Shashi Tharoor-an ideal candidate for being Kerala chief minister

Shashi Tharoor is one of the most known faces in India today. An ex-diplomat associated with UNO, Tharoor became one of the most known personalities in India in short span of time. For years, he was, of course, a non-entity in Kerala or in India. After his unsuccessful contest for the post of UN Secretary-General, he came back to his native place in Kerala.

Tharoor, a charismatic leader, is well-known for literary works and stylistic English. I am not sure his coming back to India was with a political purpose. He joined Congress party and contested from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency. Despite facing stiff opposition from the Left parties and powers within Congress, he became an MP and minister in the Central government.

Kerala is the worst hit southern state owing to shortage of leaders with vision for the future. Unlike other states in the region where every leader, be it the chief ministers or the opposition leaders, seen striving for the development of their states, all the leaders of are of the same mindset in Kerala. I don't say they are against development. The problem is that they are not visionaries for the future. The leaders are afraid that something might go wrong in the future and it would affect them politically. So, I find the leaders in Kerala, be it the Left or the Right, being allergic to the phrase "economic" development.

Indeed, Kerala is one of the most progressive states in India. However, one needs to ponder why this state lagging behind other states in areas of crucial economic development. For almost half -a-century, both the Left and Right ruled the state without any considerable success in the field of economic development and resultant employment generation. This shows pathetic failure of our leaders to guide a state towards the path of development.

For this to happen, we need leaders with guts and determination. We need leaders with vision and considerable understanding of the world outside. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone of that caliber among the current league of political leaders in the state. So, I voice my support for Shashi Tharoor.

Mr.Tharoor is a visionary. I don't think anyone has a second thought about it. He is not the one what we call "the stick in the mud". Our present leaders are like the proverbial frog in the well that thinks the place around him is the world and there is nothing beyond. What we need is a next generation leaders who can foresee the future and act accordingly.

Tharoor has proved his mettle in the international politics, and came back to India. Whatever may be his intentions, he is the right candidate, I must say the only candidate, who possess all the required skills to take a state like Kerala out of its sluggish growth.

See how Tharoor successfully canvassed for the Kochi IPL team. He should be appreciated for his ability to get things done. Do you think anyone in the present leadership could have achieved it? I am skeptical.
Kerala needs a leader who can lead the state from the front. It needs a leader who is not living in a world of dogmatism and dead ideologies. It needs a leader who is pragmatic and practical. It needs a leader whom the state can present to the outside world and say this is our leader. It needs a leader who does not find pleasure in petty political disputes or being partisan. Considering all these traits, I think Tharoor fits ideally into the suit. He is the one who can be the mask of a progressive state like Kerala. He is the one who can change the hostile political atmosphere in the state.
Also, we can give due consideration to his clout within the Congress leadership. The present state leadership (I mean Ramesh Chennithala) is not an impressive one. It lacks the necessary political skills and optimism.
As a voter , I would have voted for Tharoor irrespective of his political affiliations. I pray all Keralaites to sit back and think of their priorities. Should we send useless and ineffective men to our assembly in the future? Think of a change. As Mahatama has said it, you should be the change that you want to see in the world.

Tharoor is the ideal candidate for the post of Kerala chief minister.

Smart City-A distant dream during LDF regime

Smart City project was one of the ambitious programmes for the UDF-government led by Oommen Chandy when he was in power. It was an ambitious project was expected to create more than one lakh jobs in the first stage of the project and around half a million jobs directly or indirectly in the final phase. The project was aimed to create critical infrastructure for IT and IT-enabled services.

The project was envisaged jointly by Kerala government and Dubai Internet City, and would have been located strategically in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala. Though several southern states canvassed for the project, Dubai Internet City finally chose Kerala for the project.

I think that was their mistake. Of all the four southern states, Kerala is the most industrially unfriendly state. Let it be during the regime of LDF government or UDF government. LDF, a political set-up based wholly on obsolete communist ideology, would have never supported a major project that they would call a bourgeoisie.
Will the climate be different during UDF regime? Never. The LDF, when it is in opposition, will fight tooth and nail against any proposal to set up large industrial project in Kerala.

However, in the beginning of the LDF regime, Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, proudly proclaimed that his government would enter talks with Dubai Internet City for the establishment of Smart City Project. Of course, they held a few discussions, but nothing was forthcoming. Finally, last week, TECOM, said they were withdrawing from the project.

