Women’s Reservation Bill in my perspective

I write this commentary at a time when the entire Nation is celebrating the Woman’s Reservation Bill.  The women MP’s rejoice this proud moment by galloping sweets.  The other leaders term it as the “onset of a new era” and a “historical moment” in Indian politics.  The self proclaimed intellectuals go one step forward to say that the entire political system would undergo a radical change once the bill takes effect; the media is in all praise of UPA Chief Sonia Gandhi for having taken such a strong decision with conviction to make woman’s reservation in the parliament a reality.

Now let us set aside all our emotions for a while and critically examine what would be the outcome if the Women’s reservation bill is passed in both the houses of the parliament. There is no doubt that the parliament strength would comprise of 33% Women, which is what this bill is bound to facilitate, well, on the face of it, certainly looks great isn't it?  There are lavish, ambitious assumptions like politics would become cleaner, corruption would come down, the women would be empowered, the nation would march towards progression and so on and so forth.  But let us not jump into conclusions being carried away by emotions, I indomitably believe that reservation, be it any form, does not reach the deserved in this great country; I can quote numerous examples which are obvious but do not want to, since it would deviate from the current topic.  The Bill is a deliberate attempt to force women into politics which will never help us achieve the desired results; rather it would lead to nepotism.  Read on.

Do you think that the downtrodden and the unprivileged women in the society will be given tickets to contest the elections?  NOT at ALL, only daughters, sisters, in laws, nephews, grand children and great grand children (who happen to be women) of current corrupt politicians would be given tickets to contest the polls, now how the hell on earth is it suppose to change the fate of politics in our country? I fail to appreciate.

Source: http://cartoonistsatish.blogspot.com

In the atmosphere of politics without ethics, women’s reservation would only help our fellow politicians to nurture more politicians within their family tree and multiple their net worth by leaps and bounds.  Is this what we boast as women empowerment?  Please revisit your opinion for heaven sake.

If we, as responsible citizens of this great democratic country truly aspire to empower women, then all we need to do is to ensure a level playing field where socially conscious, capable, deserving women leaders can willfully come forward and participate in politics, without any fear to contest the polls which shall  be free and fair, to make their way to the parliament and lead this country to prosperity.  Rather, forcing women into politics by way of reservation would only lead to unworthy, contemptible women MP’s & MLA’s who in turn shall act as proxies for filthy politicians hiding behind the veil.

  Source: http://cartoonistsatish.blogspot.com

Some might brand me as a conventionalist or an orthodox cocoon who is no longer relevant for the present generation for my views.  I can only laugh at them as they would themselves realize the hard facts after witnessing a couple of elections, a handful of women MP’s, MLA’s and their activities thereon.

In the meanwhile, this Bill would serve as a very effective tool for the Marketing & Vote generation campaigns of the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance in the consequent elections.  Thanks to all sort of Reservations and Quotas which the Congress has achieved in their 60 years of post independence politics.

Views expressed are personal, you are free to contradict, correspond by dropping your comments.  

Jai Hind

Friend..

WOW, I got my friend back!!

It is not that I have lost something and have got it back; she, my friend, was within me all these days, it is just that I saw her reciprocate the feelings which I had for her. She is a friend of mine who has found a very special place in me, so deep to the extent that it is not possible even for me to dig her out, even if I want to.

Well, so much has happened in my life in the past couple of years, it has been more of my mistake and I have to confess.

I tried by various means to get in touch with her, now this is what irony is, I lost my mobile phone with which I lost her number as well. After being used to cell phones and phonebooks we have lost the habit of remembering numbers haven’t we? I wrote to her 5 to 6 times, all my mails went without a reply, how can she not reply to my mails? Wherein I had expressed how much she means to me and how much I miss her. Is her heart made of stone? I asked myself, NO was the answer given by the other me.

Somehow my instinct kept telling me that she is not such a cold-blooded person who is stonehearted who would not respond to my mails in which I had apologized a million times for all the blunders I had committed. Either my mails have not made their way to her inbox or she has not checked her mails or the mail id is no more active. I tried to reach her in Orkut, Facebook and thru’ other networking sites but all my efforts went in vain. Might be she had no account in these networking sites. It’s crazy that I could not reach out to my friend in the current era of Facebook, Twitter, etc! But that was the harsh reality.

It has been two years since we had an interaction, two full years have been wasted without my beautiful friend, let me tell you, its very hard in this self-centered world to get a selfless friend like her, I did get, but lost her in due course. It is like you own a BMW and you chuck it just because you didn’t know how to drive it!! Funny isn’t it?

