Its interesting how people go behind what they lost. Its not uncommon that leaders try to regain their lost positions – or must I say politicians? In the same vein ever since Yeddy lost his seat as CM and was asked to step down in july last year, he has taken every opportunity since then to come back into the BJP which was stung with corruption cases, infighting and dissidence related issues.

It was then very evident that a successor for him was coming from his own camp within his team, when many others in the BJP were suggesting candidates who were not close to him in the interest of the party. Finally it boiled down to a lot of war of words from the BSY camp and Shettar camp. With both the governor and opposition targetting him, he also started being targeted by the BJP top cops themselves.

He had to do something soon so that people stopped climbing on his back. So he quickly chose his closest pal (at that time) – you know literally speaking – the same guy whose smile blinded cameramen with 1000W flashes – Sadananda Gowda, and nominated him as the next CM until he came out clean – which he never did until a year later even now.
Ananth Kumar has been the biggest thorn for Yeddy in his political career and one that is digging deeper and deeper into his flesh. This goes to show no matter how much someone is located at central, they can very well meddle with local politics. However this is not the same case for Congress where Krishna is still looked upon to support the team back home while the laggards back here hardly care about where the party is going. Always there is one Gandhian to lead the show and also get a big pie of everything. And anyway they are the opposition and can wake up only during election times.
I still remember the day when BJP routed JDS and congress and Yeddyurappa cried on the screen – which isnt new by the way – that he will uphold the state an steer it towards a clear developmental path. He also told that infrastructure is the highest focus area. And we can see that with the way BJP is uprooting trees here and there! With his enormous acting skills one could easily be convinced that he could hold his position forever.
There ended the similarity between Modi and Yeddy. Modi has visionaries who assist him on daily basis on how to make Gujarat great. Yeddy has dissidents who always assist him on how to pull himself down and out. Karnataka having lots of land is another horrible reason for subsequent politicians to be defocussed out of their normal duties! Giving the power of denotification of land for personal use is like giving a machine gun to a monkey. One look around Bangalore and we can see how this is being (mis)used to glory. How else can you explain builders making billions by selling ultra luxury apartments in the lap of mother nature and right besides a beautiful lake all for yourself? Have you seen the map of Sobha developers and the amount of projects they have around Bellandur Lake? That is what I am referring to when I say what will happen if such permission powers are provided!

Every single lake and forest has apartments next to it. Sobha forest view, Royal lakeview, and so on. Have you ever wondered where these apartments send their effluents to? Think a bit. The answer is not hard to arrive at. With Karnataka facing the highest taxes, scandal after scandal, the IT and BT industry losing their sheen, and infrastucture messes, we need someone who is a visionary at the helm to tackle all this. Not someone who denotifies a bit of land for himself and his family and still expect to regain a chief ministerial berth when there is a new and fresh CBI case against him.
Yeddy – Adikeygey hoda maana, aaney kotru baradu

(image courtesy: http://www.pawsalava.com/)

The recent supreme court judgement on the disqualification of rebel MLAs being null and void has not only given more teeth to the opposition parties that are already dissatisfied with the current government but has also given the rebel MLAs within BJP to press for a change in governance within the party.

This has now also become a plank for personal vendetta against each other between JDS, Congress, the Governor and the chief minister. Though Yeddy has consistently come out of all troubles and hardships he faced as chief minister, the latest salvo seems a bit complicated and long drawn affair. Given that corruption is highest in Karnataka one would expect a revolt from the people. But surprisingly even in the by polls just conducted and concluded, the BJP has again emerged victorious especially due to the operation LOTUS which has been its successful weapon ever since it formed the government.

The real problem with Yeddy is not about giving up his post and chair. Its really about keeping all the infighting away from breaking the party until it keeps its tenure.Though every CM would love his chair more than anything else, given the constant black magic incidents against Yeddy and his subsequent Mutt visits to annul these seems to be like its coming straight out of a movie clip. When every other state is aiming towards development, conducting business and attracting investments, Karnataka seems to be mired in controversy after controversy which weakens the progress towards efficient industrialization. This exactly then is the difference between Gujarat and Karnataka.

