Sample this:  Sharad Pawar says free gains not feasible

On the face of it, the argument seems to make sense. There is no free lunch et cetera et cetera. We have a situation where some sections of the society are going hungry in many states, food inflation is a frikking 19% and yet the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has found a way to rot quintals and quintals of food grains – rice, wheat etc. Shortage of food obviously then, is a created circumstance to benefit a few. Supreme Court, in its little wisdom ordered that these rotting food grains, instead of being distributed among algae and rodents be distributed among the poor and needy people. But nope. Nada. Sharad Pawar in his Caesar-esque style declared –  I heard, I will not listen,  I will let it rot.

So much for increasing Members of Parliaments’ pay by 300%. Performance-based pay has acquired a new meaning. The definition of CTC, Cost to Country in this case (instead of Cost to Company as is the usual parlance) has gone up by a notch.

2) We have all read that all star players are slowly withdrawing from the Commonwealth Games (CWG) (Bolt, Powell among a lot of them). We might get to a day when the only player left in CWG is Suresh Kalmadi. After tonnes of money down the drain, we will spend even more to resurrect the situation and make the Games a success for ‘national pride’ (never understood the term).  And of course, after Sonia Gandhiji has declared “Corrupt will be punished after Commonwealth Games” (emphasis: ‘after’ – which is of course, in the near future, during my great grandson’s generation), I have nothing to fear.  What I do want to bring to your notice is this bit of travel advice on the CWG website:

A peck on the cheek while greeting a female acquaintance is “just not done” when you are in India. Sole exception: Only if the acquaintance is a model or a beauty queen. Tourists should, however, discuss politics. Most Indians love to talk politics and ‘have an opinion on which they will not mind being contradicted’. But equally, visitors should avoid discussing religion.

True. I wonder if former beauty queens are ok? Oh, you mean Amitabh Bachchan is your Chief Guest? Never mind then. And how do you discuss politics without discussing religion? That’s probably one of the chief conundrums that CWG audience have to solve for an audience prize.  To me, BJP will always be associated with Godhra, Congress with Sikh riots, MNS with non-Maharashtrian bashers, Shiv Sena with its anti-muslim agenda and so on and so forth. Maybe Kalmadi can explain. Or maybe Sonia. Even better, a joint press conference with Amitabh Bachchan, no?

3) Never understood these sentences ‘I can feel your grief’, ‘I dedicate this win to the people affected by XYZ’, ‘The agenda is to have all systems in place for success’ etc etc. among a million others.

4)  I have posted these links of FB. For those of you not yet on my FB list, here are two hilarious videos. Bhangra 101 -

- How to learn Punjabi dance (NOT!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irQ2zANorxQ

- What not to do when you become a CEO (extremely instructional) -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

]]> http://kirandhanwada.com/2010/08/23/random-rant-about-pawar-and-cwg/feed/ 1 http://kirandhanwada.com/2009/05/18/elections-2009-the-road-to-cong-here/ http://kirandhanwada.com/2009/05/18/elections-2009-the-road-to-cong-here/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 05:13:35 +0000 Kiran http://kirandhanwada.com/?p=249 Chandni Chowk to Chennai,

KING CONG,

are a few of the sobriquets and one-liners that are being used to describe the electoral victory of the Congress. A literal sweep, am sure, most of the Congressmen would be surprised with. In the face of electing such an elite party, it is but natural for some of the members of parliament to spout pearls of wisdom for the great nation, a secular, socialist republic – whatever that phrase means.

First up, the losers.

LK Advani: The people of India have given their verdict. We accept it.

Hmm, really? Very surprising. Let’s lift some iron at the ‘Gym for Older Men’ while we are accepting the loser’s speech, shall we? Let’s position a supposed-hardliner in public perception, Narendra Modi as your successor or even better, the RSS chief to completely destroy BJP’s image at a national level, shall we? And yes, let’s do all that and still hope to win the elections. Brilliant strategy.

Moving on to the winners.

Sonia Gandhi: The people of India know what is good for them and they have made the right choice.

Yes. People of India in their infinite wisdom have elected the right party, candidate and the party’s dictator. We are just too intelligent for as simple an issue as a vote. We do understand that having extremely corrupted ministers in your cabinet rank is right for the country. We also understand that letting of good friends like Mr. Quattrochi is a symbolic gesture through which you would want to communicate the value the party attaches to Friendship. We understand that National Security is not much of an issue as long as you keep winning elections. We also understand that having all the newsmen in your pockets would serve you extremely well in your negative propaganda of the other party. Yes, we have made the right choice.

Manmohan Singh: People of India have spoken and have spoken with great clarity, I will persuade Rahul Gandhi to be a member of the Union Cabinet

Dazzling leadership skills, ain’t it? He is actually going to persuade (beg?) the descent from the royal family to be a member of Union Cabinet. It’s a proud moment for him – am sure he would be patted on his back and given a day’s holiday just for making that statement. I look forward to be governed by this dynamic and energetic leader with extremely competent subservient skills. British Raj, remember? This time around, only the country is different. It’s called Italy.

The day of reckoning had arrived and is now past us. Circa 2014, unless BJP comes up with a leader who is more of Vajpayee and less of Advani (Jaswant Singh, maybe?), I am not sure that the result would be anything different from 2009, especially with Rahul Gandhi’s juggernaut rolling in 2014. Hopefully the next 5 yrs would be infinite times more productive than the extremely sluggish last 5 – that way atleast, I would be rooting for the Cong in 2014.