The great Indian beef politics

In a Hindu dominated country, appeasing the Hindu community is the only way to grab maximum vote banks. How do politicians go about it? Bring in the holy cows for Hindus believe that the cow is the embodiment of divine virtues like love, compassion, benevolence, tolerance and non-violence.

To gain political mileage state governments started implementing animal preservation acts as early as the 1950s. On October 26, 2005, the Supreme court of India, in a landmark judgement upheld the constitutional validity of anti-cow slaughter laws enacted by different state governments in India.

Today 24 out of 29 states in India have various regulations prohibiting slaughter of cow.  Kerala, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim are the states where there is no restrictions on cow slaughter. Why? Because majority of the people in these states eat beef for economic reasons. Politicians understood that prohibition of cow slaughter in these states will definitely back fire.

Here is a great example of how politics play a big role in deciding the food habits of the Indian people.

There is yet another economic angle to cow slaughter. Beef in India costs less than half the price of lamb or chicken. It is the preferred source of first-class protein for the poor, who constitute a majority of India's population. The absence of beef will raise the food bill for the underprivileged. 

Having said that law can not be taken by mobs in their own hands pretending to uphold the ban. If there are breaches, let the law take its own course. In a secular country there is no place for intolerance towards the sentiments of other religion.

Moving away from beef, before leaving India, one most important lesson the British taught the Indians and the Indians learned very well is ‘divide and rule’.

Everything that politician does is based on this concept. Politicians thrive on spreading hatred. They teach us to divide and hate for their political gains. Nowadays media also plays a big role in exaggerating trivial matters. Endless debates on petty issues are norms on national TV these days.

Come to think of it, aren’t we paying a big prize for upholding democracy? Can we ever envisage a time when we can all co-exist united rather than divided? Is democracy a hindrance for secularism given the size of the nation consist of various religion and caste? How can we not let the politicians take us for a ride?  These are all pertinent questions we must all ask ourselves.

When will we open our eyes to identify religious outfits camouflaged as political parties? When will we stop accepting political agendas forced upon ourselves?

Ignorance is the sole reason people fail to understand the motives of communal politics. It is high time we understand that democracy, secularism and ideologies don’t go hand in hand.

Sadly in India and similarly in several other countries, religious fundamentalism has spread like cancerous cells and we are at a point of no return. Various conflicts in the world are testimonial to this fact.

In a broader sense the truth is secularism is a myth. Don’t believe if any politicians or government state we are secular. They are a bunch of liars.

If today beef is off the menu, what will be off the menu tomorrow? Let us wait and watch.

Is the death penalty for drug traffickers justified?

 “The world has watched on as this theatre of cruelty played out, with this most tragic endings.

It did not have to come to this. The death penalty is never the answer”

Words from Amnesty international UK director Kate Allen pretty much sums up the sentiments of many concerning the execution of 8 drug convicts in Indonesia on 29^th April 2015.

Among the 8 who were executed by the firing squad, Andew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (allegedly the masterminds of a drug ring) were part of the Bali 9, the name given to a group of 9 Australians who were convicted of smuggling 8.3 Kg of heroine valued at around 4.1 million US dollars from Indonesia to Australia. After serving nearly 10 years in Indonesian prison, the lives of these 2 young men ended tragically for a foolish decision they made in an attempt to make quick bucks.

Executions of drug smugglers are becoming more common. While Indonesia carried out only seven executions of drug traffickers between 1999 to 2014, since taking office six months ago, President Joko Widodo has overseen 14 executions as part of a fight against drug addiction at home (Never mind that some of the recently killed prisoners were smuggling drugs out of Indonesia, rather than into it).

Although 32 countries impose death penalty for drug smuggling, only 6 countries –China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore- routinely executes drug offenders and soon Indonesia is going to join the ranks of these countries following its recent executions.

Did these 8 and similarly several others deserve the death penalty? There is a scant research on whether the death penalty deters drug trafficking. Experts who have  considered the issue of the death penalty as a punishment for murder, and some cases drug offences, around the world, say there is not enough evidence to conclude that the death penalty deters.

Ironically the trade in narcotics has its upside for law enforcement. For poorly paid police, extracting bribes from tourists caught taking drugs is a big business. The incentives for them to crack down on drugs are therefore skewed. The threat of capital punishment exerts fear on drug offenders and therefore increases the bribes that can be extracted. Drug kingpings are seldom charged, let alone put to death. Rather it is the lowly traffickers and drug users who suffer the most grievous of punishments.

