Odyssey in times of Adversity!

Everyone needs a break in life. It is tough to get one in a busy world. Sometime ago, yours truly was watching a documentary on AlJazeera channel. It showed an optimistic story coming from Greece. As readers would remember the dire economical and financial condition that Greece was in, not too long ago.

The economic recession forced Greece to agree to the austerity measure laid out by the Germany-led European Union. This austerity measures forced Greece into a big spending freeze mode, affecting lots of jobs and creating undue hardships to many professionals. It was plain dejection for many of them, especially the ones that had high paying, high profile white collared jobs.

But just as every tale has an outcome just like the attitude of the people who responded to adversities, this tale was no different. Many of them went back to their hometown far from the cities and revisited the footsteps of their ancestors by doing the best what one can do in life- farming. They went back, tilled the land and many of them enjoyed a bountiful harvest. Free from pollution, the hectic and compromising lifestyle of modern city living, they charted out a well-tested, sustainable solution to their dreams, goals and aspirations; which became defined in adversity, in a totally new manner.

Please click on the link above to watch the documentary. Adversity defines you in unimaginable ways.
Odyssey in times of Adversity!

Rise of Naxalism

Due to the IPL fracas, the news organizations in India have shown a certain laxity in the coverage of the Naxal attack on politicians in the Indian state of Chattisgarh. It is a dastardly attack, no doubts on that. But the event offers certain lessons the corruption laced Indian polity needs to remember.

Development and progress needs to be an inclusive activity to every section of the population. India being a developing country needs to understand that it is the fundamental right of every human being to avail the basic necessities of life- food, shelter and means to survive. Denying these would instigate the rudimentary attribute of every human being-one that of a beastly nature.

Today the Indian polity and media does a fantastic job of fooling the Indian society with the excreta of their misdeeds in the form of scams, scandals and loot etc. The middle class Indian enslaved to the idea of prosperity in the form of materialistic wealth and relentless consumerism, turns a pathetic deaf ear and a blind eye to this misdeeds. They are living in a make believe world. Just like the other side of a coin, the mighty Indian rich, polity and media should realize that their adversaries in the form of the downtrodden, poor and needy will not behave like their middle class counterparts.

The problem of Naxalism is a real one and a true one. If there is one thing that we can learn from the scams and scandals that plague every facet of the Indian society is that we are all adulterated with the same scum and filth. But this new found adversaries are much better than us, they are fighting for what we irresponsibly denied them and are feasting on today. That ugly battle is one we should learn to avoid as it is not a fight worth fighting for.

Image courtesy: http://www.instablogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/naxalism_j6o2t_2263.jpg

Air India: An epitaph or a renascence?

Last year in the month of July, yours truly had planned a trip to India from Canada, on our national carrier- Air India. I had planned the trip well in advance and I was overjoyed at obtaining a good price for my ticket during this busy season. Barely days after I had booked the flight, news came out that a certain section of the Air India staff being unhappy over a petty incident involving the flying rights to the new Boeing Dreamliners, decided to strike work. Within days, this workers’ strike got worse and out of control, forcing Air India to cancel many international routes including the ones to and from Canada. Yours truly was taken aback with this abrupt decision from Air India, and was forced to cancel his ticket, and obtain a proper refund after weeks of reasoning with a highly inefficient Air India customer service. The strike went on for months and Air India limped back into operation just when the most revenue generating season, the period between June-October, ended.

Since the time I can remember, growing up in the Middle East, Air India had been the airline of choice to travel to and back from my motherland. The Middle East, home to millions of Indian workers, known as expatriates was a mere 4 hrs in flying hours and was close to most of the destinations in India. Incidentally the flying time was similar to travel between any point in North India to South India. Due to its close proximity with the sub-continent, the Middle East ended up being the ‘second home’ to millions of Indians. Air India at that time being the only available ‘flight of choice’ had the ultimate monopoly in this market. Since most of the passengers were of south Indian descent, it gave them the ultimate authority to charge huge amounts in ticket rates during the ‘most revenue generating season’ as mentioned earlier. The expatriate workers, majority of them who worked in horrible conditions and low wages, had to shell out a fortune to visit their home and loved ones. Repeated pleas from all the expatriates to the Indian/Air India authorities fell into deaf ears for decades. As Air India was heavily unionized, the staff along with the aircrafts aged.

