SAINA O SAINA!

SUNNY THOMAS

Hail Mary, full of strength! Famed are you among women. And famed is your Olympic bronze. Inspire us now and at all times. Amen! A short prayer for every Indian who watched the Summer Olympic 2012. Indeed Mary deserves the highest gallantry award for fighting for India against equally determined women but taller and stronger than her.

Gagan Narang won India’s first (bronze) medal for shooting (men’s 10 metres air rifles) and Vijay Kumar, the only silver the country has got, in shooting (men’s 25 m. rapid fire pistol). Saina Nehwal bagged bronze in badminton (women’s singles) and Mary Kom, bronze in wrestling (women’s flyweight). On the eve of Mary’s fight for silver, India’s most famous commentator, Boria Majumdar, commented that since she has not lost twice to the same opponent, Mary was all set to win silver, and even gold. In politics and sports, anything is possible. Millions of Indians shared the joy and the heartbreak that Mary went through.

But it was Saina, 22, who captured the nation’s imagination, like Boris Becker at 18 winning the Wimbledon Cup. She was the Young Sensation that Sachin Tendulkar was, playing against Pakistan at 18. Now she joins the rank of Kapil Dev, Sachin, Dravid and Dhoni, who have made the nation proud. And she shares pride of place in the nation’s Hall of Fame with the immortals like Father of the Nation, the First Prime Minister, the Iron Man of India, the Constitution Fathers, Prime Minister Durga Gandhi and others.  

Hats off to Vijay Kumar and Gagan Narang, who made Olympic history by their winning streaks. India sent 83 sports persons to compete in 13 events. What happened to Mahesh Bhupati and Rohan Bonnapa, who made headlines for the wrong reasons? What happened to the rest of the India Olympic entourage?  The government spent $48.1 million and $11 million came from private funding. Which means, over $14 million per medal ! indeed Bronze is Gold for India, considering the price at which our players fetched them.  

Look at the medal tally of some other nations:

United States      39      25     26     90

China                 37      24     19     80 

Great Britain       25      13     14     52 

Russia               12       21     23     56 

Korea                12         7      6     25 

Germany            10       16     11     37

To command the respect of the comity of nations, India must produce ace sports persons. America and China are global powers because they are more disciplined, more innovative and more goal-oriented. Generalizations could run into troubled waters but the obvious need not be overemphasized. As a nation, China is far ahead of us, in primary education, sports education, and in health care. Saying that it is the Blacks who win most of the medals has no merit as an argument because Blacks are Americans too!

Britain, of course, once ruled the world, and as a world power it has yielded place to other nations; yet it maintains a semblance of its past glory. The decline of Russia after the break up of the Soviet Union is understandable; but Korea’s leap ahead of Germany wins world admiration.

What are Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics? A quick glance at Olympic Games years will give us the answer:

Summer Olympics: 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 

Winter Olympics: 2002, 2006, 20010     

 

Faster, higher, stronger is the Olympic motto (Citius, Altius, Fortius). And you must be a schoolboy or a schoolgirl to remember that Olympic Games began in 776 B.C. The Olympic flag has five rings interconnected, to represent the five Continents, and one of the five colours – blue, yellow, black, green and red – is in every national flag. The flag was designed by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914.

Barbarians can never appreciate Olympics; they know only how to shoot and kill people who have done them no harm. In fact, Olympics and terrorism are the two faces of civilization – the noble and the hideous!

  

     

CRY MY BELOVED COUNTRY!

SUNNY THOMAS

The minister sat impudently as the inferno engulfed Tamil Nadu Express claiming over 30 lives. The same minister was smug when a girl was running desperately from compartment to compartment, fleeing from her rapist predators, while the whole train (Yeshwantpur-Mysore Express) watched the scene as if it were a live television show! The minister indeed deserves to be hanged but what about the spectators who feasted on the misfortunes of a fellow citizen? This is the tragedy of a civilization that once was a magnet of knowledge-seekers from across the world. (We are talking about the schools of Nalanda and Taxila where, according to the Chinese traveler Fa-Hien, thousands flocked seeking wisdom. 

