Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Whose prayers the Lord listens to?

Whew! I am back after a sweaty and tiring trip to Puri to watch the Lord's show. It was pure duty, folks ! Have to earn my bread as well!

Thanks a lot to all of you who have been commenting on the posts ! The eyeballs are rising and I hope I will not disappoint you guys and gals ! Yes, I do have a tiny female readership as well !

It started off with the sweet lady at the PR firm. Poor girl, everyday she sweats when she looks up my blog, worried that Posco might be gored! Don't you worry sweetie, I have other pursuits now . I shall return to your masters with more dope later on.

Before I forget, I must warn you guys! Since the fair un's are reading these post, do keep your language within limits.

The grand show in Puri overwhelmed me ! Not that this is the first time I saw it. But it is amazing seeing the awe inspiring devotion of the countless devotees who flock there . I was impressed by the undying piety of the poor villagers flocking from distant hamlets, braving overpacked buses or trains in this bloody humidity and heat !

I hate those VIPs who are driven to the Lord's show in their official vehicles with a blaring police escort and given the best of seats so that they can avoid the hoi polloi ! Chilled bottles of mineral water and tasty savouries are served by their grovelling flunkies while they can watch the yatra in absolute peace. After a few hours they retire to the cool comforts of the govt. circuit houses for a hearty lunch and siesta! Methinks the entire thing sucks ! The VIP path to nirvana !

I wonder whose prayers the Lord listens to! The poor man's cry for a better crop this year or the VIP bastard's desperate plea to safeguard his high post so that he can loot more!

And I also seriously wonder why the government has miserably failed to free the temple from the clutches of the greedy pandas ? Any visitor who wants to worship the Lord has to fight these pandas who descend upon him like hungry vulture! The idle policemen who are supposed to ensure that pilgrims are free from hassles, look at this daily scene with a wan smile. I seriously wonder if they have a cut in the pandas' loot!

The entrance to the temple swarms with beggars and lepers who swamp the visitor as soon as he alights from his car ! The Jagannath temple admin really needs a drastic overhaul and this has to be done with an iron hand. Wonder if this is ever possible in this holy land where even the CM is terrorised by the pandas who threaten to strike work at the drop of a hat !

The beaches stink since they release their dirty water to the sea! Bulls freeely roam the narrow roads. The beaches are clogged by hawkers and makeshift stalls selling the usual trinkets! The eating places are fly infested and unhygienic! The entire holy town badly needs a makeover and I think Jagmohan should be appointed to do this! Give up any hope of our useless an corrupt babus doing the cleanup!

The local DC is busy making money from the hoteliers and the prawn mafia. Everytime the Queen's office asks him about the prawn gherry demolition in Chilika, his slush rates go up and the ever grateful prawn mafia rush to his den with bagfuls of dough!

The biggest sin on Rath Yatra has been committed by ETV! Why did they have to use a bloody corrupt neta who poses as a pundit in Oriya literature and history as their commentator for the live broadcast? Everyone knows the tons of money the fake intellectual raked in when he was the Speaker. The Queen ofcourse rightly kicked him out. I must confess that the nitwit's grey cells sometimes do work!

Sorry have to rush! Keep watching! I promise you more life!

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Celebrating mediocrity !

Celebrating mediocrity!

If you have the brains of a mouse, come to Orissa ! This the land of mediocrity where you will be honoured and feted like a celebrity!

Just look around you and you will see cretins everywhere! In every field and profession, idiots rule the roost! You have “baristha sambadikas” or senior journalists who do not belong to any news paper, but are treated with reverence and awe! Since they are idle, they are invited to seminars and workshops where they wax eloquent on all diverse topics under the sun ……from child labour to Buddhist relics !

A few of them also dub themselves as “sthambakars” or columnists. Their columns reek of incompetence being full of puerile garbage rarely deserving more than five seconds of reading time! Their stupid and hoary opinions are inanely irrelevant since they are bereft of facts. If you do find any facts, be sure that is shamelessly filched from English papers!

But they do enjoy the full benefits of a senior accredited hack! Spacious government quarters in the heart of the city and all other concessions and benefits. I wonder how they feed their family, if they do not have a regular salary!

