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Dev Anand has been a legendary personality in the Indian cinema since as early as 1946 and has filled in the boots of one of the most versatile romantic heroes and a producer with strong beliefs. It would be difficult to sum up his contribution to the industry which does not only include a series of exceptionally brilliant movies as an actor, but some magical movies as a producer and director as well. His movies were always the ones with the most popular music.

Born in Punjab, the actor would have never dreamt of being awarded Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for contribution to Indian cinema but movies like Kala Bazar, Guide, Hum Dono, Love Marriage, Munimji, Hare Rama Hare Krishna paved way to mark his brilliance. Talents like Tina Munim and Zeenat Aman are his find and gift to the industry.

Dev Saab wasn’t just a romantic hero wooing beautiful ladies on screen rather he was a romantic who had a strong penchant for socially relevant topics as much as he loved his co-stars like Kalpana Kartik, Suraiya and Zeenat Aman. 

These topics found expression in his movies and once, Dev Anand also stood up against the Indian government when he felt their stand was becoming authoritarian. Not many Bollywood film-makers were as gutsy as Dev Saab and that can be one of the reasons why even after that his autobiography “Romancing with life” was launched by the Indian prime minister in 2007.

An eternal romantic is how he will always be remembered as.

Tamil Nadu’s famous “jullikattu” sport akin to the Spanish bullfight will lose its sheen this Pongal as the Supreme Court today restricted it only to a bull or the bullock cart race and banned the fight in its traditional style due to the “extreme cruelty” meted to the animals.

Terming the administering of chilly powder in the eyes of bulls and intoxicating them with heavy dose of ‘arrack’, a local brew before the start of the race and then scores of people pouncing upon a single animal as “barbarian and uncivilised”, a Bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal banned the fight in this form. “We cannot continue to let such a barbaric and uncivilised event take place. We should have some concern for the animals. If enraged bulls are let loose and chilly powder and arrack is given, is it a healthy way in the name of sport?” the exasperated Bench told the Tamil Nadu government counsel T R Andhyarujina.

Refusing to vacate the stay granted by it in July last year and let the state have the event held between January 15 and 17 as part of Pongal celebrations, the Court said henceforth it would be confined to “Rekhla” event, a simple race of bulls or bullock carts.

The police will ensure that no spectator was allowed to reach the bulls or the carts and the animals are not administered any chilly powder and arrack, the Court said coming down strongly on the Tamil Nadu government. The main bullfight is held in Alanganallur Village while other related events are organised in seven surrounding villages.

The issue of cruel treatment to animals was brought before the Supreme Court by Animal Welfare Board and its counsel, senior advocate K K Venugopal wanted a total ban on it. The Court rejected the state’s plea for continuing the bullfight in an orderly manner even when its counsel assured that no chilly powder and arrack will be administered to the animals.

The Court rejected the plea, as the government lawyer was ‘non-committal’ to an assurance about no human and animal casualty when the Court specifically asked if the state DGP would furnish an undertaking that no one would be injured. The Court reminded the state government that last year 3 persons had died and 90 others had been seriously injured.

The government wanted the bullfight to continue in its original form stating that people’s sentiments were attached to the event, with a history of almost 400 years.

At last, our president will be able to rustle up enough to buy the new Rs 1 lakh car after her salary has been doubled from Rs 50,000. The vice-prez has become richer by Rs 40,000 per month, not a princely sum given that your common and garden MBA starts off with considerably more. A sad tale of being short changed all these years. But the few perks thrown in with the job can’t hurt too much.

For a start, none of that nonsense of market rents. Once in office, a cornucopia of privileges kicks in. A bungalow in the leafy and gracious confines of the city you are in, free telephones, free electricity, free rail and air passage and an army of staff to help you serve the country. The logic for hiking the salaries of our political and public worthies, as enunciated by some poor demented soul many years ago, is that this will eliminate the need for them to try and notch up a few pennies on the side.

But we have seen proof of the dictum that you can never be too rich or too poor. So not content with the power and pelf of high office, our representatives make hay while the sun shines. Some literally as the redoubtable Lalu Yadav did with the fodder fiddle.

In a strange version of how to become a millionaire, we have seen struggling politicos enter the fray with little more ‘than a shirt on their back and miraculously tot up a seriously healthy bank balance within months. To the question, ‘my, that a lot of money you have’, the answer is ‘the better to serve you with, my dear’.

And with our politicians, they never fade away or retire. They just niftily hang on to their palatial residences or if you happen to be the prez a retirement home is prepared for you in the most exclusive address in the city. Now this is something quite unique to us.

The US president, arguably the most powerful person in the world, gets a mere Rs 1.8 crore, bus fare really for your run-of the-mill Donald Trumps or Warren Buffets. But the difference is that the US president or the British prime minister has to fend for themselves once out of office. If you are as smart as Slick Willy, you could restyle yourself into a dispenser of wisdom on the lecture circuit.

Tony Blair has just started work as a Wall Street advisor. But we are one better, public office and its attendant perks are for keeps with your children often hanging on to them long after you have got your snout in the great trough in the sky.

If that fails, a clamour is set up by the faithful to convert the residence into a monument to the dear departed. We can only hope with the new improved salaries, our political class will begin that painful task of paying their way. But Ire knowing their predilections, they will soon put paid to that notion.

An eighth grade girl got very excited when she found that her parents’ were leaving her alone for a night to attend to some urgent, social obligation. She invited her boyfriend to spend the night together. They spent an intimate night, experimenting, exploring and repenting. The anguished boy couldn’t fathom how to help the girl who started bleeding profusely. The children tried everything possible but as dawn broke, the girl, who by now had bled excessively, gave up the battle for life, leaving behind broken parents, a mentally unstable friend and shocked teachers and friends.

