WTF story of the day

The WTF (What The F**k) headline of the day is from Times of India ,

Rahul Gandhi joins austerity drive, travels by Shatabdi Express -Taking a lead from his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in practising austerity, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today travelled to Ludhiana in the chair car of Shatabdi Express. Rahul refused to accept flowers presented to him at the station, saying it was the privilege of the executive class passengers and also demanded that he be served water in a plastic cup like other passengers. Railway officials said that Rahul will be served 'paranthas,' curd, 'idli,' 'vada' and fruits. However, this menu was exclusively for him, the officials said, adding that any specific requests by Rahul will be gladly met. Rahul is going to the city to inaugurate a four-day camp of young Congressmen.

Now, now - I thought Shatabdi Express was up there amongst the Rajadhani as the PREMIUM Indian Train, completely Air Conditioned. How does travelling by Shatabdi become an austerity drive? Would have appreciated him travelling in 2nd class in the Delhi-Ludhiana Passenger in an unreserved compartment. Or does he think that the Ordinary Indian people all travel Air conditioned? And what is this thing about him being given a 'Special' menu exclusively made for him?

Anyway, What The F**k?

Father of Green Revolution in India

Not many know that India was fighting against insufficient foodgrain production in 1950s. The irrigation dams were being constructed, but the farmers were still following a monocrop policy that was rainfed. The productivity per acre was very low. The threat of famine loomed. We were dependent on US for feeding our people.

We always talk of the right man at the right place. For Indians, that person arrived on the scene by mid 1960s. The farmers did not have a clue as to how to exploit the benefits of better irrigation to improve agricultural production. In their midst walked in Dr.Norman Borlaug, an American, who had done considerable work in the famished Mexico amongst the peasants with considerable success. Was he the messaiah?

One of the problems the wheat farmers of North India was that the plants were long which meant it could not support the weight of the wheat at the head, leading to the plant slanting and finally falling off. The wastage due to this was phenomenal.

Norman did some out of the box thinking. He developed a wheat stain containing an unusual gene, leading to the creation of the 'semi-dwarf' variety of the plant. The shorter, more compact and durable plant was easily able to support the heavier weight of the grains without falling down. This innovative concept led to Indian wheat farmers improving the farm output four times over. The same concept was later extended to the rice farming.

This along with better irrigation, mechanization, modern farming methods heralded the Green Revolution in India. The rest, as they say, is history.

For once the Nobel Peace Prize judges were spot on when they elected him for the prestigious award in 1970.

The Nobel citation was ''More than any other person of this age, he helped provide bread for a hungry world. We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.''

Norman was active well into his 90s, training modern day agricultural scientists from the developing world, till his death a day ago.

The Father of Green Revolution is no more, but he leaves a legacy that is hard to beat.

Hypocracy - thy name is austerity

Much has been made of the Government's so called austerity drive that made S M Krishna and Sashi Tharoor vacate their 5-Star Hotel Suites, and asking Ministers to fly economy. This is nothing but a gimmick.

The non-plan expenditure has been spiralling out of control for decades now. Successive commissions have asked that the bloated bureaucracy be cut off its flab. The subsidy schemes and the social sector spending has been leaking with hardly any benefit for the beneficiary.

Despite the then FM's promise to reduce fiscal deficit 5 years ago, nothing has been done on this count, becuase the Government doesnt want to antagonize the vested interests. The much publicised National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is nothing but a means for local leaders to make money. It is a sham, but a sham that gets the votes for the Congress Party.

Congress Party, and for that matter all political parties in India, are spendthrifts and behave like feudal lords with utter contempt for the welfare of the common man. They believe in patronage, using public money. Otherwise, we would have had a world class Government Education, Healthcare and Agricultural system by now.

The current austerity drive is nothing but a self defeating hypocracy, that will hog the headlines for a few days with ministers reverting back to flying and living in style in a couple of weeks. Maybe, austerity can begin at home with Sonia, children and PM dispensing away with the Z-Class security which costs the nation a fortune.

Interesting Research Findings

Do you hate exercise? Do you prefer to laze about? Love chocolate? Do you swear and cuss? Do you get angry and show it? Great! You seem to be very healthy and will no doubt outlive all the polite, exercising, hardworking weight-watchers who never cuss or get angry, refuse chocolates and feel smugly superior. This is revealed by several recent studies. After years of painstaking research, meticulous Swedish researchers at the Stockholm Institute have found that lazy people live about 15 to 20 years longer than hard-working people with busy schedules. Hard work leads to an early death, they ruled, and should be strictly avoided.- What a relief!! So, all muscle men and brooding women, I shall be there at your funeral.

