What's the difference between Congress and Modi?
Narendra Modi's acts of commission and omission during the 2002 riots deserve the strongest of condemnations. Those crimes need to be impartially investigated and the guilty punished. Just as we are proud that our democratic system ensured a fair trial even for a publicly identified ISI-associated terrorist like Kasab, so also we should let the courts take the Gujarat trials to their logical conclusions.
Those who ask for Modi's head would do well to remember that hordes of Congressmen in Gujarat gleefully joined the BJP and RSS goons who went around massacring innocent people.
The overall track record of the Congress in this matter is no better, if not much worse, than that of the BJP. In addition to the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in north India, it masterminded numerous other riots through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. None of the killers of politically engineered riots in Meerut, Malliana, Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat and scores of others were ever punished. The Congress also injected terrorism into Punjab by its covert support of Bhindranwale's Khalistani brigades. It did incalculable harm to the Sri Lankan Tamils by creating a Frankenstein's monster like the LTTE. The secessionist movement in Kashmir owes its origins and draws sustenance from the Congress party's penchant for rigging elections to install puppet chief ministers.
Congress is highly praised for its positive roles in spite of its negative contributions. So also Modi should deserve credit for his positive role in Gujarat leading the country in many vital areas such as assured power supply to all villages, measures for bringing down the maternal mortality rate by providing financial and other support for safe deliveries to poor women, and a 9.8% growth rate in agriculture while the rest of the country remains stuck at 2-3% growth. It is one of the few states where farmers at large are not at war with industry, where delivery mechanisms for government services have improved dramatically.
The man they condemn as the 'maut ka saudagar' seems to have recognised the folly of promoting communal polarisation. He has not let another riot take place in Gujarat, a state which witnessed numerous caste and communal riots under Congress rule.
The task of cleansing our polity of crime and corruption cannot be done by those who harbour blind prejudice, and partisan agendas. It is best done by people of compassion, and humility; people who remain fair and non-partisan even when dealing with those they hate.
Cannes Festival and Indian Cinema
If the Oscars are about mass appeal and popular entertainment, the Cannes Film Festival is the acme of thoughtful filmmaking. It's a celebration of creativity rather than box-office numbers. And so when our stars go there year after year, it has little to do with their profession. They are there to walk the red carpet to give a boost to the brands with which they have tie-ups. The last time an Indian film featured in the competition was two decades ago when the likes of Mrinal Sen were still active and regularly featured - a sad comedown for a country that won the best film award with Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar at the festival's first edition in 1946.
Located in a seafront town in southern France, the annual Cannes Film Festival's attracts numerous Bollywood personalities. From Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to Shekhar Kapur, Saif Ali Khan and Mallika Sherawat, Cannes is proving a magnet for a rainbow of Bollywood talent. Their presence there gives Hindi cinema a powerful boost.
Cannes is about frocks, photographers and glamour, but that's just part of its fun. It brings together the world's most serious and intense cinematic talent. In addition, it's also one of the world's largest film hubs, a great cinema bazaar where filmmakers come into direct contact with buyers from around the globe. At Cannes, Hindi filmmakers get access to distributors and exhibitors from remote places. A platform like Cannes helps the producers to make contact with exhibitors around the world. After Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Sanjay Leela Bhansali screened Devdas at Cannes, world audiences could see the heady melodrama of an Indian man caught between changing times and two beautiful women. For the world's largest producer of films, this is a unique - and vital - event.
It isn't just big-budget blockbusters though those grab attention at Cannes. In recent years, smaller independent movies, such as Udaan, have generated enthusiastic support from an audience accustomed to polished cinema. For those who insist Cannes favours the old song-and-dance stereotypes of Indian cinema, it's worth remembering that Satyajit Ray won the Grand Prix for Pather Panchali right here in 1956. Critics may question Bollywood personalities stepping onto that historic red carpet today but the fact is their doing so makes a difference.
Crime does not payA Lokpal Bill will curb the incidence of highly visible scams such as the ones associated with the Commonwealth Games and 2G licences. But these instances of corruption, however repulsive they are, represent only a tiny fraction of illegal economic activities which have resulted in a gigantic parallel economy.
Some fear that if civil society activists are allowed to dictate terms, then the new institution will give unbridled powers to the Lokpal. What are the safeguards which will ensure that the Lokpal will not be corrupt? In other words, who will monitor the monitor? In environments where even former chief justices of the Supreme Court have been accused of corruption, it is extremely dangerous to create anything resembling a Leviathan.
Most other established democracies are significantly less corrupt than ours. So, there is no reason why we cannot reduce the level of corruption without sacrificing basic democratic principles. The government should reduce the scope for citizens to indulge in illegal activities or it should slash the incentive for generating incomes through such activities.