Armed with the SC verdict, the governor will now either kick out the speaker and the CM or go one step forward and also ask for a trust vote on the floor in order to bring down the entire government. Whichever way it is, its a blow to the people who elected the government forcing them to face another election on their face.

The credibility of JDS and Congress is another matter to talk about. Not that if the BJP goes down will he have an ultra effective government by Congress or the JDS. While the congress has no youth power and fresh ideas and still contains the same old wine being packaged in a new bottle each time, the JDS is still battling to have a proper identity. Once it says its development oriented, but still prevents infrastucture from being completed (read : NICE expressway), another time it says it supports minority, but we do still see many people disgruntled with the way the party is being handled.

So the big question is what happens to Yeddy this time? Will people go after his scalp and get it ? Should he step down and make way for someone more mature and strong to tackle opposition? The same opposition which has been time and again arguing about people’s verdict? Or should he run back to the Mutt to get divine blessings that will keep the evil away?

If the government does come down will it mean we see another family party come up in Karnataka and loot its wealth all over again like TN?

My guess is as good as yours!

Tags: assembly, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, channels, cm, congress, disqualification, fate, floor, governor, hdk, jds, karnataka, kumaraswamy, mla, mlas, news, party, politics, rebel, resignation, speaker, story, supreme court, trust vote, tv, verdict, yeddiyurappa, yeddy, yeddyurappa

Dear Mr. PM,

The whole country is feeling that the budget presented by you is a balanced budget for 2011. While one can’t disagree, I strongly feel that this country lacks a visionary even among people like you who are economically sound. So lets just understand the basic issues plaguing the country at this point in time and whats the urgent need of the hour.

