singapora !!

“However fool be a person who has travelled is better than the fool who has been kept at home”

Departure
Though I have widely travelled in various corners of India, both to big and small places and this was my first visit abroad.
India is in transition and clearly we have to bear some pains for this, so we reached airport 3 hours before scheduled departure. Recent terrorist attacks meant that security checks were multiple and cumbersome. A faulty PPP agreement which resulted scaling down of project later meant that airport has less number of aerobridges and flying on a low cost flight we could not get any.

India Airlines played to its reputation with grumpy cabin crew and horrible food.
When plane was about to touch shore of Singapore one could see vast gold course from air. I wondered if Singapore is a golf loving nation, it was only later I came to know that being a small island they have to plan and manage everything efficiently in a small space.

Arrival
Procedures at Singapore airport were fast and one could clearly see the cost that terrorism imposes on us. While taking a SIM, or Metro pass or going to any other place no unnecessarily security checks and whenever there were they were swift without inconveniencing passenger. People who think that terrorism does not affect them should rethink, because its indirect cost on economy in increased security and consequent decrease in productivity are enormous.

One does not face touts and aggressive taxi drivers as is common at all Indian airports. Immigration procedures are fast and one can get detailed map as per one’s requirement – tourism, official, any other at airport itself. This is something we can do in India without costing much and without needing a systematic rehaul. At Delhi I once did find once such map but its scale was so big to make it useless for pedestrian travel in city.

Roads were fairly empty because of Sunday and one could see an occasional jogger or cyclist on the side of road on the tracks meant for same, a sight difficult to find in India as unplanned construction makes it impossible to make any such civic amenities and to protect it from encroachers for long is even more difficult.

Orderliness in traffic also stems from uniformity of vehicles. Even heavy vehicles seem to follow a pattern not like India where vehicles with all shapes and sizes ply on road merrily and make traffic management difficult lane as well as speed wise.

Stay
Next stop was YMCA hotel. It was a surprise much better and cleaner than Mumbai YMCA which I had stayed just a couple of months ago. It can be country difference I guess.

Travel, stay next comes food. No army can march empty stomach so we reached to place next to us i.e. Singapore Plaza (one of the largest mall in Singapore). One was spoilt for choice but alas nothing for vegetarians beyond fired rice (it is a different matter that we discovered a SUBWAY joint at same place later. SUBWAY came to our rescue at many places and my friends in Malaysia & Dubai also vouched for it. Kudos to SUBWAY).

Little India
But by evening we had discovered Little India and that was a discovery. The place lives to its name though we soon discovered that little dark skinned men roaming streets are not south Indians but Bangladeshis. This place is ‘Little India’ in true sense. Traffic works in Indian style, no Singapore orderliness. Shops blare out music and are garishly painted. Mustafa occupied pride of the place and a central attraction like this can always be used to develop stand alone tourist attractions.


MRTS
A word about MRTS system will not be out of place here. Basically I want to praise Delhi Metro here for being something in India which is pretty close to its developed country counterparts in various respects. Announcements in train going to little India were also in Tamil. A welcome relief that this city does not hate its multilinguism after facing horrible discrimination against non local languages in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Fooling around
Getting food near office was surprisingly not that difficult. One could go to this ‘Kaya Toast’ outlet for breakfast. There was Mosburger store which served nice vegan burgers also and then there was this large ‘Kopi tram’ ( Malay for ‘food court’) which had cuisines of almost all south east Asian countries with their respective aromas present. The vegetarian join which we frequented was something should be copied in India. This fellow had rice/noodles of various kinds as base and then offered vegetarian dishes as per your liking as topping with drinks. Due to standardization operation was efficient and inventory manageable. Later I found such joints in various food courts across Singapore so it does make a viable business proposition.

Street market at Tao Paoh MRT ( near our office) was another site. It had preserved old buildings but this did not mean a clutter on roads or inconvenience to passengers. Heritage market need not be crowded. Public library near MRT was another worthy thing to emulate. We visited only on our last day but as our guide told us there are such libraries in every sector, they are updated frequently, automated book renewal, issue and return system works to perfection.

“FINE” country
Respect for law and orderliness in public life was apparent as how everyone from old to young, rich to poor followed traffic rules religiously. But there is another secret behind it as our guide explained that why Singapore is known as “fine” county. There are heavy fines for some thousand crimes what constitute an unacceptable public behavior like spitting, eating in MRT, not flushing public toilets, smoking in no smoking areas and jumping the light. A detailed national identity card number system means you will get fine details no matter where the crime was committed at your home or office and there are no exceptions to rule. No one is any minister, bureaucrat or cop’s brother or friend.

Shopping and excursions
On our first weekend I had an opportunity to go to Singapore Expo centre for CFA exam and one needs to see the scale to believe it. It is an exhibition cum convention sector and huge air conditioned halls without a supporting pillar has been created. This CFA exam also reinforced the idea that this century is India. More than 90% participants were India, more so because it is banned in India. Imagine the kind of money Singapore economy is making because of judicial delays and red tape in higher education in India.

Mention of mall at City MRT will not be out of place here which consists of shops as one comes out of MRT towards main road. Compare this with shops we have at local stations in Mumbai and one can say that no space is small if judiciously used. China Street and Bougies street had some good bargains and foreigners were obviously amazed at handicraft items. Being an Indian we were not that crazy and were always looking for a good bargain which we found also but at last a visit to Mustafa was to be made much against our earlier insistence that we will not go for Indian style shopping here. Mustafa was also offering best currency exchange rates so clearly a textbook example of economies of scale.

INA Memorial & Sea Front
I had read somewhere about INA memorial in Singapore but none of the tourism brochures mentioned it and when I reached there near esplanade I discovered the reason why. Though just in front of Singapore parliament and near high court and occupying same premises as their own national martyr monument ‘Cenotaph’ it was dimly lit and no one seemed to bother about it. For that matter their own national memorial was also not in a better condition. Some obviously drunk men were chatting at its footsteps. No wonder why everywhere one sees huge ads of join Singapore army as with march of progress bonds of nationalism do weaken more so in city state which is a cultural melting pot and without a history that goes very long.

But sea front has been developed in a nice venue for dance and drama. There was a group performing Christmas songs on sea front and in adjoining esplanade concert and drams were going on. Backdrop of sea ensured relief from suffocating humid tropical environment and a great view also. Why cannot we do similar thing in Mumbai or Calcutta is really puzzling. Any new reclaimed land in Mumbai has to be filled by skyscrapers without paying attention to cultural needs of city.

A walk across Orchard road, main Commercial Street of Singapore showed why this nations is called prosperous. It seems eating out and shopping are the two main occupations of residents and one can see both places filled at all times of day throughout week. Weakened Indian rupee meant that there was not arbitrage in electronic items even in specialized mall recommended on tourist websites but at least one could take pride that SP road in Bangalore also offers similar variety though without gleam and sheen


Sentosa la la la
Last day was reserved for Sentosa Island and it lived to its reputation of priced high and nothing really to see. Children might enjoy it but for grownups Dolphin show, underwater & Songs of the sea laser show was only attraction. Beaches were very poor and 4D movie was a marginal improvement over what one gets to see in India. I think wonderla in Bangalore gives a better value for money. After every attraction exit was via a shopping space – so they do not want to leave a single opportunity to entice tourists. There was picture and live images show of Singapore’s history (officially sanitized – no bad points or turbulence was shown). All four races i.e. Malay, Chinese, Indian and European were represented. Underwater world was upto expectations but Laser show deserves to be mentioned. Laser show with backdrop of sea menat no background issue and calm see solved problem of wind to large extent. It could be combined with gas fires and fountains as sea water is readily available – real crafty people. Scarcity of space means that one can see container ships being loaded and cranes hauling them while commuting in buses at the island.

