Open letter to Rajdeep Sardesai

My Dear Rajdeep,

I read your recent blog about General VK Singh. But I tend to disagree on it and I am not a "bhakt", as you tend to categorize every critique of yours in one basket called "bhakts".

In your entire blog, you have just written couple of lines about media, which says Media needs to introspect, or Media needs to stop starting abusive hashtags. Ok, fine, I agree but when, or how or who will do it first? C'mon Rajdeep don't be so naive, we all know the filth in current journalism in India. But who will take the responsiblity of course correction? If we have created a punch line "mera neta CHOR hai", when we know that NOT all "netas" are "chor". So we also know that "mera journalist CHOR hai", when we also know that there are some honest journos too. This is how we generalize stuffs when filth paints the majority in its own colour. 

If media can't understand a simple humour when General Singh says that his job in Yemen was less exciting as compared to his visit to Pakistan high commission, then I am sorry you guys deserve what Gen. Singh has said. 

If I watch a primetime news show today, it is more of a "saas bahu" drama than the real substance. Its like a TRP race amongst all channels. So if someone calls you a "news trader", don't you think you guys actually epitomize it in your primetime shows. This tag is more established when some journos fight it out on twitter that someone hijacked his "news break" by showing "xyz exclusive" on his "xyz" channel. C'mon Rajdeep don't say that you ain't aware of such filth in your business.

We Indians have a very WRONG tendency of generalizing stuffs, as all BIHARIS are crooks, all UPites are abusive, all mediai critiques are either AAPTards or Bhakts etc. etc. So as per this law of generalization itself, General Singh has called your entire fraternity as "Presstitutes", he is just doing what we all have been doing since we were kids.

You also said that all Governments save their citizens from war zones, I fully agree with you. Even UPA did some great evacuations in its regime. But I fail to remember one instance where a union minster was sent on ground to oversee such a large scale evacuation. In all previous accounts the netas will sit in their AC chambers and leave the ground work on troops or diplomats on the field. Don't you think General Singh, did a commendable job when this got acknowledged by some western countries too. And what do you expect him to do when he is abused by a main stream media channel. This is like "as you sow, so you reap" Rajdeep. 

At least, netas can be put through course correction as they go through election and electorate is very smart these days. But sadly we can't control some bad mouthed, Oxbridge educated, self proclaimed, savior of India type journalists. Who will ask them for their course correction? Rajdeep, first look within your fraternity before pointing fingers to others. You guys are no saint. Having an Oxbridge degree and 20+ years of journalism experience, doesn't give you a license to abuse or make fun of any one, neither does it say you are ALWAYS RIGHT. You DO make mistakes and for God sake ACCEPT IT.

Postscript: I am a simple Indian, earning my living in Singapore and I am not a BHAKT.

Subhash Chandra

My Trip to Hongkong

Most of my blogs are political, so I thought of writing a light memoir of my recent trip to Hongkong and Macau. Hongkong is part of China with a special status and it is self governed as Special Administrative Region(SAR) of China. South-East Asia is full of budget airlines, so I thought of saving some dough by traveling Tiger Airways. This airline reminds me of our good old "Deccan Airways", which died prematurely through the golden hands of our desi Richard Branson. Though I see contrast in these two personalities when it comes to business acumen. I think I am digressing, let's get back to Hongkong :).

It was an early morning flight from Singapore budget terminal. The flight was on time and we boarded comfortably. We flew over South China sea for around 4 hours and landed around 10:30 AM at Hongkong International airport, which is situated in an island and offers a nice view while landing. Looks like the airport is built in a land reclaimed from sea, but I am not sure.

We had googled all the preliminary information about the transport to our hotel and relative cost, so we didn't waste much time and went straight to the taxi stand. The airport has a dedicated help desk for taxis. Since most(read all) taxi drivers don't know English and they know only Cantonese(A Chinese dialect spoken in south China), so the concierge desk will write the destination in a paper and we handed over the same to the cab driver. Taxis in Hongkong are of various colors and they operate in their designated islands. Red taxi can operate in all the islands i.e. Lantau, Kowloon and Hong Kong. We had to go to a place called Jordan in Kowloon island. We stayed in Hotel Largos. We strategically chose this hotel as this was at a stone throwing distance from Jordan MTR station(MTR is the lingo of metro rail service). Jordan is just couple of stations away from the city centre central district of Hong Kong and just one station away from famous Victoria Harbor.


