Sunday, January 31, 2010

That's all, your honour!:Jan.24-30

1. Your honour, take a look at the ad in this link. This was put up by the ministry of Women and Child Development. The blunder, ofcourse, is in having a picture of a former air force chief of Pakistan. Even the Prime Minister's Office had to apologise for this. No one was fired/fined/warned though, keeping in line with our tradition of never punishing the guilty. However, there is one another point I wanted to make. Couldn't the designing agency not find any more icons??? I mean, what guided the ad agency in arriving at these choices? Randomness also takes a beating here. But hey, according the hon.min. Krishna Tirath, it is the message that matters! Wake up, people. Stop being cynical.

2. Come Republic Day, the spectre of Padma awards comes along. A huge majority of them actually deserve those awards. The minority that don't deserve it really put us to shame. No denying that. But, your honour, our media talks as if all the awardees are not worthy of it, that the awards have lost their sheen and thay we need to throw away the basket because of one rotten mango (I know we should say apple, but i dont like that fruit!). Saif Ali Khan was given the Padma Shri this year along with Rekha. Isn't it plain outrageous that such a thing happened? A hotelier with a dubious record, Sant Chatwal was given Padma Bhushan because he helped "with the nuclear deal". Intergrity, hard work, eligibility be damned! Anyways, media - please focus on individuals. You'd do us all a huge favour. btw, here's a full list of Padma awardees this year.

3. Suddenly (though not unexpectedly), our media started asking how long will we not talk to Pakistan, etc. What was the trigger point? Believe it or not, the IPL "snub" of the Pakistani players. Suddenly we have Suhasini Haidar of CNN-IBN visiting Pakistan, interview a group of 8 youth from there, out of which only 2 spoke, and then run the headline "Voice of Pakistan". I don't deny the youth's argument (who said there are people in Pak who want peace with India), but the harsher reality is that we are not yet ready to talk to Pak! And then came the interview with the Pak PM by her! The interview was just laced with arrogance, diffidence and non chalant attitude by the PM. The Pak PM was trying to project to the world that their country is also a victim to terrorism on par with us and so we must be more accomadating. The point he conveinently missed, and our media did not ask, is that we are both victims of terrorism emanating from their soil! And when the PM says so, will their FM remain far behind. He gave an interview to Barkha Dutt, and called us "shy", told her that we lack "oomph" and concluded that we are confused with Pak policy. Dude, are we confused about Pak policy or is it you who have no clue how to handle the situation in your country?!

4. Ohh, a small update. The auction for 3G spectrum has been postponed. Again. Yes, yet again. That's all your honour!

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