Passionate About India: SRK: The unabashed and rocking symbol of decadent ...:
When he sees elderly idealistic looking people in the audience, he himself says that he knows he is blamed as the symbol of a decadent culture! In fact I almost jumped with surprise when he said that in one of our IIPM shows, for those were the exact words I heard from my dad just a few hours before entering the venue! Later, he laughed it off saying he knows that’s how parents often look at him!! Actually that’s what sets him apart.. While most stars in Bollywood wouldn’t have ever used the word decadence in their lifetime, SRK can use it upon himself and laugh!
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/06/srk-unabashed-and-rocking-symbol-of.html
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Typos: A LITTLE BIT OF US...
Typos: A LITTLE BIT OF US...:
The way this works is that our shared experiences which have shaped our partner have now become a part of them. So there’s a little bit of me in my partner and vice versa. So if I become a little careless or take the relationship for granted, and my partner begins to drift away, and towards other people, our shared experiences will remind her of what we have shared. And indeed, if our shared experiences have been truly unique, and have indeed shaped her, then those experiences will remind her that what she has with me is irreplaceable and worth working on… And it’ll buy me time to get my act together and reassure her that what we have is still as beautiful and special as it used to be…
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THROUGH THE LENSES
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THROUGH THE LENSES:
A few days back, I was watching this movie called 'Karate Kid'. No doubt that the movie is a masterpiece. However, what caught my fancy was not merely the plot or the way it was shot but actually the place it was shot. The movie subtly showcased China’s scenic beauty in the most picturesque manner possible. Be it the way they shot the Great Wall of China or the Forbidden City or the Taoist temple in Wudang Mountain or just that small play depicting a Chinese folk tale. Apparently, it was the beauty of China and the portrayal of Kung-fu that forced me to plan a short vacation to China, in may be near future. What is the lesser known fact about the movie is that it is not a sole Columbia Pictures production but a joint production of China Film Group Corporation and Columbia Pictures!
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/through-lenses.html
A few days back, I was watching this movie called 'Karate Kid'. No doubt that the movie is a masterpiece. However, what caught my fancy was not merely the plot or the way it was shot but actually the place it was shot. The movie subtly showcased China’s scenic beauty in the most picturesque manner possible. Be it the way they shot the Great Wall of China or the Forbidden City or the Taoist temple in Wudang Mountain or just that small play depicting a Chinese folk tale. Apparently, it was the beauty of China and the portrayal of Kung-fu that forced me to plan a short vacation to China, in may be near future. What is the lesser known fact about the movie is that it is not a sole Columbia Pictures production but a joint production of China Film Group Corporation and Columbia Pictures!
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/through-lenses.html
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Passionate About India: AN OPEN LETTER TO SONIA, RAHUL AND MANMOHAN
Passionate About India: AN OPEN LETTER TO SONIA, RAHUL AND MANMOHAN:
Two words seem to have become very popular in popular media: governance and leadership. From America to Greece to Venezuela to India, the big journalists that I know and the media that I read and watch seem to complain that the world faces a crisis of governance and leadership. Even during my recent trip to America, I sensed a public cry about great leadership. I think almost all of us will agree that there is indeed a crisis. People across continents are angry and the media is doing a wonderful job of highlighting that anger. Frankly, I am more concerned about India.
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/open-letter-to-sonia-rahul-and-manmohan.html
Two words seem to have become very popular in popular media: governance and leadership. From America to Greece to Venezuela to India, the big journalists that I know and the media that I read and watch seem to complain that the world faces a crisis of governance and leadership. Even during my recent trip to America, I sensed a public cry about great leadership. I think almost all of us will agree that there is indeed a crisis. People across continents are angry and the media is doing a wonderful job of highlighting that anger. Frankly, I am more concerned about India.
