It’s time for the patriotic fervor to reach its annual peak. Also time for me to pen down my annual India blogpost. (2017 edition is here).
As one grows older and hopefully a tad wiser (albeit not in all cases), one learns that economics is more important than politics. So on that note,
The sensex is nearing record peaks, the rupee is touching new depths, meanwhile the banking sector has too many skeletons tumbling out of its collective cupboard and oil prices are back up. And we have an election year coming up, which generally means throwing away financial prudence and bringing in lots of sops to appease the vote banks. In all a perfect storm brewing up. Do we have the right captain to sail through these choppy waters and get our ship to safe harbor? That is a multi-billion dollar question!
Assam finally managed to bring up the first draft of the National Register for Citizens (NRC). It has brought interesting results. About 40 million people have been identified as non-Indians, although many have been living here for years. An exercise worth carrying out across the country as well. Although we don't know what to do with these aliens. Throw them out, but no one else seems willing to take them. And thus we have our own version of the refugee crisis. Time for some tough decisions for the policy makers.
Coming to the general state of the country. News media is a now a commodity of trade. Some would argue when it has not been. Every "news" is presented in a way to please their respective "owners". Thus we have the funny scenarios, where some try to find deep conspiracies in every government uttering, while others ask questions on why the opposition leaders are not doing anything?
Meanwhile less said about the social media the better. Some of the social media warriors have realized that the fastest way to attain fame is to sound more and more bigoted. The more radical the views, the more venom you spew, the more divisive your rantings, the more your number of followers and higher the chance of fulfilling your political ambitions. And why not, when the average citizens are willing to take up the cudgels, sometimes literally. And that's how lynchings are on the rise. After all, rumors travel fast in the times of free 4G. Also, the reason why mobile data shutdown has become the modern day curfew. (Lived through one such day recently, found it quite relaxing, the data not available issue, but that's the subject of another post).
Coming to the general state of the country. News media is a now a commodity of trade. Some would argue when it has not been. Every "news" is presented in a way to please their respective "owners". Thus we have the funny scenarios, where some try to find deep conspiracies in every government uttering, while others ask questions on why the opposition leaders are not doing anything?
Meanwhile less said about the social media the better. Some of the social media warriors have realized that the fastest way to attain fame is to sound more and more bigoted. The more radical the views, the more venom you spew, the more divisive your rantings, the more your number of followers and higher the chance of fulfilling your political ambitions. And why not, when the average citizens are willing to take up the cudgels, sometimes literally. And that's how lynchings are on the rise. After all, rumors travel fast in the times of free 4G. Also, the reason why mobile data shutdown has become the modern day curfew. (Lived through one such day recently, found it quite relaxing, the data not available issue, but that's the subject of another post).
The individual views are swinging away from the balanced moderate centre to the radical extreme. Witnessed it on social media, on college WhatsApp groups, where people seem to be gunning for fights. How did we become so intolerant of each other? Today, either you are pro-government or branded an anti-national, there is no middle path.
Meanwhile, there are groups agitating for "rights" suddenly holding up cities to ransom for myriad reasons. Reservations, loan waivers or even supposed wrong depiction of a mythical princess in a movie - the cause could be any but the sufferers are the same. Buses set on fire, roads blocked, vehicles pelted with stones. Destroying the already crumbling infrastructure. And then nature gets into the act and starts giving back. All our megapolises are just crumbling inwards.
Only sporting achievement manages to bring us together. And why not? As has been said, always read the newspaper back to front. The last pages narrate the success stories of man, while the others tell us of it's failures!
That's too much of rambling. Election year coming up. Let's see what it has in store for us!
Only sporting achievement manages to bring us together. And why not? As has been said, always read the newspaper back to front. The last pages narrate the success stories of man, while the others tell us of it's failures!
That's too much of rambling. Election year coming up. Let's see what it has in store for us!
Anyways, wishing all a very happy Independence Day!
P.S. A long but interesting read – Ambedkar’s speech on Mahadev Govind Ranade’s 101st birthday in 1943 . Quite a few parts still relevant today, even after 75 years!
