Friday, August 20, 2010

Strikes and Deals – India this week

This is the summary of the events of last week. India saw strikes and we also were involved in some “deals”.

Strike 1 –
The citizens participated in a strike against the taxi and autowallas. We called it MeterJam. This media\internet hyped event saw little success but if you are on social network sites, your views may differ. Some also compared this as a David vs Goliath war….I am not sure who is David and who is Goliath.

Strike 2 –
A small strike by the Indian cricket team captain, MS Dhoni. Mr Cool, lost his cool about a bad practice pitch offered by Lankan cricket board. The practice pitch was bouncy and good length deliveries turned out to be bouncers. Karthik got hit on the elbow during practice. The already unfit Indian outfit were in for another blow. Dhoni lost his cool and walked away in protest, from practice. The team followed and observed the strike.

Strike 3 –
Our dear Parliamentarians did a mini-strike. They stalled the Parliament session for a day to ask for hikes. The “poor” MPs wanted a 400% increase. As the cabinet surprisingly put this on hold, the united MPs decided not to work for a (yet another) day. Though there is still no decision made on this, it’s hardly a  tough guess to predict the outcome.

Deal 1 –
In a Times Now expose, we got to know the deal between India and US. India wanted some favor from the US in a world bank issue. Montek Singh wrote to a top official in the US govt requesting for help. In the quick reply, the US official asked Montek to handle the ‘noise’ created by the Dow Chemicals judgment.  We all know how we got silent on the entire issue of Bhopal gas tragedy.

Deal 2 –
After Randiv shamelessly bowled a no-ball to Sehwag and denied him a well deserved century, the media lambasted the Lankans. Technically, Lanka had not committed a crime. But audio\video recordings, bowlers apology, twitter messages forced the Lankans to take some action. Captain Sangakkara was to be blamed. Seeing SL’s precarious position in the tri-series, a deal was set and a bakra was caught. Dilshan was fined and Randiv was suspended for a game – effectively both lost a match fee.

Deal 3 –
Govt was looking for a support for the nuclear bill to be passed (pending since a long time). And they got support from the most unexpected party – BJP. A separate headlines came on the same day. CBI announced that Gujarat’s BJP CM, Narendra Modi is not involved in the Shorabuddin encounter\murder. Though some call it co-incidence\truth, I think it was a bloody good deal.

Amidst all these, we also celebrated our 64th Independence day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember the "World this week" program conducted by Prannoy Roy.

Good summary!

Lost in thoughts said...

Also realized that "Flag of India" did a strike in the official function of Independence day in Karnataka. When Yeddyurappa tried to unfurl the flag, it did not and the flag had to be brought down and hoisted by the army guy around.