“Laughter is an instant vacation.” said Milton Berle. Here at NK, we would like to contribute to lightening your mood in preparation for a meaningful and relaxed weekend. So here’s the tongue- in-cheek look at the events of the week gone by that you’ve been waiting for :)
Indian Cricket was on a roll this week, while South African cricket went into a spin. But, cricketers were not the only ones wearing pads this week. Everyone was, with the release of Padman on February 9th. A new period had begun.
But, getting back to cricket, every time Chahal and Yadav, the twins with different bowling arms and styles, came on to bowl in the 6 match One Day International series, the South African batsmen played as if in they were in wonderland – they just stood and admired the white cherry as it looped, pitched and turned. They perhaps believed their bats were wands to wave at the ball from where they stood and it would disappear, only to reappear in the packed stands. Sadly the other shoe was never found and the fairy tale ended there…
It was not just the Indian ‘Men in Blue’ who spun a web around the South Africans. Mitali Raj’s women’s team, also in South Africa for a three match series with their counter parts there, out did their male counterparts with their performance on the cricket field, and are already leading the three match series 2-0. The crowning glory of course, was when the Under 19 boys in blue emerged on top of the world, from down under!
At a mega rally in Bengaluru to mark the end of a long and winding yatra to attract people to their idea of change (Climate Change) in Karnataka, the PM said that his TOP ((T)omato, (O)nion, (P)otato) priority in Karnataka was farmers. His rivals very soon alluded to his TOP priority in reverse, putting aloo first (it’s more nutritious) to the anger and dismay of many who loved their tamatars. The next day, the (stock) market crashed and crashed again the next day and again the next day, wiping out around 8% in Market cap in three or four days. Guys who had invested, couldn’t even come to the Mandis to buy the items on the TOP priority list because fuel prices were at the TOP the LOW ((L)east (O)f (W)orries) priority list. Naturally the prices of this underground (in a good way, mind you) nutrition, collapsed and required governmental support – but the mechanism announced in the budget had yet to be formulated! It must be mentioned that with the proposed bundh to highlight the lack of resolution of the Mahadayi issue having been banned by the Karnataka High Court, there was a huge turnout at the rally, and there was plenty of drinking water (bottled, reports say) there for those who were thirsty, though nobody mentioned the impasse over the Mahadayi river – The water must have come from elsewhere…maybe the Cauvery? Or the Himalayan Springs?
On his return to Delhi, while replying to the motion of thanks to the President’s address in parliament, in a fiery speech made over the noise of the Opposition Members, the PM blamed the Congress (Indian National Congress), its culture of divide and rule and the family of its president through the generations for all the ills of the country, from partition to penury and reiterated his TOP Priority. During the speech, which was like a spread sheet of the country’s problems, the PM resorted to the use of MS Excel’s scenario manager on the ‘What if’ tab many a time, mainly to repaint the past rather than portray the future which it is meant for (says the help tab). These advanced skills were used with aplomb and found favour with Television Anchors and their audiences across the nation. It was perhaps a necessary response to a rather despondent electoral week, during which the ruling party lost all the by polls it contested in two northern states albeit to two different parties, one of which was indeed the Congress and the other had ‘Congress’ in its name!
Meanwhile, we the citizens learnt that we don’t have a right to all information about government activity, while the government does about ours. This was clear from two developments this week – the hearing by a Supreme Court Constitution bench on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Card law and the Defence Minister’s assertion in Parliament that the cost of the Rafale Fighter Jet that India is buying from France, under an Inter-Governmental agreement signed by the PM during his visit to France in 2016, is an inter-state secret – it cannot be stated and so the MPs’ appetite for information cannot be sated. The deal was apparently signed in 2016 after much procrastination by the previous government (due perhaps to the flight path of the Rafale Jet) to meet the immediate needs of the IAF – immediate means 2019 under the current agreement. But, there was urgency – This can be gleaned from the fact that two joint ventures were formed immediately thereafter (with Dassault and Thales) by a very Reliable though much less experienced company than Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd – which employs thousands of people in a time when jobs are hard to come by – to execute the offset clause of the deal.
National (in)security was also the reason why citizen data is important – this emanated from the arguments by petitioners in the Landmark Aadhaar Card case now before the Supreme Court’s constitutional bench. The West Bengal government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that when the corporate sector recognised ownership of data on people’s choices as an important tool for success, the NDA government’s strategy to make Aadhaar mandatory – from banking to buying a SIM card – was meant to utilise citizens’ personal data for political purposes. Appearing for West Bengal and two individuals, senior advocate Kapil Sibal quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Davos, where the PM had said “whoever controls data is the most powerful and can shape the world”. Whoever? Do we know him? The last guy I know with that kind of name was J. Edgar Hoover and he was a master of the game.
At least 46 people have become infected with the HIV in a tehsil in the last 10 months, allegedly after a quack used a common syringe to administer injections in Bagarmau in the Unnao District of UP. The accused in this crime, which is akin to a gender neutral brutal gang rape, was nabbed after a week on the run. He was produced in Court on Thursday. It is not clear at this stage, whether a lack of knowledge (even down market barbers use a new blade for each shave), or the cost of new disposable syringes (GST 12%) or just plain malevolence or a combination of these was the prime motive for his actions because his interrogation is as yet incomplete, and the truth may come out only through a syringe, the same one he used on his patients…
In Britain, loneliness is a big problem – so says the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. Jo Cox, a British MP, was murdered in June 2016 by a right wing fanatic – maybe his action had something to do with his loneliness. According to research, in Britain, more than 9 million people always or often feel lonely, around 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month, and up to 85 percent of young disabled adults – 18-34 year olds – feel lonely. An estimated half the people aged 75 and over live alone in Britain, with many saying they can go days, even weeks, with no social interaction at all.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who is negotiating an exit from the EU without much internal support, must also be pretty lonely given her political situation, for she acted quickly to alleviate the problem. Recently she appointed the country’s first-ever minister in charge of tackling loneliness and combating social isolation. Tracey Crouch, currently minister for sport and civil society in the UK government, will take on the additional role. The UK government has also announced that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) will devise a method of measuring loneliness, and a fund will be set up to help tackle the problem through activities which connect people. India’s political and parliamentary system is a replica of the British system and soon we may have one of our own…
My advice? Stay connected to Newkarnataka.com and this column to avoid loneliness :)
Have a good weekend!
