Raj disappoints again!

Its been a long time since MNS was split from SivSena and I was quite hopefull about Raj Thackery then ( read here).

Since then, there has been lots of happenings in the Maharashtra politics. None that warrant any special mention, rather nothing to mention. Congress in power the second time around not because they did good last time, but because there was not other choice! No one to take advantage of Anti-Incumbency?

By 2010, MNS has shown that it cannot be written off in the Maharashtra political scenario. Be it the Corporation elections in Thane or Nashik, or the analytic reason for ShivSena-BJP vote split in the last State Assembly elections.

Recently, after the Mumbai Riots, a fallout of ethnic violence, MNS held a rally and a Morcha preceded that.    I saw the Raj Thackeray speech in the rally. It was a typical Thackeray speech, full of theatrics, instigation and some facts. But this time Raj delivered two important messages, The Maharashtra Dharma and support to locals which includes the Police force!

This looked like deviation from the "Marathi Manus" idealogy! Brilliant move Raj, I thought. Looks like he wants to move out of petty instigation and Bhai giri attitude of MNS which it inherited from ShivSena.

But Raj, goes back to his roots again. On instigation of Chief Sec Of Bihar, he decides to brand every Bihari a Bangladeshi infiltrator.

This is like one step forward and two backwards! 

India on Sale….anyone buying??

Currently Times of India makes sure that I start my day with a bad note. Well Times is not to be blamed for it (Pune mirror and Pune Times Page 3 makes up for it)

Its just so disgusting to read about the Nuclear deal in the papers everyday. Left as usual, played their part by opposing whatever Government does and pulled out. So far I have not read, any where, a convincing reason, why Left wants India NOT to sign the Nuclear deal. Why are Left away against development?? Why do they want to make West Bengal out of whole India??
Now that Lefts have pulled out of the Govt, it is really sad to see that the Cong is pleading all sorts of ppl to support them. Its pathetic! People like Soren, who was kicked out because he had murder case on his head, is been called back and made Minister! The age old row with Samajwadi Party is suddenly over! Now Arjun Singh, is Cong’s best friend, and he suddenly when offered to be in government, feels that it was a mistake to oppose Cong and Sonia!

Have any of theses ppl read the Nuclear deal document made public few days back? Are they really interested in what happens to India when they play this dirty politics?

I hope someday we over come this dirty and petty politics and these ELECTED members of Parliament actually think about the people whom they are suppose to work for and think about developing this country!

Why Raj, Why?

Raj Thackeray, nephew of BalaShaeb Thackeray or grand son of Prabodhankar Thackeray (guess he prefers himself been called that) has been in news for all the wrong reasons. When Raj split from Shiv Sena and started his own outfit called Maharashtra NavNirman Sena (MNS), a lot of people had a lot of expectations from him. When he was in Sena, he definitely was thought to be the successor of BalaShaeb. He was almost a reduction photo copy of then Sena Supremo! The same aggressive way of talking was a definite crowd puller for Sena.

So when he started his own outfit, there were a lot of expectations from him. I have a view that we need more young leaders in politics who should be replacing the Ancient politicians and Raj fitted the bill. His initial speeches were quite promising and a definite structure for his party. I was quite hopeful when he took up problems of Mumbai initially and thought there is someone who would actually take up issues like infrastructure, pollution, corruption etc in Mumbai to make it a true world class Metropolitan.

After his speech on 2^nd February on Hooting out Non-Maharashtrians from Mumbai, I didn’t have a slightest doubt that all he wanted was to take the Extremist Marathi votes from Sena. Rather he was gearing up to rope up the Marathi Votes which were with Sena and now has lost their grip! Not giving too much of thought to it, I comfortably forgot about this issue only to read the news that Raj has a Rally at Shivaji park and to find that he has given rights to only Marathi media to show it live. As a tradition, Thackeray Speech is always entertaining so I switched on the TV for the live coverage. Well the ‘latest’ Thackeray didn’t disappoint me!

The Speech started with a clichéd line from Thackeray Sr old speech “Ha karyakram aaikayacha ahe baghayacha nahi” and then what came was just Justificaltion of his earlier speech. After the justification was done, there was another attack on the “Uttar Bhartiyas” and more than that on “Beduk ” (Amar Singh) and Abu Azmi. That part was quite entertaining, entertaining like one of NO.1 movies of Govinda, don’t apply your mind - watch, listen, forget!

After the whole speech was over, I was still trying to understand the crux of it. Why in this world did he give that speech? There was no talk of him trying to develop the state, country or for that matter his and my Beloved “Mumbai”, no talk on electricity problem, no word on famine and farmers committing suicide. Can you believe it, there was no comment on the ruling party either!!

So Mr. Raj, Why should I vote for you, all you do is instigate people against each other, take out your personal vengeance on other politicians and not even try to understand the real problems let alone solving them! That’s just emotional Politics!

