VINDICA

After years of entering whatever happened to be the bargain basement "mass" movie of the year, India has finally entered a really good movie Peepli Live for the Oscars. I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago and was blown away. It is a tragi-comic movie that has a huge impact. Very realistic, fabulous and believable performance by all actors involved. The farce is taken a bit far sometimes (there is a scene where the news reporter is reporting on the character of the protagonist based on what we can see of his poop), but the movie is so good at so many levels that it can carry off even this scene. If you have not watched it, it is highly recommended.

The disaster that is India's preparation for the Commonwealth games keeps escalating in embarassment. After creditably hosting the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982 under the inspired leadership of a rising Rajiv Gandhi, India might have expected to stage a memorable show with the CWG nearly three decades later. But the script has gone tragi-comically sour. At something like Rs. 30,000 crore of the taxpayers' money, the Games are the most expensive sports event hosted by India. It is certainly an extortionate price to pay in exchange for shame and disgrace. It is not so surprising that the Government is worse at doing things today than it was 30 years ago. India's best governments were its first ones. Things have been on an accelerating downward path since. The saving grace is the goverment doing less and less. But what about areas where the government cannot be replaced? What about the Millitary, the Police, the Regulatory agencies and the Judiciary? Can a country pos