SquareShooter

I know this is not 1978 and we definitely are not going to travel back in time. But, it was impossible to skip the association of de-monetization of 2016 to what happened in 1978. Things were so poor then, as far as I could remember the talk in town was only about “aayiram rooba nottu sellaadhaame” (1000 rupee note is invalid), which meant people were not even bothered about higher denominations. None of the people we know had a thousand rupee note, and I guess not many of them had even seen one in their life. I do not know how the city life was then, but in a small town things were very depressing. We were fortunately an industrial town, so lot of trained and untrained labour jobs were there. Railway workshop also ensured inheritance jobs, and so most households had at least one wage earner. Unfortunately then most of those wage earners also had many children, dependents and so the wages were just not enough. Outside of the labour class, and among the SSLC, college educate...

Ratan Tata I am sure had no role to play in the scuffle that broke out between Bombay House security and media persons. But, I have had a long lasting crib about RT and his attitude towards media. I do not know him, nor can I claim to have interacted with him. In many years that I have been a business journalist, I have had opportunity to cover several of Tata firms’ Annual General Meetings RT chaired, industry events, though I can’t recollect many press conferences. There is however, one press conference of RT that I would never forget, though specifics of the event have faded from memory with years gone by …. That was a press conference, I think a Tata Tele press conference in 2001-02. What I distinctly remember though was the venue and the shocking way the media was handled – the Crystal rooms at the Taj Mahal, Mumbai. If my memory is right, it was a Tata – VSNL stake announcement with Pramod Mahajan participating in it as the then Telecom minister. There weren’t many tele...