Hong Kong has got amazing sky lines and it resembles a lot like New York, when it comes to its bustling streets, narrow lanes, footpath shops, rush, skylines etc.. Hotel rooms are relatively small in Hongkong unless you rent a suite. We didn't want to waste the day, so we immediately left for Victoria peak. We didn't have any difficulty in reaching there, again thanks to google and its maps. We bought the combined tickets of "the peak tram" and madam tussade. There is a nice little history behind "the peak". This is located at a hill and it offers breath taking views of entire Hongkong and Kowloon island. During 18th century, when Hongkong was a British colony, Britishers used to hire locals and these locals used to carry them to "the peak" on their shoulders in a cart. These carts were very much like Indian Palki(Palki is a traditional hand held cart, used in traditional Indian Marriages to carry brides in old days). Gradually Britisher established a tram service from Hongkong to Victoria Peak. The tram goes up the hill at an inclination of 45 degrees. This was really incredible when you see buildings inclined by 45 degrees. It is a 20 minutes ride to Victoria Peak but you will surely cherish this journey. At the peak we visited the observatory sky tower and saw the islands and hills surrounding these islands. We also saw the madam tussade museum. Another amazing surprise came when the museum staffs greeted us in Hindi and they know quite a bit of Hindi key words and it gives a good feeling to Indian tourists. There were only two Indian celebrities in this Museum, one is Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and other is Mahatma Gandhi. We were exhausted by evening and we came back to hotel and grabbed a quick power nap.

View from "Victoria Tram"

View from "The Peak"

The famous night market was just 5 mins walk from our hotel and we thought of strolling through it and grabbing our dinner there itself. Temple street comes alive during the night and it is open till 1 AM. This place is very much like fashion street in Bombay or Amar Market in Jamshedpur. People haggle and bargain to their own capacity here. This street also offers a lot of local, western and Asian delicacy. There are a few Indian restaurants too, in this area. We enjoyed and waked a lot on our day 1 in Hongkong.

We started our day 2 with Disneyland. It is around 30 minutes by local MTR from Jordan. We had already booked our tickets to Disneyland, so we quickly collected our tickets and got into this major and one of the most visited places in Hongkong. Disneyland is really huge theme park and it offers something or the other for all age groups. There are some amazing shows, fun rides, character parades and thrilling rides. It is very difficult to complete all the attraction in one day. We thought of buying VIP tickets, but came to know that they have scrapped such facility and you now have to stand in queue for every attraction. This was a big let down as it does get annoying to wait almost an hour for every attraction. But we also stood rigid and we did complete all the major attractions and shows. :) The day 2 left us completely tired and we just grabbed our dinner and crashed in our hotel.

The Disney Castle

The Disney Parade

With an exhaustive day 2, we wanted to have some light strolling day 3. So we planned to visit the "Big Buddha" at Lantau island. This is located in a place called Ngong Ping village. We took MTR from Jordan to Tung Chung. This was a 30 minutes ride. We then took the world's longest rope way to Ngong Ping village. The length of the rope way is 5.3 KMs. This is a 25 minutes rope way ride from Tung Chung to Ngong Ping village. The weather was fantastic with light drizzle and as we went up to the hill in rope way it was foggy and it was just beautiful. This reminded us of rainy season in Lonavala and Khandala. The cable ride offered the breath taking views of Hongkong airport and Lantau landscapes. We saw the "Big Buddha" statue and it is further located in a hill top and it is made of brass. This was a nature tour for us.

