Policemen on duty during a protest by trade unions on the right to protest, take a breather at the Gandhi Statue nearby on Seshadri Road in Bangalore on Thursday.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
The right to rest should be a fundamental right
9 July 2009 by churumuriIs private sector really superior to public sector?
9 July 2009 by churumuriThe big crib about the 2009 Union budget is that it doesn’t send out any signal whatsoever on “reforms”. That there is no talk of disinvestment, no talking of parting with the family silver. And this despite the Left parties not having any role in or control over the new UPA government.
The negative reaction of the chattering classes is what has forced Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee to bend backwards to reassure investors and the stock markets since B-Day.
Siddharth Varadarajan argues in today’s Hindu that privatisation of public assets is not a panacea for plugging the fiscal deficit or for stemming the perceived ineffciencies of the public sector. Reason: “privatisation” is predicated on the presumption that public ownership of industry is inherently inferior to that of private.
“In his recent book, Privatisation in India: Challenging Economic Orthodoxy (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), by far the most comprehensive and rigorous study of the issue in the Indian context, T.T. Ram Mohan of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, conclusively debunks the assumption that the private sector is more efficient than the public.
“After carefully reviewing both financial performance and input-output related physical productivity in the two sectors, he concludes that “the evidence thus shows that the perception that the private sector is uniformly superior to the public sector … rests on a weak evidential foundation.” This does not mean other aspects of the reform package are necessarily bad.”
Read the full article: Go easy with the family silver
Also read: Three reasons why everybody loves to hate IT
“When I grow up, I want to be a sub-inspector”
8 July 2009 by churumuri
Lok Ayukta raids unearthing “assets disproportionate to known sources of income” have long since ceased to surprise. But they also seem to have ceased to cause fear.
This little hut belonging to—wait for it—a sub-inspector, yes, a sub-inspector in the State excise department was raided by the Lok Ayukta team in Ajjanapalya in Bangalore on Wednesday. Sub-inspector Ramachandrappa, smart chap that he is, rents it out for shooting purposes.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
Where were you when Fedex was serving an ace?
8 July 2009 by churumuriE.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Roger Federer and Andy Roddick played perhaps one of the greatest Wimbledon finals ever on Sunday.
Federer, who had never broken Roddick’s service during the four-hour, five- set match, did so only once to win the championship. It was a match memorable for the event as also played in front of some greatest tennis players of the game Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver, Manuel Santana, Ilie Nastase along with Sampras.
When the whole world was watching the match, what were Indians watching?
Our sports minister Manohar Singh Gill probably had a ringside seat at centre court like last year. How did his countrymen who depend on Doordarshan watch the match?
They didn’t.
It is a crying shame that the Wimbledon men’s finals was not scheduled to be shown at all on our so-called “National Network”.
What was scheduled was the live telecast of the 4th one-day international between India and West Indies. India already had a 2-1 lead in the series and even if they had lost the match, would have leveled the series at 2-2.
Tennis was shown on DD only because play was stopped in the rain-affected ODI, and finally the cricket match was abandoned. This is the fate of international tennis final vis-a- vis an inconsequential cricket match.
It is true that sports channels like ESPN or Star Sports show these matches live. But should those who do not subscribe to the cable network miss such matches because of shortsighted policy of DD mandarins? Who decides on such issues anyway?
DD has a ‘dedicated’ sports channel which was showing some badminton match from the files.
In all fairness, DD had telecast live the ladies single the previous evening. But when it comes to cricket, every other sport, has to suffer the ignominy of playing second fiddle.
What if Leander Paes had reached the finals?
Feng Shui and the lost art of cricket commentary
8 July 2009 by churumuri
The return of the Ashes means the return of Test Match Special, the BBC’s informed but irreverent commentary team of “Aggers“, “Blowers” & Co, that leaves you wondering about Mandira Bedi and other corruptions that have become par for the course in Indian cricket commentary in the name of the lowest common denominator.
Besides the words, the TMS team is best known for the cakes, and the riotous laughter that the unintended gaffes like “the batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willey” induce.
Brian Johnston’s giggling fit—sparked by Jonathan Agnew’s quip that Ian Botham “couldn’t quite get his leg over” after Botham had dislodged the bails with his inner thigh—was voted Britain’s favourite piece of sporting commentary of all time.
A recent gem involves the mercurial left-arm spinner Phil Tufnell.
After a batsman had had his stumps flattened, Tufnell turned to Christopher Martin-Jenkins and said, “He’s been feng shui’d.”