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/open-letter-to-sonia-rahul-and-manmohan.html
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Typos: RULES OF THE GAME -I
Typos: RULES OF THE GAME -I:
Love and God are similar concepts, not in the Bollywoodian sense of one leading the seeker to the other but because both are a consequence of personal experience; impossible to prove to others through the pseudo scientific process of experimentation, extrapolation and observation and yet either is as clear as Diane Kruger’s complexion under the soft light of a setting South African sun to the believer and the beloved. It’s a bit like the way Cartier-Bresson saw poetry etched in his maid’s wrinkled hands, or the way Patty Jenkins had the temerity to find an Oscar winning monster in the angelic eyes of Charlize Theron. If you don’t have the eye, or the heart for it, you just wont see it.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/rules-of-game-i.html
Love and God are similar concepts, not in the Bollywoodian sense of one leading the seeker to the other but because both are a consequence of personal experience; impossible to prove to others through the pseudo scientific process of experimentation, extrapolation and observation and yet either is as clear as Diane Kruger’s complexion under the soft light of a setting South African sun to the believer and the beloved. It’s a bit like the way Cartier-Bresson saw poetry etched in his maid’s wrinkled hands, or the way Patty Jenkins had the temerity to find an Oscar winning monster in the angelic eyes of Charlize Theron. If you don’t have the eye, or the heart for it, you just wont see it.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/rules-of-game-i.html
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THE AFRICA IN INDIA
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THE AFRICA IN INDIA:
Children in India are increasingly being subjected to full array of targets from groups like Naxals and North Eastern insurgents to join them as soldiers! The consequent fallout is devastating for the children as it is robbing them of their innocence, education and a thriving environment for growth and development. Historically, these problems were brooked mostly in African countries like Sierra Leone and Sudan but slowly and surely the phenomenon is finding its feet on the Indian soil.
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/africa-in-india.html
Children in India are increasingly being subjected to full array of targets from groups like Naxals and North Eastern insurgents to join them as soldiers! The consequent fallout is devastating for the children as it is robbing them of their innocence, education and a thriving environment for growth and development. Historically, these problems were brooked mostly in African countries like Sierra Leone and Sudan but slowly and surely the phenomenon is finding its feet on the Indian soil.
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/africa-in-india.html
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Passionate About India: Where are our Etan Patzs and Charles Lindberghs?
Passionate About India: Where are our Etan Patzs and Charles Lindberghs?:
Upon landing and reaching the hotel, even as my thoughts on the importance given by the American society to a single case of kidnapping had barely subsided, I read in the papers about the story of a 1979 kidnapping... that of a child called Etan Patz. What amazed me was that though the boy was kidnapped 33 years ago at the age of 6, and declared dead in 2001 since he could never be found, the police and FBI didn’t give up on him and continued their search. And then, in April 2012, they discovered a basement under a road near the boy’s home, where a carpenter lived, who was possibly someone who had had a hand in the murder. What struck me in the story again was how the kidnapping then in 1979 had shaken up the entire America and had resulted in amazing new awareness and changes in various systems – of parenting and schooling. Earlier, schools never alerted the parents if a child didn’t show up at school; but post the Etan case, schools started doing so, in order to ensure that in case there were a similar tragedy, it wouldn’t take till the end of the day for the parents to come to know – thereby saving precious hours for search operations to begin. Ronald Reagan even declared May 25th – the day of Etan’s disappearance – as the Missing Children’s Day. More importantly, a national system was laid down to track children who disappeared. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children since then has tracked down more than a hundred and fifty thousand kids. And as per statistics, the rate of recovery now stands at an extraordinary 97%, up from 62% in 1990!
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/where-are-our-etan-patzs-and-charles.html
Upon landing and reaching the hotel, even as my thoughts on the importance given by the American society to a single case of kidnapping had barely subsided, I read in the papers about the story of a 1979 kidnapping... that of a child called Etan Patz. What amazed me was that though the boy was kidnapped 33 years ago at the age of 6, and declared dead in 2001 since he could never be found, the police and FBI didn’t give up on him and continued their search. And then, in April 2012, they discovered a basement under a road near the boy’s home, where a carpenter lived, who was possibly someone who had had a hand in the murder. What struck me in the story again was how the kidnapping then in 1979 had shaken up the entire America and had resulted in amazing new awareness and changes in various systems – of parenting and schooling. Earlier, schools never alerted the parents if a child didn’t show up at school; but post the Etan case, schools started doing so, in order to ensure that in case there were a similar tragedy, it wouldn’t take till the end of the day for the parents to come to know – thereby saving precious hours for search operations to begin. Ronald Reagan even declared May 25th – the day of Etan’s disappearance – as the Missing Children’s Day. More importantly, a national system was laid down to track children who disappeared. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children since then has tracked down more than a hundred and fifty thousand kids. And as per statistics, the rate of recovery now stands at an extraordinary 97%, up from 62% in 1990!
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/where-are-our-etan-patzs-and-charles.html
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Typos: CAN I KISS AND TELL?
