Brand Gandhi

Every city, big or small, has one MG road - street named after Mahatma Gandhi. As far as my knowledge goes, these streets are the most important and well maintained streets in every city and it happened quite naturally as independent India became republic.

Many heritage buildings/institutes having British given names were renamed; the famous ones in Mumbai being Victoria Terminus station that became Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus station, college Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI) became Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute, etc. Such heritage buildings, and so the brand value, are again naturally preserved.

Mumbai's land-mark structure Bandra-Worli sea-link, suffered a lot due to lack of political will. State govrnment had delayed payments to Hindustan Construction Company, the builder of the sea-link, and escalate the costs. The delayed cost escalation for the bridge was nearly five times, from 350 crores to whopping 1,634 crores. When it came to inaugaration, NCP chief Sharad Pawar suggested Rajiv Gandhi's name to the esteemed project in an attempt to mollycoddle the Congress, after latter's unexpected victory in the last Lok Sabha elections in May 2009. BJP's suggestion of naming it after Veer Savarkar, as the freedom fighter stayed close by in Dadar and has history relating him to sea, met stunning silence after Congress's nod to Pawar's suggestion. This is an example of how sycophancy is proliferated in Congress.

The above mentioned project was named after the initial phase of the project was through. But there seem to be projects being named after the Gandhis that have gone bad, that the "Gandhi-led" government in the centre has recently ordered to sparingly use Indira and Rajiv Gandhi's name as projects turn out to be shoddy and at times ill-maintained.

If we go to the crux of the issue, it has many dimensions to it. First being corruption, due to which projects become sub-standard and turn bad. Second being breeding of sycophantic Congressmen, who name projects after the Gandhis for political mileage. Third and the most important being the above order, in which the Congress has asked it's ministers to sparingly use the Gandhi name instead of ensuring that the project meets all standards and corruption is eliminated completely. What matters the most to the Congress is the brand image of the Gandhi family and not the project or brand India for that matter!

Positive Journalism

Somebody has rightly said, "Pen is mightier than sword"! How are we, in this society, using this power! Are we missing something; do we need to improve?
Just before the commonwealth games there was a lot of noise in the media about how well India is prepared for the games. Be it the press or the electronic media, national or international, they were right behind CWG organizing committee taking and reporting updates. Oops! Fault-finding updates. The roof is leaking! Approach way is water logged! Bridge construction activity is running behind schedule! Footprints on the bed! Stinking and dirty washrooms.. so on and so forth! But did it mean that everything else apart from what was show-cased by the media was perfect! Nope, that wasn't the case either. The good thing that came out of this was that the organizing committee felt the heat and the work got done better and sooner. There was also a negative side to all this. The world was watching! Many got the false impression that India is nowhere near the world standards in organizing events. India's image was tarnished. Many conveyed their denial to participate in the games. Much to their awe, the opening ceremony was fantastic!
A lesson to learn! Media should be properly balanced. It should condemn the bad, but at the same time appreciate and show-case the good. Showing the right picture is very important.
The other day I read about an accident on Mumbai-Goa highway near Panvel. A biker was hit by a truck; while he fell on the road another truck ran over his legs. He was alive, unable to move, lying in the middle of a busy highway and just outside a very famous restaurant. People passed by, parked their cars and went in for snacks, but nobody bothered to attend to him. Finally, after half-an-hour the police managed to arrange for an ambulance and took him to a nearby hospital. But it was too late to save his life. This is another example of how the patrons should not be! Media does report incidents like this in bold. But if on the other hand, had anybody quickly helped him and saved his life, it would have gone unnoticed!
The point I am making is... positive journalism! Media does report positive things as well, but too little for the mass to hear. My opinion is to have a dedicated section in every daily, just as we have sports, economics, national, international, local and page-3, on the good things that's happening around us - motivating and inspiring patrons every single day. Reporting good things makes one aware of how beautiful this place is, how kind and helpful people around are and he/she also will also act accordingly.

Terrific Tuesday for Indian Sports!

It had to be a very calm, cool, composed, a man with wonderful temperament, God of second-innings-on-day-five on with the job to sail India through and get an unassailable 1-0 lead against the once solid and unbeatable Australia. Yeah, it had to be our very own Very Very Special Laxman.
Aussies were on top of things and favorites for last one-and-a-half days of Mohali test. India finished day-four with 55-4 on board and with a target of 216. Though Tendulkar was at the crease with Zaheer, the top order including Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid and Raina were in. I knew if India were to win the test from here, it had to be because of Laxman. It happened so, India lost Zaheer, Tendulkar, Dhoni and Bhajji much before lunch on day five, with a hurricane task of 92 runs still to get on Laxman, Ishant and Ojha. Laxman and Ishant put up a splendid 81 run 8th-wicket partnership, giving India a miraculous win. Not to forget, Laxman had a bad back all through this test, came in 8-down in the first innings and 6-down with Raina as runner in the second. But as Farooq Engineer said later during the day.. with bad back or with no back, Laxman was always going to be too much for the Aussies to handle!

I saw the final overs of this nail-bitting finish. Laxman was not only getting the runs, but also managing which singles to run for, which ones to let go and when and how long to expose the tail to the Aussie attack. One instance, when Ojha was trying to get a run not called by VVS, made our calm and cool guy lose his temper. This only showed how desperate he was to win the match for India.

VVS got unbeaten 73 off 79 balls (SR 92.4) with 8-boundaries and Ishant scored 31 off 92 balls, which happens to be the highest number of deliveries faced by an Indian in second innings of this test. With this win India proved they are number one test playing nation. Ponting also will now have to wait longer to register his first win as a test-captain against India in India, having played 6 games already and losing 4 off them.
For Laxman this wasn't the first time. He has done it time and again and that too against the mighty Australians. His 281-run memorable contribution with Dravid's 140-odd to win the Eden Garden test against the same opponent way back in 2001 was the greatest of all. India then were on a follow-on and Australia were on a winning streak, having won 16 tests before getting a beating from India in Kolkata. It is against Australia that he has got his top-four best scores; his average in the second innings is 50 - there's something very very special about him. Ponting also later during the day added that it was only Laxman that they were worried about.

This Tuesday hasn't been only about cricket! India won 5 gold medals in commonwealth games today! Two in shooting, one each for Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang, and three in wrestling for Ravinder Singh, Anil Kumar and Sanjay Kumar. All Indians are proud of their achievement and stand to salute their heroism.