Its Modi all the way.....

117 is the magic figure BJP is in love with currently. Of the 182 seats in Gujarat, BJP bagged 117. That makes it two-thirds majority for BJP, or should I say for Modi! Modi has done something which was unforeseen or thinkable and in Congress’s words “Grand” and “remarkable”. This is the fifth time in a row that BJP has won state elections in the State of Gujarat.

This elections, it was Modi all the way. Have you seen the pre elections campaign video snippets on the news channels? Modi was on the roll. His all inspiring speeches in local language Gujarati, bashing congress president Sonia Gandhi, talking about the clean governance, the development in Gujarat by his government and finally about the controversial Sorabuddin issue. He looked like Yuvraj Singh playing Twenty-20 innings and hitting every ball for a six. Well, not very surprisingly, BJP president compared him to MSD, calling him Captain of Gujarat!!

When I was watching the news yesterday and looking at the steady rising tally of seats in the BJP bucket, I was forced to think, what did BJP do in Gujarat, or what did Modi do for that matter. Well, in the Gujarat politics, for that matter, the only “name” people know is I guess Narendra bhai Modi! I remember a decade back, there were a lot of names in the Gujarat state politics, Keshu Bhai Patel, Shankar Singh Waghela (he was seen more on TV those days than Amar Singh!!!), Kanshi Ram Rana… where did these people go? Where did they vanish? Well I found one person on 5-6 page of Indian express, today’s edition , Keshu Bhai Patel. And I think even he wished he should not have been there, a completely lost expression on the face of rebel. This was for BJP rebels, but for Congress, there was no strong regional leader who could stand up to the stature of Modi. All congress could muster up was Sonia Gandhi as their poster face, which obviously, people of Gujarat could not relate directly to. Modi was larger than life this time round.

So thinking of the fact that, What did Modi do this election to get a 2/3 majority. What was his agenda? What so many states going in for a coalition government, what made people of Gujarat elect BJP in power with 2/3 of majority? The major Points in the agenda were, clean governance and Development by Modi government. This time, at least initially, Modi did not take the Hindutva batten in his hands. As per him, Hindutva was never on his agenda, and he has commented on the topic only on the instigation of opposition parties. But was this really true? Was Hindutva really not in the agenda at all?

I think it was. And that’s what actually worked for BJP. BJP had tried extreme Hindutva agenda, which failed a lot of times, and then they tried this “India Shining” which, the current Priministerial candidate, L K Advani, himself accepted was a failure. But this time, Modi came up with an innovative idea of wrapping the Hindutva agenda with his clean governance and development in the State. This is what scored big for BJP. The fact that this time Hindutva was not the only thing BJP tried cashing on, but it was with Development, which fetched them the middle class and lower middle class votes. This was I think a major positive on the BJP side.

Once again, Modi proved, most of the psephologists and “political Pundits” wrong. Most of them predicted Modi win, but the figures were never close. Modi has won Gujarat single handedly and has boosted moral of the party! BJP now is ready with, what Indian express has aptly called, ‘Hindutva 2.0’. Now it now for us to see, whether this Hindutva 2.0, really makes any difference in the forth coming elections for BJP in other states.

13th December

What is the first thing that clicks in our minds when we hear 13 December? Well of course apart from the fact that its my Birthday. This day of year 2001 was the BLACK day in the history of India. This is the day; Indian Parliament was attacked by Terrorists. About 100 of your beloved Members of Parliament were taken hostage. The worst part being 12 of members of security at parliament were killed and 22 injured. This was definitely a black day for India as well as to the democracy as whole.

I hope you all remember the statement from our then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, "This was not just an attack on the building, it was a warning to the entire nation," he said. "We accept the challenge."

A large scale search operation was carried out and people were arrested. Our Law agencies did a commendable job and made required arrests by 2002. One of them was Mohammad Afzal Guru.

Mohd Afzal was found guilty for masterminding the complete operation and was sentenced to death by trial court on Dec 2002. This sentence was then confirmed by the Delhi High court and further upheld by the Supreme Court of India.

Mohd Afzal had moved a clemency petition before the President. And this is 2007; president is still thinking over the petition!

President is taken five years to think over the petition of a person who was found guilty for attack on the Indian Parliament by the Supreme Court of India. Personally I feel, the decision to this petition should have been immediate. A person, who is proved to be guilty for attacking Indian Parliament, should be hanged to death. Where does the question of mercy come in this case? This is an act of treason and death has been a traditional penalty for treason.

Pardoning a crime like this by the president when found guilty by Supreme Court of India, would be a disgrace to apex court and a shame to the country. If people like Md. Afzal are pardoned, India would not be praised for its mercy, but will be mocked for letting out people who are threat to the country. This will only encourage terrorism.