Typos: CAN I KISS AND TELL?:
These words have eaten up more space than they ought to have and so I will let the third anecdote, this time from a man’s perspective, go. Just as well too, for this one wouldn’t have been easy to disguise. And since the relationship is still alive, though I have his permission to share it, it’s a risk best avoided. For now, all you need to know, dear reader, is that these doubts, both Zahira’s and Mandavi’s, are not gender specific.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/can-i-kiss-and-tell.html
These words have eaten up more space than they ought to have and so I will let the third anecdote, this time from a man’s perspective, go. Just as well too, for this one wouldn’t have been easy to disguise. And since the relationship is still alive, though I have his permission to share it, it’s a risk best avoided. For now, all you need to know, dear reader, is that these doubts, both Zahira’s and Mandavi’s, are not gender specific.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/can-i-kiss-and-tell.html
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THE DARK SIDE OF LIGHT
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: THE DARK SIDE OF LIGHT:
The power wastage would continue to take its toll unless radical reforms are not put in place at the earliest. At the want of some drastic reforms in power distribution, losses can spiral up to 1.2 per cent of India’s nominal GDP by March 2014, according to an independent research by Avendus Securities. The populist agenda of not hiking power tariff are common in majority of the states thus stoking up the losses. Reports suggest that losses augmented to 0.9 per cent in FY 2010, a sea change from just 0.6 per cent in FY 2006. The power loss is eating away monstrous proportions with accumulated wastage being estimated at 23 per cent of the total input energy.
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/dark-side-of-light.html
The power wastage would continue to take its toll unless radical reforms are not put in place at the earliest. At the want of some drastic reforms in power distribution, losses can spiral up to 1.2 per cent of India’s nominal GDP by March 2014, according to an independent research by Avendus Securities. The populist agenda of not hiking power tariff are common in majority of the states thus stoking up the losses. Reports suggest that losses augmented to 0.9 per cent in FY 2010, a sea change from just 0.6 per cent in FY 2006. The power loss is eating away monstrous proportions with accumulated wastage being estimated at 23 per cent of the total input energy.
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/dark-side-of-light.html
Passionate About India: The shameful case of Fair and Lovely Indians!
Passionate About India: The shameful case of Fair and Lovely Indians!:
Friends, relatives, consultants and professors... anyone I got talking to for more than a while almost invariably explained to me at one point of time or the other why the locality they lived in was especially good since it didn’t have Black people! Or for that matter why a particular city was better because of the lesser number of Blacks! Of course, I didn’t pick up fights. But it made me feel sad about the education, schooling and upbringing we are giving to our children. How could educated people, after coming to America, still discriminate on the basis of the colour of the skin? That too coming from a land where they themselves are mostly brown and a land where gods and mythological characters like Krishna and Draupadi are described as being uniquely attractive due to their dark complexion!
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/shameful-case-of-fair-and-lovely.html
Friends, relatives, consultants and professors... anyone I got talking to for more than a while almost invariably explained to me at one point of time or the other why the locality they lived in was especially good since it didn’t have Black people! Or for that matter why a particular city was better because of the lesser number of Blacks! Of course, I didn’t pick up fights. But it made me feel sad about the education, schooling and upbringing we are giving to our children. How could educated people, after coming to America, still discriminate on the basis of the colour of the skin? That too coming from a land where they themselves are mostly brown and a land where gods and mythological characters like Krishna and Draupadi are described as being uniquely attractive due to their dark complexion!
Read more: http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/shameful-case-of-fair-and-lovely.html
Monday, 7 May 2012
Sutanu Guru: INDIA’S SORROW: CRONY SOCIALISM & CRONY SECULARISM...
Sutanu Guru: INDIA’S SORROW: CRONY SOCIALISM & CRONY SECULARISM...:
There is a chilling story in our sister publication The Sunday Indian from Srinagar that tells a lot about how Indian intellectuals, journalists and pundits practice secularism. Kaiser Bhatt runs a school for kids called Orange International Playschool in the outskirts of Srinagar. In April, 2012, he invited some Muslim friends from Malaysia to visit his school. They sipped tea, exchanged pleasantries and soon left. Within minutes, the playschool was surrounded by an angry mob that had gathered in response to a rumour that the playschool was actually a ‘Christian’ outfit and that the visiting Malaysians were Christian missionaries. Scared stiff, Kaiser desperately pleaded with his Malaysian friends to come back to scotch the rumours. The Malaysians returned and were forced by the mob to ‘prove’ that they were Muslims. Only then did the violent mob disperse. But Kaiser’s troubles were not over as worried parents wanted to withdraw their kids. Worse, school staff were reluctant to come to the school since they were scared a mob will pounce on them.
