What merits publication..

The follow-up news item for this w(sh)ould be:
'24 Students receive their joining date' which is in turn to be followed within a few weeks by ' 2 refuse the offer'

Chennai Masala

Introducing CBCNN!!!

No, this is not a new news channel to rival CNNIBN, but a blog dedicated to 'Hindu' bashing. CBCNN expands to Chennai based Chinese National Newspaper and describes 'The Hindu' as a comunist rag and N Ram ,a Chinese mercenary. The blog dubs the paper 'Chindu' and appears to have a heavy right wing leaning, but nevertheless exposes the blatant left leanings and shocking double standards of the paper I once respected. What a fall from grace for the Mount Road Marx.


Potter Mania

If it was Sivaji frenzy last month, Harry potter is this month's media fodder.When I swiched on the TV this morning, all I got was Potter, Potter and more of potter as if nothing else on earth is happening. Agreed, its a book loved by many and the
last in the series is releasing. So what? You dont expect news stations to call up correspondents across the country to ask if the milkman has deliverd milk or newspaper boy has delivered the paper in your area. Do you? Then why do the same for a book release? What is preventing them from just giving the news that the final book is relasing today and is expected to fly off the shelves?Haven't better books ever got released? Did they all get this attention?All this makes me yearn for the good old DD days when news was just that - news.

Wake up call for all Tamilians

With the announcement of the New Seven Wonders of the World, every Indian has a reason to smile. Our Taj Mahal has fought a tough 'competition' and has been elected as one of the New Seven Wonders. One thing I have been wondering about is what makes something a wonder. Is it the sheer architectural brilliance or the popularity among the voters? Take the Christ Redeemer as an example. It neither has the 'beauty of the Taj' (Which every Indian swears to or atleast that is what the media says. Moreover, I am sure that half the Indians who had voted for the Taj had never seen been to it.) nor is it as long as the Great Wall of China (its length overshadowed probably only by the number of nominations it would have received from the Word's most populated nation). If the Christ Redeemer could be a finalist, then I am sure we can nominate many more from India that can match it stone-by-stone, unless otherwise the event organizers had a rule that there has to be only one entry from each nation.

India, I am sure, can offer few more architectural wonders than the stereotyped image of the Mausoleum named the Taj Mahal (RSS might beg to differ though, especially with a section of the society claiming that the Taj Mahal was not built by Shah Jahan but rather acquired by him from a Hindu King Jai Singh, and that the Taj originally was a Vedic temple). For example, take the majestic Thiruvalluvar statue at Kanyakumari. I wonder in what way this statue is inferior compared to the Christ Redeemer. In fact, it matches up to it in many ways and even overshadows it in many aspects.

	Christ Redeemer	Thiruvalluvar Statue
Statue Height	30m	29m (95 ft)
Pedestal Height	8m	11.5 m(38 ft)
Total Height	38m	40.5 m (133 ft)
Weight	700 tonnes	7000 tonnes
Cost	$250,000 (in the year 1931)	$1,519,097 (INR 6.14 crores)

The Thiruvalluvar statue is 2 meters taller, weighs ten times more and considering the inflation over 70 years from the time the Christ Redeemer was constructed, it has costed us less. I am not sure what are the ideologies the Redeemer stands for (if that ever is a reason for being nominated as a World Wonder), but our Thiruvalluvar statue stands for a lot as one gathers from this article.

I visited Kanyakumari last September and I was awestruck by the Thriuvalluvar statue (No, I am not kiddding here). I admit that I was not poignantly moved by the statue per se. But the location was breath taking. The point where it stands is probably one of the roughest seas you will encounter in life. One can get to see beautiful sunsets with the statue in the foreground. And the winds are so strong that one has to be careful so as not to be blown away. After all this structure had withstood the monstrosity of the Tsunami in 2004.

I am sure not many are aware of the fact that our very own Madurai Meenakshi Temple was nominated in the preliminary rounds. Had every Tamilian voted atleast twice for Madurai Meenakshi Temple, we would have easily got more than 14 crore votes for it and we would be having it in the final list now.
So it stands to conclude that we Tamils have lost out due to our inaction. The Champion of the Tamil Classes Dr.Kalaignar has to take up the cause of Tamils and ensure that Tamils do not lose out on this parade of pride on the Global front. Such assertations of Tamilian superiority can only facilitate the declaration of Tamil not only as a national language but also as a Global Language.

