26/11

India is a, indeed, a strange land. And from every point of view-the cultural multi-diversity, the plethora of languages that we speak and, foremost, our diplomats. It's more than a year since the Mumbai attacks. Let's see what has happened since then.

To describe it tersely, one say, it went from outrage to rage to token gestures to a comfortable mellowing down. Nothing's changed after the Mumbai attacks. No tangible action. Nothing, in the least, that could result in some tangible action in the future. The oh-so-interesting case of Kasab, which invariably and with a growing uninteresting episode of events, hasn't yet be concluded, and what we get to encounter are the notorious and funny demands of the terrorist. Clearly, it's not helping. We could as well hang him while I complete this post. Some columns in the newspaper every now and then, with decreasing frequency and even more rapidly decreasing length of those, only suggest that we haven't yet got amnesia.

No one can ever forget what the mood was just after the attacks- it's surely going down the history line. The world at that time was sympathetic to India. The US was just too eager to help India to wipe out terrorism from Afghanistan and the place where it is bred- Pakistan. Pakistan sure had a tough time to deal with. But, I got to say, Pakistan diplomats are far too clever for us to recognize that. They stuck to their old theory that India is a "soft state". And we just proved it with a more concrete proof. Islamabad was keen to buy time and Delhi sold them- at a bargain. Now, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that US, too, thinks that. We are a soft state.

So is everything lost? The lives taken all goes futile? Supposedly, yes. And no one's helping. India took a tough stance by stopping outright the dialogue process with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Though they should have done that when the Shimla pact was no more respected, but nevertheless, better late than never. Omar Abudallah, the CM of J&K, wants the talks to be revived now. It is no surprise Pakistan seconds that opinion. And the US, given the turn of events, will also want that- maybe it'll also lure India to start the peace talks by showing a lollipop called the "permanent member of the Security Council". Newspaper editorials, which at that time, commended Delhi's move now talk in the same vein. But the question why should the talks be revived? Just because a year has passed and the dead people doesn't matter anymore. Talks were cancelled for a reason- so that some tangible action will be taken by Pakistan. Even after dossier after dossier on the masterminding of the Pakistan terrorists, Pakistan still claims the evidences are inconclusive.

In short, the Mumbai attacks were just another chapter with no real significance. India is known not to have a foreign policy- only a Pakistan policy. It seems Delhi is losing the Pakistan policy as well. War is not the answer. The dilemma is, what is the answer?

If such attacks are meant just to be forgotten, India might well be schizophrenic.

BCCI- A complete business organization

The Income Tax Department of India has slapped a 120 crore income tax on the BCCI because the BCCI has been reduced to just another business organization. Now, this is not really uncalled for. In recent times, it was but only more than obvious that the BCCI has been doing very brisk business earning huge revenues for every run scored, for every wicket taken, for every boundary hit. We are all aware of how the advertisements just pop out from the bottom of television screen reducing the actual play arena to an even smaller area. I found it disgusting at many times- peculiarly during the T20 matches when the frequency of boundaries is very large.

The I-T department has said that the surpluses which the BCCI generates from the matches and the aggressive advertising policies are spent on the players and not on the further promotion of the game- which is true. We haven't quite seen newer venues for the game, the game being taken so much into the European markets where the game is virtually non-existent. Being the almost-supreme body of cricket management, these ought to be the duties of the BCCI. After all, what's the use of giving so many tax exemptions for the organizing body if its main job is just to organize matches and earn profits rather than doing something for the game per se? Apart from the subcontinent and Australia, the reach of the game is very minimal. Even in England and the West Indies, the game has been suffering so much so that, it'll not be a surprise that we'll get to read editorials on the decline of the game in these regions in a year or two.

One can argue that BCCI gave us the IPL- possibly the biggest and hottest thing in cricket bringing so many people together from various nations and raking up huge revenues. The big question is how is that money being spent? We haven't seen BCCI building new stadiums anywhere in India. Many states doesn't even host a game of cricket is years. The current debacle of the match in Feroz Shah Kotla is another case to argue in favor of the tax exemptions. We want the cricket- as lovely a game as it is- should be accessible to even a larger population- even though the population currently is enough for the game. But that is not the point. Just because we have achieved a certain stage of excellence doesn't mean that we stop striving!

