There are upwards of 60,000 newspapers in India.
Do you get to hear / read anything published in these newspapers?
But if it is Saamana - the Shiv Sena mouth piece - the mainstream Indian media, both print and electronic, fall over each other to reproduce the vitriol published in it.
So, it is they who are keen to keep parochial forces alive to gain circulation and TRP ratings.
Security issue concerns us all.
In this age of mindless violence by thugs - terrorists are thugs, no more no less - I can understand the need for increased vigil.
But paying lip service to security is an absolute waste and represents unnecessary harassment of ordinary citizen.
Every time I drive into a hotel or an hospital in Bangalore, I am stopped by 3-4 security guards. One chap then wheels a mirror to see if there is a bomb under my car. The other requests me to open the boot / trunk, so that he can have a good look at what is inside - another bomb, perhaps. Not once in the last 2 years has anyone checked me or inside of the car. I could be carrying an AK-47 in the passenger seat and cover it with a jacket or something and no one would be wiser. This is security check at its most ridiculous. Why even bother?
One of these days a bunch of thugs - I refuse to call them as terrorists - will hold a hotel or a hospital or the ITPL (they have identical security check - under the car, and in the boot) hostage and then one year hence there will be a report that will try and assign blame.
Mr. Chidambaram are you listening? I do not think merely giving directives to the state government or the hotels and hospitals is sufficient. Please follow up.
This is from Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman ...
In October 2005, I was visoiting Shanghai and came across a piece in the China Daily that caught my eye. It was a column proposing that the Chinese consider eating with their hands and abandon chopsticks. Why? Because. the columinist Zou Hanru wrote, "we no longer have abundant forest cover, our land is no longer that green, our water tables are depleting and our numbers are expanding faster than ever ... Chine itself uses 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks a year, 1.66 million cubic meters of timber" - millions of full-grown trees. ... In face of rising environmental pressures, he said, China must abandon disposable wooden chopsticks and move to reusable steel, aluminum, or fiber ones, "or better still, we can use our hands."
Like Indians, he should have added.
One of the advantages I have as a blogger over the Finance Minister of India, is that I can come up with outrageous suggestions. Like this one ...
The expected revenue from Income Tax is 9% of the total government income. I do not know how much the Income Tax department spends to get this 9%. I was wondering if the Income Tax can be abolished all together. Instead increase taxes on non-essential, luxury items. Believe me the economy will boom like it has never before. Some money will go into buying luxury items; the rest will go into savings and investment. And I do believe that the government will more than recover the 9% lost out. Actually this may even wipe out the 38% debt (of the total expected income for this financial year) the government is under.
Now that is not really outrageous, is it?
Economists may argue that this will lead to a spiraling inflation. Will it, really?
So the annual union budget is tabled. The television channels are out to out-do one another by projecting different, unique perspective to the budget.
Ok, here's a question: Can you tell me one item on which the duty was reduced in the last year's budget? That was difficult, wasn't it? Ok, I will make it simpler. Just generally, very generally, describe last year's budget - the general policies, the thrust. You now know where I am coming from. No one - except the economists and perhaps the FICCI, perhaps - remembers the budget 6 months down the line.
Now, here is one thing that can be done to make the budget more real to you and me - the common person: the finance minister can still make that 2 hour speech, if s/he so desires; but wouldn't it be nice if at the end of the whole budget a speadsheet is presented listing planned and actuals ... like this
Goal ---------Planned Budget ---- Achieved
Employment-------1,50,000------------ 25,000
New Roads -------6000 km -------------2000 km
Water -----------500 villages ------- 1200 villages
Electricity -----500 villages --------600 villages
The spreadsheet can be made available in the public domain and the bureaucrats can keep updating the document with the data.
Easy to understand. easy to follow.
Now that would be a true transparency.
So what do you say, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee (or any other future Finance Minister)? Up to the challenge?
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