Memoirs….

Nowadays the topic of hot discussion is about the Iran’s nuclear programs and the insurgency looming over the Middle East but here I prefer to discuss India’s unclear stand on the foreign issues and decisions. India happens to be the most globalized entity of the new world, if you enquire you will find that the Indian food is the most favored in US, and anything Indian is a fashion in Europe. And there is no place on the earth where you can’t find an Indian. What all that have happened so far have been the backlashes of the lack of understanding of the game of international diplomacy.

Taking the recent incidents like the voting against the Iran on the nuclear issue, everyone would have thought that India would be voting in favor of Iran. It is always good if we can support the constructive decisions of any sovereign nation, but supporting any destructive designs on the sole pretext of defying one stubborn dominant nation is just foolishness. The foreign policies of US deserves to be condemned, no one has right to disrespect the sovereignty of any nation. The time has changed, the world too is changing for good, and everything is attaining a humane touch. But then, never was the world so much dominated by a single power. This will naturally arouse a rebel inside any potentially developed nation.

The software development, research, fabrication and a lot more are seeking the Indian service, not because we produce the high quality service but we provide highly cheap service. This reality is fully accepted by the either side through which we have put a virtual barricade around the strengthening currency value. It is logical to argue on why I should buy from you when they are competing to sell that to me cheaper, and this will sustain only if we sell them cheaply, perpetually. It can be aptly said that India is a global service provider, very cool accolade. India is almost a developed country; I agree globalization weakens the countries hold on the industries, but just looking back it is clear that they have brought more benefits and lesser difficulties when compared to some sluggish government ventures.

Pre nuclear and post nuclear atmosphere has changed the façade of the nation; we are known to be a pacific non-aggressive state. And being a nuclear power we have acquired additional responsibility in maintaining peace in the sub-continent. It could be well laughed at; we are surrounded by fire of intolerance and rage. Maoist rebellion in Nepal, LTTE in Srilanka, border issue with China and Pakistan, fencing the Bangladeshi border additional to the terrorist activities from within; being a nuclear country is not at all enough.

Putting it straight, a kind and noble country is a Utopia. Sensible and straightforward foreign policy is an unstable tangent on a round globe, the reality is that kayookkullavan karyakkaran (supreme is the powerful). Repeating the ancient proverb “barking dog never bites”, what United Nations to me is just a barking dog!

Bangalore has grown beyond expectations. A bright blip on the radar of the Business world, Bangalore has taken the crown which once adored the aka Mumbai. People have found Bangalore as the safe destination for employment, education, corruption, crime, romance and power. The city has grown so much that it can no longer bend. Up on the haze of smart money and sudden world recognitions, the IT-enerians, politicians, business tycoons, industrial powers have flocked in for churning this ocean(!) for paisa.

Bangalore’s rocketing road traffic deadlock is one of the impacts of this development. As per the statistics around 60 vehicles are pumped into these roads daily. In this era or maybe only in these kind of cities, where time is equated with dollars and pounds, it becomes unaffordable for the industry to waste time in a deadlock. Electronic city is supposed to be the heart of IT industry in Bangalore, unfortunately the only viable connection it has with Bangalore is through the strip called Hosur road, I ought to put it a narrow strip with respect to the number of vehicles flowing per day. It’s probably the busiest National highway in India and being used for domestic conveyances more than any interstate transportation, it remains active 24×7.

The silk board flyover has helped in easing the traffic a lot, but the bottle neck has shifted to the Bommanahalli junction. Mostly industrial workers, bus drivers, etc. live in this place and for the same reason there will be people traveling to and from this place throughout. Correctly speaking, it is not a junction; there is a pocket road which connects to the Hosur road from west and the deadlock happens when the vehicles, coming from the city, have to cross over both the lanes of Hosur road to enter this road. A possible solution would be a subway connecting the two service roads running along the Hosur road.

Again the problem persist on how worse could the traffic turn when the roads get blocked for repair or construction. Currently a flyover, across Hosur road, is in progress connecting the Sarjapur road with the Mysore road as part of the South eastern corridor project of NHAI. The bannerghatta road can then be accessed without meddling through the Bommanahalli or Silk board junction so is the case with Sarjapur road, I guess. Being a frequent commuter through these roads, I can’t find this as a solution to the Hosur road jams. This being the project under the NHAI I am not sure to what extends the state can interfere in it, but if this plan is shifted a 5-6 kms North the Bommanahalli deadlock could be bypassed. Again I am not fully aware of the topography of the Bommanahalli, how much feasible this would be etc.

For some time there were some rumor floating around on the corporate plans to assist the widening of the Hosur road, wherein the IT union will finance one-third of the cost to get Hosur road a six lane road. This was decided during the SM Krishna government, as the government changed the corporate where gently pushed off from all the development works in Bangalore, as clearly seen in the case of Airport muddle.

But there are a lot of people for whom the time spent in the bus is the only leisure time. Especially in case of Softies engaged to P4 comps and Dell monitors, it is heaven. With a good novel or a radio or a medium-hard Sudoku in hand, I prefer to forget any Bommanahalli or any flyover.

Speakers’ Corner is an area where public speaking is allowed located in the north-east corner of Hyde Park, City of Westminster, London. There are a number of other areas designated as Speakers’ Corners in other parks in London, (eg. Finsbury Park, Clapham Common and Victoria Park), however it is decades since any of these have been used for public speaking.

In Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner is generally considered to be the paved area close to Marble Arch but legally it extends as far as the Reform Tree, and also covers a large area of the adjacent parade ground.

Public riots broke out in the park in 1855, in protest over the Sunday Trading Bill – which forbade buying and selling on a Sunday which was – at that time – the only day working people had off. These riots were eagerly described by Karl Marx as the beginning of the English revolution.

The Chartist movement used Hyde Park as a point of assembly for workers’ protests but no permanent speaking location was established. The Reform League organised massive and violent protests in 1866 and 1867 which compelled the government to extend the franchise to include most working class men.

The riots and agitation for democratic reform encouraged some to force issue of the “right to speak” in Hyde Park. In 1872 the Royal Parks and Garden’s Act delegated the issue of permitting public meetings to the Park Authorities (rather than central government). Contrary to popular belief it does not confer a statutory basis for the right to speak at Speakers’ Corner. Parliamentary debates on the act illustrate that a general principle of being able to meet and speak was not the intention, but that some areas would be permitted to be used for that purpose.

Since that time it has become a traditional site for public speeches and debate as well as the main site of protest and assembly in Britain. There are some who contend that the tradition has a connection with the older Tyburn hanging gallows where the condemned man was allowed to speak his last words.

Although many of its regular speakers are distinctly non-mainstream, it has been frequented by such people as Karl Marx, Lenin, George Orwell and William Morris. Its existence is frequently upheld as a demonstration of the principle of free speech, as anyone can turn up unannounced and talk on almost any subject, though they are likely to be heckled by regulars.

The existence of a specific location where free speech is permitted is used as an excuse by the authorities to prohibit free speech in most public spaces in London, including the rest of Hyde Park and all other Royal Parks, where free speech is explicitly forbidden in written by-laws. In the late 19th century, for instance, a combination of park by-laws, use of the Highways Acts and abuse of venue licensing powers of the London County Council made it one of the few places where socialist speakers could meet and debate.

In 2003, the Park authorities, probably with the support of the Government, tried to ban a demonstration set for February 15 to stop the war in Iraq. This caused general uproar and forced a climb down; the demonstration was the largest in British history, with over 1 million people attending.

The nearest tube station is Marble Arch.