The Cabbie Menace!!

Anyone in Mumbai who takes Public Transport to work, especially cabs and autos knows how hard it is to find one, especially at the times when you need it the most. These cabbies or auto drivers flatly refuse people wishing to travel short distances and openly flout all the traffic rules and regulations. During the peak hour and the rush hour when people are scrambling to get to work or reach home at a decent hour, they are often held ransom by these drivers.

It is not that there are not enough cabs or autos in Mumbai city, it is just that you can't find one during peak hour. I have heard countless people in the Mumbai suburbs complain about this menace. I for one have often picked up a fight with many a auto drivers, especially when I am in a hurry and I have literally forced myself in an auto refusing to budge unless the driver takes me to my destination if choice. Further I have often swore and cussed at all the drivers who refuse to take me to my destination. I have even tried complaining about one particular driver to the authorities, but to no avail.

This was until Mid-Day, the popular news paper in thee city decided to address this issue and teamed up with the Traffic Police Mumbai and bring the offenders to book. Since a last few weeks they have set a up a special team of constables at places where this nuisance of cabbies and auto drivers in most chronic and started fining the errant drivers. This drive initially started with the cabbies and was very successful and popular among the general public. Needless to say the cabbie drivers were not amused and tried to come up with a novelty of excuses to wriggle their way out of fines. The drive has since last couple of weeks shifted to the suburbs and the errant auto drivers are now being taken to task.

This act by Mid-Day team has led to some relief for thousand of commuters who take autos and cabs everyday. I personally find it much easier now a days to find a auto when I need one. Just goes on to show how Media can take a pro-active role in helping the citizens of Mumbai. I wish that Mid-day as well as other newspapers who have been in the city for as long as one can remember continue to come up with such socially beneficial initiatives so that people like us benefit.

In the mean time if you ever come across a cabbie or an auto driver who refuses to ply to your destination, you can register your complaint at 022-24937755. Once can even file a complaint at http://www.trafficpolicemumbai.org/

IPL Awards

I was watching the telecast of IPL Awards last evening and was saddled with a lot of thoughts as I sat went through the motions. First of all.....SERIOUSLY...IPL AWARDS??? We do have cricket awards from time to time, but they are more of an Annual affair and are conducted in a dignified manner. IPL Awards on the other hand seem to be nothing but a sham organized to have that last ditch attempt to maximize viewer eyeballs. I mean the whole exercise seemed pointless and futile to me. Are we now judging cricketers on the basis on cricket (a lot of people claim that IPL is just not cricket but I ignore that reasoning for the purpose of this argument) tournament that lasts for 7 weeks and is more like a lottery. You have a bunch of world class batsmen hitting mostly not so good bowlers all over the park. Is this what cricket is all about? I know at least IPL is.

But more than the sancity of the awards, I was more ashamed by the manner in which these awards were presented. I mean having Karan Johar as a host!!!!!! I have nothing against that guy, but aren't these "cricket awards" and shouldn't a cricketer be hosting these. Thankfully the winners kept their winning speeches short or else it would have been hard to distinguish between IPL awards and Filmfare awards.

Finally, there was a Fashion Show involving some of the cricketers. And the choice of cricketers was hilarious to say the least. While seasoned 'models' like Yuvraj and Virat Kohli were warming their chairs, the awkward ones like Praveen Kumar participated. It seemed as if the poor guy was in some sort of an ordeal. Cricket has never been commercialized to such a nonsensical extent. I have nothing against the IPL. In fact I really feel that it has widened the viewer base for cricket matches and has helped a lot of youngsters achieve their dreams and aspirations. At the same time, it has become easy money avenues for budding cricketers who are no longer proud in representing their country and are just content playing in the IPL and rake in tons of moolah. A lot of cricketers who have appeared for couple of seasons in IPL have decided to retire from World Cricket and focus solely on IPL. Easy money provided by IPL also has its drawbacks for cricketers. They are now expected to shoot X number of days for their sponsors and employers. Further they are expected to attend post match parties where cheerleaders strut their stuff and booze is on the house (how is that a drawback??, but according to some cricketers it really is). In short it made me realize that post IPL there is little difference between Cricketers and Street Whores except for may be the price!!

However it was a huge relief to see Sachin Tendulkar absent from the IPL Awards.....may be the master still regains his Sanity!!

The Big Short!!

