All is Fair in Recession and Boom?

There has been a newspaper report about the government asking all ministers to travel by Air India only to help it tide over recession. When the government allows multiple carriers in the Indian skies how justified is this action? This means directly giving the national carrier an unfair advantage. These are probably the kinds of things that make organizations uncompetitive - they know that they can look forward to government bailouts.

The private sector airlines had threatened not to fly and promptly received stern warnings from the government about the same. I am not supporting this act by the private airlines. But by giving out such orders what image is the government exactly trying to portray of the competitive arena in India?

This is just one point. Another is the wasteful expenditure incurred because of our ministers. The newspaper report said that this order is expected to generate revenues of 2000 crores!!! Why exactly are our ministers flying around so much? This is money that you and I pay as taxpayers. I would hate to see my money being wasted on the whims and fancies of our netas.

Remixes and Ripoffs, Anyone?

Dhan te nan from the movie Kaminey has made quite an impact. The music is undoubtedly catchy and the lyrics are peppy too. There was one review where Gulzar was praised for his hand on the pulse of the younger generation and Vishal Dadlani was complimented for having sung the composition of another music director. I felt that the background sounded like the Pulp Fiction title theme. Then I found this video. So is this a remix/ripoff?

Remixes are good in the sense they make you aware of songs you never knew existed. I loved the sayyan dil main aana re remix. I like this over the original actually. It gets irritating when people remix songs that are dance numbers already, prior to being remixed. I am sure there is at least one remixed version of dard-e-disco from Om Shanti Om. That, my dear people is irritating.

It is also nice to acknowledge another person when you use his/her creativity to your end. Pritam has been accused of ripping off songs quite a few times. The same has been said of Anu Malik too.

Still, at the end of the day, dhan te nan rocks! I must compliment Vishal Bharadwaj for having ingeniously mixed the original song with the theme from Pulp Fiction to produce a rocking number.