I am

Tired. Dead.

And thats the reward of the last three months.

Next Three Months...

...are going to be uncertain, scary and exciting. And preparation begins right away. The good part is that I have my people around me.

What can we do?

Why is it that the country’s security system fails time and again and its innocent people become victims of terrorism? Why is it that while political parties promote politics of communal hatred they still keep getting elected to power? Why is it that the country is plagued with so many problems which most of us aware of but nobody does anything about it?

The problem is multifold. Most politics in India is regional. Which means that instead of having national agendas the political parties have regional agendas. These agendas typically are not developmental in nature but are based on appeasing the majority community in the particular region. In most parts of the country these communities are religion based. The educated middle class which is most affected by the problems that besiege this country has little say because it does not make significant percentage of the voting population to swing the results of the elections. So effectively by practicing vote-bank politics inept and corrupt politicians keep getting elected.

This situation I feel can be resolved permanently by implementing a two-pronged solution. First the size of the educated middle class which believes in social values such as liberty and justice and feels that developmental politics only can truly help needs to be increased. This can be done by enlisting youngsters as volunteers for educational programs which we can run to begin with across the city and gradually throughout the country. By increasing substantially the number of educated middle class we can make it the decisive section of the voting population. Politicians will then to get elected to power will have to preach and also practice a developmental agenda.

But inspite of some politicians becoming progress oriented there will still be enough who will not mend ways. In such a scenario the educated middle class may not have any appropriate candidates to vote for. For that it is necessary that we also float a political party. Politics is considered a dirty game because of the people who play it. When people of considerable mettle, significant experience, substantial academic background and possessing of grad vision enter politics, the game will not remain dirty anymore. Infact it will cease to be a game but become a profession.

I do not know how many years the two things mentioned above will take to be successful but given the outrage that has poured out in the light of the Mumbai terror attacks, we can direct it appropriately to achieve this goal. The journey will be long and arduous but by making concerted effort and uniting under a single mission we will be able to attain our mission much earlier. And it will not just solve our existing problems but put India on road to progress.

Funny, no?

With a welcome break - forced as a result of the postponement of the Champions Trophy - from cricket, the Aussies are busy preparing for the gruellling tour of India - which they call the everest - starting october. In their efforts to repeat their success of the 2004 tour, they are busy taking tips from non other than the master leg-spinner and an even greater mobile-scamster, Shane Warne.

I am a great fan of the blonde-spinner, make no mistake. But then I did some elementary data mining and found this -

[The first row indicates Warne's career figures and the second row indicates his record against India in India]

Career averages

		Mat	Inns	Overs	Mdns	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
		145	273	6784.1	1761	17995	708	8/71	12/128	25.41	2.65	57.4	37	10
		9	16	459.1	95	1466	34	6/125	6/125	43.11	3.19	81.0	1	0

I wonder looking at the figures above if taking Warney's advise is really advisable. What say?

This

....it is not religion per se that is a problem, but our attitudes towards it. The right to religion is a human right that should be contingent, like all other rights, on respecting the corresponding rights of others. But many ‘religious’ people have the arrogance to believe that they, the enlightened, are due special privileges that would otherwise be unjustifiable; and many ‘secular’ people are inexplicably keen to pander to them. This endangers the basis of a free society, where artists have been terrorized into thinking twice before drawing a cartoon of another man’s god or painting another man’s goddess, not by the alleged power of those gods and goddesses, but by the primitive fury of their followers.

explains this.

[Above lines from here]

I plan to...

...treat my upcoming MBA as an exile. And this is what I intend to do during the MBA err the exile.

Go. Profit from exile. To see, listen, walk, pause beside wisemen; question savages and madmen; and listen to stories. It is always pleasant and, sometimes, improves you.