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No common
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Weather
wise Change
in Egypt
Economic
outlook cloudy
Learning
Punjabi in Delhi
CINEMA: NEW
Releases A day to
reckon with Red
alert! Down
& out A stale
love story
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Weather wise
The
monsoon this year started irregular, and it continues to display erratic behaviour. After a liberal onset nearly three weeks ahead of schedule in Punjab and Haryana, it seems to have gone into a lull, as the precipitation figures for July suggest, in comparison to the 'normal' for the month. Administrators in the two paddy-intensive states have reason for furrows in the forehead, as they have to make contingency plans in case the clouds continue to elude the region, but it is too early to say anything. Also, June having been more than liberal, the fields would be able to withstand a patch of dry period. The early and promising monsoon had also come as a setback for diversification plans of governments as farmers saw no reason not to sow the high-paying but water-guzzling paddy. The hiatus now, however, is a reminder that this is precisely how weather patterns gone haywire because of global warming are going to dodge the farmer. While no one-time phenomenon can be pinned to climate change, the future may hold spells of intense rain interspersed by dry periods. That presents a challenge for agriculture - an otherwise timetable-bound and conservative vocation. Crops and cropping patterns will have to be chosen keeping in mind their resilience to such disruptions. Both Punjab and Haryana have withstood 'metrological droughts' in the past reasonably well as they have extensive irrigation infrastructure. Largely based on ground water, agricultural output has remained unaffected, even if at a high input cost owing to pumping. This availability of water will also be useful in countering the vagaries of climate change. That, however, assumes the ground water will continue to be available. It will not - if the two states continue to use it as recklessly as they are at present. This precious resource could prove to be the last guarantee against climate. It is time farmers too started demanding alternatives, rather than shrugging off the responsibility for governments to address.
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Change in Egypt
With
the swearing in of a new interim government in Egypt we now have a civilian regime under the interim President Adly Mansour and Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi that will now govern the country. Not that the army, which ousted Mohammed Morsi, has taken a backseat. The army chief, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is now the deputy PM and continues as the Defence Minister. Egypt, especially the capital Cairo, faces violence in clashes between Morsi supporters and the army. While the new government has representatives from various sections of society, and even three women ministers, conspicuous by their absence are the Islamist parties. During the one year and a few days it was in power, the policies followed by the Muslim Brotherhood were seen as supporting radicalism. It lost some credibility when Morsi granted himself sweeping powers in a constitutional declaration last year which were widely criticised. However, it can't be denied that this was the party that was elected democratically in the first elections held in Egypt after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011. That the party has a significant following is evident from the strength of the continuing protests against the ouster of its government. The new government will face the same problems. There is widespread unrest in the nation which needs a healing touch that can only come from a government that is inclusive, i.e. one that inspires confidence in all sections of society. Economic and fiscal problems have multiplied as business floundered in a climate of political uncertainty and the number of tourists coming to Egypt went down drastically. There is widespread unemployment and crime figures are rising. The new government will need to build some bridges with its friends and neighbours to get financial assistance since it will be reluctant to take the bitter IMF pill. The July 3 regime change may well turn out to be the easy part of a long and hard road to recovery in the land of pyramids.
