Swarnim Gujarat – A State of 24 Carat Gold

Almost everyone is in some or other way proud to be born where they are born and have spent the formative years of their life, and I am no exception to that rule. Born in the prosperous state of Gujarat has been a thing of pride to me, and probably the readers who come from the same state will be able to relate to what I mean. The recent event of “Swarnim Gujarat” to celebrate the completion of “50 Grand Years” of statehood is what inspired me to write on this glorious and unique part of the world. The blog post is probably a hybrid of what a beautiful state Gujarat is in terms of its heritage and probably some of the wonderful things which make me nostalgic about it.

Gujaratis - The Businessmen

Gujarat has been well renowned for its prosperity and entrepreneurship since the very ancient of times. Even the earliest of the civilizations, the Harappa and Mohan-Jo-Daro had a port named Lothal in Gujarat for carrying their trade. It is rightly said, that if you go anywhere in the world, from the biggest of stores and refineries and from the tops of the hills to the depth of the mines, if there is a business opportunity, you are likely to find a Gujarati.

Gujarat has given birth to countless business visionaries which includes the Ambani family, Karsanbhai Patel of Nirma, Gautam Adani from Adani Group and Tusli Tanti of Suzlon Industries. Gujaratis are known for their prowess and risk taking ability to do business since generations and hence thus the spirit of owning a business is almost imbibed in the genes of the people.

Gujaratis - The Leaders

Not just the business, the Gujaratis have made their mark in all aspects of Leadership. Gujarat is the only state in the entire world which gave birth to two people, who are respected as the Father-of-the-nation in their respective countries. While Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born in the town of Porbandar, the family of Mohammad Ali Jinnah traces back to Paneli in Gujarat where his grandparents and parents spent most of their lives. Apart from this, Gujarat also gave India, the Iron-Man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel whose vision and dedication made the dream of a united Indian Union possible.

Gujarat - The Cultural Heritage

The gifted state with its brilliant businessmen and quality leaders has always been prosperous and hence the people not only had time, but also owing to the trade relations, Gujaratis communicated with people diverse cultures and hence this made the Gujarati heritage much more adjusting and much better.

Apart from this, historically, Gujarat is known for its beautiful temples and mosques. Dwarka and Somnath are very famous religious spots. Other than that, for Jains there is Palitana and Girnar, and of course, historically, Gujarat is the first state where the Parsis landed. Also, the Gujaratis are fond of both celebrations and food. The state also houses the world’s only Pure Veg Pizza Hut, which provides Jain Pizzas to cater to the local public.

All festivals from Uttrayan to Holi, and Diwali to Janmasthmi are celebrated with great pomp and joy in the state. However, the festival of Navratri, with Garba and Dandia Raas which are the traditional dances of Gujarat, is what truly shows the vibrant spirit of the state.

Gujarat - The Growth Story

Gujarat has always been growing rapidly. The state is also bestowed with the longest coastline in India. Once upon a time, Ahmedabad used to house the maximum textile mills in the country and was called the Manchester of India. The city is still famous for attracting a lot of pharmaceutical industries. Apart from this, the city of Surat, which is the diamond hub of the world, lies in the state. There are huge Reliance refineries in the city of Vadodara and Jamnagar, and a lot of Suzlon’s wind energy stations on the coastline.

With the stable government and able leadership of Narendra Modi, the state’s Industry friendly policies are making a mark. Last year, we saw the prestigious Tata Nano Project being moved to Sanand near Ahmedabad. The last Vibrant Gujarat Summit also saw MoU worth 12,00,000 crore being signed, which show the image of the state in the minds of the investors. While the state missed on the Information Technology race in the last decade, there is a lot of investment coming in this sector as well.

This is my personal opinion that the strong and stable Government of honorable Narendra Modi, has rekindled hopes in the hearts of Gujaratis and the very results of that are visible in very aggressive growth of the state in all directions. With the development of concepts like GIFT City and the BRTS in Ahemdabad, and with incentives like “Vanche Gujarat” and “Vibrant Gujarat” the state is on the fast track for further development.

While there are a lot of people all around the world who work hard and prosper, what makes the state of Gujarat special is the will of the people to help others around them. The unshakable faith of people towards improving their quality of life is what makes the state stand out in terms of progress. With great institutions like IIM, DAIICT, NIT, Nirma University, GNLU for Law and even a new upcoming IIT, the state is growing in education.

Gujarat has been prey to many natural calamities since ages. While were many riots in the past, the state was also bogged down by plague in the 1990s and the biggest hit was the earthquake in 2001. And yet, if you look back, you will see, the people always rose above the situation and came out as winners.

Today, the state boasts of 24-hour uninterrupted power supply, which probably no other state in the country can guarantee. The water of Narmada from Sardar Sarovar Dam and the huge number borewells and check dams which were created by Modi Government have caused the water table to go up and also allowed adequate supply of water in homes.

Final Verdict:

I am not being high-handed when I say that “I am proud to be a Gujarati”. The benefits of being born in a business oriented family, which understands finance gives you a head start in the world, and I am happy that I got that chance. As Malcomm Gladwell says in his Best-seller book “The Outliers”, success is not just dependent on the person, but also on several factors, which contribute to their success, and being a Gujarati is probably one of them.

The above song was composed by Legendary A.R. Rahman on the occasion of May 1, 2010, the 50 years of Gujarat’s foundation. While it starts slow, it gets speed midway and has a wonderful tune, which would sound much much better when heard after 2-3 times. It makes me feel utterly and yet happily nostalgic about being back home.

All in all, without trying to hurt any sentiments, I’ll quote what I read in a friend’s status message, “Some people have to work and try hard to be intelligent for most period of their life, while the lucky ones are Gujaratis by birth”.

Flash on Apple Devices – Not a Near Future Possibility

The one thing common between the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPAD, except the fact that they both have an aesthetic appeal, wonderfully working touch screen and the illustrious brand name of Apple is the fact that both of them do not support Flash, which is one of the most prominent rich internet applications from Adobe. The spat between Apple and Adobe has been going on for many years now, and the exclusion of Flash from iPhone and iPad is just another chapter to this ever growing war between the two.

Flash is not only used for viewing videos, or creating multimedia websites, but it also can be used to create various applications and games, which has increased its popularity and reach many-fold, making it one of the de facto installations on the computers of people who surf the internet. The decision that Apple is not planning to provide support has made a lot of iPhone owners whine, more so, since Adobe came up with a Flash version for all major mobile operating systems like Windows Mobile OS, Palm’s webOS and even the Google Android, missing out only on iPhone’s Safari OS.

