obvious musings
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Indian Elections Results
Thanks to people posting comments ..Some interesting comments .. Now I HAVE to blog about the elections and the latest political happenings ( no less than a typical Hindi potboiler with all the standard emotions :) .. ) in India.
Firstly why did the elections turn out the way they did ? With "India shining" and the "feel good factor" you would legitimately expect the previous NDA government to ramp home for another five year term. As many commentators have pointed out India "shone" for only the urban and to a certain extent semi urban population of the country. An oft repeated statistic is that still about 27% of the nation lives under a dollar a day.
India is not easy ..its a huge country with millions and millions of people all aspiring to live a better quality of life .. sure some of them benefited but ofcourse not all of them could have and hence did not benefit..I think its a very good sign actually .No longer did people vote on the basis of religious (hence the poor performance of the religious fundamentalist right ) or caste considerations , but on the basis of something more basic the "roti , kapda aur makaan " ( food, clothing and shelter ). Now the cry does not seem to be give us a Ram Temple , it is give us better opportunities to do better in life and that's great !
So anti incumbency set in as far as those people were concerned ..Also the "better offs" probably just stayed at home and did not even go out to vote ! I am also surprised that its not pointed out that the total tally of the BJP was not far away from the Congress and in no way can the victory be called an overwhelming one. I guess what caused this to become a big deal is ofcourse that this result itself was most unexpected ..
Now on the Prime Minister issue. I think Sonia Gandhi did a great job as a party campaigner. She worked very hard, braved the allegations of the NDA about the foreigner issue, she travelled about 60000 Kms throughout the country, roped her son in and when things at best looked chancy for the Congress , got them rejuvenated and lo behold ousted the previous government ! In a country where film stars have temples in their honour , figureheads and dynastic icons (like the members of the Gandhi family) are a huge draw.( No wonder so many actors and even a cricketer have got elected to parliament ). But But But, does that make her an ideal candidate for the Prime Minister of the country. Not by far ! I do not have so much of a problem with her "foreigner" status as some people have .. She has stayed in this country for almost 35 years now and has been a citizen for about 20 years. I think she would have become as Indian as much as it is possible for a person to become. ( Heck I know some of my Indian friends who start considering themselves Americans in a year of when they are here ..with the accent included ) .. However and this is key, I do have a problem with her competency to do the job. With barely a high school degree and with no formal experience in economics, government , international relations , health or in any of the "governable" factors she would simply be too much of a risk to try out! She was an effective tool to bring in the votes, but that does not necessarily mean that she can make the intelligent decisions that a person in her power would be called on to make.
Ofcourse in the latest saga to the great election drama , Sonia Gandhi has withdrawn her candidacy for the PM's post. As expected sycophants have cried , threatened suicide , pointed guns at themselves and what not. Its likely that Manmohan Singh would be the next Prime Minister. Thats simply fantastic ! The architect of India's liberalization , an Oxford educated economist , I think that would be great ! Ofcourse there will be murmurs about him not being in touch with the "common man". Lets see what happens. So India's Prime Minister would be a world famous economist and the President is a renowned rocket scientist. Bodes well for the country isnt it :) ¶ permalink 0 comments
Firstly why did the elections turn out the way they did ? With "India shining" and the "feel good factor" you would legitimately expect the previous NDA government to ramp home for another five year term. As many commentators have pointed out India "shone" for only the urban and to a certain extent semi urban population of the country. An oft repeated statistic is that still about 27% of the nation lives under a dollar a day.
India is not easy ..its a huge country with millions and millions of people all aspiring to live a better quality of life .. sure some of them benefited but ofcourse not all of them could have and hence did not benefit..I think its a very good sign actually .No longer did people vote on the basis of religious (hence the poor performance of the religious fundamentalist right ) or caste considerations , but on the basis of something more basic the "roti , kapda aur makaan " ( food, clothing and shelter ). Now the cry does not seem to be give us a Ram Temple , it is give us better opportunities to do better in life and that's great !
So anti incumbency set in as far as those people were concerned ..Also the "better offs" probably just stayed at home and did not even go out to vote ! I am also surprised that its not pointed out that the total tally of the BJP was not far away from the Congress and in no way can the victory be called an overwhelming one. I guess what caused this to become a big deal is ofcourse that this result itself was most unexpected ..
