Hi all this lovely article is written by Mr Amitava Nandy (https://mbasic.facebook.com/amitava.nandy.7?fref=nf&refid=52&__tn__=C)on his facebook wall
Jai Baba Media Nath !
“ Dekha, kayse Japan jit ke ghar wapas aya Modi Ji ?” Mr. Bajpai gave a smile of satisfaction to me from across the table !
This morning I have come from Delhi to Kolkata on an official tour. After a good lunch I was sitting at the table of Mr. Bajpai, Sr. Vice President ( Technical ), enjoying a cup of coffee with him !
“ Bajapai ji, you know that personally I like Mr. Modi. But still, even I could not find anything Modi ji did there that can be termed as winning Japan ! “
Bajpai ji’s smile became broader ! “ Have you seen how Modi ji threatened China ? No Prime Minister of India, not even Nehru or Indira dared to give such a strong warning to them !”
“ A warning to China ? But as far as I remember, Modi ji didn’t even take the name of China ! He only gave some oblique reference of expansionism ! May be he meant China, but that exactly is not giving a threat !”
“ Nandy ji, that is the way how a threat is given in diplomacy !” This time Bajpai ji’s smile was to underline my lack of knowledge ! “ Have you seen how China has offered bullet trains at a lesser price than Japan ?’’
“ But that shows a bad deal actually, isn’t it ? If Modi ji finalized the contract with Japan for a higher amount than what China is offering, how can it be good business ? And moreover, this whole Bullet Train business I consider superfluous, unnecessary, extravagant and to use stronger words, anti people ! To spend 11 Billion USD for some business men to travel from Mumbai to Ahmedabad and back; when they could very easily travel at the same price by air; ignoring the crying need of up gradation of the dilapidated railway track we inherited from the British, at most places in the country, is simply ignoring the masses for the so called benefit of the moneyed few !”
“ No, no, this is technical development ! Gradually we’ll have bullet trains all over the country ! It’ll save so much of time ! If you want development, you must make good use of time ! “
I didn’t tell him, to lay bullet train tracks all over the country, we’ll become bankrupt ! And I can bet, after this Mumbai- Ahmedabad bullet train, there will not be any other such train ! We simply can’t afford that ! If we can strengthen our tracks so that the Rajdhani & Satabdi trains can run at 200 km/hr, that will be a very good achievement !
I also didn’t tell him that I got stunned to know that Japanese aid is being taken for a 10MW Solar Power plant at Gujarat ! A 10 MW power plant ?
In India in the private sector, we build each year many 10 MW Power Plants at a cost of less than Rs. 20 crores each in which the fuel is waste material ! The agricultural wastes like, rice husk, sugar cane fibers after all juice had been taken out of them ( baggasse) or dried up mustard stalks left on the field after harvesting ! And we are taking Japanese assistance for a 10 MW power plant ? How can that be good business ?
Frankly speaking, this Japan tour of Modi ji, though I was very excited in the beginning, looked like more of a PR exercise to me ! All the time the focus was on what Modi ji had worn, how Mr. Abe had come to meet him in Kyoto, how Modi ji played the band or the flute, how he playfully tugged at the ears of a child or how he met the school girls ! The seven billion dollar annual loan is too puny to be called winning a country ! But all our media is busy in tom tomming the highly successful visit to Japan ! Jai Baba Media Nath Ki !
Only two things will stay in my mind ! After seeing the Lotus symbol at the feet of Buddha, Modi ji told Mr. Abe that it is his party’s symbol ! And not that, lotus is India’s national flower ! And while shaking hands with Mr. Abe across the table, Mr. Abe was looking at him, but Modi ji had his face turned towards the camera ! A strictly no, no thing in the diplomatic protocol !
But a man like highly educated and highly placed Mr. Bajpai is happy ! Most of India go by what the media tell them, so they are all happy !
And so, when the head line is “ Out of Form AAP’’, they believe that ! Who has the time to read the text which tells how painstakingly the organizational set up is being built by the party, how Kejriwal himself is everyday working on it and every week he addresses the volunteers in Google Hangout Session, listens to all suggestions and grievances and tries to sort those out ! Most people just brush aside all claims of good work being done by the AAP volunteers among the masses with comments like, ‘Kejriwal is finished’, because media tell that to them 24 X 7 !