Apple’s Side of the Story

Apple has been adamant in not supporting Adobe Flash, since allowing Flash is against the Terms of Service Agreement of the iPhone. The main reason for this as per Apple’s software engineers is that allowing Flash will open a lot of backdoors or open up loop holes for malicious applications to misuse the information and even hamper the usability of the iPhone or the iPAD.

Moreover, historically, Apple’s MAC OS has never been in proper sync with the Flash player. Most complaints that the Apple Inc gets for the browser crashes is due to the use of Flash plug-ins and hence Apple is trying to stay safe by not providing the support for Flash at all, rather than allow Flash to compete for the battery life and the CPU cycles on the iPhone and the iPAD.

The “Other” Side of the Story

Apple is known to be a strongly coupled company when it comes to protecting its proprietary stuff. Allowing Flash to run on iPhone will not only enable users to view Flash content on their iPhone or iPAD, but it will also allow a lot of Flash applications and games to compete with their counterparts on the App Store. This will surely result in huge revenue losses for Apple.

Moreover, in the current scenario, all the things related to Apple iPhone and iPAD are owned completely by Apple and hence if they wish to make some drastic change like a Platform or architecture change, they can port and recompile their codes and libraries. However, if they allow Flash and then decide to do such a change, since Flash remains owned by Adobe, Apple would need to maintain some sort of a backward compatibility to ensure Flash support remains ON, until Adobe gets them the ported version of Flash.

Consolidating the Facts

The funny fact about Adobe Flash is that while all the major building blocks of the internet like HTML and CSS are open source, the most prominent proprietary software in the web-world is Adobe Flash. The popularity of Flash feeds itself and the result is it gets used more often. So the people who oppose the one company ownership idea like the fact that Apple is slowly weeding out Flash by sowing the seeds for HTML5.

Moreover, it is a known experience that while Flash works pretty well with Windows, it cannot do the same with Apple’s OS because the later does not allow Flash to access the lower level APIs and squeeze the maximum benefit from the hardware. However, while Adobe cribs that Apple doesn’t allow its platform level optimizations to be used for Flash, Steve Jobs rubbished Flash for being buggy and that was the reason why Apple is not too keen on granting support to Flash, and instead it supports HTML5 more getting the newer web-based applications.

Final Verdict:

According to me the reason why the Flash support on iPhone and iPAD isn’t encouraged, is a combination of both Apple’s way of trying to preserve its supremacy for the games and applications that get shipped for the iPhone and the iPAD, and also Apple’s intolerant behavior towards very stringent quality standards which currently Flash is not being able to adhere to.

For now, the situation is a dead lock and in midst of all odds, Adobe has come up with a bunch of tools which allow the Flash applications to get converted to a format where they can be loaded on iPhone. However, these applications match neither the performance, nor the elegance of what the original Flash could have offered.

And this leads us to the final big question is: When will Apple step down and allow a third party plug-in provider like Adobe, an access to its lower level APIs?

For now, the answer seems to be NEVER.

BT Brinjal – Can we BeaT it?

Over the last few days, there has been much of a fuss about the newly designed Genetically-Modified BT Brinjal, which was given an approval by Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of India, declaring it fit for human-consumption and hence open for Farmers to start planting it. So, here am I, writing my bit on this topic.

What is the BT Brinjal? What are the Advantages? Actually the word Bt stands for “Bacillus thuringiensis”, which is a soil bacteria, and hence the BT Brinjal is actually the normal Brinjal, with an additional gene from the Bt bacteria, which produces Bt protein. This new Brinjal was researched on by Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company) and is promoted by University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore.

Actually, India is the “heart-place” for the Brinjals, and the egg-plant has been cultivated since last 4000-odd years. Though there are many local varieties and hybrids of this plant, Brinjal is highly prone to pest attacks. According to a recent survey, it is estimated that the damage caused by the Shoot & Fruit Borer in brinjal ranges from 50 to 70% and in economic terms, it is estimated to be around $221 millions. It is to lend tolerance to this pest primarily that the Bt Brinjal has been developed. The Bt protein is supposed to make the Brinjal plant resistant to a lot of known parasites of the plant and hence increase the yield of the produce. Moreover, this will also ensure that the farmers will need to use lesser insecticides, which will not only result in less poison spraying, but will also be cost-effective to the farmers. Also, the Mahyco plans to price the seed in a cost-recovery model and hence it will be affordable to all farmers.


The Alarming Facts
Though the benefits and the promises look wonderful on paper, the current safety assessments are not sufficient to verify whether the Genetically-Modified are completely safe. There was an assessment done by a bunch of NGOs including “Green Peace” and others, which did not deem the Bt Brinjal as wonderful a reality as is portrayed. Some of those points, are as follows:

• Rats fed Bt brinjal had diarrhoea, increased water consumption; decrease in liver weight, and liver to body weight.
• Cattle showed increased weight gain, intake of more dry roughage matter and milk production up by 10-14 percent as if they were treated by a hormone.
• When fed to animals, effects were observed on blood chemistry. Also there was a visible impact on blood clotting time (prothrombin), total bilirubin (liver health), and alkaline phosphate in goats and rabbits.
• Also, the Bt Brinjal tests did not include the impact on other species like butterflies/moths which depend on flowers.

Moreover, there are concerns regarding how will we be able to manage the cross-pollination which happens in Bt Brinjal and it’s other varients. Also, if all the farmers move to this one brand, wouldn’t we be losing the “Bio-diversity” and the “Gene-Pool” which has developed in the different varieties of Brinjal in the different parts of the world.

Other GM-related Precedents

Farmers reported massive loss in soil fertility after growing Bt Cotton for a few years. Disease incidence on Bt Cotton is also seen to be higher than on non-Bt Cotton. Also, there are alarming reports now that lot of animals died after feeding on plants of Bt Cotton farms, adding to the concerns that many farmers developed different allergies due to Bt cotton production.

A study from Phillippines shows that people living next to Bt Corn crop fields had developed many mysterious symptoms, especially during pollination time.

Worldwide, it is generally accepted that more studies are needed to understand the impact of Bt toxin on soil ecology. Natural Bt toxins have never been authorized for mammalian consumption and are known to be harmful to health.


The Harsh Reality

Nevertheless, since GEAC approved the Bt Brinjal, it was almost set to some into the Indian Supermarkets. If allowed, Bt Brinjal, would be the first food crop in the world with the Bt gene inserted into it that is to be directly consumed by human beings. Hence, the results not too certain and yet, Indians are subject to be made “guinea pigs” due to the approval of the GEAC.