Now on the Prime Minister issue. I think Sonia Gandhi did a great job as a party campaigner. She worked very hard, braved the allegations of the NDA about the foreigner issue, she travelled about 60000 Kms throughout the country, roped her son in and when things at best looked chancy for the Congress , got them rejuvenated and lo behold ousted the previous government ! In a country where film stars have temples in their honour , figureheads and dynastic icons (like the members of the Gandhi family) are a huge draw.( No wonder so many actors and even a cricketer have got elected to parliament ). But But But, does that make her an ideal candidate for the Prime Minister of the country. Not by far ! I do not have so much of a problem with her "foreigner" status as some people have .. She has stayed in this country for almost 35 years now and has been a citizen for about 20 years. I think she would have become as Indian as much as it is possible for a person to become. ( Heck I know some of my Indian friends who start considering themselves Americans in a year of when they are here ..with the accent included ) .. However and this is key, I do have a problem with her competency to do the job. With barely a high school degree and with no formal experience in economics, government , international relations , health or in any of the "governable" factors she would simply be too much of a risk to try out! She was an effective tool to bring in the votes, but that does not necessarily mean that she can make the intelligent decisions that a person in her power would be called on to make.
Ofcourse in the latest saga to the great election drama , Sonia Gandhi has withdrawn her candidacy for the PM's post. As expected sycophants have cried , threatened suicide , pointed guns at themselves and what not. Its likely that Manmohan Singh would be the next Prime Minister. Thats simply fantastic ! The architect of India's liberalization , an Oxford educated economist , I think that would be great ! Ofcourse there will be murmurs about him not being in touch with the "common man". Lets see what happens. So India's Prime Minister would be a world famous economist and the President is a renowned rocket scientist. Bodes well for the country isnt it :) ¶ permalink 0 comments
Friday, May 14, 2004
Celebrity Crazy
Too bad couldnt see Troy today..All shows are full :( ... Brad Pitt was on Charlie Rose last night. After watching the interview I learnt that Brad Pitt is really interested in architecture ...Was that interesting to me ? Should it be ? Why ? I guess what I am hinting at is why are so many people celebrity obsessed. It is true that they might know much more than a movie star than their neighbors. Why should their personal lives be soo interesting to everyone ? Is it because we would want to be in their shoes and we are trying to live our fantasy life through them ?
A related event in India was when millions of women were so taken with the character Mihir in the serial "Kyonkee sans.. " that he had to be brought back when he was killed in a serial .. The "bahu", Smriti Irani actually ran for election in India this time ( though she lost ) and ofcourse several famous hindi actors and actresses have won elections this time ( Dharmendra, JayaPradha, Vinod Khanna, Sunil Dutt , Moushami Chatterjee and many more) ..Even Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former Indian opener also won and election.. I need to write more about the elections and I have some definite thought about them..
Meanwhile DO watch Ash at Cannes here ..this type of celebrity watching I DO approve :) ¶ permalink 1 comments
A related event in India was when millions of women were so taken with the character Mihir in the serial "Kyonkee sans.. " that he had to be brought back when he was killed in a serial .. The "bahu", Smriti Irani actually ran for election in India this time ( though she lost ) and ofcourse several famous hindi actors and actresses have won elections this time ( Dharmendra, JayaPradha, Vinod Khanna, Sunil Dutt , Moushami Chatterjee and many more) ..Even Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former Indian opener also won and election.. I need to write more about the elections and I have some definite thought about them..
Meanwhile DO watch Ash at Cannes here ..this type of celebrity watching I DO approve :) ¶ permalink 1 comments
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Sad..I am referring to the results of the elections in my home state Andhra Pradesh . The curse of a democracy , populist measures , the instant gratification luxuries that a state cant really afford have once again robbed us of a politician who atleast "tried" .. Indeed the first order of business of the new CM is to give free power to farmers in AP.What is surprising in all this is ofcourse the fact that the erstwhile ruling party did so badly even in many ways the "poster child" of the Naidu government , the city of Hyderabad .. Lets see what happens at the national level..