• Rising prices and fiscal deficits – Either way you look at it, whether you increase fuel prices or whether you increase taxes the bottom line is that the products and services get costlier on the people availing them. This means that people shell out more from their earnings to increase revenue to the government. However as in the past no matter how many items and how many subsequent increases in taxes you propose, the country still lingers on with a fiscal deficit instead of a fiscal surplus. The true visionary therefore needs to bring the country into a surplus situation. While here the stock markets here are rejoicing on lesser fiscal deficit rather than questioning you on when you can show the accountability to bring in a surplus situation
• Scrapping tax holidays and its impact – True the software industry has been enjoying a tax holiday for a decade or more now. But it was always in the governments control to have changed that long back. What is unfortunate is NOTthat you are scrapping that now, rather that it hurts the salaries of both existing and upcoming executives at a time when the country is already reeling at high inflationary levels. If only you had brought about this scrapping of tax holidays in a phased manner starting all the way from 2001 upto now, salaries would have been moderated and most people would have been leading a more realistic life by now. Spending would have been calculated, reasoned out and the economy would have followed a linear growth curve instead of a cooked up exponential one. By all means one knows now that software industry is not the major contributor to the 8% projected growth anymore. Its infact the feeder industries that contribute more to this growth. However you should not forget that this industry is a big driver for that growth. By introducing a tax holiday long back you and your governments are directly responsible and accountable for the rich-poor divide that has been created which will take years to flatten down.
• The tax exemption drama – With baited breath at every budget the middle (cattle) class expects you to waive off taxation on an extended amount each year. Just because this is a populist expectation, you have also always raised this exemption time and again. While its some reason to cheer, its also a concern that you have not substantially looked out for ways to mobilize people to save effectively for their future other than just by increasing exemption limits, that too at a time when inflation is so high that it hardly makes a difference.
• No proper agricultural policy – Agricultural lands are getting devoured fast and furious by land mafia for construction of ‘luxury’ homes at such a pace that since the past decade a metro like Bangalore has nothing left for its green cover. When you look at rural areas, constant power cuts, no policy for support prices and no importance given to agriculture has changed many a farmer’s mind to sell his land instead of cultivate leaving us with no option but to import foodgrains which we were once proud of growing in our own country. Someday at this rate, we (including you) will be left at the mercy of the food producing countries and their prices to get even three square meals a day. This is already happening to Oil (which i will come to in a moment), but when it happens to food as well, it hurts the most. The real loss is in making people eat packaged foods which are hardly any value for money, or healthy, leading to a situation which is almost near starvation in the near future. When health problems arise out of this, that becomes a double whammy on the already affected and make them pay a fortune to repeat this cycle of ill health and unhealthy food until all of us die of some mass epidemic some day.
• Oil pricing – In your own best interests of vote bank politics and useless chaos, you have decided to keep the price of diesel low, while you go on increasing the price of petrol every other month. This is perfectly acceptable to us, provided you reduce the duty on petrol. Given that urban transportation is a big mess even in organized cities like Bangalore, and that your infrastructure budget overtures never end, it makes commuting from one place to another a constant nightmare to live with making it thus necessary for people to own cars. Once the budget is over and dust settles down, you then increase the diesel price by Rs.2/- each time knowing fully well that every single item that depends on this diesel for transportation will increase by Rs.2 or sometimes even twice or thrice that. Are you not visionary enough to bring in preferential diesel pricing and also avoiding pilferage at the same time? Do you think your experience in running the financial affairs in this country are not strong to control this loophole? Perhaps we can give an opportunity to farmers to transport everything by bullock carts to all cities. This way they get employment, we rely less on inflating food prices due to diesel price hikes and the country can live in peace. Put on your thinking cap Mr.PM and get the innovators to work out other ways. Promoting greener fuels is good, but not alone enough to remove the burden each price hike comes with.
• UID and expectations – The UID initiative is definitely a good move and a much wanted move, but it also has to address providing social security, health insurance and focus on things like the 401k plan in usa, for retirement savings. Many things can be linked to UID and it must provide us our fundamental rights in lowering these important costs for government services. This boils down to the fact of rooting out corruption in government units (like hospitals, etc) and making them above par with private services getting more accountability and enabling bureaucrats to have more say than politicians. It requires a fundamental shift in the way of thinking and execution but do you have the guts and prowess for that Mr.PM?
• Service tax increases on hotels and hospital services – Agree that you want to increase taxes to cover these sectors, but let me question you how far has the government gone in providing good quality government hospitals and hotels where people can stay decently and get services below Rs.1000 a day? Are you saying government cannot match up to private counterparts? If so, then again its a problem with vision and the fact that we are not learning from other countries even after 60 years of ramp up time!
• Corruption – This is the most talked about subject and it almost always boils down to the fact that it is we who support corruption by paying bribes everywhere. But from the past 60 years have you ever brought about a fool proof system using the available technologies so that no government department work needs human beings to interfere with their bribe taking hands? how about documents with digital signatures? Things are there Mr.PM you just need attitude enough to spank your cabinet members all the way until your last peon to drive home the point.
• Missing focus on priority sectors – This is the final point I wish to talk about, and from the past 5-6 decades some areas have seen more and more stronger focus as for example infrastructure as a case in point. But then primary education, support for the elderly and destitute, focus on uniformity in healthcare, afforestation in restoring ecological balance, expansion of education to provide more fields for specialization and recognition, removal of quota systems to enable people to feel competitive and come up brighter, improving public transport by involving more community based options, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and ensuring the right innovations are taken into products as a matter of policy, focus on improving all cities and villages uniformly, better power distribution and greater reliance on wind energy, support prices for food stuff and proactive handling of inflation situation – the list goes on.

Its important that you realize that growth for the next decade cannot be based on age old economic policies anymore. We need a fresh vision, we need to be able to hear public opinions and encourage collective and inclusive policy making, and ensuring all sections of the society actively participate in making India achieve vision 2020, that is if there is such a vision. If not, its about time we make such a vision statement right now.

Tags: bengaluru, bangalore, manmohan, singh, pranab mukherjee, india, budget, 2011, financial, year, fiscal deficit, stock market, indices, outlay, issues, highlights, letter, pm

Words don’t convey much. Pictures do. So here is the picture:

(Source: TOI)

Finally Bengaluru is waking up to understanding what it means to vote. And specifically to vote for a absolute majority. It does not matter who won these polls. One thing is certain that people have given a party an absolute majority. So that it can silence its critics and complete its proper functioning for the rest of the term. The BJP is on a roll as far as Karnataka is concerned. And here is why:

• Yeddy – Being a farmer, he can understand farmer’s sentiments. Being a CM he admits to his shortcomings and tries to constantly improve upon them. Being a senior administrator his focus is sharp – develop the city.
• Weak opposition – RV Deshpande commented in today’s newspaper that if Bengaluru’s elite had come in plenty to vote, then Congress would have won. Bullshit. If they had actually come in plenty and voted, Congress in fact would have lost miserably. Who does not know congress ? They are known to introduce those mouth watering ‘economic reforms’ which in effect are just triggers to price rises. RVD, I think you are too old to reason it out this way.
• Dirty politics – We don’t know where DG is hiding now. But HDK was his calm self (does he have much options?) – according to him, if this is what people want, then they must be ready to face price rises, and power cuts just because they elected the BJP ? – read as an absolute majority. Damn you parties, price rise is because of us population. What can they do about it? This world just got affordable to many more people, who have joined your ranks to claim their needs –  power, water, education, transport – so why will things not get costly? Milk dearer by Rs.3, petrol by Rs.2, diesel by Rs.3, so on and so forth. And by the law of the land, since diesel got costlier, like a theorem having corollaries, everything else in India is now proportionately costly. And add to that tax, vat, surcharge, birth cess, death cess, road cess, flyover cess, metro cess, political cess, voter’s cess – and you are in a big MESS of cess.
• The next time you eat that milk laden icecream just think how you are contributing to the price rise and you will realize you are the problem, not the political parties. The amount of subsidies on fuel is so high since the past umpteen years, that we have to cough up a hell lot to offset the situation. I dont see any difference in this price rise thing whichever party comes in. Show me one instance where there has been any price decrease on anything after or before any elections?
• Bickering congress – no amount of youth oriented political angles could fight against a determined party working towards development. A chance lost is 100 more opportunities permanently lost.

But is it all then rosy for the BJP ?? – Not exactly. Here is what they need to do on an urgent priority.

• Develop Bangalore fully and permanently with sufficient thought about the future
• Understand that Karnataka does NOT mean only Bangalore. Yeddy wake up and address other lesser privileged regions before they revolt
• Tackle infighting within party and dont show the cracks to everyone
• Handle the Reddy dominance in money power in a tactical way
• Complete huge infrastructure projects without slippages. Dont keep bragging about some elevated highway that NHAI constructed and stop swallowing JNUURM funds.
• People have belief in BJP as the only party which cares for Karnataka. Dont screw up that perception.
• Show other parties that you are secular enough. Stop piggybacking Hindutva and work towards the ultimate progress
• Make karnataka fully literate like Kerala.
• Use Bengaluru’s best technologies in other districts.
• Continue citizen friendly measures

Beyond all this, increase in power, milk, water costs is perfectly justifiable. Bengaluru cannot afford giving everything free to people anymore. For good services, there is a high cost. Take the case of water supply. Slapping huge bills is one way of avoiding unnecessary water usage. You should keep the same bill thousand times more for corporates for them to inculcate a sense of belonging and savings.

Someone in BJP commented after the elections:

We had said we will make Bengaluru a Singapooru, we have achieved it now

 

For heavens sake #Yavanoobba, do you have any clue what Singapore looks like or functions like ? Did you ever realize that Bengaluru is much much bigger than Singapooru now? And did you know Singapooru is not just about ring roads and IT Firms? Have you ever thought about how they manage their garbage? Or how they excel in every other field other than IT ? Or their uniform taxation on all goods ? Or the kind of transport system that’s available there? Or that it is one of the safest city in the entire world ? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you would also agree Bengaluru is nowhere near Singapooru, and will never be for the next fifty years at the nearest of future.

SINGAPORE IS BUILT BY ITS PEOPLE OF DIVERSE CULTURES. BENGALURU IS SCREWED UP BY ITS PEOPLE OF DIVERSE CASTES AND CREEDS. FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH ENDS. EACH TIME, EVERY TIME. WHAT MATTERS IS THE HABITS, AND ATTITUDE, NOT THE LANDMARKS OF THE CITY.

So BJP, concentrate on making Bengaluru atleast 25% of Singapooru. Good luck. You have MY vote.

The last fortnight of political parleying around Delhi by the BJP has been nothing short of showing off gloriously, the filth inside the party. Money doing the rounds, resorts getting business, MLAs on their ‘fitness’ regimes and a bullied crying CM on the TV. Well what can I say, its enough to beat the TRPs of any soap on TV. Add to that the decoration, music, lighting and thrill that TV9 adds to all this, and you have a real box office hit.