Physically all Singapore residents seem to be fit and reason in apart could be their protein rich fibrous diet free of oil and fats. In fact at one of the MRT subways there was large space and as against India or west where all kind of unsocial elements will come and occupy it there were young boys and girls practicing every imaginable kind of dance routine, acrobatics and skating.

Arrival
Once again an early morning flight with some initial apprehensions about luggage exceeding limit (almost everyone had done extensive shopping , more so because all of us had liquidity due to receipt of stipend in the end), and failed link at Indian airlines counter for more than an hour we finally arrived safe and sound in motherland once again in company of even more grumpier cabin crew ( these time two middle aged gentleman)

Obama obama ...

So Newspapers and news websites lose a significant portion of their news feed today. Obama becomes president and becomes convincingly. My few cents

1. I watched McCain on CNN. He was composed and he is not rhetorical like Obama.Wish India had such politicians.
2. he thanked his family and wife ,a very uncommon thing in India everyone thanks either Sonia Gandhi or their party leader

I guess Westminster model has failed us.It has led to fragmented polity and Prime minister is changed based on whether local candidate i of my caste or my drainage is working or not. All big countries in world USA, Russia, China, Brazil, Australia, France and Germany have a presidential system. Only in a highly homogeneous society like UK or Canada or small countries parliamentary system can work.It is time we get rid of romantic notions about parliamentary system and brace ourselves for a new system.

3. On TV people were seen crying in crowds.One of my friend remarked we can't feel this thing I said why you should you are not an American. Then he said "No, I mean in India whoever becomes I don't feel any emotion". This is why we need presidential system. This will make last man in street a direct participant in the process.Significant numerical communities but in effect disenfranchised like Muslims will get a new voice in such a system.

In India I guess people would have cried in similar way when Janata party came to power in 1977 and I saw some die hard nationalists like my grandpa weeping with joy when Atalji formed first 13 day government. But it has been a dream gone sour.Now whether at local, national or state level there is little to differentiate between BJP and congress

4. People are are unduly overjoyed at Obama win without realizing that he is sworn enemy of outsourcing, will twist India's arm on Kashmir and at least will affect salaries and jobs of us MBA's but media is still communist liberal so a sensible chap like McCain is equated with Bush and Obama is treated as new deal while essentially he is only a black JF Kennedy.

All good things come to an end

http://www.irctc.co.in/Inst_Eticket_Passengers.html


Now IRCTC has done away with ID card requirement at the time of booking. In ideal markets this is desirable as it is inconvenient to put those details but in a market plagued with scarcity this will help black marketeers and commission agents who had been forced out due to e reservation.

Something like a war & other documentaries

This is the review I wrote for one of our courses titles "Business Government & Society".
Subject was three documentaries made by Deepa Dhanraj an independent filmmaker from Bangalore.Movies were something like a war & legacy of Malthus & naari adalat.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307481/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121468/

Something like a war
This movie addresses various intertwined issues like sexuality and identity of women, nexus of male dominated system outside the home and inside the home to keep women subjugated and exploit them and then it deals with interest of western world in population control in developing countries like India. The message it tries to convey is that population control programme being executed in developing countries like India have gone horribly wrong in their execution as the policy is itself based on flawed premises . It has degenerated into nothing short of a war against women.

Through a simple scene where women are joking about changes related to menstrual cycle – amusement, fear, joy it is depicted that how women can’t express their sexuality in open. Different women have different view about sex or having children but in a society where honor of man folk is associated with sexuality of women( it is traditionally said in India that all fights have taken place because of cattle, women and land), it is thought that one size fits all. So something which is feared to be stolen or impured by outsiders is kept under restrictions. But in this zeal to protect women their identity gets lost somewhere. They can’t take decisions about their sex life anymore. This is very similar to “chastity belt” being used in medieval Europe as idea of female sexuality as honor was taken too far.

Dominant theme of movie is that because Women are the creator so men feel afraid that women may usurp power on this basis and so they make menstrual cycle period as impure just to keep women down. So ironically this very strength of woman makes her vulnerable.
It is interesting to note how power of her becomes her biggest weakness. It becomes a basis as to why she should be kept inside, why she should not interact with outsiders and why without it she has no value whatsoever. Somewhat similar to a property or animal that has something extra so it is valued but at the same time needs to be protected or denied freedom for the same reason and is useless if does not have that characteristic.
A woman is made to believe that her existence derives from her fertility. Now since this task can’t be accomplished by woman alone she has to depend on man and then man can dictate terms.
But now comes the twist – Population explosion. This idea is reinforced in movie again and again through jingoistic ads made to promote family control linking poverty with more no of children. USA or western world had interest in keeping our population in check as inequalities of world can’t be sustained for long if numbers are overwhelmingly large on other side. Since they can’t create a world of equal opportunity or don’t want to do so what is next best solution – decrease no of claimants.
But In India Sanjay Gandhi made a blunder by forced vasectomy of men. As a result focus shifted to women. One health official from Maharashtra in 1976 terms situation as warlike and asks not to get perturbed if there are some deaths also!
There is a verse in Sanskrit which says “not horse, not elephant, not lion but only goat is used for sacrifice because even Gods harm only weak”

In nutshell, a woman is used as a means of production in this whole economy and is given conflicting signals from different quarters but what she has come to believe as her own is also being snatched from. Even her husband will not like to squander the opportunity to earn something out of their women and will be willing to trade her sterilization with government officials for some monetary favor.


• So a poor woman has to pay double price first for being woman and then poor. Indian women have become “guinea pig” for the big business of contraceptives in various ways.
o New contraceptives are tested on patient without patient’s knowledge
o Poor women - lack of awareness , monetary allurement result in experiments on their body
o Doctors take shield in fact that patients don’t ask about it
• India was the first country in world to have official family planning programme in 1952. In one of the scenes women are being operated upon by a doctor in a fast and cheap method but women are treated as animals in these camps and individuality is lost. Basic emphasis is on hiding the private parts as honor of men is associated with that. In short women have been reduced to just a means of production.
• In one very powerful scene when a woman goes inside to get operated and a doctor removes her sari unceremoniously and then this sari is shown lying in a corner unattended and neglected. Similar treatment is meted out to women in the whole process. First they are robed of their sexual identity because it infringes on honor of men and once they surrender it they are treated like dirt to fulfill desires of men be it more children, boy child or no children. So we find in ancient scriptures like Rig-Veda verse which says “the place where women are honored becomes abode of gods” but by 15th century Tulsidas writes “cattle, untouchable, fool and women need to be controlled by force”. Clearly economic forces are at play in reducing women to this situation

• Second dominant theme of movie is that why population control efforts are inherently biased against poorer sections of society. This is done by first addressing the issue as to why poor has more children –

o As it is their only asset
o Poor health care – not many children remain alive so t more children as hedge
o Nonexistent social security cove so people invariably look towards their children for the same
o Children in poor family contribute to household from early age

The idea is carried forward in next movie where Deepa builds on this argument.