I pity the hard working regular journos on the payrolls of the dailies slogging away day and night for their story, dreading the rap from their editors if they fail deadlines!

Then there are the netas who badly need brain surgery. No not for replacement but implant of the grey matter. People not fit to be even Sarpanchs suddenly find themselves catapulted to the Assembly as MLAs! Confronted by the voluminous official papers which frankly speaking few can comprehend, they happily doze off. Being privileged members of various standing committees of the house, they get the chance to summon the slippery babus and review their activities.

Predictably, the babus have the last laugh! It is child’s play for them to fool the half educated netas who cannot understand simple English, leave aside the subject matter which might be esoterically incomprehensible. Many of these politicos who represent remote tribal areas of Orissa are understandably uncomfortable summoning officials to appear before them.

How can they forget their earlier nasty experiences dealing with babus in the districts! Many of them must have spent hours sweating outside the sprawling bungalow of the DC waiting for an audience! For them officers continue to be the “mai baap sarkar,” supreme and unquestionable!

Contrarily, the wily coastal district MLAs are old foxes, adept at shadow boxing with babudom. If honest requests fail to elicit information, abuses and threats follow ! Pronto the missing file surfaces from the dark depths of the cupboards ! Remember, a babu is a brave creature within the four corners of his house ; when he shouts at his domestic help!

As everyone knows the Queen has taken a backseat and has given the moronic babus a free run which has pumped up their pea sized egos!

However, when you deal with them, you will be shocked by their incompetence and ignorance levels! Most of them do not understand computers or email or internet and thus have to depend upon their PAs who themselves are semi literates in IT. Now all secretariat offices have computers but the babu still calls out dictation to his PA who dutifully types it out in the computer and produces a so called “draft”. Only after this is checked, the final print out is taken. And if the PA is absent, work comes to a grinding halt. What is the use of giving them computers when they still do not type out the matter!

As you know folks, even a 7 year old child is a computer wiz nowadays after Bill Gates liberated us from the difficult to remember DOS commands!

Many of the babus are terribly out of touch with the real world and do not understand modern terms like BPO, real time information system, peer evaluation, zero based budgeting, etc. Their GK is eminently absent!

A reporter who used to work with Associated Press once tried to meet the CM. When he said that he represented AP, the PR staff said “oh you are from Andra Pradesh.” Repeated attempts to explain that he was from one of the world’s largest wire services drew a blank. They had not heard of AP! And I am talking about the PR department, not some admin department!

We have police officers who run at the sight of a rat heading the force. How can you ever expect them to put down the Naxal menace? If you remember, three years ago, the DGP had visited Koraput and other areas in mufti and had used a hired taxi. How can such a nincompoop ever protect our lives?

Then you have half of the state’s literate population going around with doctorates in their pockets. The upstart Chancellor of the only private university in the state (a huge career jump from his earlier career as librarian of a nondescript rural college) is a “Dr”. The chief of a local newspaper is also a doctorate. Almost all the Oriya writers are “Dr.” These fools think that a Ph.d degree entitles them to prefix “Dr.” ! The honorific is used only by medical doctors, people who relieve you from your pain and of course money!

However, this obsession with “Dr.” continues. Many of these are also honorary doctorates obtained from shady universities who gladly shell them out for a small donation! Freud would say that it is their way of overcoming the supremely inferiority complex!

Now the real doctors are rarely able to diagnose your ailment, forget about prescribing the correct medication. You have lawyers here who barely know English language, forget their knowledge of law. Ironically, some of them count themselves as leading legal luminaries. Once you hear them arguing in the courts you will wonder how they got their law degrees!

Oriya cinema has failed to produce good commercial films fit for a national screening. They are still stuck with the weepy family soap dramas ………there will be a tyrannically evil zamindar with oversized moustaches and a thick chain like gold chain He will have his lecherous eye on the innocent daughter of the poor farmer who of course is in love with the local village boy … blah....blah……..

Come on producers grow up! These were the subjects of the 1960s. The few Oriya directors who are good have not seen prosperous careers, unable to progress beyond a few art films which of course have fetched them national awards. Will they please step forward and free the local films from the grip of these cretin directors and writers?

Now the actors! The heroines apart from delivering jhatkas rarely emote. The only emotion they know is shedding copious tears so that they do not have to act! Their jaded looks, atrociously gaudy dress sense and dated acting makes one doze off in the halls. Even their bloody make up sucks!