Abolishing the death penalty will go a long way to improving law enforcement and governance in Southeast Asia, thereby diminishing drug trafficking, which is the ultimate aim of governments that enforce the death penalty. If the region is serious about tackling drug trafficking it would be wise to abolish the death penalty.

Kerala heading for complete prohibition of alcohol - Is the total ban on booze a short-sighted view?

Kerala government has recently announced prohibition of alcohol in the state in a phased manner. 

It appears that the pseudo-Gandhians in the ruling government have not taken into account the consequences of this ban. Apparently it goes without saying that this unprecedented policy in Kerala is brought in to appease certain communities in the state and to keep the coalition government from falling apart. The motive for this drastic decision appears to be political rather than ideological.

Granted,  alcohol abuse is a menace in the society. As Kerala reels under alcoholism, domestic violence is on the rise and families are being torn apart. Bread winner’s hard earned money instead of being spent on worth while purposes is being immersed in liquor.

Is a total ban the solution? Perhaps not.

Tipplers are of 3 types. Those who enjoy an occasional drink to keep their spirits high after a long day of toil, those who drink on social occasions and the third category being the alcohol addicts. The ban is obviously targeted at this third category.

Total prohibition has not been really successful in states such as Gujarat. Alcohol is smuggled into Gujarat from its neighboring states -– Rajasthan to the north, Madhya Pradesh to the east, and Maharashtra to the south, and also from the small union territories of Daman, located in south Gujarat near Surat, and Diu, an island that lies off the Kathiawad peninsula.

Total prohibition mean ushering in a new underground industry – bootlegging – and a new source of income for the players in the establishment – enforcers, their political superintendents from it. Losses to the exchequer would mean gains to the private pockets.

Andhra Pradesh tried Prohibition between 1958 and 1969 and again from 1994 to 1997, but abandoned because of leakages and flows from across its borders.

Haryana’s flirtation with a dry policy lasted only two years from 1996 and was abandoned on grounds of loss of jobs in the liquor industry. Tamil Nadu’s affair with dry laws in place since 1952 lasted two decades. The later revenue gains by these states indicate the infatuation with liquor as a resource.

Kerala has always enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the highest per capita consumer of alcohol in the country.  The state monopoly over liquor sale became the prime reason for the popularity of bars.  Besides losing crores of rupees to the exchequer by the sale of liquor, the decision to ban liquor will have adverse effect on tourism although the primary reason to visit Kerala is not to drink.

Prohibition as a policy is high-minded idiocy. It promotes organised crime, illicit, unsafe hooch and corruption of the police. Having learnt this lesson, prohibition was withdrawn in the US in early 20th century.

With such short sighted view of our political leaders, let us welcome the era of spurious liquor to Kerala and let the Gujaratis (where total liquor ban is in place) show us the way to bootleg.

At this juncture it will be more suitable to call the UDF , “United Retarded front” instead of United Democratic Front.

The enlightened people of Kerala should rise up against the government's hypocrisy and demand a rational liquor policy that both encourages moderation and respects individual liberties. To drink or not should be a personal choice, provided it entails no public disorder.

Disclaimer: The author does not advocate consumption of alcohol but merely expressing the democratic right of individuals in a democratic country.

Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash - Gone too soon

It was a twelve hour flight from Amsterdam to Kuala lumpur. But it was cut short way too soon. Almost three hours into the flight, the ill fated flight MH17 disintegrated in mid air. Debris from the plane along with scores of bodies strewn all over the crash site. 298 precious lives were taken away. These innocent victims bore the brunt of a political conflict in Ukraine. 

As for Malaysian airlines, it was another shot in the arm.

MH17 has followed the highly controversial disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 back in March. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was said to have disappeared from the sky in the early hours of Saturday, March 8th, 2014, subsequently over at 35,000 feet heading in a flight bound for Beijing. 

The tragic end to MH17, has had a fiery backdrop provided by other regions of the world as well, as Israel has engaged in a ground assault of Gaza, while Iraq has been wrought with manufactured terror for months, both of which are undoubtedly political factors contributing to the polarization of the MH17 incident.

As they say, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. This saying goes true for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, who is believed to have shot down MH17, Hamas in Palestine whom Israel is fighting against and ISIS in Iraq. It is sad indeed to notice that innocent men, women and children are being killed as a result of several such political conflicts.

Are the general public safe anywhere in the world? Far from it. An otherwise enjoyable bus ride, a train journey or a peaceful walk in the park could turn into a tragic end if terrorists plant a bomb in the vicinity. Why do they want to take the lives of innocent people? Is it a political revenge against a country of target? Or is it a tiny representation of an impending mayhem they can inflict into a civilized society?

