I did not notice the symbol till recently that the circular symbol contains one V just below W. Suddenly it started making a sense to me. V & W make the complete name. Also, the tag line "Das Auto",German for "The Car", is much simpler compared to its previous tag line “Aus Liebe zum Automobil” - "For the love of the automobile”.
"Outsourced"- a movie by John Jeffcoat, a satire cum reality cum modern day comedy which also depicts the cross cultural conflicts, has also a bit of Indianized Volkswagen .
"Ground clearance is up to Indian condition"-- One proof is given by placing an ostrich egg below the car and crossing over it without hampering the egg.
On average, an ostrich egg is 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long, 13 centimetres (5.1 in) wide, and weighs 1.4 kilograms (3.1 lb), over 20 times the weight of a chicken egg.Here the 13 cm is the ground clearance for the car. Does this adaptability of VW reflects market sensitivity or inability of our system to build , rather maintain good roads. Not other cars have basically advertised "specific Indian conditions" manufacture. Does this innovation reflects "USP" or does it reflect that one organization has succumbed to the system and morphed itself rather than waiting for right time to come to launch its product. Rightly it has pointed out one aspect where business India struggles to cater the materialistic needs of ever growing, cash rich new generation.
It is not that ground clearance is the only point made, "safety first" is not any other statement put in an add. It seems that our traffic system has failed or rather we have failed our traffic system, to follow safe driving and now the automobile manufacturers have taken the responsibility.
It is not the only organization which dared to say so. TATA's dared to say that. Not only they said, but also communicated to the system in a tacit way by innovating "swatch" - a cheap water filter that runs without electricity, that the government has failed and would not be able to cope up with the ever growing need of safe drinking water for the lower strata, specially urban poors and villages where electricity is also a problem.
This chasm, to which corporates have adopted and turned into a business opportunity, has also provided fodder for political opportunism and naxalism is just a glaring example of creating parallel governance in India. We are now talking of two pronged strategy, but had only one pronged strategy been put in place at right time, the second prong needed no introduction. Every TV channel gets its own discussion going on without doing anything productive( barring money generation for disasters and some high profile indictments, that we should be thankful of).The more we discuss,the more we are satisfied. Yes..I have done my bit.. I cornered everyone in the debate as if I have cornered the problem of naxalism itself. It is like signing an online petition and forwarding the mail to others we know - for reducing the salary of MPs, to make the voices of martyrs heard and god knows what else. These petitions and discussions have something in common- both are to mitigate the feel of guilt for not doing anything ( and yes, for the same reason I am writing too).
Talks only generate talk that ends with a talk,unless some action is taken. Some days back it was IPL and now Naxalism is the talk of town.
Talk has allegiance to no one but to talk. But action has allegiance to its stakeholders and root cause of the problems.
Intellectual class has been discussing cause and problem in detailed manner for long but I find the doctor's way more suited to explain the "chest pain" that India is currently going through.
Let's assume for the time being India is a person.Some already consider it mother but this assumption is for people who consider it a land only.
Now this person (named India) is diagnosed by doctors for its problem.I am sure the doctors will diagnose two problems-:Atherosclerosis and Arrhythmia.
Atherosclerosis: is a common disorder of the arteries. Fat, cholesterol, and other substances collect in the walls of arteries. Larger accumulations are called atheromas or plaque and can damage artery walls and block blood flow. Severely restricted blood flow in the heart muscle leads to symptoms such as chest pain.......
Looks like it tells a lot about Indian democracy and red-tapism that has led us to this chest pain. Government did accumulate fat in form of babus and netas who can't be disposed off and now they are the one blocking the blood flow to heart forgetting that even they won't get a pie if heart fails to pump blood properly. They are like benign cancers, eating away every day but remaining benign and we accept them and learn to live with them because they do not look like posing any danger but keep on growing day by day. By the time we will realize to get rid of that tumor, it would be too late. It will leave such a distortion, that we would keep hiding the scars left behind.
The chances of such distortions are accentuated by indirectly promoting the cause of such benign cancers. Read below to see how. Looks like an advertisement in a job portal :
Policy by Naveen Patnaik :Under rehabilitation package, a surrendered Maoist gets 10,000 and is entitled to allotment of homestead land upto 4 decimal, housebuilding grant upto 25,000 and assistance of Rs 15000 for marriage, bank loan upto 2 lakh for self - employment(with some other waivers on repayment)Surrendered ultras are entitled to free treatment in government hospitals and reimbursement of cost of fee and text books up to high school. They are also entitled to the government reward money on their heads. Cases will be withdrawn in case of minor offences.
