Tuesday, March 24, 2009

IPL - Indian Political League?

For god's sake, please don't mix politics also with cricket!

IPL, as rightly pointed out by our Home Minister, is already a good mix of Cricket and Business. It even has glamour quotient added by all the business minded Bollywood stars. Why do we need to bring in Politics also into it?

Even someone as prominent as BCCI President did not have to try and take political mileage out of this!

I, for one, will always stand by the decision of Home Minister as Elections are more important for us, rather than holding IPL. And I am sure the security forces would have found it very very difficult to cope with both of these at the same time.

And, if some unfortunate incident was to happen during the elections/IPL because of the lack of proper security, all blame would have come to Home ministry and the security forces. None of these IPL stakeholders would be willing to take the blame! More than this blame game, it would have virtually killed this golden egg laying goose!

And, the worst thing about this is that, even the IPL administrators know about this. If a layman like me can think like this, I am sure those people have considered all this. And they smartly decided to hold it outside India. But, there are not only smart, they are crooked. That's why they are trying to gain political mileage out of this!

I hope that the common man is smart enough to see through their hidden agenda's and realize that Election is of primary importance than anything else at this point of time! It would be a shame is some people vote based on this incident!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Indian Parliament Election 2009

Hmm, so the UPA government was able to complete five turbulent years at Delhi under Dr. Manmohan Singh. Congratulations, first of all! Because, Indian Political scenario is so complicated and made of so many strong regional parties and leaders with a multitude of agenda that it is really becoming a big balancing act to form a stable government in India...

As per me, the government has not done too badly under his leadership. I have a lot of respect for Dr.Singh as he was one of the chief architects for the liberalization which helped India to achieve the kind of growth that we have seen over the years. And I think, he is as highly qualified and capable as anyone, if not more, to be the Prime Minister of this great nation.

But, one major argument against Dr.Manmohan Singh has been the fact that he was a Member of Rajya Sabha and not a Lok Sabha Member. He has never been elected by the people of India. He was nominated to Rajya Sabha all the time.

Now, is this a fault of Dr.Singh or a reflection of the fact that we, the people of this great nation does not have the common sense to elect a highly qualified man to Parliament? And to think that he contested the election from South Delhi where it is supposed to have more of an urban population than rural, it is quite unbelievable.

Of course, it was in 1999 and there was a lot of sentiments for Vajpayee and hence the BJP because his government was thrown out of power by one single vote. Still a person like Dr. Singh would always be a great addition to Indian Parliament as he is so much respected in all circles, at least more than Mr. VK Malhotra who defeated him. Obviously the people of South Delhi thought otherwise.

Now, why did I want to blog about this old story? Well, a story like this might just repeat itself, no where else than in God's own country, Thiruvananthpuram, to be specific.

Shashi Tharoor, erstwhile UN Under Secretrary general is contesting this election and his credibility and qualifications are immense. His ability as an author and a diplomat while at the job that he did in UN are very well documented. I would be really disappointed if he is going to bite dust in this elections. In fact, he is the only one person that I really want to see getting elected in this exercise. I would love to see the kind of things that he is able to do for his constituency and for country if given a higher responsibility.

I hope that the common sense prevails...

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Taken for granted!

America is still the biggest economy in the world! But, things are not that rosy for everyone here. If hundreds of thousands of people can lose jobs within weeks, it cannot be the best place to live on in the world.

There are multiple reasons why this happened. I am not an economist to point out the pitfalls that lead to this depression.

America is still considered to be the land of opportunities. And, it was not an overnight phenomenon which took America to the place that it is. A lot of migration happened from through out the world pursuing American dream and those who came in had the talent, determination and passion to do anything for their dream. And when each and every person started doing what they can to embrace and multiply the untapped resources of this vast land, it lead to the creation of wealth like no where else.

But has it reached the top and started the journey downwards? I don't know and I am no one to predict! But the current slump could be because of the fact that they started taking things for granted.

Kerala, my home state in India is blessed with fantastic flora and fauna and a temperate climate till few years back. But, global warming is starting to have it's toll on our small state. The average temperatures have started rising through out this thin strip of land. Palakkad is having drought which threatened crops and we have to request additional water from Tamil Nadu, imagine that! And it is only beginning of March!

Electricity board is trying it's best to give electricity without too much of power cuts. But, our reservoirs are already below half their capacities. And we are only at the start of what is going to be a gruelling summer. They are not even able to buy electricity too much from Central grid as the demand/price for it increased manifold after two coal mines in Northern India shut down, bringing down thermal electricity supply.

And, I read somewhere that of the 100 samples of water from different part of our state, only 13 samples are consumable.

If we don't buckle up, plan well and govern our state properly in coming years, we might be staring down the barrel!

Extending the same logic to me and my career, I think I have been taking my position in the company for granted for long. But I am getting signals from everywhere that things are not that great especially with the whole economic slowdown and all. I need to pull up my socks and be on my toes.