The shimmer of hope lies in the fact that the product needs to have a final approval from the environment ministry. In October 2009, when the issue came up, there was wide-spread protest from informed consumers, NGOs and farmers-alike to stop this product from coming. This led to a Press Release where Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that he will have a series of consultations with all the stake holders in January and February 2010 before finalizing his views.

There is one more problem, in India, there is no proper labelling, which tells the consumer whether the product he is buying is “Genetically-Modified” or not. Hence the consumer is never in a position to choose whether he wants to try the new product or not.


Final Say

I am not the one, who is against Change, but I tend to be pessimistic (if you may), when the stakes are too high and when I don’t have faith in the analysis of the problem at hand. I am not against Bio-Technology and amazing potential it can bring forth, but until we are truly sure of our capacities and have all the issues/variables sorted out, I prefer to remain with what Mother-Nature has given to us. More specifically, when it comes to Brinjal, there are known to be other safer alternatives than Bt Brinjal, or even better practices, which kind of weed-out the need of Bt Brinjal, and so, honestly I wouldn’t want this product to hit the stands. If really the Bt Brinjal is sanctioned, I'll probably stop taking brinjal in my food (I don't like it much anyways). But what will we do if all the crops/vegetables follow the same suit?

Last but not the least True to his word, Jairamji in now on a Country-wide tour, asking and meeting people for their opinion. There are going to be rallies for the same in different parts of the country on different days. Great if we can get ourselves heard physically, but with the advent of technology, ifcannot be physically present, the least we can do is take a minute from our busy schedule and Fill this Form and show our Protest virtually. (It opens a page from the Green-Peace NGO in a new window)

Aman Ki Asha – Let’s bring Peace in this New Decade!

This is one topic I wanted to write since Jan 1, 2010, when I picked up the Times Of India and saw the title “Peace with Pakistan: Give Tomorrow A Chance”.

What exactly is Aman Ki Asha?

Aman ki Asha is a joint initiative taken by two very powerful Media Houses, Times of India (India) and the Jang Group (Pakistan), to bring the people of the subcontinent back together on social, cultural, emotional and economic fronts. The two countries have been in constant fight over various issues, ever since they got partitioned over 6 decades ago. India and Pakistan have fought many wars in the past over territory issues. After partition there were fights for Kashmir occupation, followed by fight in 1960s and 1971 (Bangladesh partition), followed by Kargil. The reasons of these fights may include few of the following views.

Indian View - We Fight for Our Protection
Time and again India has blamed Pakistani militants and terrorists of entering the border and creating havoc in our motherland. There is said to be strong anti-Indian sentiment in Pakistani army and ISI, which is wrecking the possibilities of peaceful ties between the 2 countries.

Pakistani View – We fight for Our Existence
Still there is a wrong notion in Pakistan that India split them into half, creating Bangladesh. There is also a lot of dissatisfaction due to the Kashmir issue. This sentiment of hatred is further aided by other issues like sharing of river water and sudden success of India.

Consolidating the Views to form a Real Picture

The hatred between the countries have now reached a height where, some people, unfortunately, highly educated and powerful people look at the people from the other side of the border with complete distrust. As an Indian, while I am disheartened to see the massacre of innocent masses on this side of the border by Jihadi forces (which we presume are from Pakistan); I am pretty sure, there will be someone else in Pakistan, feeling the same emotion for the deaths of innocent people due to the activists from RAW.
Though we know for a fact, that not all Pakistani residents are bad, and unfortunately, not all Indian residents are good, there is still a bunch of people who don’t acknowledge this fact, and hence the countries are unable to move on from the gory-past of the Partition.

Why Aman Ki Asha is a Good Initiative?
A large bunch of the new educated citizens of both India and Pakistan form their views from what the media feds them. In past, we have seen the horrific articles on some terrorist activity somewhere, missile testing to threaten the other country, various racist or nationalist articles and in some way, at least for a small period of time, we get stimulated by the tune of the writer. Unfortunately, instead of giving us good news, these media sources generally talked about pessimism and failed negotiations. But then, can we really blame the media? I guess not. Don’t we as readers tend to focus on the negative-sensational news rather than read an editorial of some philosophy? The negative emotion buried deep inside us keeps getting reinforced with each such incident and we start forming wrong ideologies.
Now, with two of the major Groups coming up with initiative to appreciate what we have in common, rather than why we are fighting, it will slowly trigger in changing the decades-old feeling of rage and hatred in the newer generation. Print media is one of the most widely reaching means of communicating with the masses and what we really need is wider and deeper engagement to tear down the walls that separate us, and clear the misconceptions we harbour about each other.

Why should we do it?

Most of the articles I read boil down to fundamentally these questions.
Why us?
They did wrong to us, why should we forget what happened to us?
Shouldn’t they acknowledge and apologize first to us?
Why do we even need them in the first place?
The answer is simple. It’s better “living together” rather than “dying fighting each other”. A politically-stable and developed Pakistan is as much in an interest of India, as it is for Pakistan. Unlike the past, waging a war is not even an option now, and both the countries are now facing internal chaos because of the radicals and terrorists taking over. Also on the monetary side, if Kasab (the 26/11 lone surviving terrorist) is to be believed, he did not take to arms because of hatred for India, it was just because, it would have brought prosperity to his family. What we don’t realize is that, the amount of money both countries can save by not fighting each-other can actually push the two countries much faster and much further on the list of the “Developed Countries”.

Final Take

I have read a small number of blogs on this topics (both Indian and Pakistani), and found that there is more optimism than pessimism in the views of the people. To quote what Kamla Bhasin wrote in the Times of India.
“I always found it strange that leaders who will unleash wars and decide to cut off contacts between people continue to meet, while those who think Wars are absurd can’t meet.”
Should the good intentions of hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis be subverted by a few hardliners and radicals? Certainly not.
I read a lot of blogs, which seem to suggest that this is a marketing gimmick and nothing more; but all I wanted to comment is, marketing or not, it is a new start and it gives hope. We are not fancying endless optimism here and saying, the two countries, aided with just this one initiative of two groups (which again is neither the first, nor the most ambitious) will kiss and make up. However, it may be just one of those “yet-another-small-steps” which finally helped us complete the journey of a thousand miles.

I am not sure if we are all ready for the plunge as yet, but,
I hope that there will be a day when we will have that trust and friendship back,
I hope a time will come, when Indians and Pakistanis won’t need be suspected as terrorists if they went to meet their brothers across the border.
I hope there will be a time, when we will be able to use the words “India, Pakistan and Peace” in one sentence without using any negative word in the middle.
I hope...