CM-J didn’t understand: “Feng shui’d? What do you mean?”
To which a delighted Tuffers replied, “He’s had his furniture rearranged.”
Photograph: courtesy BBC
Mirror, mirror on wall. Who’s fairest of them all?
7 July 2009 by churumuri
Who doesn’t like to look good? At least not these young women, who took part in the state-level make-up and hair style competition organised by the beauty parlours’ association at the Town Hall in Bangalore on Tuesday.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
Also read: Another example of commodification of women
Blah on the one hand and blah on the other
7 July 2009 by churumuriAn octopus, it is said, can make a great economist. Reason: it can say “on the other hand” seven times more than their more than two-handed counterparts. Especially when the annual tamasha called Union budget is around.
For weeks and months, pundits, policy wonks, television talking heads and other interested parties fulminate on what needs to be done and what is to come. Numbers with a lot of zeroes are thrown around. In the end, after every “show”, it is just a lot of on the one hand and on the other hand.
Pranab Mukherjee’s budget is no exception.
The Congress’s surprising victory in the general elections, which allowed it to form a government without the support of the Left parties, and the President’s address to the opening session of the new Lok Sabha, had lead many cheerleaders (fully clothed) to presume that the reform rath would roll out.
In reality, yesterday’s budget was a page straight out of the Kuala Lumpur Police Department manual with not a squeak to pep up the markets. Yet, there is so much thunder and lightening in the papers and television, it is difficult to understand whether it was good, bad or abominable.
But at least we heard some nice lines:
1. Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar: “The only constituencies this budget addresses are the constituency of the aam admi and the constituency of 10, Janpath.”
2. Ashok Wadhwa: “The 2,000-point jump in the Sensex when the Congress voted back to power is as undeserved as the 800-point fall after the budget.”
3. Bibek Debroy: “If con is the antithesis of pro, then Congress is the antithesis of progress.”
4. Sandeep A.: “If this is the budget of a newly sworn-in government with a majority of its own and without left support, imagine the same budget in its fifth year with an election to face.”
What’s the best line you heard? And the worst?
CHURUMURI POLL: Judge vs Union minister
6 July 2009 by churumuriThe case involving the Madras High Court judge who reportedly received a call from a Union minister on granting anticipatory bail to two persons is remarkable for the u-turn it has taken—or has been forced to take.
On June 29, the judge R. Reghupathy, without naming anyone, said a Union minister tried to influence him to pass orders favouring the petitioners. According to this report, in which the reporter also mentions an off-the-record briefing by the judge after court, the minister is categorically reported to have spoken to the judge: “A Union minister talked to me. He influenced me to release this petitioner on anticipatory bail.”
The disclosure saw the usual to-and-fro from the political parties, with the BJP and Left united in their condemnation. Although the judge had not named the minister who talked to him, the BJP’s Arun Jaitley demanded that he be sacked.”The minister is not ‘a raja’ who was not accountable to anyone,” Jaitley, a Supreme Court advocate said, in a thinly disguised attempt to name the minister.
Kapil Sibal, a former Supreme Court lawyer now a serving cabinet minister, joined former atttorney general Soli J. Sorabjee, in demanding that the judge make the name public.
After the AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha named A. Raja as the minister who spoke to the judge, the DMK chief M. Karunanidhi sought a clarification from the telecommunications minister. Meanwhile, MDMK chief Vaiko, an electoral ally of Jayalalitha, has suggested that Raja could have used another minister to pressure the judge. (The film star-turned-politician-turned Union minister D. Napoleon hails from the same area as Raja.)
A day after the incident became public, the chief justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, said “if the Minister had spoken to the Judge [as stated by him] then really it is an interference with judiciary.” Now, in an extraordinary turnaround, Justice Balakrishnan has said the judge did not really talk to the minister and that the counsel of the petitioners had held out a phone.
Clearly, there has been some hectic backpedalling. Who do you think is telling the truth?
Behind every stanza, a deep crease of learning
6 July 2009 by churumuri
GAUTAMADITYA SRIDHARA captures the saxophone virtuoso Kadri Gopalnath performing in honour of Veene Raja Rao’s shathamanothsava in N.R. Colony in Bangalore on Sunday.
Also read: The Kannadiga jazz virtuoso creating waves
How (not) to appoint a University vice-chancellor
4 July 2009 by churumuriRamachandra Guha in The Telegraph, Calcutta:
“Some months ago, a news item in the Bangalore edition of a national paper carried this headline, “Three shortlisted for Mysore varsity post”. Since I am a former academic, and have known many past graduates and teachers of Mysore University, I read on further.
