That's all, Your Honour! : July 31 - Aug.6

1. Phew - finally some closure to the "nataka" in Karnataka (pleas to excuse me folks, for repeating that phrase many times ... just that I like it a lot :D). B.S.Yedyurappa resigned as the Chief Minister of Karnataka. However, a consensus eluded the legislators on who the next leader should be. After 2 days of failed consultation, the top brass of BJP decided to go for a secret ballot. Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh oversaw this secret ballot. 65 MLAs voted in favour of Sadananda Gowda and 51 voted in favour of Jagdish Shettar. This secret ballot is not just significant for the polity in Karnataka alone. This should be a curtain raiser for many such democratic options. Party Presidents can be elected through secret ballots. Legislature party leaders should be elected by secret ballot (instead of the banal "Madam will decide"). It is sincerely hoped that this system of secret ballot envisaged and executed by the BJP doesn't become an exception but becomes a rule. The drawback though is that the internal bickering amongst party MLAs will be bought out in the open, but that should not be a hindrance to usher in such a reform. Coming back to Karnataka, Jagdish Shettar's group is disappointed that they lost and have even boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of Sadanand Gowda. Sadanand Gowda has a herculean task ahead and here's wishing him all the very best :)

2. The Congress party announced this week that Sonia Gandhi has taken ill, and has left to another country for a surgery that is required. She appointed a four-member committee to run the day-to-day party affairs. Rahul Gandhi, A.K.Anthony, Ahmed Patel and Janardhan Dwivedi are the members of this committee. As usual, some english TV media folks started hyping up Rahul Gandhi, saying that now he is "incharge"; CNN-IBN had a slide show to talk about "Rahul's rise in politics" beside the news item of Sonia Gandhi's illness. Anyways, a few hours after the announcement by Congress, Tehelka reported that Sonia Gandhi was admitted in the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer hospital. No confirmations though. Then again there endless speculations going on about the nature of her illness. This brings us to another important point - how can the most powerful person in this country be so secretive about this? We are not asking for hourly updates on her health status, but given her prominence in matters that affect governance, shouldn't the people of this country get to know more? When did she leave? Where is she now? When is she expected to recuperate? Even basic details were missing from initial statements.

3. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India released the report on the CWG scam and severly indicted the Delhi government led by Sheila Dixit, the PMO and the central government. Not surprisingly, the english TV media and the Congress party came to the rescue of Sheila Dixit. Apparently, according to Congress, this is not a case of corruption, only a case of mis-management. NDTV group editor, who wrote an article about why Yedyyurappa should go (and she quoted Gita in that too!) was silent on this. IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai sermons that we should stop pronouncing politicians guilty. Where was this diligence while debating previous scams endlessly? It is common knowledge that Suresh Kalmadi is not the lone culprit. The budget for CWG was increased manifold by the central government - most of the times citing delays in the projects. Nobody wants to discuss why there were delays in the execution of the projects. Nobody wants to discuss why shoddy deals and contracts were signed by the government. All we wanted to see what Suresh Kalmadi in jail, and that's about it!

4. Monsoon session of Parliament began this week. The first two days were drowned in din, and no business was transacted in either the Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha. However, once the government relented to discuss price rise under a voting rule, normalcy was restored. Parliament discussed Price Rise (as always this was blamed on global factors), Security scenario and Telangana issues prominently. There were no surprises in the debates - known positions only. Question hour and Zero hour also happened without interruptions (one should have listened to answers by Railway minister to pointed questions -"this is a democracy, things will take time" etc!). It is recommended to the readers that you watch these proceedings if you get a chance :) - www.loksabha.nic.in and www.rajyasabha.nic.in

5. Finally, the news of the week! A thousand tonne ship, M.V.Pavit, drifted in the high seas, and ran aground at Juhu beach in Mumbai. The best part - no one knew about this! This ship was not detected, not seen by any security agency. Only after morning joggers reported, did we come to know. So much for talking about improving coastal security ! That's all, your honour!

Dear Suhel Seth ...

First, Who is this Suhel Seth? He is a guy who has an opinion on almost anything and everything, and emotively expresses his opinions thus making them more dramatic than ever needed. Infact, this wikipedia link about him says it well - "...more widely known as the all-purpose TV talking head, newspaper columnist".

Why this blog? So, yesterday there was Bharat Bandh. This Bandh was called by all opposition parties to protest price rise in general and the recent fuel price hike in specific. English media, as usual, were not happy with the concept of Bandh. There were some violent incidents in parts of the country. Violence is no doubt condemnable, and if the state governments have the guts, they need to arrest those who resorted to it, and then reclaim the damages. No second thoughts about that.

However, the problem with intellectuals like Suhel Seth is that they were all over the TV last night (one such program is here) going ballistic about "Why doesn't the opposition debate these issues in Parliament?". "Why doesn't the opposition have a civilised debate?". Now, this all pervasive Suhel Seth, in his quest for dramatics, has been very oblivious to the debates and multiple questions that have happened in Parliament on this very issue.

First, a quick search of the keyword "Price Rise" has given 12 results on the Lok Sabha Page. 12 debates in the last 1 year, which is a very good record. As recently as February 25, there was a full day debate in Lok Sabha on Price rise (though this debate is tagged under Price Hike!).

