Dubai Forums Dubai Discussions Dubai Politics Talk

This world is a strange place!

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/28/f1-drive ... verty.html

Dawn ! Seriously, I doubt you can find anything in the Pakistani media that has anything nice to say about India and vice versa.

There was a piece on the news in the UK tonight about the new Grand Prix course in India.

It was an interview with the locals who live near the course.

The ones that owned land had been compensated and had built new houses and and had a brand new 4x4. There didn't seem to be any planning, they just wanted to spend their new found wealth.

The ones who weren't land owners weren't so lucky. They didn't receive any compensation although they had lost their jobs as farm labourers as their bosses had had their land taken away to enable the course to be built.

There was lots of pictures of poor unfortunate people looking through fences at the people across the road having a few glasses of Champers.

It seems you are either rich or on the bones of your arse, in India. Not unlike the UK really.

desertdudeshj wrote:Dawn ! Seriously, I doubt you can find anything in the Pakistani media that has anything nice to say about India and vice versa.

That is seriously so out of context.
But then you never had any pretensions to being the brightest spark on the block.
Dawn is a credible paper, but thats besides the point. It has just reported what is the reality. It can easily be confirmed from other independent sources that India has monumental poverty. Consider the suicide rates amongst the farmers and others.
The point that I really wanted to make was the sort of misplaced priorities that the countries of that region are following. And that is what is keeping the region poor. One of the largest Military, and now the F1. For what? Just to keep up with Joneses?

@BM: You are right. However, the difference between the UK and India is the vast numbers of poor people in India that outnumber the well off. You can see them in any major Indian city sleeping and basically spending their whole lives on the sidewalk.

Zonker the same has been reported in many media sources the world over. I was reading something the other day, where many Indian people had no clue what F1 even was or why it was coming to their country. It's in such bad taste to spend a fortune on such events, when so many of your people live impoverished lives.

It kind of reminds me of the one and only time I visited Cairo about 17 years ago.
There had been an earthquake (or something) a few years ago and there was still a lot of unrepaired damage to people's homes but out of all the wreck and ruin was a bright and shiney new Mosque which must have cost millions.

I never got why they would chose to spend all that on a place of worship when people's living standards were so poor.

@Chocs: Thats exactly the point I was trying to make.
Luckily, the race itself apparently went without any serious mishap, apart from the usual comedy: two stray dogs appeared on the track, and there was so much dust that the drivers couldnt see properly!

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/1 ... z1cNsQvXft

@BM: I am going to stick my neck out here and say that religion is the opiate of the masses (Karl Marx).
This is usually the cue for EH to make his fiery entry!
Its usual in the predominantly Islamic countries for the masses to be given the opiate of religion by their leaders, while they carry on with the loot and plunder and debauchery at the top. That would explain why a place of worship carries more importance than the abysmal conditions of the general populace, who are promised all of this in the "next life"! It seems they missed their chance in this one

Thank God Shafique must have missed your post Zonker, or we'd have even more religious clap trap to read.