View from NP360 cable car

Another View from the cable car

The Hongkong Airport

Lantau Landscape

The Big Buddha

Next day, we went to Ocean Park , an ocean theme park. It was quite a rush in the park and we again wanted to cover important attractions, so we saw the omni famous "panda". It looks like a giant teddy bear. We also saw sea lions and penguins. This park also had lot of shows and thrilling rides, which we skipped because of rush. We thought of taking some rest that day. We came back to the hotel and then went to victoria harbor in the evening. The skylines look stunning in the night and we also took the famous ferry from Kowloon to Hongkong island. This is the cheapest tourist attraction perhaps. You cross the island in just HKD 3.4, where as in cab you would have paid at least 50 or 20 by MTR.

The tallest building of Hongkong, The ICC

View of Hongkong Central district from Victoria Harbor

Another view from Victoria Harbor

Hongkong downtown in the night

A view from Ocean Park

Next day we checked out from the hotel around 11 AM and came straight to Hongkong Macau Ferry terminal. We took the ferry and reached Macau around 2 PM. This was an hour ferry ride.

Macau again is a self governed SAR of China and offers visa on arrivals for Indians. Macau was a Portuguese colony before it became part of China in 1999. This place is a real mix of Asian rush and European culture. With narrow streets, old churches, Portuguese sign boards, they give you a notion that you are in Portugal but Chinese rush and hustle bustle brings you back to Asia. This place is also called "Las Vegas" of the east. There are almost all major casinos here. We didn't have much plan for Macau. We went to observatory deck of famous Macau Tower. This was situated at 58th and 61st floors. We also saw people doing bungy jumping from 61st floor. This is the highest bungy jumping platform in the world. This was insane jumping from such a height. We then went to a venetian casino resort. This resort is one of the famous tourist attractions because it is a Venice theme resort and they have replicated the Venice city, with water, streets, boats etc. you can also hire the boat service too, but we skipped it as it was too costly. We then hopped through couple of casinos in the night before heading back to the hotel. Next morning the plan was to see old Macau. We saw the famous Senado Square and ruins of St. Paul church. This is one of the oldest churches of Macau and it was built in 16th century before getting destroyed in fire. So it is just the facade of the church left now and it is really beautiful and very well maintained. This is also one of the UNESCO world heritage sites. We mostly roamed around in cabs and they are cheap too. None of the taxi drivers know English, so we always used to carry a map with English and Cantonese written on it. We just used to point the destination on the map and the taxi driver will read it and drop us there. This was great fun to explore a city where common people just don't understand the language you speak.

Overall the trip was a bit hectic but great fun.

The Macau Tower

A view from Macau Tower

Inside the Venetian Resort

Senado Square

Ruins of St. Paul's Church

An Open letter to Manmohan Singh

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

When I was a school going kid, you suddenly became a hero by becoming India's economic reformer. You were hailed by media for bringing India out of her woes and putting her into a fast track of growth. As a kid, we didn't know that much economics so we didn't bother much but as we grew and gradually came into college, we realized how you changed our lives by throwing plethora of global opportunities which middle class Indians could just dreamt off a decade ago. This is the reason why our generation too treated you as a messiah for leading us to the new horizon. We all had mixed reaction for your first term as PM, we all blamed coalition constraints for majority of stuck plans. General election of 2009 resulted in some fruitful results for you and all Indians had very high hopes and expectations. The celebration was very much apparent when we saw upper circuit getting imposed in BSE. I had never heard nor seen any upper circuit incidents in a stock market, till then. This itself is a big testimony of high hopes. But I am sorry to say that hope or expectation is fading with every passing month of this tenure.

With various media reports and insiders' information, it is now no secret that you don't have any control in cabinet, though you officially head it. This itself is a big let down for Indian citizens. Being the biggest democracy of the world, we surely expect our PM to be on top of everything and also have things or people, under him, under control. We surely expect our PM to come forward and address the nation more frequently. This surely should not be the biannual national events on national days. It is not only your duty but our right to hear the reactions and action points from you on all important national and international issues, which concern India. We need little more dynamism when it comes to communication between PMO and common man. This will surely not only come through PMO press releases rather it will be more effective, when our PM, himself, comes in the open and addresses the media and nation more frequently. This is hard to believe that you don't think so or you don't want to do so.

