India’s security council seat was given up.

Just learnt that India was once offered a  seat in the UN Security Council way back in 1955, but rejected it. There may have been a lot of arm-twisting by existing powers at that time for us to give it up. But even then. giving it up was a sad strategic decision. I read about it in the Business Line, in an article titled “UN reforms — a fading mirage?” on Sept 16th 2009, Full article URL; excerpt below:

Ironically, around 1955, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was offered the disputed Chinese Permanent Security Council seat by the US to keep out the People’s Republic of China, and he also was sounded out by the USSR Prime Minister, Nikolai Bulganin, to allow China to take this seat while giving India a sixth permanent seat in the Security Council. Nehru rejected this offer in deference to China. History may have been different if this offer had been subjected to serious negotiations. Now, 54 years later, we are struggling for this seat.

Update on October 26 2009:

It appears that all was not so bad. I did think that there must have been some big time arm twisting. And, the Sept 16th 2009 article in Business line seems to be doing bad reporting. There are other takes on Nehru’ stance; Excerpt from an article in the Hindu:

Nehru showed sound judgment in rejecting it and in refusing to walk into the trap. It would have earned India the lasting hostility of China, contempt of the nations of the Third World and of the United States too, conceited, albeit, with perfect discretion; and eventually, a resounding snub from the Soviet Union. India would not, indeed could not, have got the seat; only the odium for immaturity and opportunism.

…..

“Regarding your suggestion about the four power conference we would take appropriate action. While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India’s inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.

JN: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject to controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council, it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the U.N. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China’s admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted. What is Bulganin’s opinion about the revision of the Charter? In our opinion this does not seem to be an appropriate time for it.

Bulganin: We proposed the question of India’s membership of the Security Council to get your views, but agree that this is not the time for it and it will have to wait for the right moment later on. We also agree that things should be taken one by one (page 231; emphasis added, throughout).

Bulganin did not make an “offer”. He threw a feeler to test India. He himself recognised that “this is not the time for it”. Had Nehru jumped at the bait, he would have courted certain disappointment before long.

Later, in a Note on his tour of the USSR and other countries, dated August 1, 1955, Nehru wrote: “Informally, suggestions have been made by the United States that China should be taken into the United Nations but not in the Security Council and that India should take her place in the Security Council. We cannot of course accept this as it means falling out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China not to be in the Security Council. We have, therefore, made it clear to those who suggested this that we cannot agree to this suggestion. We have even gone a little further and said that India is not anxious to enter the Security Council at this stage, even though as a great country she ought to be there. The first step to be taken is for China to take her rightful place and then the question of India might be considered separately” (page 303).

land laws – same in Japan?

A very interesting line in Fukuoka’s book, “The Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy“:

The problem boils down to this: only scoundrels, the clever, and those in power stand to gain from the issuance and abuse of a barrage of capricious laws. The net result is that the land is being taken out of the hands of farmers. The Agricultural Land Law, established to protect tenant farmers, today serves no other purpose than to thwart the hopes of those wishing to become farmers.

This guy had a high coolness factor. This is the exact same anguish that I share about land laws in India. It is too difficult to be a one acre farmer. BTW, the “Other India Bookstore” is an excellent place to buy difficult to find books such as the one straw revolution. I bought a couple of books from them and they were delivered in impeccable condition within four days. Excerpts of the book can be read on scribd.

Gandhi in an ad

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of our nation is now in ads. Apple has an ad whose images can be seen on  their website. Video of the ad is here. A cellphone company in Italy has a video campaign about Gandhi.

Interestingly, Gandhi’s descendants had tried to litigate a foreign producer earlier, but lost the case because the Indian Government did not have jurisdiction over foreigners. An article from outlining his thoughts:

Meanwhile, CMG Worldwide put forward another business proposal. It wanted to be the sole agent for the commercial use of the Mahatma’s name. “I considered this proposal seriously because I thought it would be a good opportunity to police the use of Bapuji’s image and prevent any misrepresentation. The company was to refer every commercial project to me for approval,” says Tushar Gandhi. He recalls his failed attempt to prosecute the producers of the Nikki Bedi show, when one of the guests on the TV programme insulted Mahatma Gandhi. “No action could be taken against them because Nikki Bedi as well as Rupert Murdoch, the Star TV owner, were foreigners. I felt that CMG Worldwide would be able to tackle such cases better since they are abroad,” he says.

….

According to Tushar Gandhi, although no agreement had been reached, CMG Worldwide announced Mahatma Gandhi as one of its new clients. (CMG Worldwide did not respond to queries sent to it by this correspondent.) “If nobody in India understands why I was getting into this deal, it wasn’t worth my while to continue with it. I broke all ties with CMG Worldwide, and returned two cheques they had sent for the advertisement. However, I still feel that we relinquished a good opportunity to protect Bapuji’s image and get some funds for restoration,” Tushar Gandhi explains.