As hatred brews, countries divide, innocent civilians are unnecessarily drawn into these conflicts, often used as human shields or their lives being taken away.

The 9/11 attack in the US killing several thousands of people still haunts us. Similarly several conflicts across the world continues to cause turmoil through out the world, be it in Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Afghanistan.

No part of the world is safe as terrorism spreads across the world in a manner one could never have imagined. Global population is directly or indirectly impacted. One could be hit by a truck loaded with bombs, be hit by an airplane loaded with fuel, be blown apart mid air on board an airplane or simply be shot at point blank range.

A weapon in the hands of a wrong person is a sure recipe for disaster. So does the manipulative actions of some individuals who wants to push an agenda and turn them against the world.They have done it in the past and will continue to do so in the future.  One can watch it only helplessly, that is only if you are lucky enough to be alive.

The outgoing prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's farewell letter to the world leaders

As he prepares to demit office,  prime minister  Manmohan Singh wrote farewell letters to leaders of various countries including US president Barrack Obama, former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, and Russian Prime minister Vladimir Putin.

Here is a hilarious look at what he might have written to them.

Dear fellow leaders,

It is with mixed feelings  I am writing this letter to you as May 16^th 2014 marks my last day in the prime minister’s office of the largest democracy in the world, India.

I had  never aspired to be a prime minister. My strength always lies in economics. In 1991 Narasimha Raoji inducted me in the cabinet as finance minister to rescue India from a severe economic crisis. I was quite contented with my role then. In 2004 Soniaji unexpectedly relinquished the prime ministership, I became an accidental prime minister. Sanjay Baru even wrote a book by this title. Then everything went south. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Little did I realize that I was a cover for the dramas about to unfold.

I have always been regarded as a man of clean background. Moreover I have been lauded “as a man of few words” . I took these as compliments. Then came the greatest shock in 2012, when Time magazine’s Asian edition cover remarked me as an “underachiever”. I have been accused as  a person “unwilling to stick his neck out”. Those remarks hurt to me to the core. My public image has been tarnished with my government having been accused of various corruption scandals for which I was a silent witness. I have been termed as a puppet of a powerful political family.

Friends,  my silences and unwillingness to project myself became more manifest in my second tenure and I would like you to know that I kept a low profile only because I didn’t want to rise above Soniaji.  

Looking back, I regret that I didn’t stand firm enough to fight corruption, didn’t stand opposed to micromanagement of Gandhi family for leadership was never my forte. I am extremely worried about the future course of my party which especially lacks leadership and a front runner for the prime ministership.

Finally, I can say this with confidence that there will never be a prime minister in India with such an elaborate list of paper qualifications that I possess.

I wish you all good luck.

Singh is King.

The voice of women - Ignore it at your own peril

As we approach one year this Dec 16 into the ghastly gangrape of a young paramedic in Delhi, the public outrage that had erupted in its wake didn’t fade away just as quickly as it had built up. The perpetrators did not get away, the case did not drag on for years. Exactly a year after the barbaric rape, the discourse on women’s rights has not only persisted, it has acquired new vigor, more nuance and a stronger, more assertive tone. Suzette Jordan, a single mother of two who was gangraped in Calcutta, refused to be referred to as the ‘Park Street rape victim’ and demanded she be identified by her real name, even though the law prohibits anyone from naming a rape victim; of the law intern who plucked up the courage to blog about retired Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly as the man who harassed her in a Delhi hotel; of the young journalist from Tehelka who spoke up against her powerful editor Tarun Tejpal and subsequently quit; of the women who exposed godman Asaram Bapu and his son Narayan Sai, landing both in jail on rape charges.

Statistics are shocking. Every 22 minutes a woman is raped in India. Abuses occur both within and out of the circle of trust. With the rates of crime against women escalating at an alarming level, a group of activists has come to the forefront and championing the cause of womens’ rights.  Some of these groups are very inventive in their tactics. Mind the Gap, stages anti eve-teasing flash mobs on the Delhi Metro wearing T-shirts reading ‘Main cheez nahin hun mast mast’ or ‘I am not an Item’.  

Blank Noise Project, a campaigning community art group that put a lie to the tired argument about eve-teasing victims ‘asking for it’ by wearing western outfits when they staged an exhibition of garments Indian women were wearing when they were sexually molested—most, of course, turned out to be in saris and salwar kameezes.” More than ever, we are just about coming to terms with both an increase in violent crimes and an understanding of the inequalities women face every day but have learnt to brush under the carpet over the decades.

