Nirvana

India U.S ties

I was watching the T.V yesterday as well as today morning. I feel very happy to see that the visit (to India) of Hillary Clinton, Secretary of States, United States of America is turning into a path breaking event. This is especially true for India’s relationship with USA. The surge in the relationship had started with the visit of President Bill Clinton in the year 2000 which was followed by the visit of President George Bush in the year 2006.

I sincerely hope that this visit to India by Hillary Clinton and the forthcoming visit by President Barack Obama, the current U.S President would change the way USA looks at India. It is high time that India is dehyphenated from the past cliché(s) and is seen as a sovereign nation with her own independent identity.                    

Sanjay at Nirvana

The French connection

Last week Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in France to attend the French National Day celebrations which falls on 14^th of July. I had a glimpse of the Bastille Day Military parade on T.V. which is part of the French National Day celebrations and where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was invited as the chief guest. It was a very impressive parade especially the precise parachute landing of the French military personal.

I was kind of happy seeing a "lady" in the parachute team when President Nicolas Sarkosy and Prime Minister Singh went to greet the parachute personal after they had landed in the middle of the parade ground.

It was good to see the Prime Minister of India in France as it was good to see President of France in India for our republic day parade earlier this year. I feel that France and India have not exploited their relationship to the fullest potential. There are many areas where the two countries can cooperate in a big manner.

Personally I am a fan of the French culture though I must admit that I don’t know much about it. I am attracted to the French language in some or the other way and of course the fashion shows from Paris on FTV has always remained my favourite. Then the biggest connection is July 14. I am kind of surprised and mysteriously allured to the fact that my birthday falls on the French National day.

Sanjay at Nirvana

The High courts and the Supreme court of India

I have admired the Higher courts of India very much. The higher courts in India include the High courts and the Supreme court of India. From last many years I have keenly observed various landmark judgements given by these courts on various issues of personal and national interest. They are seen as the final interpreters of the constitution of the land. The higher courts have enjoyed good public support for their landmark and path breaking judgements. In this context I would love to see their continuing active role in terms of upholding the rights of every citizen of the country. This includes the fundamental rights (which should be expanded further) and freedom to information and expression of thoughts.

 

Moreover there is an urgent need for the active role of the Higher courts of India for ushering in reforms in the area of Police, Bureaucracy, Law, Education and the constitution itself. We cannot go on living with a constitution that has been written 60 years back based on the laws and rules that has been written 200 years ago by the British to control and rule (by force) the Indian native population. It’s time for a complete overhauling of the constitution of India. A debate must start towards this end and the Higher courts of India should take the lead in this direction. This is necessary as much cannot be expected to get initiated or happen through the other pillar arms (because of vested interests) of the nation.   

 

Sanjay at Nirvana

The Candid admission by the President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari about the root cause of terrorism in his country

It was heartening to see Mr. Zardari accept the fact that (last week in one of the televised media events) the root cause of terrorism in his country could be traced back to the tactical blunder of the “State” in terms of encouraging terrorist outfits in the past against the Soviets and the Indians. America had a great role along with Pakistan in creating the monster called as “Terrorism” and it has sadly got back in kind (9/11 and more) for what it had sown in the past.

 

I hope Taliban would be neutralized completely and this is the War I would sincerely want Pakistan and America to Win. Best wishes to them.

 

Sanjay at Nirvana 

The relevance or irrelevance of the Western form of economic development

You can either love the West or hate it or you can do both at the same time. You have to accept the contributions of the Western world in terms of the technological and scientific revolution that they have ushered in. But then they had their opportunity and this opportunity was built on hundreds of years of exploitation of the rest of the world. They colonised ancient civilizations across the world, they diverted resources from these lands for their own growth and they made “slaves” of people from different places for running their industry and economy. This is their heritage that they cannot ignore nor deny.

 

Today they still consume most of the world’s available resources and they have slaves of different type for their industrial produce (most of them trash) and these slaves are the blind consumers from the rest of the world. The Western world went on selling and ultimately their selling frenzy reached to such a level that they started selling on loans. Welcome to the world of borrowed life. If we closely analyze we would know that the actual economy of the world is not even half of actually what it is shown to be. The rest is a myth created on loans and borrowings. There is nothing in actuality that exists. Every individual living in the modern world is living on loans of different hues and colours. Every corporation worth its name in this world survives on “push” sales. The “push” sales generate a mythical final figure which is “six times” of the actual demand in the market.

