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No reason to fear Going back to work |
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Shocking
gender crimes
From JP
to Anna Hazare
True
life hero
CINEMA:
NEW Releases
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Going back to work Maruti
Suzuki will resume production at its troubled Manesar plant on August 21—a day ahead of the Chairman, Osamu Suzuki’s visit to India for the company’s general body meeting. The management needs to do an honest introspection about what went wrong at Manesar on July 19 and before that last year. It should ask: why are frequent labour troubles causing such heavy financial losses to the company? Japanese management practices and cordial employer-employee relations are world famous. It is time to find out whether those at the helm at Maruti Suzuki followed them or there is something wrong about Indian labour, unions and laws. According to one estimate, the Manesar plant, which produces some of the best-selling Maruti cars, is set to suffer a loss of Rs 2,000 crore during the shutdown. Last year it lost Rs 2,500 crore due to worker-management disputes. This is a huge loss for any company. The Maruti Suzuki management, perhaps, could have avoided the human and financial bloodshed had it done earlier what it is planning to do now: paying the regular and contract employees the same salary. The company has decided not to depend on contractors for hiring workers and it will start recruiting its own staff from September 2. For short-term gains, the company resorted to unethical, if not illegal, practices and ended up paying a heavy price. The union leaders and workers who burnt to death a manager and beat up others, and set the office property on fire deserve no sympathy and the management has shown none. It has issued termination notices to 500 of its 1,500 regular workers, including 154 of those in police custody. Production will resume in phases under heavy security provided by the management and the Haryana government. Since Suzuki is a global name, any trouble at its Indian plant is widely noticed. This sends a wrong signal about India in general and Haryana in particular.
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Shocking gender crimes What
makes young men bold enough to carry out their fancies? Only, in terms of stalking young women and making their life miserable. An absolute lack of fear for the consequences of their actions, for there is almost no fear of the law. This gives them a false sense of power over women, they think, they can control. Else, how could three young men enter a house in Mohali in broad daylight and slash a girl’s face and arms, along with that of her mother’s. The girl’s mother had only reprimanded the boys for stalking her 16- year- old daughter, who was being harassed by these young men. Thankfully, India does not have a Taliban-like outfit. Girls can move freely and do whatever they wish to. The Indian Constitution accords them equal rights. But, a complete lack of fear of the law is creating a situation where young men have begun to think they can get away with any crime that involves women. Raksha Sharma committed suicide because she was harassed by some boys on the social networking site. A little confidence in the law machinery would have made her seek protection from the law rather than lose her life. It is unfortunate that a grown-up girl of sixteen needs to be chaperoned by her mother in a city like Chandigarh, at all the time, as the mother of the young woman from Mohali was forced to do. Even after lodging a complaint with the Chandigarh Police, the mother and the daughter had to suffer, because the Chandigarh Police failed to inform the Mohali police about the registration number of the bike the boys were riding. From the very powerful to the very ordinary, something about our social reality makes men feel empowered. And women are getting marginalised, despite all their strengths. Now, they are not safe even inside their homes.
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One lives in the hope of becoming a memory. — Antonio Porchia
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From JP to Anna Hazare IT is not the first time that the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India has disclosed the government’s involvement in a scam. What is disconcerting this time is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been accused of keeping away the CAG report from Parliament on coal bungling, running into Rs. 1.45 lakh crore. The Prime Minister told Parliament on May 23 this year that the CAG report was only a draft while the fact which has come to light is that the final report was received on May 11 both by the government and the President’s office. It means that there is nothing sacrosanct for the Congress-led coalition, even Parliament’s privileges, much less transparency that one expected from a government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh. The government is only a forwarding agency as far as reports by the CAG are concerned. He directly reports to Parliament through the government as he did in the case of corruption in coal, a portfolio directly under the Prime Minister. How he rationalises the delay — he is a master in doing so — will be something which I await. Yet the corruption part is really serious. Certain private parties and individuals are said to have been given benefits. They must have rendered service in kind and cash to the ruling party. The sad part is that when a movement against corruption was needed the most, Gandhian Anna Hazare, leading it, changes his strategy and thinks about contesting elections in 2014. Although he looked reluctant and expressed doubts in public, he seemed to have been prevailed upon by those who have always focused their eyes on the electoral politics. Some of them may well be members of the team which Hazare has now disbanded. Yet abandoning a movement which had come to ventilate the resentment of civil society was leaving a job in the middle. True, the government was obtrusive and did not want to give a strong Lokpal (Ombudsman). Equally true, the opposition parties were indifferent. This was all the more reason why the movement for a Lokpal needed to be intensified. The failing health of some members who went on fast was one reason why the movement had to be restructured to give an excuse for dropping the fasts. In fact, fasts are a wrong strategy to begin with. Mahatma Gandhi’s fast was never against anybody. They were always positive in their nature and he was engaged in wresting freedom from the unwilling hands of the British. With no immediate challenge on corruption, the government has blessed the move of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not to go in appeal on the