Posts filed under 'Current Affairs'
I was sifting through the
Indian Express India Empowered edition of today and I could not hold back the joy of being an Indian. It was carrying some wonderful essays on the Indians who were a part of the original
Constituent Assembly which formulated and promulgated the Constitution of India. Hence 57 years ago on this day The Sovereign, Socialist, Democratic, Secular Republic of
India came into being -
Bharat Ganarajya.
Chaudhary Ranvir Singh Hooda (now 92), the father of the present chief minister of Harayana Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kusumkant Jain (who was just 28 and the youngest member of the group then) are the only 2 surviving legends of the original 299 members of the Constituent Assembly which was formed to draft the constitution of our country. On Thursday January 24th 1950, the assembly met for one last time to sign the Constitution of this country. Rajendra Prasad was elected the first president of India; Jana Gana Mana was made the national anthem; Vande Mataram the national song. Ranvir Singhji recalls “We signed our names, sang the national anthem and Vande Mataram. We knew we had empowered all our forthcoming generations, till the end of time. Veteran freedom fighters decided to celebrate it as grandly as Diwali or Id”. There would be millions like me who would spend this day just like any other but just to let them know that our forefathers fought for the freedom of this nation single handedly so that we could breath freely under the blue skies without fear.
Another riveting aspect of this day was the idea of nation building. I had some problem with my Internet and called up Hathway to inquire about the same. I was anxious that they might be having an off today but I was lucky. The problem got resolved and I could work smoothly. This small act made me sit up and think of the millions across this country, who would be putting their sweat and blood today and toiling hard to give us our republic of tomorrow. The India of our dreams :-)
January 26th, 2006
I have been visiting the
World Press Photo (WPP) Exhibition since last year. This is partly because I admire photography & also appreciate the great work that’s done by the photo journalists around the globe. It’s really amazing how these guys work under the most unfriendliest sometime hostile situation to bring to us these myriad talking images.
This year again the exhibition is being held at Express Towers, which is right next to where I work. The highlight this time is that an Indian photographer, Arko Dutta has won the first prize in the Spot News category. He has shot a woman lying on the ground grieving the death of her relatives during the killer tsunami disaster in Southern India. Looking at the images I could gather what’s going on in the other parts of the world. There are some images that have left an indelible mark on my mind - a picture of some russian men sitting atop a booster rocket playing, women in South Africa who are victims of domestic violence and a chilling fact of how a woman is raped every 26 seconds in that country, pictures of young american soldiers grievously wounded in the strife-torn Iraq and still living, some really disturbing images of the genocide at Darfur and many such moments captured permanently on camera. Rest assured I am going back again to relive each one of them once again.
» World Press Photo Exhibition Venue Details
December 20th, 2005
Mumbaikars (natives of Mumbai city) are well aware of the hardships which they face everyday. To name some of the few - train travels, bad roads, polluted water supplies, growing slums, etc. Just recently I had an argument with a friend who has come down from Delhi to work with us and he was unapologetically critical about this city. The fact of the matter is that I know what plagues us and I know that the solution lies entirely in the hands of the administration which is not focussing on the city right now. I lost my temper and hit back with strong words on this.
This was probably the first time that I took the comments on Mumbai quite personally and I have no explanation for this. Mumbai, marathi language, the culture of this city, etc. have been imbibed in me since childhood and perhaps I felt they were being mugged unnecessarily by an outsider who has no inkling of what actual hardships are (he stays in churchgate and works from the same place). I was also inspired from an article that I read in Indian Express where Farah Baria has written about the downslide of Mumbai. My colleague will be here as long as his job entitles him to and he will go back to his favourite place. The point I am making is that the natives of this land have lived & experienced problems since a long time and they are the best people to come out with the solutions too. If at all we want some winds of change to blow across this island it can only be with the help of people who want improvement and not otherwise. I know it’s only a matter of time.
December 15th, 2005
I guess you must be all aware of
Narayan Murthy’s resignation as chairman from the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). Narayan Murthy is the Chief Mentor of
Infosys. This follows after Deve Goda, the ex-prime minister of India accused him of doing nothing in his tenure. Gowda has been accused of delaying some of Bangalore’s key infrastructure projects including the prestigious Mysore-Banagalore expressway. But going public against Narayan Murthy in the media is a bit too much. The whole country knows what he stands for.
Think about the relief the projects will bring to the city. And think about how the politicians gang up together to hold the interests of the public to ransom. This is very unfair to them especially when the politicians are elected representatives of the people. Are we indians focussing too much on the means and not the end? I certainly think so. I run a forum and I have been successfully implementing some of my ideas to make the boards alive with activities. It’s very tough these days to grab the attention of the user especially when you’re running a forum. There was an interesting project where a fellow union member devised a toolbar in quick time and I liked it a lot. The advantages of having such a nifty tool were many but only to those who saw light at the end of the tunnel. I arranged for the toolbar to be offered for general usage by the union members which would enable them to visit the forums often. Between the development of the toolbar and the subsequent offer for download it took a mere 3 days and yet I have been accused by some of my fellow admins for not informing them about the activities. That some of them are off limits is another question.
The protocols notwithstanding, my only logic behind offering the toolbar was to do something good for the forums. Having said that I had in no way commissioned the member to make it for me. He was quite passionate about doing something for the forums and I just appreciated it. If protocols are to be followed then the admins also need to be present to take timely decisions. Unlike Mr. Gowda I hate to create impedements in the way of public interest and I hate those who attempt the same.
October 24th, 2005
It all started with the Black Bucks. Then he ran his car on the pavement and killed some folks. The he beat up some journalists outside a courtroom. Later he got involved with Aishwarya ‘Ash’ Rai and now this. He allegedly threatened her on the phone some 4 years ago and named some gangsters in that conversation. The entire transcript was published in the first edition of Hindustan Times when it got launched in Mumbai. One more round of allegations against Salam ‘Sallu’ Khan and this time it looks to be serious. His ‘Bad Boy of Bollywood’ image is here to stay.
The media doesn’t wait for the courts. In this electronic arena, judgements are passed on every channel and each one of them has its own way of justifying. So Sallu threatened Ash over the phone 4 years ago but it was ‘unearthed’ now and projected on the media just when we had forgotten all about his dirty past. Somehow one feels that someone just doesn’t want to see Sallu happy anymore. I am surprised as to why Ash kept quite all these years and didn’t file an FIR and why of all the people the media is getting so interested in the case? If the matter was not disclosed by either party, then there is no case to fight and it might have got resolved internally.
Sting operations are another way of pulling our celebrities down. The modus operandi is to provoke the guy/girl into doing something which is ‘unimaginable’ while the fact is that these things must be happening in the everyday life of a filmstar/politician. It’s just that it got captured on the movie camera and got displayed over the channels. I am sure that none of us would claim to take a high moral ground and say “we haven’t done anything bad in our entire lives”. Of course, we must’ve at some point of time, picked up the receiver & threatened the living daylights out of our foe or bribed somebody to get our things done. Then why are the celebrities & politicians being treated like gods? They are as much entitled to commit mistakes as all of us are.
Maybe this age-old proverb would make sense in the end - Live and Let Live!
July 16th, 2005
Pages:
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
Next
