Expectations - is it still worth...

Land to be allotted for Salim-an Indonesian Industrial Group-suddenly a lot of reservations arises comprising of agricultural land and industrial land. All these days all these lands were mere wasted marshy lands and nothing more. Oh, sorry, of course, this controversy aught to be arisen. There are mainly two reasons for it, (a) going by the OXFORD definition of democracy-the right to express ones’ feelings and (b) this would be of immense help to the state and Society, thus this project should be prevented from being executed. What a pity that after 5.9 decades after independence, when a foreign project is about to be launched, suddenly many controversies arises from the air.
Previously Kolkata was considered the CULTURAL CAPITAL of the COUNTRY. Now only the citizens of this city continue to excel in their own fields but keeping the city lagging behind. Let it be in the field of INDUSTRIES, SPORTS, POLITICS, ENTERTAINMENT, ACADEMICS, LITERATURE, what not! Still now, Bengalis’ leads these fields but they constitute of no help to their immediate society. Seeing the other way round people of other states and communities exploits them. Whom to blame for it? Is it the CELEBRITIES and the ACHIEVERS who struggled throughout their lives to reach the ZENITH and is still struggling to maintain it? Alternatively, is it their place of work, who we say are exploiting them, who have provided them with the proper infrastructure and Government support to exploit their talents?
No, it is we, the citizens of Kolkata, the State Government, who is completely responsible for being neglected from being enriched by their services to the society, to the ECONOMY. All this as the Government Policies and Attributes towards its CITIZENS forced them to do so. Inspite of all positive natural and geographical phenomenons, the climate - moderate, the location – can be the gateway of SOUTHEAST ASIA and be a centre of International Trade, the City is steadily rolling backwards.
Outsourcing is the TERM now-a- days. Yes, the talents of the CITY are personification of “outsourcing”. Even if they love their city, they are forced to leave their Alma Mater if they want to excel on their talents.
The CITY was devoid of the exchange of population during partition, as experienced by other parts of the country, as was the case in the land of the five rivers. No one was ready to relocate from a better place to a worse place, as our CITY, at least then, had better living conditions than any place in our neighboring country. We all agree that our city faces a major man-made, to be more specific, govt.-made problem of refugees, but as compared to the problems faced by other big prospering cities, it is simply nothing. It does not have to face natural calamities like earthquakes as faced by Tokyo annually, or of drug peddling or terrorism as faced by MUMBAI and NEW DELHI. Well, our optimistic Government boasts of these above facts and justifies by labeling KOLKATA as a well governed and a safe CITY to live in. The justification lies in a completely another chapter: our ECONOMY is not too strong to provide a profitable business for the drug peddlers, and we have no such infrastructures, apart from those erected by the BRITISH RAJ, which will attract the terrorists as well. However at least the drug peddlers, smugglers and terrorists have recognized the importance of the State’s geographical location and are fully utilizing it as a gateway to INDIA, the resource that our Government of 30 years still fail to tap even partially!
In place of concentrating on the development of the CITY, and the STATE, the Government is more interested in putting up debatable issues like pulling a ban on tramways, the only city in the country that can boast of rails below as well as on the roadways! Now also a ban on hand-pulled rickshaws is being planned, which also is an only in this country and next only to SHANGHAI. At a time when MUMBAI- the industrial capital of the country is on a switch over from MUMBAI to SHANGHAI, KOLKATA – the CULTURAL CAPITAL of the Country is on a roll to get rid off the only resemblance it is bearing with SHANGHAI.
Still now, our CITY can boast of possessing leaders in each field, starting:
Industrialists- the richest Indian holds its roots in our CITY, Mr. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal.
Politicians- one of the most important cabinet posts is being held by a person from the State, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, well lets not venture into the innumerable number of freedom fighters, as the struggle for freedom started from Barrakpore in 1887 and the National Anthem as well as the much controversial National Song are composed by Bengalis’ of Repute.
Literature/ Philosophy- all the Nobel Prize winners of our country have their links with the CITY, starting from Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore to Amartya Sen. Now there is Mr. Kunal Basu.
Sports- the most sort after sports had the most successful Captain from the CITY, well the football team also has the most famous footballer from the state, Baichung Bhutia.
Entertainment- the first Oscar Award Winner, Satyajit Ray, the leading Bollywood Actresses is a Bengali, Rani Mukherjee and Bipasha Basu, the first Miss Universe was a Bengali, Susmita Sen.
The leading playback singers of the industry are from Bengal, RD Burman, Sanu Bhattacharya, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Shantanu Mukherjee, Babul Suprio, Alka Yagnik, et al. Leave alone the likes of Sakhti Samanta, Hrikesh Mukherjee, Amitabh – who started his career here from Kolkata, Manna Dey, Hemanta Mukherjee, Kishore Kumar..
But of what use when none of these personalities had pursued or are pursuing their careers in the CITY OF JOY, of what use when all these personalities have shifted their base to other Cities for nurturing their talents. So what do we lack? Not talent or hard work of course! Then what?
“WHAT BENGAL THINKS TODAY INDIA THINKS TOMORROW”, is a perfect example of an irony now a days! When Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida are on a verge of saturation, then only Kolkata is being thought of, WHY? In which way are we lagging behind these cities? The Industrial explanation is: Government Policies backed by Labor Problems.
After a drought of 25 long years, we have started seeing moistorous clouds. Issues like removal of tramways and hand- pulled rickshaws in the name of cleaning the CITY are making us depressed once again. We feel as the Government has started being optimistic, it should bring back home its own talents and thus restore its Glamour in the country once again.
We expect a lot from this Government. We are sure this Government will not let us down.



