicks in – a strong Prime Ministerial candidate. As Prof Varshney says, "In principle, therefore, the possibilities of a huge Modi uplift cannot be ruled out."  

How huge? Around 3-4% is necessary to add to the slice the BJP will get from the Congress's lost anti-incumbency voteshare. With Advani as the BJP's PM candidate, that "leadership bump" could be negligible. 

Turn now to the third condition – allies. These are the 13 pre-poll allies the BJP had in 1998 (with the number of seats they won in brackets): 

Shiv Sena (6), SAD (8), Haryana Vikas Party (1), Janata (1), Mizo National Front (0), TDP-Lakshmi Parvathy (0), MDMK (3), Lok Shakti (3), PMK (4), TMC (7), BJD (9), Samata (12), and AIADMK (18). 

The total: 72 seats. With the BJP's 182 seats, NDA-1 thus had 254 seats in the Lok Sabha and attracted 7 more allies after the elections to climb past 272 (before being upended by Jayalalithaa and returning stronger in 1999). 

Today, the BJP has 4 allies (Shiv Sena, SAD, HJC and the Janata Party) with a total of around 20 seats. AIADMK (possibly 30 in 2014), TRS (12), AGP (3) and independents (10) are its likely post-poll allies. That totals 75 pre- and post-poll allies. 

Clearly, the BJP needs 195+ seats on its own to form NDA-3 and draw in more post-poll allies for stability. 

In 1996, a crucial election year which Prof Varshney has not fully analysed, the BJP with virtually no allies won 161 seats with just 20.29% national voteshare. With four pre-poll allies today, strong anti-incumbency and decisive leadership, the BJP should approach its target of 195+ seats by using a 2-tiered zonal strategy to the 35 states and union territories. 

In the first tier – on which the campaign must place the greatest focus – lie 12 states across 4 zones (North – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana); West – Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa; Central – Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh; South – Karnataka). 

In the second tier lie smaller states like Himachal, Uttarakhand, Assam and J&K (where the BJP can increase seats with focused campaigning) as well as states where the party is largely absent – West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and parts of the North-East. 

The target: Tier 1: 175 seats. Tier 2: 20. Total: 195. Voteshare: 24-25%. Upside: a larger wave once ambiguity over the party's PM candidate is settled. 

How will the two-tier zonal strategy deliver the numbers? In part 2, coming soon.

Follow @minhazmerchant on twitter

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A navigation guide for you in New Digital Age

John Cheeran
27 June 2013, 11:24 AM IST

Can you keep your privacy online? With the US National Security Agency's Prism programme snooping on social media networks to collect data, you have reasons to be highly sceptical. People who are not on Google, Facebook and Yahoo and not using smartphones are becoming a minority across the world. The digital age in which we are living has become an uncertain place.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Google, and Jared Cohen, director, Google Ideas, warn us about the consequences of going online in a brilliant book The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business (Published by Hachette in India, Rs 650).

Five billion more people are poised to come online. By 2025, the majority of the world's population will, in one generation, have gone from having virtually no access to unfiltered information to accessing all of the world's information through a device that fits in the palm of the hand.

If the current pace of technological innovation is maintained, most of the projected eight billion people on Earth will be online, write Schmidt and Cohen.

The authors raise an important question-- will the digital empowerment of individuals result in a safer world, or a more dangerous one? They don't have the answers but try to chart out the scenario that may unfold before us.

Any stuff you keep online is vulnerable. Identity will be the most valuable commodity for citizens in the future. How to protect it? There is no delete button in digital world. Isn't that a frightening piece of knowledge?

WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange believes in the dictum of 'information wants to be free.' Free-information activists say the absence of a delete button ultimately strengthens humanity's progress toward greater equality, productivity and self-determination.

But the absence of a delete button also presents challenges.

Schmidt and Cohen do not address whether secrecy and privacy are the same. As an individual you have a right to privacy, but do you have a right to secrecy? Public interest should be the key to unlock this question.

The authors caution us that if we are on the web, we are publishing and we run the risk of becoming public figures—it's only a question of how many people are paying attention, and why. You are always under surveillance in the digital world.

Security and privacy are a shared responsibility between companies, users and the institutions, write Schmidt and Cohen. They admit that companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook are expected to safeguard data, prevent their systems from being hacked into and provide the most effective tools for users to maximize control of their privacy and security.

But they also make it clear that it is up to users to leverage these tools. "Each day you choose not to utilize them, you will experience some loss of privacy and security as the data keeps piling up." The option to delete data is largely an illusion.