Years after the liberalization, as India grew, the need to rejuvenate the loss making Air India gathered steam. The domestic route sibling of Air India- Indian Airlines, was forced to improve quality and maintain profitability once the domestic skies were opened up in India in the early 2000s. Bad governance (being an epitome) of the Congress government allowed it to merge both the airlines, creating employee dissatisfaction when different packages were offered to employees of both the airlines. The sheikhdoms of Middle East, realizing the decreasing potential of oil reserves, and as part of their diversification efforts, setup international airlines for each emirate, in addition to sprucing up their airport infrastructure to world standards. While Air India floundered due to internal contradictions, these Arab airlines, with easy access to capital, low cost aviation fuel and sans any tax regime prospered.

The recent news of Etihad buying a stake in Jet Airways and request for more seats from India should come as no surprise to any keen observer of this industry. I have always believed that governments should stay out of running airlines, or for that matter any service industry. Due to political compulsions and a genuine fear of the trade unions, Indian governments have always shied from taking tough decisions. By shamelessly using valuable taxpayers money, this floundering behemoth of an airline, was sustained. The corrupt trade unions, often alleged to be funded by these ‘foreign airlines’ made it a point to cripple any revenue generating option for this airline. As time passed, Air India and its much famed ‘maharaja’ became a laughing stoke for the world, and the ‘pride of India’ became a ‘shame of India’.

As I see it, the future is bad for all internationally ferrying Indian travellers. First their hard earned money paid as taxes, will be used to keep this floundering disgrace of an airline, Air India, on life support. Next since all the sheikhdom airlines (linked through family-related foreign owners) will have the ultimate right to ferry Indians out of India to their own country, as connection points. In addition to increased profits, while waiting for flight connections, Indian passengers would be forced to shop and travel around within the fancy cities of the sheikhdoms thereby bolstering their tourism prospects as well. It is therefore a win-win situation for the sheikhdom airlines. Though the ‘paid media’ and the corrupt Congress government of India might try to sell this whole proposition as a win-win for Indian passengers, I fear that the reality will be contrary.

What can be done here? I believe nothing. Lack of proper vision and any foresight on the behalf of the Indian government has led to this situation. When the same countries that produces the fuel and runs service whose economics depends on this fuel, we have all the makings of an ultimate monopoly. The past trends of the aviation industry has pointed to a centralization of the resources and power to the oil rich Middle Eastern sheikhdoms. While other countries in North America and Europe have already taken much needed steps to address this eventuality, the inaction of a paralyzed Indian polity is not surprising.

When aviator Nevill Vintcent and JRD Tata, began the Tata Air Services, it was renowned for its exceptional and efficient service. As an excerpt from the annual report of the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DCA) of India for the year 1933-34 stated the following “As an example how airmail service should be run, we commend the efficiency of Tata Services who on October 10, 1933, arriving at Karachi as usual to time, completed a year’s working with 100 per cent punctuality… even during the most difficult monsoon months when rainstorms increased the perils of the Western Ghat portion of the route no mail from Madras or Bombay missed connection at Karachi nor was the mail delivered late on a single occasion at Madras… our esteemed Trans-Continental Airways, alias Imperial Airways, might send their staff on deputation to Tatas to see how it is done.” This was the beginnings of Air India which was acquired by the government of India shortly after independence and ruined to its certain death as of today.

