Tushar Mangl's Blog, page 32
July 25, 2016
Time for Vlog Book Reviews has come
Over the weekend I was browsing through some video book reviews of Six Degrees. My prime interest was to know how reader's felt about our story Entangled Lives. As I surfed through the video streaming sites, I wondered whether the time has come for video reviews.
We all know the benefits of video over text. But internet speeds are quite slow in India and access still limited. Also the quality might suffer due to inadeqate or obselete recording devices.
On the flip side, video reviews are super cool. You get to relate to your readers so much better.
Will this trend be a hit? I can not be sure about it. You see when you check out reviews for a book, you just skim down a list of reviews, say on the shopping site or on a review website. You dont want to spend a lot of time researching and learning about the book.
We all know the benefits of video over text. But internet speeds are quite slow in India and access still limited. Also the quality might suffer due to inadeqate or obselete recording devices.
On the flip side, video reviews are super cool. You get to relate to your readers so much better.
Will this trend be a hit? I can not be sure about it. You see when you check out reviews for a book, you just skim down a list of reviews, say on the shopping site or on a review website. You dont want to spend a lot of time researching and learning about the book.
July 19, 2016
You can't police the society in Haryana
A girl from a poor family is gangraped in Haryana by five men. That was year 2013. Happens all the time. We dont need to panic or do anything as it did not happen in Delhi or Mumbai. It happened in Bhiwani. Why bother?
Circa 2016. The same men, again gang rape the same girl. No one is shocked. The glib, English speaking middle class is not interested. No one wants to discuss a girl from poor background who despite being a victim of a henious crime, was trying to rebuild her life by shifting to Rohtak and studying for her masters.
Nops, no one gives a damn, especially the police. Since society never expected them to do anything, remember the riots in Rohtak for reservation few months ago? And by living up to its expectactions, the police never did anything. You really can't police the will of the people, especially if that will is deep rooted in lawlessness. We saw it during the reservation stir when police allowed a free for all rioting for every frustrated fellow in Haryana.
If anything, this story is not about shame of our society where we endorse such incidents on daily basis. It is about courage of a woman who was trying to beat our deeply patriachal and narrow minded society. Yet, she failed, like many others before her, and like many will fail after her.
Circa 2016. The same men, again gang rape the same girl. No one is shocked. The glib, English speaking middle class is not interested. No one wants to discuss a girl from poor background who despite being a victim of a henious crime, was trying to rebuild her life by shifting to Rohtak and studying for her masters.
Nops, no one gives a damn, especially the police. Since society never expected them to do anything, remember the riots in Rohtak for reservation few months ago? And by living up to its expectactions, the police never did anything. You really can't police the will of the people, especially if that will is deep rooted in lawlessness. We saw it during the reservation stir when police allowed a free for all rioting for every frustrated fellow in Haryana.
If anything, this story is not about shame of our society where we endorse such incidents on daily basis. It is about courage of a woman who was trying to beat our deeply patriachal and narrow minded society. Yet, she failed, like many others before her, and like many will fail after her.
July 13, 2016
The Kashmir Conondrum
We have had a lot of discussion on this blog, in earlier days about Kashmir and the perennial problem it is for the Indian state.
Now that the central government is pumping in a INR 80,000 crore package for the Kashmiris, plus the usual flow of tax payers’ money for security reasons, they have received an excellent feedback from people of the state.
By openly supporting the death of a commander of a terrorist organization, the people of Kashmir have clearly shown where their loyalties lay. And they do not look at all at par with the Indian state.
That leaves a very uncomfortable question for the Indian polity of the day. What to do with Kashmir at this stage? Is pumping money blindly and empowering the armed forced really going to work?
This is plainly the strategy that everyone who has ruled in Delhi has followed. While militancy has weakened due to a strong army, hostility between the army and locals is only increasing. An army is not really a diplomatic machine or a NGO type humanitarian. An Army is trained to act under tough conditions, face difficulties and take responsibility of security of people it does not know much about. Now to expect, that they should have probably cuddled and hugged a terrorist, then probably they should have pinched his cheeks and admonish him about his naughty behavior seems quite bizarre. Also strange is the fact that people of Kashmir have all the problems with Indian army, its government etc, but no problem in taking money most of which comes from hard earned money of the Indian tax payer.
