Weakest Prime Minister Is Leader Of The Year

Awards are subjective. But the choice of the jury has to be reasonable. It need not be the perfect choice because there can be no such thing as the perfect choice. But when the award is bestowed on a person who in no way deserves it, the award and the award-presenters become nothing more than a bad joke. Such was the fate of the NDTV Leader of the Year award and NDTV when they said Manmohan Singh was their choice for the Leader Of the Year.

Since the time our weakest Prime Minister Dr. Singh took over, he has hardly come to be seen as a leader not just by the people but even by his own partymen and allies. Time and again they have undermined him and his office. A very senior Congress leader Natwar Singh openly mocked at how Dr. Singh has set a world record by being the only PM who has not been elected. Remember, Dr. Singh has never won a Lok Sabha election. How many times Arjun Singh - the 'secular', 'progressive' education minister - has eroded Prime Minster's authority is best left uncounted. At the very beginning of this farcical coalition in power, there was public humiliation of Dr. Singh by Karunanidhi when he used his numerical strength in the Government to overturn the decision of the cabinet regarding disinvestment of Neyveli Lignite Corporation. Dr. Singh blindly accepted it as 'coalition dharma' without a word of protest. In 2007 alone, when he secretly tried to seal a deal with US, the Left threatened to pull down his Government. Singh considered this deal as a very personal 'achievement'. He and his party said that those who oppose the deal are 'anti-development'. He even dared the left to pull down the Government. But later, he was snubbed by his own partymen and allies on this issue when the Left became serious about withdrawing support. Left had its way. Though the PM's credibility was severely dented, he shamelessly carried on.

Rahul Gandhi ordered him to extend the rural employment guarantee scheme to all districts. It was the Prime Minister's office which had earlier decided against this move since there were problems in its implementation. But when Rahul says our PM has to agree. The PM meekly bowed to Rahul's orders. How subservient a Prime Minister he is to the Gandhis is very evident by the way our weak Prime Minster walks, sits, talks and conducts himself when he is beside Sonia Gandhi. It's a disgrace to even talk about.

When such a person is honoured as the Leader Of the Year, one can only laugh at the awardee, awarder and those who glorify such awards. It's just another credibility blow to channels like NDTV who are yet to recover from the shock of Gujarat. By the way, there was one more leader in 2007 who won an election based on his strong leadership, his Government's performance, his integrity. And that too a re-election. He too was, and is, an Indian. He lives somewhere in Ahmedabad.

Cricket 2008

Well, cricket has truly turned a new corner this new year. Gone are the days when players were at the mercy of players. Even now they are, but atleast players of one team - team Australia, are not. Infact they are not at anyone's mercy, not even the match referee or the ICC.

This's a small but significant development. Australian players are so powerful that they just need to lodge a complaint against an opposition player they are not comfortable playing against. The complaint can be anything. Let me illustrate a possible complaint. 'Player A of a non-Australian team f***** up his(A's) wife'. The ICC will soon call an emergency meeting of the Protection-From-Sexual-Abuse-And-Prevention-Of-AIDS-In-Cricket committee. Andrew Symonds, the complainant, shall offer to be the voyeuristic witness. Voyeurism pales into insignificance in front of the game. 'Game is bigger than voyeurism', said the great Australian cricketer-turned-philosopher David Ross. As a celebration of this noble thought Australian media shall hail Andrew Symonds as 'the unassuming, selfless, daring hero who uncharted delicate and private territories to save the game from going down a lusty perverted intellectual drain'. Whatever that means! And the ICC will ban the cricketer A from the game and also sperate the couple if possible.

In this way they can 'remove' key opposition players. Others can be eliminated in a simpler way with the help of umpires-who-save-the-game-by-submitting themselves-to-Australian-divinity. These umpires apply the simple thumb rule, 'There is no bowler in the world who can dismiss an Aussie batsman before he scores a 100. There is no non-Aussie batsman who can score half century'.

By committing themselves to these noble game-saving measures, Australia can proudly say, 'We play the game in the right spirit'.

Hindutva and radical Islam: Where the twain do meet

When you come across an article which says everything you all along wanted to say, which articulates superbly what you yourself had strongly felt, which tries to tell something that's almost a taboo to say in our media, it makes it a delightful experience to read. Dear reader, please read this column by Arun Shourie in Indian Express.