In addition to this,Maoist are paid for whatever artillery they surrender for eg 1 Lack for LMG, 75000 for carbine etc. Since states have different policies, the ultras have flexibility to surrender in the state where they have only minor offences registered against them. Also if they are on high ranks, they should choose Maharashtra as this state gives additional leadership advantage in form of money.. 4to 10 lacks for divisional committee member,2 lakhs for dalam commander and so on.
So the baseline is-- join ultras, have some good time killing and fleeing. If you survive 7-10 years, take retirement and setup your own business.You will be treated like an ex-soldier.And what the people are going to get for whom the whole fight is drawn up ? The tribals.. not all tribals are naxalite and I am not sure whether the vise versa is true as well.
What we did not spend on regular health, now we are spending ,not on full and final operation, but to clean up small patches of artery from cholesterol.
If government could have honestly spent a fraction of what they are planning now, we won't have arrived at this juncture. But we can't reverse the past so lets see what is happening now.
Arrhythmia :Cardiac dysrhythmia (also known as arrhythmia) is a term for any of a large and heterogeneous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heart beat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular.
What we see now is the abnormal activity, be it by desperate naxalites to gain some ground by killing security personnel or to gain some faith of public by announcing that train derailment did not have their approval. The same applies to government as well, be it by inviting naxalites to talk table or be it by having a meeting with all three armed forces heads to find how far they can help to tackle the problem.
These activities are basically symptoms of a larger problem and not the solutions that we think of.There was even bigger lull before all these hectic
activities began.And it is not the only case. How often do we see north east in televisions, in news and on national arena ? We almost forget that there is some part of India that is not getting the projection that it should get.
Then suddenly one day it makes a breaking news-- agitation whether to allow a personal visit by a leader to his home village or not. The two extremes itself show that nation is suffering from Arrhythmia.
The abnormalities seem like a web of cross wires underneath which India (the washer man--urban poor class) has invited the word (Todd Anderson of "outsourced") for lunch. Washer man's wife flips the pane on to his plate. The chapati comes out of the pane with a life size Volkswagen symbol imprinted on it.
"Outsourced"- a movie by John Jeffcoat, a satire cum reality cum modern day comedy which also depicts the cross cultural conflicts, has also a bit of Indianized Volkswagen .
"Ground clearance is up to Indian condition"-- One proof is given by placing an ostrich egg below the car and crossing over it without hampering the egg.
On average, an ostrich egg is 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long, 13 centimetres (5.1 in) wide, and weighs 1.4 kilograms (3.1 lb), over 20 times the weight of a chicken egg.Here the 13 cm is the ground clearance for the car. Does this adaptability of VW reflects market sensitivity or inability of our system to build , rather maintain good roads. Not other cars have basically advertised "specific Indian conditions" manufacture. Does this innovation reflects "USP" or does it reflect that one organization has succumbed to the system and morphed itself rather than waiting for right time to come to launch its product. Rightly it has pointed out one aspect where business India struggles to cater the materialistic needs of ever growing, cash rich new generation.
It is not that ground clearance is the only point made, "safety first" is not any other statement put in an add. It seems that our traffic system has failed or rather we have failed our traffic system, to follow safe driving and now the automobile manufacturers have taken the responsibility.
It is not the only organization which dared to say so. TATA's dared to say that. Not only they said, but also communicated to the system in a tacit way by innovating "swatch" - a cheap water filter that runs without electricity, that the government has failed and would not be able to cope up with the ever growing need of safe drinking water for the lower strata, specially urban poors and villages where electricity is also a problem.
This chasm, to which corporates have adopted and turned into a business opportunity, has also provided fodder for political opportunism and naxalism is just a glaring example of creating parallel governance in India. We are now talking of two pronged strategy, but had only one pronged strategy been put in place at right time, the second prong needed no introduction. Every TV channel gets its own discussion going on without doing anything productive( barring money generation for disasters and some high profile indictments, that we should be thankful of).The more we discuss,the more we are satisfied. Yes..I have done my bit.. I cornered everyone in the debate as if I have cornered the problem of naxalism itself. It is like signing an online petition and forwarding the mail to others we know - for reducing the salary of MPs, to make the voices of martyrs heard and god knows what else. These petitions and discussions have something in common- both are to mitigate the feel of guilt for not doing anything ( and yes, for the same reason I am writing too).