What angers many Indians is the casual attitude of ministers to human tragedies, avoidable at all times but repeat themselves on the callousness of the powers that be. Who doesn’t know posting armed guards on trains – call them the Railway Protection Force though they protect none – prevents crime on trains? And who doesn’t know surprise safety checks alert the lethargic staff who are the main culprits behind most rail mishaps? Populism demands cheap rail travel which means not hiking the passenger fares, compromising on passenger safety. What follows is a tale of unmanned level crossing casualties, molestation and rape on running trains and sporadic infernos, besides superfast trains ramming into stationary locomotives. Garnering votes by opening new rail lines is another ploy of politicians who reduce a ministry into electoral calculus.

Last year, a girl who was the sole bread-winner of her ailing parents, was pushed out of a running train near Shornur (Kerala) by a gang of rapists. The failure of some employee to connect the iron plate between the two compartments caused the life of another girl who celebrated her birthday at home and was returning to her college hostel. The unsuspecting girl tread on the rubber cover of the iron plate that was not there while traversing from one compartment to the next and fell on the rail track below, her body cut into pieces by the running wheels. Railway horror stories abound but people, like the gleeful spectators of the train and the minister himself, have other things to worry about. So the exceptions become the general norm and the avoidable, the happening.   

     

The north and the northeast are groping in the dark. Let’s face it we consume more than we produce. Our upward moving middle class have tasted the goodies of lifestyle and now will stop short of nothing but total indulgence. Lifestyle multiplies power demand and our frustration; it has throttled our patience and to an extent our character, too. Lifestyle has turned all of us into demand machines, demanding all the time, demanding more and producing less. Soon we will demand more water, more food, more fuel, more housing, more parks, better infrastructure. What shall poor Manmohan Singh do? He must be waiting for 2014, to say good-buy to these ungrateful Indians!  

P Chidambaram must be the happy man of the Cabinet to get rid of Home for Finance, making him the key player for brightening the Congress chances for a hat-trick. Chidambaram did a good job in Home, notwithstanding the carnage of 75 BSF jawans. With lenient chief ministers who are Maoist sympathizers, no breakthrough can be made in fighting terrorists. Susheel Kumar Shinde must be thanking his stars for getting rid of his Power ministry at the hour of India’s worst power crisis. The PM knows nothing much can be expected of his Power minister and so wisely transferred him to Home. Shinde is basically a do-nothing man, who can don any portfolio and neatly fits into any ministry. But Veerappa Moily of all people has no reason to be grateful to his PM for shifting him to a crisis-ridden ministry. We all know the crisis will soon pass over and Power will be Moily’s forte.   

Olympic heartbreaks have started almost as soon as the games began. Olympics as they say is not everyone’s cup of tea. As a nation, we are not very sportive, but there are exceptionally good sportsmen and sportswomen in India, who have fought against all odds and babudom to reach there. Let’s us wish them good luck! 

WHERE THERE IS A SINGH!

SUNNY THOMAS

To prove one’s impotence, one doesn’t have to contest a Presidential election, as Purno Sangma did! But the real loser of the Presidential election is not Sangma but his sponsors, Jaya Jayalalithaa (which ironically means the victorious) and Naveen Patnaik (which, I think, means a new general). Shakespeare in his dramatic wisdom foresaw the vicarious defeat of Jaya and the humbling of the general without victory and asked, `What’s in a name?’

  

The Bengal tigress, Mamata Banerjee, tried to remote-control Delhi from Kolkata and did not quite succeed. But she is not a loser by any reckoning, and she lost nothing except her face. Politics is a long-drawn battle and she has many more battles to lose before she learns the right lessons and win. 

   

Will you be surprised if Congress does a hat-trick by winning 2014 not because of its performance but because of the total disarray of its ideological enemies, some of whom go out of their way to help the GOP? BJP is finished if they don’t project Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. And BJP is finished if they do. Not projecting someone is even worse. BJP is in a trap of its own making, where outsiders cannot help. Just as ambition got the better of Jaya and Mamata, it has now got the better of Modi.

