Leap Year Budget

This is the time of the year again when newspapers, news channels and all lesser or well known mortals are/would be talking about budget and its possible implications. So, I thought why should I be left behind? Atleast I have a dedicated listener in form of my blog, who listens to whatever crap I write.

Sometime back, I came across an amazing article which talks about a pattern which Indian budgets invariably seem to follow. Whatever the coalition Khichidi (Single party at center is alreay an illusive dream) rules the center, first two years are spent on implementing CMP(Common Minimum Progran) and to a certain extent budgets are liberal. Next two years, budget focuses on mending the goofs of the previous two years and final usually reveals itself as election oriented, populist budget. For the current ruling UPA government, the pattern seem to follow just fine.

First things first, the leap year budget is a populist budget, as expected because election mode is soon going to be switched on by parties across India. But I still wonder what happened to Mr. Manmohan Singh, the man behind the revolutionary reforms of 1990 who dared to go against the conventional and presented the reformist budget in an inward looking India. Why is he hailing this budget as "excellent & Outstanding"? Does he think that India has had enough of reforms? Well to certain extent I can understand the pressure from nagging partners(Left Parties), who are still unsatisfied.

I have few observations and few comments to make on this budget. Thanks for extending the income tax threshold limit to 1.5L from 1.1L, middle class salaried families & bachelors like me are happy. But why promoting discrimination in a secular country like India? I am a proponent of gender equality be it salary, rights, freedom and everything. Why is income tax threshold limit different for fairer and unfairer sexes? It really hurts to see discrimination being promoted in the country.

60,000 crore debt waiver for farmers is a welcome step, but funding is something to watch out for. National Banks are going to writeoff this as bad debt and government is going to provide them with liquidity. Liquidity is probably one of the most abused words in economics, which I have so far failed to understand. Inflation, depression, recession, growth everything seems to converge towards liquidity. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow government issues yet another off-budget special bond to cover the banks, like the way it has been shielding Oil companies so far. Another conflicting point here is what about those honest farmers who have paid their debts. Won't they feel cheated? This waiver is an incentive for debt evasion for them.

Indirect tax reduction across various sectors is an appreciated step. This will reinforce the much needed domestic comsumption in these times of gobal downturn. Also investment in infrastructure and education is a good step. Setting up three new IITs and IISc was a much needed step but without addressing the issue of trained faculty, this aint going to succeed.

For me this was yet another budget which didn't have much in store for me or probably I couldn't understand a large part of it. But by first look budget seems a balanced one and Mr. FM has done a good job.

Moolyankan Diversified Fund(MDF), is going to dissect the budget 2008-09 today. This the blog of Moolyankan.

Check this one out

This is a new blog started by one of my batch mates. He is into Vedic Astrology and does predictions based on some scientific methods. Do check this one out and you can ask personal questions as well, he is pretty good at this.

Vedic Astrology

Complement (World)

Imagine, Taking the mathematical complement of the world. Replace Ocean by Ground & Ground by Ocean. The present civilization would look something like as shown in the picture above.

Some amazing facts

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left.

The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee.

Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.

Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.

The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.

The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself.”

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.

Happy Diwali

Today is Diwali, the festival of lights, crackers and sweets. Walking down the streets of the city, sitting on the beach and watching cheerful families enjoying the festival, a very weird thought crossed my mind. Has the exhilaration/fanaticism of Diwali faded down?

As a kid i was one big maniac, who used to make long list of crackers about a month in advance. I still remember my negotiation talks with my dad about the cracker budget, which i invariably increase by 10% every year owing to rising prices of crackers (Inflation in today's term). I was a variety seeker who wanted quantity also. As a result my final list had to go through a series of iterative processes. But the final list sounds impressive as Indian cricket team on paper.

On D-Night of Diwali, my ecstatic oomph had no boundary. The intermittent and ubiquitous sound of cracker, the sweet smell of guzia and laddu, the houses and trees covered with light, everything looks so splendid. But my most cherished time was when my mom sends me to dad's friend's home with plates of sweets. I loved going there with the hope of meeting uncle's daughter. Diwali was one festival we all loved.

The last Diwali I celebrated properly was about 6 years ago when i was passing out of my HSC and we all school friends were parting. Definitely the craze and enthusiasm of of Diwali has declined but more importantly people have changed.
Happy Diwali..........

Chennai Shower

So finally monsoon arrived in Chennai. And what a rainy sunday it has been....
For all last 3-4 months of my stay at Chennai, I have been yearning for rain. The time I left Kolkata, it was submerged/buried under rain water. I even remember traveling in buses, trying hard to make way through river, flowing in the streets of the city. The no-monsoon period at Chennai was rather surprising for me as while whole of the country was witnessing huge downpour, the Chennaites were enjoying dog-days/summertide.

Today I woke-up to heavy downpour beating my eardrums. A glance at my Alarm clock showed 9:50. I thought the poor clock has run out of battery because from the scene outside my window it still seemed daybreak. I turned to my hand watch to confirm the time, but to my surprise it also showed 9:50. I still could not believe it, so finally took my mobile and to my horror it showed 9:50 too. I must have slept like a dog last night because I take pride in saying that I am generally an early riser. I already had missed the breakfast so that means I can't afford to miss lunch. But lunch was still 2-3 hours away. I pretended to read newspaper that I do soo effortlessly. Then went to my friends to apologize for my behavior last week as a part of damage (that i did last week knowingly/unknowingly) control activity.

