ChinmayC Blog

After all the fears and speculation Mumbai, the financial capital of India, has recorded a voting percentage of 52.6% on the polling day yesterday for General Elections-2014. Although the figure is much lower than the national average and that of 65% recorded in the political capital of Delhi this reflects a 10% surge over the dismal voting of 41.4% in 2009.   This is the city’s second half century during the last 25 years with its first one coming in 1998 when the percentage was just over fifty. Before 1991 the voting percentage in Mumbai never fell below fifty percent and the city’s highest ever turnout of 68% was recorded in 1967 General Elections. Voter apathy grew largely after 1989 and various reasons like impact of economic liberalization, decline of the working class movement, closure of the cotton mills, constant shifting or elimination of slums, migratory population and even summer vacation during poll period are cited for this. This dismal voting in 2009 could also be e...

Five polling phases of the 9-phase General or Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) Elections-2014 have been completed. The sixth phase polling is being conducted on Thursday, the 24 th of April. In this phase Mumbai too goes to poll with its six Lok Sabha seats. In this last phase of polling in Maharashtra there are 13 other seats including in Thane, Raigad, Nashik and Jalna-Aurangabad. When Maharashtra and Mumbai go to poll the malady of voter apathy comes in naturally since voting has been consistently low in these parts over the decades. Talking particularly about Mumbai the normal voting percentage has been around just 42% taking all kinds of poll into account. This General Elections things seem to be improving quite a bit, but about Mumbai fears are still there. Only tomorrow the scenario here would be clear. Anyway, we will come to this first P of our subject that is percentage of voting later. The other two Ps are the absolute low points of this General Elections. ...

Even C-grade Bollywood (Hindi film industry based in Mumbai or earlier Bombay) movies show a kind of stark realism in terms of depraved, regressive and malignantly anti-woman villains. If you have been following Bollywood movies for at least the last three decades you must have noticed villains who when confronted with rapes committed (on screen) by their son/sons or male relatives normally say with pride, “He is a boy only…they commit mistakes man, please understand. In my prime time I too had done a lot of merrymaking. I’ll even burn this city to save my son!” These villains are dirty rich mostly being smugglers or business tycoons or plain dons and they carry the concerned ‘screen’ police force in their pockets. They do get punished in the end by the heroes, but after all the gory regressive oppressive chauvinistic feudalistic details shown gloriously by the filmmakers who definitely seem to pander to a sizeable male section of our society. However, you can hardly deny the ‘realism...

Our friend Mr. Thames Pond often gets bogged down by his multiple credit card accounts. He tries to get rid of some now and then, but he gets into more traps and liabilities. On the top of it he gets bombarded with new and newer card offers. Due to his inability to refuse ladies he falls into the traps cleverly set by the card executives. He is particularly scared of the wily executive called Moneycanny whose name he cannot even clearly pronounce. He is getting another call from her now. As usual he prepares to get bold with her this time... “Hello!” “Hello! Can I speak to Mr. Pond please?” “This is Pond. Thames Pond.” “Good Morning, Mr. Pond. This is Moneycanny. Can I have two minutes of your time please?” “Err…Ms…Regarding what?” “Well, Sir, there is a special cash back offer for our most valued credit card holders like you.” “Okay, tell me how do I get the cash?” “The highest percentage cash back will be on your utility bill payments like telephone, mobile, electricity bills. This ...

The world knows India as a cricket-craziest nation and its tremendous fan-following for the game; the world understands India’s potential as the ultimate market for cricket for all formats of the game; the world acknowledges the Indian cricket Board (BCCI) as the richest one with influence and hold running effortlessly through to the very top and the world sees the IPL as India’s answer to the football league and as one of the largest sports tournaments benefiting everyone’s coffers from cricket owners, officials and players. Besides, for the IPL there are huge players’ interests, particularly budding cricketers, and numerous stakeholders cutting across India. All these factors concerning the ‘spirit of the game of cricket’ finally seemed to have shaped the Supreme Court of India order as a somewhat ‘favorable’ one for the BCCI considering the circumstances preceding it. On the historic day of 25 th March, 2014 the Supreme Court asked BCCI Chief N Srinivasan to resign giving him 48 h...