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Playing with fuel
Sowing diversification |
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Double talk!
Chilling scenes in Delhi
Bollywood buff
CINEMA:
NEW Releases
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Playing with fuel
The
economic wisdom behind Dr Manmohan Singh’s suggestion to slash the fuel subsidy is not in doubt. But will the UPA government take the political risk of raising oil and coal prices in a year when the assembly elections are due in half a dozen states and a general election in 2014? The Prime Minister speaks as an economist when he stresses the need for aligning energy prices with global levels. The oil ministry has proposed an increase of Rs 10 a litre in the prices of diesel in the next 10 months and a similar hike in kerosene in two years to cut the fuel subsidy. But given the protests over the last diesel price hike and a cap on gas cylinders, the UPA will to take the unpleasant steps will be tested. The logic behind an advance price hike plan is unclear. It is hard to guess which way global oil prices will move in the New Year. A significant fall may not require any hike, while a sharp upward swing may require a bigger increase. There is, no doubt, need for curbing fuel waste, congestion on roads and air pollution caused by a steep rise in the number of personal vehicles. Green taxes coupled with an efficient public transport can minimise the craze for personal cars. But a costlier diesel would raise the cost of transport and have a cascading effect on prices, which in turn would keep interest rates high. On the other hand, if the government does not limit its subsidy, it may have to prune its spending on education and health, which is worse. Thursday’s National Development Council meeting was called to discuss the 12th Plan, which has lowered the growth target to 8 per cent from the initial 9 per cent. This too the Prime Minister says is “ambitious”. Growth is slowing partly due to an uncertain global environment and partly due to a high cost of borrowing and inflation crimping corporate investment. To check the downtrend, the reformers need political support for taking hard decisions.
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Sowing diversification
Punjab
has urged the Centre to set up a separate fund for ‘Green Revolution states’ to help them diversify in agriculture. It has even presented a figure of Rs 5,000 crore for the purpose and sought inclusion of diversification in the 12th Five-Year Plan. While the size of the corpus would have to be worked out only after there is a concrete plan, there is no denying the fact that the Centre has to aid diversification in a major way. Paddy as a crop in the North has been seen as unsustainable for nearly two decades now, yet the Central government has ignored demands for diversification on account of the need for food security. It is not fair for it to now suddenly advise states to diversify. Diversification is a process that will involve heavy research, farmer education, agri-infrastructure investment and loss on account of hitches in initial years. States cannot afford this unaided. That the Centre is serious about discouraging Punjab and Haryana from growing wheat and paddy is evident from the small rise in the wheat MSP this time. But by not offering alternatives, it would leave the states’ farmers in a lurch, which could be a recipe for socio-economic strife. Farming by its nature is a very conservative activity, and bringing about a change is slow and difficult. The advantage in this second Green Revolution — in contrast to the original — would be the huge private investment and entrepreneurship available today. In research as well as setting up the associated agro-industry, private initiatives should be encouraged. At the same time, agricultural universities will need a second wave of funding. As the Northeast steps in to produce food grain, the ‘agriculturally advanced’ states can move on to more complex farming, such as horticulture, dairy or poultry, which will require a whole chain of hi-tech handling, storage and processing facilities. What we are talking of now is, thus, an agri-industrial-marketing revolution. There is no way the Centre can abdicate this responsibility.
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Double talk!
though
slowly, the political leadership is heeding the collective and assertive voice of women calling for a better security environment for their survival and growth. Alas! Even within the family of the first citizen of India, discordant notes are played in response to this sensitive issue. While responding to the national outrage over the Delhi gangrape, President Pranab Mukherjee called for changing the “negative perceptions” about women. Though his response came a week later, after the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student, he reiterated that “Women must be treated with respect and should be provided a safe, secure and congenial environment in which their talents can flower and they can contribute their full share in the building of our nation.” However, barely two days later, the President’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee, who is a member of Parliament, showed much disrespect to women and added fuel to the fire when he said that the protesting women in Delhi do not appear to be students but are "dented and painted" women. As usual, his first response to the public outrage over this comment was that he has been misquoted, but later he rendered an unconditional apology. Like many other arrogant, gloated-with-power politicians, who express their bias against women from public platforms, thinking that it enhances their macho image, to later undergo a change of the semantics, this time around, Abhijit’s sister came to his rescue; she apologised on behalf of her bhaiya’s mistake. There seems to be a pattern among these self- appointed missionaries for ‘women reformers’. They would do better to contest for a foot-in-the mouth award presented each year by the Plain English Campaign for "a baffling comment by a
public figure. The 43rd President of America, George W. Bush, will have their august company; he received this award
in 2008 with the subtitle, "Lifetime Achievement Award", given not for a single quote, but for his legendary service to
verbal incongruence.
