Thank you Chacha Nehru

I am halfway through Ramchandra Guha's India after Gandhi.This book is a very good read. I have read a lot of literature about India but most of them are about pre-1947 India or about partition of India. This book focuses on the decades after independence. It gives a good idea of the difficult times for our nation, the 50s and 60s.

This book has given me new perspective on Jawaharlal Nehru. I think he deserves a lot more respect than he gets by this generation. To uphold the ideals of secularism and egalitarian society in a communally charged atmosphere must have been very difficult. Add to it the issues related to caste, language and secession. Hindu code bill was another progressive reform. He perhaps failed in handling the border situation with China but who is not flawed? If we look at his work in totality, he is perhaps the greatest Prime minister we had. Perhaps he would have been more effective in these times. A mass leader (Golwalkar had 1 lakh crowd in his meetings, Nehru 6 lacs), hard working and extremely honest. His last 4 years in office must have been very torturous for him but what he did in 4 decades preceding it laid the foundation of progressive India. No nation with parochial policies can develop or be a super power for long. Pakistan is a case in point. Obsessed with religion they have dug themselves into a hole where they have stopped seeing reason. No surprise then that their citizens suffer and don't realize the real issue are they themselves. Nehru reined in such parochial elements from the beginning. Thanks to him, India is not Pakistan now.

Good bye BBC Hindi

It was very painful to read this piece of news today. I vividly remember those times when I as a child used to listen to BBC Hindi and Urdu for a different take on world affairs. And a better one too.

The style of reporting the news and the care taken not to sensationalize the news was what I liked the most. The coverage of any event focussed on providing audience with facts rather than opinions. Apart from this they also provided the background of the issue at hand which helped millions in understanding it properly. The online version would still remain but the closure of short wave services would impact those in semi-urban and rural areas a lot. They are the ones who are in real need of these kind of news services. With the power situation we have in our country it is difficult to imagine television can replace it. But it becomes terrible when you look at the state of private news channels esp. in Hindi.

Sensationalist coverage with all opinions (sorry that is a euphemism, actually speculations would be more proper) and no fact leaves viewers with little information. It is really a sad day for journalism because not just Hindi but many other foreign language services will be shut. R.I.P. BBC Hindi. All good things finally come to an end.

Good times. Where are they?

India as a country is surely not enjoying the best of the times. High inflation, plethora of charges of corruption and space research setbacks. All these things have made this first month of year gloomy.

Corruption has always been rampant in India but so many charges on people holding seats of high responsibility are very disappointing. When even CVC and a former Chief Justice of India come under cloud, it surely is one of the most disconcerting time for ethics in Indian public life. Add to it the monster of inflation which has not been reigned in by the government yet. Rise in petrol prices may very well aggravate the problem although it is good to know that diesel prices are not being raised, at least for now.

But India is known for its resilience. We have seen far worse times in 1991 and came out of it to embark on our journey of phenomenal growth. I hope we do enough inquisition to embark another journey of inclusive growth this time.

Radiagate, barkhagate, mediamafia ...

The last few days have presented a very sorry state of Indian media. First the leak itself and then the deafening silence by leading media houses. It is debatable whether they have crossed the line or not. N. Ram (editor, The Hindu) thinks they have.

The Hindu was the only major media house which gave coverage to this murky affair. I thought very much on the issue and feel that the journalists in question have crossed the line although have done nothing criminal. I personally believe Barkha Dutt should step down but she has not done anything so wrong as to leave journalism. Just as sports persons can have poor form, error in judgement, complacency and disregard for public sentiments so are journalists prone to these fallibilities. Barkha Dutt has done very well as a journalist and this mistake of hers can be forgiven bearing in mind her contribution to field of journalism. It is quite obvious that she has been maliciously targeted on twitter not because of this case but for her stand on other issues.

It is high time that prominent media persons get together and root out this evil from amongst themselves. This is only tip of the iceberg considering that issue of 'paid news' cropped up not long ago. It will be great if people like Rajdeep Sardesai, Karan Thapar, N. Ram, Siddharth Varadarajan and Shekhar Gupta can come together and get India media out of this mess.

Judiciary and media are the only saving grace of our democracy and I hope media continues to bring justice to Indians as it has done in Manu Sharma case.