Finally its the lunch time. But how do I go to Himalaya (The mess, not the you-know-what)? I didn't even have an umbrella or a raincoat. Finally I borrowed a wind-sheeter from a friend and left for my journey. Many great saints have undertaken difficult/herculean journeys for many noble causes. With all due respect to them, I think my journey had the noblest purpose, The food. Reaching Himalaya and attaining the purpose was one delightful moment. Now was the time to cruise towards my next destination, Taramani Gate. I sometimes wonder "What would have happened to many people like me, if taramani gate had not been there?". But today, going there is going to be one gargantuan task.

Now somehow I am back in my room sometime checking mails, sometime gazing out of the window. The scene outside looks so exquisite that I wish this Sunday lasts eternity.

A month gone by

Its been long time since I posted anything on my beloved blog. Of Course!! I am trying to flatter my blog, fearing she might desert me someday owing to my inconsiderate and inattentive behavior. The reason why i chose to assign a female attribute to my blog was that i wanted to make my relationship an intimate one. And no relationship can beat the intimacy between the opposite sexes.

On a serious note last one month has been quiet busy/confused/crushed/thwarted and a bizzare mixture of events. But i need not elaborate on those minuscule, insignificant things. While i was hustling with my life, world around took a complete turn. Many significant events have taken place. Here i have tried to simply collate a few of them, i thought are important for me.

1. My favorite blogger Amit Verma has won the prestigious 2007 Bastiat Prize for journalism. I knew the guy deserved it totally.

2. Sensex zoomed to 19.5K and then retraced to 17.5K owing to proposed curb on FII investment through PN route. But seems like the issue has been resolved and PN norms have been set up. Just today sensex has again reached a level of 19243.

3. The nuke deal between IND-US seems be have been put on back burner. No major progress in this area apart from talk with left parties (which i believe will go on endlessly).

4. The unabated upward march of crude oil continues on fear or sudden fall in US stocks. Crude now is trading at $89/barrel.

Degrading Indian Morality

May be I can't do much about it, but i certainly have some humanity left to do my bit. Here i m putting the article which made me question the morality of our so-called "Indian Society". We take pride in claiming that we worship females but the reality is something else.........read it to believe it......


"I fell into the ditch by the side of the road. I called out for help. Some
strangers helped me to my feet. On the pretext of taking me to safety, they
moved me to a corner, surrounded me and started pawing me. It lasted for
over ten minutes. They had their hands inside my jeans. There were so many
men. I couldn't fight them off. They went off only when the cricketer's bus,
which had been stalled, moved on carrying the mob with it."
-Front page report in Times of India
Sept 28, 2007

Read it a hundred times and every time imagine these words being utterred by
a woman you love. Your mother, your sister, your daughter maybe! Even at the
end of the tenth iteration, you will not be able to match the horror of this
girl.

And read the last sentence well. This happened during the victory rally of
the Indian cricket team. While we celebrated, Ms. Neha Soni got molested on
Marine Drive.

No! Don't you dare ask where was the police? The police for your information
were on a 36 hour shift. Ya you read that right…36 hours non-stop. Ganesh
Visarjan followed by this victory parade! It wasn't the police who should
have acted but the people around her. No one noticed and its quite possible
that also is true. All attention was on the Team India bus. More than whose
to blame, the question is how the fuck do we stop this!

You might laugh at this but our alertness is the key. Not losing your face
in a faceless mob is the key. I preach but I preach from practice. Let me
prove it to you.

For nearly two months after the 11 July bomb blasts, I used to scan every
passenger, under every berth with my eyes. You see, I wanted to catch the
bastard who planted the bomb so badly, that I just didn't drop my guard. It
got to a point where I was once mistaken as an undercover cop. This proves
that even after being tired by an entire day's work, by the harassment of
your colleagues and bosses you can still be a cop in civvies. All you need
is alertness.

In my life, I have been witness to five 'incidents.' Two occurred on a BEST
bus and were minor, meaning the girl was only troubled by the man leaning in
a little too close. The moment I saw this, I raised my voice and asked that
unknown girl," Tai, tickets tujhya kade ahet ka?" (Elder sister, are the bus
tickets with you?) Just one single voice asking a simple question; both
times the man moved on.

The third happened in a train where a Muslim woman inadvertently got into
the gents compartment and the fourth incident had gullal thrown at a girl in
an empty BEST bus during Ganpati Visarjan. Alertness and maneuvering myself
between the lady and the man solved the third 'incident'. A traffic jam
which allowed me to get out of the bus and buy a bottle of clean mineral
water towash her eyes helped in the fourth one.

The fifth was where I failed. It was fatigue maybe, just mental exhaustion
but I sinned by taking a causal chalta hain attitude when a woman entering a
gents compartment was groped. Her husband was with her and he searched
unsuccessfully for the perpetrator. The groper just disappeared in the
platform crowd. I remember that lady's face and even though I couldn't have
done anything, I wish I had.

Molestations, rapes, dowry deaths are huge problems. No ones asking you to
solve an entire nation's problems. But when they occur in front of you,
SOLVE THEM! You are an Indian and the girl getting pawed is an Indian too!
She is your sister and someone has put a hand in her jeans! Act! Act now!

If you think that you don't have time for this "herogiri" just remember
these words of one of India's best Chief Ministers(Kerala) E.M.S
Namboodripad. He was asked how it felt to be the people's Hero:

We have no heroes and no heroines amongst us. Just common people called upon
to do uncommon things!

-Ishan I. Bhole