A Missed Call from the Government!

...Last month was the budget month and much has been talked about the 6000 Crore farm loan waiver. Much water has been drowned down the drain since then and people including the media are still euphoric about the funding from which the actual waiver is going to be provided from. Some people were even of the opinion that why should the finance minister take away the tax paying industry's money to fund the financial irresponsibility of some farmers, whatever may be the root cause for their suicides..

...one important issue that was set aside or rather given a look-away during this period involved the granting of the electromagnetic spectrum to the cell phone service providers. The story goes back to the time when Mr Jagmohan was the communications minister in teh BJP Regime...the government auctioned the cell phone licences, and invited tenders. People who made realistic bids lost to some big sharks who made thrice or four times the logical bid amount, for their call was simply outrageously huge to others. Naturally, after a while, the W found themselves in a position wherein they could not pay the pledged amount. Jagmohan, the firebrand from the Sanjay Gandhi era, he was, took the rightful step in cancelling the licenses of these firms. Thus the people who made logical bid amounts got a second chance as the gamblers had gone bankrupt... and it was all a fair-play game till now...

...the business media and papers took the stage and manipulated public opinion in such a way that Jagmohan was soon shunted out to the culture ministry. In came people who had the "wherewithal to bring in the communication revolution for the new age India". The media side by side .. suggested operators may not be made to pay for a blunder that the government did and also advocated a 'Revenue sharing licence fee model'.... Thus, the government waived off huge sums of that 'pledged money'...those who made logical bid amounts again lost out to the sharks, but now did not even have to pay the promised outrageous amount. One rule for the multi millionaires.. and another for the common man...Is this another of those paradoxes or double standards that we see in our plural India?

fast forward to 2008, and we are in the middle of the grant of Electro-magnetic spectrum for 3G services...government is allocating licences for the spectrum for 3G and Wi-Max services...UPA minister A Raja, learning from the earlier debacle.. decided that he will not go for an open bid process but on a FCFS (first come first serve) basis of allotment. within few seconds of the press note being issued inviting MoI, RComm came up with a ready-in-hand demand draft (so did RComm knew what the goverment how the govt was going about...) amounting to crores... thus, the very same day, RComm who till now was just a CDMA service provider, got licence to run GSM services and 3G. had the government gone in for an auction system, it would have got crores of rupees on the exchequer as earnest money and interests, but it simply choose to waive it off.

It is to be kept in mind that Electromagnetic spectrum is a rare, and fixed commodity a nation has, and has even got security ramifications. The excesses, BJP did during their time, the UPA is just following the same path, and the powers-be namely the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi, under whom the NAC functions have been a mute spectator to all this. The man who revolutionised the telecom sector during the 1980's Mr Sam Pitroda, advisor to Sonia Gandhi on such matters, too has been quite equivocal on this issue.

(Statistics & Other facts and figures, courtesy TRAI website and TRAI Open House Meeting)

Inclusive? Not, Really!

Amidst all the hype and hoopla over the massive 6000 Cr farm loan waiver and tax soaps to the common man, the media and pundits alike seems to have missed the essential point. The Finance Minister's claim of his budget being "inclusive" doesn't really cut ice!

Though, I along with a minority, agree that the waiver is gonna benefit a whole lot of farmers (i am not disputing the numbers here, for numbers were always manipulated to suit one's objectives and points), this measure seemed to be a very short-sighted one (ie leaving aside the fact that general election are round the corner and UPA has started investing in vote-banks), this loan waiver is basically a temporary solution just because of the simple fact that it failed to address the core systematic issues plaguing the farmer, which inturn give rise to his indebtedness.

The agricultural sector, similar to all other core sectors is looking out for investments and inflow of money to prop it up. Today we have investments coming into all sort of such core sectors beginning from real-estate, infrastructure, airports, telecom, media and even cricket », but not agriculture. Statistics say more than 40% of india's agricultural produces become stale and perishable, by the time it reaches the market. (Blame it on the delivery systems, the as-usual-culprit, the paradox called india , just like thousands of tonnes of rice getting eaten by rats, while crores of people die of hunger) Why cant a country that launches satellites and aim to put man on moon devise a method wherein it can preserve the farm produces?

