I was resisting writing on the austerity talk that has sprung up in India. But the media has now taken the discussion in such a nonsensical direction that I feel forced to air my views. Not that my views matter, but just feel better that way. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Jackson, the ‘king of pop’ was today finally laid to rest, 10 weeks after his death. Michael Jackson was easily the biggest global entertainer ever. Through the 80s and 90s he enjoyed unfathomable levels of popularity across the globe and India was no exception. Thinking of MJ got me thinking of impact of western culture & entertainment on Indians, and it suddenly dawned on me that MJ was perhaps the last English superstar in India. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently traveled to the US and back to India. On my way to San Francisco I had a connecting flight at Frankfurt, Germany. The following is an experience at Frankfurt that I can’t quite categorize. Is it ignorance / insensitivity / rudeness / racism or maybe even an over reaction on my part? Read the rest of this entry »

The election results for the India General Elections 2009 will be announced on the 16th of May. Pune city voted long back, on the 23rd of April 09. So it’s going to be  a long wait before we know if the candidate we voted for will actually make it to the LokSabha, the House Of the People and the lower house of the Parliament Of India. Read the rest of this entry »

At just 40%, Pune saw it’s worst ever voter turnout for the Loksabha elections. Mumbai was slightly better at 44%. The dismal voter turnout numbers have shocked most of educated India. Political leaders are smirking on TV saying things like “You blame us politicians for not caring about the country, but even the ordinary citizen does not care.” I have no insider info on the matter, but am just trying to apply some common sense to figure out what could have gone wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Doing some final checks before I finalize the candidate I would be voting for in tomorrows election. Just visited the websites of all the top candidates to check if they have something new to say. Nothing new there. A couple of sites seem to have actually gone down. Next looking at http://myneta.info/pune for a quick and easy to read synopsis of the affidavits filed by the Pune Loksabha candidates. The details of 3 candidates including BJP’s Anil Shirole are missing from the sheet. Read the rest of this entry »

Below are my short takeaways about who I think are the top 6 candidates. There are 10s of candidates contesting for the Pune seat, so there could be other worthy candidates, unfortunately I haven’t heard of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Campaigning for the Pune Loksabha elections has ended, so thought I would have a quick look at what was good and bad about the election campaign in Pune. Read the rest of this entry »