The new breed of Oriya heroes who are trying to make their mark are good in calisthenics and weight pumping. It is difficult to understand whether they are working out on the sets or doing a dance! Many of the dances look truly funny resembling a burlesque by epileptics with arms and torsos being whipped into jerks !

Then you have the ersatz intellectuals gracing functions or meetings. Rarely do they come prepared for the topic and usually you will find them rambling incomprehensibly about irrelevant issues. At one such gathering, three years ago, a distinguished resource person went on babbling about his tremendous sense of imagination and how he loves Socrates's thoughts ! Don’t think the seminar was on Greek philosophy! It was on the “Impact of the super cyclone on the girl child!”

And God forbid if they are retired babus! You will be tortured with apocryphal stories of they could manage to achieve impossibly difficult tasks and how they have always rebuffed the netas in their uneventful careers! Pure BS, I must say! If that would be case then we would have Ram Rajya in our state!

It is also a growing trend nowadays to invite senior babus to grace public functions as there is only one neta in the state with a public life, i.e., the Queen himself! Even retired babus will do, since they are thrilled to sit on the stage after spending a lifetime hiding behind unfinished files!

Another thing I hate about these sabhas and karmashalas is that the speakers who are supposed to enlighten you on the concerned topic, often launch an unabashed eulogy of the host and go on thanking him forever. Then the bloody event withers away into one huge mutual admiration exercise where everyone praises the other and his dubious achievements! Why can’t we have seminars where precious time is not wasted on these perfectly dispensable time wasting speeches?

So dear folks! In this land of mediocrity what do you do?

Descend to these ridiculous levels of mediocrity yourself ? Or blaze a lone path yourself ?

Friday, June 23, 2006

Who are the bigger crooks ?

Everyday the papers carry news of some state government officer being caught red handed with bribe money. With the Queen himself ordering this crackdown , the vigilance guys are cracking down on corruption with a missionary zeal. But sadly, it is the small guy who is caught! The JE, RI, Tehsildar, BDO, Asst. Engineer, Forest Ranger or the police SI. Never the top babu, as if all the Orissa babus are the son-in-laws of the Ambani family!

In all this brouhaha and anti-corruption drive launched by the state government, we naïve Oriyas think that the central govt. guys are saints! This is pure BS! The recent arrest of the GM of the BSNL at Bhubaneswar is a pointer. The crook was caught taking Rs.1 lakh as a bribe from a security agency. Compared to this, our BPL class officers are “trapped” with measly amounts of Rs. 200 – Rs. 500 or maybe Rs.5,000 but rarely more.

While the central govt. guys go scot free every day, our poor desi boys have to suffer the ignominy of the focus of blinding media lights as the local TV channels rush to cover the story.

Paradeep port, East Coast Railways, NALCO, FCI, Central Excise, Income Tax, Rourkela Steel Plant, BSNL ,BPCL, HPCL, Indian Oil Corporation,etc. together handle more than Rs. 50,000 crores of public money a year. Just imagine what kind of corruption can take place here!

A little bird in the export business told me that the Paradeep port guys are raking in the real moolah! With the boom in the mineral exports, they made tons of the good stuff last year. They terrorise the poor exporters by threatening to cancel their dock side plot allotment which forces them to cough up. Besides, there are multi crore orders for equipment and services.

India TV and CNN-IBN where are you? Send your sting guys to Paradeep and you will have a month’s supply of exclusive stories! Do “whatever it takes” !

Interestingly, the IAS guys seem to have lost out on the Paradeep honey pot .Both the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman are Railway service guys. Methinks they should be pushed back into their smelly stations and shoddy trains where they can figure out how to run them on time and make them avoid crashing into each other!

But I guess that big faced Southie surface transport minister is happy with the railway men since they would not (unlike the gutsy IAS guys) shout back if he dips too much into the till or treats them like faithful cocker spaniels!

Another bird tells me that NALCO is one huge smelter of corruption and it stinks of sleaze! Everybody is on the take here; from the office gardener to the board members. No supply bill gets passed without the customary pay off. The most notorious are the sales guys who manipulate the sale orders which can result in windfalls to the buyers as the price of aluminum fluctuates widely and the bloody thing is in perpetual short supply!

