(Phir) Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

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We've had a remake of the old mile sur mera tumhara. The videos are up on youtube (links given here : 1998 Video | 2010 Video). Each is good in its own way. I especially liked the use of instruments in the new one. Here're a few of the other thoughts that crossed my mind when I watched the two videos

• Amitabh is one lucky old man to be in both the videos - to still be so much in demand. I
• 'd have liked to see the kids of the stars who were casted in the old video to have been casted in the new one. Like Sharmila Tagore was in the old one, the new one could have roped Saif in (and I'm not just saying it for his hot-bod!!), Esha could have been casted in the new one where Hemamalini was in the old one, etc.
• Unlike the old one, the new one has given Goa no airtime. In the old one was Mario Miranda, in this one? There could have been Remo or the football clubs or something else. But the lack of representation of Goa was a disappointment.
• The old one included both Tulu and Kannada in a unique combination; I'd have liked to see that in the new one too.
• Besides, we have transformed a million colours since 1988 - bringing with it new achievements and new issues. The new video could have done some justice to that. Especially on the achievements front. One saving grace, of course, was the Taj, Mumbai in the beginning of the video, representing 26/11. 
• The new video has tried to ape the old one in a few ways and has tried to reinvent itself in others, but it ends up being a celebration of urban progress and westernisation than anything else.

All in all, I think it’s a good effort, the collaborative efforts of a number of artists. Perhaps measuring it with the yard stick of the earlier video is  unjust and unfair.  There is no doubt  in the universal truth that music binds people. And our country can just never have too many songs to sing together.

Jai hind.

A Free Country. Indeed?

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The world around us

The Freedom House has recently published its ‘Map of freedom 2009’. As per the findings, both political rights and civil liberties have suffered around the world for the fourth consecutive year in 2009. This signifies the longest uninterrupted period of decline since the report was first published. Here’re the facts for us to reflect upon:

• Electoral democracies dropped in number from 119 to 116, the lowest in the last 15 years or so.
• Half a dozen countries have been demoted: Lesotho has been reduced to ‘partly free’ while Gabon, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Kyrgyzstan have descended into the ‘not free’ category.
• Over a third of the world’s population still live in countries that have been deemed as ‘not free’ and not very surprisingly, over half of them come from behind the Great Wall of China.
• In the Middle East and North Africa 70% of countries are not free. This includes UAE, where I live, though Dubai may give one a feeling of considerable warmth.

On the brighter side, though freedom was on the ascent in 16 countries, notably in the Balkans, where Kosovo is partly free and the Black Mountain of the Adriatic Sea, Montenegro, is now considered free. Singapore, received a downward trend arrow due to the politically motivated handling of defamation cases, which cast doubt on judicial independence. Not surprising at all. I remember interviewing Singaporean citizens about the health facilities in S’pore and Singaporean establishments about HR practices and they just wouldn’t be read to say a thing about the government for fear of being turned in! Like they say, Singapore is a fine city, there is a fine for most things! UK continues to remain ‘free’, not surprising at all again. That country gives its people so much space and independence that I just fell in love with it since I first put foot on its concrete (well, I can’t say soil, there hardly is any soil exposed!) some four years ago.

Incredible, its India

But closer home, India has been marked as a ‘free’ state on the map. But is it really ‘free’? If so then how do our citizens exercise their civic freedom? On the same day as the publishing of the Freedom report, the national newspapers in India read ‘moral police against advertising lingerie’ with activists being offended by the display of women's lingerie on the mannequins in shops, calling it ‘obscene’. Perhaps the country has been rid of other problems such as corruption and theft that these purveyors of culture must now turn to more ‘engaging’ problems such as women’s undergarments?


This is a country that shelters about half-a-billion sexually repressed men. While they prevent their women from exposing anything over the knee, they remain immersed in watching porn and patronising dance bars and other places I consider demeaning to even mention. Such double standards. If obscene ads will not be allowed in Madhya Pradesh, will the Government demolish the Khajuraho temples too? Will they stoop to serving the same fate that was met out to the Buddhas of Bamyan? One of the most astounding forms of ancient sculpture and Hindu culture, the Khajuraho temples, are a tribute to the most beautiful gift of God – the union of a man and his woman. Isn’t this a part of Indian culture? Aren’t these the same temples that help MPSTDC and Incredible India earn revenues and forex from throngs of tourists? The pseudo Taliban that patrols the shops in an attempt to protect a culture, doesn’t even know let alone understand and respect what our culture is about. In a country plagued by more serious issues to tackle, isn’t this surreal. All this in the state that figures in the top ten list of sex crimes in the country. Perhaps it is this ground reality that the state governments would be much better off addressing. So much for Indian culture.