The other important issue, which concerns now every Indian is lack of accountability in our government. Couple of days back, there were two back to back major grid failures. Rather than asserting root cause or giving assurances to the citizen that why it happened and what are you doing to prevent such occurrences in the future, the minister got a promotion and he was handed over one of the most important portfolios of the country. The usual blame game began in India but we are still in the dark. As soon as Mr. Shinde resumed charge of home ministry, we heard the news of bomb blast in Pune. Not sure, if this is again taken seriously. Post 26/11, we have seen at least two or three low intensity blasts, for eg: Delhi high court blast, German bakery blast etc.. But none of these cases were closed and investigators are still groping in dark. This just shows that perpetrators of such heinous crimes can easily out smart our intelligence agencies. One of the biggest failure here is that we failed big time in exerting diplomatic pressure on Pakistan, though we have enough evidence against them for the state's involvement in 26/11. I still remember the incident where our foreign affairs minister Mr. SM Krishna was accused of calling Delhi frequently during his visit to Pakistan. I am not sure if it is true or not but the joint press conference clearly showed that our neighbor had a better prepared and confident foreign affairs minster. This was a big diplomatic failure and Mr. Krishna should have been sacked after such a sloppy performance. I don't want to get into corruption discussion. You may be very much aware of that, unless it is totally wrong, which we don't think. A progressive Railway minister loses his job, when he thinks of increasing the railway fare to modernize railways and increase safety measures. That too, it happens when the cost of traveling to railway station from home has increased manifold. May be you disagree but ordinary citizens do feel it with actual market inflation is much more than that of government's data. We all have seen India's dwindling performance in industrial output and it is now alarming. Not to mention some other important issues such as Naxalism, Internal security etc.

I think above points are just tip of the iceberg, and they are good enough to convince any responsible government that they now need to buckle their shoes and get into a professional and accountable lot.

Thanks,

Is "India Shining" over...?

I feel India is now again standing at cross-roads and few important policy decisions will decide India's future in years to come. Now the time has come to introspect and decide our future course of action. We can no more sit on laurels of key economic reforms decisions which were taken way back in 1991.

Now the biggest question is who will lead this change? Who will act as a patron and visionary leader in this hour of crisis? Can we again have a team, which can match the pragmatic approach of PV Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh? I really find it tough to answer. So lets compare the political, socio economic, social demography or print/electronic media between India 2012 and India 1991. Hopefully this can help withdraw some conclusions here.

Society: One remarkable difference here is the growth of urban middle class in terms of income, knowledge, exposure to various sources of information, education etc. So this class has really reaped the harvest of globalization and will favor growth and policy decisions which can take India to next level. Now if I compare the rural India with urban India then I feel that reality is little harsh than we think. I can easily sense few changes i.e. less farm land, income gap has risen, disparity in regional growth etc. Here we find less positives than negatives. The Farm land has surely shrunk because of uncontrolled, unplanned urban growth. More farmers have lost their farm lands and thus become more dependent on non agriculture based unskilled jobs. With no drastic improvement in farm yield, farmers have now less land to cultivate and thus less resources to support his growing family demands in high inflation over 20 years. There is no drastic increase in irrigation reach and India still is dependent on Rain God for agriculture. This surely doesn't augur well for a country where majority of people are still dependent on agro based professions. This section of society is getting poorer every passing day and they need to be paid heed to at the earliest. This is high time that second set of reforms should take care of India's villages, which are surely left behind and so far remain neglected. Education and health care have surely not improved much in last 20 years particularly in rural India. With high inflation, falling Rupee, India just can't afford the import of food grain. With rising food bill, this seems inevitable that in times to come, majority of India will sleep hungry every night. So paying heed to agriculture based reforms or second green revolution is not only important but it is the need of the hour.

