Raksha Bandhan and Hindi

In my eyes, Raksha Bandhan is like sisters and brothers festival. It falls on 24 August. Yesterday I met my daughter's friend, Sania's grandpa,another Mr. Singh, a very kind and learned gentleman. He said,traditionally it is a Hindu festival. Only sisters tie Rakhis to their brothers and wish them healthy and good luck. During the Muslim rule in India, women also tied Rakhis to the Muslim kings. I think at those good days,different religions were harmonious.

At first, I mentioned Raq Sha Bang Dan to Mr. Singh, he had no idea what I was talking about. Seeing I circling my wrist wih another hand, Mr. Singh immediately pronouced"Raq Cha Bang Ten", which relieved me a lot. Yes,it's a Hindi term. The"ten" sound is like the eruption of a vocano and I think the Hindi speaking Indians must have healthier lungs. This also made me thinking of another encounter. The other day I met an American women who came to India to work as a financial consultant 5 weeks ago. After chatting for a while she suddendly asked me with curiosity "can you understand their (Indian) English". Hearing this I was surprised because she is from an English speaking country. I had to encourage her to learn the abc of Hindi in order to better understand Indian English. I also told her if she goes to West Bengal or Kerala, she can understand their English better because those people speak Bengali and Malayalam. Their English is not shadowed by Hindi.

Nuclear Liability Bill and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill was passed by Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India in the evening of 25 August. It's not until now did I realize why the opposition parties spared no efforts in churning around the Bhopal gas tragedy. There are really masters behind the messy and noisy scences. The past served the present well.

China is not far ahead of India

Look at the UNDP human development index, you will find the truth. China and India lags far behind most G20 countries. We both have a long way to go to catch up with some of them. There is no reason for China and India to show their mascular power now. The more disturbance in the South China Sea, in the Indian Ocean---, the happier the US will be. It has always become richer after the wars, say WWI,WWII. Now its military factories are in full swing to feed those mad counties' needs of sophiscated and small arms. You poor countries are helping the NO.1. Great.

18 August, India National Pavilion Day in Shanghai World Expo

India's "Opera House" Democracy and China's "Dictatorship"

Last night I attended the launching event of Mr. Raghav Bahl's new book Superpower: The Amazing Race Between China's Hare and India's Tortoise in New Delhi. Mr. Bahl is the Founder-Editor of India's largest media house,Network 18.It's really a well organized show and an enjoyable night. Indian Roads Minister Mr. Kamal Nath, CWG Mr.Aiya, Mr.Shekar Gupta, Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai and Congress and BJP spokespersons attracted a lot of attention.

They debated Indian democracy and governance. On the one hand they proudly and collectively admited Indian democracy is messy and noisy and governance a big headache.On the other hand, they accused China as authoritarian and and ruled by dictatorship, and ordinary people live in constant fear and threat. Mr. Nath spoke a lot about India's demographic devident with half of India's population aged below 25. But Mr. Bahl reminded the audience if these people were not well-educated and well-fed, it could turn out to be a curse. Of course when Rajdeep mentioned Commonwealth Games to Mr. Aiya,the latter expressed resentment and said he was no longer sports minister several years ago and could not endure these CWG matter anymore. He concluded his remark by attacking China as authoritarian and no freedom whatsoever. It seemed to me most of them do not have basic knowledge about China.

M S SWAMINATHAN, father of GREEN REVOLUTION of India pointed out on Independance Day that ‘Our freedom was born with hunger, we’re still not free’. I don't know how will the the dignitaries on the podium think upon hearing this. If a democracy cann't deliver daily necessities to its crores of hungry farmers, the overwhelming majority, it's a fake democracy. Because democracy haven't done things according to the aspirations of the majority. I've never read on the Indian newspaper what farmers may say. It's these people who face constant fear and threat of an empty stomach, insufficient nutrition, high motality rate of the new borns and protracted illness an so on. Now you look north and see what have been happening on the other side of the Himalayas. During the past 30 years, Chinese people living in abject poverty have reduced from 250 million to around 20 million. Now even farmers begin to enjoy basic medical care based provided one farmer paying Rs.140 and local and central governments paying Rs.280 annually. Are the Chinese famers living in want and fear? Aren't their biggest needs being met. I have to express my admiration to Rahul Gandhi in this regard. You just look back to what he did before your general election in 2009. He kept on going to consituencies in Uttar Pradesh. He knows well India's future lies in its villages. His efforts paid. His party the Congress Party won handsomely there which was out of the expectation of many elites in New Delhi.

Now let's talk about freedom of expression. China has now more than 400 million Internet users and crores of blogs. How could a government censor the Internet. It's true that we don't allow pornography and block those sites. We are doing that according to the will of the majority.

Now look at what has been happening in Sansad Bhavan all this moonsoon sessions. Important bills were put aside, slogans, walkouts and spreading of papers were the norm. Who elected you to do this? Is this what franchise means to those who voted you? Is this vibrant democracy in the real sense which China should learn. Yes, your democracy is really a confrontational democracy. But nobody here seems care to learn that Chinese democracy is consensus democracy which I'll write on later.
New Delhi
August 18, 2010.

Indian TV and the Commonwealth Games

Shera is coming, but 24ｘ7 cable networks are slinging mud to it(read if Aiya is chuckling). They are resorting to naming and shaming tactics. Maybe they are fed up with leakages, delays in the construction of sports venues, delays in the tickets, traffic jams and so on so forth. Now they grab corruption. It's a good opportunity to vent their anger.They are erupting like volcanos saw in Iceland last year and right on the eve of the games. Actually they are running another game. Maybe they want to help its government to clean the house first and then proceed to receiving guests. What I have seen on cable TV were rounds of thunderstorms which remind you this is monsoon season. But the coming of corruption is liking the toppling of a mountain, it can only be cured in a way like pulling thread from a cocoon. Obviously cable tv cannot do this within 51 days.

Fortunately Indians have Doordashan, the only state-run television channel in the vast country. Here you see Shera is boucing and leaping toward you. It's just carefree and joyous. All you expect is to bring home piles of gold medals.

But damage is done. I heard some corporate sponsors are distancing themselves from the mega events and might spend less money on advertisement. It should be worrisome to OC. It's killing the potential and the strength of the Games.

To be frank, as a friend of India, I think the Commonweath Games (3-14, October in Delhi) will be successful if there is no safety failures, no no state leaders, no delays of schedules, no falling down of roofs or grounds (dam it), no big traffic jams, no hatreds, no broadcasting bugs, no lack of volunteers, no beggars or tourist book sellors sticking to foreigners and at last no mounting corruption. I think the logic behind the corruption things is that aam admi will forgive those guys if they can help stage marvellous openning and closing ceremonies, bag handsome medals and earn Commonwealth reputation.