rejection of disproportionate assets case against former UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Even her 21 votes in the Lok Sabha are important for the Manmohan Singh government to show a majority in Parliament. And it seems obvious that the Congress will stick to office for the rest of the term, roughly 22 months, even if it has to play false as it has done in the case of the CAG report on coal and even if it has turned a blind eye to Mayawati’s assets which are unexplainable. She has reportedly amassed a wealth of Rs 116 crore since 2003. Indeed, this is the best time for Anna to enter the political field. But can a party rise from the ashes of a movement which had swept the intelligentsia off its feet and had kept the media focused for 18 months? In concrete terms, the movement has nothing to show. But the awakening of civil society is itself an achievement of sorts. Whether Anna can convert the awakening process into a voting process is yet to be seen. One thing which is in his favour is that he is being associated with an alternative to the Congress and the BJP, the two main political parties. People generally want a change and not either of the two at the helm of affairs again. Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) was forced into a similar situation but accepted the Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP, after the Jan Sangh promised him to cut off relations with the RSS. He was betrayed but in the process the Jana Sangh got the credibility of a non-communal set-up. A similar situation faces Anna when Baba Ramdev wants the two of them together. Secularism and parochialism do not mix well. JP made the mistake and parochial forces gained from it. Anna should not traverse the same path. He has to stand alone when Baba Ramdev and his musclemen try to make a united stand. Their culture is different and civil society is not willing to accept them. The mantle of JP has fallen on Anna. But JP travelled throughout India to awaken people to the need to have an alternative and defeat the rulers who have mutilated the very system to serve their purpose and sustain the status quo which gives them power and unfettered control. I am not against Anna taking part in elections. He himself is having second thoughts. Yet it would have been far better if he had held wider consultations with activists like Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy. Such consultations did take place before Anna had begun his stir against corruption. He must string together the various movements, however small, which are visibly working at the grassroots level. These activists will provide grist to the mill of change that Anna is contemplating. Maybe, a political platform, instead of a party, may serve a wider purpose. Some can work with the people’s movements and some contest elections. They will help each other and together they will be a force to reckon with. Mahatma Gandhi had separated constructive workers from those engaged in the legislative field. JP did not form the party till after winning at the polls. Yet he saw to it that his, candidates would fight on one symbol. What proved to be his Achille’s heal was the wrong candidates he chose. They were not the people to effect changes. They used the system to benefit themselves. And then JP’s health failed and he could not reach out to the people. Anna should be careful about his health and slowly but relentlessly harness support among those close associates who have the commitment and faith in basic values. He should take time. But he cannot afford to fail for the second time. Politics is not bad. Those who dominate it at this time have given it a bad
name.
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True life hero To
him, the gurdwara was more than just a haunt where the community congregated to worship. It was the most sacred aspect of his being, an aspect that he cherished and honoured. In founding and establishing that gurdwara, he had espoused his most pulsating impulse, the impulse to serve, without discrimination and without the expectation of acknowledgement. And on the fateful day of August 5 during the mass shooting at that gurdwara in Milwalkee, Wisconsin, the site which was his life and his passion became his final battlefield where he attained martyrdom. When Satwant Singh Kaleka heard gun shots and saw a gunman marching towards the gurdwara he did not have to ponder over his course of action. He quickly grabbed a butter knife from the gurdwara kitchen and marched headstrong towards the gunman because there was “no way” that he could let anyone harm the innocent, least of all that peaceful, meditating community inside his beloved gurdwara. Unmindful of his life, he grappled with and attacked the gunman as multiple bullets pierced him from close range. He managed to deter the gunman for a period allowing the crowds to run for cover, thereby saving the lives of a large number of devotees and in so doing he gloriously uplifted the Sikh tradition of
“Kabhi na chhore khet”, which implies that never give in, irrespective of the odds. Kaleka came from a family known for its extraordinary valour. His father, Major Pritam Singh Kaleka, was honoured with five medals for exemplary bravery during his service and his brother, Captain Amarjit Singh Kaleka, won the Gallantry Award during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. By going down in a blaze of glory on that gory summer morning in Milwalkee, Kaleka continued his family’s tradition of heroism. His courageous act of righteousness has sparked acclaim from global leaders. While Kaleka’s sacrifice beautifully delineates all that he stood for, even his life was a brave testimonial of service to his faith. Born in village Duggal in Patiala district, he had immigrated to the United States in 1982. Armed with his faith and the will to work, he found success as an entrepreneur. In his everyday life, he was inspired and motivated by Nishkam Seva, Sikhism’s shining premise, that advocates selfless service without discrimination. The lives of numerous new immigrants were touched by his amazing generosity of spirit. Sustained by the faith, Kaleka and his wife raised their two boys to become men of reckoning. Their elder son went on to become a Milwalkee police officer and the younger an Emmy Award winning documentary film maker. In embracing death on that blood-soaked morning this August, Satwant Singh Kaleka valiantly elevated the Sikh ethos of giving up one’s life for the sake of truth and dignity that has been celebrated in the Sikh lore for 500 years. His life is an example of how each of us can rise above our ordinariness in extraordinary times by finding the strength to put up a fearless fight. He will forever be an enduring manifestation of a life and a purpose
fulfilled.
