ExpertDabbler

Manmohan Singh. Because he is the least despised by all. He is well respected by most of the politicans cutting across party lines. He played his cards beautifully in showing the door to the Left on the N-deal. The best thing about Manmohan Singh was probably the fact that India had only one Prime Minister for the past four years and without any major controversy. Those who might think that as insignificant should do well to go back to the Third Front days when everyone right from Moopanar to Deve Gowde to Ramvilas Paswan had as much chance of becoming a Prime Minister. We were clearly playing ‘Hinky Pinky Ponky’ for the PM’s chair. Manmohan, at least has lent the credibility and respect that chair so clearly deserves. His stint as PM also coincided with the 8-9% growth in GDP’s story, whether that’s a reliable indicator of economic well being in our Country and whther Singh has made a significant contribution in stimulating growth are debatable.

The problem with Manmohan is that he is too ‘scholarly’. He does not have a vote base. He does not even have a settled parliamentary constituency. His total lack of popular appeal means he has to be at the mercy of Sonia and her family. It’s as if he has completely outsourced the political tasks to Sonia and sons. Also, without the majority that he desperately needs, he looks woefully miserable sometimes. It takes a certain tact to handle someone like MK wants a Cabinet Minister to be removed, or inserted just like that. He cannot and should not meekly surrender as he has been doing every time a demand is raised.

On the performance front, I do think he has failed in addressing the needs of the poor. His clean credentials and 65K Crore farm loan waiver notwithstanding ( who benefitted over that is again debatable), he has been a man who is more aligned with the interests of the Corporate czars. I did not witness any groundbreaking social development initiatives in the last four years that I thought I would. He has the likes of Montek Singh Ahluwalia who advice him against enforcing ‘Right to Education’ bill for ‘lack of funds’.

All said and done, Manmohan Singh is the best possible candidate Congress can ever come up with. He is educated, liked by all, disliked by very few, honest, is a religious minority (very important), has the trust and respect of Sonia Gandhi and in general well respected across the globe. The acid test for Manmohan Singh’s leadership will be when he gets a second term with a simple majority. Let’s wait and see if ever he gets that.

With six months to go for the next parliamentary election, its time to ponder this question.

I think we can ignore the chances of Mayawati only at our own peril. She may not be Oxford educated as Manmohan Singh, but she is politically smarter than even Lalu. A lot of the educated middle class folks may not like her. I am sure the stock markets would not like her one bit. But we should also remember that stock market crowd is hardly 5% of ‘real India’ albeit very audible in the national media.

If she can scale up her ’social engineering’ tactic (as in political science) to the national level by bringing the ‘economically weaker section’ criteria to the reservation issue, and can bring the Communists to her fold, which they might given their present antagonism towards BJP and Congress, I think she can give anyone a run for their money. Sathish Chandra Mishra and Akilesh Das might as well be the next Union Home and Finance Ministers respectively, you never know.

I do not necessarily think she has given a good governance in U.P. Nor do I say I am a fan of Mayawati.
All I say is, my likes and dislikes do not matter. If she gets the deal right with Communists and manages to leverage her Dalit + Brahmin vote bank in UP, she will have a fighting chance to rule this country. How long will she rule, how will she rule.. those are are all totally different stories.

You might want to start your prayers now.

கேள்வி: உங்க கட்சி ஆட்சிக்கு வந்தா உங்களோட முதல் கையெழுத்து எந்த திட்டத்துக்கு இருக்கும்?
பதில்: இங்கே காட்டாட்சி நடக்கிறது. தேவை இல்லாமல் என்னோட கல்யாண மண்டபத்தை இடிச்சாங்க. எல்லாத்துக்கும் கலைஞர் தான் காரணம்.

கேள்வி: ஆமா அது புரியுது. அதான் நீங்க ஆட்சிக்கு வந்துடறீங்க வெச்சுப்போம்… ஆட்சிக்கு வந்தா உங்களோட முதல் கையெழுத்து எந்த திட்டத்துக்கு இருக்கும்?
பதில்: மக்கள் எல்லாத்தையும் பார்த்துகிட்டு தான் இருக்காங்க… கேள்வி கேப்பாங்க ஒரு நாள்…. எல்லாரையும் சுட்டுக் கொல்லனும்.

கேள்வி: யாரை?
பதில்: நான் சொல்லாத விஷயத்தை எழுதறீங்க.. உங்க மேல வழக்கு போடுவேன்..