To more cheerful things then .. summer is really here in Boston , if you have the air conditioners on the local transportation called the "T" ( an appliance that I never thought would be of any use in this part of the country btw )you know that it is hot ! And along with the summer, come great movies.. Awaiting Troy and the latest in series of the excellent Harry Potter saga ( prisoner of azkaban ) and ofcourse spiderman 2 and there is one on king arthur and shrek 2 .. note none are set in "conventional" settings ..they are historical, fantasy and even animation in nature..maybe know its conventional to be unconventional .. ¶ permalink 0 comments
To more cheerful things then .. summer is really here in Boston , if you have the air conditioners on the local transportation called the "T" ( an appliance that I never thought would be of any use in this part of the country btw )you know that it is hot ! And along with the summer, come great movies.. Awaiting Troy and the latest in series of the excellent Harry Potter saga ( prisoner of azkaban ) and ofcourse spiderman 2 and there is one on king arthur and shrek 2 .. note none are set in "conventional" settings ..they are historical, fantasy and even animation in nature..maybe know its conventional to be unconventional .. ¶ permalink 0 comments
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Bush - Why ? How ?
How did Bush become the President in the first place ? For an outsider I am pretty amazed ..This article speaks of his general lack of intellect.. I think this is the problem ..for a person who by all measures is today the most powerful person in the world , it is not only in some ways sad , its also dangerous for the world.. so many obvious stupidities , I think a person, a little better versed in history and economics would have made more educated and correct decisions.. not decisions based on gut feeling and instinct , but more on careful reflection and analysis.. record fiscal deficit , war on iraq , the whole world hates the US , jobs got outsourced , horrible enviornmental policy .. I can go on and on.. However I am still not so sure whether Kerry has provided an alternative ..ok Bush has done a lot of mistakes , but Kerry still has a lot to do so that he is not seen as a straddler and provides some clear direction ..
¶ permalink 5 comments
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Pakistan and Webby Awards
Was going through the Webby awards list .. ( these are the Oscars of the Web !! ) , found links to several interesting sites..
One was the online version of the PBS Frontline .. immediatly started watching a documentary on Pakistan and remained glued to it throughout .. ( in no small measure , because i have fallen in love with the beautiful young (for the lack of a better word) documentarer ! (is that a word ? ( are brackets within brackets like this allowed ? ) ) ..( this is like hyperlinks , my mind keeps jumping from thought to thought so I have to produce all these brackets) ..ok now closing all and returning to the main thread ) ..
These are the links to the Webby's and these are the links to my lady love :) .. ..
Do watch it !
Seriously though, the documentary in a weird way seemed so much more accessible because I could understand the language in the interviews immediatly (being Urdu ,very near to my native language Hindi ) and gave me a fleeting glimpse of whats the current mood of "that country on the other side of the border" was ..
I think for most Indians of my generation and even a generation before , we were brought up in an atmosphere which always potrayed Pakistan as the enemy , as the one country to be hated , to be reviled and abhorred. So much so that rather comically , some of my friends dont buy shirts if they see that it is "Made In Pakistan" . Ofcourse the main issue of contention is the Kashmir issue . However I still feel that Kashmir and hatred of the "other" country seems to be much more a part of an average Pakistani's psyche than an average Indian's . ( another one of my side notes here .. I took a test today of where to place a comma and apostrophe and failed miserably , I think I do need this book .. if you still dont understand why heres the story which should bring in some realization .. :)
A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' .. Do you get it now ? )
In the US where we are all clubbed under "South Asians", I have had an opportunity to interact with some of them and I did get that vibe. It seems to be fundamentally linked with a Pakistani's very being . I am not exaggerating ..This documentary also points out that .. And that is why Musharraf may try as he might , but he cannot for fear of alienating his people skip around that sore point.
Ofcourse things are looking up these days, with cricket (by all means a minor religion in itself in both countries) ties being started and promise of talks in the future. I personally think Musharraf thought not democratically elected is good for Pakistan , as he appears to be promoting institutions of liberty throughout the country, is progressive and appears to be in control.. I have my fingers crossed. ..
Ofcourse I condemn the proxy war being waged by Pakistan , the terrorists it supports etc.. but still I encourage all my Indian friends that before they are awashed in the typical jingoismistic fervour which accompanies any mention of Pakistan to read the history of the Kashmir conflict and they might see that there are always two sides to every conflict , not one necessarily correct all the time.. ( a further example to substantiate this point . the war in iraq .. the conservatives in this nation do believe that the war was a necessary step and America is safer than before .. )
I read a post on slashdot which says that a researcher and his student have come out with a way to flood a P2P network with bogus files.. I think I experienced that yesterday .. I tried to download some songs through a file sharing service and found that apart from the opening few seconds the rest of the song had random electronic sounds.. hmmm no more free music :( .. which is ofcourse good .. but who doesnt like anything which was free ;) .. arent the best things in life supposed to be free..