The use of PAN cards which is made mandatory for a large number of financial transactions is a good thing that has happened. Increased computerisation in the income tax department has also resulted in lower levels of income tax evasion.
But huge holes still need to be plugged. While we are all incensed when politicians and senior bureaucrats indulge in corrupt practices, we seem to meekly accept the necessity to bribe government officials for services which are due to us, be they ration cards, income tax refunds or clearances to the corporate sector to start new plants. The amounts involved in most instances may be small. But, since bribes have become more or less standard practice in virtually all interactions with government babus, the total sum involved is inordinately large.
Bribes originate as a result of mindless bureaucracy. It does not need any Lokpal to simplify bureaucratic procedures so as to reduce the scope for extraction of bribes. It also makes sense for the government to turn the direction of incentives completely. That is, instead of citizens running from pillar to post, it should be in the interest of the government babus to make sure that their performance is par for the course.
It is high time that the government realized that crime does not pay.
Raise the country's innovation quotient
India's IITs and IIMs produce quality graduates, but why do they not give rise to quality research and raise the country's innovation quotient? The research and faculty at IITs and IIMs are not world-class. Not a single Indian university figures among the top hundred in the 2010 QS World University Rankings. Neither do the IITs and IIMs make it to the top ranks in similar international surveys of research institutions.
The essential reason for this is the lack of quality research facilities and guidance even in some of our best institutes of higher learning. Apart from the skills gap that must be plugged to generate
quality jobs for our youth, this is one more reason to remove the bottlenecks in the higher education sector. The teachers should agitate to bring about the needed innovation.
The focus needs to shift from churning out degree holders to creating knowledge hubs, or clusters of universities which conduct world-class research and impart high-grade skills to students. Among neighbours, Singapore and Malaysia are creating hubs of this kind. In India the
primary problem is excessive bureaucratic control in higher education, surpassing that of authoritarian China which has dramatically improved the quantity and quality of its research output.
Our education system is such that it has diminished the incentive to innovate in Indian institutions. A centralized process of faculty recruitment combined with fixed salaries has entrenched complacency. That there is a strong demand for quality universities is evident from the massive annual outflow of foreign exchange - to the tune of $10 billion - due to students going abroad for higher studies. This brain drain is to be reversed. This will be a step in the right direction. It is extremely important for educational institutes to cater to market needs. This doesn't mean that the government should not have any stake in education. There is no reason to see the public and private sectors in education as antithetical to each other. What is required is a tweaking of government policies to provide more autonomy to institutions, a conducive environment for private investment in education, and more synergy between aided and unaided institutions.
Talkative politician is the need of today
Experts have analyzed the results of five assembly elections. In West Bengal or Tamil Nadu, the government has fallen, and the opponent has emerged - in the former case with a resounding majority. It was the 2G scam in Tamil Nadu.
However, one trend is becoming clearer with time. That is the rise of the assertive and aggressive politician. Most of India's high-profile chief ministers - Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Jayalalithaa, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Sheila Dikshit - who have had spectacular victories, are vocal, opinionated and seem to have the 'let's get on with it' attitude.
This is in stark contrast to the stereotypical Indian leader who keeps quiet or, when forced to talk, is diplomatic to the point of avoiding the issue altogether.
The classic example of the silent leader is P V Narasimha Rao, who was rarely heard in his five-year prime ministerial tenure. Our current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the last eight years is hardly known for his aggression or oratory. Don't talk, don't react, don't explain, don't take any opinionated stance - all this seemed to work extraordinarily well.
In Andhra Pradesh, Jagan Reddy, while not a chief minister yet, won his by-election with historic margins. He is another super talker.
Mamata called her victory Bengal's second independence. Jayalalithaa, upon winning, said that the "DMK had completely ruined Tamil Nadu".
This is India 2011, where silence is no longer equated with dignity, poise or high stature. So low is the credibility of politicians today that silence is seen as smugness, inefficiency and avoiding the issues. This is a cultural shift, brought about by the frustration people have felt with unaccountable governments. From once revered silent leaders, people have started to prefer brash assertiveness, even a bit of cocky confidence.
Indians today are more likely to give a brash politician who will speak a chance, rather than someone dignified who won't talk to the people.
What worked in the past may not work so well in the coming few years. Whoever is positioned as a leader needs to have an agenda, a point of view, drive and, most importantly, a willingness to talk to people about issues. One must be willing to talk proactively on issues that are relevant to the people.
Whether it was the 2G scam, anti-incumbency, anti-communism, developmental issues, freebies or caste/religion equations that determined the outcome of the recent elections can never be affirmed. What is clear is Indians have had enough of posturing and need aggressive leaders.
