We’re fast approaching the end of 2008, and it is customary to a look back at the year. 2008 was the year of rebates and debates, of bailouts and sellouts. In 2008, pigs accessorized with lipstick, surges worked, several people participated in waterboarding (some albeit involuntarily), and the fundamentals of our economy were deemed to be strong. Natural disasters claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba, China and Myanmar. Businesses around the world collapsed and unemployment rates in industrialized nations crossed 6% for the first time in decades. In India, the lady from Rome did little the ease the miseries of the common man, and the Home Minister, like Nero, played the fiddle while the country burned.
Thankfully, there were the few welcome moments that diverted everyone’s attention from the forgettable events that have consumed us in 2008. The Beijing games were one of the better Olympics in recent memory; that China was able to undertake and successfully execute such a massive project should be an inspiration to other developing nations. Barack Obama’s election in the United States means that there will be responsible leadership at home, and consensus driven decision making when it comes to America’s foreign policies.
But without further ado, here now are the “bouquets”….
Bouquets
Brickbats
And now for the not-so-fabulous. This year has been very ordinary, by every standard, so shortlisting the most truly repugnant characters was not an easy task.
Corporate Executives, Investment Banks, Realtors, Richard Fuld, Bernie Madoff, et al: How the mighty have fallen…and have dragged us down with them in the process. As I write this, B-Mad, who swindled the world off of $50 billion, is cooling it at his crib — yes, he’s under “house arrest”. That seems a little extreme…why don’t they just give him $100 billion from the bail-out money and send him on an all expenses paid vacation to Maui. It’ll do him some good…help him take his mind off the little “pickle” he’s in.
Prakash Karat and the Red Army Prakash Karat is the kind of guy who could give the Bush Administration lessons on being incompetent. The CPI(M) has never done anything, couldn’t do anything even if it wanted to, and has never been right on anything. Yet, the chest thumping campaign since 2005 would have you believe that they lead the UPA coalition. Brinda Karat is so annoying, her bindi looks like bullseye. Two states that they do have power in — Kerala and West Bengal — are suffering from chronic mismanagement. Kerala’s State Domestic Product relies mostly on remittances from NRIs in the Middle East, while trade unionism has run Kolkata’s once strong public sector economy to the ground.
United Progressive Alliance Where do I begin? From the veritable Dick Cheney-like Party leader, to a comatose Prime Minister, to five years of vision and leadership deficit, to pandering to the Communist agenda, to a fundamental mismanagement of the nation’s security apparatus, this UPA government has run my country to the ditch. No one cares about India any more. It’s always about brown-nosing to some community or the other, or some regional political party or the other. Why can’t a nation of one billion produce leaders that have better scruples than Sonia Gandhi, Advani and Mayawati?
Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga Unfortunately, moral bankruptcy among leaders in the developing world isn’t the exception, its the norm. When Kibaki and Odinga tussled, the political vacuum created a free-for-all in Kenya that resulted in about 2,000 deaths and the displacement of about 250,000 people. Human Rights Watch blamed Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party for targeting Kikuyus in the Rift Valley, including killing 30 unarmed civilians at a church. With the power-sharing agreement, which made Odinga the Prime Minister of Kenya, and Kibaki the President, all seems to be well in Nairobi. Things aren’t so well though for the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who still remain without shelter or food.
Indian Media: Just how the Indian media manages to churn out third rate programming day after day is beyond me. In between the 10 minute commercial breaks, the twenty seconds of actual “news” programming is fraught with newscasters who can’t read or speak English. Why every news report must sound like a trailer for The Matrix, I don’t know. The sensationalism, the shrill pitches, the purposeful misrepresentation of facts, the chest-thumping nationalist rhetoric…the media claims it’s watching over India’s politicians…but who’s watching over the media? The Sardesais, the Goswamis, the Dutts, India’s media universe is replete with a satanic herd of yellow journalists. They are “newsmakers” in the most literal sense — the just make stuff up as they go along.
Arundhati Roy This storybook writer fancies her ability to break down and analyze “root causes” of many of India’s problems. In the wake of the Gujarat riots, she extended a heartrending apology, that wasn’t hers to tender, to “victims” who hadn’t actually been victimized. And now she wrote this swill, a 5,300 word blathering piece of an essay, where she blames everyone and anyone for the Mumbai attacks, except of course, the 10 terrorists and their sponsors in Pakistan. She even takes issue with everyone’s favorite (“news anchor”, “journalist”; insert noun here, I’m not quite sure what he does on Times Now) Arnab Goswami, for calling her “disgusting” on air. She calls this an “incitement” and a “threat”. Of course, Arundhati is not one to personally attack anyone herself. She wouldn’t have, for example, called Ramachandra Guha a “stalker” for merely pointing out that her analysis of the Sardar Sarovar dam issue was unoriginal. Would she? In 1997, Roy said “I had two options — writing or madness”. Well, Arundhati, this 5,300-word equestrian excrement of an article may have spared your sanity, but you haven’t made any such accommodation for the poor bastards that are subjected to it.
Rapid Fire: Raj Thackeray and his ilk (where were you when your city needed you most?); Russia (military interference in Georgia, economic muscle flexing against Ukraine…Big Red is back); AR Antulay (what a waste of space); and Robert Mugabe (who won’t be satisfied until he squeezes every last pumping drop of life out of the Zimbabweans) .
Filed under: 11/25/2008, anil kumble, Barack Obama, black cat, bouquets and brickbats, Congress I, India, isro, Mumbai Terrorist Attack, National Security Guard, saurav ganguly, Uncategorized, 1971 war, 2008 bailout, 2008 kenyan violence, 9 is not 11, ar antulay, arnab goswami, arundhati roy, baba amte, bangalore royal challengers, barkha dutt, bernard madoff, brinda karat, cnn-ibn, CPI(M), Dmitry Medvedev, Dubai, dubai labor, gazprom, georgia, gujarat riots, hemant karkare, indian media, indian premier league, ipl, isro, katie couric, kenya, kerala, leprosy, lk advani, madhavan nair, Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Mikheil Saakashvili, muntadar al-zaidi, mwai kibaki, mylaswamy annadurai, narmada bachao andolan, ndtv, orange demoratic movement, Prakash Karat, pranoy roy, rahul dravid, raila odinga, raj thackeray, rajdeep sardesai, ramachandra guha, richard fuld, rift valley, robert mugabe, russia georgia war, sachin tendulkar, sam manekshaw, sandeep unnikrishnan, Sarah Palin, sardar sarovar dam, shoegate, somnath chatterjee, Sonia Gandhi, team india, times now, UPA, vladimir putin, west bengal, zimbabwe