--- Anirban Misra

We have a dream

BJP , Sangh , Ad Words and some thoughts

This was posted as a reply to a post from Kenny Jacob . This is not a attack on Kenny or his views. Kenny is respected and is an honourable man and hold it that way too. This is just a comment from the heart to many such posts which have cropped up over the past few weeks.

@Kenny
I am sure you would take this discussion in the right spirit.

This is one among the innumerable posts that have dwelt upon the same topic . As someone said “Success has many friends and Failure has many Analysts.”

Everyone one is entitled to their opinions and posts and so are you , i dont refute the emotion but just the rationale and analysis.

1. On your assessment of the the adword campaign , before we term it as a failure lets try to see the objectives behind the campaign.
Only when we tally the goals vs results we could say the campaign was a success or not. The goal was to reach out to the tech savvy voters of india who may be a a minority by miles but still are a constituency (in congress terminology - a vote bank) . Another constituency was the NRI’s who could influence people back home. Did they succeed in that ? i think so …

Why do i believe so.
a. Im privy to the unofficial estimates of number of page visits to LKADVANI.in They have successfully managed more that 3 million page visits .
b. Lets look at the poll held by connect.in.com , LK Advani was way ahead of all other personality there by garnering 1 million + votes . Also have a look at the the MSN India article titled : Advani , a darling of the netizens . http://news.in.msn.com/national/indiaelections2009/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3006969
c. I am a registered user there and the communication and collaboration mechanism the campaign office had with the registered users was amazing , including getting campaign cadres , organising FOB meetings etc.
d. We hate AD’s .., Do we.. Would seem like a revelation for for ad agencies and marketeers in india. The Hive , the agency which handled BJP’s on;ine campaign is among the most reputed online marketing agencies and handles campaigns for reputed orgs like the MACY’s.

Well then question then arises , why did BJP not win. Ill discuss that at the end.

So if you look at what the goal was vs what was the achieved results for “That Goal” , the campaign was a success. The was you are looking at it is” goal displacement” - Adwords campaign was a contributor and facilitator to the total vote tally not THE ONLY factor.

Its like saying indian army should be discouraging football practice within its cadres since battles are not fought on basis of football matches. Playing football contributes to maybe physical fitness , which turn may contribute to the war.

Lets accept it BJP is apart which has a considerable number of intelligent men who have been in politics for long enough to know a election in india is not fought on the internet. Let us not try to trivialise things here.

2. The next reason for a online campaign was to correct the image of the BJP , very comfortably thrust on it by the media and fringe elements .

The the site has the agenda , manifesto and the vision for a new india. Kenny , you mentioned you had visited the site right ? by any chance did u keep your biases aside and read the BJP manifesto , or leave it just the IT vision document. believe me any Indian would be proud of it .

When i was a child i used to listen to lots of stories on monsters in the cupboard and was terrified of going near it. Its only when i went alone and opened it i knew there were no monsters there. Its important to break mental models and openly listen to point of views before we take a call.

LKadvani.in was supposed be such a platform.

The biggest charge against the BJP , the Sangh and Advani is that they are communal. let us see what do we mean by communalism and what does the BJP stand for.

BJP stands for Hindutva and not Hindu Theocracy as maintained by the opposition and the Media.

