United We Stand, Divided We Fall: The Kapil Sharma Team Split

The year 2017 is an eventful year in every sense. Be it political or television this year shall be remembered in many cases. The television world was shaken by a news, that caught the imagination of people. The Kapil Sharma Show and its team members had a split after news about the show’s lead Kapil Sharma reportedly made a scene in a flight and insulted fellow teammate Sunil Grover. The team split and many members exited the show. The show was left high and dry since the team was missing from the show. The TRP also took a major hit following news that the show might end soon.

Now taking into cognizance that Kapil Sharma’s act was outright shameful and unjustified, it is just dramatic that people who were not linked to the fight are leaving the show as well. Other members of the show other than Sunil Grover took the opportunity to leave the show and make a fuss out of the whole issue. And to make things even more redundant, an occasional tweet from Sunil Grover about American shoe size is just boring. The show was on a peak of popularity when the entire show went south and the weeks following the event has seen a landslide fall in the show’s TRP and popularity.

Not to be critical about the actions of either party, this event showcases the classic human behavior of jumping to an opportunity. Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover are good comedians, but let’s face it; they are good together and alone they are a huge headache. Neither of them puts up a show that is worth watching solo. But together they were a force to reckon. A force which was weighing heavy upon various other comedies shows running on primetime television. This situation might not be to fight it out, but to take a break sit back and introspect as to what went wrong.

Taking a wrong turn might do more than damage the stars and their individual reputations in the industry. Particularly this might do more damage to Sunil Grover whose show was a huge flop. This might not be the perfect time to bury the hatchet but it is obviously not a good time to burn a fire in the house. Also the other stars who abandoned the ship in crisis must understand that to leave a sinking ship might be easy, but sometimes it just takes a small cork to plug the leak and save the ship; because even if you jump out, you are jumping into the big ocean.

The Chappal is more powerful than the Constitution for Shiv Sena

Time and again there have been incidents about Members of Parliament and MLAs misbehaving with common people and displaying their high-handedness. And though some of them have totally refuted the claims, there are others like Ravindra Gaekwad of the Shiv Sena who thinks that he should accept that he did it. The incident occurred at a plane that arrived at the Delhi airport and the MP who was on board had an altercation with a 60 year old staffer of the Air India and Mr. Gaekwad beat him with his chappal and also tried to throw him down the aisle onto the stairs.

The media took up the issue and all the national TV channels pointed out his high-handed behavior. Apparently Gaekwad is not sorry about the incident and says that he did what anybody would do. He told the staffer misbehaved with him and insulted him. The Shiv Sena MP has no apologies to serve to anybody.

But what is the reason that the ministers of the country consider their privileges to be their birth rights, something that ‘they were born to own’. The Shiv Sena has no comment on this topic and Chief Uddhav Thackeray has not decided whether he must remove this minister from his party. The Shiv Sena has always been a face of violent expression in the political image of Maharashtra and time and again the Sena has been expressive to assert the Swarajya model of Chhatrapati Shivaji. But to assert their status as MP for a business class seat doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. The FIA has banned Gaekwad on any of its planes unless he asks for forgiveness.

But will that be enough. This is not the first incident where a minister has shown unconstitutional behavior. There have been fights over paying tolls at toll booths, allowing uninterrupted flows on traffic jams and more. If violence is the only answer to be given to misbehavior and insult possibly the women must go on to break every law and kill people who stalk them in buses, trains and roads. People must engage in fist fights and verbal abuses in markets. Employees must hurl chairs and tables at their bosses and parliament sessions should be done using swords and AK-47s. And everybody should accept this law of barbarianism and forget our constitution.

Otherwise the wise Chief of Shiv Sena should take an informed decision to remove this tainted minister from his party and punish him for his inappropriate behavior. This is a chance for Uddhav Thackeray to come out of his father’s shadow and emerge into Maharashtra as a powerful leader who will respect the law of the land. Or else it will a chance for MNS chief Raj Thackeray to get the center piece in Maharashtra politics.

Road Romeos or Acid Throwers, Who’re the Real Culprits

It is not even a week from the time that the UP government started. From the Yogi government is already on its way to prove to the people that it is different from the previous governments of UP. And some of the notable directives that have been brought into force are quite interesting. One among them is ban on tobacco and gutkha products and paan products inside government buildings. And it doesn’t end there. The police has taken up a task of punishing road romeos. The initiative was taken up and many videos showing the punishing techniques have been uploaded on Youtube. In fact even national TV celebrated it by showing these funny punishments. 

The police could easily raise their collars for these initiatives, but hold on this is no Rowdy Rathore moment for them. These videos were a testament that women will not be tolerating any attacks on their freedom anymore, but just by punishing few teenagers is not going to end this madness. The real crime that we are talking about is acid attack.