First cricket test match in stadium

After missing 3-4 chances in Kanpur I finally got to watch cricket for the first time in a stadium. And as they say in Hindi 'Der aaye durust aaye', what a treat it was to watch.

The planning of this match started with one of my friends (who ironically didn't watch cricket even on TV in our first semester at IIT Kanpur). I was very disappointed that Wankhede missed out on test match against New Zealand and wanted to watch test cricket this year at any cost. Finally we both zeroed in on Bangalore test between India and Australia because, well you knew this, it was between India and Australia. We also factored in that this would be the last time Dravid would be playing on his home ground and that this is the last time Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Ponting would be part of a test match in India.

The start of the day was very disappointing, not because India didn't win the toss (in fact with India fielding we got to see most players close-up), but due to inability of our bowlers to take a wicket in whole of first session. This meant that we had to put up with Mr. Watson who is as boring to watch as excitement while watching Ponting bat. Our torture ended in second session when Ponting came out to bat. And the elegance of his batting was clearly visible. To help the matters the view from our seat was very good for both ends. But like most Indians it becomes very difficult for me to appreciate opposition's good performance for long. Harbhajan was impressive in second session and Ojha in second and third but we felt much relieved when Raina trapped Ponting who it seemed was not going to be dismissed by Indian bowlers all day. All in all we got to wave Indian flag 5 times (five wickets fell that day).

I was very happy to see the turn out. The stadium was almost full. The din compounded by shrill music (or noise?) added to the excitement. That was one time when I would have agreed with Ravi Shastri's "The Atmosphere is electric" chirp. Was disappointed with Laxman not taking field but saw debut match of Pujara. Who knows he turns out to be next Laxman!!!

P.S. Was impressed by Ponting's conduct on and off the field. Esp. his thanksgiving to crowd in post match conference. My respect for him, both as a person and a batsman, has gone up by few notches.

Maoists are tough, we need to be tougher

Nitish Kumar has shown a lot of spine in resisting the pressure to yield to Maoists. The so called Swami Agnivesh's call of try to extend deadline and not using force is another instance where so called intellectuals with left leanings live in a surreal world and apply the logic which sounds good there to our world.

Yes we have lost one life and may be can lose more. This is very harsh on the families of martyrs. But if we don't yield this time we can save many more lives in future. Remember the Kandahar goof-up. Please don't repeat this. All political parties should rally behind Bihar government at the moment. It is not Nitish Kumar who is up against the Maoists, it is our state, the Republic of India which is fighting this battle.

Poly-tricky Politicians of India

Just a few days ago I was watching a debate on a news channel about the raise demanded by the Members of Parliament. Most of the reasons cited in support of this demand were related to them being public representative and that they have to take care of the visitors, pay their staffs, visit their constituency's nook and corner etc.

And every time they were criticized by media they retorted by flaunting their status of being 'representative' of common man. I want to suggest a very good way for testing the representation of these politicians.

Just have a referendum in every constituency for an MP. If the approval is more than 50%, the MP gets a 300% hike (as desired by them), otherwise he/she forfeits the seat and pays Rs. 10 lacs(or maybe more) as fine. Those MPs who do not desire a hike need not have referendum. I am sure very few MPs would dare to hold this referendum and thus a small amount would be spent in conducting referendum. However this will go a long way in taking the sting out of this 'representative' claim and also present true approval percentage of these worthless chaps. This would also go a long way in rewarding those MPs who are diligently discharging their duties.

Do our polity have guts to accept this challenge? No. Simply because most of them 'represent' us not because they are greater 'good' but because they are lesser 'evil'.

Once upon a time ...

Once upon a time there was a magic nation ... may be it still has some magic left. However, even at that time idiots were in considerable strength. To add to the woes of that nation the remaining population had a majority of zombies. They had myriads of communities but only 3 mattered at that time. Let us name them community A,B and C.

Community A was in majority. Community B was in minority but had significant presence in some pockets. Community C formed a tiny part but its interests were tied to both the communities and it too had a pocket of influence. One fine morning an intellectual (his 'direct' actions don't befit this reference though) came to conclusion that he had no future in political power because his rivals had greater say in masses overall. But he had an ace up his sleeve. He was from community B. So, he chose 'direct' path and was joined in hordes by people from not just community B but also A and C although indirectly. That magic nation gave way to 2 magic nations. However the other nation had less of magic.