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Man is not made for defeat. — Ernest Hemingway
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Chilling scenes in Delhi
It
appears to me that in India we are rushing on that route envisaged by Rousseau. This foreboding I am getting because of the latest situation in Delhi where the well-intentioned non-political young generation (who still retain faith and idealism) people were brutally dealt with by the police while protesting against the manner in which the horrible inhuman gang-rape of a young woman has been casually dealt with by the Delhi and Central governments. One sees the horrible chilling scenes of the police using water-cannons and brutally lathi-charging young men and women, even ignoring that these incidents are being televised live. I had thought that after the first day of televising of these events, the police will be cashiered and Central ministers and leaders, both of the Central government and state governments, will take proper steps to control the situation, but I was mistaken. What is most disturbing is the response of the Delhi and Central governments. Here was a mass of young boys and girls, mostly students, massed together spontaneously to show their anger at what has happened and demand action. In a democratic country, one would expect the Chief Minister of Delhi and the Central Home Minister or Congress party leaders like Sonia and Rahul to go to the spot and interact with them. Nothing of the sort has happened. Disappointment among the youth was natural. Though the mass gathering was peaceful, they were met with brutal beating by the police as if we were back in the imperialist British régime blowing out freedom fighters’ heads. This insensitivity was further intensified by the closing down of nine metro stations — as if a civil war had broken out. The death of a constable on duty is extremely tragic. All sympathies to his family, the government’s announcement providing jobs and compensation to his family are unexceptional. But is the government not acting in a extraneous manner by spreading the canard that he died at the hand of protestors. This story has turned out to be concocted. The hospital authorities denied that the constable had any external injury — rather their prima facie conclusion is that he had a heart attack and though he was put on a heart machine immediately, he could not survive. Yet the whole administration was persuaded to attend the funeral ceremony to project the constable as a victim of protests. Of course, all respect to the dead and provisioning for his family are acceptable and correct. Only one would like to know whether any other constable had received such respect as the presence of the Union Minister of Home, the Chief Minister of Delhi, and the emotional carrying of hearse of the constable by the Commissioner of Police. There are any number of constables who have died during their duty to arrest dacoits and terrorists, but without being honoured in such a manner. Does the administration think the public is so infant that they will not see through this game, which has the sole motive to malign the protesting youth. The Home Minister, in a very unseemly manner, says he is willing to meet any deputation that wants to see him. But he forgets that in a democracy, in such a situation, ministers who are, in fact, the servants of the people, must go to their masters and explain their conduct. Had any of the leaders of the government or the party gone to meet the crowd, the matter could have been eased and the constable would not have died. The functioning of the state had broken down when we found the Police Commissioner of Delhi complaining to Home Minister Shinde about “interference” by the Chief Minister of Delhi in the recording of the statement by the sub-divisional magistrate. The cause of death need not await the result of trial or the Verma Committee’s findings. The doctors’ version and the inquest report should be immediately made public because already even the President, while saying that the “anger of the youth was justified”, added that violence was not the answer. Now if the doctors’ version is correct, have not the Home Minister and the police misled the President and embarrassed him in public? Political parties wisely kept away from the protest meeting so as not to permit the government to politicise the movement. The Socialist Party (India) showed its pain by observing fast at Rajghat in support of the rape victim and showing its full backing to the protest by the youth. The police has become so emboldened because of the silence of the authority that the complaint of teenaged girl-protestors that they were detained in Parliament Street and beaten because they wanted to march peacefully from Jantar Manter to Parliament Street is proudly confirmed by admitting that they were allowed to go after their details were noted down under the Police Act, and that they had given an undertaking. Are we living in a police state or a democracy? Press reports say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi “have advised the security forces to exercise restraint”. How I wish this advice had been given the very first day of protest. The