Politics: If I compare the political India of 1991 to 2012, then I feel things have turned bad to worse. At that time we surely had an experienced, learned PM at helm. People might argue that PV Narsimha Rao was also corrupt because he bribed JMM MPs to save the government, so let me tell you one thing bribery in Indian political system is no new thing. It is in place ever since Congress political or election campaigns were financed by then USSR. Narsimha Rao will always remain as the unsung hero of our key policy decisions. He did face political resistance both within the government and opposition against globalization. But it was his sheer political acumen that India could take a tough call. It was him, who gave Manmohan a free hand to bring India out of her financial woes. It was him, who lobbied hard to get the reforms through India's political and beurocratic jungle. We surely need another PV Narsimha Rao badly. The other important contrast we see is in opposition. In 1991 we had a strong and rising opposition in BJP. I am not talking about ideology here but BJP surely gave millions of Indians a hope of better future and it is very much important for any country's political system. But now we have a dying opposition in BJP and it is getting weaker day by day because of its own internal rifts. The so called third front is nothing but a bunch of selfish parties, where national interests stand no where. So the political scenario is surely grim and we do need a miracle and a messiah to guide us.

Media: This is one section, where we see a sea change. In 1991, we just had two Electronic media, Doordarshan and News Track. Doordarshan had the wide coverage but it was government's puppet. News Track was only limited to metro cities or some big cities. Now we have tons of media houses in almost all the official languages in India. But the reality is that most of these channels are about everything but constructive and investigative journalism. These channels are making a difference but their number is few and limited. Media can play a vital role in educating people on reforms, current economic state of the country. This will make sure people don't fall prey to self proclaimed socialist politicians, who play hindrance in taking some important policy decisions in the name of pseudo nationalism.

Though the situation is grim but we still have hope in our policy makers that they will take India to the next level. The change may take longer than expected but hopefully it will see the light of the day. People of India may take some time to understand politicians and their vested interests but they will learn it sooner or later.

Getting ECNR

There are some myths about ECNR that it is a big pain and cumbersome. But as far as my experience goes, it is very simple and you can get it done in the same day if you carry all your documents.

Download and fill the form-2 for ECNR. The form can be found at: http://passport.gov.in/cpv/Forms.htm

If your passport is issued somewhere say in Delhi and you want to get it done in Bangalore.

You need to carry following documents:

1. Present Address proof. This can be bank passbook, Rental agreement, Company letter, Voter ID etc.

2. If you are working then you MUST carry the letter issued by your employer stating your name and present address.

3. Your Degree Certificate/10th/12th/Diploma Certificate.

In Bangalore regional passport office the procedure is as follows:

1. Take the online token and take the print out of the same. The token can be obtained online at

http://rpobangalore.gov.in/frm_online_reg_public.asp

2. The online tokens are issued daily between 10 AM to 12:30 AM. The online tokens get over by 10.30 AM itself. So you need to be online and apply for token at the earliest.

3. By taking online token, you by by-pass the token queue and you feel great.. :-)

4. Reach passport office before 15 mins of the scheduled appointment and proceed to 1st Floor.

5. There is one dedicated counter for ECNR and you give your documents at the counter for verification. Please carry one xerox copy of all the documents along with original. You also need one xerox copy of your passport.

6. Once documents are verified, wait for some time and you will be called by the cashier to pay the fee.

7. After paying the fee, you need to wait for some more time and ECNR person will call you and return your stamped passport.

The complete process takes around 1-2 hours and you get your passport back with ECR flag deleted.

Please note:

It may be mentioned that with effect from Oct 1, 2007 Government of India has abolished Emigration Check Required Suspension (ECRS). With effect from October 2007, ECR passport holders travelling abroad for purpose other than employment will be allowed to leave the country on production of valid passport, valid visa and return ticket at the immigration counters at international airport in India.

Incredible India or Bharat ?

Incredible India !! This punch line fills us with lot of pride when we see the advertisement by Indian Tourism Department because they show different colours of India..which makes our beautiful country unique and special. Yes, India is special. But have we ever tried and seen beyond the blue mountains of Ladakh ? Have we ever seen beyond the beautiful Taj Mahal ? Have we ever seen beyond the magnificent forts of Rajasthan ?

With all these natural and man made colours we also have some dark sides of it when we talk of various debates like "India vs. Bharat" or "Tale of two Indias". Today we may talk of corruption and numerous other problems which may force us to rethink India's future as a prosperous and a great country. There are many writings on various stories, which may send negative vibes. But I feel what makes India special and a unique country is her great people and values.

