Getting Fretting Seething Fed Up!

It has become, particularly after the pandemic-driven desperation, extremely unsavory, unhealthy and irritating to avail of or buy any service or product from any service provider or business unit, ranging from an innocuous cup of tea to medical services, because once you do so which you cannot possibly avoid the marketing hawks of the concerned agencies will keep on bombarding you with text messages, WA posts, emails and also voice interactive or even live voice calls with no deadline for a most desired end, perhaps it's set to continue till the end of you or of the world! They holler and hammer you to rate them, recommend them, fill up feedback forms, take surveys and what not, and of course to continue buying from them. This is aside from the hawks of the bank/insurance/financial agencies who stop at nothing to lure you in, offering cards and personal loans even to hapless senior citizens, and the infuriatingly incessant reminders to pay up regular dues from about a month before the due dates, even though you've been extremely sincere in paying up on time everytime! Add to it the storm of the fraudsters who egg you on endlessly to click their dangerously spurious links. 

Particularly irksome are the brazen advertizing from the health service providers and medicine providers. Their messages on your personal accounts do not at all seek to hide their open invitation to you to fall sick asap, preferably seriously enough, and that it's evident that it's them only who would be deliriously happy if you oblige them! Well, on my part I immediately block their accounts or numbers, but the clever foxes change their accounts or numbers instantly and never even indulge themselves in commercial breaks! 

I've written about such issues quite a few times earlier too. What else to do? This perhaps gives me some vicariously avenging delight. If this is going to be the order of the digital age I'd have nothing of that! But how? I see no option of any kind. 

Can you think of any? 

A Tale of Two Credit Cards!

Such in-a-soup stories need to be told, because they mostly are about all those faceless people who normally have no voice. It doesn’t matter if the stories were my personal ones or somebody else’s. As you must be aware a writer or a storyteller has the choice of being the narrator in the first person or in the third person, and in post-modern storytelling even in the second person. Well, right? As you also must’ve been aware all the time that several essential services like banking were spared during the pandemic lockdowns, and as far as services at the bank branches are concerned the pandemic hit them real hard with thousands of their staff members getting the infection leading to manpower shortages which was really unfortunate. However, the pandemic had a definitive role in making online transactions a way of life, forcing even the traditionally manual-obsessed customers go for online activities. Therefore, when I discovered a bank failing even in that minimum of online presence I had to feel disgusted. This brings me to the first credit card.

 

I’d been having a credit card for years issued by that particular bank where I didn’t have an account. During the first national lockdown the bank literally went into a stupor: not informing about or updating the transactions; not generating online monthly statements and mailing those promptly; contacting them through the helpline was also a wasted exercise as no one really attended the calls. All these created a total blackout for me as regards my card. To make matters worse the bank, one of the worst and confirmed misers in the industry, kept on sending useless text promos like offering offensive cashbacks of 50 or maximum 100 bucks for a transaction of over 20k bucks and like offering to increase their consistently miserable credit limit by only a few thousand bucks.

 

One day I was caught up in such a severe fit of rage, also accentuated perhaps by the monotonous stay-home syndrome that I cut up the credit card in as many as possible pieces and threw those into the dustbin. After the act I mailed them a request to close my card account which compulsorily involved another clumsily manual process: that they don’t take closure requests online or on phone and I have to log in to their net banking site, type my request in their form, have to take a printout and send it by post to them as if I were a free bird during the lockdown. My previous experiences in their net banking were horrible: they never save my credentials and passwords; and so, every time I try to log in I have to rediscover myself and create new and newer user IDs and passwords. I gave it up.

 

To my horror a solitary statement appeared informing me that I had unpaid balances. Furious, I emailed them again, asking them why they didn’t close my account and how on earth was I to make the payment as I no longer had the full 16-digit card number with me. Like all other banks they wanted their money back at any cost, and therefore, one executive found time to send me an email asking me to make the payment using a temporary 16-digit number generated for the same purpose. I made the payment, reiterating my request to close my account as I couldn’t possibly use it without having either the card or its number.

 

For the next one year I forgot about the card, but at times feared that the bank might again charge me the annual fee. And then the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) new guidelines on credit cards that are to be effective from the 1^st of July this year came just in time, and one of which guidelines say that a bank has to close a credit card account that is not used for more than a year. Accordingly, a jubilant ‘me’ receives a text message from the bank giving me a notice period of one month to try renewing my card or the card would cease to exist after that! I give three cheers to the RBI! Credit card users must also know now that as per another guideline a bank can no longer insist on a manual application for a closure request and has to complete the closure after a telephonic or online request within seven days to avoid paying a daily penalty to the customer.

 

The second credit card is of an existential kind! A bank where I had to open a savings account for some reasons offered me a credit card, full of discounted offers and lifetime free. However, the offer from a polite lady executive of the bank came on telephone when I was stranded out of town for the first lockdown. Therefore, I also politely informed her that since I was in another town I wouldn’t possibly be able to receive the card at my registered address. To that, even more politely, the lady asked me for the new address and noted it down with painstaking care, doubly assuring me that the card would arrive at my new address.

 

A fortnight later, though, I got a message from the courier that they missed me at that registered address. The card was never delivered even after I came back to my registered address. However, the offers continued to flourish in my phone, mails and the bank’s net banking site. The bank was caught in their own web of half-truths when one of their executives phoned me offering me a personal loan on the credit card that never existed, and I grabbed the opportunity with my both hands and asked him a simple question, ‘Where is my card, my dear provider?’. He took it in with a remarkable restraint and assured me all the needful would be done.

