29 crores for 11 minutes
20 $ a day for 12 days
The first figure is how much the Govt. spent on Aish, Saif, Rani and the rest of the Bollywood clan and the second is how much the athletes got during the CW Games. And if you saw the closing ceremony, you'd think it was an invitation to the next Filmfare orIIFA awards. I didn't see even one of the gold medalists go on the dias. I don't even know if all that lavishness was worth it. Instead of felicitating their wonderful showing at the CW Games, they did the usual confusion-abounding song and dance routine which was plain sick. And you know Aish, she has to give that neck-tilting, eyebrow-raising smile, gaaaawd! How did getting a beauty queen and two other relatively lesser known actors help the Indian sporting fraternity? Couldn't they have spent it on the IHF which is begging for funds? Apparently Priyanka and Lara were there too but I switched to good old NDTV after I saw 2 minutes of the craziness.
I was watching Talking Heads where Prannoy was interviewing L.K. Advani. I didn't know too much about Mr. Advani apart from his pro-Jinnah statements and that he joined the RSS when he was 14! I mean when NDA was in power, it was all Vajpayee! How can you question someone who's dedicated 64 years to public life? Anyway, he said two things that really struck me. One was that India is a secular country only because it was primarily Hindu. That's a fact. When Partition happened based on religion, we could've easily opted to be a Hindu state just like Pakistan chose to be a Muslim one but instead, we chose secularism. Why? Only because we are Hindu. Another thing he said was about Vivekanada's guru, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Now, he wanted to explore the fact preached by most religions that all roads lead to heaven. He actually tried the Islamic and Christian rituals for a while. That thought even crossed his mind only because he was Hindu.
Now, all we need is to have reservations for Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and Jains so that Hindus have a little less 0.2% of the seats which will be merit-based.
Increasing reservation is only an open acceptance of the system's failure. It means that the Govt. has failed to uplift the BCs and the OBCs and the SNLCs(still-not-labelled-classes). Instead of providing some sort of Coaching classes or improving their basics by ensuring that they have access to good education, they're politicizing it! One minister's solution was to see that Maths and Science are not made compulsory. If reservations are required, have them at the Primary School level. Give them an opportunity to compete on fair ground. Or have reservations based on financial background. I mean it's commonsense to do that. What's there to have sms polls and discussions about it? And I still don't understand what the 11% of the people who voted that reservations are required, actually defended about the present system.
The system itself is so complicated that there are a million ways to interpret it depending on your need.
If I ever write CAT again, all I need to do is get some notary to sign an OBC certificate or are there plans to implement 33% reservation for women there too?
So, all my TV knowledge is actually helping me take my mind off the other supposedly more important things. Anyway,
Shows to look out for on TV:
India Matters - NDTV (great case studies!)
Project Runway - Travel & Living (another reality show)
The Apprentice - Star World (new season started today!)
E 360 - CNN IBN (for Paras cutie)
Have a great weekend!