Disclaimers:
1. The author has nothing personally against the Christ Redeemer or the Taj Mahal. He belongs to the group of people who have never been to any of the Wonders.
2. The author does not claim to be a Tamil partisan and disassociates himself from any hardcore groups.
3. The author refuses to have the honour of giving the 'Champions of Tamilians' title to our beloved Chief Minister. The media has already done that and deserves full praise for it.

The Rupee vs. the Dollar- A Macro Economical Analysis from the perspective of an asinine individual

If you thought I have any kind of an opinion on that my mission is accomplished and I am right now rolling over the floor laughing!

I am seriously of the belief that Calvin is the greatest modern philosopher. A couple of comic strips really stood out as to a few issues I have been thinking about. The first of which illustrates as




Isn’t this an epitome of all our ideas as far as the middle and upper middle class goes. We don’t do anything about the situation.. we like to blame everything around us and I have heard a number of people say that is the prime reason they do not want to settle back home in India. That was certainly not in my mind when I came to pursue a postgraduate degree here. The only thing on my mind was a new adventure and exploration of something that I felt I would want to be doing in years to come. When I hear my parents and relatives discussing political situations, road conditions, garbage problems they all get passionate and love blaming every politico in the most horrible way possible. Not to support any of those horrible politicos but are not we equally to blame! We do absolutely nothing about the situation. We apparently have enough to deal with in winng daily bread and watching “saas-bahu” serials be it in hindi or tamil. We cant even get out society organized to clean up the neighbourhood and 75 percent of the people in the neighbourhood would surely crib like hell if any kind of proposal was brought in where they would have to spend some money collectively! The thing with the middle class is that though we advocate capitalism we are all closet socialists who want as many freebees as possible but do not want to be repressed for it.


The other illustration




I saw pirates 3 Spidey 3 and Shrek3 both the three of them on the opening days totally pandering to the Hollywood summer franchising. Now I am a fan of the fantasy franchise and liked all three movies unlike a lot of ppl I dragged along with me. Fortunately no pain was meted out to me for my efforts. Now the thing is that Hollywood just doesn’t know when to kill a successful franchise. All three movies left pace for a fourth to be made. It started with sequels then went to trilogies and now the fashion is just keep going after the star wars thingy. That’s why I like JK Rowlings resolve in maintaining some artistic dignity in completely killing the HP fantasy with the seven books and not returning with HPs repressed son or anything ( in this of-course I am going by her interviews and hopefully she sticks by it!)
Bollywood is gng that way alright and catching on to the marketing strategy required to cash in on the success!

DMK-Sun TV rift

Looks like the rift between the media giant and the ruling party is happening after all!
Karunanidhi is celebrating his birthday today. Sun TV was all set to cover the events as usual, but it turned out that it was not to be. Reportedly a high party official from DMK called Sun TV and told them that they need not cover the event as the party has invited Raj TV to do so. Sun TV is also beginning to evacuate its offices at the Anna Arivalayam.

Meanwhile, Raj TV has 'officially' joined DMK. And its Managing Director Raajhendran had said only he had joined the party and not the channel and that the channel would continue to provide neutral coverage as always! Word is going around that DMK is all set to launch as many as 12 channels with the help of Raj TV's expertise. DMK also is launching its own flagship channel 'Kalaignar TV'. Reportedly the yet-to-be launched channel has already purchased the telecast rights of Rajini's yet-to-be released movie 'Sivaji' for a whopping price which even Sun TV was not able to pay.

And Sun TV's coverage of Kalaignar's birthday has been rather mute, and understandably so.

On an offnote, Jayalalitha came out with a statement that DMK had ordered ADMK's headquarters in Royapettah (I think got the location right) as it was flouting CMDA guidelines or some similar nonsense. Jaya had come out strongly against DMK and its mentor Karunanidhi and has said something to the tune of "we will not rest till these perpetrators are brought down".

Dont say sock darling.. Strike is an ugly enough word.

“The Philadelphia story” is a movie that was released in 1940. Why am writing about this romantic comedy.. am I growing sappy being lonely horny and virile.. (proved by the fact that Santosh saw spidey 3 based on my suggestion..;).. lukd like he would hav murdered me if he wasn’t that many miles apart..;)..).. maybe all of that at some level but the main reason is that I found something more as to the roots of the fourth estate. Now I am sure you did not see that coming.