“The report continued to say that:
“…finally, the search committee has shortlisted three candidates for the Mysore University Vice-Chancellor’s post. The committee, headed by K. Balaveera Reddy, met on Tuesday. Sources told The Times of India that the shortlisted candidates are from Lingayat, SC and Vokkaliga communities. The candidates’ names have been placed before the government”.
“The report mentioned the names of the shortlisted candidates, from which one could discern their respective caste affiliations. Remarkably, the news report did not carry any details on the qualifications of those who aspired to be the new vice-chancellor of Mysore University.
“What were their areas of academic expertise? What were their plans for reviving a once-good university now gone to seed? Apparently, these matters did not matter to the newspaper, as they did not to the government that was to make the appointment. Perhaps they were of no concern to the candidates themselves.”
Read the full article: The chancellor’s vice
Maybe, he’s just pissed off at Pawar’s suggestion?
3 July 2009 by churumuri
It took 10 years to build. It cost Rs 1,600 crore. It was opened on July 1. It is the cynosure of all eyes. And to help everybody identify it easily (at Sharad Pawar’s suggestion), it has been named after Rajiv Gandhi. Still, a motorist finds it irresistible to leave his imprint on the newly opened 5.6 km-long Bandra-Worli sealink in Bombay.
Photograph: via E.R. Ramachandran, source unknown, will be acknowledged
What Mayawati can learn from Bhakta Prahallada
3 July 2009 by churumuri
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Ajji was reading Praja Vani near the Tulsi katte, as usual. After sometime, she flung the paper aside in disgust instead of her usual practice of neatly folding it and keeping it aside.
Ajji’s demeanour resembled Manmohan Singh’s anger against his agriculture minister who was still flogging the Twenty20 horse in London when the country was getting desperate for monsoon rains.
“Yenaaaythu Ajji; anything bothering you?” I asked.
“Ramu! Years ago I told you about Bhaktha Prahallada and Hiranya Kashipu. Do you remember the story?” Ajji asked.
“Yes, as if it happened in front of my eyes. I especially remember the scene when the demon-king Hiranya Kashipu ridicules Prahallada when he tells him God is omnipresent.”
“Yes.”
“Hiranya Kashipu shows a pillar and derisively asks whether Vishnu was present in that pillar. Prahallada informs him that God is present everywhere including the pillar. When Hiranya Kashipu tries to break the pillar with his mace, Vishnu himself comes out through the crashing pillar and ultimately kills Hiranya Kashipu,” I said.
“Vishnu is present everywhere for his Bhaktha who can see nothing else,”
“Ajji! I also remember your story of Krishna telling Arjuna that he will be reborn in the world whenever dharma is in danger and the evil forces have to be put down.”
“I am glad you remember that. In fact in the Bhagavad Gita the stanza is:
“Yadaa Yadaa hi Dharmasya…… Sambhavami yuge yuge”( meaning: “Whenever there is decay of righteousness and rise in un-righteousness, I shall manifest and make myself evident; chapter 4 -7)”
“Ajji! You had made us all by heart the entire stanza as well as the story of Prahallada. But what made you recollect all that now?”
Ajji paused for a while.
“Do you know something? Just as Vishnu appeared in the pillar to prove God is everywhere, now Mayawati is trying to show Dalits that she is Goddess and omnipresent with her statues all over Lucknow and UP!”
“Oh, Ajji!’
“Isn’t it shameful that a human being equates herself to Goddess and constructs her own statues all over using public money even as she proclaims herself as the messiah of the poor? Even Bhima Rao Ambedkar who did so much for the cause of Dalits did not call himself God. If any, he was one of the downtrodden and fought his way through education and later fought for their rights and condition in society.”
“That is true, Ajji.”
“Why, our own Bahubali who had won everything renounced his kingdom and his statue in Shravanabelagola stands there as a symbol of renunciation, sacrifice built not by Bahubali himself but his brother Bharatha.”
“That’s right.”
“Idu vinasha kale vipareetha buddhi kano! Once, Indira Gandhi had displayed this when she clamped Emergency. Congress learnt the lesson and gave a public apology. L.K. Advani, in a moment of madness did a similar thing when he led kar sevaks to the Babri Masjid and reignited the Hindu-Muslim conflict. I don’t care what that retired judge Liberhan, who made a second career out of his commission, has to say on that. Now Mayawati, the megalomaniac equating herself to Goddess, squanders thousands of crores of public money to build her own statue all over UP. Along with the corruption charges leveled against her in the Taj corridor case, spending crores of public money can only mean one thing.”
