I have decided to put down my thoughts on the articles i read in the papers on Sunday. The papers will mostly be Sunday Times of India and Sunday HT. My thoughts may not necessarily be in sync with the articles as such. They will just be thoughts that have some relation to the article. I may switch onto other related issues in the same thread. But all in all its my way of documenting the Sundays Papers.
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Punks and Publicity – Vir Sanghvi (Sundat HT)
Some thugs had attacked Kumar Ketkar’s (Editor of the Marathi daily Loksatta) house to protest against what they thought was a derogatory article on Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Well the premise of the attack was definately faulty and the guys behind the attack just wanted publicity. Its irritating but such events do get coverage and ultimately the nobodies become somebody. If that attacker gives one interview then multiply it by the number of news channels around and its surprising to note how much publicity, irrespective if its negative, the person has gathered. Media is helpless in such matters.
I personally feel that the Media should practise some restraint and not glorify the work of the attacker in such cases. In a country like India, freedom of press is a given, and anyone trying to curb that should be dealt with strictly. The attackers were no representatives of the Marathi culture as they posed to be. Ketkar on the other hand had written a very sensible article regarding the construction of the Rs. 300cr statur os Shivaji in the Arabian sea. that amount of money can be put to such a lot of good and relevant use!
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Why Names Matter – Karan Thapar (Sunday HT)
Changing names of cities has been going on since the last decade. I wont get into the morality of the issue as i feel it is very subjective a matter. I dont have anything against the new name, but i would definitely not like it if someone forces me to use the new name. The way the Shiv Sena have been going around asking institutions to change their names from Bombay to Mumbai, really boils my blood. I mean who the hell are they to impose their thinking on the rest of the city? Shiv Sena which i once respected, has lost all of the respect and I am quite sure many fellow Maharashtrians feel the same way. Its irritating to see them make issues out of nothing. They just want to be in the media limelight. So they come up with gimmicks like renaming institutions from Bombay to Mumbai, Shiv vada pav, i mean we all love vada pav, but just let it be vada pav for gods sake. Please keep politics out of vada pav!
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Messenger in a Bottle – Indrajit Hazra (Sunday HT)
Inflation and rising crude oil prices have finally made the GoI to raise the prices of fuels. Goes without saying that it didnt go down too well with the “aam – junta”. I personally feel that price rise was an inevitable truth. It had to happen someday or the other, in this Govt’s tenure or the next. Denying price tise would be like behaving like the cat who drinks milk with its eyes closed, thinking that no one is seeing her drink the milk. As it is the Oil and Petoleum companies are suffering a loss per litre of petrol/diesel sold. In the long run price rise was a necessity, its may sound too blunt but we have no other option but to bear this price rise scenario. Strikes in cities on this issue really make no sense as the GoI is not going to retract the hiked prices. Strikes just cause the ill feelings to multiply.
Congress UPA govt has caused a lot of irritation to the nation offlate, be it rise in food prices or the delaying in finalising the Indo-Nuclear Deal due to the Left’s petty ideological issues. Civil Nuclear source of power is the need of the hour and i dont see any reason why anyone should be opposing it. It can solve so many power related issues in our country which is growing at an exponential rate. Its gonna need all the raw source of power, and Oil becoming the new gold, its important for India to start looking for other sources of energy to sustain its massive growth.
