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INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION:
Alternative Publishing - Is it viable to traditional publishing?
WHERE: Art Lounge - Sunaparanta, Near Lar de Estudantes, Altinho, Panaji
WHEN: September 30, 2009 - 5:30pm
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=146588805806&mid=12a68daG1df3c3d3G2ac936fG7
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Every now and then I see something which defies even a forgiving excuse for its
cynicism.
Aakar Patel obviously belongs to that exclusive group that cannot seem to get
their blinkers off.
Sure, there is a lot wrong with the way things happen in India but to equate
this with the abject poverty that the British encouraged to keep a nation
enslaved defies reason. The same warlords divided this country and sowed the
seeds of religious intolerance. When they found they could not milk this
country very much longer they decided the scorched earth policy to undo the
British Raj on religious and impotent princedom grounds.
Apart from the four metros, electricity was not to be found in most towns,
leave alone the villages. Our so called Industrial base did not give us the
means to produce a sewing needle. Our cotton was exported to Lancashire to be
usuriously hiked up in Price and sold to the populace for whom no viable or
feasible employment or earnings policy had been formed. (just see a copy of
"Gandhi" made by a Britisher and you may see the tip of the iceberg of what our
former masters did.)
Six decades later, the World look towards India as the coming Economic force of
this century.How come this did not happen in the 250 years that the British
were here? The biggest famine to devastate India happened when the English were
in full sway here, yet we find it within our competence to flagellate the
present Government for starvation deaths.Where were these voices when the
Bengal Famine happened?
Over 60 % of the population of 350 million in 1947 were illiterate and living
below the poverty line. Today,in a population of 1.10billion reportedly
270million are living below the poverty line ( I do not consider this as an
achievement but in six decades more than double the pupulation of 1947 are
literate and the middle class of India is equal to the total population of
1947. The British did nothing remotely close to this in the 250 years they were
here.
Patel's masters considered this to be Jewel of the Crown.Someone please tell me
why we were importing rice, wheat and milk in 1947. The RIP Van Winkles should
wake up and check when the Green Revolution and Operation Flood happened.
The worst fighter planes in the IAF are the Jaguars,where did these come
from?Does any one remember the Gnats that took the pants off the Pakistanis in
1965 and 1971. Home grown Brother!
One keeps hearing of excellent French cheese and British butter and Portuguese
wine. I cannot remember the name of a single Vineyard,Bakery or Processed food
company (of pre-Independence ancestry) that can claim International
acceptability with its operations in India.
Yet we are remarkably agile in denouncing the poor standards and lack of
connoisseur quality of the Indian made products.Mind you these come from
companies (like HUL, TISCO etc.that we have all been associated with,either by
employment , or by related business and advertising.We have no problem in
gaining personally from things Indian, yet we never tire of the Good Ol British
days refrain
BP, Exxon and Caltex found no oil or gas in India. Yet the Gujju Ambanis today
have the World's largest oil refinery and keep finding gas every other day.
When we talk of corruption and inefficiency,some one tell me who was
responsible for the Economic meltdown last year. How did the inept Indian
Administration face up to this?
a Bombay woman responds to the article about the British having left too
early, to redress the balance. ------------
