advani was spot on

over 2 years ago, pitched against the UPA coalition, the NDA prime ministerial candidate - advani - took a direct and headlong strategy of attacking MMS, calling him the 'weakest prime minister ever'.

while advani lost the battle, he could not have been more correct in his assessment of MMS.
gadkari says it very beautifully - 'PM has given DMK the freedom to loot the country'.

i was rejoicing in 2008, when the indian electorate returned the UPA into government.
in my support to UPA1 and my current disgust with UPA2, the commies cause the pivotal shift. wish they were still around.

business sleaze

through all the drama over the 2G spectrum allocation scan, the level of sleaze in today's corporate india has been easily sidelined in the melee over raja, MMS, sonia, swamy et al.

is business 'at any cost' the only way to do business today?
can no company survive these markets without resorting to such levels of corruption?
is the pressure of 'quarter-on-quarter' reporting making our CEOs pop growth-steroid pills?

during my time in a corporate career, i have directly and indirectly indulged in such sleaze.
then, i never was able to think beyond the "this is how we do business" justification.
nevertheless some parts of me must have been sub-consciously reacting to such behaviour to prompt me to exit the sector.

and the thought that has been itching the most is "what of my many classmates and friends who work/invest in these corporations?"
as a close pal gets a big promotion into the big league of i-bankers, i write a congratulatory note "i only see this as sinking deeper into the cesspool of business".

rainfall data- NE monsoon

the NE monsoon has been in full flow.
here is the rain data since it started. in 3 weeks we have gotten our hearts fill.

Date	Rain (mm)
21/10	50
23/10	57
25/10	15
27/10	57
28/10	21
29/10	55
30/10	6
31/10	61
3/11	60
6-7/11	105
10/11	12
15-16/11	120
Total	619

yes, we have been watching a lot of rain fall.

jean dreze interview

in what is a telling assessment of india's current social imbalance, jean dreze rakes our conscience with this - "the middle-class has lost track of how poor our country is".
this is an interview to tehelka commenting on the Food Security Act.

he says:

I think that the middle class has completely lost track of how poor this country is. We live in a make-believe world that exists only on television and small islands of privilege. That was the message of late Arjun Sengupta’s striking figure, that 77 percent of Indians live on less than Rs. 20 a day. The figure was not exactly right, but even if it was, say, 5 percent off the mark, the basic message remains. Are we saying that anyone who has more than Rs. 20 a day should be excluded from the PDS?

The Planning Commission is proudly talking of “infrastructural investment” to the tune of $1 trillion in the 12th Plan, about half of that would be public money. $1 trillion! That’s astronomical: nearly 10 percent of GDP, year after year. But for food security, 1 percent of GDP is considered extravagant — that’s not “investment”.

jean dreze is a hero on Farm, Yeah.
some dreze interviews and profiles can be accessed here and here.