Today's politics is all about branding

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As the country heads for the 15th Lok Sabha elections, a political metamorphosis is underway. From Varun Gandhi's ongoing Hindutva agenda to the response to Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam in Andhra Pradesh, Indian politics is now moving away from cults to brands. And in order to make this transition smooth, political parties are now appointing advertising companies to do their brand-building exercise. It is the job of advertising agencies to 'brand' parties and make pitches for them which are worth crores of rupees. Thousands of SMSes are being circulated, asking individual voters to register. Mobile companies have yet again found various ways to siphon out this political 'cash bash'. In fact, a few of them have come up with individual party songs as their Caller Tunes. As if that is not enough, the leaders themselves are appointing PR companies to take care of their branding exercise. The money velocity is....

State men or Statesmen?

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It all happened at a time when there were bloody communal riots in North Maharashtra and adjacent Madhya Pradesh. It started with a prolonged agitation on Maratha reservation in Marathwada. There was also an attack on senior editor Kumar Ketkar for criticising the Congress-NCP led government on the issue of installing a statue of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian Sea. And now the "Marathi bhashaa" protests led by Raj Thackeray. A very old political formula of religion, caste and language is on sale now. There's no hurry or rush because there's unlimited stock! And we are all part and parcel of it. Be it the people who vote in the elections or be it the people who keep discussing at coffee tables or in party circuits. As spectators, we watch news channels and read newspapers the following day and discuss the styles of Raj Thackeray and....

'They' - Raj and Me

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It was a lazy and cold weekday morning after a politically hot day driven by a bunch of MNS hooligans. I woke up in the morning with headlines screaming in the newspapers, "THEY" all are on strike today. I thought like Raj: "Hmmm, so "THEY" also are now trying to flex their muscles. I asked my mom to get me a cup of tea. With no response from her for a considerable length of time, I sensed there was something amiss at home. Left with no option, I had to get out of bed at the unearthly hour of 6.30 am. The first Kitchen Cabinet news that hit me was that we hadn't received the daily packets of milk. Tea was out of the question as I don't like black tea. When I asked my mom about it, she said that since "THEY" are on strike, we did not....

The minimum in Maximum City

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Jai Maharashtra to all Indians and to all my friends around the globe. Mumbaikars were shocked when our leader Balasaheb Thackeray critisised our beloved President Dr Kalam's hairstyle. We, the media, did a quick opinion poll and discovered that almost 70 percent voters (read SMS senders) felt that the Sena supremo should apologise to the President. I was among the minority. I thought Thackeray's comments were decent compared to what he has said before. I wondered why couldn't we take his comments as a cartoonist's humour. I also wondered why hadn't the media bothered when Thackeray had made more venomous statements, like calling Congress workers eunuchs. Was it because it was not news? When we call the President a rubber stamp, isn't it humiliating of our country's first Citizen President? The media has always made the 'Tiger' larger than life by falling in his trap.....