We all know that today the world is going through a historical recession and it all started by credit crunch in the US and European countries. All great analysts of wall street attributed it to the credit defaults by huge number of people, who had bad credit history. In the US or any first world economies debt is never seen as important obligation as in India. To know the answer we just need to visit any village in India and ask the same question to our humble farmers. The biggest example is the number of suicide cases of farmers in our country. I am not justifying, if a farmer commits suicide if he is not able to pay his debt. My point is that the mere thought of debt is so very horrifying for a farmer that if he finds himself unable to repay he even thinks of committing suicide. Why doesn't he default and rest in peace like any American ? Simply because the great Indian values (rather say bhartiya values) define a very thick line across all the liabilities for a man and debt will bear the highest priority. The humble farmer may have various options like absconding, defaulting, stealing or getting into some crime to repay the debt, but he will not get into any wrong doings rather he will choose to end his life in shame that he couldn't carry his duties properly and repay on time. That too it was just not his fault that he couldn't repay on time rather it was because of poor rain or some drought. To put in straight words it was state's failure to make all the necessary arrangements for farming and irrigation. In the extreme condition also, the poor Indian farmer never complains and he chooses to accept everything, what comes his way. Farming being the largest occupation of India, there is no doubt that most of these people are so humble & great in their thinking & values that we can't even think of. So when we talk of "India vs. Bharat", we fail to note this difference of thinking and values between the people of India and Bharat. India might be getting away from these great values but Bharat is still sticking to it.

America and other first world countries can boast of producing the largest wall street banks, greatest technology companies, greatest CEOs, world famous univerties but it failed to inculcate the values which majority of Indians get by default. I feel these values and humble farmers make Bharat and not India, the greatest country on earth.

Incredible Bharat !!

Indian Journalism...A mere entertainer...!!

Journalism is said to be the fourth pillar of any democratic state. If I ask the same question with respect to India, I don't see it as a strength as it could be. Sometimes I feel that Indian news channels are mere entertainers as against the best in the industry like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post etc. This is one of the reasons why not even a single Indian media house gets that respect on any international platform. Today so many Indian companies are seen as world leaders but why don't we see any Indian media houses up the podium ? This question needs a greater deal of introspection from all the media houses in our country.

I really feel sad for Indian media that they have still not developed into a responsible and mature journalism. What I feel that we are still nowhere near to investigative journalism. If media has the courage and enthusiasm to live telecast every second of events like 26/11 then they must have the courage to follow every story behind it as the media houses like Wall Street journal, NY Times etc. do. We can take various cases for example 2008 Delhi Blast, Samjhauta Express blast, Malegaon Blast etc. but none of the cases where deeply followed by any Indian media houses. They can very well investigate it and bring some real truths in the light. This will in turn pressurize the Police, Government, Politicians or Babus to expedite the investigation. That is why journalism is called the fourth pillar of democracy. But what we see in India is exactly the opposite. The media here is very happy to report some sensational issues in a flashy manner and forget the same as soon as the cases fail to fetch them higher TRPs. This is the reason why I feel that they too are a bunch of entertainers which guide themselves by TRPs and not by their duties.

We can take number of examples where we can easily see the bias by Indian journalists. Why a blast in Mumbai gets more attention than a blast in North East ? Ain't the people died in North East are our fellow Indian citizens ? Of course Mumbai is our financial capital but it doesn't mean that we forget any NE blast in two days time and even forget to report the aftermath. Why a mere traffic jam or heavy rain in Mumbai gets beamed live but we forget to show the sorrow of flood or drought in any rural part of India ? Why a small accident in Delhi gets more prime time on channels and cases of farmers suicide fails to get even a minute ? Like these, there are various questions which may again fall into the deaf ears of our so called elite social page 3 animals.

We always boast of our democracy but it needs a contribution from all walks of life and journalism needs to play a very important role in it. Though we can't fully criticize media as it has also played some key roles on various occasions. But they also need to decide upon their priorities and duties otherwise days are not far when the daily dose of news becomes another soap like "kahani ghar ghar ki" or "saas bhi kabhi bahu thi".