Election Results in India

It has been li'l over a year since I have come to the US. One thing that has amazed me since I have moved to NJ is the # of Indians that are around here....while in India I did not realize there were so many of them congregated in one single state here......maybe there are others in other states and I still don;t know.....there are so many to the point that there is a certain road here that all the road rules change once anybody enters there meaning the driving conditions are a li;l like in India.....anyways this is not the point here.....I was at an Indian restaurant on the 05/15 to get some food and they had about 4 different televisions each having a different telugu news channel and there were so many telugus trynig to follow up with the results....I learnt that most of them were so curious not for the results but for the amounts that they have betted on the results....it is sad to see that people are more interested in the money that they would win (or lose) over who would come to power....

Although I don;t realize it quite often, I have quite an inclination towards political discussion, I came back to my friend's place (his wife is in India and so his place is now a bachelor's den) and started following the results....as the counting began, the hopes were revolving around TDP as it was running close with Congress.....I followed till a certain while and fell asleep. The first thing that I saw after waking up the next morning is the results.....it was stunning(and disappointing) to find that Congress has won with a huge majority and TDP has fell far beyond.

It is not that I like TDP over Congress.....in my opinion it is just that TDP was less corrupt in comparision to the Congress....also in terms of establishing the fundamental development. It is choice of less corrupt (and more development) party.

One party that has stayed true to the definition of spoil sport is PRP. It amazes me about how a certain movie star (who has a huge fan following) establish a political party assuming he can come to power by simply leveraging his fan base. Did he think that people were so ignorant of the happening around them? Did he think that he really had the capability to bring the Social Justice that he talked about so much? If he was so passionate about his agenda, why could he not prove the point in as fundamental function as selecting candidates (what I think about caste is a different story!). I guess after certain point even the well educated and well connected kids begin to lose their mind. How could his daughter, his son, his neice think that they could go and campaign for him? What were they campaigning for? That their dad (or uncle) would get to power and they can start riding on it? Would these people even come out to do anything for the people even if he won except sitting at home or going about their personal things (whatever they could be)? What did this Party 'Leader' (is he even one?) think he has done to make him look substantial to become a CM of the state(?) except that he has entertained huge crowds (there has been several instances where people have died trying to get tickets for his movie or in a movie's successful run celebrations). He declared that it is people who have compelled him to come into politics after seeing so much injustice in the society. Does he have proof to vindicate this assumption except for maybe some media coverage (which could again have been paid for)? even if he was really called for by the people , what did he do to provide a voice for them? Over and above, there is news that he (and his brother-in-law) have earned huge amounts of money. If that is true, would that be used to balance the so called social (in)justice scale?

Having been involved in political campaigning (at a very small level a long time back), I believe it is the high that comes to people in the middle of all political heat which makes people do or say everything and anything that they can (or cannot) do. Some body who can keep their cool in the middle of all this and talk after making due analysis is required for Indian politics. One person that seem be like this is JP Narayan who has established a political party called 'Lok Satta'. He is somebody who has established a NGO with the same name and has brought about some social reforms and only after showing the results has entered into mainstream politics. This adds a lot of credibility to what he says and the confidence that he will do what he says (atleast tries to do). It is leaders like these that India really requires at this point in time.

Jai JP ! Jai Lok Satta! :)

TV9 at the Heights of Perversion

I came across a video link 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ACFNNv4UR4&feature=player_embedded' in one of the websites that I frequently visit. This talks about Preity Zinta's reaction when the Punjab team won a match in IPL.

Anybody who understands Telugu can immediately see the kind of perversion with which the hosts in this Video clip talk and express. The perversion of the video editor is also obvious when he/she edited the video showing the part where Preity Zinta hugs the players, repeatedly.

While it is understandable that a friendly hug is not quite common among the public in India, I am sure even those that are not cultured(or groomed) enough to understand a hug, do not view that as obscene. However, from the way these hosts talk, they make the people who watch it feel like it is some kind of a obscene gesture and there is no bigger blunder than hugging in the public.

To add fuel to the way that these hosts were talking, Sunil Gavaskar, who interviews the skipper asks 'Which one is better? the Trophy or the Kiss from the beautiful lady' (or something like that). That is the least that would be expected from a Professional like him.

TV9 has to be socially responsible and understand that the content being broadcasted over television has a huge impact on the audience of various sections (Children, Teens & Youth especially).