Can Air India ever be saved? I believe it can with a strong government resolve. First of all, I believe that the government should divest off Air India into a privately owned company, owned fully by its employees. This would give a sense of ownership to the employees and an attitude of ‘perform or perish’ takes precedence. Next the government needs to reduce the aviation sector taxes, including surcharges on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and allow the industry to grow. Efforts should be made to encourage the advent of even far numbers of budget airlines and modern airports for every towns in India. This would generate much more employment, allow a competitive market between the railways and aviation benefitting the customers. This would encourage much faster and efficient movement of people and goods between both the native and foreign cities. Ultimately today’s modern India will have a healthy and vibrant aviation sector it can be always proud of.

Picture Courtesy: http://www.flightsimworld.com/forums/topic/109655-my-air-india-744-collection-mostly-sunset-shots/

Death’s Satire

This year’s Good Friday was not an entirely pleasant experience. I lost a close relative whom I had known since childhood on that day. During the service, I received a text message on my cellphone which informed me about the sad news. The ’late’ person had a peaceful death after attending the Good Friday service.

After hearing this sad news, I like any normal person wasn’t interested in attending the church service any longer, on that day. I returned home sooner with my wife, and spent some time in silence.

Later in the day, I was talking with another relative of mine, when out of words of consolation, she reminded me that, Good Friday being a holy day, the person who died on that day was extremely lucky. Suddenly I recollected that the last time I heard of someone who died on a Good Friday, rose again on the third day! That made me feel good about the loss and I felt that death though is a permanent and life changing event, has a satire about its invincibility.

RBC: Serve them not. Teach them to serve themselves!

Today yours truly, went to the nearby RBC bank to withdraw money  from his account. Unusual for a Saturday, there was a long lineup of people waiting to be served by the teller. Due to the recent CBC allegations into RBC-iGate-foreign worker scandal, the RBC staff was being too nice to many ‘pissed off’ customers for a change. Normal transactions that took minutes before, took forever to complete and the line kept growing.

After what seemed like an eternity in time coordinates, it was the turn of yours’ truly to be served. As I walked up to the counter, I tried to strike a conversation with the teller. After the customary introduction, without wasting any chance, I asked her “In the wake of the recent controversy, have you seen any increase in account closedowns, in this branch?” The lady looked at me sternly, following which she sheepishly said “no comments”. As my transaction went through, and after she handed me my money, she spoke “I am here to work, I have been paid to work and I try not to know anything!”. I nodded my appreciation.

As I walked out, I could see that the welcome teller post had been totally revamped with a multitude of self-help, touch screen computers where all your questions from house loans to mutual fund investments can be availed by clicking on the options displayed on the touch screens. I turned back at the teller posts, where there were three ‘human’ tellers working and wondered ‘how long before they too…?’.

Indian woman: Goddess, Mother, Rape victim

In the beginning of this year, the horrifying tale of Amanat or Nirbhaya or the nameless girl (who was brutally raped by sex starved dastards) became a staple diet for media outlets all over the world. Since then, the news regarding women from India has never been the same. Check out this damning Kindle single:  India Dishonoured: Behind a nation’s war on women. Every day has produced at least one sordid tale of rape or sexual assault on Indian women. The question being asked around the world at this moment is ‘why does the world’s oldest culture not treat its women with due respect?’

Hindu mythology is filled with tales of goddesses like Durga, Kaali etc., mythological characters such as Sita, Panchali etc. Every Indian is well versed in the deeds of at least one of these female characters. Generally to the Indian male, his mother remains the cornerstone of his emotional support. He is also seen to be over-protective of his female siblings. Why is it then the Indian male cannot respect the life and dignity of another fellow female human being?

In the aftermath of the Nirbhaya episode, the Indian ruling elite were asked as to why did this ghastly incident ever occur? Their haughty answers clearly showed how out of sync they were with reality. The Indian media generally seen as argumentative sans any reason, vomited these gibberish to a frustrated Indian populace. Reactions and counter reactions were severe. And as all things in India, the issue died soon, while the ’rapes’ happily progressed.