“What is it, Ajji?”
“The spark of indignation and revulsion that all feel against megalomania will result in removal of the ghastly statues lock, stock and barrel as also Mayawati herself as CM. Then only dharma can triumph against such evil forces,” concluded Ajji.
Also read: Is even B.R. Ambedkar safe in Mayawati’s hands?
Almost like Obama, but also kinda unlike Obama, too
Small step for majority is giant leap for minority
2 July 2009 by churumuri
On a day when India did what many advanced democracies cannot find the gumption to do—legalise gay sex among consenting adults—sexual minorities celebrate the Delhi High Court verdict at the Theological College in Bangalore on Thursday.
“In our view, Indian constitutional law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconception of who the LGBTs (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) are. It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is the antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual,” the bench said in its 105-page judgment.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
Also read: Gay sex decriminalised in India
It pays to catch them young to keep the faith?
2 July 2009 by churumuri
The latest issue of Tehelka has a superb story on the translocation of tribal children from Meghalaya to Karnataka by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to indoctrinate them in the Hindu way of life and to “defeat the Christian missionary forces” active in the 70 per cent Christian State.
Hindus comprise 13.27 per cent of Meghalaya’s population, and “others” are pegged at 11.52. It is to prevent the “others”—possibly indigenous tribal religions—that the RSS has embarked on this social engineering campaign.
The magazine’s Bangalore correspondent Sanjana (in picture, left), and photographer S. Radhakrishna, investigated 35 schools in the State and found 1,600 children who had travelled 3,370 km from four districts of the northeastern State.
The children are largely located in schools on the west coast, which has emerged as the karmabhoomi of communal politics in Karnataka, but a fair few of them are to be found in schools run by influential ashrams such as the JSS Mutt in Suttur (Mysore district), Adichunchunagiri Mutt in Belur (Mandya district), and the Murugarajendra Mutt in Chitradurga district too.
Tukaram Shetty, the RSS organiser responsible for the programme, tells Tehelka that indoctrination of cultural values and discipline is the first step:
“It is important that children imbibe these values early on. It will bring them closer to us and away from the Christian way of life. We teach them shlokas so they will not recite hymns. We take them away from meat so they will abhor the animal sacrifice that is inherent in their own religion. Ultimately when the RSS tells them that the cow is a sacred animal and that all those who kill and eat it have no place in our society, these children will listen.”
Obviously, such well thought-out plans to protect Hindu civilisation comes at a price.
The children—most of them from poor families—travel 50 hours to come to Karnataka. Many come only with the oral OK of their parents, a violation of the juvenile justice Act, and siblings are separated and sent off to separate schools because “it is easier to discipline them”.
Plus, there is the physical and psychological impact of studying in school environments diametrically opposed to their culture, language, religion and food habits. The children have trouble acclimatising themselves to the local weather. And then there are cases of children being laughed at because of their strange names and faces.
Read the full story: A strange and bitter crop
Photographs: Six-year-old children from Meghalaya chanting shlokas at the Thinkabettu higher primary and secondary school in Uppur, 500 km from Bangalore (courtesy Tehelka, top); and Karnataka Photo News
Also read: How girls pissing in their pants protect Hinduism
Just how is this dress an affront to Hindu culture?
Kissing isn’t a part of our culture. Pissing is?
T.J.S. GEORGE: Can these venomous buffoons even spell Bharatiyata?
3M: Ma-maati-maanush=Meira-Mamata-Mukherjee
1 July 2009 by churumuriAny fool can write on the budget after it is presented, and most do. Bibek Debroy imagines Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget before it is presented, in The Indian Express:
“Madam Speaker, I rise to place before the House the Railway Budget for 2009-10. “The real power in politics — is it manpower? Alas! In a real sense it is money power.” Members may not know this quote is from a poem titled “Politics” I penned while I was putting finishing touches to this speech.
“Madam Speaker, this is a budget and it is about money. But I will come to that later. This is a historic occasion. Never before in history has the Railway Budget been presented by a lady before a lady speaker. The Yadavs in this House need reminding I was India’s first lady Railway minister in 2000.
“Even as I speak, my mind is on my next poem and it will say, “Three Ms bring power and make the others cower.” I do not refer to Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing. That is “No-No”. I mean “Ma-maati-maanush”, with Meira-Mamata-Mukherjee as a sub-strand. That is how we will transform our “Jaago Bangla” message to “Jaago Bharat”. In celebration of this trinity, I am sending a shawl to Ram Vilas Paswan. As in 1997, I would have thrown it at him in this august House. But unfortunately, he lost the elections.”