Strategy comes before ambition, pals; that’s the lesson of politics. Credit must be given to Dr Manmohan Singh and his mentor Sonia Gandhi for outplaying their allies and enemies. As they say with a pinch of salt, Where there is a Manmohan Singh, there is a way (take it with a pinch of salt, if you disapprove of the blue murder)!  

Whatever Pranab Dada does, the credit always goes to Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi! Mercifully, it is happening for the last time. The greatest contribution of Sonia Gandhi to Indian politics is in putting the right people in the right place. She elevated the least likely man to the Prime Minister’s Office, and in doing so she did in effect right the wrong done to the Sikh community which happened at the beginning of her husband’s tenure following her mother-in-law’s tragic assassination. And now she has elevated the right man to the right place. It must be said that her motives are far nobler than her detractors’, and now one can expect a Dr Rajendra Prasad in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.   

   

He expressed my passions on the screen far better than I could ever imagine; he shed my tears far more dramatically than I could ever do; he flashed my smile far more romantically than I could ever do; and he broke the hearts of a million girls with my smile, and it was my smile that mesmerized them and made them swoon. The world will never know me, but they knew him as Rajesh Khanna. It was my smile, my tears and my passion, and hence my passion for him that made him a super-star, the first of its kind, you might say.    

President Obama has every right to speak, especially before the election. If he doesn’t Governor Romney will. He will turn the anger of millions of jobless Americans against Obama, and disastrous will be the consequences. To pre-empt Romney turning the American anger, Obama spoke to turn the same anger at India. `Hate India, not me’ encapsulates the spirit of Obama’s message. Intelligent Indians know that and pity the predicament of the President, who has failed to do a Franklin Roosevelt in creating jobs.

It is sad that India’s cultural heartland is degenerating into a land of goons and obscurants courtesy Akilesh Yadav. In his victory, people saw enormous potential in the youth leader. But, alas, true to his kangaroo education in the land of kangaroos, he has failed to display a national vision and character worthy of admiration – character is a rare phenomenon in politics, though. Groomed in realpolitik by his father, he would ever remain a regional satrap and a powerful chieftain, but unfit for Delhi.   

  

   

MONEY NEVER SLEEPS!

SUNNY THOMAS

I create nothing. But I own. We make rules. War, peace, famine, upheaval.  We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you are not knave enough to think that we are living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you are a part of it. Stick around pal, I’ve got a lot to teach you.   

That’s Gordon Geeko, the god of the Wall Street. He may never have lived but echoes the truth of the time. Time magazine, especially! To Time, all American Presidents are achievers, whether their achievement is one of sending American troops to a foreign land in search of weapons of mass destruction and finally finding none, or pursuing a stupid economic policy that granted tax benefits to the super rich (5%) by snatching health benefits from the less privileged (70%).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is hated across Europe is an achiever. So are the British Premiere David Cameron and the fallen French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But Dr Manmohan Singh, who navigates the second fastest growing major economy, is an under-achiever!! Who said it? Gordon Geeko.  

To understand the enormity of Time’s misrepresentation, have a realistic look at the Indian economy. True, the growth rate in the first quarter is a mere 5.3 per cent, the slowest in nine years. The RBI has hiked the interest rates from 4.25 per cent in January 2010 to 8.5 per cent in January 2012, to check inflation. This undoubtedly led to the slowing down of the pace of investments in infrastructure and the manufacturing sector.

The worsening trade deficit because of increased consumption of oil and coal, accompanied by spiraling prices on the international market, made prudent economic management difficult. During the fiscal year ended March 2012, India did extremely well as on the export front: Shipments grew by a stellar 21 per cent to a record $322 billion. But, alas, imports, too, grew even more sharply—by 32 per cent, to $489 billion.

What irked the foreign investor is the proposal to impose a “retroactive” capital gains tax on indirect transfers of India-based assets between foreign buyers and sellers. The government’s backtracking on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail aroused their suspicion.

India has emerged as one of the world’s biggest grain producers but because of an extremely weak supply chain infrastructure, an estimated 40 per cent of the grains rot before it reaching the consumer. An open door policy for foreign direct investment in retail would help eliminate the rot, permitting higher compensation to farmers, lower prices for consumers, and an even more robust export performance.

