Cyanide Cyanide…

Cyanide is the first Kannada movie I watched in a cinema in over a decade.

Narrating the journey of the Rajiv Gandhi assassins post-assassination is the only motive of the storyline. The director does a very good job of sticking to it. No moralising the assassination, No sympathy to the Tigers, No venting the nation’s outrage, No comment on Sri Lanka.

The only tongue-in-cheek remark that the movie lastly resorts is the tribute to the Indian Police for having captured (if dead) the ‘terrorists’.

Brilliant acting depict the we-are-expected-to-believe- true events. The movie belied my expectations on one front. The language used right through was Kannada which was obviously not what the Tigers spoke. A judicious juxtapositioning of Kannada and (Lankan) Tamil would have lent more credibility.

The movie deserves to reach a wider audience than Kannada speaking. I wish and urge the producers to give it the reach that it deserves.To its credit Cyanide, unlike most real-life portrayals, does not issue an “its fiction” disclaimer.

Psst.. Post movie we lunched at ‘Grameen’ a restaurant that promised to provide rural amenities in urban areas. (reverse Abdul Kalam!!)

Go paperless

Lot of talk about E-governance and paperless initiatives. My own suggestion to encourage the janta to go electronic.

As a measure to encourage paperless transactions SEBI should direct Companies going ahead with IPOs and lead managers for a more favourable pro rata allotment ratio in case of over-subscription to the applicants who have applied online. This should be as against investors who have applied on physical application forms.Applying through physical application forms leads to large scale consumption of paper as well as associated cost, time and labour expended in processing the same.

Online application is hassle-free to the investor and relatively easier to process also (I presume) eliminating costs and reducing time for both the investor and the investee company.The SEBI may consider encouraging Online Trading and Online Application and instruct /direct/order the companies to introduce this measure.
The transparency that electronic application brings is the added bonus.

SEZ for T.Nagar

SEZ in Haryana, SEZ in Gujarat.... Why not SEZ in T. Nagar.

Hey! I am not kidding. I am talking of a Special Economic Zone status for the roads of South Usman Road, Panagal Park and Ranganathan Street. Of course not of the manufacturing kind but of the shopping kind.

Let us look at the compelling reasons

1. T. Nagar is the World Capital of Hindu wedding jewellers
2. T. Nagar is the World Capital of Hindu wedding Silk Sarees Shops
3. T. Nagar -based Saravana Stores is a pioneer in his brand of retailing. (Wait till Wharton hears, it will make it a case-study)

Ranganathan Street is tourist destination for rural-folk. The traffice snarls have to be seen to be believed. The peculiar geography of the area is like no other.

The Big Idea :
.... is after making Panagal Park-UsmanRoad-Ranganathan Street an SEZ,..

1. to conduct Chennai shopping festival (say, on the lines of Dubai Shopping festival) to attract international shopping travellers
2. to stimulate shopping tourism into Chennai
3. to provide opportunity to local outlets to scale up
4. to allow multi-storey ( and I mean really mulit-storey , 15 floors plus) building to come up with adequate parking and other facilities
5. a framework for governing T. Nagar traffic and civic service is evolved. Though this is no panacea to the traffic problem a framework with special interest in T. Nagar can be a start
6. Pedestrain and Parking issues to be addressed by the SEZ
7. Government may not lose much revenue, because "regular customers" of 'Thanga Maligais' know how much tax is paid.

Think out of the Box !

Free WiFi everywhere ?

WiFi enabled laptops are gaining popularity but are not yet the standard. But where does one find Wifi hotspots to use them ? College libraries.Er.. Not exacly the most useful of places, considering that the libraries are already equipped with Net-connected computers.

As private players like Dishnet RED roll out hotspots all over the city ( i.e. all over all Barista, which incidentally, is a recently adopted sister-concern) usage really has not spread like wildfire.

One suggestion by a technology-illiterate.

Make Wifi internet accessible at two speeds-

1. At broadband minimum 256 Kbps at existing rates of access
2. Free ! at 56 Kbps

Anyone with a notebook should be able to access the internet. (56 kbps may sound cruel but wth it is Free) It is expected that while free Wifi access will bring more notebooks to the coffee table (and hence footfalls), over time this move will put more cash on the table. Moreover, the move if standardised universally will lead to perceivable improvement in sale of WiFi cards.

Free Wifi access is supposedly being provided at the Chennai Central and the Chennai Airport free. The proposed move will make free access at public places sustainable, rather than a burden on the service provider.

Will the evangelical telecom minister take the initiative ?

Chennai Metro - Tragic Comedy

The idea of this blog , lest you misunderstand, is not to question the status of the city of Chennai as a metropolitan city. That in the era of emerging newer cities, the question may not be totally irrelevant is a diferent issue.

