Thursday, March 5, 2015

Day 5 - Kottayam.

Had got up by 6 AM and was ready well in time. After making my customary morning call home, it's breakfast followed by a quick exit for the conference hall at the panchayat's main building, which was the venue. The patriarch, Vasudevan chettan, joined us not long after and the audience had steadily started building up.

The overview of the training capsule had to begin and it did at 1030h, since the meeting was scheduled at 1200h as the minister was attending at that time. The proceedings went off fine but in this district, the programme has to take off in right earnest in all the six panchayats that have been selected under this phase. The feedback was carefully updated and the revised target has to be re-established, perhaps, to the end of next month.

We'd left the venue, on completion, by about 1500h and set off straight for Idukki. The journey up the ghats towards the hilly district was superb and we were subject to the spectacular natural beauty that was in abundance. The lush green deep valleys, a thick forest habitat, the numerous hairpin bends on a well surfaced road coupled with plenty of birds playing around the abundant flora and the traffic was unbelievably low on density, thankfully!

Our stay was at the government guest house and from the balcony of our room we could take in the breath taking beauty of the famed 'arch dam' of the Idukki project and also the check dam. To add to the spectacle, it was a full moon.

Was there anything else to ask for?


Tailpiece.

Heard the news about the BBC having aired the documentary on the sad Delhi rape that had shaken the entire country, not very long ago. The following queries/facts perplex me:-

    (a) Why was the channel allowed to interview the guilty?
    (b) Whose idea was it and more importantly, what was the expected outcome/ what was the reason
          for making this documentary?
    (c) The identity of the victim that was kept confidential by the Indian media has gone kaput with
          the BBC documentary having spelt that out. Wasn't that a wrong decision in the first place?
    (d) Does the government's ban on screening the movie an effective/implementable order in these 
          days of satellite coverage that has unrestricted reach?
    (e) Would the BBC have acted similarly, if the victim was a British citizen?
    (f)  And isn't the BBC cocking a snook at us/our intelligence when it says that it will not air the
          documentary in India while it's airing it all over? 

Sad, the poor young lady is not being spared even after her gruesome death!

No comments:

Post a Comment