Major global economies are nervous on a Euro Zone implosion, while India would remain the least affected. For one, India’s exports to the Continent account for only 3 percent of the country’s GDP. In fact, it would lead to a significant moderation in oil prices, which would benefit India immensely. Even a 10 per cent drop in oil prices would reduce the import bill by an amount large enough to compensate for the likely reduction in direct or indirect exports to Europe.

Every major economy—Europe, the U.S., China, Russia, Brazil—is slowing down, while even at its current pace, India retains its ranking as one of the two fastest-growing large economies in the world. India’s fundamentals remain strong. India’s rate of savings and investment (as a proportion of GDP) remains one of the highest in the world.

Indian labour is nine years younger than China’s, pointing to a lower wage inflation. Adult literacy has risen sharply during 2000-10. With the spread of 3G connectivity and inexpensive tablet computers, India should overtake China in the next 10 years.

India’s private sector remains vibrant, innovative and competitive, judging from the number of billion-dollar acquisitions made in Europe and the U.S.

Seen from foreign investor’s perspective, three things are important. First, the government should open more industries to foreign direct investment, especially in retail and aviation. Second, the government should implement a national Goods and Services Tax (GST) to replace state-level taxes. Third, the government should eliminate the uncertainty on retroactive capital gains tax.

With a slowdown in China, and economic turmoil in Europe and the U.S., this could be a golden moment for India’s economy.

THREE MEN IN A BOAT!

SUNNY THOMAS

Arun Jaitley does not relish making mistakes, unlike some of his party colleagues. His statements seldom carry any faux pas that needs clarification upon clarification. He commands respect across the country, more respect perhaps outside the party than inside the party that has failed to make the best use of his leadership qualities. Jaitley is Vajpayee in the making, acceptable to all sections of society and ideological spectrum. 

Akhilesh Yadav’s transformation from a gangster kingpin to a mature statesman overnight deserves our attention. It speaks of his enormous latent potential, and the advantage of a good education abroad and his innate adaptability to UP politics. He, too, does not make any faux pas, nor meddle in other people’s affairs. With UP in his pocket and with the right alliance, Delhi is not out of reach for the young Yadav.         

Rahul Gandhi is strikingly different from Jaitley and Yadav in that the latter two are cautious players while the former is prone to making mistakes. Yet Rahul commands more goodwill than Jiatley and Yadav put together, though the goodwill has yet to be translated into votes. On Rahul lies the onerous responsibility of keeping the hopes of his party alive, a party that is fast disappearing from many parts of India. It will take a miracle for Congress to retain a respectable margin in the next general election – an economic miracle where prices are brought down to a comfortable level for the middle class who determines their next rulers. Nor just prices but jobs for the millions who pass out of educational institutions and teaching shops, with hopes and fears. Not just jobs but sops for the poorest of the poor living in squalor and misery, who could be cannon fodder for Maoists. If Manmohan Singh skilfully fine-tunes his economics to make it middleclass-centric, Congress can hope for a hat-trick in 2014 (however dismal the chances may look now).  

The three men have one notable distinction: they defy Didification, Ammafication and Modification – the three mine traps of Indian democracy. All the three are very young, intelligent, articulate, and have a future vision. If only these three men could meet and blueprint a common vision for India 2022, it could signal a Renaissance in Indian politics. The destiny of this nation cannot be entrusted to one political party alone, however well-intentioned it may be. Thinking the impossible and creating the impossible is what good politics is all about. And the people should be constantly on their guard so that they don’t entrust their children’s future to a pack of demagogues and power-hungry wolves!   