The issue is that of the "panacea" to Chennai's traffic woes, The Metro Rail. Fortunately for Delhi but unfortunately for the rest of India, teh Delhi Metro is a success. Unfortunate for rest of India ??? Stupid politicians ( now,is there an intelligent politician?) donot have the originality to think up unique and customised solutions for each city. Cut-Copy-Paste is all they can understand.

The result is that Chennai will have 4 incompatible systems of rail transport. The Beach-Tambaram line cannot interconnect with the lines to Chennai Central. The MRTS ("Flying Train " in Tamil) donot interconnect with any other suburban rail system. The Ambattur-Chennai Central suburban line will not interconnect with other systems. To add to the incompatibility, the Metro is proposed. The metro is neither metre gauge nor broad gauge, it is standard gauge. It cannot "talk" to other networks even if it wants to. The commuter is expected to travel strictly on routes on any single network only.

The talk of the metro would have been hilarious if they governments did not seem serious about it. Now, it is a tragic-comedy (with apologies to P Chidambaram). But of course, politicians who never use public transport cannot be expected to do any better.

PS Whatever will happen to plans to extend the MRTS ?
Will Park Town -Chennai Central connectivity ever happen ?

Rhyme and Reason

Recently, the Madhya Pradesh State Government decided to replace 'English nursery rhymes' with Hindi patriotic rhymes. Predictably, the English language media took up the cudgels, opposing, as is their wont, every action by any BJP Government, accusing the party of saffronising ( a word contributed to the English language by the secular Indian press) Education. The BBC made a seemingly balanced coverage talking to urban "academicians" and "educationists". The Times of India played the more-British-than-British card and called the move churlish and emphasised the "importance of English" and in summary called it regressive. (see link below)

This blog believes that the MP Govt. move that has come not a moment too early. Nursery rhymes are meant to,amongst under-5 year olds, encourage speech, vocabulary, creativity while entertainingly engage them in the process.

The "English nursery rhymes" can do no better than the ones in any other language. The great Indian fancy for English has lead to the adoption of the British rhymes.
Many educated people are upset that their favourites rhymes will not be taught anymore (says newspapers). Please,the rhymes touch an emotional chord as we ( yes, it does with me too) learnt it during our blissful childhood and about which all of us (with normal childhoods) are nostalgic. Any rhyme of any other language would do just as well.

Having said that, is it not logical to begin one's education in one's mother tongue as opposed to a foreign tongue, however much it might be globall used. The first words learnt by most children the world over are in their mother tongue, well, except for children of Indian yuppies who find it below thier dignity to converse with their children in the native.With due support to learning English (globalisation, "child's future", "computers" and other 'reasons') it is unfortunate when someone's best language is not their mother tongue ( as it, admittedly, is with this write and his generation (x?) of ppl- blame it on Macualay).Now, for a nation often divided does it not make more sense to learn patriotic jingles as kids and be nostalgic about them when one gets older.
Moreover, most English nursery rhymes are - disaster oriented. e.g. Jack broke his crown, Jill came tumbling; ..bow breaks,the cradle will fall; London bridge is falling down; Humpty dumpty had a great fall,...plucked her nose etc. and don't really have much value except for the anglo-saxon tune recall.

Secular press... Give us a break. There are several things that BJP governments get it wrong. Go after them. If you can't get yourself to commend them , ignore them.


Psst...1.. The British Kindergarten Association of Kindergarten teachers would gladly endorse the MP Govt.'s move if the could hear the accent and tone of the rhymes as taught and as recited at schools proclaimed as "English medium" schools.

Psst..2.. Glad that Hindi seems to have creative writers to churn out KG poems. In Tamil Nadu, translations of English rhymes are passed off, many a time, as Tamil. (Intellectual Property lawyers Alert !). But thats hardly a surprise, for a state which has thrived on the "dubbing" culture.(Junoon effect !)


For news articles which prompted this critique :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5079002.stm
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articlelist.asp?msid=584497758
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1665143.cms
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articlelist.asp

Is Shashi Tharoor worth it ?

Should India support Shashi Tharoor for secretary-general of the UN ?
Is the fact that he holds in Indian Passport, was educated in India.(st. stephens, as NDTV telecast live) sufficient for India to support the candidature.
He is not from the Government of India, never served the Indian diplomacy establisment. This might be the best chance for a career UN diplomat with an Indian passport to ascend to the position, but his ascension does not assure India of any benefit.

Shashi is , admittedly, vastly experienced in UN affairs and may even be the right candidate for the job.Yet is it strategic for India to have him there ? Is it worth losing negotiating powers on other issues to secure this promotion to Tharoor