In this scenario, where the political parties are themselves at loss as to how resolve this paradox, it is up to the rest of India to raise their voice. It seems now that the answer to the Kashmir issue would need to found deep in the conscience of the Indian middle class.
But plagued by its very own problems and a very self-centric attitude might not allow the Indian middle class to work on an effective answer.
Then how will the Kashmir puzzle be resolved? Better still, how long should we just keep paying a state who resents our presence just so that we can keep ignoring the problem instead of facing it?
Now that the central government is pumping in a INR 80,000 crore package for the Kashmiris, plus the usual flow of tax payers’ money for security reasons, they have received an excellent feedback from people of the state.
By openly supporting the death of a commander of a terrorist organization, the people of Kashmir have clearly shown where their loyalties lay. And they do not look at all at par with the Indian state.
That leaves a very uncomfortable question for the Indian polity of the day. What to do with Kashmir at this stage? Is pumping money blindly and empowering the armed forced really going to work?
This is plainly the strategy that everyone who has ruled in Delhi has followed. While militancy has weakened due to a strong army, hostility between the army and locals is only increasing. An army is not really a diplomatic machine or a NGO type humanitarian. An Army is trained to act under tough conditions, face difficulties and take responsibility of security of people it does not know much about. Now to expect, that they should have probably cuddled and hugged a terrorist, then probably they should have pinched his cheeks and admonish him about his naughty behavior seems quite bizarre. Also strange is the fact that people of Kashmir have all the problems with Indian army, its government etc, but no problem in taking money most of which comes from hard earned money of the Indian tax payer.
In this scenario, where the political parties are themselves at loss as to how resolve this paradox, it is up to the rest of India to raise their voice. It seems now that the answer to the Kashmir issue would need to found deep in the conscience of the Indian middle class.
But plagued by its very own problems and a very self-centric attitude might not allow the Indian middle class to work on an effective answer.
Then how will the Kashmir puzzle be resolved? Better still, how long should we just keep paying a state who resents our presence just so that we can keep ignoring the problem instead of facing it?
July 5, 2016
Much Needed Cabinet Reshuffle
Finally the Prime Minister has shuffled his cabinet. He kept most of his council of ministers intact, just making minor changes here and there. Key takeaways -
Former Karnataka CM Sadananda Gowda is moving down steadily in political circles. From Railways to Law and now to an obscure ministry his stars are not shining.
PM Modi seems to have realized the need to induct more powerful females in his council of ministers. Hence two of them have been brought in, blunting the power of other formidable women leaders.
Bihar still has the maximum representation in the PM's cabinet even though the people of the state have moved towards the RJD, Congress and JDU combine.
The biggest gain has been for the law ministry with two senior Supreme Court lawyers taking charge of it. Talk about expertise there.
Another big gainer is the environment ministry which has now got a known environmentalist to reign it in.
All in all a reshuffle more in tune to the politics of the day than the actual needs of governance.
Former Karnataka CM Sadananda Gowda is moving down steadily in political circles. From Railways to Law and now to an obscure ministry his stars are not shining.
PM Modi seems to have realized the need to induct more powerful females in his council of ministers. Hence two of them have been brought in, blunting the power of other formidable women leaders.
Bihar still has the maximum representation in the PM's cabinet even though the people of the state have moved towards the RJD, Congress and JDU combine.
The biggest gain has been for the law ministry with two senior Supreme Court lawyers taking charge of it. Talk about expertise there.
Another big gainer is the environment ministry which has now got a known environmentalist to reign it in.
All in all a reshuffle more in tune to the politics of the day than the actual needs of governance.
June 20, 2016
A Road Not Traveled
J Alchem's book A Road Not Traveled is an amazing book by a debutant author. A unique plot with each character being endowed with bizzare sounding names. The book is brief yet all scenes are detailed and vividly described. The story moves at a good pace and ends with an unexpected twist. [No, I am not revealing the story].
Recieved a copy of the book through Goodreads Giveaway program from the author.
