Jai Hind ! Jai Maharashtra !!

True to it's name Maharashtra, in yester-years and today, has shown signs of being a great state. It has produced some (some? in fact many) great personalities. To name some very prominent ones - Chhatrapati Shivaji Shahaji Bhosale, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Chaphekar Brothers, Jyotiba Phule, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar... and this is just the beginning, the list goes on.

Hinduvi Swarajya was established by Chhatrapati (King of the Kshatriyas) Shivaji Maharaj (1642-1680). What started on 6th June 1674 at Raigad fort, Shivaji Maharaj built and expanded the empire. The empire, as in the map (1758), covered most of today's India. Shivaji was an able administrator, who in his government had modern concepts such as cabinet, foreign affaris and internal intelligence. His strong and able army was well organised too. And above all he respected all religion.

Lokmanya Tilak (1856-1920), a social reformer, leader of Indian Movement of Independence and one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj... his famous words quoted "Swaraj he maazhe janma siddha adhikaar aahe ani to me milavnarach!" which means "Swaraj is my bithhright and I shall have it!". British authorities called him the "Father of the Indian Unrest". He knew the importance of education and co-founded the daily - Kesari with Agarkar and colleagues. He enhanced social gathering by starting the famous Ganapati festival.

Veer Savarkar (1883-1966), a Hindu revolutionary, a politician who fought for Indian Independence, was educated in India and England. He organised an armed revolt against British empire and was sentenced to 50 years of imprisonment and was transported to infamous Kaala pani - Cellular jail in Andaman and Nicobar islands.

As I mentioned, this is just the beginning and shows how great people carved the state of Maharashtra. Maharashtra was formed on 1st May 1960 from what was mainly Bombay state in British Raj. Reorganization of British-formed states were done according the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's opinion of "One state - One language" and not "One language - One state".

Maharashtra, with history one should be proud of, is the third largest state of India, is second most populated state of India, is first in GDP (in 2006-07), is first in tax revenue generation, is sixth by literacy rate and first in the capacity to generate power. Jai Maharashtra!!!

Where are we lacking? It is an established fact that we are on the top as far as Indian states are concerned, but we should be the one leading India. There is no state level competition, is what we miss out on. Our current leaders, like leaders of yester-years should take the real work in hand and fight the problems India is currently facing. Nation first, then the state... should be the way for us Maharashtrians to go and other states to follow. Chhatrapati has shown us the way, Lokmanya has taught us, Veer's blood flows in us... it was "we", it is "we" and it has to be "we" to drive the nation to where it is destined to be. So as always, it is ...

Jai Hind! Jai Maharashtra!!

"Bharat - Ek Sone Ki Chidiyan"

The News:
-  10,000 tonnes of paddy rots in Punjab

The Woes:
-  India has 50% of world's hungry people,
-  52% of India's children go to bed without food daily,
-  7% of India's children are malnourished,
-  India ranks 66th off 88 countries in battling hunger

With all this and more, we still allow 20K tonnes of food stock rot each year. This is just the official figure. The unofficial figure is somewhere around one lakh tonnes of food stock. Reasons being ...

• Lack of covered godowns to store the stock,
• Lack of good supply system,
• No accountibilty and then the blame-game between central and state government,
• India's full-time agriculture minister, who is responsible to feed 1.2 billion people, is also food minister, consumer affairs minister, heads and looks into his party affairs and is also a full-time ICC president.

India's problems till late 80s were not the same as today. There used to be a deficit in food stock. In fact, Late Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had urged the nation to fast on Mondays. Even the so-called Indian middle-class was poor. But last couple of decades... India has become self-sufficient in food. On the other hand, there has been this criminal wastage of food stock. It neither reaches the hungry nor does it reach the markets, which would ensure price stability and lower inflation. These decades has seen the Indian middle-class prosper and many earning much beyond bounds.

Here is something to ponder ...

"Bachpan mein suna tha ki bharat ek nirdhan logon ka dhanvaan desh hain,

Bharat ko tab 'Sone Ki Chidiyan' bhi kaha jaata tha,

Ab Bharat ek dhanvaan logon ka nirdhan desh ho gaya hain!"

- Vinod Dua in Vinod Dua Live on NDTV India

W RLD CUP in South Africa .. It's waving!

SHATTERING!!!
Quarter finals are on and it is really shattering as the final whistle is blown.. match after match. It was Dunga's Brazil yesterday and Maradona's Argentina today, both my favourites, in that order. Both studded with stars... but Messi messed it, while Kaka lost it all. And both, Messi and Kaka, wear jersey number 10.

German's were simply on top of things. They started with a goal and finished it in style with another. In the first half of the game it looked as if impossible to pierce their defence; and that it was so much closer to the centre line, Maradona's men couldn't do it successfully. Couple of times that they did it was called offside and rightly so. German's strategically placed defence line earned them this stupendous victory, with no goals scored against them. While their intelligently planned and flawlessly executed attacks and counter attacks earned them their four goals. Their attacks today showed the same strategy that was executed brilliantly in couple of counter-attacking goals scored, within an interval of 4 mins, against the Englishmen in pre-quarter final stage. There is very less that Argentina did to save themselves their face.

Brazilians yesterday, were not as bad as Argentina today were, but it simply wasn't good enough to get them through. This was the upset of 2010 FIFA w rld cup. With the likes of Kaka and Robinho, they couldn't score the much needed equalizer. That too when they were reduced to 10, thanks to the red card issued to Felipe Melo, it was never going to be easy. While Sneijder did all that was required for the Dutch. Unlike Germans, the Dutch used all tactics to waste time after they got the lead after 68 mins of play.

I was on the edge of the seat for most of the second half of Brazil-Holland match, just waiting for the equalizer which never came. It was different in case of Argentina-Germany. In the first half after the Germans took the lead early on, I was pretty confident of Argentina coming up with an equalizer and then the winning goal as well. But lost all hopes, I guess like many others, quite early on in the second half.

All in all, it is carnival in South Africa. It is waving and all the teams, still in or out of the w rld cup, can sing with me ...

When I get older,

I'll be stronger,

they'll call me freedom,

jus like a wavin flag...

IT'S FIFA WRLD CUP - 2010 :)