The Valentine's Day Dilemma

Bloody hell! It is the season of Valentines.

For some it is the most important day. Then why not it is the day on which their love might blossom.
Wake up guys!. Do you think a gift or a card on a valentines day would instill that love in your sweatheart.

I think for starters it is the most confusing times. Let’s look at it from a guy’s point of view. I assume if you are thinking of Valentines day then there should be somebody in your mind. You don’t know whether she likes you or not but from your point of view she is the one that is made for you. Give me a break,

Anyways you want to propose to her or at the least give her a gift. Now comes the interesting part.

What is an ideal gift for Valentine?

Would you go in for the clichéd, the Greeting Card. You go to an Archies or a Hallmark and look for hours together for that “different” gift. You are not going to get it. You decide that you will come back to the store. You want the card to be given along with some other gift.

Next stop flowers. How original my dear? Your gift of the most beautiful set of roses would be lost among the hordes of others. See flowers nowadays have become the most clichéd of all the Valentine's day Gifts.

What next? You want to buy her an expensive gift. But how expensive. Buy her a Jewellery piece may be. Wait a minute, are you really serious about her. The thing with girls is when you give them gold they would think that you are bloody serious. And that’s a bloody big risk. Serious talk on Valentine’s Day. Naah……You need to think something else.

Now the tension comes in. No ideas coming to your mind. A book, a music CD, Jeans, Video game, Movie or box of chocolates may be. Sadly none of them clicks. A book for Christ sake, what a Harry Potter. She might do a rictusempra on you. Ok what about a music CD. Are you planning to give her your favaurite rock band’s latest collection. Doesn’t work.

See the dilemma. It’s called the great V Day’s dilemma (btw I coined this term). An ideal Valentine day’s gift doesn’t exist at all. It is very difficult to achieve that balance. Expectations of the women folk rise to the brim on this day. Mind you if you go for the clichéd there are chances that she might accept your gift but not your heart. And if you go for the expensive ones, it might mean a big hole in the pocket. Girls want the most original gift on this day. There is no original gift idea left my dear.
Ohh wait a minute. I got it. The most original gift idea is to not to give a gift at all. Mind you its very original. Look at the advantages. It doesn’t make a hole in you pocket or your brain. And she might even like it who knows. You can expect anything from the women folk.

P.S: My valentine is in Canada now. So I guess my idea of not giving any valentine gift might work wonders with me.

The story of a Cartoon

Consider this. A half-witted editor of a Danish newspaper publishes a series of cartoons depicting Islam’s intolerant nature by drawing Prophet Mohammad. The cartoons itself were in a bad taste. These cartoons were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten on September 30th last year. The drawings, including a depiction of Muhammad with a bomb inside or under his turban, were accompanied by an article on self-censorship and freedom of speech. The outrage has been caused by the fact that drawing or depicting a physical image of the Prophet is against Islamic law.

There was not much which was said and written about when the article was published. If you do a google search on this topic you would find that all the ruckus was started by Saudi Arabia sometime in January (a clear few months after the incident). If one looks closely one would notice that this outburst by the Islamic governments in the middle east against the Danish newspaper coincided with the report of another stampede in the Haj where around 345 people were killed.

Syria and Egypt also reacted sharply after the Saudi outburst. Syrian and Egyptian governments are considered to be the most secular in the region. But in recent times there have been an increasing pressure on the respective governments. Many in these countries were looking for a more Islamic centered alternative.

Also another important point is the Hamas victory in Palestine. Hamas is considered as a radical Islamic outfit by many including many of the governments in the Middle East. Parties like Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are increasingly taking advantage of the failures of such governments.

So the governments found an excellent excuse to divert the attention of it’s people and also the world to a supposedly “serious offense”. Arab governments seem to have taken the cartoons so seriously because they were afraid of being outflanked by groups like Hamas among others.

What followed was the boycotting of Danish goods, withdrawing of ambassadors, burning of the Danish flag, unconditional apologies, sacking of the editors, articles after articles deploring the cartoons etc

The effect of this astounding reaction was so immense that everybody has forgotten about the stampede in Haj, which has the potential to really cast a shadow on the efficacy of the Saudi Government to manage Haj.

The cartoons became a tool to make a political point and also to divert attention till the time another blasphemous act is carried out by the Infidels of the world.

Till then enjoy the drama!

Privatization

First things first. Government should be in the business of governance alone and not divert their attention on the management of PSU's. Agreed that there are certain strategic sectors where government control is necessary, but even there privatisation in a limited fashion would actually improve efficiency across board. I agree that government should not concentrate only on the profit making firms. Loss making PSU's can also be privatised and also prove profitable on the long run. The thing with many of these so called loss making PSU's in india is that they are so used to subsidies that the thing called market economics or dynamics don't work for them. These subsidies over a number of years (both in the input as well as output) were typically spent and not invested, and have no relevance to the firm's current worth. Agreed that private sector would jump in to bid for the profitable PSU’s over the loss making one’s. But the govt should realize that if it is not finding any takers for the loss making PSU’s then there is no logic of running it themselves. If there is an inherent value in the PSU even though it is loss making, any prudent investor would jump in to buy these companies. Here are some of the points in favour of privatization of profitable public enterprises.
a) As I said before a Govt should be in the business of Governance alone
b) By selling the profitable PSU’s the government can improve the fiscal scenario
c) There would be efficiency gains which can be seen in the companies which have been privatized.
d) Spillover effect: If a Public sector enterprise is privatized then the first thing which would happen is increase in the monetary flow in the economy itself. It would also help all the ancillary companies associated with the PSU. Another important point is that the govt should relinquish control entirely after the sale of these PSU's. Total privatization is preferable to partial ones.