Well, it would be bit of an overstatement if I say I thought about her every day, no I didn’t, to be frank enough, but whenever I spend time alone, whenever I think about my high school days, whenever I feel lonely, whenever I spend time alone at the sea shores, whenever I am at my terrace gazing the lighthouse, whenever I listen to Sathiya songs, whenever I roam around Kutchery road & Santhome, whenever I pass by Sankara Academy, whenever my friends ask about her, whenever I realized my mistakes, my mind would be occupied by her thoughts.

The time & days that I had spent with her were so beautiful to the extent that it would bring a small drop of tear from my eyes; the droplet of tear would stagnate inside my eyeballs and would struggle to flow through my cheeks, rather I would not let them flow.

One fine day, when I was preoccupied with her thoughts an idea struck my psyche. She had sent me a lot of forwards (Chain Mails); I searched my inbox for such mails and found one such mail which she had sent to a group of recipients. I was quite sure of the fact that the forwards were sent only to her near, dear, close ones, I could see their mails id’s as well. I drafted a mail to one such close friend of her asking about her whereabouts. Whenever I check my mails I would await a reply, this continued for quite a few days but my efforts failed to bear fruits :-(.

Months Later:

Months later when I was driving to my office, I received a text message, normally I do not read, reply SMS or pick calls while I am driving, not that I am geeky or something, it’s just that am not too comfortable handling mobile phone while driving. But on that particular day when I was stuck in a signal I picked up my phone from my pocket to read the SMS, WOW, I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was SHE, my lost treasure who had pinged me, the message read -

“Hi Hari, its XYZ here.. My friend told me about your mail last night.. Just tears are coming from my eyes.. My heart is fully loaded wid happiness.. Jumping.. No words to express my happiness :-)”

Any clues, the way I would have reacted after reading her SMS? Well that’s left to your imagination guys :-). I do not find enough adjectives to explain my state of happiness or pleasure at that point of time. In a traffic signal where I was waiting for a Green light, the Almighty had signaled GREEN light by bringing my beautiful friend back in my life. It was peak summer, the temperature was more than 35 degrees and I felt as if I am driving through the hills of Ooty, that too on a rainy day :-).

WOW, I got my friend back!!

Thus I realized that it is not just me who missed her; she was even more desperate to reach me, she had missed me more than I missed her. Later I came to know that she had even come to my home once in search of me!! Now I remember a saying “Everything is prewritten and nothing could be rewritten”. That’s the power of DESTINY.

Note – Since I do not want to make my friend’s name public, I have mentioned has XYZ in the write up; nevertheless she has got a beautiful name ;-)

MADras by Night - Funny Night out

It was a Friday night, the time was around 10 P.M and I had decided to spend the whole night with my best buddies. Thank god Saturday was not a working day!!!! Luckily the company where I work did not expect me to be working on weekends :-).

I called my friend Anand and conveyed (convinced) him about spending the whole night roaming in the streets of the Singara Chennai city, well he was reluctant in the beginning but was fine with it, cool I was able to convince him.

I was not really happy of the fact that just we two of us are going to spend the night around the streets of Chennai without any specific Agenda, so I decided to rope in Kishore as well; the first reaction from Kishore was ok machi, suthallam :-) (Ok dude, let’s roam) He is really an awesome guy, never says NO to such stupid attempts :-).

I was pissed of waiting in my terrace for these guys. Kishore works with an airlines company in the customer service cell, he has to come all the way from the airport to Mylapore after his evening Shift, I killed time by listening to music in my ipod, finally Kishore came by 12 sharp, and the other lazy one came by 12 30 after our continuous perusal in spite of the fact that his home is just a five minute drive from mine :-(

So all set, we were three of us with two bikes without any explicit plans. Finally we decided to spend some time in Marina Beach. Beach is one amongst very few places in Chennai where you could spend ample time without spending even a single buck :-). The beach was just 15 min drive from my place, we managed to find a good place to sit and get pleasure from the sea breeze talking all extraneous things :-) there was hardly any topic which we didn't browse through - movies, gossips, state, central, office politics, our funny bosses, and of course GIRLS and life in general.

All of a sudden we all started to feel hungry, the reason could be that we talked and laughed so much so that we had completely exhausted all our calories :-). So the hunt started for a good restaurant to have our midnight meal, I must be crazy to expect a good hotel, we would have been more than happy to see a roadside shop open by that time (It must be around 2.30 A.M).

