Honouring glorious era of Tamil cinema

The New Indian Express First Published : 01 May 2011 10:39:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 01 May 2011 11:42:42 PM IST
It may be true that only veterans of the tinsel town qualify for the prestigious Dadasaheb Palke Award. But the selection of K Balachander for the national honour acknowledges a bygone golden era of Tamil cinema that saw meaningful and thought-provoking films setting screens ablaze. Though KB remains in the limelight, dabbling in television serials, not much of his repertoire of cinematic work that earned him the latest recognition is known to the modern generation, for whom Tamil cinema is more about swashbuckling superstars, hip-shaking sirens, exotic locales and computer-aided special effects.
During his halcyon days as a dream merchant, KB churned out earthy films that were refreshingly new in their bold themes and extraordinary storylines. KB stood out as an avant garde filmmaker endearing himself to aficionados even when formula films with celebrity star cast alone made the box office sizzle. He paved the way for the ushering in of a trend that saw directors likes of Bhartiraja, Mahendran and Balu Mahendra capturing the imagination of film-goers with a slew of remarkable films.
With most of those directors paling into oblivion after commercialism staged a stunning comeback in Tamil cinema, taking along the thinking man’s actors of the time in its tide, that glorious period that fell the cusp of the black and white and multi-colour eras was consigned to history. Not many of those films are now available for downloads as the cyber world has little space for them.
So as those times seemingly faded out of the collective memory completely, the latest recognition of the auteur at the national level brings back memories of the forgotten epoch, besides earning due recognition for the glorious past in which he was the vanguard.

Congress’ Pyrrhic victory scars India

The New Indian Express First Published : 28 Apr 2011 10:42:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 29 Apr 2011 07:25:51 AM IST
Thursday would go as one of the darkest days in India’s parliamentary history. The garrulous obstructionism displayed by the Congress and its allies in blocking the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on the 2G spectrum scam is a measure of their acute desperation. The fact that PAC chairman M M Joshi was forced to walk out because he was not allowed to speak shows how ugly things turned. Clear signs of this were there even before the meeting began. Vicious public attacks against Joshi by MPs and leaders of the Congress and the DMK had crossed all norms of parliamentary decorum. Backdoor manipulations to muster numbers by turning non-UPA MPs smacked of open trade-offs. The ruling establishment’s trouble-shooters may pat themselves on their back for their Pyrrhic victory. But neither history nor the people will forgive them for defeating the core tenets of parliamentary democracy and governmental transparency.
The conspiracy seems to have been hatched much before media reports indicated that the draft report would be a severe indictment of those at the top of the establishment for subverting the system. It started the day Joshi rejected objections by Congress and DMK members that the PAC should stop investigating 2G spectrum allocations because a Joint Parliamentary Committee was doing so. And it gained momentum when skeletons started tumbling out of the cupboard.
The sordid culmination of this conspiracy forms part of a more sinister pattern. The UPA and its mentors seem bent upon devaluing and destroying every institution of our polity. A creature of Gladstonian reforms of 1861 in the UK, PACs are ubiquitous features of the legislative landscape. They work on the principle that the government should be accountable to Parliament. In India, as elsewhere, they have worked above considerations of partisan politics. The sordid drama on Thursday could be the beginning of the end for this venerated institution. The irony of what its founder, William Ewart Gladstone, said in another context cannot be missed. “Politics are like a labyrinth, from the inner intricacies of which it is even more difficult to find the way of escape than it is to find the way into them.”
Topics:2G scam, PAC

Kandhamal obsession taints America’s vision

The New Indian Express First Published : 29 Apr 2011 10:26:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 29 Apr 2011 11:03:58 PM IST
For the second consecutive year, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has seen the communal situation in India — particularly in Kandhamal district — through tinted glass. In 2008, in the aftermath of anti-Christian riots that claimed 18 lives in Kandhamal, the US watchdog had put the country under the harsher CPC (Countries of Particular Concern) which even attracts sanctions. This time the body parroted what it has been saying — attacks on minority faiths are routine in India. And that local and state authorities often abet if not aid religious attacks. The commission also does not forget to say, as it has done earlier, that justice for the victims has been not effective. But its own members have put dissenting notes arguing such accusation flies in the face of evidence of serious measures.
It has not got its facts right. Probably a reason why the government on two occasions did not allow visa for its members to visit Kandhamal. The Centre was also initially hesitant to let in the European Union delegates who had jumped to embarrassing conclusions in the backdrop of Kandhamal.
The commission has also not been comfortable with India’s anti-conversion laws. Orissa is one of the few states to have enacted strict legislation that forbids change of religion through inducement or coercion. Kandhamal remains a hotbed of conversion often triggering social tension. But the ground reality does not get a critical analysis by the commission. Its report, bracketing Kandhamal with Gujarat and anti-Sikh riots, betrays the usual bias and needs to be consigned to the dustbin. It is strange that the country which sees India as a potential counter-weight to China, puts Delhi on the same trail as Beijing on human rights issue.