 

Accordingly, a representative arrived at my home and the application process was done one more time. I got all the communication as regards the ETA, so to say! That card too never arrived, even after a full year. However, the card still exists in my net banking account and in terms of a plethora of insistently luring offers. So then, this is the story about the second credit card that I cannot use even virtually.

KK Demise: Bollywood Vs Regional!

There was an ugly kind of mad expression just the day before the Kolkata concert of the famous Bollywood playback singer Krishnakumar Kunnath (KK) who succumbed to a heart attack immediately after that fateful concert, held in a jammed auditorium in extreme humid heat conditions. Due to the lack of space we couldn’t mention it and discuss about this particular madness, obviously a pandemic-induced one to a large extent, in our earlier piece. It came from a well-known Bangla artiste-singer in the form of an enraged expression. He questioned as to who is KK indeed, that why should there be so much craze for such Bollywood singers like him and that there are more talented singers than him available locally in Bengal. No doubt, his comments were condemned in all quarters including the social media. The artiste himself apologized for his behavior and later expressed his terrible shock over the tragedy that followed the concert.

 

However, this kind of ugly conduct cannot be wished away as a one-off thing or as an aberration. Of course, this coming from a Bangla artiste is a bit surprising, because Bengal has a thriving film and music industry that gives ample opportunities to the local singers or playback singers and, from the early ages in Bollywood numerous talented Bangla directors, producers, actors and singers migrated and made it big there, and it’s still in continuation. Our rather unfortunate observation that ‘his comments cannot be wished away…’ is valid in many other states of the country where the respective film and music industries are sluggish and not paying enough to anyone wanting to make a career, barring exceptions, of course.

 

In such a state there’ve always been dissatisfaction, lamentations and rage over the Bollywood artistes coming there and performing to packed auditoriums or stadiums while they just look on helplessly, abandoned as locals without the ‘glamour’ value. Many of us have seen from the sixties at least when local filmmakers go out of the states for music recordings, always preferring Bollywood playback singers to sing for their films even if it involved compromise with the local language. Even now, with high-tech studios coming up almost everywhere the filmmakers do the recordings there, but still prefer famous Hindi playback singers. 

Similarly, local event organizers are always ready to go to any extent to bring in Bollywood singers so that their events become grand successes. Local artists are not considered, because when they’re featured it just becomes a local event, mostly even without ticketing or ways to make money. Only the southern states are the glorious exceptions to this grumpy ‘artistic’ phenomenon because they create their own phenomenal superstars locally and generate the moolahs not just locally, but worldwide.  

 

Well, it’s an established fact that there are thousands of very talented singers all around the country; more now, thanks to the social media and many other digital platforms where they can sing like stars. But everyone cannot make it to the playback singing in Bollywood; forget about making it big there, due to various reasons like lack of enough finances or sponsorship or command over Hindi or lack of connections and kinda godfathers or many others. 

On the other hand, Bollywood thrives on its countrywide or even worldwide acceptance with everything enacted in the national language Hindi that is welcome everywhere except, obviously, in the southern states of India. Thanks to its huge reach Hindi films or songs or actors or singers become immensely popular instantly. And, the local organizers, filmmakers and other professionals vie to get hold of at least a handful of them to make their projects in regional languages look bigger, attractive and more glamorous.

 

The two-year hiatus created by the pandemic has hit the regional artists much more than those in Bollywood, making them frustrated, despondent and angry. Many of them have become like the millions of others who have lost their jobs, sources of income and thus the means of their preferred livelihoods. Therefore, this unfortunate chasm between Bollywood/Hindi vs. Regionals is likely to widen further in a future that is laden with uncertainty, inflation and declining growth of markets. And unfortunately again, we cannot offer any solution to this, because it’s been an issue of creative ventures, preferences and choices. Any kinds of strong regionalism or parochialism can only further the stress within the country.

Disturbing Times: Renewed Madness and the Vicious Circle of the Absurd!

Photo: phrases.org.uk

The Pandemic, at best, seemed only to have kept the madness of the modern age in a tight leash as long as it raged, creating a mortal fear over the whole of humankind. So, once the humans had discovered enough protection against it and succeeded in keeping it at bay, the modern-day madness seems to have come back with renewed vigor—to get back what they’ve lost over the last two years in real quick time. We can hardly pinpoint anyone to put the blame squarely on; because it’s affected almost every section or individual of the society. Coming to India, once the COVID-19 restrictions were completely lifted life’s started becoming more than normal. From the daily wage-earners and the vendors to the topmost business tycoons—almost everyone started showing extreme hurry to get back what they lost. The local admin authorities, also full of human beings only, joined in too; even the most discreet procedures were thrown out of the window. Tragedies, conflicts, absurdities and so on began unfolding very fast, peaking in the last few days while also giving the virus one more chance to come back.

 

Caught perhaps in a pandemic-induced mad frame of mind the new government in Punjab, the CM being a popular artiste, suddenly withdrew the security cover given to one of the state’s most popular singers who had been under threat from different gangs for various reasons. And tragically, the very next day, singer Sidhu Moose Wala was brutally gunned down in his car by gangsters chasing him in another car. Moose Wala was just 28 and had all the prime future ahead of him. To add to his there’s been a string of targeted murders of locals and non-local citizens in Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists whom the experts describe as micro-level operators or a kind of hybrid terrorism. Greatly disturbing tragedies, anyway.