The situation regarding women in India is pathetic. Thanks to the dowry economy, and the progresses in ultrasound scans,the girl child population in India with the exception of a few states is decreasing rapidly. On top of it we have stalking, sexual assaults, rapes and dowry deaths of a good percentage of the remaining females. Alas! it takes guts these days to be an Indian female living in India.

Now my readers might wonder from this blog as to why I am hyping it too much sitting in a foreign country? Again as I said, India is an idea of a country to the millions of NRIs around the globe and home to a billion other. Whatever happens in India or anywhere to an Indian, affects us all!

Now what is the solution to this issue? I would like to present some of my opinions for a constructive discussion.

  • I believe first and foremost, mixed or co-ed schools must be compulsory to all Indians irrespective of caste or creed.
  • Next sex education should begin in primary school itself. This education should explain to both genders the advantages of responsible consensual sex and the disadvantages of irresponsible and ghastly non-consensual sex.
  • Dowry system in any form or factor must be severely dealt with by the society and judicial system.
  • Honour killings in addition to aborting the girl child after determining the sex must be severely penalized with capital punishment.
  • The judicial system needs to be revamped to tackle these cases efficiently and ruthlessly. Check out this book on the pathetic state of rape trials in India Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India.
  • The age for consensual sex must be determined as per the needs of the society and should resonate with the times that we live in.
  • More women need to be involved in social and cultural leadership positions and the much awaited Women’s bill must be approved in the Parliament.
  • The media and the film industry should understand that their visuals must resonate with the realities of modern India i.e., blatant export of western cultural ideas doesn’t have to work here.

All these are ideas, they might or might never work. The root cause here is one of lack of respect for the opposite sex. ‘How can we consider the opposite sex as one among equals’ should be the question for the Indian polity, civil society and the general public.

Women empowerment and gender equality have been a thorny issue for a long time worldwide. But many of the developed countries have shown the resolute to make the much needed changes. If India should have any thoughts of being the much hyped ‘Asian tiger of the 21st century’, it needs to learn to treat its daughters with fairness, dignity and respect.

Image Courtesy: http://veroniquegauthier.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/indian-lady2.jpg

Dope of Pope and Hope

Recently the Roman Catholic Church elected its first pope having the unique name of Pope Francis 1. This was unprecedented in the history of the church that a new Pope chose the name of one of most holiest of saints, St.Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi was one of the most respected figures in Christendom, where his love and compassion to humans, animals and even the environment are well known.

Why is the election of a Pope so important? In a world where economic downturn is used as a tool to depress the aspirations of middle class, bailouts used to encourage the wealthy despite their transgressions, the poor of the 21st century has neither hope or depression! It is thus important to understand that we have completely ignored the poor and the needy. NGOs collect billions in the name of upliftment of the poor (now that the modern governments have washed their hands of it due to reasons only known to them) only to filter it lean in the name of overheads, administration costs etc.

Are poverty levels falling? If you believe economists and the media, it is. The living conditions of the modern era has been so drastically altered such that the definition of poverty is skewed. It is hard to quantify ‘poverty’ today.

Poverty doesn’t have to be one of economic needs, it can be one of social needs. One of the best features of globalization is the fact that in addition to the trade of wealth and services across the globe, the potential to trade the social attributes as well. The appetite for economic consumption, a necessary ingredient of capitalism, has found its way to the traditionally conservative economies of Asia. As consumption increases, a poverty of a different kind emerges: one of natural resources! This poverty has a potential to alter our entire sustenance on this earth.

There is a saying what goes around, comes around. In today’s world, the populace is held hostage by economic variables like inflation, currency value, recession etc., the poverty of the earth’ resources caused by increasing population and increased consumption has a domino effect on the human civilisation. This leads to a stark reality: we are getting poorer each day!!

Since the World Wars, when unimaginable atrocities resulted in the massacre of millions, the whole idea of spirituality being a ‘one big hoax’ has attained popularity. Over the decades, till today, efforts have been made earnestly to under-value and destroy religion altogether. The hopes of the supporters of organized religion have been battered by corruption and scandals in the various religious structures of the former. Fanatic religious movements sprung up in all the religions, bolstered by the benefits of capitalism, aided in fastening the demise of the organized religion and spirituality overall.