Read more: http://sutanu-guru.blogspot.in/2012/05/indias-sorrow-crony-socialism-crony.html
There is a chilling story in our sister publication The Sunday Indian from Srinagar that tells a lot about how Indian intellectuals, journalists and pundits practice secularism. Kaiser Bhatt runs a school for kids called Orange International Playschool in the outskirts of Srinagar. In April, 2012, he invited some Muslim friends from Malaysia to visit his school. They sipped tea, exchanged pleasantries and soon left. Within minutes, the playschool was surrounded by an angry mob that had gathered in response to a rumour that the playschool was actually a ‘Christian’ outfit and that the visiting Malaysians were Christian missionaries. Scared stiff, Kaiser desperately pleaded with his Malaysian friends to come back to scotch the rumours. The Malaysians returned and were forced by the mob to ‘prove’ that they were Muslims. Only then did the violent mob disperse. But Kaiser’s troubles were not over as worried parents wanted to withdraw their kids. Worse, school staff were reluctant to come to the school since they were scared a mob will pounce on them.
Read more: http://sutanu-guru.blogspot.in/2012/05/indias-sorrow-crony-socialism-crony.html
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Passionate About India: The shameful case of Fair and Lovely Indians!
Passionate About India: The shameful case of Fair and Lovely Indians!:
Friends, relatives, consultants and professors... anyone I got talking to for more than a while almost invariably explained to me at one point of time or the other why the locality they lived in was especially good since it didn’t have Black people! Or for that matter why a particular city was better because of the lesser number of Blacks! Of course, I didn’t pick up fights. But it made me feel sad about the education, schooling and upbringing we are giving to our children. How could educated people, after coming to America, still discriminate on the basis of the colour of the skin? That too coming from a land where they themselves are mostly brown and a land where gods and mythological characters like Krishna and Draupadi are described as being uniquely attractive due to their dark complexion!
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Typos: THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS... OR MAYBE NOT!
Typos: THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS... OR MAYBE NOT!:
It had been a long day of stunning adventures. The open topped Toyota tourist van had taken us at the break of a nippy dawn, all stiff and bleary eyed from The Fig Tree Camp resort, or some such name, and within minutes of driving through the dewy golden savannah, we were in the midst of a lion hunt. Three lionesses had just felled a zebra. The victim’s left hind leg was still drawing circles that grew smaller and smaller until it ended in a long slow twitch when we pulled up right next to the lionesses. Their flanks were still heaving from the exertions of the chase. Then they tore into the zebra’s stomach and blood, warm and wet, trickled onto the grassland and stained it red. Cameras clicked and whirred. One of the lionesses looked up at us and glowered. The driver thought it prudent not to test her patience and though we hadn’t had our fill yet, the van rolled along towards the horizon.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/through-looking-glass-or-maybe-not.html
It had been a long day of stunning adventures. The open topped Toyota tourist van had taken us at the break of a nippy dawn, all stiff and bleary eyed from The Fig Tree Camp resort, or some such name, and within minutes of driving through the dewy golden savannah, we were in the midst of a lion hunt. Three lionesses had just felled a zebra. The victim’s left hind leg was still drawing circles that grew smaller and smaller until it ended in a long slow twitch when we pulled up right next to the lionesses. Their flanks were still heaving from the exertions of the chase. Then they tore into the zebra’s stomach and blood, warm and wet, trickled onto the grassland and stained it red. Cameras clicked and whirred. One of the lionesses looked up at us and glowered. The driver thought it prudent not to test her patience and though we hadn’t had our fill yet, the van rolled along towards the horizon.
Read more: http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.in/2012/05/through-looking-glass-or-maybe-not.html
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: ROAD TO CORRUPTION
COMMON SENSE SIMPLIFIED: ROAD TO CORRUPTION:
The President of Bombay Goods Transport Association (BGTA) recently said, “The scam of money collection at toll plazas is bigger than the 2G scam. The government has sold off major national assets, our National Highways, to contractors.” Most of other transport agencies in the country are biting the bullet as ever-increasing burden of toll plaza corruption are palming off the truckers with deceit and coercion. The rage is all across the nation, as the same story keeps on repeating itself, and the trap is affecting strangling and commuters alike!
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/road-to-corruption.html
The President of Bombay Goods Transport Association (BGTA) recently said, “The scam of money collection at toll plazas is bigger than the 2G scam. The government has sold off major national assets, our National Highways, to contractors.” Most of other transport agencies in the country are biting the bullet as ever-increasing burden of toll plaza corruption are palming off the truckers with deceit and coercion. The rage is all across the nation, as the same story keeps on repeating itself, and the trap is affecting strangling and commuters alike!
Read more: http://prasoonsmajumdar.blogspot.in/2012/05/road-to-corruption.html
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