Things are looking rather bleak for the Third Front, one must say. Brave noises are being made, and alliances are being cobbled together. The pessimist might quibble that that's their weakness right there, that the alliances are fragile, and will not survive a post-election buyout (er, realignment). But that doesn't worry the Hatter as much.
The fly in the third front ointment is the absence of a Gandhi.
Now that the BJP has shrewdly gone and got themselves a Gandhi bahu and scion of their own, it's clear to all - especially, readers of the Times Of India - that it's all about whose Gandhi trumps whose. Does the intemperate rabble-rouser win over the restrained but perennial-foot-in-mouth-er? Or does the sheer weight of three Gandhis outnumber two? The one thing that all learned commentators now agree that a Gandhi comes with incalculable political benefits.
It is, if you get my drift, all about "issues".
It's time Comrade Karat faced up to reality. A Jayalalitha or a Patnaik may come and go, but where is he going to find a Gandhi?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Insanity
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results
In other unrelated news, President Obama announced the tripling of US aid to Pakistan to "combat Al Qaeda".
ps: the Insanity quote is often incorrectly attributed to Einstein. It's actually by an American mystery writer called Rita Mae Brown. There, we all learnt something today.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Shame!
The IIT Kharagpur campus newspaper writes on the incident - widely reported (mostly negatively) in the papers today - following the death of a student. If the details of the story are correct, this is more than negligence, it's downright criminal. Paperwork for an ambulance to transport a critical head-injury case? A satire on Indian bureaucracy would be hard-pressed to come up with a better story.
Incidentally, the same newspaper claims it was allegedly shut down earlier by the Institute for publishing an expose on the sad state of the BC Roy hospital.
Here is another student blog article about the incident.
If IIT-ans resort to (or have to resort to) this sort of stuff to get basic accountability for such a serious incident (in spite of previous warnings about the hospital, if the campus newspaper article is to be believed), what hope remains for the rest of the country?
If there is another side to the story, that must be heard. If there isn't, well, there's nothing much to be said, is there?
Update: apparently, Justice U C Banerjee (yes, the selfsame Godhra-was-an-accident man) has been appointed as the one-man enquiry commission into the incident. Smells like a cover-up is in the works, doesn't it?
The Hatter does not condone destruction of property or physical coercion as happened in this case. However culpable the institute authorities were, however grossly negligent they may have been, violence against their person or property is not justified. I do not want to judge the students who reacted in perhaps the only way they could, but the slippery slope from there ends at Mamta Banerjee. Depressing, but true.
Incidentally, the same newspaper claims it was allegedly shut down earlier by the Institute for publishing an expose on the sad state of the BC Roy hospital.
Here is another student blog article about the incident.
If IIT-ans resort to (or have to resort to) this sort of stuff to get basic accountability for such a serious incident (in spite of previous warnings about the hospital, if the campus newspaper article is to be believed), what hope remains for the rest of the country?
If there is another side to the story, that must be heard. If there isn't, well, there's nothing much to be said, is there?
Update: apparently, Justice U C Banerjee (yes, the selfsame Godhra-was-an-accident man) has been appointed as the one-man enquiry commission into the incident. Smells like a cover-up is in the works, doesn't it?
The Hatter does not condone destruction of property or physical coercion as happened in this case. However culpable the institute authorities were, however grossly negligent they may have been, violence against their person or property is not justified. I do not want to judge the students who reacted in perhaps the only way they could, but the slippery slope from there ends at Mamta Banerjee. Depressing, but true.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The difference between India and China
Here's a bit of stark contrast.
We create a national obsession about a movie about our slums - we celebrate deprivation, and satisfy ourselves by debating endlessly and pointlessly about the whole slum question. They just go ahead and demolish their slums - end of story.
Says it all, doesn't it?
We create a national obsession about a movie about our slums - we celebrate deprivation, and satisfy ourselves by debating endlessly and pointlessly about the whole slum question. They just go ahead and demolish their slums - end of story.
Says it all, doesn't it?
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