Should a business newspaper publish non business reports?

That’s exactly what the latest discussion (here) is all about. There are some who are vehemently arguing against it: The puritans who feel that a business newspaper should maintain its focus and publish only business related news.

People like me however believe that for a product to be complete, it should have non-business elements as well.

But here lies our challenge. We are talking of a business newspaper that publishes “serious” news stories in a Tabloid format! We also are in a place where news partly told. You need to understand the other half…..

Santhanam speaks

So what was the latest salvo aimed at?

That Pokhran II did not achieve the desired results. Well if one goes by the reports published in the media it looks like Santhanam is against India signing the CTBT?

“We can’t get into a stampede to sign CTBT. We should conduct more nuclear tests which are necessary from the point of view of security,” K Santhanam is reported to have said.

“We should not get railroaded into signing the CTBT,” Santhanam said when asked about reports of the US pressuring India to sign the CTBT and fresh efforts by the Obama administration to revive non-proliferation activism.

Santhanam, a former official with the Defence Research and Development Organisation, said that the thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb tests, the first and most powerful of the three tests conducted on May 11, 1998 – did not produce the desired yield.

I somehow trust what Santhanam is saying. There is no reason why he should be making the statement now unless he wants a debate and to affirm that Pokhran afterall did not achieve the desired results.

Well if we can count on what Bhavna wrote in Indian Express in May 1998

His (Santhanam’s) friends and colleagues maintain that he enjoys his drinks, but swear that his senses become even sharper. “People have tried to get things out of him after he has had a few drinks but the man will say only what he wants to say and only as much as he wants to say,” a friend and colleague at DRDO said.

The immediate reaction from the defence department in India apart from those of Mr Kalam and Mr Brijesh Mishra indicate that our deterrence capability is already in question and shaky.

I dont know if the BJP government decided to test at Pokhran in haste. In fact reports indicate that India had made arrangements to test in 1995 itself.

In a paper titled ‘Investigating the Allegations of Indian Nuclear Test Preparations in the Rajasthan Desert’, Vipin Gupta and Frank Pabian have listed different instances when India tried to test the second time. In 1981, 1982 and 1995.

May be the BJP government soon realised that the tests after all had not achieved the results.

Vir Sanhgvi in one of his columns says:

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the government has stopped bragging about the Pokhran II explosion. When was the last time you heard Atal Bihari Vajpayee claiming that the nuclear tests proved that India was a power to reckon with? As the Bharatiya Janata Party goes into the assembly election campaign, its leaders are talking about many things but when Pokhran is mentioned at all, it gets a supporting role; the days when it was the government’s star achievement are clearly over.

However he goes on to list different reasons for the development……

So the question now remains as to what should India do. Not sign CTBT…. Test again in future…. Argue that the test was successful and the deterrent element holds good……

So the question now remains as to what should India do. Not sign CTBT…. Test again in future…. Argue that the test was successful and the deterrent element holds good……

Jogada Siri Belakinalli

Jogada Siri belakinalli

The first time I heard the song, I had tears in my eyes. That was way back in 1987 when I was in seventh standard.

I heard it then when I was attending tuition and this girl with a beautiful voice sang this as part of a farewell. I don’t know if I cried because of the song or because the girl was leaving.

Anyways ever since then I have had tears every time I have heard the song. Now here in Dubai it reminds me of home…… the beautiful rivers and streams and it tells me how much I miss nature, the early morning sunrise, the misty mornings and ……… I always wonder: What the fuck am I doing here?

Have I sacrificed  my soul just to earn some extra bucks?

God, religion and conversion

God for me is power.

Religion is how human beings have defined the power that they believe in and introduced laws and guidelines for a certain way of life.

A casual lunchtime discussion yesterday on conversions (in India) triggered my thoughts on why I vehemently opposed conversion.

Now before I proceed further I feel it is important to point out my own beliefs and non beliefs so that the reader places my idea in perspective.  Or is it important at all.

Conversion actually happens when an individual realizes that what he/she has so far believed in has no basis and untrue and accepts a totally different idea and way of life – as truth.

All three are bound by faith or belief. It is the primacy of our beliefs – the fact that what we believe in cannot be wrong, or is the truth, that makes us believe in making others too believe in the same truth. I feel this is what triggers the idea of conversion.

Yes it is the tribalism in us that prevails most often. Speaking on tribalism I remember an incident way back in 1994 I think.

Nagarahole the forest land between Mysore and Coorg district (Kodagu) was in the process of being converted or renamed to Rajiv Gandhi National Park.

Established in 1955 as a sanctuary and designated as a National park in 1975. It was recently renamed as Rajiv Gandhi National Park.

Anyways, I had just finished two years of college after high school when I joined a small group of volunteers visiting the tribal families living in the forest.

We took a Manantavady bus from Handpost junction (3kms from Heggade Devana Kote or H D Kote) and got down mid way at Muchoor (pronounced as much oor) and walk for several kilometers on the road towards Mananthavady before we followed a small path on our right that led right inside the forest land. After walking for several hours, on a winding path that was really narrow and bamboo and other trees around, we reached a small hamlet (Haadi as they called it). It had about 20 to 30 houses. A walk of another two hours would lead us to the next Haadi.

The government was trying to evict them from the forest land in an effort to protect the forest and national park rules if I am not mistaken does not permit human inhabitation within its limits. The government had then promised to rehabilitate them with land and job opportunities. (casual labour).  Those days a day’s job would earn them about India Rupees 35 for a male and 20 for a female.

Our purpose was to find out what the tribals (they belonged to the Soliga community) really wanted. Here was a community that was born and brought up in the forest where men would go and collect honey and trade other forest products. Two or three men were responsible for going out to the nearest village and sell them probably once a week on a designated market day (santaé in Kannada).  They did cultivate vegetables around their huts but were quite alien to formal agriculture. They did not know the art of farming. I personally felt that uprooting them from these forests and placing them in villages would definitely alienate them. For me it was like removing them from their roots and replanting them elsewhere. Some would perish while those who can adopt would survive.

But there were others who argued that it would benefit them (provided the government kept its promise). Create opportunities to make them more civilized, employment, good education, healthcare, etc., etc.,

When asked they were equally or more confused. Some vehemently refused to move out saying that they would die in the forest rather than go to an alien land. Some left the decision to the head of the village (tribe) while a few others felt that a new house and land and a life in the village was a progressive step.

Anyways coming back to the issue I was discussing…. I casually asked them how they celebrated their festivals. I first did not understand when they said that they had just two festivals in an year. When I asked for more details I was told that they believed in one God and had abandoned their previous beliefs, practices and celebrations.

I was also told that some people had visited the village an year ago, gave them some eggs and told them that from today you just have one god and two festivals to celebrate. (it was Christmas and Easter)

What shocked me even more was when asked if they believed in Jesus Christ, they said something that I still cannot remember but sounded vaguely similar.