My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Hard Reality...

A gigantic amount of data says due to increasing privatization of higher education, academic institutes in India have been experiencing increasing ragging excesses. The effectiveness of the ‘ban’ declared by the Govt. on ragging in many IITs appears clear on the campuses & hostels. In fact the latest heart rending death of Aman Kachroo, a 19 years old student of Dr. Rajendra Prasad Medical College in brain hemorrhage due to brutal ragging has aroused a big question mark on the effectiveness of the ‘ban’ on ragging.

Despite the series of justifications given by many students in favor of ragging, such as ‘a way to build friendly relation between seniors & juniors’, indubitably it’s the most filthy side of modern education system. Campaigns by several human activists & establishments of anti ragging cells seemed to have no real impact on the practice of ragging in technical institutions.

But aren’t the junior students equally responsible to let the grubby game to exist in the college campus? It takes the back bone to rise up against impropriety & raise your voice high for own rights. This is awful to see how these students had embraced death in ragging. It’s the high time to stop the ongoing. If your parents can invest big amount of money for your career, can’t you invest little bit of guts to fulfill their dreams?

Come… hold hands & voice against ragging…

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The vigor of Nano

Someone has rightly said, ‘somebody’s lose is somebody’s gain’. At present this holds utterly true in case of West Bengal, when Tata’s Nano is all ready to hit the road! No one can ever forget the mayhem we went through months ago regarding Nano project in Singur…processions, strikes, death, redundancy which led to the materialization of more gooey politics in Bengal. And now, at last Nano is all set as the lowest price car of the nation (though it has been said that the price 1 lakh is for the first 1 lakh buyers only!!).

We all remember the prolific contribution of the opposition party in the amputation of the small car industry from Singur…but can you disagree that our respectable CM was also responsible to some extent to let that happen? The very confrontation in Bengal has shown the reality; that in spite of the constitutional rule Buddhadeb Bhattacharya seemed to impound himself within the Alimuddin Street. A state where it’s CM first think for the party & then for the people… unemployment is obligatory. Why Bhattacharya didn’t rise up & let the development process to persist? But what so ever it was…we lost the opportunity & that’s what matters the most!

But if you really think…it’s the end of the story…then let me tell you, picture abhi baki hain mere dost! It was the Nano project for which our own Mamata Di has engaged herself doggedly in image makeover. The lady who once said that she wont let the campaign procedure to weigh down because of the Board Exams…now has become receptive about sight pollution (source: few days back we get to know that she instructed her party members to erase wall graffiti from the walls if the owner of the house found to diverge with it!). In fact after her victory in Nandigram, in order to win the hearts of the urban mass she is trying to change the very anti developmental image of her. And now again that is the trump card of the left parties to win over Ms Banerjee!

They say, ‘Don’t go with the size’…the smallest car can be powerful enough to change the destiny of Bengal politics. Let’s wait & watch…

Monday, March 16, 2009

Fashion coronation...

Long categorized as conservative metropolis, at last we have found the burrow of emancipation after a long decade of revolution, to articulate our voice loud & clear. Kolkata is going to have its first ever FASHION WEEK! Top 35 models of the country will be sashaying down the ramp for designers of international repute like Bibi Russell, Ritu Kumar, Narendra Kumar, Mona Pali, Zubair Kirmani, Manoviraj Khosla, Sharbari Dutta, Abhishek Dutta, Anjana Bhargav, Marg and Dev R Nil, amongst others. No prize for guessing that it is going to be the ostentatious fashion gala, kolkata has ever experienced!

A change in stance & approach of fashion can be traced some years ago…with the starting of shopping mall culture. We moved over from new market, hati bagan or gariahat market to Shoppers Stop, Pantaloons or Westside in Forum, City center. This change in life style led to the emergence of boutiques of renowned fashion designers like Ritu Beri, Monapali or brand name like Hidesign. We began to shift from roadside shopping to everything-under-one-roof shopping carnival. That time globalization led to the emergence a new stratum of middle class people, who were strongly affected by the growing trend of consumerism. Business folks began to take grip over the virgin fashion market of kolkata.

From the last few years the growing numbers of shopping malls, pubs & lounge bars can be viewed as a silent cataclysm towards modernization. Started by Forum now we have City center, mani square, south city mall in the list, where you can find a new genus of Bengali! The crowd is out & out different from the one we have always imagined about ‘bheto’ Bengali…

Till now our very own designers like Sharbari Dutta, Abhishek Dutta, Sabyasachi Mukherjee had to showcase their designs on national platforms like Lakme India fashion week or Wills fashion week, but now time has come for us to enjoy their creation on the ramp of our very own city! Who knows may be some day we could be compared with Milan or Paris…cheers!!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Virtual Campaigning....

With election in around the corner our hard working, greatly devoted politicians are all ready to rock the ballot box with new campaign ideas in their stores! Few weeks ago I got the opportunity to experience one of the latest ideas of election campaign designed by Narendra Modi -Gujarat: the power house, distributed in free of cost with one of the leading English magazines of the nation, India Today. Those days were gone when these grey headed folks used to come down to the streets with a huge mike & never ending speeches including bunch of promises which incited series of forged hopes among us. In this cyber age we can reach the candidates we like with one click of the mouse…politicians are truly getting net savvy!

There was a time when youth didn’t have even the slightest interest in politics & election …but with the materialization of the consent named ‘Media’, we the young generation are gaining interest in the political system of the nation at large. We are bombarded with awareness building messages from electronics media, one of the successful of them is the Tata Tea advertisement which says, ‘Jaago Re’…even the Mtv which is considered as the youth icon channel is also promoting ‘Jaago Re’ in their show ‘Wats Up Youngistan! Why they are paying such magnitude on this issue?? Is it only because the youth need to be aware about the election procedure? Or there is other side of the story as well?

Considering the new trends in election campaign that is gaining popularity now days, it is discernible that politicians are now hankering for the youth vote bank. In the past it was almost impossible for the young generation even to know the profile about the candidates in detail…they were unaware about the party policies & ideologies. As a result very few of them sought to participate in the election process. But with more coalition Government... with more regional parties burgeoning from different states, our politicians have realized the necessity to incorporate youth in the election to secure vote banks.

Being in a country with such a complex system structure, every Indian should have enough knowledge about elections & every political party…but our Govt.’s sole concern definitely isn’t to increase only our awareness!! Since India's current demographic profile is heavily loaded in the favor of youth, more than 50 per cent of India's population is below the age of 25, politicians have realized the importance of youth participation to ensure sheer success.

As a result, politicians like Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, P Chidambaram & many more have launched their websites which include upcoming policies & programs of their parties, their vision & goals. Recently a news on Headlines Today shows that people from around the world are visiting these websites in large numbers…& websites of these leaders are giving tough competitions to Celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan or Amir Khan!!

But this is yet to see how far all these efforts could ensure their vote banks in reality…