A and C with half of B lived happily in the greater magic nation for sometime. Then some leaders from C decided to choose a more 'direct' path like that 'intellectual'. This time the stacks were heavily stacked against them though. They did not get that much support from their community but created equal ruckus. Well, foolhardy is something in which each of these communities likes to dominate. Community A now took lead in that by resorting to 'direct' actions against C and then B.

This community business is actually more complex than what I have presented. There are other communities (more properly groups) at different levels. These 3 were separated by religion but there are many separated by language, region, caste and God knows what more. All these communities resort to that 'direct' path to this date. The magic nation drags on.

Open Source in Drug Discovery

The title of this post is pretty unusual. Just as you are pleasantly surprised even I was pleasantly surprised after knowing of such an initiative through this report. Leading the research in drug discovery are corporate giants who are more interested in developing vaccines or drugs for curing a select set of diseases and in the process they churn out high margin drugs. So this CSIR led initiative is a whiff of fresh air. I am not an expert on patenting and those in pharmaceutical industry would know better if this model will work or not but going by success of Mozilla, Linux and Wikipedia in the areas of open source software and crowd sourcing, I believe with some effort on legal and patent issues this initiative can be made successful.

The scientists at the OSDD have started with neglected diseases like TB and malaria and they say that despite deaths of 1.7 mn people throughout world due to TB there has been no new drug discovery in last 4-5 decades. That just goes on to show how much we can bank on current state of drug development. The CSIR chief Samir Bramhachari is pretty hopeful of this initiative's success and that is important. When Richard Stallman started free software movement it had many doubters but it has contributed to a large extent in present success of open source softwares. And if OSDD succeeds, it will have much bigger impact and on a much larger population.

Realization of Regression in Science

Today, Dr. Manmohan Singh has accepted existence of red tapism and need of urgent reforms in order to move Indian Science forward and take it to greater heights. Brain drain is a severe problem now. But it is not that only those who leave our shores are responsible. The onus also lies with our establishment which has made it difficult to carry out research in India. Even premier institutions have not been spared. Despite all this there are some who stay here and work for country. But you cannot expect everyone to work just because of patriotism. At the time when the US is thinking of attracting entrepreneurs to their country we are not even able to stem the rot which plagues our educational establishments. The fellowships given to our research scholars are peanuts compared to those given in West and this is even if you take PPP into account.

Dr. Singh has announced revision in funding schemes which bodes well for Indian Science. The number of Phds is very less in India. More so in science. Currently, IITs pay only 14000 p.m. This should be hiked to at least 25,000-30,000 p.m. The admission process to Phd should be reformed in order to attract best talent. This will surely enhance the quality of our research and because the number of Phd scholars is so small, it is not going to be a burden on government also. If industry interface is improved, the burden on government can be lightened even more.

The Game of Nations

The 60th anniversary of 'democracy', as the communists will have us to believe, was celebrated with much fervor and show of strength. China is rising as a world power and its GDP is expected to overtake that of the US in coming decades. They have ambition to be a superpower. And when your aspirations that pretty high, you don't want your neighbor to be as strong as you or even able to challenge you. That is where the India-China problem begins.

Tensions have heightened courtesy some 'incursions' and some really stupid statements in media on both sides. Add to it the statements made by chiefs of armed forces of India. These have combined to induce paranoia in minds of those who are concerned about India's hawkish neighbor. After going through a lot of articles related to this subject written by experts in defence and diplomacy I have found one thing common to all of them. They all acknowledge the superiority of armed forces of China but add that China wont attack India if sanity prevails over them. Considering that there is so much at stake (in terms of economy) and India of 2009 is much different from India in 1962 (even if fusion was fizzle fission is sufficient to be deterrent). China may have advantage as far as military might is concerned but the difference between military strengths of the two nations is not so much as to decimate India and lave China with minor scars. As one article puts it, "China of today is not the Maoist country that argued that power grew out of the barrel of a gun and that even if 300 million Chinese perished in a nuclear war 300 million would survive to build a glorious civilisation. Times have changed since the ideology of countryside surrounding the cities was advanced during the Cultural Revolution". However, India needs to increase its defence budget in order to match China's strength. This would act as deterrent and also remind China that we are not cowed down by its vacuous threats. Also, we should try to address our economic problems and combine together to achieve double digit growth in coming decade. On diplomatic fronts we should take up the border dispute issues with Chinese government. If Vietnam can stand up to them why can't India? Again quoting from the article, "There can be firmness in dealing with the LoAC or other issues where there are attempts at exploiting unequal advantages in situations. India has arrived at a stage in international politics when it has to demonstrate maturity in playing the game of nations".

