Dilli ki sardi !

(The Delhi winter cold)

I remember a song from 'Zameen', a film released few years ago which compares love for the beloved with 'Dilli ki sardi' (Delhi's biting winter cold) probably because both don't allow one to sleep in peace.

Delhi had an unusually warm December with average temperatures remaining 4-5 degrees celsius warmer than normal. The weather office stated yesterday that December 2008 was the warmest since 1953. Well it took them 33 days to know what the average Delhite already knew well in advance. I guess they must have been sifting through old tattered and moth-eaten registers to know for sure that it was 1953 and not 1853.

The weather gods in the last few days are trying to make amends and since the dawn of this new year the average temperatures are about 3-5 degrees celsius cooler than normal for January. Yesterday night the minimum was 3 degrees and today morning was around 8 degrees celsius. The thick fog that engulfs the whole city makes the experience almost poetically romantic. A brisk walk in the morning (with not more than 20 of the 200 or so regulars in our park) leaves one totally energised and ready to face the day.

One is beginning to enjoy the biting cold. I guess Delhites would now get an excuse to gorge on the winter goodies like 'Gajar ka halwa', 'Gulabjamuns', 'Makki ki roti and sarson ka saag', 'Gachak', 'Moongphali', 'Bhugga' and many other delicacies which our sweetmeat shops have meticulously crafted to shift the focus from the cold.

I guess in every part of the world there are such man-made diversions associated with extremes of climate to shift focus from the cold and attendent discomfort. One starts looking forward to the acutely cold weather so that one can savour such treats that are associated with extreme cold and one is free of any guilt. In a climate any less hostile partaking of these delicacies provokes a feeling of guilt.

In case any one reading this piece is familiar with such weather related goodies please offer your inputs and enrich me.

How mega brands cope with these changing times

Changing times require corporations to make suitable changes to stay afloat and to live upto investor expectations. While some resort to job cuts, others go overboard in cost control. However the really large global corporations revise their business plans drastically, sometimes it means taking a new look at all their properties to see if they can be put to some alternate use.

2008 - The year of amazing highs and painful lows

2008 would go down in Indian public memory as a year of extremes, the highs of the year were exhilaratingly higher and more glorious than those of past many decades while the lows were so horrendously painful that we may not forget this year for a long, long time.

The year that was saw India achieve many notable milestones - the most outsatnding being the landing of a probe Chandrayaan on the moon with pinpoint precision and accuracy and at a cost that was a fraction of what the western world spent on similar projects. This one achievement can establish India as the world's leading satellite launch agent. It can help us garner billions of dollars of global business both in terms of the launch itself as also the satellite time that we can sell.

The second major feat was in the arena of sport. Something that no Indian sportsman had achieved, since the beginning of the modern Olympics over a century ago, was achieved by Abhinav Bindra when he won the shooting gold at Beijing. The gold also demonstrated to other sportspersons that one has options all the time : the option to curse the officialdom or the option to get up and do something about the way things are.

Of course there was the added joy of Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar, our boxers from Bhiwani, picking up India's first boxing medals at the Olympics. It was equally heart-warming to see Vishwanathan Anand emerge stronger and claim the undisputed World Championship in chess.

The impossible was achieved by our boys in cricket when they beat team Australia in their own backyard to emerge as a force to reckon with. The test series and ODI victory over Australia was followed by beating England in a test and ODI series comprehensively in India by Dhoni and his boys. The emergence of a galaxy of new, younger, fitter and hungrier stars in a variety of sporting discipines gives us tremendous hope for the future.

The salience that the first T-20 Indian Premier League (IPL) championship achieved has catapaulted India to a global leadership role in cricket. India is a major moneyspinner for world cricket, thanks in no small measure to our billion plus cricket crazy population. Today when India speaks, the cricketing world listens. In the earlier era Indians went to faraway lands to pursue careers, today cricket brings many international cricket stars to Indian shores to seek fame and fortune.

