Thursday, March 12, 2015

Freedom


I think we need to remind ourselves of the fact that we got fucking freedom in 1947. The way things are going right now with the government and its Hindutva cronies eroding on our freedom and rights, I think we need to take stock on what we are losing. For many, 1947 seems to be significant only in the sense that we rid ourselves off the foreign rulers and are prepared to indulge in the fallacy of 'benevolent' dictator. The way the current setup is going on about its task can be summed up by this embedded tweet:
One good news was the high court decision on the Priya Pillai issue. It chided the government on its ridiculous stand that she was committing an anti-national act. It also cited that 'Right to Dissent' is a fundamental feature for democracy to function. Instead of addressing the fundamental issue of rights, the BJP Spokedumbos were still harping on about foreign funding of NGOs including Greenpeace. I wonder why they don't have any problem with NRI fucktards funding Sanghi outfits.
On a related note, another high court upheld the ban on 'India's Daughter' citing that matter is under subjudice and  judges are not extraterrestrials whom don't get influenced by media discussions on such subjects. Going by that logic, shouldn't they just ban all news channels from covering all kinds of issues. Unlike places like US, we don't have a jury system that can be susceptible to whimsy media discussions. It is a qualified judge who makes the decision with proper substantiation. I am aware of the fact that all sorts of subconscious things can influence such decisions. For eg: I read somewhere that sentences tend to be harder when they are declared close to lunch breaks.  But still it is not fair that we cannot have a media discussion on such subjects when Indian judicial process is such a slow one.
Today's quota of atrocious acts by Hindutva fanatics were filled by the dudes from TN, where a TV channel's office was attacked using crude bombs. Prior to this, there were protests against the channel's plan to air a debate on the value of Thali (Mangalsutra). This follows the attacks on Perumal Murugan which led to him announcing retirement from his writing career. It also reminded me of attacks from all quarters faced by film actress Khusboo for airing her views on premarital sex. It is deplorable that these forces are able to flex their muscles even in places like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where they don't have much influence politically.

Conclusion: We're well and truly fucked...
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Sense, Sensibility, Sensitivty


With the subject title, I am not referring to Mammootty's famous dialog from an atrocious film 'The King'. I am talking about the NDA government's severe lack of sense and sensibility in almost all the things they have handled so far this term and also their propensity to feign their sensitivities being hurt by the supposed foreign plans to defame India. I am of course referring to the ludicrous reason given in parliament by Venkaiah Naidu for banning the documentary India's Daughter. This is of course taken up by Bhakts to spew their vitriol. I came across this tweet today.
The response to this tweet will almost make you want to vomit. I know it is not fair to make some judgement on a group of people based on their activities on twitter. As John Oliver put it, trudging through the dark, horrific world of Internet comments is the surest way to kill your soul. Still you can't help yourself from making judgments. You just have to take a look at some Economist article with a slight tinge of India criticism-the comments section will be full of morons from India (or NRIs) complaining about imperialism, envy, Vedic science, liberalism etc. One would expect those who read economist to be little more intelligent than this. Maybe it is a case of empty pots making more noise and the sensible ones taking the stand: 'Don't argue with idiots. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'
Today I watched the recently banned Chinese documentary about air pollution, 'Under the Dome'. Surprisingly enough the censors there initially passed it through for upload only to develop cold-feet and ban it when it became a big internet hit. They are indeed paranoid about reaction from its subjects and they have every reason to be so. In my opinion it is only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. The administration here have got a hard-on about Chinese investment driven growth model . That is evident in its misguided 'Make In India' campaign. Even though nothing substantial have been done in that regard, the government have got the aping of authoritarian aspects and repression down to a T. Recently economist did a major piece on pollution in India cities. When it comes to pollution level of sub PM 2.5 particles, 13 Indian cities are in the top 20. US is setting up an Air-Now facility in Delhi which will publicize its own recordings of the pollution level for the wider world. I was speculating that the government will proclaim it as another foreign tactic to tarnish India. Lo and behold, this article came up in Financial Times:
So the Air Now facility from US is a very welcome move since the government is making efforts to manage its own data to massage country's image. We will be better off if the government puts the same effort to tackle real problems as it does for its PR. There were some rumors about introduction of carbon tax for coal, and if it materializes at a rate that would be substantial, it would be welcome indeed. But I am not that optimistic based on the actions that they took on matters like this, especially their handling of Priya Pillai issue. One of their panel show idiots, Sambit Patra, proclaimed in one channel that they saved the country by not allowing her to travel to London for a meeting there. Do they really takes us for idiots?
In other news, there was a very good article by Kapil Sibal on the coal auction process and the fallout from the supposed scams. It is a must read amidst all the hoopla around the money raised by the auctioning of coal blocks recently, which supposedly validates the claims by CAG auditor Vinod Rai. As Sibal argues, inordinate stress on generating revenue at the auction stage can lead to problems downstream. Especially if the companies have a perception that they can renegotiate deals further down the lane through blackmailing, a problem that plague several PPP projects. As he points out we need to just take a look at the state of 3G services provided by Indian Telecom companies. They paid a huge amount to get the license leaving them not having enough funds to set up necessary infrastructure. How many of us actually opt for 3G services? I tried dongles from several companies including Idea, before going back for BSNL's land-line broadband service. The price that they offer for 3G is not at all competitive or affordable which makes it totally useless for vast percentage of people. The problem with the issue is that it is very nuanced argument which is not something the brain-dead electorates can grasp.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Land Acquisition Bill