The author of an article says that he will never buy an Apple product because he has been put off by the ad. An excerpt from the article:

Were Apple merely selling computers it would only be grubby to use Gandhi’s picture. Instead, of course, they’re trying to sell each of us an image of ourselves. Which is precisely what Gandhi spent his life trying to help people strip away. In the fight for Indian independence (against the biggest brand name of his era, the British Empire), he succeeded in helping a nation shrug off its own internalized sense of subjugation, its own sense that Britishness, like Appleness, was superior. And he did it without trying to substitute the usual nationalist passions.

Another interesting article about Gandhi, and how his image is twisted by our politicians:

Perhaps we should not be perturbed about such mischievous distortion of Gandhi’s writings. After all, we have had Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon pay homage at Raj Ghat.

This is the same Mr. Sharon, who has been indicted by an Israeli Government Commission as responsible for the killing of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. And we had Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi say on October 2 that his government was the only the State Government in the country to adhere to Gandhian principles.

Times of India ads on You Tube

The media houses have some really great ads these days. The Lead India Campaign “Tree” video is popular anyhow, but here are some more:

Ad about the Indian national anthem:

Aaj Tak ad on Eve-Teasing:

Aaj Tak ad on Smoking:

A video on Bombay (More nostalgic than real tho):

TOI take on a nakli 100-rupee note:

TOI hockey ad:

Commercial cricket, not a commercial on cricket:

Indian independence day (Dont know the source):

Corruption works:

Trip to Coorg, Mysore palace, and Bylakuppe golden temple

Took the family for a trip to Coorg for three days. A few pictures:

Golden temple

Golden temple

Paintings at the golden temple

Golden temple

View from estate room

View from estate room

Estate stay house

View from estate

Brahmagiri hills on top of tala caveri

Mysore palace.

We were six people; and we went by my indigo marina. We stayed at an estate stay; the price was Rs 1,500 per room per night assuming double occupancy. Unlimited coffee and breakfast is included. Dinner was Rs 100 per head. They do not provide lunch. Some other folks [1] have written about less expensive accommodation, but I believe this money was worth it. The cost at this estate stay also changes with number of people and rooms occupied; a colleague was offered very different pricing. The place has a very large coffee estate and Indu Pooviah, the owner took us all around, introducing the local flora and fauna. A trek on a small part of the estate engaged us for over 2 hours. My wife and mom got introduced to a snake during the trek; a rat snake crossed their path as they were walking. I was recording them just a few seconds prior to the incident, and could have nearly had it on camera. We were not very keen on touristy stuff, and wanted to spend the day in a relaxed fashion. The only touristy place we went was the Tala Cauvery, the source of the Cauvery river which was very peaceful and quite. An interesting claim that Tala Caveri is not supported by geographic proof [1].

We were there for two nights; left on Wed morning, visited golden temple along the way, reached the estate at 6:00 PM. Relaxed for the night. We took a 2-3 hour trek around the estate the next day in the morning. At afternoon, we left for Tala Caveri and returnd at 6:00. The next day, we started off for Bangalore at around 10:00 AM, stopping by the Mysore palace and reacing Bangalore at 6:00 PM. Lucky for us, it did not rain much when we were there.

There is much to be done around coorg, and several bloggers have written about exciting treks in the brahmagiris [1, 2, 3]. The place is slowly getting spoiled by plastic and other issues related to tourists; we saw mounds of garbage dumped along the road to madikerri. Had a long talk with Indu Pooviah about how local people had petitioned that plastic be banned in the area. Plastic is now banned there, but you can still see garbage dumps along the road with plastic.

Newspaper summary May 15 2009

I do not think I would be consistent with the summaries; they take way too much time. But anyhow, it is an honest revival.

SC awards techie Rs 1 cr damages for medical negligence

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 1

A story about one Prashant S Dhananka, 39, in whose case the supreme court ruled in favor of a compensation of Rs 1 Cr. for gross negligence during chest tumor removal. He was paralyzed waist down after a surgeon damaged his spinal chord during an operation. He was initially ruled to get Rs 15 lakh amount awarded by the Andhra Pradesh high court.

II PU students can change college: HC

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 2

A Pre-University Education department circular prohibits a student who joined PUC in 2009-2010 academic year from shifting from one college to another when they move into second year in 2010-2011. The Karnataka high court stayed the application of this circular for students who have joined I PUC in 2008-09.

This could be closely related to the dismal PUC-2 results recently seen. Apparently, many NRIs are also moving back to India due to recession and other factors, especially from the middle east.