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No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does. — Christopher Morley
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Economic outlook cloudy The
outlook for the world economy is not too bright, according to the IMFs latest World Economic Outlook. According to the IMF, the US is not going to grow above 2 per cent this year. The assumption behind the Federal Reserve's announcement in June about the plan of slowing down its monetary easing policy was based on signs of economic recovery and a GDP growth rate of over 2 per cent. The Fed started the monetary easing policy in 2009 in order to help economic recovery in the US and it involved the Federal Reserve's buying $85 billion worth of US Treasury Bonds every month and releasing the dollars in financial markets. This helped in keeping interest rates low. According to the IMF, the US growth rate will be down by 0.2 per cent points for both 2013 and 2014. It also says that the US economy will grow only at 1.7 per cent this year and 2.7 per cent next year. Nor will India, Brazil, China and Russia grow at a fast rate. The slowdown in the emerging economies is going to be responsible for the slow growth of the world economy. India is thus not alone in facing slow growth because all the other BRICS countries too are facing slower growth -- a 2 percentage point slower growth than expected and this slow growth would knock off half a percentage point of growth from US growth rate. Thus the growth of BRICS matters to the US and the world. Different emerging economies have had different problems. According to the IMF, infrastructural constraints and bottlenecks have slowed down growth like in India. In some other countries capacity constraints have stifled growth, and among some big exporters like Russia, it is the low commodity prices that have hurt its growth. The IMF has pointed out that some of the Middle East and North African countries are witnessing disruptive political transitions that are slowing demand. There is a weakening of demand in countries like Nigeria and South Africa, which are weighing down the growth prospects of the whole sub-Saharan region. Also, according to the IMF, the recession in the Euro area has proved to be deeper than expected in recent months because of the persistence of tight credit conditions, low demand and cuts in the government budget spending. Some countries in the EU like Italy are facing a downgrade by investment rating agencies because of precarious government finances. But on the whole the IMF is confident that at least 17 member countries of the EU will improve their economic outlook next year but will still be growing at the low rate of 0.9 per cent. The new forecast about the US economic outlook has cast doubts on the timeliness of the announcement by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke regarding tapering off of its monetary easing policy. When the US Federal Reserve announced that it would slow its asset buying programme or monetary easing, it sent shudders around the globe, including India, and stock markets plummeted. This was because the US government's bond-buying programme had helped FIIs to access dollars released by the Federal Reserve for investment in the emerging markets. The announcement about the tapering off led to financial markets becoming volatile and bond yields rose. The bond yields or interest rates rose due to the bond value decline. FIIs headed back to the US to invest in Treasury Bonds as they expected a rise in interest rates. Now with the recent IMF forecast, Ben Bernanke has announced that the US central bank will pursue an accommodating monetary policy in the immediate future which means it will probably continue with monetary easing for some more time. As a result, stock markets, including the BSE Sensex, have gone up all over the world. The rising yields on the other hand, warned the IMF, largely reflect a one-time re-pricing of risk. The IMF also added, "However if underlying vulnerabilities lead to additional portfolio shifts, further yield increases and continued higher volatility, the result could be sustained capital flow reversals and lower growth in emerging economies". The World Bank has also noted that businesses and governments of many low-income developing countries, which have got themselves into huge infrastructure projects financed with rates that were lower because of the Federal Reserve's past policy of pushing down interest rates, will now be in trouble. The interest rates had been near zero for the last six years. But now when interest rates rise, some of these projects might fail, revealing financial bubbles that could cause economic turbulence. Higher interest rates abroad may mean trouble for the Indian borrowers who borrowed money under the relaxed rules of External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) when interest rates were low. They will now be forced to undertake higher financial outgoes as rates are hiked across the developed countries. This heavy interest burden could further deteriorate the current account deficit situation in India. The pressure on the rupee is thus unlikely to ease in the future to any great extent. With a depreciated rupee, which has undergone a rapid depreciation of 26.6 per cent in the past few months, the oil import cost of the government will go up further and it is one of the reasons behind another and the most recent petrol price hike. All other import costs will also go up and since imported inputs are important for exports, there will be a decline in exports. Already the industrial growth has slowed down to a dangerously low level of 1.5 per cent. The GDP growth, which depends on industrial growth, may have to be revised downwards. More than anything, employment prospects will be much less rosy in future. It is manufacturing that absorbs most of the semi-skilled and unskilled labour and its growth has slowed down to 2 per cent. The manufacturing sector constitutes over 75 per cent of the overall index of industrial production. Only 11 out of 22 industries have shown positive growth in May 2013. If there is a further dip in manufacturing activity, it would mean fewer jobs for the poor. Already unemployment has risen in the past two years. Inflation as measured by the Wholesale Price Index will be up though it has been at 4.7 per cent. The retail inflation is already quite high at 9.8 per cent. Onion prices are on the rise and a further rise in vegetable prices may be expected due to floods. The policy-makers will have to once again focus on controlling inflation and how to raise manufacturing growth to bring relief to the common
people.