Legacy of Malthus
• In this thought-provoking film, Deepa Dhanraj takes on the international population establishment, challenging the entrenched view that overpopulation is responsible for poverty and environmental degradation. In India, peasant farmers are being evicted from their land and then accused of being feckless, poor, irresponsible and unable to feed their families. Dhanraj argues that it's the same process that took place in 19th century Scotland during the Highland clearances.
• By skillfully intercutting reconstructed scenes from the Napier Commission of enquiry into the Highland clearances, interviews with contemporary Rajasthani village women today, archival US news footage and current day propaganda films warning of the dire consequences of global population increase. Deepa argues that nothing has changed.
• Rev. Malthus postulated in 19th century that means are limited and so geometrically increasing population needs to be controlled. This point is reinforced through fruit fly experiment or bacteria in a jar by a BBC programme not paying attention to the fact that Malthus ignored factor productivity and his model is proved wrong by the events of last century.
• One very sinister implication of whole theory was that people don’t understand their own good and so needs to be told what to do but we should keep in mind that Malthus wrote in the days of industrial revolution .Industrialists were earning profits but did not want to share the burden of providing basic necessities for workers. Government was also in collusion with them so such theory proved to be very handy in castigating a poor person responsible for his own poverty.
• In its Indian variant our politicians can’t solve the problem of poverty or unemployment as they are able neither to grow pie nor to redistribute it so the next best solution is to decrease the no of mouths biting on it. But poverty is here to stay as basic issue is land or access to land. Government can’t give them land or is not willing to give so basic cause remains even after one treats outward symptoms.

• For example in Scotland all productive land was enclosed for sheep rearing. Crofters were give unproductive patches or too little land and were then blamed for their own poverty as they were producing more children. This situation was created so that industries and colonies could get cheap labor. Similar pattern is repeated in Indian village where rich people will not let poor own land and will snatch anything which they have by coercion, debt trap or taking advantage of their ignorance. When everything fails industrialization is argued to be best medicine for poverty and those who are first to be sacrificed at its altar are poor. Recent land acquisition efforts in Nandi gram, Singur or past events of Narmada Bachao Andolan signify the same thing where poor who are happily living in their poverty are not allowed to do so as rich suddenly decide one day what is best for poor. Alternate means of employment are offered as bait but either people were not equipped for the same or it was so divorced from their traditional way of living that they could not hold on their own. In Scotland Farmers took to fishing resulting in monetizing of economy but once again their surplus was perishable so they are poor despite having more money

• Same story is repeated in Indian villages. Average holdings of poor are very small & thus uneconomical .They can’t deepen their wells nor do they have electric pumps. It’s not a level playing field. So even though on paper they have land, its effects are nil. So just to have means for all is not enough but everyone should have enough opportunity to access those means.


• Money economy has also resulted in poor becoming weak. In a barter system they could get everything except salt from their village but advent of money introduced distortions which favored people with small surplus throughout the year rather than those with large surplus once a year. Surplus should also last and be handy when it is needed.

• Most bizarre is the propaganda advertising family planning as a means of women emancipation by making them controller of their lives or by invoking dangers of repeated pregnancies.


• In India Green revolution just exacerbated the differences as only farmers with basic capital needed to take benefit of government schemes reaped the benefit while others were left behind. ( Old testament also says “ one who hath shall be given” )
o Issue of biodiversity – use of fertilizers has further weakened land and once again poor are hit disproportionately.
o The grains which poor consume like millet are out of PDS so they don’t get government support. Thus on the one hand government is paying huge burden of subsidy but its benefits don’t reach to the intended target group.

• One interesting aspect of Scotland Highland inquiry is the rules are made and broken by elites of the society. When they want taxes from poor they don’t allow serfs to leave land. When they can get their grain from colonies and find sheep rearing more profitable, farmers are summarily dismissed from land by widespread enclosures. They are given land which is small and unproductive.
When these serfs become labor in towns , industrialists don’t want to pay for basic amenities ,so argument of Malthus limits is discovered .When need for surplus labor reduces and automation arrives poor are taught virtues of small family. This is in stark contrast with what is happening in Russia today – President Putin is exhorting people to produce more children
Even church was helping in this game. Church opposed family planning when labor was required but Protestant supported it when it became difficult to deal with needs and demands of poor
• Interest of developed world in helping developing world in population control is threefold
o First reducing poor requires less money than reducing poverty
o Second they don’t want opposition from developing world when they are plundering earth’s resources e.g. USA is responsible for 30% GHG emission but wants China and India to commit to emission targets.
o To blame undevelopment on population is a convenient scapegoat as it masks failure of their policies , insufficiency or uselessness of whatever aid they have given






Naari Adalat
They say the law is an ass. If this is true, the Indian legal system must be one with an exceptionally long life. Indian courts are infamous for the delay in delivering justice due to various reasons prominent being huge backlog of cases, shoddy investigation and archaic laws.
Justice delayed is justice denied more so when the oppressed is lower caste, rural & women.

For a woman who is seeking redress against social oppression this becomes crueler because of variety of reasons such as
o Often she has to come to a court very far off
o Economically she is not independent
o Judiciary and police is dominated by males who are not sympathetic to her grievances
o Law process rests on hard proofs which are easy to come in civil suits or criminal suits but in family disputes one may not actually want to bring bad name to family – e.g. Lady does not mention that Jitu used to rape his sister in front of him near river.
o One crucial stumbling block is love of children. A woman will continue in an abusive relationship just for the sake of children. But here this is not the case
o Another factor is family honor. Illicit relations involved her sister and sister in law but she did not hesitate in bringing this thing to public. Maybe she comes from lower caste which helped this process. As in upper caste this would not have been possible
o Village elite is not interested in lives of lower castes .Even if they are they insist on following caste customs and as prefer status quo and fear that if this case is settled based on fair principles of justice and then in future cases pitting them against lower castes can also go to courts

Naari adalat seems to operate through peer pressure. Many times crime which everyone knows is not punished simply because of some technality in legal parlance. Naari Adalat appears to have overcome this problem. It is a constructive way of channeling anger with system else something which happened in Nagpur a few years back when a listed goon who was out on bail and terrorizing women in a slum was killed by women in court premises.

One pertinent issue is enforceability of the decisions and on this count Nari Adalat seems to be lacking .In fact regular administrative orders are not implemented in rural areas if village elite so desires so thinking of implementing decision through peer pressure sounds a bit farfetched. But there is a glimmer of hope because if such Adalat succeeds in getting support from other sections of society then through “social control” or “clan control “ decisions can be reinforced.

One interesting theme in movie is Jitu’s family’s insistence on caste rules to be followed. This insistence no doubt emerged from desire of giving Ganga a raw deal as customs are biased against women but we should not lose focus of the fact as to why such unequal rules came in place? Poor and marginalized sections did not have any control on their land or other means of production and either on religious pretexts as in Ancient India or legislative action as in Scotland highland case or by forced industrialization ; they were continuously made to surrender whatever little they had for the elites so then only thing they had control over i.e. their women were used to satisfy male ego and they centered community honor around them in process making laws which appear unjust today.