The movie as such has a brilliant script and is extremely comical. The whole satire with very well defined characters is held together with some brilliant acting from three of my all time favorites Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. If you got till here don’t give up..:).. Jimmy Stewart plays a reporter in the movie who is disgruntled by the fact that he has to cover social events in uptown Philadelphia rather than do some hard hitting factual writing. He is asked to cover one of the most upscale weddings ( Katherine Hepburn’s) and his editor gets him exclusive passage to get the behind the scene scoop on the wedding of the century by blackmailing her EX (Cary Grant) with some info on Hepburn’s dad.

The editor is extremely unscrupulous and will do anything to cater to the public which acts in the form of some justice towards the end of the film. It told me something about the media. This was a movie made almost 60 years ago and the issues of the fourth estate catering to what the public wants to hear was very powerfully said in a very comical storyline given that wasn’t the main storytelling point. On a side note the screenplay was brilliant because it was adapted from a Broadway stageplay .

Do watch the movie if you can find a copy.. I would give it a rating of 4/5 stars.

Really?

What nonsense!?!
The state's exchequer being plundered to the dismay of the taxpayers to honour this guy who has already been honoured enough in the past with golden pen, etc,.
The Hindu is proud it seems. Absolute sycophancy!! And for no apparent reason too.
And as usual major traffic diversions.
Whenever any of my friends in US say they hate India and US is lot better, I argue with them to the hilt. But at times like these, I wonder....

'Media'cre reporting....

Here are some excerpts from a heartwarming news piece I read in The Hindu.

"..it was heartening to see India's top order batsmen play so fluently. Sourav Ganguly exuded confidence with his masterly display of stroke-play, while Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Dravid were pleasant to watch.
Virender Sehwag, who had looked a bit troubled against the rising balls to his ribcage, pummelled Ranadeb Bose twice with savage power.
The nearly two-hour session was fully utilised by the coaching staff to put the boys through drills to fine-tune many aspects concerning the game.
Watched by fielding coach Robin Singh, the players spend almost 40 minutes practising pick-up and throws at a single stump, while bowling coach B.K. Venkatesh Prasad put the boys through high catches and ground fielding.
There the boys had a batting session for almost 90 minutes before coming out to play in the centre pitch.
With Prasad watching, almost all the top-ranking bowlers were pushed into bowling to the top-notch batsmen of the country..."

Indian cricketers had one off day in their WC match against the lowly Bangladesh team and were thrown out of the WC. The pitch was nowhere near the standards of an International game. It was a shocker to see such a turning track in an important phase of a World Cup. India, like any other top teams, had never been exposed to such subversive slow pitches. Our poor batsmen, whose minds were already plagued by the thoughts of the measly match fees they get from the BCCI, were in no position to tackle such horrible deliveries and predictably got out. Then our pace bowlers who were accustomed to intimidate batsmen with scorching bouncers were all at sea when bowling to a bunch of kids who were only an inch taller than the stumps. So even an attempt to bowl a yorker went above the heads of the Bangladeshi batsman which resulted in the umpire calling them as wides (as the balls soared above the heads of the batsmen) and all the batsmen had to do was make sure they did not get out and the match was over with the extras being the top scorer.

The point is Indians were surprised: slow pitch, short opposition batsmen, low match fees and poor scheduling that did not ensure a safe passage to the next stage.
But that is passé. Now our batsmen are wiser from their experience. Judging from the above report, all our worries are over now. Ganguly is back with his flourishing drives, which he unleashed against the club bowlers. Sachin has got more fitter and can now play for ten more years. Sehwag has got back his touch by flogging the bowlers who bowled at him in the nets. Our bowling is now under the careful tutelage of Prasad, who in his hey days bowled out the batsmen with his fiery yorkers delivered at 100mph. By asking the club bowlers to intimidate the batsmen by bowling to their weaknesses, he has also brought the batsmen out of their comfort zone and made them play shots, thereby increasing their confidence levels. And prasad who was an electrifying fielder in his times, had also taken upon himself the responsibility of giving fielding drills to old sluggards like yuvraj singh, dinesh karthick amongst others. The BCCI after 'years' of mindless travesty have also finally yielded to the justified claims of our national heroes and decided to hike their match fees. So our poor cricketers no longer to need to worry about how their families will survive in their absence and can concentrate on matches now. And to make sure the cricketers are not distracted by any off field issues like contracts or advertisements we now have them do yoga. Anyways only a couple of people in the entire squad endorse products. The other team members have declined lucrative offers for advertisements, as in their own words it 'conflicts with their bigger interest of playing for the country'.

Now we are going to tour Bangladesh and will rightly prove to those minnows as well as to the world, that their pipe dreams are over. We will thrash them in all games and show them that their success against a team whose guards were down was just an aberration.Australia who had a smooth sail to the finals primarily due to the absence of India as an opposition, will now feel the heat with as much as 21 matches to be played between the two teams in this year.

