OPinionatED

or

VOX POPULI

by

 Aam Admi

Issue: 164                                 Date:  15.08.2016

Contents:

1.       Our Athletes @ Rio Olympics Deserve Praise

2.       Falling Into The Arms of The US

3.       Newspaper Coverage Does Not Enhance India’s Happiness Index

Our Athletes @ Rio Olympics Deserve Praise

Our athletes have put up a stupendous show at the Rio Olympics and barring injuries to some of our stars we would have seen some medals in India's kitty. For those who have been critical about the performance of our athletes, one needs to ask these heartless critics as to how many get a chance to perform on an international stage like an Olympics. By just going there they are amongst the maybe Top 100 in the world in their event or discipline. For the critics, are we not entitled to ask whether they have represented the country in their discipline or profession at any important international event equivalent to the Olympics? For that matter even India rarely ranks above 100 in the world rankings for any sphere of activity except in corruption and maybe cleanliness. Thus we should not take away any credit from our athletes participating at Rio. As for medals, Baron de Coubertin, one of the founders of the Olympic movement had said that it is the participation that is important, medals are secondary. Consider the stunning performance of Deepa Karmakar in the finals of the Vault event of the gymnastics finals, where she lost the bronze by just 1.5 points. But the young athlete from Agartala, Tripura participating in an event like gymnastics which for India is a relatively unknown discipline, would have motivated lakhs of young children in our country to go out there and try gymnastics. The same is true for Abhinav Bindra who was deprived from being among the medals by just 0.5 points in his shooting event. It is not that easy to compete at that level and those of us who have had no equivalent experience should not be needlessly critical and try to take away any iota of credit from our athletes at the Olympics. If the medals are not coming, it is not only the fault of the athletes but also of the system where at least in the past there were more officials in the Indian contingent to the Olympics than athletes and our ministers go and make a fool of themselves. We always tend to slight others but think highly of what little we do ourselves, which is patently unfair. 

                                                        Falling Into The Arms of The US

The tilt towards the US by India is getting more and more pronounced under Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised by the US-style Town Hall meeting that he conducted at New Delhi recently to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of his MyGov initiative. One does not know whether Modi is practising to fight the elections for the US Presidency encouraged by the fact that if Donald Trump could stand for the presidency, so could he! The tilt by India towards the US was becoming apparent starting with the number of visits made by Modi to the US which have been four in just the two years that Modi has been in office, a record of sorts.  We were also almost falling at the feet of the US for the NSG membership at which we came a cropper. What we need to understand is that the US will play India along as long as it suits them. At the present moment the US is keeping India happy be it on the NSG membership or otherwise is because it wants business from India. The nuclear reactors business with GE cannot go forward smoothly unless the NSG membership of India is cleared. Again all this bonhomie as expressed by the US is to maintain their large chunk of India's defence equipment business which in any case is coming to them. Lately contracts worth billion of dollars have been placed with US Cos. for artillery guns, long range reconnaissance aircraft, missile systems etc. and it is not known whether any competing suppliers from other countries were called to participate in this procurement. No wonder the smirk on US faces is getting fixed and more permanent. After having been kept out of the main combat fighter requirement for the IAF which went to Rafael from France, the US has more than made up with other deals as listed above. Not only that it is understood that with the opening of the dairy farming segment to foreign investment the PM on one of his visits to the US has asked them to come and set up their plants in India. Further Nitin Gadkari during his recent visit to the US enamoured by the scenic coastal highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco has promised something similar for the Mumbai-Goa highway, currently under expansion, that runs parallel to the sea and asked for know-how from his US counterparts for this project. That apart he has asked for assistance to reduce the number of accidents on our highways from the US! This is rather surprising since do we after 70 years of Independence not know how to build a highway and to keep it safe for users. At the same time we do not question the US on their agricultural subsidies to the grain industry - maize and corn, as well as the dairy industry as expressed by Joseph Stiglitz, the celebrated economist, on one of his recent visits to India while we stand tight-lipped while the US hammers us on our export subsidies. After the success that ISRO has had in launching satellites in space including some from US organisations and even universities, the US has put a partial ban on such launches by US entities from using ISRO. Is the ban being imposed because ISRO launches the satellites at a fraction of the cost of NASA and other international launch organisations? Is this then free trade?  And if not, why are we hesitant to take it up with the US. Again the US lectures us on human rights in Kashmir and other places but we do not raise the issue of blacks being blatantly mowed down by the guns of their police across the US. There should be some give and take in any relationship while with the US it is all one-sided. The US in reality as part of its long-term global strategy needs a yes-man and have been feeling that gap after Tony Blair, George Bush II's personal lap dog, relinquished the PM's office in the UK. Cameron was a tough nut to crack for the US and the new PM May is an unknown quantity. That is why they have been cultivating India by making appropriate statements criticising Pakistan's terror network aimed at Kashmir & India. This outreach is more so because of India's geographical location where it can play point-counterpoint to China in line with US initiatives with the latter country playing increasingly intransigent to the US requests particularly relating to the South China Sea.  Thus India is filling up this void without knowing where this road will take it. It is not beyond the US after the new President takes over to dump India and move on to a completely new path leaving India in the lurch. In international diplomacy Modi would have learnt his lesson that excessive engagement only begets negative results as the chai with Nawaz Sharif had shown. The best position with any country and even the US is an arms-length relationship purely depending on the merits of the issues of engagement. 

Newspaper Coverage Does Not Enhance India’s Happiness Index

These days when you open the papers you are immediately exposed to the news that is horrifying, nauseous, disturbing and shocking. One does not understand whether this is what people want to read? But why would newspapers publish this if this is not what people want to read. Papers facing the brunt of the onslaught on their readership by news on the Internet and supplied on the Mobile will surely print only what drives their circulation up. But for those of us who cannot do without their paper with morning cuppa of tea or coffee, it is a difficult matter to wade through the 10 -12 pages of essential news that a paper carries without creasing one’s brow or shaking our heads in disgust. There are different ways to relieve your mind and take it away from the disturbing things that are happening around you. Some take to spirituality, others to mediation, while some like me take to watching sports on TV. Particularly over the last 2 months there has been a surfeit of good sports-watching what with the Confedrations Cup or the Americas Cup for football held in the US, then followed the Euro Cup again for football and now we have the Olympics. In the middle the sports bouquet was boosted by the coverage of cricket around the world involving England, Pakistan, West Indies, India, Sri Lanka and Australia. Satellite TV has been a boon since it beams into your home programs of different nationalities and languages from across the world. Re-visiting the aspect of disturbing news that is carried in the papers, one wonders what papers our PM Narendra Modi reads everyday or if at all he reads any, maybe waiting for one of his flunkies to come in and show him the coverage relating to his own headlines and photo opportunities. Because one would believe if he reads any paper he would have decided to expand his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to cover the cleaning the hearts and minds of the majority of the Indian people.

***************************