The government in India is trying to pass an ordinance which would alter the structure of the 2013 act-The right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (LARR Act). The said act was passed unanimously by the parliament with support from all major parties only for BJP to change its tune after coming to power. Their support for the bill then was a blatant election tactic to get votes and the current ordinance is to appease their corporate sponsors. They have made eleven amendments to the ordinance and have passed it through Lok Sabha tonight after meeting resistance from all quarters. Now they have to pass the same in Rajya Sabha where they don't have majority. Amendments might be just a tactic to provide leeway for those who opposed the ordinance, several allies like Shiva Sena included, to change their stand.

The main sticking point with the ordinance is its handling of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in the LARR Act. It has created a set of projects for which SIA will be not required but the wording is such that almost all the projects can come under its ambit. The SIA requires among other things 70% of consent from the land owners for government projects and it is 80% for private projects. They have included things like Industrial Corridors under these exclusions which is ridiculous since most of the companies that operate in it will be private ones and industrial corridor can include vast tracts of land. You need only to look at the announcement of corridors like Delhi-Mumbai Industrial corridor and Mumbai-Bangalore corridor to get a sense of that term. The amendments that they have introduced today include limiting the applicable land to 1 km form either side of the highway, which is not really much of a change since that in itself would be the sort of land that would be of interest.

My biggest gripe is with doing away of consent part. You may dilute it to 51% or so but SIA should happen, terms of which can be negotiated further in Parliament. The relation between the state and the land owner is extremely asymmetric. The ordinance in effect enables the state to grab land for itself or for the companies as long as they can include the purpose of the acquisition to be in the excluded categories. It promises payment of up to four times the land value but the problem in India is that most of the land value in paper are severely understated because of the high taxation for land transactions. Most of these transactions are done with black money because of the same reason and conversely that is why so much black money is involved with real estate. In most cases the paper value shown will be around one-tenth of the actual value which makes the four times land value payment no good, especially if your consent is not required. This will also lead to excess land being acquired than what is required, which can be later used for commercial purposes.

I do recognize the original LARR act could very well be unworkable and too demanding for the infrastructure needs of the country. But solution to that is not the introduction of a draconian act which can enable the state to act as a tyrant to  its citizens. India is in a very difficult situation of needing tremendous improvement in infrastructure under a democratic set-up. Countries like US went through this process in a very un-democratic manner during its development, as we know during its westward expansion. If you take recent examples of countries like South Korea and China, they were/are also under authoritarian regimes when the development took place. The hypocrisy shown by city dwelling aspirational class is pathetic. These would be the same people who would take a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) stand if a Metro project were to require a piece of their land. I want development, but not at the cost of my rights and freedom.
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Monday, March 9, 2015