Kishore suggested that we will manage to find some good hotels inside the Central Railway station, if not inside at least in and around the Railway station. He was so damn sure that Hotel Saravana Bhavan inside Central station would be open but I was not too certain. So we started our bikes and headed towards the Railway station. It was just a ten min drive from beach to the station; we parked our bikes outside the station in an unauthorized place to have delicious, mouthwatering, finger licking food in Saravana Bhavan, but as I had anticipated all hotels were closed and we couldn't even find a tea shop in the nearby locality :-(. I and Anand yelled at Kishore for being so bombastic, made fun out of him, pulled his leg for some time and started our bikes in search of a tea shop. We eventually found a small roadside teashop which was located in a place where people come to pee :-(, but left with no other choice, we asked the shopkeeper to prepare 3 cups of special tea, we relished every sip of the tea with a couple of biscuits to munch. The midnight special tea in a not so good roadside shop was indeed SPECIAL.

After having some fun, we started driving towards my home where all three of us had planned to sleep. Finally we reached home early morning around 4:30 A.M, well I was in no mood to sleep, so convinced the other two that we would play cards till 5 and they agreed (since they were left with no other choice) :-). So we played a couple of games (Rummy), enjoyed our game thoroughly since winning or losing didn't actually matter, it’s the spirit of the game which held us high :-)

We guys disbursed by 6:00 A.M to sleep at our respective places, of course with lots of memories to cherish :-). Madras by Night was filled with loads & loads of fun.

SPECTRUM SCAM – A Cover up?

The Union Minister of Telecommunications Mr. A. Raja, now being popularly known as SPECTRUM Raja has become a famous personality overnight. The Spectrum Scandal which has cost the government more than rupees 1 lakh crore is supposed to be the biggest scam the country has ever seen. 

The Ministry of Telecommunications held by Raja is in charge for the allocation of Spectrum to the companies which offer mobile phone services in the country. In the year 2008, 2nd generation (2G) Spectrum for GSM service providers was allotted to the private players. There were a lot of controversies in the way Spectrum allocation took place by 2008 itself, now the minister’s office is being raided by the CBI for further investigation.

The Minister claims that there is no truth in the allegations against him; he says that whatever procedure was followed in the year 2001 has been adopted by him as well. But there were mere 50 lakh subscribers in the year 2001 compared to 37.5 crore mobile phone users by the end of March 2008; there has been an exponential growth in the Mobile Market which is known to all of us. The fact that the market has grown by leaps and bounds in between 2001 and 2008 is unquestionable.

In the year 2001 the government was shouldering the responsibility to nurture the mobile services market, therefore the Spectrum license was not auctioned then. Even the private players in the industry would not have anticipated such a colossal growth in the mobile services market. The Government was then in a position to motivate and attract private players to operate in the mobile services space.

But that is not the case in 2008. Both domestic as well as MNC players consider investing in Telecommunications extremely profitable. In this sort of a scenario if the government decides to fix the same price, following the same procedure as it did in the year 2001 then it would be a deliberate attempt to put too small a price for the 2G spectrum.

The Telecom Regulatory authority of India (TRAI) is a statutory body found by the government of India in 1995 to avoid excessive government interference in pricing and policy. The TRAI had advised the Telecom ministry to auction the Spectrum License in the years 2001, 2003, 2007 respectively. But the Telecom ministry held by Raja had completely neglected TRAI’s recommendations and allotted the 2G spectrum license on first come first serve basis. More than that fact, Mr. Mishra (TRAI - Head) in his letter dated 14th Jan 2008 to the Telecom Ministry had clearly pointed out that the Ministry has ignored all the crucial recommendations of TRAI and considered a few points for the sake of it.

The last date to submit applications for 2G spectrum was announced as 1st October 2007 by the ministry as on 24th September. Later an artificial cut-off date, Sep 25, 2007, was created and applications received between Sep 25 and Oct 1 were summarily rejected. (This in itself is a clear violation of TRAI’s guidelines).

Datacom Solutions, Yestel, Shyam Telelink, Loop Telecom, Spice, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservice, Swan and Unitech were given license for 2G Spectrum. The total fee generated by the government for selling license to the above 9 companies is 10, 772.68 crore.

Out of the companies mentioned above, the two companies Swan and Unitech do not have any prior experience in the business of mobile phone, broadband or related services. Swan Telecom has obtained Spectrum license to operate in 14 circles for an amount of 1537.01 crore while Unitech has obtained license to operate in 22 circles by paying 1651 crore respectively.

