Thinking aloud

On a cold, rainy Friday morning, the television stunned me with the shocking news about Michael Jackson’s demise. The super star who touched the lives of millions around the world with his music and charisma left the stage for hopefully a better one. While I was a student, my trips from my home at Ernakulam to the college at Malappuram often had a detour at the cultural capital of Kerala, Thrissur. I used to go to Ragam theatre at Thrissur with my friends and watch such hit films like Jurassic Park and World is Not Enough. Ragam had a great DTS sound system and as DTS was still fairly new in Kerala, we enjoyed the films even more. It is in the darkened cinema hall that I fell in love with MJ’s music. In those days Ragam used to play MJ’s tracks before the start of every show and this was enough of an attraction for me. Most memorable among them was the Earth Song which took me to another world just like millions across the globe who listened to it. What a divine experience it was......

While a billion hearts were broken when Dhoni’s men crashed out of the ICC T20 world cup, Saina Nehwal has made a pioneering achievement by winning the Indonesian Open Badminton Championship. Even as the nation continues to eat, drink and sleep cricket, our sportsmen do excel in other games like Chess, Shooting, Boxing, Badminton,   Snooker etc. These brave hearts manage to do so on their own without any significant support from the government, authorities or even from the general public. Sadly, it is only after they win such prestigious events that we take notice of them.  Well done Sina.

Congratulations are on order for the ICC T20 champions Pakistan. This win has come at a crucial time for Pakistani nation as such and I hope the happiness and joy that comes along with this success will last for a long time for them. Sri Lanka has also been a war torn nation for so long. Their cricketers too deserve special praise for the strength and resiliency that they have shown in the most trying times. Perhaps it is poetic justice that the two teams which came in the firing line of the terrorists came together in the finals of the World Championship and entertained the whole world.  Well done neighbours...

With the new government in place at New Delhi, the business of running an administration in the country has again gotten underway in full swing. The union and railway budgets slated to be presented in the parliament next month would give us clear signals of what this government’s programmes and plans are.  I would like to see the government take effective and sustainable measures to bring down the prices of daily items. While the inflation has come down to near zero levels, the prices of food, vegetables and other daily use materials are still very much on the higher side. The prices of some of the materials like the sugar are still rising at an alarming rate. In spite of having high stocks available with the FCI, the common man is not getting the benefit. The Murli Manohar Joshi Committee’s report, cautioning against the FDI and Indian corporate investments in retail sector should be given due consideration.  Unfortunately, the petroleum minister is again harping on increasing the...

The setback that the party and the NDA got in the elections has challenged the BJP to come up with a credible plan of action for the future. Of course, this requires the party to introspect and correct all factors that may have contributed to this humiliating defeat. The party has to think about the future. In the next five years, it will be facing a resurgent Congress led by a charming Rahul Gandhi. The BJP has to make up its mind on the leadership issue and the ideological issue. While the debate on Hindutva is desirable and even necessary for the Indian polity, the party has to wrest back the initiative from the belligerent media and the political adversaries. More often than not, the BJP is forced on the defensive on the issue. It is about time the party came up with a clear cut definition of Hindutva and set an agenda on the same.  For millions like me, Hindutva is not only about building a Ram temple at Ayodhya or countering the real or perceived attacks made on the Hindu bre...

Over the years, public life has seen a drastic decline in terms of standards and practices. The atmosphere has often been contaminated by vicious and repulsive language and sound bites. In today’s era of 24 hour news channels and readership touting news paper, this has become all the more louder and vicious. In the last two decades Kerala has seen more than its fair share of verbal contamination. The Congress factional feud with ‘the Leader’ on one side and the rest on the other contributed a lot to this. The ascendancy of K.Muraleedharan in the party raised the decibel levels by a few notches. The expulsion of some senior leaders like Gowriamma and M.V.Raghavan made sure that the Communists too contributed, though in a much lesser quantity. Back then, the red brigade was more inclined to action than rhetoric. The 1990s also saw an escalation in exchanges among the literary icons and the socio-cultural elite in the state. The squabbles among noted writers and thinkers often grabbed t...