Tuesday, May 23, 2006

This says it all


Somehow I never wrote about the reservation controversy, but this pic from expressindia.com says it all.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

SEZ

Driving to your job or to your college, I am sure each one of us has been fed up, at some point of time, by the traffic on Indian roads. Crawling ant like vehicles which have developed an intimate understanding of the movements of vehicles around it, find their way through traffic, with amazing efficiency. If you can drive on these Indian roads you can drive anywhere!

But at some point you might of wished for a sparkling tram, which could take you to work, passing through spaced out high rises and cool greenery too.

Looks like this might happen soon near you.

The new mantra for growth in India has been special economic zones (SEZ's). Under these, special zones are identified, they are provided with world class infrastructure, flexible labor laws, and this will be used for export based industries. This is the exact way that China has achieved it's economic growth, and now India is banking on it. Incidently the first SEZ in India was before that of China, but subsequently, we lost the path. There are around 100 applications for SEZ pending before the government.

The biggest SEZ in India is planned near Navi Mumbai, called Maha Mumbai, by Reliance and the Maharashtra government.

(open the linking article, when you really have the inclination to read it, cause it's really long)

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Pramod Mahajan

Such a tragic death to a leader so charismatic. I was thinking of writing a post on him before the event that took place on saturday, and i wish i would have written it. I was a true fan of Pramod Mahajan.

My first recollection of him was when he was made national security advisor to the prime minister, the first time the BJP came to power; he used have his parallel press conferences after India had tested the nuclear weapons in 1999. He was earlier the Defence minister in the 13 day BJP government, when was just 48!

Subsequently whenever I saw him on television I uesd to get the feeling that he will make it big in politics. The last interview I saw of him was not more than three weeks back with Vir Sanghvi. In which when asked whether he saw himself as a future PM, he had replied that in Indian politics only members of gandhi-Nehru family could be sure of becoming a PM some day. With his loss the BJP have lost a crucial gen-next leader.

I still can't believe he is no more. His popularity was reflected from the fact that leaders across party lines came to pay him a tribute. From Sonia Gandhi writting letter to his wife, to Bal Thakare, Chagan Bhujbal, LK Advani, Vajpayee, Somnath Chatterjee, to corporate leaders like Anil Ambani and Rahul Bajaj.

The last regret is that he could have been the first person from Maharashtra to become the prime minister.

May his soul rest in peace.