The irony is that privacy is in danger but we don't even get our basic information right, the kind of information no one has withheld from us. Take the case of former railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, as an example. Did we know about the kind of environment in which Bansal was operating as a politician?

Schmidt and Cohen, tech evangelists themselves, say technology is neutral but people are not. They, however, hope that the balance of power between citizens and their governments will depend on how much surveillance equipment a government is able to buy, sustain and operate. "Genuinely democratic states may struggle to deal with the loss of privacy and control that the data revolution enables, but as a result they will have more empowered citizens, better politicians and stronger social contracts. Unfortunately, the majority of the states in the world are either not democratic or democratic in name only, and the relative impact of connectivity—both positive and negative – for citizens in those countries will be far greater than elsewhere," they write.

The authors point out, rightfully, that there is a canyon dividing people who understand technology and people charged with addressing the world's toughest geopolitical issues, and no one has built a bridge. They advocate collaboration between the tech industry, the public sector and civil society.

Schmidt and Cohen predict that in the Digital Age, the role of mainstream media will primarily become one of an aggregator, custodian and verifier, a credibility filter that sifts through the data and highlights what is and is not worth reading, understanding and trusting.

"A disaggregated, mutually anonymous news gathering system would not be difficult to build or maintain and by encrypting the personal details of journalists (as well as their editors) and storing their reporting in remote servers, those who stand to lose as a more independent press emerges will become increasingly immobilized," write Schmidt and Cohen.

But let us remember that quite often it is journalists themselves who are digging their credibility grave by bartering their independence and judgment for a few freebies.

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What do you do for a friend?

Indrani Bagchi
27 June 2013, 11:27 AM IST

What did you make of John Kerry's whirlwind run-through of the India-US strategic dialogue? "Well, we didn't expect much, so we were not disappointed" runs the dominant response in this city.

On paper the bilateral relationship is almost universal in its reach. Innovation, space, health, clean energy, defense, counter-terrorism, you name it, we're supposedly talking to the Americans about it. Of course, a decade ago we were still feeling our way through the NSSP, father of the nuclear deal. In the past decade, we have gone through bruising negotiations on really fundamental issues that divided us, and won, which seemed to indicate both countries were getting on a different plane.

We're back to being a low performance relationship and that's a bad thing. Part of the responsibility is New Delhi's. Manmohan Singh appeared to lose energy after the heavy lifting of the nuclear deal. He piloted a disastrous nuclear liability law through parliament at a time when the general mood was to punish every foreign company. The result is even Indian nuclear suppliers are being frozen out, not to speak of foreign suppliers. Its not just the US, even France and Russia have objected to the law. The government, devoid of legislative and political equity, cannot modify it now.

The US too has moved from the extensive vision of the Bush years to becoming a transactional power under Obama. In his last lunch meeting with Manmohan Singh, Bush said to him, "We did the nuclear deal not merely because US companies would get the contracts. We did it because it was the right thing to do." Obama did not believe in such kind of investment. In fact, under the Obama administration, the rhetoric has never matched reality. The nuclear deal took three years, the next steps took five, largely because of US-induced delays.

What we have now is ludicrous. Manmohan Singh bemoans protectionism in the US, US companies are complaining about India's barriers to market access. These companies used to be India's best friends with the US administration. In the past few years the Indian government has alienated Indian companies, why should we be surprised foreign companies are no longer BFF?

Possibly the only worthwhile conversation at this point is the 'pol-mil' dialogue on defense technology that NSA Shivshankar Menon is holding with Ash Carter. Menon has to steer the defense-strategic relationship from a buyer-seller one to one that is more equitable specially if the US is to become India's primary defense partner.

"We are not in a drift, we're in danger of a rift," said keen analysts of the India-US account. Therefore its important both sides look for the next big idea to save this relationship.

Here are two areas where we will remain on opposing sides of the argument, so its best to take these off the table. Despite India's sentiments on the matter, Obama has committed to arming the Syrian rebels, which will inflame the region in an orgy of violence and sectarian war that will inevitably spill over into India. In their haste to turn off the lights in Afghanistan, the US, will find another way to talk to the Taliban to bring them on board in Kabul, with a ruinous deal with Pakistan. The Doha talks have been stymied for the present because once again the US-Pakistan deal overreached, but they will resume in another form, in another place.

India won't like what's happening, but we can only object, having no better solutions. We are marginal because we are not a security player.

