Friday, November 03, 2006


I hate to put pictures up in my blog simply for the reason that they take up too much time to load. My idea of a webpage is that it need not be flashy but it should provide me with the required information without my having to wait for too long. Anyway, this is not what I'd like to write about in this post.
This post is about Keshav's cartoon about the indian economy which appeared in the Hindu today. So, you see, I couldn't have done anything else but to paste this cartoon in my blogpage.
As IT grows, so does the divide between the rich and the poor. Every now and then we hear the slogans of "India Inc." and "India Shining". Is the availability of the fruit kiwi in food world the index of India's shine? Or is the stock exchange a mirror of the true India? IT, or all these multinationals provide jobs to a miniscule fraction of people in India. I agree that it brings in a lot of capital to India, but this capital remains in the hands of the select few.
Its a pity that communism did not work.
Ironically enough, I was seeing this cartoon on my laptop's TFT monitor.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

The newspaper read "Good Morning Bengalooru" (Gosh, I still can't spell it, and perhaps, I don't want to spell it that way). Karnataka became more Suvarna today. Kannada language was enriched today. Today is a proud day for every Kannadiga.
I fail to understand what changing the name of a city has to do with Karnataka becoming Suvarna. I'd rather say that it is a sad day for Karnataka. I wonder how much money must have been spent to change the name of Bangalore (which sounds so good) to Bengaluru. Where did this money come from - the tax payer's pocket. There were so many ways to spend this money in a better way, but alas, all they decided to do was to change the name. Vote bank politics. First, make the Kannadigas feel that their culture and language is under threat, and then, do something to make them feel more secure. That will fetch you votes. At the same time destroy the country.
Come to think of it another way, does it really fetch votes? I mean, the number of votes is constant, and every party is lobbying for the same thing, every party plays the same partisan politics - give more quotas to SCs and STs, change the name of Madras to Chennai, Calcutta (I still love the name Calcutta and I refuse to use the name Kolkata - yes, I am a Bengali) to Kolkata and Bangalore to Bengaluru. So if one fine day, all parties suddenly decide to stop doing partisan politics -- now note here that I'm not asking these parties to work dedicatedly and sincerely for the betterment of the country, but to do something which won't harm their vote bank and satisfy me and many others like me as well -- none of the parties will lose votes; rather they would get a chance to gain more votes because if they stop doing partisan politics, India, some day will become a super-power and poverty will be reduced. More money will flow in. More money means more guns. More guns in the hands of thugs will enable the same parties to do more rigging during elections.
I don't understand why all these political leaders don't have the common sense to understand that their election budgets are, in a way, restricted by the Indian economy. If the economy grows, their election budget will as well.
Make me the prime minister. I will, at least, rule the country with common sense, if not with sincerity and patriotism.