Posts Tagged: India

Humour / Politics — 4 Comments
5
Jan 12

Sir Cawry Academy of Management

Oops. I just realized that my last post here was made even earlier than Sachin Tendulkar’s last test century. The whole of 2011 has been dry as a Gujarat. But wait. I did write something. An article that Outlook published as “The ‘Er…’ In Leader“. So what better way to pretend that this blog is alive, than a slimy repeat of the same. Here it is…

Dare to think beyond the IIMs. Now dare to think beyond institutes that you think of, when you dare to think beyond the IIMs. And you have…
SIR CAWRY ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT - A B-school of notional importance.

Sir Cawry Academy of Management has been set up in order to create a pool of well-trained young people who will be placed in political parties.

Every aspect of the academy, from the campus to the curriculum, has been designed to equip our students with hard-core management principles, so that they can become the dealers of tomorrow.

CAMPUS

The academy boasts of a sprawling campus near Delhi within easy access of the airport, parliament & Tihar. The entire area is a hi-security zone with numerous metal detectors, but students are trained to bypass them. Each student is assigned a personal car with a red light on top, and provided with an escort detail that clears the road for them. This of course, leads to minor problems, when more than one student is on the move at the same time. Wherever one sees, there’s a mess. But that’s only because we want to make sure that our students’ every desire is catered to; at all times.

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General / Humour / Uncategorized — 7 Comments
31
Dec 10

2010 : Tweet by Tweet – Part 2

Hello again. And here’s Part 2 of MMXredux, which incidentally, has a high probability of being the Latin term for “2010 Revisited”. Which goes to show that there is, in turn, a high probability that I am a classical scholar, who’d be at home in Rome. A persona grata indeed.

Part 1 was a selection of tweets that pertained to actual events that happened in 2010. While this post is a selection (with no real standards) of my general views on things, neatly segregated into topics. So you could say that Part 1 comprised my topical tweets organized by time. While Part 2 has my er… timely tweets organized by topic.

Here they are. And as we say in Rome – Caveat Lector.

On media : Who are supposed to be the watchdogs of democracy, but have unfortunately misplaced the watch.

Now that they’ve launched the Crest Edition, the rest of TOI can focus on the trough.

Newspapers have columns, while TV channels have rows.

Every issue has a poll from Barkha, a debate from Arnab, a theory from Rajdeep and of course, a solution from C-Bag.

TV news is weighed down by its anchors.

When entertainment channels start showing reality shows, news channels have to move to fiction, no?

Barkha Dutt came out so strongly against raw news that I’ve started wondering if all NDTV news is cooked-up.

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General / Humour — 7 Comments
30
Dec 10

2010 : Tweet by Tweet – Part 1

What a nice time we’ve had in 2010 (Or MMX according to Romans). It’s been a great year with much to jeer. 12 months of strikes & bandhs. 52 weeks of scams and leaks.

This was the year in which Kalmadi made a killing, Assange did some spilling, CBI kept grilling, while Manmohan was just chilling.

The year in which Sachin kept scoring, and er.., so did Nityananda.

Many things happened. Lalit Modi was deposed, Yana Gupta was exposed, Rahman composed, while as usual, Deve Gowda reposed.

So here’s the year the way I saw it. On Twitter.

January

Jyoti basu dies at 11.47 a.m., yet again almost making it to P.M.

UPSC increases civil services intake from 580 to 965. Ouch. 385 more bureaucrats each year. A real Babulation Explosion.

Kerala gets 3G services. Now they can call themselves “GGGods own country”.

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General / Humour — 20 Comments
22
Jun 10

India’s got Talent

If you follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, you have no doubt been subjected to repeated plugs for this article of mine that appeared as “Mum, I Shrunk The Workplace” on Outlook. For the others, I’m sorry, there’s no escape. Here it is…

The nice folks at Outlook wanted me to write an article on how the landscape of “professions” has been changing in India. And they said they would pay me per word. You might notice that I’ve already ripped them off with this 48-word introduction. So let’s quickly start.