Hindutva as defined by the honourable supreme court itself is ”
Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind.”

Hindutva for a the BJP and the sangh stands for Integral Humanism , Cultural Nationalism and Social Justice. For the BJP and the sangh , a hindu is as those who consider India (Bharat, भारत) to be their motherland (matrubhumi), fatherland (pitrubhumi, पितृभूमि) as well as their holy land (punyabhumi, पुण्यभूमि).

There is no talk of hating other religions or driving them out of the country , who gives people these ideas? If these were the primary ideas i know a majority of current BJP supporters would not be with them , we dont like the idea of a militant Hindu organisation and it is not so.

Me as an individual have business partners who are not followers of Hinduism , my best buddies are not Hindus , i visit the Velankanni church with the same spiritual love as that of that i visit Vaikom Temple , I ran up the malayattoor hills imbibing the way the cross message as i do at sabarimala . I have attended every major “Urus” at Malik Deenar Mosque when i was doing my Engg. But i do believe in Hindutva - does that make me communal ? No i am proud to say i am religious , spiritual and a HINDU.

I do believe the need for a organisation to fight for the rights of the Majority community in India.YES very much…

India needs welfare and well being of all communities living in , there depends the success of the nation and that includes the majority. When even a section of the community feel they are being suppressed there would be automatic outbursts and “acts of anger”.

Secularism should mean equal opportunities to all and not appeasement of any community. Sadly thats what happens in out country. Because political parties take the minorities and steadfast vote banks and work hard on social engineering.

I think speaking in favour of any religion then should be communalism.

Then the congress is the most communal of the lot , we have a prime minister who says Muslims and other Minorities should have FIRST right on national resources-http://pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=464.

That would mean i dont care about what situation a citizen in i would look at the religion tag and and allot resources . If any one should have first right on national resources it should be the poor and destitute of this country not X, Y , Z community. because of this kind of communal and caste alignments we have majority seats having reservation based on religion and caste ad not on economic conditions. Revolting!!!! and then these parties call themselves secular.

There any many other reasons why an ordinary hindu would feel angry.. and if these points are not address u would see many more spontaneous acts of anger.. and everyone wants to prevent that.

Do u think every organisation which speaks up for a community s communal ? In that case IUML and MIM- All India Majlis-e Ittihad al-Muslimin , who are both UPA allies should be communal right ? Making UPA communal ..

Do u know the word secular was not in the preamble of the constitution , it was inserted by Ms. Indira Gandhi by the controversial 42nd amendment in 1976 , when she had dictatorial powers during emergency .

No one wants to cause any harm to others or snatch their rights away , just want to ensure everyone has equal access to rights and resources .
The moment you say the word Hindu in India you are branded communal by everyone. And a very important part has been played by the media in it.

Every time they talk about communalism they talk about Gujarat Riots , no body talks about the godhra carnage.

Nobody talks about the 1984 sikh riots where congressmen hunted down Sikhs and murdered them . Why are Sikhs not human beings. When sikh riots happened our Great Rajiv Gandhi said ” when a tall tree falls , the earth shakes” Oh that sounds very secular to me.

Why does not congress and so called secular parties speak of Marad Massacres , Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits , 1998 Chamba massacre , 1998 Chapnari massacre , 1998 coimbatore bombings…Why because of fear of loosing their vote banks.

Hope u remember the Shah Bano case where the passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 by Rajiv Gandhi government to dilute the secular judgment of Supreme Court under pressure from the conservative Muslims. The new act, in tune with the Shariat, denied even utterly destitute Muslim divorcees the right to alimony from their former husbands. That was secular right…

So in india for the opposition and media secularism means anti hinduism .

3. Is the Mandir issue a non issue? Well so they why dont we go ahead a build a temple and mosque there. I would not like to go into the historical significance of Aydhoya and Ram Mandir here.

Why is there devasom boards for temples and not for other religious set ups.
The Point is for the deeply religious all these are symbols of faith. Didnt we have many fights of claim to churches in Kerala among peple of same community. The most recent being valiathura church issue. Well every place of religious worship holds significance lets not refute that

The other issue that BJP raises is Uniform Civil Code - what is communal in that . Same laws for all communities , how does that become communal. A country like the US has uniform civil code. Why does the congress oppose it?

Guys , every major country had parties with religious leanings like
a. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany , whose leader Angela Morkel is the current chancellor of germany
b. and The Republicans of the US who are more christain jewish leaning one.

