ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends We are in the last month of the year 2013. In the life of a person or that of the society, there is always a beginning and hence there will always be an end. Month of December signifies the end of Gregorian calendar year. This month coincides with the anniversary of the election of Barack Obama for his 2nd term as the US President, so also the death anniversary of charismatic parochial but iconic political figure, Bal Thackeray. So is the hanging of Ajmal Kasab an year ago for the 26/11 mayhem. India is a place of myriad things happening. The month of December witnessed things from good, bad & ugly to bizarre to macabre. Among the good things are the emergence of AAP as a force to reckon-with, in the political firmament of India, so also the long awaited agreement between Iran and the West. Bharat Ratna to cricketer Tendulkar was another strange development, besides snoop master Tarun Tejpal’s sexploits of his young lady staff being the ugly happening of the month...

MAHARASHTRA: There was this over 1000 words article on the seamier side of Sharad Pawar, the Maratha strong man appearing in a national magazine. Most media houses, whether print or electronic has never taken on Pawar and his network, for whatever reasons. But all know that Sharad Pawar is a machinist, and yet no media directly took him on in passing a value judgement on the man. He is a politician, who is there only for his friends, relatives and cronies. Ask P.Sainath he will tell how many farmers have died, and Pawar, as Union Minister for Agriculture, may never know the exact number. Even if he is told about it, he would never bother. Thus, he is there for rich farmers, sugar co-operatives, industrialists, businessmen and real estate developers, all of whom fund his NCP. Lavasa City of Hindustan Construction Co. off Mumbai Poona Road is a standing testimony of what he is capable of doing. His daughter was the shareholder/director, courtesy sweat money! Poor Shashi Tharoor had to ...

Bharat Ratna & Tendulkar A Question of Answers Long years ago, late V.K.Krishna Menon, had famously observed in writing on one of his ministry files, “When everybody thinks alike, nobody really thinks”. He was commenting on some bureaucratic bungling by his secretaries.  This statement keeps coming back over and over again, every time there is an occasion to think differently unlike mob psychology. ‘The Hindu’, an English daily of South India, perhaps read by many all over India and abroad, including Pakistan, prided itself on the front page, everyday, by claiming in capital letters ‘INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1878’. That this so called ‘national newspaper’ has an agenda, was never in doubt. Because, their entire approach to news publishing, its placements and comments, highlighting some and making some look very innocuous, has never been even handed. It is true, that there are others too in the media, who too are similarly agenda driven and suffer from this malai...

14th annual issue release of held in SDM College, Mangalore The prize distribution function of the inter collegiate elocution competition  and release of the 14th annual issue of was held at 5pm at the Conference Hall of SDM PG centre for Management Studies and Research on 9th Nov. Justice M F Saldanha,Former Justice of Karnataka High Court was the chief guest.  Dr N K Thingalaya,Former CMD of Syndicate Bank was the guest of honour while Padmabhushan Prof B M Hegde,Former Vice Chancellor of Manipal University presided over the function. The programme began with a prayer by Chaithra Padukone Dr.Devraj,Principal of SDM College welcomed the gathering. J.Shriyan, editor,  highlighted the journey of for the past 13 years. He also spoke about role of media in the society-both  positive and negative. Asreen, Law student of SDM College introduced the chief guest Justice Saldanha. Justice praised the efforts of the editor, Mr Shriyan who has made the efforts to ...

INDIA’S STAKE IN SRI LANKA MUST BE PRESERVED Dr. M. V. Kamath For anyone -  least of all Tamilians – to argue in India that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh should not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo is to show poor sense of political responsibility. This must be particularly impressed upon Tamil Nadu leadership – all of them, to whichever party they belong. In the first place the meeting was called by the Commonwealth office, not by Sri Lanka. In the second place India is a senior member of the Commonwealth and must behave like one. In the third place, let us go back to history for a while. In pre-independent days, it was the Tamil aristocracy that ruled the roost in Sri Lanka, leaving the 70 percent Theravadi Buddhist who were in the majority to their fate. When Sri Lanka got its independence and the majority came into its own, it sought to exercise its natural rights with a vengeance. Reacting strongly to it, the Tamilians sought to be assert...

Friends Looking back in perspective has its own joy. Yes, its joy alright, but a deeply mixed one. We have completed 13 long years in the print media. Yes, this is our 1st issue of the 14th year. Going back to the above second sentence, ours has been a journey of cliffs and valleys. If our 150th issue release function was an unqualified success and made us feel that we shall have an accelerated paid readership, we were not exactly misplaced, but we did realise that in the world of dime a dozen ‘nay’ sayers, its not always a smooth ride especially, when it comes to print journalism. However, we have had many well meaning souls, who stood by us, beginning with Nitte Group Chairman Dr N Vinay Hegde, who sponsored 20 of his friends, relatives and colleagues for ten long years in a spirit of participative support. Yes, the trickledown effect is there and slowly but steadily our circulation is going up, as more are coming forward to sponser. Hence, it’s a big THANK YOU to all those who...

BIHAR: Chaara Ghotala, which took place some 2 decades ago, actually happened in the unified Bihar before Jharkhand was carved out, when Nitish Kumar was the chief of Samatha Party in Bihar. It is alleged that some proceeds of this fodder money loot was indeed donated to the Samatha Party when, the present Chief Minister of Bihar, was the president. A key witness in the scam, in a sworn affidavit has stated that a sizeable amount was given to Nitish Kumar as political contribution to his party. Somehow this dimension of the case has not been highlighted, either by the electronic media or even the spokesperson of  investigating agencies. It is not clear, if the judgement of the special court has made any reference to it. But clearly, it appears, that CBI has not followed it up to its logical conclusion. Legally even donation to charity or other social causes from stolen money is illegal, and therefore beneficiaries too are subjected to criminal proceedings. Hence Nitish Kumar too ...

MODI & Aam Aadmi Party Manoj is a good friend. I know him for many years. He is a subscriber of ISSUES & CONCERNS and of course he reads too. I bumped into him in a restaurant. Touching many subjects, our talk was meandering into all and sundry, and suddenly he says, “In the next Focus, you must write on NA-MO”. Surprised at his abrupt suggestion, had to gather my response. “You do have a valid suggestion but not sure how to go about it. Na Mo is not a simple person that he can be described easily both in his words and actions. But he is not the same Narendra Modi of 2002. He is beginning to evolve. But will he be the solution to the myriad problems in this country of over 1200 million, diverse & kaleidoscopic population? Answer is a capital ‘NO’. Yet, in the public discourse of our contemporary India, he is the most talked about and written about. Therefore we at ISSUES & CONCERNS are certainly seized of the matter. However, what we hope to articulate may not be, exa...