Look closer home. India should push an investment treaty with the US, using it to straighten out its internal investment strategies and launch the next round of economic reforms. That's what China did when it joined WTO and Japan's Abe is doing by joining TTP.

Strategically, let's look at the Indo-Pacific as the theatre for the next big deal. Notwithstanding China's categorisation of the Xi-Obama meeting at a "New Type of Great Power Relationship", India and the US have the greatest strategic alignments there. Let's not get spooked by all this talk of G-2 either __ the bald truth is "rebalancing" is a China-hedge strategy. This is good for us, we should be a part of it.

India's relations with China are best when the India-US account thrives __ ask anyone who manages these relationships. If we aim to be a net provider of security between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, we need to make choices about partners, technologies and furtures. That's India's best bet for managing our strategic autonomy.

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BJP's bid to turn Muslim friendly!

Akhilesh Kumar Singh
27 June 2013, 04:48 PM IST

Their 17 years' bonhomie "rests in peace" notwithstanding Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has made a visible impact on BJP leaders. The BJP leadership seems heeding to Kumar's much hyped comment about the "inclusive politics" with no reservations about caste and creed and space for topi (skullcap) as well as tika. "You will have to wear topi and also sport the tika as country's politics has no space for reservations of any nature," Kumar had said during JD (U) rally in New Delhi few months ago. His comment was apparently directed towards his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi, who had in 2011, refused to wear the skullcap offered by a Muslim cleric in a state-sponsored "Sadbhavna" rally.

Party's proposed "Vision Document" about alleged atrocity against Muslim community during the UPA regime is part of the same strategy. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been assigned to draft it. And, for that document, the party sees Rajasthan with immense possibility as the state has adequate fodder to highlight how the Muslim community was at the receiving end during the four years of Congress government. Gopalgarh police firing had witnessed death of 10 Muslims. Other than that, more than 25 communal riots took place in the state in the past four years.

Unlike other parts of the country, a reasonable chunk of Muslims have often supported BJP candidates in Rajasthan. Party's national president Rajnath Singh was recently in Jaipur to attend a seminar on minority affairs. Singh urged the Muslim community to ignore the Godhra communal clash and move on. He also pledged to help the community if they had any complaints of highhandedness against them in the BJP-ruled states. Singh apparently was eyeing the fragile Muslim voters, who are reportedly exploring options other than Congress, at least in Rajasthan.

Ever since Modi has been elevated as chief of the party's poll panel, BJP think-tank has been looking at its repercussions mainly in the states with sizeable presence of Muslim population, who are traditionally "anti-BJP" voters. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the main areas of concern for the party as Muslim population in the two states is almost 17 to 19 per cent. They have always voted against the BJP and party fears stronger polarization in light of Modi as their mascot. While polarization of Muslim voters seems imminent, the same can't be expected from the other castes and communities since "Hindu" as a vote-bank is still a far cry. BJP captains foresee bleak possibility of repeating the nineties' "Hindu wave", not even after projecting Modi as prime minister candidate.

Party insiders believe that the BJP's benevolence towards Muslim will also help win over the regional parties, who have hitherto maintained equidistance from the BJP as well as the Congress. In next few months, BJP with support of the RSS has planned several "solidarity" programs in which party will highlight Gujarat government's Muslim welfare schemes too.

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One year on, women reap a bitter harvest in Egypt

Saumya Pant
25 June 2013, 10:29 PM IST

Much like their male counterparts, young women were part of the tour de force of the uprising that gave rise to the forces that created the Arab Spring.

Women stood not only in defiance of brutal dictatorships, but also cultural norms that many times encouraged, and in some cases enforced, women's exclusion from the public sphere.

Yet, the euphoria following Mubarak's fall on February 11, 2011, is waning after disturbing reports began to surface. Many women who had gathered in Tahrir Square to commemorate the first international women's day following the revolution reported that they were sexually assaulted. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now every demonstration in Tahrir – and they happen weekly – seethes with likely sexual violence. At least 18 incidents of assaults – women being groped, violated, their clothes ripped off – were recorded there on January 25, during a demonstration to celebrate the beginning of the anti-Mubarak protests. Now women enter the square with trepidation.

Some male members of the Shura Council, Egypt's upper house of parliament, said in a session that the incidents of January 25 should teach women to stay away from dangerous places, and suggested segregation during political gatherings.

Their remarks came after a popular preacher known as Abu Islam said in an online video that female protesters want to be raped. "Those women have no shame, no fear and not even femininity," he said. "They are devils."

