Malabar magic

#Malabar #Magic

It would be good if the government's new motto was "If anyone asks, we can change the name immediately." Yesterday Malabar Mystery, today Minnal Magic; what will it be tomorrow, "Magic in the rain, Mosquito Wonder?" 

There is no need for a cabinet meeting or a press meeting by a minister to name a brandy. Why a new name when there are so many K-names like Captain, Ship, Kapitan, Karanbhoot? The Excise Minister says that tourism will develop if local brandy is launched. But there is not even a trace of a Tourism Minister who is qualified to talk about tourism anywhere in the area.  The administration is stuck in a single process of naming liquor, ignoring history, geography and cultural awareness, while making unemployment and prohibition a taboo.

We are witnessing the government's self-confidence being stripped away along with the label on the brandy bottle, fearing that someone will frown upon hearing the word Malabar. If this same argumentative logic continues, tomorrow Malabar Christian College will definitely become Minnal College and Malabar Cement will become Minnal Cement.

At a time when people are saying they need roads, hospitals and job opportunities, the government's biggest administrative reform is changing the name of brandy. If this is development, then there is no need for a backbone, just a sticker on the chest: "Today's name, tomorrow's name, depending on the situation." 

In reality, it is not the name of brandy that changes like lightning, but the consistency in the government's decisions.

- K. A. Solaman

Number one liquor state

#NumberOne #LiquorState

The government that came to power with the slogan of opening schools, not bars, seems to have introduced a new education policy after Pinarayi 1.0 and Pinarayi 2.0, saying “opening bars, closing everything else.”

The most stable economic plan in Kerala is to open a bottle when the bridge of governance is shaking. The operating hours of bars were extended till 12 midnight as a result of this realization. With the elections approaching, the public is not wrong in thinking that this is a ‘liquid budget’ to collect funds.

If you hear the minister’s explanation that the decision is based on the model of neighboring states, you will even doubt whether a 24-hour ‘welcome drink’ scheme will come tomorrow to boost tourism. When we say tourism in Kerala, we have long been convinced that it is not the beach, backwaters and forests; it is the bottle, cup and counter. That is why we invite you to Munnar.  The government's cultural preservation policy is not to change this.

The biggest social contribution of this policy is the truth that even if the bars are closed at 10 pm, drunkards who do not come home even at 12 pm will wander astray. The old saying "Even day is night in the eyes of a drunkard" has become the principle of today's governance. 

The biggest sorrow is for the anti-alcohol campaigners; when the leftists rule, they do not have any kind of struggle. They only struggle when the rightists come. Therefore, the hope that the anti-alcohol campaign will get new life when the next government comes is now shining in the bottle. 

The government that opens bars without closing schools, fills culture in bottles and drinks election funds in glasses is on a great mission to make Kerala the 'number one liquor state' in front of the world. Therefore, let us "continue as one", become a liquor state!

-K. A. Solaman

Age affects intelligence

#Age #affects #intelligence

Former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar's statement about Kerala seems more like a personal expression of emotion than a political assessment. Asserting that Pinarayi Vijayan will become the Chief Minister again based on the information he has heard is not a serious political observation, but a one-sided praise campaign. If Aiyar clarifies prompted this PR work, the picture will become clearer.

Such a judgmental statement should not have come from a senior leader without first understanding the socio-economic-political realities of a state and without considering the difficulties and criticisms of the people. There is only political justification for Pinarayi in the words he said in the name of "Gandhian truth".

The remarks that personally insult Congress leaders question Aiyar's political culture. The controversial remarks that Shashi Tharoor is a chameleon and KC Venugopal is a rowdy are not a sign of maturity. It would be good if Aiyar understood that it is not others who are being made small by such positions, but himself, who has lost control of his words. 

Aiyer's stance on Kerala, which is based on hearsay, is a testament to the old saying that "age affects intelligence". The real problems of Kerala are understood by the people living there, not by the  worn-out horse who come to dine at resorts on tourist package.

- K. A. Solaman

Crime Festival

#Crime #Festival

If you open the channels and newspapers, it seems as if Kerala is holding a crime festival.  Kozhikode Town SI was stabbed by a criminal, a mag was stabbed in Pathirapalli for asking for a bottle of water at a wedding reception, and a case has been filed against a police officer in Thiruvananthapuram instead of those who attacked him inside a mall. 

If you listen to all this, you will feel that Kerala is not a land of law, but a kangaroo court. Even a small argument ends in conflict and stabbing. A time when everything from bottled water to shirts has become a matter of life and death. Just as a man used to walk with a bullet in his bag, here  the Keeleri men walk with a knife in their hands!

Meanwhile, the rulers act as if this is not a big problem. It requires a high  skin depth  to describe Kerala where even the police are not safe, as a model of law and order.  The common man who is afraid to walk on the street, the policeman who hesitates to do his duty: The Kerala government is with them!

Should we call this situation where criminals are bold and law-abiding people are afraid, development, or a live telecast of administrative failure? Kerala is teaching a new lesson: to get justice, we must first live!

-K. A. Solaman

Split Festival

#Split #Festival

In the Kerala Congress (M) party, the phrase ‘the party will decide’ makes you laugh as soon as you hear it. The party means only one person, that is, the party chairman. The party chairman is what the party constitution says. Yesterday the chairman was K. M. Mani, today his son Jose K. Mani. 

