Friday, May 6, 2011

Miscellaneous

Sorry for being away from the blog for quite a long time. I was busy with my academics which made me stay away from the blog. Also, there was an acute shortage of topics on which I could write. Nothing interested me. At the sme time, lot of things happened around us too in the gap. From India winning the world cup to Osama getting killed, India getting thrashed at the Copenhagen summit in the Endosulfan case and Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu getting killed in a chopper crash.
Talking about the Dorjee Khandu copter crash, this is the second time in 2 years that similiar things happen to the chief ministers of two different states both when written in short form as AP and are infected with maoists. Both states ruled by Congress governments.Soon after they found the body of the respective chief ministers, the party spokesperson took charge of the CM's office.
Let me talk about another thing. The Endosulfan comedy. I am from a state where the northern parts of the state are the experiencing the bad effects of the Endosulfan for the past 40 years or so. They started using Endosulfan in 1970s there. Since then, people have suffered a lot from the pesticide. Incidentally, the state government had banned the substance from using. But the state government didn't take any action against the plantation owners, which happens to be a public sector company called Plantation Corporation, who were illigaly using it in their cashew plantations. They used a helicopter to spray the pesticide on the cashew trees. If my memory is right, it was the congress which ruled the state while they banned the pesticide. Now, the central government is not agreeing to ban the substance stating that the pesticide cannot be banned because of isolated incidents. I don't know why they are telling so. Don't they have any interest in coming back to power in the next elections? Anyways, India was totally thrashed at Geneva and Copenhagen and the International ban is imposed with special permission for using it on 22 different varieties.
Last but not the least, I would like to point out something which I noticed after the victory of the Indian cricket team to reach the top of the world. The following are the renumerations and gifts received by the players and the supporting staff for their perfomance.
  1. 1 Crore per member of the team  - From BCCI
  2. 2 Crore for Dhoni and 1 Crore each for the 4 Delhi players - Delhi Govt
  3. Land or House in Mussoorie for Sachin and Dhoni - Uttarkhand CM
  4. 1 Lakh for Zaheer Khan  - Shrirampur Municipal Council
  5. 1 Crore for Sachin and Zaheer - Maharashtra
  6. Free Lifetime First Class Railway Passes for all members - Railway
  7. 1 Crore for Yuvraj and Harbajan - Punjab Govt
  8. Ekalavya Award for Yousuf and Munaf - Gujarat Govt
  9. Honorary Doctorate for Dhoni - Jharkhand
  10. Land for Cricket Academy and School for Dhoni - Jharkhand Govt
  11. An Audi for Yuvraj
  12. Plots of land for all team members - A Rajkot Builder
  13. Housing sites for all the team members - Karnataka CM
  14. Best Sportperson Award for Sehwag, Nehra - Haryana Govt

You should know that all this is going to these people in a country where nearly 32% of the population live below the poverty line. Thousands of people are dying without food, shelter or proper sanitation. And these people are getting money, that too in crores, just that they simply won a game. Somebody had said aptly - "India is a rich country of poor people"