The Buck Stops Elsewhere

Right around the world, bureaucracy is encountered on a daily basis. As an interface between the people & the power, the desk is an icon of disinterest. Here is a collection of Jan Banning's photographs that go into his book - "Bureaucratics" featuring pencil-pushers of varied nationalities, backgrounds and responsibilities all officiating away. He also gives a brief description of the people manning the desks including details of their titles, duties and pay. The photographs contrast the inevitability and permanency of the bureaucratic machine with the insignificant and transitory nature of the position holder's grip over it.

Links:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2010/06/bureaucratics.html
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/movingwalls/17
http://www.janbanning.nl/

For Domestic Consumption

In the aftermath of the Greek debt crisis, there is a hunt on to find the next country that lives beyond its means. The business news media tries to connect the dots and extrapolate from the existing. The sovereign debt crisis story needs its sequels and there must also be some nondescript lessons learnt. After all, a pattern cannot be tagged to be so without repetition. So it is that Hungary has emerged as a suitor. But strangely enough the unwanted attention on its economy is of its own doing to a great extent.

Hungary has gone the way so many countries have gone before it by mixing economics with politics. A new government in place with new promises of tax cuts to keep has met its old enemy - reality. In such cases the only logical way out is to blame the outgoing government and make it known widely that the economy inherited is the weak link. But when this message gets too loud, then there is a danger of people outside the target audience listening in. And that according to Goldman Sachs is the reason for the mini run-on-the-economy that was triggered by the Hungarian government officials comparing themselves to the Greeks.

These messages of subtlety which are supposed to mean different things to different people are hard to pull off. It is especially difficult when the same message has to convey diametrically opposite views. So a comparison with Greece was supposed to alert and lower domestic expectations in Hungary but all it did was heighten international suspicions. The first lesson the Hungarian government might have learnt here is in the use of the double entendre. But the more important lesson has to do with scaring citizens into opting for policies that weren't in the campaign manifesto and how it all can backfire.

"For domestic consumption only" is tricky to achieve when the commodity is communication. In India this was a target of the austerity drive after the 2009 general elections and it involved a train journey for the Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, no less! The message of tightening the belt was sent out through the exercise but the significance of it was lost on the outsider - mission accomplished. It is another matter that the grinding reality of poverty in India made these austerity measures a source of great amusement for the man with no belt or pants.

More Links:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b6d5ad48-726b-11df-9f82-00144feabdc0.html
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/will-aim-to-meet-deficit-goal-hungary-_462372.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10254462.stm
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5il4ORqz4woTzfBKJ4ziqsFyPr2wA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rahul-Gandhi-joins-austerity-drive-travels-by-Shatabdi-Express/articleshow/5012898.cms

Passive Resisters

As the football World Cup kicks off in South Africa, here is an article from The Mint which reveals the footballing history of the Indian migrants in South Africa and Gandhi's use of the sport in that country to promote his ideas on resistance and protest.

http://www.livemint.com/2010/06/11204317/When-Bapu-kicked-the-ball.html?h=A3


More Links:
http://gandhiphilately.blogspot.com/2010/03/chile-1974-gandhi-ffc.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/report_fifa-world-cup-2010-kicking-out-apartheid_1392420-all

Going to the Toilet

Elizabeth Gilbert in this TED talk tries to separate the individual from his creative process. It is one of the ways of reconciling the individual's unexplainable freakish talent in a certain area with the remainder of his personality which may well be unremarkable.

During this year's IPL, in order for his team to not be overwhelmed by a certain opposition player's abilities, a coach stated a practical means of separation of the man from his talent:

"Sachin Tendulkar is a great cricketer but he walks and goes to the toilet like all of us"
- Royal Challengers Bangalore coach, Ray Jennings, says his team will attack the Mumbai Indians captain (April 17th 2010, Cricinfo.com)

Playing The Part

Art Deco in Hyderabad

In Barkatpura, located next to the Employee's Provident Fund Office is an old well-maintained art deco building. The property is currently occupied so a closer look was not possible, but I managed to get this photograph of a mural on the exterior wall of the building on my cellphone. The year on it reads 1933 and appropriate for those times it depicts a Hindenburg-style airship, a giant ocean liner, an eiffel tower like structure and a skyscraper among other smaller industrial design elements.

Christianity: Indian?

In the show "Goodness Gracious Me", this British Indian immigrant guy is basically convinced that everything around the world is Indian. Well, Isn't it?