Read the full article: On a different track
Who killed MJ? Those who’re killing Rakhi Sawant
30 June 2009 by churumuri
S.R. RAMAKRISHNA writes from Bangalore: Who killed Michael Jackson?
No, definitely not his doctors. Nor his rivals. Nor the sharks to whom he reportedly owed money. It is unlikely any of them would have wanted him dead that badly.
Michael Jackson began as a heart-wrenchingly sweet singer. Looking at his innocent early pictures, you wouldn’t imagine he would grow into the freak that many thought he became in his later life.
MJ’s music was nervous, frenzied, jumpy. It was almost atonal, and you won’t find much in his oeuvre that you could call mellifluous. His music and dance went together.
One didn’t mean a great deal without the other.
The beats, many of which he mouthed out before his musicians put them down on paper and played them, are cut, broken, hyperactive. This may sound blasphemous, but like Pandit Kumar Gandharva, who sang in short bursts to make up for a single lung, MJ created an art he and only he could perform.
It couldn’t get more idiosyncratic, more individual. MJ created his art from his neurotic twitches.
What happened in his early days—his troubled childhood when his father took up with his third woman, and his youth as a member of the family band, when he had to share a motel room with older brothers making out with groupies—wrenched him painfully out of his innocence.
His love life was doomed.
He came to be accused of child abuse.
He lived in hell, and his art could never be respectable.
It was street-like, it was exaggerated, it was fascinating.
All of this must have made him king of pop. Perhaps pop, when it needs to be as successful as it was with MJ, needs freaks. The largest selling artiste in history was also the unhappiest. He didn’t like his looks, he didn’t like his colour, and he tried to change all that with the help of modern medicine.
As the police are now telling us, he had nothing but pills in his body when he died. No food. Just medicine. That’s a stark metaphor for his broken world.
MJ made a fortune out of being neurotic, and the pop world fuelled his success and made its own fortune out of him. It takes a smalltown Rakhi Sawant, dreaming of taking on the suave, English-educated stars of Bollywood, to create a freak who sells.
She is today’s freak, checking out her grooms on television, creating hysteria for the moment when she ties the knot, and raking in some millions in the process. Who knows what emotional misery awaits her and the boy she weds on prime time TV?
So who killed MJ?
Could it be those merciless accomplices, pop and commerce?
S.R. Ramakrishna is the resident of MiD-Day, Bangalore, where this piece first appeared
Photo montage: courtesy Ashish Bagchi
Illustration: courtesy Jairaj T.G.
Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down
29 June 2009 by churumuri
Five months and two days ago, B.S. Yediyurappa was flaming mad when somebody pulled the chair from behind him at a press conference addressed by BJP president Rajnath Singh in Bangalore, landing him on his back when he sat down in the full glare of the cameras, still and video.
On Monday, the Karnataka chief minister was all smiles reliving the frozen memory at an exhibition organised by the Photojournalists’ Association of Bangalore at the Chitrakala Parishat. To Yediyurappa’s right is K. Gopinathan, the chief photographer of The Hindu, who captured the frame.
***
The B.S. Yediyurappa photo portfolio
Is it an idol? Is it a statue? Is it a mannequin?
One leg in the chair, two eyes on the chair
Yedi, steady, go: all the gods must be crazy
CHURUMURI POLL: A Bharat Ratna for PVN?
29 June 2009 by churumuriPamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao is one of the forgotten heroes of Indian politics. He had very nearly retired from active politics and returned to his home-state, Andhra Pradesh, when Rajiv Gandhi succumbed to the suicide bombers in Sriperumbudur during the course of the 1991 election campaign. PVN re-entered the “cesspool” to become India’s first prime minister from the South, eventually becoming the first from outside the Gandhi-Nehru clan to complete a full five-year term despite leading a minority government.
The slow, soft, measured “Chanakya” quietly ushered breathtaking economic reforms through Manmohan Singh that, at first, rescued an almost bankrupt nation from collapse and then set it on the path of high growth, while beginning the dismantling the licence-quota-permit raj. Yet, it would be fair to say PVN, who presided over the demolition of the Babri masjid in Ayodhya paving the way for the BJP-led government of Atal Behari Vajpayee, has not got his due, either as a prime minister or as a visionary.
