Rocket, Cat and Cricket

Had the pleasure of watching Rocket Singh : Salesman of the year today, and my verdict is - it was worth the 70 Rs. that Big Cinemas charged me for it; a really pleasant and benign film amongst the multitude of senseless video junk that is being dumped in the market in the name of entertainment. The story of Harpreet Singh Bedi, a naive and scrupulous young commerce graduate who gets exposed to the wicked and malignant practices of the sales and services business, was very credible and fresh. The film enlightens us to the fact that if one has a magnanimous and benevolent heart and uses it along with brains in one’s professional life, it is only then that one can make warm relationships with other people and achieve success – to coin a phrase from the idea, ‘People before Profits’. And perhaps this is a valuable lesson for all of us who are about to enter the professional world. Ranbir Kapoor has done very well as an actor, much better than his previous films. He looks quite natural and convincing. Thumbs up!

Electronic media reports that the faculty of IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata are of the opinion that online CAT 2009 should be scrapped, and I am in agreement with this view. Several of the aspirants have faced an assortment of difficulties due to mismanagement of the exam this time and this is surely going to affect the quality of the incoming batch. Some of them were given faulty systems which hung during the exam, some of them had people crying behind their backs while their timer clocks were counting down, some pressed the ‘deadly’ quit button placed between back and next accidently, some were just utterly confused with the chaos. To sum up, this was not a fair test and a formal apology does not count as justice to the 300 thousand candidates. I am strongly in favour of a conventional written test for this year. I am not against CAT going online, but not in this manner. I have 4 points to make in this regard. One, IIMs should sit down with BITS and understand how they conduct a completely error-free exam for 150 thousand applicants every year. Two, the set of questions for online CAT should be enlarged multi-fold so that repetition of questions does not occur. Three, details such as the paper’s marking and evaluation scheme should be clearly notified before the commencement of the test. Four, for heaven’s sake hire some well-informed staff for helping the candidate in case some predicament does occur.

India is going to play the 1^st ODI tomorrow against Sri Lanka and I am very much animated. Sehwag and Gambhir are in terrific top form and so is Sachin. Yuvraj’s breathtaking shots in the last T20 have renewed the nation’s respect for the hero. However, fielding and bowling still remain areas of worry. The kind of butter-laden hand work shown at Mohali and Nagpur completely disparages the No. 1 title that we are so pompously flaunting around. And I would also not condone the exceedingly poor running between the wickets. Improvement in these 2 areas can considerably brighten up our chances to score victories in this series as well. Let’s all hope everything goes great.

Matter of the State

The Telangana show remained the highlight of the preceding day overshadowing the Copenhagen environment summit owing to indefatigable efforts by the media to magnify every occurrence related to the subject to the point of extravagancy, quite similar to what it has been doing for the past fortnight. The fast-unto-death of one man, who had unquestionably minuscule public support before this course of events, was provided with undue importance till it actually created an issue of significance for the whole of the country to pay attention to, notwithstanding urgent issues like mammoth rise in food prices and India’s stand at Copenhagen. That said, the UPA government’s response to issue has been disappointing and gauche, to say the very least. The central government has to be commanding a more respectable position than one which can be coerced into action by demagogues. The reaction has indeed sent out a disheartening message that even after winning a decisive mandate, the UPA has failed to establish a strong authority at the centre. The consequence is that several activists have sat down on fast-unto-death for a separate Gorkhaland and it is just a matter of time before this and other extremist measures are taken by the perpetrators of the demands for Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, Poorvanchal, Vidarbha and Saurashtra.

Nevertheless, the demand for Telangana is actually quite old and genuine in some sense. The region, despite being close to the prospering capital of Hyderabad, is still suffering from neglect and underdevelopment. But is statehood the panacea for all its problems? The real issue here is the inability of the state governments of the past to initiate and sustain earnest development programs in the region and all this palaver is just another political ploy to divert public attention and acquire power. How else can you explain this drama occurring after TRS reducing to just 2 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections?

Having smaller states does look like a better model of governance superficially, but one must also understand the fact that this also leads to tremendous increase in the cost of governance, explicitly speaking, it means another capital, another CM and a flock of ministers, administrative officials, governing bodies etc. Economic viability is another significant issue. The state should have sufficient resources to finance its own programs and schemes and be able to draft a budget which does not result in a deficit. A State Reorganization Commission (SRC) would have been the rational answer to such a demand. An independent and sensible body is needed to look into these demands in an impartial and holistic manner and analyze the necessity and feasibility of these states. This would bring about the required restructuring without acceding to dubious claims. Owing to our lack of democratic maturity, a public referendum would still not be the right course of action, although it looks awfully attractive. But for how long are we willing to allow political outfits to manipulate and fashion public opinions which serve their own pecuniary interests rather than addressing the actual issues of poverty, education and development, is a question that we must ask ourselves.