3 Idiots – All Izz Not Well!!!

Well, the title by no means tries to convey that the movie is bad or anything. In fact, I watched the movie last weekend with my School friends in Ahmedabad and completely fell in love with the movie. More specifically, the lucid way in which the movie shows the “peer-pressure” and the mind-set of most Indian homes was absolutely amazing. Being a student in an Engineering College myself, I saw first-hand the reasons why some of my fellow-students took up engineering and also the issues they faced because of difference in their aptitude as against their field of specialization.

Nevertheless, this is not a movie review, a lot of people have already reviewed this movie by now and there is one review in particular, written by a friend of mine at 3 Idiots: A must watch for every Non-Idiot!, which is pretty close to what I would have written, and hence there is no real need for me to have a redundant post. This is however, a post on the recent row that is going on between Chetan Bhagat, the author of the book Five-point someone and the movie’s lead actor Amir Khan, film producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani.

The controversy about the credit stealing sparked based on Chetan Bhagat’s blog post, which contained the statement “Pre-release, the makers made press statements like the movie is ‘very loosely’, or 2-5% inspired by the book”. Also, he seemed to suggest that the movie has almost 70% material taken from the book. This claim was supported by big names like Shashi Tharoor, Veer Sanghvi alongwith various other journalists and fans. Chetan Bhagat also went on to comment that he had put blind faith in the Production unit of 3-Idiots and now he felt back-stabbed since the movie gives the credit for the story-line to script-writer Abhijat Joshi and director Rajkumar Hirani, while he just got a small mention at the end of the movie.

On the other hand, the 3-Idiots representatives, i.e. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Amir Khan jumped into the fray trying to defend their stand. Vidhu Vinod Chopra almost shouted at the Journalists in Noida that he had read the book and it wasn’t a copy from the book. Amir on his part denied the claim that the movie wasn’t based 70% on the book (without he himself having read the book), and criticized Bhagat’s being “publicity-hungry”, since the movie had become a HUGE HIT. Amir Khan went on to suggest that the Vidhu Vinod Chopra Production House already possesses the rights of the book and there was already an agreement that was reached between Chetan Bhagat and the Production House regarding the rights and the credit-sharing. Amir Khan also charged Chetan Bhagat with trying to take credit away from the 3-Idiots team for coming up with a fabulous adaptation to his book, and that was not expected from a writer of his stature.

Finally, Chetan Bhagat stood his ground, trying to defend his stand, with interviews, where he shows similarities in the movie and the book one-by-one. Since Chetan Bhagat was not allowed to see the movie before it hits the screens, he couldn’t object earlier. On the other hand, Vidhu Vinod Chopra closed the topic saying that since they bought the “rights” of the book, it was at their discretion, whether they wanted to copy 5% or 70%.

The Indian Media in its own sense has also added a lot of fuel to the fire and made this a big issue. Also, some of the statements are shown with a bias, which will not resolve the issue easily. All in all, the row is bound to keep going on, at least for sometime now.

Final Verdict:

We are bound to see more fights on this, may or may not be legal, but credits are something everyone involved here is craving for. On a personal note, I realize how painful it feels if you first read the book, then see the movie and check for the kind of credits given to Chetan Bhagat; you will feel saddened.

Nevertheless, I believe, either good or bad, publicity is publicity, and it will help both the movie and the book. But a row about such a nice book and a very refreshing movie does tend to show that for such a fight between the “3-Idiots” Chetan Bhagat, Amir Khan and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, my personal rating on a scale of 10 would be “Five-Point-Someone”, I mean “Five-Point-Something”.

Copenhagen Conference 2009 – Did it "REALLY" change anything?

Just the last week we had the ONE OF THE BIGGEST event in probably the history of mankind, where all the supposedly important people from the 192 countries of the world, met at Copenhagen, Denmark to decide the fate of humankind. In brief, our so-called leaders met to decide on how to reduce the pollution we are causing and save our planet’s self-sustained ecosystem, before we reach a chain-reaction that causes changes which threaten the existence of a lot of species, including ours. ore so, this meeting is decided to chalk-out a successor to the renowned Kyoto protocol.

What is the Kyoto Protocol?

On Dec 11, 1997, with a moral-view in mind, a protocol was inked in Kyoto, Japan under the realms of United Nations for the reduction in the carbon emissions by the developed nations and the European Union. Now, in 2009, we have 187 countries, who have ratified this Protocol.

Nevertheless, among the developed nations, the United States, responsible for the highest emissions and Australia have not ratified this protocol as yet. Also, a lot of the countries, who signed up for this protocol are not able to meet up with the required figures. Though this was a good beginning, the scientific data shows that the checks are not enough and we will need to go one more step to stop our actions, if we want to stop the nature’s alteration. Thus, with that view in mind, and with the hope that Barack Obama, would act more responsibly as compared to George Bush, who exclaimed that reducing the emissions would hurt US economy, the Copenhagen Summit was organized.

The Change is Coming
The latest scientific evidence seems to suggest that the Earth’s ecological system is changing much faster as compared to earlier predictions. This is also due to the fact that the countries like China and India, which are home to almost 33% of the world population, are developing fast. Due to this, the emissions are increasing rapidly. Moreover, the emission levels from even the so-called developed countries have increased, putting more pressure on the environment. Major issues are expected for the island countries and the countries at lower sea-level. Other issues with increased temperature will include reduction in food production. Moreover, for India, the melting of the Himalayas’ glaciers will result in lack of water in Ganges and Brahmaputra, leading to major destabilization in the region.

The United States vs. China – A Deadlock
It is probably a human-tendency to just blame the others for whatever wrong has happened, and it is in this habit of ours, that we forget to look and gauge the existing situation and don’t salvage what can be stored while we keep fighting and blaming the others. The Copenhagen Conference saw a similar display of this human trait, albeit at a larger level and probably with something as importance as our existence at stake.

There was a tussle regarding the emission levels between the Developing nations and the already Developed nations. While the developed nations demanded equal stakes for all, the developing nations argued that they were at the brink of growing and cannot be equated with the former ones. Also, it was argued that while US and EU were not subjected to such laws when they were growing, why should India and China be.

There was a bigger issue between the United States and China, which are now, by far the highest emitters of green-house gases. While the US asked for independent evaluations of emissions, the Chinese refused vehemently stating it would be a threat to their sovereignty. So while the Chinese refused to budge from their own projections, there was not much that came as an offer from the United States, which instead of reducing their emissions by 15-17% of 1990 levels, only promised about 4% reduction.