But while Jose K. Mani is sitting in this chairman’s chair and thinking about whether to open the Pala map or not, on the other hand, there is another person sitting in the ministerial chair and calculating: Roshi Augustine. Roshi Augustine is very happy with the ministerial chair he got due to Jose K. Mani’s defeat. If he wants to continue that, the chairman must lose again. Roshi Augustine calculates that the right constituency for that is Pala

When Roshi announces that the chairman will contest from Pala itself, there are those in the party who interpret it as an astrological prediction to protect his own ministerial position. Jose Mani says that the decision will be taken by the party.  The real question is whether Roshi will agree even if the party takes a decision.

The history of the Kerala Congress is in a geometric pattern: split, grow, split again. Now the great political experiment before Jose K. Mani is to let Roshi go his way with love. If he does so, the party will be relieved, if not, it will suffocate. Then Roshi will come out with a new version of Kerala Congress. Thus, history will repeat itself.

Jose K. Mani can experiment again with his own logo in Pala or other constituencies. It is not the first time in the world that a smoking stick  is being thrown out. Perhaps people will ask, "Is this an election or a grand celebration of the split of the Kerala Congress?" It does not matter.

'K. A. Solaman

Sachithanandan poem

Sachidanandan Poem

The feeling that the time has come when the governance and continuity of Kerala will no longer be decided by the people, but by poets and academy chairmen, is what one gets when listening to K. Sachidanandan's new political poem. The literary charm of this is that he came to realize the great discovery that "fronts should take turns governing" only after both fronts had plunged the state into debt, sent the youth to the airport, and turned universities into protest sites.

To those who have put a public debt of one and a half lakh rupees on the shoulders of each child, without asking who caused all this disaster, and to say the general slogan that we should take turns governing in a democracy becomes a safe and irresponsible stance like a weather report.

What is even more interesting is that this advice is as if we have not seen the 'indi alliance governance culture' created by the two fronts acting like the A-team and the B-team in Kerala.  At a time when the opposition has joined hands with the ruling party, the strike has become a formula, and backdoor appointments have become a public policy, the phrase “If we rule alternately, the country will be saved” is not a poem, but a political comedy. 

Such advice, given by some cultural voices who recognize the direction in which the flow is going and flow with the same flow, is becoming an echo that only resonates on the microphone on the stage without touching the real suffering of the people. The poem of Sachidanandan is not a balm that will cure anyone’s headache here

- K. A. Solaman

Struggle season two

#Struggle Season Two

If this is Kerala University’s “Struggle Season 2”, then the government’s response is the “Silence Season Finale”. When the SFI student organization vandalized the Kerala University Registrar’s Office, the Chief Minister, who is handling the Home Department, was in a state of meditation. The state of the Kerala Police, which is waiting without confronting the protesters until the Governor opens his eyes, is pathetic

One police for Pinarayi, who is handling the Home Department, and another police for the Kerala Governor. Is this a constitutional experiment or is it the title of the handbook in the new curriculum “Two Powers, One Law”?. It would be very appropriate if the brochure of Kerala University, which the government calls the hub of higher education, included pictures of barricades, water cannons and lathis to attract foreign students. 

Where is the Higher Education Minister, who regularly arrives with the Bharatanatyam symbol and a punch thrown in the air when SFI riots start? Is she also in a state of meditation like the Chief Minister?  The minister's indifference during the protests has become an academic experiment. Whose head came up with the theory that if the protests are ignored, they will end on their own?

The government's indifference when a few students caught up in political exuberance hold the university hostage raises the question of whether there is a government here. If the government's policy is to watch everything and not stop any violence, it would be better to put up a sign that Kerala University is not a center of learning, but a permanent center of protest.

-K. A. Solaman

New Innings Plan

#NewInnings #Plan

Not in this year's budget, but in last year's Kerala budget, the government announced a grand scheme called "New Innings" for senior citizens. This scheme was introduced with the lofty aim of including senior citizens in active socio-cultural and health activities. It sounded like the name of a national award-winning film. But nothing happened

The Finance Minister had proudly announced that Rs 5 crore had been allocated for the implementation of the scheme. But after the budget speech ended, it seemed as if the government itself had doubts about whose innings this "New Innings" actually was. No specific benefits such as direct financial assistance or new pensions for senior citizens were clearly announced.

Conceptually, it was known as a welfare and rehabilitation scheme based on the grand philosophy of "active aging". But if you study the history of the Kerala budget, you will understand, some schemes are made not to be implemented, but to be announced as mere ideas.  A clear example of this is the “New Innings”.

According to the information available, neither the guidelines of the scheme nor the working structure through the local self-government institutions have been fully formed. Therefore, ordinary senior citizens have not received any service that can be directly experienced under the name of this scheme. Special health service - no. Employment opportunity - no. Monthly assistance - no. Training programs. no. Entertainment - no. In short, the name “New Innings” is only in the name, the innings have not started.

Now the state of this scheme is like that of a Thirunakkara boat - it is still lying there. Without moving even an inch from the announcement stage, without providing any practical benefit to senior citizens, the “New Innings” is resting peacefully. 

The fate of most of the schemes announced through the budget by the current and .former Finance Ministers is the same: some schemes are not for implementation, but for newsworthiness!

K. A. Solaman