Meanwhile, sports savvy reporters like the Special Correspondent from The Hindu will keep us updated with the developments in the Indian team, by fairly reporting their day to day activities without any traces of mindless hero worshiping. They will elaborate to us about the team's practice sessions sans any awe in their tones, thereby laying the foundation stones for the future generations of reporting, which will lay emphasis on truthful reporting and critical analysis. The future reporters will take cue from such examples of thoughtful reporting and will only report news that are really worth reporting, instead of wasting the print space, ink and papers for useless bits of writing.
Ah! The future of the fourth estate is in good hands.

Chennai Masala 2

Ek gaaw mein ek kisaan.....

In a coup of sorts, Jayalalithaa, campaigning for the Samajwadi Party, addressed a rally in Allahabad in Hindi. Yes, Hindi.. you heard it right. I am being unjust to the lady by comparing her speech with the famous Ek gaaw mein scene in an old Bagyaraj movie. But, whenever a southie speaks Hindi, you cannot but avoid the comparison. She reportedly delivered a hard hitting, 15 minute speech in chaste Hindi . The crowd responded with shouts of 'Jayalalithaa Zindabad' which reportedly left 'Manya' Mulayamji blushing :)-

Karunanidhi's Pearls

Known for his penchant for writing dialogues, MK recently responded to the Supreme court's refusal to vacate the stay on OBC quotas by angrily saying that the "fate of 100 crore people cannot be left to two men".I wonder if there was any other statement made by any other person -dead or alive- that even comes anywhere close to this gem.

According to MK, a two judge bench can decide only on cases involving two people. To decide on OBC reservation, which according to MK involves over a billion Indians, you need a bench with a billion judges. Assuming that we find a billion judges and constitute a bench, Mk will not have any problems if they too refuse to vacate the stay. That is because, his pimary objection is to the number of people sitting in judgement and not their judgement.Fair enough.

Days later, a two judge bench of the Madras High Court upheld the abolition of the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to professional colleges in TN. They lauded the government for its efforts to ensure 'social justice'. How come these two can decide the fate of 6 crore Tamilians? Will MK oppose this? If this is not double speak, what is?

Politicising Fishermen Deaths

There have been recent incidents of Tamil fishermen being shot dead in the high seas. This disturbing trend,coming in the backdrop of renewed military might of the LTTE, is unabted.MK, meanwhile slammed the Sinhalese govt for firing unprovoked and in true filmi style , warned thatTamilians will not remain mute spectators. ( His typical statements go like this... " innumum madhiya arasu tamizhanain ratham kodhipadhay paarthu kondu irukkadhu endru ninaikiren. Rajni can consider hiring MK 's services for Sivaji).

The Lankan govt categorically denied any involvement in the firings and explicitly stated that its navy has been instructed not to fire on Indian fishermen transgressing the international waters.Meanwhile, there were reports that the Sea Tigers, the naval arm of the LTTE, could be behind the killings to sour relations betwen the two countries. The PMK, MDMK and the DMK which were vociferous in pinning the blame on the Lankan govt, chose not to react .

Now, the DGP of Tamil Nadu has confirmed that the Sea Tigers were behind the killings. How are the LTTE sympathisers planning to respond to this shameful, cowardly act?

Media Mania

It was a bumper fortnight for the media and the Ash-Abhi wedding was the most important event on earth. Headlines Today started the build up a week before the wedding, concentrating on details as silly as the amount of Mehendi to be used for the ceremony. The other channels were no better. They had the temerity to gate crash and attempt to intrude into the privacy of celebrities, but when chased away by the security gaurds , they paint the town red with complaints of high handedness.

The media's single grouse seems to be " What is preventing the Bachchans from even sharing a single pic of the couple?". Well, that's a fair question. But it's the prerogative of the Bachchans. If they choose to dump the media, what's preventing the media from returning compliments? They cannot ....because, news on the Bachchan wedding sells. And to drive their business, they want the Bachchans to oblige and compromise on their privacy. I am no defender of the Bachchans. They need the media for promoting their films, but want them out of the wedding. That speaks volumes for their character. It's a lesson for the media and I bet they would not have learnt it.

Coming back to the news channels, I can atleast excuse HT, but CNN IBN was criminal in its coverage. Despite flogging the wedding to the hilt, it ran a debate on whether the media was right to over hype the wedding. Double speak is not confined to politicians.

