Never a dull moment

We had bought a second hand small house for my mother from a housewife in government housing scheme in 1994. The house was bought on Power of attorney but we did not know the trouble we would have to undergo. The land owners who sold their land to housing board went to court asking fro higher compensation. Hence the housing board could not complete the documnetaion formality for this hosuing scheme until the court settled this issue in 2002. After that, there were several changes in the scheme which was done by the government to increase its income from this housing scheme. Power of attorney was eclared null and void throwing our sanction into a tizzy. I made several attempts to regularise this transaction over several trips to Kochi over the years but at each step , the combination of the systems and staff in the office thwarted my attempts. The documentation went hayware with a number of negative comments against the transaction noted by the staff. We managed to find a buyer for the ...

I am at Kochi now for an urgent personal work involving property transaction. More on this later. I am staying with relatives - maternal paternal cousins pair. They got married more than thirty years back. The lady of the house was from a struggling family and her marriage with her cousin was a way out for her. But life held different designs for this couple. They have three daughters- the first and the last being mentally challenged may be brought about by genetic factors caused by cohabitation between close relatives. The second daughter is bright but then - love is blind and truly blind. Her life partner bagged after secret romance was a poor choice and she is struglling in her family life. Dad of kids retired from a public sector company years ago and has been working with a private construction company since. The special daughters are attending special care school and are in mid twenties. Both the hunband and wife are cheerful people and go about their life with zest not for a ...

Climate change is a pet topic these days. There is a clamour for action on carbon emmission effect from all over the world but USA has been a naysayer on this front. Statistical evidence of carbon emmission is spun the other way around and trashed by scientists / officialdom in USA. USA is not prepared to bear any investment on this front as there is a feeling that this would amke American industry uncompetitive. There is also a move to make the developing countries carry the can stating that they are as much responsible for pollution as developed countries and with burgeoning population, developing countries would pile on more and more misery on carbon emmission front. As usual green technology is available with developed countries and there are efforts to create a market for these technologies by pampering third world economies. All these sound sinister but then that is the way world functions. Developing countries are forced to listen to developed world on this topic as it is the de...

Any award or prize in public domain is in appreciation of contribution / achievement of the recipient and is a public appreciation. The process of selection may vary but the general philosophy remains the same. The citation read out while the award is presented lists out the achievements. An award is not given anticipating an achievement as there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. There is a general notion in India that Dhadha Saheb Phalke award for life time contribution to Indian cinema which is announced once in a way is awarded to a personality who is in semi retirement. Adoor Gopalakrishnan was the recipient a couple of years back and is definitely an decade and half younger than all recipients so far. Adoor remarked that by presenting this award to him, the public was asking him to retire ! Manna Dey, the famous singer from Bengal, was the recipient of this award last week. He is 90 years old ! The achievements of Nobel laureates are legion. Rabindranath Tagore has contr...

Newspaper reading is a habit which dies hard. There is a brand loyalty too. Having moved to all metros and to smaller cities over the last two decades and a half, I am in position to tell a thing or two on this topic. Nearly two and half decades back, during the two years of post graduate study at Ahemdabad, the quality of English papers were pathetic there. Mumbai has only one dominant newspaper and what it puts out is gospel. Kolkata had three English newspapers but again average in quality. In Kanpur, we used wait till the afternoon for Delhi edition newspapers and it was worht the wait. Patna was again pretty low on quality of English newspapers. Bangalore, Hyderababd, Chennai and Delhi have variety of newspapers and good content too. Delhi has to widest range of English newspapers. Once again I am at a medium sized city - Jaipur. The local English newspapers are poor in content. So once again I wait for Delhi editions which are fuller. Over the period of time , the reach of Englis...