 

As we mentioned at the beginning, even the minimum public safety measures were thrown away, almost everywhere in the country. And another tragedy happened. Kolkata’s humid heat is known to all who’ve experienced it. The 31^st of May 2022 was one such humid day when the heat was sweaty and unbearable even inside homes, under the whirring ceiling fans or even the struggling ACs. And, on that very day a popular playback singer in Hindi and in several south Indian and other languages, Krishnakumar Kunnath (famous as KK) was invited by local organizers in Kolkata to perform in the gloomy evening in one of the city’s premiere auditoriums, Nazrul Mancha.

 

Reports, dismissed as rumors, say the hall was more than packed as there were no restrictions on controlling entry of the extra hundreds of avid audiences, and that the AC was not functioning properly which is not surprising because we find the ACs getting weaker as the attendees get more and more on various occasions. The singer was seen wiping his sweat away and complaining to the organizers frequently. But, as a professional and for the success of the glamour event, he sang for nearly three hours. Then he felt uneasy complaining of chest pain. Surprisingly, he was taken to his hotel, instead of rushing him to the nearest hospital out of sheer common sense. KK collapsed in his hotel room and was declared dead on finally arriving in a hospital. KK, only 53, died of a heart attack as per the postmortem report. But was there nothing that could’ve triggered it in a person who had no previous history of heart problems?

 

Also perhaps severely affected by the post-pandemic madness, one advertising agency in Mumbai released ads on a male deodorant that directly promote the gang-rape theme even as there’ve been reports of rapes and gang-rapes taking place all over the country almost daily. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has promptly suspended the ads ordering those to be taken out of air everywhere. However, the question remains as to how those horrid ads passed layers and layers of the approval procedures. Or perhaps, it clearly pandered to the ‘tastes’ of a great majority of the stakeholders concerned. The same madness to recover what was lost by hook or by crook.

 

As the latest to happen to the continuing saga of greatly disturbing proceedings, one lady spokesperson of the ruling party (BJP) made some adverse remarks to Prophet Muhammad on a public platform yesterday. One more major communal riot unfolded on the streets of Kanpur as a result. The BJP, obviously concerned by the reactions of Qatar and the greater Arab world, suspended her along with one more male spokesperson for giving provocative speeches. The lady said later that she didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments; she was only pained by the alleged insults to ‘her Lord Shiva’. The other complained of serious threats to his life.

 

And then, the absurd of the absurd! A party that came to power on the strength of its aggressive Hindu nationalism and being condemned as a communal party all the time, the BJP is now accused by some of appeasing the Islamists! Well, we believe in one God or one Creator who may have various forms as per the beliefs of various other religions. We advise people, irrespective of to whatever extent they are being driven by the post-pandemic madness, to desist from fighting for ‘your God’ and ‘our God’ which can only bring us all to the brink, the world making a full circle, probably heading for the End.

 

The megastar Salman Khan today has received a letter threating death to him and his father Salim Khan in the ‘Moose Wala’ way. This could be another ‘vicious circle’ of the singer’s murder involving various probable gangsters of an unknown quantity. While in the US, apart from the mad shootings, there was report of a security issue with President Biden even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has crossed hundred days.

Movie Kimi: A Slick Thriller Capturing The Pandemic Lockdown Times!

For the first time I have had the pleasure of watching a movie that strives to capture the pandemic or lockdown-era hassles and problems. Filmmakers the world over in a film industry that has taken the pandemic hit most painfully, wouldn’t like their heroes or heroines masked-up after trying hard to realize the movie at last. However, in this Hitchcockian a thriller titled Kimi that was released by HBO MAX on 10^th February and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video too, we find the female protagonist masked up in the most crucial scenes outside of her home in Seattle. The movie is directed, edited and photographed by Steven Soderbergh, a renowned filmmaker of Hollywood who, at 26 years of age, became the youngest director to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival for his debut film Sex, Lies and Video Tapes (1989) and the film was both a commercial success and critically acclaimed; he earned the Oscar for Best Director for Traffic(2000); and then created the immensely popular The Ocean’s Franchise starting with The Ocean’s Eleven (2001). It is also heartening trend to note that such a stalwart director should make movies for streaming platforms. Kimiis produced by New Line Cinema, Warner Bros Pictures.

 

The story of Kimiis grounded entirely on the female protagonist Angela Childs, played brilliantly by Zoe Kravitz, whose agoraphobia gets aggravated by a previous assault (not shown in the movie), the pandemic and lockdowns, her continuous work-from-home as a tech executive with only her laptop, mobile and other gadgets for company. She panics and shudders at the idea of going out of home; she works on her gadgets, particularly ordering the Kimi for every action, the smart digital assistant like that of Siri in Apple and Alexa in Amazon; she does workouts, picks her ailing teeth daily and gazes often out of the window taking in the movements of persons inside various surrounding apartments; she talks to her mother or co-workers virtually; and invites her boyfriend cum neighbor Terry (Byron Bowers) for an occasional fling. She violently resists any request from anyone asking her to visit them, let it be her dentist or colleagues. Her lonely existence goes on till something happens that forced her to come out of home.