கேள்வி: ( …என்னால முடில….. ) சேது சமுத்திர திட்டம் பத்தி உங்க கருத்து என்ன?
பதில்: கருணாநிதி யோட கருத்து என்னவோ அதோட எதிர் கருத்துத் தான் என்னோட கருத்து.

கேள்வி: (ஆகா அபாரம் புல்லரிக்குது… ) நாடே உங்களை தாங்க ஆவலோட எதிர்பார்த்துகிட்டு இருக்கு.. பின்றீங்க!
பதில்: எல்லாம் கருணாநிதி பண்ற சதி.

ஆண்டவா……எல்லாம் நேரக் கொடுமை…. இதுக்கு தாத்தா, அம்மாவே தேவலாம் போல!……

Worldwide Kisukisu headlines

- One important cabinet minister from TN holding a very important portfolio, who also goes by the name of a famous Shiva temple venue is all set to be replaced by a former RBI governor who goes by the name of Lord Vishnu. Good riddance!

- The shares of a well known bangalore based mid sized software company which is into embedded communications solutions is likely to go up as the SAT has approved its buy back plans. It is well known that the shares of the company plummeted from 550-600 in Dec’07-Jan’08 to as low as Rs.84 in Feb ‘08.

- The worldwide well known web search company launched yet another product which lets people see websites. The product as such is lightweight and cool. But two years back, people said they are going to kill PayPal with their checkout product, now Firefox and IE is expected to be killed with the latest offering. But all this killing talk seems to be just talk. As such the company believes in Ahimsa and haven’t killed anything yet, not even the spam ridden Yahoomail.

- Desi ka pundits portal had a piece about how a galeej Times news paper of India had stolen yet again a photograph from Flickr. The photographer cum blogger, like all bloggers including this writer had lamented about ethics, copyright violations blah blah in his blog. Not sure if the Windows and the Adobe Photoshop the blogger used was an original one or pirated.
Bloggers in general are not exactly exemplary in respecting IP laws. In matters between MSM and bloggers, the issue is always big vs small, not fair vs. unfair.

Bloggers Kisukisu
- The taste of a young research minded blogger makes anyone say ada paavi. The video he sent recently is actually (A)g(h)ory.
- Another blogger is celebrating his b’day today.
- One blogger remains the ultimate source of all news and information - from a shop lifting case by an Indian H1/Li junta in Tampa, Florida to the premiere of Slumdog Millionaire in LA, he knows it all. Adengappa!

Q: Chiranjeevi?

A: Dhairiyasaali!

During my morning walk, I saw a poster supposedly put up by some Nadar groups who had taken offence to some dialogues in ‘Dasavatharam’. Honestly, I did not find anything offensive in the movie about any community for that matter. Looks like someone wants to stir up community passions and gain publicity at Kamal’s expense.

Twelve years back, the state government removed all references to leaders names in the public transport corporations.
Till then, it was Dheeran Chinnamalai, Thandhai Periyar, Cheran, Chozan, Kattaboman, Pandian etc. People were keen about the community the leaders belonged to. Now it’s just State Transport Corporation. Did anyone stop taking buses because of this?

What would be the nations loss if we just stopped identifying ourselves on community basis at all levels - from government records to personal references?

At present, there are many little countries within India. And we should do all it takes to build a cohesive, unified India out of this. Till then Kamal will always be seen as X community member and the HCL technologies chairman will always be seen as Y community member.

I wanted to respond to Karthik’s comment. But I realized that I had pretty strong opinions about the police force in general and wanted to record that as well. This is a blend of my own observations, my experiences being at the receiving end with the police, versions from friends of friends who are in the police department, and readings in the main stream media. Yes, the police story is a story of bad guys in the eyes of the public, but there is lot of apathy and tragedy underneath the obvious.

While I am a vociferous critic of the functioning of the police - be it traffic as well as law and order, I am almost certain that had I joined the police force, I would have been as corrupt a police officer as there are any now. I don’t remember when was the last time the police department got a salary hike. They cannot complain, they cannot protest, and they cannot go on strike. Politicians treat them like shit, the media sees them as jokers, and the public despise them.

I think it would be good starting point to compare the salary a cop draws in US, relative to other professions to what a cop earns as a salary in India. In India, its almost like their ‘mamool’ is factored into their official CTG (Cost to government). Not just the police of course, this holds good for any general state government employee too. But the kind of torture a police man goes through is unbelievable. He is paid a pittance for enduring all the suffering. Which means the society (includes me) expects him to beg, borrow or take bribe to make ends meet. With little legitimate money but with lot of clout, what will one do? Exchange clout for money. Thats precisely what’s happening.