Not soon after these videos started to show on headlines, than the news of an acid attack in Meerut came up. Now what is the use of punishing a few teenagers in one lane when a girl is being attacked by a scorned lover just a lane away. These punishments don’t serve the basic purpose of making the criminal feel guilty. The acid throwers are the culprits who don’t like when their ego is hurt. And when it is hurt they turn into a snake, spitting venom on its enemies. And then there is a phone call from ‘above’ and they are let loose because they happened to be the family or family-like of the police.

The problem is that the criminal system makes discrimination between a person who is not the family of a policeman and one who is. They are tried by different laws apparently and that makes all the unfair advantage. And since the perpetrators know they are going to get away with it they enjoy the thrill again and again.

I think it might be a good time if Yogi Adityanath thinks about computerizing the entire law system as such and eliminates all humans from it. Perhaps that is the only solution for the system to be crack-proof. Because time and again these things happen and then we have some minister sitting on his chair and explaining that it was the girl’s fault. And then we will have women’s rights commission gaining publicity on the issue by dragging the poor girl in and out of government offices. Or perhaps there should be a separate commission for handling this all together, like a Molestation and Allied Offences Redressal Commission.

The system will never change itself, it will only try to add a new body in the government and that is the end of it. In the evening news, the so called thinkers and experts will be called on a news channel and India will be reminded of its heritage and diverse culture and then asked to adjust for everybody’s survival.

Possibly one way to deal with it might be allowing the girl/woman and a group of women of the same age and lifestyle to have a prime say in the case proceeding. The group could say where they feel the system is failing and particularly the girl can say if she is satisfied with the process. A lawyer from the Higher Court can make sure that the girl is not influenced and in a matter of 10 days the process should be finished.

There are many alternatives to think about and the sky is the limit for one who thinks. But when we see our history the Nanavati case reminds us that even if the system shows itself to be impregnable our own instincts betray us. Maybe we need introspection whether we are the real culprits or the acid-throwers. Perhaps imagine ourselves walking down the street and have somebody throw acid on our face. But the burn will not be real in this case.

The hand that rocks and rules the world

Mothers have been an eternal part of any civilization. They are termed as the first teachers of any living soul on the planet since they start teaching their child in their womb. They can be different in their methods of care. But one thing no one can deny is that everybody lays down their defenses in front of a mother. 

The legendary saying that 'The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world' needs to be remembered today on this occasion of Mother's Day. To spend some time with their mothers, and make them feel special, this day is pretty useful. But there is no denying the fact that the mothers have sacrificed much of their lives for us. But in this Industrial World we have become too formal and mechanized to give such uniform treatment to every element in our lives. We are so busy in our own careers that we just ignore the very roots that nurtured us. Some people are just totally indifferent that their parents need a little attention. 

The world is in an elaborate drama where everybody is trying to be a grown up and act like one rather than being one; and they are pathetic at it. They are so busy playing 'House House' with each other that they don't realize that they are in the real world unless they have a child and they get a rude shock shaking them into reality. They start understanding the value of attention and start giving attention rather than getting attention. They start craving for attention that they used to get from their mothers all these time. And then comes the Mother's Day celebration. But why take such pains to understand that a mother is as much a part of your life as your job. 

These Mother's Day celebrations are a way to entice more consumption by product marketing firms and companies to make people spend more than their average. They are just special sales days for these companies and a chance to clear the old stock of warehouses. The people must realize that rather than spending a whole year barely communicating with your parents and coming back on such days, they should keep a constant touch with them. 

Such celebrations are good in spirit but they should be only used to celebrate the spirit of motherhood on a larger social platform; not for individual gratification. Because however big a tree grows, it cannot stand tall without its roots grounding it to the earth. It is time we water those roots with some love and compassion daily. A phone call a day, a text or a video call; some funny message, a Whatsapp forward, anything could make them feel that you are still with them. Because the biggest fear of any man is to be left alone.

It is IDEA-vodaFONE now!! New-born delight or old-dog survival?

Mergers are never an easy option for any company. It is a headache for both the employees and the owners. The employees are apprehensive whether they will be laid off or not. The owners worried about the market reception of such a move. But each knows that it is inevitable. The recent merger of Aditya Birla group and Vodafone India is an expected move. 

  

Vodafone was one of the market leaders in Indian telecom industry and was only rivaled by the likes of Airtel, Reliance or state-owned BSNL. Idea was quite popular in some places in the country but not as expansive as Vodafone. But the recent entry of Jio has shaken these two by their very core. The free voice calling and data-centric marketing of Jio has shrinked the market place for the other players in the telecom industry and disrupted the industry practices. Jio wishes to redefine the industry in its own terms by using a data-centric approach. But the traditional telecom industry has always viewed voice calls as the primary source of income.

