ISSUES AND CONCERNS

A BIG THANK YOU Continuing our efforts for participative support in the form of increasing subscription to ISSUES & CONCERNS we had tapped our editorial board member Mr V.K.Talithaya, as well. He agreed to sponsor 20 of his friends, relatives, associates and colleagues. WE PROFUSELY THANK MR V.K.T. FOR HIS GENEROUS GESTURE. We have pleasure in sharing some of our thoughts on the man as follows. Of course he had asked us to be brief. In Bykamapdi Industrial cluster, there is a spic & span modern industrial unit, Primacy Industries Ltd., an ISO 9001 company making perfumed candles for export market, employing a 1000 personnel. Company has done very well and has opened another unit in Gujarat. Presiding over the destiny of this unique industrial enterprise is Mr Varkady Krishnamurthy Talithaya a former MRPL/ONGC Sr. Executive. Of course, his former colleagues were surprised how a task master, calling shots, in a Navarathna unit like ONGC/MRPL, could engage himself with a sma...

Friends We are into the first month of monsoon season. By the time this issue is in your hands, may be rain god is already ‘smiling aloud’. Of course there have been sporadic bursts in some places and temperature did come down in some parts but there are parts witnessing very hot climate. Deaths have been reported in Andhra Pradesh and some other parts of the country. Hope rain comes all over the place to announce the arrival of monsoon loud and clear.  Month-in-Perspective, as usual has covered quite a few happenings of the month. India is a place of myriad happenings of many kinds. We have covered some. Election to Karnataka Assembly attracted huge interest all over the country. The first BJP government in the south was embroiled in completely avoidable controversy  from beginning itself. Started with literally  buying MLAs to reach the midway mark followed by Lokayukata indicting Reddy brothers besides Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and his family, KJP forma...

KARNATAKA: Election to Karnataka Assembly came and has passed into history. All had expected that the incumbent party shall be booted out for all the acts of omission and commission during all its 5 year term. That they managed to complete the term is a poor consolation, when compared to the drubbing they got. While winning back was out of question, the party itself was convinced that they would manage around 70/80 seats. In the event they managed just half of it. Fortunately, they managed to remain equal with JD(S) at 40 seats each. At one stage they were sliding towards the 3rd position. From 110 seats in the outgoing position to 40 is a near rout. Nobody, even its adversaries imagined such reversal of its fortune. Of course, same is the case of other opposition parties. Congress got the bonanza completely unexpected, although it was hoping to do better than the outgoing strength of 80, to end it with more than clear majority of its own, is the best thing to have happened. Any f...

CBI - The Caged Bird of India? Giving a monumental, unprecedented rap to the premier investigation agency of India, the highest court of the land has reportedly observed “CBI is like a caged parrot, speaking his master’s voice. It is a sordid saga that there are many masters and one parrot”. By any stretch of imagination, it was indeed, as Shakespeare would have called it, ‘the unkindest cut of all’. His master’s Voice (HMV), which is a synonym, used to describe a situation of repetitive statements from the spokespersons on behalf of a VIP, an organization or an institution of a corporate nature, is a brand owned by the Gramophone Company of the U.K. HMV is the picture of a dog, a Fox terrier called Nipper along with a cylinder phonograph. It was used on gramophone recordings of dog’s owner Mark Barraud. Francis Barraud, an artist and brother of Mark observed that the dog, Nipper, took a peculiar interest in the recorded voice of his late master from the trumpet, and hence concei...

Biomimicry The science of learning from nature. Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world"   John Muir                   I keep reminding the readers about our wrong efforts at learning science by teaching nature a lesson or two. We could have a better science by understanding nature’s working better has been my hypothesis. I was introduced to some work being done at the Karolinska Institute in this direction by an old student of mine, Dr. Sunder. He wrote to tell me that my pet theory of learning from nature has now been taken up in the west and they also think it might yield better results. We shall discuss just one area for this write up. Chronic kidney failure (CKF) has been a very lucrative medical business for the corporate lobby next only to cardiac interventions and keeping dying patients in the ICU for the last ten days.In the...