The Final Outcome
As a last day measure, Barack Obama offered an aid of $100bn-a-year fund for the developing countries to move to the global goal of halving the emissions by 2050. This is only for the countries who join the Copenhagen Accord, which is the new outcome of this Conference, since nothing really concrete was pledged. Even the Accord doesn’t really boast of specific commitments and numbers, so things are pretty much in the wait-and-watch mode. And if the new agreement doesn’t include China, which is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, it would be a significant drawback towards a Universal deal.

Hence, all in all, the Copenhagen Conference ended with a much inspiration, but no action way. The final conclusion was that the United States, China and India reached a “meaningful agreement”. And as per the officials, a very diplomatic answer was echoed, that though none of the countries was fully satisfied, this Conference was a step, albeit small, in paving a way for the future.

Why the Conference Failed and the Errors
I believe the Conference failed because they had too many leaders to decide who was to do what. In fact, I read a few articles on the internet and found that, for this Conference 1,200 limos and 140 private planes were used to ensure the leaders and their delegates (15000+ people) were catered to. According to the organizers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent".

Most of these people are not needed at the Conference, but they are present because none of the Leaders want to take the accountability of the issues. Moreover, instead of giving figures, which can be tracked and noted, say 8-10% reduction in 5 years, the World-Leaders are talking about Pledges of reducing the Carbon-emissions by 80% in 2050. I wonder if any of them (knowing the average age of the leaders), would be alive at that time, and leave alone, being in Power.


My Take on this Issue
All I can suggest we do is, reduce our carbon emissions as responsible species of this planet, encourage the use of alternative sources of energy, plant more trees and do whatever else we can for saving our Home – Planet Earth. In the end, if nothing works out, just move to Lands away from Seas and at higher sea-levels, with a few Air-Conditioners and a stock of Electronic Batteries, which lasts your lifetime.

Bandra-Worli Sealink - An Indian Achievement or a Hoax?

On Wednesday morning, July 1 of 2009, the Indian Government finally rolled out what is officially called “Rajiv Gandhi Setu”. More formally known as the “Bandra-Worli Sea link”, it is believed to be one of the most complex and advanced construction endeavor ever in India. In simpler terms, this Sea-link is a 8-lane cable supported bridge which is built over the sea to join two of the most busy areas of Mumbai to provide ease to traffic congestion problems.

The History

Till this bridge was envisioned and even constructed, the only link that could connect the Western suburbs of Mumbai to the main city was the Mahim Causeway, which is a very old link (made sometime in 19th Century). The problem faced was that the existing Causeway is not scalable to meet the needs of the ever-growing traffic in Mumbai and there is very heavy congestion especially in the peak hours. The estimated numbers show that more than 120000 cars use this way for daily commuting and the stretch of 7.7 km from Mahim to Worli takes about 40 minutes. The vision was to reduce this time in commuting to just around 7 minutes. Moreover, having a parallel route would also divide the traffic and hence reduce the congestion.

Finally, in 1999, Shiv Sena laid the foundation of this ambitious project, which the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation awarded to Hindustan Construction Company with the initial deadline of Dec 2004 (which was later revised twice to Dec 2007 and then Dec 2008). However, the construction was stalled due to varied reasons like lack of funds, payment disputes, opposition from fishermen groups and other changes in design structure and finally, it is now partially finished after one decade of long wait in 2009.

Facts and Benefits
The length of the bridge is an astounding 4.7 km over the sea-surface and the weight is almost 670000 tonnes. The massive structure is held together by main towers of height 126 metres, which is roughly 43 storey (floors).

The bridge is going to have very hi-tech features like automated toll-collection lanes to reduce the turn-around-time and the vehicles using the bridge will be able to avoid 29 traffic lights. There will be automated systems which authenticate the toll pass in a matter of seconds and the bridge is also installed with 12 camera, which will be used to monitor the movement and ensure safety on the bridge. With an estimated traffic of 125000 vehicles, the bridge is going to save almost Rs 100 crore annually from transportation front alone.

The 8-lanes on the bridges (once all are functional), will not only reduce the traffic in the Mahim causeway, but will also add significantly to the Tourism image of the city, especially with the concepts of open-bus/cars giving the passengers a cool drive over the sea. On the same lines, the bridge is going to be fitted with various fountains and plantations which will beautify the jewel on the crown like bridge in the city of Mumbai.

The Criticism

Instead of just saying good things about the bridge and saying that India is doing great, we should also see some issues where things could have been better.

The initial cost of the bridge was estimated to 300 crore and the completion in 2004, however, the actual cost is now estimated to have crossed 1600 crores (almost 5 times the estimation) and this number dwarfs the amount of savings and hence the benefits of the sea-link by a great deal.

Also, according to various traffic experts, though the bridge will reduce the travel time from 40 minutes to 7 minutes, this duration is just from the end points of the sea-link. Since the impact and the handling of the traffic congestion at the Worli end is not thorough of yet, the actual travel time will be as high as almost 25 minutes, which kind of negates the very purpose of the bridge.

The last and surely not the least point that we have to consider here is that a toll of Rs 50 is going to be collected for each one-way trip on the sea-link, which per se, is going to dissuade many of the commuters, unless they see a real improvement in time.

Final Verdict

I feel that though the Bandra-Worli sea link project is hyped so much about and understandably it is a massive project which gives us Indians a sense of satisfaction. However, though a step in the right direction, the sea-link doesn’t live upto the expectations. There is still a lot to be learnt from this project and improve before we can truly proclaim that we too can have and build “World-class” infrastructure.

Tata Nano – An Indian Product or a Social Revolution?

Finally, one of the most awaited cars, in the automobile industry has been launched, which completely redefines the notion of owning cars. Cars, thought to be a thing of luxury, always eluded the common man, due to their high prices. The car is based on a vision from Ratan Tata, who said, “I observed families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family. We are happy to present the People’s Car to India and we hope it brings the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families who need personal mobility.”

With such a vision, the new Tata Nano focuses on not only the 10% Indian population which has an access to the other automobiles, but also to a huge percentage of population who can overstretch a bit from buying a new two-wheeler or a used small car to getting their own Brand New Wheels in the form of the “People’s Car”.


What is so Special about the Brand – Tata Nano?
Ever since it was conceptualized, the other players in the automobile industry were pessimistic about the feasibility. The Suzuki, the Hyundai, the Renault etc., anyone and everyone in the automobile industry had commented that the Tata dream of a People’s Car was just a figment of imagination and making a car at this low a price without compromising on quality is not possible. This very fact makes the Nano special. It is a brand that defines the Entrepreneurial Dream of an Indian, coupled with the hard work, dedication and determination of a team who believed in and worked for converting this vision into reality.