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality said in a report published on May 23 that 99.3% of Egyptian women have experienced some form of sexual violence.

Nearly 50% of women reported more harassment after the revolution; 44% said the level of harassment remained the same before and after the revolution. In the months that followed the revolution, women protesters were arrested, subjected to virginity tests, intimidation, and trial by military tribunals.

Egypt's general directorate of moral police at the ministry of interior reported that 9,468 cases of harassment, 329 sexual assaults, and 112 cases of rape took place in 2012. Needless to say, the figures released by the government are smaller than the actual ones because many women do not report cases of harassment to the police for fear of shame.

In many cases, when women report these attacks, much like some members of our establishment in India, the officials responded by saying that women invited the attacks by participating in public protests and other such 'unfeminine' activities.

The situation hit an all-time low when Reda Saleh Al al-Hefnawi, a legislator member of the Muslim Brotherhood, asked at a parliamentary meeting on the issue, "How do they ask the ministry of interior to protect a woman when she stands among men?"

Is this the kind of protection that the state is promising to civilians of this new Egypt?

The new leadership, which played an instrumental role in the writing of the new constitution, raised certain red flags. First of all, women were excluded from the committee that formulated amendments to the constitution that were approved on March 19. The committee's proposals included denying women the chance to run for the presidency. There are no reservations for women in Egypt's parliament and a recent reshuffle of ministerial positions has reduced the number of women ministers from three to just one.

Following calls from women's organizations and activists, the Egyptian prime minister Hisham Kandil met with women's representatives on March 22 and stressed the importance of women's participation in politics and public life. Unfortunately, Kandil's words were mere lip service to the cause of women's rights and Egypt has seen no concrete proposals for reform.

Article 36 of the new constitution is another stumbling block for women's rights with its precarious definition of 'equality'. It reads, "the state is committed to taking all constitutional and executive measures to ensure equality of women with men in all walks of political, cultural, economic and social life", though it stresses, "without violation of the rules of Islamic jurisprudence". This leaves ample room for discriminatory interpretations.

In many cases, Muslim women are confronted with discriminatory laws that some seek to impose in the name of Islam. Who gets to define these principles? The same set of Islamic principles are interpreted variously: while the Islamic Republic of Pakistan allows a woman to be the head of state and government, Saudi Arabia bans women from driving without a male chaperon.

One of the articles in Egypt's constitution says that the state will provide all necessary services for mothers and children for free and will ensure a balance between the woman's family responsibilities and work in society. Does this mean that women can be professionals only after fulfilling their traditional role as homemakers?

Another lacuna is the constitution is that the minimum age of marriage has not been defined. This will only perpetuate the malaise of child marriages, in a country where girls, sometimes as young as seven, are married to older, richer men.

As the Mohamed Morsi-led government looks to complete one year as Egypt's first freely elected party on June 30, it sure has some difficult questions to answer. Though President Morsi's party has a majority of the votes, it is a moot point whether a party which frails in its duty towards one half of its people can truly bring to fruition the vision of the revolutionaries who risked their all in that famous Arab Spring. From the looks of it women seem to have reaped a bitter harvest.

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Can we kill cancer before it kills us?

Shuvendu Sen
26 June 2013, 10:22 AM IST

According to literature, the first documented cases of cancer came from the Egyptian civilization. Egyptians are also credited for capturing time in their clepsydra, the hourglass predecessor. But like time that floated timeless before water clocks, so did cancer…firm in their presence way before the first human inhaled the first breath.

It's almost like darkness without which light cannot exist. Same with our human body. Or so it seems. Normal and abnormal, physiology and pathology, sequence and mutation…they all walk hand in hand, one outsmarting the other. Cancer thus, as a subsequence of genetic or epigenetic alterations was always waiting to happen from the very moment a gene was created.  

Thus to call cancer a disease is under-respecting the beast that hides beneath the veneer.  This is not diabetes that can be blood tested. This is not high blood pressure that can be numbered. We are dealing with a happening that is at once subtle and coarse. We are dealing with the stealthiest of the snakes that does not give a hint to the air before the final fatal flaunt.

From foods, smoke, alcohol, sun, radiation, asbestos, virus, family, the list of mutagenic factors are impossibly long, various and still growing. Any one of them can hit us at anytime. Some of us will escape in our sojourn, some will stumble.