Tibet’s new premier takes over at crucial time

The New Indian Express First Published : 28 Apr 2011 10:42:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 28 Apr 2011 11:38:59 PM IST
Though elections to the 44-seat Tibetan parliament took months, as polling was held in several countries, the results announced on Wednesday were as conclusive as possible. Lobsang Sangay, who was elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, received 55 per cent votes. The elections represent a watershed in Tibetan politics, since 1951 when China invaded Tibet forcing the Dalai Lama and his followers to flee as exiles to India. For the first time, the Tibetans will be led by a person, who was born two decades after the ‘invasion’ and has seen Tibet only in picture postcards. A Fulbright fellow who did his doctorate in law from Harvard University, India-born Sangay has all the credentials to lead the Tibetans. When he assumes office on August 15, he will have to go by his own leadership instinct, for he will not be able to lean on the Dalai Lama, who would have by then fully renounced the political leadership of the Tibetans.
Whether the transition, for which most Tibetans are still not ready, will be smooth or not depends a lot on Sangay’s leadership skills. He has also the difficult job of reconciling the differences between those who still have vivid memories of a free Tibet and those who were born in India and other places. Unlike most senior Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, who believe that a ‘free and sovereign Tibet’ is a utopia, and would, therefore, seek a one-state-two-ways system as it exists in the case of Hong Kong with modifications, the post-invasion generation is more abrasive in its assertions. India’s support to the Tibetans is limited to its role as a host and does not cover their political demands, for it recognises Tibet as an integral part of China. The new premier will have to evolve a policy that facilitates their early return to Tibet.

Hell’s grip on religious imagination weakening

The New Indian Express First Published : 29 Apr 2011 10:26:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 29 Apr 2011 11:21:13 PM IST
Are Christians required to believe that Gandhi is in hell for being Hindu? The rhetorical question posited by a US priest has triggered an intense debate over hell, eternal damnation and the nature of god among evangelical Christians. “The Mahatma is a distinctive case,” Rob Bell hastens to add in his book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, “but swap in ‘my Hindu/Jewish/Buddhist neighbor’ for Gandhi, and you can see why many religious Americans find the idea of eternal punishment for wrong belief increasingly unpalatable.” Bell disavows the belief that a select number of Christians will live in paradise while everyone else will torment in hell as “misguided and toxic”.
Such a heretical proposition would have invoked persecution in the days of medieval Inquisition. Today, it is confined to a polemical contestation among theologians. While orthodox Christians maintain that the concept of hell is central to Western humanism, liberals have lauded Bell as a modern-day prophet. For them, the proposition that Gandhi could be in hell should puncture religious chauvinism and unsettle fundamentalists of every stripe. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of god in everyone.
A look at Amazon’s religion and spirituality best-seller list suggests an interesting line of thought. Bell’s book figures among the top three. The other, Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, is an account of a 4-year-old’s near-death experience. Down the list, there is another book on a similar experience. But the list contains no title that reads like ‘The Investment Banker Who Came Back From Hell’. It goes to show that while most of us continue to believe in god and heaven even in this age of disenchantment, hell’s grip on the religious imagination is weakening.

Irresponsibility of pilots can not be tolerated

The New Indian Express First Published : 28 Apr 2011 10:43:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 28 Apr 2011 11:42:47 PM IST
For once, the customarily mealy-mouthed government and its subservient Air India management have cracked down hard on the striking pilots. It is possible that at a time when it is being arraigned for capitulation before pushy scamsters, the government decided against more signs of retreat. In any event, the case for the pilots is weak enough to discourage even ardent carriers of the red flag. Considering that the wild cat strike was the second in less than a year and the third in three years, there was no way that this annual ritual of the pilots to hold the national carrier and its harried passengers to ransom could be tolerated yet again.
Since their complaints received a measure of support from Justice Gita Mittal of the Delhi High Court, who said that they were a victim of “injustice”, the pilots should have listened to her advice to return to work. But, presumably because they are used to the authorities giving in every time to their strong-arm methods, they not only decided to stop work, but also urged the staff on the ground belonging to the commercial pilots’ association to report “sick”. Clearly, they did not care in the least that their rash and reckless act would lead to the harassment of thousands of flyers in a holiday season, but also make Air India even more ‘sick’ than it is now with its endless need for subsidies.
As civil aviation minister Vyalar Ravi pointed out, it was the airline’s financial difficulties which made it difficult for it to accept the demand of pay parity between all sections of pilots, especially those who were earlier with the Indian Airlines. Considering that a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge is looking into the matter, the irresponsible nature of the strike can hardly be overstated.

Use of choppers under the scanner

The New Indian Express First Published : 01 May 2011 10:38:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 01 May 2011 11:57:55 PM IST
Two mishaps in quick succession in Arunachal Pradesh cannot but raise questions about the airworthiness of the helicopters which were involved and the suitability of flying conditions in the region. Within days after 17 tourists were killed when their helicopter crashed near Tawang, the chief minister’s chopper went missing for more than 24 hours, raising fears about the worst. Although it had taken off in relatively fine weather on Saturday afternoon, it is not unknown in the mountainous state for threatening cloud formations to appear quite suddenly, reducing visibility and causing turbulence.
The fact that air traffic control lost contact with the pilot within 20 minutes after the take-off from Tawang for Itanagar is worrisome, for it points to an emergency situation. Hence, the initial reports based on a press briefing by the Governor J J Singh, that the helicopter might have had to make a forced landing in what was described as inhospitable terrain in Bhutan. But the hopes raised about the possibility of survival were quickly dashed following denials from the Bhutanese authorities. An alarm was raised when the craft’s estimated time of arrival at Itanagar passed without any sign of its appearance.
However, two search-and-rescue missions had to be aborted because of inclement weather. Subsequently, neither satellite reconnaissance nor air force planes could detect anything untoward in the Tawang area. The chief minister was travelling along with the sister of the MLA from Tawang and a security officer.
Considering that another crash had taken place in Sikkim, killing four army men, in the few days between the earlier accident involving tourists and the latest one concerning Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu’s helicopter, it is clear that the conditions in the region are far from propitious for air operations and have to be reassessed by aviation authorities. This is all the more so since towards the end of last year, 12 military personnel died when their IAF helicopter crashed at Bomdir near the Chinese border.
The mishap involving Khandu will inevitably revive memories of the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s tragic accident, also involving a helicopter, in September, 2009.