Year End Musings

Its been a long time since I have posted anything in the blog and thought that I would end the year with a couple of posts from me and make an effort to update the site with my thoughts more regularly in the new year.

It has been a very happening year with a lot of changes that have gone on at home ranging from the sealing of un-authorized commercial establishments in Delhi, the subsequent traders strike, the supreme court taking a tough stand on important issues of public interest like RTI to justice finally given to the families of Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lall, death penalty being awarded to ACP Tyagi for deaths in his custody. Also notable are a) the declarations made by the President of Pakistan to end the conflict with India over Kashmir which has lasted almost 50 years now; b) the Mumbai film industry churning more hits than misses and the national debate on validity of Gandhigiri, the ideologies of Bhagat Singh vis a vis that of Gandhi and the International Award bagged by a small budget film called Khosla ka Ghosla; c) India’s show in the Doha Asiad and the attached notoriety it gained with the sex change scam; d) the ever changing dynamics of the Indian Cricket Team with the spotlight on Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Greg Chappel and the South African tour under Dravid’s captaincy; e) the reservation issues; f) the changing face of many cities like Delhi (turning into a world class city), Hyderabad (farmers selling their agricultural lands at astronomical prices to construction giants and the subsequent rise in vegetable price), the proliferation of ‘cemetery tourism’ in state of Himachal Pradesh, the sky rocketing land prices of the National Capital region for reasons similar to that of Hyderabad, concern over the fall in occupation in tsunami affected areas because of overabundance of financial aid, facing some hard facts like the state of West Bengal is in dire need of industrialization and the attached controversy of Signur; f) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie making a tour of India for their film, the national furor it caused and the biting article by Shobha De in Outlook magazine titled India Bachao.

Lots of social concerns came to the foreground and the middle class of India finally showed this year that they have a back bone and can raise their voices loud and clear against in-justice with the help of all types of media channels like the TOI, NDTV, Radio Mirchi. The judiciary also flexed its muscles raising the hopes of the common man in India for its own judicial system. This prompted many more questions to be asked which have been summarized very well by NDTV correspondent Barkha Dutt in her column ‘Sitting in Judgement’.

So the year has ended in a very positive note with the future looking a little brighter this year. Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year (2007).