I can only hope that the stringent measure taken by the I-T department be a clarion call to the BCCI and they start thinking on the lines of betterment to the game rather than just betterment of the players and themselves. The audience that watches the game deserver more than just matches.

Copenhagen- A joke?

What was that all about? After all the brouhaha, after all those editorial columns and all those ceaseless ranting on television, the Copenhagen summit can aptly be summarized as a joke- a very badly brewed wine which leaves a really bad taste, an ineffective Viagra which just doesn't give an erection…puhhh! The tall claims by politicians all over the world- especially from India and China- were just that-claims!

At the end of summit, the only thing which one would have noticed was that the summit instead of coming up with concrete solutions for reducing the greenhouse effect and somehow keeping the temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade, only added to the climate and greenhouse woes. Oh, you can't just ignore the planes and jets which pumped more gases into the atmosphere which were used to carry the delegates to a useless summit which was speculated to bring about a huge change in the climate change equations. Mr. Obama and his Obamonomics really is something to be aware of. He is the one person whose contribution to this catastrophe cannot be overlooked. Toeing the line is what all he could conjure up. Not giving into the demands of the developing world (which of course Obama might still be referring to as "the Third World" in his study) and to the demands of the time, the USA, quite typical of itself, was always more interested in its own domestic problems rather than concerning itself with global problems- which it ought to considering the fact that it just loves to play Godfather in every damn thing that happens in the world.

So much for the "USA-Obama" bashing. European nations, which by far, have been the worst contributors to the climate change, were equally reluctant. Well, in the case of European nations the reluctance was understandable. They were never very enthusiastic about the whole affair. What was surprising, but, was the stance of Japan in the whole issue. With the leadership change in Japan, I had thought that the new leadership would be more than keen to display its might in a global platform and take on the challenge which USA seems to stall every time. But so much so for wishes.

India and China, and maybe Brazil, were the only countries which seemed to be enthusiastic to take on the menace at once. They were ready to decrease their carbon footprint subject to the condition that the already developed countries- which incidentally have been the major contributors- should do the same to an even greater magnitude. Now that is not an unrealistic demand- the per capita carbon footprint in India and China is still way lower than USA. Now some would account that to the large population of the two countries but that is baseless argument- energy consumption should be measured on a per-person basis and not country-wise.

The final outcome of the summit was that it was decided that the greenhouse effect needs to be mitigated by the joint efforts of all the countries by mitigation or alternative sources of energy and that the climate change is indeed a grave concern. Like we didn't know that! Seriously, does someone think we need a damn summit to realize the ill-effects the graveness of the situation? No doubt, the climate change experts and scientists say, in a whisper in public and screaming in private, the game is over.

Smelly CAT

Though this post comes late but the severity of the discussion cannot be undermined. Indeed, CAT 2009- the admission test to the prestigious IIMs- has been a disaster. And no amount of argument will change the fact. Prometric, the organization, which had been given the contract for conducting the first ever computerized CAT, for a whopping $40 million sum, had failed miserably, though not quite understandably, to deliver their promise.

Right from day one of the CAT, news channels had quite a blast covering the server failure at so many centers across India. Students whose exams had got cancelled due to so-called “technical” glitches called foul and had a lot to say about the negligence in conducting CAT and the ignorance of the proctors about their own systems. Indeed, yes, the proctors had no idea whatsoever about how the systems work. And they were there to invigilate the examination! Phew…! Most interestingly, there was no official word from either the IIMs or the Prometric-wallahs. Guess they were themselves in a daze about what went wrong. Nevertheless, it was the just the first day and some problems were excepted. But no, the same “server-problem” again cropped on the second and the third day. Good heavens, what complacency! Were the Prometric guys supposed to work throughout the night and fix the problem on the first day itself? The answer is no, they were not, as it sadly turned out to be.