The incident was brushed under the carpet to avoid shame and humiliation. It has been long forgotten as life moves on, as young children look for more excitement and stimulation each passing day. If one really had the time and inclination, it would be an eye-opener to sit with some 10, or 11-year-olds and hear about their social interactions in the classrooms.

Interestingly, many a game played in the classes has a sexual undertone. For instance, in the game Truth or Dare the child who gets the dare is asked to perform daring feats like propose to a classmate, kiss or maybe even pull someone’s pants down. The creativity in sexual innuendos is boundless. To have a boyfriend is a status quotient; the girl who receives maximum proposals is a winner and the boy whose proposal is accepted is envied bitterly.

A heart-to-heart conversation revealed an interesting happening in one of the seventh grade classes. Bhairavi, a pretty-looking girl had been pestered with countless boys in her class and outside proposing to her every day. Finally one day, she gave in and accepted Vaibhav as her boyfriend. As the news became public, the class had at least a dozen boys literally weeping and being booed by the rest for being such losers in life.

It may sound funny but most of these children aren’t even aware what they are getting into. If one observed these children closely, it becomes quite evident that all that they are trying to do is to act grown up. They are imitating adult ways and seem too much in a hurry to be ‘in control’.

Are we prepared to have 10 and 11-year-old adults around us dictating their terms and conditions to parents and teachers all the time? If yes, we can continue living our, lives as we have been, but if the: answer is an emphatic “no” then something needs to be done. We already have enough policies and programmes for adolescents to massage our inflated egos. What we desperately need is application in reality.

Application can happen only if there is a. comprehensive research to form statistical analysis of the problem. The solutions have to be then customised according to different populations for acceptance and integration into a complex system such as ours.

The Adolescent Education Programme, inspired by the Sex Education and the Abstinence Till Marriage programme in the US, had United Nations Population Funds as a major partner in its implementation. The underlying reasons for the urgency were the increasing HIV-AIDS cases in India.

The figure quoted at the time in 2004 by UNAIDS was 5 million which amounts to I per cent of the total Indian population. Three years hence, we receive new HIV-AIDS affected figures from the UNAIDS and, surprisingly, they have been reduced to 2.5 million, which means not a single new case of HIV-AIDS has been reported in all these years.

 We Indians essentially lack the initiative to collect comprehensive data to form statistics on which we can form policies that suit our needs. It serves our purpose to borrow ideas and models from developed countries and apply them blindly to our system and feel good about them. It sounds fine as long as it’s highways and malls we are copying - they can be restructured if we go wrong but can we say the same for our kids?It may be disheartening for some to accept that even Americans have gone wrong in a lot of their policies, even when they were based on scientifically collected data. Their ’sex education programme’ is one such example, yet we chose to copy ‘the model’ page by page, stamped it with Department of Education, Delhi, and shoved it down the aided and unaided CBSE schools.

Unprecedented Losses posted by top financial services firms on Wall Street pushed global stock markets into a tailspin and India could not hold on despite strong third-quarter results by domestic companies. January has not brought in the traditional foreign fund flows that one witnessed in the last few years and to the contrary foreign portfolio investors have been net sellers.

The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council’s lowering of economic growth projection for 2007-08 to 8.9 per cent on Thursday 17 January 2008 also impacted the market sentiments.

The Sensex was down 10 per cent from its all-time high of 21,206.77 as it plunged below 19,000 during the day’s trade. The Sensex ended the day 3.49 per cent lower at 19,013.70 and the Nifty was down 3.52 per cent at 5,913.20. With five consecutive days of fall, the Sensex closed the week with an 8.7 per cent loss, the worst since May 2006.

“Selling pressure was intense, even in the first half hour’s trade. Domestic institutions were on the sidelines. The only hope now for the markets to stabilise lies with George Bush,” said experts, referring to the anticipated special package from US President George Bush to shore up the US economy. Banks were major losers as the US subprime losses cast a shadow and other sectors badly hit were real estate and oil. Inflation inching up again brought down hopes of any rate cuts, adding to the somber mood. Foreign funds sold stocks worth over Rs 4,465 crore in the last two days. A positive Budget is the only trigger, which is 40 days away.

Sensex heavyweights Reliance and ICICI Bank shed 6.6 per cent and 5.6 per cent, respectively. Wipro, which reported profits a little lower than market expectations, ended the day nearly 1 per cent lower, extending losses. Ranbaxy was one frontline stock that posted a gain of 5.10 per cent after it said it was likely to end the year with 25 per cent profit growth.

Extending their losses for the fifth day in a row, the stock markets collapsed today with the benchmark Sensex posting this year’s biggest fall of over 680 points as selling pressure intensified across the-board on global cues and diversion of funds to the primary market.

Market leader and heavyweight Reliance Industries and other blue-chip stocks, including DAL, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Reliance Energy, suffered significant losses on sustained selling pressure. With markets tanking 1,813.75 points in the last five days, companies have lost over Rs 5 trillion in valuation.

Continuing weak global cues - triggered by huge sub-prime losses disclosed by Citigroup and Merrill Lynch - and the lowering of domestic economic growth forecast by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council yesterday seem to have triggered the collapse.

The 30-share BSE barometer continued its slide at opening and even went below the 19K level during intra-day. Finally, the index settled the day at 19,013.70, a fall of 687.12 points, or 3.49 per cent, from previous close.

Investors’’ wealth-measured in terms of cumulative market capitalisation of all the listed firms-has declined by Rs 5, 21,310 crore on account of the five-day slide. The National Stock Exchange index Nifty also plunged by 207.90 points, or 3.52 per cent, to close at 5,705.30.

 There has been one side selling in the market, mainly driven by the global cues. Once the market falls, a chain reaction of losses is triggered which takes it down further.