And I also after spending 4 hours at a shoe store , ( this looks too much like something a girl would do I know.. but I wanted value for money hmmph !! ) .. i bought two pairs of fantabalous shoes.. I realize if I have to impress pretty young journalists like the one in the Pakistan video I better get my act together :) , graduate student like, socks with sandals will not do any more.. ¶ permalink 0 comments
One was the online version of the PBS Frontline .. immediatly started watching a documentary on Pakistan and remained glued to it throughout .. ( in no small measure , because i have fallen in love with the beautiful young (for the lack of a better word) documentarer ! (is that a word ? ( are brackets within brackets like this allowed ? ) ) ..( this is like hyperlinks , my mind keeps jumping from thought to thought so I have to produce all these brackets) ..ok now closing all and returning to the main thread ) ..
These are the links to the Webby's and these are the links to my lady love :) .. ..
Do watch it !
Seriously though, the documentary in a weird way seemed so much more accessible because I could understand the language in the interviews immediatly (being Urdu ,very near to my native language Hindi ) and gave me a fleeting glimpse of whats the current mood of "that country on the other side of the border" was ..
I think for most Indians of my generation and even a generation before , we were brought up in an atmosphere which always potrayed Pakistan as the enemy , as the one country to be hated , to be reviled and abhorred. So much so that rather comically , some of my friends dont buy shirts if they see that it is "Made In Pakistan" . Ofcourse the main issue of contention is the Kashmir issue . However I still feel that Kashmir and hatred of the "other" country seems to be much more a part of an average Pakistani's psyche than an average Indian's . ( another one of my side notes here .. I took a test today of where to place a comma and apostrophe and failed miserably , I think I do need this book .. if you still dont understand why heres the story which should bring in some realization .. :)
A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' .. Do you get it now ? )
In the US where we are all clubbed under "South Asians", I have had an opportunity to interact with some of them and I did get that vibe. It seems to be fundamentally linked with a Pakistani's very being . I am not exaggerating ..This documentary also points out that .. And that is why Musharraf may try as he might , but he cannot for fear of alienating his people skip around that sore point.
Ofcourse things are looking up these days, with cricket (by all means a minor religion in itself in both countries) ties being started and promise of talks in the future. I personally think Musharraf thought not democratically elected is good for Pakistan , as he appears to be promoting institutions of liberty throughout the country, is progressive and appears to be in control.. I have my fingers crossed. ..
Ofcourse I condemn the proxy war being waged by Pakistan , the terrorists it supports etc.. but still I encourage all my Indian friends that before they are awashed in the typical jingoismistic fervour which accompanies any mention of Pakistan to read the history of the Kashmir conflict and they might see that there are always two sides to every conflict , not one necessarily correct all the time.. ( a further example to substantiate this point . the war in iraq .. the conservatives in this nation do believe that the war was a necessary step and America is safer than before .. )
I read a post on slashdot which says that a researcher and his student have come out with a way to flood a P2P network with bogus files.. I think I experienced that yesterday .. I tried to download some songs through a file sharing service and found that apart from the opening few seconds the rest of the song had random electronic sounds.. hmmm no more free music :( .. which is ofcourse good .. but who doesnt like anything which was free ;) .. arent the best things in life supposed to be free..
And I also after spending 4 hours at a shoe store , ( this looks too much like something a girl would do I know.. but I wanted value for money hmmph !! ) .. i bought two pairs of fantabalous shoes.. I realize if I have to impress pretty young journalists like the one in the Pakistan video I better get my act together :) , graduate student like, socks with sandals will not do any more.. ¶ permalink 0 comments
The Iraqi prisoner abuse issue has to put it in Donald Rumsfeld's words gone "radioactive". Its all over the media ..
Several very interesting issues here ..
Firstly people everywhere are saying though Rumsfeld was not directly responsible for this , he should take the responsbility as the Secretary of Defense , basically take the fall and resign. This will send a powerful and required message to the average person on the Arab street that the US is really serious and does infact regard this as a big enough issue ...
