Re: [Assam] From the Sentinel

[Chan Mahanta]

Hi A:


Good to hear from you. You've been quiet a long time :-).


 >.... and as long as professional pessimists as 
the likes of Ms. Singh have their 
rhetorics going, the President and everybody 
else would be ridiculed at every step that they 
come up with any kind of a developmental plan.


*** Really? WHAT were the 'development plans' 
that you saw in APJAK's song-and-dance?

And how could development plans be effective 
while far more basic, fundamental issues are 
ignored or brushed aside like APJAK did in that 
'interactive' session. Does 'interactive' mean 'I 
tell, you listen and don't ask embarrassing 
questions' :-)?


Is shw aware that even with that 
"grave" situation of scarcity of 
electricity >etc., many of the western countries 
been worried about companies outsourcing 
to >India?

*** It was NOT about western countries' search 
for cheap labor. It was supposedly about lifting 
the lot of the 'people' with tele-medicine, while 
primary healthcare is absent, it was about 
virtual-universities while primary education is 
absent or is supposedly provided under open skies 
by unskilled 'teachers'.

Just because a TINY minority of Indians, 
beneficiaries of 
steal-from-the-many-to-enrich-a-few-system of 
governance who are doing 'well'
does not mean that is THE NATIONAL lot, does it?

 >Isn't it funny that even established 
columnists/journalists often don't get 
the basic meaning of true journalism (like, 
duh! be non-biased!) as how even a lay person 
would get?

*** What is the bias here A ? That she does not 
take what was dissed out without asking hard 
questions? That she has the gall to exercise her 
intellect :-)?

Do you think that APJAK's response

Manjunath was a righteous man who came from
a righteous family and  we must strive to make more righteous families.


is one that places the Pres. in an enviable 
light? Would you have responded that way if you 
wee to have been confronted by that question from 
Manjunath's parents ? What was he thinking?



What is really 'funny' is those who think of 
themselves or are called 'journalists' , while 
all they do is regurgitate governmental 
propaganda, without asking the hard questions 
they should about the realities that surround 
them? It is people like Tavleen Singh who are 
serving as the WATCHDOGs -- the press' real role.

The picture of the 'un-biased' journalist you 
paint is really one who sees everything in shades 
of grey, unable to see the blacks and whites; 
someone I would call vision-impaired :-).

c-da







At 10:31 AM -0600 11/30/06, Alpana B. Sarangapani wrote:
 >that before the  'people's President' makes his
next speech about empowering India  he take a
short drive without his cavalcade. He could
discover that  neither Bharat nor India are ready
for his wondrous plans.

.... and as long as professional pessimists as 
the likes of Ms. Singh have their 
rhetorics going, the President and everybody 
else would be ridiculed at every step that they 
come up with any kind of a developmental plan.

 >Is he aware that the average Indian is lucky  if
he can get a couple of hours of electricity a

 >day? Is he aware that  the knowledge society is
fueled by electricity and that one of India's
biggest problems is that we have been unable to
generate even enough for every Indian home to
have a light bulb and a fan?

Is shw aware that even with that 
"grave" situation of scarcity of electricity 
etc., many of the western countries been worried 
about companies outsourcing to India?

Isn't it funny that even established 
columnists/journalists often don't get 
the basic meaning of true journalism (like, 
duh! be non-biased!) as how even a lay person 
would get?




From: "mc mahant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: assam@assamnet.org
Subject: Re: [Assam] From the Sentinel
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:15:32 +0530

Either the Rocket Scientist/DRDO 
Designer-in-chief(main battle tank/combat 
aircraft etc) has gone

 All nuts   OR
His speechwriter has.
mm




From: Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Rajen & Ajanta Barua" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
<assam@assamnet.org>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
"SANDIP DUTTA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Assam] From the Sentinel
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 21:35:53 -0600

blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li {padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;}
It is hard to believe the accolade " Nice 
writing!!" while one does not get it.

I can explain, but my guess is tat the effort will be a waste of time.









At 8:22 PM -0600 11/27/06, Rajen & Ajanta Barua wrote:

A bit of philosophy for a change!!!



Nice writing!!



However I failed to see what exactly the writer 
is trying to depict. Is he trying to show that 
the native rulers are the problem (which 
actually means the native people in general) or 
is the President of India in particular APJ 
Abdul Kalam is the problem.



Indian civilization is known for its love of the 
chaos in general. Our great leaders are known 
for their complete disregard of the 
order, Gandhi included. In India, things are 
just supposed to happen without anybody taking 
action. Indian masses keep themselves clean by 
spitting everywhere with complete disregard for 
public cleanliness. It is no wonder that India 
has been described by various writers as a 
'functioning anarchy' (Galbraith) to 'the 
functioning madness' (Yann Martel).  But all 
these goes to show the reality of the Indoos.



Under the circumstances, what the writer has 
written as news is no news at all.