While various groups are doing all sort of campaigns, here is a very interesting video satire by Kalki Koechlin.

It is heartening to know that more are now coming out to speak about the harrassments as did the young Tehelka journalist.

Here is what the young Tehelka journalist had to say about the recent sexual advance by her former employer.

I am heartened by the broad support I have received over the past fortnight. However, I am deeply concerned and very disturbed by insinuations that my complaint is part of a pre-election political conspiracy.

I categorically refute such insinuations and put forward the following arguments:

The struggle for women to assert control over their lives and their bodies is most certainly a political one, but feminist politics and its concerns are wider than the narrow universe of our political parties. Thus, I call upon our political parties to resist the temptation to turn a very important discussion about gender, power and violence into a conversation about themselves.

Suggestions that I am acting on someone else’s behest are only the latest depressing indications that sections of our public discourse are unwilling to acknowledge that women are capable to making decisions about themselves for themselves.

In this past week, television commentators who should know better, have questioned my motivations and my actions during and after Mr. Tejpal molested me. Some have questioned the time it took for me to file my complaint, more inquisitive commentators have questioned the use of the word “sexual molestation” versus words like “rape.”

Perhaps the hardest part of this unrelentingly painful experience has been my struggle with taxonomy. I don’t know if I am ready to see myself as a “rape victim”, or for my colleagues, friends, supporters and critics to see me thus. It is not the victim that categorizes crimes: it is the law. And in this case, the law is clear: what Mr. Tejpal did to me falls within the legal definition of rape.

Now that we have a new law that broadens the definition of rape, we should stand by what we fought for. We have spoken, time and again, about how rape is not about lust or sex, but about power, privilege and entitlement. Thus this new law should be applicable to everybody – the wealthy, the powerful, and the well connected – and not just to faceless strangers.

As seen by some of the responses to this case, instances of familial and custodial rape present doughty challenges to even the most adamantine feminists.

Unlike Mr. Tejpal, I am not a person of immense means. I have been raised singlehandedly by my mother’s single income. My father’s health has been very fragile for many years now.

Unlike Mr. Tejpal, who is fighting to protect his wealth, his influence and his privilege, I am fighting to preserve nothing except for my integrity and my right to assert that my body is my own and not the plaything of my employer. By filing my complaint, I have lost not just a job that I loved, but much-needed financial security and the independence of my salary. I have also opened myself to personal and slanderous attack. This will not be an easy battle.

In my life, and my writings, I have always urged women to speak out and break the collusive silence that surrounds sexual crime. This crisis has only confirmed the myriad difficulties faced by survivors. First, our utterances are questioned, then our motivations, and finally our strength is turned against us: a politician will issue a statement claiming that speaking out against sexual violence will hurt our professional prospects; an application filed in the Delhi High Court will question why the victim remained “normal”.

Had I chosen silence in this instance, I would not have been able to face either myself or the feminist movement that is forged and renewed afresh by generations of strong women.

Finally, an array of men of privilege have expressed sorrow that Tehelka, the institution, has suffered in this crisis. I remind them that this crisis was caused by the abusive violence of the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, and not by an employee who chose to speak out.

Thank you everyone for your support.

The words of the journalist just about sums up the entire point. Let us hope that more and more victims will come foreward and more will be done on the prevention for crime against women.

Microsoft acquires Nokia's phone business

Almost a year back I wrote about Nokia’s chances of a possible revival. However, the just announced acquisition of Nokia’s mobile business by Microsoft came as a total shocker. It was a parting shot by  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to the tech world. After a somewhat turbulent 13-year run,  Ballmer is to retire from Microsoft . Ballmer’s  attempts in the past to get his hands on mobile device business has been disastrous. With the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile business, I hope Ballmer has not put the final nail in Nokia’s phone handset coffin.

Back in 2007, an eccentric Ballmer had pooh-poohed Apple’s entry into mobile phone business.  His take was that apple phone was priced heavily and it did not have a key board for handling emails. The success of the iPhone had proved Ballmer wrong. Yes, Apple iPhone was priced heavily but Apple proved that every cent spent on an iPhone was worth it and consumers did not care about the price if the product was filled with innovative technology and ease of use. And with a plethora of apps to download from Apple app store , the Apple gadget demonstrated boundless capabilities. Ballmer in his 13 years tenure as CEO failed to capitalize on several new consumer technologies and lost out to Google and Apple.