That is the real reason for the widespread and vehement protests by the staff against the dis-investment move. These bandits would be jobless once a private management takes over and discovers their nefarious activities. I am sure they are also funding the agitations by the commies, desperate not to lose their control.

FCI’s corruption is legendary! If their labour union leader who also happens to be a Oriya incidentally lives like a millionare, then you can imagine what kind of money the officers are raking in! The recycling by mill owners and damaged food grains being written off story is too well known.

These guys keep huge rats as pets in their godowns who loyally devour more than 5 % of the food grains which is their officially “permitted loss”. The bigger rats sit in the offices no doubt, growing fatter every day with the loot which would have fed the starving tribals of Balangir and Kalahandi!

The Central Excise guys are also another forgotten faceless lot, hidden behind their obscure offices. Ordinary folks like you and me hardly ever meet them since they deal with corporates only and large ones that too!

If you remember, about 5 years back there was the fat slob who was caught in Delhi with his mistress and numerous flats and bank lockers who headed the CBEC as its chairman. These guys get well looked after by the industrial units when they go on their inspections. Everybody is happy, the businessman who pays a pittance towards his excise dues and the officers who return home with loaded pockets.

With the growth in the sponge iron and steel units in Orissa, these guys are having a bonanza. Diamond showrooms which have been sprouting up on Bhubaneswar’s streets like footpath chaat shops, are the places where their happy wives disgorge the loot! Wonder what kind of business these posh shops do in the poorest state of the country! I hope the government makes a rule that all jewelry purchase of more than Rs. 5,000 should be paid by cheque only. Then, these crooks could be trapped easily!

The saddest lot among the central govt. guys are the IT people. With summary assessments and time bound refunds being the order of the day, these guys are sitting idle swatting flies all day! However, a few zealous inspectors do go on the prowl and corner hapless small businessmen and squeeze a couple of hundreds by threatening to issue them a notice to file returns. Unless there are raids or searches, the big bosses rarely get a chance to wet their beaks! Alas those days are gone!

Never get your sister or daughter married to an IT guy! There is nothing under the table for these poor souls!

The Rourkela guys made some juicy sums when the RSP expansion took place about 15 years ago. The loot was of course carefully invested outside the state since most officers were non-Oriyas. But their partners in crime, the local banias made posh houses complete with polished granite and teakwood doors in Civil Township. Now the scrap steel sale racket is the biggest money spinner there with millions being siphoned off every month.

The PSU oil company executives are also busy silently licking up the cream. They make money while allotting tank lorries, conniving in supply adulteration of petrol and diesel and looking the other way at those avaricious fuel pump owners who run manipulated meters and sell adulterated fuel. Lodge a complaint with them about short measure or bad fuel and you will rarely see the dealer being punished! I have seen these guys drive up to pumps and fill up their car’s tanks with free petrol though they draw fat salaries.

I remember, there was a Bong Regional Chief of the Indian Oil (the fat cat oil PSU ) who visited Simlipal in 2001. The dealers of Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts set up a kitty and collected Rs.30,000 which was spent on him and his family’s 2 day visit to the Park. The best of booze and food was arranged for sahib and memsahib. Everybody was worried about their pet poodle which also went with them. I guess they carried imported dog food and toilet paper for him as well ! The corrupt bloke should have got cerebral malaria from the Park and kicked the bucket on his return!

But don’t think that corruption exists only in the public sector. I will tell you later about the action in the corporate world. Give me a few days, fellas!

I give, you take !

The party newspaper has carried an interesting story today ! How fast the government can work if it wants to ! Never knew that Naveen the idiot does have the brains to ask the necessary questions. The dumb shithead is known to sign files in which his lackeys have put their comments. He can't write two lines of English properly and can't even remember the names of all the districts of the state. Forget about issuing the right instructions to his minions! It is the least kept secret in the corridors of the State Secretariat !

The story is a concoted dramatisation of the events that preceded the Posco's review meet held recently at Secretariat. The Pioneer scribe forgot to ask the imbecilic CM as to why the same speed was not seen in giving relief food grains to starving tribals who ultimately conk off due to starvation in the boondocks of Orissa !