Even anger -- the declared enemy of the hypertensive -- is now a health aid. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University believe appropriate anger helps you to feel in control, which keeps blood pressure normal - I have been making a great effort to keep my anger in check of late. Now I am pleased I don't have to do it.

According to a new research by Danish scientists, fat thighs may signify a long and healthy life. After diligent thigh-watching and much analysis, scientists at the University Hospitals of Copenhagen and Glostrup have suggested that thinner thighs may imply early death, especially if your thighs are under 18 inches in circumference - Can there be a more wonderful news than this for Indian women (and of course the Indian men who ogle)?

I am eagerly awaiting the next set of research findings.

Till then.................................

Off couple of days

Due to certain personal preoccupations, there wont be any blogging for the next couple of days

Radio is back with a bang

I have a special fondness for Radio. The GenX people might scoff at this for they are brought up on a diet of Television commercials and serials.

This has nothing to do with nostalgia. I have found TV news to be contrived, more often the news is because of the visuals and not the other way around as it should be. Radio cannot afford that. Their news and other programming has to hold the listeners attention through sheer quality of the contents and delivery. I remember walking into the legendary AIR Calicut Station in 1985 to do a Yuvavani program. Everyone there had passed an audition test and spoke in voices that had command and dripping with honey depending on whether they were male or female. This gave an inferiority complex to a guy like me with a squeaky nasal voice.

The cricket commentary floating through SW 17 or 19 from Radio Australia or SW 31 or 25 through BBC World Service Test Match Special, the Wimbledon Commentary on BBC that took us through Bjorn Borgs epic final with McEnroe or the Football commentaries brought the game to our house and mind.

When I was in the primary school, we had a GEC valve radio kept on top of a wooden cup board. I used to drag a chair, climb on top of it to listen to the faint signals at 5.30 am in the morning. Nothing would induce me to move till the players broke for lunch of tea.

In retrospect, it is the hundreds of hours that I spent listening to the radio that enabled me to speak reasonably good english in the later stages of the life, for I never studied in a Convent and had my initial schooling in Malayalam medium. The Government Schools and Colleges never required you to speak in English in Kerala.

Much later in my life, while doing MBA, my Bush Transistor radio was my constant companion. I heard countless carnatic music concerts on it. The radio was the companion during the lonely hostel life away from home and the pocket radio during long journeys and of course during boring chemistry classes (we used to sit in the back bench listening to commentary in the class with the pocket radio glued to the ears and to think that I dont allow my students to even look at mobile phones during my classes these days makes me smile ruefully).

Then the radio vanished from my life for nearly 15 years, as I was caught up in the enthusiasm for the TV, like everyone else. The MW stations and SW stations were a thing of the past.

Then the radio reinvented itself in the FM format. Radio evolved into a beautiful chatty commercial medium, which is something television cannot do for commercial reasons, and I started enjoying the companionship it gave during long drives. The Radio chat shows gives amazing insight into various topics which the TV cannot. TV programs are superficial and lacks critical analysis. They dont make you think. But radio do. In India, the FM musical stations have become extremely popular and a boon for the rural population/truck/taxi drivers. With even the basic phones supporting FM reception, Radio is on the way back as the best medium to listen to music, news and other programs for people on the move.

Don't believe me? If you are in Kuwait, tune to 100.1 FM and listen to BBC in English for a week while you are driving. If you are not hooked to it by the end of the week, I will be quite surprised.

This and that

Tainted Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju was admitted to NIMS on Monday evening after he complained of chest pain - Isn't it strange that Ramalinga Raju who was hale and hearty playing badminton in the Jail till the other day should develop 'sudden chest pain' within a week of his mentor and the deceased Chief Minister YSR Reddy dying in a helicopter crash? Now, he will enjoy the luxury of a 5-star hospital (NIMS) for months. These things can happen only in India.

A flight scheduled to take off to Riyadh at 2 am, gets delayed and passengers are boarded at 4.30 am only to be disembarked due to a technical snag. Another wait of 6 hours and the replacement flight taxies at 10.30 am, only to stop in the runaway and passengers evacuated as the engine is on fire. The terrified passengers are brought back to the terminal and packed in a third aircraft at 4.30 pm, full 14 1/2 hours after the original flight should have taken off. It is a miracle that by then any of the passengers were brave enough to get into the aircraft. This is the airline that wants Rs 15,000 crores of tax payers money to bail it out. Why dont we just bury this Maharaja?