Thus dominat theme running across three movies is land & woman i.e. means of production and associated conflict. Irony is that in the process the very thing which is being fought over does not has any say. So women are the hardest hit , more so the poor women . In the end when Sita has to give Agni Pariksha or even Draupadi does not get justice form elders in Hastinapur assembly , women devise their own ways of dealing with issues and Naari Adalat is one of them.


Epilogue
The idea upon which Deepa builds upon first two movies i.e. how our system and society has failed poor and women comes to its logical conclusion in third movie when poor women decide to make their own system. We find glimpse of it in second movie when village women capture the common grazing land while opposing upper caste males of village but Naari Adalat is the last nail in coffin when woman gives up efforts at reconciliation with system and create their own new system.
If viewed differently these three movies are like touching an elephant at different parts of his body – trunk, leg, ear etc. But the elephant is old and same – elephant of injustice, elephant of selfishness and elephant of self proclaimed righteousness.
All the struggles in past have ultimately harmed women be it Mughal invasion of India, Gambling match in Mahabharata, Sita in Ramayana or mass rape of women during India’s partition. For example in Ramayana a woman was made means to humble Ravana, the evil. Similarly in Mahabharata it was Draupadi who was tormented in power struggle between Pandav and Kauravs. Even in modern times during Indo- Pak partition women on both sides were the worst sufferer.
So more things change, more they remain same. So a simple thing like population control has turned itself into nothing else but a war against women’s identity.

But selfishness is not limited to male-female relationships in nature. It manifests in its most bizarre forms when rich deal with poor and Legacy of Malthus builds on this idea. Whether it is slavery in Rome, caste system of India, Serfdom in Europe or later industrial revolution, colonialism; the rules of game have been set by dominat group in the society.
As Marx says “History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as a farce “. Deepa conveys this point very subtly by drawing analogies between Scottish Highland evictions and an Indian village where just like land another means of production women becomes the conflict point. Referee i.e. state or religion is on victor’s side, rules are set, changed at distorted by victors at their own will ; so what is the recourse? Revolt as in case of Scotland crofters or Nandigram peasants does not provide any hope as brute power of force is with victors.

Here comes the Naari Adalat with its innovative way of dealing with conflict outside the system from the side of oppressed .Though we don’t know the outcome but it certainly raises hope to see a determined Ganga standing confidently against her husband Jitu , in laws and village elite. The rules of game have changed now and for better perhaps …

Sustainiability of Not for profit

Today Professor Trilochan Shastri asked an interesting question. He said what do we mean by "Sustainability of an Not for Profit"
He said if one look at Fortune 500 or equivalent list of 1940,50,60 and so on it keeps on changing drastically. Many companies would have actually closed down.

On the other hand places like Harvard are 300 years old
Oxford or Cambridge 1000 years old
Church 2000 yeas old
Kashi Vishvanath or Tirupati also 100s of years old

So his argument was in reality not for profit institutions have outlived their corproate counterpart.

and even corporates have very high mortality rate then why this insistence on sustainability of not for profits only?

White flight : Evidence from India

White flight means migration by middle class white people from city to suburbs in British, American and European cities to go for better housing and social environment and move away from Muslims, blacks and immigrants.

Based on my limited observation I guess similar thing is happening.

Here it is Muslims, and rural people or dominating landed OBCs (coming from village to city) who are prompting "white flight" in addition to lure of better housing and facilities on periphery of cities as cities are poorly managed, no space to grow, very less privacy and many times unhealthy water and air conditions. So those who can afford move out.

Chandni chowk of Delhi or Shivajinagar of Bangalore or Bhindi bajar,byculla area of Mumbai are prime examples which are slowly converting into Muslim ghettos. Even in my hometown the place where I used to live earlier you would find a man with no job and a millionaire livieng in same mohalla but now it only has migrant laborer or purely antisocial elements as its residents.

Many people leave these areas because they fear bad influence on children , or restricted movement of women and girls or lack of equal standard society.


Recently when I was going throguh RBI website there was a list of minority population districts in India.I think this approach is very simplistic. better approach to measure extent ghettoize would be some kind of standard deviation. Take percentage of Muslims to total population say in a district or city and then choose lowest administrative unit in the city or area say a ward or revenue circle to find out % population of Muslims in that unit. Find its deviation from citywide number and square it and find root average of all such deviations. If they are concentrated in few areas this number would be high.

to avoid outliers stop when 90% population is covered as one or two families would be living in other areas which will grossly affect number.

Similar ratio can be found comparing average umber of Muslim students enrolled in area, ratio of Muslim workers in place where they are working and similar participation rate.

Mind you it does not measure relative deprivation but rather extend of segregation in areas. This would give policymakers a chance to calibrate their responses better suited to local needs rather than using blunt instruments all over India.

Beijing Olympic : India swimmers raise bar and hopes too

Though website of Beijing Olympic is not as navigable as was in Athens but still Indian swimmers (4 this time - largest ever contingent i guess) raised hopes for future. First of all this time all of them had qualified as against to wild card entries in past. So they got better heats to compete .Though none could qualify for further rounds but at least they can now hope for podium finish in Asian games and even win some medals as their ranking among their Asian counterparts were invariably among top 8 in Asia.
Here is the short list which I compiled

event - swimmer - overall - among asians
200 m freestyle - virdhawal - 48 - 7th
50 m freestyle - virdhawal - 40 - 2nd
100 m freestyle - virdhawal - 42 - 3rd
100 m breaststroke - sejwal - 38 - 5
200 m breaststroke - sejwal - 36 - 5
100 m butterfly - ankur - 6 - 57
200 m butterfly - rehan - 40- 9

Pakistani movies on terrorism

I have watched only two of them - silent water of Sabhia sumar
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0357283/

here is my comment on same

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0357283/usercomments-13


and the other one is more famous khuda ke liye
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068956/usercomments-26


I would not consider "silent water" as Pakistani movie as most actors are Indian. director herself is pretty offbeat and is married to a Hindu Indian !!!

But one point about that movie is that it shows how did Taliban and ISI recruited their foot soldiers and how American effort to curb communism ended creating another and mroe dangerous monster named "Islamic terrorism"

actually Americans should never have supported dictators against communists. Communism as a philosophy is so deeply flawed that it would crumble under its own weight as it did in Russia, china and Vietnam and will do so in N Korea and Vietnam in future But Islamic monster is bigger and difficult to control as west is experiencing now.

Bangalore Blast : Private Equity in terror

One of my friend put very interesting theory forward. he said Pakistan has enough problems at hand to do such operations but due to globalization a substantial section of Indian Muslims also identify with right or wrong global Muslim causes and of course they have some local ones also.

so some indigenous entrepreneur terrorist group wanted funding from big daddies say Al Qaeda .So they do this low intensity operation exhibit their reach and capabilities and then ask them for funding with this business plan in hand.

sounds plausible.

An MBA has so many career choice now a days.