...The loss of his 'produce' is borne by the farmer by the way of a loan, and because he has lost his forthcoming crop to a draught or a flood, he cannot repay the debt. Attracting private investments or even Government funding into cold-storage or better, efficient, fast logistical chains would facilitate and help out more farmers than the proposed loan waiver. Quite unlike the Golden Quadrilateral project or the proposed plan to linking rivers, the government could have gone in for a linking of water canals and investments in local water-bodies like ponds and other water sources. Public investment on such localised projects already form part of the much successful NREGA programmes, and what was needed was just a thrust towards linking the NREGA with this Linking canal project. It could have further increased the industrial growth and more cash in people's hands, thus living with the Finance Minister's slogan of 'Inclusiveness'. That the Minister failed to see this point, paints a sad picture.

FootNote :-
(Cricket)
IPL Auction, made us, as a nation move ahead from being an implicit sellers of our past glory to one that buys out an glamorised future. If earlier, we used to say that money could buy out anything, today, with IPL auction, we saw it live on TV and what more, clapped too... No wonder, the blatant throw-away of money on people - that our idols have become products out for sale - provokes debates, introspections, celebrations, and even recrimination.

(NREGA)
The NREGA or national rural employment guarntee act provides a legal framework for 100 days of employment in every financial year to adult members, including women, in any rural household, willing to do unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of not less than 60/- a day. The work mostly involves labor like builduing bunds, small scale dams, roads etc, and the Central Government directly pays the wage. All jobs are provided within 5 Kms radius of the household, and each adult member is given a job card. The scheme has been a huge success since its inception in 2006.

...Death! Thou Shalt Die

(This is one of my fav verses...written by JOHN DONNE....)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Internet Deprivation Syndrome!

......Addiction to Internet. Yes, Addiction...just like one is addicted to Drugs....Coke....Alcohol. I too have succumbed to this new fad....so to speak!! And what do u have when u are deprived of ur addiction....Yes....Withdrawal Symptoms....!

So these days, after 5 Email Ids, 3 Messengers, 2 Blogs, and endless number of WebPages, I end a conversation on my handphone by clicking a button on my computer (Thanks to Voice Chat and VoIP), and gets irritated when other landlines doesn’t respond to the clicks on my computer…. I end up with a unique urbane disease called IDS or Internet Deprivation Syndrome. My fingers are itching…My eyes are twitching….

It has been 6 hrs already. Yes 6 looong looong hours. Yesterday, I chatted for three hours and 27 minutes with my chat buddy ‘love_an_ice’ (it is her online nickname). When ‘Nandini’ came and told me proudly that she chatted for three hours 14 minutes on her handphone hooked to the internet with her online friend from ‘Greenland’, I told her that I chatted for 23 minutes more than her, with this ‘love_an_ice’, from believe it or not, ‘Cyberia’. U should have seen her face then….talking green, she has indeed turned ‘green’. For a difference, she was the loser this time around, and I, the victor. This ‘ice cream lover’ is my online pal. I chat with her almost everyday. Daughter of an Iraqi Colonel, she tells me all the latest gossips from her university and her evening job in a small city in Iraq called Karbala. She even tells me how her people are fighting the ‘Invaders’ and how she heard a giant thud of a bomb dropping just across her street. I tell her all about my life in an Indian metropolis. To the rest of the world, I am ‘Me’, the meek, the quiet, but to this ‘ice cream lover’, I am a ‘Neo’, the oh so cool, the one that all flip for! To this ‘ice cream lover’, ‘Neo’ (Oops! I forgot to tell u, it is my online name) is the epitome of manhood. I can do anything I want. I invent. I tell her all the things I wish had happened to me, as if they actually did! Who is to know? She does not know my real name, my address or anything else. ‘Neo’ actually exists. Here, inside my computer !

As u may have guessed by now, when it comes to the Net, I am a hardcore Nut. I love chatting. I love telling this ice cream lover and anyone else who might want to listen, all about the imaginary ‘Me’. As someone said, “No one knows u r a dog” how true…no one knows ur plain ‘ol ‘Me’ either. True, if otherwise, my life would be made to a movie....would you have brought the tickets...? I don’t want an answer to that.