Fellow tweeter, Sudhir Kudva, has painstakenly listed the various questions posed by opposition members on this issue. Will append that list to this blog. Therefore, Dear Suhel Seth and the likes, while we understand your distress as a citizen about loss of public property, it is reprehensible beyond compare that you conveniently ignore the suggestions/criticisms mounted in a civilsed manner by the Opposition parties. And don't change the topic to the violence now - that is condemnable and there is no argument there. The argument is all about the unfounded criticism of the lack of debates in the Parliament. Ok, bye Suhel!

Questions on Price Rise (kudos to the excellent effort by Sudhir Kudva):

http://bit.ly/c1ALOH Question raised by BJP MP - Bijapur Karnataka
http://bit.ly/dnL50G Question raised by Dhananjay Singh BSP MP Jaunpur UP 30-04-2010
http://bit.ly/cxcMv4 Question by Shri WAKCHAURE BHAUSAHEB RAJARAM Shiv Sena MP from Shirdi Maharashtra
http://bit.ly/d1G8AY Question by Asauddin Owaisi MIM MP from Hyderabad
http://bit.ly/bT4OCh Question by Dr. MM Joshi BJP MP from Varanasi UP
http://bit.ly/dDdDFu Dr. Mahendrasinh Chauhan BJP MP from Sabarkanta Guj
http://bit.ly/bL5YuE Question by Shri Sonawane Pratap Narayanrao BJP MP Dhule Maharashtra
http://bit.ly/bNohQJ N Cheluvaraya Swamy JDS MP from Mandya Karnataka
http://bit.ly/as9yFL Question by Shri Rudra Madhab Ray BJD MP from Kandhamal Orissa
http://bit.ly/aofndU Question by Harsimrat Kaur Badal Akali Dal MP from Bhatinda Punjab
http://bit.ly/bDgyrW Question by Dr. MM Joshi BJP MP Varanasi UP
http://bit.ly/bwjThQ Question by Shri Syed Shahnawaz Hussain BJP MP from Bhagalpur Bihar
http://bit.ly/apOJeu Question by S. Pakkirappa BJP MP Raichur Karnataka
http://bit.ly/cK0hos Question by Shri SANJAY SINGH CHAUHAN RLD MP from Muzaffar Nagar UP
http://bit.ly/cX0Stk Question by Ravindra Kumar Pandey BJP MP Giridh Jharkhand
http://bit.ly/9PzrUH Question by Smt. P. JAYA PRADA NAHATA SP MP from Rampur UP
http://bit.ly/aH2oJh Question by Tathagatha Satapathy BJD MP Dhenkanal Orissa
http://bit.ly/azatxb Question by Nishikant Dubey BJP MP Godda Jharkhand
http://bit.ly/aBfgj1 Question by radha mohan singh BJP MP from Purvi Champaran Bihar
http://bit.ly/c1vTc4 Question by Nishikant Dubey BJP MP Godda Jharkhand
http://bit.ly/dj91dY Question by Kirti Jha Azad BJP MP Dharbhanga Bihar

Trysts with MSM - Part 5

MSM stands for Main Stream Media :)

Bhupendra Chaubey, Chief of National Bureau of CNN-IBN and I had a discussion (which was not carried to its logical conclusion though).

He starts with these:

Opposition walks out of Parliament without voting on the finance bill, Historic as they had walked out during the budget speech as well

Opposition says this government is against the common man, Dont think Sushma Swaraj has quite understood the new Indian middle class

Sindoor, Mangalsootra and Saari with a sharp tongue was good when it first made a mark, Not anymore

I ask him back these:

since it looks like you understood the Indian middle class... can u enlighten us more on their needs?

u don't cover a bit on how well the entire opposition participated in the debate,but go gaga over the walk out. Explain pls?

He replies back:

Walkouts is a parliamentarian tool available to opposition to lodge protest.

I continue with my questions:

huh? how does that answer my question? Why was Parl not covered when substantial debates took place?

also, is it fair to expect that BJP talks about education and employment during a discussion on Finance Bill?

NDA introduced SSA and Golden Quadrilateral ( edu and infrastructure).

He replies:

Talk about everything, I was just giving a few examples. But this is negative politics, hence my objections

My questions continue :)

Don't you think it is worth commending that the entire opposition took part in the debate for 2 days?

Isn't that worth reporting? Isn't that what actually matters? Walk outs matter, or debates matter?

my point is that the opposition debated on finance bill. Isn't that worth commending and reporting?Isnt that +ve

As usual, one line reply from him :D

Then vote on it as well na

And it concludes with my two points ( because I guess he had to leave at this point of time)

ok, but let's harp on the good things that happened in LS too... how fair is it for you to ignore it?

if you report only walk out and talk about it as all negative, that is the wrong perception you are giving.

Basically, this discussion should be seen in the context of the letter I wrote to the President of the Editors Guild on the reporting pattern on Parliament. For two days, MP's from all parties debated extensively on the Finance bill, and not one channel found it fit to report that. NDTV found the news that Shashi Tharoor has unfollowed Lalit Modi on twitter worth reporting, but not the details of the debate that went on in Parliament! And today, we had the National Bureau Chief of CNN-IBN extremely "worried" about a mere walk-out when a substantial debate took place for a full two days. Talk about giving importance to form over content!