Trade unionism at IIT Kharagpur

I got this link on iit kgp group at our college.
Well this was something one could expect to happen at place like KGP. few things immediately came to my mind

1. A folklore (true) about Russy Mody of tata steel when he was chairman of BOG during 70s at the height of militant trade unionism in Bengal. Once unions decdie to strike on pay hike and all messes were closed. There were no billus,veggis or chillis in those old days so actually students were held at ransom. But Russy Mody was from same community as Sam maneckshaw so I imagine he would have also said "Gentlemen, now there would be no withdrawals".
On a serious note he sent all students except final year to their home because they had to pass out and get degree.For them food used to come from TISCO jamshedpur in two trucks with an armed escort. This went on for three months till strike broke and as per settlement new private restaurants were opened in campus to prevent any future blackmail by unions.


2. But unions are very powerful in Bengal. Each hostel for a strength of 250 students used to have some 30 odd mess workers on roll. People aging from 18 yrs ( in lieu of their father) to 80 yrs ( yes with false age) used to be on the rolls.They will refuse to keep their bags out of working place( so there was huge pilferage of food). We used to have mess duty for two students every day who will ensure that stores is not misused.

3. Local suppliers would usually be hand in gloves with mess managers. One of the mangers when i was in final year was actually a hotel management graduate but being son of a kharagpur local he came back. All these people were in hand in gloves and if student body will blacklist a firm for supplying inferior rice or wheat they will rename the firm. No outside firms would be allowed to supply material .

4. When there wa labor day or if staff decided to hold a meeting about Iraq or Terrorism ( there were 500 so in main building + 15-20 per department , 30 departments) then students can't have a function in auditorium. Theater will show only Bengali movies on Sunday.

5. To cap it all construction workers of new hostel had to be absorbed as mess workers. So obviously food used to be of very poor quality. I can make better chapatis then what my used to be made in my mess. Despite having shift duties there would be a weekly off on Saturday evening not to mention almost 3.5 month holiday in a year.


6. One of my Bengali friend once told me that in Bengal except IIT and IIM all colleges (including prudish Jadavpur) suffer from strikes of either students, or faculty or staff. But this news item shows that even IIT is not immune to it now.


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080722/jsp/bengal/story_9583770.jsp

Unions in IIT food mess
OUR BUREAU

July 21: Over 250 IIT Kharagpur students had to go without lunch at their hostel to- day as a contractor downed mess shutters after Citu and Aituc union supporters bashed up some of its employees.

Although students of only one of the 19 halls were denied lunch at their mess, they were not the only ones suffering. Agitation by two unions controlled by a joint forum of the CPM and CPI labour arms, demanding absorption of contract workers and those engaged for construction of new hostels, has crippled mess operations in three halls.

The Jagadish Chandra Bose hall residents were the worst hit, having to eat at canteens on the campus on the first day after summer vacation. The Meghnad Saha and Homi Jahangir Bhaba messes shut down after 2pm.

Two others worked normally as they had absorbed all workers.

“We had engaged private caterers to run the mess at five halls. They were ready to absorb the existing workers. But another group, temporarily engaged for construction work, is also demanding absorption,” said an IIT official.

There are about 150 mess workers in the five halls.

Sudip De, a PhD student staying in the JC Bose hall, said the mess had been closed for two months because of the vacation. “Some of us, who did not go home, travelled 4km every day for meals. We had thought our travails would end today,” said De.

The contractor for the JC Bose hall, Sudarshan Behera, said: “We had agreed to absorb some members of the Hall Workers’ Union. However, the construction workers’ body demanded the inclusion of their members, too. We can’t accommodate so many.”

He closed the mess after some of his employees were allegedly attacked.

“We demand the inclusion of the construction labourers since they are rightful claimants to the jobs,” said Purnendu Panigrahi of the construction labourers’ union.

While negotiations are on between the authorities and the unions, the students of the three affected hostels will be accommodated in other halls. “We are trying to restore normality at the earliest. But for the time being, we have asked all students to have their meals at the two hostels that are operating,” said D.K. Tripathi, the dean of students’ affairs.

Indian Democracy : a million mutinees now

Well one can get cynical about recent things going on for confidence vote but I find it very interesting.
First of all it empowers small parties but more importantly becuase it comes so near to general election it empowers individual MPs. It is not the time when party bosses can dictate whatever they want but MPs even in BJP and congress can get hei voice heard for the first time.

true decentralization !!

I think basic reason for this new found defiance of MPs is that now election are not being fought on ideology but on the basis of image or influence of the particular individual. A simple corollary is you can not put an outsider somewhere and hope that he will election simply because he is famous nationally or or form some big party. this is why we have so many minister coming from rajya sabha now.

so this government stays or goes at least public in each constituency can now vote for a candidate of its own choice.

three cheers to Indian democracy!!! and to small parties and to all rebel MPs

Riots in Indore : Should we speak up?

A society that does not speak when it should loses altogether the right to speak.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most that has made it possible for evil to triumph." — H.I.M. Haile Selassie


These are some of quotes written in my diary from school days. There is a saying in Sanskrit "when you love someone you can't see his faults".
Now I am a right wing nationalist but how can one support what was done in Indore in last two days.Yes the reaction of Muslims was equally condemnable but are not we making compromise on every step to reach a grand finale goal.

I am in a real state of confusion will end this post with these line from a Pakistani poet

• First they came for the Hindus and Sikhs
• and I did not speak out because I was not a Hindu or a Sikh
• Then they came for the Christians
• and I did not speak out because I was not a Christian.
• Then they came for the Ahmedis
• and I did not speak out because I was not a Ahmedi
• Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me
• and I said "wait, you forgot the burqa-clad storm-troops,
• and I know where they are!"

Undergrad Engineering : Some Thoughts

Was reading outlook survey on educational institutes in country and once again4. my Alma Mater IIT KGP topped the list. In the comments section to same article there were some very perceptive comments from one reader

1. Free undergrad courses from control of politicians and bureaucrats and let professional bodies regualte them. This will result in more capacity building and reservations will lose the shine. Take for example engineering. During agitation against OBC reservation medical students were in forefront not the engineering the reason being there so much capacity in engineering education in country today that there are not enough candidates to fill all seats.

2. Another good suggestion was allowing students to transfer from one college to other after every semester with credit and grades. This will create a completion between colleges and students will have option to move to greener postures something which happens uin first week of our term when we are allowed to change subject based on our perception of teacher and course. Each college may be allowed a change of +-20% and thus good colleges charging moderate fee will be in high demand and bad colleges will steadily loose students. Technical universities established in every state will come handy in these

3. Industries should let their middle level managers go to academia to learn new things and similarly accept faculty for part time jobs or sabbatical so that they understand industry in a better way. A concurrent move could be to create a voluntary national database of faculty and industry professionals in which everyone - industry and colleges can dip in and actually bid/auction high performers creating a true market for talent & skills. This might even attract NRI faculties and bring transparency in salaries paid by college to their employees

4. And lastly not all undergrads should be forced to do projects anyways mostly what undergrad do in industry has very rmeote relation with what they learn in colleges and by putting unnecessary burden during undergrad we burn out many potential students. We are not able to get many colleges running up due to anachronistic requirement of facilities which are needed actually for PG research only. Further for clerical level jobs in government requirement of graduation can be done away with to further reduce pressure on out science/arts colleges so that they can be actually converted into research centers.Undergrad students could be allowed to take course instead of projects rather than copying or buying projects from commercial supplier. this will also insure better focus of facilities and faculty time also.