Narendra Modi's acts of commission and omission during the 2002 riots deserve the strongest of condemnations. Those crimes need to be impartially investigated and the guilty punished. Just as we are proud that our democratic system ensured a fair trial even for a publicly identified ISI-associated terrorist like Kasab, so also we should let the courts take the Gujarat trials to their logical conclusions.
Those who ask for Modi's head would do well to remember that hordes of Congressmen in Gujarat gleefully joined the BJP and RSS goons who went around massacring innocent people.
The overall track record of the Congress in this matter is no better, if not much worse, than that of the BJP. In addition to the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in north India, it masterminded numerous other riots through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. None of the killers of politically engineered riots in Meerut, Malliana, Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat and scores of others were ever punished. The Congress also injected terrorism into Punjab by its covert support of Bhindranwale's Khalistani brigades. It did incalculable harm to the Sri Lankan Tamils by creating a Frankenstein's monster like the LTTE. The secessionist movement in Kashmir owes its origins and draws sustenance from the Congress party's penchant for rigging elections to install puppet chief ministers.
Congress is highly praised for its positive roles in spite of its negative contributions. So also Modi should deserve credit for his positive role in Gujarat leading the country in many vital areas such as assured power supply to all villages, measures for bringing down the maternal mortality rate by providing financial and other support for safe deliveries to poor women, and a 9.8% growth rate in agriculture while the rest of the country remains stuck at 2-3% growth. It is one of the few states where farmers at large are not at war with industry, where delivery mechanisms for government services have improved dramatically.
The man they condemn as the 'maut ka saudagar' seems to have recognised the folly of promoting communal polarisation. He has not let another riot take place in Gujarat, a state which witnessed numerous caste and communal riots under Congress rule.
The task of cleansing our polity of crime and corruption cannot be done by those who harbour blind prejudice, and partisan agendas. It is best done by people of compassion, and humility; people who remain fair and non-partisan even when dealing with those they hate.
Cannes Festival and Indian Cinema
If the Oscars are about mass appeal and popular entertainment, the Cannes Film Festival is the acme of thoughtful filmmaking. It's a celebration of creativity rather than box-office numbers. And so when our stars go there year after year, it has little to do with their profession. They are there to walk the red carpet to give a boost to the brands with which they have tie-ups. The last time an Indian film featured in the competition was two decades ago when the likes of Mrinal Sen were still active and regularly featured - a sad comedown for a country that won the best film award with Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar at the festival's first edition in 1946.
Located in a seafront town in southern France, the annual Cannes Film Festival's attracts numerous Bollywood personalities. From Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to Shekhar Kapur, Saif Ali Khan and Mallika Sherawat, Cannes is proving a magnet for a rainbow of Bollywood talent. Their presence there gives Hindi cinema a powerful boost.
Cannes is about frocks, photographers and glamour, but that's just part of its fun. It brings together the world's most serious and intense cinematic talent. In addition, it's also one of the world's largest film hubs, a great cinema bazaar where filmmakers come into direct contact with buyers from around the globe. At Cannes, Hindi filmmakers get access to distributors and exhibitors from remote places. A platform like Cannes helps the producers to make contact with exhibitors around the world. After Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Sanjay Leela Bhansali screened Devdas at Cannes, world audiences could see the heady melodrama of an Indian man caught between changing times and two beautiful women. For the world's largest producer of films, this is a unique - and vital - event.
It isn't just big-budget blockbusters though those grab attention at Cannes. In recent years, smaller independent movies, such as Udaan, have generated enthusiastic support from an audience accustomed to polished cinema. For those who insist Cannes favours the old song-and-dance stereotypes of Indian cinema, it's worth remembering that Satyajit Ray won the Grand Prix for Pather Panchali right here in 1956. Critics may question Bollywood personalities stepping onto that historic red carpet today but the fact is their doing so makes a difference.
Crime does not payA Lokpal Bill will curb the incidence of highly visible scams such as the ones associated with the Commonwealth Games and 2G licences. But these instances of corruption, however repulsive they are, represent only a tiny fraction of illegal economic activities which have resulted in a gigantic parallel economy.
Some fear that if civil society activists are allowed to dictate terms, then the new institution will give unbridled powers to the Lokpal. What are the safeguards which will ensure that the Lokpal will not be corrupt? In other words, who will monitor the monitor? In environments where even former chief justices of the Supreme Court have been accused of corruption, it is extremely dangerous to create anything resembling a Leviathan.
Most other established democracies are significantly less corrupt than ours. So, there is no reason why we cannot reduce the level of corruption without sacrificing basic democratic principles. The government should reduce the scope for citizens to indulge in illegal activities or it should slash the incentive for generating incomes through such activities.