Leander Paes is stabbed! Imagine this headline is screeched at you by your favourite anchor of your favourite television channel. You take it with a pinch of salt. No Indian in his right sense would venture to assault a star about to participate in Olympics. Then how come we hear of betrayal and back-stabbing of Leander Paes by his fellow tennis players? All we know is that Mahesh Bhupathi and Paes have not been at peace with each other, rather they were not eve on talking terms for several years but played their match together. Their animosity is their private affair but broadcast to the nation by TRP-hunting television channels. But what’s intriguing is the lack of enthusiasm of two tennis aces – Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza, one of whom refused directly and forthrightly while the other indirectly and forthrightly expressing her wrath at the All-India Tennis Association which has not even bothered to congratulate her on her recent victory but use players as pawns of its convenience

The Tennis Association deserves congratulations for upsetting four top players at one stroke! But one is reasonably certain that the reluctance of the three players has less to do with sports and more to do with their chemistry. Tennis buffs may recall how Monica Seles, at the height of her career, was stabbed after a game but escaped death almost miraculously. Fame and fortune invites not only bouquets but also knives!    

A Presidential ordinance asking Bhupathi and Mahesh to patch for Olympics would turn sports into politics. Good luck to Peas, good luck Bhupathi, Bopanna and Mirza!

Mrs Malaprop is looking for a tutor to teach her daughter geography so that she could get good marks in Maths. While sifting the grain, she got a kidney stone which she removed herself and put it into the dustbin. Her husband saw a gynecologist for his gastric problems. Her omniscient younger daughter failed in science because her thermometer went up due to fever. Even as you are reading this column, Mrs Malaprop is taking myopia to get her vision rectified!       

A BALLOON CALLED SANGMA!

SUNNY THOMAS

On Planet Earth, Purno Sangma is unique. A creation of expediency, driven by irrelevance, floated by a pair of chief ministers of uncontrollable ambition, and bloated by his own towering ego, Sangma flies in the air like a hot-air balloon that catches instant attention in an exhibition ground. The Hindu headline ‘After the race is over, BJP backs Sangma’ does full justice to the media armoury of humour. To get prime time on TV channels, the Brave Son of India has challenged the man whose one leg is almost in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. The subject of debate could be `The Joy of Defection’ – a subject in which no living politician can excel Sangma!   

Many Indians believe Rahul Gandhi will be Prime Minister in 2014, though none of them have any clue how. Some have more faith in astrology than in science, while others have more faith in their own faith than either science or astrology. Electoral calculus, however, points to another direction. If Congress keeps losing elections at this rate and BJP hell-bent on projecting Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate even at the peril of dividing the party de facto, the newsmakers of 2014 will be Nitish Kumar and Mulayam Singh.  

A chastened Congress and a weakened BJP will not be able to meet the President without the numbers to form a government. The post-2014 absurdities could even see Jaya and Naveen blackmailing BJP into supporting one of them as PM to outsmart Nitish-Mulayam game plans. Should the imponderable happen – Modi single-handedly emerging as the winner – the Indian Republic will change forever. But demographic calculus does upset Modi hopes.

  

The year 2014 could witness the emergence of a new style of leadership, which will be more accommodative, representative and sensitive to problems of the middle class. The era of political arrogance will be a thing of the past.   

Mamata’s tornado in Delhi was the replication of her seething ambition that troubles her mind. She clearly has prime ministerial ambitions and she thought her moment of truth has arrived when the electoral verdict favoured her party. The demand for a mid-term poll baked in Kolkata is calculated to elevate Mamata from Writer’s Building to 7 Race Course! Her counterparts, Jaya and Naveen, too, have prime ministerial ambitions and the ballooning of Sagma is a clumsy manoeuvre of their overweening ambition. 

 

``You can get along very well with Abhishek Sengupta as long as you don’t criticize The Statesman,’’ said a student of Times school of Journalism, pointing to the perfect Bengali gentleman. Newspapers are a habit difficult to get out of, a matter of choice without rhyme or reason, a matter of taste without a definition. A horror tabloid (tabloid not by the size of the paper but by its content), Malayala Manorama shocks its readers every morning with blown up stories of murders and mishaps! A state where drinking is sacrosanct and even women get tipsy, a shock treatment day after day does a great service to awaken them from their dipsomania! Manorama devotes a whole page for accident deaths, which makes one wonder whether there is something horribly wrong with Kerala roads or something horribly wrong with Manorama Journalism (or both). 

   

In fairness, it must be said that Manorama reporting has a way of touching your heart with their backgrounders. An accident story captures the trauma of the relatives and brings forth a mini family saga. A success story, especially of students, will have the profile of parents and teachers, men and women you like to read about. Manorama Journalism connects and that’s the secret of its phenomenal success. 