Comapring Taslima & Maqbool FIda Hussain !!

When talking about nude painting of Hindu goddess by Maqbool one often hears argument that there are temple carvings depicting same.
This argument about eroticism in Indian art is overblown. A majority of modern middle/upper middle class Hindus have grown up without seeing all this supposed eroticism in Hindu temples. They see images of the divine in different forms- Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha etc, and none of them explicitly sexual. So the equation of Hindu temple art with eroticism means nothing. Secondly, there's the whole question of the spirit- not the content- in which the paintings are made. Many Indians feel that Hussain is being irreverant and insulting, rather than respectful or simply artistic. The original creators of those erotic images were cetainly not being provocative or insulting, nor hankering after attention. Erotic images in Hindu temples constitute a small minority of the total number of images, not more than 10%, perhaps as little as 5%. Most of the depictions are non-sexual, or of floral and geometric designs. Ancient Hindu temples are not the sculptural equivalent of "Penthouse" and "Hustler" magazines

There is a huge differenc between taslima & hussain. taslima never hurt the sentiments of muslims. she just pointed out the attrocities commited against the muslim women in the name of islam.

as far as hussain is concerned, this pervert painted something which not only hurts our sentiments but insults our religion too. we do not have any problems of him painting saraswati in the nude. hinduism is far open when it comes to nudity.

problem is with his two other paintings. in one he has shown hanuman having sex with sita & saraswati having sex with ganesha. now this has never happened as far hindu scriptures are concerned. if he would have just painted a monkey & elephant having sex with a lady this would have been fine. but he wanted to make his pervert intentions very clear by putting names under each charactor. this is purely offensive and also accepted by the court.

now he has fled india and hiding in an islamic country. this makes him a fugitive, at par with people like dawood ibrahim. if he thinks that he is innocent, then he should come back to india and face the court. he should explain the motives behind his gruesome paintings.

the "secular" congress govt at the centre can easily give him full security. it is rubbish to say that he is on the run because of the threats from VHP. is VHP bigger than the govt of india?.

fact is, hussain knows that he has commited a crime which will be proved in the court. this is only reason he is hiding in dubai.

lastly, he is facing charges NOT because his painting of saraswati but the two paintings of ganesha having sex with saraswati & hanuman having sex with sita.

all those so called "intellectuals" should allow the release of muhammad cartoons and da vinci code in india if they are really concerned about ar


"Look ate the temple sculpture......"

Temples were built by the believers with devotion and they are for worship and Hussain paintings and others by the secular scoundrals are done with derision and contempt. I do not equate sandolwood paste and shit because they are both yellow in colour

Art critic Gayatri Sinha- "The tradition of painting goddesses in the nude has been part of Indian culture for thousands of years. Many more 'explicit' paintings of Hindu goddesses exist, and they are regarded as holy".

For thousands of years women in India used to roam freely in their birthday suits and nobody minded their lack of dress sense, particularly the men who themselves had no need for even fig leaves. But, today if any woman dares to wear revealing dresses, she runs the risk of getting raped even in crowded trains. Hussain, by all appearances, looks like a cave man of yore, and he should have remained in his cave instead of trying to become a modern artist. The argument by the so called art critic is puerile and is only fit for a school debate

Hindi Movies on Terrorists

Recently there has been a spate of movies on Muslim terrorists in Bollywood and most of them try to be politically correct while at the same time trying to depict ground realities.
Movies which come instantly to my mind are black Friday, sarfarosh, Black or White, Fanna, Aamir, Khuda ke liye

In 90's when Films were yet to get industry status Indian movies were msotly financed by underworld money and one could see its effect in storyline of films. Glorifying urchins, road side thugs, smugglers etc. Not a single movie was made in this period which was unambiguous in its message

Black Friday : This was a good attempt to reconstruct the events as they were without much change which is pretty rare in India ( remember Border).
Instead of sermonizing movie simply shows what happened Muslims were angry after babri mosque demolition.Police acted partial during riots and underworld was Muslim dominated and this came handy. One very sinister undercurrent of this movie and which is apparent worldwide that as a community Muslims are more susceptible to be brainwashed by community in danger rhetoric as has been demonstrated by history innumerable times.

Sarafrosh was a fresh air and it was mostly a crime thriller with Indian touch. It had two main Muslim characters in Nasseruddin Shah a Pakistani artist who abuses Indian hospitality and Deputy of Amir khan who feels he is discriminated by system because he is Muslim.

Fanna was an outlandish communist propaganda justifying terrorism in Kashmir and actually shows "dhimmittva" attitude common in bollywood

Aamir was different but once again it does not expose the Hippocracy of terrorist mastermind and actually gives a credence to vicitm mindset in muslims without paing attention to fact that more hindus are living in more pitiable conditons than muslims lviing in mumbai ghettos

Balck & WHite was once again a movie with appeasing tone. By characters of Anil kapoor it tries to show that always Hindus have to be accommodative and go extra mile in palacating muslims.


Pretty similar to kingdom of heaven menatlity of hollywood.

I seriously wonder when will our movies start to show real things in real way !!

IMDB correpondences

I started surfing IMDB in my 3rd year when a junior told me aobut the site. After that almost all english movise I have watched only after having a look at rating and storyline of the movie on IMDB.
Sometimes i also take part in its forums where I must say really good discussions take place. For me forums of particular interest are forum on those indian films which are viewd widley in west and help in forming to a lrge extent perception of india among westerners. In one such forum on movie "water" I was lambasting director deepa mehta for making money out of ills of indian society and the I got a very balanced repy from one gentleman which i think every nationalist or every person who thinks that whole world is after his religion should read :)

Interesting that you should condemn someone for making a film about an oppressive tradition, particularly that you should condemn them for damaging the reputation of a people who continue the custom to some degree today, yet you fail to condemn the oppression itself. The argument that airing your culture's dirty laundry is unacceptable because outsiders will see it has been used by groups pushing hurtful policies throughout the world, it's not unique to India. If you're concerned about bigots, you ought to be informed that nothing positive shown to a bigot will change their mind, some bigots may point to this film and yammer about how Indians oppress widows, but anyone with a mind of their own will know them for what they are: bigots. This film did not have the budget of Seven Years in Tibet and could not afford to build massive sets, filming was pushed out of India, and viewings were refused in India. I suppose she should have included a lesbian sex scene to overcome these challenges?

Regardless your criticisms, much of the world was unaware of the abuses this film brought to light. As much as you might cringe from outsiders criticizing your culture, you seem to have no problem pointing fingers at others such as Islam. Perhaps we all need peer review.

Lastly, your age of philanthropy is a pipe dream mirrored by Luddites and religious zealots throughout the world, the song is always the same: before outsiders brought their influence here, we were a better people. There's no evidence to support this claim. In reality, the people of the past were like the people of today, neither more moral nor less. Like us, they strove to make ends meet. It's precisely that understanding that historical films give us, not their technical mastery of an era. When we see a film that portrays the suffering of others, part of us is supposed to realize that we are like them, both like the oppressed and the oppressor. We're not better, we're not worse, we're entirely capable of perpetuating the same system. When we try to silence discussion of the subject, or we make petty criticisms when our or our kins' efforts to thwart them have failed, we're taking the first step down a long path toward active participation in that behavior again.