I am a huge Sucker for books based on Finance. My favorites include Monkey Business and Liar's Poker. Some other books that I have enjoyed include the Predator's Ball, Barbarians at the Gate, When Genius Failed and Den of Thieves. All these books have a very vivid description of some of the major financial events in the US Economy, including the Stock Market Crash of 1987, the evolution of Junk Bond Markets and so on. I was waiting for someone to write a book on the recent Mortgage crisis that hit the US Economy and led to a worldwide recession. And I was not disappointed. Michael Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker came up with the book called " The Big Short" that describes the current financial crisis.

And as all Michael Lewis books, this book is brilliant. If you have to read only one book about the recent financial crisis, then let it be this book. Lewis tells his story through the eyes of a few small hedge fund mangers who were easily among the first to recognize that not all was well with the US Sub prime markets and the housing bubble was supposed to bust..and soon. They further found ways to bet against these sub prime mortgages and make money out of it, even when the rest of wall street thought these guys as crazy!!

Michael Lewis explains in an extremely lucid and concise manner how the crisis was unfolded. He goes on to explain how sub prime mortgages were created and CDO's originated. However he does it in a way that a layman can comprehend. You don't have to be a finance geek to enjoy his book.

A great deal is discussed about the entities that were responsible for the crisis, be it the loan originators who provided housing loans to people who could not afford one, the agencies who turned the package of these loans into CDO's, the rating agencies who rated the mortgages as AAA's without really understanding them. But more so, the Investment banks who bought and sold CDO's without really comprehending the risks associated with them. The term here is 'risk'. Since all the players were able to shift the risk to one another, it was left on to the gullible investors to bear the risk and ultimately the US Taxpayers who had to spend billions of dollars to bail these banks out.

This book is another example of how greed and wall street excesses can time and again disrupt the financial markets and challenge the whole financial system of the country. Only with the advent of Globalization, such excesses can lead to whole world plunging into recession.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Finance and World Economics!!

M' back...for good (hopefully)

OK....I really haven't had a chance to visit here since last few months. Was totally loaded with work and other commitments. Anyways... was guilty as hell...so decided to see if I could revisit this page, this time hopefully with some regularity and consistency!!.

Too many things have happened since I was last here. The IPL once again was equally entertaining and was in the news for as much action off the field as it was for action on the field. Was highly disappointed with Mumbai's performance in the final and Sachin's captaincy was just mind numbing. Anyways there is always a next chance. Have decided however to stay off Idli till Mumbai beats Chennai Super Kings, hopefully in Champions League.

Lalit Modi's ouster was again a very controversial topic. Almost seemed as if whole of BCCI's top brass wanted him out. I don't know whether Mr. Modi is guilty of any of the charges that have been levied on him, one has to admit that he has been a brilliant administrator and has been instrumental in making the IPL one of the richest sports brands in the world. Staying with IPL, just need to add that while the crass commercialization of the sport will get you money in the short run, I as a viewer felt totally helpless, watching advertisements and commercials between deliveries this time rather than between overs as is customary in cricket. Too many ads like this and I shall switch off from watching IPL on TV at all. I am sure there are many more frustrated viewers like me out there...so the IPL needs to watch out and keep the viewers in mind when allotting ad space.

India's performance at the ICC T20 World Cup was once again disappointing. They have now failed to win a single match in Super 8 stages for 2 years running. Speaks volumes of the team that won the inaugural edition of the same tournament in 2007. More than the defeat, it is the manner of defeat that brings anguish and grief. The batsmen looked totally out of sorts even against pedestrian attacks, the fielding was sloppy - even gully cricketers can catch and field better and the bowling was just ordinary. Dhoni's excuse that the IPL was to blame for this poor display is just a hogwash. Even the players from other teams played in the IPL. attended all the parties and still managed to put up a better show. Dhoni's captaincy recently seems to be full of tactical errors, which can be masked when the team is performing well, but are exposed when the team fails. So he needs to pull his socks up.

That's all I can remember for now....hope to add more soon!!

Dividing India!!!!

Home Minister P C Chidambaram's recent statement that a separate state of Telangana will be carved out from the existing state of Andhra Pradesh has opened up a can of worms for the ruling Congress Party. The reactions to this statement have been both swift and far reaching. Whole lot of MP's and MLA's many of them from Congress party itself resigned following this announcement. This indicates that the party did not take all its members into confidence before opting for this announcement. While this announcement bought a wave of relief to people from Telangana region, the rest of Andhra Pradesh and even India seems indignant and up in arms against such ridiculous decision.

