What a Week gone by…Davos on the Decline ~ Singer Janaki refuses the Padma Bhushan ~Sonia Gandhi promises Anna Hazare the Jan Lokpal Bill ~ 26/11 Mumbai mastermind David Headley avoids the Death Sentence ~ French Minister calls Steel Baron Lakhsmi Mittal a blackmailer and liar ! ~ Ashis Nandy creates controversy at the Jaipur Literary Fest

What a Week gone by…the comments in red alongside the event are my views

~ Davos on the Decline ~ Think Tank or Thrash Tank ! ~ it’s always been more a media hype and nation propaganda and self delusion trip for Indian politicians and ministers and businessmen and media personnel visiting there ~ they are the hallowed privileged few !~rest of us Indians are ordinary !  

~ South Singer S Janaki refuses the Padma Bhushan ~ You’ve made a Good point because it has come too late in your illustrious 55 year singing career though you hold no grudge against the government ~but do you think the Government really cares what you think !

~ Sonia Gandhi promises Anna Hazare the Jan Lokpal Bill in the next parliament session ~ Wow !  We believe her ! anyone taking bets that’s it’s going to be the Congress version  with hurdles put in place to protect the PM and Senior cabinet leaders and even Bureaucrats and not make CBI an autonomous and accountable apex investigative agency and have political rulers influence the Selection of the the Chairman of Lokpal!

~US Court sentences mastermind of Mumbai terror Attack 26/11 ,David Coleman Headley to 35 years in prison under a plea bargain which allowed him to escape the death sentence ~ India is up in arm as the US has rejected India’s extradition request for Headley so he be tried in India and in all probability receive the death sentence ~ what were our political masters in new Delhi doing when a plea bargain was being cropped up months before in USA!? ~ clearly India knew what this meant and should have strongly objected to it then and sustained the intensity ~ clearly India has compromised in favor of US Interests,in the illusion that it will also benefit India,  and it would not have been for the first time ! ~ remember the Indo US Nuclear Deals that were managed through the Parliament a few years ago and the FDI in  Multi brand Retail that is being pushed through now that has even our Apex Court requiring the Government to provide an affidavit that the livelihood of small retail traders in India will not be affected !  ~ and one more point ! ~ you really think Delhi cares about Mumbai and what happened here 26/11 !~ we are suffering from the Diplomacy plague ~ it should be all about thinking twice and yet not saying a word ! ~ instead we have Diplomats who either say nothing or have bouts of verbal diarrhea but never think before doing so !   

~ French Minister for Industrial recovery,Arnaud Montebourg,accuses Indian Steel Baron,Lakshmi Mittal as a liar and a blackmailer after he announces closure of six steel mills in Belgium and says in the end he will not honour his committments ~Not a great fan of Mr Lakshmi Mittal myself,Mr Montebourg for just these reasons ~ world of difference between him and, let’s say ,our Tata (Steel) Chairman Emeritus, Ratan Tata ~ Business should not always be guided by the Profit Principle ~ People are ‘Assets’ not ‘Liabilities’ ~ and there are humane ways to go about inevitable closures and slow downs…    

~ Ashis Nandy creates a Furor at the Jaipur Literary fest claiming that Corruption emanates from OBCs,Scheduled Castes and Backward Tribes  ~  this is verbatim what Nandy needlessly asserted “Some may call it a vulgar statement on my part, but it is a fact that most of the corruption comes from OBCs and Scheduled Castes and now increasingly Scheduled Tribes. And as long as this is the case, the Indian Republic will survive” ~ He apologised  later at a hastily called press conference saying he was misunderstood and he did not mean to offend the communities mentioned ~ In my view,first it was inappropriate and quite needless  to make such a comment at a Literary Fest whether you meant it or not and second  I find it difficult to accept that the much accomplished  Nandy was simply inarticulate in airing such a comment ! ~ it has correctly invite ire and he must face the consequences for exercising his right to expression the way he did ! ~ I recollect recently in November 2012 at the Mumbai Literary fest at NCPA,even the noted playwright and film maker Girish Karnad  used an inappropriate forum to air his vexation at Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul being presented with a Life time Achievement Award by the Organisers