Make no mistake; scientists have been outstanding in response, hurling defiance every time a new challenge was thrown in. From chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation, surgery, to the present craze of gene targeted therapy, we are throwing all that we have. Yet the beast rages, unbridled, changing colors and moods at random.

I like statistics. They never lie. They look at you without a smile, without a tear shed, and without a muscle twitched. So here's a snapshot of what cancer looks like in our modern world:

In 2008 approximately 12.7 million cancers were diagnosed and 7.6 million people died of cancer worldwide. Cancers as a group account for approximately 13% of all deaths each year with the most common being: lung cancer (1.4 million deaths), stomach cancer (740,000 deaths), liver cancer (700,000 deaths), colorectal cancer (610,000 deaths), and breast cancer (460,000 deaths). This makes invasive cancer the leading cause of death in the developed world and the second leading cause of death in the developing world^. Over half of cases occur in the developing world. In the United States, cancer outranks cardiovascular disease as the number one cause of death under the age of 85.

This brings us to our final verdict.

Caution and only caution remains the single best cure of cancer. To combat terrorism, the New York Subways warn 'if you see something, say something.' Same here. If anything bothers you, or comes across to you as out of the norm, report to us. This addiction of self denial has to go. The icy complacency that cancer cannot knock on my door needs to be dropped.  Worse, the temptation to self treat, the desire to Google and find a cure…nothing can be more naive and dangerous.

The American Cancer Society is explicit in its warnings. Whether it's a sore that does not heal, a bleeding that will not cease, a new lump in the breast or testis, an unusual difficulty in swallowing, a change in bowel habits, a mole that looks different, a cough or a headache or a fever that wouldn't go, or a plain and simple bone chewing fatigue… seek a doctor.

The gracious truth that emerges from all these is that when detected young, cancer can always be arrested. So nip it in the bud before it sprouts. We can beat this beast…together.

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Now a proposal from the right-wingers to rename Malabar Hills Ramnagari!

Prashant Panday
26 June 2013, 10:30 AM IST

The right-wing lobby, this time led by the MNS, but otherwise dominated by the BJP/Shiv Sena, has had another brainwave. It wants to rename Malabar Hills – probably one of India's proudest business addresses, perhaps the very epitome, the very nerve-center, of India's booming economy – as Ramnagari. Renaming places and cities is common in India. Usually, old British names are replaced with names of freedom fighters or leaders. But Malabar is not even a British word (it's a region in Kerala). And replacing it with something so religiously orthodox, so overtly Hindu is typical of right-wing politics.

But such "basal" thinking is what right-wing parties have traditionally been known for. Right-wingers (read: BJP and its ilk) base their political strategy on the most basic of human values, the most private of them all: religion. And they do so brazenly. After bringing down the Babri Masjid, the BJP never apologized; nor offer to re-build it (quite the contrary – it persists with its demand to build a Hindu temple right there). Nor did Narendra Modi, the BJP's extreme right-winger, offer to re-build the hundreds of mosques destroyed by his cohorts during the post-Godhra riots. In fact, he found the thought "unconstitutional" (something the High Court of Gujarat disagreed with). Yet the same Modi merrily offered to re-build the floods-destroyed temple of Kedarnath. This is typical of right-winger politics of religion.

Religious bigotism is what the right-wing parties like the BJP find most appealing for attracting votes. So the ludicrous claim of Modi personally (it's now called "micromanagement", a term no doubt coined by his US publicist, APCO) ferrying 15K Gujaratis (all Hindus, no doubt!) from the devastated terrain of Badrinath-Kedarnath to safety (do read Abheek Barman's piece – "Modi's Himalayan miracle" – in today's TOI: its an extremely well written piece on the mathematical impossibility of this act!). I wont be surprised if soon there are T-Shirts distributed in Gujarat schools picturing Narendra Modi as Hanuman, lifting the whole of the affected Himalayan range out of danger! Then of course, there is this other crazy thing of BJP politicians in Karnataka spending crores (of tax payers' monies no doubt) on "pujas" to appease the rain gods when they failed to appear. Then again, all BJP leaders touch the feet of all types of Hindu godmen; even the pseudos. And oh, not to forget, the "mards" (for that's what the orthodox Hindu man is called) of the party go about blaming the dresses liberal women wear for rapes. And oh, one more: suggesting that unmarried women mustn't be allowed to carry mobile phones or wear jeans! This is what  right-wing politics is all about.