The Hindu and The Times of India are poles apart: one is the antithesis of the other. The Hindu qualifies to be a newspaper while The Times of India is anything but a newspaper, which is the secret of its success (TOI is the world’s largest circulated newspaper ahead of USA Today, whether you like it or not). The Times of India is a market-driven newspaper while The Hindu is a value-oriented newspaper. A market-driven newspaper, in the traditional sense, is not a newspaper but globalization has sparked the evolution of newspapers. Value-oriented Journalism has disappeared from the face of the earth and the last bastion of this school is the southern giant that defies evolution. 

         

Will smart phones replace newspapers, considering their amazing popularity and power of addiction? News stories written in two or three lines with jingle-bells chiming at the background, or even news stories composed as songs at the click of a mouse and the young boys and girls glued to smart phones will indeed redefine Journalism. Journalists beware!       

    

A SUITABLE BOY!

SUNNY THOMAS

You know why the British changed the capital from Calcutta to Delhi? The streets of Calcutta were full of (future) Mamata Banerjees that the far-sighted British thought it wise to shift the capital. Notwithstanding the British decision, Mamata Banerjee flew to Delhi to drop a bomb at 10 Janpath but it turned out to be a damp squib!

Compare the dignity with which Sonia Gandhi announced the name of the most Suitable Boy and the grace with which Pranab Mukherjee accepted the proposal. In politics, breed is not a disqualification but could be an asset. Cutting across party lines, Dada commands respect; respect not only of the species of politicians but all Indians across the nation. Nehru used Lal Bahadur Shastri as his emissary to resolve naughty political problems, just the way Sonia Gandhi used Pranab the Peacemaker. And finally, peacemakers always inherit the earth.  

The saddest chapter in the high drama is the dragging in of Abdul Kalam’s name. Those who did it had no regard for his reputation or human sensibilities. Like the cave man sending his stone missiles, they used Kalam in the same savagery; the only difference, they did it in the 21^st century while the caveman did it in his time, not known for civilization.    

Your decisions speak of your leadership qualities. The decision of the two chief ministers who proposed Purno Sangma’s name – the name of someone with dubious defection record – shows lack of vision and the parochial mindset in which regional satraps are trapped in.

The most eminent of India Presidents was Dr S. Radhakrishnan of Oxford fame. Incidentally, he was also the former Vice-Chancellor of Benarus Hindu University and the Ambassador of Enlightened Hinduism. The authority of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Indian Republic, was unique. He was elected against Jawaharlal Nehru’s wishes because Nehru wanted C Rajagopalachari to be the first President. Congress party strongman Sardar Patel had his way and ensured Dr Rajendra Prasad’s victory.

Nehru’s eloquence was intimidating even for British Viceroys (like Linlithgow), and Rajen Babu (as the first President was endearingly called) chose to write to Nehru rather than meet him face to face, even though Nehru briefed the President every Monday morning on the state of the nation. Prasad was an ultra conservative and Nehru a liberal, and differences are bound to come up. But they debated among themselves through letters, of course, and arrived at a consensus on most of the issues. But Nehru always paid the respect that is due to the President, notwithstanding his reputation as a benevolent dictator.   

After Dr Zakir Husain, there was an erosion in the status of the President which has now come to be accepted, partly because the Presidents were handpicked. Most Presidents enjoyed the palatial mansion and the ceremonial trappings that they chose not to meddle with politics or politicians. President Pratibha Patil was at once a triumph of symbolism and hopes raised but not lived up to, while President Abdul Kalam was vision personified, who inspired and ignited young minds. But none showed greater statesmanship than Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, the grand old Congressman raised to the Presidency.

Global credit rating agencies are like alligators in the deep, pulling down men in water to drown and feast on them. They are basically discredit agencies lying in wait to discredit global economies – true to their operational style, the Standard and Poor’s downgraded the American economy and now published a damaging report on the Indian economy. That the rich man’s toilet is more important than the poor man’s food is in essence the spirit of the economic reforms as practised by their exponents in India and their foreign patrons like S & P.