Give the opponents some reason and they are always available to whine away and bite more of the CMs flesh than they can chew. Also seated on the knife are cool headed, least bothered stalwarts from the chaddi wearing RSS. Throw a brick or a boulder at them and they still do what they do best. Laze around. Citizens always do what they have been doing. Crying hoarse over infrastructure instead of asking for some better governance in the first place. Any development whether literal or metaphorical can happen only when the game is played right. What we have are the politicians from the 50s and 70s era who are experienced at mud slinging rather than any developmental politics.

What did not take a Sadananda Gowda or a Venkiah Naidu or a LK Advani or a Rajnath, took one Sushma to solve?  And must we all believe a mining baron of 5500+ crores of income will listen to a matrushri rather than his own intuition? This has not only shown that no one in the top level of the party is capable of handling a crisis and unless these are all laid off  (corporate management rejig if i may call so), one can say a goodbye to BJP in the next elections as well. This notwithstanding the ‘success’ they have had locally.

Sobha is out (she deserved to, didn’t she?). Why would a revenue minister managing revenues of a mining department owned by his brother take easily a lady of rural development ministry questioning the ongoings between the former two ministries? Not only did she interfere there, but also managed to say ‘cheese’ in every photo having the CM leading to some ridiculously obvious rumours which were all unwarranted. Whatever the stature of the RSS lady, the final verdict is there on the wall. The IAS officers can never escape a transfer in their lives. It will be news if even one completes the full term in one place.

Now to the speaker (how ironical!). How many times have you heard Shettar actually speak? Or for that matter how many times have you heard about him in the newspapers that otherwise crow about Yeddy and Sobha beside him? Not even once. There is a serious problem in understanding that he actually holds any clout at all in the present scenario. Finished is the turn of the Reddy’s in gunning for Yeddy’s head. Now common opposition, its your freaking turn! Enjoy.

Who won this game? There is only one answer – the media. They enjoyed making a mockery of everyone including the public (yes us!). All the way upto showing on TV Yeddy and Reddy eating cake after cake shamelessly without any explanation.

Alright now enough of this masala movie. Get back to your favourite soap on TV guys!

The political parties are at their favorite game again. Dirtying Bengaluru. The other day I was driving near the Hebbal Flyover and I was thinking “well its been sometime now and there are no posters in Bengaluru dirtying the place all around”. And as though to grant my wish, I came across a rather unbelieveable sight.

This

and these

Suddenly there were pictures of all kinds of people from the Congress party crowding around DKS, who is now taking over as president of the regional congress party along with Deshpande. While the famous Times Of India editor HS Balram did point out that DKS did a good thing by organizing a rally at Doddaballapur,

PARTING SHOT Thanks Congress, for small mercies
Wisdom has at last dawned on the Congress. The swearing-in ceremony of R V Deshpande as president and D K Shiva Kumar as working president will not take place in Bangalore, but 50 km away in Doddaballapur. It’s Shiva Kumar’s idea, we are told. “We have earned the ire of Bangaloreans with rallies that cause traffic gridlock. So we decided to organize it outside the city,” he says. Good beginning, DKS. Now we know why you have been named ‘working’ president. Please ensure that the roads in Doddaballapur are not jammed.

little did he realize what mess that would create all the way to the BIAL. The mess is what you see above for many kilometers of drive.

On another side, while I was appreciating our BSY or Yeddy for maintaining a rather low profile, he started publishing posters all over south Bengaluru proclaiming that he was laying yet another foundation stone for yet another flyover – this time two of them at Agara and Iblur ensuring that a mess for another one year or more is created for the residents living in HSR layout making life hell for them.

Alright you people are doing the job, mustering support of citizens whatever. But please be responsible enough to atleast take off the posters once you’re done guys!

On a rather side note, Janata Dal Secular president unfortunately could not do any such thing in Bengaluru, since he died. He was perhaps the only person I appreciated for some reason. (I thought he looked cool :D) But at a young age of 51, he passed away breaking the JDS further into tatters.

Whats amusing about the poster above Yeddy has advertised is that the minorities minister is always invited for all his functions! and So is Sobha Karandlaje. Sangliana who spoke so much against the CM and Home minister is also seen!

This is politics!

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