Recieved a copy of the book through Goodreads Giveaway program from the author.
June 14, 2016
Rummaging Through - Hidden gems of beautiful verses
Somewhere, someplace in the blogosphere lie blogs like Rummaging Through, with blogs so forgotten yet so beautiful. Pranita's blog is primarily about love and poetry. It probes deep into your heart and touches you deep within.
The posts are quite few, just a handful of them and the blog does seem to reflect neglect. One of my favorites was Universe in Your Eyes. Do check the blog out.
The posts are quite few, just a handful of them and the blog does seem to reflect neglect. One of my favorites was Universe in Your Eyes. Do check the blog out.
June 10, 2016
Why Raghuram Rajan does not deserve a second chance for RBI governorship
Media is all going wild these days with speculations and support for a second term for RBI Governor. But many groups in social media are mobilizing support for him for gains that are totally contrary to interests of our nation.
Under his stewardship banks have had their worst performances, primarily for his policies to encourage loans to corporates with strong political connections. Loans were disbursed by banks without proper compliance and procedure, leading to huge losses. It is such forces which now want him to continue. So as to keep encouraging such practices.
For those who feel, he being out of government is a good sign, look at how bank licenses have been issued. RBI still doles out licenses on whim and in a very miserly fashion. A modern outlook demands that licenses should be offered on tap but no, the Governor didnot encourage that.
Look at the overall customer service in the banking industry. Its pathetic, largely because RBI does not encourage banks to be people friendly. It should be the role of a regulator to encourage such policies which are benficial to consumers.
As a whole if you see, banking sector is performing extremly poorly today and I had written two blogs on this previously as well.
People should be prudent and research well, before blindly believing into the section of social media who wants further exploitation of the banking sector. This they believe would benefit the rich and powerful.
In fact, the only positives happening from the Jan Dhan Yojna or action against NPA accounts, is coming out from prodding by the Government of India.
Under his stewardship banks have had their worst performances, primarily for his policies to encourage loans to corporates with strong political connections. Loans were disbursed by banks without proper compliance and procedure, leading to huge losses. It is such forces which now want him to continue. So as to keep encouraging such practices.
For those who feel, he being out of government is a good sign, look at how bank licenses have been issued. RBI still doles out licenses on whim and in a very miserly fashion. A modern outlook demands that licenses should be offered on tap but no, the Governor didnot encourage that.
Look at the overall customer service in the banking industry. Its pathetic, largely because RBI does not encourage banks to be people friendly. It should be the role of a regulator to encourage such policies which are benficial to consumers.
As a whole if you see, banking sector is performing extremly poorly today and I had written two blogs on this previously as well.
People should be prudent and research well, before blindly believing into the section of social media who wants further exploitation of the banking sector. This they believe would benefit the rich and powerful.
In fact, the only positives happening from the Jan Dhan Yojna or action against NPA accounts, is coming out from prodding by the Government of India.
May 16, 2016
Amazing time at Indiblogger Meet - Delhi
On Sunday, IndiBlogger organized a blogger's meet at The Lalit at New Delhi. It was supposed to be a networking event and a product launch. Need I say this? That IndiBlogger people are great at organizing such meets? It was the first time I saw them using the bar code kind system where we got the passes via email and the code was scanned by the guys at the even. Simple, innovative system to check you in.
The even kicked off with lunch. The sumptuous feast was a good time to interact with old blogger buddies whom I had met at previous such meets. These included Pankaj, Gaurav, Tarun and others. Also meet a new blogger Rachit, a young blogger who blogs about content marketing.
Post lunch Anoop opened up the session with a fun game. It was to introduce yourself and pick a number from 1 to 10. ( No.3 interestingly never came up, I was thinking if I got a chance, I would say no 3). The program continued with a session with experts on growth and nutrition issues. This was quite interesting but focussed mostly on diets and growth for children. It was moderated by Natasha Badhwar and the panel included Dr Rajiv Chhabra from Gurgaon, Dr Jyoti Batra and Ms Satinder Kaur. Dr Chahbra was quite direct and frank in his sayings and the other panelists were good as well.The discussion around how much milk should we consume and its inclusion in our diet was quite interesting. I remember having a similaar discussion with some one else as well, the other day.
