Intel Inside India? Plus an Inside Look at TN Politics

Ever since I started this blog, I had steered away from talking about politics.

Intel Inside India?

This could soon become a reality if Dayanidhi Maran can reach out to the top brass at Intel. Given the reports in the press Intel is toying with the idea of setting up a plant in India / China. Maran wants to hog the limelight if Intel zeroes in on India. Maran intends to travel to the US to meet the top management of Intel Inc.


Mudslinging – the centre point of TN politics

The DMK and the ADMK have been trying to take credit for some of the recent developments – Nokia’s decision to set up a plant in Chennai, new Chennai airport for which approval was received recently. All these are desperate attempts to capture the attention of the voters in the run up to the Assembly elections next year. Similar situations have happened in the past as well. Both the Dravidian parties tried to take credit for the Ford & Hyundai plants that came up in Chennai. Given the nature of these projects, it so happens that one party is in power at the time of approval of the project and the other party is in power at the time of the kick-off (Bhoomi Pooja) of the plant. This problem gets complicated if the opposition party is part of the Coalition in the Centre (bcoz of the bitter Centre – State relations). Given the long-term nature of these projects both parties want to have a share of the pie.


Swapping Coalition Partners – An Event which happens once before each election

Swapping the coalition partners is like a ritual which happens once every 5 years (or earlier if the elections are scheduled before that). For the national parties like the Congress and BJP, the local outfits have no say in the coalition formation. They have to follow the diktat of the Central Command.

ADMK
Recent trends indicate that ADMK might go solo for the next election. Given the anti-incumbency factor, I’m not too sure whether ADMK can come back to power. But if the opposition is divided (which might result in votes getting split) then it might work out to ADMK’s favour.


DMK
The DMK, which has now perfected the art of pulling along a truckload of coalition parties might continue with the current set-up. EVKS Elangovan had gone public recently about his party’s intentions to go it alone and target a Congress government in the state. This didn’t go down well with the DMK and hence EVKS was asked to tone down. At best, this coalition can drag on till the time DMK supremo MK is able to hold strong. He has already projected his son Stalin and grandson Dayanidhi Maran as the torch bearers for politicking at the State and the Centre. This has not gone down well with the party cadres (atleast the older ones). Stalin who is more than 50 years old continues to be the Head of the youth wing. How long can parties like the PMK, MDMK play second fiddle to DMK? I’m sure they might also be nursing ambitions to rule the state at some future date. With MK at the fag end of his political career, it is just a matter of time before he hands over the baton to Stalin. At this juncture, the coalition is bound to collapse as their ego will not permit them to be part of an alliance, which is headed by Stalin. Even if the DMK coalition comes back to power in the ensuing State elections, the million dollar question is whether MK is physically fit to run the government. Outlook had reported few months ago that although MK was advised to undergo a surgery, Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran had decided against the surgery for MK atleast till the next elections.


BJP
The Shankaracharya issue has caused a rift between ADMK & BJP and hence both have decided to part ways. Captain Vijayakanth is likely to join hands with the BJP in the forthcoming elections as he is opposed to the main Dravidian parties.

Please note that these are still early days. Lot of things can change between now and the elections. It remains to be seen as to which side Superstar wants to take. PMK has already toned down its rhetoric against the Superstar.


How to pronounce MARAN?

Given a chance I would like to take tuition for newsreaders of English and Hindi news channels and educate them about how to pronounce the word MARAN. You can hear the word MARAAAAAAAAAAAAN quite often. Thank God they didn’t say MORON.

India Today report on Union Ministers

SUN TV carried a news report last week, which was about India Today’s report of Best ministers in the Union Cabinet. They went on to say that 3 out of the 5 mentioned in the article are from TN. I don’t know how many of you managed to read the original article in India Today. The report just said that ministers in key economic and financial portfolios are quite savvy and hence are making a difference. It didn’t mention anywhere that they are the best ministers around. The ministries considered were Petroleum (Mani Shankar Ayyar), Finance (P Chidambaram), Aviation (Praful Patel), Communication & IT (Dayanidhi Maran), Commerce & Industry (Kamal Nath). How can SUN TV tweak this report and present their own version of this.

The very same India Today had done an exhaustive survey of Union Ministers some time ago. Some of the TN Ministers (mainly DMK & PMK) were rated poorly. Where was SUN TV when that report came out?