Saturday, May 23, 2009

Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire.

The first thought that came to mind on reading this story happens to be the title of today's blog post. Too long has the country been held to ransom by parties expecting to get great power without equitable representation. How else would one explain a party with just 18 seats expecting to get 9 plum ministerial berths and expecting the party with 206 seats to just give it all away ? It's nice to see the Congress party stand up to be counted and play hard ball with these small parties . It's not about arrogance but just sometimes people have to be put in their place. An 87 year old man just found his right level of incompetence.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Elections, Sensex and Mayhem.

Waking up on a Saturday morning 4-1/2 hours behind the good old des one was immediately struck with the thought - Election results => streaming NDTV, shiny new ADSL2+ broadband. Thanks to the time difference there was no surprise left in the results by the time I got around to looking at the results and seeing Prannoy Roy for what must be the infinitieth time run us through the election results. It was indeed interesting to note that this is the first time a government that has completed 5 years has been almost reelected. Streaming NDTV 24X7 live on a webcast worked like a charm though one did get the feeling that the ad-breaks were a bit too long. Watching the spoilers like the 3rd, 4th and even the 999th front get a pasting from the voters was quite a nice feeling.

Our Prime Minister must be wondering about there being no sense with the traders. In 2004 the markets fell the maximum in a day because the Congress had been voted in, in 2009 the markets had to be closed again because the Congress was voted in. What will happen in 2014 ? The mind boggles.

The market's reaction today is the burden of expectations on this government. The cry has gone out, Perform or Perish. The Indian voter will no longer tolerate political slogans ! As for me - I'll go back to watching the Beeb muse about the expenses row here in the U.K. I wonder what will happen if MPs in India were asked to disclose their expenses.