Corruption charges swirled around the scholarly Rao and his family in his later years. He could not get a decent funeral in Delhi. And even to this day, there is only grudging acknowledgement of PVN’s role in India’s contemporary politics. At Rao’s birth celebrations on June 20, Chiranjeevi, the film star-turned-politician, floated PVN’s name for the nation’s highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna. Is it time for the nation to salute PVN’s role? Or has he already been consigned to the dustbin of history?
Also read: If all PMs are Bharat Ratnas, why are we like this?
CHURUMURI POLL: Anybody for the Bharat Ratna?
The difference between spiritualism & journalism
29 June 2009 by churumuri
Shooting the messenger is the world’s favourite hobby. So, the media is roundly berated by media consumers as the harbinger of bad news. Media personnel have been termed by critics as the “nattering nabobs of negativism“.
We suck the warm, positive air out of this wonderful world the rest of humankind inhabits. We separate the wheat from the chaff, and print the chaff. We lead if it bleeds. We make up, steal, distort, spin, sin. Etcetera.
Well….
Well, it turns out, the criticism is not just not new but a lousy cliche.
At a seminar on the “Significance of Spiritual Journalism”, held under the auspices of Viveka Prabha, the monthly magazine published by the Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Mysore, the president of the mission in Cuddapah, Swami Atmavidanandaji, showed just why.
Reports Star of Mysore:
“Scribes tend to underplay the truth and highlight the negative aspects of the news to gain popularity. That creates a false picture of any incident giving wrong information to the readers.
“Once Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa visited a friend’s house and he was asked to sit on a bench where there was a newspaper lying on it.
“Paramahamsa asked his disciple to remove the newspaper and clean that bench with holy Ganga water.
“Asked for the reason, Paramahamsa said that the newspaper carried only bad and negative news. Therefore, it was necessary to clean the bench and then only sit on it.”
After narrating the incident, Swami Atmavidanandaji, reports the paper, called upon the journalists to imbibe spiritualism in their approach and writings to come out with “true-to-life” news.
***
Now, how “true-to-life” could this anecdote be?
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa lived from 1836-1886. None of the pictures show him holding or reading a newspaper. How likely is it that in the home of a devotee at least 120 years ago, a friend would have subscribed to a newspaper? Even if he did, were newspapers already in the sordid business of distorting the truth and spreading negative news?
Were all Bengali and English newspapers indulging in scurrilous journalism back then? On every page, every day, everywhere? Or was there a specific story that day that the Swami was aware of? If it was the latter, wasn’t Paramahamsa guilty of branding all newspapers as bad and negative?
And what precisely is “bad”?
How did Paramahamsa know that the disciple had holy Ganga water at home to be produced at that very moment? How was he sure that its miraculous powers extended to wiping the sins committed by newspapers and journalists? Would it work only for all-seeing him, or for the disciple too?
And did he get the holy water and did it work?
Encyclopaedia Britannica reports that “it was about this time [1880s] that Calcutta newspapers and journal articles first referred to Ramakrishna as the Hindu saint or as the Paramahamsa.” Did Paramahamsa express his scepticism of these labels being given to him by “bad and negative” newspapers?
All these are silly, trivial questions, of course, but that is the essence of journalism, asking silly questions and putting “the truth” to the test. As the old saying goes: there is nothing called a silly question, only silly answers. And “Spiritual Journalism” by its very definition is an oxymoron; either it can be spiritual or it can be journalism. One is based on faith, the other on facts.
In other words, where specifically has this wondrous story of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa on newspapers been recorded and reported? And by which journalist, writer, biographer?
Tell us another, O Spiritual One, and stick to the facts.
Or shift to journalism.
People, not the press, are the real Fourth Estate
28 June 2009 by churumuriThe press in India, like the press elsewhere, holds on to the belief that it is the Fourth Estate of democracy, after the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, although the press in India, as much as the press elsewhere, finds its institutional and individual integrity increasingly under question.
In an article on the Open Page of The Hindu, Radheer Mahendrakar uses the results of the recent general elections to argue that the people are the real Fourth Estate, acting as a more effective countervailing force than the press, especially when they perceive a threat to democracy.
Mahendrakar says the collective wisdom of the people—the “miracle of aggregation“—showed up when Indira Gandhi clamped the Emergency, when V.P. Singh indulged in social re-engineering, when the BJP made religion an electoral platform through Hindutva, and when regionalism threatened to get ahead of nationalism.
“For generations, we have accepted the ‘press’ as a vital element of democracy….
“In politics, it is fair to say that the Indian voter is the Fourth Estate representing a counterbalance to the political parties of different ideologies—the left, right and centre. Time and again, the Indian voter has drawn the contours of do and don’ts in politics and chastened the parties when our democracy showed signs of dilution.”
