ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends Month of April signifies the beginning of financial year. Finance Minister Mukherjee (FM) presented his customary budget for the year 2009-10. As usual, euphoria of some positives are always overtaken by the negatives of the budget proposals and after effects. This budget was like all budgets. While FM managed a slight improvement on the deficit containment, the inflationary spiral may be a cause of concern with petrol and diesel prices increase. Of course the life of financial managers of this country is not easy. India is a complex country and its solutions are not expected to be easy. Let’s hope someday, we shall see better days. Month began with the news of arson and violence in towns of Shimoga and Hassan in Karnataka, ostensibly as a reaction to an article in a Kannada daily on ‘burqua’. An old article by Taslima Nasreen had asked women ‘not to wear burqua or hijab even if it is mentioned in Quran’. The question here is how sacrosanct is this burqua? There are thousands o...

WRB = Women’s Reservation Bill Many years ago, I was sharing the dias with the MLA from my village. During the course of his talk he told the gathering of school children, their parents and assembled villagers, that he had won 5 times before the current membership of the Karnataka assembly. He also spoke about the goodies that he shall do during the currency of his membership. He was the district-in-charge minister while being in charge of fisheries during that time. Then it was my turn to speak. Referring to his promises of doing lot of development works and programmes for the people in his constituency, I said, "our MLA has spoken like all politicians, and it was good, but", I continued, "no government can provide all that we need in all quantities at all times. There will always be promises left unfulfilled for very obvious reasons of both resources and time constraints. Thus, while the MLA may honestly try to keep his promises, he may be stymied by the circumstances,...

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY A Book by : Sudhir Venkatesh We got back in the Malibu. Price drove, J.T. rode shotgun, and I sat in the back. My next duty, J.T. explained, was to settle a dispute between two gang members, Billy and Otis. Billy was director of a six-man drug-selling crew. Otis, one of his six dealers, was claiming that Billy had underpaid him for a day’s work. Billy, meanwhile, said that Otis lied about how much crack he sold and kept the extra money. My dilemma would be compounded by the fact that I already knew both Billy and Otis. As we drove, Price explained my goal: to adjudicate the case and determine a fair punishment. "If Billy didn’t pay Otis, then you have to punish Billy," he said. "The punishment for not paying one of your members would be two mouthshots, and Billy can’t work for a week. And if you want, you get to make Otis the director for that week. But if Otis stole something, then we have a bigger problem. You have to beat the shit out of that nig...

ON DOCTORING BUSINESS DEALINGS "I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is hell." Harry S Truman Monetary economy has been anything but a boon to mankind. Rather, it is only after the monetary economy became the rule mankind has been suffering all kinds of ills. This has been studied scientifically in the Innu community off the coast of Saskatchewan, Canada, in the small islands of Innu land, as also in the isolated community of Italian immigrants living in a small village, Roseto, near NewYork. Monetary economy has given birth to the plastic card economy with its attendant hazards. The recent epidemics of suicide and divorce in America have a lot to do with this mindless growth of bland materialism. While money could buy anything, money finds it difficult to buy happiness. Business is the other word for making profit. Profit at any cost seems to be the latest mantra. Transparency and authenticity are given a go by. Most people in business fail to wal...

You can empower yourself…. One of the key aspects of Indian spirituality is the service or seva component of it. Youth have the required energy to service the urge. When one makes service the sole purpose in life, it eliminates fear, brings focus in the mind, purposefulness in action, and long-term joy. The service aspect of spirituality needs to be harnessed to alleviate fear and depression that bog you down. Seva always brings a big kick. It’s the most effective antidote to depression. The day you feel hopeless, horrible and worse, get out of your room and ask people, "What can I do you for you?" The service you did will bring a revolution inside you. When you engage yourself in helping others, you realise that the Divine is taking care of you very well and life gets with love and gratitude. On the contrary, when you ask questions like why me or what about me, you get into depression. Inhibition is one biggest problem amongst our youth today. They worry too much about what ...

Fortune names BASF ‘Most Admired Chemical Company’ BASF is the world’s most admired chemical company according to a survey carried out by the U.S business magazine FORTUNE. The full results of the survey are published in the current edition, which has gone on sale on Monday, March 8. In the 2010 list of the "World’s Most Admired Companies", BASF has once again been ranked the top company in the chemical industry. Industry experts voted BASF into top position in the chemical industry in the categori es of product and service quality, global competitiveness, and quality of management. Commenting on this achievement Mr. Prasad Chandran, Chairman, BASF Companies in India & Head South Asia said, "To be rated as the world’s most admired chemical company once again, is a humbling experience. It makes us even more convinced that the path of Sustainable Development, that we have chosen to align ourselves to, is the right one. It is our constant endeavor to partner our custome...