Some days later, the “server problem” was not the actual reason anymore. Word had it that the server was virus infected and that the anti-virus was unable to detect and clean it. Given the magnitude and importance attached with the CAT exam, this excuse seems nothing but lame. The rest of the days of the CAT went more or less smoothly. But this was not the end of all. Supposedly, the questions on subsequent days were getting allegedly repeated. This enraged the coaching institutes, in particular, and demands for a re-test in the conventional format had cropped up. The IIM directors didn’t take any decision at that moment and deferred it to after the CAT.

Now, some days before the IIM directors had met for a decision but there could have been none. Can this go anymore haywire? The fairness of the test could not be decided as some IIMs wanted the test to be done away with as such while others wanted a conventional re-test. Finally, they have come to a decision that the students who could not appear for the test will be tested in January.

But, this still a lot of questions unanswered. What about the questions getting repeated? What about the waste of time of so many people? And when you are conducting a test again in January, it means that some students are getting a month more for their preparation. Is this not unfair? Why was a mock CAT not conducted before the actual one to dispel of any glitches that could have appeared? The answer is, sadly, whatever be done, CAT 2009 was unfair and was not the CAT exam after all. And people used to say, “Mirror, mirror which is the fairest of all?” Mirror: “The CAT exam!”

But no more.

Someone’s got flu!

Yes, you guessed it right. This concerns the H1N1 virus outbreak in India and the rest of the world and the hullabaloo it has shown as side-effects mainly in India as not so much in the rest of the world. It's not rare a sight people stepping out of their homes wearing masks or eyeing everyone who sneezes with suspicion, while instantly using their handkerchiefs to cover their nose and mouth. Neither is it rare to hit upon a discussion in hostels regarding the massive spread of the disease. It's actually funny to hear when people don't actually remember their GPA last semester but will describe to you, with marvelous accuracy, all the statistics, with the exact numbers, the mortality rate in percentage, the changes in the daily figures of deaths caused by swine flu, correlation parameters with other kinds of flu, the standard deviation comparison of all other countries affected and what not. Sometimes it just gets onto the nerves.

And the flu-patronizing people have some more reason to give no excuse to that mouth from blabbering. And once again, you guessed it right! A guy from our college has contracted the disease- the reports are now confirmed and official. Panic has struck people on campus and no one is leaving any chance to talk upon the subject and chip in with their expert comments. A sneeze as expected, now, draws a lot of expectations and a lot of actions which, does nothing more, gives a false sense of security. People have left no arena untouched to let people know that the first case of swine flu in the state started from our college. On second thoughts, isn't it great?! Our college will be in news for some days to come till the media doesn't get some other hot news- like Pervez Musharaff getting detained or Mayawati making more statues of her own. Make hay while the sun shines. Gtalk status messages, orkut taglines, tweets all carry the same message: "Swine flu in NIT Rourkela."

But should swine flu really attract so much of attention and panic. For a country like India, yes, it does. The situation, here, in India is different from that in US. Health-care facilities in India are not as good as it is in the US. That means the number of deaths per 10 people who have contracted the disease may be significantly more. And this fact does not go without reason. Taking examples from the home, the guy who has contracted the disease had, reportedly, been showing symptoms for a few days and had been to the hospital as well for checkup. Although, the doctor admitted that he was showing symptoms of the hyped flu let him off after taking his swab to send for tests. Later, it was confirmed yesterday that he had the flu when the test reports came back. The thing that is really baffling is that the hospital, instead of keeping the guy, who has been showing symptoms, let off and not kept under supervision. Secondly, newspaper reports say that hygiene and cleanliness is the way to avoid contracting the disease. If so, then the flu can have serious impacts in our country keeping in mind that the hygiene levels in our nation is far worse than that in western countries. This gives the virus easy means to spread further instead of getting contained. Now, no one can deny that global hygiene standards can be met anytime soon, if we ever meet it. Thirdly, in a country where the population is so great, it is next to inevitable to avoid large gatherings, more so in the case of a residential college. So, the probability graph of people coming in contact with the virus is somewhat skewed.