Next was the marketing lead from Horlicks, Mr Amaan Khan (whose voice as Rachit noticed was remarkably similar to Farhan Akhtar's). he gave a detailed presentation and unvieled the product. We tasted it as well. It tasted great.
We had a small break for tea, after which Anoop led us to a human shuffle like we shuffle cards. Teams were formed, a contest was announced, an updated version of the old mad ad game. Where in props were provided to each team to make a video. Results were declared later. Team 7 won. I was in team 1. I played a part of a bully in our team's video. Could you believe that?
All in all a great day, a good event planned by Rennie and the team. Met some wonderful people (Bloggers are great people, I always say) and the session on health was cool too.
May 8, 2016
The fuss about drought and water
More than 90 lakh people in India have been affected by drought. Poor rainfall has been attributed to this condition. Of course, its easy to blame nature. The major effect it seems to be in one of the most prosperous states of India, Maharashtra. But the whole response to drought with long, meaning less notations of sympathy is suffocating. It almost makes you feel like puking listening to heroics of those who are pumping in crores of public money to ferry water to these regions. Here is why -
The media is all gung - ho about the drought and misery. It makes good story. It gives a nice PR opportunity for celebrities. In all this, the truth remains buried in plain sight.
In the year 2002, in an economic survey stated that 70,000 crore rupees were spent in Maharashtra in ten years. Shockingly however the irrigation potential of state rose only 0.1%. The people of Maharashtra it seems spent 70,000 crore plus on irrigation and still don't have a sound irrigation system to tide them over drought. Still they stood rock solid behind their government.
Even when a government employee came out to accuse the government of what was believed to be a 35000 crore irrigation scam, the people chose to disbelieve him. It was clear according to citizens, the money was all there and well spent.
And now they dont have any water. Lakhs of crores spent on irrigation development, they want brother taxpayer to pump more lakhs of crores as there is still no water. Point is till when.
Till when will middle class tax payers shell out money on projects which yield no results. If people of Maharashtra believe that there politicians and leaders are as clean as a whistle then should we go ahead and send tanker full of trains when there is no water in fields? Or our natural reaction be to pad lock cricket stadiums, call in helicopter full of politicians and increase tax burden of the middle class?
Or we can just chop down more trees and clear out more jungle for our so called dream projects. Water is only important for discussions and shenanigans.
The media is all gung - ho about the drought and misery. It makes good story. It gives a nice PR opportunity for celebrities. In all this, the truth remains buried in plain sight.
In the year 2002, in an economic survey stated that 70,000 crore rupees were spent in Maharashtra in ten years. Shockingly however the irrigation potential of state rose only 0.1%. The people of Maharashtra it seems spent 70,000 crore plus on irrigation and still don't have a sound irrigation system to tide them over drought. Still they stood rock solid behind their government.
Even when a government employee came out to accuse the government of what was believed to be a 35000 crore irrigation scam, the people chose to disbelieve him. It was clear according to citizens, the money was all there and well spent.
And now they dont have any water. Lakhs of crores spent on irrigation development, they want brother taxpayer to pump more lakhs of crores as there is still no water. Point is till when.
Till when will middle class tax payers shell out money on projects which yield no results. If people of Maharashtra believe that there politicians and leaders are as clean as a whistle then should we go ahead and send tanker full of trains when there is no water in fields? Or our natural reaction be to pad lock cricket stadiums, call in helicopter full of politicians and increase tax burden of the middle class?
Or we can just chop down more trees and clear out more jungle for our so called dream projects. Water is only important for discussions and shenanigans.
April 23, 2016
The Navjot Factor in Punjab Elections
Punjab is gearing for assembly polls. The ruling Akali - BJP alliance faces a strong incumbency factor as it has had a ten year run of the state politics. The media of course favors AAP as the coffers of the Delhi government have been too generous to the media. It continues to highlight the success of AAP in Lok Sabha elections some time ago. But what it does not feel like informing the citizens is that most of those MPs have faded away already. Only Bhagwant Mann remains party's face in Punjab. Of course relations between AAP and Congress are nice and comfy and that seems to be the way these elections might go. An alliance between the Congress and AAP.