Next to chatting comes music. In fact, more often than not, while I am chatting or not, I am listening to music. Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Phill Collins, Ricky Martin, Richard Marx…These are my favorites. All my friends ask me, with that music system behind me, why is it that I have to listen to a sou…sou…l… rendition by Phill Collins on the net, with so much static delay and hiss, that too at a low volume. Say what u will. There is something about the net. Something about the fact that u can actually get some great music out of this box that other people use for spreadsheets and word processors (Ugh! J . Aah! See I couldn’t resist it…the similes - J - or have u seen the saddie :-( ?

….That is what I am…a saddie…. when I can’t get through the chat line of ‘love_an_ice’. Yeah, I do have problems when I withdraw from the net – withdrawal symptoms which I earlier mentioned - I feel like an insomniac…with an utter lack of appetite…even at midnight, my eyes are wide open…eardrums close…breathing becomes heavy…body feels the weightlessness…mouth dries up…palms sweat…heart races…mind crawls….BP rises…stomach sinks…and I am sleepless…! …Withdrawal symptoms when one is deprived of his daily quota of Cocaine…U must’ve heard of this when u talk about Hash…or Diazepam…but not with the internet….well, that’s the age we live in…Yeah!…I am addicted to the Cyberia!

Now, as I lay in the darkness at the dimly lit ceiling. A bright halogen lamp on the adjacent road envelops my room in a strange, sci-fi glo. I expect ET to crawl in through the window, or the entire star trek team to march in. I try humming those melodious songs, or going over the day's happenings. I even try resorting to pleasantly distorted memories of my college days, lacing them with wild exaggerations and silly fantasies. But Nothing works...and sleep is hard to come by...and so I have to log in to internet again...

So, other than chatting and Music, what does the ‘Neo’ do online? All my friends love walking down the super malls in the city, window-shopping. What do they know? That this information super-highway is the largest window-shopping mall in the world. True, true, I cant buy my favorite kurta here (but believe it or not…sooner or later, our very own Dilli Haat is going to be online…) . But I can check out the latest styles. Levi is here. Versace, Armani, Tommy Hilfiger is all mine. Even the designer malls of MG Road are here, so that I can tell my ice-cream lover who the leading designers of my country are and what they have in store for her….Infact, she does the buying too… Indeed!! Who want to ogle at platform stuff in the local bazaars? And in the net, there is no one to question me, asking why I am loitering so long. In fact, they welcome it. Oops, what about Movies, check out that online clips of dreamy Kate Winslet and Micheal Pfeiffer, she is here too…. I can even have a chat with Lara Dutta or Priyanka Chopra, if I want to. Trailors, I watch them long before the guys in my office even hear the movie titles. And Aamir, Aishwarya, they are all here, just in front of me, and even J Lo…Wow! This world just Rocks!!!

Speaking of Cheese, have u ever tried a Maurya Sheraton Kadai Paneer? That is my other hangout! The websites of five star hotels. Have a look at their menu, and yummy, ur stomach is full. Other place where I frequent is the recipe sites. Okay agreed, I am no King when it comes to making home dishes. But when it comes to Egg Florentine, or Cheese Dumplings, dipped in Thousand Island sauce (don’t ask me what I used instead of the thousand island sauce) I certainly have the last word and it just thrills!!

Oh! I am hungry again…where’s it? Where’s the dial-up?, Where’s my GMail? Where’s the ice cream girl? Is she online? Wonder whether the tele department will operate today? I badly need my ‘fix’. Clark Kent goes into a tele booth to turn into a SuperMan….Peter Parker goes in to a washroom to turn into a SpiderMan! And I logon my computer to turn into ‘Neo’…HERE I COME……..‘love_an_ice23’...!!!