And thus, we are running out of N95 masks and all the panic results. But many of the precautions we are taking are unfounded and based on self beliefs which give a false sense of security. N95 masks cannot prevent the flu virus from getting in as their size is lesser than 3 microns, which is the size for which the masks are designed. So that implies that not everyone needs to wear the masks. Flu victims must compulsorily use it to avoid their mucous from getting into the air and the virus settling on hard surfaces where it can live for the maximum time. Those who want to avoid the virus should wash hands frequently and avoid large groups where someone might have been infected. And, according to the TOI article, the chances of the virus actually showing catastrophic results are not very high, but not very low as well, and in many cases the flu gets unnoticed and gets cured by itself.

So, there is no reason to panic to the levels of Mount Everest but at the same time take precautions. Hoping that the virus gets contained at NIT Rourkela and does not spread further. And the same for the rest of the nation and the world. Though one regret remains- the director has announced that no holidays will be given because of swine flu. And I had stared making plans!

The fight against Progress

Ours is a funny country. Funnier are the people of this country, like you and me. But the funniest of all are the people who rule this nation - elected officials who are elected by people like you and me. Everyday we hear about innumerable policies being framed or being put forward by somebody in the House or Assembly for consideration to merge them into the current state of laws and guidelines. But what we encounter is something, which on even vague scrutiny, does not quite conform to what one should normally expect from a nation who is always super zealous for the introduction of new laws for better governance.

Take, for example, the recent spat over the Bundelkhand issue. Bundelkhand, which consists of districts of Jhansi, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Datia, Chattarpur etc. from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which was a prosperous region in the post-British era has been reduced to a region which can be described, without overdoing, as backward. There has been a constant call for a separate Bundelkhand state but all in futility. For the development of this region, and of course for political reasons as well, Rahul Gandhi and co., in their bid to strengthen Congress' hold and influence in UP and MP, drew the PM's attention to this region by demanding a separate Bundelkhand Development Authority (BDA). The role of BDA would be to plan and execute various action schemes for the development of this region. Everything was fine till the hue and cry started by the MP administration who called foul. According to the MP Assembly and the ruling party in the state, this proposal should be viewed as an intervention in state matters by the Centre and that it is nothing more than mere political game. It also stated that though they have been constantly pressing upon the Centre, since the time of UPA-1, for releasing of adequate funds to the state government for the development of this region but no action has been taken.

Now the problem here is, which is leading to the bottle neck, if the state government has always been so concerned about the development of this region then why is it opposing a novel idea that will ultimately achieve the goal- the progress of Bundelkhand. The answer is not difficult to apprehend. If the proposed BDA sees the light of the day and Bundelkhand witnesses some progress, then UPA's stance in MP and UP will become strong and this can prove dangerous in future state elections. Moreover, as BDA will be under the central government, the grant, of nearly Rs 4,900 crore, which the state would have received would have to be forgotten which will mean that the state ministers will not be able to stuff their pockets with as much money as they would have been able to do otherwise. In short, Bundelkhand was never the issue. The issue was, and is, the money. This fight against the formation of BDA by MP is nothing but a means to achieve self interests of the politicians- a fight against progress.

Test Post

As I am planning to get back to blogging and post some serious stuff and that too regularly, I thought that it'd be great if I can publish my blogs without logging onto blogger and directly from my desktop without having to navigate to the blogger service on the web.

After doing some googling, I found out that this could specifically be done by using the native built-in feature in Microsoft Word 2007. So here I am trying to publish this post directly from MS Word. If this works fine, that is, without any formatting issues then, I think, I have found a great tool to help me keep blogging. I also had found an add-in for word from blogger for Word but that doesn't simply work. Researched that blogger has changed somewhat and no support has been channeled to the blogger add-in. Thus, had to discard it and moreover, it just wasn't even working.

I would find it more useful if someone informs about any such more things to help me blog from MS Word. Here the spell and grammar checks are much much better.

Let's hope that I do post regularly!