Stop worrying about the reputation of your men, every people on earth have skeletons in their closets. If your men and women committed these acts, try to understand why. Don't whine at everyone else to stick their head in the sand because the messenger has imperfect grammar.

Vijay Tendulkar is no more

As a rule I don't have much liking for communists and their penchant to denigrate our society every now and then in the garb of liberals but one has to give them credit where it is due.
Vijay Tendulkar was one such man. I read his drama tittled "Silence the court is in session" in my college library on a sultry afternoon quite similar to climate mentioned in the play and while reading it I felt as if i am present in that room where this drama troupe is enacting a false trail. It hit hard on false morality of our society and how strong and dominant can condone acts of eah other via perfect legitimate means.

This play actually aroused my curiosity and I searched library for any other paly by him and then I hit on Ghasiram Kotwal and all debauchery behind the Peshwai was revealed. The play was also notable for its mixture of dance & choreography and i wanted to enact it during inter hall drama but our drama captain did not find it appealing enough and instead went for oft repeated Spartacus.

He has one more play to his credit called "sakharam Binder" which I am yet to read.While reading various obituary to him I came to know that script for movies liek Nishant, manthan ,ardhsatya and aakrosh were also written by him.
All these moveis are gem in themselves but my favorite is Ardhasatya maybe because I find it more connected to my age.

For someone like Vijay Tendulkar I think this would be apt " i may not agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say till death".
A conscience keeper which every society needs at all points of time.

Mumbai Musings 2

Now it is almost a month in Mumbai. Some observation
1.Due to ban on dance bars and time restriction on disco night life is not what one would expect in a metro.
2.A metro makes people break religious taboo. Girls in burqa can be seen sitting with their boyfriends at marine drive
3.There are so called Maratha stores (I happened to visit two of them). But they are inadequately stocked, rude staff and priced same if not higher. Possibly monopoly feeling makes them behave so or marathis are not businessmen actually
4.girls of age even 13-14 years dress like late teen girls and their faces show that in metros girls attain puberty early. it was never so in my small hometown.
5.Lots of Muslims with long beards or skull cap in normal business place -- any sign of future or am i observing too much
6. Parsi community support mechanism especially in kolaba and old town. Really old people living in dilapidated old buildings
7. All companies have HR and normal support staff mostly Anglo Indians or their descendants.Most probably they are result of intermarriage between lower castes and Britishers. Now I can understand indignation of BK Nehru against this community in his book.
8. A dangerous trend of sectarianism. I mentioned about maratha stores before. There is YMCA hostel whee they prefer Christian guys .There is Maharashtra govt run law college which prefers only maharashtrians. What will happen to this country
9. High brand stores in Malls are frquented by shoppers as opposed to say Indore.
10. People follow lanes in traffic and also while taking buses or trains.other Indian cities can learn
11. No high rise in Nariman point. What is the reason? I don't know but they dream to make it second shanghai. phew ...
12. Mumbai metro project is nowhere. Only roads are blocked in northers suburbs but nothing real happening
13. Climate - good even in summer better than north india at least
14. Food - in all areas you can find find food according to your pocket and platter.

Mumbai Musings

This is my fourth visit to Mumbai but first one when I am meeting a large no of people outside usual sphere of convenience.
I met some interesting people for periods of time extending from few minutes to few days and would try to mention some intresting cretures.

At the top of list are two taxi wallas

First one a gujarati, I guess he was a muslim but he was aghast at new brees of up bihari taxiwallas, rich people , police , family members everything in world. I pray to god don't make me such a bitter man in my old age.

Second was a r\thakur near benaras and was aghast at chamars for putting banners on road to celebrate ambedkar jayanti. i joined his chorus to understand why he thinks so but there was nothing in his brain besides caste prejudice. My question as to why driving taxi if you are a thakur syunned him. Caste runs in blood of Indians.



Third was a boy , a student of first year BMS in the hostel room which I was going to occupy. he was speaking gujarati so i asked him whether he was gujju. He replied no , roman catholic. I said no mater what religion is you can't lose your regionL IDENTITY. THERE ARE WIDE DIFFERENCES IN A MALLU christian and north indian one. Then he says I am portugese not converted. Actually I could say that your forefathers were bastards actually but did not say anything and wondered what will happen to this country when people love to trace their lineage from some foreign invador but not accept their local roots.

Book Review : Nice guys finsih second

I first heard name of this book when I was in class 5. During preparation for all those numerous general knowledge competition I heard name of this book and author which of coures I dutifully crammed.
My age, society, school or city - none of them enabled me to understand what this book was and what it was about.
I had forgotten completely about this book as our media has a flavor to celebrate authors who have some glamor quotient . B K Nehru had none ,it is a different matter that at one time he was the best known man to US administration .
Another point which went against BK was though he was an old man but he was not aloof from modernity as against other Indian leaders and statesman he had a proper understanding of world of finance and international politics. I have read autobiographies of Nehru, prasad and among bureaucrats Haksar & Dharmavira and all these men though great they were were blissfully ignorant of larger world and I think this has been India's problem from time immortal.

Next I read BK Nehru in a book on north eastern states in which in the chapter on Nagaland one ex HT journalist who had made nagaland his home lambasted BK Nehru for his approach to solve Nagaland problem. Next I read about him in Jagmohan's "My frozen turbulence in Kashmir". Jagmohan;s approach was curious .He was not lambasting BK but at the same time to show that he improved state's administration says previous men who dealt with Kashmir were inapt. But when one proceeds further in book and Jagmohan laments that during governorship when there is an elected CM , there is not much to do I understood that even BK did not have much option before him.
I don;t have the book with me now but i highlighted important parts in the book for which I think future reader of that library book will not forgive me so as a penace I wil ltry to make best use of my memory and write a review or my impressions of the book either chronologically or topic wise.

Opportunity & Choice

Lately I have been pondering over how our life's course is decide by these two words.
Opportunities is very obvious as to why someone born in sub Saharan Africa or with all kinds of disadvantages of gender, race, place, wealth, parentage, society & religion can not have the opportunity to make choices which someone else from a privileged background will have.

But my point is interrelation between them i.e. someone with less opportunities also , if he makes correct choices one after another then he can create opportunities for him like say Abraham Lincoln or Dhirubhai Ambani for that matter & similarly someone with opportunities gets to make more choices .
We can see this daily around in our life as well as others life.
So what architect says to Neo in matrix that as you put precisely chocie is the question I think it is incomplete choice which leads to opportunity is crucial and the other way around.

Two ideas for Indian tourism from Montana USA

Recently I have started reading Economist thanks to institute login. before this I used to read it in IIT library and at my company after my boss had read his copy.

I think what makes elite insittues important is this access to outside world as well as ideas .For example if you read an economist issue then for complete next week you can see responsible commentrators and intellectuals lifting ideas straight from it and creating buzz with their new thinking in print and electronic media. Some people go even forward and print complete articles in their name with slight modification here or there.

Well but the point I was making is this week's Montao diary in Economist.My takeawas:


1. 4th largest state of USA but less thna a million population but this is not an excuse for unavilaibility of resources or public amenities .Even the yellowstone park which comes under its jurisdiction is well guarded. Why can't we have such administration in India.