Traffic curbs on Saturday

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 3

Interesting to note that traffic would be diverted in view of “Lok Sabha election counting”. Wow. Rule for the people really wants people to make sacrifices.

BDA’s Arkavathy Layout is in no man’s land. While landless farmers will soon lose health cover under the Yeshasvini scheme as they do not have documents, it is an endless wait for those allotted plots

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 4

Once lush fields and farms were bulldozed and so was the livelihood of nearly 15,000 farmers. This month-end, their Yeshasvini health insurance cover will end. This means they cannot get free medical facilities anymore. Reason: they’ll no longer be farmers as their ‘paani’ (land document) will cease to exist.

The once-rich landlords’ wives who would look after the labourers and the cattle, are now forced to do menial jobs. “One blessing in disguise is that there are many apartments around the villages. Our women do household chores, eat leftovers. It’s very painful,’’ says Patalappa.
The plight of Appaiahanna is pathetic. He owned 12 guntas where he grew jasmine and reared a cow. His family, wife and two children, led a contented life by selling flowers and milk. Today, he has no land and goes for construction work at an apartment site. He pulled out his children from school unable to support their education and they are doing barbending work at the site.

Wednesday, I was having a discussion with folks from office who insisted that urbanization was solving the caste problem. I wanted to say that Urbanization is likely to create other problems; caste has to be solved organically within a rural setting. Could not express the thoughts then, this article explains a few problems that urbanization could cause.

They own plots but cannot build a house on it

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 4

The other end of the story:

H G Prakash, 76, an ex-serviceman and son of a freedom fighter from Subramanyanagar, made at least four attempts for a 30 ft x 40 ft plot there. His first attempt under the ex-serviceman quota was not even considered. He finally succeeded in getting a plot allotted and it took him another two years to register it, after countless visits to the BDA office. His struggle still continues, and as time goes by, his hopes of building a house are slowly fading. He paid Rs 2.3 lakh for it and Rs 2,000 more for the little piece of additional land around it. Little did he realize the long struggle ahead until he submitted his building plan for approval on October 10, 2008. He still can’t do anything with the land because of the reserved Supreme Court judgment.

There are nearly 8,800 such people who own land but can’t build houses on it. Some are paying a steep interest on money borrowed from banks and other financial institutions. The BDA scaled down the allotment from the initial 20,000 sites to 8,800, but the disturbing wait continues for allottees. “Our money is locked. My father availed of a loan for the plot and with no progress on the layout, what are we to tell the bank?,’’ says Sanjay.

HC: police need common sense, if not intelligence

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 4

SC frees Varun of NSA charges

TOI, Bangalore Edition, page 4

They say that the BSP Govt. was vindictive. Going by earlier comments that Varun had gained sympathy, this whole NSA thing would have been a “favor”.

Times of India special pages on LOk Sabha Elections May 16 2009.

A Cursed Partnership

TOI, Bangalore Edition, Editorial page 14

Nice article on why Indian and US policies on terrorism are different. The article gives eight reasons, but the last one sums it up nicely:

Eighth, the US has exerted undue pressure on victim India. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has disclosed the reason why New Delhi did not take the mildest diplomatic action against Pakistan after Mumbai: “We worked very hard, as did the prior administration, to prevent India from reacting”. She indeed wants India to suffer more Mumbais silently, saying America has “a lot of work to do with the Indian government, to make sure they continue to exercise the kind of restraint they showed after Mumbai…” Doing deals with militants and paying growing amounts of ransom money to Pakistan are no way to fight terror.

Mountains need legs

Business Line – Life – Page 3, by Shyam G. Menon

Shyam Menon has written a very humorous article, highlighting an interesting aspect of our society. It is not just about ecology, it also relates to  how human endeavors are concentrating on titillation more than anything else. Excerpts:

Several Englishmen had walked up to Everest Base Camp (EBC) and played a match of cricket on a nearby plateau resembling London’s Oval, 17,045 ft high in altitude. Their reward — potential entry into the record books for the highest altitude at which a field sport has been played.

….

It is harder still to accept that no field sport was ever played when EBC is said to resemble a small tent city in peak season. Nevertheless a record is a record; this was the first time anyone went specifically to play a proper cricket match and not climb the mountain. The team had a Guinness Book official along to ratify the proceedings, reports said.

….

If I were Everest and looking down after all this at a full-fledged game of cricket at EBC, I would strain every sinew in my mountainous body to heave my bulk off the ground and flee further into Tibet. Perhaps relocate far beyond, to the middle of the Taklamakan.