Disclaimer: The thoughts mentioned here are my personal thoughts and are not influenced by any individual or ideology

आपली Mumbai

Today's leading daily had a front page news, Sena President and Son of Sena Supremo, Uddhav Thackeray, would be revitalize the "Son of Soil" agenda of Shiv Sena। Just few days back, in an interview with a news channel, nephew of shiv supremo and President of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Raj Thackeray said, that his party is against the migration of people from rest of the country to Mumbai. The basic idea being opposing migration of people to Mumbai from rest of the country and trying to provide jobs to the locals.

Both the parties have give inflammatory remarks on the topic time and again and have faced protest from all over India.

If Delhi is the Heart of India, Mumbai is the Brain. The city is the financial capital of the country, providing jobs to millions of people. Imagine you are watching a Hindi movie, first the background track starts, sound of traffic, horns, lots of commotion...then the visual is of an Victorian building, camera zooming out to an wide angle showing a lot of traffic, and loads of people coming out of that building...the first thought in your mind "Mumbai" . Most of the people who have not visited Mumbai have this image of Mumbai. Mumbai is always been called the city of dreams. What ever is your dream, this is the city to fulfill it and we have examples of people coming to this city with nothing and creating empire.

But then if you think over it, why are these two parties stopping people to come to this place and build their future? More than that, why should anyone stop anybody from going from one place to other for any reason in the same country. You can stop people from entering your country, but how can you stop an Indian citizen entering an Indian city or a state for that matter? You cannot, you should not. There had been protests for the same reason.

The protests had been fair and what Sena had done few years earlier to the Candidates of the National Rail examination was definitely wrong. But there is another view to it. I dont know how many have actually thought about this. Mumbai as a city does not have a far reaching history as Delhi or Pune. Its comparatively new city. Initially, it was seven islands (not exactly sure of the number), which were then collectively called Mumbai. Initial inhabitants of the islands were the fishermen. Later on advent of British, the islands were linked to form a city. So this city has sea on the three sides and land on one.
People from rest of the country have been coming to metros in search of job for a long time now. But the major advantage Delhi or Bangalore has is that its surrounded by Land. Delhi has grown tremendously, Gudhgaon, Noida and Gaziabad are no longer small industrial areas, they are now part of Delhi! But this cannot happen with Mumbai. Mumbai has only one side growth. People are already traveling 150 Km from Pune to Mumbai daily for jobs. All those people who have live in Mumbai will accept that Mumbai has become more crowded than before. And here i am not talking about people of age 75-80 yrs who say "हमारे time मे इतनी भीड़ नही हुआ करती थी" I am talking about people of my age, age 25-30। Wont you guys admit, there were times when, if you had to travel leisurely and luxuriously in locals you would leave at about 11 AM to avoid the crowds? But now there is no funda of peak times, the whole day is peak time. Any time of the day, the trains and Buses are crowded. This is something we all have experienced. The traffic on the roads have increased, every other place in this city is crowded.
How has this happened? Is India's growing population responsible for this, of course it is, but if you see the population growth in other cites in India with Mumbai, Mumbai's growth is definitely more. So where are these people coming from? Rest of the places in India. I guess we all accept that the current infrastructure of the city is not able to cope with the every increasing population of the city.

Lets try and find a solution to it:

1. The local trains and buses are crowded. The solution to this could be increasing the frequency of the buses and trains. How feasible is this option? More frequency of buses means buying new buses by the public transport, means total number of buses on the road would increase, means more traffic? Increasing the frequency of trains? This sounds feasible, but if we see, we literally have trains running every minute from a particular station. On an average, two local stations are about 3-4 minutes apart by local and the train stops on the station for about 2 minutes. So if we keep increasing the frequency of trains, the trains would be all back to back and no place for them to move :) Imagine one Loooong train from VT to Kasara/Karjat. Build Sky Buses...this is good one...provided we have enough money to build it.
2. We have a housing space shortage. There are people staying in slums, where there are no basic amenities present. Rehabilitation of these people to better houses is a good solution. But then where do the state administration rehabilitate these people to? There is no place in Mumbai, may be somewhere in remote suburbs. But would these people be ready to move to these remote suburbs, they want to stay in heart of Mumbai.
   

all these things need money. Where does the city and the state administration get money from to increase the infrastructure of the city. Good Question, where does a city get money from!
obviously from the taxes paid by the people staying in the city. so to get more money, increase taxes. But then whome are we increasing taxes for? Are we increasing taxes for the people who are not paying the taxes? that sounds unfair for the people who are pay taxes, doesn't it?

The issue raised by the Sena and MNS is something seriously should be thought about. Their way of execution might be wrong, but the issue is definitely serious enough to be dismissed as a publicity gimmick by the parties.