If I could restart my life...

Last week I had some problems in my laptop and I called my IT guy to help me out with this. He asked me to restart the computer and once I did that it was all working ok. That reminded me of one of my friends who was working in Dubai with a bank as their head of hardware and when I was there for holidays , I asked him what exactly he did in his job. He said 85% of the time he simply asked his colleagues to restart their computer and balance 15% time he would call up the hardware provider to come and resolve the problem. I have come through similar situations with my itouch, blackberry or video games. This made me to think how wonderful it would be to have a restart system in our lives. If only God had created the restart button...... what would I change and do differently.

1. Studied sincerely and gone for post grad.
2. Spent more time with my sister
3. Never would have started smoking
4. Would have given more time to kids when they were growing up
5. Would have loved and married instead of married and loved.
6. Would have spent more time with my grandfather.
7. Started Tennis very early in life.
8. Build a smaller house.

While trying to build up this list I am not getting many points to include which means I am happy and content with most of the things in life.

Talibanisation has a new Synonym

The largest number of Member of Parliament in India come from Uttar Pradesh. A state with great history. A state which has given us most of our Prime Ministers. A state which has Taj Mahal , the monument of love within its boundaries. Our most sacred river Ganga flows through it. It is the state where Lord Rama and Krishna were born. It has been the karmabhumi of Buddha, Mahavir, Ashoka and Harsha. UttarPradesh has contributed numerous golden chapters to annals of Indian History. But the present status of this great state is pathetic that people fear crossing the state while travelling east in trains. The recent hate speech by Varun Gandhi is to be heard to be believed. How can a young guy educated at London school of Economics with such a decent upbringing speak what he has spoken. What has happened to our so called Indian values. Is this the only way a candidate wins votes. I thought we in India never accepted this kind of harsh words. But then worse happened a couple of days back when a candidate was found murdered and hanged at Jaunpur. Such a shame for our great democracy. Almost 25% of our last parliament had people against whom some criminal investigation is going on. The UP assembly has more than 40% of members with criminal investigation on. Charges include rape, armed robbery and murder. The political parties in India have a moral responsibility to weed out corrupt and criminals from their rank. I need a genuine choice to elect my representative. Its so unfortunate that the two main stream parties have lost out of Uttarpradesh to being single digit representation amongst 80 MP's. If such criminal activities keep on happening and people are tortured and murdered, votes cast out of fear - shortly we may have a synonym to Talibanisation - UPnasisation.

If I was Wise....

I have always learnt from my father about savings and investment and he has done a wonderful justice to this through out his career. I have been doing reasonably well too. But some how the last five years I made some wrong choices. I invested in stocks, mutual funds and properties. And I am loosing in most of it. If only I was wise enough to invest in our politicians.... They have grown by almost 8-10 times since the 2004 elections. That's an average of prominent contestants who have filed nominations so far. The richest of the lot so far I believe is a MP from Andhra Pradesh at 2.99 Billion INR. Mind it these are valued not even a fraction of the market price. Rahul Gandhis assets list 6 acres farm house at Faridabad for 3 million INR. As I live in Faridabad and can say with conviction that you can not buy a single property here for even 5 million INR for a single acre. "Prime Minister in waiting" Mr Advanis assets have trebled in the last 5 years. The 541 MP's in 2004 parliament had some 900 Crores amongst themselves meaning each was worth 1.7 Crores. Now this does not include assets in families name and no cars. At the rate its going this time in announcing the assets while filing nominations I am sure by the time the Lok Sabha is constituted in May this average could well be 10 Cr or so per MP. In any case if you are not a Crorepati you cant even buy your ticket which is being rumored at 10 Crores specially in Andhra Pradesh or UP. Compare this to our countries per capita income after taking inflation into account is 26000 INR. A simple bank fixed deposit of 2004 worth of each MP would earn almost 10 times this amount. And its said THEY ARE OUR REPRESENTATIVE.

A trip to an Indian Village

The last time I had been to a village was way back in 1993 when as a Rotaractor we had adopted a village called Imondih in West Bengal. The village I saw that time was full of poverty and semi clad poor people. Roads were dusty and crop was dependent on rainfall only. After 15 years I again got an opportunity to visit a village in Haryana. Though Haryana is much more developed than West Bengal but still it seems there has been substantial development in villages. The road leading to the village is concrete. So had no trouble to drive the 25 kms from my home. As it is harvesting time so most of the village was inhabited as everyone was in the fields. I had gone basically for taking some pictures as part of my hobby and seeing a big camera hanging on my neck a village lady came running to me thinking I am some government officer and was surveying things. Afterwards I could understand her anxiety as literally no one pays in the village for electricity and no officer from the department dare to enter the village to collect the bills. I cam across a yellow motorcycle with no number plate. I always used to think for whom do these auto companies make these colored bikes and cars. I found my answer here. The whole farm land was shining golden with harvesting season going on. The village temple is said to be from Lord Krishnas time with old trees all around. There were lot of peacocks and parrots. Lot of fresh air. I am glad I took this trip. Check out pics at my Flickr account.

Manifestos - God bless this country

Manifestos visit us once in five years as do our politicians. I dont remember past manifestos neither does the political parties which announced them. But this time the manifestos are real stupidity and more stupidity. So we have one national party announcing rice at Rs 3.00 per kg and the opposition coming up with Rs.2.00 per kg. Unfortunately they dont have schemes to give employment and better economy so that the people can afford to buy at what ever is the market price. There is another party which promises free television and cable connection. As these are IT times so one party has promised to give computers to all at 10000 Rs with free Internet connection thrown in. The Left front in their manifesto does not speak of industrialization as its a capitalist agenda.Last time around Behenji didnt use manifesto as she didnt believe in theory but she wanted to show action in practise..Hope she could teach people the ways of her rising wealth.