What is also heartening to see is that instead of making it look like a “cheap car”, the initial look and the comments and reviews from some of the people who test drove the car suggest that it is fares pretty well with its stylish looks, spacious interiors and a good quality drive coupled with a never ever before rock-bottom price tag. The car takes its tagline “Now You Can” from the Obama campaign and actually lives up to it.

On a personal note, Tata Nano even represents a triumph when it comes to a battle between Politicians and Industrialists, the base of which is present in my blog post about the Nano saga. India, the biggest democracy has its share of politicians who try to put “speed-bumps” in any development that happens, to use it for their own selfish purposes. Without going into details, the opposition party of West Bengal opposed the Tata Nano’s factory to be opened and demanded return of 400 acres from the 1000 acres which were allocated by the State Government. This was done on the assumption that since Tata Motors had invested a hefty sum into the Singur factory, they would cave-in to the demands.
Instead of giving in, Tata abandoned the incomplete plant and shifted the facility to Sanand, Gujarat, which not only baffled the people, but also showed the fact that the industrial sector of India is no longer weak and the Politicians cannot change things at the last minute based on their selfish interests. Thus, this Indian brand, with people speculating against it even before its conceptualization had happened, has come out successful defying all the odds.


Political Impact of Tata Nano Roll-out

The name Tata Nano is in itself a project of pride to Indians. The completion of this project changed the name of the Indian Automobile globally, from an industry where people just fixed the auto-parts made in foreign lands, to a place where innovations and research can happen and even reach new heights.

The pull-out of Nano from Singur is not good news to West Bengal, and has also resulted in tarnishing the already bad image of the state in the eyes of the industrial investors. This also led to loss of potential jobs that the new Nano plant, and its dependency industries, would have generated. We still see that Mamta Banerjee is still harping about her “achievement” of not allowing the Nano to settle in peace. Hopefully, the people of the state will see the light of the day and vote reasonably in these elections to ensure that a good Government comes in full power, and such embarrassing event never happens in the state again.
On the other hand, Narendra Modi’s Gujarat Government added another feather to their cap of achievements. With his dynamic speed, ability to convince and prompt action, Narendra Modi got not only the land leveled, but also got all the required documentation ready to roll a “red-carpet” for Ratan Tata’s favourite project. At the 4th Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2009, Ratan Tata said, “the Chief Secretory(in his speech) today quite rightly mentioned that two years ago I had said that if you weren’t in Gujarat, you would be stupid, I did said that and I am very proud that I listened to my own advice and that today I can stand in front of you and say that the fact is that I am not stupid any longer.” This statements from Ratan Tata, raised the bar of Modi Government for Gujarat to a new level.


Economic Benefits of Tata Nano Roll-out – To the Tatas and to the Customers

The Tata Nano is expected to roll out in 3 versions, the basic version is known as the Nano with no prefixes or suffixes. Next up is the Nano CX which comes with HVAC and central locking while the top of the line Nano LX adds power windows to the front doors. which are priced from the lowest around 1,00,000 which is from Pantnagar (would be around 1,30,000 on road) and the LX Model which will be around 1,80,000 which makes it still cheaper than most other cars in the same small-cars segment. This new car will not only be a saver in this recession time, but will also open the automobile segment to a whole new class of customers, who till now, could have only dreamt of owning a car of their own. Other than this, Tata group may think of exporting this “innovation”, though they are currently looking at only the Indian Markets. A new version is seemingly going to be unveiled in a couple years which have higher average and match European Emission Standards.

To the customers, the Tata Nano Revolution is going to help in seeing a cut in the prices in the other cars. This car has also made other players in the automobile industry interested and Bajaj Auto Ltd, the country's second largest two-wheeler maker has announced a joint venture with Renault-Nissan to produce a 2,500 dollar car as well. In yet another independent announcement, Japanese major Toyota announced a Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion) investment in its Chennai plant to launch a 'strategic small car' within next 2-3 years.

These things are good news to us the customers and also to India as a nation, which will attract not only the huge investments, but also new jobs and developments due to this. As for Tatas, they are getting set to start lapping up this new Market segment.


Living with Nano – Redefining our Visions
After saying all the good parts, this is one area where we might have a concern, though in long term. The presence of the new “People’s car” will surely empower a lot more people to own the car. This is going to have a direct negative impact on the traffic conditions, especially in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, where there are problems even now. Apart from this, the overall fuel consumption is bound to increase which may yield in further price hikes of petroleum products. The third addition on the same lines will be a problem of finding parking lots for the additional cars which will enter the system.

All said and done, the above mentioned fears will have lesser impact considering a few realities. The Singur Saga led to the postponement of the Nano roll-out and also the capacity is bound to be less now. From what I read, the Tatas are planning to roll-out some Nanos from Pantnagar and the full capacity will reach 3,00,000 cars per year only once the Sanand plant becomes functional. Secondly, with its sleek look and absolutely small 4-metre turning radius, the Nano will get fitted in even the smallest of places. This of course could cause issues with the other cars around it, but the Nano in itself seems a nice option. Another vision is that the Tata Nano will replace the auto-rickshaws in a big way and this I think would be a very welcome change for most of us.


Final Verdict and Personal Take:

With a few changes like no mirror on the Passenger side to save money, Nano does have some turn-downs, but my overall impression of the car is pretty optimistic. The new Nano is surely going to compete for being the first car for a lot, and a second car for another bunch of people. The impact of Nano release on the Used-Cars industry will be evident only once the Sanand Factory starts in a full-fledged way.
Till that happens, if you are a prospective Nano buyer, just pray that you win the Nano registration lottery and get your set of wheels sooner than others; and if you are in construction business, keep looking, we are bound to see a lot of Government Tender notices for building more roads and flyovers.

India – Another Talibanistan in the Making?

The Title suggests that India is on its way to become yet another country which will fall prey to the leadership of Taliban, which seems incorrect. You may suggest that the title should be Pakistan and not Hindustan. But, the facts below do show that we have a lot of our own fundamentalists, which terrorize the nation.


What exactly is Taliban?
The word Taliban is derived from the Arabic word “Talib”, which means, “one who is seeking”, but over the years, the word Taliban has got a meaning, “one who is seeking fundamentalist religious knowledge”.

Unlike Barack Obama, who classified Taliban into “Good Taliban” and “Bad Taliban”, from an Indian’s perspective, I’d rather divide the Taliban into:
1. The Foreign Taliban
2. The Indian Taliban


The Foreign Taliban – Based in Afghanistan and Pakistan
The oldest Taliban Militia was established in Afghanistan, after the Sovient Union broke up, to fight the Mujahdeen war-lords who were corruptly ruling parts of the country, and restore peace in a united Afghanistan. This movement of Sunni Pashtun religious students, was backed up indirectly and directly by the United States and Pakistan, because the Taliban used to check the spread of the USSR rule.