Talks only generate talk that ends with a talk,unless some action is taken. Some days back it was IPL and now Naxalism is the talk of town.
Talk has allegiance to no one but to talk. But action has allegiance to its stakeholders and root cause of the problems.
Intellectual class has been discussing cause and problem in detailed manner for long but I find the doctor's way more suited to explain the "chest pain" that India is currently going through.
Let's assume for the time being India is a person.Some already consider it mother but this assumption is for people who consider it a land only.
Now this person (named India) is diagnosed by doctors for its problem.I am sure the doctors will diagnose two problems-:Atherosclerosis and Arrhythmia.
Atherosclerosis: is a common disorder of the arteries. Fat, cholesterol, and other substances collect in the walls of arteries. Larger accumulations are called atheromas or plaque and can damage artery walls and block blood flow. Severely restricted blood flow in the heart muscle leads to symptoms such as chest pain.......
Looks like it tells a lot about Indian democracy and red-tapism that has led us to this chest pain. Government did accumulate fat in form of babus and netas who can't be disposed off and now they are the one blocking the blood flow to heart forgetting that even they won't get a pie if heart fails to pump blood properly. They are like benign cancers, eating away every day but remaining benign and we accept them and learn to live with them because they do not look like posing any danger but keep on growing day by day. By the time we will realize to get rid of that tumor, it would be too late. It will leave such a distortion, that we would keep hiding the scars left behind.
The chances of such distortions are accentuated by indirectly promoting the cause of such benign cancers. Read below to see how. Looks like an advertisement in a job portal :
Policy by Naveen Patnaik :Under rehabilitation package, a surrendered Maoist gets 10,000 and is entitled to allotment of homestead land upto 4 decimal, housebuilding grant upto 25,000 and assistance of Rs 15000 for marriage, bank loan upto 2 lakh for self - employment(with some other waivers on repayment)Surrendered ultras are entitled to free treatment in government hospitals and reimbursement of cost of fee and text books up to high school. They are also entitled to the government reward money on their heads. Cases will be withdrawn in case of minor offences.
In addition to this,Maoist are paid for whatever artillery they surrender for eg 1 Lack for LMG, 75000 for carbine etc. Since states have different policies, the ultras have flexibility to surrender in the state where they have only minor offences registered against them. Also if they are on high ranks, they should choose Maharashtra as this state gives additional leadership advantage in form of money.. 4to 10 lacks for divisional committee member,2 lakhs for dalam commander and so on.
So the baseline is-- join ultras, have some good time killing and fleeing. If you survive 7-10 years, take retirement and setup your own business.You will be treated like an ex-soldier.And what the people are going to get for whom the whole fight is drawn up ? The tribals.. not all tribals are naxalite and I am not sure whether the vise versa is true as well.
What we did not spend on regular health, now we are spending ,not on full and final operation, but to clean up small patches of artery from cholesterol.
If government could have honestly spent a fraction of what they are planning now, we won't have arrived at this juncture. But we can't reverse the past so lets see what is happening now.
Arrhythmia :Cardiac dysrhythmia (also known as arrhythmia) is a term for any of a large and heterogeneous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heart beat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular.
What we see now is the abnormal activity, be it by desperate naxalites to gain some ground by killing security personnel or to gain some faith of public by announcing that train derailment did not have their approval. The same applies to government as well, be it by inviting naxalites to talk table or be it by having a meeting with all three armed forces heads to find how far they can help to tackle the problem.
These activities are basically symptoms of a larger problem and not the solutions that we think of.There was even bigger lull before all these hectic
activities began.And it is not the only case. How often do we see north east in televisions, in news and on national arena ? We almost forget that there is some part of India that is not getting the projection that it should get.
Then suddenly one day it makes a breaking news-- agitation whether to allow a personal visit by a leader to his home village or not. The two extremes itself show that nation is suffering from Arrhythmia.
The abnormalities seem like a web of cross wires underneath which India (the washer man--urban poor class) has invited the word (Todd Anderson of "outsourced") for lunch. Washer man's wife flips the pane on to his plate. The chapati comes out of the pane with a life size Volkswagen symbol imprinted on it.
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