Arent we equal before the eyes of the God?

After the much touted wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhsishek Bachan, the couple were seen 'seeking blessings' at Tirupathi. This set me off on a series of thoughts that have bothered me often in the past. What makes them so special that even God metes out a special treatment to them (or is atleast forced to). Its a common fact that nowadays people visiting Tirupathi get 'tagged' for an appointment with the God, and on auspicious days the rendezvous gets delayed by as much as 48 hours, and the devotees have no other choice but to wait after having planned their entire trip to last just a day. And then there is this concept of special darshan (this is not just in Tirupathi though). People who buy the 'tickets' for special darshan get Divine blessings sans crowd's jostlings and long waiting times. Only consolatory thing with Tirupathi being that even if you get these tickets you still end up waiting for a couple of hours till you get to the sanctorum. However on reaching the sanctum sanctorum, when we think all our ordeals are finally over, we only end up being physically pushed away by the 'dedicated' crowd control group with their non-stop 'jarugandi's.

What makes some people so special that they get to sit in front of the deity and perform elaborate poojas, while we are chased away like dogs. Why should they be given the permission to be taken directly to the sanctorum while we endure hours of waiting under the sun on bare foot. And why should a religious establishment embrace the concept of 'pay for easy view' concept. How different is this from cinema theaters, where more you pay, the better is your view of the screen? Arguments like "temple needs revenues like these to sustain themselves", "this the only way to manage a huge crowd" are too specious. So much for socialism and communism.

On an offnote,this is what CNN-IBN has to say about the marraige. Here are the people who create all the hype by showcasing the wedding, interviewing people, and having a panel discuss the implications of this wedding on the 'welfare of the society' and then they form another panel that discusses the implications of the excessive hype that has been surrounding the wedding. And people talk about intelligence while reporting!

Chennai Masala

This section will have a quick round up of newsworthy events . I will try to update it on a weekely/ fortnightly basis

Sun and Sky dont see eye to eye

Never shy of brushing the wrong side of the law,Sun TV has done it yet again. It is flatly denying signals to Tata-Sky, a rival DTH operator, in order to ensure the success of its own DTH service due in July. Despite the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) ruling in favour of the Tata-Sky JV, Sun TV is refusing to budge. Interestingly, TDSAT, comes under the Ministry of Telecom headed by none other than Dayanidhi Maran !!! It may be noted that Maran was accused of trying to arm twist the Tatas into a partnership- for rolling out DTH services with SunTV last year -which the Tatas firmly resisted.


Narayana Murthy is a traitor

Kannada zealots have plummeted to new lows. They want the Infosys Chairman 'thrown out of ' Karnataka and if possible, out of India. This outrageous demand is in response to NRN's reported remarks on the national anthem.During a visit by President Kalam last week to the Infosys Mysore campus, an instrumental version of the national anthem was played. When NRN was asked why the anthem was not sung, he is reported to have said that singing the anthem might make the foreign trainees in the campus uncomfortable. I am at a loss to undertsand the logic behind this, nevertheless, NRN has promptly apologized. Not content with that, the zealots are pouring scorn over him and are gunning for his blood. They are urging the govt not to provide any more land to Infosys and say Karnataka will be are better off without Infosys. All this at a time when Infosys reported revenues in excess of 13000 cr for the year ended 06-07 and a net profit over 4000 cr for the year. The ever increasing headcount now stands at a little over 71000.

Bounty Time

Talking of profits, its bonanza time for IT employees as salary hikes are normally given in April. They (me included :)- )are watching the financial results of their companies with bated breath to see if they can rake in some moolah. In the war for talent, salaries are expected to go up by 12-15% but P Chidambaram will ensure that the hike is offset by inflation, additional surcharge, cess and what not. Guess what? This additional cess is to fund the OBC reservation bill. Heard of double jeopardy?

CD row

Tech savvy-ness and the BJP seem poles apart. Hi-tech misadventures- be it the hidden cameras in Tehelka or the glitzy India Shining campign- have landed the party in a spot of bother and history has repeated itself. The party is accused of circulating CDs with communally inflamatory content in Uttar Pradesh, where the polls are underway. The self appointed custodians of secularism are up in arms and have petitioned the EC to de recognize the BJP and the EC has promptly served a show-cause notice. Sensing that things are boomeranging, the BJP has disowned the CD .I wonder where these parties are when the DMK indulges in majority bashing and particularly Brahmin-bashing. BJP CD Transcript
For the not so busy, read the transcript and post your comments on the content.