Growing in power, the Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Omar, took over the entire Afghanistan under their “Exemplary Islamic Rule”. The brought back the system called taqlid, which means a very strict following of traditional Islam. Cutting the long story short, in 1980s, Osama bin Ladin established guerrilla warfare bases in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. But after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Taliban began to look at the Western culture as its enemy. They considered items like Television, Music etc to be Western infatuations, which are aimed to break their religious beliefs. This intolerant mind-set led to the 9/11 attack on the United States, by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban refused to extradite Osama to the US.

On the other hand, Pakistan in its bid to take over Kashmir also helped the Taliban to grow. This has led to the Talibanese rule in a lot of Pakistani territory and even the Democratic Government and the army seems to be unable to control their growth. The Government’s approval to sign a peace treaty which accepts their rule in the SWAT valley, shows that Taliban in Pakistan is a force to reckon with.

Over the years, the same snake that the US and Pakistan nurtured and nourished has raised its hood against them and the Terror attacks in the US and the problems in Pakistan have grown very grave concerns globally. The new Obama administration has also recognized this threat and a new Af-Pak Policy is in place.


The Indian Taliban - A More Dangerous Breed

Unlike the Islamic terrorist Taliban that is growing in Af-Pak region, the Indian union has multiple versions of its own Talibanese ideologies. After all, we are a land where there is unity in diversity and hence there are diverse Taliban-like groups in India, based on caste, creed and region with their own selfish interests.


The Muslim Taliban in India

Before the title is taken in a negative sense, I would like to clarify one thing. An Indian Muslim is as much Indian as any other person. It is absolutely incorrect to consider all followers of Islam as bad and they are not the only community spreading terror. Generalizing the whole community due to the presence of a few bad people would be absolutely incorrect.

There are some areas like Cheetah Camp in suburban Trombay, where the local clergy are highly influential. Known as Khan baba, Abdul Jalil Khan said that he is fighting against the “corrosive power” of the visuals on the air-waves as all television programmes, either informative or entertaining, are replete with images of lust and of semi-nude models. The people are forced into sending their children into Madressa instead of the schools. The Madressa curriculum is very limited to Islamic thought culture and it has not changed over-time, which makes it even more dangerous. Children here are taught the “real” Islam and slowly they become molded to the rigidity of religion, which is a threat to our secular nation.

Another example to cite here is the one I came across on a blog. On January 16, a Pakistani woman named Saba was bashed up at a mall in Mumbai. The “crime” she committed was having a tattoo which said “Shukr Alham Du Lillah”, meaning “Thank you, God”. A group of Islamic Radicals led by Shabana Talukdar slapped her in the mall’s washroom till the Management came to her rescue. (Also printed in the Mumbai Mirror)

What I am trying to suggest here is, whatever happened to the fundamental right of “Freedom of Expression”. Especially in this case, where I personally don’t think anything provocative was written.


The Maharashtrian Taliban
Starting with Shiv-Sena, a group of pro-Hindu fundamentalists under the rein of Bal Thackeray, for the Marathis in Maharashtra, this group has grown in power over a period of time. With various cases pending in the court, the members of this group are either Politicians themselves, or are closely linked to Political Parties which provides them safe haven. The Shiv-Sena is known to have played a vital role in the riots that sparked out in Mumbai after the Babri Marjid demolition. A Judicial Commission also pointed at the Sena for its direct involvement in coordinating the anti-Muslim riots, and accused Thackeray of “commanding his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims.” But after 7 years of Judicial Proceedings, Bala Thackeray was given a “clean chit”.

The Latest off-shoot of an uncle-nephew quarrel for power sharing between Bala Thakeray’s son Udhav and nephew Raj, has given rise to another offshoot of such kind called The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray is all gaga about the needs of the original Marathi Manoos (actual Maharasthrians) and it raised a virulent campaign against the migrants, especially from Bihar and UP. The group is known to have assaulted the Taxi-drivers, vendors and the people who had come all the way from UP and Bihar to take the Railway Examination at the Mumbai Center. Among the cases known, there is also a case of a sweet shop named “Karachi Sweets”, whose owner was threatened by the MNS to either change the name of the shop or face the consequences.

From the records that I read online, at least 84 cases are filed against the MNS which include grave crimes like rioting, promoting enmity, expressing prejudices in public etc. Raj Thackeray’s name is included on 55 of these, with some of the cases where he is the prime accused. But the fact that he is not charge-sheeted yet and the fact that he was just jailed for some time and released on bail show the Political Muscle of the MNS.


The Rama Sena and Bajrang Dal

The Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Though they say they are secular and accommodating in their ideology, the Bajrang Dal has a goal of reversing the impact of the Muslim and the British rulers in India. This also includes the restoration of the currently disputed places of worship like Ayodhya and Kashi. Though I am not saying this is completely wrong, but it is also not correct to destroy places of worship of other communities.

The Bajrang Dal is also known to have had active involvement in the various riots. The VHP leader, Praveen Togadia, was arrested in April 2003 after distributing tridents to Bajrang Dal activists in Ajmer defying ban and prohibitory orders. Other than this, the Bajrang Dal activists are known to be “spoilers” when it comes to Valentine’s Day Celebrations, by invading parks, pubs, shops, cinema halls and restaurants and behaving like “social-police”.
Another such group is the that newly got fame is The Sri Rama Sena, which is a group of self-acclaimed Hindu fundamentalists who want to “restore” Indian values back into the system. Around 40 members of this group attacked a pub in Mangalore, Karnataka and physically dragged and abused the defenseless girls. The pictures and videos of this incident also show that there was grappling and molestation involved in this bizarre incident. The people who tried to intervene were also bashed up.

The sad part about this event is that everyone rose up in anger, but the Politicians remained unmoved for the fear of losing votes. Yet, the women came up with a great idea of gifting the leader of Ram Sena Pramod Muthalik, with huge numbers of pink underwears on the Valentine’s Day as a gift for his efforts.

Fate it seems is ironic, in Ramayana, Rama had a Sena of Monkeys who behaved like Humans and now we have this Rama Sena of Humans in Kalyug who...


My Take on the Taliban and India Topic

On a personal note, I feel that the Taliban within is much more dangerous as compared to the one beyond our borders. The Af-Pak Taliban forces can be even attributed to their warring nation with almost no education, but the Indian Taliban is far more dangerous as it comes from an educated class living in a democracy. The recent spur of events woven around yet-another Hindu fundamentalist Varun Gandhi is not music to our ears.