2. As the state is small it appears they don't spend much on government pretensions and even governor house is like neighbous. In india no matter how small the state is all the regalia is must. Did someone say we are socialist??? Even in the book "freedom at midnight" author mentions that Indian minsiters wanted all the pomp and glory of britishers on the independence day and thier socialism could wait for one day.But it is still waiting :).
Moreover I think one reason of this is we repect autohrity only when it is pompous. Even simplicity of Gandhi had its scale to domiante everyone around him and not to be lost in crowd.

3. A really interesting piece is about how they have turned brothels into tourist attractions .here follows the sxtract :

Friday

“MY DAD, who lived a long good life, always used to tell us kids that a town without a whorehouse was a stupid place in which to live.” So wrote one woman in a letter to Helena’s daily newspaper in 1973. Montana may not want to bring back its old brothels, but everywhere I went, there seemed to be one or two on the list of things to see.

Before leaving for Montana, I asked a friend of mine who had grown up in Great Falls where to eat around the state. One can’t-miss, he said, the Windbag Saloon, in downtown Helena. One side of the menu lists the restaurant’s (fairly standard) food offerings. The other advertises the building’s chequered past. Built in 1885 on top of Last Chance Gulch, the creek in which gold deposits were discovered in 1864, the structure that houses the Windbag is a former cathouse called Old Dorothy’s, which peddled flesh right up to Dorothy’s death in 1973.
Where can a man go to vent his enthusiasm around here?

According to a contemporary account, Dorothy was “a dumpy, grey-haired 57-year-old diabetic”. She inherited the whorehouse from its penultimate madam, a woman named Ida who distributed gilt neckties to favoured customers.

Neither Ida nor Dorothy, however, ran the most notable whorehouse in the state. That distinction seems to lie with the Dumas brothel, a rotting Victorian-era mansion in Butte that remained open from 1890 all the way to 1982.

Boom times in Butte’s mines saw the numerous cathouses built on a lane called “Venus Alley”, where miners could “vent their enthusiasms”, as one euphemism put it. Along the alley prostitutes advertised themselves from small rooms called “cribs”, one of which the current owner of the Dumas building recently discovered behind a wall. Deserted, he says, since the 1940’s, the crib contained ancient cigarette butts, bottles and a bed frame that saw enough work that its legs had pushed through the linoleum floor into the wooden floorboards.

The Dumas brothel, which was a museum until 2005, is famous enough that it attracted a thief a few years back, who reportedly stole bed frames, doorknobs and some rare, antique sex toys. For a time, Rudy Giecek, the old bordello’s owner, also teamed up with the International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education, which planned to hold “Whore Camp”, a yearly conference for the sex trade, there.

Now, the Dumas is shuttered and falling apart. But, according to the Montana Standard, a local pizza deliveryman recently donated $20,000 to fix the building’s roof and foundations, and Butte’s Urban Revitalisation Agency just issued a grant to help with the same.

All of this fuss over a broken-down brick mansion from the 1890s seems odd. But in the western United States, suburban tract homes from the 1950s feel old; the reverence residents have for their aging cathouses reflects a longing for a sense of history—any history.

Even more, Americans harbour enduring fondness for the turbulent world of unfettered freedom and vice the West’s Big Sky country offered their forebears, and this sensibility is magnified in Montana. You can see that nostalgia manifested in American western movies or, more alarmingly, in anti-government militia organisations based in Montana. And it might be strong enough to keep Venus Alley’s cribs standing for another generation

Can we do something similar in India. We had prominent khothas in India which had magnificent bulidings and were quite different from red light areas of today. The whores were cultured and brothels ahd thier share of political influence. Remmber ghasiti begum of Bengal or that fmaous novel of Shivnai "krishnakali". In benglai authors' novle be it srikanta or devdas brothels would invariably come with leaidng lady devotee of krishna.
My point is we had brothels which were maginificnet if all these novels are not pure imagination and we should be able to find such buildings and convert thme into touris attractions.


seocnd thing which struck me was how they have ocnverted an old mine into a toursit spot.

Tuesday

BUTTE, MONTANA used to be home to “the richest hill on earth”. Gold and silver deposits were discovered in the area late in the 19th century; miners have been digging ever since.

Boom times came as the electrification of American homes and businesses boosted demand for the millions of tonnes of copper in and around Butte (according to local legend, the demand for bullets created by the first world war also helped). The town is still dotted with ancient, wooden mining rigs, and three of the city’s oldest streets are named Quartz, Gold and, of course, Copper.
Heavy industry in Butte

A famous red-light district developed, and the mines attracted foreigners looking for work and fortune. Many early miners were Irish, and the city still displays those roots: it has pubs as well as bars, and a famous St Patrick’s Day celebration.

But the hill that built Butte has become an ever-deepening pit, and the city’s fortunes rise and fall with the price of copper. Just east of the town’s historic centre are a set of enormous strip mines, whose activity has stopped and started over the last few decades according to the vagaries of world demand.

Miners cut the hills down in rings, each smaller in diameter than the last, leaving a terraced depression in the ground. The remaining ore, the operators tell me, is the lowest grade in the world. Still, demand for building materials in China and elsewhere has boosted copper’s price lately, and the mines are running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The mine’s safety chief drives me to the rock face in a battered Chevrolet Suburban. Along the way, we pass by the most spectacular legacy of Butte’s past prosperity: the Berkeley Pit—a 1.5-mile wide, 1,800-foot deep strip-mine, long inactive (pictured).

Since mining stopped, it has been filling with water that seeps through cracks in the rock, creating an acidic stew of heavy metals and arsenic that once killed a flock of migrating snow geese. Now, the mine operators have an observation post that employees check hourly to ensure that birds keep clear of the toxic water. At my hotel they sell postcards with pictures of the Berkeley Pit on them; the town has made it into a tourist attraction.
Birds' bane

We stop to watch explosives blast a fresh tear into the earth at one of the other pits. The detonation doesn’t go off perfectly: rust-coloured smoke indicates that the explosives are burning rather than exploding. We proceed to the rock face, where an enormous crane scoops earth into immense lorries, which then take the material to the first of many refining facilities.

The mine extracts 100,000 tonnes of material a day, half of which is waste. Conveyer belts move the rocks to a series of crushers. The ultimate result is a fine powder, which is mixed with water, diesel fuel and a series of chemicals in long troughs. Rotors excite the mixture, and the metals literally froth out of the troughs attached to air bubbles.

Butte is a useful example of why Montana’s economy is doing well despite the malaise elsewhere in America. High commodity prices and the weak dollar have helped extractive industries and agriculture, which the governor says account for 20% of the state’s economy.

But Butte’s renewal can’t last. The mine safety chief tells me that unlike Missoula or Bozeman—university towns that attract out-of-staters—few people move to Butte, which is almost entirely populated with natives. The price of copper will fall eventually, and with it the fortunes of this and other mining towns across the state. The Berkeley Pit, on the other hand, will last for centuries

This is also somethin interesting which can be tried out in areas which had mines before modern technology came. I mean even before britishers we used to produce iron,copper and gold and such mines can be devleoped into touris spot. Kolar gold mine seems to be a perfect candidate.