 

But I am happy that the events of the past few years including the human conflict over resources, environmental disasters and the recent financial meltdown has ultimately made the West to sit up and think about its economic model. Just last week we had the G-8 meet in Italy and leaders of the G-8 were kind of ashamed to attend this meet as they had no face to show to the world. They are no more the symbol of progress and development of the world.

 

Another defunct body is the UN. It’s a joke that the winners of the World War-II still control the decisions made on behalf of the rest of the world even after 60 years of the war. How long the winners of the war want to milk the world? Superpowers have ceased to exist. United States and the so called Western powers are on decline. We can see this by analyzing their influence on today’s world. The time is good for a new multilateral world order to emerge from this chaos. Maybe the world needs a parallel grouping similar to the UN if the so called “top 5” refuse to budge.           

 

Coming back to the central theme of this writing I sincerely hope that we can soon witness the dawn of a new era which is based on a new economic model which encourages sustainable economic development within the laws of nature. I believe that the West can contribute in a big way for this to happen as they have learned their lessons (hopefully so) and are ready to take up the change. This is not true for the rest of the world. They are still struck in the consumption bandwagon and will need a bit more of education from “nature” before they understand the reality.

Sanjay at Nirvana  

Unrest in Kashmir from last one month

The Kashmir problem is something which I have never understood from the beginning itself. I would not go into the historical details of the past but recently we had elections in the state with the highest possible voter turnout and a new government was "sworn in" with the clearest possible mandate from the people. Then in the month of June 2009 two girls died in mysterious circumstances in Shopian and this lead to wide spread public unrest.  Public demonstrations continued in the valley on this case and every other incident that happened thereafter.

 

Now the big question is: who are the people who are actually committing the crime and who are the strategists sitting pretty behind the scene? The Government and the forces operating in the valley are on a back foot as they have fallen in the "trap" and have continuously led themselves into one or more blunders in every incident since Shopian happened.

 

Sanjay at Nirvana            

Riots in Chinese province Xinjiang Autonomous Region of western China that took place last week

The President of China Hu Jintao leaving the G-8 meet at Italy to rush back home was the most astonishing event (for me) that unfolded last week. This happened after riots broke out (July 05) in Urumqi, a downtown in Xinjiang province of China between the migrant majority community of Han Chinese and the region’s native Muslim Uighur minority. These riots led to the death of more than 140 people mostly in police firing.    

 

There are many angles to this kind of situation developing in any part of the world. It ranges from the frustration of people from authoritarian regimes which wants to control the natural resources of a region to a general tendency in people to identify themselves with land and worldly possessions. All conflicts that has happened in the past and that is happening today is for “land” and the “natural resources” of the world. Terrorism and other forms of conflict are based on the presumption that land (natural resources) is what that has to be ultimately possessed by any means. The conflict is given religious or other kind of tone but ultimately the two parties (or more) involved in the game are looking for the control of the natural resources that is available at stake.

 

It’s difficult to judge this type of situation because today it may be happening somewhere else but tomorrow it can happen in my own backyard. Human conflicts will only increase in the coming days as we are witnessing a great mismatch between the limited resources of the world and the unlimited human urge for consumption. 

 

Sanjay at Nirvana

Sarah Palin resigns from the Governorship of Alaska State

It would be a great effort if Sarah Palin decides to run for the 2012 presidential elections in U.S.A as a republican candidate. There is enough time for her to prepare for the big show and there is ample opportunity for her to grow “on the job” as she prepares for the presidential campaign. She has to give a call for what she wants. I feel that the 2008 Vice-presidential campaign would have made her stronger and more determined to go on with the next show.

On the other hand I like the tenacity of Hilary Clinton as she adds on her experience for the final push when the time comes. From secretary of state, her next step should be naturally to push for the presidential nomination once again. She would be the best bet for the Democratic Party in 2012 or the next election after that.

Both Hilary and Sarah have something to prove. They are “destiny’s chosen children” and they have a role to play in the scheme of future things. I shall be closely watching both of their careers as they evolve further.

Have we given step motherly treatment to our citizens living in the North Eastern part of India?

Today I had gone to the LIC office at Hyderabad to surrender my policy. During the way back I saw two beautiful girls on a bike. I was also on a bike and when I crossed them, I just glanced at their face. They were definitely from a different part of India. Immediately in mind I said okay they are so-and-so. I cannot write here what I exactly mean by “so-and-so” but it’s a slang used in Hindi for people with a particular physical disposition and mostly these people come from the north-eastern part of India as well as from a neighbouring country.  