In God's name

I remember a scene from 'Merchant of Venice' where Antonio, an altruist, castigates Shylock, a mean money lender for justifying his soulless and savage conditions by invoking religious scriptures. So many times in history religion has been used as a tool to achieve ulterior motives.

Be it Osama Bin Laden or closer home Mr. Jinnah or closer in time Varun Gandhi. However, it is not that religion is always used to achieve political gains. In Pakistan blasphemy laws have been blatantly abused to acquire properties of minority communities. In India as this editorial shows they are proving to be hindrance in infrastructure development.

It is appalling that we have more 'places of worship' than 'places of learning'. I am not saying that one does not learns anything in places of worship. In fact if we follow teachings of our respective religions in proper manner this bird named 'Utopia' would be found on earth. But what we have done is that some people planning to grab lands and other properties, public or private, are able to do so defying law in name of religion. We have 60,000 such illegal structures in New Delhi alone. Some of these obstruct construction of roads. You must have noticed worship places in middle of road. The demands of economy say that we must develop our infrastructure quickly if we want to be one of the developed nations in the world. These obstacles slow the pace of development and in the process increase the cost of project. I know religious sentiments must not be hurt for blind development but no one demolishes these structures. They are relocated. It is up to you to view it as demolition or relocation.

Let us put our country first. Don't be a drag in our nation's progress.

The Great Indian Hype about Swine Flu

I wanted to write about this for quite sometime but found ignition in this article of Soutik Biswas. He talks about the attention swine flu is receiving these days in the Indian media. It is very scary to watch or read media reports about this 'epidemic'. Soutik Biswas also mentions the case of 1145 people infected of Japanese Encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh of which about 300 succumbed to this dreaded disease. Do you remember the attention given to this disease? No because as Soutik puts it "Apart from its name, there was nothing remotely global about this outbreak".

In a way it is good that media is making people aware of this disease but it is more terrifying rather than informative. An image in the same article shows masked girls sweating out in a gym. This is ludicrous if you ask any physio about it. One should be careful but not be intimidated by this disease. And why is it that media never gives same attention to other diseases which claim a lot more lives every year. Malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis require much more attention than swine flu. Are we in an age where even ailments are glamorized?

IPL and EPL

So the dreaded thing has happened. With all the hype and glitterati of the IPL, very few of us would have thought India will not reach semi finals. But then the only test playing nation Indians have defeated is Bangladesh. Yes, they are still better than 2007  World Cup squad. But they lost to West Indies (without a significant contribution from Gayle) and England. England is the same team which was branded "chokers", a group of snobbish players and a team lacking talent after their loss against Netherland. Now the same team whose players play insipid county cricket "bounced" us out of the tournament as the Cricinfo reports. At the beginning of this tournament i had no hopes from England but they have left Indian team in hopeless situation.

With all the glitz and glamour of the IPL Mr. Modi and co. wanted us to realise what good the IPL has done to India. May be the IPL has made life easier for an ordinary domestic cricketer but scheduling it so close to an ICC event was bound to leave players jaded. Remember all these Indian players were subjected to intense pressure in their respective teams for about 40 days. A bit of pressure is good but to have 14 twenty20 games within a span of 40 days is just too much. I never thought anyone in India will celebrate dismissal of Tendulkar by Warne. But commercialism did that too. Team bonding? What is that man? Now they want 2 IPLs a year and add to it the Champions League. Where is the time for test cricket or for that matter any form of international cricket?

India is fast turning into England of World Soccer. All hype and no value.