Within a matter of six months these two companies have sold majority of their stake to foreign companies. Swan Telecom had sold 45% of its shares for a whopping amount of 4050 Crore to a company called Etisalat which is based out of UAE due to which the valuation of Swan Telecom had increased to Rs. 9990.56 crore. Unitech had sold 60% of its stares to a Norway based company Telenor for Rs. 6120 crore due to which the valuation of Unitech had increased to a monstrous amount of 10, 731 crore. Just by leveraging their ability to acquire Spectrum license, Swan and Unitech had made massive 700% return on their investment within a matter of six months.

Raja’s ministry made Rs. 10,772.65 crore by selling 2G license to 9 companies whereas Swan and Unitech just by selling half of their stake had proved the fact that their license is worth more than 20,000 crore. If we consider the market value of these two companies, the Government by selling license to these nine companies should have generated 70, 022.42 crore as license fee. In that way our country has incurred a loss of over Rs. 60, 000 crore.

The Central Vigilance had written a letter to the Telecom Department stating the irregularities in allocation of 2G Spectrum as on 15th of December 2008. It had clearly mentioned that it is highly disappointed with the way 2G Spectrum was licensed. Even after that, Raja while answering to a question in Parliament had told that 2G Spectrum was allotted on first come first serve basis; he had also mentioned that neither TRAI nor the Vigilance had raised objections, which is against truth.

TRAI head Mr. Mishra had clarified in an interview (December 2008) that nowhere in the guidelines or recommendations of TRAI it had mentioned that Spectrum needs to be allotted on first come first serve basis. The Chief of the Central Vigilance Mr. Prathyush Sinha had told in an interview (April 2009) that it is evident that there have been severe irregularities in 2G Spectrum allocation.

Despite all misshapes the Congress party, Prime Minister and the Finance Minister are trying to hold up the Telecom Minister A. Raja due to political pressure from the DMK which is obvious. In fact Raja has said on record that whatever he has done has been discussed and in consent with the Prime Minister. This very fact is even more shocking than the scam in itself.

Let us hope that the Congress led UPA government does not pressurize the CBI considering the interest of its ally, the DMK.

Views expressed are personal, you are free to contradict, correspond by dropping your comments.

Jai Hind.

TERROR (Forgotten & Forgiven)

The party which is in power in the state of Tamil Nadu with the support of a national party which is in power in the Center has showered compassion, well on whom?

Al – Umma (a banned terrorist outfit) Terrorists who were convicted by the Court of law a few years back. Most of us by now would have forgotten the serial explosions which happened in Coimbatore a few years back as it is our nature to forget outrageous incidents as and when a new one turns out (kudos to our memory).

The honorable Chief Minister of the state in view of celebrating the 100th birthday of the then Chief Minister Mr. Annadurai (Founder of his party) has released the Terrorists by way of reducing the severity of their punishment, who were convicted for the Coimbatore serial Bomb blast case which took away the life of 58 innocent people, injured more than 250 odd which include children, old aged people, bread winners of the family and pregnant women. This Chief Minister has showered sympathy by doing so on these extremists, hasn’t he?

Persuaded, provoked by religious hatred, a group of men whose main intention was to make innocent civilians shed blood, who were and are a part of the banned Terrorists group Al – Umma have now been sanctified with the blessings of our Chief Minister and were set free. Wow, I do not find words to explain the kind of concern our Chief Minister has shown towards these men whose main objective in life is to slaughter, slay the common man.

It is not just that those men who belong to a Banned Terrorist outfit’s punishment has been reduced, it is not just that those who were directly responsible for the death of 58 innocent people were set free, but its the Court of law and its verdict which is discarded to dustbin.

It is indeed interesting to note that there are law suits still pending to be decreed before the court against the group of men, to increase the severity of their sentence. These law suits have been filed by the family members, friends of the victims who have been killed brutally or injured severely during the explosions. Now these law suits filed have become completely pointless after the release of the Terrorists by our honorable Chief Minister.

Well, who is the court to decide, our Chief Minister does not have the patience, neither does he needs to wait for the judgment, since we the people of the democracy have vested so much powers with the Chief Minister. Long live our democracy.

The Central government, the Home Ministry, every now and then, scream on top of their voice that they wouldn’t spare Terrorists and Terrorist Groups which cause trouble and disturbance to the people of the country. Every other morning the Prime Minister would voice his concern over terrorist attacks which happen in every corner of the country time and again, but the State government which is being run with the support of the Central government has remained absolutely unspoken on this matter.

This very incident alone has devastated the Central as well as the State governments’ measures against terrorism. Long live our kindhearted Chief Minister so as TERRORISM.