youths need to be congratulated rather than demeaned (as is the effort of the Central and Delhi governments) in bringing out this vital human right issue of rape victims to the fore. I must point out the breach of certain well-established conventions. It appears that the date of trial was announced by the Home Minister after a personal meeting with the Chief Justice of the High Court. This was a judicial matter — a proper application by a government lawyer before the Chief Justice and heard in his chamber would have been the conventionally correct course. The Congress-led government seems comfortable with the open spat between its own Chief Minister in Delhi and the Commissioner of Police under the control of the Centre. It is as if we have reached a stage where each agency is working on its own without being under any Central control or single authority. It would appear that the pro-corporate reform-oriented and foreign direct investment (retail) lobby has succeeded in creating a situation where Karl Marx would have been happy to see that at last his prophecy that one day the “State will wither away” has become a reality in India. No self-respecting Indian, however, can live at peace with this
picture. The writer is a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
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Bollywood buff Looks like I am a 100 year-old man still going strong if you refer my conscious age to the reference, reckoning and review of Bollywood. Having been born in the late fifties, I am almost contemporaneous to the times when only about a couple-and-a-half of the decades back, Bollywood’s first talking movie ‘Alam Ara’ was produced in 1931 . So much of water since then has flowed down into ‘Bom-Bay’ from ‘Jis desh main Ganga behti hai’ to ‘Ram teri Ganga mailee’; Devdas of 1955 to Devdas of 2002 and ‘Talash’ of 1969 to ‘Talash’ of 2012. Pre-Independence days had seen movie makers choose from the classical, mythological, social and domestic themes, with a slight hint of the contemporary and relevant issues once in a while. It may be a personal feeling, but the ‘Black & White’ era made more sense to tragedies, when, being successful in love, the hero and the heroine invariably had to die, ultimately. Probably, society then did not approve of the dent the cinema was perceived to be making in the steel-frame of tradition. Flicks based on history and mythology thus found their way on to the screen. Love and romance, though, broke the mould ab-initio. I remember the sixties — the era of idealism. The hero was a beau-model. The heroine was modest. The villain was inclined to reform. The cops were honest. Despite sticking to fashion, there was grace in dressing. The tie had proper length and the cleavage was taken good care of. Comedy was simple but at times slapstick too. Violence had less spilling of blood and strewn gory flesh wasn’t shown on the screen. Fights were ‘composed’ and not superimposed with animation techniques. The ‘dhishoom-dhishoom’ reverberated the punches, inciting a kind of simulation and feel. The songs were meaningful and tickled. Music was soft and melodious. Singing songs in the groves and fields and serenading seemed soulful. Above all, my mind was impressionable. Experimental movies, period movies, thrillers, parallel cinema, art movies and comedies found themselves ushering in with the advent of the seventies and the eighties. Disco themes and choreography in dance performances improved. Violence too manifested in its monstrous form with the result that the cine-lovers began to hate it and welcome an altogether different and cool musical in ‘Hum aapke hain kaun’ . The nineties saw some anti-hero thrillers, horror flicks besides comparatively more liberated and daring love tales, soon to graduate into live-in relationships and homo-sexuality. An area held monopolised by Helen, Bindu, Jay Shri T, et al, of the near-striptease genre, graduated into item numbers beginning with Malaika Arora Khan, Mallika Sherawat, Vipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor. I also cannot forget the showman Raj Kapoor who had the sole tenacity to hold on and project the reality in its starkest forms, besides Guru Dutt, who skilfully put on the celluloid the intense, profound and subtle nuances, minutely observed and felt deep within. BR Chopra had the uncanny sense of handling issues that affected the life in an altogether different ways. Bharat Manoj Kumar’s movies besides Chetan Anand, Sippy Brothers, AVM, Jemini, RK Films, K. Asif, Kamal Amrohi and Hrishikesh Mukherjee were eagerly awaited that always remained my favorites. From walkie-talkies through big cinema halls to multiplexes, is a story of the Bollywood, generally conforming to the popular moods, mores, practices, trends, techniques and times. Not only has the industry lived up to its reputation of being a game-changer, so far as entertainment in India is concerned, but it has also affected the political life of the people who found demi-gods and semi-gods in some film personalities. It’s only in India that we have temples dedicated to film personalities who can be accommodated in the elders’ House too. Yes, I am a centurion Bollywood
buff!