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Learning Punjabi in Delhi We
were in Delhi. Not to visit the fine old city, but to study and live far away from the comfort of home. My friends and I had travelled from the city of Patiala and were now in the deep end. We had earned the right to be there by a mixture of intelligence, proper schooling and some degree of hard work. This enabled us to get good grades and, consequently, admission to prestigious colleges. In Delhi, we were lost. Used to seeing ourselves crème de la crème in our own little pond, here we were adrift, and a little out of depth. How much, became clear as days went by. We were a bit laconic in the manner we moved and the way we spoke, like Texans in New York, so to say. In Delhi people moved at a much snappier pace and spoke so fast that at times we would mentally rewind the conversation and play it back. Slow pokes we might have been, but one thing we were sure of, when it came to our mother tongue, Punjabi, we — the full blooded Punjabis from Yadavindra Public School, Patiala, that we were — would have no problems. Ragging in St Stephen’s College was a tame affair, though still not a pleasant one. One of the questions often asked was: “What does your father do?” It was a loaded query, since those who had prominent people for parents faced a tougher time. I would truthfully answer that my father was a Punjabi writer, and this normally put an end to the conversation. “Who?” asked a senior one day. “Giani Gurdit Singh,” I replied. “ ‘Mera Pind’ wale? It’s a really nice book,” said he. “That means your mother is Inderjit Kaur Sandhu.” I was stunned that someone had connected the dots. More so since I had studiously avoided any mention of my mother, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, those days, lest I become a target. “Oh, come on, forget these chaps, let’s talk,” said the man who became by life-long friend thereafter. Everyone wanted to speak in Punjabi in Delhi those days. To be accepted, you learnt to throw in a few sentences in Punjabi, so we spent happy times educating our fellow beings from other parts of India about our mother tongue. At one point I was the secretary of the college Punjabi Society and continued my teaching of Punjabi lessons with a varying degree of success. There were some who did not need any, like Madhu, who spoke Punjabi so well that everyone thought he was a Punjabi till they learnt his full name — Madhusudan
Srinivas. He had been brought up in Shimla and would spend much time with our family after my parents moved to Delhi. Madhu was by far not the only Tamil who could speak Punjabi well. Niranjan Ramakrishnan, who said he wanted to go to Ludhiana but landed up in Louisiana, spoke Punjabi well. He published a book on Punjabi jokes, called ‘Bantaism: The Philosophy of Sardar Jokes’. It takes a ‘Madrasi’ to find philosophy in Banta’s jokes and dwell upon it. But then he has also written a book called ‘Reading Gandhi in the 21st Century’, which showcases his scholarly talent. I received an SMS recently which brought up the issue of Punjabi in Delhi. It seems strange that Punjabi will be taught in fewer colleges in Delhi under the new four-year scheme of Delhi University. Can Punjabi really be taken out of Delhi? No way, it is a part of Delhi’s DNA. It is the language that many non-Punjabis want to learn, if only to sound strong. Like one of our friends who picked up the phrase “Tainu mainu dasan,” which he thought sounded tough. He uttered it menacingly, and wondered why everyone sniggered after he said it. Now, if only he had learnt his Punjabi
properly.
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CINEMA: NEW Releases
A day to reckon with
d
stands
for many things — disaster, doom and in India it's also the first letter of the name of the most wanted man hiding in Pakistan. A covert operation by RAW to get him, in a nutshell, is the storyline of Nikhil Advani's thriller that begins with taut dramatic tension, maintains it for good an hour or so, before dipping in the second half to finally find form and pace again. Since the key is held by Wali, Irrfan Khan playing the part of the agent leading a double life apart from putting up a convincing performance also is your narrator. Back and forth he takes you into the maze of action and the operation offering clues and insights. The narrative moves in a cyclical fashion before the operation and in a linear graph post its perceived failure. Post interval the graph dips; even takes expected detours. But Nikhil doesn't spring any unwanted surprises. That apart, casting is perfect, be it Irrfan Khan as Wali torn between duty and the love of the family he has acquired in Pakistan or the brooding loner Arjun Rampal as Rudra Pratap, who seeks refuge in the arms of a prostitute (played ably by Shruti Haasan). For that matter even Huma Qureshi fits the part of an agent with ease. Rishi Kapoor as the dreaded don is not so menacing only brutally charming…perhaps if he had more screen space, more pithy dialogues he would have impressed more. The actor playing his nephew, Chandan Sanyal, however, truly sends a shudder down your spine. Other cast members, especially Nasser as the RAW chief and Aakash Dahiya as the fourth agent Aslam, are commendable. Also admirable is the fact that though the film revolves around Pakistan housing the don, apart from stating the obvious, it refrains from Pakistan bashing. Cleverly Nikhil sidesteps the trap of painting the neighbouring country in outright black shades. Both love angles, Wali's with a legally wedded wife and Rudra Pratap's with a prostitute involve girls of Pakistani nationality, lending the relationship between the two nations a human touch. The emotional quotient (there is a revenge sub-plot too where Rudra avenges the atrocities committed on his love interest) probably meant to highlight the sacrifices RAW agents have to make, however, does dilute the prime focus on the D day and the D man. Besides, though much homework seems to have been done to lend the authentic look to the locales in Pakistan, make no mistake this is a fictional account. So, if you can stomach a flight of fancy around a wishful thinking (how India wishes it could get the D man) you are likely to enjoy this action-packed fare which on many counts, the most notable being performances and fine direction, certainly falls in the watchable category.
