The occasional blog, reloaded

As always, the lazy dog in me has ensured I don’t blog regularly. And so, this blog of mine follows a familiar pattern, my take on some recent and some not so recent happenings around the world.

To begin with, the court’s verdict on the Bhopal gas tragedy. As a dispassionate onlooker, I was really amused at the mudslinging that ensued between the political who-and-who after the verdict on how the head honcho of Union Carbide was allowed to leave the country and the rest of the related stuff. To me, India has time and again shown the world that it has the utmost potential of being a soft state, for whatever reasons, and this was just another episode. But as an Indian, I am aghast I could type the previous sentence without flinching. When a catastrophe of dimensions far beyond any industrial disaster in the history of mankind in terms of affected people takes place and all that the victims get is fraud, false promises and a judicial decision as weak as the Argentinean defense at South Africa 2010, something is really rotten somewhere. India as a state needs to take a cold hard look at itself, if possible with a dash of contempt and shame, and come up with a really tough statement some way or the other. There is really no point comparing the US stance against BP versus that of Union Carbide, as that would be like complaining about the sun rising in the east. The Kandahars and the Bhopals and the Mumbais are piling up on our existence, and it is really high time something changed.

Next up on my palate is the Football World Cup 2010. The atmosphere was really colourful, but the football was really colourless, except a few streaks of colour. The sad plight of teams like France, Italy, England and Argentina was certainly a letdown, and rubbing salt on the wounds were the crazy Jabulani, the oh-so-few goals, the underperforming giants like Ronaldo & Torres (it would be wrong to call Rooney a giant, any which way) and, of course, the ear-splitting vuvuzelas. To me the lesser names were the real heroes of this tournament, namely the teams like New Zealand, Ghana & Uruguay and players like Paston (the Kiwi goalie), Tsorvas (the Greek goalie), Neuer (the German goalie), Mueller & Ozil (no intro required), Gyan, Suarez and many others. (Yes, I have a little something for goalkeepers!) And Spain, they moulded the apple-a-day saying to suit them: a goal a match keeps everybody away.

Next up is the fateful Jnaneswari disaster and the CRPF massacre (and the ensuing massacres). A lot of analysis has been done on the issue of tackling the Maoists. Sweeping that aside, I would tend to agree with analysts like the legendary KPS Gill (and many other defense analysts) who stress on understanding the adversary better rather than charging at them blindly like raging bulls made of cotton. Instead of pushing in more and more CRPF cadres into battlefields to gain “area-dominance” and then calling for the Army and Navy when these cadres are butchered, is a wrong approach. It is being stressed that the trick is in training the CRPF adequately and properly in jungle warfare and guerilla tactics so that they don’t end up being lambs to the slaughter against the better-trained and well-entrenched Maoist cadres. The collateral damage that an Army or Air Force operation will cause could be extremely counter-productive.

Another very interesting piece of news which I came across could be good food for thought. While we beat our breasts with pride for our superior armed forces, a very alarming situation exists when we look at the field of procurement of defense equipment. And no, I am not just talking about the Bofors and the rotten politics. The problem is with the system itself. Defense procurement in India is a curious case of conflict where the buyer and the seller are the same. Very limited private partnership is allowed in this field, and the vendors are chosen by a board that includes high officials of the armed forces. So here you have a situation where orders for equipment, urgently needed by the armed forces, are being placed to selected vendors, who are already running woefully late on previous orders, by the armed forces themselves (as they have representation on the approving boards). The case of the Indian aircraft carrier to replace the Viraat is a classic example, if not the only one. For a country which is surrounded by hounds waiting to pounce, this is seriously disturbing.

That’s about it for the moment. Do get back to me with comments…