But the most stupid manifesto has been released today by SP. No English classes as its against our culture. No computers as it takes away employment. I thought the maximum employment created in this country in the last decade was in the IT sector. No harvesters as it takes away job of workers in farms. No machines but all work needs to be done by hand. Machines brings unemployment. No share trading and " Shopping Mall" culture. Sounds some what like we are talking of Swat valley. I hope the voters see through the tall promises and nonsense talks otherwise only God can save this country.

The politics of Kerosene

I find it so pathetic the game our politicians play on Kerosene. Kerosene in India is subsidized so that the people below poverty line can buy it within their means to run their homes. Average price for per liter of Kerosene throughout the country is around 2-3 INR a liter but it was a shock to me to find out that most of the deserving poor people buy it in black market at 5-6 times more price. Hardly 10% of Kerosene is sold at the price the Government intends to sell. So where does all this Kerosene go. Well, most of it goes to mix up with Diesel which is almost 15 times price of Kerosene. This makes the vehicles emitting more pollution. I am sure this whole scenario is very well known to each political party but nobody ever does anything about it as everyone is making money out of it except those who are supposed to benefit out of it or those who pay higher price for petrol to compensate some of the loss which arises out of sale of Kerosene in loss.

Is there any candidate who can raise voice against this?

The Buck stops with us - Environment

As a developing economy, our future depends on industrialization. However industrial development does the worst damage to environment. Though the per capita income increases with more industrialization but quality of life worsens. The environmental problems take a back stage inthe flurry of growth.

We are now one billion plus. A major part of the population migrates to cities for better opportunities. This is easier for growth and industrialization but comes with a huge cost of social and regional equilibrium. As all the growth is taking around cities, the country side becomes impoverished. Because of this the farmer Is selling off his land and the green belts around the cities are getting converted to slums. The bulging cities themselves are environmental disasters. We have neither the resource, nor the skill to stop this malady. The retreating forests and farmlands are now slums with non existent sewerages and polluted air and water. Further the small industries neither have the will nor resources nor know how to stop effluents. The vested interests of people in the government do not help the cause of regulations. Whatever regulations are there, are overshadowed and over ruled by the bribe we pay. What can we do:

1. Stop Using plastics
2. Plant Trees
3. Throw garbage in bins
4. Spread awareness
5. Follow regulations
6. Force our leaders to bring tough laws and legislation
7. Use CFL lights
8. Switch off TV or other electronics from the main switch and not just remote
9. Charge your phone or other electronics for the time needed and not the whole night
10. Save Water

There can be other things added to this list. But the most important is to create awareness about this.

The buck stops with us - Literacy

While India has one of the best technically trained man power in the world , it fares awfully bad in the lower end of the system. Two third of the children who enroll in the primary schools drop out by the sixth year. Various studies have shown that public spending on primary education yields exceptionally high economic returns. Indian governments spend on education is just 3% of the GDP as compared to the Asian countries 8% plus. Surprisingly states where there is more illiteracy have worse figures than national average. But more shocking is that most of those who take basic education relapse to illiteracy. This is because reading and writing is not a pleasure but a burden. Literacy will be retained and pursued only when it helps improve the quality of life.

I believe all citizens who are fortunate to be educated should come forward to work towards eliminating illiteracy. The only way we can bring prosperity to this country is by making people functionally literate. It will be criminal if we allow the hard work and limited resources spent by the government and volunteers go waste by not enabling the learners retain the literacy obtained. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. So let’s Lead.

The Great Indian Tamasha - Elections

The Indian Elections starts next week. It might be the only country where the General Elections are held over a month. The poll results will be counted on 16th May and we have a one month of daily dose of entertainment on television. I am sorry I used the wrong word entertainment. This time its hate & more hate. The politicians talk all crap. The media is working for their TRP's . Its just one week left for the election to start and there has been no talk of any issue and development. All the brick backing on the news channels is by hand picked few politicians of the main parties and is stage managed to increase more hate and partition.

You can very well make out the apathy of we taxpaying and peace loving voters from the fact that at the age of 42 this will be first time I will vote. Despite going to various offices to enroll my name in the voters list - every time when I went to vote - I found my name missing from the list. I am sure there would be thousands whose name are stuck off from the list. Any way now this time hopefully my name will be there and I will vote but whom do I vote for? The candidates dont visit the city area - they prefer to go to the rural area and places where there are more voters and where they can manipulate the voters using caste and false promises. I did a search on various election sites to find out who the candidates are. Looking at their history,performance in the past and activities I dont want to vote for any of these guys. So I decided I will vote for the party which synchs most with my thought process. Unfortunately its a huge vacuum there also. All parties this time are just talking division and hate. Its so unfortunate and I feel so depressed about the future of this great country. The Indian political system must be the most unaccountable one in the world to its citizen. Does any tax payer know whats happening to his hard earned money? Where does it go? What are we doing towards education, quality of life, health care, security .... ? Is there a concrete plan and follow up action. Are we supposed to sit idle and vote for these guys as voting is our dutiful right as a citizen of this country? Amir Khan reminds me this everytime I switch on the TV. I dont have a platform to vent my anguish and pain. I found expressing my views on the blog here might lessen my stress. I need to be heard. And I am sure when I say ' I ' - its not just me but many more like me who want to play a role in taking back the country to its golden heights. I would like to express some of my anguish in the next few blogs. Hopefully some one some where comes across this to lead us.