But as Marx said, the point is not to 
philosophize what is history, the point is to 
change it.



From the writing, I have no clue to know if the 
writer knows where the problem is, why 
the Indoos (ie the people of South Asia in 
general) love chaos, and how to change the 
system.



Rajen Barua

----- Original Message -----

From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Chan Mahanta

To: 
<mailto:assam@assamnet.org>assam@assamnet.org ; 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>SANDIP DUTTA

Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 11:08 AM

Subject: [Assam] From the Sentinel


*** A dose of reality !

cm


India from  Raisena Hill
ON THE SPOT
  Tavleen Singh

No Indian city is as  removed from the realities
of India than New Delhi and last week I was
reminded of this in the most surreal way. By New
Delhi I mean not the  old Moghul city that lies
on the edge of the Red Fort or the new suburbs
that sprawl in ugly disorder towards the borders
of Haryana, Uttar  Pradesh and Rajasthan but that
part of the city that Edwin Lutyens built  in the
dying days of the British Raj. Lutyens was
building an imperial capital worthy of the
British empire, so at its heart, on a high hill,
he built a sandstone palace fit for a Viceroy,
distant from the squalid  realities of native
Indian life.

When native rulers took  over the reins of
governance from the Viceroy they must have
realized  that the palace on the hill was
inappropriate accommodation for a  socialist
Prime Minister, so it was used instead to house a
more  ceremonial personage, the President, and
renamed Rashtrapati Bhawan.  Last Tuesday, at the
request of The Indian Express newspaper, the
President of India came down from his palace to
the lesser Taj Palace hotel to address a select
group of invitees on 'empowering' India.

To listen to the  President we gathered early.
Security is always a nightmare. After being metal
detected, body searched and having bags checked
for dangerous  objects and mobile phones tested
for bombs, we waited an hour for the  man many
regard as the most popular President ever, the
'people's  President,' which is why it came as
such a surprise that he should be  as removed
from the realities of India as the Viceroy may
once have been.

The President used a  computer to give us a power
point presentation of his idea of an empowered
India which would be a knowledge society linked
by the 'grids'  of knowledge, e-governance and
society. With the eagerness of Alice in
Wonderland he took us through an India that does
not exist. Listen to a  small sample.

''Societal grid  consists of Knowledge Grid
inter-connecting universities with
socio-economic institutions, industries and R &D
organizations;  Health Care Grid,

inter-connecting the health care institutions of
government, corporate and super specialty
hospitals, research  institutions, educational
institutions and pharma R & D  institutions;
E-governance Grid, interconnecting the central
government  and state governments and district
and block level officesŠ..''

It was not President  APJ Abdul Kalam's confused
jargon that was disconcerting so much as his
total disconnect with Indian realities. Is he
aware that computers  need electricity to work?

Is he aware that the average Indian is lucky  if
he can get a couple of hours of electricity a

day? Is he aware that  the knowledge society is
fueled by electricity and that one of India's
biggest problems is that we have been unable to
generate even enough for every Indian home to
have a light bulb and a fan?

The President talked of  'virtual universities'
and 'tele-medicine' as if he were living  in some
advanced Western country and when at the end of
his Alice in  Wonderland address some members of
the audience tried asking him real  questions he
brushed them away. A doctor rose to point out
that tele-medicine  could hardly be a replacement
for basic healthcare and he launched into  a
convoluted description of his 'health grid'.

In the audience were  the parents of Manjunath,
the official who was killed for his honesty by
corrupt petrol pump owners, and they asked what
plans he had to stop  honest officials being

killed for being honest. He said he was aware
that Manjunath was a righteous man who came from
a righteous family and  we must strive to make

more righteous families. Great! But, how?

The President seemed  not to have noticed last
week's Star News sting on MPs making lakhs of
rupees out of every contract they handed out
under their local area  development scheme.

Corruption was a problem, of course, but we must
not  allow a 'problem' to become 'captain' of our
lives we must be  the captain of the problem.

After finishing his 'interactive  session' the
President drove off in his cavalcade of
limousines and I  set off towards Haryana in
pursuit of a story. I drove past Gurgaon with its
glittering glass offices and salubrious suburban
apartment blocks  and watched plump, middle-class
children play in parks filled with trees  and
ornamental ponds and then suddenly the landscape
changed. The real  India reappeared.

Wide roads gave way to  dirt tracks that led to
villages of open drains and air so polluted that
even the trees seemed coated with sludge. I saw
people eating at  restaurants built by stagnant
ponds in which barefoot children and mangy  dogs
played. I drove past private clinics and
government healthcare  facilities that were
primitive by today's standards and towns that
looked like slums. Haryana is one of India's rich

states.

The landscape I describe is less than  fifty

kilometers from Rashtrapati Bhawan. I recommend
that before the  'people's President' makes his
next speech about empowering India  he take a
short drive without his cavalcade. He could
discover that  neither Bharat nor India are ready
for his wondrous plans.

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