T a l k i e s

A token pin on sale at the Texas Republican Convention venue and like one comment pointed out,shouldn’t it be “When Obama is President…”

An irony given the fact that the south used to vote against Republicans till a few decades back because they were Abraham Lincoln’s Party.

They were Abraham Lincoln’s Party.

Messing up the day’s Hindu, scrambling to find a news item which could possibly rewrite the development history of the state, Mr Prasad and me were surprised and thoroughly disappointed. There wasn’t even a mention of the Vizhinjam tender clinched by the LANCO group yesterday. Ten minutes later when Malayala Manorama deliberately kept the news out of the broadsheet’s main pages, I wasn’t surprised, everybody knows where their ink comes from and flows to. Mathrubhumi carried the news in the middle page, three column.

One news item which was picked up by Forbes, Reuters and Wall Street Journal, which sent the LANCO stock up 10% in the bourses yesterday, found no mention in “India’s National Newspaper” and Kerala’s own Manorama which claims to have 7 billion readers as of today.

For Manorama online readers, Vizhinjam Port will be India’s deepest Port, India’s largest container transhipment Hub, the biggest infrastructure project in Kerala (pegged at 2 billion dollars) and work begins in 10 months time.

Official Press Release from LANCO is here

Excerpts: Vizhinjam, with a 15 metre natural draught and proximity to international sea routes, is best suited for the development of a world class, all weather deep-water port.The Vizhinjam port, situated about 16 km south off Thiruvananthapuram and at 10 nautical miles from international sea routes connecting Europe, Persian Gulf and Far East, when developed would attract a fair share of the container transshipment traffic meant for India, currently handled by international ports at Colombo, Malaysia, Al-Salalah (Oman) and Singapore.

To continue my rant, the same media which celebrated the “Smart City” deal((the inking of the deal was broadcast live) which looks puny in comparison to Vizhinjam or the upcoming Technocity, the same media which filled pages with the Vallarpadam Hub deal which is one fourth the size of Vizhinjam - chose to ignore one of the major developments in the state’s history.

If the question is Why should the media coverage be so important? The answer is, it raises the stakes for the people involved. It puts pressure on the administration to deliver when people are aware of it. Imagine the impact on the LDF government if the “Smart City” project goes cold. That is media’s job and in case of Vizhinjam they are doing a very bad job.

Vizhinjam is the result of the creative activism of a lot of people, a dream shared by millions of people, with powerful lobbies inside and outside the country working against it. The stakes are high, it is important to wake up and keep watch - closely.

Did I create fear from a happy news?

Cool!

P.S: Chk out the WALL in Talkies page, will keep updating

After Bombay Scottish School, Bombay Dyeing, BSE and Bombay Times (TOI) were vandalised, terrorised, and uglified (rhymes) in the past few days, the below poster was stuck on all Talkies correspondent’s lodges yesterday night.

Talkies editorial syndicate met at our super secret location and unanimously agreed (1-0) to take the cue. The 10 AM press release has announced drastic changes to the Blogroll.

1. Bombay Addict and Bombay Dosti will be renamed as Mumbai Addict and Mumbai Dosti. They have 24 hours to decide on alternative names. A friendly suggestion is to get hold of good Hindu names from Maneka Gandhi’s book. You cannot change it to “Bomb”, thats reserved for the big fat lady of Malayalam Aunty Cinema in case she starts a blog.

2. All others in the Blogroll are requested to ensure that the root meanings of their blogger ids are fully in sync with the rich Indian Hindu cultural heritage and also the rich regional heritage of their respective states, districts and Zilla Panchayats.

3. Cruel Virgin is exempted. She is a US citizen. But in case she travels to Bombay Mumbai, she’ll have to forfeit the ‘Cruel’ literal. ‘Cruel’ is intellectual property of Shiv Sena. (see picture above for confirmation). In that case my friend will be just virgin.

The editorial syndicate made clear that we have always loved Papa Bear. Papa Bear continues to be the Emperor of the Hindu Hearts despite a split in the family.

The syndicate also laughed 2 full hours non-stop at the Corporate Houses trying to resist Papa’s great Hindu Maratha revolution. That these atrocities antics by the Sena are a blot on “Brand India” is sheer propaganda and moreover superstition. “Brand India” is also superstition. “India” is also superstition.

Talking about superstitions, the King of good times’ (lets not discuss cricket) morning flight from Bangalore to Kochi which the syndicate took today morning had no number 13 row. It was 11,12,14,15. America West airlines used to do the same trick to avoid the Devil’s dozen - they eventually quit. “Brand India” will have to do more than remove a Seat 13 to avoid the Devil’s Dozen, if Mumbai is any indicator.

P.S: The full editorial Board will meet tomorrow morning to continue laughing at the Indian corporates and the now 8% Hindu Growth Rate.

When a woman does ascend through the glass ceiling into the White House, it will be, in part, because of the race of 2008, when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys.  (link to Full article below)

Do you remember the final scene in Wolfgang Petersen’s classic Air Force One, when they haul Harrison Ford over and the pilot quips “Liberty Two Four is changing call signs - Liberty Two Four is now Air Force One!”. Was I thrilled?

All of us (me in plural) continued to stay away from a US election campaign which has no chance of delivering a handsome white male in Pennsylvania avenue. Doesn’t every US president we’ve seen look a bit like Harrison Ford, say things like “The dead remember our indifference. The dead remember our silence.”

And now there seems to be a winner, atleast one person made the Time Cover

While everybody is writing volumes on where Clinton went wrong, there is this interesting piece in NYT which answers a lot of chauvinists including me. Hillary’s Achilles heel was the White male vote which never favoured her. The last few primaries saw a reversal of the trend. Why would white males vote for her? 

Susan Faludi’s interesting and revealing take on Hillary’s stepping across an unstated gender divide, transforming herself and breaking the glass floor,

While the populace might concede the merits of the female reformers’ cause, it found them repellent on a more glandular level. In that visceral subbasement of the national imagination — the one that underlies all the blood-and-guts sports imagery our culture holds so dear — the laurels go to the slugger who ignores the censors, the outrider who navigates the frontier without a chaperone.

Full article here

What kind of MBA are you? An ST MBA, SC MBA, OBC MBA or just another handicapped MBA?

Rajagiri college in Kochi in their relentless pursuit towards excellence in social sciences has announced the list of MBA admits for 2008-2010. Its said that in HBS, you have to define your place in the first few weeks, there is a lot of introspection. Rajagiri does that for their students even before classes begin. Yes, Johnny Tony in the second bench is an RCSC MBA and you are a Merit MBA.

And in their Relentless pursuit towards excellence they have been accredited with a Five Star Rating by UGC-NAAC and Reaccredited A+

This indeed is A+ category.

Am I dumb, is this how admissions work? Wouldn’t one combined Final list do for the Class of 2010. Can we be a little more sensible? These admits will be spending their next two years together, and the college is not really doing them a favour. My colleague says this is outright discrimination. Don’t know, skipped lunch again, wtf!

Thank God Its Friday!