Banning, Cricket World Cup Format, Musicals

Banning


Above image is how NDTV looked like yesterday from 9-10 PM, the planned slot for broadcasting the documentary 'India's Daughter'. Silence speaks louder than words and according to their spokesman: 'We won't shout, but we will be heard'. Take that, Arnab fucking Goswami and your sorry arse channel. The move by NDTV was reminiscent of Indian Express carrying a blank editorial in 1975 when Indira Gandhi imposed a nationwide emergency. That was one of the darkest chapter in India's democratic history and what we are seeing today is getting uncomfortably close. As someone else  put it, at least in 1975 emergency was formally declared while today we are going through something similar without the actual imposition and that is even worse.

So what is on the Ban-Agenda for the NDA government today? There are some rumors that they are looking at the feasibility of introducing a law that would ban cow-slaughter for the whole country. I really don't know what to say. Are they really so out of touch already and its been only a year since they came to power. The nitwits with the Hindutva ideology are not fans of logical reasoning and forming a coherent argument. So for them it doesn't really mean much what really happened historically. Following is a good brief read about the history of beef-eating in India and even now a majority of Indians eat it including plenty of Hindus from non-Brahmin castes.
Another thing on the ban agenda is college farewell parties as demanded by the lunatics from the Hindu Mahasabha. Also some BJP MPs want to ban Facebook and Gmail. It is ironic coming from a party that was brought into power riding a social media wave from which we have not yet escaped if you go by the presence of idiotic Sanghis permeating through the web. BJP is just about realizing the perils of social media when you are the one wielding the power. The U-Turn sarkar's pre-election tweets should have been scrutinized more by the mainstream media after the election but that is too much to expect from our pathetic media. You still see them circulating through the social media. The backlash that the government is getting through the likes of Twitter and Facebook even as they make one idiotic move after another is certainly making them uncomfortable and is not surprising since they got power through a well-orchestrated PR campaign. Not its payback time, bitches...

Cricket World Cup Format 


So England is out of World Cup after their defeat against a relative minnow, Bangladesh. ICC's decision to restrict next world cup to 10 teams have already invited criticism. If they do that the 'World' part in the title would make as much sense as US sports leagues like NFL being called The World Series.

ICC did away with the super-8 stage after the fiasco in 2007 where its cash cow India was eliminated in the preliminary group stage after playing just three games. They cannot risk such a scenario repeating again and so they have arrived at this boring format with two groups of 7 teams with four of them advancing to Quarters stage. The trouble with this is that it makes most of group stage matches meaningless and a test team has to reach England's level of performance mediocrity to get eliminated. Even Paksitan is going to qualify after their terrible start. If you are a test team then you just need to ensure that you win all the matches against minnows. 
So here is my solution. which is kind of mash-up of all formats that they tried out in recent world cups and ICC Champions trophy. The first 6 ranking teams go directly into the super-10 stage where they will be divided into two groups. Ranks 7-10 will join four minnows and play qualifying stage involving two groups of 4 teams from which in total four teams will qualify into the super-10 stage. From super ten stage two teams will qualify from each groups into the semifinals. What this format will do is that it will keep all the matches meaningful and interesting instead of the borefest that we are going through right now. Only drawback would be that the teams in top-6 rankings can play only a maximum of six matches. The format in 2003 World Cup was good for making sure that good teams play lots of matches against other good teams by having a super-six stage in between. The drawback with that was the ensuing confusion related to head-to-head record and the risk for ICC that India could get eliminated since only six teams go through to the second stage. Super six stage was also compromised because of the qualification of some minnows like Zimbabwe and Kenya with the latter reaching the semifinal stage due to their freak results in the first stage.

Musicals

I have only seen one musical so far and that was 'Sound of Music' when I was very little. I have obtained a film called 'God Help the Girl', which was in some of the best of 2014 lists, and turns out that it is fucking musical. I watched ten minutes of it before the power went off and it will be very difficult to get into it again. I really don't see the point of musicals and have to see whether this will change my opinion if I do get back to it. Am planning to watch Woody Allen's 'To Rome With Love' today.

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