OPinionatED
or
VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat as
Aam Admi
Issue: 174 Date: 31.10.2016
Contents:
1. The Tata-Mistry Spat
2. Bow Wow – Dog Talk
3. The Indo-Pak Border Is Alive To The Sound Of Firing
The Tata-Mistry Spat
The Tata-Mistry spat that exploded in the last
week has been splashed over the media which is not very pleasant and/or
creditable for the illustrious Tata group. It is sad that neither Mistry nor
the Tata management have been trying to take the matter off the public eye
since these are not matters that need to be exposed in public. Transition times
for the Tata group have always been associated with ginger and spice since when
Ratan Tata was nominated to take charge of the group by the venerable J R D
Tata it was the feisty Rusi Mody running TISCO then who had raised a mild
banner of revolt. One must say that the young Ratan Tata had then handled the
matter firmly and with elan which attributes were carried through his tenure at
the helm of the Tata empire. It is now his turn to play the disruptor in this
interrupted term of Cyrus Mistry. He may have valid reasons to unseat
Mistry but the roots of this problem has its origins at the time when Mistry
was nominated to step into the shoes of Ratan Tata. Ratan Tata was not part of
the search committee to select the new Chairman while Cyrus Mistry was and the
committee in its wisdom or folly selected Mistry. Ratan Tata should have been
part of the search committee considering the size and diversity of the Tata
group and being an incumbent he would know the great complexity of the job. The
condoning clause against this argument would be that Tata knew Mistry already
since both were on the board of Tata Sons given the latter's position with
Shapoor Pallonji. But being catapulted into the Chairman's job at Tatas was
something that Mistry had not bargained for, to which he had demurred initially
and which he must be now regretting for having accepted the challenge. But it
is time for him to move on with grace considering that he is still young and
there is much more than the Tata group for him to play around with and to show
his professional competence or otherwise. The fallouts of the spat we have seen
in the stock market, with government agencies as also the lakhs of the
employees of the Tata empire spread across the globe. But the major fallout
will be to get a new Chairman as Ratan Tata has said will take 4 months. Given
the controversy whether any serious candidate would like to join so quickly is
doubtful and Ratan Tata may find himself occupying the Chairman’s position for
a longer span more likely close to a year.
Bow Wow – Dog Talk
The canines have been very much in the news again
over the last week. What with another 90 year old person attacked and killed by
stray dogs while he was sleeping on his front porch in Kerala. With this it has
been three deaths caused by strays in the State over the last couple of months
and all of them aged people. There had been outrage over dog culling in Kerala
after these deaths but then a solution need be found. Even after the latest
killing an old boy’s college outfit has announced that they would give gold
coins to the municipal councils which kill the most strays. Commenting on the
dog culling earlier Menaka Gandhi, a known animal lover had denounced the
measure and called for its immediate cessation. Unfortunately Menaka did not
give any constructive ideas on how the stray dog menace can be combated? It has
not only been that such attacks have occurred in Kerala but it has been
happening across the country and in Bengaluru there had been a number of
attacks over the last year on small children mostly while they were playing
near garbage dumps. Menaka has also raised her voice in protest for the
practice of eating dog meat in Nagaland and Shillong in Meghalaya as also much
of the North East tribal areas. But then this protest seems to be rather
illogical since if one can eat chicken, goat, lamb, cow then why not dog? One
can understand the people sentiments about dog being man’s best friend but when
the menace of stray dogs is reaching proportions where human life is at risk
then some action needs to be taken. Measures to effect birth control on dogs
and to inoculate them against rabies all seem to have failed since if one looks
around us in any part of India the stray dog population has been growing at
alarming proportions and also the number of biting incidents and attacks on
people that lead to death has been rising. Thus the simplistic thing to do
would be to catch all the strays in the rest of the country and ship them out
to the North East so that the people there are at least not deprived of the
protein that they are used to. Some such measure needs to be worked out since
the high procreation rate of stray dogs, the uncontrolled disposal of garbage
in open areas in our localities which feed the dogs, there will come a day when
the number of dogs in any area will exceed the human population. The measure
suggested above does not stop people from keeping dogs as pets as long as they
manage them properly and give them the required shots so that they are not a
danger to the families which maintain them or those people who are likely to
come in contact with these pets. The owners of the dogs should also ensure that
they pick up dog poop that their pets litter in public places. But recently on
Marine Drive in Mumbai when the municipality introduce a system of fines on
owners for their dogs for littering the seafront with poop, some grudgingly
paid but then it is said that the number of dogs coming for a stroll with their
owners on this celebrated promenade has been reducing. Again just before
Diwali, in Mumbai again, it was reported that some NGO’s and dog lovers were
putting collars on stray dogs and cats labeling the localities they are from,
so that these animals can be returned to these localities if they stray out in
fear and by disorientation during the noise of Diwali fireworks. Is such concern
not misplaced? Since hardly one hour drive from Mumbai in Thane tribal children
have been dying in scores because of malnutrition. Are these children, the
progeny of humans, not deserving of similar concern?
The Indo-Pak Border Is Alive To The Sound Of Firing
Almost synchronized to the cacophonous noise of
fireworks during Diwali, the Indo – Pak border adjoining Kashmir was alive to
the sound of firing. The guns from both sides have been blazing away with more
regularity than they were six months ago. One could say that this is the end of
the season boom of activity before the long winter sets in making the passes
difficult to cross over for the terrorists from PoK and Pakistan. But the fact
remains that the rat-ata-tat of small arms and mortar fire has increased making
the villagers from near the border flee to safer surroundings. There have been
a number of casualties on the Indian side of both our army personnel and
innocent villagers. One could say that a lo-intensity war on the border has
been in progress over the last month or so. This could be because of the
attacks on Uri and the tit-for-tat Indian army attacks on terror camps across
the border. But there is a darker reason on both sides for this lo-intensity
war to escalate and become a full fledged war. On the Pakistani side there is
no need to justify the need of a war since it is something that they are used
to and which they consider their birthright. But the immediate basis for
fanning the flames could be that their Army Chief, another Sharif, is due to
retire imminently and it is in his best interest for him to have something
serious to develop on the Indo-Pak front since then maybe he gets an extension
in service from the other Sharif, PM Nawaz Sharif. General Sharif took a tour
of the forward areas on the Kashmir front a fortnight ago to check out the
preparedness which is enough visibility to declare his intentions. On the
Indian side, we have seen how the surgical strikes post-Uri attack was milked
by the BJP and the incumbent government to extract every last bit of political
mileage with an eye on elections in a border State, Punjab and the very
important State of UP, which are both up for elections in early 2017. So you
can imagine what will happen if a full-scale war develops on the western front
with Pakistan since then the 56 inch chest will puff up and expect both States
to fall into the laps of the BJP and its allies. It would be something like
what happened with George Bush who got his second term Presidency because he
had the guts to go to war in Iraq. Not only that in India with the economy
sluggish a war could be just the thing to propel it to a higher level of growth
and get things moving faster. So when the snows start melting in March – April
in the high passes of Kashmir’s border with PoK and Pakistan we should start
seeing the fires of war lighting up our north-western horizon.
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