The shame is that no news channel (Regional as well as English) had made this a cause for concern and voiced their views. Why would they, when the austerity drama of the politicians and the ICC champions’ trophy are making all the news.

Jai Hind.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome at ibs.hari@gmail.com

One Night @ Forest

Fear, loneliness, boredom, irritation, ecstasy…. How do you explain if these five different feelings put together dwell in !!!!! That’s how I would explain my Nagalapuram trekking experience. We were a group of 45 trekkers all set to explore the forest range near Nagalapuram (Eastern Ghats). We started our trek Saturday morning and had planned to return by Sunday evening.

On our way myself and a few fellow trekkers had lost our way and was in search of others. I decided to find some way out so that we do not lag behind, in the process I was LOST all alone, now that I could not even find my fellow trekkers who were lost with me. I am quite aware that the most important thing to survive during a Trek is WATER without which you cannot survive, so I started to hunt for a stream or a pool where I could Camp till my fellow trekkers find me.

Finally I managed to find an excellent pool by following a thin stream. I decided to stay back in the pool for two reasons, one, I would not run short of water, two, other trekkers have to cross this pool to get out of the forest. I was completely in control of whatever decision I took initially.. But….. sooner I realized that it was a BAD idea (But it was too late then) to stay in the forest for more than 30 hours ALONE…

Well, things were not so bad for the initial couple of hours, I walked around the pool, took a dip, clicked some photograph to kill time.. but left with nothing more.. I desperately wanted a Book, iPod, newspaper, something or the other to keep myself engaged, but unfortunately nothing was with me… I was resting on the rocks evaluating options to destroy time till it became dark…

Now it was getting darker, the fact of the matter is that I had to spend the whole night alone… and that thought in itself killed me… I started to hunt for a good rock where I could sleep, selection criteria was quite simple, it has to be plain enough without much of curves and safe enough to the extent that even if I slip I must not fall and get hurt, and yes finally found some place to sleep and got settled to spend the night which was first and probably the last of its kind.  ;)

Now it was pitch dark, I bundled myself into my sleeping bag to stay safe without being bitten by a snake or any insect for that matter… It was 9 PM, the sky was filled with stars, the moon was at its best, lot of glowworms around me, well all I wanted was a good sleep, not that I was tired but that’s the best and only way to kill time, but God was not kind enough to bestow me what I desperately wanted for the moment..

Now I started to sweat, it wasn’t too hot, later I realized that I was SCARED, and that made me sweat.. Trust me, I was scared.. A mild sound was good enough to upset me, the movement of leaves, sound of breeze, rolling stones, the strange noise made by the frogs, insects or whatever, irritated me to the core, it was a feeling of anxiety and frustration put together, I could not explain my state better..

At some point of time, even without my knowledge tears started to roll out.. Not just because I was scared or alone, thoughts of my loved ones were haunting me.. how many times I would have ignored them when they wanted me the most, how selfish I had been throughout, all such unwanted, unnecessary thoughts breezed through my mind, my heart became very heavy and that was the cause for those drops which rolled out of my eyes…

Why such thoughts are haunting me, why that too now, I could not sense the reason behind, might be God wanted me to spend some time thinking about my past, my relationships, breakups which I had almost forgot for quite some time, that could be the possible reason why I was left alone in the mid of a forest for close to 30 hours… Well that is how I spent the whole night, realized my own mistakes I had committed and reassured myself that I am not going to repeat them again (Constructive isn’t it)..

It was morning by then, I was relaxed, at last the lonely night came to an end, now I knew that I just need to kill time till 5 or 6 pm (which I know is not so easy) till my fellow trekkers find me and take me out of the haunting jungle.. Took a dip in the fresh water pool by which I was refreshed.. Since I didn’t sleep much the whole night I decided to sleep, and yes I did sleep indeed, in fact it was a sound sleep.. It was around 1:30 PM when I got up, I was hungry as I did not eat anything since last night, luckily had some fruits with me (apple, orange and berry) which I munched for lunch..

A local tribe named Munusamy passed by that way, since the place was located in the border of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, he managed to speak fragmented Tamil which I struggled to understand, nonetheless I was happy to see a Human face after a long time.

I was asking him about his occupation, family, livelihood etc to pass time and poor fellow he responded to all my questions happily. I requested him to take me out of the forest which he accepted to, we both walked our way back to the dam. I thanked him and waited for other trekkers to join me, in the meanwhile informed the organizer that I am near temple which is in the foothills and not to search for me inside the forest.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.