Victory for democracy

Normally, elections are fought between political parties. Media's role is ideally that of an observer. Gujarat 2007 was different. Media's role was that of an active political participant. There was a clear bias that media blatantly displayed against the incumbent. Modi, the incumbentChief-Minister, had to fight not just the Congress but also the partisan. Despite the tremendous development work which he had carried out, despite a terror free, riot free Gujarat he delivered, the media was loathe to acknowledge it. Even when they did, it was grudgingly. They called him names that can be euphemistically described as unparliamentary. Enthused by a complementary media, the Congress breached all levels of decency and called Mr. Modi 'Merchant of death'. Modi said that this would be an election only based on development agenda. But when somebody abuses you the way the Congress and the media did, that too in the midst of an election campaign, one would be forced to respond. And when he did that, he was accused of 'communalising' the agenda. But Modi carried on unperturbed.

Modi, also had to fight the very visible dissidence in his own party. The RSS also, reportedly, was not very enthusiastic about Modi's 'style of governance.' So Modi took it upon himself to carry the BJP to another victory. He placed his hope in the hands of people.

The election day arrived. People came in huge numbers. Exit pollsters theorized that large turnout means bad news for BJP. After two phases of polling, these shameless creatures called psephologists, who pride themselves on getting stupendously wrong every time, predicted that Modi may just scrape through. They said landslide victory for BJP is impossible while a congress victory is not impossible. They attributed this 'hypothetical' loss to such unverifiable reasons like 'authoritarian rule', 'Modi not being a team player' and whatnot.

On counting day, when it became increasingly clear that Modi was heading for a comfortable win, to me, it was the greatest victory for democracy. Here's a leader who goes directly to the people and ask them to vote for him for whatever good he has done to them. People respond to him and how magnificently. They give him another landslide win. It clearly showed, in a democracy, no matter who is with you or against you, you can win if people are with you. People are the power in a democracy. This was just what the Gujarat election exemplified in an unmistakable way. It also showed people will be with you if you deliver them good governance and provide an environment that's terror and violence free.

It also meant, quite significantly, that media should now have to seriously to introspect about its conduct, about its objectivity or the lack of it. Otherwise the media is sure to lose a lot of credibility pretty fast. Men like Yogendra Yadav and Dorab Sopariwala, had they been in any other job, would have been fired for their colossal failure in their job. Never have they got their predictions even remotely near the actual figures. Particularly Yadav, exhibits too much of his political inclinations and that is something that is disturbingly blatant for a viewer to see in a credible political analyst that Yadav claims himself to be.

Finally, congratulations to Mr. Modi. He is certainly the man of the moment.

Tagged

Siri, tagged me. Infact she didn't. She merely asked whether I could take the tag, with which she was tagged, forward.

This 'tagging' business, to be honest, appears very childish. I tag somebody. The said somebody has to write, as a consequence, things like,
5 things I would do if I had born fifty years later OR
5 things I would do to succeed in pet keeping OR
5 things I would avoid eating after lunch on odd numbered days OR
to put it more generally,
'n' things I would/had/should/similar-meaning-word followed by random combination of English words.
Here n is an integer >= 5 and preferably a prime number.

You would also have to write a list of five things that you would not do or would not want to do. GuruWrites is giving a general format for that too. Here it is.
'n' things I would-not/had-not/should-not/similar-meaning-word followed by random combination of English words
Here n is an integer >= 5 and preferably a prime number.

And the tribulations of the person tagged does not end here. He has to 'tag' someone else. And then the agony shifts to that person.

This being the case, it's hard for me accept the offer of carrying forward the tag. But being the nice person that I am, I shall give it a try.

Here goes the 5 things I think, I would want to do before turning 60

• Have children
• Retire
• Become the nation's Prime Minister atleast twice.
• Visit Azerbaijan atleast once
• Bridge the gap between the dialectic and the didactic. Probably make a movie that achieves this task. (Arjun, sorry for shamelessly using your 'idea'.)
  

5 things I would not do shall not be listed for lack of enthusiasm to list the same.

And nominating the next tag-bearer is also a task I shall refrain from doing. If any of the zillions of readers of this blog want to take it up, they are free to do so.