Insurance co fined Rs. 50,000 for delay in settling claim New Delhi: The National Consumer Commission has directed an insurance company to pay a cost of Rs. 50,000 to a company for adopting dilly-dallying tactics by appointing various surveyors to settle the claim. "When the complaint has suffered huge irrecoverable losses… the record shows that the insurance company harassed it for some documents or the other and lastly appointing surveyors after surveyors, joint surveyors and verification surveyors for years together only show apathy in settling the matter, which is deficiency in service," the Commission said. It also pulled up the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) for further scaling down the losses assessed by two surveyors appointed by it. "Once the insurance company, surveyors and the complainant came to the conclusion that the stocks cannot be segregated and the stocks were physically verified and tallied with the bank statement, there is no reason for the...

Seoul: South Korean rese archers launched an environmentally friendly public transport system using a "recharging road"-with a vehicle sucking power magnetically from buried electric strips. The online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), towing three buses, went into service at an amusement park in southern Seoul. If the prototype proves successful, there are plans to try it out on a bus route in the capital.

Red wine more reliable Washington: Researchers seeking a more reliable alternative than aspirin for heart attacks may have found it in a red wine molecule called resveratrol. University of Connecticut (U-C) researchers induced heart attacks in animals and found that resveratrol significantly reduces damage to heart muscle. Scarring and fibrosis were limited and the animals survived an otherwise mortal event. Dipak Das, Professor at the U-C Cardiovascular Research centre, Washington, says that resveratrol provokes a "pre-conditioning effect" whereby antioxidant defenses in the heart are switched on prior to a heart attack. This limits damage to heart muscle. Das says that resveratrol’s preconditioning effect is "the best yet devised method of cardio protection." The dosage of resveratoral is critical in producing the pre-conditioning effect. Das found the human equivalent dosage of 175-350 milligrams reduced damage to the heart during a heart attack. Since resvertrol...

Austerity, my foot! Crores spent on renovating State ministers’ bungalows Mumbai: Austerity seems to be a thing of the past: the Congress-NCP regime has splurged more than Rs 5 crore on renovation of its ministers’ bungalow within 100 days of assuming office. The glaring disclosure was made by the government in response to an RTI query posed by a TV news channel. Leading the bringe was none other than Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who has refurbished his bungalow at a cost of Rs 65 lakh. Incidentally, the proposed expenditure on maintenance of ‘Varsha’ is Rs 96 lakh. Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal is no laggard either, having proposed an expenditure of Rs 43 lakh for renovations. Thus far, an expenditure of Rs 10 lakh has been incurred on repairing and decking up his bungalow. Others who have not thought twice before spending taxpayers money are Revenue Minister Narayan Rane (Rs 44 lakh); power minister Ajit Pawar (Rs 29 lakh); Jayant Patil (Rs 38 lakh); Rajendra Darda (Rs 38 lak...

Went to earn for daughter’s marriage, his body arrived instead! New Delhi: He went to Kabul to perform and earn some good money for his eldest daughter’s marriage, but little did Delhi-based tabla player Nawab Khan know that it would be his last journey. Khan is one of the Indians who died in the terror attack. "This was his first visit to Afghanistan. He went there to earn more and planned to use the money for the marriage of his eldest daughter. We are shocked," said O P Shukla, Khan’s close friend, his voice choked with grief. Sent by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Khan, his brother and nephew, who are also musicians, had gone to Kabul to give performances. They lived in Lakshmi Nagar in east Delhi. Khan was the main earner of his eight-member family. He had six children-four daughters and two sons. His youngest son is studying in Class 5. His eldest son Ashu works in a call centre but it is a temporary job. "We don’t know what is going to happen to...

FIR copy to accused, no issue: HC Mumbai: The Bombay High Court significantly ruled that an accused person facing a criminal charge can be given a copy of the First Information Report (FIR) by the police at the time of arrest. Justice D.G. Karnik was hearing an anticipatory bail application filed by Mohammed Khalid Shaikh (25) from Pune who is facing charges of forgery and cheating. Shaikh contested the process that facilitates the accused to plan his course of defence even before he or she is produced before a magistrate for remand to either police or judicial custody. According to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 1973, only a magistrate can give a copy of the FIR to the accused on demand. "A police officer is also required, in law, to give a certified copy of a FIR to the accused on demand," said Justice Karnik in his order. Case of missing wife Mumbai: Man goes to the police station to lodge a missing person’s complaint for his wife. Shows his wife’s photographs to the p...