 

The first scene of the movie shows the CEO (Bradley Hasling, played by Derek DelGaudio) of a tech corporation called Amygdala, interviewed by a TV channel for his forthcoming IPO. He explains the smart speaker device of Kimi that works on voice commands and involves human monitoring of the incoming data streams from Kimi users. The CEO says that the device is working very well among the users and that he expects millions from the initial IPO issue.

 

Angela Childs works for Amygdala and monitors all the incoming streams from users taking further measures whenever necessary to improve the experience. One day she picks up a stream where loud music is playing, but in-between she hears a women’s screams. She starts editing the stream, minimizing the music and concentrating on the voices. Getting convinced that that stream could possibly involve a violent sexual crime against the woman she talks to a co-worker and wants him to give her the full streams of that user. The co-worker gives her an admin code with which she could enter the data zone of Amygdala and get what she wanted.

 

Angela succeeds in getting all the Kimi recordings and the final video stream, and is horrified to find a murder of the user woman being committed. Shaking all over she speaks to her boss, the CEO, for necessary action. He tries to evade and refers her to a senior Amygdala executive Natalie Chowdhury (played by Rita Wilson). After Angela’s several attempts to reach her, finally Natalie calls her and convinces her to come over to her office, further assuring her that her disclosure would be done in the presence of an FBI officer. So, Angela moves out of home at last and what happens afterwards is a sequence of events leading to a shattering climax.

 

Zoe Kravitz portrays the character of Angela Childs as effectively as Soderbergh visualizes. She behaves weird and shouts often indoor; shakes all over violently in sudden panic; is extremely fastidious like taking out the pillow covers and bedsheet in the very presence of her boyfriend Terry after the act was done; and while outdoor she is masked up and covered from head to foot, walks with her head lowered, stops suddenly in corners, walks like in dazed huddle. However, the string of terrifying happenings awakens her energy and she fights for survival gallantly. Soderbergh did not make any special attempt to keep the suspense element sacrosanct, because during the very beginning of the film he reveals a vital clue for the viewers to remember.

 

The storytelling or the antics of the protagonist is entirely convincing and realistic. As is often observed by critics, suspense/mystery thrillers with a female protagonist are always convincing as to her acts or heroics while a male protagonist is always led to do the heroics of a different level, making us wonder at his superhero abilities. Steven Soderbergh, always committed to avant-garde arthouse approach despite his typically Hollywood subjects, delivers his punches everywhere in this pacey thriller, from the lingering camera work that captures his tacky character in the rather spacious apartment to the outdoor scenes where the hand-held camera just freaks out.

 

In all, Kimi is immensely watchable and enjoyable. It also satirically brings out the increasing dependence of modern humans on gadgets, devices and various digital platforms. All the keys-tapping, searching, surveillance and tracking which have been an inseparable part of almost all Hollywood films for quite a while now, are also here in this film; but with a kind of emphasis that can be safely called a warning.

OTT Platform Watch: Movie ‘Bell Bottom’ Disappoints, Series ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’ Well Made, And More!

 

I have been a movie buff since my childhood days, also so passionate about it that I wanted to be a filmmaker and did indeed try in that direction to some extent, still nurturing that ambition. And I always enjoyed the movies on the big screens including those silver screens of the traditional single-screen cinema halls of yore that fitted ideally the 35mm film format and whenever the occasional 70mm films came the frames used to spill over to the sides. I find this very tragic, of course no match to the horrors and sufferings of people due to the pandemic, that for over 18 months now I’ve been deprived of the normal cinema theatre visits and really missing the action. The OTT (Over the Top) streaming platforms thus have become the only alternative, for people like me who puts the entire focus on COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and safety. Therefore, I’ve been watching a lot on such a platform since the first lockdown—always selecting the best of movies available and the most-talked about Series—but limited to only one platform as I don’t want to harm my ears with constant use of headphones. Quite a few of movies are of the golden era and most of the modern ones need no special mention. However, recently I had seen three modern movies and web series of which I’d like to talk about a bit. Latest Bollywood movie Bell Bottom (2021) is one of them which attracted me because of the name that was a craze in our college days, and that the movie was in the lines of effective Indian spy thrillers I enjoyed greatly in the last few years in the modern theatres.

 

The hero of the movie Akshay Kumar is one more attraction as he was cast in several successful thrillers made by filmmaker Neeraj Pandey like Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), Rustom (2016) and Naam Shabana (2017). Of course, this movie Bell Bottom is not one of his, but as I said the format seemed to be exciting. Watching the movie I was disappointed in the overall sense: it had an explosive plot that got terribly affected by an inept script. The basic theme of the film, a hijack drama of an Indian Airlines plane (based on a true event during the last term of the then Prime Minister of India, late Indira Gandhi.), got impaired unnecessarily by the prolonged flashbacks, and finally when the plot seemed to be picking up there was not enough time to bring it to a worthy climax. Although the film has similarities with another successful hijack thriller, Zameen (2003) directed by Rohit Shetty, its ultimate climax turned out to be very simplistic and sort of rushed through.