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Red alert!
red 2
is a delightful spoof on pensioned dangerous operatives who as in The Dirty Dozen are called upon to do what they did best. Red stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous but sadly I missed the original. Its strength is in the casting of renowned actors in unusually funny roles. Bruce Willis is of course in his one-man army role as Frank Moses but he has a bunch of misfits like a resurrected Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich), girl-friend Sarah (Mary Louise-Parker), the Korean Han (Lee Byang-hun) and they have to hunt down arms inventor Bradley (Anthony Hopkins) who has lost his memory. As luck would have it, Frank runs into ex-flame Miranda (Catherine Zeta-Jones) bent on rekindling the dying embers much to the consternation of Sarah. The result is 118 minutes of delirium with the females also contributing to the hilarity. Mirren at times reminds one of Marlene Dietrich in her salad days. Mary Louis-Parker has to smile and frown alternatively while Zeta-Jones provides the usual spark. Highly recommended.
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Down & out And what weightier subject than an attack on the White House? President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is a black like Barrack Obama and is surrounded by a plethora of his staff that includes Speaker Martin Walker (James Woods), a vice-president and CIA agent Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhal), a workaholic who claims that caffeine and patriotism help her keep awake. There is talk of the US pulling out of the Middle-East and this is not favourable to some of the President's staff. Actually some of them have old grudges and this is the cause of the sabotage and the mayhem that follows. James Vanderbell's screenplay is at best passable and it is the few lighter moments that keep it from flagging. Emmerich of course goes to town with the action but after the halfway mark it goes downhill and one looks fondly for the end which never seems to come. Channing Tatum does well in the lead role and refrains from overacting and he is well supported by Jamie Foxx and little Joey King.
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A stale love story this one is terribly old-fashioned—a stale romance profusely stereotypical in its run. As expected the path to love is strewn with obstacles in every form and nature. Rich boy (Girish Kumar) meets dehati girl (Shruti Hassan) and falls in love but his materialistic mom (Poonam Dhillon) is none too happy with the turn of events at her niece's wedding celebrations. A more suitable bride is sought for her darling son but he is not willing to play the game, preferring instead to prove his love by going dehati himself! Ha! Much song-and-dance later, the lovers find their way to be together, even though the perils in between are too many. The storyline is a cross between Salman's Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun'and Maine Pyar Kiya but the twain don't make for an enjoyable mix—at least not the way Prabhu Deva executes it. As predictable and shrill, and singularly lacking in cogent story-telling, this candy-striped romance has little to offer. Girish Kumar prefers to jump around and move into digressive, emoting much like a performing monkey while Shruti Hassan can do little but look dead-pan and uninteresting.