But renaming Malabar Hills as Ramnagari? Why "Ram"nagari? Well, apparently, there is some story that Ram stopped there for a bit before proceeding towards Lanka to rescue Sita. Super! But isn't it a little bizarre for India's most progressive part to be named something so orthodox? Besides, haven't the times moved on? And isn't the area a typical Mumbai melting pot with lacs of non-Hindus staying there as well? But then that's the whole point of right-wing politics. The acts have to pinch the "others"; others who have a lesser claim on India than the Hindus. Ramachandra Guha's article on Golwalkar, the 2^nd "sarsanghchalak" of the RSS, in The Hindu ("The Guru of Hate" available at http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-guha281106.htm) was an eye-opener on classic RSS thinking. Golwalkar believed that the biggest internal threat India faced was that of Muslims (the 2^nd unsurprisingly: Christians). Well, Golvalkar would be happy today if he was alive. His followers, his descendents, his organization's brethren outfits like the BJP, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini, Vishwa Hindu Parishad are all sticking to the job cut out for them by him.

In yet another example of "basal" politics, the Shiv Sena this time, supported amply by its ally, the BJP (how many parties today call the BJP an ally?) wants to convert the iconic Race Course of Mumbai (some 225 acres of it) into a Thackeray memorial. They are not saying this openly yet. In public, they are saying that they want to make it a public garden. Why should so much land in land-starved Mumbai be reserved for the rich and the famous? This is why I call it basal politics. They forget that India is a heterogeneous country, with the rich and poor co-existing. Being rich is not a crime in India. Besides, the Race Course symbolizes what India wants to be. Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, and when global business folks come visiting, it's good for us to be able to flaunt this rather modern aspect of Mumbai. But no, in a lowest-common-denominator kind of politics, the BJP-Shiv Sena run BMC wants to erode this symbol of India's modernity. The idea of ridding Mumbai of its showpiece is repulsive enough; secretly aspiring to make it a Thackeray memorial is despicable.

The real truth is that right-wing politics (BJP-Shiv Sena-MNS variety) is regressive and unfit for a progressive nation like India. India needs to become socially and culturally liberal in line with its economic progress. Right wing parties are an anachronism in that sense. It's time they changed their thinking…..because new India's thinking does not align with their's.

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Do Muslim girls want to marry at 16?

John Cheeran
25 June 2013, 01:20 PM IST

Getting married still remains a big deal in India. Kerala is no exception. These days a few Malayalis do not marry at all, but prefer to be in live-in relationships. But this is not about them.

It is about how girls are still pushed into marriage in Kerala much before they attain the age of 18, among Kerala's Muslims, who constitute more than 25% of the state's population. These are nothing but child marriages.

The Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006, unambiguously defines a "child as a person who, if a male, has not completed 21 years of age, and if a female, has not completed 18 years of age."

A circular issued on June 14, 2013, by Local Self Government (LSG) department of the government of Kerala has sought to reassure unconvinced registrars across the state that Muslim marriages involving a male aged less than 21 and a female aged less than 18 is legal.

The circular violates provisions in Special Marriage Act 1954. As per this Act, if a marriage has to be solemnized, the man has to be 21 years old and the woman must be 18 years of age. Both the Child Marriage Prohibition Act and Special Marriage Act are applicable to the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

At the moment, a debate is on in Kerala about the intent and logic behind the Congress-led UDF government's move to sanctify such child marriages among Muslims.

The LSG department is headed by an Indian Union Muslim League minister, M K Muneer, an MBBS doctor, who told The Times of India (the TOI led with the story on June 20 in Kerala which has triggered a state-wide debate, forcing rest of the newspapers and news channels to amplify the story) that he is personally against the move to encourage child marriages among Muslims.

But the government, harried by allegations against chief minister Oommen Chandy's office of nexus with a set of financial fraudsters, is adamant and not ready to withdraw the circular. Muslim League has 20 MLAs in the assembly and the government runs on two-seat majority in the 140 member assembly.

Interestingly, The Kerala State Muslim Youth League, the youth outfit of IUML, has come out against the circular. But many see that only as a liberal pose, but not a genuine demand to repeal the circular.

The LSG department of Kerala has trotted out two excuses for legalizing child marriages. The June 14 circular points out that the Muslim Marriage Act, 1957, does not make it mandatory for a boy to be 21 years and girl to be 18 years at the time of marriage.

The second argument is that The Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006, does not deem marriage between a male aged below 21 and a female aged below 18 null and void.

Saner and liberal voices among Kerala's economically thriving Muslim community have termed the UDF government's step as regressive.