The government due to its obstinate stand on a simple matter lost one of the prestigious IT project for Kerala which would have ushered a new industrial and Information Technology culture for the people of Kerala.

Are our politicians being myopic? Do we need such short-sighted men as our leaders?
A state starving industrially and economically need huge projects to provide employment to its educated millions. So, any move by the government to stall or oppose projects aimed at giving benefits to its people should be condemned.

A big no to Sreesanth in Kerala IPL team

I am happy that Kerala now owns an IPL team. It does not mean that I am not interested in other teams. As a matter of fact, my first love is for Mumbai Indians (just because the name it includes-Indians) and my second love is Deccan Chargers (It is because I admire Gilchrist). Now I am happy that my home state (no chauvinism is meant, please)owns a team.

However, I am worried only about one thing. There are talks from many quarters that bowler (an ordinary bowler and prankster) is tipped to take over the captaincy of the team. What fall that will be! Even before my enthusiasm for my state team dying down, I started to hate it just because of this news (may be a rumour). We can have anyone in the team except Sreesanth. His inclusion in the team will be a disaster for the team on more than one count. I am sure most of the Keralaites will not support a team that makes this prankster a part of it.

What makes Sreesanth such an outcast? It is obviously his character.I am sure if you ask Keralaites, 999 out of thousand might say something against him. I would suggest the franchisee to go for a poll among the cricket lovers in Kerala to find out their response to this news. They will definitely be disappointed.

He is such a distraction. I won't rate him as a great (not even ordinary bowler.)player. What is his contribution to the team other than the notoriety he brings. He plays with his body, not with ball and sound cricketing mind.

So, my humble request to the franchisee is to keep him out of their team and save Keralaites from an imminent loss of name.

Funny communists, pseudo-secularists!

This blog was prompted by the recent controversy over Amitabh Bachchan. Our government invited him to be the ambassador of tourism. However, due to pressure from the CPI-M top brass, the government had to rethink on the offer. They simply failed to stand by the offer.

One may wonder if Bachchan asked for this favor. No, never. During one of his recent trips to Kerala, he said he wanted to do something for Kerala people. Our Left government, without thinking the repercussion of their decision within the party, jumped into the fray and invited him. Being a gentleman, Big B accepted the invitation and said he was ready to mantle the role of Kerala’s tourist ambassador. The hell fell loose and one of the tallest ideological leader of the Marxists in the country said his party objected to any kind of association with Bachchan. Then, Kodiyeri, the minister in charge of Kerala’s tourism, backtracked.

What was the fault of Amitabh? How did he hurt the sentiments of our secular Marxists? The explanation seems to be funny. They say Big B is associated with Gujarat government. I mean the Modi government. Is there any problem with Modi government? Oh, my men, he is a communalist, and these so called Marxists are secular. Damn it. So, they can’t think of their government having any association with a man who was even distantly related to Narendra Modi. Hail our secularism!

Here, you need to ask one question. Is Amitabh any way responsible for Modi’s style of ruling? Amitabh has clearly said he was working to promote Gujarat glorious past and he is not endorsing Modi’s policies. It is clear to any level-headed person. I am sorry our communists are not level-headed and clear-headed.

It is said in one of our ancient texts. Yadha Raaja, thadah praja (The mindset and actions of a people will be the replica of the action of their ruler.) I am worried. We, the people Kerala, always liked to be different. In problems concerning the general interest, we always rose above partisan approach. But I am shocked to see the absence of any serious response from our intellectual and political class to this insult to one of the stalwarts of our nation.
Amitabh may forgive them, but I will never.

One more Swamy's road to spiritual salvation revealed!

This blog is regarding a recent expose in the Tamil New Channel Sun TV. A well-known young swamy named Nithyanananda Paramahamsa who was found engaged in sexual acts with a famous Tamil cine actress. This swamy is said to be having millions of devotees in India and across the world.

Nithyananda joins the select club of swamis in the league of the Kerala fame Santhosh Madhavan. These fake swamis find ways to reach god through a completely different medium. Okay. They might be right in choosing the path they want. However, the issue involved is the moral corruption among the so called spiritual men.