I passed my tenth standard in 1984. So my impressions about the career options that people had earlier is derived mostly from movies.

From what I can gather, the 60s and 70s were simple times.

Professions were broadly divided into two categories. Industrialists, businessmen, smugglers & black-marketers formed one group. Honest, upright, poor, virtuous, government employees formed the other. Members of the first group acquired buildings, property, bank-balances, bungalows and cars. Members of the second group had mother.

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Desi Pundit / Humour / Politics — 32 Comments
27
May 10

The Alternate Press Conference of Dr. Manmohan Singh

Yawn. What a boring press conference our PM had earlier this week. Read the transcript if you want. Note : It’s partly in Hindi.

Everybody knew what the questions would be. The usual stuff – Pakistan, terrorism, inflation, Naxals, corruption, Rahul, Sonia, and so on.

And everybody knew that there would be no real answers. If it’s a problem, we will look into it. If it’s corruption, the law will take its course. If it’s violence, we are open to talks. And if it’s the Family, we will wax eloquent about them. I wish the man at least tried it to make it a bit interesting. We know he is just a puppet, but even puppets are supposed to entertain, aren’t they?

Anyway, like we do in the case of so many other things, let us try self-help. If the government staunchly refuses to answer our questions, we shall have to do it ourselves. So here are the real answers that Manmohan never gave…

On inflation & economy : Please remember that this is a UPA govt. Which is why the economy has gone UPA, not neechey. And unfortunately prices went UPA-2. However we are working very hard to bring prices down. This is a government you can count on. As well as discount on.

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General / Humour — 22 Comments
24
Aug 09

Happenings in Pigland

There is unrest in Pigland. Fat pigs are quivering. Small pigs are squeaking. Medium pigs are grunting. This has been a bad month for them.

pig-swine-with-mask-043009Firstly, there is this new epidemic – human flu – which has been scything through Pigland. As of date, no less than 17 pigs have been exterminated by this dreaded disease. The health ministry of Pigland is declaring emergency measures to combat this scourge. When it was pointed out that 17 is no big deal, that over 100 million pigs are slaughtered in the USA alone every year, he indignantly retorted, “Please do not cast these pearls of wisdom before a swine like me. This is a big health issue. We live in unhygenic surroundings. In gutters and like. No wonder we are referred to as ‘Sewer Ke Bacche’. So we have to do something. But don’t worry, there is a bacon of hope. A new drug can save you. One pork and you’ll be fine.” Meanwhile, the worried denizens of Pigland are roaming around the streets wearing masks. Which they only remove to dig their snout into some tasty garbage.

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Encounters / Humour / Politics — 55 Comments
29
Jul 09

Modi & Modi United

There’s a politically charged atmosphere in the room. All the leading reporters of India are babbling excitedly. Two of India’s most reputed administrators have called for a press conference. Rumours abound that a new political party is to be launched.

With Congress continuing to have congress with the public, BJP neither helping the Bharatiya Janata nor allowing anybody to Party, and thinking having left all leftist thinkers, the time seems ripe for a new formation.

In walks Narendra Modi in a spotless kurta-pajama and Lalit Modi in a spotted tie and his (only?) grey suit. There’s an eager silence as Lalit Modi unfolds a (thankfully) small piece of paper and reads from it…

I, Lalit Modi & he, Narendra Modi, have realized that we are India’s most capable administrators. We have, therefore, decided to launch a new political party – Modisattva. The party will work for peace, prosperity & high TRPs. I hereby declare the Modisattva party open. Any questions folks?

Reporter : Hi, I’m from the Pioneer, so I’ll ask the first question, heh heh. So, Mr. Modi, why have you decided to leave the BJP? And you Mr. Lalit Modi. Why are you leaving the IPL?

Narendra Modi : Well, for a party that calls itself right-wing, the BJP is getting too many things wrong. Our terrorism plank backfired. We tried Ram and got rammed. In fact, the elections results were such a joke that the party is now in splits. I believe it’s time to move on.

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