Calculator vs Calendar, M J Akbar

Mrs Sonia Gandhi would not be out in this heat, which also means that it is more difficult to obtain a crowd, without an agenda and almost certainly a calendar. Do they indicate a general election in November? India is a large country, and the sooner you begin the better. You could argue that she is on the road, using her credibility to explain her government's policies.

Has Mrs Sonia Gandhi begun the Congress campaign for the next general election? June has already witnessed a trip to Mizoram after a decade and a half; later in the month, she will be in Aurangabad on a schedule that has taken the Maharashtra Congress a bit by surprise. The Northeast and Maharashtra are regions where support for her party has softened, but, according to her strategists, not beyond recovery. If the Congress cannot retain these seats, it is going to be in boiling hot water.

The theme of her speech is also a marker for the party's election campaign. It will flog the Indo-US nuclear deal as the panacea for all ills, hoping to solve two problems with one promise. The logic runs thus: the deal will make us independent of that evil thing called oil, which has created this vile inflation. Not our fault, brothers and sisters: it's either OPEC or the Marxists, take your pick. By placing it on the election agenda, Mrs Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also hope to blunt post-election objections by the Left, arguing that the deal has been purified by electoral holy water. It is not an argument that will change the Left, but the Congress believes that the Left will be a much-chastened force, depleted by as many as 20 MPs from its current strength, while the Congress will return with its numbers more or less intact. If its current crop of allies withers away, it will use the leeway of time offered by a generous President of India to woo replacements from the Third Front or even the NDA ensemble. To be more specific, Mulayam Singh Yadav and his MPs will be invited to join the government the next time, instead of doing duty for five years near the door, waiting for crumbs to descend from the Prime Minister's high table. If Lalu Yadav collapses, intermediaries will rush to Nitish Kumar and attempt to wean him away from the BJP; and Naveen Patnaik of Orissa will always be welcome in the name of secularism. In any case, the Congress will not be vulnerable to Marxist "blackmail".

The only thorn amidst the roses of such a scenario is that it might be one year too late. Such an election outcome would have been far more likely if the Congress had gone to the polls last August, when the Left took a final decision to stop the Indo-US nuclear deal. The immediate Congress response was aggressive. The Prime Minister dared the Left to do its worst, and Mrs Gandhi went on the offensive during a speech in Haryana.

But it was a very different world in August 2006. The BJP was still in utter disarray. The Gujarat elections had not taken place, so the Congress had not been routed there: the BJP's self-confidence only began to return with that result. The nuclear debate still evoked a frisson of excitement from the urban Indian middle-class, which has convinced itself that America adds a Midas' touch to their present and future [the Greenback Dollar may be undergoing palpitations currently, but no Midas was ever more attractive than the Almighty Green Card]. That frisson has flattened. The middle class, whose interest had peaked with the media campaign of last year, has a question now: if the deal was genuinely crucial to the national interest, why didn't the Congress defy the Marxists and go ahead? Was survival in power for a few months more important for the Congress than the national interest?

For more than one reason, an election last autumn would have seen a return of the Congress-led coalition to Delhi. But that moment was lost, apparently because Congress' allies were not ready to forsake the comforts of office for 18 months in pursuit of that roulette game called elections. Lalu Yadav and Sharad Pawar went public with their objections; and the DMK murmured its unhappiness in the typical half-bitten vowels that are its political trademark.

Nine months later, the environment is besieged by concerns that are far more potentially fatal to a ruling coalition. Inflation and economic mismanagement have eroded its support. No one yet knows who will win the next general elections, but there is growing belief about who will lose it. Last August, a Sheila Dikshit would have ensured a Congress victory in most of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. This year the Delhi voter, still enamoured of Mrs Dikshit, is wondering if there is any way by which it can retain her but demolish the Congress. [There isn't. You either get both or neither. ]

When the body weakens it attracts the most curious ailments. If Mrs Sonia Gandhi goes to Vidarbha in Maharashtra, another traditional Congress seat-catchment area, and picks up a few sounds from the ground, she will hear a question from the fertiliser-and-hope-starved farmer. He watches television. He knows about the 20-20 cricket tournament organised by Sharad Pawar. He now knows that the state government, doubtless under pressure from the patron, waived away the entertainment tax on stadium tickets, losing more than a hundred crores with just this one decision. The farmer is asking why this money could not have been collected and used to alleviate the difficult conditions he faces.

Mrs Sonia Gandhi would not be out in this heat, which also means that it is more difficult to obtain a crowd, without an agenda and almost certainly a calendar. Do they indicate a general election in November? India is a large country, and the sooner you begin the better. You could argue that she is on the road, using her credibility to explain her government's policies. But why waste credibility on a practice match, rather than the real tournament? The most reasonable assessment, in the absence of any confirmation, is that Mrs Gandhi's tours are a precaution against the sudden necessity of going to polls before winter, along with elections to five states that have to be held by then.

The cynical school of Congress thought, always a large and ever-increasing academy, believes that a November election would serve no purpose other than slicing three months of power, with its attendant lucrative benefits. But each month of delay will mean a few seats less for the Congress, not more. The Congress party is staring obsessively at a calendar just now. Someone should also bring out a calculator.

Airport with Sickness

Airport with sickness

If you are researching on how not to build an airport a classic example would be the BIAL airport which is much hyped and debated for its world class infrastructure facility.

I was one among those who had flew from HAL Airport to Male on its last day of its operation, that is 24^th of May. The reality hit me when the Air India IC 965 made the irritating noise- same old music, and I realised that it was time to say adios to the 45 year old HAL Airport. It was a rare synthesis of great intellect and total personal inslovent, that I will not be coming back to this Airport again. Back then I had a rough sketch of the new airport from whatever information I got through the media. The mind that has engaged unhasitatingly, with its changing realities, often anticipating the way things have moved in the last few months.

After the four day stay at Male when I flew back, the captian announced, “we are happy to announce that we will be landing at the new , Bangaluru International Airport”, my old sketch of brand new Air Port refreshed itself in my mind.

The good news is that, much hyped, politically delyed and regionally feared Bangalore International Airport is now operational. The bad news is that it took me more than 45 minutes to come out of the airport after landing. Later I came to know that one of the aerobridges was not working.

The entire Airport looked like a block of hollow concrete brick add to it flawed design and bad colour combination- in short, aesthetically challenged. No exciting forms-its just a block shaped building with lots of glass glued onto it. Inside the Airport, therei is not much space to sit and relax. And whats more, you have only 4 urinals in the airport, and suddenly if you feel like it, there is no easy way out, you will have to wait your turn.

The graphic inside takes gives you a feel of an old government offices built without any archtectural sense. The signage and the other info graphics are very badly done, with no element of astetic value. Most of our Airport space is occupied by the luxury brands. You can easily mistake the First floor of the Airport with the Forum Mall. I did not see anything that reflects Indian architecture, which represents our core values; or which tells the world, that we are no longer a developing nation.

The man at the immigration counter, who scrutinized my passport rather throughly,posed a philosophical question, infact I must say that he reminded me that it is a new Airport. Well that practical issue was eventually resolved. I stood their as on darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flights, where ignorant politicians clash by nothing. Haa..They could have done better. Indeed the sense of urgency they have shown to get it operationla had no reasons. We were fighting for only name, not for the handicaped inaguration. Our protests have been misread and not met too. Still it is Bangaluru International Airport, not Kempe Gowda International AirPort