 

The film no doubt has its high octane moments with the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent, played by Akshay Kumar whose code name is Bell Bottom, going through the investigations and raids on the terrorists’ dens. His RAW boss, well played by Adil Hussain, is but a pale shadow of the intelligence boss in Baby played by Danny Denzongpa who almost lived through the supercharged drama and action. The characters of the hijackers were also not given sufficient attention with all of them failing to scare the viewers like they did in movies like Baby and Neerja (2016), the latter being very ably directed by Ram Madhvani. The Pakistan intelligence counterpart was also shown half-heartedly. The last twist involving Akshay’s wife, played by Vaani Kapoor, sharing a secret with the RAW boss was only superficial. Some critics are also pointing toward factual errors, but those can be overlooked as ultimately this is a work of fiction. Therefore, the movie Bell Bottomdirected by Ranjit Tiwari, though handled well to some extent, fails to be as engrossing and gripping like those movies of the same genre mentioned here.

 

A surprise was in store when the new OTT web series Mumbai Diaries 26/11, made by known filmmaker Nikhil Advani, became available on air. Having lived through every agonizing moment of that horrific Mumbai Terror Attack on 26^th November 2008 through my work in the media, anything about that attack always caught my attention. However, all of the films made on the attack so far were lame attempts, failing to do justice to the terror unleashed. So I started watching the 9-episode Mumbai Diaries 26/11immediately, and to my great surprise found it very engrossing and doing full justice to the genuine scare still felt by both victims and general people, for the first time. Although it is made from the medical point of view, narrating the story of a Mumbai hospital that finally came under the terror attack, almost all of the horrific moments of the actual three-day reign of fear are being ably captured and presented. Aided by a powerful script the characters, including most prominently the doctors and staff of the hospital, are portrayed with excellent ease and brilliant performances by all actors.

 

The web series also pointed out the much-discussed ‘media involvement’ that was giving constant leads to the Pakistan control room of terror who thus guided the terrorists in action in Mumbai, and the tragedy unleashed by an overzealous news reporter in this work of fiction was shown with honesty and efficiency. If the chronology of the actual series of events was not followed to details, this was never felt while watching, and again, finally it being a work of fiction such complaining is not necessary. More positively, the Series does not indulge in any gory violence or the glorification thereof and explicit sexuality that have been the hallmark of almost all OTT Web Series streamed in India. In all, the Mumbai Diaries 26/11 is thoroughly watchable for all types of viewers of any age who want to feel the reality of the dastardly terror attack again.

 

Finally, a Hollywood movie Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), directed by Taylor Sheridan. With Angelina Jolie in the lead and an interesting storyline of smoke-jumpers for forest fires I watched the movie as soon as it was streamed on my subscribed OTT platform. To my surprise again, I enjoyed it thoroughly, finding not a single slack moment in this slick thriller. What I found refreshing is that the film followed the thriller-genre of the nineties religiously and to exactitude with an immaculately tight script. Of late, most of the Hollywood movies have been devoted to the super visual effects treatment—either showing all-destroying monsters or catastrophe or unimaginable sci-fi stories mostly covering the outer world and the universe. It kind of vindicated my wish, nourished for long years, that Hollywood should come back to basic human dramas which are always acceptable the world over. All the people with a mind-set of this ordinary mortal should, therefore, not miss watching Those Who Wish Me Dead at any cost. Those who can visit the theatres in full safety are the luckiest. (All photos: wikipedia.org)

Welcome President Biden! Long Live Democracy!

Joseph R Biden or popularly known as Joe Biden, the 46^th President of the United States of America, was sworn in a modest inauguration event on the 20^th of January 2021 held in the premises of Capitol Hill which was invaded by Trump supporterstwo weeks back. At 78, he is the oldest ever President of the country to be sworn in: however, his arrival at this juncture is seen by many as momentous and much-needed in view of the aftermath of Trumpism.

 

Not surprisingly, considering the bitterly divided American society, President Biden pleaded for national unity and the end of the uncivil war with the slogan ‘shun division, embrace unity’. He explained that ‘unity’ is required in view of the paramount need, which he termed as ‘a desperate call for survival coming from the planet earth itself’, of countering the challenges of rising political extremism, white supremacy racism, domestic terrorism and the pandemic that caused more damage in one year than the whole of the World War-2 did to America. He declared that he was the President for all Americans including those who did not or still do not support him. The President said, ‘democracy is precious, democracy is fragile’, but went on optimistically by saying that ‘today is democracy’s day’ and that ‘democracy has prevailed’. There was much to heal and more to build, he pleaded.

 

The event was not attended by the outgoing President Donald Trump as announced by him a few days back, he became only the fourth President to do so in USA’s presidential history, and the first to do so in last more than one hundred and fifty years. However, Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence attended the ceremony, and significantly was not around when Trump delivered his farewell speech at an airbase before taking Airforce-1- to fly home to Florida. Trump has also earned the unique distinction of becoming the first ever US President to get impeached twice in the US House. With the Democrats establishing their presence in the Senate their next moves in permanently depriving Trump of all post-presidential privileges would be keenly observed.

 

Earlier, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the Vice President of USA, becoming the first ever woman VP, the first ever black person to rise to this post and the first ever person of Asiatic (Indian) origins to assume this privileged office of the country. People of her original village in Tamil Nadu, India celebrated this huge occasion by prayers in the temples and distributing sweets in large gatherings. However, Kamala Harris being a liberal democrat is unlikely to take her India-origins seriously and mix with the people as well as with some of the most aggressively Hindu nationalist governments of the country. More good news comes in the wake of Kamala Harris’s rise, in terms of appointing more than 20 Indian-Americans in Biden Administration out of which 17 are in key positions. In fact, Biden had already strengthened his COVID-19 team with quite a few Indian-Americans who had the expertise, and his call of ‘set aside politics, fight the pandemic’ augurs well for future of a country where around four hundred thousand people have lost their lives so far due to the Coronavirus infections.