Implicit in the point is the suggestion that a profit-hungry media in its quest for eyeballs and bottomlines, has forgotten, abandoned or is ignoring some of its fundamental duties. In other words, despite the press, the people as a group seem to be able to reach a decision that is very likely the correct decision.
Read the full article: How the miracle of aggregation works
Eyes are not just about the sight, it’s the vision
27 June 2009 by churumuri
In their symmetry and synchronisation, visually challenged dancers showed they were no worse than their differently abled brethren in Bangalore on Saturday. The event was Helen Keller’s Day, where 55 NGOs came under the banner of RVM to show their skills.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
Michael Jackson’s oh-so-slight Mysore connection
27 June 2009 by churumuri
Michael Jackson’s impact on the Indian mind can be seen in the dance competitions on TV every night, where young and not-so-young Indians, male and female, flaunt the results of the rediscovery of their bodies, bumping, grinding and holding their crotches, with fathers, mothers and others applauding happily.
If anybody came close to meeting The Man before the phenomenon, it was Prabhudeva, son of the South Indian choreographer, Mugur Sundaram, whose family has built a marriage hall in Visveswaranagar in Mysore to reaffirm their links to their City of origin.
Prabhudeva met MJ on his only visit to Bombay in 1996, thanks to Anupam Kher. Not surprisingly, the theme of the meeting of the lord and awestruck devotee was silence.
“People repeatedly ask me, “What did Michael Jackson say to you?” “What did you say to him?” All I remember is that I was struck speechless, but that face-to-face encounter, however brief, sent a thrill down my spine, a rendezvous accomplished almost as if I’d completed a long-planned pilgrimage.”
In the video, above, from the Tamil movie Kaadhalan which also launched him as a movie star, Prabhudeva moonwalks to the strains of A.R. Rehman, Suresh Peters and the late Shahul Hameed, for a couple of seconds in Mysore (1:45). The film, directed by Shankar of Sivaji fame, had busty Naghma as the female attraction, with Girish Karnad playing her corrupt and cruel governor-father.
Boys will be boys, MPLADS will be MPLADS
27 June 2009 by churumuriE.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: The Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) is a very popular scheme among all MPs irrespective of the party or caste they belong to.
Under the scheme introduced by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1993, each MP has Rs 2 crore per annum at his disposal, to spend on projects in his or constituency. The money is not directly given to the MP, but routed through the deputy comissioner or district collector.
Naturally lads will be lads, and MP lads being more so, they happily squander the pocket money the way they want and routinely end up short. Result: there is now a proposal to hike the MPLADS allocation to Rs 5 crore per annum.
There is a ministry of statistics and programme implementation which keeps tabs on the activities of MPLADS and how the money doled out by the government is used, abused or misused.
I had a chance to meet the Programme Implementation Group (PIG) chief who was quite earnest to talk on the subject.
“I am glad there is at least one organisation to keep a check on the drain of funds from MP quarters.”
“MPLADS has many subsets not many are aware of. There is a Members of Parliament Kickback India Development scheme (MPKIDS). Here the junior MPs, basically kids, are initiated by seniors as to how the system works. It is here they take up projects such as construction of bus stand, drinking water taps in slum areas, autorickshaw stand etc. Poor MPs have to give massive kickbacks to contractors to get the projects going,” elaborated the PIG head.
“No doubt it’s heart rending to see MPs go through such hardship,” I empathised.
“Another subset of MPLADS is Member of Parliament Fabrication, Underutilization and Nexus Development (MPFUND). Here the money involved is much more as there is a lot of fabrication involved in material or books. Underutilization is a must here and this is where politics and business meet, what we call Nexus Development. MPFUND needs money anywhere from Rs 5 crore to Rs 100 crore to see some real development. Right now they will make do with Rs 5 crore. But I am sure the finance department and PMO’s office will see the plight of MPs and double the amount every year so that there is a comfortable operating level of at least Rs 100 crore for each MP.”
“I am so happy for the info. Is there any other info you would like to share?”
“For smaller projects they use terms such as MPSYPHONS or MPJUICERS but these are for projects less than Rs one crore which they get as routine.”
“One last question, Sir. How do MPs get such huge amounts of money at such short notice in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha?” I asked.
“We call this MPQUICKFIX. We are not sure how this works. But we should be able to solve this by the time they are ready to table currency bundles next time,” concluded the PIG head.
