Wait....booting...

Just then a news broke out that India is "shoeing" China with it's cost effective shoes in the export market, bringing grin to the large Indian public who want to take pride in being number one for exporting something to the world. In the past, jute gave that pride, then tea emerged, but lost it's top rank due to growing Srilankan presence. Our garments despite all creative designs often play second fiddle to Bangla desh or Srlanka due to international regulations and constraints. Where ever we enter, one thing is conspicuously notable , we lack quality. Our goods fall short of sleekness, finish, and soringly high priced. Remove the import restrictions, in their own country of origin it is hard for them to find buyers. Lack of srict quality controls and standardization, non availability of quality raw material, coupled with our own greed to make an extra buck, often we fail to conform to the international standards . Many old time stories of stones being sent in tobacco boxes, and substandard material hidden below the visible quality stuff on the top, consignments drastically differing from samples, tell us that we need some moral drilling. More often we lost international credibilty. To day our exports comprise not more than 1% of the total global trade. Our huge local demand, coupled with our inability to meet the international standards can be atrributed to this situation. It is ironical that we are capable of making huge cast iron pillar, but miserably fail to make a quality safety pin.

If we seriously propose to do something in this direction, many areas can be contemplated with our vast reserve of crafts men and cultural tradition. Jewellery, handlooms, readymades, handicrafts, spices, mangoes, tea, can truely carve a nitche for themselves, least affecting the local buyers. Where is the need for suicides by the weavers, artisans? Many agencies who are relegated with boosting exports, are in slumber and too little was done. Many cooperatives initiated to promote handlooms and handicrafts are pathetically infested with middlemen and craftsmen continue to live with their abject poverty. We saw how much we could do with software, which contributed to the immense paradigm shift in the country, because it was completely invested in the hands of conscious private enterprises with least government interference.

Our joy of surpassing in shoe market had a "kajal lining". Iraqi jounalist's 10 number shoe must have already inspired many motion sensing game makers to produce a duck game. We certainly do not support this kind of violation of decent journalism norms, but it shows how vulnerable a dignitary can be, as he had no rescuer till a second shoe went into air. It also had an under reading of seething public anger against the selfstyled international policing. Peel the makeup to the base, the true face of egoistic leader who crazyly drives the targeted nation into civil wars, brutal deaths, and anarchy, to the liquidation of his own country's eonomy is spectackled.It is civilized social norm that a country's sovereignty should not be infringed. Saddam though not a holy cow by himself , remained as dignified martyr in the eyes of large part of the world. Awakening should come within the countrymen against a brutal leader, and should not be taught or imposed by an outsider. Take the lesson number one.

The mighty Soviet Union was dismantled single handedly by Gorbachev, driving the colossal country into multiple civil wars , chaos, hunger , uprooting millions from their base, forcing well regarded strong socialistic women to prostitution. A country with vast reserve of skilled personnel, sports, knowledge, technology, ultimately fell into the hands of unscrupulous drunkard corrupt politicians. What sort of a human misery it had to go through? A prestigious space centre which sent Yuri Gagarin, and Valentina Terishkova into space, giving runs to US with urgently felt space ambitions, now remains to be a cheap piecec of exhibition.I suppose you and I can take a ride over there paying some paltry amount.Today you find Russians among top who shore all their illicit money to Swiss banks, only to be surpassed by our own great Indian biggies. How ludicrous to see just one person(Gorbachev kinds) with his king sized ego and wrong policies can make all the difference to people. If there are many heroes to this world who did marvellous job, there are some villians who debauched it.

Many want a Mida's touch in their ventures, but Ramalinga Raju wanted a Maytas touch. Rebuked within hours of proclamation he had lessons of his lifetime, share holders running for his head, he went to hell and came back. At the moment frantically engaged in damage control measures and buy backs. His RamaRaja Nagar in Kompally in early ninties had hardly any takers, taking his measure of essential protein from Satyam spinning Mills dreamt of Satyam Computers in a small way to become fourth largest software firm in the country. For many in Andhra Pradesh real estate is the hot chase. Most of our real estate barons who rule the state are hard believers in their grandpa theory of limited land to unlimited people, and stick to buying and selling rather than in creating something. Bunch of bandits who sell sand, water, stones, lands belonging to this mother earth become a powerful caucus to smash the scientific logistics of the land use. Aborted Maytas' aquisition proposal with simple stroke of pen by the board of directors, is all set to transform into a nightmare to it's mother more than an asset with every regulatory authority on earth checking its credentials. Single unthoughtful mistake can tranfer you to barbecuing hell. Hence forth do not commit a mistake unless you are pushed against a wall.

Hardly enjoying the success in "Asta Chemma" Bhargavi who died in the hands of so called husband is creating flutters in the cine and T.V world. Undeniably this was the sad story of many yester year heroines. Even at these times where heroines are geting smarter and smarter with money and career, many from the poor back grounds remain exploited by their parents, so called husbands, or lovers. High remunerations attracting many into astray fields flooded with unscrupulous exploiters, sadists and perverts, it is not uncommon that we recognise only suceessful faces but blurr to many unknown faces who perish in darkness. Degradation of values prompt few parents to trade with their children. These things happen as long as you see money taller than man. It is my strong belief that women who want to enter into various fields and also into unconventional ones, should get wiser with the ways of the world. Self defence is the most fundamental tenent of our survival.

With our undying feeling of being fumbled and taken to random, Pakistan arresting and releasing some terror heads with peer pressure from US, doing some kind of window dressing, it is finally recognised universally as an epicentre for terrorism. It is a hard truth that under no amount of external pressure, it will be able to unshackle it's linkage with these organisations . The only way of getting them out is to freeze the aid which it needs desperately. So long it is pampered with billions of dollars worth military aid. The only way to subvert it is to stop the life line, which is unlikely at present. Us has to recognize that knowingly or unknowingly it is pursuing a wrong foreign policy and feeding terrorists into robust health, while trying to keep it as their base for strikes.

If cooperation and friendly ties were to exist between India and Pakistan they would have done huge trade and commerce and apart from saving transportation costs (rough estimate of 10 billions ) to make their people's lives much better. But all the sixty years they made their lives miserable by fighting with each other, fundamentally issues being based on simple things like whether God should be prayed by sitting erect or bending forward . Many more insane fanatics still want to take the world to rampage on this issue. After all, adhering to one faith is very much private affair that can be confined to four walls. How you are saved or damned by God is extremely personal experience which need no endorsement by others. Beleifs spreading like wild fire causing onslaughts, are to be rejected and countered with defiance.

Thank God... now my computer booted. I think some of the above things too need booting (pun intended).