 

President Joe Biden’s mission at the moment is clearly to end the legacy of Trump as soon as possible, and as he said in his speech, to start engaging with the world for peace and democracy. To lead by examples the President got into action on the very first day of his office. He signed around 15 executive orders reversing some of the crucial foreign policies and national security decisions taken by his predecessor Trump. These orders include, significantly, America rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change, revoking the country’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization, making wearing of masks mandatory and rescinding a travel ban imposed on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries.

 

The President of the Democrats, basically the cynosure of all democracy-spirited people of the globe, had said in his inauguration speech, ‘Together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear, of unity, not division, of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing and goodness’. We hope Joe Biden succeeds in his mission of making democracy secure and permanent in his country as well as on planet earth. We also hope that this American story would inspire many in several major countries of the globe where democracy has been coming under serious and ever-increasing threat. 

Indian Farmers’ Crisis: Bharat Bandh Tomorrow!

It is extremely ironical that the only Indian sector largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic should get embroiled in a seemingly endless crisis. The Farmers’ agitation, some people detest calling it that, has entered the 12^th day with the farmers still camping in the Delhi-Haryana border, braving the unusually cold winter this time and blocking most of the highways leading to the capital. Three rounds of talks with the Government of India have failed to yield solutions that the farmers wanted, and the fourth round of talks has been scheduled on December 9. With the Union Agriculture minister still adhering to the government line of argument that the reforms as promised by the Farm Laws would be beneficial for the farmers in the long run, the distressed and tired farmers want a repeal of the laws, and demand an answer of ‘yes or no’ to that. Therefore, despite the government’s promise of presenting a set of concrete proposals on the 9^ththe farmers are going ahead with their plan of observing a Bharat Bandh in protest tomorrow, the 8^th of December 2020.

 

Nobody would deny the fact that reforms are urgently needed in the agricultural sector with the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC) becoming obsolete and a growing burden for both the farmers and the government, and the continuing exploitation of the farmers by the APMC-centric middlemen and of course, the money lenders nobody is talking about whom, but it has been a fact of life that the stranglehold of the moneylenders drives scores of small and marginal farmers to suicides every year.

 

Except for the states of Punjab and Haryana the APMCs do not play a significant role in many other states where the state governments had either dismantled these or allowed the farmers the option to sell to the private traders too. So, it is not surprising that only 6% of Indian farmers actually sell through the APMCs or that only 25% of the total farming transactions are done in APMCs. Further, the system of Minimum Support Price (MSP) is applicable to only 23 commodities, and this system is largely responsible for overproduction in food grains leading to tremendous wastage in the warehouses, and also it cannot stop the mechanism of distress selling by farmers during hard times. Most of the states had already delinked the sale of vegetables and fruits from the APMC mandis long back.

 

So yes. Reforms are indeed needed. The earlier governments also wanted to either change or abolish the APMCs. But the almost covert, majority-based and rushed way the government of India pushed the Farm Laws and passed these in Parliament could hardly be justified, and in fact, this high-handedness had led to the creation of fears, uncertainty and unrest in the farmers across the country. In terms of policies and reforms the Indian agricultural sector, still the bane of the economy, has a legacy since the pre-independence period, and therefore, to have an ideal system of farming with easy and profitable market access to the cultivators free of the sucking middlemen and the traps of the money lenders, a chain of storage facilities, appropriate mechanism to encourage commercial crops and so on, one needs a long process of deliberations, brainstorming, constitution of panel of experts, submission of reports etc. taking all political parties and all stakeholders on board.

 

So, it seems that the rushing through of the laws at this pandemic times was just a means to help out the corporates to generate more funds/business for them in the still-prospering agriculture sector which in turn can help the government garner more revenues. And, instead of a well-thought-out process of deliberations directly bringing in the corporates to deal in agricultural produce is bound to create apprehension and doubts, genuine or unfounded.

 

It has become a catch-22 situation as the impatient farmers cannot possibly agree for nothing less than the scrapping of the laws and the government too cannot possibly agree to a repeal since the laws were pushed through so urgently. However, we can only hope that good practical sense would prevail over the rulers to consider at least a stay on the implementation so that a proper mechanism sets in to carry out the much-needed reforms.  They should also desist from making allegations of vested interests or even terrorists joining the farmers’ bandwagon to give a bad name to the agitation, as has been their wont in recent years.

The farmers who are the annadatas (food providers) for all of us should not be allowed to suffer like this, and if they are made desperate only our country and economy would suffer even more. It is extremely critical to have all the farmers on board, rich or small or marginal, with meaningful laws suited to their issues, problems and concerns. All experts/intellectuals/politicians should shed their ideological bias and prejudice, and help the government resolve the crisis in overwhelming favour of our farmers.

India Vs Australia: Cricket New Normal, COVID Stress, Pink Ball And Expectations!