EndNote :- Its been a looong months since I heard anything from ‘love_an_ice’….Wonder what happened to her….? May be, one of those precision bombs fired by US might have hit her computer. Now even as I log in each day in the hope of finding her on my chat room, I hear on my TV that MCD has bull-dozed the MG Road Mall as well though it still remains on the Cyberia….And as the title song from ‘Titanic’ wafts across the room from the Celine Dion Site, what remains at the end of the day is the Hope of finding ‘love_an_ice’ once for all!

Carpe Diem... by Robert Frost (My fav poem)

Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited, (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
"Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure."
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past.
The present Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine.

Nostalgia is indeed a Powerful Drug!

Touring at Mysore - Final Grad year

10th Standard - Bharathamatha High School, Palakkad, Kerala

5th Standard - Bharathamatha High School, Palakkad, Kerala

The Singles' Club!

It was not ‘someone’ who called me a ‘Bachelor’, the first time. It was ‘Something’...The brown official-looking envelope I received by registered post that day had my graduation certificate in it. 'Bachelor of abc', it announced in somewhat gaudy letters as I stood smiling. Infact, I was receiving this, four years after I came out of my college…and three years after I joined my second job...Indeed happy I was…!!

Bachelor!

Till then I was a boy, a brother, a student and even a ‘whatnot’ -- but not a bachelor… All of a sudden, that important piece of paper had given me a new identity…

I know you are dying to tell me things like 'this bachelor is not that bachelor', but believe me, the very next day my phone rang. It was my real-estate agent, an uneasy reminder to the approaching expiration of the initial lease agreement I signed with my landlord.

"Sir, you are a bachelor, are you not?"

"Sure, I am," I said, almost adding, "and now I have proof of that, if you need."

"Sorry sir. The owner is not willing to give the house to bachelors. But don't worry, sir, I have many other houses. You see..."

So that's how it is. No country for the people of Palestine. No food for the starving Somalis. No re-habilitation for the displaced PAP (Project Affected People) of Narmada. No trees for migrating birds. And yes, no houses for poor bachelors.

They are not welcome in residential areas. Bachelors party and make noise round the clock. They go after the neighborhood girls. They don't respect the norms of the colony. They come in groups...

Anyway, I learnt my lesson: Bachelors don't have all the civil rights that 'normal' citizens enjoy. But then, what do we have that makes many a married guy cherish the memories of his long-lost bachelorhood?

Palestinians have to cling to their land. The PAP’ies (as Arundhati Roy calls them) have to go on Hunger Strike….Migrating birds are bound by directions. But a bachelor has few restrictions. Except for renting an apartment and walking into one those stupid 'couples only' clubs, he can have everything else.

He gets up at any time and sneaks into the office unnoticed when others get ready for lunch. He sits to almost any time in front of the computer without worrying about anxious ‘where-are-you’ calls. He stays away from the house for days and no questions are asked. He does whatever he wants on the weekend, in the company of his ‘single’ friends...

Yes. Friends are the most important aspect of any bachelor's life. Without them he practically has no existence, especially if he's staying away from home.

But then one day, over the thundering music and the first round of the cold mocktail, in a brightly lit ‘Cha Bar’, ‘she’ announces her plans to get married to this handsome (so-called) guy that someone else had found for her. Over the double cheers, the naughty comments and laughter, I become aware of something that hurts me somewhere...something inside my stomach is churning...

...My friend is getting married. Of course! It’s something to celebrate... But then, that also means she's leaving our gang!

We attend her wedding, the most colourful function of her life, in full ‘spirits’. All of us! We give her gifts, wish her good luck and retreat to our good old world, one member less. It does not take much time before we find her reduced to much-delayed replies to our bunch of mails -- and as for phone calls, that comes only once in a blue moon day.

For my part, I watch the pile of wedding invitations in the corner of my desk grow at an amazing, alarming pace. Before I know it, most of my cool buddies are gone. And the rest of us soon realize that we are not always welcome to the new circle, the married men or women have formed. So we seek solace behind those office doors where the sun never sets.

I do meet my married friends occasionally. In the office, on a casual walk, or in a busy restaurant. They are my friends still. And they are still friendly as much as their new lifestyle and added responsibilities permit. But...

Oh heck, there's my telephone ringing. I think it is my real-estate agent again.

I promise to remain single... till he finds another suitable single!