Though this was the way I had reacted every time I had seen people from this part of India, but this time I felt "kind of shocked" by my way of thinking.  Was my casual thinking “inappropriate” in some way? Was I segregating a complete set of people by the way they look? Was I stereotyping a complete group of people just by their physical looks? When I analyzed closely I found out that in my mind this was the "primary mode" of identification for people living in different regions of the country.  I was astonished to find that for every particular type of people I had a “slang word” in my mental vocabulary which included “my regional type” also.

After this thinking, I was surprised to find myself in a food joint again with “these particular set” of people serving the food. By these particular set of people I mean, the people from the North Eastern part of India.  Actually I had thought to go for a “Hyderabadi Biryani” (for my lunch) at a famous food joint called as “Paradise” but instead on the way I stopped to have “Chinese food” at a particular local joint near to my place in Secunderabad. As I was interacting with the waiters in this food joint, my guilt increased as regard to “my thinking” that I had some time back. I asked the person who was serving food to me as to which part of India he came from. He said he came from Darjeeling.

Darjeeling is a place in an Indian state called as West Bengal. I had visited this place around three years back as a Senior Manager of a company that I was working for. In fact I had an opportunity to stay at this place for 10 days at a stretch to conduct strategy meetings for my company colleagues from the Eastern part of India. During these 10 days I had roamed freely in the city and nearby areas and I had found the local population very colourful and vibrant with their own distinct culture. I had a special founding for the way they dressed and expressed themselves and the women were very beautiful, friendly, bold and fast. I found that most of the business in this area was depended on tourism and the bazaar was full of women shopkeepers and entrepreneurs selling their local art crafts to the tourist population.

As this thought revolved around my mind, some of the other happenings of the last week came into the picture. One of the “incidents” related to the chief minister of Mizoram (part of the seven North-eastern states of India) who while reacting to the racial attacks on Indians in Australia referred to his experience living in India where many times he had to face situations where he was made to feel peculiar because of his physical looks. This quote by the minister had become a big issue in India.

Another incident that strikes my mind is related to a “panel discussion on racism” in India on a leading news channel (NDTV) which took place immediately after the controversy that was created because of the frank expression of the personal thoughts by the chief minister of Mizoram in Singapore (the above issue). It is another story that later because of “political pressure” the chief minister said that he was quoted out of context. (This is the way every politician defends himself in India when he is caught off guard.)  

Anyways coming back to the panel discussion, I felt kind of good when one of the panel members Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar from the ruling party at centre described how young boys and girls from North Eastern part of India were travelling all across India for studies and job opportunities and how they were playing a major role especially in tourism and hospitality business in India.

As I was enjoying my Chinese Hakka Noodles, deep down I had some questions to ask myself? Am I living in an environment which has racial connotations?  How did all these “slang words" identifying particular communities and groups based on their physical attributes got into my mental vocabulary? Though I don’t have definite answers to these questions at this stage, I feel that maybe as Indians we have not jelled together in real sense even after 60 years of independence and deep down we segregate ourselves in various ways. Further, the system manipulates and tactically nurtures this segregation. That’s why we can see caste, community, religion and region based politics in India today.  

There may be many reasons for the “less than equal” development of the “North Eastern states” but one among the many reasons would "definitely" be related to the general apathy that has been seen as regards to the matters concerning the people. The widespread alienation and restlessness among the people from this part of the nation speaks for itself. 

There is another serious and alarming dimension to all this.  When we don’t consider our own citizens to be part of the nation on “equal footing”, then we provide leverage to outsiders to play "mischief” in troubled waters.

Sanjay at Nirvana

 

Today’s Landmark judgement by Delhi High Court approving “consensual sex” in Gay communities

Being Gay or Lesbian is as Normal as being a Man or Woman with heterosexual tendencies.  Actually it is a non-issue because it is as good as “anything else” that exists (or can exist) in this world which allows individual freedom and individual choice to experiment with one’s life. Today I saw on T.V, euphoric crowds coming out in support of this landmark judgement all over India. One of the small interviews conducted by Media on this subject was with an Actress called as "Celina Jaitley" who drew my special attention among various other beautiful (female) faces.  Maybe my enhanced interest was because of the fact that “the other day” I saw a report as regard to her (Celina) sexuality in one of the websites.

I must admit that I am attracted and fascinated towards this charming lady. With her mysterious sexuality, I get fancy about the possibility of fine tuning my “cherished” oral craft with her as the Teacher.  I feel that she would be one of the best people to guide me in doing that.

Anyway that being that, for records I must admit that I am a heterosexual person but deviant in many respects.

Sanjay at Nirvana