 

Photo: rediff.com

India started their tour of Australia in 2018-19 too from November 2018 to January 2019, and created history by becoming first Asian cricket team to beat Australia in a Test Series in Australia. They also became only the second team of the world to beat Australia in Australia in both the formats of ODI and Test. The first test of that series too started in Adelaide in December and in that cracker of a match India won by 31 runs, one of their slenderest of victory margins. Australia won the second test in Perth by 146 runs, and India sealed the series 2-1 by winning the third test in Melbourne by 137 runs with the last match ending in a draw in Sydney. Then they went on to win the ODI Series 2-1 too. Under Australia’s split captaincy regime for different formats Aussie wicket keeper Tim Paine was the captain in the Test series and Aaron Finch captained the Aussies in the ODI and T201 formats, and they met Virat Kohli as the all-format Indian skipper. The rivalry remains the same this time, only with the exception that Virat Kohli is going to go home on paternity leave after the Adelaide test. But India have the advantage of the previous triumph behind them.

 

The major difference this time is obviously the pandemic cricket new normal with empty stadiums and a strict regime of bio-bubble which means that all members of the teams will have to stay put in their hotel rooms except for the designated bus trips to the stadiums for practice sessions or matches, no mixing allowed with anyone, no group meetings and players cannot even dine with their team mates. Now, this means that the Indian players have been continuously under bio-bubble since the IPL-2020 in September after which they were airlifted to Australia the next day after the Final was played on November 10 in which Mumbai Indians became Champions easily defeating Delhi Capitals, to be put under a mandatory 14-day quarantine in Sydney and then to continue under bio-bubble till January 2021. Nearly five months of isolation is bound to affect the mental preparation of the visiting players. However, this factor is also applicable to the Australian players most of whom were also in the IPL-2020, of course, with the exception of having a brief but precious exposure to their home environs. Besides, there will be players for both sides who have joined afresh.

 

In the Adelaide Test of 2018 Cricket Australia had proposed the day/night pink ball match, but the BCCI rejected the idea due to lack of preparation at that juncture, and then the latter organized the first ever pink-ball day/night Test in November 2019 in India, in Kolkata against the visiting Bangladesh side. This time in Australia, the first Test in Adelaide is set to be a pink-ball affair from the 17^th of December. All the factors, swing or no-swing or reverse-swing or the ‘twilight behavior’, will be in full display one more time. With the COVID-19 situation in Australia easing off nicely at the moment the earlier uncertainties about this match are more or less set at rest.

 

The main architects of India’s maiden series victory in Australia in 2018-19 among others were the Indian pacer-trio: Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami, with bits of spinner Ashwin, and the towering batting performance of Cheteshwar Pujara who amassed 550 runs in the four test matches. Uncertainty of Ishant’s fitness continues, but still India have the likes of Bumrah, Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj to that of Australia’s Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazelwood, Cameron Green and so on. Ashwin would most probably figure in the final eleven. Cheteshwar Pujara is also there and his form will be of crucial importance. Uncertainty about the fitness of wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha who created a storm as an opener in IPL-2020 and then unfortunately got injured also continues. 

 

Injured Rohit Sharma has been included in the Test squad and his presence will be significant in the absence of Virat Kohli for the remaining three Tests. Ajinkya Rahane, with proven captaincy records, will be captaining the Indian team from the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Previous statistics also do not support the fears that in the absence of Kohli India perform dismally. No doubt, his absence is set to be a huge psychological advantage for the Aussies who would dearly want a sweet revenge for the loss in 2018-19. India’s tremendous depth in batting has been acknowledged internationally, and with the added advantage of world-class pacers, apart from the classic spinners, India is a formidable side to any opponent. Australians know this well, and therefore, they have been rather cautious so far, not indulging in their usual mind games prior to the contest.

Two of the traditional archrivals of world cricket will unfold the show with the first ODI to be played in Sydney on 27^th November, the next also there on 29^thand the third and final ODI in Canberra on 2^nd December. The three-match T20Is unfold from the 4^th of December. And then the 4-match Test Series. The day/night ODIs will start from 9.10 am Indian time; the night T20Is will begin from 1.40 pm Indian time; the day/night Test starts daily from 9.10 am while the three day-Tests start daily for 5 am Indian time. All the matches are to be telecast live by Sony Pictures on its TEN 1, TEN 3 and Sony Six channels. So then, the epicenters of the great expectations, cheers and support of the fans are to be their homes, exclusively this time. The anticipated excitement would definitely be able to neutralize some of the gloom generated by months of new normal times. Cheers!

Happy Green Diwali-2020!

Diwali, the biggest festival of India, is a festival of lights, and is traditionally celebrated by lighting rows of earthen lamps or diyas, candles and strip electric lights, in and around homes and buildings. People can celebrate and enjoy in this way even during the worst crisis ever faced by humankind as there are no restrictions on burning oil or electric lamps. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to us to light up diyas just before Lockdown was enforced in March. Lighting up your houses essentially means driving away evil spirits and forces, and hoping for a bright year ahead. Celebrating Diwali this way does not in any way rob you of enjoyment.

 

Besides, if you’d like to have sweets and distribute those to your neighbors there are no issues either. Sweet shops are open across the country you can even walk down to and buy to your heart’s desire. Various state governments have also announced measures to ensure undiluted sweets for your good health. Then, if you want to buy new clothes there is still no problem. Retail cloth stores, malls and online stores are open across the country and you can buy without taking any risk in terms of wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.