A traffic police constable who stands in searing heat from morning till evening would probably make less than a post man. Check out this article.

What years of state neglect had done to their morale is that now a decent number of them have turned themselves into entrepreneurs out of corrupt money. I personally know one police constable who owns a water tanker lorry. I know because our flat association gets water from him. His monthly salary would be like six thousand rupees IMO. I am guessing that but if a DGP would make around 70K per month, how much a constable would make? Can he run a family, much less a water tanker lorry with six thousand rupees in chennai city?

It’s one thing to read this as condoning whatever they do. On the other hand, I think it would be wrong to just condemn what they do and preach about virtues like honesty, integrity and so on without addressing the underlying issues.

If I had any power, probably I would enhance their pay checks substantially, study how the police function in other countries, revisit the fundamental philosophy of the way a police department should operate in the post-independent India, look for ways and means to infuse professionalism and THEN expect better performance from them. I say about post-independent India, because I feel the Indian bureaucracy in general still suffer from British Raj hangover, in the way they treat their political masters.

I have been taken to police station for wrongs I did not do, and from which I escaped because of my network. I have given ‘mamool’ for the traffic offences I did and did not commit. I loathe them. But to paraphrase a dialogue in Hey Ram, ‘Oru police a ninnu partha dhaan avanga nyayam puriyum’.

Till the state home minister, who is also usually the state chief minister does something fundamental to change the police DNA, its better not to get caught by a police man. Or, have a hundred rupee note handy. If you are a non-tamil, better have a 500 rupee note in hand.

100 Hyundai Accents are good but not sufficient to fundamentally change the police DNA. Without the needed change in the DNA, Hyundai Accents have replaced Willeys jeeps and Ambassadors in dropping school children.

As an after thought, If you know about any good police man, please write, talk about him. Do some word of mouth publicity. That’s the least we can do. It’s not easy to be good and honest in such an environment.

We have listened to people talking politics in tea kadais, clubs, buses, trains, etc. But ever heard of people talking politics at a crematorium?

A family friend’s grandma passed away on Sunday early morning in Coimbatore. Even when I saw her three weeks back, the 85 years old lady that she was, told she had no more desire to live and was waiting for her time though was doing alright then. She did not suffer much either. She was alive and present at 10 PM and gone by 12 mid night.

I was told the funeral would be around 3 PM on Sunday. So I took Kovai Express early in the morning and reach Coimbatore on time to catch a glimpse of her.

En route, I was told there was a change in plans and I was asked to come to the crematorium straight from the station. When I reached the crematorium, as suspected I was the first person to be there. Standing alone in a deserted crematorium in Chokkampudur, on a Sunday afternoon was not something anyone would relish. I was getting restless and kept calling friends I had not spoken to in the recent past – a way to kill time and also to keep in touch.

About ten minutes later, a fully loaded van came to the spot. A group of about 10 got down. This was not the group I was associated with. Most of them were middle-aged men and Coimbatore locals to boot. They had no body to cremate, guess they were here to get the asthi or something. The way they started in Kongu slang, I was more than eager to listen to that after all these years J. The topic, predictably turned to politics. One guy seemed to a die-hard DMK supporter, the other an Amma follower. Most of the junta were neutral (Sothu katchi).  The ADMK follower was making allegations about the frauds that is happening in the name of free color TV, gas stove, cycle, acres of free land schemes. His main charge was that people use this to their advantage and even those who get these from the government, promptly sell this to outsiders to make quick buck. He was quoting actual incidents. The DMK fanatic was vehemently denying all this and that idiots like the other person will never understand the heart of kalaignar. He said when Amma can give bicycle, why not kalaignar? He was also quick to point out that the Amma follower was a well to do person who does not need all this and that such people will never appreciate the plight of the poor blah blah.

When i think of it, talking like a politician is never easy.  First and foremost, it requires a special training to never answer to a question even while pretending to do precisely that. For eg. When someone says,” Ennaya unga thalaivaru, ipdi ellathayum free free na ellam makkal vari panam dhaney?” A person like me, would by default try to answer that question. Since I cannot counter that question with any valid facts I would quickly accept defeat. But a seasoned politican will never do that. Empty rhetoric is elevated to an art form in a politician’s tongue. All in all, they provided good entertainment for me till my friend came to the venue after 40 minutes. I have another aspect to write and discuss about which I’ll do later.

But before that, here’s one more airline to rely and travel in India - PARAMOUNT.

Please do not hesitate to take PARAMOUNT.