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CINEMA:
NEW Releases
RATINGS: *****Excellent
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Scene two, a long action-packed chase picturised in Iraq involving who else but the superstar Salman Khan (no prizes for guessing he is the Tiger, a RAW agent), establishes the tone and temper of the movie. Not to be taken seriously, here is a film that is no more no less than a showcase of the superstar on whose cult status the movie rides. So what makes Tiger special is that he is Salman, not because he is a well-delineated, well-researched or even well-nuanced character. So facts like he has been on continuous 12 dangerous assignments are mere trivia not character enhancing traits.
No wonder few scenes into the movie as Tiger returns home, you know where the film is going. His informal interaction with his boss Girish Karnad (over a baati of dal) reminiscing how he let duty win over his love isn't a red herring but a dead giveaway that even a mentally challenged person can grasp. And good enough, soon Katrina Kaif makes her entry as Zoya settled in Ireland which is where Tiger is sent on yet another mission. Their falling in love is a forgone conclusion. Now cross-border love stories have been the leitmotif of many a film. Yash Raj banner who has produced Ek Tha Tiger did give us a memorable one. Veer Zaara was one such epic love story. Yet what you get here is a sloppy love story whose singular twist adds a little zing but no depth. Moving on three tangents, love, action and thriller, there is little poignancy or pathos in the love story. The storyline despite surprise elements here and there is limp if not outright ludicrous. Humour surfaces every now and then albeit works at a very basic level. In fact, the only intelligible thing in the movie supposedly about intelligent intelligence agents lies in the dialogue — how many countries are there in the world? Beyond that it's an amalgamation of incredible action sequences enacted by Sallu bhai with aplomb. Salman is, well, Salman. Both superstar and superman, who can climb pipes, jump buildings, take on a dozen armed men at a time and, of course, romance with his lady love. Minus the buffoonery, here he is a bit vulnerable too, when it comes to Katrina’s character with whom his chemistry is unmistakable. Katrina looks good, better in the second part, in which she incidentally matches former boyfriend in the action department too. Ranvir Shorey as Salman's confidante- cum-colleague is competent and our Punjabi actor Gavie Chahal as the ISI agent, despite a brief role makes his presence felt. In the second half, the pace and action keep you engaged, even though the storyline remains tardy. Where director Kabeer Khan scores is that he has kept the length just right. No unwanted flashbacks, no excess baggage and the cat and mouse chase in the climax is suitably handled. Picturesque locations are in sync with Yash Raj signature style. But production values and action alone don't make a movie. At no point do you fall in love with the love story that has twist and tang but no emotive power. Strictly for Salman Khan fans or not, they would, anyway, love it. In case, you fall in the minority of not being one, tone down expectations and you may find it watchable. If for nothing else, watch it to know what makes a film collect a whopping Rs 32 crores in a single day. Watch out for
Shirin Farhad Ki Nikal Padi
Joker
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It’s an unusual romantic-comedy film with Boman Irani and Farah Khan in the lead roles. Farhad Pastakiya (Boman Irani), is a 45-year-old Parsi bachelor who works as a lingerie salesman. He has not been able to find the love of his life and people around him have lost hope of his doing so. The only women who call the shots in his life are his mother Nargis and doting grandmother Siloo. One day, Shirin (Farah Khan) walks into his shop and their love story begins. The film promises to be a fun ride and is expected to release on August 24.
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