 

You can also enjoy company online and through video chats/conferences with your dear friends and relatives, and help yourselves by not inviting lots of them to your home. You must check your impulses to go to large gatherings, and instead, enjoy quality times at your homes with your families for whom you always care. You must understand that after long six months the pandemic situation is coming under control, and you should never give away the advantage by your impulsive indiscretion.

 

And, why at all do you want to burst firecrackers and fireworks? Under normal circumstances bursting of firecrackers and having bouts of fireworks greatly impact pollution, adversely affect the elderly population, particularly with asthma or lung or hearing issues and tremendously harm the street humans and animals. We heartily welcome the preventive measures adopted by the state governments of Rajasthan, West Bengal and Delhi with more states joining in the campaign to have a Diwali totally free of firecrackers and fireworks.

 

This a festival of lights and not of politics or of a particular religion. Therefore, politicking of any kind in banning fireworks must be avoided by the states. In West Bengal, the High Court had taken the initiative in banning crackers as it had declared all Durga Puja pandals as no-entry zones earlier which most probably prevented an explosion of infections in the state. The state of Karnataka first went for the ban, but then, perhaps political considerations taking over, allowed two-hours of fireworks which is not at all advisable.

 

The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has been consistently appealing to people to have a green Diwali while the municipal authorities in Mumbai decided to only partially implement a ban by allowing firecrackers of the milder variety and green crackers that are almost smokeless, but such measures cannot ensure full compliance. In Maharashtra Diwali is a five-day event starting today, and therefore preventive measures assume utmost importance here. Most preferably, all states must go for the total ban irrespective of any consideration. People can have a resonant Diwali next year if they comply with the restrictions this year.

 

The NGT (National Green Tribunal) has done the right thing by imposing a total ban in Delhi NCR region till 30^th November 2020, and by ordering all cities to enforce similar bans if the pollution indexes in those are above the moderate levels. Here too, the state governments must cooperate in taking suitable decisions, seriously taking local pollution levels into active consideration and observation. However, a total country-wide ban of firecrackers would be the most needed step at the moment. Under Epidemic Disease Act states are empowered to impose such bans. 

 

Wish you all a great and fulfilling Happy Green Diwali-2020! 

Another Student Commits Suicide: Digital Education Still A Mirage!

 

Online education had been hailed as an integral part of the new normal after the COVID-19 pandemic hit India and lockdowns were imposed from 25^th March 2020 onwards. Schools and colleges were closed since late February, and after more than 8 months the much-touted online education is still not affordable for students of the poorer sections. The dream of Digital India had been sold years before with tremendous emphasis on smartphones and connectivity, even in the rural belt. And yet, one more bright student in a college in India’s capital commits suicide due to lack of a mere laptop or a proper smartphone with good internet connection. Earlier, incidents of students’ suicides were reported regularly from various states including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam.

 

Her name is Aishwarya Reddy, a topper in 12^th standard exam from the state of Telangana. This bright ambitious student got admitted in the prestigious Lady Shri Ram College of Delhi last year, as a B.Sc. Mathematics student. In February this year she came back to her home in Telangana as colleges were closed. Online classes were started after a few months by her college, and she found it increasingly difficult to attend and learn from these on her ordinary mobile phone and poor internet connection. She asked her father for a laptop, no problem even if it is a second-hand one. Her struggling father could not get it on time, and a part of India’s bright future committed suicide on November 2, leaving behind a suicide note saying that she did not want to burden her family further amid the pandemic-induced financial crisis.    

 

Her father has been a motorcycle mechanic who established his own repair shop only in March, and had to close it down after lockdown was clamped. To raise the money for his daughter’s higher education he mortgaged his house for Rs. 2,00,000, and was able to get her admitted in the Delhi college last year. Like millions of other workers and migrants he too got severely hit by the lockdown, as sources of income dried up completely. Although he opened his shop again recently, he had been struggling with his heavy compounded debt. Therefore, he was unable to get even a second-hand laptop for his daughter. And he lost her and the family’s hope, forever.

 

What about her college in the capital itself? Well, the Principal denied any knowledge of the student’s condition, and said further that the student never approached college authorities or teachers about her problems. Such claims are highly contestable, because when you do online classes with your students you have to accommodate all your registered students, and if some are missing in the classes you have to find out the reasons why. Besides, other sources in the college disclosed that she did indeed contact the college authorities with her issues, and nothing was done in the months that followed.

 

Aishwarya’s father also stated that she was selected for the INSPIRE scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Technology in the first quarter of the year, but the scholarship money never reached her. Why the delay happened is another contentious issue involving the college administration and the related Ministries including the HRD. If only a part of the scholarship money reached her even a few days back a precious life could have been saved.

 

A tremendous irony for a country that has been boasting of a Digital India since years, declared a new education policy and has been talking of self-reliance since the pandemic invaded the country. The Government of India has been continuously saying that the pandemic is indeed a great opportunity for momentous and permanent tasks and measures to strengthen our economy, but if you cannot provide for your students, the future of your country, then what opportunity are you talking about! Months back, this writer pointed out in social media that the greatest opportunity to take from the pandemic is to ensure a Digital India, giving away free smartphones/laptops to the needy students and making online education available and affordable for all rural and urban students.

 

But alas! Even after eight months of crisis the logistics are still not clear for the government. In the name of stimulus packages, they only provided free rations, but not the crucial financial assistance that millions were desperate to get. Do we need another pandemic and scores of more suicides to finally realize the priorities?

                                                                                                                            (Courtesy: NDTV Report)