These are hard times and hard times call for desperate moves. Vodafone is merging its Indian telecom arm with Idea to battle the Jio catastrophe. It is selling about 14% of its stake to Idea in a time of three years to allow Idea an equal stake of around 35%. The resultant venture would be run by Mr. Kumar M Birla with a CFO from Vodafone’s side and a CEO by mutual consent. This would make the telecom industry to be ruled by 4 big players namely Idea-Vodafone, Bharti-Airtel, Reliance Jio and BSNL.

But what can bring them back into the game? The brand had two distinct personalities and the new merged venture needs to present itself as a new fresh look. This is just the same difference between a new-born baby wonder and an octagenerarian who had a bypass surgery. People will have a delight to receive a new-born baby. The CEO will be responsible for the image upheaval in the market. A merger can be a double-edged sword. It depends on the use whether it hurts your opponent or you.  

Is Jio encouraging Internet consumption or addiction?

Time and again invaders and dictators have used their power to usurp the power of expression from people. They have taken away natural resources that have been the fundamental right of a person. A person has to pay for them. In this age of technological revolution, Reliance has come up with a new policy to enslave the Internet surge. Jio was the brainchild of Mukesh Ambani who calculated the potential of the rising number of users of Internet in India. He thinks that by being the first person to launch Jio 4G technologies in India he can make Indians addicted to the Jio experience. The initial bounty of free offers and unlimited bandwidth attracted the maximum number of unique customers to Jio. Then after the bounty period is over the people will have been quite used to the brand of Jio. This will make them pay for the usage and thus increase the usage. 

 

Internet speed and Internet consumption are just two sides of a coin. As one increases the other one also increases. People who are just concerned about the service will never understand this relation. But slowly the average consumption of a person will increase three to four times more than his current consumption. This will make them spend more on the Internet usage per day as compared to the current expenditure.

To understand this, consider a person who smokes one cigar a day at the price of a cigarette for 3 months. After the bounty period the seller can charge him the actual value of the cigar and the person will spend it. He will never think about smoking a cigarette again because he’s used to the cigar. In fact in some cases the person under consideration can also increase his consumption.

In this age of Internet proliferation even the United Nations has declared the Internet as a fundamental right of the people. Nations like Estonia and Lithuania are known for their free Public Wifi Internet. Why is then India the world’s largest democracy in the world paying for its Internet consumption? Possibly it is because the people never think of it. They never realize that Internet has now become like air and water. Will you pay everyday for breathing oxygen? But this can only be understood by the future technologies that are coming up. Like the Internet of Things, which will change the way data is used. But these are later things. Primary is to realize that it is time that Internet becomes free like an open source platform which is only under one surveillance and that is the government and not any corporates.

Cigar or cigarettes either are going to burn; or can people get away with these? But in the end the choice should be that of the people.

 

IPL is the new Cricket Arena

Cricket was not merely a sport for Indians. It was even more important than all other sports including our national sport Hockey and other sports like Kabaddi and Wrestling. The passion in the minds of people exuded and competed with those of religions. Even religion lost its ground when a match of India and Australia or South Africa was played.

But the latest test series against Australia proves otherwise. The Indian team which was in their best form was destroyed by the guest team on our own soils. But why a team- which is in their best form would, be bounced over by another team. Virat Kohli getting gutted early in the match is not something that is well understood, particularly when people say that he has been in the best form ever. What is going wrong? Are the stars not good for the Indian team? Or the Aussies have suddenly become too good for us? Well there are many explanations to it, depending on our imaginations. Another guess is the IPL series that is starting in April of this year.

Any IPL season the players are not part of any nation; rather a part of a club and that reduces the stress and tension on the players. They have a better audience to showcase their skills. The IPL arena is likely that of a typical Roman arena where each warrior has a different showmanship. This arena will not only generate recognition for him but also build his personal brand. It will increase viewers for his performance in non-IPL matches as well and also ensure a good bidder for himself during the next season of IPL the following year.

 

The players will definitely get more time for the IPL and also not lose their form. They will get an audience who was bored by the cold test series with Australia and will get more thrilled to see players at their best form playing for IPL clubs. The players’ best form will ensure a steady flow of people into the stadiums. This is where the players will be showcasing their real form, and not in an ICC stadium. The IPL has redefined the very word of cricket.

The time of the year after the IPL will be the time when the players will go back to playing for their national teams and I am sure Virat Kohli and his team will sure work the rivals after the IPL. Do we hear anybody saying, “See you after the season”?

Well, the people who throng into the stadium to watch an IPL sure get bored with the same song playing in the background. The marketing team of IPL will be out of options to promote the series with a new look that looks promising even to deceive the people into thinking that this season is a fresh theme.

I think it’s time to think of hosting the IPL in alternate years rather than consecutive years. This will not only prevent the brand from diluting its value but also prevent lack of performance in national cricket. After all we must remember that these players did come out of national teams.