The Akali Dal is financially sound and well organized as well. Whatever allegations of corruption people might hurl, they have tried to push the state forward. The BJP it seems has already decided to grab the post of the biggest loser. Its fate now lies in the border district of Amritsar where the Navjot factor will decide about its very existence in state politics. For long, the leaders of BJP in Delhi has outsourced state politics to the Akalis. The BJP cadre is just for ornamental purposes. In Assembly elections they just fight a bunch of 20 odd seats. In Lok Sabha elections they just fight 3 seats. That too local cadre is not bothered about, as all Lok Sabha candidates are outsiders. So obviously, Akalis have had the upper hand in the alliance and the BJP local cadre has suffered badly. They all have tried in their own way but the Delhi leadership trusts the Akalis more than their own men.
The situation would go on till BJP is an extinct party in Punjab. But Navjot Singh Sidhu and Navjot Kaur Sidhu, husband and wife have upset the apple cart. They have been extremely outspoken about the party being submissive to the Akali Dal. Before them many party leaders who have spoken were conveniently sidelined. And coincidently that was why they were brought in from Patiala to Amritsar.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP tried the same old trick with Sidhu as well. It was a safe seat for Navjot Singh Sidhu as his wife (Navjot Kaur) is a popular MLA and he himself ha built up a popularity amongst people. His approach is independent from the Akalis which the local leaders and cadre liked very much. But the Delhi leadership intervened, Arun Jaitely was airlifted from Delhi to Amritsar, election was totally outsourced to the Akalis and people as it happens at times in democracies pulled the rug. A seat that the BJP could have easily won, was deliberately lost by demoralizing own party men.
Lot of water has flown since then. Amit Shah has taken over the mantle at the party headquarters. But little has changed for the BJP in Punjab. All eyes are now on the Navjot Couple. For all the politics, they have not quit the party. They have in fact become a symbol of the frustrated cadre of the BJP. If they move away or give up, the party's extinction in the Punjab political arena is certain.
The Akali Dal is financially sound and well organized as well. Whatever allegations of corruption people might hurl, they have tried to push the state forward. The BJP it seems has already decided to grab the post of the biggest loser. Its fate now lies in the border district of Amritsar where the Navjot factor will decide about its very existence in state politics. For long, the leaders of BJP in Delhi has outsourced state politics to the Akalis. The BJP cadre is just for ornamental purposes. In Assembly elections they just fight a bunch of 20 odd seats. In Lok Sabha elections they just fight 3 seats. That too local cadre is not bothered about, as all Lok Sabha candidates are outsiders. So obviously, Akalis have had the upper hand in the alliance and the BJP local cadre has suffered badly. They all have tried in their own way but the Delhi leadership trusts the Akalis more than their own men.
The situation would go on till BJP is an extinct party in Punjab. But Navjot Singh Sidhu and Navjot Kaur Sidhu, husband and wife have upset the apple cart. They have been extremely outspoken about the party being submissive to the Akali Dal. Before them many party leaders who have spoken were conveniently sidelined. And coincidently that was why they were brought in from Patiala to Amritsar.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP tried the same old trick with Sidhu as well. It was a safe seat for Navjot Singh Sidhu as his wife (Navjot Kaur) is a popular MLA and he himself ha built up a popularity amongst people. His approach is independent from the Akalis which the local leaders and cadre liked very much. But the Delhi leadership intervened, Arun Jaitely was airlifted from Delhi to Amritsar, election was totally outsourced to the Akalis and people as it happens at times in democracies pulled the rug. A seat that the BJP could have easily won, was deliberately lost by demoralizing own party men.
Lot of water has flown since then. Amit Shah has taken over the mantle at the party headquarters. But little has changed for the BJP in Punjab. All eyes are now on the Navjot Couple. For all the politics, they have not quit the party. They have in fact become a symbol of the frustrated cadre of the BJP. If they move away or give up, the party's extinction in the Punjab political arena is certain.