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Movies on tv Saturday july 20 Titanic Titanic is an American epic romantic disaster film directed, written, co-produced, co-edited and partly financed by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. ZEE CINEMA 7:46AM Diler: The Daring 10:54AM No Problem 2:01PM Big Brother 4:59PM Hindustani Yodha 8:00PM Hum Aapke Hain Kaun...! INDIA TALKIES 9:30AM Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya 1:00PM Heroes 4:30PM King Uncle 8:00PM Pratigya ZEE STUDIO 8:00AM Bringing Down the House 10:10AM I Am Number Four 1:00PM The Rock 4:00PM Red Sun Rising 6:15PM Stepmom 9:00PM American Gangster STAR MOVIES 7:34AM Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 9:46AM 27 Dresses 12:01PM The Mummy 2:00PM The Darkest Hour 3:56PM Snow White and the Huntsman 6:27PM X2: X-Men United 9:00PM The Three Stooges
11:01PM Titanic MGM 9:15AM Impromptu 11:00AM For Better or For Worse 12:30PM Bright Angel
2:00PM Zone Troopers 3:30PM Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen 5:15PM Impromptu 7:15PM Panga 9:00PM L.A. Bounty
10:30PM Hollywood Air Force SONY PIX 8:32AM Daddy Day Camp 10:25AM How to Train your Dragon 12:19PM Iron Man 2 2:37PM The Spy Next Door 4:30PM Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa 6:25PM The Karate Kid 9:00PM Robocop 2 11:20PM Slumdog Millionaire STAR GOLD 6:00AM Kalyug 8:30AM Pyaar Koi Khel Nahin 11:40AM Om Shanti Om 3:30PM Ajnabee 6:25PM Gharwali Baharwali 9:00PM Dangerous Khiladi FILMY 9:00AM Main Aisa Hi Hoon 12:00PM Rajani: The Style 3:00PM Devdas 6:00PM Heer Ranjha 9:30PM Darna Zaroori Hai ZEE ACTION Dev 10:30AM Prem Qaidi 1:30PM EK dulaara 5:30PM Pratibandh 8:30PM Loha Sunday july 21 Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam ZEE CINEMA 6:26AM Shola Aur Shabnam 10:02AM Mujhse Shaadi Karogi 1:35PM Laadla 4:55PM Vivah 8:30PM Hum Saath Saath Hain INDIA TALKIES 6:00AM King Uncle 9:30AM Pratigya 1:00PM Namastey London 4:30PM Main Hoon Na 8:00PM Krrish ZEE STUDIO 8:00AM Stepmom 10:40AM Steal 1:00PM Sleepless in Seattle 3:15PM American Gangster 6:15PM Wolf 9:00PM The Book of Eli 11:30PM Snake Eyes STAR MOVIES 9:08AM The Three Stooges 11:12AM Titanic 2:17PM Johnny English 4:13PM The Incredible Hulk 6:28PM You Pick the Flick 9:00PM X-Men Origins: Wolverine 11:10PM Bad Teacher MGM 8:15AM The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai 10:00AM The Chocolate War 11:45AM Robot Jox 1:15PM Blood Red 1:30PM Electric Dreams 3:15PM The Chocolate War 5:15PM The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai 7:15PM Straight out of Brooklyn 8:45PM Exposed 9:00PM Kuffs 10:45PM Blood Red STAR GOLD 6:00AM Mukhbiir 9:10AM Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi! 12:00PM Bol Bachchan 3:25PM Jungbaaz 5:50PM Billu 9:00PM Makkhi FILMY 9:00AM Sandwich 12:00PM Dharam Adhikari 3:00PM Mangal Pandey: The Rising 6:00PM Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam 9:30PM Dosti Dushmani ZEE ACTION 7:00AM Fox 10:30AM Tridev 1:30PM Saudagar 5:30PM Anyay Hi Anyay 8:30PM Kasam Hindustan Ki
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Much of the action takes place in Pakistan where four RAW agents are out to nail the man India has consistently failed to. Thus as the Bollywoodisation woven around a real don (here he is known as Iqbal) and some real events begins, the director has all your attention. Thrilling sequences are knit together all the while introducing you to the four main characters.
Pitted against him is Soviet agent Victoria (Hellen Mirren). The cold war is still on and it is all about hidden explosives or some such stuff but it is the assortment of wizards that makes the fare so hilarious. The script is studded with excellent one-liners put across suavely by performers in alien roles and director Dean Parisot refrains from making a meal of it. Malkovich and Hopkins steal the show while Willis underplays his usual violence.
so
Enter Jason Cale (Channing Tatum) who is unable to qualify to be a CIA agent but happens to be taking his daughter Emily (Joey King) on a tour of the White House when all hell breaks loose. Yet, it is Jason and his daughter Emily who become heroes. That's the human interest angle even though it is stretched too far.
star movies 11:01PM
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is a Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film stars Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, and Aishwarya Rai. The story is adopted from Maitreyi Devi's Bengali novel Na Hanyate, and is based on a love triangle. The movie was a big hit.