Nangada loha purusha ittandu ulla kupyachaale
26 June 2009 by churumuri
Electionallu chotitayithu ikka Lalchand Kishinchand Advani kodagara nalla kularlu aaramalu injithu ikka Siddapura pakkathulla Orange Countylu photo edupuchittandu undu.
Pata: Karnataka Pata Suddi
Idina kooda noti: ‘BJP chopaku karana Advaniye’
12 things no one’s telling us about namma Nandu
26 June 2009 by churumuri
Nandan Nilekani’s appointment as the head of the national ID card project has been greeted with the same seriousness that an appointment to the Vatican would have received. Sure, it’s an important assignment and all that, and it’s a relief to see a technocrat with $1.3 billion in his hip pocket handling it.
But all we have got from the morning’s papers are details anybody with a slow broadband connection could ferret out from Wikipedia. That, and senti-pap like “I feel it’s like a younger brother leaving home.” But Nandan is a more interesting chap than that, with a life, a sense of humour, and a Twitter account.
So, did you know…
***
ONE: Nandan used to take a BEST bus from Santa Cruz, where he then lived, and come to Nariman Point where the offices of Bombay magazine were located to meet a young journalist called Rohini Soman, who worked in the magazine brought out by the India Today group. Ms Soman, who became Rohini Nilekani, later became the Bangalore correspondent of Sunday magazine under Vir Sanghvi. Rohini turns 50 on June 30.
TWO: Nandan’s elder brother by eight years, Vijay, is with the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, DC.
THREE: Nandan is a top-quality quizzer. He was part of the IIT Bombay quiz team that came third in the 1979 Mood Indigo final. A competitor recalls him as being laidback and generous, unlike the IIT Kanpur team. However, neither IIT team could answer a question that was flung at them: “What is common to the first 35 Popes?” The correct answer came from a young boy from South Indian Education Society: “They were all saints.” The boy turns 51 on June 28.
FOUR: At Patni Computer Services, where Nandan and N.R. Narayana Murthy became colleagues and friends, Nandan’s salary was Rs 1,200, the same as his father Mohan Rao Nilekani earned then.
FIVE: Nandan is not an MBA. He believes that being general secretary of the IIT Bombay students’ union was more education than any B-school could give him. A key test of his man-management skills came in 1977 when a massive cyclone hit Andhra Pradesh when the leftwingers on the campus felt it was inhuman to splurge cash on the college festival Mood Indigo. Eventually, Nandan found a middle path. The festival was held, but money was also sent to the flood-affected.
SIX: When Infosys went public in 1993, no one picked up the stock. Among the first people Nandan tried to sell the Infy stock before the Initial Public Offering was his IIT Bombay senior by one year, co-Kannadiga, and now Union minister, Jairam Ramesh.
SEVEN: In 2002, Nandan is famously rumoured to have provided the editorial inspiration for an India Today cover story that had nothing to do with Infosys or IT. Suffice it to say, neither the magazine’s current editor nor its then managing editor are likely to have sent him their best wishes on his latest appointment but Phaneesh Murthy is likely to have quietly chuckled.
EIGHT: Despite being born in Sirsi (Wikipedia) or Bangalore (his own blog), Nandan is a not natural with Kannada, and is routinely confused on when to use neevu and neenu. He once referred to Narayana Murthy’s wife Sudha Murthy as “avalannu“, till his secretary Malliga corrected him. Malliga, like Narayana Murthy’s Man Friday A.G. Panduranga alias Pandu, has been with Nandan for 20 years now.
NINE: Deepika Padukone is apparently his niece, which should make Prakash Padukone a cousin, which should make Guru Dutt and Shyam Benegal part of the family. (If she is not his niece, bad luck; that should teach these stinking rich IT types that even $1.3 billion in the family kitty can’t buy you the right relatives.)
TEN: Nandan predicted the results of the 2008 assembly elections in Karnataka absolutely spot-on. In an SMS to a top TV honcho, he gave BJP 110 seats; the BJP got 110 seats. However, despite his prescience, Nandan could not predict ‘Operation Kamala’.
ELEVEN: Like so many others in the IT sector, Nandan is a devotee of the Sai Baba of Shirdi, and even wears a silver ring to boot.
TWELVE: Doesn’t mind talking about Vatal Nagaraj and his innovative ways of protests.
THIRTEEN: That he signs his bank cheques like these and they still honour it!
***
Also read: CHURUMURI POLL: Has Nandan trounced NRN?
‘Dear Nandan, quit Infosys, start a political party’
Nandan Nilekani: the 6 things that changed India