With the acquisition of Nokia phone business, Stephen Elop, the Nokia chief executive who was hired from Microsoft in 2010 will transfer back to his former employer. Elop entered Nokia like a trojan and as a first step steered Nokia’s adoption of windows mobile software in its Lumia range. A bold step by Elop but with just about 4% market share in phone software, windows mobile software just did not make the cut. To Microsoft and Ballmer it was a desperate attempt to establish a foot print in the mobile business. We all know Microsoft could not make a mark in the gadget segment beyond its successful Xbox game consoles. However it did make sense to Nokia especially when it was struggling under huge financial losses.

Finland’s greatest success story is over and finns are trying to make sense of what’s left with some even vowing to switch to a rival phone such as Samsung. You can’t blame them. At its peak in 2000, Nokia generated 4% of Finland’s gross domestic product and Nokia was a national pride.

Could this deal be similar to the failed takeover of Palm by HP? Could Microsoft pull off a surprise with new innovations on Nokia phones? Only time will tell. Let us wait and watch.

Kerala, a land of boozers?

As Kerala awaits anxiously to welcome the festive season of Onam, tipplers in the state are queuing up at the state owned Beverages corporation to break another record in the consumption of alcohol. Any occasion in Kerala is an occasion for booze. Be it a wedding, a funeral or any social gathering.

In a state of 3.3 crore people, Keralites gulped down a whopping Rs 7,860 crores (US$ 1.4 Billion) worth of alcohol in the fiscal year ending Mar 2012.

Welcome to boozer’s own country. 

The state government holds a monopoly over liquor sale in the state, after the state banned foreign liquor shops, through the government owned.

The government applies the highest state tax on liquor (around 120%). This earns it high revenues. It has the highest per capita consumption in the nation, overtaking traditionally hard-drinking states like Punjab and Haryana. Also, in a strange twist of taste, rum and brandy are the preferred drink in Kerala in a country where whisky outsells every other liquor. Alcohol helps in giving Kerala's economy a good high - shockingly, more than 40% of revenues for its annual budget come from liquor sales.

That's not all. There are some 600 privately run bars in the state and more than 5,000 shops selling toddy (palm wine), the local brew. There is also a thriving black market liquor trade.

The young men in kerala are drowning in alcohol and inviting slow death. They are in hospitals, ravaged with pancreatitis and liver diseases. In the peak of life, they are battling alcohol withdrawal syndromes in de-addiction centres. Meanwhile their parents drown in tears, their wives struggle to keep afloat and children are adrift.

Amost 95 per cent of vehicular accidents involve people who are driving after having consumed alcohol in some form or the other. And these do not happen only in the night. Alcohol-related accidents have no time of the day now, as the crowd throughout the day outside any beverages outlet will show. Alcohol has replaced water and tea as the favourite drink of Keralites.

In an attempt to curtail the menace, The Kerala high court suggested recently that sale of liquor should be allowed only after 5pm. Would the government listen to this and take appropriate steps? Would Kerala ever welcome king mahabali in a sober state?

Time to celebrate this independence day

For a country with a population of about 1.2 Billion people, half-dozen medals won in the London Olympics may not be a tall feet by any standards. However the 6 medals represent India’s best ever result on the biggest sporting stage in the world. The fact that the country had won just seven individual medals in the Olympics since Independence should help put the latest achievement in perspective. The absence of a gold medal, in contrast to the Beijing effort, is certainly a dampener and so too the overall slide in the medals ranking from 50 to 55. For a country with an annual sports budget of just over Rs 721 crore, where bureaucrats and sports administrators test the endurance of athletes even before they qualify for the Olympics, the London show should be considered encouraging even if it failed to live up to the hype created by over-ambitious official agencies and fanned by the media.

While Indians may not come close to the achievements of  U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps’s all-time record Olympic medal haul of 22 and Usain Bolt’s unmatched brilliance in the sprints where he completed a back-to-back sweep of three gold medals,  going forward, India has the potential to win gold medals in the fields of archery, boxing, shooting and hockey.

Indian medal winners — Gagan Narang, Vijay Kumar, Saina Nehwal, Mary Kom, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar — deserve all the accolades, including substantial cash awards that have been announced. That the country plunged to an all-time low in hockey is a matter of shame and no time should be lost by the goverment in overhauling the faction-ridden administration or in preparing a blueprint for the grassroots-level development of the game.

On this independence day let us cheer for our Olympic medal winners and hope that a lot more will be achieved in the years to come. Let us also use this opportunity to salute again the achievement of Abhinav Bindra, the only individual Indian to ever win a gold medal in Olympics.