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CINEMA:
NEW Releases
Jack of action Not to be confused with Jack the Ripper, this is an absorbing whodunit that follows the trail of a sniper who has killed five persons in cold blood whose path leads to a plethora of dubious and weird characters. Yes, Jack Reacher is in close competition with the Ripper.
Though the subjects are completely different, the director has decided to make it as exciting and interesting as possible and having written some excellent screenplays before he has the wherewithal to do it. The film opens with an unseen sniper felling five passers-by with stoic efficiency. Cut to the arrest of suspect James Barr (Joseph Sikora). Enter his beautiful attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) who happens to be the daughter of District Attorney Alex Rodin (Richard Jenkins) which later on complicates the case. But the suspect asks them to contact Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), a former Army Police officer who is now untraceable.
The middle is a tad meandering, Reacher visits shooting ranges for leads but oldie Cash (Robert Duvall) and a Russian defector know only as The Zec (Werner Herzog) not only important cogs in this wheel of deceit but are played by two veterans. Herzog is the famous German director who made Nosferatu among others and Duvall is a well known cameo player whose debut was as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird decades ago. He was the much-feared bogeyman who eventually saves the kids in that delightful Harper Lee novel. Gregory Peck won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Atticus, their loving father. They surely sparked enough nostalgia for the few familiar with their works. But back to the action and it is pretty engrossing as it peels layers that lead to a number of blanks and though it keeps one on the edge of the seat for most of its 130-minute duration, the questions arise only as one leaves the theatre when one puts on the thinking caps. Tom Cruise, who is also the producer, has enough of scope but will be remembered for the snappy lines he exudes with `E9lan and is well matched by the talented and charming Rosamund Pike who matches him frame by frame in a rather complicated role. Richard Jenkins and David Oyelowo are just about average. Alexia Fast shows promise in a brief cameo while Herzog and Duvall are there for their reputation. Going by the low quality of the current Hollywood product Jack Reacher is good while it lasts. upcoming movies
Table No. 21
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Movies on TV
Saturday December 29 ZEE CINEMA STAR GOLD FILMY STAR MOVIES INDIA TALKIES MOVIE OK HBO Sunday
December 30 SET MAX ZEE CINEMA STAR GOLD STAR MOVIES MOVIES OK FILMY HBO |
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What
follows is a cat-and-mouse game with red herrings galore. There's a
coloured officer Emerson (David Oyelowo), cute young woman Sandy (Alexia
Fast) but the screenplay is at best average and has holes in it. The
action keeps shifting rapidly but renowned cinematographer Caleb
Daschanel has not unduly stretched.
Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is an upcoming romantic comedy produced by Vishal Bharadwaj. Set in the rustic surroundings of a village in Haryana, it is about Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapur), a wealthy industrialist who loves to drink, his daughter Bijlee (Anushka Sharma) and the unusual bond they both share with Harry's man Friday, Matru (Imran Khan). The film also stars Aarya Babbar. The film will release on January 11.
Table No. 21 is an upcoming Bollywood action thriller directed by Aditya Datt, featuring Rajeev Khandelwal in the lead role alongside Tena Desae playing the female lead with Paresh Rawal. The film is about a couple who live a mediocre life and are thrilled to have won an exotic vacation to Fiji and their excitement increases when they get a chance to play, "Tell all truth," game for a mind boggling prize money. The film will release on January 4.
English Vinglish 
Makhhi