Do you ever believe this story ! I wish the the Secretariat would function in this manner ; then the state would not be languishing in the depths of poverty and misery !

And what a great thing to happen! The govt. would have us to believe that 1,135 acres of government land was handed over to Posco on the same day . They gave and the company took ! Ha! Ha ! Are we kiddies to be fooled by this hilarious announcement !

Wake up you babus, and take off the blinkers from your stupid eyes ! The bloody land is blocked off by the locals. How can you ever hand over land on which you cannot set your foot on ? The Posco guys know that they will be slaughtered by angry locals if they ever try to visit the area !

The story signs off with "Who says that the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik is indecisive ? "

Dear scribe, nobody is saying this. How can you call a guy, sorry semi guy indecisive if he does not decide at all ! All decisions in the govt. are taken by his lackeys whom he trusts completely.


The story is below

From The Pioneer, 23rd June,2006

Naveen shows babus how to move fast

Pioneer News Service Bhubaneswar

Wednesday witnessed the swiftest-ever action in Orissa's babudom - thanks to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's business-like approach.
The occasion: A review meet on the progress of work on the Posco steel project, a day before the first anniversary of the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the State Government and the South Korean steel giant.

The Chief Minister asked Principal Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik: "Am I supposed to take stock of the developments that have taken place on the Posco project today? If so, at what time?"

The Principal Secretary: "Sir, at 5 pm."

The CM: "Then give me details of what we have done for Posco till date."

After analysing the facts Patnaik asked, "Who is handling the land issue?"

Answer: "Collector, Jagatsinghpur and MD, IDCO."

The CM: "Ask both of them to hand over the land to Posco."

Next question: "What are the other commitments?"

Answer: "A nodal officer for facilitating the Posco project has to be appointed."

The CM: "Notify Priyabrats Patnaik (CMD of IPICOL) as nodal officer of Posco."

Another requirement is to appoint some zonal officers for the project.

To this, the Chief Minister was ready with his next order: "Ask Principal Secretary, Revenue, to post them."

A flurry of action at the State Secretariat followed, and all that the Chief Minister ordered were in place by 4 pm.
Jagatsinghpur District Collector Satyabrats Sahu handed over 1,135 acres of Government land to IDCO. IDCO MD Askok K Meena issued the notification within an hour. And the order was handed over to Posco CMD Soung-Sik Cho. Priyabrata Patnaik was notified as the nodal officer. Revenue Department had three zonal officers in place.

Finally, the Chief Minister formally made all the announcements at the 5 pm review meeting. His opening sentence was, "The Government of Orissa has already handed over 1,135 acres of land to Posco."

Who says Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is indecisive?

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Posco chief seeks divine help

Wonder whose bright idea it was to send the Posco chief to the local ISKCON Jagannath temple at Nayapalli ? Looks that the company is prepared to do anything to push through its Orissa plans ! Wonder what would have been the reaction of the orthodox Puri priests if this guy who is a beef eater would have visited Lord Jagannath temple at Puri !

Koreans love beef and most of it is ofcourse imported from the US !

Saw it on the local TV news channel which showed it as an exlusive story ! As if Bush had visited the temple !

And don't be surprised if you find him pulling the Rath on 27th June ! It will be wonderful photo op for our journo friends. Wonder what else a company's chief has to do to start his business in India.

They are learning Oriya fast and don't be surprised if your abuse in 2 lettered Oriya words would be understood !

They are also setting up scholarships for our poor students. Must admire the guts and self respect of the medicine entrance topper from Jagatsinghpur who refused charity for his fees and preferred a loan from the bank.

In the end Posco India will do every thing (pay out scholarships, run hospitals, set up training colleges, run stalls at food festivals ) other than making steel!

The Posco Honeypot

Posco affair

The Posco guys held a press meet on 21st June at Swosti Plaza. Many journos attended this. There was a dramatic announcement by the Korean bastards that they would have second thoughts over the project if they do not get the captive mines ! Pl. do have second thoughts. At least Orissa will be spared one more corporate bandit !

I hope you guys know that the south Koreans are known as the American bastards since they are screwed by the Americans . Wonder how these large Americans who are well you know well endowed manage to do it with the puny and scrawny Korean bitches !