First of all, the most contentious issue here is the fate of Hyderabad which is capital of Andhra Pradesh. If Telangana state is indeed formed as the Government states, then Hyderabad will fall deep within Telangana's regional boundaries. Which means that Hyderabad will either become capital of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh will need a new city as its capital. Vizag or Vishakapatnam comes in contention but it is simply not in the same league as Hyderabad. Alternatively, Hyderabad could be turned into a separate Union Territory and be allowed to serve as capital of both Andhra Pradesh as well as Telangana (similar to Chandigarh). Thus the fate of Hyderabad remains interesting.

Finally, while the Congress almost retracted on its earlier statement and said that the state of Telangana will not be carved out in a haste and it will follow proper judicial a well as constitutional procedures of the same, the impact has already come to bite it on its back. First of all, around a dozen other groups have put forward their demands for carving out separate states from current states. Congress has indeed set up a bad precedent.

The people from Telangana have long complained that they do not get their fair share of resources from the Andhra Pradesh Government and hence their region has remained backward and under developed and creating a separate state is necessary to ensure that Telangana gets its fair allocation of resources. But can this really work? Do small states improve Governance? Similar arguments were heard during creation of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand, and we still keep hearing similar demand from Vidharbha in Maharashtra and a lot of other small factions. Let us look at the three states that were already created a few years back - there seems to be little evidence to suggest that quality of governance or standard of living of general population has in anyways improved since the state were formed. On the other hand, crime and corruption in these states is definitely on a rise (Soren, Madhu Koda). Secondly states such as Jharkhand are rich in natural resources with a flourishing mining industry which provides some hope that these states will become self sufficient at some point in future.

The case of Telangana on the other hand is unique. It boasts of no industry, natural resources or any hint of development. It is as backward as people claim it is. Which means that it will need greater allocation of resources from National Budgets for quite some time, which naturally would be at expense of some other states. Telangana might also need to increase taxes to fund its development program which will further create a barrier for industries. If these happens, a lot of industries already in Hyderabad might consider shifting base which will hurt the state even more.

The bigger debate here is that does India need any more states? Smaller states, instead of improving Governance leads to duplication of lot of resources. More states means more tax codes, more segregates police force, more bureaucracy. India is a very diverse country with different customs and religions. Governing such a huge country with different cultures is a challenge in itself and it is commendable that we have managed to run smoothly till now. However if we give in to demands of all smaller factions and start carving out more states, the whole cause of United India will be lost. We might as well break up India in different pieces and have more countries instead of states.

What about people from areas such as Telangana then. Should they continue to live in poverty and economic backwardness? No. But the solution is not a separate state. They could instead fight for their share of resources, or refuse to pay taxes or some sort of civil disobedience acts till they are allotted the same. But asking for formation of a separate state - that would destroy the very fabric if India - its unity and inclusiveness.

Animal Farm!!

Few months ago, a friend recommended that I read George Orwell's Animal Farm. Much to her surprise, I had never heard of the book before. On further research, I found that this is one of the most famous books of all time and I decided to go ahead and read it - and I was not disappointed. It is a short yet powerful and a very compelling read.

The plot of the book revolves around a farm named "Animal Farm" named such because the farm has been taken over by animals after overthrowing the farmer. The animals collectively decide and attempt to run the farm and elect the pigs, who are their "comrades" as their leaders. The main lesson learnt from the book is that Power corrupts even the best of us. Everything at the farm seems hunky dory at first and all the animals are content and happy.

However things take a turn for the worst when the pigs slowly turn the running of the farm into a dictatorship and all the remaining animals start to suffer one by one as the pigs taking the other naive animals for a ride. The best part I liked about this book is that it is a very easy read and yet it compels you to think about the plight of farm animals and the circumstances that led to it. I would surely recommend this book to everyone.

Fell in love with Casablanca

I just finished watching Casablanca - the old Hollywood classic movie and just felt that I had to write about it. Like many other people in my generation, I have watched my fair share of love stories - starting with Titanic, and followed by Notting Hill, My Best Friend's Wedding, You have got Mail, When Harry met Sally, French Kiss, 50 First Dates and I loved them all. However Casablanca is a class apart.As far as love stories are concerned, it wins hands-down. It made me wonder as to why they have stopped making movies like that anymore.

Casablanca is a 1942 romantic film set during World War II in the uncontrolled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and his need to do the right thing by helping her husband, Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, escape from Casablanca and continue his fight against the Nazis.

The chemistry between Rick and Ilsa is nothing short of outstanding, and their on-screen presence together is stunning and the dialogues are memorable. The movie left me with no doubt as to why it is considered to be among the greatest movies ever made. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLdqKUkkM6w.Above is the snapshot of the movie, in form of a song - watch it, u'll enjoy it.