One might ask a reasonably looking question now. Wasn't it his private affair? Doesn’t he have the right to enjoy the physical pleasures of this kind? The, why is this hell breaking loose upon him? The answer is these miracle men earned their name and fame and of course millions of rupees by projecting that they are spiritually and physically pure. They exemplify their life by showing their abstinence from such pleasures. They make people believe that they are above these worldly pleasures meant for the lesser human beings on the earth. Here is the problem. By saying so, they attain a kind of divinity in the minds of their devotees.
These spiritual men should be held responsible for betraying the belief of thousands of their devotees.

Take this incident for example. When the TV channels started flashing the news of Nithyananda’s sexual exploits, his hardened fans (devotees) rejected him and started removing his portraits from their homes.

It shows how hurt they are by the ‘spiritual betrayal’ of their guru.

Also, he has not made any public statement so far. Like our politicians, he too ascribed the story to some hostile elements using technical terms like morphing, fabrication and distortion of facts. I think he should have come out in the open and said it was he, and convinced people of his physical needs like any other human beings. Don’t we have swamis with wives and ‘extra’ connections? We a kind of people who easily forget and forgive.

It is time our people should wake up and understand the real ‘holiness’ of these spiritual incarnations.
It is time we need to realize the damage these fake swamis do to our culture and beliefs.
Beware, there are more such skeletons in the cupboard. Only, time will how many of them will show their colours during our life time.

Is communism a dead ideology? No, don't write it off.

Though the world over has written off communism as a dead ideology, I still believe it is a potent force capable of changing the world for the better. Though we are now living in a word of profits (I mean the dominating era of capitalism) I haven’t discarded communism as a great ideology. Many might feel capitalism is the right ideology for growth, but I think it leads only to exclusive growth or skewed growth. It means leaving out a large section of the people outside the sphere of benefits of economic growth.

Communism, when executed in a few countries like Soviet Union or China, have had some serious flops. We can call it execution lapses. One needs to understand when communism was put into practice, they had no past reference to fall upon. It was a novel concept , and the people who executed as administrative policies could not have foreseen how such a state would bring about an egalitarian society in its own merit. What hindered the successful execution of this great ideology. It was nothing other than the human self or human mindset.

A human being has the inborn quality to possess something for his own benefit and only for his benefit. Charity is an exception, not a rule. As famous thinker Abraham Maslov has said, human wants are set against an upward spiral. First, he wants to meets his basic needs. Then, he goes for his spiritual needs, and finally he wants to salvation. In this process, there is no place for others. A human being becomes completely self-centred. Where is place for an ideology that sees equality of all human beings? Though the concept of equality is theoretically possible, it has failed as a practical one when executed just because the human beings are self-centred.

To overcome this hazard, the authorities had to use force to execute the ideology against the dominant will of human beings against an egalitarian society. As anyone assumes, one cannot hold people’s will against their mindset for long. So, the execution of communism failed in many countries. One need s to remember that it is not the concept of communism that failed, but it is the methodology of execution.

Is communism a dead ideology? Or, is it potent force that can ameliorate people’s suffering by establishing an egalitarian society. I strongly believe that communism will survive as long as all kinds of inequalities exist in the world.

Thilakan isolated in the solar system of SUPERSTARS

Malayalam cinema world is in disarray, and Malayalee cine lovers are deeply divided.The recent Thilakan controversy has caught the attention of all the movie goers in Kerala. It is not because of the stars in involved in row, but because it has put a question mark before the collective cultural consciousness of Malayalees.

Unlike in the rest of the country, cinema or cine actors have not influenced the normal life, be it political or social,of Malayalees. However, in this recent controversy, every Malayalee is forced to take a stand.

Thilakan, a colossal in the field of Malayalam cinema is isolated completed due to reasons known only to a few superstars of Kerala. And, now he is even suspended from actors' association AMMA. What is the provocation? He seems to have defied the authorities that rule the cinema world in Kerala.

It is pity that our small cinema kingdom is ruled by a handful of superstars and the lesser known stars who support them. In the course of this unnecessary rivalry, our cinema world is losing the services of a born actor Thilakan.

I wonder how a malayalee could be influenced so badly by the superstars. It gives way to a bad precedent in our society. Malayalees are known for the cultural consciousness and ability to differentiate good from bad.

I am surprised to see lack of any political response in this issue. Kerala, as a whole, should have backed Thilakan in his fight against superstars. What Thilakan facing today is a infringement on his fundamental right to express his opinions. Trying to stop him using reins of discipline will not be good. Let us hope better sense prevails over Malayalees and they would take a definite stand to support the righteousness of Thilkan.