That doesnt term them communal in their countries. During the last election campaign when evangelicals and catholics endorsed Ma Cain . it was not termed communal. When Republicans spoke out against abortion terming it anti christian no one said they were communal.

We need to throw these definitions we have invented back in india and think in perspective
3. Acts of Fringe outfits not related to the Sangh.

For example the media and congress very conveniently put the Mangalore Pub Attacks where attributed to the Sangh and BJP. While the Media hid the fact that Sri Ram Sene was not related to BJP and had contested against the BJP in many constituencies in the Karnataka Assembly elections.

The Sangh is a nationalist cadre based outfit and their contributions during national emergencies and calamities have been commendable. Infact Pandit Nehru had invited them for republic day parade in 1963 for their help in Indo China War.

Their role in helping victims of natural disaster has been exemplarily. One of their worst detractors India Today made this statement
“It is conceded by even their worst detractors that the RSS has been in the forefront of the non- official rescue and relief (operations). This has led to an upsurge of goodwill for the Sangh”
– India Today

RSS has adopted 100 children, most of them Muslims, from militancy affected areas of the region to provide them education at least up to Higher Secondary level.They have also taken care of many victims of the Kargil War of 1999

Many such instances can be stated. Please visithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh with an unbiased mind.

4. I have been hearing media reports on how india voted overwhelmingly for congress and how there was wave for Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and how BJP was routed out. Well in that case Why did BJP do extremingly well in MP . Karnataka , Chatisgarh , Assam ,Gujarat and Bihar??
I would take no credit away from the congress for this win and i am happy for it , but let us not try to undermine the ground realties of each state wise and region wise politics. The media said the India voted in new way irrespective of Caste or Religion . Then how do you explain congress saying they could garner the majority Muslim votes in WB and UP and that made the difference. We still live in Vote Bank Era.

Kenny , you mentioned we all know who that Bugger Ad-Vani is , unfortunately in-spite of the ad words campaign we could not get people like you to click on those links with an open mind and read through.You still believed there were monsters in the cup board and hence didnt open the cup board. There was the real failure of the Ad- Words campaign. I believe i know who that “bugger ” is , he was the best PM india never had.
Many of us suffers from Information Asymmetry , we need to change that.

Let noble thoughts come to us from all side - RigVeda
And what would i do to ensure this does not repeat i will work at the grass roots and with the professionals to spread the message. This has been a beginning thanks for the opportunity .

Jai Hind
Jayapradeep J

Ode to Bharat Mata

Namaste Sadaa Vatsale Matrbhume,
Twya Hindubume Sukham Vardhitoʃham.

Eng Trans>Forever I bow to thee, O Loving motherland! O Motherland of us all, Thou has brought me up in happiness

Mahamangle Punyabhume Twdarthe, Patatesh kaayo namaste namaste.

Eng Trans> May my life, O great and blessed Holy land, be laid down in Thy cause. I bow to Thee, again and again

Prabho shaktiman Hindurashtrangbhutaa, Ime saadaran twaan namaamo vayam.
Twdeeyaay kaaryaay baddhaa kateeyam, shubhaamaashishan dehi tatpoortaye.

Eng Trans> We, the children of the Nation, bow to Thee in reverence, O Almighty God. We have girded up our loins to carry on Thy work. Give us Thy holy blessings for its fulfillment.

Ajayyaan cha vishawasya deheesh shaktim, susheelanjagad yen namram bhavet.
shrutenchev yat kantakaakeernamaargam, swayam sweekrtan nas sugamkaaryet.

Eng Trans >  O Lord! Grant us such might as no power on earth can ever challenge, such purity of character as would command the respect of the whole world and such knowledge as would make easy the thorny path that we have voluntarily chosen

Samutkarsh nishshreyaseikamugram,
param saadhanan naam veerbrtam.

Eng Trans > May we be inspired with the spirit of stern heroism,which is the sole and ultimate means of attaining the highest spiritual bliss with the greatest & holiest prosperity.

tadantas sphurtwkshaya dhyenishtha, hridyant prajaagartu teevranisham.
vijetree cha nas sanhtaa kaaryashaktir, vidhayasya dharmasya sanrakshanam.
paramvaibhavan netumetat swarashtram, samarthaa bhavatwaashishaa te bhrsham

Eng Trans > 

May intense and everlasting devotion to our Ideal ever inspire our hearts. May our victorious organised power of action, by Thy Grace, fully protect our dharma and lead this nation of ours to the highest pinnacle of glory.