Into this colossal mess, comes the advent of a Jesuit pope. I do not know, whether the various attributes of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a media hype or fact. But he exudes hope, a hope of change, the last hope of organized religion to redeem itself and turn a new chapter. A new chapter, where the church understands the true meaning of Christ’s mission of social justice; where the church leads the world in a new spiritual awakening that opens the doors of enlightenment and wisdom, by which we humans rise up to higher heights of understanding.

Image courtesy: Aljazeera, Reuters

Modi and the idea of India from an NRI

These days, Narendra Modi, the current chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat is much in news. The main opposition party of India has virtually endorsed him as their choice for the important post of Indian prime minister. In a parliamentary democracy, this position is of utmost importance. Barring two terms by the incumbent, where the sanctity of this position was defiled, it is a position that governs India and defines it to the world.

India never had a proper right wing party because the whole idea of India is unique to its diverse population. India being an ancient country with a 5000 year old history is but a modern state that is only 66 years young. The fuel for any right wing party to encompass the feelings of ‘being a part of a nation’ with the populace, hasn’t had a chance to materialize yet. In the early years of its existence as a modern state, socialist policies exported from the erstwhile Soviet Union were used to sustain the enslavement of the Indians. When the latter collapsed in the beginning of the 90s, India was left with no other choice, but to change, else perish. Capitalism was finally ushered in the country, disguised as liberalization.

Liberalization spread like an epidemic in India and within a decade, a seemingly right-wing party called the Bharathiya Janatha Party was able to cobble up a coalition of convenience and stake power in India. Though eventful, the 6 years of this government was highly successful in ushering India to the modern 21st century with the help of an emerging middle class, which grew into the largest in the world. However, a majority of the population still stuck in the socialist ideologies of past, enticed with the benefits of alms, voted out the right wing party and returned the country to its erstwhile socialist rulers.

Socialism like communism is dangerous because it always fed the people rather than teach them how to feed for themselves. Sans any ideology but with due reverence to the dynastical rule of a family of sycophants, the new feudal lords of India disguised as politicians, and under the umbrella of a ‘Congress’ party, looted the country along with other privileged opportunistic oligarchs. The common man of India was fed always with freebies from the state to quench any dissent. This arrangement worked well when socialism had its hey days. In today’s world, where there isn’t enough wealth in this world to catch up with man’s aspirations, socialism is a sure cut route to total social anarchy.

It is to this India, a man called Narendra Modi comes into the picture. A few years into his term, he was caught in the muddle of the worst sectarian violence his state witnessed. Despite conflicting reports, his involvement in the carnage to this day has never been proven. But what happened after the bloodshed, changed many a narrative for the bourgeoisie. Three convincing election victories, rapid development in almost all sectors, innovative growth, he rewrote the growth story of an entire state. All this while, the socialist ‘Congress’ party, mimicking the very same coalition formula, it once disdained, ruled unchallenged for two whole terms, the entire country, with an ex-Italian waitress at the helm and her band of corrupt, chauvinistic sycophants. Widespread looting in all sectors of the economy stunted the growth story of the emerging Asian tiger to a whimper. While the other Asian dragon in the North roared, the socialistic contradictions of the Congress hegemony was in full display, where growth was diminished and the aspirations and dreams were reduced to a carcass and shovelled into the abyss.

Today, while the whole world is growing old, India is growing young because three quarters of its population belong to the youth variety. The 21st century is different from the earlier ones, because the challenges are enormous.How will we take care of our battered planet ? How will we address the issue of population growth? How will the humankind open up and ensure equality and fairness for all human being despite of colour, religion and ethnicity? How will we conquer worlds afar from our heavens? These questions needs to be answered by the youth of today. A majority of this youth reside in the South Asian tiger’s den.