The only Korean PR girl posted in Bhubaneswar tries her best to trap our bhainas ! But nobody is interested in this flat chested girl, though I must say she is quite a sweet one ! She must be wondering why her charms fail to work here! Poor girl, somebody, needs to take her on a Konark trip and she will know what a hot blooded Oriya male looks for in his mate !

But there was a special meet planned for the evening since Posco does not think that our journos deserve a press meet in the evening followed by a relaxed dinner. This was one for the babus ! Oriya babus do not feel comfortable to mix with hacks ! Maybe they consider them to be infra dig ! Plus it would be mighty embarrasing since the babus are a favourite target of our trigger happy press who never lose an opportunity to lambast them . The most amazing thing is the common refrain of many babus that nobody praises their work and their achievements. Wonder if they have ever achieved anything in Orissa , other than making people run around in circles while trying to get their official work done !

Also heard that a few select babus have got special favours from Posco. At least some have been assured of lucrative jobs after retirement ! Maybe they will join after resignation from govt ! There is a strong buzz that the company has given many costly Rado watches as a small gift ! Oriya babus you know would sell their mothers cheap even in a bear market , forget about guarding the state interest in leasing out the iron ore mines.

The posco chief was flustered when journos started shooting questions. One journo wanted to know how much Posco would be making from the steel plant. He could not answer this. Another scribe had doubts over the employment figures.

The media agency handling the Posco account is also quite worried ! They have pulled out all stops to ensure that the press does not damage the company's careful plans of looting Orissa's iron ore reserves . In fact, it appears that the pains taken by the company to take the group of journos to Korea for a junket seems to have boomeranged!

The sweet lady at the media agency is working overtime to sweeten the path of Posco ! She has been ringing up everyone and indulging in general talk like some teenaged pimply girl just out of college. She giggles uncontrollably, and instead of doing her PR job by eulogising Posco and its benefits to the land of the bira Paikas , she acts like a damsel in distress by seeking suggestions from the journos . She still nurtures the fond hope that the journos would behave like true gallants and lend her a helping hand to portray Posco as the saviour of Orissa !

But our patriotic bhais and bhainas are not biting ! I mean the bait, not her ! Though, do not be surprised if somebody does bite. A packet of sweets left on the roadside does attract flies, sorry honey bees !

The Posco battle is hotting up ! I am sure we shall see more action as the company gets desperate ! Maybe more Soos will be flown down from Korea to try to educate our press ! But the least the top brass can ensure is that nobody should be less than 34 if not 36 at least ! I do not mean kgs , you know !

Sunday, June 18, 2006

The little wonder gets support

From Zee News.

Slum-dwellers demonstrate on Budhia issue

Bhubaneswar, June 17: Over 300 slum-dwellers from Gautamnagar area of the city today staged a demonstration outside the residence of the chairman of Khurda District Child Welfare Committee protesting against its order for "forcible medical examination" of child marathon prodigy Budhia Singh. The residents of Gautamnagar slum burnt an effigy of CWC Chairman R S Mishra demanding his dismissal. A political outfit, Kalinga Sena, had also participated in the protest.

Reacting to the demonstration by slum dwellers, Mishra said,
"The committee had acted according to government procedures. I don`t want to comment on the subject as the matter is subjudice." On May 2 last, five-year-old Budhia hogged national limelight by running a distance of 65 kilometre from Puri to Bhubaneswar in seven hours. Even as athletes and doctors expressed concern over its impact on the health of the child prodigy, the CWC had constituted a four-member medical team to examine Budhia`s health. Sensing trouble, the CWC had also requisitioned a police team to bring the child, who lives in the Gautamnagar slum, to the capital hospital here on May 5. Subsequently, a war of words had broken out between Budhia`s coach and foster father Biranchi Das and Mallick. Based on the doctors` report, the women and child welfare department had moved Orissa High Court to restrain Budhia from running long distance.

Now the case was pending before the Orissa High Court, with Das insisting that "Budhia should be spared to do what he wants."

Bureau Report

Announcement Kalinga news blog

Hi dear fellow Oriya bhais and bhainas. I have created this blog to talk about Kalinga land and all affairs connected to this.

Pl. do post all your views, news and juicy comments ! Happy blogging!