M N Karassery, reputed literary critic and activist, says: "This would come in the way of Muslim women's social advancement as marriage below the age of 18 would hamper their political and educational life besides thwarting their chances of getting a job. We have to protest against the order and it should be challenged before a court of law." 

Karassery says the circular smacks of "religious discrimination. "Marriageable age should be the same for all women in the country, irrespective of their religion. But this order offers a different marriageable age for the women of a particular community. This is a move to appease the Muslim clergy," he adds.

It is important to realize that this is not a Muslim issue. This is a humanitarian issue. Muslim girls should not be denied an opportunity to pursue education and a career, which their sisters among other communities do with great vigour and conviction.

It is not surprising that Muslim girls and women are reluctant to raise their voice against the circular that has a huge impact on their lives, for such is the hold of orthodoxy among the community. Their silence should not be taken as consent for a regressive step.

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Return of (& end of?) the priviligentsia?

Veeresh Malik
25 June 2013, 01:32 PM IST

 

There are two online references to the term "priviligentsia" pertaining to the widely used Chinese term meaning the same thing as pertains to matters of the WaBenzi sort in India. One is by Rajiv Desai, then of The Tribune and then IPAN and now as Comma, and in a column with the Times of India about a decade ago he wrote thusly:-

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-05-11/edit-page/27836222_1_ticket-counters-free-tickets-influence

"Today, it is more difficult for politicians and bureaucrats to lord it over the general population." And, "Today, both poor and rich are on the fringes of mainstream society. An explosive growth of the middle class has put the privilegentsia on notice."

Recent updates on his most interesting blogs imply that he may have changed his forecast.

The other reference was by my friend Madhavan Narayanan, in further reference to the fine black magic art of lobbying which in India mainly means setting up monopolies for the private sector by PR hook or by corporate crook, in the course of a social media discussion on the subject. Where he said, "I was just on Lok Sabha TV and when the anchor said bye, I stopped him and added, Constitution also talks of Samata (equitability) ...what we see now is that Licence Raj has become Licentious Raj."

As the UPA raj and darbar reaches a decade of its existence, question beng asked here is not whether they will continue in power, or whether some other formation will emerge, for most of us, it is 12 of one and a dozen of the other.

Question is - how on earth, in the last decade or so, have we become a country where the neo-feudals, neo-colonials and the neo-hifi have all got together to form this tight group of people called the priviligentsia cornering almost everything in India, when they were supposed to have gone under a decade ago?

Take for example the issue of luxury cars being bought on public account - details can not be published for fear of contempt or calumny, but the cost of the list of airplanes and cars demanded and bought by their Excellencies, Lordships, Babus, Mantries, Santris, PPPs and other worthies including Vice-Chancellors and Chairmen of loss-making Boards and PSUs and others that has reached me would easily make requests for Relief Funds look like morbid jokes.

Or, check out how the Centenary celebrations, or any other celebrations or events for that matter, at institutions which are public authorities but many were or are still blessed with titles that include "Imperial" or "Royal" in their name, are happily paid for out of public funds. I'm talking clubs here with membership waiting lists running into decades.

What has happened over the last decade has obviously been that in addition to the politicians and the bureaucrats, more and more segments of society have hopped on to the privilegentsia bandwagon. And all at public cost.

And there is no point in pointing fingers only at the politicians and bureaucrats, though there is also no doubt that things could not have reached this level without their active participation.

What is however more worrisome is that this ailment has now spread into what can best be called the monopoly private sector also. Airports, roads, hospitals and similar.

To give just one example:- a

To some extent, the people of this country will be able to, in due course, counter the public sector government priviligentsia. It has to happen. We can not be told to stop buying gold while they keep adding to their perks.

How, on the other hand, are we going to tackle the private sector thugs? And now they want corporate lobbying to be totally legitimised. 

Coming on to 10 years of the UPA Government, India has become for, of and by the priviligentsia. And to counter the first article on the priviligentsia written almost a decade ago, I would like to quote from a more recent one in the Economist, which ends thus: "As the ongoing protests in Brazil indicate, the middle class cannot be taken for granted. It can be a source of political stability, but it can also suddenly turn very angry when its interests are ignored."

Either all of us in the middle class become priviligentsia, which is simply not possible, or the priviligentsia shakes up its ideas and does some quick back-tracking.

There is no other way.

