Chinese Humming!!

A relatively unknown Chinese automobile maker (even in China) hailing from lesser famous western part of mainland, dealing in Heavy Industrial Machinery i.e. selling the likes of dump trucks bids $200M for the probably most obscure symbol of American muscles - The Hummer. Why and How would anyone like to touch this sulking guzzler at this time that too someone who is total outsider to the passenger vehicle segment. Considering the buyer has no established footprints in the market to sell this monster in this atmosphere, is it a brave move or a stupid one ? Or, wait a minute, the deal is not for free, it cost $200M . Why on earth (China) would one like to hit the hammer for this?

It's interesting rather fishy scenario for me. How about a cover up by Chinese Military to get hold of the tried and tested Humvee for the rough Himalayan terrain? Well they already have national highway, railway station , sea port, air base right on the Indian fences covering Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka and off course the trouble child -P. Humvee will add some more teeth :-B

*Hope it remains just a work of my imagination and not convert into an actual conspiracy theory

High Dynamic Range Photography

It was long due, just because of sheer laziness I was giving it a skip for long. Finally inspiration crept in from an unexpected corner and I had my first stint with HDR photography technique. Results , well not exactly as expected but then its a good start and an iterative process. Am hopeful !! :-)

BTW: Also tried the same using CS3 but failed miserably... think I am good with my camera itself :)

Sunny Side Up

The final part of my GE-2009 Trilogy !!

Heck, who cares about past, lets look ahead. Majority of UPA in the lower house without the crutches of LLLL - Lalu, Left, LJP and Leeches (Just analogical with the earlier 3 Ls) is still very refreshing news for the country. Development at a reasonable and unhindered pace is expected in this apparent stable environment (Assuming the lady in center can tame the fire-ball lady from east). Indexes are climbing up the hill and hopefully without any sharp U-turn we'll see India emerge out of desolated shadows of world economy.

The Pees of Politics, Policies, Performance & Pressure (PPPP)

Second part of my GE-2009 Trilogy !!

The majority in Lower House give Congress an opportunity to set the stage for the coronation of the Prince. Party had promised and now they have power to fulfill. Along with 'Power' they should also have 'Will Power' to fulfill, something that historically lacked. If not will power, how about ‘Pressure’?

What the heck, why pressure when you have numbers to relax for next 5 years? Well the key is the journey from Prince to King is not yet over. If government do not perform this time, anti-incumbency is sure to creep it. Given the above reasons (see Post 1 of Trilogy - The Enlightening: Indian Voters & Media) one may argue that another set of cheesy promises and the game is set for the next round. Well very much possible but would a canny player like the Prince leave it to the last? The Prince as far as I can understand is not going to gamble on this. He knows, he is probably in best position to create his road for the crown and all he needs to do is just be persistent. He had the entire government machinery to his disposal; all he need is to make sure that it delivers. 5 years, if they can deliver even half of promised, stage is set. Rightly so, he had opted out of ministerial responsibilities in order to concentrate and persuade the PPPs. Even for personal ambitions, the success of the Plan might prompt - Advantage Nation!

The Enlightening: Indian Voters & Media

"No matter what, the Indian voters will always surprise you, they are much more intelligent than what you think of " - Rajdeep & Co.

With so much of noise created by Dear Rajdeep & Co. over the Rahul's charisma and young brigade in Parliament for 18th Assembly, I think it’s about time to take a deeper dive in it. First, is the General Election 2009 (GE'09) was a tactical win for congress, is it a vote for stability and performance of Manmohan Singh's team? Is the satisfaction, sense of stability or the so called 'surprising intelligence of the voters of India' (Thanks Rajdeep for considering people of India intelligent) spread across evenly in the country? Does the GE'09 saw the gap between voting pattern of rural and urban India narrowing? Well, in my humble opinion, it’s not the case.

This inspired me to look beyond the projected reasons for the UPA’s gain over NDA. Polarization of votes, nuisance value of Marathi Manus Raj, Media's so called 'secular' bias, pre-poll alliance and break offs this is what I believe caused a 2.5% swing in votes and thus the visible difference in parliament seating arrangement.

Digging deep, let’s take the rural India first, where even now voting pattern is still very much the same as it was at 1952. Years over years 'panchvarshiya yojnas' have promised and not delivered the same BSP (Naah, not the elephant but Sadak Bijli & Paani). Why? Do we lack budget to do so or man power to do so? Well we are the second largest population in the world and probably the richest too considering the wealth of nation lies in foreign bank accounts of our beloved politicians. It’s the political will that is lacking. If you deliver what you promise this time, then what would you promise for next time? Just bring in some popularistic schemes of Rs 2 / Kg Rice or waiving off loans right before the onset of next elections and you are through. So Mr Rajdeep , is the voter intelligent or the Politicians in that sense ? It’s a pity that the most deserving population of this country is exploited shamelessly by the leaders of the nation over and over again. This time too the rice was there, so were loans and icing on the cake was the ‘prince’. We still believe in dynasty rule, don’t we?

The Urban India specially the educated youth of India of which media is bolstering a lot. Its not that old that we saw a mindless egoistic HRD 'Raja' Minister who 'sanitized' the most prestigious education institutions of nation for the sake of some political mileage. Spare them Mr. Minister (Ex Minister now), no need to chastise 'the few good men' the country perpetually produce. Agitations, strikes, boycotts across the nation did nothing much to alter the ego, Singh was still 'The King' and this king care a lot about his pupil ;-). If that was not enough, another loyal dynasty servant (he also claims to serve the nation by the way) stole the limelight. Heir to the Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel was probably the man with no spinal chord, honorable ex-Home Minister Shivraj Patil. The less we say about national security the better it is, thankfully Pakistan is more of less consumed with its internal crisis now a days, else we might have seen more of 26/11 in India. If this was not good enough of to instigate the educated population, there is some more. The National Highway project, broadband spectrum sale..... List is big. All said and done , the urban India is still happy but is it happy because of secure and efficient administrative environment it hope to breath in or because of the greenbacks its earning ? Agreed, economic environment has improved in the nation and the current government can stake a piece of the pie from that. However not the entire Pie.

But then who want to do this in-depth analysis when one can earn brownie points simply by shouting out loud and clear ' as we predicted its UPA in majority'. Intelligent or not, who care about the voters and the voting pattern, let’s give the credit to the voters and crown them 'smart'. Let them be proud of themselves from being tagged intellectual; we’ll enjoy our golden biscuit of revenue. How intelligent is that move? Or more so, how arrogant is that move? A bunch of smart asses sitting in glass chambers passing judgment of billions of fellow countrymen!!

Disclaimer : Rajdeep represent the entire gamut of media men mushroomed for 'masala' across the nation.