Show Ration Card, Get a TV home

“Ek aam Hindustani ki zindagi mein, line main khada rahen hi zindagi hain…”

 

.. goes an Airtel ad. It further adds that things have changed and Airtel has changed the scene in the context of KBC.

 

It was circa 1990s again for me the first Sunday of April 2007 when I stood in the queue at the Public Distribution System.

 

The young, the old, the professional, the vela, the man, the woman, the housewife and her sister-in-law, the LIG household, the MIG household and the SEC A household all of them stood in the queue at the local municipal school.

 

I almost thought that the municipal elections were happening but the voter turnout seemed too good to be true. Upon investigation, it was revealed that the Rush was to collect the “free colour TV” which “Dr. Kalignar” led Government of Tamil Nadu was supplying.

 

My first reaction was that of disbelief. There has probably been no record of a Government actually sticking to pre-poll promises and here I could see people carrying home cardboard dabba.

(You must see it to believe it. Blame it on pazahaka dosham –force of habit- the men and women were carrying it the way they would carry pots of water. The analogy does not stop there- The ladies’ queue experienced the same streetfight that occurs when one of the them fills her pot out of turn from the water lorry)

 

Disbelief turned to greed when upon discreet enquiries, I got to know that my family was eligible for the “color TV” as well  and so I hopped onto the queue with a ration card in my hand. Truckload after truckload of cardboard boxes was unloaded into the building. One by one they were distributed to gleeful citizens.

 

The queue in which I stood, truly obedient to Murphy’s law, moved slower than the rest. Some were thankful for the TV, others doubted the quality of the televisions (Looking the gift horse in the mouth) few even wondering if there was any television inside the cardboard.

 

My recent tryst with analysts and analyst reports made do some back of the envelope calculations er, well without an envelope and without numbers.

 

At the end of the exercise i.e. when all households in Tamil Nadu have a television set or when the state becomes bankrupt, whichever is earlier, every citizen will have access to atleast one television. The Numero Uno Tamil television channel, the No.1 by far will extend its coverage, leadership and logical extension advertising rates and revenues.

 

Need I say more? I am hurrying to buy the shares of Sun TV.

 

P.S After waiting for more than 3 hours on a Sunday, the PDS confessed that they had run out of television sets and pleaded with the restive public to be patient till the next week when, they promised, every household will be able to carry home a TV set.

P.S 2 I am as a concession to the political party which will, hopefully, give me a TV which I do not know what to do with am not – piercing the corporate veil of Sun TV, which however has been done elsewhere in this blog.

 

 

Of God and atheists - It happens only in Tamil Nadu

World over, the greatest threat to peace is religion-motivated violence. Be it in the hideous form of terrorism or glorious form of war. It has been Jews versus Christians, Christians versus Muslims, Christians versus Hindus, Hindus versus Muslims.

In such a world of ‘my God is better than your God’ world, lies the province of Tamil Nadu in south India where violence outbreaks between Hindus and atheists.

You read that right. Hindus believers versus (mostly Hindu) atheists.

World over, atheists (born in families of whichever religion) have led a rather unremarkable life. Maybe to break that routine, atheists in Tamil Nadu create a cause and fight for it.

At Srirangam, on the banks of river Cauvery in Tamil Nadu lies the rather venerated temple of Sri Ranganthaswamy. The atheist cult in (Have you heard of an atheist cult, elsewhere in the world) that is the political mainstay in the state decide to provoke the theists by installing the statute of EVR Ramaswamy Naicker, (or Periyar in short) an iconic atheist (In Tamil Nadu, atheism is often confused with rationalism) at the entrance to the temple.

Hindu foot soliders are rightly indignant. However they too succumbed to the temptation of violence. They damaged the pedestal of the statute of a man who once publicly broke idols of Hindu Gods and thereby ‘promoted rationalist thoughts’. Periyar devotees feel challenged. They attack several shrines at different parts of Tamil Nadu so that the atma of Periyar will attain shanti .

And so goes the War in Tamil Nadu. Dharmic (crusade, jehad) for some. Hero-worship (in the garb of rationalism) for others.

Related read:http://thoughtpaisa.blogspot.com/2006/05/labour-leader.html

Why Mohammad Afzal should get one...

Pardon Mohammad Afzal.

Not because he deserves it.Clearly, he does not.

When Mohammad Afzal was recruited, he was probably told that he might perish in the mission and should he get killed he would attain Jannath (virgins and all that).If he got arrested and hanged, well he would still attain Jannath.

By hanging Afzal now, we are probably giving him what he wants. Does granting someone what he wants amount to punishment ?

Enough hype has been created by the media. A hanging if it were to be happen would probably even by covered live and broadcast internationally. And produce counter-productive results!Afzal's death by hanging is likely to infuriate and hence motivate jehadis-in-the-making. It might even be cited by terrorism trainee recruiters to promise the Jannath.

Commute the sentence to life-imprisonment. Teach him Yoga, Art of Living. There exists an outside chance that he might be reform. If he doesnot, he will still possibly lead a miserable life and would still not have achieved Jannath.

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 ?