Wednesday, March 25, 2009

THE GREAT INDIAN DEMOCRACY..... CHOICE OR LACK OF IT



In a few months time India, the largest democracy in the world will go polls for the 15th time. The as usual the million dollar question arises who will come to power after all the dust has settled?? Gone are days of single party governments and of 3/4th majority in the center, now the in things are seat sharing formula's, power sharing formula's, pre-alliances and so on. I have been going through many a news website trying to figure out, whom should I vote for ??

 To my astonishment I have hardly come across any information that sheds light on the policies or the election manifesto of any one party or why or how is it different from another. I find it strange that parties seem to be more concerned about coming up some formula to share seats than telling the people why they should vote for them over someone else based on their policies. I really feel the political parties in India no ideological credibility of any sort. If a party says it is one for secularism, how in the world can you be in an alliance with the BJP( Bhartiya Janta Party). I am not going to waste blog space trying to explain why the BJP is not a secular party, honestly if you cannot infer that from the past 30 years I am sorry but the world has to be told the " Dodo" has not gone extinct ( may be you are even dumber than that). Now after the Varun Gandhi's episode it is pretty clear that nothing has changed.  

 For example look at the state of Tamil Nadu and you will notice how political ideology is dead. The leader of the AIADMK, Jayalalitha imprisoned Vaiko under the act of POTA during her reign as Chief Minister. Now the both of them have become partners so as to oust the DMK from power. (I do not even want to get in to how a man, who is known to have links with an organization responsible for the assassination of our prime minister, can fight an election?) How can Sanjay Dutt , a man in the Mumbai serial blast case and Tada be allowed to stand in an election?? what kind of message are we sending out,  if a convicted fellon gets to represent the people of the country... Is there no one else... or is everything forgotten just becuase he did Munnabhai!!!   

 Since I could not find any information about any political outfit’s policies or their plan of action if voted in to power I decided to make my choice based on will be the face of the government if they were to be voted in to power.


 

Dr Manmohan Singh: A man of few words, an economist turned politician. Many say the most honest man in politics but the very same man who was the head of one the most corrupt cabinets in recent history. One of his ministers Shibu soren is actually in jail for murder. Shivraj Patil I think will go down in history as the worst home minister ever.... I mean man did absolutely nothing. Just as side note he was born in 1932....  May be its time he hang up his boots considering the government retirement age is 62 ... but ironically in terms Indian politics he is termed has fighting young !!

 

L K Advani: Mr BJP I am sorry but the day he comes to power India might as well bring down the tri color and hoist the saffron flag. Going by what the BJP has achieved in Karnataka, a Hitler’s SS type persecution of the so called evil "mall & pub culture" god alone what comes next if he takes control at the center. And he still will not stop with Ram mandir Issue somebody needs to inform him that rest of the country wants wipe out any and all memory of our of shame. He is 81 years old!!! Most of our cities hardly have buildings that are that old.... 

 


Then we have the the so called 3rd option behankumari Mayawati.... her justification for why she should be the prime minister is... because she is a dalit. This coming from a lady who fielded 131 canidates with criminal records in U.P's state elections. Out if which 63 won and most these people have multiple criminal cases against them ... some include even murder!!! May be ethics is not her forte.... I pretty sure that if she were to become PM all her projects would be named Shri Kanshi Ram ... something . P.S she is endorsed by the left the so ideological stalwarts of Indian politics. 


 

This last candidate is a long shot for  the post PM but even then Mr Sharad Pawar the present BCCI chief and union cabinet minister...( How there is no conflict of interest there ...I Have no Idea)  thinks its time that there is a marathi PM .... He criticizes ... Mr Raj Thackeray on one hand but uses the same concept of “Marathi Manoos “for his political ambitions. Hmm I have an idea why stop at this lets make Sreesanth the captain of the Indian cricket team considering that we not had a captain from Kerela!!

 

So basically as an average Indian voter our choices have come down to the following 

Dial 1 for Corruption

Dial 2 for Religion (communal politics)

Dial 3 for Caste ( caste based politics)

Dial 4 for Regionalism (language based politics seems to catching on)

 

So ... I guess most us feel the system is screwed ... needs to change something has to be done.... Blah Blah... I have question how is it going to change if you and I do nothing about it!!! So please let us make an effort to do something.... you can start by going and voting.  

 

Pick the lesser of the 4 evils or if you are in Andhra Pradesh check out this party called Lok Satta  may be it might appeal to you basically there a lot more alternatives to what we have ...we just choose to ignore them.

Here is one more  lok-paritran

And Bharat Punarnirman Dal

Or.... the Professionals Party of India 


 

 

 

 

 

 


Monday, March 23, 2009

TATA NANO HAS ARRIVED !!!


 It is about 5:30 in the morning in the U.S and I am watching a press conference being held in Mumbai by TATA Motors to announce a commercial release of the TATA NANO. I cannot but help be filled with a sense of immense pride today. I fully acknowledge the critics and their views about this automotive innovation but I strongly feel today is a red letter day for the Indian nation as whole.

It is often referred to as the “cheapest” car but I seem to think the word "cheapest"seems to  take away the monumental technological achievement of this endeavour. Even 5 years ago if someone told you that a car would be available to for 1 lakh you would laugh and come to think of it most in the western world still think it is a joke.  It might look just like a tin can with wheels but even that is not so easy to put together as one may think.  

Today when the automotive industry is in a slump like never before, the last place one would have expected a technological development in automotive sector to come from ......  was India.

 This seems to be a very incoherent post in many ways but it is something I feel very strongly about. If anyone in the  world needed more proof that best and brightest people come from India well .... here is another example of it.  You said it was impossible well .... India made it possible. 

Basically I think it time to kiss the slumdog issue goodbye ..... we have some thing new !!! the NANO ...  

Thank you Ratan TATA...  for TATA NANO