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Rahul & Modi, Chalk & Cheese during crisis

Sharmila Ravinder
25 June 2013, 02:10 PM IST

The scenes from Uttarakhand have been nothing short of horrific. The mighty Ganges has literally swallowed everything in her path. Dark swirling waters ferociously gorged the innocent, those lucky to survive have received kind grace. The Ganges, probably India's most contaminated and polluted river is now livid, we have never seen her this resentful. Hell knows no fury like the one that Mother Nature can unleash upon us.  Even as premature estimates of  the deceased are coming forth, the extent of the tragedy can never be fully comprehended. Even as the sound of the roaring river puts our current Prime Minister completely on mute mode, for almost ten days, another potential Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.

As the floodwaters ravaged townships that came in its path and as the media (despite a nice long time lag) relayed to India and to the rest of the world the horrific scenes, potential Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi allegedly celebrated his birthday in exotic Spain. Of course there is absolutely no harm in celebrating your birthday in Spain or Switzerland, but if you are projecting yourself as a potential leader of this country, you need to be present in the country at the time of crisis. More importantly, you need to take a leadership role in handling a crisis that engulfs the country. But, what does potential Prime Ministerial candidate do instead? He does what he does best, a disappearing act.

And what do the governing party's loyals do? Again they do what they do best, bicker over relief operations that were conducted skillfully by another potential Prime Ministerial candidate. I am absolutely amazed at how Modi's rather efficient operation has been dissected in the most callous manner. Modi is currently a head of state, his primary responsibility as of now remains with his state. Also, it is foolish to believe media reports that Modi saved only Gujaratis. Wrong. The relief operations enabled non-Gujarati lives to be saved as well. Rediff had reported how the disaster management team on the ground conducting the relief operations were highly motivated by the presence of Modi. Here is the link for how the relief operations were conducted in greater detail. There is no 'saffron spin' to this, as many like to believe.

We many never accurately get an estimate as to how many lives were saved due to Modi's sensible planning in the disaster management efforts, but one thing is for sure, the Gujarat state machinery indeed is crackerjack at handling a crisis, something alien to the Central Government and needless to say to the Uttarakhand Government. Lets not forget that while Modi was working like a horse, another potential Prime Ministerial candidate was probably enjoying the nightlife in Barcelona. Actions speak louder than words. If I were a potential Prime Ministerial candidate of my country, I have no other business but to be in my country at the time of crisis and take on a leadership role. And now, after the last of the birthday balloons have floated to nowhere land, Rahul Gandhi is rushing to Uttarakhand. Rahul's loyals may have 'advised' him in doing so, that is why it has taken him so long to react. A true leader works on instinct when it comes to a crisis that grips the country or even a part of a country thereof. One need not be 'advised' to react. And worse, this is not a time for slanging matches nor is it a time for a media circus. A life is a life, no matter which state you belong to. Are people from Gujarat not Indians? Why is such a furor being created? Is it because an efficient leader who is responsible for their wellbeing has saved them? Modi is adept at 'micro management', a term most politicians have never heard of whilst waltzing 30,000 feet in the air. Times of India had reported that "As if that was not enough to thumb his nose at a government accused of large-scale mismanagement in handling the crisis, Modi later in the day even offered to "completely rebuild" the temple at Kedarnath using "the latest technology available" in such a way that no natural calamity would ever shake it again. The Uttarakhand CM is believed to have dismissed the statement." Nothing new, incapable leaders do not offer sensible counter arguments, they usually dismiss sensible suggestions.

The icing on the cake of mismanagement galore by the Centre is demonstrated in this picture below.

 

( Picture courtesy - Growing India, Growing ourselves and making India a better place to live in).

On June 24^th, the potential Prime Ministerial candidate, young Rahul Gandhi, who made his first public appearance ever since Uttarakhand has been inundated, flagged off relief materials for the victims of the flash floods. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sheila Dixit, PC Chidambaram, and Oscar Fernandez besides many more were in full view for a media tamasha. However, the trucks carrying relief materials were lined up outside 24, Akbar Road, the Congress headquarters from 21^st June waiting for young Rahul Gandhi to return from his holidays. This my dear friends is India for you, where relief supplies are delayed for a media circus even as potential Prime Minister takes his own sweet time to return for the event. Lives are not important, time is not of the essence, and everything revolves around those who take the centre stage. And yet we bear cynicism for another potential Prime Minister who has yet again demonstrated that he can efficiently put a system in place anywhere, anytime, from Gujarat to Uttarakhand. 

Follow Sharmila on Twitter @supershamz

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