These were all moments that would be etched in our collective memory for long.

2008 also saw the horrying terror attacks on the Indian state and its hapless citizens in Mumbai, Jaipur, New Delhi and at countless other places. The patience of a giant is time and again being tested by a pygmy amongst nations. Pakistan doesn't realise that the state of Pakistan could easily get crushed should this gentle giant merely wipe the irritating sweat off it's brow. The only solace in this entire episode was the emergence of a national feeling against terror, with people rising up in arms agains Islamist jihadis, irrespective of their religious beliefs unlike the past when people responded to such extreme provocations based on whether they were Hindu or muslim. That India manged to gather world opinion in its favour and organized a UN Security Council resolution against the LeT (or JuD, as it is now known) speaks volumes about not only the fairness of our claims but also the victory of our diplomacy and our economic policies.

The global financial meltdown which has already caused tremendous hardship to many by erosion in net worth and loss of jobs and employment would be the catastrophe of the century. It is variously estimated to be graver and more severe than the great depression of 1930s. Many iconic centuries old financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Citigroup, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae just wilted in the aftershocks of this grave crisis. Analysts anticipate this crisis to last over 3-5 years in the west. However China and India appear to be somewhat better-placed to cope, considering their large populations and growing, domestic consumption-driven economies.

So I feel 2008 would go down as a highly forgettable year in our collective memory. A year which need not have been.

Pakistan - A state of denial

The events of the last month have amazed the global community. Post 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, when ten armed terrorists of Pakistani origin, the intelligence agencies of the countries whose nationals were targetted agreed that these ten Pakistani men were trained, armed and provided technical and logistical support by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or the Jamat-ul-Dawa (JuD) as it is now called. They were aided and abetted by the ISI and to a limited extent by the Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who virtually operates as a Guest of the Pakistani establishment, residing a few hundred meters from the President's bungalow in Clifton area of Karachi.

The Pakistani media is largely irrelevant in the current scenario since we can not be sure of its objectivity. The establishment has reduced the once independent media to a mere propaganda arm of the state apparatus. Some good stories do emerge from time to time that provide a ray of hope like the story on the surviving terrorist's home, family and village elders etc and the Nawaz Sharif interview where he accepted that the surviving terrorist, Ajmal Kasav was a Pakistani national and his family was in isolation and their village cordoned off and out of bounds of world media.

One has just to see the glaring anomalies in the state's positions which have shifted faster than sand dunes in a desert storm. Any self-respecting and truly patriotic Pakistani must be hanging his head in shame at the brazenness of the Pakistani establishment.

One day the Pakistan government wants evidence of Pakistani nationals' involvement from India. The evidence that results in the JuD being branded a terrorist organisation by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and banned worldwide also forces Pakistan government to claim arrest of the JuD leader, sealing of their offices and freezing of their bank accounts. But to them that is still not evidence enough.

When Ajmal's father acknowledges to the media that Ajmal is indeed his son even that is not evidence enough. Zardari and Gilani and their assorted lackeys go to extremely untenable positions saying one thing one day and contradicting themselves, and many times other spokesmen, the next day.

No sensible observer of world events has any doubt whatsoever that the ISI is deeply involved in the affairs of LeT / JuD and its personnel are manning these organisations to wage a low cost war on India while the Pakistan government continues to hide behind the fig leag of non-state actors may be involved.

I think the time has come to call Pakistan's bluff. If India does not act decisively now this menace would not die. The Indian politician must stop playing the Muslim card. I sincerely hope the likes of A.R.Antulay get a well deserved kick on the back. Such guys need to understand that this is the time to play the India card.

Uncle Sam needs to ensure that denial does not become an instrument of foreign policy of the Pakistan state. If that happens, then the government of Pakistan would be responsible for the ensuing destruction and for denying its citizens the right to life and liberty since they would be pitted against the might of the civilized forces of the world who at this juncture seem well and truly behind India.