The very events mentioned above make me ponder whether we do have any fundamental rights left with us. Security threats and Violence have also led to another set of questions.

“Are we living in places where people are less Fundamentalists or Rigid then the Taliban forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan?”

“Will India – A country of diverse Tribes, Religions and Cultures still remain united or will it too Succumb to these Hardcore Perpetrators and get divided?”

“Will the Political Parties understand that they too are feeding yet another Taliban which has the potential of going the Af-Pak way, or will they continue to think short-term?”

As responsible citizens of a secular democratic, we must understand that nobody can violate others’ lives or forcibly invade their ideologies. We must join hands and take action against Hardcore Dictators.
If there is nothing else you can do, at least show your concern and VOTE RESPONSIBLY.

Elections 2009 – India Votes Back!!!

Disclaimer: The views presented here are the views of the author alone. Readers are expected to form their opinion. Moreover, if I am a bit biased to some party, it may be because of the fact that the ideology of that party suits mine better. The readers are supposed to approve/reject it on their own responsibility.

The biggest Buzz-word in the Indian sub-continent, barring cricket, terrorism and recession, is The 2009 Elections. So as a human, it is in my blood to speculate and provide my views; hence this post is going to be about what I think are going to be the breath-taking moments of this new election. But before I start writing the post, there is one small disclaimer, which is as above.

There is a lot of buzz in the air and people, at least some people look excited to look forward to exercise the very fundamental right given to people by a democracy, their right-to-vote for the next bunch of representatives for the highest positions of the country. When I see the election season bringing the excitement, I get reminded of a famous saying by Benjamin Franklin, which is, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Though very correctly said, love them or hate them, the elections are bound to happen every 5 years, or at times sooner.


The Indian Electoral Spending – A Joke to Recession?

As the history of India goes, Indian National Congress (Congress) and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) are the 2 frontline runners which have the highest chances of getting a majority. Winning the previous poll in 2004, the Indian National Congress formed a weak Government with the alliance of Left Parties. This coalition broke mid-way in 2008, when the Congress wanted to go ahead with the N-deal with U.S. and Left pulled the plug. Yet with a critical trust-vote that went through, the Congress managed to finish its 5 years tenure, much to the surprise of all sooth-sayers.

Before I get into some of the spending details, the previous polls had these numbers.

Congress – 141 Seats
BJP – 137 Seats

This means, that without strong coalitions neither of the two parties can reach the magic figure of 272 seats to get the majority. The funny thing about Indian Elections is that it is one-event which is completely un-affected by the Global Recession. According to the data given by Centre for Media Studies (CMS), the Election will cost the Republic of India almost 100-billion rupees, which is $2 bn. This is only the “official” amount that is allowed or accounted for. The actual spending can be estimated to be at least 4-5 times of the above amount.

For instance, Indian National Congress bought the Copyrights to the Oscar-winning song “Jai Ho”, for what would surely not be a small amount. The BJP meanwhile is lapping up all the Ad-slots on the Prime-time radio with their propaganda. Not only this, following the Techie-way victory of Barack Obama, L. K. Advani has also started a blog, website and news-letters. Further still, these internet media are also being popularized by use of Google Ad-words and other Ad-agencies. This apart, various Regional Parties are also promising different things, from Free electricity to new colour TVs and from almost free food and new state status to reservations even in Private Sector.

Over and above this, the fact that Mayawati has shown ambition of being the Prime-minister and form a Third-Front, has also triggered a lot of other events. Ministers of all the parties are flying around the country trying to form new alliances or strengthening the existing alliances. Rumours of Lok Sabha Party Tickets being sold have made a complete mockery of Democracy and it seems that the politicians only consider the money spent for campaigning as an investment which will reap returns once they come to power.


The Election Schedule

The 15th Lok Sabha election or the general election will be taking place in 5 phases as determined by Election commission of India. The different phases each of the states lies in is according to the picture.
The voting will taking place on following dates:
Phase 1: April 16
Phase 2: April 22-23
Phase 3: April 30
Phase 4: May 7
Phase 5: May 13

The results of the election will be announced on May 16, 2009.


The New Leaders of the New India
There is a very heartening change that has come over in the Indian voter for this new Election. The very fact that campaigns like “No votes to Criminals” and “Jaago Re” are gaining popularity is giving a new hope to the Indian voters. For the first time, companies like Infosys and TCS have taken initiatives like getting Voter ID cards to be made for their employees and are encouraging their employees to vote. This change is going make the politicians see a new class of Indians Voters – the Indians who never voted before.

The other interesting thing to see forward is that though the current fight for leadership is between L. K. Advani (BJP), Manmohan Singh (Congress) and probably Mayawati (3rd Front). The real excitement is how the next leaders in Pipeline are treated and what Portfolios/responsibilities are they given. Congress is keen to bring Rahul Gandhi as its next successor, whereas BJP is silent so far. Yet, I have a strong feeling that the next candidate for BJP after L. K. Advani, will be none other than the current Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, who is famous in the world for both, his positive and negative publicity. With industrialists like Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal openly supporting him for the post and with the success-model of Gujarat as his achievement, he will surely be one leader to keep an eye on.


Gauging the Future Possibilities

1. UPA + Coalition
Indian National Congress winning the next elections looks to be grim, but yet with the rural support they have, there are chances that they can win provided that they hang on to their existing allies and get support from 3rd Front once the elections are over.

2. NDA + Coalition
The chance of a BJP-led Government again looks dicey, but considering the previous Congress tenure, this Government has a realistic chance provided they get support from BSP and other allies, which looks difficult at present.

3. Third Front at the Center
This though looks tough, it has a realistic possibility if the allied parties in NDA and UPA break free from their parent parties with the greed of getting a bigger-share in the completely coalition government. Though not officially announced yet, Mayawati looks to be the front-runner for PM-position from this front. However, we can expect another round of polls if this government comes to power.

All in all, in the end, it will boil down to where the parties like CPM, TDP, AIDMK etc. will go, which will decide the fate of who forms the next Government.


Final Verdict

In these Elections, with the current Recession, unstable Pakistan and rising unemployment, which party wins or loses is kind of immaterial. It is going to be a tough ask for the new Government to tackle these issues effectively.
All in all, the whole Election Post can be summarized in one line which was once spoken by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said that Freedom from want and freedom from fear – do not just come from deposing a tyrant and handing out ballots; they are only realized once the personal and material security of a people is ensured as well.