In an age when people play chess underwater, all it takes is one businessman to vault what those Englishmen did for publicity and record, into the stuff of a regular media circus. It may not be at EBC but somewhere else, equally picturesque and hospitable to showcasing a saga of athleticism for the cameras. Gnarled landscape, snow-capped peaks, television and plenty to gloat about low oxygen. Imagine the wealth of statistics for commentary!

Richard Kirtley, who organised the T20 match on the Queen’s birthday, said chasing the altitude record was “a quintessentially British thing to do”. There was no mention of owning up the consequence of examples set on a fragile environment rimmed by the most populous and freshly rich countries on the planet.

Doordarshan plans to offer Mobile TV services

Business line, Front page

We will now have motorists not just speaking into their phones, but even looking into their latest gizoms as they speed on our roads…

Our visit to Nandhini Dairy Farm near Mandya, Bangalore and a small skirmish in the temple

Took the ladies to Melukote today and during the return trip, took an interesting detour to the Nandhini dairy farm near Mandya. Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple (CST) first, and then theYoga-Narasimha Swamy Temple. The temples were not very crowded, well – by Indian standards. The concept of a crowd is very relative. The crowd was in some sort of a frenzy, somehow feeling that if they do not rush fast enough, they would lose something. I wonder what prompts crowds to behave in such manners. The crowd could be large, but if it is organized things get done quickly. Guess it is too difficult to explain such a problem. I was carrying a baby, and apart from a couple of people not many were concerned that they could end up hurting someone with all the pushing and shoving. This typical mindset is getting into too many people. The loss of patience has assumed epidemic proportions.

While returning towards Bangalore on the Bangalore-Mysore road, we saw several signs advertising Nandhini dairy’s ice-cream flavors a few kilometers after crossing Mandya.  It looked very appealing and made us stop after our recent (not-so-great) lunch. The badam milk and Pista icecream was divine. So was the burfi that we bought. I thought it would be a good idea to see how the ice-cream was made. Sheepishly, I and the two ladies approaced security, half expecting that we would be turned down. He had a couple of looks at me, the mother, and the daughter; guess it was the six month old lady who did the trick and he let us into the processing center after calling the office. We walked over to what looked like the admin building. How did we figure it was the admin building you say? Well, it had the quintessential white Amby, and little else of productive value. Most other building had chimneys, large freezer doors, and trucks of myriad sizes parked alongside. We were sure to find a babu who could grasp our broken Kannada and find a way to let us in.

Sure enough, we found one person who talked to us very nicely, but informed that the concerned person was not in and most of the people could only speak in Kannada. I rarely kept my arms down for fear of language; we insisted that “Swalpa Kannada maatlaadido, understand hogi”. He smiled, relented and was helpful enough to call one “Chandru” to take us around. Chandru took us to the processing center. At the first location, we saw milk trucks being weighed on a trucking scale. Milk is apparently measured multiple times from the trucks; first by weighing them and then measuring the flow of milk. The milk from each truck is sent for random testing, and immidiately put through a pasteurization unit. The pasturization system removes different percentages of fat from the milk, giving us the red, blue, and green packet milk. The fat separated at this stage is sent to generate ghee and butter.

The whole place smelled of milk. And me being the cow loving homo sapien, took all the lovely smells in. Imagine a machine processing 4,00,000 liters of milk each day, and a cow lover standing next to it!!!  The look in my eyes was that of a mesmerized kid. Wife was also equally pleased, but not as excited as she would be when we went to the next stop; the butter processing center. They had large wheelbarrows, each containing about 5-600 kilos of yellow, butter. The scent was overpowering, and my better half’s excitement knew no bounds. This was it, we felt – there was nothing more to be seen. Till we entered the ghee processing center . Lovely place, it had a system that can process 10,000 liters of ghee every couple of hours. Apparently, the system is run non-stop and can just manage to meet the demand. There were vats that could take 2-3 wheelbarrows of butter and process it into ghee. Pure ghee was flowing through taps as large as a water hydrant. We next stopped by the skimmed milk powder unit, and the peda unit. The unit combined 80 liters of milk with 60 KG of sugar to get 18 KG of pedas, and the process took about 1 hour. We did some other simpler things like walking through huge cold storage units which were kept at 0 degrees centigrade, and the automatic milk packaging machines.The supervisor at the lab that tested milk was very friendly and explained some of the basic aspects of testing milk.

All in all, it was a wonderful detour. Some of the nicest things happen when we do not plan for them. The marketing manger can be reached here:08232-274074. Maybe some day I would take a few kids with me for an industrial tour.

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HR activities and apartment search

HR activities in the office; yawn!!! My apartment search is not going anywhere. वैसे, I am a stingy desi dude; will not spend half of my pay cheque on rent.