Second how will this affect the politics of american election ?
Third and most importanly , this does not help the already severly damaged image that the arabs have of the americans..
bad bad bad ....
¶ permalink 2 comments
Several very interesting issues here ..
Firstly people everywhere are saying though Rumsfeld was not directly responsible for this , he should take the responsbility as the Secretary of Defense , basically take the fall and resign. This will send a powerful and required message to the average person on the Arab street that the US is really serious and does infact regard this as a big enough issue ...
Second how will this affect the politics of american election ?
Third and most importanly , this does not help the already severly damaged image that the arabs have of the americans..
bad bad bad ....
¶ permalink 2 comments
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Although I try very hard to be a non partisan observer in a fiercly Democratic state , even I am amazed at some of the going ons at the very top level of the government ( a side note here , i cant seem to pronounce this word correctly at all .. i tried to use this word and the person whom i was talking just didnt understand it ! .. same thing with cucumber and Somerville and apparently there is nothing called "gifted" and a host of other words.. , also someone used the term 'buns in the oven' and all this hapenned in a space of a day and I am beginning to feel i have to go back to school again and learn english ) ..
so coming back from the rather long side note , my reference is ofcourse to the iraqi prisoner abuse issue..
several points to be made here ..
Firstly Bush apparently didnt know about this at all till he came to know that this was going to be shown on CBS's 60 minutes !! He is supposed to have at his disposal the very best intelligence any person probably had at any time in history ever .. How shocking is that ..
Secondly I felt that the statements that Bush made to the Arabic channels were I felt as arrogant as they can be. Not once did he apologize , he doled platitudes about America being the land of free and justice and irony of ironies he actually stooped down to the level of comparing himself with Saddam Hussain claiming he would have never bought people to justice in such a case !!
The President say that he doesnt do nuance ...this is what i dont understand ..the world is inherently "nuantic" , seeing the world in evil and good , black and white is so ..I dont know almost childish :) .. ¶ permalink 0 comments
so coming back from the rather long side note , my reference is ofcourse to the iraqi prisoner abuse issue..
several points to be made here ..
Firstly Bush apparently didnt know about this at all till he came to know that this was going to be shown on CBS's 60 minutes !! He is supposed to have at his disposal the very best intelligence any person probably had at any time in history ever .. How shocking is that ..
Secondly I felt that the statements that Bush made to the Arabic channels were I felt as arrogant as they can be. Not once did he apologize , he doled platitudes about America being the land of free and justice and irony of ironies he actually stooped down to the level of comparing himself with Saddam Hussain claiming he would have never bought people to justice in such a case !!
The President say that he doesnt do nuance ...this is what i dont understand ..the world is inherently "nuantic" , seeing the world in evil and good , black and white is so ..I dont know almost childish :) .. ¶ permalink 0 comments
Monday, May 03, 2004
Gandhi and the Kennedy family - mirror images ?
Just a random thought ..
I was watching a program on Kennedy's presidency and then suddenly i had a thought ..how both the Kennedy and the Gandhi family in India have had such surprisingly tragic pasts ..
JFK was assasinated and so was Indira Gandhi .. Robert Kennedy was shot and Rajiv Gandhi was brutally murdered ..
Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash and so did JFK's son ..
Uneasy lie the heads which wear the crown ?
I keep finding patterns like these all the times .. I am sure other do too ..
what should a man do ? I am interested in several things .. I am interested in politics and economics and literature and history and society .. But I realise to "do well in life" one has to singly focus on a goal , on a particular vocation , a single expertise has to be developed .. I have been plagued by this thought for some time now ..
¶ permalink 0 comments
I was watching a program on Kennedy's presidency and then suddenly i had a thought ..how both the Kennedy and the Gandhi family in India have had such surprisingly tragic pasts ..
JFK was assasinated and so was Indira Gandhi .. Robert Kennedy was shot and Rajiv Gandhi was brutally murdered ..
Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash and so did JFK's son ..
Uneasy lie the heads which wear the crown ?
I keep finding patterns like these all the times .. I am sure other do too ..
what should a man do ? I am interested in several things .. I am interested in politics and economics and literature and history and society .. But I realise to "do well in life" one has to singly focus on a goal , on a particular vocation , a single expertise has to be developed .. I have been plagued by this thought for some time now ..
¶ permalink 0 comments