INDIAN IN COWBOY COUNTRY THE FINAL EXAM The book “An Indian in Cowboy Country” is the story of a fictional hero Satish Sharma, an IIT graduate. Migrates to US in search of better pastures, from the then Bombay to Houston in Texas. Satish feels out of place naturally, ‘An Indian in  Cowboy Country’. He feels personal, professional and romantic challenges, but manages to overcome all of them to eventually flourish. The author Pradeep Anand, the story teller has lot in common with the protagonist Satish and shares his unique experience in this book. Nandan Nilekani, the poster boy of Indian Information technology scene, has recommended the book, as a must read. Hence we at I & C thought that we let this unique book be read through our pages. Hope our readers will like it. – Editor Ferocious and furious screaming was a common release of pre-exam tension at Sathish’s engineering school campus. The serene surroundings of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, ne...

To Tread the Untrodden Path Meghna Achar Every time I hear someone banter about being new, being DIFFERENT, a certain voice echoes in my mind – that of Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O’Toole), an animated character so flawlessly weaved into the quaint little story of the Oscar-winning Animated Feature film ‘Ratatouille’ – “There are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.” The ‘new’ certainly needs friends. Being or doing something different is somewhat like making yourself vulnerable to questions and criticism which can often compel the one with the different thoughts and actions to become flock-minded, that is, to tread the trodden. Since two years or so, I’ve set my heart on taking up Arts as the stream through which I’d like to pursue my career. For anyone who is fresh from passing out of class 10, it’s rather common to be bombarded with a who...

Toilets in Mumbai Railway stations Mumbai: Male commuters somehow use stinking railway toilets but women commuters have found a way round the problem. They avoid railway toilets and use the ones in eateries. Perhaps railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who had pulled up Central Railway officials on Tuesday for the stinking public toilets at Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) does not know this. Tehmina Sabuwala (24), a market researcher who travels around the city because of her work, said, “I travel around the city to meet clients, both on Central and Western Railway but I never use public toilets. Instead, I buy a coffee or a burger at in a eatery with toilets, no matter how costly it is.”Many women do the same, no matter the how severe the emergency, “Have you seen the toilets on stations?” asked Ruhi Agarwal a resident of Dadar and working with a media firm. “The stink is so overpowering that on several occasions I have been unable to use public toilets at railway stations e...

Saudi Arabia to retain ban on non-Muslim places of worship Riyadh: Ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia will retain its longstanding ban on non-Muslim places of worship, Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa said in comments reported by the Saudi media on Wednesday, according to AFP. As Saudi Arabia is “home to the Muslim holy places, it does not allow the establishment of non-Muslim places of worship,” the Al-Hayat newspaper quoted Issa as telling European MPs in Brussels.  Saudi Arabia, home to the holy Kaaba — the cube-shaped structure at the Grand Mosque in Mecca towards which Muslims worldwide pray — has come in for repeated criticism for its ban on non-Muslim places of worship.  Although Saudi Arabia’s citizen population is Muslim, the kingdom is also home to millions of expatriates of various beliefs. Unlike Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s Gulf Arab neighbours allow the building of churches and the celebration of non-Muslim feasts. Swiss Govt moots laws to combat illicit m...

Tobacco pouch alerts quake A tiny tobacco pouch tied to the hand of an elderly man saved the lives of nearly 800 people in a remote Chinese village when a powerful earthquake struck Sichuan province last week, killing about 200 people. The incident took place in Fujiaying village in Longmen township, just five km from Lushan county, the epicentre of the 7.0 magnitude quake. 68-year-old Li Xianhe has being hailed as the saviour of Fujiaying after he pulled out this miracle, all thanks to his humble tobacco pouch. Li carries the pouch everywhere he goes, securing it to his wrist by a piece of string when he lies down to sleep. Just before the quake struck, Li was woken by the violent rocking of the tobacco pouch hanging from his arm. "It's really weird, you know? I experienced the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 and my instincts told me just one thing earthquake. I yelled out 'earthquake, earthquake' and rushed my family out of the house immediately," he told ...