I can understand that attitudes towards sex remain conservative by western standards, particularly in rural and provincial areas. But removal of condom ads for reasons that they are ‘against family values’? What poignant irony given that this is a country with the largest population. Proliferation is so much a part of the Indian culture that not only do we have the largest growing human population but also the largest cattle population, the largest pig population and the largest goat population. Gimme a break. We might be free from colonial rule, free from oppression and free from slavery to superstition. But are we free only superficially? Will our children live in a better country or will they too be troubled by the same problems? How long before our country comes out of the closet and sees the light of day, the light of knowledge?

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For further reading:

The Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world. Freedom House supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. Freedom is possible only in democratic political systems in which the governments are accountable to their own people; the rule of law prevails; and freedoms of expression, association, and belief, as well as respect for the rights of minorities and women, are guaranteed. Freedom ultimately depends on the actions of committed and courageous men and women. We support nonviolent civic initiatives in societies where freedom is denied or under threat and we stand in opposition to ideas and forces that challenge the right of all people to be free. Freedom House functions as a catalyst for freedom, democracy and the rule of law through its analysis, advocacy and action.

I’m feeling lucky @ Tiananmen Square

A tale of misadventure in a strange marriage

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Change of heart : google.cn

Google was mesmerised by China’s rapidly expanding internet market. This was well over 4 years ago. But China, till then, had kept Google at arm’s length by intermittently blocking Google.com and making even that intermittent access snail slow. Baidu wooed and dominated the Chinese market, laughing (at Google) on its way to the bank. Google courted China with a pruned and ‘more decent’ version of its search engine. Apparently, it must have thought to itself that better something than nothing at all. Throwing caution to the wind, it set forth to milk the Chinese cow.

The elders met, the horoscopes were matched and the marriage was fixed. Was it meant to last? Or was it just mAdSense? Google penetrated the Chinese search engine market with a view of being the leading search engine in China in the long haul. Now, it announces its threat to review the future of the relationship and possibly pull out of the Chinese search engine market. It has cited infection by the plague of hackers and woes of the ‘finger-on-the-lip’ policy to have agonised it. Even Uncle (Sam) Obama had obliquely deplored the Comstockery, when he toured the country in November. But China wouldn’t listen. Eventually pushing Google to separate the master bed, or maybe even, leave the bedroom for good.

China is no cow; it’s a fire breathing dragon. Google risks scathing its private parts.

China: being the nasty in-law

Why? Check this out :

• China blocked Youtube when it hosted some videos of Chinese law-enforcers brutally beating Tibetan monks.
• China banned access to Picassa shortly after.
• China wouldn’t let anyone access Blogger from its communist land
• China made a huge hue and cry about violations of copyrights in its Google Books venture
• China is also said to have made “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on its corporate computer systems “originating from China” in December.

But Google isn’t the only one in the sorrow-ship

• China pretended to open its arms to these sites in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008 as it tried to project a more open and liberal image to foreign delegates and visitors. But no sooner did the lights go off at the stadium, that restrictions have been amplified to unprecedented levels
• China has prevented the masses from any access to the world wide web, forget any access to uncensored news, in the regions afflicted by ethnic disturbances.
• China met Twitter and Facebook with the same cold hostility.
• China wouldn’t hear a word against itself and proceeded to block leading international newspapers such as the Guardian, the New York Times, even the Economist, for days at length.

Google would perhaps be among the first of the big brands and heavy weights to openly attribute its withdrawal to the lack of freedom of expression. While Silicon valley praises Google for taking some guts to make such bold statements, the White House pats Google’s back assuring its (Washington’s) support. Even if standing up against China is part of its long-term interests, there is no discounting the fact that Google has ‘the balls’ to walk away from the world’s largest potential market.

A broken family?

We must remember, though, that such direct finger-pointing isn’t going to do down very well with China. Even while it buries news articles about Google’s threat, it seeks to portray the entire event as a hollow gimmick and a narrow commercial dispute rather than a pressing political one. It even shies away from taking Google’s name directly reminiscent of rural Indian women refusing to take their husband’s name.

• What about the future?
• Will about the 700 or so people whose families earn their daily bread because of Google?
• Will the backlash lead China to impose a Great Wall on all Google services and block it in its entirety?
• What about the sale of Google’s merchandise?
• What about the Google android and its younger sibling that is still in the womb?
• Will they do well in the renminbi markets?

In all probability, the Beijing may not vent the fire of their anger directly on Google because of increasing public sentiment of sympathy among the Chinese netizens for Google’s spasm on censorship, among other reasons. Beinjing may instead choose to turn the fire elsewhere by stirring up a little nationalist and (the suppressed) anti-American sentiment on another front (Taiwan?).