It is to this youth, that a leader like Modi is needed to usher and guide them. A closeted approach being used today in India to shunt the messenger with a different message, will deny India of its place in modern history. He might or might not be a sinful man, but his sins, if any are to be hated, not him. The idea of India is owned by Indians all over the world. Our opportune time in the humankind history has arrived, but can we be able to grab it ?

Man of Elixir

image

I have lived my life with a bliss,

Enjoying each moment like a kiss,

To the maiden of my dreams,

Fullest and happiness like a glitz.

Every moment in life is a blessing,

Endowed by the Creator without us trying,

To be lived as it is, like a song,

That the nightingale sung.

It is our life,

Come what maybe,

We live just once,

Short, yet sweet.

Live once, yet to the fullest,

Radiant like the colors of light.

End the Oilsands blame game

Today while returning back from my work with a reputed Canadian oil and gas company, I chanced to hear on the radio, the news segment about the Keystone pipeline and the vitriolic opposition to the project. I felt that the rising and unwanted opposition to this pipeline deserves no merit and vociferous stand taken by the environmentalists and vested interests is nothing but a sideshow.

This article of mine is straight speak and I don’t wish to write another set piece with research links thrown in. Even though I did write my Master’s thesis using the same techniques, I believe that the time has come where there needs to be addressing of the issues using simple, plain language.

First of all, 80% of oil sands lie beneath the ground and is recovered using energy propagated through drilling. Here it is the same like any conventional oil drilling setup. The images of tailing ponds adhere to the 20% of the oil sands reserve. The former involves huge capital, but least visible environmental impact. The latter involves a visible environmental impact, but the issues are being addressed with the development of technology. At present, an alternate industry exists within the purview of oil sands industry where the issues of tailings ponds are being tackled fervently. Across North America and Europe, state and private universities are being involved in some really world class research just to address the issues of tailings ponds. The progress has been slow, but the issues are being addressed diligently. The culmination of this research would help mining operations not just in oil sands facilities but other mining operations (gold, potash etc.)

Why do we need oil sands? I say we need it because we need other unconventional forms of energy to supplement a burgeoning world population. The more sources of energy the better. There is definitely an environmental impact, but we cannot do anything about it. World population is increasing due to some excellent progress in the field of medicine and the way of life. If the environmentalists are so worried about losing the wonderful gifts of nature, first work with United Nations or other NGOs to tackle the main issue of increasing world population.

Oil sands development was accelerated in the last decade due to increasing demand. It is easy to say or shout that lets kill that demand by stopping the development of non renewable resources. Ok, we stop it, what do we do next? How will the world run? Do we need to go back to medieval ages ? How will the world feed its population? These answers needs to be provided by the so called environmentalists.

Renewable energy sources are a nice to have feature that would help the developed nations mitigate some of the high demand on non renewables. But that technology is at a very nascent stage. The so called environmentalists instead of wasting and fooling the time of the public, should retire to their schools and classrooms and work their way in optimizing the benefits of renewable energy.

The past decade when the oil prices peaked saw couple of wars being fought just to secure these sources of energy. When it became evident that no one was winning these wars, the development of shale gas and oil sands happened. These developments totally destroyed the myth of Peak Oil and gave an assurance that human progress is here to stay. The impetus now should be on unlocking and optimizing the maximum potential from these non renewable fuels and thereby steer the human race forward and not to go backwards.

If President Obama decides not to go ahead with Keystone pipeline and also deny opportunities for shale gas development, please be assured that the decline of United States that commenced a while ago will be complete. Asian giants like China and India will happily receive the oil from  oilsands for the growth and prosperity of their economies. The so called advocates of renewable energy please understand that all the raw materials for this form of energy (like solar panels etc.) come from China will be scrambling to address the energy issues that tackle the very progress of their nation.

Heard the following from an oil sands veteran recently: “Oilsands was written off three times in my lifetime and it is still going strong”. Oilsands is an idea whose time has come and no force on this earth can stop its progress.