The use of PAN cards which is made mandatory for a large number of financial transactions is a good thing that has happened. Increased computerisation in the income tax department has also resulted in lower levels of income tax evasion.
But huge holes still need to be plugged. While we are all incensed when politicians and senior bureaucrats indulge in corrupt practices, we seem to meekly accept the necessity to bribe government officials for services which are due to us, be they ration cards, income tax refunds or clearances to the corporate sector to start new plants. The amounts involved in most instances may be small. But, since bribes have become more or less standard practice in virtually all interactions with government babus, the total sum involved is inordinately large.
Bribes originate as a result of mindless bureaucracy. It does not need any Lokpal to simplify bureaucratic procedures so as to reduce the scope for extraction of bribes. It also makes sense for the government to turn the direction of incentives completely. That is, instead of citizens running from pillar to post, it should be in the interest of the government babus to make sure that their performance is par for the course.
It is high time that the government realized that crime does not pay.
Raise the country's innovation quotient
India's IITs and IIMs produce quality graduates, but why do they not give rise to quality research and raise the country's innovation quotient? The research and faculty at IITs and IIMs are not world-class. Not a single Indian university figures among the top hundred in the 2010 QS World University Rankings. Neither do the IITs and IIMs make it to the top ranks in similar international surveys of research institutions.
The essential reason for this is the lack of quality research facilities and guidance even in some of our best institutes of higher learning. Apart from the skills gap that must be plugged to generate
quality jobs for our youth, this is one more reason to remove the bottlenecks in the higher education sector. The teachers should agitate to bring about the needed innovation.
The focus needs to shift from churning out degree holders to creating knowledge hubs, or clusters of universities which conduct world-class research and impart high-grade skills to students. Among neighbours, Singapore and Malaysia are creating hubs of this kind. In India the
primary problem is excessive bureaucratic control in higher education, surpassing that of authoritarian China which has dramatically improved the quantity and quality of its research output.
Our education system is such that it has diminished the incentive to innovate in Indian institutions. A centralized process of faculty recruitment combined with fixed salaries has entrenched complacency. That there is a strong demand for quality universities is evident from the massive annual outflow of foreign exchange - to the tune of $10 billion - due to students going abroad for higher studies. This brain drain is to be reversed. This will be a step in the right direction. It is extremely important for educational institutes to cater to market needs. This doesn't mean that the government should not have any stake in education. There is no reason to see the public and private sectors in education as antithetical to each other. What is required is a tweaking of government policies to provide more autonomy to institutions, a conducive environment for private investment in education, and more synergy between aided and unaided institutions.
Talkative politician is the need of today
Experts have analyzed the results of five assembly elections. In West Bengal or Tamil Nadu, the government has fallen, and the opponent has emerged - in the former case with a resounding majority. It was the 2G scam in Tamil Nadu.
However, one trend is becoming clearer with time. That is the rise of the assertive and aggressive politician. Most of India's high-profile chief ministers - Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Jayalalithaa, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Sheila Dikshit - who have had spectacular victories, are vocal, opinionated and seem to have the 'let's get on with it' attitude.
This is in stark contrast to the stereotypical Indian leader who keeps quiet or, when forced to talk, is diplomatic to the point of avoiding the issue altogether.
The classic example of the silent leader is P V Narasimha Rao, who was rarely heard in his five-year prime ministerial tenure. Our current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the last eight years is hardly known for his aggression or oratory. Don't talk, don't react, don't explain, don't take any opinionated stance - all this seemed to work extraordinarily well.
In Andhra Pradesh, Jagan Reddy, while not a chief minister yet, won his by-election with historic margins. He is another super talker.
Mamata called her victory Bengal's second independence. Jayalalithaa, upon winning, said that the "DMK had completely ruined Tamil Nadu".
This is India 2011, where silence is no longer equated with dignity, poise or high stature. So low is the credibility of politicians today that silence is seen as smugness, inefficiency and avoiding the issues. This is a cultural shift, brought about by the frustration people have felt with unaccountable governments. From once revered silent leaders, people have started to prefer brash assertiveness, even a bit of cocky confidence.
Indians today are more likely to give a brash politician who will speak a chance, rather than someone dignified who won't talk to the people.
What worked in the past may not work so well in the coming few years. Whoever is positioned as a leader needs to have an agenda, a point of view, drive and, most importantly, a willingness to talk to people about issues. One must be willing to talk proactively on issues that are relevant to the people.
Whether it was the 2G scam, anti-incumbency, anti-communism, developmental issues, freebies or caste/religion equations that determined the outcome of the recent elections can never be affirmed. What is clear is Indians have had enough of posturing and need aggressive leaders.
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