-----------------------Amitava Nandy
Jai Baba Media Nath !
“ Dekha, kayse Japan jit ke ghar wapas aya Modi Ji ?” Mr. Bajpai gave a smile of satisfaction to me from across the table !
This morning I have come from Delhi to Kolkata on an official tour. After a good lunch I was sitting at the table of Mr. Bajpai, Sr. Vice President ( Technical ), enjoying a cup of coffee with him !
“ Bajapai ji, you know that personally I like Mr. Modi. But still, even I could not find anything Modi ji did there that can be termed as winning Japan ! “
Bajpai ji’s smile became broader ! “ Have you seen how Modi ji threatened China ? No Prime Minister of India, not even Nehru or Indira dared to give such a strong warning to them !”
“ A warning to China ? But as far as I remember, Modi ji didn’t even take the name of China ! He only gave some oblique reference of expansionism ! May be he meant China, but that exactly is not giving a threat !”
“ Nandy ji, that is the way how a threat is given in diplomacy !” This time Bajpai ji’s smile was to underline my lack of knowledge ! “ Have you seen how China has offered bullet trains at a lesser price than Japan ?’’
“ But that shows a bad deal actually, isn’t it ? If Modi ji finalized the contract with Japan for a higher amount than what China is offering, how can it be good business ? And moreover, this whole Bullet Train business I consider superfluous, unnecessary, extravagant and to use stronger words, anti people ! To spend 11 Billion USD for some business men to travel from Mumbai to Ahmedabad and back; when they could very easily travel at the same price by air; ignoring the crying need of up gradation of the dilapidated railway track we inherited from the British, at most places in the country, is simply ignoring the masses for the so called benefit of the moneyed few !”
“ No, no, this is technical development ! Gradually we’ll have bullet trains all over the country ! It’ll save so much of time ! If you want development, you must make good use of time ! “
I didn’t tell him, to lay bullet train tracks all over the country, we’ll become bankrupt ! And I can bet, after this Mumbai- Ahmedabad bullet train, there will not be any other such train ! We simply can’t afford that ! If we can strengthen our tracks so that the Rajdhani & Satabdi trains can run at 200 km/hr, that will be a very good achievement !
I also didn’t tell him that I got stunned to know that Japanese aid is being taken for a 10MW Solar Power plant at Gujarat ! A 10 MW power plant ?
In India in the private sector, we build each year many 10 MW Power Plants at a cost of less than Rs. 20 crores each in which the fuel is waste material ! The agricultural wastes like, rice husk, sugar cane fibers after all juice had been taken out of them ( baggasse) or dried up mustard stalks left on the field after harvesting ! And we are taking Japanese assistance for a 10 MW power plant ? How can that be good business ?
Frankly speaking, this Japan tour of Modi ji, though I was very excited in the beginning, looked like more of a PR exercise to me ! All the time the focus was on what Modi ji had worn, how Mr. Abe had come to meet him in Kyoto, how Modi ji played the band or the flute, how he playfully tugged at the ears of a child or how he met the school girls ! The seven billion dollar annual loan is too puny to be called winning a country ! But all our media is busy in tom tomming the highly successful visit to Japan ! Jai Baba Media Nath Ki !
Only two things will stay in my mind ! After seeing the Lotus symbol at the feet of Buddha, Modi ji told Mr. Abe that it is his party’s symbol ! And not that, lotus is India’s national flower ! And while shaking hands with Mr. Abe across the table, Mr. Abe was looking at him, but Modi ji had his face turned towards the camera ! A strictly no, no thing in the diplomatic protocol !
But a man like highly educated and highly placed Mr. Bajpai is happy ! Most of India go by what the media tell them, so they are all happy !
And so, when the head line is “ Out of Form AAP’’, they believe that ! Who has the time to read the text which tells how painstakingly the organizational set up is being built by the party, how Kejriwal himself is everyday working on it and every week he addresses the volunteers in Google Hangout Session, listens to all suggestions and grievances and tries to sort those out ! Most people just brush aside all claims of good work being done by the AAP volunteers among the masses with comments like, ‘Kejriwal is finished’, because media tell that to them 24 X 7 !
-----------------------Amitava Nandy
