Over the past few days, one has been privy to a lot of news snatches that has amusing connotations. My endeavour is to mull over a few of those that had tickled my funny bone and here I go:-
(a) The Air India treats all of us as equals.
The Union Minister of State for Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, was on an Air India flight to attend
the G-20 conference in Cairns. She'd to skip an event because her luggage had got misplaced! At
least, the national carrier shows equality in taking care of its passengers' requirements!!
I'd say two cheers to Air India for that gaffe. One can imagine the rough times that it gives to
ordinary passengers. I've been told of selective treatment to the passengers on the Air India
Express that operate on the routes to the gulf countries where the majority are workers earning
their livelihood on construction sites, nursing service and the not so 'hi-fi' jobs that lack
glamour.
The treatment meted out to them, be it in the airlines' front offices or be it in the flight, leaves
much to be desired. A dispassionate observer might get the impression that all those
passengers are travelling for free from the way the airlines' staff behave!
(b) Vladimir Putin, the dictator?
The Russian President Vladimir Putin is gonna decide tomorrow as to whether Russia needs to
be disconnected from cyberspace. It's the last forum for free expression in the country during
emergency situations such as military hostilities or major protests.
Since the mainstream media is firmly under Kremlin's control, it's the social media and internet
news sites that have offered space for its citizens' to come out strongly against Russia's Ukraine
policy. Putin seems to be taking a leaf out of his Chinese counterpart's view on such matters
but what he seems to forget is that the authorities will face technical difficulties because unlike
China, Russia is firmly integrated into the global web.
Such a contemplation by Putin, however, makes one thing clear that he, himself knows that what
he's doing in Ukraine is wrong! But say he gets to gag the cyberspace, how long does he expect
to hold it like that? Not very long, for sure and the ultimate loser will be his own self!
(c) The deadlock continues.
The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between PLA soldiers and a bunch of civilians and the Indian
Army-civilians in the Chumar sector of eastern ladakh continues despite the Chinese President's
insistence that he'd passed orders to his army to extricate itself from the stand off on 18 Sep.
Now, do we take it that the PLA has been openly defiant of its President? Whom are you trying to
kid, Xi Jinping?
Tailpiece.
Can't help but laugh at such weird happenings. We've a service provider that doesn't have 'efficiency' in its operational menu, there's a world leader who seems to have not learnt from history and another leader who's pretending that he's weak!
(a) The Air India treats all of us as equals.
The Union Minister of State for Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, was on an Air India flight to attend
the G-20 conference in Cairns. She'd to skip an event because her luggage had got misplaced! At
least, the national carrier shows equality in taking care of its passengers' requirements!!
I'd say two cheers to Air India for that gaffe. One can imagine the rough times that it gives to
ordinary passengers. I've been told of selective treatment to the passengers on the Air India
Express that operate on the routes to the gulf countries where the majority are workers earning
their livelihood on construction sites, nursing service and the not so 'hi-fi' jobs that lack
glamour.
The treatment meted out to them, be it in the airlines' front offices or be it in the flight, leaves
much to be desired. A dispassionate observer might get the impression that all those
passengers are travelling for free from the way the airlines' staff behave!
(b) Vladimir Putin, the dictator?
The Russian President Vladimir Putin is gonna decide tomorrow as to whether Russia needs to
be disconnected from cyberspace. It's the last forum for free expression in the country during
emergency situations such as military hostilities or major protests.
Since the mainstream media is firmly under Kremlin's control, it's the social media and internet
news sites that have offered space for its citizens' to come out strongly against Russia's Ukraine
policy. Putin seems to be taking a leaf out of his Chinese counterpart's view on such matters
but what he seems to forget is that the authorities will face technical difficulties because unlike
China, Russia is firmly integrated into the global web.
Such a contemplation by Putin, however, makes one thing clear that he, himself knows that what
he's doing in Ukraine is wrong! But say he gets to gag the cyberspace, how long does he expect
to hold it like that? Not very long, for sure and the ultimate loser will be his own self!
(c) The deadlock continues.
The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between PLA soldiers and a bunch of civilians and the Indian
Army-civilians in the Chumar sector of eastern ladakh continues despite the Chinese President's
insistence that he'd passed orders to his army to extricate itself from the stand off on 18 Sep.
Now, do we take it that the PLA has been openly defiant of its President? Whom are you trying to
kid, Xi Jinping?
Tailpiece.
Can't help but laugh at such weird happenings. We've a service provider that doesn't have 'efficiency' in its operational menu, there's a world leader who seems to have not learnt from history and another leader who's pretending that he's weak!
No comments:
Post a Comment